The Chocolate Run

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘Did you get your dates mixed up or something?’ I asked Jen.

  ‘Must have. I could have sworn I was six weeks late.’

  ‘You said two months.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. It’s from when you last had a period, isn’t it? That’s how I’m supposed to count it, isn’t it?’

  ‘No, it’s how long it’s been since your last period was due. Well that’s how I’d do it. Because that’s what late means. You know, it’s meant to arrive on a certain day, so if it doesn’t, then it’s late.’

  ‘Oh,’ Jen said.

  ‘Bearing that in mind, were you late or not?’

  ‘I don’t know. My periods often come as a surprise – I just couldn’t remember the last one. But I knew I hadn’t had one since that time.’

  ‘I suppose it’s a worry if you’ve had unprotected sex. But it’s not going to happen again, is it?’ I said. You’re not doing this to me again. Statistically, the next pregnancy scare was going to be positive she’d done this so many times.

  ‘Definitely not. I can’t go through this again. I’ll keep a better eye on my dates.’

  ‘And use contraception, all the time.’

  ‘Yeah, that too. Although . . . after what you said about a new life being good, I’d all but convinced myself I was pregnant and that I could raise a baby.’

  ‘Mmm-hmm,’ I replied. When Jen said ‘I’ in such situations, she meant the plural ‘I’ as in Jen and Amber, I. And I, the singular, Amber, I, knew that she’d have spent nine months pretending it wasn’t happening, then handed the baby over to me to take care of. So, yes, ‘I, Jen’, could raise the baby – because Amber was an extension of her and ‘I, Amber’ would do most of the caretaking. The irony being, of course, Jen was a primary school teacher.

  ‘Hey, Ambs, weren’t you going to visit your parents this weekend?’

  ‘Yep.’ I’d called Mum on the way to the chemist’s and told her I’d come tomorrow and leave Monday morning. She hadn’t been impressed, but what could I do? Jen needed me. We were like that. Always there for each other. Which was why, whilst I didn’t condone what Matt felt about us, I understood it. We always came first with each other and he knew that was something he couldn’t compete with.

  I worried at a string of cheese as I wondered how happy Matt was right now. How much victory dancing he was doing. This wasn’t my Jen. I hardly saw her, rarely spoke to her; she was different. This was exactly what Matt wanted. I bet every time Jen left the room he was running around with his arms in the air, silently cheering because she was slipping away from me.

  Another Hollywood affectation, apart from the sunglasses in the hair, had taken hold of Jen: she kissed both my cheeks and gave me a quick squeeze before saying, ‘Darling, I’ll see you soon.’ (If there was any Hollywood Affectationing to be going on, shouldn’t it be from me? The woman who dealt with luvvie film people most of her working life? Huh? Huh?)

  ‘Mmm-hmm,’ I replied.

  Our shopping afternoon was cancelled because she and Matt were going to see friends in Doncaster, ‘So, have to dash, sweetie, soz.’

  Why couldn’t you have told me this on the phone earlier? I’d asked with my face. Why did I need to drag my arse into town for an hour of ridiculousness?

  Because she wanted to know about Greg, a voice inside me answered.

  Maybe I should have told her. Should’ve said, ‘Greg wanted to go to Ilkley, go walking on the moors, but I’d told him no, because I was meeting you. So he might be avoiding you, but he’s not avoiding me. He’s not avoiding me because he’s my lover. Yes, that’s right, Greg is my lover.’

  I stood outside Yates’s watching Jen wiggle away on her new Prada shoes (I only knew because Renée had a pair exactly like that and she’d let Martha try them on, being the closest to wearing Prada Martha and I would get) and again wondered who I’d had lunch with. That woman may well have resembled my best friend, but she didn’t act like her.

  I crossed the road, heading towards the Bond Street Centre. Might as well do what I set out to do: buy clothes. Or, rather, think about spending money on clothes. My heart wasn’t in it, though. Fantasy shopping wasn’t the same when you fantasised alone. I wanted to mess about with Jen, trying on clothes we couldn’t afford and eating chocolate cake. I could draft in Greg but it wasn’t the same. He wasn’t Jen. He’d been doing a good impression of her – of being my closest, bestest mate, recently, but when it came to the crunch, he wasn’t her. I wouldn’t be sleeping with her any time soon, that was for sure – I couldn’t get her to shop with me, let alone shag me.

