Leftovers (16 page)

‘What do you think of the hair?’ she says, twirling a long strand between her perfectly manicured fingers.

‘Looks so shiny! Have you just had it blow-dried?’

‘I’ve had that Japanese treatment, no more frizz, so I don’t have to worry about it when we’re in Miami.’

‘Miami?’

‘I told you, didn’t I?’ She opens the tall cupboard and shakes her head in despair.

‘Told me what?’

‘Mark’s taking me to South Beach for a long weekend, he’s got to use up his air miles before July …’

‘When are you going?’

‘Flying out on the 19th of April …’ she says, kneeling down to inspect the bottom shelf in an attempt to duck my response.

‘Not for that whole weekend?’

‘Uh-huh,’ she says, reaching in and removing three jars of honey and placing them on the counter.

‘You can’t!’ I say. ‘That’s Polly’s wedding!’

‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she says, grabbing packets and bottles from the shelves and lining them up next to the honey.

‘Have you told her?’

‘Of course I’ve told her. So don’t you give me a hard time as well.’

‘But can’t you go another weekend?’

‘If we could have gone on different dates we would have,’ she says. ‘Besides, I went to her first wedding, I can’t be expected to go to every wedding …’

‘She’s one of your best friends.’

‘Yeah, and so she doesn’t judge me. Right. What the hell was this when you bought it?’

‘That’s lavender honey.’ Lavender honey that has now separated into solid orange fudge, topped with a thick, dark, treacly liquid.

‘Bin it,’ she says.

‘Honey doesn’t go off. It’s one of nature’s anti-septics.’

‘Bin.’

‘It cost six quid.’

‘Shillings, more like … And these water biscuits went out of date last June,’ she says, holding up the packet and inspecting the bottom.

‘They’re fine!’

‘Fine?’ she says, taking one out and squashing it between her fingers. ‘A water biscuit should snap. This one’s as soft as a flannel, you could wash your face with it.’

‘Maybe I will!’

She walks past me and throws the packet in the bin. When her back is turned I take it out.

‘Preserved lemons: 2006.’ She shakes her head again.

‘They’re
preserved.
They don’t go off.’

‘What the hell do you even use them for? Clearly nothing, as you haven’t even opened them.’

‘Right, so they’ll be perfectly fine when I do.’

‘Good grief, when did you last go through your herbs and spices?’

‘Stay away from those.’

‘These caraway seeds say use by 2002.’

‘I don’t use them much.’

‘Good – then you won’t miss them much.’

‘I need them. Stop it!’ I say, grabbing her hand as she reaches again for the bin.

‘You have to get rid of some of this stuff, it’s total clutter. It’s not good for your feng shui.’

‘Feng shui my arse …’

‘You’re the bloody cook around here. These spices are like Hoover bag dust. They literally have no smell, Susie. In fact they have the opposite of a smell. They are sucking the smells out of my nose and trapping them in their little glass bottles like some sort of reverse culinary genie. Look: you go through those and throw out anything that’s more than a year out. I’m going into your fridge.’

‘My fridge? There’s nothing for you in my fridge,’ I say, but it’s too late.

‘This ketchup is a year out.’

‘Ketchup lasts forever,’ I say.

‘Your red pesto’s gone green, and your green pesto’s gone blue …’ she says, pulling an appalled face at the contents of two jars that, to be fair, have seen better days.

‘I didn’t see those two, they were stuck behind the mustards …’ I say, under my breath.

‘Right. So stuff that’s lingering at the back is going to get forgotten. Front line or bin,’ she says.

‘You’re brutal.’

‘What on earth have you got these old pieces of cheese rind wrapped in plastic for?’

‘Parmesan rinds? They’re brilliant for putting in soup, they add real depth of flavour. Don’t you read Nigel Slater?’

‘I’d have thrown them away months ago.’

‘You never know when they’ll come in handy. You can make something good out of these things.’

‘You hold onto absolutely everything, don’t you? Every last thing. Just get rid of this stuff. Christ, no wonder you can’t get over that man …’

‘What?’

‘Oh, nothing. Listen, do you want my help clearing up or not?’

‘Not,’ I say. ‘When you say “that man”, I presume you’re referring to Jake?’

She nods.

‘Dalia, it’s not like I cry myself to sleep every night.’ (Just occasionally drink myself to sleep.)

‘I don’t think you really miss
him
anyway,’ she says. ‘You just miss having
someone
.’

