It was Friday night and The Stag was heaving. It was hard to talk over the noise of people drinking to celebrate the start of the weekend. Even the garden was packed, so they squeezed into a corner, next to a family of weekenders. The two small children were clearly bored and kept jumping up and down, knocking the table and spilling their drinks. Callie and Kate didn’t usually come to The Stag on a Friday because it could get too busy. But pretty much every pub in town was busy on a Friday night.
“Do they think she was dumped at sea, like the bloke?”
“Seems that way. The police checked the cliff above, but there was no sign she had been up there and jumped or was pushed, although it’s not easy to be sure.”
“Are there many places you could throw yourself from along the clifftop?”
“Not really, it’s not like Beachy Head along there. The paths are generally further inland and it’s heavily wooded most of the way, so you would most likely get caught on a tree or bush. Why, are you thinking of pushing someone off?” Callie couldn’t imagine Kate killing herself, someone else was much more likely.
“Always handy to know. In case.”
“You could always take a walk along the cliffs and check it out for yourself.”
“Get real.” Kate laughed. Callie knew that walking was her least favourite form of exercise.
There were a few moments’ silence and Callie’s mind drifted back to Billy and her worry about their future.
“Come on, tell me about it or I’ll have to resort to torture, or buying you another drink,” Kate said with a concerned smile.
“Tell you what?”
“Whatever it is that you are fretting about.”
“Is it that obvious?”
“Yes. Apart from everything else, you usually go out with Billy on a Friday, or rather, stay in with him.”
Callie hesitated, Kate was her best friend, and there was little she had kept from her over the years, but somehow her concerns about their future seemed too close and personal for friendly chat just yet. That, and she didn’t know where to start.
“It’s nothing, he’s busy working, that’s all.” Callie didn’t think she had fooled her friend for a moment, their friendship was too long and too close for that, but she hoped she hadn’t offended her by holding back.
“Please tell me you haven’t split up.”
“No! Nothing like that.”
“Good, and I’ll accept that for now,” Kate told her, “but just make sure you come to me if you need to talk it through with someone.”
“I will, I promise,” Callie replied. “But for now, I think I need to be patient and see how it pans out. I might be worrying about nothing.” But her voice belied her concerns. What would she do if Billy moved away? Up sticks and follow him? Or stay and try to maintain a long-distance relationship. That might be possible if he took a post in London, but what if there were no vacancies as he had said and he decided to look further afield? The North? Or even to go abroad? Could she, would she, want to leave Hastings?
Kate was watching her closely as all these thoughts went through her head.
“I think another drink is called for,” she said and grabbed their glasses.
She was right, but Callie also knew that if she had a few more she might open up and tell all her worries to her friend. Perhaps that’s what Kate was hoping, and who knows? Callie thought, perhaps that would be the best thing.
* * *
Next morning, it was a beautiful clear day and Callie decided to walk to work. She had a slightly muzzy head from all the alcohol she had ended up drinking the night before. She had indeed ended up telling her friend all her worries after a couple more glasses of wine, and Kate had been her usual robust self, telling her to stop worrying about something that might never happen. After all, she had argued, Billy could fail his exams.
As if, Callie had told her, Billy had never failed an exam in his life. So, giving up that line of argument, Kate had concentrated on the likelihood of a vacancy coming up with the London practice of pathologists and Billy getting it. They giggled as they discussed ways of creating a vacancy and whittling down the competition. Callie favoured a mass poisoning whilst Kate suggested a sexual scandal of some sort.
Even with all these scenarios being nothing more than fantasy, discussing it had made Callie feel better. She knew she needed to put her worries to one side and give Billy the space to decide what he wanted for his future, and if that involved leaving her behind, so be it. She would survive. She was surprised that overnight, whilst she slept, she seemed to have made the decision that even if he moved away from Hastings, she wouldn’t. Perhaps that told her something deep and meaningful about their relationship, or at least her relationship with the town and the people who lived there. She honestly didn’t know why she felt that way and now wasn’t the time to try and work it out, she thought. Not with a hangover.
As Callie reached the bottom of
