Never Alone

  Jim was not the type of person you were accustomed to hanging around with; he was what you’d have called dependable. Went to a local grammar school, his father a history teacher, his mother a logistics entrepreneur. Jim was the eldest of four, the eldest by far. He had been responsible his whole life, and it had made him self-reliant but also just a bit too sure he was always right.

  You, on the other hand, were always outgoing. Jim used to say you had the knack of putting anyone at ease – especially the girls.

  In reality, looking back, Jim had been good for you. You had been good for each other. He was ballast to your tendency to play too hard; you got him out of the library. He would go along with you to crash parties at the weekend, to gigs, film screenings. A lot of the time he paid, and pretended he would ask for the money back from you later.

  So what did he get out of it? Well, Sarah. That’s what he got. Because you were the one who got the girls, not him. You were the one with the winning looks, the twinkle in the eyes, the confidence and the charm, the way with words. And Jim tagged along, happily joining in once you’d done the groundwork. After only a couple of weeks, you’d established some sort of team protocol.

  That was when he first caught sight of Sarah.

  He sent you up to the second floor of the library. He described where she was sitting, taking notes from a whole series of books. She had blonde hair, he said. Petite.

  Of course, as soon as you saw her you knew. The desk light was making a halo of her hair, making her skin glow. She was the most beautiful person you had ever seen.

  As was the plan, you went up to her and introduced yourself. From her friendly smile and the way she leaned back in her chair and stretched, you correctly surmised that she was tired and bored with reading. You asked what she was working on, she tried to describe the essay she was trying to get her head around – history of art – and after less than five minutes you’d asked if she wanted to come to a gig with you and your mate tomorrow. She said yes, asked if she could bring her flatmate, Helen. You said yes. You took her number, offered to meet them at the pub on the corner.

  And then you left her to it. Walked away with your cheeks burning, trying to arrange your face into a neutral expression before Jim twigged what had happened to you.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘She’s coming to the gig. We can meet her at the pub at half-seven tomorrow. She’s bringing her friend Helen. I got her number.’

  ‘Fantastic!’

  Helen had turned out to be a livewire, a girl with long, dyed black hair and piercings. She was a good laugh, and Sarah was too, and, while you tried really hard to see her as the one Jim fancied, and therefore off-limits, she wasn’t the sort of girl who saw herself as belonging to anyone. For a long time she resisted Jim’s attempts to get her to commit. She worked hard, though, she was serious, and Jim’s affection for her seemed to be solid whether she was willing to go out, or whether she was insisting on staying in to work.

  She’s right, of course: you weren’t ready for a relationship back then. Who knows if you are now? You are not even sure if you know how to accomplish such a thing. Monogamy has always felt like something done by other people, for no other reason than to make them feel virtuous.

  It comes as something of a relief that she doesn’t seem bothered about it now, either. You have noticed that she hasn’t asked you any more questions about your job. Perhaps she’s got over it.

  Sarah moves, and breathes, and turns over in bed, turning her back on you. You take the opportunity to ease your arm from under her neck. For several moments you lie still, thinking of Sarah, and Helen, and Jim. You wonder where Helen is now, whether Sarah is still in touch with her.

  Helen.

  There was another Helen, years later. Helen who told you everything about her life, none of it true. She wasn’t a business executive; she was a head teacher. She wasn’t single; she was married. She wasn’t even from Brighton; she was from Camberwell, not that it should have mattered. None of that usually does; it’s all just conversation, time-wasting. The important things, like the sweet spot on the inside of her thigh that made her gasp when you stroked her there – all of that at least you knew to be real. But Helen was complicated, wasn’t she? Orgasms without penetration were frustrating her, she said. She was insistent about exactly what it was she needed – sex – and you resisted it for a long time.

  You should have listened to your instincts, but in the end you gave in.

  And a week later she told you the truth, all of it, looking at you with shining eyes and then seconds later adding that she was leaving her husband for you, that she’d already told him all about you and that her car was outside with her suitcase in it.

  Five days later, she had died from an overdose in the bathroom of her three-bed semi and her husband was trying to find you with the intention of removing your head and other extremities, and you were driving north to self-imposed exile in Yorkshire.

