Can We Still Be Friends (14 page)

Annie knew that Christmas was important to her mother. Letty had decided as soon as she was widowed that nothing about the
family’s Christmas was going to change. Their traditions were the mast she could hold on to in her changed world. She carried on organizing their pre-lunch drinks on Christmas Eve, serving the same cocktail sausages and spreading homemade chicken liver pâté on to Ritz crackers, washed down with a ‘more than reasonable’ sparkling white that she’d discovered in Marks. Annie had noticed the determination in her mother’s face that first time she had had to struggle with the cork.

On Christmas Day, after stockings (Letty still produced them for Annie and Beth and stuffed them with bubble bath and bottled sauces, and they now jointly produced one for her, which they left outside her bedroom door), they all walked down the lane, through Beechams Common, to Freddie and Julia’s for a huge meal. Annie loved Christmas, and was looking forward to it despite not being able to spend it with Jackson. When she woke on Christmas morning, the day always felt special and, though she knew it was childish, she still got excited when she investigated the content of her lumpy woollen stocking. The one bit she didn’t like was walking home through the dimly lit lanes once it was dark and the presents had been opened and then seeing the tatty armchair where her father used to sit to watch ludicrous Christmas telly late into the night. It was the only time she still really got upset about his absence.

‘When are you heading back to Cheltenham, Sal?’ she asked.

Sal was on the sofa, her red V-neck sweater pulled over her bent knees, striped socks poking out from her jeans.

‘I haven’t really thought about it. Maybe I’ll do the shopping Saturday morning and then catch the train.’

‘I bet you’ve got all yours done, haven’t you, Annie?’ Kendra teased. ‘Probably all wrapped too.’ She was near the mark. This year, for her wrapping, Annie had decided to stick silver stars on brown paper.

‘I don’t know what to get Jackson, though. Men are a nightmare. I can’t just get him socks or a tape.’ Sal brightened at the opportunity to suggest unsuitable presents for Jackson, for whom she was
developing a passionate dislike. She couldn’t explain, even to herself, what it was, but there was something about him she didn’t trust. The three of them had often joked about how Annie had Bad Taste in Men and Annie, for her part, took the jokes with a pinch of salt.

‘The thing about Annie,’ Sal said to Kendra when Annie was out of the room, ‘is that she’s always been a lookist, and she can’t see past that. Jackson’s a classic. I mean, where is he half the time? It would be fine if she wasn’t so serious about him, but she sits gazing at that phone like some pathetic puppy.’

‘How about one of those new phones I’ve read about that you carry around with you, so that she could keep tabs on him? Great invention. It might mean he’d stop calling her in the middle of the night too. Or, if he did, I wouldn’t know about it,’ Sal suggested on her return.

‘Pot calling the kettle,’ interjected Annie. ‘At least he doesn’t come round throwing pebbles at the window, like that poor boy you tortured the other day. The one you met at that party,
obviously
promised your body to, and who drove you home, and sat out there all night. I kept thinking Joanna’s windows were going to get smashed.’

Sal laughed. ‘Oh, Tom. I told him he couldn’t come in, but he was having none of it – anyway, at least he drove me back from Brighton. How about you, Ken? Christmas at Alfie’s again?’

‘Mmm. We’re worried about his boyfriend, John. Mum says he’s lost weight, and everyone’s kind of ducking around the subject. I guess I’ll see what he’s like next week.’

‘Poor guy. It sounds so frightening. There was a story on it in the paper a couple of weeks back. I heard the foreign desk discussing it. Something about the disease … about how you get it. Everyone says it’s got really bad in New York. It’s shit being gay, isn’t it? Everything’s against you. I’m so pleased I’m not.’

‘Yes, and never having … well, a normal family, and kids and things,’ said Annie. ‘That’s hard. I mean, I know it isn’t really … Well, I probably shouldn’t say
normal
family, but let’s face it – they
can’t have the same kind of life we have, can they?’ Annie’s face showed concern as she held a lock of her hair up to the light, scrutinizing it for split ends. ‘Lee’s got a friend who he thinks is ill. He told me that they’ve worked out for sure that you can’t catch it sleeping in someone else’s sheets.’

‘No, Annie. It’s not like bed bugs.’ Annie and Sal were taken aback by the sharpness in Kendra’s voice. ‘And, as for being gay … well … well, you might as well know. I think I am. No, I don’t think. I am. I definitely am.’

