I’ll visit you, he said quietly. I have to go, all right?
Sure.
Sorry.
Go ahead, I said. Live your life.
He hung up.
*
The next day, our friend Marianne came back from Brooklyn and told us about all the celebrities she had met. She showed us photographs on her phone over coffee: Brooklyn Bridge, Coney Island, Marianne herself smiling with a blurry man who I privately did not believe was actually Bradley Cooper. Wow, Philip said. Cool, I agreed. Bobbi licked the back of her teaspoon and said nothing.
I was happy to see Marianne again, happy to listen to her problems as if my own life was going exactly how it always went. I asked about her boyfriend Andrew, how he liked his new job, whatever happened with his ex messaging him on Facebook. I boasted to her about Philip’s internship in the agency, how he was going to become a predatory literary agent and make millions, and I could see I was pleasing him. It’s better than the arms trade, he said. Bobbi snorted. Jesus, Philip, is that your gold standard? she said. At least I’m not selling arms?
At this point the conversation slipped away from me. Before I could direct another question toward Marianne, Philip started to ask us about étables. Nick and Melissa were still over there, they weren’t coming back for another two weeks. Bobbi told him we’d had ‘fun’。
Any luck with Nick yet? he asked me.
I stared at him. To Marianne he added: Frances is having an affair with a married man.
No I’m not, I said.
Philip is joking, said Bobbi.
Famous Nick? Marianne said. I want to hear about him.
We’re friends, I said.
But he definitely has a crush, said Philip.
Frances, you temptress, said Marianne. Isn’t he married?
Blissfully, I said.
To change the subject, Bobbi mentioned something about wanting to move out and find an apartment closer to town. Marianne said there was an accommodation crisis, she said she’d heard about it on the news.
And they won’t take students, Marianne said. I’m serious, look at the listings.
You’re moving out? said Philip.
It shouldn’t be legal to say No Students, Marianne said. It’s discrimination.
Where are you looking? I asked. You know we’ll be letting the second bedroom in my place.
Bobbi looked at me and then let out a little laugh.
We could be flatmates, she said. How much?
I’ll talk to my dad, I said.
I hadn’t spoken to my father since I’d visited his house. When I called him after coffee that evening, he answered, sounding relatively sober. I tried to repress the image of the mayonnaise jar, the noise of bluebottles hammering themselves against glass. I wanted to be speaking to someone who lived in a clean house, or someone who was only a voice, whose life I didn’t have to know about. On the phone we talked about the apartment’s second bedroom. He told me his brother had some viewings arranged and I explained that Bobbi was looking for a place.
Who’s this? he said. Who’s Bobbi?
You know Bobbi. We were in school together.
Your friend, is it? Which friend now?
Well, I really only had one friend, I said.
I thought you’d want another girl living with you.
Bobbi is a girl.
Oh, the Lynch girl, is it? he said.
Bobbi’s surname was actually Connolly, but her mother’s name was Lynch, so I let that one go. He said his brother could give her the room for six fifty a month, a price Bobbi’s father was willing to pay. He wants me to have somewhere quiet to study, she said. Little does he know.
The next day her father drove her over in his jeep with all her belongings. She had brought some bedlinen and a yellow anglepoise, and also three boxes of books. When we unloaded the car, her father drove off again and I helped Bobbi to dress the bed. She started sticking some postcards and photographs onto the wall while I put the pillows into cases. She put up a photograph of the two of us in our school uniforms, sitting on the basketball court. We had long tartan skirts on and ugly, dimpled shoes, but we were laughing. We looked at it together, our two little faces peering back at us like ancestors, or perhaps our own children.
*
Term didn’t start up for another week, and in the meantime Bobbi bought a red ukulele and took to lying on the couch playing ‘Boots of Spanish Leather’ while I cooked dinner. She made herself at home by moving items of furniture around while I was out for the day and sticking magazine cut-outs on the mirrors. She took a great interest in getting to know the neighbourhood. We stopped into the butcher’s one day for mince and Bobbi asked the guy behind the counter how his hand was. I had no idea what she was talking about, I didn’t even know she’d been in the place before, but I did notice the guy was wearing a blue cast on his wrist. Stop, he said. Needs surgery now and everything. He was shovelling red meat into a plastic bag. Oh no, said Bobbi. When will that be? He told her Christmas. Fucked if I’m getting a day off either, the guy said. You’d have to be across in Massey’s before you get a day off in this place. He handed her the bag of meat and added: in your coffin.