How We Met (23 page)

Four months before giving birth, and in the throes of grief, she and Eduardo had not so much decided to move back to Lancaster as been forced to. Mia had had to give up her beloved job at Primal Films – the long hours just weren’t doable pregnant. She had tried. In the last week before she’d finally surrendered, she’d trawled the prop houses of London with her five-month bump, sourcing one hundred and fifty different clocks one day, and a room’s supply of mangoes the next. But she was knackered; the prop store managers looked at her as if she were mad. She had no choice but to give up and go on the dole at six months.

London was far too expensive on the dole and she was twenty-seven. Her friends were still happily losing whole weekends clubbing. At least in Lancaster, Melody and Norm were there to help and it was cheap, rent at least a third less than it was in London.

But this was not the same Lancaster she knew as a carefree student, and there had been really dark times, humdingers of bad times, when she doubted she’d get through this alive: the time she got a stomach bug (breast-feeding plus Norovirus, it wasn’t a combination she’d like to revisit); the time he’d had a febrile convulsion – a fit because he had a temperature. She’d thought her baby was dying and had been forced to hammer on the door of her neighbours in her nightie. ‘He’s fine, it’s very common,’ some young, emotionless male doctor had told her at A&E. She’d wanted to shake him and tell him, ‘This has just been the worst night of my life!’

There was the time – Billy must have been six months old – when, after three nights of teething and zero sleep she took him, in utter desperation, in a taxi round to Mrs Durham’s.

When she’d got back from the pub, where she’d stopped, only for forty-five minutes, to drink half a lager and try to stop shaking, she’d found Mrs Durham calling him Patrick and showing him her collection of royal memorabilia and Billy, perfectly happy, propped up on cushions. Little bugger. She didn’t know who was madder that day, Mrs Durham or herself.

A rainbow arced above the castle. ‘Look, Billy,’ she said, ‘a rainbow. Look at all the lovely colours.’ She bent her head and inhaled the baby scent of his hair. ‘We’ve survived, Billy, hey, haven’t we? God knows how, but we have.’

She bathed him whilst drinking a can of Carlsberg and listening to the coverage of some festival on the radio. Ah, young people, who had a life! But then she looked at his round little tummy, full of mini-sausages and birthday cake, and the look of concentration on his face as he turned the pages of his waterproof book. ‘But I’ve got you,’ she said aloud. Just having the thought surprised her.

He went down at 8 p.m. – miraculous after his sleep in the car – and Mia actually punched the air as she left his room. She opened another can of lager and rolled herself a cigarette – sod it, she deserved it – and leant half her body out of the window to smoke it, watching the post-storm clouds slowly get burnt off by the sun.

The day had left her anxious and empty and she wasn’t sure what to do with herself. She wandered from room to room for a while – she’d done this a lot in the beginning – sniffing the crook of her bare arm, like some sort of comfort blanket.

She went into her bedroom, lay on her bed, and absent-mindedly picked up the photo from her bedside table. It was of all of them at Melody and Norm’s wedding – three years ago today. How much had changed in that time. She sat up and drank her beer and smiled to herself as she looked at the photo. Melody, a vision in an enormous white tulle dress, all fake-tanned bosom and blonde tendrils and not so much a tiara as a crown. Her, Liv and Anna in their lemon, Empire-line bridesmaid dresses that made them look like Bo Peep. The boys – look at the boys, they all looked so thin! – awkward in their Moss Bros hired suits. Fraser and Liv seemed to be having some sort of joint footwear malfunction, since not only was Liv sporting the yeti-shoe-and-flip-flop combo, but Fraser had forgotten his shoes and so, after a frantic attempt to buy more in the tiny, Surrey village, had had to wear his trainers – Liv had been appalled. But then it didn’t matter; they’d all got drunk and it had been a day of unbridled joy and happiness.

The next time she’d seen her friends in their suits, it was Liv’s funeral.

So much had changed. Today, she couldn’t help remembering, as she had sat next to Norm and seen the look on his face as he’d listened to his wife trying to sell a vegetable chopper to Fiona, of the afternoons Melody and Norm had spent entwined in each other’s limbs on the sofa at 5 South Road.

