my hat and the warmest jacket I owned – the one stuffed with ultra-light down, like everyone seemed to have in those days. In my head, there was nothing more serious than the need to keep warm and the need to make some friends.
‘All very well, Mum,’ I said out loud. I was talking to myself a lot back then. ‘But beggars can’t always be choosers.’ If only Mum could see me now, two months into married life in London with no friends to call my own, she’d tell me to come straight back home, that’s what she’d do. And maybe I should have gone home: for sure, if I had, things would have turned out differently. That’s easy to say now. But that day, I zipped up my jacket, found my purse, and set off for the park, my head full of plans.
I still remember how, despite the jacket, the cold hit me the moment I stepped out of the house, the door slamming shut behind me in a gust of wind that must surely have blown in directly from the Arctic. I paused for a moment, unused to those British winters: unused to those blue-sky days that looked so inviting when you were cosy inside but felt as if they’d strip raw any uncovered flesh the moment you stepped outside. I adjusted my scarf to cover my cheeks, pulled my woollen hat further down onto my head, and took in the bare-limbed trees, the parked cars, the cracked, grey paving slabs, the litter blowing in the gutter, and the cans rattling against the kerb. I took in next-door’s fat tabby cat licking its paws, and the tired-looking, grey-coated people, their faces turned down, hurrying to work. I remember feeling jealous then – of their jobs, their purpose, and of their colleagues; of their silly water-cooler chats, coffee runs and birthday whip-rounds.
‘This is it, babe,’ I said out loud. ‘This is London.’
I set off down the street looking, I hoped, more confident than I felt. I was on a mission to meet people because, as Jake joked at that point, I had exactly three friends: Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. It was difficult to believe that I should have no real friends in London and, hand on heart, I was having trouble to adjusting to the fact that I knew no one. I’d laughed at his joke but it had hurt. There were days back then when I’d thought the loneliness would surely drive me insane; when I felt as if the darkness inside me was going to explode out and flood the house, engulfing me like a seabird caught helplessly in a slimy slick of oil. It makes me squirm now, but back then I’d see myself floating down the hall, arms and legs glued to my body, eyes bulging, choking on loneliness, and I’d have to breathe into a paper bag to stop myself hyperventilating. I never told Jake about that. Maybe I should have done – who knows? – but, ultimately, that’s why I decided to join the walking group.
At the end of my street, I turned a smart right, crossed the main road, headed towards the park, and arrived bang on time. And so the story begins.
*
I see the walking group at once: a mish-mash of people gathered beneath a huge old oak. Some, in sportwear, are stretching hamstrings and quads, others are clutching take-out coffees and, had I been worried about what to wear, I realize right there that there’s no need: there’s a whole range of active wear between the two groups. I turn my back to the group and snap a smiling selfie with them in the background, then upload it to Instagram as I walk towards the group. ‘Hiking, London-style! #lloydpark’, I write for the caption, adding a little heart emoji, full of the knowledge that my friends back home will find the image everything it’s not: cute (Taylor in a hat!), quaint (London parks!), and moody with the dark sky and bleak trees (weather!). Hollywood Hills it isn’t. Already my phone buzzes with Likes.
They say you judge a person in seven seconds, and I’m perhaps even quicker than that. I scan the group as I approach, my eyes sweeping right and left through them, ruling out those standing with friends and those too old. I’ve nothing against the elderly, don’t get me wrong, but I’m looking for a specific type of person – a new best friend – and, for that, there are criteria.
I wonder now what would have happened had I turned up earlier or later in the year; had I gone to a different supermarket, seen an ad for a different walking group; read a flyer for a different kind of hobby. I go over and over how things might have been different. But this is the day I join this walking group, and I spot a potential friend at once. There’s something about her face, her hair, her clothes, and the way she holds herself. She looks like one of my friends – my real friends back in the States. What I feel is familiarity: that woman standing there in the skinny jeans, the brown boots and the olive-green coat looks like she should be in my tribe. I take a deep breath and wend my way through the other walkers, smiling politely, until I get to her.
‘Hi,’ I say. ‘It’s Jen, isn’t it?’
She looks at me and purses her lips. Squints her eyes.
‘You don’t remember, do you?’ I give a little laugh and shake my hair back as I lean in towards her as if we’re sharing a joke. I have the kind of face that’s generic to a lot of people: a symmetrical, pretty face, with a smile so friendly you think you know me. You’ve ‘seen’ me, you’ve seen thousands of me, and this ‘do I know you?’ tactic often works. But not on this day: the woman shakes her head slowly.
‘I’m sorry. Head like a sieve. Remind me,’ she says.
‘I’m Jake’s wife. We met at dinner at Richard and Kate’s the other week…?’ I falter. ‘At least, I think it was you!’ I laugh again, and shrug. ‘Or have I made a huge mistake? I’m rubbish at faces.’
She tuts and shakes her head. ‘Sorry.’
‘Oh god. No, I’m so sorry. I can be such an idiot!’
Now she’s smiling but it doesn’t reach her eyes. ‘No worries. It’s okay.’ She’s already looking past me, towards the gates of the park.
I thrust out my hand. ‘I’m Taylor, by the way.’
‘Polly,’ she says, giving my hand a limp shake, and I picture myself telling Jake that I’d met a real, live person called Polly. It’s such an English name. There’s something so pure and sweet and rosy about it. It’s like I hit the English-names jackpot. In my head, I fast-forward our friendship like a movie: Polly and Taylor. I imagine nights out, holidays together, us telling our other friends how we met at a walking group ‘way back in the day’. I’ve already said that I lived in my head a lot in those days, haven’t I? Loneliness is a bitch.
‘Glad to meet you,’ I say to Polly, changing the subject. ‘So what’s the deal here? It’s my first time.’
‘Oh, it’s fairly relaxed,’ she says. ‘We sign in with Cath over there…’ she points to a woman with a clipboard, ‘and then we all start walking. It’s about an hour’s walk.’
‘Great. And we end up back here?’
‘Yes. Sometimes we go a different route; Cath tries to show us different parts of the town and park but, yes, we end up back here.’
‘Hi!’ We’re interrupted by a fresh-faced woman who approaches behind me.
‘Hey!’ says Polly. The other woman turns out to be called Bex. And this is where it all goes wrong. From the moment Polly and Bex start talking to each other, two things become clear. One, that this is a weekly date for the two of them; and two, that I’m the gooseberry. I make my excuses, turn around and fall into conversation with a tall man who’s standing behind me: that’s how I come to know Simon.
By the time we get back to the starting point of the walk, I feel as if I know the vast
