Now and Then Friends (22 page)

“I know you haven't. And this is as much about me, and trying to be the person I want to be, as it is about addressing something that happened a lifetime ago. So let me do this, okay?”

Rachel sat back in her chair. “Fine.”

“My whole life . . .” Claire began slowly, searching for the right words. “I've felt . . . fragile. And useless, like you said. And I haven't known how to stop.”

“Okay,” Rachel said cautiously, eyeing her with wary curiosity. “And now?”

“Now I'm trying to change,” Claire answered. “I'm trying by working in the shop, and I'm trying with you right now. But it's hard to break old patterns. From the time I was four years old my mother wrapped me in cotton wool and treated me as if I could break. I didn't go to Reception or Year One because she thought I was too fragile. And so I started acting fragile, because that's how everyone seemed to see me. Even you, unbuttoning my coat the first day of Year Two. I remember that.”

“You didn't stop me.”

“I
know.
And I suppose part of me expected it, even. I remember being relieved that I'd have someone to take care of me. Because that's what I was used to.”

Rachel shook her head slowly. “So why did your mother treat you that way? It seems a little OTT, even for Marie West.”

Claire took a deep breath. “When I was little I was always getting ill. Ear infections, colds, just low-level stuff. But then when I was four I
developed a tumor thing in my ear. It started out small, but it went undiagnosed, and I ended up having a whole bunch of surgeries and then I went deaf in that ear. It freaked my mother out, I suppose, and so she kept me off school and obsessed over everything.” She released her breath in a long, low rush. “And I mean everything.”

Rachel was frowning, looking like she didn't even know Claire anymore. “Why did you never tell me about all that? When we were little?”

“I didn't tell anyone. It didn't feel like a secret exactly, more something you shouldn't mention in polite conversation.”

“Your mother said that, I'm guessing?”

“It was more just a feeling.” A very strong feeling. “You must have noticed how much school I missed.”

“I suppose.” Rachel was still frowning, lost in thought. “You had pneumonia for a couple of weeks in Year Three. . . .”

“I was always getting sick or having surgery. It felt like that, anyway. And my mother was always flitting about me, obsessing about every little thing. She stopped work when I first got sick, and I think she made me her career. And I don't think I was a particularly satisfying one.” Claire let out a humorless laugh and drained her glass of wine.

“And when you grew up? Went to college, to Portugal? Didn't you ever feel like breaking that pattern?”

“It took me a while to realize there was a pattern to break. I know this doesn't put me in a good light,” she added, for Rachel's expression had gone a bit skeptical, a little sour. “I just . . . drifted. My father arranged for me to work in an art gallery in London, so I went. And then my mother's friend had a villa in Portugal, and they thought I should go there. I think my mother was hoping I'd get together with Hugh.”

“Hugh.” Rachel said his name like it was a foreign country, a place she'd never heard of. “You haven't mentioned him very much.”

“No.”

“Did you love him?”

Claire gazed down at her wineglass. “No.”

“But your mother wanted you to marry him, so you said yes.”

“It seemed like the next step.”

“Did he love you? I have to admit he doesn't sound like a stellar guy, checking you into rehab without your consent.”

“Well, I did have a problem,” Claire said, and nodded towards the wineglass dangling from her fingertips. Rachel finally cracked a smile, and Claire slumped in her seat, leaning her head back against the chair. “I don't know. I don't know what he saw in me except that I was biddable and eager to please. When I moved in with him, I asked if I could put my clothes in his bedroom cupboard. He said no.”

“Seriously?”

“I used the guest bedroom's cupboard instead. But everything was like that. And I didn't make a fuss. I'm not sure I even minded, really. When you're so miserable you don't mind anything, if that makes sense. I was just sleepwalking through life.”

“So that's why you got drunk at that party. Because you were facing a lifetime of Hugh Hoity-Toity.”

Claire grimaced. “Basically. But to be fair, he wasn't that bad. He was—is—very handsome and charming. And he could be funny too, when he turned it on.”

“So what did you do when you were drunk?” Rachel asked. “I hope you embarrassed him terribly.”

“I did.” A smile slipped out, and Rachel leaned forward.

“Go on, then. Tell me everything.”

