Forward Slash (5 page)

‘Hi,’ Amy said, shaking it. It was clammy and felt like uncooked dough. ‘People do say we look similar, although I can’t see it, beyond the blonde hair. Have you seen Becky lately? I can’t get hold of her.’

Damian pondered. ‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t. Not since … ooh … must have been last Tuesday? Yes, Tuesday, because that’s bin day, and I had to have a word with her about the fact that she always leaves the tops on when she puts milk containers in her recycling, and they don’t like that. And she has a bit of a naughty habit of putting plastic trays in too, and they
really
don’t like that, they’re supposed to go in—’

Amy looked at her watch. ‘I’m so sorry, Damian, I don’t mean to cut you off, but I’m late for seeing someone and I really need to get going, otherwise …’ She grimaced conspiratorially at him, having the feeling that unless she said something, he’d be in full flow for hours.

‘Right! No, no, I understand, I could talk till the cows come home, me. I do apologize. When you track your sister down, could you please ask her to pop down and have a word? Many thanks.’

He shot abruptly back into his flat before Amy could say anything else. She made a note of his flat number, thinking that a busybody like him might come in handy at some point.

Five minutes later, she was back on her bike, heading away from Becky’s flat down Herne Hill towards Brockwell Park. Katherine lived at the cheaper end of Norwood Road, the only end where a teacher could afford to buy. When Amy moved to London after leaving university, to take her first lowly job as a marketing executive at a publishing house, Becky had spent several weekends with her sister that included a riotous night out in Brixton and a hungover day at the Lambeth Country Show, the only low point being when she got whiplash on the waltzer. After finishing her PGCE, Becky had managed to get a job in the same part of London. Now she lived in Denmark Hill while Amy was in East Dulwich, off Lordship Lane. Amy couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

As she waited at the traffic lights on Herne Hill, her mind hopped frantically from the subject of Becky’s whereabouts – the word ‘disappearance’ kept trying to creep in but she was holding it at bay for now – to her To Do list. Site updates, customer emails, talking to a supplier, some pay-per-click ads, an interview with a local magazine …

Even on a normal day it would have been enough to send her spiralling into a mild panic, and she couldn’t help but curse Becky for putting her through this.
If you’re happily browsing duty free at this moment while I’m chasing around London looking for you …
She didn’t finish the thought. Because, really, that’s what she hoped Becky was doing. What was the alternative?

A white Audi cut her up as the lights changed and she raised her middle finger.
Dickhead.
She had a theory about people who drove expensive white cars. This theory didn’t stretch much further than thinking they were all dickheads, but they proved her hypothesis again and again.

She rode past the row of shops where, last year, somebody had beaten a woman half to death for no reason. To the right lay the beautiful park with views towards central London, the Gherkin and the Shard glinting in the sunshine. But she didn’t give any of that a thought today. She concentrated on the road ahead.

Katherine’s cottage was easy to find. Amy parked the bike outside and unzipped her leather jacket, expecting to see steam coming off her like a baked potato removed from a microwave.

Katherine opened the door and stepped forward to give Amy a kiss.

‘Would you like a cold drink?’ she asked, wiping her cheek. ‘I was sitting out in the garden. Come through.’

Amy followed her through the cottage, surprised by how messy it was: clothes spilling out of an open hall cupboard, dishes stacked in the sink, a layer of grime on every surface.

She stood on the small, square lawn and waited while Katherine searched for a clean glass. A Kindle lay face down on a metal table beside a packet of cigarettes. Katherine came out and made a big show of dragging a chair, filthy with cobwebs, out of the shed.

Amy sat down. ‘How are you?’

Katherine did not look great. Her auburn hair hung in greasy clumps and she was considerably thinner than Amy remembered from their previous meeting. She seemed nervous, picking up the pack of cigarettes and lighting one, taking a hungry drag. Amy didn’t remember her being a smoker either, though it was a detail she could easily have missed.

‘Yeah, I’m OK,’ Katherine said. ‘So happy school’s out at last. By June every year, I think if I have to mark one more piece of shitty Art homework I’m going to go berserk.’ She smiled with one corner of her mouth.

‘How’s the jewellery-making going? I still want you to write that article, if you get time.’

