First wifes shadow, p.3
First Wife's Shadow, page 3
An outrageous thought.
5
The two-hour drinks reception flies by. I get this odd sensation that I want to somehow grab time physically with both hands and dig in my heels to slow things down, but time can’t be manipulated at will.
At dinner, we are seated at different tables, too far away from one another to make eye contact. I’m so tempted to mess with the seating plan, but as my guests are sponsors of the conference, they deserve my full attention. It would be undisciplined and out of character of me to prioritise this flirtation. I resist. By the time the food is eaten and plates are cleared, I discover Matthew has left the dining room.
The next morning I get up at 5.08 as usual. I am dependent on street light. The yellow electric light slips through the gaps between buildings like paint spilt. It is peculiar running through a city rather than the woods. A totally different experience. My muscles still ache, the sweat gathers in my eyes and on my back; the difference is there is no space. I miss my black treelines, punchy against the opaque quiet country light that stretches across the boundary of my land. I run in loops, dodging people hurrying, head down, to or from early or late shifts; traffic cones, buses, bikes, pools of vomit – a badge of someone’s revelry the night before. Despite the unsatisfactory nature of the exercise, I enjoy my limbs stretching, my lungs burning. I’m in a great mood.
I shave some minutes off my usual routine as I settle for a shop-bought smoothie. By 6.10, I’m ready to check out. I’m planning on leaving a message for him with reception. While running, I mentally composed something friendly but not exposing. The age gap looms like a tall wall, but one I think I can scale. On the hotel notepaper I scribble a request for copies of the photos he took, but when I ask if I can leave the note for Mr Charlton, I’m informed that he has already left.
‘No message for me?’ I ask, hoping to sound breezy. Almost certainly I don’t, because the receptionist grimaces sympathetically as she shakes her head.
Right.
There’s no refuting the brutal fact that my romantic opportunities have diminished exponentially with every passing year since I turned thirty, so I’m no stranger to disappointment. However, his vanishing without swapping numbers or even saying goodbye after our great chat in the bar last night stings. I straighten my shoulders, take a deep breath – literally and metaphorically sucking it up – and head to the airport. From there I catch a plane back to Heathrow and a Tube to the office. This is why I love my job. There’s always a to-do list waiting for me. It is reliable.
I’m not the sort to constantly think about a brief encounter with a man; my mind is absorbed by bigger things. That said, I find my thoughts wandering. I think of his eyes, which were revealed slowly as his lids rested half closed, giving him a relaxed vibe. I think of his body. He’s clearly fit, with the sort of leanness that promises a six-pack; he has good forearms. I decide I will allow my mind to drift his way for up to five working days. That’s it. Tops. Within that time it is perfectly possible that he’ll reach out to me. I’m easy to find if he wants to, and if he doesn’t, well, so be it. Despite this resolve and faux-serenity, I catch myself living with the shameful wait that others have described to me but I haven’t experienced since being in my late teens. Waiting for his call, waiting for an email, waiting for a request on Instagram or LinkedIn. I’ve always tried to stay above this sort of nonsense.
Early on the morning of the fourth day of this self-imposed deadline, my marketing director runs into my office looking openly stressed. He’s currently very wrapped up in the project of rebuilding the company website. It’s dated and not especially user-friendly. The new site will feature an introduction to the executive team; the aim is to present us as approachable in a time when everyone distrusts everyone, and energy providers most of all. Even green ones. A lot of people dislike getting their photo taken. I’ve heard several people on the exec team express concern about how jowly or old they look. I say people, I mean women. The men – notably more jowly, notably older – do not seem bothered by the idea of their image being captured for posterity. For that reason, I’ve refused to utter a single word about my qualms, although I have them too. I do not want to perpetuate the narrative that whether I am judged to be attractive or not is relevant. I’m a conscious feminist.
It’s exhausting.
The employees concerned about their wrinkles and excess pounds want serious, straight-to-camera black-and-white photos, assuming they’re more likely to be flattering or certainly easier to Photoshop. The marketing team have argued that as the brief is to present us as an approachable company, candid colour photos must be the order of the day. A guy with his hair tied into a casual topknot explained to us what he was hoping for. ‘You know the sort of thing, head thrown back, an irrepressible laugh escaping, hashtag trustworthy.’
