by Rebecca Reid
Which was how they had ended up together. Brett had asked her out seven times, always polite but somehow determined that eventually she would say yes. And he had been right. Not only had she agreed to a drink with him, she had surprised herself by enjoying his company.
‘Sure thing,’ he called back from the en-suite. ‘Jesus, she’s got hotel shampoos in here!’ He bounded out of the bathroom with fistfuls of L’Occitane.
‘You can steal them, if you like,’ Nancy laughed as she stripped off her jeans and jumper and began to take neatly pressed dresses and blouses from her suitcase and hang them in the white wardrobe.
‘How do you look so amazing after that flight?’
Nancy looked down at her body, pretending to be surprised that her nudity was having this effect. ‘Do I?’
Brett nodded. ‘Irresistible.’
She laughed again. Everything about Brett was so male. Her want for him was biological. ‘Want to fuck?’ she asked.
‘We can’t, can we?’ he replied. ‘They’re all waiting for us downstairs.’
Nancy slipped her hand into her knickers by way of an answer. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m going to come, whether you help me or not.’
Brett didn’t need to be asked twice. As Nancy ran her hand down his back and felt the tautness of his skin, she thought, for the hundredth time, how joyful it was to fuck someone younger than her. Someone full of aggression and life. He moaned into her ear and she writhed against his body, yelping.
‘Shh,’ Brett groaned. ‘They’ll hear us.’ Nancy pretended to look horrified. ‘Don’t worry,’ he whispered, kissing her neck. ‘This place is huge. Hopefully they didn’t hear.’
She practically screamed as she came.
Brett insisted on showering. While he did, Nancy inspected the room. Any missed spot of dust would mortify Georgia and probably mean her current cleaner got the axe. Luckily for the staff at least, there was nothing. Georgia had made an effort, she noticed. It pleased her. Bunches of identical flowers – fat pink ones – had been placed in the room, one either side of the bed on little bedside tables. White robes on the back of the door. Moisturizer on the dressing table. ‘You’re running a boutique hotel,’ she would say when she went downstairs. And Georgia wouldn’t quite know if it was a compliment or an insult.
Listening to the noise of the shower, she looked at the clock on the wall. Brett was always at least ten minutes in the shower, and he had only been in there for five. She had time. She slipped from the room, padding down the corridor and up another flight of stairs to Georgia’s room. She pushed open the door, feeling it drag across the deep pile of the carpet. She shouldn’t be in here. She knew that. If they were normal friends it would be impossibly strange. But they weren’t. Nancy knew that too. She assumed the others did as well. They were like three strands of a vine which had been trained into one, bound together first with wire but then with nothing but time. Other people might have a few shared anecdotes and some amusing fragments of memory with their school friends. Nancy, Georgia and Lila had blood. So no, she shouldn’t have been here, but there was nothing surprising about it, and she knew that Georgia would do the same, given half a chance.
Under the bed there was a box of ovulation sticks and a box of pregnancy tests, both half used. Nothing remarkable, other than that they were hidden. It would have been far less strange to keep them under the sink. The fact that they wanted children was no secret, nor was the idea that they were trying. This couldn’t be the extent of it. There had to be more. She pulled open the bedside tables. Books, tissues, painkillers, bottles of water. Nothing. It was like Georgia was taunting her. Nothing else under the bed. Nothing in the chest at the end of the bed, just clean linens which smelt of roses and laundry. Pausing to listen for feet on the stairs, she went to the walk-in wardrobe. Her heart was quick in her chest, but she knew no one would come. They would be too busy downstairs grilling Georgia for details about Brett. There was a pile of shoeboxes on the top shelf. Noting the exact order that the boxes were stacked in, Nancy reached up and grappled to get purchase with her fingertips, and eventually they came down. This was going to be it, she knew it. She lifted the lid off the Ralph Lauren box. A pair of pumps. Excited, she yanked the lid off the Gucci box. A pair of heels.
