Bookends (3 page)

That night we all got drunk, but what I do remember quite clearly, even to this day, was lying in bed and hearing Elizabeth’s quiet sobbing coming from Eddie’s room next door, and the rhythmic creaking of Josh’s bed upstairs.

That old Victorian terraced house wasn’t built to hide feelings of betrayal, of jealousy, of misplaced passion, but I hadn’t known that until that night.

I remember hearing Portia’s soft moans, and feeling like a voyeur, even though I couldn’t see anything. I remember pulling the duvet over my head to block out the noise, and eventually falling into a dreamless sleep.

Elizabeth had gone by the time I woke up. Eddie had left to take her to the station, and Si was already up, watching children’s television with a plate of greasy fried eggs and toast balanced on his knees.

‘What a night,’ he said, in between mouthfuls. ‘I could hardly sleep with all that noise.’

‘Is she okay do you know? Elizabeth?’

Si shrugged. ‘Not particularly, but I’m sure she’ll get over it. Eddie’s taken her to the station. She couldn’t face spending the weekend here, apparently, so she’s gone.’

‘How’s Eddie about all of this?’

‘Upset because Elizabeth’s upset, and because he doesn’t understand what was going on last night. He knew that Josh liked Elizabeth and that Elizabeth liked Josh, and he said he knew they were going to get it together and he didn’t mind at all. Actually, he said he was bloody pleased it was Josh.

‘But most of all he doesn’t understand what happened with Josh and Portia. One minute they were just walking in the club, and the next Portia and Josh were all over each other, and Eddie says he doesn’t understand it.’

‘God, poor Elizabeth. I have to say I don’t really understand it either.’

‘You’re not serious?’ Si looks at me in amazement as I shrug. ‘Cath, don’t be thick. Portia’s chosen us as her friends because we’re all a bit in love with her. She has to be the centre of attention, and she couldn’t stand the threat that Elizabeth posed.

‘It was bad enough that we all thought Elizabeth was fantastic, but the one thing she absolutely couldn’t cope with would have been if Josh and Elizabeth had ended up together.’

‘For one night? What’s the big deal about them spending one night together?’

‘Because,’ Si said slowly, ‘it might not have been one night. One night would have been fine, but what if Elizabeth and Josh had turned out to be an item? What if Elizabeth started coming up here every weekend to see Josh? What then? She
had
to sabotage it. She didn’t have a choice.’

‘Of course she had a choice,’ I said defensively, ‘and anyway, Portia’s not a bitch. I can’t believe she’d do that.’

‘So you think that Portia coming on to Josh last night was just a coincidence, and that she’s secretly been harbouring a massive crush on him for years, but now that she’s finally found the courage to do something about it, they’re going to live happily ever after?’

‘They might.’

‘Cath, I promise you that this is not a situation that will be repeated. Portia slept with Josh to make sure he stays in love with her, and, providing he does, she’ll never sleep with him again. It’s definitely a one-night stand between them. Trust me,’ he sighed. ‘I’m the expert.’

And, sure enough, it was a one-night stand. Of course Portia didn’t say that. She said that she adored Josh, had always fancied him too, but that they were better off as friends. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if they got involved and then it ended, and she lost him as a friend.

I think Josh was bewildered by the whole thing: he just nodded mutely and seemed to agree with everything she was saying. And after that everything changed. Josh was bewildered, hurt and confused, and the worst thing was that she didn’t just destroy him, she destroyed all of us.

She destroyed our friendships, and, although we tried to forgive her, she’d somehow driven a wedge into the heart of our group, and things really were never quite the same after that.

For a while we still tried, even though we didn’t trust her any more. We were still sharing a house, and Portia would make coffee in the mornings and bring it into my bedroom, curl up at the end of my bed like the old days, but
then
we never ran out of things to talk about.

A stiffness hung in the air, imbued our conversation with a peculiar formality, and after a while it became more and more difficult to look one another in the eye.

