How We Met (45 page)

Fraser and Mia exchanged glances.

‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ said Fraser quietly.

‘Yes,’ said Mia, ‘why didn’t you just say?’

‘Because I couldn’t, could I?’ Anna said to Fraser. ‘Because your
girlfriend
had just died. I didn’t want to make you feel any worse or any guiltier. I know I can be a pain sometimes, but I’m not that bad, am I?’

‘You’re not “bad” at all,’ said Fraser. ‘We love you, you idiot.’

‘I didn’t even think about it for ages,’ she went on. ‘I was too much of a mess. But then, as time went on, it was like this thing I saw, this kiss, became this huge thing in my head. I felt like I was carrying a big secret around with me – a secret that Liv had gone to her grave not knowing, and that now I couldn’t ever tell her.’

Mia put her head in her hands.

‘Oh, God, Anna, I’m so sorry.’

‘I tried to get you to confess,’ she said, almost laughing. ‘I even snogged Fraser ’cause I thought,
for one mad second, that he’d snog me back and I could pretend that that kiss in Ibiza meant nothing and that – I don’t know – he’d snog any of us if he was drunk enough!’

‘Gee, thanks …’ mumbled Fraser.

‘But you probably all know about that anyway …’

Everyone looked at each other. ‘Oh, my God,’ said Anna. ‘You didn’t say anything, Fraser?’

Fraser smiled and shook his head.

‘Doing the Buddhism thing kind of helped and hindered,’ Anna carried on. ‘At least Steve was someone to confide in and I told him everything. Steve’s big on karma—’

‘Steve’s a fucking charlatan, Anna,’ shouted Norm from outside, and Fraser wanted to hug him. Norm always cut to the chase. ‘He’s not a Buddhist, he’s a bull-shittist,’ and they all laughed, even Anna a little.

‘Maybe, but he kept on about karma,’ Anna continued, ‘about how what goes around comes around, about how
everyone gets their comeuppance in the end, about
how nobody gets away with lying. And I listened to
him – my head was a mess, I would have listened to
anyone –
and it seemed to make sense. But I didn’t want anything bad to happen to you guys
; I was
petrified
something else bad was gonna happen. So I tried to get the truth out. I felt like I owed it to Liv, to get to the truth. I know it sounds crazy.’

‘It sounds crazy,’ said Norm.

‘I just felt …’ Anna looked up at them all, her face dirty with smoke, make-up down her cheeks, and Fraser doubted he’d ever seen her look so small in his life. ‘… that
I’d lost Liv, and now I was losing you all, and I couldn’t bear it, because you lot are all I’ve got.

‘Melody, you always had Norm and now that’s broken up, you guys aren’t
you
guys
any more. Mia, we were close once but now you have Billy and
now
you seem to have Fraser and I miss you. I really miss you.’

‘Oh, Anna,’ said Mia. ‘I miss you too. I’m sorry, darling, I had no idea you felt like this.’

‘And me, who did I have?’ Tears were running down her face now, dripping off her chin. ‘I used to have Liv but now she was gone and I missed her so much, I
miss
her so much. I don’t have a proper job, I don’t have a baby, my friends were my life, my family, and I don’t want it all to stop, I’m so shit-
scared of it all just stopping.’

Perhaps the one person who acted like she needed them the least, needed them the most,
thought Fraser
. He saw that now.

Mia was stroking Anna’s back, trying to calm her. Norm stuck one foot in the door; he wanted to get his facts straight.

‘What, so you two snogged the night Liv died?’

Mia laid her head on Anna’s knee, looked at Fraser and gave a defeated sort of smile. Fraser felt better, instantly. For some mad reason, just someone saying it out loud made him feel so much better. ‘Yes,’ said Fraser, ‘and it’s fucked with my head ever since. We’ve felt so guilty about it. Perhaps me more so than Mia—’

‘Oh, yeah, because I don’t care,’ said Mia, sarcastically. ‘I haven’t got a conscience’

Fraser put his hand on her shoulder. ‘You have, you’re just much more sensible than me.’

‘I knew what was done, was done, that’s all,’ said Mia. By now, Melody and Norm were both leaning on the doors of the ambulance, their faces aghast. ‘And nothing would bring Liv back. I knew we’d never know if she saw, or what she felt. It fucked me up too – Christ, I was seeing a shrink for months! But I just could not go on beating myself up about it. We can’t go on beating ourselves up. Liv wouldn’t have wanted that. I know. She was my best friend.’

