Growing Up Twice (41 page)

I sling a conciliatory arm around her shoulder. ‘I know, I’m sorry it all went off here, mate. Really I am. And I’m sorry I went off on one about Chris, it was only because I love you, and I don’t want you to be hurt,’ I repeat my disclaimer.

Rosie pours the milk onto the chocolate and I stir.

‘Well, sometimes you just have to understand, don’t you?’ she says as she piles up a tray with chocolate and toast and we go into the other room. ‘Talking of which, let’s make this an evening for Selin to talk, OK? Enough of our problems for five minutes?’

We agree, and I catch sight of myself in the amazing makes-you-look-thin hallway mirror and think, ‘Maybe getting outside of my own stuffed-up head for five minutes will do me some good.’ Typical. Even when I’m trying not to think about me, I think about me, me, me.

Selin is sitting on the floor crosslegged. The TV is not on. She looks nervous. I hand her a chocolate and a plate of toast but she touches neither.

‘I’ve got something I have to tell you,’ she says.

Rosie and I look at each other and join her on the floor. I wait for Selin’s first-ever extensive emotional unburdening. ‘It’s OK, mate,’ I reassure her. ‘We’re listening.’

She pauses, delves about in her bag for a moment and then brings out two Mars Bars. She pushes them across the floor to us. Mars Bars. From Selin. The first ones ever. The significance of this moment cannot be underestimated. Rosie and I look at each other. We don’t pick them up but only look at them, symbols of Selin’s new-found frailty.

‘I meant to tell you before, but well, you know.’ She pauses and takes a deep breath. ‘I’m engaged. To Adem. The guy at the funeral. The one you were asking me about. He was there tonight. We’re engaged. We’re going to be married. It happened a few weeks ago, I was about to tell you when Ayla was killed. He’s been at my side through the whole thing, he’s made it bearable. There, I’ve said it.’ She smiles at us nervously.

Rosie and I look at each other again and then at the Mars Bars, and then at Selin. This was not what I was expecting, and oddly I feel let down.

‘That old bloke?’ I say bluntly.

‘He’s not that old. Forty-six.’ Sixteen years her senior. An age gap bigger than mine was with Michael. I try and think back over the last few weeks, but we’ve hardly seen each other. When did she meet this man, how did she meet him?

‘It’s old enough, Selin. Who is this man? You can’t just tell us you’re getting married. Is it an arranged marriage? Does his wife know?’ I ask stupidly, some old anger stirring.

‘No! I mean, no, it’s not arranged. He’s not married any more. I met him when I was out with Dad, on our pool nights. Dad has known him for years on and off. We got to know each other.’ She smiles to herself. ‘He’s a nice man. He’s kind and loving. He’s been fantastic since Ayla’s accident. He’s your landlord, by the way.’

‘
He’s
our landlord?’ All the things that should have clicked into place so much earlier if only I hadn’t been so self-obsessed and if Selin hadn’t been so sodding secretive. Yes, I
know
that’s rich coming from me.

Rosie picks up her Mars Bar and studies it, shaking her head in bewilderment. ‘You don’t do anything for fifteen years and then you do this. I don’t think I’m grasping it, you’re getting married to someone you hardly know who could actually be your dad. That’s the sort of thing I expected from Jen, to be honest. Look, it’s not just some knee-jerk reaction to what’s happened, is it?’ she asks.

Selin looks horrified. ‘What, you mean as a reaction to my grief? How can you say that? I’ve known about this for weeks, I just couldn’t find the right time to tell you.’

‘But Selin, what about passion, excitement, discovering the world together? All that stuff?’ I ask her. Surely she must see that she could be signing her young life away.

