You’re turning out to be a dangerous woman to be around, Laurie.
What the bloody hell are these words coming out of my mouth? It sounds like a cheap pick-up line in a naff made-for-TV movie, when all I was trying to do was say we’re friends. You stupid Jackass; I berate myself using the nickname I carried through school like a badge of honour. My school reports were littered with variations of the same comment, though more politely put: ‘If only Jack applied as much effort to his studies as he does to acting the fool, he’d go a long way.’
I like to think I proved them wrong; when it came to the crunch my grades were just about decent enough to scrape into my first choice of uni. Truth is that I was lucky; I’ve been gifted with a near photographic memory, so those textbooks and theories only needed to go in once and they stayed there. With that and an ability to talk crap to anyone, I’ve done okay. Though for some reason my ability to talk doesn’t seem to extend to Laurie.
‘So, Laurie. What else should I know about you, besides the fact that you’ll beat me black and blue if I hurt your best mate?’
She looks startled by my question. I don’t blame her. The last time I asked anyone a question like that was my one and only hideous attempt at speed dating. What am I doing, interviewing her?
‘Umm …’ She laughs, music-box light. ‘There’s not really very much to tell.’
I try to bring it back to normal, shooting her a ‘try harder’ look. ‘Come on, throw me a bone here. Sarah wants us to be best buddies. Give me your three most embarrassing facts, and then I’ll give you mine.’
She narrows her eyes and her chin comes up a little. ‘Can we take it in turns?’
‘Go on then. As long as you go first.’
I tell myself that I’ve suggested this because Sarah is so keen on me and Laurie being friends, and that honestly, genuinely, is partly the reason. Partly. But the other part just wants to know more about her, because she intrigues me, and because I’m comfortable here on the other end of the sofa, and because I find myself relaxed in her company. Maybe it’s the wine she’s drunk, and it’s probably the beer I’ve sunk, but I think I could be good friends with this girl. That’s okay, isn’t it? I know some people don’t believe that platonic friendships can happen between men and women.
I’m going to trade truths with Laurie, and we’re going to become the best of friends. That, ladies and gentlemen, is my grand plan.
She drums her nails against the edge of her glass, thinking, and I find I’m really interested to hear what she’s going to say. She looks down into the dregs of her wine, and when she raises her eyes, she’s laughing.
‘Okay, I was fourteen, fifteen maybe.’ She breaks off and presses her hand to her red cheek, shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe I’m going to tell you this.’
That giddy laugh again, and she lowers her lashes, making me duck down to catch her eye.
‘Come on, you’ve got to tell me now,’ I cajole.
She sighs with resignation. ‘I was with Alana, my best friend at the time, and we were at the school disco trying to pretend we were super-cool. I think we might even have had a box of cigarettes, although neither of us smoked.’
I nod, wanting to hear more.
‘And there was this boy, as there always is, and I really fancied him. Half the school did, in actual fact, but by some miracle he seemed to like me too.’
I want to butt in and tell her that it’s not a miracle or even a surprise really, but I don’t.
‘So he finally asks me to dance at the end, and I nonchalantly accept, and it’s all going really well until I look up sharply just as he looks down at me, and I full-on headbutt him in the face and break his nose.’ She looks at me, wide-eyed, and then laughter bubbles up in her throat. ‘Blood everywhere. They had to call him an ambulance.’
‘No way.’ I shake my head slowly. ‘Wow, you’re a really shit date, Laurie.’
‘I wasn’t even dating him,’ she protests. ‘I wanted to, but it never got off the ground after that. No surprise, really.’ Knocking her knuckles on her skull, she shrugs. ‘Iron hard, by all accounts.’
‘Okay, so now you’re a ninja mafia moll with an exceptionally hard cranium. I can understand what Sarah sees in you.’
She plays it straight. ‘I reckon I must make her feel safe.’
‘I’ll say. You really should think about charging protection money. Pay your student loan off in no time.’
Laurie puts her wine glass on the table and leans back, tucking her dark hair behind her ears as she settles cross-legged, facing towards me. When I was a kid we went on annual family holidays to Cornwall, and my mother had a thing for those tiny little pixies you could buy, usually sitting on toadstools or something equally twee. Something in the neatness of Laurie’s lotus position and the point of her chin when she smoothes her hair behind her ears reminds me of those pixies now, and for a second I experience a jolt of homesickness out of the blue. As if she is familiar, even though she isn’t.
