How We Met (16 page)

‘Fraser,’ she says calmly. ‘I want you to take some deep breaths.’

‘She saw, she
saw
, Mia,’ is all he says again, and Mia feels suddenly panicked. He’s never been this bad before; he’s never sounded this out of control.

‘You don’t know that,’ she says, careful to keep her voice low. ‘You don’t know that, it’s just your mind playing tricks on you. Nobody knows exactly what happened that night; we all have to live with that.’

Nothing, just the sound of him sobbing over traffic and, next to her, the gentle lap of water.

‘Fraser, listen to me,’ she says eventually. ‘Where is Norm?’

‘I don’t know, I lost him ages ago. But it’s all fucked, that’s all I know, all of it and it’s all my fault …’

It’s at least ten seconds before she speaks again.

‘I was there too, Fraser,’ she says, but the phone’s gone dead.

‘Fraser?’ she says again, more angry this time. ‘Fraser? Speak to me!’ But there’s nothing, just a single flat tone.

She stands there, staring into the black water below. Her first thought is, ‘I’ve got to call Norm.’ The second is the kiss, the kiss … he’s never said what he thought of the kiss?

When she finally goes back to Harry’s Bar, she scans the room, only to see Melody, in the corner, both straps dangling off her shoulders now, arms around Bruno, her face suckered onto his.

Mrs Durham wiped her mouth with her napkin, and inhaled slowly through her nose. ‘UHT cream,’ she said eventually, with all the graveness of a doctor making a terminal diagnosis (‘Tertiary syphilis, I’m afraid; three weeks at the most’). ‘Far too much of it on these scones and I can always tell when they use the squirty stuff.’

Mia smiled, politely and somewhat wearily, thinking, I don’t doubt that for a second, Maureen. You eat enough of them. In fact, despite ‘sky-high’ blood pressure, a ‘lactose intolerance’, not to mention the UHT cream, she’d managed to polish off two in fifteen minutes, a very commendable effort all round.

Now and again, when the weather was nice, Mrs Durham liked Mia to take her down to the Midland Hotel in Morecambe on a Tuesday afternoon, to sit and have a scone in their ‘Rotunda Terrace café’. Often they
would just enjoy the sea
view; occasionally, when she
was really on form, they’d have a game of Scrabble, which she loved.
Always
she’d complain about everything, from the hardness of the chairs (‘Honestly, it’s like sitting on your own gravestone’) to the smell of the soap in the Ladies’ and, now, the UHT cream.

The Midland had been derelict for years, but had recently been restored to its former glory and was the pride of Morecambe promenade now, a dazzling white ocean liner of a hotel against a seaside-blue sky; a fine example of art-deco architecture with its curves, porthole windows and a grand, sweeping staircase.

Inside, however, they’d gone for a modern approach, with a minimalist ‘island’ bar, floor-to-ceiling windows and the terrace café, with its huge, purple chandelier in the centre, like a sea anemone dangling above them, where Mrs Durham liked to take her tea and scones.

It was now the sort of place trendy couples who had moved to London came back to get married in a ‘I may have turned into a meed-ya type, but I really come from a northern seaside town’ kind of a way, and Mia couldn’t help thinking there was something incongruous about Mrs D sitting on the hot-pink, leatherette banquettes with her swollen ankles and her Crimplene skirt, but despite many suggestions to the contrary, she insisted.

Mia didn’t really mind. After all, on a day like today, and with the tide up, the view was something else: sparkling blue sea for miles, the odd, brightly painted fishing boat bobbing idly, and Grange-over-Sands, green and hilly, across the bay.

‘More tea, Mrs D?’ Mia was being somewhat over-cheerful, but Mrs Durham had been to a funeral this morning – the third in as many months – and Mia was keen to keep her off the subject, although so far had not had much luck.

For five months now, Mia had been looking after Mrs Durham on a Tuesday for a bit of cash in hand and a break from Billy; in that time she had deduced that funerals for Maureen Durham were a bit like christenings for the single and childless thirty-something: the only real time she got to see her mates these days and occasions she looked forward to, but with a sort of relished martyrdom.

