by Jenny Oliver
‘I was really sorry to hear about your mum.’ Anna said then, completely out of any context, as Rachel was standing with her hand on the gate.
Rachel tipped her head and looked slightly puzzled, then nodded and said after a moment’s pause, ‘That’s OK. Thank you.’
‘I really liked her,’ Anna said as the rain lashed down between them.
Rachel laughed. ‘Me too.’ Then, as the pouring water seemed to get heavier and the thunder rolled in closer, Rachel said. ‘Just stay till it stops raining if you like. Anna?’
And Anna did the one thing that she never thought she would do in front of anyone ever, especially not in front of Rachel of all people. She cried. Big, heavy tears that merged with the rain and would have been disguised had Anna not let out a sob when she opened her mouth to say, No, I’ll keep going thank you. But she hadn’t said that because Rachel had let go of the bike and run over and put her arm around her shoulders and led her inside the picturesque little cottage and closed the door on the rain.
‘But I do not understand. Why would you go on the Internet dating if you have already found a person that you want?’ Philippe, the dashing French bistro owner and seemingly Rachel’s husband, lounged back in his chair at the head of the kitchen table. ‘I would be glad that I didn’t have to go on the Internet.’ Then he sat forward, his brow furrowed, ‘You put people into Yeses and Nos?’ He blew out a breath, ‘It is like the animals, non? Too fat, too skinny, too ugly to eat.’
They were seated around a big farmhouse kitchen table, its surface soft from use, the raw wood scratched and beaten. Anna felt like she’d been gathered up in warm blankets as she blew her nose on a big, soft Kleenex and sipped from a steaming mug of tea, perfectly brewed and in a chunky white mug with uneven edges, hand-thrown on the potter’s wheel. On the table was a bunch of hydrangeas in a jug, big and pink like footballs on sticks. Philippe was opposite her, drinking a glass of red wine and cutting furiously into one of Rachel’s fruit tarts, kiwi and crème patisserie falling onto the little plate. When she had walked in all wet and red-faced, he had looked her up and down and said, ‘It is the antique girl who sits at my table and orders nothing.’ Then he smiled and she had done another humiliating sob. They had both been so kind to her that, in a moment of unfamiliar vulnerability, she had recounted her whole sorry tale.
‘Tindle.’ Philippe said through a mouthful of pastry.
‘Tind-er.’ Rachel had corrected.
‘Amadou.’ Philippe nodded.
‘What does that mean?’
‘In French Tinder is Amadou. The dry wood, for the fire.’
‘Dead wood.’ Anna blew her hair out of her eyes. ‘How apt.’
‘Luke Lloyd.’ Rachel sucked in a breath. ‘Of all people.’
Anna had to look away. She remembered, suddenly, not just axing Rachel as a friend but as part of her defence mechanisms actively building her up as an enemy, so clearly aware of the heart she wore on her sleeve. Her kindness and sweetness became something suddenly easier to disparage. One of Anna’s more despicable moments coming after Hermione had stolen Rachel’s diary and they’d found Luke’s name surrounded by hearts. Anna had persuaded him to sit by Rachel in the square, lean in for a kiss and, as Rachel closed her eyes ready, to walk away. She shut her eyes when she thought about it now, too embarrassed to look up, she cut into her own little tart, blackcurrants and figs delicately arranged in slices on top of the dense, wobbling crème and pastry that snapped sharp in two as she pushed the side of her fork down into it. The taste in her mouth was like summer, reminding her of sitting round the table at the back of Rachel’s mum’s bakery eating warm chocolate croissants that her mum would make before their eyes and drinking thick, gloopy hot chocolate out of mugs with no handles so that they would grasp them with both hands like a bowl and drink till only the lump of unmelted goo at the bottom remained. That was before Mrs Hall their ballet teacher had pulled Anna’s mother aside, before she had been told to dream of higher things. Of a path speckled with diamonds. Before her family had cracked down the middle. Before Rachel’s mother, who had watched the moment with Luke through the window of the bakery, and seen her little girl left flustered as Anna and Hermione giggled behind a plane tree, had turned to Anna and said, ‘You were a lovely little girl once. I hope you’re ashamed of yourself.’