‘Oh. I haven’t made any new pieces for months. I’ve been too busy.’

‘That’s a shame. How’s your man? Clive, isn’t it? Is he here?’

Katherine’s expression didn’t change. ‘We broke up.’

‘Oh. I’m sorry.’

‘Don’t be. He was a nightmare.’

If she’d known this woman better, Amy would have asked more, but thought it was best to move the conversation on. Especially as Katherine was acting like a junkie who couldn’t wait to get her next fix.

‘This was the email I got from Becky.’

Amy handed Katherine her phone and watched her read it, her brow furrowing.

‘That’s nuts,’ Katherine said.

‘I’m glad I’m not the only one who thinks so. She never said anything to you about going away?’

‘No. Definitely not.’

‘She was OK on Wednesday at school?’

Katherine stubbed out her cigarette and immediately lit another. She stared into the garden and Amy turned to see what she was looking at. But she was staring into space, a peculiar smile on her lips.

‘Katherine?’

‘Huh?’

‘Are you all right?’ Amy asked.

Katherine blinked. ‘What? Yeah, I’m cool.’

She still had that look on her face, as if she found the whole thing amusing – or at least intriguing. She was swinging her leg in the same way Gary had been and Amy noticed that she had bruises around her ankles. ‘You were saying about Wednesday.’

‘Oh, yeah. We went for a drink after work – most of the younger teachers – to celebrate the end of term. Becky was there.’

‘For the whole night?’

‘Yeah. Well, we both left quite early.’ Katherine looked over Amy’s shoulder again and this time a black-and-white cat appeared, running past Amy and disappearing into the house. Katherine watched it go.

‘And how did she seem?’ Amy asked.

‘Normal. Fine. In fact, she was all excited.’

‘Excited? What about?’

Katherine crushed out her cigarette beneath a flip-flop. As she raised her leg, Amy spotted a fading yellow bruise on the inside of Katherine’s thigh. It looked like a bite mark. She looked Amy in the eye. ‘She had a hot date lined up for Thursday night. She was really looking forward to it.’

Kath and I are having a great laugh round at mine, going through the profiles on CupidsWeb.com. I have enlisted her help after the date with Tedious Shaun, which, incidentally, pretty much sums up the inherent flaw in Internet dating: no matter how flirty your texts are before you meet, or how attractive their photo is, or how much you have in common on paper, there is still every chance that you won’t like each other when you do meet; that the most important ingredient of all – sexual chemistry – will be missing.

Kath keeps telling me to do speed dating instead, but I can’t handle the idea of it. It does make sense, first impressions and all that, but I’m rubbish at making small talk at the best of times, and the thought of some geek asking if I was an item of food what would I be … no thanks.

‘I’ll do it if you do it with me,’ I said, making a face at her.

‘OK, you’re on,’ she replied, a glint in her eye, clicking back to the main menu and scrolling down a list of thumbnail pictures of men that I can tell, even from a photo one-inch square, I’d rather stick needles in my eyes than date.

‘What?
You
can’t do speed dating! What would Clive say?’

‘Between you and me, Clive isn’t going to be for ever.’

‘What do you mean?’ She and Clive have a mortgage on a tiny cottage that backs onto a railway line. I’ve been to their house for dinner. They have a cat and photomontages in clip frames of themselves on skiing holidays. It’s not exactly a casual relationship. ‘I thought you two were fine. Does he know?’

She looks shifty. ‘No. I’m not ready to tell him yet either, so don’t mention anything. I’m just window-shopping for now.’

I feel a bit sad at this. Clive is OK, as far as I can tell. I mean, I wouldn’t date him myself, he’s always apologizing for things, and tells Kath so often that he’s really lucky to have her that I don’t blame her for feeling superior to him. And he
is
lucky to have her. She’s gorgeous – long curly red hair, the right number of freckles, and so curvy in all the right places that she makes me look like an ironing board standing next to her.

‘The grass isn’t necessarily greener, you know,’ I say, gesturing to the computer screen.

Kath snorts. ‘It couldn’t be any
less
green,’ she retorts. ‘Right now, it’s already a bleeding drought situation. Hosepipe ban and everything.’

We giggle at the innuendo and I pour us each a large glass of wine.

