Page 8 of The Fall-Out

‘Not exactly a hardship, is it?’ Patch asked, and Zara brushed a finger over his cheek in a way that made me turn away from them, feeling suddenly superfluous.

‘This wine is practically taking the enamel off my teeth,’ Abbie was saying. ‘It’s like I’m experiencing tomorrow’s hangover today.’

‘It’ll be totally worth it though,’ Rowan replied. ‘You know there are some hangovers where you wake up and think, Why did I even do that? and some where you’re like, Fair do’s, I’ll take how I’m feeling right now?’

I laughed. ‘When you’re trying not to spew on the Tube, but at the same time you’re looking round at everyone else and thinking, I bet you wish you had as good a time as me last night.’

Abbie glugged some more wine. ‘And your boss gives you a bollocking for being late and you just grin inanely at her.’

‘And then you go and buy a bacon roll and a KitKat and you’re instantly cured,’ Rowan chipped in.

We all laughed, and I was sure we already knew we’d still be friends tomorrow. I barely registered when another man joined the party – a blond, movie-star-handsome guy who seemed to immediately hit it off with Kate.

‘What’s your favourite colour?’ I overheard her ask.

‘Purple, obviously. The colour of royalty, mystery and of course Cadbury’s Dairy Milk. Yours?’

‘Purple too,’ Kate replied, and the two of them burst into laughter so infectious the rest of us couldn’t help joining in, even though we hadn’t heard the lead-up to the question and had no idea what was so funny.

But my pleasure in the evening was tinged with something else – a sense that something had changed that night. That because of this random meeting on the side of a rainy football pitch, my life was going to travel in an entirely different direction from the one it had been on before.

And as it turned out, I was right.

FOUR

And so, here we were. Sixteen years later, sixteen years older, in another nondescript pub in a different part of London. It was late morning now, not evening. It was January, not November. Rowan’s then-boyfriend Paul wasn’t with us and nor was Matt’s brother Ryan; they’d been replaced in Rowan and Kate’s lives by Alex and Daniel.

Zara wasn’t there and of course nor was Andy.

It was by no means the first time all of us had been together; it was only the latest in a series of countless meet-ups – the second Wednesday of every month had become the regular date for what we’d come to call the Girlfriends’ Club; there’d been birthdays and pre-Christmas drinks and weekends away and, of course, weddings.

But this was the first funeral. A shiver passed over me as it occurred to me that it wouldn’t be the last – but even that could barely darken my gloom.

I was gloomy enough in the present without thinking what the future might hold.

‘We should’ve got them to put some booze in this coffee,’ Kate said, wrapping her hands around her mug.

‘It’s shit, isn’t it?’ said Abbie.

‘The coffee?’ Rowan sipped hers gingerly. ‘It tastes like it’s been brewed from burnt sawdust.’

‘The coffee, and also – you know – everything.’ Kate bit her lip. Her lipstick was a deep plum colour to match her dress.

‘Funny that we’re talking about booze, in the circumstances.’ Abbie tried to smile but it came out more like a grimace.

‘Hey,’ I argued. ‘Remember, it’s what?—’

‘Andy would’ve wanted,’ finished Rowan.

We all tried to laugh, but Abbie’s turned into a sob and Kate wiped away a tear, carefully angling her finger so as not to smudge her mascara.

‘Andy wouldn’t have just been talking about it,’ she said. ‘He’d have been getting a round of tequila shots.’

‘And then another,’ I agreed.

‘And we’d all have been so shitfaced we’d have missed the funeral,’ said Rowan.

‘If there’s anyone capable of missing their own funeral because they were getting bladdered in the pub, it would’ve been Andy.’ Abbie tipped sugar into her coffee, stirred it, sipped and winced. ‘If you know what I mean.’

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