Hermione had done a disparaging snort while Anna had pretended to sneer, but had felt her insides shake with self-disgust.
The doorbell rang as Anna was chewing the fruit tart and Rachel went to answer it while Philippe continued to muse over the story, ‘And Seb, he has slept with Melissa Hope. Rachel...do I know this Melissa Hope?’
‘Philippe!’ Rachel hissed, ‘You can’t ask things like that.’
He shrugged, ‘Why not? It is the facts, non?’
‘Melissa Hope?’ Anna’s dad’s voice echoed from the hallway, ‘Who’s slept with Melissa Hope?’
‘Who hasn’t slept with Melissa Hope?’ Hermione sneered as she strutted in, wearing plain skinny jeans and a marl-grey vest but still managing to look like a catwalk model.
‘Seb,’ said Philippe, ‘Seb. ’
Hermione nearly choked on her own surprise while Anna’s father sighed and said, ‘I knew it. I knew it, what did I tell you, Anna?’
‘Oh sod off. And don’t lecture me when you’re shagging my best friend.’
Philippe snorted a laugh. ‘Ah, très bon, the English countryside, it is full of the sex and scandal, oui.’
‘Philippe!’ Rachel thwacked him on the shoulder to get him to pipe down, then turned to the group in front of her and said, ‘Would anyone like tea?’
Philippe blew out a breath, ‘I think it is time for wine.’ Then, as Anna’s dad nodded in agreement, Philippe collected a varying array of wine glasses, some tall, some short and squat and sploshed out the rest of the vin rouge. ‘Ah, Melissa Hope. I know who she is now. She is the one with the bottom?’
Rachel did a tiny nod, as if hoping that might be the end of it.
Philippe blew out a breath. ‘It is huge. Huge,’ he said, spreading his arms wide, ‘It is like the rhinoceros. She could kill someone with this bottom.’ He handed out the wine and then raised his brows at Anna, ‘You are lucky he is still alive.’
Hermione guffawed. ‘Marvellous. I like this man.’
Anna shot her a look, ‘Maybe you should have sex with him, too.’
‘Anna!’ Her dad said sharply.
‘Please don’t,’ said Rachel, as if Hermione could just snap him up with effortless ease. Anna glanced between them and realised how incongruous it was to have them in the same room together. Sweet childhood friend Rachel and Hermione, who had fitted Anna’s teenage criteria perfectly, a wicked combination of terrifying confidence and complete disinterest in anyone but herself. She would ask Anna nothing simply because if it wasn’t happening right at that very minute, if she couldn’t kiss it, drink it, wear it or sneer at it, she wasn’t interested.
Philippe waved a hand. ‘No one is having the sex. Well, except Seb, and I don’t know what is going on between the two of you.’ He pointed towards Anna’s dad and Hermione, as Rachel shut her eyes like it was all so unBritish that she had to try and block it out.
‘He didn’t have sex with her,’ Anna muttered.
‘Sounds like New York might have come just at the right time, darling,’ Hermione took a sip of her wine and rolled it around in her mouth, ‘This is divine.’ She beamed at Philippe who waved a hand and said, ‘Naturellement.’
‘You’re going to New York? You’re leaving?’ Her father said, and the tone of his voice, one of more disappointment than shock, took her by surprise.
‘Non, you cannot leave. It would be running away.’ Philippe shook his head and rolled down the corners of his lips.
‘You left a relationship that wasn’t working.’ Rachel said to Philippe, inclining her head and playing devil’s advocate.
Philippe stood up and went over to the window, throwing it
open to let in the post-thunderstorm air. He took a deep breath and said, ‘Ah, the smell of English summer, la belle Nettleton. Yes, I left my first marriage but we tried for a long time to make it work and there was no love. Whereas here…’ He waved a hand in Anna’s direction. ‘Here I think there is love but they play this crazy game. Here there is madness.’
‘I agree.’ Her dad sat back in his chair, crossing one leg over the other. ‘A marriage can never last when the love’s gone…’
‘Oh don’t you start.’ Anna swung round. ‘Don’t try and justify your failed relationships. You certainly didn’t try for a long time to make it work, you ran off with the first woman you saw as far as I can tell.’
