‘What do they do again? Finance?’
‘Property, they’re minted.’
‘So she’s moved back there and Daniel’s still out in Kent?’
‘It’s only fifteen minutes on the train from Waterloo, Suze. That’s less than an hour from here, door to door.’
‘Have they actually separated though?’ I say, trying not to sound a tiny bit hopeful.
I last saw Daniel five years ago, in the pub on Christmas Eve. Even then there’d been problems in his marriage. He’d flirted with me just enough to make me feel human, but not to the point where I felt like he’d meant anything by it. More just for old times’ sake. Still, I remember when the clock had struck midnight, and we were all drunkenly hugging and kissing and singing carols, he’d given me a look filled with so much sadness and affection, I’d had to look away. Because I’d felt something.
‘They’re not separated yet,’ she says. ‘But it can’t be long now. They’re basically living separate lives. Apparently even before she moved back to the States she’d had him sleeping in the spare room for over a year.’
‘A year?’
‘That’s what my brother said.’
‘Hang on,’ I say. ‘They’ve got a little boy, haven’t they?’
‘He’s nearly ten now. He’s in New York with Brooke, the two of them rattling around in some Upper East Side penthouse …’ she says, looking slightly less triumphant.
‘But how does that work?’ I say.
‘How indeed,’ she says, with raised eyebrows. ‘Daniel’s been flying over there every other weekend, but that can’t make sense longer term.’
‘He must be knackered. Why doesn’t he just move to New York? I’d love to live in New York,’ I say. ‘Isn’t that pretty selfish of him?’
‘No! It’s selfish of her! He’s trying to get his business off the ground, he’s been plugging away at it for years and he’s finally doing OK. And you know his dad’s not well, he’s been in a home since last summer. Plus his brother’s struggling through a hideous divorce. Daniel’s got all that on his plate and then Brooke drags their son out of school a year before he’s due to finish primary, so that she can swan around Barneys and get her nails done every day.’
‘Bad timing. That must be hard for him,’ I say, filing him back in the folder labelled ‘unavailable’.
‘Yeah, it’s shit, by the sounds of it,’ she says, shaking out the last of the chocolate. ‘I think he’s pretty messed up about the whole thing but you know what men are like, he says everything’s fine. Maybe you can offer him a shoulder to cry on at the wedding. I’m putting you next to him at dinner.’
‘Don’t do that, Poll,’ I say. ‘He’s married. And I mean, what’s the point?’
‘The point is, that marriage is as good as over. And it would be helpful for him to have an old friend talk some sense into him,’ she says.
‘I’m supposed to give him marriage guidance? I’m hardly a role model for successful living. No, stick me next to someone single.’
‘I’ll check with Dave to see if any of his mates are, but I don’t think there are any single men coming,’ she says. ‘Apart from my brother, and he only seems to date women in their twenties nowadays. He’s such a City Boy.’
‘I remember he always used to steal the five-hundred-pound notes in Monopoly,’ I say, laughing. ‘Don’t you have any single men on the list at all? Anyone – waiters, ushers, someone in the band?’
She shakes her head. ‘Not that I can think of. Right, I’ve definitely had too much to drink, best call me a cab.’
I haven’t thought about Daniel McKendall for years. Well, a few years at least. We’re friends on Facebook, but the fact that I haven’t even casually stalked him shows how low on my radar he is.
I remember Daniel’s parents back in the day, must be over twenty years ago now … They were so much more exotic than mine. Daniel’s mum, Krista, was a crazy Danish hippy; his dad, Robert, was a Scottish guitar teacher. When we first met, his parents were still listening to Joan Baez and smoking a lot of weed. (My parents listened to Vivaldi and to this day have never smoked a joint. When my mum found out I’d been smoking Consulate round at the McKendalls’ house, she went ballistic. ‘It starts with cigarettes, then you get hooked on the harder stuff. You’ll be round the back of King’s Cross, turning tricks for heroin if you don’t cut that out right now!’ If there’d been a ‘rat on a rat’ anti-nicotine hotline in the eighties, my mum would have shopped Daniel and me, taken her ten-pound reward, and still had a smile on her face when she put dinner on the table.)
Going round to Daniel’s big, ramshackle house and twos-ing menthol cigarettes that we’d stolen from Krista McKendall’s crochet handbag was the most exciting, bohemian thing I had ever experienced. Daniel and I used to take a picnic blanket, sneak up onto the roof and spend hours lying on our backs, blowing smoke rings and staring up at the clouds. All that time, imagining what we would do with our lives.
Up on the roof we’d pretend things could stay the way they were forever. In our future it would still always be five in the afternoon on a perfect summer’s day, with the sky so blue it felt like a child’s drawing. Our parents would always stay young and strong and good looking and healthy and we would never have to think of them as actually being human. There would always be cold lingonberry lemonade so sharp it made your tongue curl waiting for us in Krista McKendall’s fridge, if only we could be bothered to go down to the kitchen. Homework could wait. Tidying our rooms could wait. For now and always we would stay lying, side by side on this green and blue tartan blanket, looking up to the sky. Best friends who just happened to also like kissing each other.
Daniel and I were always happiest when we were together, just the two of us. The best days of my teens were spent with him. We had so much in common, and because we were born on the same day he used to joke that we were twins, separated at birth. ‘The exact same day, that can’t be coincidence! Look at the facts: your grandfather was Scottish and so was mine. It is technically possible.’
‘He wasn’t my actual grandfather,’ I pointed out.
‘Yeah, but he was the only one you ever knew,’ he said. ‘And look at the other things that are identical: both crap at art. You eat Breakaways the exact same way that I do, that must be genetic!’
‘Clearly we’re not twins. Your mum’s Dutch. I wish I had her bone structure, she looks like Julie Christie.’
‘For ten points, what’s the capital of Denmark …?’
‘Oh. Copenhagen. Sorry, your mum’s Danish. I do know the difference, but you’ve got to admit they’re confusing, they are quite close to each other. Anyway, why would you even want me to be your sister? That’s messed up.’ If we were siblings that would mean that all the medium petting we were doing up on that roof was technically incest. I’d read Flowers in the Attic though – maybe it wasn’t so bad.
‘What?’ he said, looking confused.
‘Think about what you’re actually saying! Brothers and sisters don’t do this. Oh God, just think about my brother … Gross! What’s wrong with you? You’re a pervert!’ I said, pushing him away from me.
‘Jeez, you’re the one who’s sick! I wasn’t thinking about it like that! I just meant … If you were my twin you wouldn’t have to go home at night. You could stay here with us. You could live in our house! We’d go on holiday together. We’d have fun all the time. That’s what I meant.’
‘Ah, so you’re a romantic pervert at least. Well that’s OK