Pip said first, tipping her head one way. ‘Or conceal?’ she continued, tipping her head the other way. ‘I guess I’d rather keep covered up than expose myself.’
‘But you have a great physique,’ Megan protested artlessly.
‘I’m talking metaphorically,’ Pip laughed. ‘God, I forget you work in numbers not words.’
‘Being a maths teacher doesn’t make me an emotional moron,’ Megan sulked – but not seriously.
‘Of course not,’ Pip said, ‘but you do fall in love too easily and you get hurt.’ Over the years, Pip had witnessed Megan in pieces several times. Privately, Pip felt Megan’s experience in terms of quantity and variety thus counted for little; certainly it hadn’t paved the way to happy-ever-after. Pip found it difficult to fathom how someone who had been badly burnt by love’s flame could continue to thrust herself into the fire.
Megan pouted through Pip’s silence but was quietly relieved that Pip was keeping her misgivings to herself. Megan topped up their wineglasses and winked lasciviously. ‘Well, I bet you I’ve had more fun and frolics than you with your “I don’t need a man” bollocks.’
‘But I don’t!’ Pip attempted to proclaim though it was met with another energetic ‘Bollocks!’ from Megan. ‘Seriously,’ Pip remonstrated.
‘Well,’ Megan said, ‘just as well, then, isn’t it? Because working as a clown called Merry Martha doesn’t really make you millions and dressing like a clown called Merry Martha really isn’t going to have the men flocking. At least, no male over the age of eight.’
‘Ouch!’ Pip winced theatrically because she didn’t want Megan to know that her words had actually confronted her more than anticipated. Megan had meant no malice. Like many around Pip, Megan had become used to her friend shunning romance, wealth and the panoply of either. And, like those closest to Pip, Megan knew Pip would actually benefit from a little of each.
‘Share a pudding?’ Pip suggested, changing the subject.
‘How about share each other’s – order one each? Asking me to choose between pannacotta and tiramisu would be the same as asking me to choose between George Clooney and Brad Pitt.’
‘Hmm,’ Pip mused, ‘I was going to choose fruit salad.’
‘You’re just trying to be wholesome!’ Megan said astutely. ‘Live a little!’ Soon enough, she was swooning over desserts and Dominic in equal measures.
‘I hope it happens for you,’ Pip said sincerely whilst wielding her spoon with gay abandon between the two bowls. ‘He sounds lovely. And suitable.’ Megan raised her glass and her eyebrow. ‘Thing is,’ Pip said, because the wine was enabling her to do so, ‘I say I don’t need money because, in truth, I’ve never wanted – let alone needed – anything I can’t afford.’ She sipped contemplatively. ‘I like bargain hunting. I rather like doing upholstery. I get a kick out of people asking “Heals?” and me saying “Hell no, house clearance”.’ Megan spooned the last of the pannacotta into Pip’s mouth. ‘And I say I don’t need a man,’ Pip continued, ‘because I’ve never felt for someone enough to really feel that life wouldn’t make sense without them.’ She ran her finger around the tiramisu bowl though their spoons had already scraped at practically every vestige of the dessert. ‘I guess,’ she said thoughtfully, ‘I’ve managed to reach the grand old age of thirty without ever being in love.’
Megan contemplated this. She chinked glasses with Pip. ‘You know what, McCabe,’ she said, ‘to be honest, that’s no bad thing.’ Megan sighed. ‘Sometimes being in love is more hassle than it’s worth. Way too costly.’
Deep down, that’s what Pip had long had a hunch about. ‘You see, for me,’ she said, pouring the last of the second bottle of wine into their glasses, ‘there are nice blokes like good old Mike for every now and then. And in between times,’ she whispered, eyes wide for dramatic effect, ‘there are vibrators.’
Megan shrieked with laughter. The other diners turned and stared.
Pip snorted into her wine. Paulo, the young waiter, had eavesdropped the conversation. He decided it prudent and hopefully profitable to present the girls with complimentary Sambucas.
‘You get what you settle for,’ Pip murmured softly. It was the early hours of Friday morning when Pip finally decided to go to bed. She’d been sitting up with a bottle of Evian, waiting for her living-room to stop revolving at such an alarming rate. ‘If I settle for anything less, I’ll be the one who pays.’ The revolutions of the room had slowed to approximately three per minute. ‘Anyway, you don’t enter your thirties without a fair weight of baggage from your twenties. And I’m not having someone else’s dumped on me. I’m absolutely not unpacking it for them. I don’t do baggage and that’s that, really. Simple.’ The room was settling nicely into one revolution per minute. ‘Vibrators it is, then.’
The room is stationary. And silent. The Evian is finished and Pip feels hydrated enough to see what lying down feels like. ‘Friday Friday,’ she says to herself, trying to recall her timetable as she walks through to her bedroom.
Face painting at Golders Hill Park, lunch-time. Party in Chalk Farm at tea-time.
You could have a lie-in, Pip.
Me? God, no. If I have spare time, why on earth fill it with doing nothing? I have loads to do. I can find loads to do.
Can you face being horizontal?
Let me see. Not too bad.
Are you all right in the dark?
Yes. I’m not afraid of the dark.
Pip is in bed. Lying still in the dark. She loves her bedroom. No clutter. Walls the colour of oyster mushrooms. Thick curtains the colour of crème caramel and behind them, cream roller blinds at the window the colour of cappuccino froth. She bought the blinds in the Habitat sale; the curtains were a freebie from a set-designer friend of hers. They had been on a BBC costume drama and had required a fair bit of deft needlework from Pip. The blisters and pricked fingertips had been a small price to pay for such hallowed curtains. She laid the carpet herself. It doesn’t quite fit but her strategically placed furniture hides this from view. It looks like sisal but is much kinder to bare feet. The massive rusty stain that enabled Pip to purchase it for less than a quarter of the price is conveniently straddled by her bed. Her bed has a birch, Shaker-style headboard, very simply panelled and beautifully made. She picked that up for next to nothing as it had a split right through it. But she worked with wood filler and sandpaper and stain; it took her a month, but now you can’t see the join.
However, what she loves most of all about her bedroom is something she had to pay full price for – indeed, over the odds – and that is the remarkable quiet considering her flat’s proximity to Kentish Town Road. This had cost her the asking price for the flat two years ago. Though most of her pennies go straight towards the mortgage and Camden Council’s absurdly high council tax, she doesn’t begrudge a penny. It might be a small space subdivided by stud walls, but it is her own place, her haven, and she loves it.
Pip submits herself to the stillness and silence and stares upwards to where the ceiling ought to be though she can’t determine its surface in the darkness. She tells herself it is now Friday, that Thursday was indeed yesterday.
