I quickly swallowed the venom that was creeping its way onto my tongue and stretched a forced smile across my perspiring face. Eloise’s eyes skirted over Theo, dismissed him and moved back to me.
‘Eloise! It must be seven years at least.’ I allowed myself to be pulled into an affectionless embrace and gritted my teeth as Theo’s hand fell from mine, leaving a cold absence where it had been.
I felt Eloise’s shoulder blades poking through her skin as I rested my hand on her scrawny back. Her hair smelled expensive, like one of those shampoos that have non-fragrance names like, Pearl and Cotton or Jade and Diamond. What the hell does a pearl smell like anyway?
Eloise let me go and, as soon as I was free, I reached for Theo’s hand again and held it like a life ring in the middle of the open ocean. ‘How have you been?’ Not that I gave a rat’s ass.
Eloise had been my Regina George and Kate had been her Cady Heron. Eloise had pulled Kate into The Plastics and away from me. She’d made my life hell for years, Kate holding her tongue and allowing me to be torn to pieces, and now here we were, hugging and pretending we hadn’t wished each other dead only a few years earlier. What was that I could smell …? Oh yeah, bullshit!
‘Oh!’ She gestured dramatically, like an old-time thespian. ‘Life is good. I’m working for Talbot and Tallow as a publicist.’
‘Talbot and Tallow, the publishing company?’ My heart sank.
‘That’s the one.’ She took a sip of her Martini. ‘Only last week I was on a book tour with Benedict Cumberbatch promoting his autobiography.’
‘I didn’t think you were a big book person.’
‘Ha!’ She startled me with her aggressive single laugh. ‘I don’t read them. I just make other people think that they should.’
I felt my nostrils flare and Theo’s hand tightened around mine.
Happy thoughts, Effie. Happy thoughts.
‘Sounds amazing,’ I said through set teeth. ‘How did you get into that?
‘My uncle is a senior editor there, so he put in a good word. Not that I needed it.’ She grinned and flicked her platinum blonde hair over her skeletal shoulder.
‘How lucky.’
‘Not really. It’s easy to think of achievements as luck, but then that would just be me belittling myself, you know? People make their own luck in life, their own opportunities. If we didn’t, then where would we be?’ She laughed. ‘Still working as a barista and living in our parents’ houses.’
I hate you. I hate your laugh. I hate your hair that smells like pearls. I hate everything about you.
‘Yeah, imagine that.’ I clenched my jaw and tried to ignore the sinkhole of despair that was opening in my chest.
‘What about you, Eff? What are you doing these days?’ Eloise asked taking a sip and pressing her sienna-stained lips together. I winced at her use of my nickname; she hadn’t earned the right to forgo the last two letters of my name.
My mouth turned dry.
My tongue turned to paper.
I couldn’t tell her the truth and I hadn’t thought ahead and prepared a lie.
This was it. This was the moment when they would all find out that the loser I’d been at school was never a phase I had grown out of.
At that instant Theo leaned over, his hand outstretched towards Eloise. ‘I’m Theo, by the way. I thought it only polite to introduce myself.’ Eloise didn’t notice the dig. It gave me a momentary sense of relief from my all-encompassing fury.
‘Nice to meet you,’ she lied, looking at him like he was the skater boy from the old Avril Lavigne song.
‘Yeah, I know it is,’ he said. ‘Effie works for my family business as an antique dealer.’
I breathed a sigh of relief.
Eloise opened her mouth to say something when I heard my name being called from behind. I turned to see Kate walking towards me, my stomach sinking and panic rising in my chest when I realised that there was no hiding Kate from Theo now. In a few short moments he would finally see her in all her beauty and he’d realise he’d settled for corned beef when he could have been having fillet steak.
Kate was immaculately put together in a way that I never would be. Her hair hung in glossy curtains, framing her face like a Vermeer. Not a hair sat out of place as it shone in the subdued mood lighting of the room. Her skintight dress hugged her slender figure like it was a purple second skin and showed off her long, tanned legs. I imagined myself in that very dress and shuddered at the thought of exposing my short, congealed goose-fat thighs and corpse-coloured skin.
