Can We Still Be Friends (13 page)

‘So you went back to the office?’ Sal asked, surprised.

‘Yes. I finished up and got back to help the desk out. We were beginning to wonder if you were going to file.’ Telephones rang constantly in the background as Marsha spoke. ‘Andrea says there’s no need to come in now – she thinks it better you stay on the ground in case something else happens. I’ll tell her to look at your copy. We don’t know how much space we’ve got yet but I’m sure she’ll try and squeeze you in.’

‘The flag above Chelsea police station is flying at half mast this evening in recognition of the loss of life sustained by members of its force.’ The BBC reporter’s nose, red with cold, was emphasized by the thick grey of the scarf around his neck. Kendra leant over to turn up the volume on the television sitting on a nineteenth-century Chinese tea chest.

‘What’s going on, Ken?’ Art stood in the doorway, a hefty tumbler
in his hand. Kendra heard the clink of ice. ‘Terrible stuff. Those poor guys. Jesus, what times we live in. It’s not even safe to go to Harrods nowadays. I’m always telling Maris to stay local for the shopping nowadays. The West End’s going down.’ Art eased on to the sofa beside his daughter. ‘Good to see you, babe. We don’t see so much of you these days.’

Kendra shifted to accommodate her father. He was right, she hadn’t spent much time with him in weeks, maybe months, and it was nice to be sitting there, just him and her, in this room, which was her favourite. Maybe because it was ‘the snug’, colour had been allowed and it was accentuated by furnishings which, anywhere else, Marisa would deem frumpy: a floral on the sofa, dark-green velvet curtains, a small side table with a lamp. Marisa liked scale: ‘I’m not into the knick-knacks you find in these London houses, cluttering up the space when there isn’t enough in the first place.’

Kendra couldn’t bear to think what her mother’s opinion would be of Gioia’s flat, with its books and LPs piled on the floor and clothes hanging off hooks all over the walls, or of Gioia as a person, or, God knows, Kendra’s relationship with her, which had invaded her with a force quite unlike anything she had ever experienced.

Kendra was used to emotion. She knew that she cared about things – events, people, causes. She couldn’t even pass a cat on the street without worrying whether it had a home to go to. She was an enthusiastic and compassionate listener to problems, her open face, with its clear grey eyes and thick brows, always ready to register the necessary degree of astonishment or sympathy. But she had never cared very much about herself.

She had placed Art and Marisa into a box labelled ‘My parents, and I know they are weird’, and she left them there, largely unscrutinized. At university, Kendra had often been found in the kitchen brewing up a variety of dried herbs as a stress remedy while she nodded sympathetically as a friend recounted their problems. She was always an early port of call in any emotional drama. She was particularly good at keeping quiet. She had learnt that it was almost
always pointless to offer anything other than support. Friends didn’t really want your opinions, just your sympathy.

And of course she had had boyfriends. Not many, but a few. She hadn’t ever felt very much about them, she now realized, and certainly, they had not made her feel anything at all about herself.

She had always wondered why Sal and Annie spent so much time and energy on the whole business of whether they had a boyfriend or not. Why Annie would mould herself to each new crush, prepared to change her hairstyle and eating habits in a trice, spending hours in the bathroom shaving her legs, washing her hair, putting on gooey face masks before a date and becoming hysterical about a small spot on her face. And Sal – well, Sal could just go simple. She’d see a boy she fancied at a party and she’d target him like a nuclear missile. He didn’t normally stand a chance. Invariably, after spending the night with him, she’d go off him the next day. Kendra had never felt even slightly compelled to behave either way.

She enjoyed the companionship of the boys she went out with, and even liked the sensation of another body close to hers in bed, but the actual sex had left her unaffected. The best thing about it was the knowledge that, as far as she could tell,
he
was having a good time. At least, that was what she supposed his moans and energetic movements were indicating, as well as the fact that, almost as soon as he had stopped, the whole thing would all start again.

With Gioia, it was different. Everything was different. After the first night spent in Gioia’s flat it was as if Kendra had been melted and recast in a different shape. Her perception of what she was and had always been had dissolved but had immediately been replaced with an alternative. There was nothing unsure or strange about the new her – it was utterly familiar. The sensations that Gioia had induced were delicious and intriguing, and her lover’s command of the lovemaking, the fact that she expected nothing of Kendra and only appeared to want to seduce and satisfy, felt oddly acceptable. Normally, Kendra would have been uncomfortable about being
such a passive recipient of pleasure, but with Gioia it really was as if she, Kendra, was some amazing treasure to be touched and held and cherished.