Hashtag really? I kept the thought to myself and suggested that we brief the photographer to take two sets of images. Today is the day the exec team are to have their photos taken, but the marketing director is panicked, as the photographer has phoned to say he’s sick. ‘Can’t we just postpone the shoot for a week?’ I ask.
‘No. The website launch will slip, and coordinating diaries to get everyone in the office has been the absolute worst. We need a replacement, but what photographer of any calibre will be available at short notice?’ He looks frazzled. I tell myself I’m just doing him a favour. I have no vested interest.
‘Long shot, but look up a guy called Matthew Charlton. His work is excellent. Tell him we’ll pay three times his usual rate if he can work today. I’m pretty sure he needs the money, so the offer will be too good to miss. If he has anything in his diary, he’ll most likely cancel.’
Matthew is in the office by 11 a.m. I’m not sure what sort of reception to give or expect to receive. When all’s said and done, we had a few drinks and a chat. I have no way of knowing whether he’s that polite, interested, interesting with everyone he meets. He probably thought of me as safely older and therefore he was excitingly direct because there was no sexual attraction on his part. None whatsoever. Bleak thought. It’s most sensible to simply remain professional and a little aloof. A little aloof is never a bad move. I’m the sort of person who would prefer to be underdressed than overdressed at a party. However, when it’s my turn to go to the boardroom, which has been turned into a mini studio for today’s purposes, I nip to the loo and zhuzh my hair.
He seems delighted to see me, which is a relief. I thought I recalled him clearly, so I’m shocked to discover how vibrant he is in the flesh. Even bigger and better and brighter than I recalled. The attraction I felt instantly reasserts itself. Damn. This is only good news if I get something back from him to suggest he feels the same.
He’s running late. It quickly becomes apparent that people like to linger around him. He smiles a lot; he tells funny stories, cracks jokes. His jokes aren’t delivered in an oppressive, give-me-all-your-attention manner; he appears naturally witty and gregarious in a low-key way. It’s obvious he wants to make people feel relaxed, and he succeeds. He has an endearing habit of throwing out gentle little compliments.
‘I like your earrings. The way they catch the light makes it seem as though they’re winking at me.’
Elizabeth, head of sales, reaches up to touch her earrings. ‘Oh, these. My husband got them for me for our last anniversary.’ She smiles. Click. A photo that will no doubt capture her recalling her wedding anniversary.
‘Mate, great skin-fade.’ Raj, who leads the digital division, shyly runs his hand over his shaved head and grins. Click. A photo that will capture the pleasure felt when someone appreciates the effort you’ve made.
Finally it’s my turn to be photographed, and he says simply, ‘Ah, I’ve saved the best until last.’ And there it is, something extra for me. ‘How’ve you been?’ he asks.
‘Good, good. Fine. Busy,’ I reply unimaginatively. He starts to click the camera.
‘Thanks for giving me this work.’
‘We were stuck.’ My response isn’t especially elegant, although it is true. Matthew laughs.
‘Well, I’m grateful.’ I smile at the camera and say nothing. I’m not being coy; I just don’t want to be captured mid-sentence. Matthew continues. ‘Because I’ve been racking my brains for an excuse to get in touch. I’ve been wondering whether there’s a partner in the background, and if there isn’t, whether you would be interested in going out. Maybe dinner?’
‘No, no partner.’ I beam broadly back at him, relief and delight flooding through my bones.
Click. ‘I think that’s the shot,’ he says with a confident grin. ‘And my answer.’
6
March
‘So, you’re alive then,’ Heidi says as she picks up the bottle of wine that stands glistening in the ice bucket on the table. The bar is loud with the sound of chatter and laughter, good times, but still I can hear my friend’s disapproval and frustration in me. I throw her what I hope is a winning smile. She pours a generous measure of wine into the third glass; the other two are less than half full, underlining the fact that I’m late. Matthew was on the phone, and I just lost track of time. So unlike me. I’m not even sure what we were talking about. Nothing, something, everything.
