Chapter Seven Gatwick Airport Monday 8 January 2001
Chapter Seven
Gatwick Airport
The flight to Newquay was delayed. Annabel, Stella and Olivia – the three best friends who had met in the first year at Canterbury Uni and had been in each other’s pockets ever since – were in The Beehive, a bar at Gatwick Airport’s South Terminal, debating something of utmost importance: whether Carl Jeffries, a boy they had known at Canterbury University, deserved his success as an actor in top TV show, The Cash, a glamorous drama about a group of women working in the City.
‘I mean, he’s rubbish, isn’t he?’ Stella laughed. They were all nursing second glasses of white wine. They had been in The Beehive for a long time. ‘And every time I see him in that bloody black trench coat, I just think of him in the union bar, up on the table.’
‘Dancing to the Backstreet Boys,’ giggled Annabel.
She tucked her Joni Mitchell hair behind her ears and leaned back against her Afghan coat – long-since shrugged off to a ‘Bloody hell, it’s hot in here!
’ – that was draped over the back of her chair.
‘Yes, I remember. Such a buffoon, and now he’s in the Daily Mail showbiz pages nearly every day. ’
‘With all the housewives fancying him! Unbelievable! I could never be famous,’ sniffed Stella, swivelling the stem of her wine glass between her fingers.
She looked too chic for the airport in her after-work suit and her tan court shoes.
‘All those kiss-and-tells coming out of the woodwork. Safer to be a boring accountant.’ She grinned.
‘Hey, didn’t you have a brief thing with him, Olivia? ’
‘Who? Carl? And by “thing”, do you mean a snog and a grapple on a building site over at Dovedale campus?’ Olivia wrinkled her nose at the memory. ‘And you’re never boring,’ she added. ‘You’re the most fun accountant on the planet.’
‘All those numbers having a party in my brain . . .’ Stella trilled.
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean. He asked you out afterwards, didn’t he?
Why didn’t you go? Hold on . . . !’ They all listened as the loudspeaker system announced the boarding of a flight that wasn’t theirs, then sank back into their seats.
‘Because Olivia never went out with anyone!’ declared Annabel. ‘Not seriously. No one ever met her high standards.’ She winked at her friend.
‘Well, at least I wasn’t falling in love every five minutes.’ Olivia counter-winked. They had this conversation a lot. They knew all its tracks and its grooves that they slid along like merry bob-sleighers. ‘And getting my heart broken every five minutes after that.’
Annabel giggled. ‘I did fall in love a lot,’ she agreed. ‘It was fun.’
‘Fun is not cry-vomiting over some boy in the loos at the students’ union,’ said Stella.
‘My policy was better. No romantic nonsense, plenty of sex, good laughs and lots of boys who remained friends. I still practise this philosophy today,’ she added, ‘unlike Ms Sackville who is holding out for her Perfect Love. Come on!’ She slapped her thigh.
‘Give us your earnest little speech about it.’
‘I haven’t got an earnest little speech!’ Olivia protested.
‘Yes, you have! The one about waiting for that special person you’ll be with for the rest of your life. The one about emulating your parents’ marriage. The one about knowing him when you see him.’
Annabel nodded. ‘You’ve let a lot of good men go,’ she agreed, looking kindly at her friend.
Olivia sighed, not unhappily. ‘I will know him when I see him,’ she insisted, ‘and my heart is open and ready. For the right person, with all the right boxes ticked.’
‘Boxes ticked with colour-coded pens,’ suggested Stella. ‘Meticulously plotted plans, followed to the letter. Maybe you want someone exactly like you . . .’
‘No, not exactly like me,’ Olivia objected.
‘I’m too in my own head, often. Too . . .
careful, and sometimes I say the wrong things or I don’t say the right things.
If only I could just write everything down .
. .’ She grinned. ‘Although, yes, someone who could match my organisational skills would be quite good. Think how streamlined our life would be. But I do want the Perfect Love, the love that’s just right for me.
You were incredibly lucky, Bel,’ Olivia added affectionately, ‘with Andy.’
Annabel had met Andy in the very last week of university, at the Final Ball. He’d been there all along; she’d just somehow never spotted him and when she finally did, it turned out he was exactly the man she should marry, next year, in Kent.
‘Love at first sight,’ sighed Stella.
‘Well, not really,’ said Annabel. ‘But when I talked to him, I knew.’
‘That’s what I’m talking about!’ Olivia cried. ‘Not love at first sight, but love at first chat, first connection . . . There’s somebody out there who’ll be able to give me everything I need.’
‘But do you know what that is?’ Stella asked.
‘No!’ Olivia laughed. ‘Not all of it. But I want someone to miss me when I’m not there, and I want someone to be grateful for me, every day.
I want someone to go on trips with. Someone who doesn’t mind that I spend ages in the bath reading.
Someone who listens and looks out for me. The rest, I’ll know when I find it!’
‘That’s quite a list!’ Stella commented drily. ‘And Andy is a prize,’ she agreed. ‘So, do you think there’ll be any contenders for you this weekend, Livs? Any bath-reading travellers with big ears?’
The friends all laughed. They were flying to a wedding in Penzance. The groom was Douglas Fitzpatrick, a boy from their halls. He had lots of floppy-haired, going-places, from-places rich friends.
‘I doubt it,’ Olivia said. ‘And you’re right, I would like something perfect like my parents had. The stuff of legend,’ she added sadly, and her friends’ eyes were full of sympathy, as they both knew the story of Olivia’s mum and dad.
Charlie and Ann. Ann and Charlie. Destined to be together forever, if cancer had not prematurely wrenched them apart.
Charlie and Ann had met at the bowling alley.
They had got engaged after three months, married when they were both nineteen.
Ann worked at the local newsagent’s, Charlie built kitchens in endless rows of London terraced houses.
Their evenings were spent in front of the television or at the local working men’s club.
A pint for Charlie, a brandy she’d enjoyed one or two encounters in London that had also gone nowhere. She hadn’t found him yet.
‘We know,’ said Stella. ‘Every girl’s got to kiss a few frogs before she meets her prince . . .’
‘Right!’ Olivia stood up, hoisting her cross-body bag back on to her shoulder. ‘I’m going to Boots. I need to get some stuff – I didn’t have time after work. Does anyone need anything?’
‘No, I’m fine, thank you,’ said Annabel. ‘Oh, I forgot my hairbrush. Can you get me one, please? Just something cheap.’
‘Sure.’
‘And maybe a Twix?’ said Stella. ‘For the plane. We’ll stay and keep the table.’
Boots was busy. People were trailing around wheeling their cases behind them for other people to trip over, killing time before their flights, staring at moisturisers and endless cans of hair mousse just for the sake of it.
Olivia made her way to the first-aid section, consulted the list she had tucked into her bag, and got started.
‘Stocking up?’
Olivia placed a second pack of plasters in her basket. You could never be too careful. ‘Excuse me?’
She turned. A man was standing next to her.
He had dark wavy hair and was wearing a ridiculous outfit: a thick and itchy-looking cream roll-neck jumper; shiny red ski salopettes, the straps dangling down at his hips like the handgrips that hung from buses; Timberland boots with walking socks. A man she vaguely recognised.
‘You’re buying a lot of supplies. Are you flying out to a war zone?’
She looked down at her basket full of deodorant, plasters, inner soles, paracetamol, ibuprofen, Vaseline, Savlon, baby wipes and two types of make-up remover.
‘Er, no . . .’ she said. ‘And I really don’t know what business it is of yours. Are you about to slalom down Mount Everest?’
He grinned. ‘I knew I knew you. You don’t remember me, do you?’