‘I’m so sorry,’ I bluster, ‘I wasn’t looking where I was go…’ I stop suddenly. In front of me is a woman with long brunette hair scraped back into a ponytail. She’s wearing no make-up and is standing with shoulders slumped in an almost defeated posture. Her thin frame is covered with a baggy grey sweatshirt and old jeans. She avoids eye contact. ‘Sarah?’
For the first time, she raises her gaze to meet mine and her face lights up like a sparkler.
‘Cooper! Oh my God! What are you doing here?’
14
Justify My Love – Madonna
I rush to hug Sarah, forgetting that I am holding a basket and almost amputating my legs. I’m dumbfounded! It’s only a few weeks since I was thinking about her and wondering what had happened to her. I make a mental note to wonder about next week’s lottery numbers and see if that gets the same result.
My gin-soaked brain cells start to kick in. The last time we were together was just after I went to work in Tiger Alley. That was… I struggle to count, about eight years ago. Eight years! How had I let that happen?
After I’d left for Shanghai, I’d written to her a few times. At first she replied, then the letters had dried up. I remembered speaking to Kate about it when I was in Hong Kong, but by that time Kate, Carol and Jess were all living in London and Sarah either didn’t return their calls or was offhand when she did. I’ve thought about her so many times over the years and now I wish I’d tried so much harder to track her down.
I realise I’m having a rush of blood to the head and reach out to grab the yoghurt counter to steady myself, putting three fingers through the foil of a pineapple Muller Light. Without thinking, I hastily wipe my fingers on my jeans, too shocked to care about the mess I’ve made.
‘Where have you been? What are you doing now?’ I gush. ‘I mean apart from shopping. Are you in a rush?’
She laughs, shaking her head. I don’t even give her a chance to speak. I grab her basket and deposit it on top of mine on the floor.
‘C’mon, we’re going for coffee.’ I take her hand and drag her to the café at the front of the store. We’re the only people in it under sixty – it looks like a welcome meeting on a Saga tour. I order two cappuccinos and two chocolate eclairs. She needs fattening up.
When I take them over to the table, she gives me another hug.
‘It is so good to see you, Cooper.’
‘And you. I can’t believe it’s been so long.’ I resolve to be subtle and gently probe for answers, before blowing it completely by blurting out, ‘What happened to you? Where have you been?’
She smiles wryly and I can see the sadness in her eyes. ‘It’s a long story.’
I push my chair back and get comfortable, although instinct tells me that I’m not going to like this.
‘Well, all I was planning today was a long lie-down on the couch with a double episode of Murder, She Wrote, so I’ve got all day if you have. Start at the beginning.’
I was right about not liking it.
We spend the next two hours draining the store’s coffee supplies while she tells me her story. Sometimes it’s difficult to match this woman sitting across from me to the memory of the crazy, unpredictable, hilarious Sarah that I knew. This person is drained and defeated and almost, well, old – not so much in appearance but in manner. It’s almost as if she’s already lived two lifetimes.
It transpires that after we all went our separate ways, Sarah was doing her postgrad teaching course at university, when she’d met a guy on a night out.
’You remember Bill,’ she says. ’Bill Davies. He was in school with us. I bumped into him when he was on a stag night in Edinburgh.’
I’m stunned. ‘Wait a minute. You were going out with Bill Davies?’ I remembered Bill from school: tall, attractive and a bit of a charmer, but he had a real mean streak and a quick temper. If I remember correctly, Mark Barwick once threatened him with serious injury for calling me an ugly-faced cow.
‘Why didn’t you tell any of us that you were with him?’
She shrugs, embarrassed. ‘He asked me not to. Said you all hated him and he didn’t want anyone to get between us.’
I hate him even more now and I haven’t even heard the rest of the story.
She pushes a stray lock of hair back off her face. ‘I know it sounds crazy, but I was totally besotted with him and I was pregnant within just a couple of months of meeting him. Please don’t judge me. It was one night without a condom.’
‘Trust me, I’m in no position to judge anyone about anything,’ I reassure her, just as my brain rewinds and picks up the other shocking revelation in this story so far.
‘And wait, you have a baby?’ Oh my goodness. I immediately felt a wave of crushing guilt. We’d made such a fuss of Kate and her gorgeous children, and yet, all this time Sarah had a child too and we hadn’t even known. We were shit friends.
She plays with her teaspoon on the table, as if focusing on that distracts her from the pain of the story. ‘Two.’ For the first time, I see a flash of joy as she says that, before going on, ‘They’re incredible and the very best thing about my life. But he wouldn’t let me tell any of you that I was pregnant either. The girls called a few times but I blew them off, because it was hopeless – he’d listen in on the call, then sulk for hours after I spoke to them. He was sure we were conspiring against him.’
I feel physically sick and I reach over