It was Matthew who pointed out, ‘Hey, I thought we weren’t seeing each other tonight because you’re going out with your friends.’
‘That’s right. I’m meeting them at seven-thirty.’
‘Have you seen the time? You’re going to be late.’
Gina stands up and leans over the bar table, offering me a hug and a wide beam. She’s the easier-going out of the two. Heidi doesn’t move from her chair; she’s sulking with me but that’s not the reason she doesn’t hug me. She knows me better than anyone and she knows that I’m not really the hugging type. I do it occasionally, because other people seem to expect it and feel slighted if I don’t, but she gives me my space.
‘We thought you’d fallen off the edge of the planet,’ she mutters.
‘The planet is round, Heidi, and there’s gravity, so you don’t have to worry about that.’ I stick my tongue out and pull a daft face so she knows I’m trying to be funny.
‘Smart arse.’ She clinks her glass against mine. I’m forgiven.
Heidi and Gina are my best friends. Honestly, they are my only real friends. Of course I have endless friendly colleagues, but I think those relationships might be situational. We find ourselves thrown together at industry events and have a chat and a laugh because we have a lot in common. Heidi, Gina and I have very little in common nowadays. They are both married stay-at-home mums. Heidi has three teen kids: Troy, her eldest, is at uni, Fifi and Aaliyah are still at school. They live in Woking, Surrey, and have for twenty years. Gina lives in Kingston, also Surrey. She and her husband, Mick, started their family later. They have an eight-year-old, Lottie, who we all dote upon as the baby of the group.
My best friends spend their time doing school runs or pickups from parties, drunken experimental ones in nightclubs or ones with fairy cakes and bouncy castles (either way, the parents know the party is over when the guests start to throw up or cry). They worry about school league tables and their kids’ friendship groups. I spend my time in meeting rooms worrying about profit and loss and carbon emissions in the FTSE 100 supply chains. Yet despite the fact that our day-to-day experiences are not at all similar, we are best friends. We trust one another completely, tell each other everything, and we have history. If ever either of them rang to tell me they’d killed their husband, I’d reach for a shovel and jump in my car. Not that it is a scenario that’s likely to be tested: they both have husbands who make them happy.
Heidi and I met at Birmingham University almost thirty years ago. She was the first black friend I ever had. I studiously avoided the subject of colour with her for months because I thought that was the least prejudiced thing to do – ignore our differences, pretend there weren’t any. But she put me right when she explained that her life experiences in no way mirrored mine, and pretending they did wasn’t especially helpful.
She told me that teachers at school often commented on her ‘unruly’ hair, which was in fact a completely natural afro, and insisted she ‘crop it’. When she refused, she was excluded from school. This happened twice. She explained that when browsing around shops, she was often trailed by security guards. Once when she was on a train, reading The Catcher in the Rye, she heard a middle-aged woman say to her husband, ‘What’s she reading that for?’ The husband responded, ‘I’m surprised she can read at all.’ Shocking, right? Yes, if you’re white. Apparently not if you’re a person of colour. It happens too often to still shock.
‘This is the low-grade stuff. You should hear what my dad and brother deal with,’ she told me. ‘You’d never guess how many times they’ve been stopped and searched, pulled over in allegedly “random” car checks, the aggression they face on the street, at work.’ She broke off at that point. I got the sense there was more but she couldn’t bear getting into it. I told her it sounded awful, that I had no idea, that I burnt with fury that such arseholes were out there wallowing in ignorance, spreading hate. She said she appreciated my anger. ‘The thing is, it’s just sadder being me. Not because I am black – I’m proud of that and who I am. It’s sadder because I’ve known how crap the world is from an early age and most people of colour have the same experience. You whities get to live in la-la world for far longer. Sometimes indefinitely.’
Then I told her about being orphaned.