‘Oh yeah, all that stuff you did with Owen between him sleeping around and throwing you out, you mean?’ Selin loses her patience and snaps at me. ‘Or Rosie, all that honeymoon stuff you did with Chris the three minutes you were married before he dumped you for the love of his life mark one hundred and twenty six? Actually, there is passion and romance with Adem. It’s just not the sort of addictive crap you two are so fond of getting wrapped up in, safe and sure in the knowledge that good old dependable Selin will be around to pick up the pieces, because let’s face it, I never have anything else to do, do I? I
love
Adem, I am going to marry him. That’s that. My family are happy for me, even if you can’t be. And you wonder why I didn’t tell you? First of all, you haven’t been around to talk to properly in weeks, and if you are it’s either one or the other of you that needs to talk, because both of you have got yourselves into yet another mess. You never ask me, do you? You never wonder how
I
might be feeling, not even now. And secondly, I knew exactly what you would be like, you hypocrites. You say that I’ve been doing nothing for fifteen years. Actually, the pair of you have been too wrapped up in yourselves to notice
anything
I do, but I have had a life apart from being your counselling service and Adem is part of my life. A far more rewarding part than either of you.’ Her eyes flash with anger. She springs up off the floor and perches on the edge of the armchair.

Rosie and I look at each other in stunned silence. Neither of us had a clue that Selin felt this way. We just assumed, or I did at least, that everything was cool in the world of Selin. Everything until Ayla, that is. I never imagined that there might be other stuff going on. I feel terrible.

‘But he’s so old,’ I say, reflectively. I just can’t get my head round this.

Rosie, on the other hand, has let her shock boil over into anger and she lets her bombshell drop. ‘Listen, Selin. Chris and I might have been through a rocky patch, but we’ve worked it through now.’ Rosie reaches into her own bag and throws two more Mars Bars on to the pile, like gambling chips. ‘We’re going to give it another go. I’m moving back in with him.’

‘What?’ I shout, all my good intentions of tolerance evaporating into thin air. ‘You’re going to give it another go? You’re fucking mad, the pair of you. You and Selin. You’re insane.’

Rosie whirls on me, pointing her finger in my face. ‘I don’t know why you’re so high and mighty when you’ve been shagging someone eleven years
younger
than you behind our backs for God knows how long! And all that crap about giving men up. I saw you tonight with Josh, you’ve got him wrapped around your little finger now too, haven’t you? Stringing him along until you get bored with him now, are you?’

A dense silence falls over the room. Nice one, Rosie.

Selin looks at me. ‘Is this true?’

‘Well, yes, sort of. I was going to tell you, tonight.’ I had my Mars Bars hidden underneath a magazine. It seems pointless revealing them now.

‘The Michael thing, I was going to tell you about that …’

‘You mean the kid from the party, the ginger kid from the park?’

‘Yes, I …’

‘You hypocrite. How come it’s OK for you but wrong for me?’ she interrupts me.

‘Because, it was just a fling with Michael. You’re planning to ruin your life for ever with some pensioner!’ I retort with a defensive reflex that inflames Selin even further. This is not going the way I planned it.

‘How can you possibly know that? Since when have you been an expert in
not
ruining your life?’ She stands now and roars at me. ‘And Josh? You decide to mess around with Josh
now
of all times? You don’t care about him in the slightest, do you? You selfish arrogant bitch.’

My face stings as though I have been slapped. ‘Josh and I have sorted things out.
We’re
fine about it. So there is no need to go leaping to his defence,’ I argue, aware of how lame I’m sounding. Aware that I should be trying to smooth things over and make things better, but finding that every chance I get I’m throwing it away.

Selin walks to the door. ‘Oh, he’s let you walk all over him again, has he? Well, I’ll tell you this. I won’t let you get your claws into him, do you understand? So you can forget that little fantasy, you’ll never touch him again.’ She knocks over a cup of hot chocolate in her path. ‘And as for you, Rosie, I’ve had enough of you and your stupid ideas too. Go back to Chris. Good luck to you. But I don’t want to know when it goes wrong, OK? I don’t want either of you on my doorstep any more. My counselling sessions are now closed. Permanently. And thanks for your understanding, by the way. I knew all those years of me being there for you would finally pay off. Yeah, right.’

She slams the front door so hard the pictures shudder and the next-door neighbour thumps on the wall, probably finally pushed to the brink by the recent week’s rash of door slamming.

‘Well, thanks for dropping me in it, Rosie,’ I say bitterly, cross at her and cross that I didn’t handle this better.

‘You did it to yourself, sweetie,’ she says archly, reaching over to mop up the chocolate with some tissues. Her prim self-satisfaction drives me mad.

‘And you’re about to do it to your baby. To think I even thought you might make a good mother. What a joke.’ It’s out there before I can do anything about it.

