Queenie(84)

Maggie handed the bag to me and swept me up in a hug. “Maggie!” I protested, easing away from her. “Hi, Mum,” I said quietly to my mother, still standing behind her sister, the weight of the cake testing her strength.

“Oh, come on, birthday girl! Cheer up!” Maggie said, rolling her eyes. “Diana, was she this miserable when you were out?”

“Mum you know she doesn’t like hugs. It’s all right not to want people to touch you, you know.” Diana walked over to Darcy. “You must be Darcy, yeah? I’m Diana, Queenie’s cousin. Nice to meet you properly.”

My grandmother stepped out of the front-front room. “Can we all go inside one room and stop congesting the hallway, please?” she barked, herding everyone except for Darcy in. She looked at me knowingly. “You have some time to say hello to your fren,” she said, walking into the room and closing the door behind her.

“What happened to the candles, Mum?” I heard Diana moan. “I tried to plan all of this properly.”

Darcy and I stood for a moment in the hallway, looking at each other. She’d put on weight, and her blue eyes stood out against her unusually tanned skin. “Been on holiday?” I asked, suddenly unreasonably very awkward about standing with her when I was such a shit version of the me I used to be.

“Yeah, Simon and I went to France a couple of weeks ago. It was a nightmare. He didn’t want to leave the villa. Said that we needed to spend the whole holiday working on ‘us.’?” She stepped toward me and handed the balloon over. “Happy birthday, friend.”

I put Maggie’s mysterious gift bag down, took the balloon, and patted her on the shoulder.

“Thank you. This is nice. Why are you here? How did you know the address?”

“Your cousin is very wily. . . .” Darcy smiled. “We’ve been in contact for a while now. She tweeted me a few weeks ago. We’ve been ‘DM-ing.’?” Darcy raised her eyebrows, smug about using lingo she wasn’t used to. “And I was going to invite Kyazike but thought that might be too much for you right now.”

“Yeah, you might be right,” I said, realizing how much I really, really missed Kyazike. “I’ll be back to my usual text self soon, sorry for being so rubbish.”

“You don’t need to apologize,” Darcy said softly. “I guessed you needed to switch off from it all. I feel like a bad friend, though. I should have handled it properly, helped you more.”

“You didn’t need to handle anything!” I protested, horrified that she thought she had any responsibility where my mental health was concerned. “It wasn’t for you to sort. I put a lot on you. Wasn’t fair of me. I’m sorry,” I said. I was getting good at this apologizing business. “I bet you get more work done without me, though.”

“So much more, you wouldn’t believe it. But it’s not as fun,” Darcy pointed out.

“I wasn’t much fun those last few months. It must have been like watching someone on self-destruct.” I laughed awkwardly. But felt less awkward.

“I’m not your friend because you entertain me,” Darcy said.

I moved toward her and hugged her tightly, surprising her and myself. “I’ve missed this,” she said into my shoulder, her voice muffled by my hair. For the first time in ages, I felt like me.

“Thank you for being my friend,” I said. “Even though I didn’t make it easy.” I pulled away after a while, and pointed up at the balloon. “So. Where’d you get this classy gift from?” Darcy didn’t reply, and when I looked at her for some sort of response, I saw that her face was wet with tears.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“What’s happening?” my grandmother asked, throwing the door to the front-front room open. She looked at Darcy in horror.

“I just—I’ve just missed her!” Darcy sobbed.

“Oh, there there, dear!” my grandmother said, pulling Darcy into her bosom and patting her on the back gently. I wished she’d consistently extend the same comfort to me when I was upset.

“Come on, let’s all go in here,” I said, and we walked into the front-front room, my balloon blithering along the doorframe as I pulled it in behind me.

“Okay, please can we do the candles now? I had to blow them out once already,” Diana snapped, pulling a lighter out of her pocket and lighting the candles.

“And why do you have that?” Maggie asked, cocking her head, her wig going left as her head went right.

“It’s, er, Kadija’s, she left it in my bag, Haaaaaappy Birthdaaaaay . . .” Diana began to sing, nervous eyes on her mum, who stared back at her, neither of them dropping a note. I looked down at the cake and blew the candles out.

“Did you make a wish?” my mum said quietly, her voice cracking halfway through the question.

“No. No point,” I said, continuing to look at the cake. “I haven’t believed in wishes since I was a child.”

My grandmother bustled into the kitchen for her best china plates (“It’s because we have a white visitor,” Maggie sighed), and Diana started to cut the cake into huge slices. “Shall we say grace?” Maggie asked, gesturing to the cake. Diana looked at me.

“Oh, aren’t you going to open your present?” Maggie asked, pointing at the gift bag. I picked it up and pulled out a little wrapped present.