The Things We Do to Our Friends(20)
“See what?”
“There’s something…a little off sometimes about him.”
I thought of Samuel. So big and towering, but I couldn’t really imagine him in a physical fight. Then I remembered his almost cruel smile as he’d veered across the road for fun.
Ava continued. “Tabitha was always so protective of him. She was basically a lifeline—no-nonsense, no sympathy, really. She helped him get into this crazy expensive rehab program for young people with drinking problems. Anyone who said anything about him, she was on at them, like, properly. You can imagine…”
I could imagine. Tabitha, like a lioness protecting her cubs.
“Anyway, he cut it all out,” she finished.
Was I so wrapped up in myself that I didn’t notice anyone else, or did he hide it in a way that meant you saw what you wanted to see? I thought of him with his cocktail, promptly put to one side. The nights we’d spent together, hadn’t he been drinking like the rest of us?
I must have looked worried, because she placated me. “Oh, don’t worry about it. You couldn’t have known. That would be a lot to ask—he carries a glass of wine around all the time as a prop. Anyway, it’s done now.” She yawned and started playing with the ends of my hair sleepily. The lines between my body and hers so blurred.
“Are you thinking about her?” she asked quite suddenly. “She expects a lot. But it’s worth it.”
I nodded to agree with her.
“I’m serious,” she said. “Without Tabitha, I don’t know where I’d be. She has so much planned for us, honestly.”
“What does she have planned?” I asked. Tabitha hadn’t mentioned anything solid to me, not at that point.
“You’ll see,” Ava said, sweeping the question away smoothly.
And then we fell into silence, and I felt like I needed to say something positive after she’d divulged so much to me. That was how I was back then, always rooting around and working out what to do.
“I hope she appreciates you,” I said. It seemed like the right thing to say.
She gave me a very kind look. “Of course she does. Now, don’t worry about this whole thing. You did great, and we just love having you around, Clare. You must know that.”
I stood up and went to leave, but she called after me. “Clare, one more thing.”
I turned back to face her as she got up from the floor and dusted herself off.
“There’s another reason you couldn’t have got it right with the drink tonight,” she explained. “Anything made behind her back—she doesn’t trust it.”
15
Looking back, so much of what I savored was scraped from offhand comments. Savage little bites of knowledge delivered by each shark with a gossipy ease.
A memory of an illicit expedition to get belly-button piercings solicited from Ava. A mention of Imogen’s parents’ holiday home in the “tacky part” of the Algarve from Tabitha.
Ava’s never quite mastered sarcasm. A light little dig from Samuel.
Samuel’s parking tickets are becoming…obscene. Ava flicked through them in disgust—he frequently dumped them in a chunky stack on Tabitha’s kitchen table, and I wondered who paid them. Just another strange thread of reliance that I didn’t quite understand.
It seems pathetic to say so, but oh, how I adored it! Their snipes and their petty revelations were so addictive, and I always left wanting just a bit more, especially when it related to Tabitha. I couldn’t stay away from them. They were a drug that builds in effectiveness as it accumulates in the bloodstream.
But then, as soon as they let me in, the doors shut again and again. There was the sense that I was on the outside and I wasn’t quite privy to what was going on. Even from the beginning, there were many projects that I heard about and felt I was slightly involved with, but not fully.
They varied in intensity, popping up, sizzling for a while with a frenetic urgency that consumed us all, then cooling again just as quickly. Thematically, they were varied. Tabitha had a bizarre notion of creating an underground supper club, serving shark fin and bird’s nest soups. She pushed for the creation of a specialist student matchmaking scheme—English students seeking Scottish landowners. A lot was wrong with all these ideas. Often they had a commercially astute element to them—usually misguided—but the concepts were never fully formed.
On a windy night, I saw Ava and Tabitha together, both so tall and both wrapped up in coats and scarves. If it had crossed my mind before that Ava was part of some kind of mob family, then seeing her pacing around in white fur made it seem even more believable, and how strident they were! They took up the whole sidewalk, and other people walking down the street knew to move around them and let them pass as they stalked through the city. I wondered where they were going and what they were doing. Still, the curious thing was that they saw me, but they didn’t stop. Ava gave a curt nod of the head as if I was a casual acquaintance.
I was quite hurt, of course, but I didn’t blame them. It did make me question what they did when I wasn’t there and how close we actually were. Did they have other friends like me? But then I forced myself to remember it was fine. I had a life around them, my job and Finn, and they seemed to respect that. Friendships worth having were built slowly.