Josh comes to the door with a tea-towel in one hand and Max in the other, looking, it has to be said, extremely cute in his little striped pyjamas. That is if you didn’t know better.
Even Josh looks rather cute, come to that, with his dirty blond hair mussed up, his shirt sleeves rolled up to show off rather strong and sexy tanned forearms (well, they would be if they didn’t belong to Josh).
It’s funny how I’ve never thought of Josh in that way. Maybe it’s just that he’s too much of an older brother to me now, or maybe it’s because I don’t believe he’s got any sex appeal, but I have never, could never, think of Josh as anything other than a friend.
And yet, looking at him now, purely objectively, he’s a good-looking man. He is the sort of man who grows into his looks, who is just now, at thirty-two, starting to look seriously handsome in a boy-next-door kind of way. The deep laughter lines and creases at the corners of his eyes always seemed slightly incongruous in his twenties, but now they suit him, make him look worldly, as if he’s been around the block a few times, which God knows he needed, because Josh was, still is, the straightest of all of us.
I remember Si and I going through our spliff phase just after university. Si would roll these tiny, tight little joints, and I would try to imitate them, ending up with Super Plus Tampons. We’d sit there, Si and I, rolling around on the floor and screaming with laughter, while Josh puffed away awkwardly, looking slightly perturbed that it wasn’t having the same effect.
‘No, no, Josh!’ Si would say, when the pair of us had recovered enough to actually breathe. ‘You have to inhale,’ and that would set us off again.
His only vice, if you can even dare to call it that, has been drink. First it was pints of Snakebite at university with the rugby team, then pints of lager with the City boys, and now it’s good bottles of claret with dinner.
‘Look!’ Josh says to Max, after rolling his eyes at me briefly. ‘Aunty Cath and Uncle Si! Do you want to give Aunty Cath a cuddle?’ he says brightly, swiftly passing Max to me.
‘No!’ wails Max, turning back to Josh with a look of sheer panic on his face. ‘I want Daddy!’
‘Come to Uncle Si,’ says Si soothingly, as he effortlessly lifts Max up and starts making him laugh immediately by pulling funny faces. ‘Shall we go upstairs and find Tinky Winky?’
Max nods his head vigorously, as Si disappears up the stairs, concentrating hard on Max, who is now chatting away merrily. Josh sighs and closes the door, wiping his forehead with the tea-towel, leaving a big splodge of what could be cream, or could be something that’s not worth thinking about, on the left side of his face.
‘Face,’ I say, gesturing to the cream, as Josh realizes and wipes it away.
‘And it’s lovely to see you too,’ he says, leaning down and giving me a hug. ‘Lucy’s in the kitchen and I’m supposed to be helping her, but Max has been a bugger today.’
‘Kids, eh?’ I sigh. ‘Who’d have ’em?’
‘Tell me about it,’ Josh says, but, tired as he looks tonight, I know that he adores Max, that although he might pretend to be unhappy about having to take Max out of Lucy’s hair, he secretly loves it. Josh loves the fact that he can be a little boy again, can play Cowboys and Indians, teach Max the basic rules about being a man.
Josh and Lucy live in a terraced Victorian house in a narrow street. It looks like nothing from the outside, but is, basically, a Tardis house, i.e., it looks tiny, but once you’re in, it’s enormous.
It is always messy, always noisy, and most of the activity is focused around the large kitchen at the rear, which wasn’t a large kitchen when they moved in two years ago, but, thanks to a smart conservatory extension, is now large enough for a huge dining table that usually has at least three people sitting round it, drinking coffee.
Tonight there is a man I don’t recognize sitting there, strange only because I know most of Josh and Lucy’s friends, and because I thought it was just going to be the four of us tonight.
Lucy has her back to us, chatting away, finishing an anecdote about work; she trained as an illustrator but seems to have done less and less since having Max. When she does have free time, she seems to spend it doing other things – displacement activity, Si always says. Her latest venture is a course in counselling, and I can hear, from the conversation, that the other person sitting at the table is from the course as well.
Lucy stops mid-sentence as she hears my footsteps. Her face lights up as she puts down the lethal-looking knife, and she gives me a huge hug, careful to keep her hands, currently covered with avocado, off my clothes.