  Jen was such a total girlfriend. As in, once she became a girlfriend, she became a girlfriend – totally. I became surplus to requirements until they had a row. Then, I was required. When Matt went to Paris, I was required. Now that she’d moved in with that lump of toffee, things could only get worse. She was shape-shifting; becoming Matt’s idea of the perfect girlfriend. No more trainers, now it was Prada shoes. No more combats, now it was cream, slender-leg trousers. No more wacky T-shirts, now it was fawn jumpers.

  I stopped outside Virgin, glanced at the open wound of their doorway where people were pouring in and out. Nope, I couldn’t go in. I’d get claustrophobic on my own. Being in a crowded shop with someone else didn’t feel half as bad. I carried on up the road.

  Maybe this was sour grapes because, in a month, Jen had mutated into a grown-up and I’d probably have to be surgically removed from my combats and trainers. But, dammit, Jen had betrayed me. Had been lured over to the girly side by the evil temptations of looking like a grown-up and being accorded the respect it commanded.

  Anyway, I reasoned, stalking up towards the Bond Street Centre, it’s more than dress. Jen was different. She’d only nibbled at her sandwich, most of it was left untouched; she’d fidgeted and fiddled without a hint of her previous ability to be yoga-still. She’d not really listened to a word I said. She’d reminded me of her mother a bit. I’d met her a few times and she was one of those people who craved attention. Who would be restless, always fiddling with things and interrupting if you started a conversation she wasn’t part of. Simply being around Jen’s mum was tiring.

  I passed the Bond Street Centre and headed on for Albion Place and the heart of town.

  I was being unsisterly. Un-best-mately. If Jen saying I was like Matt was insulting, then me comparing her to her mother was one of those unforgivable things you could never recant. Besides, weren’t you supposed to love your best friends no matter what? I was being awful. Disloyal. Which was why I’d carried on past the Bond Street Centre and was heading for Albion Place – there were more people to hide among. I could lose myself there, pretend I wasn’t thinking these things about Jen.

  My mobile rang, deep in my bag. I stopped. People tutted and had to move around me as my hand excavated the contents of my bag. I eventually found it. I tucked a lock of my hair behind my ear before I answered it.

  ‘Are you alone?’ Greg asked.

  I looked at the Saturday shoppers milling, walking, semi-running around me. ‘Not exactly.’

  ‘Is Jen there?’

  ‘Erm, not right now.’ I wasn’t going to volunteer the information that my best friend had half stood me up, that was plain humiliating.

  ‘Did I upset you or something?’ he asked.

  ‘No, why?’ I replied. I started moving again. Moving around shoppers like we were in some complex dance, circumnavigating each other without any acknowledgement.

  ‘You didn’t text me back, I thought I’d upset you.’

  ‘Why would licking me all over upset me? No, I was in the middle of a conversation with Jen.’

  ‘Oh, right.’ He didn’t sound impressed. Or convinced.

  ‘Peck, there’s nothing wrong. I’m not upset with you.’

  ‘I thought Jen would be making out I’m the Devil incarnate because I’ve not seen them.’

  ‘She did mention it. But you see them when you want. Speaking of which, she had to, erm, rush of
f. A mini emergency. So, we can still go to Ilkley.’ Greg loved walking. I’d never met a human being who loved it as much as him. He had a car, but was often to be found walking to most places. He walked to work most mornings if he was staying at his place. He’d even suggested we start walking to work from Horsforth. ‘Not going to happen,’ I replied. ‘Ever.’ Now we’d spend the rest of the day doing it.

  ‘Really?’ he asked.

  ‘Really.’ You walking freak.

  ‘Fantastic! Not that Jen’s had to rush off. That’s dreadful. It’s great we can go to Ilkley. I’ll pick you up outside the train station in fifteen minutes.’

  ‘H’OK,’ I said, turned around, headed back the way I’d come. ‘Oh, bring me an extra jumper, I think I’ll need it up on the moors. See you soon.’ I cut the line and shoved the mobile back into my bag.

