CHAPTER SIX

      In May, Amy suddenly came out fighting. She started making plans for her thirtieth birthday in September. She let it be known that she wanted to hire a villa in Spain for two weeks, she and Dan, and have various friends fly out at different times, all gathering together on the middle Saturday for a huge party in the garden of the villa, which Dan was going to organise. She was back in the game. She even made an appearance at the pub.

      Laura hadn’t seen Amy for about six months. She had become, in her mind, this vast, beauteous Amazonian woman, with tiny stick-thin wrists and a huge expensive handbag and matching shoes. She was dazzlingly beautiful, terrifyingly confident, and she knew something was up with Laura and Dan. In Laura’s nightmares, Amy walked up to Laura and dragged her by the hair out of the pub, pulled all her hair out, then kicked her into the road.

      The trouble was, in these nightmares Laura kind of sided with Amy, not with herself. If she’d heard just the facts without knowing the details of it, she would side with Amy. But, she kept telling herself, just a little longer, and then it’d be over. And when she and Dan had been together for twenty-five years and were as happy as ever, no one would remember the slightly murky beginnings of their relationship. It would be lost in the mists of time, and Amy would be off married to a billionaire banker – it wasn’t even as if she and Dan were happy, after all. She was doing her a favour, in the long run.

      So when Laura walked into the Cavendish and saw Amy, as tall and beautiful and stick-thin as ever, sitting on the sofa laughing girlishly with Jo, and realised that she was the terrifying Amazonian beauty of her nightmares, and that she, Laura, was still – well, normal, normal height, normal hair, normal everything, it was all she could do not to walk out. Amy gave her a lizard-like, thin-lipped smile, which meant nothing, as Amy pretty much hated all girls, except her own, incredibly similar friends, who were kind of like the Pussycat Dolls mixed with the clique in Mean Girls.

      ‘Hey,’ said Chris as Laura came over to the bar. ‘There’s your tube buddy, Dan!’

      ‘Hey, tube buddy,’ said Dan, bending over to kiss Laura. How could he be so nonchalant, Laura wondered, as his hand squeezed her shoulder fleetingly and he kissed her on the cheek. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

      ‘Oh, a beer thanks, tube buddy!’ said Laura. ‘Hi, Jason. Hey, Chris. How was Morocco?’

      ‘Haven’t seen you since then, have we? Can’t believe it. It was great,’ said Chris, hugging her. ‘Got some fantastic photos to show you! The girls are over there, go and say hi.’

      The girls. Laura went over to where Amy and Jo were sitting. Jo jumped up immediately. ‘Laura, hi!’ she said, her eyes sparkling. ‘God, it’s so good to see you, babe! How long’s it been? How long? This is crap, we mustn’t leave it that long next time.’

      ‘Hi, Laura!’ said Amy. She looked down at Laura, both actually and metaphorically, thought Laura, and all three sat down again. Woah, what an evening of direness lies ahead of me, she thought. Dan put her beer down on the table and smiled at her. Amy leant back and caught his hand. He smiled mechanically at her, and released himself, walking back over to the bar to rejoin Chris. Laura didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

      ‘I know we’ve had our problems over the past year,’ Amy confided to Jo and Laura, an hour and a couple of drinks later. ‘But lately, he’s been…so different, I think he’s realised.’

      ‘Realised what?’ said Jo.

      ‘Oh, I really hope he’s realised…Gosh, it’s awful saying it out loud, isn’t it?’

      ‘Oh honey,’ said Jo. She patted her hand. ‘I know…’

      Jo was no fan of Amy’s either, but she was a far more tolerant person than Laura. Laura looked at her best friend, the blister of resentment that bubbled inside her building ever more. She was still cross with Jo, who had got back from Morocco and hadn’t rung her – Laura had given in, after a few days’ silence. In the old days, before this started, they knew everything about each other. Of course, Jo had no idea about her and Dan. But Jo hadn’t even tried to have any idea. In Laura’s addled mind, Jo was somehow to blame for not having supernaturally guessed her best friend’s deepest, darkest secret, which she was going to endless lengths to conceal. But Laura thought she should have worked it out, should have known this huge, all-consuming thing that had happened to her. Laura was dying of love, hopelessly entangled, obsessed – couldn’t Jo see that? Was she blind? Or just not the friend Laura thought she was?

      ‘Well,’ Amy blinked slowly, her huge eyes gazing at Jo with intensity. ‘That, you know, he’ll lose me. I’m going to finish with him if he doesn’t shape up, and I’ve told him that.’

      Laura looked round to see if Dan could hear any of this conversation. Chris and his brother were at the bar, talking to Hilary, but she couldn’t see Dan anywhere. She turned back and looked at Amy, and suddenly felt the old hot flush of guilt wash over her. Oh god, this is awful, she thought, through the waves of agony this conversation was inflicting on her, not least of which was a huge dose of shame and mortification at her own behaviour over the last few months.

      ‘Well, that’s great, Amy,’ said Jo kindly. ‘I hope it works out, if that’s what you want.’

      Laura flashed her a look as if to say, We hate Amy, what are you doing? But Jo only glanced at her briefly in return.

      ‘I really think it will,’ said Amy, smoothing down her hair and smiling. ‘I hope by then…well, I’m going to drop some gentle hints about what I’d like more than anything else for my thirtieth. If you know what I mean!’

      ‘Great,’ said Jo, taking a sip of her drink. ‘Well, we’ll just have to wait and see!’

      ‘What?’ Laura asked stupidly, thinking, What does she want? Some new shoes, probably, knowing Amy.

      ‘Oh Laura…!’ Amy looked at Laura as if she was a little alien, or a Mexican peasant unfamiliar with her ways, and Laura thought again to herself that girls who had been at school together many years ago and weren’t friends should not be allowed to mix socially. It disrupted the natural order of things. She and Amy should be people who blanked each other in the street, not people who had to pretend to be pally and share bowls of olives in a gastropub. This, she told herself, was why she hated Amy, of course. It was nothing to do with the fact she was going out with Dan.

      Amy delicately ate an olive, and licked one of her fingers. She smiled at Laura pityingly. ‘An engagement ring, of course.’

      A pip from the lemon slice in Laura’s gin and tonic wedged itself in her throat and she nearly choked. ‘Right,’ she gasped, determined not to lose control. ‘Right. Aaah. Aaaaah. Loo. Excuse me,’ and she got up and stumbled outside, to the clear fresh air of the May night. She stood there taking big gulps of air, one hand clutching her throat,