Bookends

Chapter thirteen

By the time the three of us manage to reach the other side of the room, the party has thinned considerably. People have come, as they said they would, to show their support and have now moved on to feed families, step into local restaurants, and even, in a few cases, grab a minicab and whizz up to the West End to continue drinking in one of the trendy bars in Soho.

And yet, despite the thinning numbers, it is clear that Portia is known. I see one of the journalists from the local press turn to a colleague and whisper, pointing Portia out, and I notice other people nudging each other as we pass.

How did we possibly manage to miss all this? Me, I could understand. Lucy and Josh I could certainly understand, but Si? How could Si not have known how famous Portia is?

Lucy is perched on one of the stools at the bar, talking animatedly to Keith, a reporter from the Kilburn Herald, and, as I walk past, Lucy grabs me and pulls me over.

‘This is Cath,’ she says, ‘and this is Keith, who’s promised to write lovely things about us, haven’t you, Keith?’

Keith smiles, and disappears to find another drink.

‘Lucy,’ I say, as Si and Portia stand behind me, waiting to be introduced. ‘There’s someone here I’d like you to meet.’

‘More people?’ Lucy laughs, looking behind me at Si. ‘I thought I’d met everyone in this room.’

‘Not everyone,’ Portia steps forward, her right hand extended, and Lucy beams at her and shakes her hand.

‘I’m Portia. And you must be Lucy.’

‘Now this,’ Lucy says, her gentle face breaking into a broad smile, ‘is truly a surprise.’ Lucy pats the stool next to her and Portia obediently sits down, her posture, her poise, her elegantly crossed legs making Lucy appear rounder and plumper than ever, but Lucy wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t care: too intrigued by this apparition from a past she never knew.

‘So do you like my bookshop, Portia? Do you think it will be a huge success?’

‘Yes and yes. I think it’s wonderful,’ Portia says. ‘Although I haven’t been here long. Just long enough to see Cath, and Si, and now to meet you. You’re not what I expected.’

Lucy, to her credit, doesn’t ask what Portia might have expected. She just smiles and says, ‘And you, Portia, are far more beautiful, now that you have actually appeared in the flesh. Has my Josh seen you yet? He’ll be, well, I don’t know. Thrilled? Certainly. Speechless? Far more likely. Shall we go and find him?’ and Lucy stands up, links her arm through Portia’s and leads her off, as Si and I stand there watching them, open-mouthed.

‘What do you reckon?’

‘What do you mean?’ I look at Si in surprise.

‘Is she or isn’t she up to something?’

‘Oh, for God’s sake, Si. Why do you always have to be so bloody negative and pessimistic when it comes to Portia?’ Which perhaps isn’t entirely fair, given that it’s been ten years since we’ve seen her, but it is true that after that night with Elizabeth, none of us managed to ever quite trust her again.

He looks at me as if he’s about to say something, then shakes his head, as if to dislodge the thought. ‘Come on. Let’s go and see the reunion.’

We cross the room to find Lucy beaming at Josh, who does, as she predicted, look shell-shocked. In fact it would be fair to say that he is completely lost for words, and Lucy appears to be making conversation for both of them.

‘Do you know what would be lovely?’ she says, surveying the room. ‘A proper reunion. We’re all dying to know everything you’ve been doing, and I’d love to get to know you properly. Would you come to our house for supper one night, Portia?’

Portia nods and I realize that she probably doesn’t know quite what to make of Lucy, that Lucy is not someone she knows how to handle, because even in the short space of time since they have been introduced, it is clear that Lucy is not intimidated by anyone, and certainly not by Portia.

And that, as I remember, is, or certainly was, the one thing of which Portia could always be certain, and the one thing that gave her that slight aloofness. Portia could be as giggly and girly as the rest of us, but that wasn’t her natural demeanour, and in an instant she could switch to the cool, calm sophisticate, a manner that seemed to suit her far better.

But how could she not respond to Lucy? Lucy is so warm, so welcoming, Portia cannot help but be swept away by her charm, and she tells Lucy that supper sounds wonderful and that she can’t believe it’s been ten years, and that there is so much to catch up on.

Josh doesn’t really say anything, but then again he doesn’t need to, and once Lucy has pressed their phone number into Portia’s hand, and Portia has handed over a thick cream business card of her own, Josh shakes Portia’s hand awkwardly and says he’ll look forward to seeing her during the week. And then he excuses himself to help clear up.

Portia turns to Si.

Si has been watching this from a distance, observing as if it were a play. ‘Come on you,’ she says, nudging him. ‘What’s been happening in your life? Tell me everything.’