‘Where will you be living?’ she asked, as we were packing up the house, graduating, getting ready to start our real lives in London.

‘With some old school friends,’ I lied, knowing that Portia would realize I was lying but not really caring. I pretended to be busy folding knickers so I didn’t have to look at her. ‘Natasha and Emily. You don’t know them.’

I never asked her where she was going to be living. As it turned out, she ended up renting a tiny flat by herself, which I suppose is exactly what she would have done, given that I had, quite clearly, made other plans.

Eddie moved to Manchester, still unable to forgive Portia for hurting Elizabeth as much as she did, and Josh and Si moved to London with me.

All of us had huge plans, but, as we tried to forge ahead with our careers, we drifted further and further apart from Portia. Suddenly I realized that I hadn’t spoken to her in over three years. None of us had.

I had heard she was living in Clapham. I was in West Hampstead by that time, as were Josh and his wife, Lucy, and Si was in Kilburn, so I knew that with the North/South divide it was unlikely we’d see each other by chance.

She’d gone into journalism, and after a while I gathered she’d joined the
Standard
. I’d see her by-line first in tiny letters, and then gradually bigger and bigger, eventually accompanied by a picture in which she looked absolutely stunning.

I was working in advertising. I started as an account executive for a big, buzzy trendy ad agency that had recently scooped armfuls of awards, and I loved it. And every night I’d get on the tube with my copy of the
Standard
and look out for Portia’s pieces, savouring every word of my former friend, who was now almost famous.

But then, about two years ago, her by-line disappeared. I went through a stage of buying every single paper for a couple of weeks, just in case her name should pop up somewhere else, but it never did, and after a while I gave up.

Josh and Lucy, and Si, were, are, my closest friends. Eddie is married to Sarah, and has become a hot-shot director for a television company, so we don’t see him very often, but he comes down to stay from time to time. Apparently he remains in touch with Elizabeth. She was at their wedding four years ago, as lovely as she had been back then, but even after all these years she avoided us.

Si is still on the hunt for the perfect man, as indeed was I up until a few years ago, but I’ve given up now, particularly given that Si is the perfect date for those social and work occasions I can’t face on my own.

The funny thing is, if you had asked me whether we would all be friends ten years after graduating from university, I would have said yes, but only if Portia were included, because she was the star around which we all revolved. Yet even without her, it works.

We do talk about her, though. Do still miss her. They say time heals all wounds, but I find myself missing her more as the years go by. Not less.

Josh has a friend who was a journalist on the
Standard
, and it seems she’d left to write a book. Josh said she was still single and was now living in Maida Vale. I remember feeling a pang when I heard that. Maida Vale. Up the road. I could bump into her at Waitrose. Or drive past her in Swiss Cottage. Or maybe I’d see her having a coffee in West End Lane.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to see her. I did, it’s just that the more time passed, the harder it was to pick up the phone and call her. Then a few more years went by, and my career took off. I had relationships, and flings, and my wonderful friends, particularly Si, and they all conspired to fill the void that Portia had left all those years before. Gradually I stopped thinking about Portia as much, although if I’m honest she was always there, in the back of my mind.

Once I thought I saw her. I was grabbing a coffee in the West End, and, as I turned to leave, out of the corner of my eye I could have sworn I saw Portia walking past, rounding the corner. She had such a distinctive stride, and all that mahogany hair. If it was her, she looked amazing, far more stylish than before, but I wasn’t sure, and I was in too much of a hurry to follow. And even if I had gone after her, what would I have said?

Chapter three

‘What shall I wear?’ Si is, as usual, moaning at me down the phone.

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Si. I’m busy. How come you don’t understand the concept of work? Why do you never seem to
do
anything except phone me a million times a day?’

I can almost see Si stick out his lower lip in a pretend sulk. ‘Fine,’ he says, in exactly the tone I would have expected. ‘I’ll leave you to your work, then, shall I?’