The last box was a boot box – longer than the others. The corner of this box was wrinkled, like it had been opened hundreds of times. Nancy knew this was the one. She took a breath. The box was heavy. The wrong kind of heavy for boots. A solid, even sort of weight. What could it be? Booze? No. It wouldn’t be booze. She could drink as much as she wanted in her kitchen, no one would notice, let alone question. This was something she didn’t want Charlie to see. A thought entered Nancy’s mind. Perhaps she should leave it. Maybe she didn’t need to know what was inside? The thought was a nice one. It soothed the churning in her stomach. It reminded her that she was a good person. She had good thoughts. She had good instincts. Mollified by the knowledge that she didn’t have to, that she could go without, her hands stretched out and she opened the lid.
Fifteen, maybe twenty Babygros, rolled into little cloth sausages. All in shades of white and yellow and cream. Bibs. Socks. Tiny jumpers. The box was packed full. There wasn’t space for another single item, no matter how tiny. It was as if Georgia had promised herself one box, but no more than one. As if she believed that once one box was full she would be able to stop. Nancy put the lid back on the box, the crinkled corner in the same spot it had been before, and placed the boxes back. She sighed, trying to decide what to do with the information.
Later, perhaps, it would be of some use.
NOW
Lila
Lila had decided that Georgia was being weird. Every time Lila tried to speak to her, she found an excuse to get away. She had a skittish look about her, a bit like she used to when she was acting and would be nervous before she went on stage. After they’d bickered over an appropriate outfit – with Georgia turning down anything even slightly interesting and having a major freak-out at the idea of Lila slightly altering a skirt – she’d dressed Georgia in a green jumpsuit she’d apparently bought and never worn and a pair of heeled ankle boots. The boots had been a compromise – the outfit would have looked better with strappy heels, but Lila knew to pick her battles. Georgia had originally reached for a pair of very Kate Middleton nude heels and Lila had felt herself die a bit inside. She’d added a couple of long gold chain necklaces, and talked Georgia into letting her put her hair into a high bun, and stain her lips a dark plum colour. While her friend had seemed unconvinced by the transformation, Charlie had had a different reaction when he arrived home from work.
‘You’re a genius, Cammy!’ he had told her, putting his arms around Georgia. ‘She looks like a new woman.’
Georgia had done the wrinkled face thing and acted like she wasn’t pleased, but she must have been. Her husband was saying how great she looked. What was not to like?
‘Do you want another top-up, Lila?’ asked Georgia. Lila heard the way she said ‘another’. But that was just Georgia. Judgy-Georgia.
‘Yes please,’ she said, catching Charlie’s eye as Georgia poured. ‘A bit more than that. What are you, Methodist or something?’
Charlie laughed, maybe a bit too loud. They shouldn’t flirt, at least not too much. They’d always got on well. At Charlie and Georgia’s wedding they’d ended up dancing on the tables, Charlie pouring a bottle of Grey Goose into Lila’s mouth, until she’d been sick all over her bridesmaid dress. But she never meant to be disloyal to Georgia. She loved coming over. The kitchen was long and warm and safe, with French windows and cooking smells, and everything you could need to make a room feel welcoming. Lila loved it here. She didn’t want Georgia to stop inviting her to hang out.
She reached her arm out to Roo. ‘Come here, baby,’ she cooed, making her voice softer. He put his glass down on the counter and came to wrap his arms around her torso.
‘What do you need, Cammy?’
; ‘Nothing. Only you.’
Lila looked up at the ceiling above her. ‘Did anyone hear that?’
‘Hear what?’ asked Georgia. ‘What did you hear?’
The same high-pitched noise, again. Lila giggled. ‘Is that … Nancy?’
Georgia’s face drained. Lila’s giggles turned into real laughter. She couldn’t remember the last time anything had been this funny. ‘It’s Nancy and whatshisname!’
‘Shhh,’ said Roo, ‘I want to hear!’
‘You pervert!’ laughed Charlie, who was also cocking his ear to the ceiling and listening out. ‘Turn the music down, Georgia!’
Georgia rolled her eyes but she must have secretly wanted to know because she did as Charlie asked. They all stood, frozen in the centre of Georgia’s massive kitchen, waiting.
‘Maybe they’ve stopped?’ said Georgia.
A long, high-pitched yelp made all four of them burst into laughter. ‘Do you think that’s her, or him?’ asked Charlie as he regained his breath.
‘If you’d seen him, you wouldn’t need to ask,’ grinned Georgia.
