Kate stared at her. As if she were in a museum, staring at a curiosity piece.
‘Hello, Kate,’ said Charly.
Almost calmly Kate noted Charly’s hair was thinner; perhaps that was the pregnancy, though, it sometimes made your hair fall out. She knew that, one of those random facts she’d picked up somewhere. It fell, lankly, about her shoulders, it was a bit too long.
‘What are you doing here?’ Kate said, steadying herself against the door. Everything felt as if it were in slow motion. She looked down, dreading seeing Charly’s pregnancy in evidence, the child she was carrying, hers and Sean’s baby. Charly had a neat, nice bump. She was wearing a stripey top, a pretty long gold chain, flat shoes, skinny jeans, a little jacket. The uniform of a thousand girls who cram into TopShop on Saturdays, only on someone heavily pregnant it looked different.
‘Did you get my letters?’ said Charly. She’d forgotten her voice, that curiously husky, yet high-pitched, slightly mockney voice. ‘I wasn’t sure.’
‘Yes,’ said Kate, nodding politely. ‘Yes, I did get them. Lovely, they were.’
‘I didn’t mean the stuff I –’ Charly began, but Kate interrupted her.
‘Look, Charly, I’m late, and I have to –’
When she looked back on this encounter, she found it hilarious that she might have just walked away because otherwise she’d have been ten minutes late for Lisa. Though she should have done – who was Charly to keep Lisa waiting?
‘I need to talk to you,’ said Charly simply.
‘OK,’ said Kate, crossing her arms. ‘Fire away.’
Charlie was waiting for her to expand on this; when she didn’t, she said, visibly discomfited, ‘Well – I want to say sorry.’
Kate watched her, breathing slowly. She just didn’t know how to react: why wasn’t she feeling more emotional? Why wasn’t she trying to kick Charly, why didn’t she spit on her, or run away, calling her vile names? Wasn’t that what she deserved? She was vulnerable now, so much more vulnerable than she’d been when they’d been friends. And she just couldn’t do it.
‘How did you know I was back?’ Kate said suddenly.
‘That doesn’t matter.’ Charly waved her hand, impatiently, and Kate saw a flash of the old Charly – imperious, careless of others, concerned only with herself, not this watered-down, colourless version in front of her now. ‘Can I – can I come up? I just want to talk to you for a moment.’
Kate stared at her, anger finally hitting her. ‘Are you serious? You want to come up – up to the flat? This flat?’
‘Yes,’ said Charly. She looked obstinate. ‘Only for a bit.’
‘No way!’ said Kate, almost laughing. ‘This is a joke.’ She walked down the steps, shaking her head. ‘I’m going, Charly, bye.’ She started walking down the road, as fast as possible.
‘Sean’s having an affair,’ Charly said loudly, after her.
It was eerily quiet on the street, and the words echoed. Kate stopped, and turned around.
‘What?’ she said.
‘He’s having an affair.’ Charly came down the steps, slowly; Kate noticed how she shuffled, her movements were painful. ‘With someone at work; I don’t know her, I know who she is, though.’
There were lines around Charly’s mouth that hadn’t been there before, sharp little lines that made her lips look like a rosette when she spoke. From smoking, Kate knew; from sucking on endless cigarettes, pursing her mouth; she looked again at Charly, and she couldn’t even remember why they’d been so close, but she felt a pang of sympathy for her, for this girl in this situation. This girl. Because Charly was this girl, the one who’d taught her how to do tequila slammers, taught her how to chat someone up in a bar, made her grow her hair and ditch the glasses, sat through countless shopping expeditions, patiently saying Yes or No to everything Kate tried on. Who’d argued with their landlord when they needed a new sofa, insisted on sending back a bottle that was corked, who’d stayed in on Friday nights with her, watching ‘Friends’ and ‘Frasier’. She had made her laugh, made her confident, made her feel like a person in her own right in the world. She had shaped her life, been a shot in the arm, been the spark on a fuse.
Kate had forgotten all of that.
She’d had to.
And now –
She faced her. ‘What do you want me to do about it? Sympathize? I know how you feel.’
‘Yes, you must,’ said Charly, quietly. ‘Look –’ she grabbed Kate by the arm. ‘Let’s just go there and talk, can we?’ She gestured to the pub down the road. ‘That’s why I’ve been writing to you. When I knew you were coming back – look
–’ she licked her lips; her eyes were misty with unshed tears. Kate was transfixed. ‘I have to make my peace with you, before this baby comes. I sort of think it’ll make everything alright.’ She swayed a little on her feet.
