These Days of Ours Read online

  ‘Don’t you say a bad word about my Kate. She’s the best friend I could ever have.’

  ‘I don’t know why she puts up with you,’ said Julian.

  ‘She loves me,’ said Becca, serene, certain. ‘Like I love her. I’d give her my last penny.’

  ‘But you’d borrow it back.’ Julian risked moving closer. ‘Never mind mousey little Kate . . .’

  ‘No you don’t!’ Becca slapped away Julian’s hands. ‘Kate’s no mouse. Leave her out of this. We need to talk.’

  Julian exhaled loudly, his passion efficiently doused. ‘I know what it means when girls say that. What have I done now?’ He hung his blond head and bit his lip.

  ‘It’s what you haven’t done.’

  ‘Oh Christ.’ Julian slapped his forehead. ‘That’s a big subject. We’ll be here all night, woman. Can’t we narrow it down?’

  ‘How long have we been going out?’

  ‘Six glorious months, beloved.’ Julian snaked his arms around her waist.

  ‘Same as us,’ whispered Charlie.

  ‘I’ll never forget,’ said Julian, nuzzling Becca’s ear, ‘how astonished I was to discover that good Catholic girls do it on the first date.’

  Kate’s eyes widened and she determined to take that up with Becca at another time; the sly little beast claimed she’d made Julian wait for weeks. As if, she thought, sex is a treat to reward good behaviour, like throwing a chew toy to an obedient labrador.

  ‘Get off.’ Becca shoved Julian. She was built along Valkyrie lines; he stumbled backwards on the model aeroplane and fell against the exercise bike.

  ‘Steady on.’

  Kate could tell from Julian’s patrician tone that Becca had gone slightly too far. Unlike Kate’s relationship with Charlie – which just pootled merrily along – her cousin’s love affair was a series of strategic skirmishes. They’d met when Becca had applied to be a receptionist at Julian’s property firm. He’d declared her ‘far too distracting’ to work with, and suggested dinner instead. They’d tussled for the upper hand ever since; Kate suspected that Julian underestimated his opponent.

  A typical battle had been waged over Aunty Marjorie’s Sunday lunch table just a few weeks ago, the balance of power passing from Becca to Julian and back again over the roast potatoes.

  ‘We’d begun to wonder if we were ever going to meet Becca’s chap,’ said Aunty Marjorie, passing Julian a plate loaded with enough food to feed a greedy family of four.

  ‘Hmm,’ mused Becca archly. ‘It’s almost as if he didn’t want to meet my family.’ Her look stapled Julian to his chair. ‘Almost as if he didn’t want me to think we’re getting serious.’

  Julian laughed uncomfortably.

  ‘So you are serious about Becca?’ Kate’s mum had asked, gravy on her chin.

  ‘Of course he’s serious about her,’ said Aunty Marjorie. ‘Aren’t you, Julian? A well brought up chap like you would never lead my daughter up the garden path.’

  ‘Well?’ Becca had actually fluttered her eyelashes at Julian, who looked as if he wanted to throw down his cutlery and throttle her.

  ‘I have very strong feelings for your daughter,’ said Julian finally.

  Aunty Marjorie nudged her husband and Uncle Hugh came to; he often drifted off into his secret dreamworld of golf and silent women.

  ‘Go on,’ hissed his wife.

  Uncle Hugh looked at Julian with regret in his eyes, the way a vet might look at a gerbil he was about to euthanise. ‘Are your intentions honourable, Julian?’

  ‘Do people really still ask that?’ Kate had been unable to keep quiet any longer.

  ‘In this house they do.’ Becca kicked her under the table.

  Kate kicked her back and they both stifled a laugh, regressing yet again to their shared giggly childhood. This private universe, theirs to visit at will, was a place of joy and nonsense. When puzzled friends wondered at Kate’s fondness for her cousin, she found it hard to explain why she was so attached to troublesome, all-guns-blazing Becca but it was to do with the way Becca made her feel. Around Becca, Kate felt brave. And a little reckless. For one of life’s prefects, this was heady stuff.

  ‘My intentions,’ said Julian, snatching back the power by being as straight faced and cool as a statesman, ‘are entirely honourable. I love your daughter, Mr and Mrs Neely, and I’d never hurt her.’

  ‘Call me Marjorie!’ quacked Becca’s mother, HRT pulsing through her system like heroin.