  You sit up, slowly, find your clothes and dress. In the kitchen you make tea, and a few minutes later she emerges from the bedroom, her hair a cloud of fine gold.

  She smiles.

  ‘I’m sorry I fell asleep,’ she says. ‘How rude of me.’

  ‘Not at all,’ you say. ‘It wasn’t for long. Want some tea?’

  ‘No,’ she says, ‘I need to get back. The dogs will want to go out. Thank you, though.’

  ‘Have a cup of tea at least,’ you say. ‘Don’t rush off.’

  Just for a change the sun is shining, setting over the valley and flooding the living room with golden late afternoon light. Even so, the wind is blowing fiercely outside.

  ‘Kitty is coming home at the weekend,’ she says.

  ‘That’s good to hear. You must miss her.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘I’ll keep out of your way,’ you say.

  ‘Oh, please don’t. I’d love you to meet Kitty. Besides, she’s bringing her new boyfriend. I don’t want to spend the whole weekend being a gooseberry.’

  ‘Ah, that’s it. You’re just using me again. First it’s sex; now you want an excuse to escape.’

  She smiles, but her cheeks are pink.

  ‘That was out of order,’ you say. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Is it a bad thing?’

  You know what it is she means; she doesn’t have to say it.

  ‘Of course not. Unless it makes you unhappy.’

  ‘I thought it was going to, but actually there’s so much else going on, it seems like a small thing in comparison.’

  Your phone vibrates in your back pocket. You should have turned it to silent, as you usually would when you were with someone, but Sarah took you by surprise.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ you say.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she says, standing up. ‘I need to get back.’

  She shuts the door behind her, just as you swipe to accept the call.

  ‘Hello, beautiful,’ you say. ‘Long time no speak.’

  Sarah

  It’s almost dark by the time Sarah gets back from walking the dogs. She has been thinking about the bank, about the option to consolidate the debt, and she has decided to go ahead.

  It’s a strange sort of arrangement she has with Aiden but she thinks that she trusts him. Something has changed with their dynamic; what she feels for him now is not that girlish infatuation that has kept her fantasies going intermittently over the years. There is a mutual sexual attraction, perhaps the same as there always was between them, and behind that is a framework based upon mutual respect and friendship. All those years ago she would have called him a friend with benefits, although that phrase didn’t exist then, she’s fairly sure; but, whatever it was, it worked.

  Why had she been so upset, then, when he had not called her that last time? Was it because of Jim, telling her she deserved better?

  She is standing at the top of the field, looking down over the croft, the house, the valley beyond. The sun has set and the temperature is dropping, a chill spreading up her bo
dy from the cold, wet ground.

  Where Jim is concerned, she feels as if the foundations have been constantly shifting without her fully realising it. The money; the way he treated Aiden, his own best friend.

  It’s as though she has spent her lifetime at sea, and has only recently, now that Aiden is back, learned what solid ground feels like.

  She is making a sandwich for her supper while the dogs eat their dinner noisily in the corner. She’s just sitting down to eat when there is a single knock at the door, and then it opens and in comes Sophie.

  ‘Hello,’ Sarah says, as Sophie unpeels her winter coat, takes off the thick scarf and pulls off the woollen hat. From under it, her hair falls down into a dark, shiny wave.

  ‘You don’t mind me calling in? I should have come earlier – I meant to. Sorry.’

  ‘Not at all. I’m pleased to see you. Would you like a sandwich?’

  ‘No, thanks, love. I’m eating later. I just wanted to say we made nearly forty quid at the bake sale.’

  ‘That’s great news!’

  Sophie does what she always does, almost through force of habit: gets two glasses down from the cupboard, fetches the corkscrew from the drawer, and looks in the fridge for a bottle. ‘You need topping up, darling,’ Sophie remarks, nudging the fridge door closed with her backside. ‘I’ll bring you a selection next time, shall I?’

  ‘You don’t need to do that,’ Sarah says.

  ‘It’s me that drinks it all,’ Sophie says. ‘So it’s only fair for me to top it up again.’

