Chapter 5.
Then
The three of us moved into a two-bedroomed terraced house on Edinburgh Road. Jamie and I had the biggest room, agreeing to pay an extra twenty-five quid a week for the pleasure.
Technically, both Lara and I could have continued to live at home – mine was less than half a mile down the road, and Lara’s family was just five miles door to door. But neither of us were keen. We wanted to at least pretend we’d flown the nest. Lara’s parents were sweet, but her recent rebellious phase was proof that she was ready to go. She needed to be free.
Jamie and I moved in on a Sunday night in early September. Lara wasn’t there yet. His mother dropped us off, her awkwardly parked SUV taking up nearly the entire pavement as we ferried boxes from it to the house.
She’d insisted on taking him out to buy piles of things I was sure we wouldn’t need. John Lewis bed sheets and potted plants, cushions that would have looked more at home in her Regency-style living room in Putney. Cookbooks – Delia and Good Housekeeping , and something from the River Cafe, to which Jamie had been twice. An actual coffee machine, the kind that came with pods. And a whole two buckets’ worth of cleaning stuff.
When I’d said goodbye to my own mother earlier in the day, she’d slipped me twenty quid and a packet of cigarettes.
‘Er, I don’t smoke?’
She patted my arm. ‘They might come in handy. Just in case.’
‘In case of what?’
‘Everyone else is doing it?’
‘Okay. Thanks. Top-quality parenting there, Mum.’ Was it really too much to ask for a sensible going-away present, like a bottle of wine, or some new pyjamas?
‘Well,’ she said, ‘they do count as currency, you know. You can always swap them for something you really want.’
‘I’m going to uni, not prison,’ I said.
As we were arranging our things, Jamie discovered a picture hook on the wall, opposite our bed. He removed the Nighthawks painting from the towel he’d wrapped it in, and set it in place.
‘It looks beautiful.’ I slipped an arm around his waist as we stood back to admire it, like we were seeing the real thing in a gallery for the first time. My eyes strayed to the bronze alphabet bookends now propping up the tiny library we’d brought with us. An N and a J. He’d given them to me the previous night, encased in primrose-yellow tissue paper.
‘Something to mark our first ever home together,’ he said. ‘So wherever our next bookshelf ends up being, we’ll always remember our first.’
I surveyed the books now. His dog-eared copy of A Place of My Own: The Architecture of Daydreams ; Analysing Architecture ; and Art and Illusion , all arranged together in order of height. My half included an illustrated history of Vogue magazine, a coffee-table book of dream houses that was a little too square for the shape of the shelf, and two Nick Hornby novels that my mother had once brought home from a charity shop, never read and wouldn’t miss.
Jamie’s mum came into the room then, ripping the rubber gloves from her hands. She’d been executing what she called a ‘decontamination’, even though to me, the house already seemed pretty clean.
She stopped when she saw the painting. ‘No, Jamie.’
We both looked at her.
‘You can’t keep that here. It might get stolen.’
‘It’s only a print,’ Jamie said. ‘It’s not valuable.’
‘Value and sentiment are not the same thing, darling. Let me take it home. I’ll keep it in your bedroom for you, until you find somewhere nice to live.’
I knew she hadn’t meant it like that. But the comment still stung. The house was fine. We were in a good area. The street was one of the better ones on the list we’d been given.
‘We’ll take care of it,’ I said to her.
She looked at me then, which was something she rarely did. Whenever the three of us were together, she mostly addressed Jamie, save the occasional glance in my direction.
‘Please do,’ was all she said, her voice cracking slightly. I knew then that she was asking me to take care of Jamie, too.
‘Oh, Debbie, you beauty,’ Lara said, peering into the fridge an hour or so later at the four bottles of champagne resting inside. She looked over at Jamie. ‘Am I right?’
She knew his mum’s name was Debra, that no-one ever dared to call her Debbie.
Jamie nodded. I think he secretly enjoyed Lara’s boldness. ‘Housewarming gift.’