It was different at work. Gioia would bark commands at Kendra the same way she did to the kids who hung out there. She delegated the administrative task to her: the bill paying, the endless dealing with utility companies over the continual problems with hot water, or the lights. Sometimes she would ask Kendra to send out an invoice from G. Cavallieri, keeping a carbon copy in a book. Gioia would say, ‘If you take care of the bloody bureaucracy, I can get on with what I’m good at. After all, you’re the one with the degree. That makes you chief form filler-in. I can’t be doing with all the forms. You’re the brains and beauty, which makes me the beast.’

The Chapel was an old and rickety structure and in need of a complete overhaul, which Gioia could never find a way to finance. They knew that the roof was dangerously unstable, the pointing more like crumble than concrete, but it was one of those things that would just have to wait. One morning, Kendra had been waylaid at the door by an elderly woman.

‘Do you work in this place?’ she asked as Kendra unlocked the big door, shaking rain off her donkey jacket and dripping hair. ‘I’ve been trying to tell that woman she has to do something about that roof. I live on the top floor. Over there.’ She gestured with a wrist slung with string shopping bags to the small terraces of houses around the corner. ‘When I look out my bathroom window, I can see it will only take one strong gust of wind, and somebody’s going to get hurt when the whole thing comes crashing down.’

‘Gioia knows that we have to get something done. She’s working on it,’ Kendra muttered as the lighting flickered into life.

‘It’s just not safe for us round here. I’ve been down Citizens Advice on Kentish Town Road. They say somebody could take action. Not that it isn’t bad enough having those scoundrels hanging around the street. And we’ve got our eyes on those vans arriving all hours of the night. It’s criminal, the goings-on. Criminal.’ She tightened the knot of her headscarf under her chin with the
satisfaction of a hanging judge. ‘You tell that woman she’ll be facing the law. They’ll have this place closed down.’

Gioia’s response when Kendra brought the subject up later in the day was that she would get the old bat closed down first and that it was just a question of skimming up a ladder to fix the roof. It was a free country, wasn’t it? Or had she missed the news? Gerass was allowed to drive around whenever he wanted to. She supposed she’d better get him to take a look at the roof.

‘You lunching with us tomorrow?’ Art asked his daughter, interrupting the companionable silence as they watched the news. ‘Alfie’s joining us, and I think your mother has corralled a few others.’ Alfie was one of Art and Marisa’s oldest friends, and Kendra was fond of him. It was a tradition for them to spend Christmas Day with Alfie and his boyfriend, John. The Rootsteins’ home was largely a Christmas-free zone, although there was an illuminated aluminium Ettore Sottsass tree that was installed for exactly a week in the corner of the drawing room.

But Alfie and John did the whole thing properly. When Kendra was younger she had been thrilled by their huge, real tree, which dominated the crowded sitting room and was hung with multicoloured lights and balls and candles they would light in the middle of the meal, which was never served before late afternoon. They had crackers and wore paper hats and, every year, the group would have the same conversation about how extraordinary it was that the Americans didn’t have crackers.

‘Kendra.
There’s
a way to make your fortune,’ Alfie would invariably say as he refilled his glass with the vintage port Art would have supplied, his face a florid contrast to his unnaturally blond wavy hair.

‘Oh, Dad. Sorry, I can’t make lunch. I made a date to see Sal and Annie – it’s maybe the last time we can all get together before Christmas. They have to go back home to their folks. I wonder if Sal got to work on this bomb? She’s been aching to be given a proper story.’

Marisa came up behind Art, placing her hands on his shoulders. ‘Alfie will be sad to miss you. You know John isn’t well at the
moment. He’s lost a lot of weight. Not that he couldn’t do with dropping a few pounds around the middle.’

She crossed the room to align the joins of the curtains.

‘Art, we need to leave around eight. I said we’d pick up Jim and Jill McKenzie. Jill’s been telling me she had a little chat with Jim about his new squeeze. I can’t believe how predictable you boys can be. She discovered he took her to Ireland with him last week when they were having some corporate pow-wow. And, surprise, surprise, the maid found her Janet Reger in his suitcase. There might be a touch of
froideur
in the car tonight.’ She turned to Kendra, smiling. ‘Talking of lovers, darling, are your father and I ever to be introduced to your new
amour
? We assume there is one, seeing as you’re out like a cat most nights. You know we couldn’t be more delighted. I do hope he’s a great fuck.’