Before I can say anything I hear a click, then the dialling tone. I sigh wearily and punch out his number, knowing that the phone won’t even ring before he picks it up.

‘Have I ever told you how much I hate you?’ he says, picking up the phone.

‘No you don’t. You love me. That’s why I’m allowed to say these things to you.’

‘Oh, okay, then,’ he grumbles. ‘But what are
you
wearing? No, no! Let me guess. Black trousers perhaps? A large black tent-like jumper to cover your bum? Black boots?’

‘Well, if you know so much, how come you’re asking?’

‘Cath, you’re not a student any more.
Why
do you dress like one? I keep offering to give you clothing lessons, but you’re still as sartorially challenged as you ever were. What
are
we going to do with you?’

‘Darling Si. I’m just not interested in clothes, like you. I’m sorry. I wish it were different.’ I throw in a few sobs for good measure and Si laughs. ‘I’m a hopeless case,’ I continue, throwing caution to the winds and crying hysterically. ‘A lost cause.’

‘There, there,’ he soothes. ‘No such thing as a lost cause. We’ll get you to Armani if it kills me.’

‘Can I go now?’ I say, in my usual exasperated tone, wondering whether I should signal my secretary to come in and tell me in a loud voice that my three o’clock appointment is here. ‘Have you finished with me? I
am
busy, Si. Seriously.’

‘You’re no fun,’ he says. ‘I’ll come over to yours at seven thirty.’

‘Fine, see you la – ’ and I stop with a sigh because he’s already gone.

I smile to myself for a few minutes after I put the phone down, because it is extraordinary that Si manages to do this. He’s supposed to be a film editor, although God knows exactly what that means. All I do know is that he works in Soho, which is, as he readily admits, completely perfect for him, because he can go out cruising every night, if he wants to.

He did throughout his twenties, and when Soho became the new gay village and all the seedy hostess bars were replaced with minimalist gay bars, Si thought he’d died and gone to Heaven (which he did fairly often in those days), but he seems to have settled down now. He used to talk about beautiful boys, and six-pack stomachs, and buns of steel, whereas now he talks about finding someone to cook for, to make a home with, to share everything with. But he’s so desperate for commitment, a relationship, anyone who comes even vaguely close is frightened off within days.

‘It’s my chocolate mousse, isn’t it?’ he says to me, humour doing a pretty bad job of hiding the pain. ‘I
knew
I’d over-whisked those egg whites.’

‘Either that or the fact that you slid the onion ring on to the third finger of his left hand after half an hour,’ I say, and we both sigh with disappointment, because neither of us can understand why he can’t find someone.

He’s not drop-dead gorgeous, but he’s certainly cute in a Matthew Broderick sort of way. He’s funny, sensitive, kind, thoughtful, has a vicious sense of humour when he feels really comfortable with you, but would never use it against his friends. Or so he tells me.

And his body is – and I’m trying to be as objective as possible – really rather gorgeous. As he says, despite hating ‘the scene’, he appreciates that he’s unlikely to meet Mr Right at the local McDonald’s, and if you have to do the bars and, even more occasionally, the clubs, you have to look the part, and white T-shirts, apparently, require toned, tanned flesh underneath.

Every New Year’s Eve Si and I make a deal. If neither of us is married by the age of thirty-five, we’ll marry each other. Actually, it used to be by the age of twenty-five. Then thirty. And doubtless by the time we hit thirty-five it will move to forty.

I suppose I am slightly in love with him, if only in a platonic way, although there are plenty of times when I wish it could be different. Put it like this. I’m fairly genuine about our New Year’s Eve promises. Si is everything I’ve ever looked for in a man. Apart from the being gay bit, of course. And he’d make a wonderful husband and father. I’d never have to lift a finger at home – he’d do all the cleaning and cook me wonderful gourmet meals every night.