Not the fast, edited account, but the messy truth. My family situation was not something I had ever spoken of to my friends at school, and I hadn’t planned on breaking my rule of reserve at university, but she’d been so brave in revealing her vulnerable moments to me, I wanted to show her the same respect. ‘My dad was driving drunk. My dad was often drunk. I didn’t grieve for him because I hated him for being so bloody stupid and selfish and weak and destructive.’ I was panting as I confessed this, the words exploding out of me like bullets. ‘My paternal grandparents weren’t people my brother and I had been close to, either physically or emotionally. They’d found their son an embarrassment and so had given up on him and cut him off before he even met my mum. Something they maybe regretted. Anyway, they offered us a home, of sorts, after the accident. I was sent to an all-girls boarding school, my brother was sent to one for boys. They simply thought that was the proper thing to do. Or maybe the easiest thing to do. I don’t know.’
I admitted that I had fared better than Tom. Yes, I was lonely and isolated, but I threw myself into my schoolwork. People said he was attention-seeking when really he was grief-stricken. He made friends with whoever caused the most trouble at school. Too much cash and time, not enough direction, age thirteen he and his mates were all taking drugs. By eighteen he had visited the Priory three times. He was generally considered, by anyone who could be bothered to express an opinion, a lost cause. ‘Very much like his father’ was the verdict. There is a big difference; I love Tom, although even I admit he’s not easy.
‘My grandparents allowed us to go to theirs in the holidays, but they didn’t go so far as to make themselves available. Instead they timed their trips to the French Riviera, Barbados and Aspen to coincide with the summer, Easter and Christmas breaks. My brother and I stayed with staff, paid to monitor us.’
When I finished telling Heidi about my childhood, her eyes were like saucers. I’m still not sure if that was because she was impressed with my grandparents’ holiday locations or horrified by my life. ‘It’s a conundrum which of us has it worse,’ she commented drily. ‘The black kid with loving parents who is irrationally hated by strangers and consequently will have limited economic options, or the rich white kid who has every financial advantage in the world but isn’t loved by anyone.’
It was such a shocking thought to articulate that all we could do was laugh out loud. ‘Why are we laughing?’ I asked as we rolled about on the thin, cheap carpet in her small student bedroom; helpless, barely able to breathe.
‘Because of the old adage, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, I guess.’
Heidi has the widest smile and always wears bright red lipstick. She did then and does now. It’s her signature look. She was laughing so hard, little bubbles of saliva popped on her teeth, and I felt such fierce love for her. That Easter she invited me to her home for the holidays. I’ve never been alone at a holiday since.
Heidi and I met Gina when we were twenty-five. Heidi was trying to tone up for her upcoming wedding to Leon, and so we’d started to go to fitness classes at the local sports centre. The classes were run by an instructor who hadn’t updated her routine since the early nineties. There was a lot of energetic side bends and jumping jacks, she constantly bellowed things like ‘No pain, no gain, ladies!’ It was probably something to do with evolution and survival instinct, but we habitually set up our mats in the same spot, at the back of the hall, as far away from the instructor as we could possibly get. Gina always set up a row in front of us. She was, from the off, comedy gold. This is in part because she has absolutely no clue which is her left and which is her right. Heidi claims she once wet herself laughing at Gina’s earnest, hopeless attempts to T-step to four counts and round the world, knee lift, clockwise.
A plain-speaking northerner, Gina would provide a no-inhibitions running commentary, often piping up with things like ‘My leg does not go there and wouldn’t even for Keanu Reeves’, ‘I’m dying, you sadist’ and once, most memorably for the subsequent formation of our little gang, ‘Sod this for a game of soldiers, I’m off to the pub.’ Then she left, mid-class. The brilliant thing is, Heidi and I shared a glance and followed her. Heidi saw that Gina was a soulmate. I’m the yin to Heidi’s yang, but we are not alike. There was space for Gina in our friendship.
We are a strong threesome. We love each other equally but differently. Like the legs of a stool, we need each other and offer support without any of the ugly jealousies or insecurities that women are so often – and so unfairly – accused of. Gina and I were both single until ten years ago. We discussed dates, analysed texts, offered advice when things were going well and then shared negronis when things fell apart. I’d assumed that we’d stroll into old age together, keep one another company on bank holidays. Gina used to say she was looking forward to going on Saga cruises, where we’d eat our body weight in chocolate gateau at the all-inclusive buffet. ‘No one can resist one of those. Even you,’ she’d tease.