‘That’s not true.’

‘What do you actually miss about him?’

‘Everything.’

She shakes her head. ‘It’s been well over a year,’ she says, exasperated. She sounds just like Mrs Suddes, our GCSE maths teacher.
Susannah Rosen,
why can you
still
not grasp the concept of quadratic equations? Because I can’t – that’s why!

I know I shouldn’t miss him any more but I do.

‘If you do miss him that much then why don’t you just call him?’

Every day I fight the urge to do just that. And that’s probably why I’ve run out of self-control by the time it gets to alcohol.

‘Is he still going out with her?’ she says.

I shrug.

‘Show me her Facebook pics again.’

‘Why?’

‘It might make you feel better about the whole thing. She’s such a poseur, Jake must be bored out of his brains.’

‘She literally has over a thousand photos of herself on Facebook,’ I say.

‘Such a pathetic need for constant validation,’ says Dalia.

‘And she posts on Twitter every five minutes:
In Selfridges, trying on new season Rag & Bone skinny jeans – AMAZING!!
’ (I mean, I only know this because I’m following her Tweets, but that is NOT THE POINT AT ALL.)

‘Anyone who spends that much time online isn’t actually having fun,’ says Dalia. ‘She just wants the whole world to think she is. It’s so insecure and attention-seeking … Go on, let’s have a look.’

‘OK then, you make tea, I’ll get my laptop.’

‘You do know your teabags are past their use by date?’

‘Just put the kettle on.’

I sit on the sofa and log into my account. God, I hate Facebook so much; right, Little Miss Lip Balm, here we go …

‘Here she is,’ I shout into the kitchen. ‘She’s changed her profile pic
again
.’

‘Let me see, let me see … oh God, she is so full of herself,’ she says, looking at the photo of Leyla in a tiny silver bikini, standing making a star shape on a grassy lawn.

‘She’s got no body fat at all,’ I say, thinking how actually this isn’t making me feel better in the slightest.

‘That tattoo is so trashy,’ says Dalia. ‘Go to albums … seventy-five albums? Jesus, that’s more than the Rolling Stones. They’re all of her in no clothes with stupid accessories … that Russian hat is so try-hard.’

‘You don’t think she looks good?’ I say.

‘No. She looks like a fashion victim. Look at that one!’ She points to the screen. ‘Who puts photos of themselves in a see-through nightdress on the internet?’

I might, if I looked like that in one.

‘And this one with the pole and the sunglasses, pouting like she’s a supermodel, it’s so embarrassing …’

‘That’s enough for one day,’ I say, wearying of our bitchiness.

‘Just one more, hold on … click on that – “Holiday Italia!”’ says Dalia, clicking on an album with fifty-five photos in, added last week.

In this first photo, her bare, tanned feet rest against Jake’s torso as he lies back on a lounger beside a swimming pool.

‘I don’t want to look any more,’ I say.

‘She’s got horrible little feet,’ says Dalia. ‘And her toenails are weird.’

I stare at the next photo on screen, of Leyla on a beach, and my heart instantly aches.

‘That bikini doesn’t leave much to the imagination,’ says Dalia. ‘I don’t know why she bothers wearing anything at all.’

It can’t be
that
beach … it is, it is that beach damn it. How could he take her to
that
beach?

‘You’ve gone quiet,’ says Dalia. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘You know what, let’s not do this right now. I’m not in the mood.’

‘OK …’

‘Let me go and sort out some veg for you,’ I say.

‘For me?’

‘For dinner,’ I say.

‘Did you not get my text?’

‘Yeah, you said protein and greens …’

‘I sent you one later saying I can’t stay for food, Mark’s bought cinema tickets.’

‘You’ve got to be joking?’

‘What?’

‘You did not send me that text. And I’ve put the chicken in the oven already.’ And it’s Saturday night and you don’t ditch your mates on a Saturday night twice in one month.

‘I did send it, I’m sure I did …’ she says, looking almost convincing.

‘Whatever,’ I say, sighing. ‘I’m knackered, I’m going to go and have a lie down.’

‘Don’t be angry with me,’ she says. ‘Look, I’m sorry. I thought I’d sent it. My phone … it’s so old I think it needs an upgrade …’

Yep – a bit like this friendship.

‘Don’t be pissed off with me,’ she says, as I show her to the door. ‘It was a mistake.’

I nod and kiss her goodbye.