Lucy is one of those people whose face always shines, despite not wearing any make-up. She is always radiant, sickeningly healthy-looking, always smiling, and is the best possible person to talk to if you ever have problems.
I love the fact that this is who Josh chose to marry. For a while Si and I were slightly terrified he was going to pop the question to one of an endless stream of identikit girls with streaky blonde hair, braying laughs and a lack of brain cells, but then he went and surprised us by falling madly in love with Lucy. Lucy, with her ruddy cheeks and raucous laugh, with her rounded figure in faded dungarees, with her winks as she ruffled Josh’s hair and told him, repeatedly, that she was built for comfort and not for speed. Lucy, whose maternal instincts were such they were almost oozing out of every pore, who gave birth to Max five months after their wedding.
I love hearing the story of how they met. It gives me hope. Josh hadn’t been working in the City long, when he met Lucy. He was, at the time, desperate to impress, and would spend his nights socializing with City boys who were very definitely not my type.
Josh tried to bring Si and I along a couple of times. I think he thought that if there were enough people going down to the pub, Si and I would just blend in. But of course we didn’t. I had nothing in common with the gaggle of silly little girls that hung on to their every word, and Si had even less with the boozy, macho traders who’d relax in their spare time by having drinking competitions and seeing who could ‘pull the best bird’.
A group of them decided to go off to France on a skiing trip one Christmas. They booked a chalet, and Josh came over one night and sat on my sofa, sighing over and over as he debated whether to bring his latest conquest.
‘I do really like Venetia,’ he sighed. ‘I just know she’s not The One, and I don’t know what to do. She’s already expecting to come, talking about going out to buy a new set of salopettes, but I’m worried she’ll spoil the fun.’
It turned out he meant that Venetia would curl up on his lap every evening, gazing up at him with big blue eyes, taking him by the hand and leading him to bed at nine o’clock, thus preventing him from debauched nights with the boys. Venetia, he said, was gorgeous. She was the perfect trophy girlfriend, and all his mates were green with envy.
And everything would be fine, apart from the fact that Venetia’s biggest problem was that she was far more mature than her twenty-three years. While Josh wanted to go out, have fun, play the field, and spend perhaps a few weeks with someone both adoring and adorable, Venetia wanted to get married.
And whom did she want to marry? A man exactly like Josh, and this was the problem.
In the end Josh had to take her. He was about to tell her he was going on his own, when she produced the aforementioned salopettes, together with a furry hat, gloves and moon boots, all of which had been bought that afternoon, paid for by Daddy’s credit card. Daddy was delighted a chap as ‘suitable’ as Josh was showing the signs of making an honest woman of her.
A ‘chalet girl’, naturally, looked after the chalet they’d booked. Someone who had done a cordon bleu cookery course, who was adept at making the guests feel happy, and who would generally run around making beds and clearing up for a weekly pittance and the opportunity to grab a few hours’ afternoon skiing on the pistes.
Josh and Venetia were the last to walk into the chalet, mostly due to Josh struggling with both his and Venetia’s luggage, Venetia having packed for every eventuality, including, bizarrely, a bikini.
‘Let me help you.’ The chalet girl came bustling over and lifted up Venetia’s suitcase with ease, striding in front of them, turning her head back and throwing a beaming smile over her shoulder as she walked. ‘I’m Lucy.’
‘God,’ giggled Venetia in a stage whisper, as they followed her in. ‘She’s got bigger muscles than you.’
‘Shut up,’ hissed Josh, who was worried that the chalet girl would hear, and who didn’t want to upset her this early on in the trip. Plus, she seemed pleasant, she had a lovely smile, and he wished Venetia wasn’t quite so tactless.
For the week the group stayed at the chalet, the City boys treated Lucy like a serf. They would, by turns, ignore her, insult her and, when very drunk, manhandle her, guffawing about what they could do with a bottom that size. Lucy, to her credit, merely smiled and brushed their hands away, calmly placing steaming casseroles on the table and clearing the plates away as if she hadn’t heard.
On the fourth day Josh fell and twisted his ankle. Not severely, but severely enough to miss a day’s skiing. Venetia insisted on staying with him, but Josh wouldn’t hear of it, and reluctantly she left with the others, ski pass swinging jauntily from her ice-blue jacket.