‘You OK?’
‘I need to sit down,’ she said, impatiently, with a flash of the old Charly. ‘Fuck it. Just one coffee or something. Sean’s picking me up in an hour.’ Kate’s eyes flew wide open. ‘It’s OK, he’s just going to wait around the corner, you can be gone by then. God I hate being pregnant.’ Kate was silent. ‘I do. I wish I was …’
Don’t say it, Kate thought, please don’t say it.
‘I wish this had never happened. I wish I’d never met him.’
Kate wanted to walk away; she was repulsed by her, by what she was saying, by the fact that Steve was dead because of her and Sean. But she couldn’t just leave her there. Walk away and not finish this.
‘OK,’ said Kate. ‘I’ll need to call my stepmother. Just one coffee, then.’
The pub was twenty yards away; anonymous, brown, neutral, serving burgers and tapas and coffee for young professionals, not old men. It was slightly soulless; Kate had never been in there before, and she was glad of that, suddenly. She turned to Charly.
‘I’ve only got fifteen minutes. OK?’
‘Fine,’ said Charly.
They walked into the pub, silently, and sat down.
‘It was the attraction mixed with the dislike, you know,’ said Charly, sipping her coffee, rubbing her stomach, her feet up on the other side of the banquette. ‘I was so used to getting anyone, I know it sounds crap, but I was. He was different, you know. He really hated me.’
Kate nodded. She had made up her mind to say as little as possible. She was just going to ride out the numbness, the absence before the pain starts, when the plaster is pulled off.
‘He hated me and then, one day when you were out of the flat – you’d gone to a meeting about your new job – he came over; you were late. I said he was being rude, he just ignored me and sat there waiting for you.’ She curled a section of hair around her finger; god, thought Kate, she doesn’t even know I’m here. ‘Then we had a big argument and suddenly – well …’ She trailed off. ‘We were doing it. In the sitting room.’ She looked away at the memory.
‘God, I hated him,’ she said. ‘Really despised him, for making out he was such a wannabe family man, all lovey-dovey with you, crawling up to your dad and all your friends, and then fucking me when you were out, or Jem was out, or … wherever we could.’
Kate didn’t feel angry. She wondered, almost curiously, why, how she could hear Charly talking like this and not feel anger. She just felt sad for her younger self, for how stupid she must have looked.
‘The day of your dad’s wedding, you know? He was vile to me all day, and then he was furious because he couldn’t have me. And what did he do? He proposed to you instead.’ She shook her head, marvelling at herself, at him. ‘His face the next day, when you came out of your room and told me …’ Kate swallowed. ‘Like it was a game, you know? Part of it all. We were so into each other, the things we would do to each other, it was like a drug. It scared me. I think we both wanted to get caught, by the end. I certainly did.’ She stirred her coffee, and looked directly up at Kate. ‘I was glad when you walked in on us.’ Her eyes opened. ‘Fuck me. Isn’t that awful. Really glad. I thought, OK, well at least it’s out in the open now. I was glad.’
Kate spoke then, her voice craggy with misuse. ‘But – Charly, what happened after – how can you look at it like that?’
‘Well, of course that was awful,’ said Charly. ‘Of course it was.’ She looked uncomfortable. ‘Absolutely devastating.’
This is unreal, Kate thought. She’s a robot. She’s not a real person at all. She said, tentatively,
‘Did you feel like maybe … with Steve’s death and everything … that you had to stay together, after all of that? Prove it was real to everyone?’
‘Of course not,’ said Charly, sharply. ‘We were always going to end up together, me and Sean. We just wouldn’t have wanted that to happen. That’s all.’
Kate didn’t know what to say. Because she just didn’t believe her.
They made polite conversation after that. Where was she having the baby? The Whittington? How nice. What was she going to do, would she go back to work? Three days a week at
Woman’s World
, she’d see how it went. They were living near Bethnal Green, how was the flat? Good, great, but Sean had to do some more work to the nursery, he was being crap about it, and he still hadn’t finished the plastering in the hall, it was really annoying… It was funny, how hilariously perfectionist Sean had been about getting their flat right. He’d obviously tired of DIY. Kate told her about seeing Sue Jordan, but she was unwilling to discuss much more, there was something about Charly that deeply unsettled her now. Something desperate, as if a part of her had died and the rest of her knew it but couldn’t work out quite what was wrong. She seemed to have shrunk, too – Kate realized that her heels were always so high it gave the impression of natural height. And when they were living together – well, she’d just been a different girl, brash, totally sure of herself. Kate had been pretty much the opposite.