And Fraser, lovely Fraser. Mia was suddenly overcome with a feeling of it all being over. Today, she’d caught him with Billy on his knee, and as he’d talked to Norm, she’d seen him absent-mindedly stroke Billy’s leg. Fraser had never been a natural with babies, not like Norm, who had that touch – ironically. But the few times she’d seen him in recent months, she’d caught Fraser interacting with him, almost fascinated but scared, as though he was something precious he didn’t want to break.

She knew he wanted kids. They’d never discussed it, but it was there so potently in his body language. And now, if he were to be with Karen, that was never going to happen. Which would be fine, if she were the love of his life, but Mia doubted that were the case. So he might be wasted, and waste was the thing she feared the most for her friends, because whilst they had the time to waste before, she wasn’t sure they did any more.

She sat up, determined to stop being so morose, and looked at the clock: 8.30 p.m. Eduardo should be back in half an hour, but experience told her this was unlikely. So she got up, took a pen and paper to write down who had got what, for thank-you notes, and made a start on the unopened cards and presents in the centre of her lounge rug.

There was a lovely card from Aunty Gill and Uncle Dave.

‘Dear William (she’d told them a hundred times he was just plain Billy but they wouldn’t have it), We hope you have a lovely birthday with Mummy and Daddy, and lots of cake and treats. Aunty G-G and Uncle David xxx’

There was a present from Anna (surprising in itself since she didn’t get anything when he was born): a cute handmade wooden clock in the shape of the Hungry Caterpillar. ‘Dearest Billy, may your day be filled with all good vibes. Hugs and peace, Anna and Steve x x’

Bloody hell, thought Mia, standing it up on the shelf: that was a bit scary.

There was one from Mrs Durham.
NOW YOU’RE
2! it said on the front, and Mia chuckled aloud to herself. How much had she gone on to that woman about Billy’s FIRST birthday? Clearly, she was more senile than she thought.

She opened present after present, watching the clock, but there was no sign of Eduardo – it was now 9.16 p.m.

A present from his parents, though, Valeria and José Luiz were truly lovely people but utterly clueless about their son. They’d come to visit early this year, when Billy was six months old, and Eduardo had ‘borrowed’ his son, spent the weekend with them, taking him to farms and all manner of other places, as if he did this all the time. Then, Mia hadn’t heard from him for three weeks.

She took the next card from the pile. It was the thick blue card that Fraser had given her, with
BILLY
written on the front in Fraser’s almost illegible scrawl.

She opened it, there was a card – a Quentin Blake illustrated card.

‘Keep it real today, Billy. And eat cake till you’re sick. Love, Big Fraser xxx’

Mia smiled. Sometimes she called Fraser ‘big Fraser’, since there was another, much younger Fraser, who Billy knew from down the park. She held it in her hand and was just about to throw the envelope away, when she realized there was something else inside. It was a folded piece of A4 ruled paper, a handwritten letter of some sort. She unfolded it, and began to read, sitting in a puddle of light, cross-legged in her living room.

Dear Mia,

Right, so you know I’m not that good at expressing my emotions, only of course, when it concerns myself. (What is it you called me on the phone the other day? ‘A self-indulgent narcissistic baby’? Yep, I’d say that was a high point in our friendship.)

Anyway, just so you don’t think I’m being indulgent (I’m joking, I’m joking, can’t help myself, can I?), I’ll keep this short. I just wanted to say, as your old friend, I’m really proud of you. REALLY proud of you.

I can’t believe it’s a year since you brought Billy home from hospital with a look on your face like all your family had been wiped out in a car crash, and look at you now!

Seriously, you’re an amazing mum, Mia. A-MAZING. And I know I say that with no authority or knowledge whatsoever about parenting and maybe you lock him in a cupboard at home and feed him gravel, but from what I see of you, I’m very impressed. I know you don’t believe this sometimes, but he’s lucky, that boy, damn lucky to have you.

It’s been a shitter of a year for all of us. I’m sure we’ll look back on this time and think, that was the most dire year of our lives, but you’ve had more to deal with than anyone of us and have probably been the most upbeat. I know I’ve been a tit a lot of the time recently, but I’m working on it, and I’m not promising I will suddenly stop freaking out, or that I can really control that stuff when it comes to bite me on the bum, but you made me think.