  ‘How about tea?’

  Sarah pours two mugfuls from the pot she made twenty minutes ago. It’s a bit stewed, but it will do.

  ‘So how’s George?’ she asks gently.

  Sophie drinks and wraps her fingers around the mug thoughtfully. ‘Honestly? Okay, then. He’s sullen, childish, rude, ungrateful and charmless. And drinking far too much. How’s that for starters?’

  Sarah eats the last of the sandwich and pushes her plate to one side. ‘Isn’t he always a bit like that?’

  This, at least, makes Sophie smile. ‘It’s got worse.’

  ‘Why?’

  Sophie pulls a face. ‘I don’t know. I’m sick of it, to be honest. He’s away tonight, and then most of the weekend on a golfing thing. But it’s fine. I’m almost past caring what he does.’

  ‘I saw Will today,’ Sarah says, watching her friend’s face.

  The shutters have gone up, but they have been inexpertly constructed. ‘Oh?’

  ‘It’s none of my business,’ Sarah says. ‘But he seems… very keen.’

  Sophie breathes out. ‘He is. You’re right.’

  ‘So you’re seeing him?’

  ‘I wouldn’t put it quite like that.’ Sophie sighs and stirs her tea. There is a scum on it, brown shapes shifting like tectonic plates. She drinks it anyway.

  ‘I’m not judging. God knows you’ve been through enough with George. Does this feel serious?’

  Sophie is thinking about it, weighing up her response. After a moment she says, ‘I’m not sure. It’s – he’s refreshing, you know? He’s gorgeous, and hungry, and full of life and spirit and adventure. He’s making me feel as though I’ve just woken up.’

  ‘Wow,’ Sarah says.

  For the first time in several minutes Sophie looks up and catches Sarah’s eye, and it’s as if a light has been switched on in there. She smiles and it’s almost erotic, the charge that’s coming off her. ‘I know it’s almost funny,’ she says, ‘but for the first time I can really see why George does it.’

  ‘Are you going to tell him?’

  Sophie frowns a little as if this is a crazy thing to suggest, but then the idea sinks in and she can see the logic behind it. ‘I might,’ she says. ‘I don’t want to hurt the poor old bugger, but really I wish he’d just been honest with me about his affairs, if he absolutely had to have them. It’s all the suspicion and the lies that hurt, worse than the act itself. He always seems to come back home, dirty old stray cat. He’s not going to leave me. I’m not going to leave him. It feels like the adult way to behave, to just tell him what’s going on.’

  ‘How do you think he’d take it?’ Sarah asks.

  Sophie barks a laugh. ‘He’d go fucking insane, probably. Storm around and shout a lot, then he’d probably sink half a bottle of single malt and take me to bed to remind me how it’s done.’

  Sarah puts the kettle on to make a fresh pot of tea.

  ‘Tell me how the kids are,’ Sophie says. ‘How’s Kitty getting on with Oscar?’

  ‘She seems all right,’ Sarah says. ‘Some lad upstairs has bought himself a drum kit. That has kind of brought out her militant streak; there’s a bunch of them trying to persuade him to follow a strict schedule for his practices, if he has to do it at all. She’s coming home at the weekend; you can ask her yourself. Want to come over for a meal?’

  ‘I love Kitty’s militant streak,’ Sophie says. ‘She’s so fierce.’

  Just as the kettle boils, there is a sudden sharp knock and the door opens. It’s Harry Button.

  ‘All right, Harry?’ Sarah says. People do not necessarily wait to be invited in round here; at least partly because the chances are high that the house occupant might be ‘out back’ or even not at home at all. Sarah has lived here for most of her adult life and still hasn’t really got the hang of walking into other people’s houses. ‘Come in, have a seat.’

  ‘Hello, Harry,’ says Sophie.

  ‘All right, lass?’

  ‘How’s it going?’ Sarah asks.

  ‘I’ll not stop long,’ he says, easing himself slowly into one of the kitchen chairs. ‘I just came to say that spring’s proper gone down now.’

  ‘Oh,’ Sarah says, ‘that’s good to hear.’

