every time I put it on. Can’t you phone Tim and ask if we can have some?’
‘I wish,’ said Jennifer.
‘That could have been you,’ said Esther.
‘Well, I don’t know about that.’
‘It could. Don’t you remember how gutted he was when you broke it off? You could be that rich.’
‘Ooh listen to you, last of the feminists. I’d prefer not to be sponging off Tim Purcell thank you very much. Though, having said that, I’m not totally sure what the difference would be to how my life is now. I hate being so bloody dependent on Max these days. In fact I’ve been thinking recently about retraining in something in an attempt to improve my pathetic earning potential.’
‘Like what?’
‘Dunno, haven’t got that far yet,’ admitted Jennifer flatly. ‘Any ideas are very welcome.’
Esther giggled suddenly. ‘So, hypothetically, if you had stayed with Tim, do you think you’d still be friends with us lot now?’
‘Course I would,’ said Jennifer, insulted. ‘What do you take me for? Although I’m not sure Karen would have been popping round the mansion that often. She hated him didn’t she?’
‘She did,’ confirmed Esther. ‘I always thought he was OK though. He was so clever wasn’t he? Had an answer for everything. Oh and I’ll never forget that party he threw in your house that time. The one where Karen shagged Pete for the first time. It was awesome. Maybe even the best party I’ve ever been to.’
‘God that party was fun wasn’t it?’ agreed Jennifer. ‘Or are we looking back through rose-tinted glasses?’
As her mind returned to Tim, for once she allowed herself to be transported back to how life had been then, all those years ago. She always pretended she couldn’t care less, but in truth, being permanently reminded by the business section of the papers that one of your exes was doing amazingly well in life was a little galling.
And deep down she knew it probably could have been her enjoying the fruits of his labours, if she’d stuck with him. If she hadn’t let her concerns that he didn’t love her as maybe he should overwhelm her. Or, more to the point, if she hadn’t decided that despite his protestations, he cared more about work than any living human being, and that that in itself was a problem she’d never be able to overcome.
Still, that was all firmly in the past and besides, she suspected that no amount of riches would ever have made up for the fact she’d spent much of their time together dressed as a police woman.
April 1997
Jennifer was just about to pour her powdered Cup–a-Soup into a mug when she made the mistake (or not as the case may be) of glancing inside the empty vessel, at which point she retched violently.
‘Oh my god that is so disgusting,’ she exclaimed, stomach heaving.
‘What?’ said Karen, coming to join her in the small kitchen, opening the fridge and peering hopefully into it.
‘That mug’s got mould growing in it. I think I’m going to puke.’
‘Gross,’ said Karen, closing the door again. Neither a stick of limp celery, a jar of Pond’s Cold Cream or a Fray Bentos were really what she fancied.
‘Shall we just get some chips before we get there?’
‘OK,’ agreed Jennifer, unable to bear the surrounding debris a moment longer.
As a student you expected to live in a certain amount of squalor but the house they’d moved into for their third and final year of university, veered dangerously into unsanitary territory. From the outside it was amazing: a huge, grade-one listed, Regency terrace, located smack bang in the middle of a square just off the Brighton sea front. The paint may have been peeling (not helped by the saltiness of the atmosphere), but when you stood at the other side of the square, with your back to the sea, it looked exceedingly grand and still possessed the majesty of its era. Inside, however, it was a different story. The house had been adapted so it could be rented out with the student market in mind. On the ground floor there were three bedrooms and a bathroom, on the middle floor there was a vast communal lounge along with a further two bedrooms and a tiny kitchen. The third and final floor comprised three more bedrooms and another bathroom. Curiously there was no dining table anywhere in the house, something which all the parents who had visited at one time or another found baffling and commented on, but which none of the students cared about one iota. Meals tended to be consumed standing up or lying down.
Of course eight bedrooms meant eight housemates. Eight studenty human beings, whose priorities didn’t remotely involve anything like rubber gloves, cleaning fluid or tidying. As a result the mess was unprecedented. The house permanently looked like it had just been burgled and the kitchen existed under a coating of grease. Washing up was done on a need to eat basis and everything generally felt a bit…sticky to the touch.
The only part of the house which wasn’t completely grim to be in was Tim’s room. His was on the top floor and was by far the largest in the house, a privilege for which he paid £20 rent a week more than the others. Not only was his room the best in terms of size and view, but in startling contrast to the rest of the house it was also kept clean and tidy. Not that Tim was getting busy with the Marigolds. Instead he paid fellow student, Amber, a Chinese girl, £6 an hour for three hours every week, to come and clean his room and also to take away, wash and iron his clothes. This completely set him apart from his peers but then Tim was a rare breed of student altogether. The most glaringly obvious thing that separated him from the rest of the student community was the fact that he always had a bit of cash. Not just the odd tenner either, but wedges of the stuff which he kept folded in a money clip. He’d gone to a very expensive public school so undoubtedly had financial support from his family, but he also always had money-making schemes on the go, ones which tended to actually be successful, and this was reflected in his standard of living. Tim had his own fridge which was always well stocked with lagers and nice food, ready meals like lasagne and curries from Sainsbury’s and sometimes even M&S. He had his own desktop computer complete with Windows 95 and a two-seater sofa positioned against the window, meaning that when you lay on it you could fully appreciate the sea view. He also had his own hi fi and a kettle, making the room more like a self-contained studio apartment. Jennifer loved spending time in it. It certainly beat her tiny box room on the ground floor at the back of the house, with its own rather desultory view of a back yard which belonged to an unsavoury Mexican restaurant.
For Jennifer, climbing into fresh clean sheets once a week also felt like a huge perk of going out with Tim. Unless, of course, the night after Amber had been and cleaned it coincided with one of Tim’s ‘work’ nights or, as Karen referred to them, his ‘I want to be alone’ nights. Jennifer was used to Tim’s ways though, and in all honesty Karen constantly going on about how weird they were was sometimes more annoying than her boyfriend dictating when she could and couldn’t stay in his room.
Now, as Karen and Jennifer gave up the futile task of looking for anything that might be worth eating, they retreated to the lounge where Pete and Jim were playing Fifa on the PlayStation and listening to music. Empty McDonald’s bags littered the table and, with the curtains drawn, the only real light source other than a small