‘You are … what?’ Annie looked at her. There was a silence. ‘Are you saying you’re … 
gay
? What’s happened? I mean, how do you know?’

‘I’m … Oh, Christ. I’m sleeping with Gioia. OK. Now you know.’ Kendra’s broad face was flushed.

‘You
what?
’ Sal uncoiled herself from the sofa. Kendra watched them looking at her as if they expected her to transform into something else before their eyes. ‘How long’s this been going on?’

‘You sound like my mother.’

‘Oh … Sorry. But I don’t understand. Do you, Annie?’

Annie didn’t know what to say. What was the right thing to say? Is it the kind of thing you say ‘Congratulations’ to? Or ‘Well done’? Or ‘Thank you for telling us’? How was it that one of her best friends was a lesbian and she hadn’t known? It wasn’t as if she was a man. Annie knew gay men. Obviously, there was Lee. And there’d been gay boys at university. But gay women? Even that word … ‘lesbian’. That was a different world.

‘I know it must be a bit of a shock for you. It was sort of a shock for me. I really, really didn’t know I was gay until Gioia. Maybe I wasn’t. But … no that’s not true. I didn’t
catch
it from her. I just discovered something really important about me. Something that makes it all make more sense. But it doesn’t matter, you know. It doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t matter to us. We can still be friends.’ This last point was an attempt at humour.

‘What do you mean it doesn’t change anything?’ Sal spluttered. ‘Of course we’re still your friends, but the point is we thought we
were your best friends, and it’s really strange that something important like this, important like, who you want to fuck, who you want to
be
with … well, you don’t even
tell
us. It’s like we don’t know you.’

‘Sal. I don’t feel I have to explain this to you. I don’t have to excuse myself. I still feel the same about you. It’s just … it’s just Gioia is my girlfriend. I don’t make a fuss about who you are with.’

‘Ken, have you told your parents?’ Annie got up and began to pace in front of the windows. How long had they known each other? Five years, four years?

‘Are you crazy? No, of course I haven’t. Look. I haven’t caught a contagious disease. You are making me feel so bad. I thought you were my friends, and now you’re behaving as if I’ve done something terrible. And you should be happy for me. I’ve never felt like this before. You two often have. But I haven’t. I understand everything more now. You know how I used to ask why you cared so much when you were talking about boys? Well, I asked because
I
didn’t. I didn’t know why I didn’t. But I didn’t.’

‘Didn’t what?’

‘Oh, shush, Sal!’ shouted Annie. ‘She’s trying to explain to us.’

‘I wasn’t
not
telling you before. Not until a few weeks ago, anyway. I’ve only been
not telling you
for a couple of months. And now I have. So there we are.’

‘Golly, Ken. This is major.’ Sal walked over to Kendra and put her arm around her. Her face suddenly crinkled in amusement ‘What’s it like then? Doing it with a girl?’

It was early evening when Kendra left. The bottle they had bought from the off-licence was finished and there was no more alcohol in the flat to stave off the come-down.

‘I still don’t understand it.’ Sal was half watching the news on the small TV. ‘Oh, that’s awful.’ Her voice sharpened. ‘There was a boy from the
Express
, from their Hickey column, killed in the bomb. You know, that could have been me. Oh, that’s terrible. Ollie and Rob must know him.’ She concentrated on the screen as details emerged of the deaths and injuries.

Then she turned back to Annie. ‘I don’t understand how we can have spent all that time with Ken and not known she was gay. I just thought she’d never met the right bloke. I know this is awful, and don’t say it to her, but do you think she ever fancied
us?
’

‘I don’t know. I doubt it. I don’t even know that she really is gay. It could be just that Gioia’s kind of taken her over. It’s odd. It’s as if so many of the things we’ve done seem different now. Things we’ve said, things we talked about.’ The well-trodden paths of their friendship, on that Sunday evening, suddenly appeared strange. ‘I’ve had it with today. I’m going to go to bed to read,’ said Annie. The combination of Kendra’s news and the lack of any word from Jackson all weekend now made Annie consider the day past rescue. She put the kettle on and fetched her hot-water bottle. Even the rubber as it heated up felt horrible rather than comforting. She wrapped a T-shirt around it and carried it into bed. She should probably drink some water, but she couldn’t be bothered.