‘Anna—’ He warned.
‘Well it’s true. If you hadn’t bloody run off with that woman, none of this would have happened.’
She saw his jaw clench. ‘You can’t blame me for what’s happening in your life now, Anna. At some point you have to take responsibility for your own actions.’
‘Like you have? You ruined her life. That was it. She couldn’t do anything after that.’ Anna shook her head.
‘Anna, it was never going to work with your mother and me. We wanted completely different things. We were completely different people. We probably should never have got married, and she should never have left Spain.’
Anna stared at the hydrangeas on the table. The hundreds of small flat flowers making up one great ball, if she squinted her eyes she could merge them all into one. When we live in Sevilla, Anna… had been her mum’s favourite saying when Anna was a child, and her dad had always shifted uncomfortably in his seat when she’d said it. Anna had known they were never going to live in Spain even when she was tiny and she had always wondered why her mum hadn’t realised. It was like the fantasy life just around the corner.
Her dad knocked back his glass of wine and said, ‘She should have just said that she married the wrong person, made a mistake and gone back, but appearances have always been too important to your mother.’
She saw Rachel look down into her lap and Hermione shift uncomfortably in her seat.
‘You don’t have to make her mistakes. Our mistakes, Anna,’ he said, running his hand over his stubble and sighing. ‘You make your own history.’
There was a pause where even Philippe seemed to be at a loss for what to say. The fresh, rain-scented air was circling through the room as they all sipped politely on their wine. Anna kept her eyes fixed on the hydrangeas.
‘OK,’ Philippe said in the end. ‘Let us look at what is happening. You have gone on the website because you are bored here. Oui. And you are maybe testing your relationship?’
‘I actually encouraged her to do that.’ Hermione piped up proudly. ‘I sometimes think she could do better.’
‘Better?’ Philippe put his hands in the air. ‘Better what? Better sex? Better money? Better clothes? What is better? And is it better for you or for Anna?’ He blew out a long breath of frustration. ‘This is the problem. We should not get involved in other people’s relationships because we are all looking for different things. You, you think you are looking for sex, non? But maybe it is something else. Maybe it is that you are afraid to commit?’ Hermione pouted and sat back, unable to answer. ‘What do you think is the problem, Anna? Do you think maybe you are a little afraid, too?’ he asked.
Anna snorted, ‘No!’ she laughed, and then looked around at the group, embarrassed by the very idea of it.
‘I think maybe you are a little afraid,’ he said, twirling the stem of his glass.
‘Of what?’ Anna rolled her eyes.
‘You tell me.’ Philippe shrugged.
‘Maybe of missing out?’ Hermione chipped in, leaning forward and crossing her arms languidly over her knees.
‘I don’t think so.’ Rachel shook her head. ‘I think maybe it’s just all the stuff with the wedding. You know, the uncertainty of the venue.’
‘I think she’s afraid of failing.’ It was her father who said it, who didn’t sit forward or say it in a questioning tone but rather just a matter-of-fact statement. ‘I think it stems from something your mother would have told you. Something she’d have drummed in over and over again.’ He paused for a second and studied her. Then he said, quietly, ‘If you’re looking for her approval, then just stop. Anna, you’ll never get it.’
Anna swallowed, felt her bottom lip quiver slightly and bit down on it to keep it still. ‘I’m not afraid of failing.’ She said stubbornly.
Her father shrugged and shook his head.
‘That is good, because you hardly winning at the moment, are you, Anna?’ Philippe raised a brow and Rachel hit him on the leg for being so inappropriate.
After the wine was finished and the conversation had moved from Anna’s turbulent love life to polite small-talk, everyone filed out into the now cooler evening air. Hermione strutted next to Anna’s dad, glancing over her shoulder at Anna, who was dutifully ignoring her, Philippe was leaning in the doorway swirling the last remains of the wine in his glass round in his hand, while Anna followed Rachel who was going to lend her her bike to get home.
As Rachel lifted the bright-blue bicycle from where it leant against the fence, she apologised for Philippe’s bluntness, but Anna laughed it off. ‘Don’t worry, it was good for me. I enjoyed him.’
‘Well, he’s an acquired taste,’ Rachel smiled.