5
The two-hour drinks reception flies by. I get this odd sensation that I want to somehow grab time physically with both hands and dig in my heels to slow things down, but time can’t be manipulated at will.
At dinner, we are seated at different tables, too far away from one another to make eye contact. I’m so tempted to mess with the seating plan, but as my guests are sponsors of the conference, they deserve my full attention. It would be undisciplined and out of character of me to prioritise this flirtation. I resist. By the time the food is eaten and plates are cleared, I discover Matthew has left the dining room.
The next morning I get up at 5.08 as usual. I am dependent on street light. The yellow electric light slips through the gaps between buildings like paint spilt. It is peculiar running through a city rather than the woods. A totally different experience. My muscles still ache, the sweat gathers in my eyes and on my back; the difference is there is no space. I miss my black treelines, punchy against the opaque quiet country light that stretches across the boundary of my land. I run in loops, dodging people hurrying, head down, to or from early or late shifts; traffic cones, buses, bikes, pools of vomit – a badge of someone’s revelry the night before. Despite the unsatisfactory nature of the exercise, I enjoy my limbs stretching, my lungs burning. I’m in a great mood.
I shave some minutes off my usual routine as I settle for a shop-bought smoothie. By 6.10, I’m ready to check out. I’m planning on leaving a message for him with reception. While running, I mentally composed something friendly but not exposing. The age gap looms like a tall wall, but one I think I can scale. On the hotel notepaper I scribble a request for copies of the photos he took, but when I ask if I can leave the note for Mr Charlton, I’m informed that he has already left.
‘No message for me?’ I ask, hoping to sound breezy. Almost certainly I don’t, because the receptionist grimaces sympathetically as she shakes her head.
Right.
There’s no refuting the brutal fact that my romantic opportunities have diminished exponentially with every passing year since I turned thirty, so I’m no stranger to disappointment. However, his vanishing without swapping numbers or even saying goodbye after our great chat in the bar last night stings. I straighten my shoulders, take a deep breath – literally and metaphorically sucking it up – and head to the airport. From there I catch a plane back to Heathrow and a Tube to the office. This is why I love my job. There’s always a to-do list waiting for me. It is reliable.
I’m not the sort to constantly think about a brief encounter with a man; my mind is absorbed by bigger things. That said, I find my thoughts wandering. I think of his eyes, which were revealed slowly as his lids rested half closed, giving him a relaxed vibe. I think of his body. He’s clearly fit, with the sort of leanness that promises a six-pack; he has good forearms. I decide I will allow my mind to drift his way for up to five working days. That’s it. Tops. Within that time it is perfectly possible that he’ll reach out to me. I’m easy to find if he wants to, and if he doesn’t, well, so be it. Despite this resolve and faux-serenity, I catch myself living with the shameful wait that others have described to me but I haven’t experienced since being in my late teens. Waiting for his call, waiting for an email, waiting for a request on Instagram or LinkedIn. I’ve always tried to stay above this sort of nonsense.
Early on the morning of the fourth day of this self-imposed deadline, my marketing director runs into my office looking openly stressed. He’s currently very wrapped up in the project of rebuilding the company website. It’s dated and not especially user-friendly. The new site will feature an introduction to the executive team; the aim is to present us as approachable in a time when everyone distrusts everyone, and energy providers most of all. Even green ones. A lot of people dislike getting their photo taken. I’ve heard several people on the exec team express concern about how jowly or old they look. I say people, I mean women. The men – notably more jowly, notably older – do not seem bothered by the idea of their image being captured for posterity. For that reason, I’ve refused to utter a single word about my qualms, although I have them too. I do not want to perpetuate the narrative that whether I am judged to be attractive or not is relevant. I’m a conscious feminist.
It’s exhausting.
The employees concerned about their wrinkles and excess pounds want serious, straight-to-camera black-and-white photos, assuming they’re more likely to be flattering or certainly easier to Photoshop. The marketing team have argued that as the brief is to present us as an approachable company, candid colour photos must be the order of the day. A guy with his hair tied into a casual topknot explained to us what he was hoping for. ‘You know the sort of thing, head thrown back, an irrepressible laugh escaping, hashtag trustworthy.’
