Page 17 of The Fall-Out

‘Ouch,’ I muttered. ‘Shit.’

I’d completely forgotten about the safety pin holding the top of my dress together where the edges of the zip wouldn’t meet. The air in the pub was so warm I hadn’t felt the coldness where the gap was, and hadn’t kept my coat on as I’d intended. As I approached the line of washbasins, I heard a tiny clatter as the pin fell to the floor, and as I bent to retrieve it, I felt the zip unfasten all the way down.

‘Damn it.’

Twisting in front of the mirror, I could see a bead of blood where the point had pierced my skin. There was no way I’d be able to secure it again without help – earlier, it had taken Patch five minutes of fumbling to get it right. I’d have to text Abbie or Rowan and get them to come and rescue me.

But as I was rummaging in my bag for my phone, I heard the sound of approaching heels on the floor outside and the swish of the opening door. Some instinct told me I should duck into a cubicle and hide, but my feet refused to move. In the mirror, I saw my eyes widen in alarm and I gripped the safety pin so tightly its point drew blood from my finger. Then the door swung open and Zara stepped in.

I hadn’t been in the same room as her for more than half a decade. I knew perfectly well what parenting twins had done to me – the changes pregnancy had made to my body and sleepless nights had wrought on my face. And the changes weren’t just physical. I was different in other ways too, deeper ones that were even more uncomfortable to think about. But it was like time had stood still for Zara – like she’d spent the intervening years in an alternate universe, or in a coma or something, and stepped back into the world utterly unchanged.

She was still blade-slim. Her pale skin was still unlined. Her dark hair was in the same asymmetric bob with the same brutally short fringe that said, With my bone structure I can do what the fuck I like to my hair and look great. Her cat-like green eyes were the same, with the same wings of black liquid eyeliner.

All of this I noticed in a few seconds, the safety pin clutched in my fingers, feeling a trickle of blood oozing down my back.

‘Naomi.’ She moved in and air-kissed both my cheeks. ‘Are you okay? God, this is tragic. When I heard I had to come.’

Unable to speak, I stared at her. I could feel the blood from the safety pin turning tacky on my hand and felt a flare of resentment – Look what you made me do! – mingling with a suffocating sense of dread.

‘Poor Andy. He was always so full of life – you know what I mean? The most alive person ever. I can’t believe it.’

‘No one can,’ I said, twisting the pin in my hand.

‘I’m back in London,’ she went on. ‘For the moment, anyway. I don’t know how long I’ll stay, but I couldn’t not come today.’

‘It’s what Andy would have wanted,’ I parroted mindlessly, although I was fairly sure it wasn’t true.

‘Are you having a wardrobe malfunction? Can I help?’

Don’t touch me, I thought. I could still feel the places on my cheeks where her kisses had almost landed, as if they were stained with her red lipstick, except Zara’s lipstick never smudged. But I found myself standing, frozen, while she took the pin from me and moved behind me.

‘I see the problem.’ I could feel her breath on the back of my neck – it made the hairs there stand on end – and smell her perfume.

I breathed in while she pulled the zip as high as it would go, then stood very still, feeling her knuckles pressing against my skin as she pulled the gaping the sides of the dress together.

I felt as if I, too, was being precariously held together, at risk of unravelling.

‘There,’ she said. ‘Job’s a good ’un. But you don’t want to go out there like that, do you?’

‘I left my coat by the—’ I gestured.

‘Want me to fetch it for you? What’s it look like? No, wait, I’ve got a better idea.’

She plonked her bag on the vanity unit and undid the clasp. The bag was large, pewter leather that I knew would feel buttery-soft. And I knew, because seemingly nothing else about Zara had changed, that it would contain everything from make-up to tampons to a shiny little notepad and pen – although perhaps Zara used her phone for note-taking now, like everyone else.

‘Pashmina.’ Proudly, she produced a rolled-up cylinder of black silk and shook it out. ‘I never go anywhere without a pash. Places get so cold.’

She handed it to me and I draped it round my shoulders.

‘I’ll give it back as soon as I’ve got my coat.’

‘No rush.’ She smiled. ‘We’ll be in touch soon, won’t we?’

‘Thank you.’ The words came out automatically. Damn it, Naomi, I castigated myself. Why do you have to be so damn British? Why can’t you tell her you’re not friends, everyone’s horrified by her turning up here, and what’s more, 2003 called and would like its fashion accessory back?

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t betray any anger, any sign of weakness.

Zara turned to the mirror, laser-focused on her face, dusting some sort of powder from her make-up bag over her cheeks, making her skin look even more luminous than it already did. I backed into a cubicle and locked the door, pressing toilet paper against my hand, which was damp now with sweat as well as blood. I could hear myself breathing effortfully, a tightness around my chest that wasn’t only to do with the newly secured zip of my dress. Although I could no longer see Zara, her scent clung to the pashmina, surrounding me like a miasma – or a memory.

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