‘Obviously.’ Lara rubbed her hands together. ‘Well, what are you waiting for, posh boy? Crack it open and let’s get this party started.’
We drank champagne in the living room as the light shrank from the sky, playing cards and listening to Muse. Debra had – of course – given Jamie a box of crystal glasses to go with the Mo?t, but Lara pointed out that drinking champagne from flutes on the first day of uni would be the most tragic thing ever. We agreed, so we poured it into the mugs her mum had given her instead, which bore natty slogans like LIFE BEGINS AFTER COFFEE and CUP OF POSITIVI-TEA.
‘Were these... a joke?’ Jamie said, examining his mug with a kind of appalled fascination.
‘Sadly, no. And Mum knows there’s nothing I hate more than a vapid little soundbite. I’d rather have had the cash.’ She looked at me. ‘I bet your mum just slipped you twenty quid and a packet of cigarettes, didn’t she?’
Lara and I had been friends for fourteen years at that point. There was nothing we didn’t know about each other. I had seen her drunk, high, ravaged by despair, and hyperactive with joy.
What I loved most about her was that she was tender beneath her toughness. She was the kind of person who’d be first to fetch a plaster if you’d cut your finger. Who would make sure you’d drunk a full pint of water and popped two Nurofen before bed after a heavy night.
When I first fell in love with Jamie, I had no idea what to do about Lara. Because there were suddenly things I wanted to do alone with Jamie – trips to the cinema, listening to music in my bedroom, walks around town and dinners in Pizza Hut. But Lara never bitched, or made things awkward. Instead, she simply slotted in beside us when it felt right, and stepped back when it didn’t. We never talked about it, because it never seemed like we needed to.
She must have known, I guess, that he was a boy worth loving.
But I still needed her. So when she decided to stay in Norwich, and even share a house with us, I was almost euphoric with relief.
She made other friends instantly. She found it easy, always had. By the following night, a lad had already invited her to a house party on Angel Road, and she insisted Jamie and I go too.
She disappeared the moment we got there, swept up into a crowd of new acquaintances. Jamie and I sat on a sofa together. There was house music playing, a relentless, drilling beat.
After an hour or so, I disappeared to fetch more drinks. When I returned, I paused in the doorway. Jamie was talking to a girl – blonde, smoky eyes, endless legs emerging from a pair of tiny black shorts.
Jamie was drunk, by then. He could no longer detect when he was being flirted with. His face was flushed, hair flopping over his eyes.
I stood where I was, listening. The girl hadn’t seen me, was focused wholly on Jamie. She seemed to be asking him a series of questions.
‘All right then. Secret skill?’
He considered this. ‘Poker.’
‘Favourite thing to do on a Saturday night?’
‘Pub, pool, kebab.’
‘Favourite film?’
‘Anything with subtitles.’ (Jamie liked to think of himself as something of a world cinema expert. It came from his brother, I think, who was always referring offhandedly to things like Taiwanese New Wave, or Italian Neorealism.)
‘Do you cook?’
‘Yep.’ (Another truth. His mum had taught him well: he was much better than me.)
‘Best way to spend a Sunday?’
A beat. ‘Go to the beach, then... come home and drink whisky and talk crap and make out and forget what the time is, you know?’
At this, she appeared so enchanted, she set a hand on his leg, which meant I was going to have to step in.
‘Okay, last question. This is the most important one. Are you ready?’
‘I’m ready.’
‘Cats, or dogs?’
‘Dogs, obviously.’
She squealed with delight. I noticed her grip tighten.
I leaned down to pass Jamie his refill.
She looked up at me, and blinked twice, like, Can we help you?
‘Here you go,’ I said.
‘Hey, this is Neve. Neve, meet...’ He trailed off, then shrugged.
‘ Claire ,’ she said, with a look that could have curdled milk.
I did feel a bit sorry for her, as she walked away. She’d brought her A-game and worn her smallest pair of shorts, and Jamie hadn’t so much as clocked her name.