We’d have a hell of a lot of fun, Si and I, if we were married. But I know Si would never marry me. I know he loves me more than anyone else in the world, but I also know that when Si goes to bed at night he closes his eyes and dreams of Brad Pitt, and he could never sacrifice that. Not even for me.

The phone rings again. My private line. Which means it’s one of three people. My mother. Si. Or Josh. I’m always amazed that Josh manages to call me quite so regularly, but then again I’m not entirely sure I know exactly what he does, money and finance having always been something of an anathema to me.

I do know that he works for one of the big banks in the City. That he is in charge of a team of ten people, and that the only reason he manages to get home every night by seven o’clock is because he’s in the office by six a.m. every day.

Other than that, I think he has something to do with Mergers and Acquisitions, or M & A, as I believe you’re meant to call it in the trade. I know he’s doing well enough not to have to worry about money, and I know that his public school background, minor though it was, has almost certainly helped him reach the position he now occupies.

‘You must work to live, not live to work,’ Josh always laughs, when Si and I tease him about having such an easy life at the age of thirty-two when he should, by rights, be working like a madman. But, although I am constantly surprised by his lack of ties to the office, I am also impressed, and I know that his family is so important to him that he would never sacrifice his life purely for money.

My line is still ringing, and it could very well be Josh on the phone now, so I pick up, taking my chances.

‘
Now
what do you want, Si?’

‘Just to tell you that’ – he pauses dramatically – ‘Mr Gorgeous has phoned!’

‘Fantastic! So when’s he coming over to break your heart? Oops, I mean, coming over for dinner?’

‘And how do you know this one isn’t The One?’

‘I’m sorry, my darling. You’re quite right. He might be. So you haven’t invited him over, then? Let me guess,
he’s
taking
you
to some fantabulously swanky restaurant for dinner tomorrow night.’

‘Nearly,’ he says brightly. ‘
I’m
cooking
him
a fantabulously swanky meal at my place tomorrow night.’

‘You’re hopeless,’ I say.

‘I know,’ he replies, but his voice is bubbling over with excitement.

‘No chocolate mousse, now,’ I warn sternly.

‘I know, I know. And I’ve buried the onion rings in the back garden.’

I get home at seven, cursing the fact that I haven’t got a parking space at work, and fantasizing about going freelance and never having to take the damn tube again. There are times when I really don’t mind it, when I actually quite enjoy it, but then there are times, like tonight, when there are no seats, and you’re all crushed together, and everyone is wet from the pouring rain so the carriage is filled with that awful damp smell.

I grab a towel from the bathroom and pull the elastic band out of my hair, rubbing the towel vigorously over my head, rolling my eyes as I catch sight of myself in the mirror. I should not have been born with this hair. It is just not fair, because my hair is barely human. It is a frizzy mess that used to circle my head rather like a fuzzy halo, and, now that I have tried to grow it, looks increasingly like Marsha Hunt’s on a very bad day. It would have looked fantastic in the early seventies, but it looks ridiculous now.

I have a bathroom cabinet stacked with various defrizzing, smoothing products that Si keeps accidentally-on-purpose leaving at my house, saying that he didn’t really need them and I should keep them, but I just can’t be bothered. Occasionally I read the labels, but invariably I forget to use them, and run out of the house with wet hair scraped back into a ponytail, which is the only way I can look halfway decent for work.

I used to make an effort. I used to wear make-up and have highlights and flirt with strange men in bars, but the older I get the less interested I am. I used to believe in love, in passion, but now I believe that the two cannot go hand in hand, because passion is not love, can never be love, and the one great passion of my life was someone I didn’t even like, although naturally I didn’t realize it at the time.

I was twenty-four when I met Martin. He really wasn’t anything special, not that first time I met him, at a marketing course in Luton. We were there for four days, executives from all over the country, and Martin was leading the course.

