The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(36)

‘Everyone is over in the far corner,’ she says, nodding towards the crowd from work. They look different somehow in their wedding best with their partners by their sides. Ryan spots me first and grabs two extra chairs from a nearby table. He really is the kindest of boys; I can’t quite class him as a man yet – he still lives with his parents and spends as much time on video games as he does with the many girls he seems to date.

‘Here she is,’ Phil booms, his red bow tie tight round his neck as he stands and plants a kiss on my cheek. ‘Jonah,’ he says, pumping Jonah’s hand with great enthusiasm. They’ve met on several occasions through the school’s use of the town hall, and of course they are aware of his connection to Freddie. It’s one of the things that comes with living in a sleepy, backwater town; most people here know each other by face if not name. Freddie would have preferred to move away, to a bright city-lights apartment like his more cosmopolitan colleagues live in, but we bought locally because I wanted to stay within a cup of tea’s distance of Mum and Elle.

Julia smiles as we join them, regal in black and white, and Bruce, her painfully shy husband, catches my eye and then looks away again quickly.

‘Drink?’ Jonah murmurs beside me, and I nod, grateful. Typically, he offers to buy a round for everyone at the table and Ryan jumps up to help him at the bar. Belatedly, he looks back at me and introduces his date.

‘Lydia, Olivia.’ He nods between us and grins. ‘Olivia, Lydia.’ I’m not sure, but I think I detected the slightest pause before he said her name, as if he was just double-checking inside his own head that he’d got it right.

I take a seat next to the outrageously pretty Olivia and compliment her on her immaculate and extremely long fingernails, ice blue to match her tiny dress.

‘Have you known Ryan long?’ I say, making conversation.

‘Not really,’ she says, sucking her cocktail up through a straw. ‘We met at a foam party.’

I don’t really know how to respond to that. I’ve never been to a foam party; I didn’t know they even existed outside of the Balearics.

‘Fun,’ I say in the end, and she nods, hoovering around her ice cubes noisily.

‘How’d you meet your fella?’ she asks, her eyes on Jonah at the bar.

I’m momentarily thrown. ‘Jonah?’

I’m still trying to decide how to phrase what Jonah is to me when she speaks again.

‘Nice ass,’ she says, then laughs. ‘Sorry.’

I shake my head. ‘We’re not together,’ I say. ‘He’s just a friend.’

Olivia looks at me as if I’m lying. ‘Yeah, right.’

‘I’m serious. He has a girlfriend, and I –’ I frown, because I really don’t want to get into this. Jonah’s been seeing Dee casually for a while now, low key but there. Fortunately, Olivia loses interest.

‘Whatever you say.’

I’m not sure if she believes me. I don’t insist because it would look worse, and it’s not as if I need to justify myself. I’m probably misreading her anyway; my social skills have taken a knock, another casualty of spending too much time alone. I’m saved from having to respond by Phil’s wife, Susan, who heard the exchange from her position on the other side of Olivia.

‘Doesn’t Dawn look a picture?’ she says, leaning in towards us. I try to telegraph a silent thank you. Susan appears in the office at least once a week, often bearing things she’s baked or bought for Phil to dish out amongst the staff. We all love her to death; me never more so than right now. The swift conversation change is enough to move things along until Jonah and Ryan return from the bar balancing trays full of glasses. I make a thing of jumping up to let Ryan sit beside Olivia again, not wishing to separate love’s young dream. He tries to argue with me, and for a moment our eyes meet and we both realize something: neither of us especially wants to sit next to his date. I think Olivia’s days are numbered and, given that she was eyeing up Jonah rather than Ryan at the bar, I don’t think either of them will be particularly disappointed. All the same, she’s Ryan’s date and he can sit next to her.

‘Okay?’ Jonah says quietly, checking in with me as we take our seats. His arm rests easily along the back of my chair, and I’m grateful for his presence. He’s one of those chameleon people who can fit into any crowd, easy company and genuinely interested in what others have to say. It’s probably what makes him a good teacher. He actually listens when people speak, without constantly looking for a way to bring the conversation back to himself.

‘Think so.’ I take a sip of cold Sauvignon.

‘What do you make of Olivia?’ he asks.

I look at him curiously. ‘Why?’

He laughs softly into his beer. ‘Ryan just told me that he’s tried to end it with her twice this week and she won’t have it. He’s scared stiff of her.’

‘Rightly so,’ I say, looking across at the pair of them. Her fingernails are grazing the back of his neck, slow and territorial.

I find I’m laughing when Ryan catches us looking and mouths ‘Help me!’ over Olivia’s shoulder. Jonah raises his glass and I shrug, helpless. This is a lesson the boy needs to learn for himself.

The band strike up a rock-and-roll number, and it’s as if someone pressed Bruce’s activation button. He goes from quietly nursing his pint to Buddy Holly all in one move, hauling Julia up behind him in a way that brooks no argument. We all watch in surprise as they take to the floor. Bruce is firmly in charge as he slings her between his spread legs with a quick-silver confidence never displayed on any previous occasion. Christmas meals and office get-togethers have come and gone without him saying more than ten words to anyone, which goes a long way towards explaining why we’re all slack-mouthed as they fly across the floor, outstripping any other pretenders for their rock-and-roll crown. People actually move to the edges of the floor to give them more space, and as I watch them it strikes me that I’ve never seen this side of Julia, either. She’s absolutely loving it. I’ve sometimes wondered how Julia and Bruce gel as a couple but watching them now it’s clear there is something special about their bond that we’re not usually privy to. She’s a different woman with him – or maybe she’s herself with her husband in a way she isn’t with anyone else.