“I don't remember it all, but I know I danced. On a table.”

Rachel let out a bark of laughter. “I would so have liked to see that.”

“And I sang along to the music. ‘Roar' by Katy Perry, if I remember correctly. And I don't have a good singing voice.”

Rachel looked fascinated. “And how did you feel when you were doing all that?” she asked.

“Wonderful,” Claire admitted with a surprised laugh. “Absolutely wonderful.”

“Spot on,” Rachel answered, and then filled both their wineglasses to the brim.

A glass of wine was making her feel woozy, and Claire sipped the second one more slowly. She imagined the look of horror on her mother's face to see her drinking at the pub with Rachel Campbell, and then found herself smiling instead of wincing, a mental nose-thumbing at her mother from three hundred miles away.

“So are you going to see Hugh again?” Rachel asked, and Claire shook her head.

“No. We haven't spoken since I left Portugal.”

“You should ring him. Make sure you're the one to end it properly.”

Now that was a novel and surprisingly appealing idea. She liked the thought of shocking Hugh. Again.

“I might do that,” she said, and then took a deep breath, offering Rachel a tentative smile. “So are we friends now?”

Rachel didn't answer for a moment, and Claire braced herself for the inevitable brush-off. One drink didn't change ten years of hard history.

“We were always friends,” she finally said, and raised her glass in a toast.

Rachel hadn't actually left the county of Cumbria in nearly a decade. She hadn't gone beyond Keswick in more than a year. Taking the train to Lancaster from Hartley-by-the-Sea and then switching to the express train to Manchester felt akin to scaling the Alps. The coffee shop at the train station in Lancaster was an adventure in itself, and she ordered a large mochaccino, feeling dangerously decadent.

Meghan and Lily had both been openmouthed with shock when Rachel had announced she was going to Manchester for the day.

“Manchester?” Meghan had said, as if Rachel had suggested she was going to Antarctica or Greenland. “Why? What will you do there?”

“I'm seeing a photography exhibition with Andrew West,” Rachel answered. She'd been trying to sound airy, but the words came out defiant instead.

Meghan stared at her. “I don't know which part of that sentence surprises me more.”

“Why shouldn't I go out?”

“With Andrew West?”

Rachel shrugged. She hadn't decided how she felt about going on a sort of date with Andrew West. On one hand, his occasionally pompous attitude irritated her. On the other, he was an attractive, intelligent man, and she could tell he really did care about Claire. And the thought
of spending the day in Manchester had become like a drug, a fix she craved. A day of freedom, of escaping all the pressures and strains of life. No Nathan to cajole and change while Meghan disappeared. No mother to visit and endure a painful hour of garbled speech and frustration. No Lily to nag or worry about.

It took her a while to let go of all those concerns as the train chugged down the coast, and by the time she reached Lancaster and sipped her mochaccino she was starting to relax. Sort of. Now that she'd left Hartley-by-the-Sea behind, Manchester loomed in front of her, intimidating and unknown.

She'd done an Internet search on the exhibition she and Andrew were going to, and it hadn't looked too artsy, thank goodness. She wasn't sure she could talk intelligently about art or anything anymore. Her only intellectual outing these days was the pub quiz.

Then of course there was Andrew. How were they supposed to act around each other? This wasn't a clear-cut date, and Rachel didn't know if Andrew wanted it to be. There could be all sorts of awkwardness.

He'd said he'd meet her at the station, and so she disembarked from the train, blinking at the vastness of Piccadilly Station, the crowds of people surging around her as she clutched her handbag and felt like Country Mouse.

“Rachel.”

Andrew stood before her, looking as boring as ever in pressed chinos and a blue button-down shirt. The man had absolutely no fashion sense, and this put Rachel at ease. This was Andrew West, not some gorgeous, urban stranger.

“I made it.”

“So you did. I thought we could go right to the exhibition. It's about a twenty-minute walk. Unless you'd prefer to get a coffee first? I thought we could have lunch afterward.” While speaking, Andrew had put his hands in his pockets and then taken them out again, jangling his keys; with relief Rachel realized he was as nervous as she was.

“We might as well go straight there,” she said. She had a feeling chatting over coffee would be awkward. At least at the exhibition they would have a focus.