‘Effie! I didn’t think you’d make it.’ Kate arrived beside me, her heels making her a full foot taller. She dawdled for a moment, clearly not wanting to hug me in front of her fancy friends and muddy her dress with my mediocrity. Instead she turned to Theo. ‘And you brought a date. Hi, I’m Kate.’
‘Theo Morgan. Effie’s told me a lot about you.’ He shook her hand and my grip tightened on the other one, which was still clasped in mine. I was a lion defending its kill.
‘Only good things I hope.’
‘The best,’ Theo lied.
I had known Kate for almost the entirety of both of our lives and so I always knew when Kate fancied someone. And Kate most definitely fancied Theo.
I pulled the hand that I was holding around my waist, moving him closer. Theo looked slightly confused for a second before playing along and holding me by the waist.
‘Where’s Callum?’ I asked, quickly reminding Kate of her fiancé.
‘He’s sorting something in the kitchen, I think. We’ve been having some work done. The stonework surfaces are too easily stained so we’re having them changed.’
To what, I wondered, gold?
‘Oh, here he comes now,’ Eloise said, pointing to the bobbing dark-haired head of Callum, which was moving towards us.
‘He’s been a little stressed recently, what with the wedding and me moving away for a few months. We won’t even be able to have a honeymoon before I leave,’ Kate said.
‘Honeymoon?’ I asked, confused. ‘Don’t you have to get married before you go on a honeymoon?’
Callum arrived at Kate’s side and he placed a kiss on her cheek.
Callum was gorgeous, obviously – Kate would settle for no less. But I had never liked him; he always got my name wrong.
‘Hey, Elsie,’ he said with a grin. I couldn’t work out if he was dumb or if he was doing it on purpose.
‘Effie,’ I corrected him, sounding out the syllables. ‘My name’s Eff-ie.’
I’m sure he would have apologised, had he not been too preoccupied by wrapping his arms around Kate and nuzzling her ear.
I felt a little vomit rise up in my throat.
He moved his hand to rest on her perfectly toned stomach and my eyes found the gold band around his ring finger. ‘Did you already get married?’
Kate smiled and blushed with joy as she nodded and held out her bejewelled hand. ‘Yesterday! Can you believe it? All those years of sitting in your old room cutting pictures out of magazines and planning our big days and now mine’s been and gone.’
It took a moment to sink in and when it did, I felt the calmest I have ever felt in my entire life. It was almost as if I would never feel anything again. It was wonderful.
Then it ended and I forgot how to breathe.
‘Yeah!’ I stepped forward, letting Theo’s arm fall away. This was between me and her. ‘Except, when we planned our wedding days, we included each other in them.’ Theo shifted awkwardly and took a step back as if he was afraid of what I was going to say.
‘Oh, Eff, it was such a small ceremony. We wanted to get it done before I went away,’ Kate said, her head tilting as if she was talking to a child.
‘So, you already had this planned when I met you for coffee the other day? What was all that crap about you finding a place for me, then? Why bother lying if you knew I wouldn’t be there, Kate?’
‘Well, I … I …’ Kate stammered.
‘You didn’t invite
me to your wedding.’ I said the words again, as if clarifying it to myself. ‘How long were we friends, Kate? I mean real friends, not this ridiculous pantomime we’ve been doing recently. Fifteen years? That’s about right, yes, fifteen years of being as close as two people can be and you didn’t think that that made me worthy of an invitation to your wedding?’
‘Effie, it was such a small day.’ I saw a look of genuine distress on her perfectly contoured face. It didn’t make me back off; in fact it made me lunge in for the kill.
‘It was such a small day and I am such a small person. I don’t matter enough to even get a text about it.’ I felt this final betrayal lodge in my throat and stick there like dry bread. Years of bottled-up emotions and unspoken words were suddenly set free; the cage door unbolted, the words set loose.
‘You know what? I’m glad you didn’t invite me, because now we can finally put an end to this fake friendship.’