  As Julian helped Becca stack the dishwasher, there was a murmured conversation at the table.

  ‘Such lovely manners.’ Kate’s mum was won over by Julian’s breeding.

  ‘And that voice . . .’ Aunty Marjorie shuddered with pleasure.

  ‘A lovely decent chap,’ said Kate’s mum, unaware that the decent chap was decanting her niece from her knickers in the utility room as she spoke.

  Later, during the inevitable phone review of the day with Kate, Becca admitted, ‘Julian was so mad at me. I thought for a minute I’d gone too far.’

  ‘You always go too far. Too far is where you live.’ Being related to somebody who kicked down boundaries meant Kate could live vicariously through Becca’s antics.

  ‘My mum’s whistling the Bridal March.’ Becca snorted. ‘She reckons it’s a done deal.’

  ‘And is it?’ Kate knew that Becca’s ambition was of the berserk variety; she believed nothing was beyond her powers when it came to men.

  ‘More or less.’

  ‘Don’t force him into anything.’ Kate had a pang of sympathy for Julian, as if he were a wounded lion and Becca a big game hunter. She could almost hear the inward smile from the other end of the phone. The pincer movement had begun.

  Now, in the spare room, Kate was privy to its climax.

  ‘You love me, don’t you, honeybear?’ murmured Becca.

  ‘You know I do,’ said Julian. ‘I’m nuts about you, sugarlips.’

  Kate and Charlie daren’t look at each other in their tent of coats. Honeybear. Sugarlips. This was too much.

  ‘Why not show me how much?’

  ‘That’s what I’m trying to— ow!’ Julian felt his cheek where it smarted from Becca’s playful slap. ‘Take it easy, babe.’

  This tense interaction was familiar to Kate and Charlie from the two couples’ regular double dates. At some point in the evening, Becca and Julian would inflate a minor disagreement into an all-out row. Passionate, demonstrative, the couple unnerved Charlie, who begged to see less of them.

  ‘But it’s Becca . . .’ Kate would say. As an only child, she’d appreciated the proximity of a readymade friend. At times the girls referred to each other as almost-sisters. She’d stopped judging Becca years ago, but Charlie had no such history to call upon; from time to time he suggested that Kate should be less passive, that she should say no to Becca occasionally.

  In answer, Kate would ruffle his hair. ‘You’re just annoyed because she bosses you around like a little brother.’

  Then Charlie would shrug and they would kiss because he’d always known that Kate’n’Becca were a job lot; if he wanted one, he must put up with the other. The young women’s childhood closeness had endured when they spread their wings because each of them felt understood when they were together. Becca knew all Kate’s dark corners and sharp angles yet was relentlessly partisan, always on her side, always shoulder to shoulder with her cuz.

  ‘That’s just Becca being Becca,’ Kate would smile when Becca forced them all to go to the movie only she wanted to see. But she could tell when Becca went too far with Julian, when she tested his goodwill a smidgeon too much. Perhaps pushing him across the spare room when he tried to kiss her would turn out to be one of those times; the pincer movement might be in danger of collapse.

  ‘This is important, Julian, and all you want to do is snog!’

  ‘You put it so poetically.’

  In the dark, Kate wrinkled her nose. That edge to Julian’s voice only appeared after a drink or three, when h
e would criticise Becca for her lack of ‘culture’ and suggest Can’t you be more like Kate? She reads actual books instead of fashion mags. Kate was flattered that Julian took her seriously, singling her out for conversations while ignoring Kate’s (it had to be admitted) fluffy girl chums, but she loathed his relish at taking Becca down a peg or two. And she told him so. Which was one of the many reasons she suspected Julian didn’t like her much.

  Becca either ignored or didn’t catch the sneering tone and ploughed on. This ability to filter out what she didn’t want to hear was one of the keys to her success with the opposite sex. ‘Think, Julian. What would make my eighteenth birthday party totally utterly completely unforgettable?’

  ‘A murder?’ Julian laughed. He seemed oblivious to the gravity of his situation; Kate knew he was ambling into a mantrap. ‘Stop asking me riddles, Becca. I’m a bit drunk and I’ve had too much of your mother’s weird quiche, so tell me, gorgeous, what do you want? Because it’s yours. You know I’d do anything for you.’

  ‘Anything?’ Becca almost purred.

