One of the Girls(3)
Still, she mustn’t feel guilty about leaving: it was Lexi’s hen party. She would’ve flown to the other side of the world for Lexi because she was the sort of friend who – no matter what – was there for you. Lexi’s life had always been big and colourful and messy and beautiful, and Robyn felt privileged to be along for the ride.
Although, she wasn’t feeling quite so privileged about doing the supermarket run. Typical of Bella to task her with it. ‘You’re always so wonderfully practical,’ she’d said. ‘I’d just come away with a trolley full of ouzo.’
She slung a large block of feta and a tub of herby olives into the trolley while imagining the others already in swimsuits, cooling off in a sparkling pool. The B-list, she was thinking. Isn’t that what they were all thinking?
She always took things too personally. That’s your problem, Bill, her ex-husband, had told her.
Funny how personal a series of affairs feels.
Anyway. She was looking forward to this weekend. She really was. She deserved it. It’d been a tough couple of years. No, tough was wrong. That’s what she’d say in front of her parents’ friends. Correction; the last two years had been absolute shit-kickers. She had been six months pregnant when she’d discovered Bill had been having an affair. In fact, not one affair: many. Oh, how many there were. And she, Robyn of the Lists, of the Great Plans, had had no idea. When he finally admitted it, red-faced and indignant, she’d looked down at the huge swelling where her waist used to be and thought: How am I going to do this on my own?
Bill stayed until Jack was born, but after three months, the sleepless nights and cold stares were too much for either of them. She and Jack had moved in with her parents – and they’d been there ever since.
Bill visited Jack every Saturday afternoon, bringing plush cuddly toys, and then returned home to his new girlfriend, who still had full breasts and a stomach that didn’t showcase silvery rivers that ran to the source of a C-section scar. Robyn knew she was meant to embrace these bodily changes – the map of her life – but honestly, she preferred her old body, the tight one that could propel her up mountains, that didn’t constantly give her backache, that came with a sharp mind unfogged by exhaustion.
She rolled the trolley forward, catching up with Eleanor in the confectionery aisle. Her pale forehead shone with sweat, and she looked uncomfortably hot in a blouse and pressed shorts. Eleanor was Ed’s sister. She hadn’t been at the engagement drinks, Lexi explaining that she’d recently lost her fiancé, so a gathering to celebrate someone else’s wedding was probably the last thing she needed. In truth, with Robyn’s divorce imminent, it hadn’t been that high up her list of Fun Ways To Spend An Evening. Still. It was Lexi. She would always show up for Lexi.
‘Even when it says Cadbury,’ Eleanor said, brow wrinkled, ‘you can’t trust it, can you? Cadbury abroad doesn’t taste like Cadbury at home. Have you noticed? I think it must be the milk.’
‘Let’s spread the risk and get a stash.’
‘Excellent,’ Eleanor said as she turned to reveal the basket slung over her arm, already stocked with a variety of chocolate bars and honeyed nuts.
They continued around the supermarket together, Eleanor gathering generous supplies of fruit, vegetables, herbs and fresh bread. Once they’d finished and paid, Robyn wheeled the trolley into the sweltering heat of the afternoon.
Ana was standing beneath the shade of the supermarket canopy, a flame-orange headscarf knotted over her braids, a mobile pressed to her ear. Now here was a woman who didn’t have problems with leaky tear ducts, Robyn decided. They’d met for the first time on the flight, Robyn learning that she was a single mother to a fifteen-year-old and had put herself through night school to finish her degree. Now she worked as a freelance sign-language interpreter – inspired by her sister’s deafness – juggling a busy work schedule to make herself available outside of school hours for her son.
When Robyn found herself apologising for currently living with her parents, Ana had fixed her with a firm, level stare: ‘Don’t you dare apologise. We do what we do to get by. The bravest thing any of us can do is ask for help.’
Having not noticed them approach, Ana was speaking in a low voice into her phone. ‘It was a mistake to come here,’ she said, eyes down, brow creased.
Robyn slowed her pace and, at her shoulder, Eleanor did the same. A mistake? Why?
Ana looked up. Seeing them both, her eyes widened fractionally. ‘Talk later,’ she said hurriedly into the phone.
‘Everything all right?’ Robyn asked, then wondered if it would’ve been better to pretend she hadn’t overheard.
‘Fine.’ Ana slipped her phone away, smoothed down her dress, then came to the side of the trolley. Her expression lightened as she eyed the bottles of ouzo, gin, Metaxa, Prosecco and beer. ‘The alcohol to food ratio is excellent.’
Eleanor smiled and, after a moment, Robyn did, too.
As they unloaded the goods into the taxi, Robyn couldn’t quite believe that this was the start of Lexi’s hen party. The news still felt so fresh, so surprising. Lexi had always claimed she’d never marry – and they’d believed her. She’d spent most of her twenties as a backing dancer for a host of pop stars. She’d partied on tour buses, in penthouse suites, and tripped through Soho knowing every club owner’s name. And then, two years ago, she’d fractured her tibia and, just like that, the dancing, the partying, the lifestyle, was over. But life had a habit of slamming one door, only to open another. Well, it did where Lexi was concerned. Lexi retrained as a yoga teacher, met Ed, fell in love, and agreed to get married. Now here they were, in Greece, ready to celebrate. How was that for an about-turn?