The pile of potted cabbage roses in Lee’s arms was threatening to collapse as he carried them up the narrow stairs to the boardroom. Following, Annie was loaded with Perrier bottles, which Tania had decreed would stand sentry on each side of small terracotta pots for the meeting. Tania was always going on about how important first impressions were, and how you only got one chance.

‘Stop fussing around. What’s this about anyway?’ Lee asked Annie, attempting to wipe off the small spots of earth which had spattered out of the miniature pots on to the sleeve of his crisp white shirt. Lee had recently embarked upon a radical style revamp as a result of meeting Ray Petri, the famous Buffalo stylist. From that moment on, his previous wardrobe was history.

Annie was not entirely sure that the dark foundation Lee was using really suited him, but she knew that he was aiming for a touch of the swarthy colouring of Petri’s Buffalo models, the young princes feted as multicultural urban warriors in
The Face
. It was funny the way he cared so much more about the labels, the precise way his ankle sock was turned down – the whole
look
– than she did.

‘Clothes make the man,’ he said to her, only partially aware of the obviousness of that idea. Still, this new wardrobe, with its boxy shapes, looked good on him. Lee had struggled with the billowing blouses of his New Romantic era as he was on the short side. ‘Five foot eight and three quarters, if you must know,’ he would say when challenged. For him, the ace thing about Doc Martens was that the thick sole gave him a bit of a lift.

‘It’s about some charity opening. I heard Tania say we’re down to the last two companies pitching. It’s something to do with the NSPCC. That’s who’s coming in. But I don’t understand why they’re paying Tania to give a party …’

Lee shrugged. ‘Hers to know and ours to take what we can get. Can you grab the ashtrays? They’re in the kitchen.’

Just then, the doorbell chimed and the two heard Tania’s voice in greeting, the one she used when she wanted to impress – all oozy and warm and chuckly. Tania’s hair, more often a halo of expensively maintained blonde curls, had been slicked back in a small bun, and she had replaced the intricate gold jewellery that frequently dangled from her neck and wrists with a single silver bean from Tiffany’s Elsa Peretti range. As she moved, it bounced against the substantial shelf of her breasts, contained by the dove-grey tunic she wore.

‘It’s bitter out there, isn’t it?’ she was saying. ‘Come in, sit down and we’ll make ourselves comfortable.’ Tania rubbed her hands and gestured to Annie and Lee to help get everyone seated. A small woman with a briefcase sat first, the back of her nylons spotted from the rain. She glanced as if for permission in the direction of her colleague, whose long face was almost entirely covered by a pair of startling red-framed spectacles, his tieless shirt buttoned at the collar. He reminded Annie of the men her father used to make for her out of bendy pipe-cleaners.

‘Tania, I think you know Marisa Rootstein. Marisa is chairing the committee for selling tickets and has kindly agreed to sit in on this morning’s meeting. We are very grateful for the Rootsteins’ involvement in the event. Their generosity and commitment has been invaluable.’ He removed his spectacles briefly, as a gesture, then immediate replaced them.

‘Of course I know Marisa.’ Tania beamed broadly across the table to where Marisa sat, her pale face expressionless as she rolled a thick fountain pen between her fingers. It was, Annie noticed, one of those expensive ones with the white star on the tip. Jackson had one of those too. He kept it on his bedside table at night, always stuffing it into a jacket pocket the next day.

‘Can I firstly say how excited we all are at Torrington by the possibility of being involved with this event. As you know, design is my
personal
passion, and I feel that we are well placed to ensure that this
event will be a great success. Annie, can you distribute the papers?’

Annie had only met Marisa once, when she had collected Kendra before a film. Marisa had opened the door wearing a silver sheath that reached the floor, shouted for her daughter and then turned, wordlessly, to Art, who was standing behind her, to adjust his bow tie. She had not invited Annie into the house but had simply left the door open, making it unclear whether Annie should step in or stand out on the doorstep and let the cold air fill the hall.

Seeing her in the room close up, Annie couldn’t stop looking at her skin. Kendra had beautiful skin, but completely different – olive, impervious. She never got spots, or blackheads even, though, as far as Annie could remember, she had never used a cleanser or toner in her life. Marisa’s skin was more like marble, with small violet veins under her eyes. She had only a few creases along her upper lip, where her lipliner met the flesh.