‘Oh really?’ said Charlie, pouring himself a beer and offering one to Roo. He looked tired, Lila thought. She didn’t blame him. Twenty-four hours a day of Georgia must be exhausting.
‘Are you sure you want beer, Charlie?’ asked Georgia in a voice that was supposed to tell him how to answer. Lila giggled. Charlie was going to get in trouble. ‘There’s lovely white wine in the fridge.’
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ said Charlie, leaving no room for argument. Lila tried to catch his eye, to smile at him. ‘Now, tell me about the man who finally managed to tame Nancy Greydon. Am I going to be jealous?’
‘Is he fit?’ asked Lila.
Everyone Lila had ever seen Nancy with had been good-looking, but never sexy. Lots of super-clean guys with heavyset jaws and Ken-doll hair. Lila had stayed with her in Boston before she’d got pregnant with Inigo and she’d been shocked by how amazingly boring all of Nancy’s boys were. She’d asked about it once, in a taxi back from a bar where her dull boyfriend had plied them with drinks and talked about himself before picking up the bill. ‘Huge cock,’ Nancy had replied matter-of-factly.
‘Yes,’ said Georgia. ‘I have to hand it to her. He’s pretty special.’
‘Urgh,’ laughed Lila. ‘Why did we settle for these two so early?’
‘Hey!’ said Charlie, smiling. ‘I’m in peak physical condition, thank you very much. And so is Roo!’
Roo looked up from his phone. ‘What?’
‘What are you doing?’ asked Lila. He did that a lot these days. Joined in for a few minutes and then got distracted and stopped, leaving the conversation, acting like everyone else in the room had ceased to exist.
‘Work emails,’ he said.
‘On a Friday night?’ Lila asked.
‘Charlie’s the same,’ interjected Georgia. ‘Doesn’t matter if it’s night, or weekends, or whatever, people are constantly emailing him. Do you remember, Charlie, I found you hiding in the bathroom on our honeymoon checking in with someone about a speech? Oh, Roo, I meant to say. Lila showed me a picture of Inigo earlier – he really is the spitting image of you.’
Georgia always did this. Defused the situation. Stuck her hand in between Lila and Roo and pulled them apart so that they wouldn’t have the row, they wouldn’t say the bad things they wanted to say. Lila wouldn’t force Roo to show her his phone and she wouldn’t shout at him for being rude and not caring that she was talking. Georgia probably thought she was doing them a favour. She’d probably sit up in her bed later. ‘Did I do the right thing with Lila and Roo earlier?’ she’d ask. And Charlie would say yes because it would be stupid to say no, but he’d be wrong.
Lila and Roo needed the rows. Otherwise, it was like living in the days before a storm where everything was heavy and tense and hot and humid. They needed the weather between them to break. They needed screaming and shouting and raging at each other, to give air to all the things they’d been thinking and feeling and hating about each other. They used to fight. All the time, actually. Even at the beginning. Only, back then, fights would end with her legs wrapped around his waist and his hands twisted in her hair. Roo wasn’t very good at sex, if Lila was honest, but the passion of it, the anger and frustration made it better.
Roo wouldn’t fight with her now. He’d simply tell her that he wasn’t in the mood, and if she pushed it he’d pick up his keys and walk out of the door. She’d have no idea where he was going and in the time it would have taken to wrap up the baby and wrestle with the pram, she’d have lost any chance of following him. Inigo was like a chain around her leg, staked in the middle of a patch of grass. She might have the illusion of movement but the truth was, she was trapped.
Lila picked up her glass and moved over to where Roo was sitting. ‘Roople,’ she said, using the nickname he used to like, once upon a time.
‘What?’
‘Can I sit on your lap?’
He softened a little bit then. He liked it when she sat on his lap. ‘Go on then,’ he said, like he was indulging her.
Georgia gave them a tight smile. She looked crosser now. Why? This was supposed to be a way of telling her not to worry, that she and Roo were happy together and she wasn’t going to try and steal Charlie away for the evening like she might have done in the past.
But it had gone wrong. Georgia clearly thought she was rubbing their happiness in her face. If only Georgia knew. That had always been Gee’s problem. She never looked any further than the surface – she accepted what people said and what they did as the truth. No suspicion in her, not like Lila had, or like Nancy had.