Josh settled himself in a large armchair with a good book, as Lucy built the fire and brought him endless mugs of hot chocolate. Within an hour the book was resting on his lap, and he was watching Lucy whirl in and out of rooms, a small smile playing on his lips.
And astonishingly, as he watched her ample behind disappear into a bedroom, he found himself wondering what someone like Lucy would be like in bed. And he closed his eyes and set off on what he claims was a really rather raunchy fantasy involving Lucy checking his pulse, then peeling off all her clothes and leaping on him. He opened his eyes with a shock to find Lucy standing over him, smiling.
When he tells this story now, they both roar with laughter. Lucy laughs about the guilty look in Josh’s eyes, the fact that she knew he’d been thinking something dirty, not to mention the sizeable erection that she did her best to ignore. And Josh tells of his heart pounding while for a split second he thought his fantasies were about to come true, and then the combination of relief and disappointment as Lucy said, ‘Penny for them.’ His nervous laughter as he moved the book on his lap to hide the physical evidence of thoughts that were, as far as he was concerned, worth significantly more than a penny, and the realization that not only was this woman incredibly sexy, but that there was (and he only understood this as he looked at her) something very different about her, quite unlike anyone he’d ever met.
For one blissful half-hour in the afternoon Lucy came and sat with him, and they chatted. He found her funny, down-to-earth and refreshingly honest. She had an easy manner and an open smile, and, as she regaled him with horror stories from her cookery course, he found himself more and more attracted to her.
After a while Lucy bustled off to get ready for her daily treat of a couple of hours on the slopes, but not without asking Josh if he wanted her to stay and keep him company.
‘Absolutely not,’ said Josh. ‘This is your free time, go and you can report back on the weather.’
‘Are you sure?’ Lucy hovered in the living room for a bit, and it was only years later that she admitted she was desperate for Josh to ask her to stay with him, that his appearance at the beginning of the week was like a shining light in a sea of dross, and that she had prayed for something like this to happen.
And Josh, being Josh, was waiting for Lucy to tell him that she simply refused to go out and leave him like that. So, because of their lack of communication, neither of them got what they wanted, and Josh was left on his own as Lucy reluctantly made him one final cup of tea before leaving to ski.
Venetia clambered noisily over the sofa when the others piled back in, showering Josh with kisses, her long blonde hair tickling his nostrils and making him sneeze, and it was all he could do not to push her away.
‘Has old thunderthighs been looking after you?’ she said, nuzzling his ear, as Josh did, finally, push her away, his throat constricted with anger.
‘Don’t call her that,’ he said sharply, wishing fervently that the girl on his lap were Lucy.
But Lucy and Josh didn’t get a chance to spend any more time together after that. Josh’s ankle was fine by the next morning, and Venetia, sensing that Josh had distanced himself since the accident, now clung to him like a limpet, trailing after him in an extremely good impersonation of his shadow. Josh cleared the plates and took them into the kitchen, where Lucy was removing a pecan pie from the oven, and, just as Lucy’s eyes lit up at the sight of Josh, Venetia tottered in on her spiked heels to see what Josh was up to.
Josh tried sloping off early, claiming the ankle was playing up, but this time Venetia refused to be left behind, and the two of them sat miserably, side by side, in the cable car going down, both of them depressed, both for entirely different reasons.
Finally, on the last day, everyone decided to go for one last ski. As they reached the cable car, Josh, furtively placing his ski pass in the pocket of his jacket, told the others that he had forgotten it and had to go back, and that they shouldn’t wait, he would meet them on the slopes.
This time, when Venetia started to come with Josh, he told her she was being ridiculous, and it was bad enough that he should have to cut short his skiing time, but that there was no way she should as well. She couldn’t say anything, she just miserably turned back to the rest of the crowd.
Josh went running into the chalet, nervous, exhilarated, unsure of what to say but determined to say something. He found Lucy in one of the bedrooms, cheeks flushed with the exertion of cleaning, shaking out one of the blankets, hair escaping from the elastic band holding it in a loose ponytail and falling in tendrils around her shining face.
‘Lucy,’ he said, standing in the doorway, his own cheeks flushed with the cold. ‘I…’
And Lucy beamed at him, without saying anything, and just like in a Hollywood movie they moved towards one another as if in slow motion. Josh bent his head to kiss her just as the front door slammed and they jumped apart guiltily, before their lips had a chance to meet.
