‘D’ya fancy a quick pint?’ Gretton adds, unusually friendly.
I shake my head.
‘Got to see a man about a dog, I’m afraid.’
35
I thread my way through the well-shod early afternoon shoppers and office workers, catching sight of Rhys outside Holland & Barrett, looking like a man who could do with some de-stressing St John’s Wort. He’s wearing a navy anorak and a concentrated scowl. I remember pulling on the drawstring at the hood to tighten it at the neck when I kissed him goodbye. Only likely to happen now in an attempt to cut off blood supply.
I expect to feel a nasty pang – I’ve been churning on this meeting for twenty-four hours – yet now we’re face-to-face, I don’t feel any tumult of emotion, only a resigned sort of grief. We’re just two people who were once very fond of each other and now don’t get along any more.
‘Hi,’ I say.
‘I’d nearly given up. We said one.’
‘It’s only five past …’ I check my watch. ‘Ten past. Sorry. Case overran.’ Er. The case of the tardy woman and the glossy magazine.
Rhys thrusts a canvas holdall at me. ‘Here you go.’
‘Thanks,’ I unzip it and peer inside. Books, a necklace, a teapot I’d forgotten belongs to me. How did I miss all this?
‘Why did you leave so much stuff? What am I meant to do with it?’ Rhys asks.
‘I thought the idea was I left things.’
‘Yeah, furniture. I didn’t say leave ninety per cent of your crap strewn about the place. Were you making the point that you wanted to get out of there so fast you left tyre marks?’
‘No.’ I see the ghost of genuine hurt behind Rhys’s mask of perpetual annoyance. ‘I didn’t want to fillet it, that’s all. If you want me to take more, I can come back for it.’
Rhys shrugs.
I wonder whether to suggest getting some lunch.
‘Why’re you off work?’
‘Booked a day to go car shopping.’
‘You’re not keeping the old one?’
‘Fancied a change. You know how that feels.’
A pause.
‘Your place is in town, then?’ Rhys says.
‘Yes. Northern Quarter. Come round sometime if you like.’
Rhys makes a face. ‘No, ta. What for, Dorito Dippers and X Factor?’
‘Just, you know. To be civilised.’
‘Huh. What’s it like?’
‘The flat?’
‘No, X Factor. Yes the flat.’
‘It’s …’ 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