He shifted on his feet, looking slightly uncomfortable. Voice of authority and reason was not a natural role for Norm, but circumstances called for it.
‘I mean, if Livs could see us, you know, if she was looking down on us now – on her twenty-ninth birthday, in case you’ve all forgotten; if she had her feet up watching Countdown, having one of her cheeky Tia Maria coffees and maybe a twenty-quid fag …’ There was a murmur of laughter and recognition from the group. ‘Do you think she’d be impressed? Do you reckon she’d be like. Awesome. Look at my mates, aren’t they just the best?
‘I don’t think so somehow.’
Fraser looked at his friend and felt a bloom of pride in his chest. Norm must think I’m a dick, he thought. I AM a dick. Norm had been so good to him in that text, going out of his way to make Fraser feel better, and then he’d still let the side down: rocked up an hour late, hungover, taking his guilt out on everyone else. He really hated himself sometimes.
‘Look …’ said Norm eventually.
Everyone was shuffling and staring at the ground, as if they were being told off by the headmaster.
‘I found this.’
He reached inside his pocket and pulled out a tatty piece of A4.
‘It’s a list that Liv wrote – Things To Do Before I Am Thirty. I thought it might be nice for us all to read it later, pass it around or whatever and raise a drink to her. But since everyone’s being idiots now …’
There was a sheepish mumble of apology from the crowd. Fraser was staring at the piece of paper in his friend’s hand.
Norm looked at him, realization crossing his face.
‘Oh. Totally innocent, mate, found it in the pocket of my old parka that Liv must have borrowed some time.’
Fraser smiled and waved his hand away. He didn’t care where he’d got it from. He had a list. A list with Liv’s handwriting on.
‘Can I have that?’ he said, stepping forward. Norm handed him the piece of paper.
THREE
Lancaster
Mia piled banana-and-mango purée into Billy’s mouth, most of which he then regurgitated back onto the spoon, too busy watching Peppa Pig to concentrate on swallowing. She looked over at her friend on the sofa – just a tuft of brown, slightly matted hair poking out of the top of her orange sleeping bag – and felt a warm rush of nostalgia. When was the last time she’d had anyone stay the night on her sofa? (Except Eduardo after a row.) Or talked to someone in a sleeping bag late into the night? God, must have been years ago. University probably. They were always talking late into the night in sleeping bags back then.
Who did she talk to now? NatWest Debt Management Centre (although technically, that was more shouting), Virgin Media, Ashley at the Benefits Office. In fact, Ashley at the Benefits Office probably knew more about her life than her friends did. Definitely more than her mother did. No, if she really thought about it, Mia didn’t really talk to anyone these days. Not proper talking, anyway, just for the sheer fun of it. These days, talking always had to have a purpose.
She had a sudden memory – these were coming more often, like now the heavy numbness of early motherhood was lifting, clarity was gradually returning and, with it, memories and feelings, some of which she’d kept down for a reason. V Festival in Leeds – 2000, or was it 2001? She wasn’t sure, but she knew Coldplay were headlining and that Melody pooh-poohed them as dullsville. Now Melody couldn’t get enough of Coldplay.
It was warm and getting light – 4.30 a.m. or thereabouts – and she, Liv and Fraser were the only ones awake, sitting in their sleeping bags outside their tent, talking in hushed voices and drinking flat lager, the sound of Norm’s pneumatic snoring coming from the tent next door.
‘Let’s play a game,’ said Liv, suddenly. ‘I know a brilliant game.’
Mia and Fraser had groaned: Liv was always coming out with new, strange games and ‘takes’ on things. Once, she’d tried to combine strip poker with the children’s game Frustration – moving little men around a board in their bras and pants. Liv and Fraser were big on taking their clothes off when drunk – it was one of the many traits that made them perfect for each other. Whereas, Mia? Good God, no. She’d rather chew off her own arm than reveal her body to her friends. And that was before she’d had a baby.
‘It’s called I Have Never,’ Liv continued. ‘And it’s a bit like Truth. Basically, the person whose turn it is says something they’ve never done in their life. For example, I might say … anal sex.’
Fraser had laughed. It sounded extra-loud in the soft dawn. ‘Do you have to be quite so crude, Olivia?’
‘So if you’ve done whatever the person whose turn it is is saying – i.e. you have had anal sex,’ she carried on, ignoring him, ‘then you have to down your drink, and then it’s your turn, and so it goes on.’
They went through the usual repertoire: saying I love you when you don’t mean it (they’d all done that one); threesomes – nobody had had one of those, which seemed a bit of a poor show. Mia had felt disappointed that at twenty-one, nobody in the group had fulfilled this particular rite of passage, but had comforted herself in the knowledge that good old Anna would no doubt have had one, if not that very evening in her tent.
Then it was Mia’s turn: ‘I have never … snogged anyone famous,’ which Fraser drank to because Floella Benjamin, a distant family friend – they all thought this was hysterical in itself – had once given him a peck on the cheek at a country fair when he was eight. They’d all agreed that didn’t really count.
It was almost light now; a rosy mist hovered above the field, illuminating their faces. Norm’s snoring from the tent was reaching crescendo levels. Then Liv said, ‘I have never … snogged any other member of our group of friends except Fraser.’
‘What, not even Anna?’ Mia blurted out, almost on automatic. ‘Everyone’s snogged Spanner.’ Which was true. She’d kissed her back in their first year at Lancaster, at the height of her very fleeting foray into lipstick-lesbianism, which she was quite proud of if truth be told.
‘No, I have not snogged Anna!’ said Liv, outraged, and yet Mia suspected, ever so slightly jealous. ‘When the hell did you snog Anna?’ Mia was in the midst of answering when it all came flooding back, it dawned on her. She glanced at Fraser, whose face was covered with the can of lager he was now drinking from.
Liv looked at Mia, then at Fraser.
‘Oh, my God, you’ve snogged Anna?’ she said, smiling, but it was a sliding smile – half intrigue, half … what was that look? Appalled? Mia didn’t like to think about it too much.
Fraser had spluttered beer everywhere.
‘What? No. I haven’t snogged Anna. Or anyone else for that matter. Sorry, I was just drinking my beer, is that allowed? I just forgot the rules.’
Then they’d all sort of moved on, the question lost in booziness and early morning confusion, but Mia was thinking about it now as she shovelled banana-and-mango purée back into Billy’s mouth. It was coming back to her. Lots of things were coming back to her now.
Fraser stirred, made some sort of grunting sound – an attempt at speech, and Billy, on cue, did the same, which made Mia laugh.
‘Morning, Fraser Morgan.’ She’d been up since 5.50 a.m. with a grizzly baby, but then grizzliness was more or less Billy’s default mode. It was now 9 a.m. and she felt as though she’d lived a day already.
‘What?’ He stuck his head