Andrew led her out of the station and Rachel tried not to gape at everything. It had been so long since she'd been in anything close to an urban environment; the sheer size of the station with the arched glass roof of the train shed was enough to impress her. Then they hit the city streets, and the noise of the cars and buses and trams made her want to cover her ears. And there were so many
people
, women in smart work outfits and high heels, men in skinny suits, everyone with smartphones and earbuds and looks of bland indifference on their faces as they strode purposefully down the street, clearly going somewhere important. Rachel dodged out of the way of a woman who was walking like a ship in full sail, a huge Prada handbag swinging from one shoulder, nearly hitting Rachel full in the face.

“Good grief.” She pressed up against the side of the station and shook her head. “I feel like such a yokel.”

“Come on,” Andrew said, and took her arm. “We'll walk through the park. The gallery is on the university campus.”

He slipped her arm through his, and it felt almost natural to walk arm in arm, navigating the crowded streets until after a few minutes they reached a quieter section of the city, the university campus with its vast swath of verdant parkland ahead of them.

Rachel had the urge to slip her arm from Andrew's, because now that the pavement was empty, it didn't feel quite so natural to be this cozy. But he was holding her arm quite firmly, and disengaging it would have required an awkward yank, and so she remained arm in arm with him, walking stiffly through Whitworth Park.

The sky was heavy and gray with the damp feel of rain in the air, and even in the park the air smelled of diesel and coal smoke. Even so Rachel felt exhilarated by how different everything was, how big and alive with possibility.

“I haven't been in a city in years,” she confessed, and Andrew slid her a sideways, smiling glance.

“I can tell.”

“You travel all over the world, right? So Manchester must seem like nothing to you.”

“Cities can often feel the same to me, except for the infrastructure.”

“The infrastructure?”

“Bridges, dams, motorways. That's the stuff that interests me.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Weird.”

“Yeah, I know. I had a girlfriend back in America who broke up with me because I kept going on about the highway system. Have you seen Spaghetti Junction in Atlanta?”

“Um, no. I've barely been out of Cumbria.”

“I mean in pictures. It's amazing. An aerial view makes it look like a flower. Five stacks rather than the usual four, and ramps for four side roads. It puts the original Spaghetti Junction in Birmingham to shame.”

“You do realize you're sounding like a complete geek now?” Rachel asked, and he smiled wryly.

“Yes, I realize.”

“But I admire your passion. Clearly you love what you do.”

“I do,” he agreed, and then gave her a wary glance. “And I realize what a privilege that is.”

She laughed, shaking her head. “I'm not going to bite your head off about being rich. That would be rude, considering you invited me here.”

“Oh. Phew. Disaster averted, then.”

“Just.” Were they flirting? It felt like it. It also felt weird. Fortunately they'd reached the gallery, a huge redbrick Victorian building, by then, and conversation was taken up with the logistics of stowing bags and getting tickets before Andrew led the way towards the new photography exhibition.

Rachel had spent an embarrassing amount of time on the Internet reading up on photography so she'd have something intelligent to say
now. Yet as she stared at the black-and-white photographs, every erudite observation she'd read fled from her brain. All she could think was that she'd appreciate a little color.

Andrew was, as she'd suspected he would be, the kind of person who stood in front of a photograph for an inordinate amount of time, lips pursed, one finger tapping his chin, as he studied it carefully. Rachel stood next to him, shifting her weight, wondering how on earth you could look at a single picture for five minutes. What was there to
see
?

“What do you think?” he asked after a few minutes, and her mouth dried.

“Um . . .” She stared at the photograph of a ceiling fan taken from above, so its shadow could be seen on the white floor. “It's very . . .” She searched for a word. “Stark.”

“Yes, I think so too.”

“And very . . . monochrome.” She glanced at him, wondering if he really was this pretentious, only to see with relief that his mouth was quirking in a small smile.

“Yes, I agree. Considering it's black-and-white photography, that is quite an astute assessment.”

“I thought so.” She laughed then, an uncertain hiccup, and Andrew grinned.

“I'm not actually a huge art fan.”

“Then why did you invite me to an exhibition?”

