…’ I have absolutely no idea why I think saying it’s incredible feels so personally wounding, but it does, and I mumble: ‘Alright. Bit cramped.’
‘Cramped for one person with no possessions. Must be tiny.’
I need to change the subject. ‘Have you eaten?’
‘Yeah,’ Rhys says, thrusting his chin out.
‘OK.’
‘No offence, but I’m not going to go for lunch with you like nothing’s happened.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that.’
‘I’m sure it would make you feel better.’
‘Rhys, come on …’
I glance up at the faces streaming past and the sight of Ben emerging from among them is like being socked in the stomach. We spot each other simultaneously, there’s no time to turn my back. He swerves off course to come and say hello, his smile freezing on to his face as he sees who I’m with.
‘Afternoon!’ I say, trying for casual. Rhys glances over. ‘Rhys, you remember Ben from uni? He’s moved up to Manchester.’
I think I’m holding it together. Ben, however, looks mortified.
‘Hi. Wow, long time.’ Ben sticks out his hand.
Rhys shakes it. ‘Yeah. How are you?’
‘Good. You?’
‘Fine.’
Conversationally, it’s clear none of us have anything else to offer. Ben glances at the bag in my hand and starts backing off, bumping into passers-by.
‘I better run, anyway,’ he says. ‘On the clock at work. Nice to see you again.’
‘Bye,’ I say.
‘Yeah, bye,’ Rhys adds.
Ben rejoins the flow of pedestrian traffic, very much in the fast lane.
‘That was awkward,’ Rhys says, and I look at him in startled confusion.
‘Why?’
‘Don’t remember him at all.’
36
I’ll say one thing for entering your third decade and your life falling apart, it does shift the pounds before a party. As diet plans go, though, it might be a bit extreme. The old red dress I haul out for my flat warming suddenly fits quite well and skims over my ‘twin airbags and side impact bars’, as my ex-fiancé had it.
It gets screeches of approval when Caroline and Mindy arrive with their other halves, plopping overnight bags inside the door. Caroline asked to stay over as she’s booked an induction at a city centre gym for half nine the next morning (nothing changes) and when Mindy found out, she demanded to stay as well.
‘Mindy, you live ten minutes’ drive away,’ I said.
‘If she’s staying, I want to stay too,’ she insisted. ‘It’ll be like old times!’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ I said, remembering when we stayed up talking until dawn in our halls. These days, I need my sleep. Mindy settled the issue by saying there was easily room for three in Rupa’s bed, and I couldn’t deny that.
‘Rach, this is Jake,’ Mindy says, as a slight, dark-haired, nervous-looking man follows the done-up-to-the-nines Mindy into the flat. I don’t like to think we look old, but he does look young.
‘Nice to meet you,’ I say. He blushes. Yep, very young.
Mindy does a pirouette in a black sequin dress. ‘Does this say Studio 54 – or “fifty quid for him to watch”?’
Before I can answer, Ivor butts in. ‘You could never look that cheap, Mind.’
She puts her tongue in her cheek and turns to him. ‘Wait for it.’
‘It says “a hundred pounds for him to watch, plus dry cleaning, and not on the face”.’
‘Zing!’ Mindy says.
Ivor holds up clanking bags to me. ‘Where?’
‘Over there,’ I say, pointing to the pink lady fridge.
‘You’re trolleyed already, aren’t you, Rach? Is that boozer’s flush I see?’ Graeme says.
‘It’s rouge,’ I say. ‘Going for the Palace of Versailles look.’
The only way to deal with Graeme is to play along. Or at least, that’s the only way to deal with him when he’s married to one of your best friends.
Graeme peers into the sink.
‘What the devil’s going on here?’
I’ve put the plug in and filled it with white flowers, peonies, lilac and roses, their stems coiled and bent under the waterline. I saw this piece of stylistic flash at the gathering of a fashion writer once and always wanted to copy it. It wasn’t on the cards when I lived with Rhys. He’d have demanded to know where he should put the dregs of his lager and, most likely, I’d have told him.
‘Did you run out of vases?’ Graeme asks.
‘Gray,’ Caroline says. ‘Stop being a wind-up merchant.’
‘Vases are for gravy,’ Ivor says.
Graeme looks nonplussed.
‘You’ve done a great job,’ Caroline says, looking round and, if I do say so myself, I really have. I’ve run ‘landing strips’ of tea lights in clear glass holders along every straight line and there are vertical explosions of white gladioli in glass tanks dotted around the room. I was never much of a fan of gladioli when I lived in Sale, but there’s something about their imperious legginess that suits this apartment.
‘Funeral parlour minus the corpse,’ Graeme says, with what he imagines is his roguish twinkle that exonerates all sins.
‘One could be arranged,’ Caroline says, crossing her arms.
‘So,’ Graeme fixes me with a beady look, ‘Our Lady of the Ruinously Expensive Tastes, what’s your rent here?’
‘None of your business,’ I say, hopefully sounding sweet.
‘I’m only thinking of you. You’re going back into the housing market with a single income, and six months here is a chunk of your deposit gone, I’ll bet.’
I look to Caroline to silence him, but she’s already stalked off to get a drink.
‘I can’t buy yet.’
‘Why