‘Hey, we all know,’ said Melody. ‘And anyway, it doesn’t matter now.’

It was the first thing that Melody had said, and everyone turned to look at her.

‘It doesn’t really matter who snogged who,’ she said. ‘Because Liv loved Norm.’

It took them a minute. ‘
What?
’ Fraser said.

‘Oh, yes, for quite some years, it turns out,’ and she looked at Norm and smiled, but her eyes were watering. ‘I know that’s pretty hard to believe.’

Fraser looked across at Norm, who looked
as if he might be sick, he looked so shocked, but there was also a flicker in his eyebrows that told Fraser it was true.

‘I found this,’ said Melody, and she took a piece of paper from her bag, ‘when I was clearing all our stuff from the house.’

‘Fucking hell,’ said Norm, ‘how did you manage that?’

‘Oh, it wasn’t hard, you didn’t hide it very well. It was slipped in the sleeve of a Green Day CD.’

She unfolded it. There were just a couple of lines of writing and Fraser recognized them immediately, the elegant sloping, left-handed writing.

‘Turns out there was a last thing on Liv’s List,’ said Melody. ‘A number twenty-one.’

Norm had his mouth open now, gazing at Fraser. He very slowly put his teeth on his bottom lip.

‘It’s dated July the fifteenth.’

‘That’s Billy’s birthday,’ said Mia.

‘And our wedding anniversary,’ said Melody. ‘She wrote this at our wedding. July the fifteenth, 2005.’

Fraser gave a shake of his head. That date had meant nothing to him when he’d seen it at the top of the List.

‘Number twenty-one,’ she read. ‘Let go of Norm. He’s gone now, it’s over! You’ll have to love him from afar. You’ve wasted far too many years wanting what you can’t have. Enough now, Olivia. Must press on.’

She folded up the piece of paper and put it back in her pocket.

There was a long silence. Then, suddenly, Fraser started laughing as well as sort of crying.

‘The sly bugger,’ was all he could say. ‘Olivia Jenkins, you sly bugger …’

Eventually, at around 1 a.m., the ambulances and the fire engines went, so it was just the five of them, standing on the pavement. They walked slowly back inside, the girls in front, Norm and Fraser behind.

‘Well, that was a fucking turn-up for the books,’ said Fraser. ‘She kept that one quiet.
You
kept that one quiet.’

It all started to make sense now to Fraser, slot into place. Norm’s obsession with the List, the rate he went on about Liv, like it was
his
girlfriend who’d died. The amount of time Liv used to spend with Norm, come to think of it, and he’d thought nothing of it; he’d thought it was perfectly innocent.

Norm stopped. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘I don’t know why I just didn’t tell you. I thought you’d be gutted. I didn’t know about any of this with you and Mia.’

Fraser turned to face him. The news had absolved him of some guilt, he couldn’t lie, but there were still questions going unanswered. Things he needed to know: ‘So what, did you sleep with her?’ he said. ‘Did you kiss her?’

‘God, no,’ said Norm. ‘Never. I swear.’

The city was quiet now, just the odd drunken holler from somewhere, a wolf whistle, taxi on tarmac. The sirens long gone.

‘Were you in love with her, then? Just tell me the truth. Not that it really matters now.’

Norm didn’t say anything. Fraser felt his heart lurch.

‘I don’t know,’ he said eventually, looking straight at him. ‘I really do not know. There was maybe a time when I thought I was, but maybe I was just missing her. I missed her Fraser, so badly.

‘We had a bond, basically. And maybe there were times when I thought that bond could have turned into something, but she was always with you and I was always with Melody, and I loved Melody, I really did. I thought she was It, but it didn’t turn out to be, did it? When I saw that last thing on the List, I don’t know, I was
flattered
. It was something that only Liv and I had.

‘Things weren’t going well with me and Melody. I never seemed to be good enough and I guess it was nice to know that I was special to someone. That someone thought I was
good
.’

Fraser was nodding slowly, taking it all in.

‘I don’t think she loved me either, not really. Not in the end. We were just
young
, mate.
We were just working it all out.’

We were young,
thought Fraser
. So young. So why was it sometimes he felt like he’d lived a lifetime?

‘She loved you, Frase,’ Norm said eventually, stepping forward and taking his friend by the arms. ‘At least, she only loved you at the time she died, that’s what I think. I guess we’ll never know.’