A mistake.

I make a lot of those myself. Like looking up Leyla on Facebook.

That beach.

Three summers ago Jake and I went to Sicily. I had wanted to collapse by the pool every day but Jake, being Jake, was always looking for adventures. One morning he’d set an alarm for 5.30 a.m. so that we could drive along the shore to Marsala to catch a ferry to Favignana, one of three tiny islands off the west coast. ‘It’s too early, this is meant to be a holiday!’ I’d wailed, as he pulled me out of bed, bleary eyed from the previous night’s wine.

We’d nearly missed the boat. Five minutes before we were due to set sail Jake had insisted on darting back to the bakery we’d bought sandwiches in, to buy an espresso. He was so disorganised sometimes it drove me mad. He’d raced back across the quay as I’d stood with one foot on the drawbridge, pleading with the captain to wait just another sixty seconds for us. When we finally boarded I’d been about to bollock Jake for being so last-minute, always. But then from his rucksack he’d produced a small white paper bag in which nestled half a dozen mini chocolate and pistachio pastries, so warm Jake must have persuaded the baker to whip them out of the oven specially for us. ‘Worth getting up early for, right?’ he said, as we’d wolfed them down.

‘Tell me about this place then,’ I said, resting my head on his shoulder as the boat chugged steadily through the water. ‘Why are we going here again?’

‘Well …’ he said. ‘Favignana used to be a prison. And then it was a massive tuna cannery …’

‘You’ve dragged me out of bed in the middle of the night to visit an old jail that smells of fish?’ I said, raising my head and looking at his smile to see if he was winding me up.

‘It’s not a jail any more.’

‘Seriously, tell me, why are we going here? What’s so special about it?’

‘Trust me, it’ll be worth it. When have I ever let you down?’

We’d arrived at the dock, two of only a handful of tourists, and made our way over to a hole in the wall bike shop. For four euros we’d rented bikes from an old man with a face like a walnut. Jake had given him one of our pastries, and the man had called him
un uomo di mondo
: a man of the world. Jake had liked that nickname.

Even at 8 a.m. the sun was hot as we’d set off in search of Jake’s mystery destination. We’d cycled and cycled along roads, then a sea path, a bumpy dirt track, and then back up into hills covered in wild fennel and purple flowers; all the while the sun was growing more fierce and beating down on our already tender shoulders. My thighs were burning from the heat and those hills – Jake was barely breaking a sweat but I could hardly breathe. And then, just when I was about to suggest we stop in the shade, or abandon this mission altogether – we’d probably already missed the turning – we’d rounded a bend and seen a small handpainted sign that said ‘Cala Rossa’. Jake had turned down an even narrower track, cacti on both sides, and I’d followed him till we reached the edge of a cliff.

‘Does that look like a prison to you?’ said Jake, pointing down below us to a vast still bay of crystal clear turquoise water, seeping into aquamarine, peacock-blue and then navy out towards the horizon. Water so clear that even from up here you could make out each stone under the surface, each patch of seaweed. Surrounding it, high sharp white volcanic cliffs; the whole vista like something lunar, like nothing real I’d ever seen.

He’d held my hand as we’d stumbled up and down over the rocks for another ten minutes, weeds scratching at our calves, till we’d reached the far right curve of the bay. Along the way a smattering of men in tight white Speedos and mahogany women were laid out at strange angles on the rocks as if dropped in by alien tanning police. Setting our towels down in an isolated corner, Jake had flung off his clothes and launched himself off the nearest rock straight into the sea. I’d stepped gingerly over to where he’d jumped from, the soles of my feet burning on the hot stone.

‘You have to come in right now, Suze,’ he shouted, standing a short distance out into the water. ‘You can see every last grain of sand at the bottom, it’s so clean.’

The rock I was on was too high, but with one hand steadying myself I’d picked my way down through a series of ever smaller, slimier rocks till I’d found one about half a metre above the water. I’d sat, resting my feet on a stone, hypnotised by the red and green algae, miniature ferns swaying gently under the sparkling surface.

‘Hurry up!’ he shouted, and I’d had to force myself to slide down into the sea.

‘OH MY GOD, SO COLD!’ Ice cold. Freezer cold. But cold like the answer to a prayer. Almost like being punched awake. ‘I think I’m in shock!’ I shouted over to him.

‘Just keep moving and you’ll be fine … here, swim to me, my love.’