Page 6 of The Fall-Out

And then Abbie, Rowan and I all typed the same thing at the same time, almost as if we’d been practising.

It’s what Andy would have wanted.

To my amazement, when I put down my phone and went up to get ready, I was actually smiling.

THREE

NOVEMBER 2007

As friendships go, ours didn’t get off to the most auspicious start. After all, the sidelines of a five-a-side football match in the autumn rain, with your boyfriends’ team already four-nil down before half-time, is no one’s idea of fun. I remember watching Stuart, the guy I’d been dating for about four months after getting stuck in a lift with him on my way up to the office where I worked as a junior legal secretary, miss the ball over and over, sliding around in the mud like Bambi on ice and losing his cool with the referee. This evening is not fun, I thought, and I don’t think this relationship is much fun either.

To distract myself from the carnage on the pitch, I glanced sideways at the other spectators. There was a woman in a parka, a few years older than me, sipping something from a hip flask and occasionally yelling encouragement at her husband, who’d scored three of the four goals for the opposing team. There were a couple of teenage boys, occasionally hoofing around a football of their own, clearly convinced that they could do a better job than their father. There were the reserve players, bored and resentful in tracksuits, occasionally half-heartedly stretching their hamstrings.

And, I saw through the thickening twilight, there were four other women about the same age as me. One was bundled up in a faux (at least, I assumed it was faux – later, I changed my mind) fur coat, her gleaming dark bob beaded with drizzle, the heels of her suede boots sinking into the mud.

Another was wearing faded jeans and wellies, her hair scraped into a messy bun, a too-big leather jacket clutched round her shoulders with one hand while the other held her phone.

Standing a few feet away from her was a woman with swishy mahogany-coloured hair in a long cream trench coat, who managed to look like she’d stepped out of the fashion pages of a glossy magazine; she was even wearing lipstick, which I found quite awe-inspiring in the circumstances.

And there was a curvy woman in leather trousers and trainers, an oversized red scarf wound high under her chin, emphasising her perfect porcelain skin, which – unlike mine – hadn’t turned blotchy from the cold.

As the match dragged on, the five of us began to kind of sidle closer together, exchanging pained glances and eye-rolls as the other team scored yet again – in fact, it was one of the guys on Stu’s side who’d committed the ultimate screw-up of landing an own goal.

‘God, this isn’t much fun, is it?’ remarked the woman in the wellies.

‘“Come and watch me and the lads play footie,” he said.’ The trench-coated woman’s teeth were chattering so hard she could hardly get the words out. ‘“It’ll be a great match,” he said. Not.’

‘And I worked until midnight last night so I could knock off early for this,’ said the one with the scarf. ‘I’m seriously tempted to call it right now and go back to the office.’

‘It’s freezing, isn’t it?’ I ventured, and immediately wished I could have come up with something even slightly witty to say.

‘Look, you know what’ – an immaculately manicured hand pulled the fur coat closer around the sharp line of its wearer’s jaw – ‘we don’t have to do this. We can just sack it off and go to the pub. They’ll find us there when they’re done.’

‘What pub?’ I asked, rendered stupid by cold.

‘Any pub,’ said the one in the trench coat. ‘Literally any one. I don’t care if there are fag-ends on the floor and piss in the fruit machine coin trays so long as it’s warm.’

‘They normally head to the Prince Rupert after,’ said the woman in wellies, who was the warmest and driest of us and therefore the most capable of rational thought. ‘It’s about five minutes away.’

‘Take us there,’ urged the one with the scarf. ‘Please. First round’s on me.’

And so we squelched away across the muddy field, towards the line of lights that marked the road, civilisation and warmth, five strangers with a shared goal of getting dry and getting a drink. One the way, we introduced ourselves: the one in the wellies was Abbie, whose long-term boyfriend, Matt, was captain of the team. His brother, Ryan, was dating red scarf-wearing Kate, although I could tell from her extreme narkiness that Ryan was already halfway to Dumpedville, population him. The beautiful one with the lipstick was Rowan, and although I didn’t catch her boyfriend’s name at the time, I got the impression she must be deadly serious about him to put herself through this. And the fur-clad one with the jawline introduced herself as Zara.

‘It was my fellow that scored the own goal,’ she said. ‘Which hopefully means he’ll be dropped from the team and I’ll never have to do this again. Not that I would anyway, because frankly it’s hell on earth, isn’t it?’

‘I mean, I don’t mind so much in summer,’ said Abbie. ‘When you can wear shorts and sit on the grass with a bottle of wine. But this…!’

‘Wine in summer sounds all right,’ I admitted.

Already, I was imagining the five of us being friends – at least, to be more accurate, I was sure I wanted to be their friend. Whether they’d want to be mine was another matter. Glancing surreptitiously at each of them in turn as I sheltered with Zara under her giant umbrella, I confirmed my first impressions of Rowan’s beauty, Zara’s glamour, Kate’s confidence, Abbie’s air of serene self-assurance.

In contrast to these women, what did I have? An ordinary job I was averagely good at; a just-getting-off-the-ground relationship with a man who’d never made my heart soar; a disparate circle of friends left over from school, university and part-time jobs who were gradually dispersing in different directions.

According to my nan, I made the best cup of tea in the whole world, but I couldn’t imagine putting that one forward as a reason why these women should embrace me as a friend.

So I kept quiet and listened while Zara and Rowan chatted.

‘My God, that coat is so lush,’ Zara said. ‘It’s Burberry, isn’t it? Must’ve cost a bomb.’

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