The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(11)

I keep my eyes trained forward, not glancing towards the group by the fruit machine even though I know they must all be looking my way. Truth told, I’ve avoided going anywhere where people knew Freddie because I haven’t been able to face answering questions about how I’m coping, or hearing about their own shock and grief. Is that selfish of me? I just can’t summon the emotional wherewithal to be bothered about them.

Ron, the owner, smiles at Elle and reaches for a fresh glass. ‘Same again?’

His eyes slide to me and it takes him a few seconds to place me as Freddie’s girlfriend. Something akin to panic flashes over his face momentarily before he recovers himself.

Elle nods and turns to me. ‘Lydia?’

For a moment I feel as if this is the first time I have ever been in a pub, confused and hot under the collar, seventeen again, pretending to be old enough to drink. My eyes skate over the bottles too fast and I can feel my heart begin to race.

‘Glass of wine?’ Ron suggests, already reaching a second glass down from the overhead rack, and it’s as much as I can do to nod gratefully. He doesn’t ask what I want, just slides a large glass of something chilled and white in front of me, pats my hand briefly and gives Elle a fierce look when she tries to pay for the drinks.

‘On the house,’ he says, gruff to the point of a growl as he picks up his cloth and polishes the bar, doing his best to act disinterested. I look at Elle and I can see she’s a little choked up by the gesture. I’m getting tearful and Ron is in danger of wearing a hole in the bar, so I pick up my glass with a small, appreciative smile and head for a table in the corner. Elle detours briefly to David and the huddle by the fruit machine, and I take a gulp of wine and glance across to see who’s there. The usual suspects. Deckers and co sinking a few beers before the football; Freddie’s friends of old. Duffy the tight accountant is there, his pale-blue shirt too formal for a Saturday, and Raj, a guy we went to school with who runs his own building firm these days, I think. There’s a couple of others too: Boner – don’t ask me why they call him that because I don’t even want to know – is hammering the buttons on the fruit machine, and there’s Stu, I think, who spends most of his life at the gym. I don’t make eye contact with any of them, which I’m sure they are entirely grateful for. Death is a sure-fire way to become a complete social pariah.

‘Free drinks,’ Elle says, sliding on to the stool beside mine at the small, round table. ‘First time for everything.’

She isn’t wrong. Everything feels like a first time at the moment. First time I fry bacon without Freddie eating it straight out of the pan before I can get it on the sandwich. First time I sleep in our bed alone. First time I go to the pub as the girlfriend of that poor guy who died. None of the first times I’d envisaged or hoped for at this stage of my life.

‘Nice of Ron,’ I mumble, pulling my already half-empty glass closer to me. I should slow down.

Then the door opens and Jonah Jones walks in, head to toe in black as usual, his dark hair as unruly as always. I can’t help it, it twists me up inside to see him alone – he’s like Woody without Buzz. He stops to speak to the guys at the fruit machine, his hand on Deckers’ shoulder, then heads for the bar. He turns our way, tapping a beer mat against the edge of the bar as Ron pulls him a pint, his smile vague and then sliding right off his face when he finally registers me. Likely he feels a punch in the gut at the empty space beside me too, quickly followed by unease at the way things are between us now. I last saw him at the funeral, both of us barely holding ourselves together. He looks better today, his fingers instinctively moving to trace the healed wound above his eyebrow as his gaze holds mine. I don’t know if I should get up and say hello so I stay nailed to my stool, held there by indecision. I don’t think he knows what to do either, which is stupid because we’ve known each other since we were twelve years old. Half a lifetime of friendship, yet we’re eyeballing each other across the pub like wary lions unsure if we’re part of the same pride any more.

Jonah picks up the pint Ron places before him and drains almost a third of it, muttering thanks when Ron refills it without comment. I’m relieved when David steps in and unwittingly breaks the moment, joining Jonah at the bar before shepherding him across to join us. David drops down next to his wife as Jonah bends to kiss Elle first and then me, his hand warm on my shoulder as he leans in to my cheek.

‘Hey, you,’ he says, taking the stool on my other side. Jonah had the edge on Freddie height-wise, but he’s long and lean rather than rugby broad, a panther to Freddie’s lion. ‘It’s been a while.’

I could tell him the exact number of days since the funeral, but instead I pick at a loose edge on the laminated table, making it worse. ‘Yeah.’

He knocks back more of his beer and slides it on to the table. ‘How’ve you been?’

‘I’m okay,’ I say. Words have deserted me. Jonah is so tied to Freddie in my head, I don’t know how to be around him now. David is showing Elle something on his phone, most probably to give Jonah and me a little privacy.

‘I tried to call.’

I nod, awkward. ‘I know. I haven’t really felt like … I haven’t been able to …’

‘It’s fine,’ he says, rushing in. ‘I get it.’

I don’t tell him that he can’t possibly get it, because I know he’s one of the people who misses Freddie most of all. Jonah doesn’t have much in the way of family of his own. His mum’s most significant relationship has always been with the bottle and his dad was someone else’s husband. No siblings to share the load, no home comforts to look forward to at the end of the school day. I know these snippets second-hand from Freddie rather than Jonah himself – as a child he made vague excuses for his mother’s absence at parents’ evening, and as an adult he doesn’t mention either of his parents at all. I guess Freddie and I were the closest thing he ever knew to real family.