“Because I figured you'd rather see this than the Worsley Braided Interchange.”

“The what?”

“The motorway outside the city that connects the M61 with the M62. It really is a remarkable feat of engineering.”

She laughed and shook her head. “You're right. I'd rather see this.”

They breezed through the rest of the photographs, spending no more than a minute on each one, competing with each other for the
most inane or over-the-top comment, before they were finished and back out in the lobby. It was half past eleven.

“We did that a bit more quickly than I anticipated,” Andrew said as he glanced at his watch. “I thought we'd stay in the exhibition until one, and then have lunch in the café here until three. Then we were going to walk around the city until five. . . .”

“It's okay if we don't keep to your schedule, isn't it?” Rachel teased. She felt much more relaxed now that they'd gotten the photography out of the way. The realization that Andrew was less pompous and more geeky than she'd thought was a huge relief.

“I suppose,” he said, and took her arm again. This time it didn't feel quite so awkward.

Rachel suggested a walk in the park until lunchtime, which was a mistake because they'd walked right to the center of it when the rain started bucketing down. Gallantly, Andrew put his coat over Rachel's head, leaving him soaked, and they sprinted for the nearest shelter, a public toilet that stank and had a homeless man sleeping off a binge in the doorway.

“The charms of urban life,” Rachel said. “I almost miss Hartley-by-the-Sea.”

Andrew glanced at her seriously. “Do you? There must be something quite nice about living in a place where everyone knows you.”

“You lived there too,” Rachel pointed out.

“But not in the same way. We were never really part of the village, as you remarked yourself.”

“And you think I am?”

“Aren't you?”

Rachel gazed out at the drizzling rain, turning everything to gray, and shrugged. “I suppose. But there's a downside to everyone knowing you too. You can't start over.”

“Have you wanted to?”

Andrew sounded so interested and intent; it made Rachel feel both gratified and embarrassed. “Sometimes. When . . . when I was growing up, I was the kid whose father was sometimes on the dole and whose mother cleaned half of the class's houses before she broke her back. No one turned their noses up at me, not exactly. Hartley-by-the-Sea has never really been like that. But they knew, and sometimes that's enough.”

She'd said way too much. Rachel dug her hands into the pockets of her coat and nodded towards the rainy park. “How about lunch?”

Andrew thankfully had the sensitivity to follow her lead. “I'll call a taxi, and we can go into the city center to eat.”

Twenty minutes later they were seated at a bistro on Booth Street, menus open in front of them.

“You're soaked,” Rachel remarked. His button-down shirt didn't look quite so boring stuck to his chest. Andrew plucked at it ineffectually.

“I'll dry.”

Rachel was more than a little damp herself, and she could feel her hair starting to frizz. In a few minutes she'd look like a six-foot-tall Orphan Annie.

“You know,” she said after they'd both ordered, “I didn't think you actually liked me.”

“Why would you think that?”

“I don't know. Maybe because of that huge chip on my shoulder you mentioned I have?” She tried to speak lightly, but an edge broke through anyway. “And because I was kind of bitchy to you. And to Claire.”

Andrew glanced down, realigning his knife and fork with precise movements. “I wasn't at my best, either. I was worried about Claire. Too worried, most likely.”

“She told me a little bit about why,” Rachel offered. “The stuff with her ear, all the illnesses when she was a child . . .”

“Yes. Well. Old habits die hard and all that.”

“So that's why you've been so protective of her? Because of her ear?”

“Not just her ear. Everything. My parents, my mother especially, have always been obsessive about Claire's health. I don't really remember when she had the tumor all that well, only that it was an emergency. Her face was partially paralyzed, and she had to be rushed to the hospital. They thought she might die.”

“Goodness.” Anything she said felt inadequate. “That must have been scary.”

“I suppose it was. From a nine-year-old boy's perspective, though, I was more annoyed at my father missing my football tournament.” He shrugged. “I don't think I realized how serious it all was until later.”

“So Claire's health issues affected you,” Rachel said slowly; it seemed obvious now. They would have affected everyone in a family. She'd seen the same kind of thing happening in her own. Yet she hadn't expected to feel such a point of sympathy with Andrew West. “You always had to watch out for her.”