‘Josh?’ Venetia’s voice rang through the house as Josh came to the door, the flush of cold rapidly becoming a flush of guilt. He turned round and looked at Lucy, who gave him a sad smile of regret and picked up the blankets again. Josh froze in the doorway, pulled between the two women, not knowing what to do.
But how was he to know Lucy was his future and Venetia his past? All he knew was that he didn’t really care if he never saw Venetia again, and he couldn’t get Lucy out of his mind. And he’d come so close! To kissing those lips! Oh, Christ. How could he let her get away?
He did let her get away. Didn’t have a choice because he didn’t have a chance to find her on her own again, but before they left Josh scribbled Lucy a note, left his phone number in London, and shoved it under a pillow, knowing that Venetia wouldn’t find it, but that Lucy, on making the bed, undoubtedly would.
Josh waited until they returned home before telling Venetia it was over. She seemed upset at the time, but a week later she was going out with a stockbroker called William, so evidently he hadn’t broken her heart, and Josh then spent the next few weeks trying to get over Lucy.
She didn’t phone. For the first couple of weeks every time the phone rang he’d leap on top of it, praying it was her, and then he tried to forget about her as he got on with his life and continued half-heartedly dating the identikit Venetias.
Eight weeks later Josh was at work when the receptionist buzzed him and told him to come down to collect a delivery that had to be signed for personally. He came down to be greeted by Lucy’s sparkly eyes, and the rest, as they say, is history.
‘Cath! So lovely to see you. Look at you, you look as fresh as a daisy in that sumptuous sweater. Sit! Sit! What are you having? Red? White? Or vodka? Gin?’ Lucy bubbles away as she manoeuvres me into a chair, bustling away to open another bottle of red and pour me a glass.
‘Where’s that wicked Si? Not corrupting my Maxy I hope. Josh!’ She screams, ‘Come and be sociable! Oh God. So rude. You haven’t met,’ and finally she stops to take a breath and grins at us.
‘Cath. Dan. Dan. Cath.’
We smile warmly at one another, and I hope that this will not be one of those awkward evenings where strangers make small talk and ask questions like, ‘How long have you known Josh and Lucy?’
‘We’re all on the course together,’ Lucy explains, ‘Dan lives in Camden and he gave me a lift, so it was the least I could do.
‘Here,’ says Lucy, thrusting a knife into my hand. ‘You’re on cucumber duty.’ Dan is given red peppers, which might be an odd way of treating your dinner guests, but it breaks the ice and within minutes we are all laughing like old friends.
‘I’m missing out on all the fun, aren’t I?’ says Si, rushing into the room behind Josh. ‘Lucy, darling. You look gorgeous.’ Si sweeps Lucy into a big hug, and Lucy blushes, gesturing at her faded apron, her hair tied back with a fraying old scrunchy. ‘I look terrible,’ she says, but she’s delighted, as she always is, when Si compliments her.
‘Hello. I’m Si.’ He grins cheerfully at Dan, leaning over his shoulder to grab a piece of red pepper.
‘Oi!’ I dart over, covering Dan’s pile of peppers protectively, hunger making me, as always, incredibly territorial about food. ‘Hands off.’
‘You can’t speak to me like that,’ Si says, in mock horror. ‘You’re not even in charge of peppers. If I’m not mistaken, you’re doing the cucumbers, so M.Y.O.B.’
‘I’ve got my hands full with one child, thank you very much,’ Lucy says, grimacing. ‘I don’t need another two this evening.’
‘It wasn’t me, it was her.’ Si pours himself a glass of red wine, grinning at Dan, who’s laughing at this ridiculous exchange, before going to the stove and lifting lids off pots and sniffing.
I wish I could be more like Si at times. I know how insecure he is deep down, as insecure as the rest of us, and yet he has this ability to meet complete strangers and instantly put them at ease, make them feel as if they have known, and loved, Si for ever. Most of the time I think it’s because he can be so childlike, so naughty, and it reminds us of when we were children, of what it was like to have no inhibitions.
He wanders over to the fridge and busies himself doing something, while the rest of us keep chopping.