Rosie turns to me with a face like thunder, and throws the damp tissues at me. ‘No, Jen. I’m not the joke.
You
are. You run around after Owen for three years, when everyone but you can tell he doesn’t give a fuck about you, you sleep with everyone you can lay your hands on except the one decent man that’s interested in you, and then you fuck a kid. That’s a joke. Ha fucking ha.’ And she’s gone into her room.

I pick up the chocolate-sodden tissues and bin them, then pocket a Mars Bar.

We have never fought like this before. We have never been so cruel or so honest. I feel as though everything has gone, that the so-called fortress of our friendship has shattered like sugar glass. I can’t see any way back to how it used to be, but then if we are all so happy to lie to each other, if we’re all so blind to each other’s hopes and hurts, maybe there is nothing to go back to?

I climb into bed, turn off the light and eat chocolate in the dark, mulling over everything they said. None of it was that far off the mark, but there was a time when a fight like this would have been impossible between us.

What has gone wrong?

It’s Thursday and I have seen neither Rosie nor Selin since last Saturday. I guess Rosie has been staying with Chris, and Selin is just staying out of my way. Rosie did come back to the flat while I was at work and left me a note, a Post-it stuck to the front door. I’m sure she appreciated the irony.

‘Will be back at the weekend to pick up the rest of my things. Will pay rent until end of month, please sort out return of deposit. R.’

It hadn’t even occurred to me that Rosie moving out would mean I’d have to find somewhere else to live. I’ve been so used to having my own place for so long, and now it looks as though I’ll have to go back to an affordable house share with strangers, who are probably psychotic, or have rotas for washing up or who write their names on the milk. Oh God, a few weeks off thirty and I’m turning into a student again. Right, calm, calm deep breaths. I can handle this.

All week I have considered ringing them and trying to make peace. My finger has hovered over both their numbers on more than one occasion and I have always chickened out, childishly deciding that it is
always
me who makes the first move. Always. For once in my life I’m going to stick up for myself. And besides, they were just as right about me as I was mean about them. It’s much harder to be defensive under those circumstances.

The only thing I have been able to do is begin to sort out my life, by which I mean making an attempt to steer its direction rather than letting it drift along in limbo.

The new prospectus for the journalism course has arrived, inviting me to an open evening and requesting a personal statement about why I’m committed to journalism. The course takes three months and it can only be done full time, so I’d have to give up work.

The prospect of giving up work seems like a dream on the one hand, but on the other, the prospect of making ends meet on minimum-wage bar jobs does not. Josh is the only adult I know who doesn’t have a proper job, but then he doesn’t have nice shoes, forty-seven lipsticks and three maxed-out credit cards either. I have more debt than a small country. Following my dream might be the one tiny push I need to get me off the repayment treadmill and into the as-yet-uncharted land of the credit blacklist. I’ll be scouring the papers for those any-purpose loan advertisements where they lend you money even if you live in a car. And it’s not yours. Still, if I did join the course I wouldn’t be able to start until next April. That
would
give me a few months to save. Save money, there’s a novel concept.

Anyway, I have the reply slip agreeing to attend sitting in front of me. I have the biro in my hand. I’ll fill it in later.

Jackson went back to New York today, a bit earlier than planned in the wake of Rosie’s rejection, I guess. We had a last lunch before he was picked up to go to the airport. He was on good form, but I think he was hiding how down he really felt.

‘Jackson, I’m sorry, mate, but as much as I’d love it, you can see why she decided not to go back with you. You hardly know each other.’

He nodded and stirred his coffee. ‘I know, but you know what? I think we could have made it. Jesus, Jenny, you don’t expect to go falling in love with a pregnant English girl at the drop of a hat. I mean, we didn’t even have sex! God forbid that that woman who wrote
The Rules
was right about that one. You know, I should have stuck to plan A.’

I laugh. ‘Oh, and what was plan A?’

‘Well, to seduce you and have a fun sex-filled affair until it was time to go home, of course.’ He rolled his eyes and laughed but I don’t think he was entirely joking.

‘You were going to seduce me?’ I laughed. ‘Well, that’s a bit arrogant. I don’t even fancy you,’ I lied. ‘And anyway, I was seeing someone at the time. So I was not available,’ I added primly.