The three of us go to one of the leather sofas, recently vacated, and collapse gratefully on it as Si starts talking to Portia about work. She is fascinated, and it doesn’t take long before they find people in common, television and film being so closely linked, and Si apologizes repeatedly for not realizing what she was doing, quite how known she had become.

And, as cautious as Si has been, I can see him loosen up, warm to his theme, and the more he talks the more Portia concentrates, and you could honestly believe that she has never in her life met anyone more fascinating than Si.

‘And what about your love life?’ she asks finally, and Si gives her a blow by blow account of his relationship with Will, insisting that this time, despite what I have told him, it may well be The One.

‘What about you?’ he says. ‘You don’t look married, and’ – he picks up her left hand before letting it drop gently down into her lap again – ‘there’s no ring. So are there any potential Mr Fairleys lurking on the scene?’

‘God, no,’ she groans. ‘The only men I seem to meet these days are middle-aged television executives who are all married and desperate for a glamorous bit on the side. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve been invited for a “quick drink after work”.’

‘Do you ever go?’

Portia laughs. ‘I did in the beginning. Before the series, back when I was naïve and desperate for my big break. Also before I understood that a quick drink after work meant a quick bonk in the shabby hotel around the corner.’

‘Oh.’ I don’t say anything else, too busy trying to picture Portia in a shabby anything, anywhere, but it doesn’t quite work.

‘They could at least have booked Claridge’s,’ sniffs Si, and we all start laughing.

‘I know,’ Portia says. ‘That’s exactly what I said to him when I turned on my heel and left.’

‘So you didn’t…’ Only Si could have asked that question.

‘No! I most certainly did not.’

‘So how does it feel to be this huge success?’ I ask. ‘Do you love it? Has it changed your life?’

‘Absolutely.’ She looks at me. ‘And it’s wonderful, but it’s also very strange. I always used to think that the one thing I wanted more than anything in the world was to be famous. I used to have daydreams about being a film star, or anything really, just being recognized, being loved by everyone.’

I catch Si’s eye, and I know immediately what he’s thinking. That of course Portia would have wanted fame, that the only thing she thought would make her feel secure would be the adulation of strangers, and that if anything it was astounding that she wasn’t now starring in Hollywood on the silver screen.

‘Not that I’m famous now,’ she says quickly, ‘but I am known. I’ve gone from being the journalist, the one who does all the interviews and asks all the right questions and has the power to rip someone apart if she so chooses, to being the vulnerable one, and I’m not sure how much I like it.’

‘But I would have thought you’d love it.’ Si echoes my thoughts. ‘You must have changed more than we thought.’

‘I don’t think so,’ she smiles. ‘I haven’t really changed, but I never expected to feel so vulnerable. You never know what someone’s agenda is. And when the series first took off every paper and magazine wanted to interview me, and I thought I needed to do everything, so I did.

‘So I’d let people into my home, trust them in my personal space, open up to them and be as honest as I knew how, and then open the paper a week later to see that they’d torn me apart. And I know I used to do the same thing, but then I thought that this was the price people paid for being in the public eye, and that it wasn’t personal. Except most of the time it is.’

‘Jesus,’ whistles Si. ‘Sounds like a nightmare. I’d be slashing my wrists every day.’

‘It’s amazing how quickly you develop a shut-off mechanism,’ she says. ‘But it never really stops hurting. You just try to avoid the negative pieces because all it’s going to do is upset you, and it’s not as if anyone’s giving you constructive criticism, they’re just slagging you off because they don’t like you and because they can.’

‘But what about the good things? Aren’t you going off to amazingly glamorous parties and hobnobbing with the stars at premières and things?’

‘Sometimes,’ she says, shrugging, ‘but actually it’s not very exciting at all. If you’re willing to play the game, then it’s great – you go to two or three things a night, air kiss the same people, do a few lines of coke to keep you going, and have the same vacuous conversations as the ones you had the night before.’

‘God, if you ever need an escort, I’m usually free,’ Si grins, throwing up his hands and saying, ‘I’m joking, I’m joking’ when he sees the look on my face.

‘I would have thought the trick is to surround yourself with people you trust. Just the really good friends,’ I say. ‘So you can go to all these things, but you know that it’s not real, and that the real people, the true friends, are the ones you spend your real time with, rather than the fake people you see at these do’s.’