‘You’re lucky.’ Anna smiled back, taking the bike and liking the feel of it in her hands. It had been a while since she’d pedalled down country lanes. ‘God, I don’t think I’ve ridden since…’ She paused to think about it, ‘Probably since with you.’ Two little girls riding as fast as they could down hills and through fields, hair streaming, knees bleeding from where they’d fallen off, daring each other to keep their mouths and eyes open as they hurtled through clouds of midges.
Anna’s mum had given her bike to the neighbour’s kid when her ballet teacher had advised against cycling and the contradicting forces on the muscles in her back.
Rachel tapped the handlebar, ‘Well, as they say, you never forget how to do it.’
Anna nodded, but thought how easy it was to forget everything else. Rachel had been her friend as a kid and she had just wiped that out. Her only aim when coming back to Nettleton ‒ to try and stop her dad pushing for her to come and visit again. If she was bad enough, then she could just stay at the EBC School and close the door on that part of her life. On the faces that peered through windows as her mum had thrown all his clothes out the window, and the people who had watched in the square as her mother had faced up to Molly, the auctioneer, and stood as close as she could get and spat, You proud of yourself, you little slut? You have sex in my bed, did it feel good? Destroying my family?
‘Why are you so nice to me?’ Anna asked Rachel as they stood there with the bike. She could see Hermione out of the corner of her eye, pausing on the threshold of her dad’s house. She knew she’d be watching and wanting to know what they were talking about.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’ Rachel shrugged, ducking away as a huge Bumblebee bobbed past.
‘You know—’ Anna said, ‘Because I was such a bitch to you. If I was you, I’d be gleefully watching in the corner now.’
Rachel nodded her head from side to side, undecided, and said, ‘It was obvious that you were just so upset back then. We all knew it.’
‘It was?’ Anna thought she’d handled it all quite well. Her mask of emotionless uncaring every time she stepped foot back in the village. It was unnerving to think that anyone might have interpreted this so easily as weakness.
‘Yeah. Definitely. And I suppose I liked being your friend. I liked you and while, yeah, you were a cow, I think there was part of me that just wanted you to want to be friends with me again.’ Rachel shrugged. ‘Weak, huh.’ Anna shook her head, kicking the wet grass with her toe, as Rachel went on. ‘I was a bit jealous of you as well. I wanted to be in London living this glamorous ballet-star lifestyle.’ Rachel laughed.
‘We were stuck here doing gym with Mrs McNamara. And then you came back all cool and strong and, while my mum would tell me it was a front, I was terrified of you.’ She laughed again. ‘You were pretty damn scary.’
‘Really?’ Anna made a face, although looking back on it she could imagine being a bit scared of herself if she met her now. She thought of the look on the face of Farah Fawcett Lucy in Razzmatazz.
‘When everyone would say that you were going to be a star, I would secretly wish that you weren’t. Sorry, I shouldn’t say it, should I? I just wanted you to come back and it all to go back to normal, but it never did.’
‘I’m really sorry for how I was. I’m ashamed to look back on it,’ Anna admitted. The relief of saying it was like shrugging off a big, old, heavy fur coat.
Rachel smiled. ‘It’s just nice to see you now. You don’t forget do you, your childhood friends.’ As Anna shook her head, Rachel added with a cheeky grin, ‘And I think maybe you’ve got your Luke Lloyd comeuppance.’
Anna rolled her eyes, then got on the bike and walked it out backwards through the gate. ‘Yeah, that’s true,’ she said as she straightened up and started to pedal, the bike leaning precariously to the right making her brake straight away. She laughed, ‘Oh god, now I’ve got to remember how to ride a bike!’ Then tried again and tilted again, ‘This may take me slightly longer than I anticipated.’
‘You’ll get there.’ Rachel leant her hands on the fence and Philippe came up to join her.
‘She is not very good on the bicycle,’ he said.
‘But I’m getting there!’ Anna shouted over her shoulder, unable to turn around now she was sort of pedalling and the bike was sort of moving, more wobbling, and she was braking too hard every time she picked up any speed. ‘I’m getting there,’ she shouted, and then laughed and they watched her get smaller and smaller as the endless road stretched out ahead of her.