When Kendra arrived at the Builder’s Arms the next morning she found Annie and Sal at their favourite table near the window, a pile of newspapers on the floor. The relentlessly jolly beat of ‘Uptown Girl’ could be heard over the noise of the bar. Annie’s grimace was obvious from the other side of the room. She held her fingers like a pistol to her head then pointed at Sal, who was hunched into a huge grey coat even though the pub was steamy.

‘Hi. What’s up?’

Sal picked up a newspaper section from the floor. ‘This is what’s up. Bitch.’

Kendra slid on to the bench beside Annie. ‘Let’s see.’ There were several pieces covering different aspects of the bomb attack, some larger than others.

‘Look. There. That was meant to be my story, but can you see whose name is above it? M
ARSHA
S
WEETING
, that’s who, with … “additional reporting” by a cast of thousands, including yours truly.’

Kendra was unclear about the detail of what was wrong, but it was obvious that, to her friend, this was serious.

‘Sal’s been stuffed by Marsha,’ Annie explained. Marsha was
already known to them as public enemy number one. The impenetrable neatness of her bob was used by Sal to illustrate the utter impossibility of her being human. ‘Wine?’

‘No. I’m going to have a lager.’

Annie grabbed the opportunity to go to the bar, eager to escape Sal’s lowering gloom and fury as she regaled Kendra with her tale.

‘I was sent off to cover the bomb. Well, me and Marsha were. It took me for ever, but I did – in the end, I
did
find a story. My story. I found this girl, a real eyewitness, who gave me some great stuff, and I couldn’t write the story because it had got so late, so I phoned it in. On the hoof. Marsha told me I should stay out “on the ground” … Fuck her – “on the ground” – and that she’d pass it on. But she used it all in her story. Look, that’s what I wrote, what I phoned: “For one young woman …” And, of course, I don’t have a copy of the story typed out to prove that it’s mine. What a cow.’

There was no consoling Sal, who, fuelled by several glasses of the pub’s sour red wine, was hard to distract from the injustice. Annie and Kendra tried their best to lighten the atmosphere.

‘OK. Let’s get Marsha. How about sending her off on a date with Stuart? We could kidnap her and pour henna all over her hair,’ Kendra suggested. ‘Or even better, I know Mum’s got some Clairol black stuff in the bathroom – how about that? A kind of modern-day tar and feather? It’s rotten. Really it is. You’ll get your own back though.’

They ordered Sal a Ploughman’s, along with theirs, even though they knew she was unlikely to eat anything. Annie nibbled at the edge of her bread. She always did that, observed Kendra, as if it were going to stop her eating the whole thing – which it didn’t. Not that Annie had any problem with her weight. She could probably eat anything she wanted and it wouldn’t make a difference.

Eventually, Sal’s fury lifted. The call for last orders, when it came, seemed early.

‘Let’s get another bottle from next door and go back to Cranbourne,’ she suggested. The others, relieved at having managed to distract Sal, agreed, and they headed back to the flat.

Annie had put a string of coloured fairy lights around the empty fireplace, and there was a faint smell of curry.

‘Joanna warned me about the people on the first floor playing music, but she didn’t tell us about their vindaloo habit. You can always smell the stuff.’ She squeezed a few drops from a small bottle on to a ring and placed it on the light bulb. A tiny thread of scented smoke wafted into the air as the bulb warmed. ‘Tania’s just got the Floris account, so we all got a bottle of this burning essence to take home.’ She looked at the dark-blue packaging. ‘Stephanotis. Lee’s using his as perfume.’ Annie sat at the table overlooking the street and fiddled with the array of bottles of coloured inks she had placed there.

‘So.
I’m
going home the night before Christmas Eve. Mum’s giving her usual Christmas Eve lunch do and says she wants me there the night before to help.’ She sighed. She had been trying to pin Jackson down to get him to make a date. ‘It’s so unfair that I’ve got to leave London so early. I really wanted to be with Jackson then, but he seems to be incredibly busy with all these work things he has to go to. I suppose it isn’t surprising he can’t take me with him to them.’ She sounded lame, even to herself, but she was very aware of the horrible possibility that she might only get to spend one night with him before Christmas and that then she was going to be stuck at home for days. The whole ‘familiness’ of Christmas was out of place in their relationship. She knew Jackson was planning to be with his lot in Wiltshire on the day, but he was reckoning on leaving as late as possible on Christmas Eve with the excuse that the roads would be empty. She wished he had asked her if she’d like to be there with him, even though of course she wouldn’t have been able to go. But just him asking would have counted for something.