Sometimes Lila thought that if Georgia came out and asked, even once, she would tell her. Didn’t other friends do that? Tell each other the truth? The mums at the baby groups seemed to, about their kids. All they did was complain, and talk about how hard everything was. About how their kids never slept and they never had any time to do anything. If she had kept trying, and stuck around with them, she might have got further than the baby conversations. And then what? Would they have been like the friends in films and on TV, sitting around their kitchens drinking cups of tea and asking each other how their marriages were going?
But Lila knew that Georgia didn’t want to know. She liked living on the surface, ice skating through life and never touching any of the murky underneath things which might have punctured her lovely, perfect world. That was the deal of their friendship. Georgia would be there, calm and reliable and safe, so long as Lila never opened her mouth and broke the rules. Only, lately, Lila had started to wonder if that was how it was supposed to be.
‘They’ll be downstairs in a moment,’ said Georgia from the stove. ‘So for God’s sake don’t start talking about them again, OK?’
She’d been in a mood since the doorbell had rung – it was an old-fashioned, high-pitched one, sourced from a warehouse in the middle of nowhere that Georgia had driven four hours to find. Georgia had whisked them both up to their room in a murmur of voices. She hadn’t even given them the chance to come and say hi first.
Lila shifted on her stool, putting the rim of her glass to her lips and staring into the pale-yellow liquid, trying to decide what she wanted to be doing when Nancy walked in.
‘What’s he called again?’ asked Roo. ‘Something ghastly like Duke or Caden, isn’t it?’
‘Oh, it’s not as bad as that,’ came a low, American voice from behind Lila. She jumped up from her husband’s lap, her eyes finding the huge figure in the door frame. She laughed, too loud, trying to make it OK. Fucking hell, he was beautiful. How had Nancy managed that? He was huge. Dark-skinned. Bright-eyed. He made Roo look like wet pasta.
‘Roo, you are so rude!’ She skipped across the room and threw her arms around the stranger, feeling the warmth of his body through his T-shirt and inhaling gently, trying to catch some note of travel-worn staleness, some proof of imperfection. But it wasn’t there. He smelt of nothing but clean. ‘I�
�m Lila,’ she said, trying to act as if Roo’s comment was merely British humour, rather than her husband being incredibly bloody rude.
‘I’m Brett,’ he smiled down at her.
‘So great to meet you,’ she said. ‘And this is Roo.’
Brett reached past her, offering his huge hand to Roo, who at least had the good grace to look ashamed of himself.
Roo puffed his chest out. ‘I’m Lila’s husband,’ he said, putting an embarrassing emphasis on husband. He seemed annoyed. Like he had wanted to do the introductions himself. ‘And this is Georgia’s husband, Charles,’ he added.
None of them called Charlie ‘Charles’, not ever. But apparently this was what they were doing now. Charlie and Roo took up their positions either side of Brett, practically sticking their chests out. Any minute now they’d start peeing on things. Lila’s eyes travelled from Brett’s crumpled easiness to Charlie and Roo’s boring dry-cleaned perfection. Their shirts and chinos hadn’t seemed ridiculous before, but now Lila looked at them properly she could see how silly this was; they might as well have put their prep school uniforms on and be done with it.
‘Isn’t anyone going to get Brett a drink?’ Lila asked brightly.
‘Brett doesn’t drink,’ Nancy said, pushing through the kitchen door behind Brett.
Lila stopped, her glass halfway to her lips, and greedily drank in every detail of Nancy. Skin-tight jeans gave way to heels that even Lila would have struggled to walk in. Her hair was mirror shiny. She had the tiny beginnings of lines around her eyes and there was a suspicious tautness to the skin of her neck, but otherwise she was the exact same Nancy. Unapologetic, unabashed. Unchanged.
Sitting in the same room as her was odd. Odder than Lila had expected. But then, it had been two years since they had last set eyes on each other. Lila had seen photos, of course. Daily updates on three different social media platforms, Nancy’s dark hair alternately blow-dried or tied back for the gym, her long boyish body encased in a suit, which flattered her, and evening dresses, which did not. But those were filtered, angled, augmented for ultimate thinness and youth.