Nobody said anything for a minute. Fraser was trying to absorb it all.

Then, Norm said, ‘I don’t want this to come between us.’

Fraser nodded, slowly.

‘Because those guys I went skiing with, those guys at the
Metro
? They’re not my real friends.
You’re
my real friends.’

Fraser looked at Norm, worry etched across his face,
and for a second saw the awkward, chubby eight-year-old
who’d shyly befriended him at Bury FC Under-11s twenty years ago and had never left his side since.

He took a step forward and hugged him. ‘And you’re my real friend,’ he said. ‘You’re my real friend too.’

By 1 a.m., Mia, Melody and Fraser were all in the bar. Norm and Anna had gone to bed.

The drama and trauma of the evening had got to Fraser, and he felt exhausted and tearful, which was always when the old demons reared their heads. Anna swore Liv didn’t see them kiss, that she wasn’t on the balcony when it happened, but nobody could be a hundred per cent sure of it. Not that it seemed that relevant any more.

‘I just should have been there for Liv,’ he said out loud, biting his thumbnail. ‘I should have been there for her, I wasn’t there.’

‘But, for God’s sakes, Fraser,’ said Mia. ‘We were all drunk. None of us were there for her.’

Fraser looked at his hands. ‘I saved Anna, though, didn’t I? I didn’t save Liv. Why couldn’t I save Liv? And I still don’t know if she was happy when she died. It kills me, that. Fucking kills me.’

They sat in silence. From across the room, Fraser could feel Mia’s eyes on him. He lifted his head to see her close her eyes for a second, just a second, then give a little shake of her head, as if she’d been thinking something and now dismissed it.

He watched as she suddenly got up from her chair. ‘I’ve got to go to bed,’ she said quietly. ‘Melody, you’ll look after him, won’t you?’ Then she went over to Fraser and kissed him on the cheek, lingering there long enough for Fraser to feel her breath on his skin. ‘You were amazing tonight,’ she said. ‘I’m so proud of you.’ And then she kissed Melody on the cheek and left.

And so it was just Melody and Fraser now. The only sound, the whirr of the honesty fridge.

‘Beer?’ said Melody. ‘I’ve got a fiver, I could leave them a fiver.’

She went to the fridge, came back holding two bottles of Bud and passed Fraser the opener.

Fraser cracked open his beer and sighed, a huge, long, weary sigh.

‘And are you all right, Mels?’ he asked, flopping back on the chair and looking at her. ‘’Cause, let’s face it, nobody’s asked you, have they?’

Melody kicked her shoes off and curled her feet underneath her.

‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘In fact, more than fine, I’m good.’

‘And what about tonight’s revelation? I mean, I know you and Norm are no longer together, but still, mate, that must have hurt like hell?’

She shrugged, ‘Not really. And anyway, it’s all in the past now, isn’t it? Even if Liv had survived, Norm and I still wouldn’t have been right for one another. Maybe you and Mia would have ended up together, after all? It all comes out in the end.’

Fraser smiled, weakly. He hadn’t really thought of that. How wise old Burgess was becoming these days. How strong she’d been about everything. He was really proud of her.

They drank their beer in silence. ‘Can I say something?’ said Melody after a while. ‘Can I speak honestly to my friend?’

‘I swear, if I hear any more honesty tonight … any more revelations … I swear I might keel over.’

Melody laughed, darkly.

‘No, it’s not a revelation,’ she said. ‘More a piece of advice. Fraser, you’ve got to stop thinking you had anything to do with Liv’s death.’

Fraser bit his knuckle and looked at her, as if this would be a very hard thing to achieve.

‘It was her death and her life. She’s the one who lost her life, not you. To think that some kiss, that you or Mia had anything to do with it? It’s just arrogant, frankly.’

Guilt is an arrogant and selfish emotion.
It was Melody who’d said that to him, once, years ago. He remembered now.

He gave a short, ashamed laugh through his nose.

‘We’ve got to let her go,’ said Melody. ‘We have to let Liv go.’

Fraser lay on top of his bed in his clothes, his mind racing, far from sleep. He wanted to talk to Mia. He had to talk to Mia. He picked up the phone on his bedside table, then sat there paralysed for a few seconds. Would she mind if he woke her up? Would she even be asleep yet? He glanced at the clock: 1.45 a.m. He imagined her, alone in her bed, then imagined pulling back the sheets, slipping in quietly beside her, wrapping his arms around her soft warm skin and staying like that till dawn.