  Greg was purposely avoiding Jen and Matt. And then there was the way he’d acted the day Matt moved in . . . It didn’t take a genius to guess that something was going on.

  chapter thirteen

  icons

  The perfect cup of tea is very strong, a caramel colour, usually with the tea bag left in, and very milky with half a teaspoon of white sugar. Renée placed one such cup of tea between me and my keyboard.

  ‘Renée placing’, ‘perfect cup of tea’. Two clauses I never thought I’d find in the same sentence. And there she was placing a weak, milky tea in front of Martha.

  ‘Oh, I forgot the biscuits,’ Renée said, ‘I’ll nip out and get some.’ She breezed out, black leather purse in perfectly manicured hand. I hadn’t uttered a word since Renée had said, ‘Who wants a cup of tea before we start this meeting?’

  I’d nodded at her, as had Martha. I’d expected her to go buy them. Not that she ever went out to buy us tea. When she’d walked the length of the office, left the office then went to the kitchen round the corner, I’d given Martha a long, sideways look – to find she was giving me the exact same look. Renée never bought us tea and she’d never, in the history of WYIFF, made it. If someone had asked, I would have laid money on her not knowing where the little kitchen on our floor was. I would’ve bet my entire savings, my flat and a year’s wages on her not knowing how I took my tea. But there it stood, proof that she’d listened to me call, ‘Don’t be skimping on the tea bags,’ at Martha every time she headed for the kettle, like Martha yelling, ‘None of that teabag stewing,’ after me.

  As soon as Renée had gone Martha spun on her blue chair and scooted over to me on it. ‘Before, Renée’s behaviour pissed me off, now, I’m scared. Really, really scared.’

  ‘Me too,’ I replied.

  ‘It’s like those people you see on the news who are a bit odd, then really nice, then they take to the streets with a semiautomatic weapon.’

  It’s always gratifying to be reminded someone has a far more dramatic imagination than you, however, in this case, I had to agree with Martha: Renée was flitting between banshee and normal so often nowadays, semi-automatic might not be far away.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ I replied.

  ‘Anyway, forget about her, tell me, how are things going with Greg?’

  I observed Martha with a cool, haughty look on my face. I hadn’t told her. I hadn’t told a soul. We’d been together six weeks and I hadn’t told a soul. No matter how mind-blowing the sex was. Which, it had to be said, it was. I was bragging in my head all the time about how out of this world the sex was.

  Not that I hadn’t enjoyed sex before – Sean hadn’t been a slack lover, neither had most of the others – it was simply better with Greg. I thought at first it was because Greg was, how you say, ‘experienced’, but, I realised after the bed-ofrose-petals night, it was because I let go with Greg. Didn’t care if my hair stood on end; didn’t try to flatten my stomach with a bit of muscle clenching. With Greg I could literally let it all hang out. Unlike with other men, who I had to get to know sexually, emotionally and mentally, I had a head start with this one.

  We’d spent three years sat around my flat, at his house, in pubs, restaurants, on buses, trains, yak, yak, yakking. Which, of course, meant we had three years’ worth of sex to cram into as short a time as possible. We’d sometimes not have dinner because we’d get caught up in each other. In Amber World, if there was something that was unlikely to happen it was me missing a meal to have sex. I wanted to tell someone all that. Wanted to. Hadn’t.

  How on earth Martha knew, I had no idea. I didn’t keep a diary; didn’t send dodgy emails from the office; didn’t leave anything incriminating in my desk.

  I kept my face neutral as I said, ‘Greg? What do you mean?’

  ‘Greg’s the complicated one you slept with, isn’t he?’

  ‘Erm . . .’

  ‘There’s no point denying it,’ Martha said. ‘You said it was complicated and Greg’s the only one who comes with complications that you still see. You wouldn’t tell me who he is because you know how much I hate him. You’ve got the glow of someone having regular sex. And, most damningly, every other word that comes out of your mouth these days is “Greg”.’

  My eyes doubled in size as my hand flew to my mouth. ‘Am I really that bad?’ I said through my fingers.

  ‘Worse. But, bless you, I haven’t ever seen you so giddy.’

  ‘I can’t believe you guessed,’ I said.