Hashtag really? I kept the thought to myself and suggested that we brief the photographer to take two sets of images. Today is the day the exec team are to have their photos taken, but the marketing director is panicked, as the photographer has phoned to say he’s sick. ‘Can’t we just postpone the shoot for a week?’ I ask.
‘No. The website launch will slip, and coordinating diaries to get everyone in the office has been the absolute worst. We need a replacement, but what photographer of any calibre will be available at short notice?’ He looks frazzled. I tell myself I’m just doing him a favour. I have no vested interest.
‘Long shot, but look up a guy called Matthew Charlton. His work is excellent. Tell him we’ll pay three times his usual rate if he can work today. I’m pretty sure he needs the money, so the offer will be too good to miss. If he has anything in his diary, he’ll most likely cancel.’
Matthew is in the office by 11 a.m. I’m not sure what sort of reception to give or expect to receive. When all’s said and done, we had a few drinks and a chat. I have no way of knowing whether he’s that polite, interested, interesting with everyone he meets. He probably thought of me as safely older and therefore he was excitingly direct because there was no sexual attraction on his part. None whatsoever. Bleak thought. It’s most sensible to simply remain professional and a little aloof. A little aloof is never a bad move. I’m the sort of person who would prefer to be underdressed than overdressed at a party. However, when it’s my turn to go to the boardroom, which has been turned into a mini studio for today’s purposes, I nip to the loo and zhuzh my hair.
He seems delighted to see me, which is a relief. I thought I recalled him clearly, so I’m shocked to discover how vibrant he is in the flesh. Even bigger and better and brighter than I recalled. The attraction I felt instantly reasserts itself. Damn. This is only good news if I get something back from him to suggest he feels the same.
He’s running late. It quickly becomes apparent that people like to linger around him. He smiles a lot; he tells funny stories, cracks jokes. His jokes aren’t delivered in an oppressive, give-me-all-your-attention manner; he appears naturally witty and gregarious in a low-key way. It’s obvious he wants to make people feel relaxed, and he succeeds. He has an endearing habit of throwing out gentle little compliments.
‘I like your earrings. The way they catch the light makes it seem as though they’re winking at me.’
Elizabeth, head of sales, reaches up to touch her earrings. ‘Oh, these. My husband got them for me for our last anniversary.’ She smiles. Click. A photo that will no doubt capture her recalling her wedding anniversary.
‘Mate, great skin-fade.’ Raj, who leads the digital division, shyly runs his hand over his shaved head and grins. Click. A photo that will capture the pleasure felt when someone appreciates the effort you’ve made.
Finally it’s my turn to be photographed, and he says simply, ‘Ah, I’ve saved the best until last.’ And there it is, something extra for me. ‘How’ve you been?’ he asks.
‘Good, good. Fine. Busy,’ I reply unimaginatively. He starts to click the camera.
‘Thanks for giving me this work.’
‘We were stuck.’ My response isn’t especially elegant, although it is true. Matthew laughs.
‘Well, I’m grateful.’ I smile at the camera and say nothing. I’m not being coy; I just don’t want to be captured mid-sentence. Matthew continues. ‘Because I’ve been racking my brains for an excuse to get in touch. I’ve been wondering whether there’s a partner in the background, and if there isn’t, whether you would be interested in going out. Maybe dinner?’
‘No, no partner.’ I beam broadly back at him, relief and delight flooding through my bones.
Click. ‘I think that’s the shot,’ he says with a confident grin. ‘And my answer.’
6
March
‘So, you’re alive then,’ Heidi says as she picks up the bottle of wine that stands glistening in the ice bucket on the table. The bar is loud with the sound of chatter and laughter, good times, but still I can hear my friend’s disapproval and frustration in me. I throw her what I hope is a winning smile. She pours a generous measure of wine into the third glass; the other two are less than half full, underlining the fact that I’m late. Matthew was on the phone, and I just lost track of time. So unlike me. I’m not even sure what we were talking about. Nothing, something, everything.
