Page 63 of Not in a Million Years

We were still friends, but now we were friends with benefits.

Those early months were kind of like a honeymoon. Andy was still at Abbie and Matt’s place, but he didn’t stay there every night. He spent at least two nights a week at mine. Sometimes we went out together. We went to watch obscure art-house films, taking a hipflask of sherry in with us. We went to rummage through charity shops in the most expensive areas of London, where Andy found me a bouclé Chanel jacket and I managed to persuade him not to buy a real fox-fur stole. Neither of us had much money (actually, Andy had almost none, and I was saving furiously for my next step up the property ladder), so when we went out to eat it was to places in Chinatown that did duck tongues and chicken gizzards, or to Polish cafés where we’d drink shots of vodka and stuff ourselves with pierogi, or to greasy spoons for hungover breakfasts.

More often, we just hung out in my flat. Andy was addicted to TV shopping channels, and he’d spend hours glued to the screen, occasionally saying, ‘Oh my God, just look at that ghastly tat!’ or, ‘Katie babe, you’ve got to see this right now, come here!’ and I’d drop whatever I was doing to laugh with him over a DIY crochet tea-cosy or an obviously retouched before-and-after image or a presenter’s orange fake tan.

I hadn’t expected him to stop using drugs, so I couldn’t allow myself even a flicker of disappointment when he didn’t. He didn’t use that much when he was with me, anyway, just the occasional joint on my balcony or a sneaky line on a night out. I told myself that this, too, would change – that when Andy felt more at ease with me, with himself, with his complex sexuality, he’d feel ready to quit.

Like I say, it was like a honeymoon, only it was one no one but us knew we were on. When we saw our friends together, we kept up a careful pretence of just-friendship. But we didn’t see them that often, Andy insisting that he wanted to be alone with me. When I tentatively asked when we were going to tell people, he said we would, definitely, but not just yet.

‘I want us to be our secret for now, Katie babe. I want you to be my little secret.’

Not always, but often, we’d have sex. It was different from what I was used to with other men – more simple, more innocent, almost chaste. I knew Andy felt desire for me, but I also knew he didn’t feel the same passion I felt for him. It would come in time, I told myself, and if it didn’t, that was okay – our love was different; it was based on friendship, which was why it would last.

I knew Andy was still seeing other people. I assumed they were exclusively men, although he never said. And I was too, although admittedly with a lot less enthusiasm than him. It would all be fine, I promised myself. I wasn’t going to become jealous or possessive – I wasn’t going to ask for more than he was willing to give.

I was going to be the ultimate cool girl.

So, when he confided in me about his chequered dating life, I laughed and sympathised and gave advice. When he didn’t turn up when he said he would and I didn’t know where he was, I told myself it was fine – I was his friend, not his keeper; he was entitled to a life apart from me. When our friends saw us together and noticed something – because, despite our best efforts to pretend everything was still the same as it always had been, we must have let slip some signals that things had changed – I denied everything.

But there was one thing no one could deny.

One Saturday afternoon, I got a call from Abbie, asking me to go round to her and Matt’s flat, where Andy had been staying as a lodger or houseguest – I wasn’t sure of the details of the arrangement. But as soon as I arrived, it became clear that whatever it had been was now over.

Matt let me in and then, stony-faced, said he was going out. Abbie was sitting at the kitchen table, clutching a mug of tea, surrounded by soggy tissues.

‘Hey.’ I hurried over and folded her into a hug, which made her immediately shake with fresh sobs. ‘What’s the matter? Are you okay? Did you and Matt have a row?’

‘No,’ she said, her voice muffled by my shoulder. ‘I mean, yes. We did, but that’s not… that’s not…’

‘Something else has happened? What was the row about?’

Gently, I extricated myself and sat down opposite her. She was blank-faced with shock, her hands shaking as she lifted the mug of tea, sipped and grimaced.

‘God, that’s stone cold. And I haven’t even offered you a drink. I keep making tea and forgetting about it. I went to work yesterday and ended up at the office we moved out of six months ago, and then I realised I wasn’t in any fit state to function, so I came home.’

‘I’ll put the kettle on, then you can tell me what’s up. Are your mum and dad okay?’

Only a death, I thought, could trigger a reaction like this. But I was wrong.

‘It’s Andy,’ Abbie said, once she was able to speak again after a fresh storm of tears.

My whole body went cold. Had she found out about Andy and me? Was she angry as well as hurt by what she knew? And then I realised that would be relatively trivial, easily dealt with somehow or another. There was a far worse prospect.

‘Has something happened to him?’

‘No. Not as far as I know. But right now, I wouldn’t care if something did. I don’t care if I never see him again.’

Then the whole story came pouring out: how Andy had first not paid rent, then started stealing things from Abbie and Matt – cash, a new mobile phone, a watch. Small things and then bigger ones. And now, finally, he’d wiped out their savings from their online bank account.

Hearing the words from Abbie’s trembling lips made me feel like I’d swallowed a stone.

‘I can’t believe he’d do that,’ she sobbed. Anger would come, I knew, but for now Abbie was blindsided by shock. ‘We’re his oldest friends. We were at school together…’

‘It’s the drugs,’ I said. ‘Isn’t it?’

‘Obviously. God, Kate, at this point I couldn’t care less if he’d used the money to buy Pokémon cards. But yes, it’ll be drugs. Or debt from buying them, which amounts to the same thing.’

‘Do you know where he is now?’

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