  Martha grinned, tapped the side of her Roman nose. ‘I can sniff out a good romance every time.’

  ‘Biscuits! Wasn’t sure which ones you liked so I bought a selection.’ Martha and I froze. Had Renée transformed into a psycho in the time it took her to get to the shops and back? It was all ‘Biscuits!’ now, but on the turn of a penny it could be screaming and dismembering.

  From a flimsy white carrier bag she pulled out plain and milk chocolate digestives, rich tea, custard creams, fruit shortcake, shortbread, digestives and Jaffa Cakes. Each packet of biscuits she placed on my desk, then she grabbed her tea from her desk, scooted over to my desk on her chair. ‘What did I miss?’ she asked, her perfectly made-up brown eyes eager above her cup; her face excited and expectant. Renée could almost pass for one of the girls at that moment.

  ‘Amber’s sleeping with her best friend’s boyfriend’s best friend,’ Martha explained to the latest member of our gang. ‘You know,’ dramatic pause, ‘Greg.’ She said his name like it was the ‘c’ word. Because, I guess, Greg had become synonymous with that word over the past couple of years, not only because he shagged a lot but because he behaved so badly afterwards.

  ‘Fantastic!’ Renée replied. She put down her cup and clapped her hands in what could only be described as glee. If me skipping food for sex was unlikely, then Renée expressing glee was mythical. ‘I knew there was a man involved in her transformation.’

  ‘Transformation? What transformation?’ I asked.

  ‘You’ve changed. First it was that thing with that stupid journalist woman. No, no, it was the day you didn’t watch those films at the weekend. You’ve never done anything like that and I’ve known you years. Then the way you lied to that journalist woman. The Cannes thing proved it, though. Usually you’d go to stop the argument, but not this time.’

  Even Renée had noticed.

  ‘Anyway, tell me . . . no, tell us everything.’

  I glanced from the face of my colleague, to my boss, both watched me expectantly. With such a captive audience, I couldn’t help myself . . .

  The good humour in our office lasted about six hours. When it got to eight-thirty and we were still in a meeting trying to find the right image for this year’s Festival, with no end to it in sight, we couldn’t even look at each other. The meeting table had the biscuit wrappers in the middle of it, each packet in various states of consumption. The Jaffa Cakes had gone first, followed by the milk chocolate digestives. We’d only picked at the rest. The longer we sat there, though, the more appealing the dry, sugar-topped fruit shortcakes became.

  Martha was resting her forehead on the table, her brown locks falling forwards over
her notepads; Renée sat right back in her chair, chewing on the end of her pen; and I had my feet on the meeting table, staring at the reflection of ourselves in the blackened window.

  This year, Renée had given me the honour of running the Festival: coming up with a theme for it, scheduling, deciding which celebs and film-makers to persuade to come. I’d run through a multitude of themes and eventually settled on icons. Film icons. Past, present and future. ‘Where have all the icons gone?’ was the official theme. That would give us enough leeway to invite different classes of celebs. Our intellectual discussions would centre around things such as how film stars had stopped being the main icons of the day. What it meant to become an icon. Could films themselves become iconic? The whole thing was shaping up to be an event worthy of something Renée had conceived – if we ever found the right bloody image for the brochure cover.

  We’d thought Audrey in Breakfast At Tiffany’s, but for posters, flyers and postcards on top of the brochure the copyright and reproduction costs would be too high, as Martha had pointed out.

  Which meant holding our own photoshoot. But we wouldn’t get someone as unique as Audrey. I’d thought we should go ‘out there’, take the mick slightly. Have a couch full of icons, from Audrey to Sidney Poitier, James Dean to Halle Berry, slobbed out, eating popcorn, watching telly.

  ‘It’s not very glamorous,’ Renée had said, quashing my idea in four words. ‘We are about glamour.’ She added the other four in case I didn’t glean the meaning from her first four.

  Every idea one of us had, only one of us liked at any one time. Again, I swallowed a scream. I was meant to be in the pub by now with Jen, Matt and Greg – it was Matt’s birthday and we were doing drinks.

  ‘What was wrong with the fake Audrey theme?’ I asked Renée. ‘It’s an image everyone instantly recognises.’