Page 8 of Not in a Million Years

‘I would,’ Rowan said, ‘but it would be kind of weird. I haven’t seen Daniel since that night out we had together before Christmas, and that was months ago.’

‘I’ll message him,’ Abbie said, pulling her phone out of her bag and tapping at the screen for a few seconds.

Reflexively, I fished for my own phone and glanced at it. There was a message from Claude, which brought a smile to my face – a view of the Thames winding through London, taken from high up, presumably the top floor of some office block where he was attending a meeting.

Saw this and thought of you, he’d written, adding a winking emoji.

I replied with a green vomiting face, then regretted it almost immediately. Whatever happened between me and Claude – and I still wasn’t even slightly confident that anything was going to – I wasn’t ready to reveal what had led to my fit of the collywobbles on our date. Not appearing weak had been a cornerstone of my relationships with men (almost all men) my whole life, and revealing vulnerability could lead to revealing all sorts of other things that I’d prefer to keep to myself.

‘Hot Claude?’ Abbie asked.

‘More like Chaud Claude,’ said Rowan, who’d worked in Paris when she was younger and spoke fluent-ish French. Maybe I could ask her how to say Mr Right, just in case.

‘Haha.’ I rolled my eyes, smiling nonetheless. ‘He’s talking about seeing each other again. Wonder what he’ll come up with this time.’

‘Parachute jump?’ Naomi suggested. ‘Patch and I did one of them on the fifth anniversary of us getting together. It was epic. Oh, sorry, Kate…’

The very idea of jumping out of an aeroplane made me feel instantly weird – my stomach lurched, and I could feel sweat breaking out on the soles of my feet.

‘Parkour adventure?’ Abbie volunteered. ‘One of those hardcore things where you scale the sides of vertical buildings and hang off bridges?’

‘And then he’ll suggest that you join him training to climb Everest,’ Rowan said. ‘And by then you’ll be so invested you’ll say yes, and all your fears will be conquered.’

‘I don’t want my fears conquering,’ I said. ‘I’m a risk manager, remember? Knowing what stuff can hurt an organisation – or a person, for that matter – is literally what I do for a living. Fear is good. It breeds survival. And I’ll keep mine just as it is, thanks all the same.’

After that, the conversation moved on from me and my hang-ups to other things: Naomi’s twins’ refusal to eat anything other than chicken nuggets, and whether scurvy was still a thing, and if so whether tomato ketchup would prevent them getting it; the new marketing campaign Abbie was working on; how happy and loved-up Rowan still was with her not-so-new-any-more boyfriend Alex.

As everyone except me had work the next day, we called it a night at about eleven. The evening was still warm and I was wearing trainers, so I decided to walk home to my flat along the river. I hugged my friends goodnight outside the Tube station and set off across Waterloo Bridge, wondering if I’d ever get tired of the glorious view of London that spread out in either direction: the Houses of Parliament to one side, St Paul’s Cathedral to the other, Tower Bridge glimmering in the distance.

I was lucky, I thought. Beyond lucky. I had a home I loved, the most amazing friends in the world and a career that, while mind-numbingly boring a lot of the time, meant I could buy all the shoes I wanted.

With all that going for me, did having a boyfriend really matter all that much? If things didn’t work out with Claude, there were other fish in the sea; I could revisit online dating, and even though I’d long abandoned hope of finding a soulmate in that particular shark-infested water, I’d meet people who’d give me interesting stories to tell my friends.

Being alone wasn’t so bad really, I reflected, descending the stairs on the far side of the bridge and turning east, weaving through the crowds of tourists and theatregoers emerging from the South Bank’s bars and restaurants.

The vibration of my phone in my bag tugged me away from my thoughts. It could be Claude, ringing for a late-night chat. It could be Sam, the guy I’d dated briefly a few months back, until I realised his skinny jeans gave me the ick so badly there was no coming back from it, but who still occasionally rang in the hope I’d be up for a booty call. It could, I realised with a lurch of hope, be Andy.

But the name on my screen below the green and red buttons was Daniel.

‘What the fuck?’ I muttered.

Daniel literally never called me. We only had each other’s numbers because we’d been in various WhatsApp chats over the years to organise flowers when Naomi’s babies were born, a surprise party for Abbie’s husband Matt’s thirtieth birthday, a pre-Christmas night out when Rowan had been going through a tough time the previous year – stuff like that.

He hadn’t had a reason to contact me directly for years – until now.

There must be news about Andy. And for him to call at this time of night, it wasn’t likely to be good.

I pressed the green button. ‘Daniel? What’s up?’

‘Hi, Kate. Sorry to call so late. I reckoned you’d have been out on the lash with the girls, since it’s the second Wednesday of the month.’

‘Since when were you my social secretary?’ I snapped. ‘And actually, I’m just on my way home.’

‘I’m calling about Andy.’

‘Yeah, I thought so.’ I felt a similar sensation to the one I’d felt when Naomi had talked about skydiving. ‘Have you heard from him? Is he okay?’

‘No and I don’t know,’ Daniel said. His voice was matter-of-fact and emotionless – flat, almost. But there was no reason why he’d share any emotion with me of all people – other than concern about our friend, which he’d know I shared.

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