  Kate couldn’t quite pin down the reason, but she had never endorsed Julian and Becca’s union.

  It wasn’t because he found their crowd juvenile; it was natural that a bunch of teens must seem childish to a successful guy in his mid-twenties. Nor did she hold his haughty manner against him; unlike some of their friends, Kate was amused by Julian’s insistence on fine wines and his unshakeable belief that a man without a tie is only half a man. It was something else, something in his eyes when he looked at Becca. Something was missing and that something was love.

  Kate knew what a man in love looked like. Charlie had taught her that. With a sudden swelling of her heart for the strange, silly, gorgeous boy at her side, Kate kissed him hard on the lips and he jumped.

  Engrossed in their head-to-head, Becca and Julian didn’t notice the coat pile move.

  ‘Think. What does a man do when he falls in love with a woman?’ Becca’s voice was sugary enough to cause dental cavities. ‘Mmm?’

  ‘He buys her lots of nice things,’ said Julian, lifting her hand and kissing her wrist right by the gold charm bracelet she’d unwrapped an hour earlier. ‘And he puts up with her mother. And he gives her lifts here, there and everywhere, even when he’s busy with work. And he tells her she’s beautiful on the hour every hour. I already do all that, darling.’

  ‘No, I mean what does he ask her?’

  ‘Dunno.’ Julian pretended to think. ‘How was it for you?’ He ducked her swipe and said, long suffering, ‘Get to the point so we can have a shag, Becca, yeah?’

  Charming. Kate knew what Becca was angling for.

  Some saw the disintegration of Princess Diana’s story book marriage as a perfect illustration of why grown-ups no longer believe in fairy tales. Others – such as seventeen-year-old thoughtful Kate – saw it as a feminist fable about a virgin sacrifice to the patriarchy. Becca simply saw a vacancy for a princess. She’d been planning her wedding dress since she was old enough to hold a crayon and now the groom of her dreams was in her sights.

  ‘He gets down on one knee,’ said Becca slowly, clearly, so there could be no doubt about what she was suggesting. ‘And he asks her to be his—’

  ‘Becca, darling, I love you to bits but—’ Julian’s incontinent protest was stopped by Becca’s finger on his lip.

  ‘He asks her to be his wife,’ she whispered.

  The room was still. Beneath the coats, Kate and Charlie held their breath. The party seemed to have been muted. Becca’s played this so wrong! Kate braced herself for the whirlwind of tears that would follow Julian’s refusal to co-operate. She can’t hypnotise a man like him into marriage!

  ‘You are the most insufferable, troublesome, spoilt little madam I’ve ever come across,’ said Julian. ‘Will you marry me?’

  ‘Yes!’ screamed Becca. She jumped into his embrace, almost knocking him over again. ‘Yes yes yes! Oh God, where’s Kate! She’ll die!’ She obliterated Julian’s face with kisses. ‘I must ring my mum!’ She kissed Julian again, more slowly this time. ‘Do you want beef or chicken at the reception?’ she said against his lips.

  ‘You little monster,’ said Julian indulgently.

  ‘Can we tell everybody? Right now?’

  ‘Hang on, hang on.’ Julian put his hands on her shoulders. ‘We need to do things properly. I should call your dad to make sure he approves.’

  ‘He approves, he approves,’ gabbled Becca. ‘Mum won’t let him disapprove.’

  Nobody, thought Kate, has mentioned love. She felt a sense of foreboding that didn’t suit the occasion. She snuggled into Charlie, needing his warmth, his solidity. She feared for her cousin, so insanely joyous, so wrong-headed. This empathy, this desire to protect a woman who didn’t seem to need protecting, was a vital strand in the ties that bound Kate to Becca.

  As Becca burbled, Julian shepherded her out of the room, trying and failing to dampen her stratospheric enthusiasm.

  The door closed behind the newly engaged couple. Kate and Charlie crawled tentatively out from their bolt hole like startled woodland creatures.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Kate.

  ‘That,’ said Charlie, ‘was a terrible proposal.’

  ‘To be fair, all proposals are terrible to you.’ Charlie was infamously anti-marriage.

  ‘Yeah, but, if I had to propose,’ said Charlie, his quiff in disarray, ‘I’d do better than that. It was so unromantic. It was like a joke.’

  ‘Julian wouldn’t dare joke about weddings with Becca.’ Kate giggled, not with mirth but with a nameless anxiety. ‘They’ve messed up, Charlie. Really badly. I don’t think he loves her.’

