Desperate for a pee, I woke up in the early hours. As I made my way across the landing to the bathroom, I bumped into a man coming out of Dee’s room. Burly and ginger, he was fastening his belt. He looked familiar and he took one look at me then scarpered downstairs like a startled guinea pig. The room to Dee’s room was open. She was sitting on her bed. A red kimono fell from her bony shoulders revealing tiny breasts, stockings and suspenders. She was putting bank notes into a small black purse.
The next morning Karen and I were lying in bed, hungover. I told her I dreamt I saw Julie Kawalski’s dad on her landing.
“Oh him,” she laughed. “He’s a regular.”
She scrutinised my face for a reaction but I looked away. I didn’t want to show her how shocked I was. Neither of us ever mentioned the episode again. Six months later and four days after Karen’s sixteenth birthday, Dee died of chronic liver failure.
We spent the next two years in each other’s pockets. Karen had a proper grown-up life. She got a nine-to-five job at the Council Housing Department and stayed on in Hillingdon Road. She coped with her grief by keeping busy. The pair of us redecorated the place from top to bottom, scouring south Manchester for second-hand bits of furniture and painting her bedroom black. We had parties most weekends and brought boys back. Only now and again did she speak about Dee but not talking about stuff was normal at the time. I don’t think I ever spoke about the pain of losing Dad. In my eyes Karen was the strong silent type. Then one day I found some counselling leaflets in a kitchen drawer. When I asked her if she was seeing someone, she snatched them off me and told me to mind my own business.
When I went to Manchester Poly we pulled away from each other. I was living at home with Tess and Mikey and swotting, and she was reading Spare Rib, getting involved in women’s groups, attending every anti-apartheid march going and sleeping with both men and women. She despised a lot of my student friends. She asked why they were in the Socialist Workers Party and living in “poverty” in the Crescents in Hulme while Mummy and Daddy were sending them fat cheques from the Home Counties. I invited her along to some student parties but she got into so many arguments I stopped. One day she told me I was turning into a middle-class twat and I told her she was bitter and jealous. Our friendship cooled for a while after that but we still kept in touch. Later on, when she was a working single mother in her thirties, she got a first-class degree in psychology. She was studying for her Master’s when we were both living in Old Trafford and that was when our friendship got fully back on track. It was like the intervening years had never happened and we saw each other all the time.
But now, without a word of warning, she was leaving the country.
The café was starting to get very busy.
I picked my jacket up from the sofa. “Rome. Wow, Karen. That’s huge news.”
“I got a private buyer for the house.” She slipped her phone into her bag. “I applied for voluntary redundancy at work and they got back to me a few weeks ago.” She smiled weakly. “At least I won’t have to listen to those bloody trains at the bottom of the garden anymore.”
I stood up. “So you’re going with Alexia in September?”
She winced then stood up too. “Actually I’m off in a few weeks. I’ve got a place on a training course to teach English as a Foreign Language at a college over there. Then Alexia and I are going to explore Italy for a bit before she starts uni.”
An awkward silence hung in the air as we walked out of the café into the corridor. One of the library staff was having words with someone from the homeless camp and they were blocking the exit.
As we waited to pass, I shook my head and turned to her. “What the hell, Karen? We’ve been friends for nearly thirty years. Why the fait accompli? Why didn’t you mention anything before?”
She reddened. “I suppose I didn’t want you to persuade me otherwise.”
“That’s bullshit and you know it. You don’t give a toss what I think about anything anymore.”
“That’s not true. You’ll always matter to me, Carmel.”
“Look me in the eye and be totally honest with me. Are you back with Simon Whelan? Are you running away to Italy with him?”
“What?” She stepped back, blinking rapidly. “No. Of course not.” She gave a nervous laugh. “Why would you think that?”
I examined her face then shrugged. “Dunno. All the secrecy, I suppose.”
“I’m not running away with anyone. I simply want a change of scene. I’ve been trying to sell the house for years and I’ve never lived abroad.” She gestured around the library. “My life’s getting a long overdue make-over and new beginning like this place.”
I started to walk away and she hurried after me.
“Rome’s only a two-hour flight away,” she said, her voice trembling. “We can always Skype and you can come out and visit.”
When I turned round, I was shocked to see tears in her eyes. Like Joe, she rarely cried.
She stepped forward, pulled me towards her in a hug and I let her. “I’m so very sorry for the way I’ve treated you. You so deserve to find your sibling.” She pulled away and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Please be careful though, won’t you? Don’t build this unknown person up too much in your head. You might be disappointed like I was with my dad. Promise?”
“I promise.”
We walked across the square to the tram stop and said goodbye under a swollen mass of pewter clouds. A few minutes later
