What My Best Friend Did by Lucy Dawson Page A

Before she’d done anything—when she was just drunk!”
    “That’s not fair, Tom,” I begin. “It’s not his fault that—”
    “Of course it fucking is!” Tom explodes. “It’s absolutely his fault! He wasn’t there when he said he was going to be! He never thinks of anyone but himself, never stops to consider other people and the impact of his actions.” He balls his fist up so tightly his knuckles go white. “This is fucking typical of him!”
    I wait and then I say quietly, “He just missed a plane, Tom. That’s all. You have every right to be angry with him for”—I struggle to find the right words—“other stuff. But he’d never have let something like this happen to her. He was worried sick when I spoke to him earlier.”
    There is a silence and Tom clenches his jaw. “Other people manage to be reliable, do what they’re supposed to do, so why can’t he? What’s so fucking special about him?”
    He almost shouts that last bit, right there in the relatives’ room, and I look shamefacedly at the floor, because I’m not sure if that’s just a rhetorical question, or he’s actually asking me.

NINE
     
    A lice Johnston!” Gretchen’s voice carried jauntily down the phone. “It’s me. So here’s the thing—are you around this morning?”
    “I can be.” I turned over in bed, glancing at the space next to me that meant Tom had already left for football training. “All I had planned was a run. Why?”
    “A run?” she said. “What on earth do you want to do something like that for?”
    “Because it’s March! I can only hide the effects of my mother’s annual Christmas force-feeding under baggy jumpers for so long—and next Saturday she’s going to stuff a load of Easter eggs down our necks too. Before you know it, it’ll be bikini weather and I’ll want to kill myself.”
    “Al, don’t be such an ass,” Gretchen said dismissively. “Running sucks. Come and have a coffee and some cake instead. I’m meeting my brother in a bit and I want you to come too so you can talk to him about his contacts. It’s only taken four months for me to set it up, but your patience, my darling, has paid off.”
    “Finally,” I said, “because it’s been a real hardship having to be friends with you in the meantime …”
    She laughed. “I know, I’m crap. Sorry. Still, better late than never.”
    “Gretch,” I yawned, “I’ll happily come and have coffee with you because it’ll be fun to finally meet your brother, not for any other reason. D’you want to come into town with me afterwards? I’ve got something to pick up.”
    “A fun something or a boring camera something?” she asked suspiciously.
    I laughed. “A camera something, but we can have a poke around some nice shops too if you like?”
    “OK,” she said happily. “Sounds fun. I’m hooking up with Bailey at about half twelve, does that give you enough time?”
    Actually, if it hadn’t been for my mother ringing and making me late because she was ranting on about how Frances had taken a family-run dry cleaner to the small claims court over a rip on the hem of her wedding dress, which was very embarrassing because the dry-cleaner lady was in her slimming group on a Tuesday night and would I ring Fran to try and talk sense into her?, I’d have been slightly early.
    As it was, I emerged bang on time from the tube to make my way to the address Gretchen had given me. Pale sunshine was trying to break through indecisive clouds as the shop fronts I passed started to become smaller but more enticingly expensive. They all had glossy, confidently painted names and weren’t selling things you’d need, but things you’d want: handmade chocolates, hats, silky-rich bottles of wine, contemporary jewelry … It was one of those pockets of London that inhabitants claim feels cozy and village-like, but everyone reads about in the society pages of newspaper supplement magazines.
    I wasn’t feeling very cozy in the soggy, cold ballet