‘So how is the course?’ I throw into the room.
Lucy and Dan groan at the same time.
‘It was fine,’ says Lucy.
‘Until Jeremy,’ says Dan.
‘And now we can’t wait until the bloody thing’s over,’ finishes Lucy.
‘Jeremy?’ I ask.
‘Jeremy,’ says Josh, in the tone of voice that says I ought to know who Jeremy is. ‘Jeremy the class bore,’ he continues, rolling his eyes, evidently having heard more than enough about him from Lucy. ‘Who monopolizes every group session by talking about himself, having temper tantrums if he feels he’s being ignored.’
‘Oh, that sounds so mean,’ says Lucy. ‘I feel awful talking about him behind his back. It’s not right. We actually shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘You’re right.’ Dan sounds contrite, for about two seconds. ‘But fuck it. He is a major pain in the arse.’
Lucy remembers something, jumps up, checks her recipe book, and pushes Si out of the way to get to the fridge. She pulls the butter out, then stops as she closes the fridge door and squints at a point on the upper left side of the door.
‘Si!’ She shrieks with laughter as Si skulks over to the table, trying to look innocent. ‘Luscious Sexy Smells Excite My Potent a r m p I t s’
‘Armpits?’ Josh looks bemused. ‘That magnetic poetry kit doesn’t have the word “armpits”.’
‘I spelt it out myself,’ Si says proudly, and within seconds we are all clamouring round the fridge trying to out-do one another with ridiculously flowery poems, when the sound of concentration is broken by a wail.
‘Daaaaaaaddy!’ comes Max’s shriek from upstairs, followed by a deafening silence. Then: ‘Caaaaan youuuuu cooooome and wiiiiiiipe my bottttttttttttom?’ Josh raises his eyebrows and leaves the room as the rest of us scream with laughter.
‘God. So embarrassing. He’s only just started using the loo on a regular basis, and Josh keeps showing him what to do, but he always wants one of us to do it,’ Lucy explains, stifling a laugh.
‘Quite right too. He doesn’t want to get his hands dirty, and who can blame him,’ grins Si. ‘I hope those hands will be washed before they come anywhere near me.’
‘Don’t be so insensitive,’ I chastise. ‘You love Max, and if you love Max then you love everything about Max, and if you love everything about Max then you love his poo.’
‘No.’ Si shakes his head solemnly. ‘My love does not stretch as far as to encompass poo.’
‘Come on, then, guys, who’s going to set the table?’ Lucy hands me the cutlery, glasses to Dan, and napkins to Si, who instantly arranges them into little swans, prompting much oohing and aahing from Lucy, who has witnessed this many times before, but is just as amazed each time she sees it done.
‘It’s so pretty I don’t want to undo it,’ she says, placing it gently down on her plate.
The five of us sit down and help ourselves to Caesar salad.
‘Bugger.’ Lucy jumps up and runs to the oven, bringing out a familiar-looking silver loaf.
‘Lucy, I love you!’ Si blows her Parmesany kisses from the other side of the table. ‘You never forget.’
‘Si, I only do this for you, you know. I’d never dream of serving garlic bread to anyone else. It’s just so seventies.’
‘Seventies is in again now,’ says Josh, shaking his head at Si, who’s already eaten one piece and is now licking the dripping butter off his fingers. ‘So as usual Si’s one step ahead of us all.’
‘God, do you remember that seventies party Portia had?’ Josh laughs. ‘When you and Cath set fire to my afro wig?’
‘It practically stuck to your head.’ I smile at the memory. ‘I haven’t thought about that in years.’
‘Portia,’ says Dan. ‘I know a Portia. What’s her surname?’
‘Fairley,’ say Si, Josh and I simultaneously.
Dan smiles as the rest of the table freezes. ‘I knew that wasn’t a common name. How do you all know Portia?’
How can a name, a name from the past that should have no power at all any more, still have such an impact on the three people in this room that knew her way back when? Time seems to stand still, and I’m too lost in memories to notice that Josh and Si are diving into those memories at the same time.
And the thing is, I can’t help but wonder if she’s forgiven us. I forgave her, forgave her for breaking Josh’s heart, a long time ago. I figured that she must have had her reasons, that she wasn’t doing it intentionally, but I’ve always wondered whether she has forgiven us for abandoning her friendship as a result.
