‘Yes,’ Lily had said, smiling. ‘We met at school actually.’
‘But that is wonderful,’ Claude had said. ‘To know someone for so many years and to still be close.’
Emily had glanced up when Lily had mentioned school, and looked wistful. ‘So many years,’ she’d said. ‘So many memories.’
They’d fallen silent for a moment, but then Emily had continued. ‘Hey do you remember Raquel’s? That club we used to go to when we were – what – eighteen or something?’
‘God, yes,’ Lily had said. The venue had been quirky and niche, and they’d often gone along to its eighties-night midweek – purely in an ironic way, of course - and also because that was the night cocktails were two for one.
‘Do you remember that night we danced to “Fame”?’ Emily had said, referring to the famous eighties hit.. ‘You know – it goes like this!’ She’d then started to belt out the lyrics.
A couple at the next table had turned to look, either amused or annoyed.
‘Ha, oh yes,’ Lily had said, remembering their late teens when they’d spun around the dance floor, not caring who was watching or how completely insane they looked. ‘I’m just glad they didn’t have phone cameras in those days.’
But Emily hadn’t finished.
She’d continued to sing, in a loud, off-key voice, still apparently lost in the moment. Then, to Lily’s horror, she’d stood up, knocking her chair back, and tried to clamber onto the table.
‘Emily! What are you doing?’ she’d said, as Claude had watched, amused.
But Emily hadn’t listened. She’d managed to get both feet on the table and had straightened up, her arms flung asunder. She’d been just about to belt out another line, when a table leg had given way and, with an enormous crash, everything on its surface – the cutlery and plates and glasses and forty-four-year-old woman – had smashed onto the paving stones below.
After the crash, Lily had kept her head down as much as possible, but she’d known without doubt that all eyes in the market square, at the café, probably in the shops and residential apartments above, were looking as she’d gathered her friend up. She’d helped her into a chair, handed money to Claude so he could pay for the food and the table and the embarrassment, then – once she’d ascertained Emily was more or less in one piece – had dragged her to the car.
Lily was relieved, when they finally arrived at La Petite Maison, that Chloé had gone out. After parking outside, she opened the front door and then helped a staggering, bruised and slightly more sober Emily into the house and up the stairs to their shared bedroom.
Now, sitting opposite her, drinking a mediocre tea that she’d made using the travel kettle and teabag from the room, Lily looked at her friend’s face as she slept. They’d been out time and time again over the years, and she’d seen her in pretty much every state from sober to blind drunk to hungover and regretful.
Maybe some of her memories had faded with time. Perhaps things they’d done had seemed funnier when they were both drunk. But she didn’t think she’d ever seen Emily like this. Drunk, yes. Vomiting, definitely. But never at midday, in a place where nobody else was putting away the booze. Never like this.
‘What’s wrong, Em?’ she said quietly, knowing her friend wouldn’t hear.
While she waited for Emily to sleep it off, Lily sat by the window, listening to her snores and scrolling through her mobile phone, as if somewhere in that tiny portal to the entire world she could find an answer to explain why Emily’s behaviour today – and, when she thought about it, since she’d arrived – had been… well, different.
But that was the problem, she realised. Usually, when things went wrong, it would be Emily whose advice she’d seek out. Or Ben’s. Ben had always been there to listen to her.
The only other person she’d usually speak to was Mum. I’d give my right arm, she thought, for one more phone call with you, Mum.
Looking out of the window at the view with its myriad greens and yellows, dotted with ramshackle stone houses and topped with a blue sky, she knew she was exactly where she wanted to be. The problem was she felt utterly alone.
With her friend unconscious and unable to tell her whether or not this was a Bad Idea, she decided to ring Ben.
‘Hello? Lily?’
It was the first time they’d spoken properly since she’d left. Text messages and voice notes had passed between them. But she hadn’t directly heard his voice, or directly responded to it. It felt strangely intimate.