‘Your turn.’ She grins.
‘I don’t think I have anything that measures up,’ I say. ‘I mean, I’ve never even headbutted a woman.’
‘What kind of man are you?’
She feigns disappointment, and even though she is joking, I consider her question seriously.
‘A good one, I hope?’
Her laughter dies in her throat. ‘I hope so too.’
I know she means for Sarah’s sake.
‘How about this one …’ I change the subject abruptly. ‘Let me tell you about my sixth birthday party. Imagine a small child who got buried in the ball pit and then got so scared that his dad had to navigate the jungle of slides and scramble nets to find him. I was three foot under the balls and crying so much that I threw up. They had to clear the place.’ I have a vivid flashback to the faces of the horrified parents of the kid whose party dress got splattered with my chocolate-cake puke. ‘Funnily enough, my party invitation rate dropped off sharply after that.’
‘Oh, now that’s a sad story,’ she says, and I don’t even think she’s taking the piss.
I shrug. ‘I’m a man. I’m made of tough stuff.’
She raps her knuckles on her skull again. ‘You forget who you’re talking to here.’
I nod, solemn. ‘Ironwoman.’
‘The very same.’
We fall silent and assimilate what we now know of each other. For my part, I know that she’s awkward with men and likely to cause injury. For hers, she knows I scare easily and am liable to throw up over her. She takes the empty ice-cream carton and spoon from me and leans sideways to slide it on to the coffee table, and despite my best efforts, my man brain observes the movement of her limbs, the sliver of breast I can see under her arm, the inward curve at the base of her spine. Why do women have to have all of that going on? It’s really not okay. I want to be platonic friends with Laurie, yet my brain is filing away her every movement, storing her up, building a map of her in my head so I can visit her every now and then in my sleep. I don’t want to. When I’m awake, I really don’t think of Laurie in that way, but my sleeping brain doesn’t seem to have received the memo.
In sleep, I’ve observed that her skin is creamy pale and that her eyes are the colour of forget-me-nots. Laurie’s eyes are a fucking summer hedgerow. And now I can add that pronounced curve at the small of her back, and that she gets giddy after wine, and how she bites her bottom lip when she’s thinking. Times like this, my photographic memory becomes more an impediment than advantage. Of course, Laurie’s not the only woman I have dreams about, but she seems to warrant a more regular walk-on role than most. Not that I’m dreaming of other women all the time. I’m going to stop now, because I’m making myself sound like a closet sleazebag.
‘Right, I guess that makes it my turn again,’ she says. I nod, glad that she’s derailed my train of thought.
‘You’re going to have to go some to top the headbutt story.’
‘I started too strong,’ she agrees, chewing her lip again, struggling to dredge up something suitable.
To help her, I chuck out a few prompts.
‘That embarrassing incident when you went out in high winds without knickers?’ She smirks but shakes her head. ‘Poisoned someone with your cooking? The time you accidentally snogged your sister’s boyfriend?’
Her features soften, a sudden study of nostalgia and other emotions I find hard to read as they slide over her face. Christ. I must have said something really wrong, because now she’s blinking hard, as if she has something in her eyes. Like tears.
‘God. Shit, I’m sorry,’ she mutters, dashing the backs of her hands furiously across her eyes.
‘No, no. I am,’ I rush, still not sure what I’ve said to provoke such a reaction. I want to hold her hand, cover her kneecap with my palm, something, anything to say I’m sorry, but I can’t quite make my hand move.
She shakes her head. ‘It’s really not your fault.’
I wait for her to gather herself. ‘Want to talk about it?’
She looks down, pinching the skin on the back of her hand, small repetitive motions; a coping mechanism, using physical pain to detract from emotional upset. My pain-in-the-arse brother, Albie, wears an elastic band round his wrist that he snaps for the same reason.
‘My little sister died when she was six years old. I’d just turned eight.’
Shit. I take back that description of my brother. He’s four years younger than me and it’s true that he can be a right royal pain in the arse, but I love the fucking bones of him. I can’t even bear to think of the world without him in it.
‘Jesus, Laurie.’