  ‘I don’t think she loves him,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Oh shit!’ Kate put her hand to her mouth. ‘She’ll make me be bridesmaid!’

  ‘Ha!’ Charlie seemed delighted. ‘Chiffon! Ballerina pumps! And a big flowery thing on your head!’

  ‘Should we, you know, go downstairs?’ Kate gestured half-heartedly towards the closed door, unsure if she could cope with the levels of excitement Becca would reach during her announcement. Sometimes, if she was honest, the strain of being a walk-on player in Becca’s set pieces got to Kate.

  ‘Suppose we should, really,’ said Charlie.

  They stood, irresolute, both reluctant but neither wanting to be the bad guy.

  ‘I’m so glad you’re you,’ said Kate. ‘And not Julian.’

  ‘Um, good,’ said Charlie uncertainly. ‘Just for the record, I’ve never been Julian.’

  ‘You’re so . . .’ said Kate, holding up one hand. ‘And he’s so . . .’ She held up the other.

  ‘Thanks for explaining so fully.’

  ‘You know what I mean.’

  ‘The stupid thing is,’ said Charlie, ‘I do know what you mean.’

  On paper, Julian was the perfect catch. His looks and wealth and bearing ticked all the standard boxes.

  Shabby Charlie, always bent over a notepad, prone to giggling until tears came out of his creased eyes, doodler of doodles, writer of love limericks, partner in crime, ticked the boxes Kate had drawn for herself.

  ‘I’m glad I found you, Charlie.’

  They took a long hard look at each other. ‘And I’m glad I found you,’ said Charlie.

  Propelled into each other’s arms, they dropped to the bed, pulling at buttons, grabbing at straps. Giggling, groaning, they flailed about, arms and legs thrashing, a growing excitement driving them forward.

  ‘We need a . . .’ Kate sat up, her hair across her face, her bra absent.

  ‘A . . . yeah, we do.’

  Neither of them seemed able to say condom.

  ‘I, um, I do have one, actually.’ Kate bit her lip.

  ‘You wanton woman you,’ said Charlie.

  It was a slippery little so-and-so, that one precious condom Kate had acquired.

  ‘Whoops!’ It flew across the room. ‘Ow!’ It caught her in the eye. Finally, it collaborated and Kate
lay back and Charlie’s face came so near it swam out of focus.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  ‘I love you,’ she said.

  Their mouths, their bodies and their eager hearts met. Kate had expected sharp pain but there was none, only a furious and compelling excitement surging up from the centre of her. When it seemed to peak she found there was still more, until finally she and Charlie were limp and clinging to each other.

  ‘Did I make loads of noise?’ she whispered against his damp hair.

  ‘Just a bit.’ He was breathless.

  A huge cheer erupted from downstairs and for a horrible moment they thought their amateurish lovemaking was being applauded.

  Kate realised. ‘Becca’s made the big announcement.’

  They didn’t move for some time. Kate gave up dissecting how she felt about what they’d done and just was. When they stood up, her legs seemed to be boneless. ‘I’m a bit wobbly,’ she said, bumping elbows and knees with Charlie as they pulled on their underwear amid the avalanche of coats that had slid to the floor. Despite the very adult nature of the last fifteen minutes, she felt juvenile and giddy. As Kate tackled the buttons on her shirt, Charlie said, ‘If I believed in marriage, I’d ask you to marry me.’

  ‘If I believed in marriage,’ said Kate, ‘I’d say yes.’ She pulled up the zip on his trousers. ‘But we don’t believe in marriage, so . . .’ She kissed him. It felt different to the ‘before’ kisses. Something had changed. They were in deeper. She shivered, partly from the thrill of it but also from a fear of the vast adult universe she glimpsed from this new vantage point. ‘Something’s bugging me, Charlie,’ she admitted.

  ‘What?’ he asked, stricken.

  ‘You thought I’d chuck you.’

  ‘Oh, that.’ Charlie downsized her misgiving, taken aback by her frown. ‘I panicked. I knew you wouldn’t. I know we’re strong. We are, aren’t we? We’re good.’

  ‘Look, we don’t want ever to get married, but can we say we’ll never chuck each other? How does that sound?’

  Charlie put his hand on his heart and said, solemnly, ‘I hereby swear never to chuck you.’