‘Effie, please, people are staring.’ Kate shot me a look of embarrassment and smiled awkwardly at the people that had gathered around us, silently eyeing us with interest.
‘I don’t give a crap if they’re staring or not!’ I spat. ‘I’ve known you longer than anyone in this room and yet I bet some of them were at your wedding.’ I held out my arm and gestured to the wide-eyed people around us. ‘None of them comforted you when your dad left. None of them sat in hospital with you when you had your appendix removed. None of them came and picked you up at 3 a.m. after you’d been clubbing and got lost in town. But they were all there, because they fit into what you want your life to be and sad, penniless, sloppy little Effie doesn’t quite suit the aesthetic.’
Kate had gone silent, her teeth on edge, her eyes fighting back tears; she always cried when people shouted at her. I bet most of them didn’t know that.
A waitress arrived with a tray of drinks, presumably to try and defuse the tension with Veuve Clicquot. I reached over and took a glass, swigging half of it down before speaking again. ‘Well, thanks for the invite, Kate. I’ll make sure to take advantage of the free bar. Think of it as a going-away present and after tonight you’ll never have to pretend to be my friend again.’ I turned to Callum who, by the look on his face, clearly hated the air I breathed. ‘Enjoy being her everything while it lasts, Callum. I certainly did.’
With that I pushed my way through the gawping crowd, managing to snatch a bottle of wine from a waiter and make it out onto the balcony before ending the fight with my tear ducts and letting my mascara run down my cheeks.
Chapter Eleven
Theo didn’t follow me outside and I was glad of it. I sat on the stone wall of the balcony with the bottle of Shiraz in my hand and my legs dangling over the abyss. The sound of the party regaining normality came muffled through the glass behind me. A few minutes after I stormed out onto the balcony, a young waitress, who fitted in there as much as I did, brought me several glasses of champagne and gave me a reassuring pat on the shoulder. I could see her checking up on me, every so often, through the gossamer curtains. Probably to make sure I hadn’t fallen off the building.
I wondered how high up I was – two hundred, three hundred feet? I’d never been very good at estimating.
I looked down, the ground nothing but a speckle of lights and an echo of sounds made fuzzy with the Shiraz that was doing its job of numbing me.
I would have stormed out and gone home, had I been safe in the knowledge that there was wine there, but I knew there wasn’t and payday wasn’t until Monday, so I’d stayed.
I wondered how long it would take to reach the ground, should I choose to push off with my heels and fall through the air.
Would I die when I hit the pavement below or would I just be horribly paralysed? I wondered if the fall would feel like when you hang your head out of the car window and the air rushes into your mouth so fast that you can’t catch your breath. If it was like that, then would I suffocate before I reached the ground? Would Theo use the epitaph I’d told him back in the treehouse?
I lifted the bottle to my lips. I’d found no use for the glass that the waitress had brought me; bottle to mouth was much faster. I pulled it away from my lips too quickly and the red liquid spilled and formed a puddle in my crotch, seeping into the denim like blood. Great, now people would think I was having an ill-timed period.
I glanced back at the people milling around inside behind the curtains and glass doors that separated us. There were so many of them. I wouldn’t be able to fill that room with my friends, even if it was a quarter of the size. I noticed three empty champagne glasses lying smashed on the floor and wondered who’d broken them, before remembering that it had been me after I’d downed them.
There was a centimetre or so of wine left in the bottle. I tipped it up and swallowed, before tossing the empty onto the ground behind me. It didn’t smash, just rolled over the uneven paving and made that tinkling noise that you don’t think you’ll grow so accustomed to hearing on a daily basis.
I’d known I had a problem a few years ago when I woke up at four in the morning, still in the bath, empty bottle of wine on the tiles, the glass sunken to the bottom of the tub and pink-tinged water cooling around me. The only thing that had stopped me from drowning was the inflatable neck pillow.
I’d tried to stop once or twice, but life was too sharp, too loud without it.
I swayed slightly, the wind making me teeter on the edge of a dramatic demise.
I mumbled to myself as I wiped at the wine in my crotch, grumbling unspoken arguments with Kate as I did.