This time I don’t think twice. As a tear rolls down her cheek I reach out and swipe it away with my thumb. Then she’s properly crying and I’m stroking her hair and shushing her as a mother soothes a child.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have blurted that out,’ she gulps after a couple of minutes where both of us say nothing, pushing the heels of her palms into her eyes. ‘It caught me right out of nowhere. I haven’t cried about it for ages. Must be the wine.’
I nod as I lower my hand, feeling hideous for being so unwittingly insensitive.
‘I always say I only have a brother whenever anyone asks. I feel disloyal not mentioning her, but it’s easier than telling people the truth.’ She’s calmer now, drawing in slow, shaky breaths.
I have no real clue how to say the right thing in this situation, but I try; I have at least a small idea of how she might be feeling. ‘What was her name?’
Laurie’s face floods with warmth, and her vulnerability sears straight through me. Piercing, acute longing, bittersweet, as if something has been missing from her for too long. She sighs heavily as she turns to lean her back against the sofa beside me, pulling her knees up and wrapping her arms round them. When she speaks again her voice is low and measured, like someone giving a rehearsed speech at a loved one’s funeral.
‘Ginny was born with a heart condition, but she was bright, and God, was she smart. She ran rings round me. She was my best friend.’ She pauses for a brief second, bracing herself for impact, as if she knows that telling the next part of her story is going to physically hurt. ‘Pneumonia. She was here one moment and then she was gone. I don’t think any of us have ever got over losing her. My poor mum and dad …’ She trails off, because there aren’t really any suitable words; parents should never have to bury their child. She isn’t pinching her skin any more; I don’t think there’s a coping mechanism in the world up to the job of distracting you from something like this.
On TV, Nicolas Cage is crashing around on a motorbike, all action and brawn, and here in this small living room I put my arm round Laurie’s shoulders and squeeze her against me. Her body judders with deep breaths, and she lays her head against my shoulder and closes her eyes. I can’t pinpoint the moment she falls asleep, but I’m glad she does because it’s what she needs right now. I don’t move, even though I probably should. I don’t get up and go to bed, even though a wiser man would have. I just sit and keep her company while she sleeps, and it feels … I don’t even know what it feels. Peaceful.
I don’t press my face into her hair.
When I wake up, I know there’s something I need to remember but my brain feels as if it’s wrapped in fuzzy felt. That’ll be the wine, I think groggily, and then I open my eyes and realize I’m not in bed. I’m still on the sofa, but my bed pillow is beneath my head and I’m snuggled under my duvet. A long squint at my watch tells me it’s only a little after six in the morning, so I lie back and close my eyes, working my way through the evening from the bit that comes most easily to mind.
Ice cream. Wine. Ryan Gosling rowing a boat. Swans. There were definitely swans. And, oh my God, Sarah had had a skin-full! I’ll check on her in a minute, it’s a good job Jack brought her home. Jack. Oh shit. Jack.
My mind sprints straight into panic mode, convincing myself that I must have said or done something terrible and disloyal and that Sarah is going to hate me. He was talking to me, and we were laughing and watching the movie, and then … Oh. And then I remember. Ginny. Sliding deep back inside the cocoon of my duvet, I screw my eyes up tight and let myself remember my sweet, beautiful little sister. Slender fingers, her nails so fragile they were almost translucent, the only other person in the world with eyes just like mine. I have to concentrate really hard to pull her childish voice from my memories, the excited joy of her giggle, the shimmer of her poker-straight blonde hair in sunlight. Fractured memories, faded like sun-damaged photographs. I don’t allow myself to think of Ginny very often in day-to-day life, or at all, really; it takes me a long time afterwards to reconcile the fact that she simply isn’t here any more, to not be furious with everyone else for breathing when she isn’t.
I remember last night clearly now. I didn’t do anything morally wrong with Jack, nothing that I need to feel compromised over in the traditional sense this morning, at least; I definitely didn’t show him my boobs or confess true love. Yet still I can’t let myself totally off the hook, because in truth I did cross a line, albeit a fine and almost invisible one. I can clearly feel it tangled around my ankles like fishing wire, ready to trip me up and make a liar out of me. I let myself get too close. All it took was a cheap bottle of wine to lower my guard; for one unwittingly misjudged comment to make me crumble like an abandoned sandcastle when the evening tide comes in.