Portia thinks for a while. ‘In theory you’re absolutely right, Cath. Of course that’s what you should do. I suppose I’ve just been so busy with my career I haven’t had a chance to find the sort of people I’d want to surround myself with.’ There’s a long pause. ‘I haven’t found those sorts of people since university,’ and with that she looks first at me, and then at Si, and I pray that my blush doesn’t become any more fierce, for we, after all, chose to lose contact with her when we had all graduated. We were the ones who hadn’t returned her calls.

So is she saying that she’s missed us, that she valued the friendship we once had, that it isn’t too late for us to resurrect it, which would be the point of her turning up this evening?

‘God, I’m boring you!’ she says suddenly, turning to me and laying a hand on my arm. ‘Cath, you will never know how good it is to see you after all this time. It’s your turn. Tell me everything.’ And I do.

Half an hour later, or possibly an hour, or might it even be three, Lucy comes over with a tray of steaming lattes for us, refusing to sit down because there are still a handful of people here who need looking after.

‘Oh, damn,’ she says, turning round just as she’s started to walk off. ‘Cath, I forgot. The gorgeous James was looking for you.’

‘Was he?’ I perk up for a second, as Portia raises an eyebrow.

‘The gorgeous James? I thought you said there weren’t any men in your life.’

‘There aren’t,’ I say quickly, as Lucy laughs and shouts over her shoulder, ‘Not yet, but he’s definitely her not-so-secret admirer.’

‘I don’t think so.’ I haven’t forgotten what happened earlier, but nevertheless it is encouraging to hear he’s been looking for me.

‘What’s he like?’ Portia asks.

‘Gorgeous,’ Si says. ‘Young sexy Farmer Giles type. All dimples, floppy hair and big white smile.’

‘Rather like him?’ she says, gesturing to the door, as I sink back into the sofa, feeling sick at having thought there might have been a different outcome.

‘Yes.’ I watch in a deep dark gloom as James guides Ingrid out the door, her face lighting up in a most uncharacteristic way as she turns her head to laugh at something he has said. ‘Exactly like him.’

I didn’t mean to get drunk last night. In fact I think I was doing incredibly well. Lucy stopped me going hell for leather, and then I’d been knocked sideways by Portia turning up, which definitely sobered me up, and then, after all that, I had to deal with my admirer not actually admiring me in the slightest.

But once the guests had gone, once Portia had left with strict instructions to be at Lucy and Josh’s house on Saturday the eighteenth (instructions from Lucy, needless to say, Josh having gone back home to pay the babysitter), once it was just Lucy, Si and I, I really let my hair down.

Bill and Rachel attempted to clear up, but Lucy and I shooed them home with a bottle of champagne each, only regretting it afterwards when we saw the state of the bookshop.

Our newly polished oak floors were covered in cigarette butts and pools of liquid, and our sparkling coffee tables, strategically dotted close to the old, beaten-up leather sofas, now looked distinctly second hand. Books had been taken off the shelves and randomly shoved back where they clearly didn’t belong, and the air smelt of musty smoke and too many people crammed into too small a space. But I have to say, it was worth it.

We took one look and decided to leave the clearing up until tomorrow, thanking God that we had had the foresight to leave the actual opening of the shop until Monday.

I was ready to drop, but Si and Lucy were so high on the success of the party, turning the volume of the CD up loud, dancing on top of the bar, that it was impossible not to join in. And Lucy, wisely (or perhaps unwisely, depending on how you look at things), had stashed a few bottles of champagne in the office for exactly this reason.

So we cracked it open, we danced, and we started drinking again. Properly. Before the champagne appeared, I was desperate to do the Portia post-mortem with Si, but I could see that it would have to wait until the next day, so I pushed all my questions aside, and Lucy and I toasted one another. Over and over and over again.

My memories of Si trying to teach us to salsa are reasonably clear. Si and I got the giggles at Lucy’s complete lack of coordination, and when she stepped on his feet for the fourth time we lost it completely in the way that you only lose it completely when you are well and truly pissed, or well and truly stoned, and we hung over the back of the sofa, crying with laughter.

Si then decided it was time for a change of pace, and Abba went on the stereo, and Si and I did very poor impersonations of the two girls from Muriel’s Wedding impersonating Frida and Agnetha. And, just in case you’re wondering, Si was the blonde. Like you had to ask.

Josh walked in at some point. I think he was fairly shocked to find Lucy and I lying head to head on the bar, while Si attempted to pour hazelnut syrup into our mouths. Si said it was supposed to be done with tequila, but, since we didn’t have any, the syrups used to flavour the coffees would have to be the next best thing.