‘Is this a private conversation or can others join in?’ Theo’s voice came from behind me. A moment later he hopped up to sit on the wall, his body facing the safety of the balcony floor and not the empty chasm of the night. He had a half-empty bottle of beer in his hand and his tie had been loosened.
‘I thought you would have left already,’ I slurred, looking out at the sparkling lights of the city that fuzzed like fireflies in my drunken eyes.
‘And miss Jeremy Kyle live? Never, it’s far more exciting in real life.’ He was trying to joke and pretend that everything was okay, but there was no hint of a smile in his voice. ‘No, I was busy being talked at by Kate.’
‘You in love with her yet?’
‘Oh yeah, ’cause I’m a sucker for bitchy, shallow women.’ He took my chin in his hand and turned my face to his. ‘Are you all right?’
I ignored his concern. ‘You spent half an hour talking with Kate?’
‘And others. I thought you’d want to be alone with your old pal, Shiraz, for a while. Some guy called Marcus came up to me and told me he knew you at school.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘My God, he likes the sound of his own voice, doesn’t he?’
‘Marcus Roe?’ I asked with panic in my voice. Theo nodded. ‘What did he tell you?’
‘Nothing. Why, is there something to tell?’ he asked with a curious gleam in his eye.
‘No. Absolutely nothing – shall we move on?’ I replied and turned back to the view, trying not to picture the last time I’d seen Marcus. I needed to get out of here without him seeing me.
Theo sighed and swigged at his beer. I watched him from the corner of my eye.
He fitted in here. He was beautiful, just like them. Beautiful things belonged together, not with me.
But for some reason he was out here talking to me and not in there fighting for a moment alone with Kate. There could only be one explanation: I was his bad pancake.
There was always one pancake that was a mess.
The one that falls apart, sticks to the pan and burns. It ends up being an ugly, sticky mess and all you can do is throw it in the bin and end its misery, before moving on to the proper thing. He might think he was falling for me now, but in a few weeks the novelty would wear off and he’d be gone.
‘You think you’re going to fall in love with me,’ I said, my half-closed eyes meeting his.
‘It might have crossed my mind,’ he replied. I drew closer and grinned.
‘You think I’m just having a rough time of it and, once you save me, I’ll be the perfect girl and I’ll stop being so bitter and angry and sad all the time. I’ll stop drinking and I’ll get myself a proper job. But I can’t stop being all of those things because that’s who I am. I can’t stop drinking because it’s all that gets me through life and I can’t get a better job because I can’t do anything of value except write and no one even thinks I can do that.’ I reached out for the wine, then remembered that the only bit that was left had soaked into my trousers. For a second I seriously considered taking them off and sucking it from the fabric.
Theo looked down at the ground and sighed loudly. ‘You know, this woe-is-me attitude is getting kind of old, Effie. You have a lot more than some people. You should treasure what you have.’
‘Go on then, Ghost of Christmas Present.’ I moved closer, my hot wine-scented breath dancing over his face. ‘What do I have?’
‘You have parents who love you, a place to live, a job that you enjoy. You’re healthy, intelligent and beautiful and you’re only twenty-eight. Your life hasn’t passed you by yet.’
‘If you say so,’ I said. His face was so close that he became nothing but a blur of blond hair and cheekbones. ‘You know, I realised something just now. This whole time I’ve been thinking that other people were the problem. My mum, my dad, Kate, Eloise “Fucking” Kempshore. But they’re all getting on just fine. They’re all navigating life like they were born to do it and I’m the one floundering. So, I must be the problem. The problem is me.’
‘You’re not a problem, Effie. You’re just in a terrible place right now.’
‘So, why are you wasting your time with me?’ I asked and motioned to the room of beautiful people on the other side of the glass doors. ‘I’m sure there’s someone more appropriate for you in there, someone beautiful, someone that’s not a train wreck.’
I saw his nostrils flare. He exhaled slowly before turning to me with angry eyes. ‘Exactly how shallow do you think I am, Effie?’
Very Nearly Normal Page 12