‘Poor Clive,’ I say. ‘I’ll make a deal with you – I won’t tell Clive, if you promise not to tell my sister.’

Kath pauses, the glass halfway to her mouth. ‘Why not?’

I don’t answer immediately because I’m distracted by a picture of a guy on CupidsWeb who looks so ridiculously sexy and handsome that I can’t believe he doesn’t have women camping outside his front door. ‘Ooh, look at HIM! He’s gorgeous.’ I click on his profile. ‘SolsticeLover – thirty-five, divorced, a two-year-old who’s the love of his life, five foot nine. A film editor … and he only lives in Streatham!’

Kath tuts. ‘A two-year-old who’s the apple of her dad’s eye? Don’t go there, Becks, just think of the baggage he’ll have. Do you really want to be spending every other weekend with a needy, whining small person?’ She pauses for comic effect. ‘And that’s just the dad!’

We laugh, although I sometimes wonder why on earth Katherine became a teacher when she seems so anti-kids. ‘But he is lovely, though, isn’t he?’ I stroke his stubbly cheek on the monitor and make a mock lovey-dovey face at it.

‘I wouldn’t kick him out of bed for eating crisps,’ Kath said. ‘You haven’t told me why you don’t want Amy to know?’

I was hoping she’d forgotten. I take a minute to choose my words, although I know they will be severely edited when I do – I swore to Amy I’d never tell anybody what happened with her and that arsehole, and it feels disloyal to even hint at it.

‘Oh. She’s just a bit old-fashioned. Wants me to get married and have hordes of kids, so that she doesn’t have to.’

Kath frowns. ‘Why would she object to you finding someone online?’

‘She assumes they’re all weirdos and nutters. A … er … friend of hers had a really bad time with a guy she was living with …’ I trail off, being deliberately vague.

‘Fair enough. Well, it can be our secret then.’ She taps the side of her nose and pulls a cigarette out of the pack in her handbag. ‘Just going for a fag and a wee, back in a mo.’

When she squeezes out onto my tiny balcony, I click back to SolsticeLover and read his personal statement. He sounds amazing – until the part where he says,
I think I should probably state upfront that I’m a Druid, and my spirituality means everything to me. I want someone to share my beliefs with.

I wonder where a Druid living in Streatham goes to practise his rituals? However gorgeous he is, I can’t quite see myself donning white robes and joining him and his cronies to perform blood rites on a squirrel on Wandsworth Common …

Kath comes back into the room, the smell of cigarettes following her like an acrid cloud, and she has this familiar look on her face, the kind of look that gives me a little tingle of excitement in the same way I used to feel excited at school when my best friend suggested we do something naughty.

‘I’ve decided,’ she proclaims.

‘On what?’

‘That I’m going to do it. Join you in the wonderful world of Internet dating.’

I look at her, sitting there on the arm of my armchair, her nipples clearly visible through her thin T-shirt, her tongue stained black with wine. Her eyes are shining with mischief and the flesh of her throat is flushed pink.

‘But, really – what about Clive?’ I ask.

‘Oh, he doesn’t have to know. You won’t tell him, will you? I just need a bit of fun, Becks. While I’m young and hot.’ She winks and pads over to the computer.

‘You’re a nightmare,’ I say, but I have to admit, it’s exciting. And God knows, after some of the dreary dates I’ve been on recently, and with my seeming inability to find the kind of man I fantasize about, I could do with some help.

Kath grabs the keyboard and pulls it towards her, biting her lower lip, waves of sexual energy pouring off her.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Let’s find ourselves a couple of real men.’

I have a flicker of hesitation – what am I letting myself in for? I had it all under control; sedate drinks with men whom I then let down gently when they ask for a second date, back to the drawing board, find another one, ad infinitum until I – hopefully – find one I want to see again and who likes me too … Somehow, I feel that Kath’s involvement might change my little routine. She’s a loose cannon, on the prowl. Then I think, sod it, and giggle to myself at the mental image of a cannon on the prowl. A couple of real men. That sounds good.

No. It sounds great.

‘Bring it on, girlfriend!’ I crow, in my best fake-Harlem accent.

Amy let herself into her flat and smiled for the first time that day.

‘Hello, gorgeous,’ she said. ‘What do you fancy for lunch?’

He raised an ear and licked her face.