It was Matthew who pointed out, ‘Hey, I thought we weren’t seeing each other tonight because you’re going out with your friends.’
‘That’s right. I’m meeting them at seven-thirty.’
‘Have you seen the time? You’re going to be late.’
Gina stands up and leans over the bar table, offering me a hug and a wide beam. She’s the easier-going out of the two. Heidi doesn’t move from her chair; she’s sulking with me but that’s not the reason she doesn’t hug me. She knows me better than anyone and she knows that I’m not really the hugging type. I do it occasionally, because other people seem to expect it and feel slighted if I don’t, but she gives me my space.
‘We thought you’d fallen off the edge of the planet,’ she mutters.
‘The planet is round, Heidi, and there’s gravity, so you don’t have to worry about that.’ I stick my tongue out and pull a daft face so she knows I’m trying to be funny.
‘Smart arse.’ She clinks her glass against mine. I’m forgiven.
Heidi and Gina are my best friends. Honestly, they are my only real friends. Of course I have endless friendly colleagues, but I think those relationships might be situational. We find ourselves thrown together at industry events and have a chat and a laugh because we have a lot in common. Heidi, Gina and I have very little in common nowadays. They are both married stay-at-home mums. Heidi has three teen kids: Troy, her eldest, is at uni, Fifi and Aaliyah are still at school. They live in Woking, Surrey, and have for twenty years. Gina lives in Kingston, also Surrey. She and her husband, Mick, started their family later. They have an eight-year-old, Lottie, who we all dote upon as the baby of the group.
My best friends spend their time doing school runs or pickups from parties, drunken experimental ones in nightclubs or ones with fairy cakes and bouncy castles (either way, the parents know the party is over when the guests start to throw up or cry). They worry about school league tables and their kids’ friendship groups. I spend my time in meeting rooms worrying about profit and loss and carbon emissions in the FTSE 100 supply chains. Yet despite the fact that our day-to-day experiences are not at all similar, we are best friends. We trust one another completely, tell each other everything, and we have history. If ever either of them rang to tell me they’d killed their husband, I’d reach for a shovel and jump in my car. Not that it is a scenario that’s likely to be tested: they both have husbands who make them happy.
Heidi and I met at Birmingham University almost thirty years ago. She was the first black friend I ever had. I studiously avoided the subject of colour with her for months because I thought that was the least prejudiced thing to do – ignore our differences, pretend there weren’t any. But she put me right when she explained that her life experiences in no way mirrored mine, and pretending they did wasn’t especially helpful.
She told me that teachers at school often commented on her ‘unruly’ hair, which was in fact a completely natural afro, and insisted she ‘crop it’. When she refused, she was excluded from school. This happened twice. She explained that when browsing around shops, she was often trailed by security guards. Once when she was on a train, reading The Catcher in the Rye, she heard a middle-aged woman say to her husband, ‘What’s she reading that for?’ The husband responded, ‘I’m surprised she can read at all.’ Shocking, right? Yes, if you’re white. Apparently not if you’re a person of colour. It happens too often to still shock.
‘This is the low-grade stuff. You should hear what my dad and brother deal with,’ she told me. ‘You’d never guess how many times they’ve been stopped and searched, pulled over in allegedly “random” car checks, the aggression they face on the street, at work.’ She broke off at that point. I got the sense there was more but she couldn’t bear getting into it. I told her it sounded awful, that I had no idea, that I burnt with fury that such arseholes were out there wallowing in ignorance, spreading hate. She said she appreciated my anger. ‘The thing is, it’s just sadder being me. Not because I am black – I’m proud of that and who I am. It’s sadder because I’ve known how crap the world is from an early age and most people of colour have the same experience. You whities get to live in la-la world for far longer. Sometimes indefinitely.’
Then I told her about being orphaned.