‘Would you believe it, Mia, I’ve another funeral to attend!’ – when really she was looking forward to a natter and a subtle bitch (Mrs D was terribly good at a subtle bitch; the archetypal passive-aggressive) and maybe a free slice of Battenberg. She seemed to delight in telling Mia which of her mates had popped their clogs this week – as if to say, ‘I’ll be next! Mark my words. I told you I was ill!’ – and Mia got the impression that attending funerals for Mrs D was just a chance for her to fine-tune plans for her own: didn’t think much of the coffin, hymns quite nice, far too much mayonnaise in the egg-mayo baps.

Mrs Durham bowed her head and gave a low, uninhibited belch. ‘Well,
I suppose that’s another one over,’ she said, as Mia poured the tea; and Mia wondered whether Mrs Durham meant funeral, or life, so she frowned, hoping this neutral expression might cover them both.

They were the only people in the café now that the lunchtime rush had gone, and they sat for a while in comfortable silence, save for the melancholy whine of the gulls and the odd burp, and watched the tide come in through the curved window.

If she were honest, it was only recently that Mia could look at a sea view at all, without being overcome by a vertiginous, agoraphobic feeling, as if she might be swallowed up by it. All she could see when she looked at any expanse of water for months after Liv died was the view from their villa that summer – the summer of 2006. Ibiza. A glistening band on the horizon. It would have been the last thing Liv saw as she fell, thirty feet to the concrete below, dawn breaking over it. What was she thinking? Had she felt happy that day? Was she scared? Mia hoped she was too drunk to think anything. How sad that this was the only wish she had for her dying friend: no hoping she was with those she loved, or that she got to say all she wanted. Just oblivion, that’s all.

It was ironic, really
, because Liv loved the sea. She liked nothing better than a day trip to a tacky seaside town – Blackpool, Fleetwood, Southport – as students, they’d done them all. There was something of the old lady about Liv that liked a blanket over her knees when she watched TV, a tea cake and a cuppa at a seaside caff. ‘Ooh, this is marvellous, isn’t this marvellous?’ She was full of comedic, old-fashioned hyperbole. She was good at self-preservation, too, at taking care of herself, as well as other people, of course, which made how she went all the more shocking. And absurd, actually, just ridiculous, Mia couldn’t help thinking in her angrier moments. It was almost a comedy death, like being decapitated by a lawnmower.

Although certainly less funny when it actually happened.

Seriously, though, Liv, what were you playing at?

Mia knew this line of thought was futile and damaging, but occasionally, very occasionally, she just couldn’t help herself.

I thought I was supposed to be the clumsy one?
The one who tripped over things:
wine glasses, my own feet, balconies …
If anyone should have died falling from a balcony, surely it should have been me?

‘To tell you the truth, I was surprised to see quite so many people at her funeral in the first place. She was a selfish so-and-so, deep down, although nobody ever says these things once you’re six feet under, do they?’

Mia jumped, suddenly roused from her thoughts.

‘Who? Who was?’

‘
Barbara
, dear.’ Mrs Durham leant forward and peered at her, a slight look of irritation in her enormous, varifocal-enlarged eyes, as if to say, ‘Keep up! I can’t be repeating myself all day long, you know.’ She’d reapplied her lipstick in the time that Mia had been lost in thought but had missed, so now had coral grease smeared down her chin, making her look more mad than usual.

She gave a big sniff. ‘She never did come to see me, you know. A week in the Infirmary having that camera down my throat, another in the Nuffield having my veins done. Eighteen months and not a whiff or a whistle …’

‘She did have cancer, Mrs Durham.’

‘For three and a half years, Mary! She can’t have felt rotten all that time.’

Mia tried not to look too appalled at this – it was a skill she’d had to perfect over the last five months – or to correct Mrs Durham on her name. Again. She’d had Mary, Emma, Meera. She could call her Clive for all she cared now. She really had given up.

‘She had a family, a husband and children who could have brought her, you know …’
(This was fair enough, as far as Mia could gather. Mrs Durham had no family nearby: she’d been married but her husband passed away twenty or so years ago and her only son lived in Australia.)

Mrs Durham gave an offended little bristle of her shoulders.

‘I’m sure she was thinking about you.’ Mia filled up Mrs Durham’s teacup again. ‘It’s hard to get out and about when you’re older, even with the best intentions – you know that.’

Mrs Durham sniffed, unimpressed, and Mia groaned inwardly, wondering if she should order another scone just to make the afternoon go more quickly. Was inducing a sugar-coma abuse of the elderly, she wondered?