Strange, then, that she had everything Kate had wanted, and Kate didn’t want it any more. She wanted to be on her own, to walk to the tube station and go and see her dad, her sister and her stepmother. She was so, so glad she didn’t have to get in a car and go home with Sean. Strange, she barely thought of him. She hadn’t allowed herself to, so angry she had been with him, but so strange that he should have slipped out of her life so easily. When leaving Zoe, Francesca, her father, Dani and Lisa, not to mention Mac – leaving all those people behind in London caused her pain, constant, low-level pain.
I thought I was dead inside, she told herself, as Charly described in some detail the new girl at
Woman’s World
. I thought I’d shut all of that out … and that’s the reason it made me so unhappy. Because I love them, I love them all. And shutting out Charly and Sean – it was easy, because they’re … not the people I thought they were.
The realization hurt her, but it comforted her too, because that’s what real life is all about. It hurts to love people, because you expose yourself to them, and they can hurt you, so much. Here, in front of her, was the girl in whom Kate had had complete, idolizing faith, and she had broken her heart. She, and Sean.
Charly’s phone vibrated on the table, jangling loudly into Kate’s thoughts. She started.
‘Oh …’ said Charly, picking it up. ‘He’s waiting round the corner.’
‘In case I go mad at the sight of him and throw something at him?’ Kate said, trying not to sound like that was exactly what she wanted to do. Charly smiled vaguely, like she wasn’t really taking it in.
‘Yeah …’ she put the phone in her bag, without replying. ‘Listen. We have to talk about it. Did you know?’
Kate didn’t understand what she meant. She shook her head, curiously.
‘Did you know … when he was cheating on you?’
‘Oh.’ Kate felt awkward. Just because it made her feel stupid. ‘Er … you know what? I don’t see why I should tell you.’ She smoothed her fingers across the wooden varnish of the table, leaving a fingerprint smear.
Charly’s head drooped a little; she stroked her bump, for the first time. ‘OK. OK, yes. Of course. I can see why.’
Glad you can see why, you fucking
mentalist
, Kate wanted to shout, but she didn’t; she couldn’t. Instead, unbending a little, she said, ‘Look. If you want to know … No. I had no idea. I trusted him, which was my mistake.’ She paused. ‘You’ll never trust him, will you?’
‘What do you mean?’ said Charly, blinking violently, as if someone was shining a bright light in her face.
‘I mean, you can’t trust him, because when you met him he was my boyfriend, my fiance, and you were sleeping with him behind my back for – what, two years? When I was your best friend, you were everything to me, he was everything to me.’ She smiled, to hide her grimacing, as tears filled her eyes. She blinked them back, as if she were surprised at their appearance. ‘And you wonder why you can’t trust him after that? How could he betray me like that? How could you? So the two of you are locked together in this kind of weird old web of …’ she was running out of words, now, ‘web of
something
, I don’t know, and you deserve each other, you
deserve each other, Charly
, and I can’t feel sorry for you. Because he did it before and it ruined my life and it did, actually, kill someone. Or had you forgotten that bit?’
Charly flicked her hand, languidly, even though she was still blinking, strangely. ‘Of course I hadn’t. But this is different, this time. It’s some girl at his company, I know who she is –’
‘Shut up,’ said Kate, standing up. ‘Look, just shut up, I’m going.’ She grabbed her purse and keys, and turned
around, and there he was, Sean was in the doorway, twice as large and American-football-player-handsome as she remembered, and she just stared at him. Her hands flung out involuntarily and her purse slid to the floor. She bent down to pick it up, and he said,
‘Kate. Hi. So …’
His eyes raked over her; Kate raised her hand to her ponytail, swinging behind her head, and clenched her hair in her hand. She gritted her teeth.
‘Hi,’ she said, and she raised herself up as tall as she could, thanking the Lord and all His seraphim for her height, the gangliness at school that she used to hate and now loved, and the fact that she had put her high-heeled boots on that morning. ‘I was just going actually. Bye, Sean.’