And ten years on, none of us expected to hear her name in the comfort of this kitchen.
‘We were at university together,’ I eventually tell a bemused Dan, because he can see his words have had some effect, only he is not sure what it is. I smooth out my voice, careful of the tone, doing my best to keep the excitement contained. ‘And you? How do you know Portia?’
‘She bought my old flat,’ he laughs, entirely unaware of the silent reaction her name has caused.
‘Where?’ I ask, suddenly desperate to know what’s happened to her, if her life has fulfilled her expectations, if destiny has, as we all assumed, been kind to her.
‘Sutherland Avenue,’ says Dan. ‘Nice flat. I miss it. Wish I didn’t have to sell but there it is. Give up your job in the City for psychotherapy and bach pad goes with it, I’m afraid.’ He shrugs and smiles at Si and Lucy, who offer him sympathetic smiles in return.
‘She was always terribly beautiful at university,’ Si says dreamily. ‘One of those girls whose life was perfect. She had money, class, beauty, kindness. Born with a golden spoon in her mouth. We followed her career as a journalist for a while, but lost track. Do you know what she’s up to now?’
‘Sure,’ says Dan. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t know. Haven’t you seen that series on TV?’ He mentions the name of a series we all love. A weekly drama that follows the lives of a group of thirty-somethings, and before Dan says anything I suddenly realize that she is the writer. She could not be anything other than the writer because, and I know it is ridiculous that this should not have occurred to me before, because all of the characters are based on us.
I look at the others and see Josh’s mouth hanging open, Si’s eyes wide with shock, both having had the same realization.
‘Oh my God, she writes it!’ Si finally snorts, half in wonderment, half aghast.
‘She doesn’t just write it,’ Dan says. ‘She apparently came up with the concept, sold it to the network, does all the writing and storylining, and to top it all has sold it on to seventeen countries worldwide. She’s making a fortune.’
Si looks at Josh, his lower lip still somewhere near his knees, and coughs, attempting to regain some composure. ‘Excuse me, can you pass the salt please, Jacob.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ says Lucy, ‘they’re not u – ’ and she stops, because in the split second it took for her to verbalize that thought, she had another. A memory. She remembered the characters.
The central character in the series is Mercedes (good joke, I thought). Mercedes is the wealthy daughter of a millionaire who has spent her life struggling for independence. Mercedes looks like she ought to be a bitch. But of course she’s not. She’s adorable, although she can’t seem to find a man who looks beyond the physical, who is really interested in getting to know her.
There’s Jacob, world-weary, kind, but rather weak, who’s married to Lisa, an overbearing Sloane who’s too busy shopping and lunching to take much care of their toddler, Marty, who tends to turn up at Jacob’s office on a daily basis.
Steen is the perfect gay best friend, who keeps the laughs coming in with his curt one-liners.
And Mark. Gorgeous, sensitive Mark, who loves Mercedes unrequitedly, for he is far too nice for Mercedes to love in return, and he, of course, could only be Matt, Portia’s boyfriend from university.
And then, I realize with horror, there’s Katy. Katy, who is plain, dowdy, but completely self-obsessed. Katy who only wears black. Or occasionally sludge-green. Katy, whose hair looks like it could house a few hundred sparrows in it if they were really stuck for accommodation.
Lucy suddenly chokes, and we all look at one another in panic, terrified she’s choked with shock, but she has a sip of water and then starts laughing. And laughing. And laughing.
‘It’s hysterical,’ she says, as we slowly see the funny side. ‘You’re Katy!’ and she points at me and goes off into peals of laughter again, almost falling off her chair, arms weak with mirth.
‘You can laugh,’ I say in a nasty tone. ‘She hasn’t even met you. She’s obviously just heard that Josh married someone who’s name begins with an L, who has a son whose name begins with an M. I’m Katy, for God’s sake. Katy, who’s a selfish cow. I can’t believe she’d do that to me.’
‘Are you sure about this?’ Dan says, looking more than a little worried about how this information has gone down. ‘Are you sure the characters are you?’
‘Look at us,’ says Josh with a shrug.
‘I’m happy,’ Si says brightly. ‘Steen’s gorgeous.’