Not the fast, edited account, but the messy truth. My family situation was not something I had ever spoken of to my friends at school, and I hadn’t planned on breaking my rule of reserve at university, but she’d been so brave in revealing her vulnerable moments to me, I wanted to show her the same respect. ‘My dad was driving drunk. My dad was often drunk. I didn’t grieve for him because I hated him for being so bloody stupid and selfish and weak and destructive.’ I was panting as I confessed this, the words exploding out of me like bullets. ‘My paternal grandparents weren’t people my brother and I had been close to, either physically or emotionally. They’d found their son an embarrassment and so had given up on him and cut him off before he even met my mum. Something they maybe regretted. Anyway, they offered us a home, of sorts, after the accident. I was sent to an all-girls boarding school, my brother was sent to one for boys. They simply thought that was the proper thing to do. Or maybe the easiest thing to do. I don’t know.’
I admitted that I had fared better than Tom. Yes, I was lonely and isolated, but I threw myself into my schoolwork. People said he was attention-seeking when really he was grief-stricken. He made friends with whoever caused the most trouble at school. Too much cash and time, not enough direction, age thirteen he and his mates were all taking drugs. By eighteen he had visited the Priory three times. He was generally considered, by anyone who could be bothered to express an opinion, a lost cause. ‘Very much like his father’ was the verdict. There is a big difference; I love Tom, although even I admit he’s not easy.
‘My grandparents allowed us to go to theirs in the holidays, but they didn’t go so far as to make themselves available. Instead they timed their trips to the French Riviera, Barbados and Aspen to coincide with the summer, Easter and Christmas breaks. My brother and I stayed with staff, paid to monitor us.’
When I finished telling Heidi about my childhood, her eyes were like saucers. I’m still not sure if that was because she was impressed with my grandparents’ holiday locations or horrified by my life. ‘It’s a conundrum which of us has it worse,’ she commented drily. ‘The black kid with loving parents who is irrationally hated by strangers and consequently will have limited economic options, or the rich white kid who has every financial advantage in the world but isn’t loved by anyone.’
It was such a shocking thought to articulate that all we could do was laugh out loud. ‘Why are we laughing?’ I asked as we rolled about on the thin, cheap carpet in her small student bedroom; helpless, barely able to breathe.
‘Because of the old adage, if you don’t laugh, you’ll cry, I guess.’
Heidi has the widest smile and always wears bright red lipstick. She did then and does now. It’s her signature look. She was laughing so hard, little bubbles of saliva popped on her teeth, and I felt such fierce love for her. That Easter she invited me to her home for the holidays. I’ve never been alone at a holiday since.
Heidi and I met Gina when we were twenty-five. Heidi was trying to tone up for her upcoming wedding to Leon, and so we’d started to go to fitness classes at the local sports centre. The classes were run by an instructor who hadn’t updated her routine since the early nineties. There was a lot of energetic side bends and jumping jacks, she constantly bellowed things like ‘No pain, no gain, ladies!’ It was probably something to do with evolution and survival instinct, but we habitually set up our mats in the same spot, at the back of the hall, as far away from the instructor as we could possibly get. Gina always set up a row in front of us. She was, from the off, comedy gold. This is in part because she has absolutely no clue which is her left and which is her right. Heidi claims she once wet herself laughing at Gina’s earnest, hopeless attempts to T-step to four counts and round the world, knee lift, clockwise.
A plain-speaking northerner, Gina would provide a no-inhibitions running commentary, often piping up with things like ‘My leg does not go there and wouldn’t even for Keanu Reeves’, ‘I’m dying, you sadist’ and once, most memorably for the subsequent formation of our little gang, ‘Sod this for a game of soldiers, I’m off to the pub.’ Then she left, mid-class. The brilliant thing is, Heidi and I shared a glance and followed her. Heidi saw that Gina was a soulmate. I’m the yin to Heidi’s yang, but we are not alike. There was space for Gina in our friendship.
We are a strong threesome. We love each other equally but differently. Like the legs of a stool, we need each other and offer support without any of the ugly jealousies or insecurities that women are so often – and so unfairly – accused of. Gina and I were both single until ten years ago. We discussed dates, analysed texts, offered advice when things were going well and then shared negronis when things fell apart. I’d assumed that we’d stroll into old age together, keep one another company on bank holidays. Gina used to say she was looking forward to going on Saga cruises, where we’d eat our body weight in chocolate gateau at the all-inclusive buffet. ‘No one can resist one of those. Even you,’ she’d tease.