  ‘So you and your friend, like, well we’re very grateful. Moira sends you all her thanks too; she’s cooking you summat. Says she’ll bring it over tomorrow.’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, but there’s no need, really.’

  Harry stares at her for a moment. ‘Well, we’re both right thankful to you.’

  ‘Let me know if it builds up again.’

  ‘Have I missed something exciting?’ Sophie asks.

  ‘There was a blockage in the ditch yesterday, with all that rain,’ Sarah says. ‘Just needed a load of weeds and rubbish pulling out, but the water was going all over Harry’s beautiful garden.’

  ‘Aye,’ Harry says. ‘It were a right mess. But you sorted it all out, like I said. Very good of you.’

  Sophie checks her watch, squeals abruptly and gets to her feet. ‘I must dash,’ she says.

  The three of them head over to the doorway. Harry gets there first.

  ‘Love to Moira,’ Sarah says, as the old man ambles off down the driveway, his boots shuffling against the cobbles. The wind has dropped. In the yard, for a change, it’s quiet and still. The clouds are patchy and the moon is shining brightly, showing Sophie’s blue Audi parked at a nonchalant angle.

  ‘I’ll call you,’ Sophie says. ‘Let’s have lunch, shall we?’

  ‘That would be wonderful.’

  Sarah watches her climb into the car, grateful for once that her friend will be driving down the hill with nothing inside her but tea. It’s only when the tail-lights disappear around the corner that Sarah realises she didn’t answer the question about coming over when Kitty’s here. She’ll want to see her: Kitty is one of Sophie’s favourite people. No matter – they will see each other before the weekend, and Sarah will ask again. Saturday night, she thinks. Or maybe Sunday: she will do a roast.

  Busy tonight, over at Four Winds Farm.

  Lots of people coming and going.

  Sophie and Sarah in the kitchen, gossiping over a teapot, although I’m willing to bet Sophie would rather have wine. She’s drunk it all, probably. Drunk her way through Sarah’s wine cellar and now Sarah doesn’t have the money to buy any more. Not that she’s told Sophie. She’s ashamed of it, being up to her neck in debt, otherwis
e she’d have asked her for help and probably got it.

  She doesn’t like to borrow money from her friends – shame she has to keep borrowing it from the bank, isn’t it? All those letters, piled up on the kitchen table and ignored. Naughty Sarah.

  And how it must bother her, when Sophie is loaded. It must itch every time they see each other, every time she sees the latest designer thing Sophie’s wearing, the new car every six months, the holidays booked.

  She thinks Sophie doesn’t realise, which is what makes it funny. Sophie is no fool; she thinks she’s helping, asking Sarah to bake her cakes and not let on to the WI. Giving her cash, as if it’s some legitimate business.

  They dance around each other with their secrets, their pretences, their games.

  And, after Sophie, there’s the old man from down the hill, come to say hello.

  He’s not going to stay long.

  But it’s all right; they’re all on their feet, coming out. Sarah waving to Sophie as she gets in the car.

  Hurry up, Sophie.

  You’re late.

  Sarah

  After Sophie leaves, Sarah takes the dogs out up to the field but quickly regrets it; the rain starts off as drizzle and a few minutes later is needling into her cheeks, carried on an icy wind. By the time she is halfway up the hill the wind is strong enough to make her lose her balance on the tussocky grass. The dogs slink around the edge of the field, keeping to the shelter of the wall; they do their business quickly and Basil starts heading back down towards the house. The driving rain becomes sleety and quickly gives way to snow; the wind tugs at her waterproof hood and the flaps of her jacket. Her waterproof trousers whip around her legs.

  When she calls to Tess, her voice is snatched away and disappears so quickly that it is as if she never opened her mouth.

  ‘Tess!’ she tries again, louder this time, holding a hand up to her eyes to shield them from the needle-like snow.

  There is no sign of the dog.

  ‘Tess! Where are you?’

  She looks down the hill to where Basil is crouching against the side of the back porch, waiting for her to get back. She half-expects Tess is down there somewhere too, so she heads down the hill. It is getting slippery; the snow is coming down in earnest now, turning the grass tussocks white and making every step awkward and hazardous.