So thanks for that, thanks for being honest, for being a top friend, and a very, very old, wise (OK, less of the old, but definitely very wise … OK, I’m signing off now before I get myself in trouble …) OWL, is all I wanted to say. A top girl.

I’m well proud of you, that’s all, really. We all are.

Love [the L had been tampered with and Mia guessed he had maybe originally gone to put ‘all my’],

Fraser.

There was no kiss.

Mia held the letter in one hand and bit her thumbnail. Should she call him now? She picked up her phone. Then she looked at the time – 9.25 p.m. They wouldn’t be home yet. She imagined him and Karen driving down the M6 together, the window open and the radio blaring and she changed her mind. Instead, she sat there, in her flat, and she opened all the cards and presents, till a deep orange glow finally flooded the carpet and then the sky turned violet.

Actually, in the middle lane of the M6, just past Coventry, Fraser sits in a traffic jam in a hired Vauxhall Astra, jiggling his knees, fighting an attack of claustrophobia. It’s hot, they haven’t moved for sixteen minutes, the car has one of those pine air fresheners, which is making him feel a bit sick, and he’s needed a wee since Preston.

The other thing that’s curbing his enjoyment of this epic journey from Lancaster to London is that he has felt a row brewing, pretty much since they set off from Melody’s.

He wasn’t in the best mood with Karen as it was, ever since she made them spend a hundred and fifty quid on hiring a car, because she didn’t trust his (perfectly adequate) car to make the long journey up North (something about being scarred for life after her clutch went once on her way up to Hull). This is something he’s finding lately –
Karen’s initial, perpetual cheeriness, is giving way to neurotic, subtly controlling behaviour, which somehow makes him spend money he hasn’t got and agree to things months in advance. Apparently, they’re going to see
Billy Elliot
at the theatre in two months. He hates fucking musicals! How did that happen?

And now she’s started on about other, more worrying things.

‘So, nothing has ever happened between you and Mia then?’

Fraser sighs and looks at her.

‘What? I’m not being awkward. I’m just asking, that’s all. I just want to know.’

‘And as I’ve already said, no, nothing’s ever happened.’

Karen looks out of the window and sniffs. ‘OK,’ she says; and then in the next breath, ‘What, not even a kiss?’

Just that word does funny things to Fraser’s stomach these days. It’s like that feeling when you wake up after a drunken night out and the slow realization of what you did last night dawns on you, only it happens to him every time someone says the word ‘kiss’.

It’s the reason there was that dreadful, awkward, non-kiss the minute he arrived at Melody and Norm’s. He doesn’t know what’s done it – maybe the drugs he took in Vegas released something in his head – but it’s like the slab of concrete that’s been pressing down on him since Liv’s death, the grief that meant he could think of nothing but the tragic details of that night, has been dislodged, and there’s a crack of sunlight there now, and that sunbeam is that kiss.

He opens the window for some air. He thinks, if he gives her something it will lighten the load.

‘Look. If I tell you something, will you just leave it? Will you promise you won’t bring this up again?’

‘OK.’

‘I kissed her once, all right? But it was really her kissing me and it was totally meaningless. It was Fresher’s Week
and a hypnotist guy came to uni and he hypnotized Mia
and he made her eat an onion – telling her it was an apple, which she did, so she was really under, you know? She really didn’t have a clue what she was doing. Anyway, he then told her to get up and kiss anyone she wanted in the audience and she ran over and she practically fucking jumped on me!’ And he laughs now, really laughs with the ridiculousness of it all.

Karen doesn’t.

‘And?’

‘And what?’

‘Well, was it nice, Fraser? Did you enjoy it?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ He’s pleased with how this comes out – the
disdain
.

They’ve started moving now and he revs the engine for extra ‘disdainful’ effect.

‘No, of course I didn’t enjoy it,’ he says.

‘Well, I don’t know, do I? I mean a kiss is a kiss, hypnotized or not.’

Fraser rolls his eyes. He thinks, that is fucking ridiculous, but then he also knows, if he starts on that one, he may not be too convincing; no, better take the path of least resistance.

He puts his hand on her thigh.

‘It meant nothing, OK? I wish I hadn’t told you now. Honestly, Jesus, she wasn’t even conscious.’

‘So since then you’ve just been friends?’