‘Don’t you mind?’ says Dan suddenly. ‘Don’t you mind that someone whom you knew has written your life stories down and shown them to thousands of people?’
‘Millions, according to the ratings,’ adds Josh. Quietly.
‘Not quite our life stories.’ Lucy gets up to check the pudding. ‘Josh really isn’t Jacob, or Jacob Josh. Josh is far stronger than that. And Katy isn’t Cath. She’s gorgeous, for starters.’ She gives me a quick squeeze as she passes, which is supposed to make me feel better. And does, as it happens. ‘As for Steen’ – she eyes Si up and down – ‘Si’s far sweeter than Steen.’
‘Not to mention far more handsome,’ prompts Si.
‘Of course,’ she laughs. ‘And far more handsome.’
‘You know what it is,’ muses Josh, staring into his glass of wine as if it holds all the answers. ‘This is sort of her revenge, isn’t it? She’s taken the worst aspects of our characters and magnified them until that’s all the character is. But the weird thing is, she’s taken our characters as she knew them then, and I for one think I’ve changed immeasurably. We all have.’
‘Go on,’ I prompt, assured by Josh’s interpretation.
‘I was weak at university. I was insecure, had never been away from home, and so Portia’s decided that at thirty-something I would have to be a wimp. You were selfish at university, at times.’ He looks at me, and, although I don’t want to agree with him, I know it’s true.
‘But not when it came to Portia,’ he continues. ‘She was the weak spot for all of us, but you were often thoughtless, so she’s made you a self-obsessed adult.
‘And Steen.’ He looks at Si.
‘I know,’ says Si. ‘You don’t have to tell me I have a bitchy streak. I have calmed down, though, haven’t I?’ He looks at me, doubt written across his eyes. ‘You think I’m a nicer person now, don’t you, Cath?’
I reach over and hug him. ‘Of course,’ I say, smiling. ‘I think you’re lovely.’
‘Good,’ he says. ‘It’s good of you to be so selfless for a change.’
I hit him, and he squeezes my leg and gives me a long, smoochy kiss on the cheek.
‘Revenge for what?’ asks Dan, intrigued, as a silence falls and we all start to look slightly shifty.
‘It’s a long story,’ Lucy says matter-of-factly, able to do so because she wasn’t involved, she simply heard about it many years later. Josh sat her down and told her, late one night, when they were having a conversation about first loves. Portia was his first love, he told her. She broke his heart and it took him a long time to recover, but it was all in the past now, and anyway, he hadn’t seen her for years.
‘A story for another time,’ Lucy says brightly. The disappointment shows on Dan’s face, but he’s polite enough not to push the point.
‘So what about Portia?’ Si asks finally, when he’s disengaged his lips from my face. ‘Is she the breathtaking Mercedes? Perfect on the outside but unable to find lurrve?’
‘Who knows,’ shrugs Dan. ‘She’s very beautiful, but I only met her the few times she came to my flat with interior designers and stuff.’
‘Interior designers,’ I smile. ‘So Portia.’
‘I can give you my old number if you like,’ Dan says suddenly. ‘I don’t think she changed it, and it seems like you’d all like to get back in touch.’ He smiles. ‘If for nothing else but to shout at her.’
‘No, no,’ says Josh. ‘It was all a long time ago.’ I see him shoot a worried glance at Lucy, but she doesn’t look bothered in the slightest.
‘We were just curious.’ Si’s voice is nonchalant. ‘That’s all.’
‘I’d like her number,’ I find myself saying, even though I hadn’t planned for those words to come out of my mouth. ‘What?’ I turn to Josh and Si, demanding to know why they are so shocked. ‘What?’
‘Bugger!’ shouts Lucy, jumping up and knocking her chair halfway across the kitchen. ‘Bloody bread and butter pudding.’
This evening brings up so many memories for all of us. Si and I walk back to my flat in silence, both immersed in thoughts of Portia, memories of our gang, the strength of our love for one another.
‘I do still miss her, you know,’ Si says softly into my ear, as he’s hugging me goodbye.
I pull back and look at him. ‘Maybe that’s why we met Dan tonight. Everything happens for a reason, doesn’t it, Si? Maybe I was supposed to get her number. Maybe none of us is supposed to miss her any more.’