I remember he took the stage, bounding up to one of those flip charts, holding an electric-blue marker pen in his hand, and I mentally wrote him off as a boring marketing man. He was ordinary looking. Medium height. Nondescript clothes. Nothing, in short, to write home about.

But by the end of the day I thought he was, quite simply, the most incredible man I had ever met. We all did. Even though none of us
had
actually met him at that stage. That came later. Afterwards. At the drinks party where he singled me out, came over to talk to me. Looked deep into my eyes and told me I had interesting ideas. And all of a sudden the colours in the room became far brighter, the lines sharper, and I remember thinking that perhaps this was what it was like to fall in love.

Eventually we sat at a table in the corner, with other people who had paid fortunes to come on this course, and Martin fascinated all of us with his stories, his confidence, his charm. But I knew I was special. I knew that there was some sort of link between the two of us, something magical, something that would lead to more.

Our table-fellows gradually started to leave. ‘Got an early start tomorrow,’ they’d say with a wink at Martin, who would laugh politely. Each time he heard it. And eventually it was just the two of us, and Martin turned to me and tugged the elastic band out of my hair, which actually hurt terribly, but I winced in silence because I was aware it was supposed to be a romantic gesture.

‘You have beautiful hair,’ he said to me, while I blushed furiously and tried to think of something to say.

‘It’s a frizzy mess,’ I ended up muttering, instantly regretting spoiling the mood.

‘No, no,’ Martin murmured, ‘it’s quite lovely. Would you like to come up for a drink? It’s rather noisy down here, don’t you think? And I have a wonderful Scotch upstairs.’

Of course I knew that whisky meant sex, but I was somehow mesmerized by him, by the fact that the man to whom everyone in the room wanted to talk was giving me his undivided attention, and I meekly followed him upstairs.

We spent the next three nights together. I would sit in the front row during his lectures and feel a glow of warmth each time he looked at me, aware that the rumours had already started to circulate, but not caring. Only caring that Martin would look at me again by the time I counted to twelve, because that would mean he was going to fall in love with me. Even I wasn’t naïve enough to believe he might love me already.

I like to think that if I had met Martin with the wisdom and cynicism of my current thirty-one years, instead of the romanticism and dreams of twenty-four, there are two things that would have been different.

The first is that I would never have slept with him in the first place, because now I know that these course lecturers regularly look for someone as I was then: a young shy girl, preferably rather plain, who would be flattered and impressed with their false charm and attention.

The second certainty is that when the relationship continued after the four-day course, I would have known that those times when he said he couldn’t see me because he was working, those nights when he’d rush out of bed after sex and leave, the fact that he never gave me his telephone number, only a pager, meant only one thing.

Of
course
I should have known he was married. But you see what you want to see, and you hear what you want to hear. I didn’t know better. I was so flattered, so swept up by someone,
anyone
, telling me I was beautiful, I didn’t stop to think about anything else.

Si knew. Although he didn’t say anything at the time. He once tentatively asked me if I thought he might be married, and I was so furious with him he never brought it up again. Until I knew for certain. At which point Si sniffed and said, ‘I told you so.’

‘I hate it when people say I told you so,’ I said.

‘I know. I’m sorry. But I told you so.’

And so it went on.

The whole
Martin Malarkey
(Si’s expression, not mine) lasted two years. Two years that gradually wore me down until there was almost nothing left. Two years that shattered my dreams of romance and everlasting love. Two years that taught me never to open myself up again for fear of getting hurt.

In fact the only good thing to come out of it was the weight loss. Even after he confessed he was married, I continued to believe that he loved her but wasn’t
in love
with her. I believed that she had happily consented to his wishes to sleep in the spare room and that they hadn’t had sex for two years. I believed that the only reason he was staying was because of the children, but as soon as they started school he would leave.

I believed this until I found out she was pregnant again. Don’t ask me how I found out – a long and complicated story – but I did, and Martin denied it until he could see I wasn’t buying the lies any more, and then it was over.