He didn’t seem to be very happy to find Lucy with sugar syrup smeared all over her face and hair.

‘Now that,’ he said disapprovingly, ‘is the most disgusting thing I’ve ever seen. Look at the pair of you. You’re covered in a sticky mess.’

Lucy hoisted herself up, climbed down from the bar and staggered into the loo to clean up, while I joined Si on the sofa and shouted at Josh.

‘You’re an old killjoy,’ I shouted.

‘Yeah. An old fart,’ Lucy shouted disloyally from the depths of the loo.

‘Why don’t you just let your hair down and have some fun?’ Si said, swigging from the last bottle of champagne and handing it to Josh to finish. Josh took it and tipped the rest of the champagne down the sink.

‘Not that I like being called a killjoy,’ he said, ‘but one of us has to act their age, and you’re going to have a hell of a job clearing this up tomorrow. I would suggest that unless you plan to spend the whole day in bed with the largest hangovers you’ve ever had, it’s time to go home.’

‘I think, troops,’ said Lucy, as we all struggled up to say goodbye, ‘that much as I hate to admit my boring old husband is right, we should all call it a night.’ And although we all moaned and groaned, today I could kiss Josh for being so stern. I feel bad enough as it is, particularly getting up at the crack of dawn to be in the shop by seven, but if Josh had let us carry on drinking all night, I think my liver might well have collapsed this morning.

As it was, Si chaperoned me home, which was slightly ridiculous, really, given that he could barely stand. He then came in so we could both drink three bottles of water each, as he had read that if you consume the same amount of water as alcohol drunk that evening, you will wake up hangover-free.

Unfortunately we could only manage a glass and a half each, and, after his minicab arrived, I stumbled out of my clothes, leaving them lying in heaps on the bedroom floor, and climbed into bed.

I wake up the next morning to the doorbell ringing, except initially I think it must be the doorbell in my dreams, then it becomes the phone, and finally I realize it’s the door. What the hell do they want at this godforsaken hour on a Sunday, and why the hell don’t they shut up?

I stumble out of bed, groan as my head pounds like a drum, and walk as quickly as I can to the hallway.

‘Hang on,’ I shriek, cringing at the loudness of my own voice. ‘I’m coming.’ And mercifully, the doorbell stops.

I make my way gingerly back to the bedroom and grab the towelling robe from behind the door, making a mental note to wash it because in the absence of a clean towel I’ve been using it daily for God knows how long, and what was once white is now an interesting spectrum of greys.

‘Who is it?’ My voice is back to normal now, I just wish that I were back to normal. My eyes feel like pinheads, my throat is dry and scratchy, and, as if the headache weren’t bad enough, waves of nausea are threatening every few seconds, and I’m not sure whether to answer the front door or head for the bathroom just in case.

‘Flower delivery,’ a voice says, and through the frosted glass I can just make out a huge bouquet of flowers. Strange. Who the hell’s sending me flowers? It doesn’t occur to me that no one sends flowers on a Sunday. Ever.

I open the door quickly, hoping that no one’s around to see me because I don’t even have to look in the mirror to know I look like shit, although frankly with the way that I’m feeling I don’t very much care.

‘Thanks,’ I mumble, reaching out to take the flowers, and as I take them they reveal the face of the delivery man. I stand on the spot, paralysed with horror.

‘Hi!’ James’s smile fades as he gets his first good look at me. ‘Umm, I didn’t wake you, did I?’

‘What? What do you want?’ I don’t mean to be rude, but what the hell is his game? He left last night with Ingrid, doubtless took her back to his amazing studio, probably shagged her senseless, leaving me to spend the evening doing Abba impersonations. And I’m supposed to be pleased to see him?

‘Just leave me alone.’ I ignore the bewildered expression on his face, shove the flowers back into his hand and slam the door, groaning as the bang reverberates through my poor thumping head.

Oh shit. I make my way slowly to the bathroom, sink to my knees on the floor and – to hell with it – stick my fingers down my throat. As soon as I’ve thrown up I start to feel better, if only because the nausea’s subsided, so I go to the medicine cabinet. To Nurofen Plus. To redemption. I take three pills just to be on the safe side, consider drinking a lot more water but can’t quite manage it, drop the towelling robe on the floor and stumble back into the bedroom, turning down the volume on the phone on the way. I draw the duvet over my head.

What is going on? And more to the point, why is it bothering me so much? Why should I care if James and Ingrid got it together? Why do I actually feel upset about this? Enough. I’m not going to do this any more.

This time I refuse to wake up until my head, my heart and my life have all returned to normal.