Most of the time she could tolerate Mrs D; Mia was robust and patient like that, it was one of her best qualities. Sometimes, she even enjoyed her company – ah, the
ever-present smell of cat piss and the threat of death!; the hoarding of rancid food. When Mia had tried to remove blocks of mouldy cheese and bits of ancient cake wrapped in clingfilm from her fridge, Mrs D had accused her of being a glutton. Hardly – she would have died from listeria by now. Mrs D was a fruitcake – that went without saying. But she was also funny and loveable in her own VERY special way; and anyway, it beat CBeebies seven days a week and it kept her on her toes. Sometimes, that two-mile cycle ride to Mrs Durham’s was the best part of Mia’s week.

Today, however, she was having a bad day. Venice and the phone call from Fraser had set her off. Of course, at the time, she’d been sympathetic; at the time, she’d been worried sick about him, barely able to speak he was in such a state, miles away in Las Vegas, with only Norm to mop things up.

Over the last few days, however, Mia had begun to feel progressively more irritated. She’d begun to see Fraser Morgan in a new, not altogether flattering light. He indulged himself, that’s what he did. He gave in to his demons far too easily. It was all right for him: he could get obliterated, wander off, take his shirt off on the highway, stand naked on top of the bonnet of a parked car if he liked –
Fear and Loathing
and all that. In fact, she wouldn’t put it past him to have had that film in mind as he raged and ranted. He could be a dramatic little so-and-so when he wanted, complete with victim mentality. It was bloody annoying.

But the fact was, they both had to bear the guilt of that night, of not knowing and of the what-ifs.

The difference was, Mia had to keep it together. As much as she sometimes longed to go out, get drunk and not come home for days, she couldn’t. There was a baby to look after, and now, seemingly, a mad old lady. She couldn’t give in to the demons inside like Fraser could; she couldn’t block out the thoughts with endless booze – although she gave it her best shot on occasions.

And also – unlike Fraser of late – she was making an effort to keep things in perspective, to remember what sort of person her friend actually was.

Bloody hell, even if she had seen them kiss, Liv would have demanded an explanation, not thrown herself off the nearest balcony! She was pragmatic – exactly the reason she was good for Fraser.

She was gone. No amount of sobbing down the phone would bring her back. But still, on these bad, dark days that seemed to make her feel heavy and nonexistent, like she could sink to the bottom of the sea and nobody would notice, it didn’t stop Mia being angry and it didn’t stop the horrid, gnawing injustice of it all. Sometimes she even felt angry at Liv: – Why did you have to go?

She looked over at Mrs Durham – she wasn’t helping with all her talk of death and funerals and decay. And this sea, too: this huge, unfathomable expanse of water. It made her feel lonely and overwhelmed and defeated. Nobody would ever know exactly how Liv had managed to fall off the balcony, because nobody saw her fall – she was on her own – but, Christ, if you could lose your balance and fall off a balcony and die like that, if you just took your eye off the ball for a moment and it cost you your life, what was the effing point? Life was just a drop in the ocean, after all.

God, listen to her, she sounded morbid, not to mention mad.

You loved people and then they died. Billy was no different, one day he’d be gone. Maybe Mrs Durham had the right idea …

‘You know we were good friends, Barbara and I, you’d never have thought it, would you? Not in the way she treated me these last few years.’

Mia arranged her mouth into a smile and turned to Mrs Durham.

‘Now don’t be getting yourself all upset, Maureen.’ She started to clear up the cutlery. ‘Even though she wasn’t there in person, doesn’t mean she wasn’t your friend till the end, now does it? I’m sure she’d be mortified if she heard you talk like that.’

And also, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD, YOU SILLY OLD COW!!!! How can you possibly hold a grudge against someone who’s dead? How can you not forgive someone who’s dying of cancer? Sometimes Mrs Durham really tested her patience.

Mrs D had had years to say what she wanted to say to Barbara – years to forgive her, to pick up the phone herself. Mia hadn’t had the chance to say one thing to her best friend. No goodbyes, no last words. That day, they’d bickered about avocados for an hour – a whole hour! Their finest bickering hour. Mia said they were fattening, it didn’t matter if they were ‘good fats’ or not, calories were calories. Liv said that was the thickest thing she’d ever heard her say: How could something that was healthy possibly be fattening?