Private Lives полностью

‘I’ll remember that when I return the favour,’ Elizabeth replies, picking a bit of leaf out of Bry’s dark hair. ‘I’ve just been over to yours. Ash and Alba are coming over in a bit. The meeting finished earlier than I thought, so I had a few minutes to make a fish pie.’

Bry thinks about the can of baked beans she’d planned for Alba’s supper and the bread she suddenly remembers she didn’t buy, and feels simultaneously grateful to Elizabeth and ashamed of her own forgetfulness. But it doesn’t last long because Clemmie takes Bry’s sticky hand in her own and says, ‘Yay! Baby Alba is coming for supper!’ and Elizabeth and Bry smile at each other and say at the same time, ‘Don’t call her Baby Alba!’ before they head into the familiar warmth of Number 10 Saint’s Road.

Summer is already in full swing in Elizabeth and Jack’s garden. Max and Charlie have set up their cricket stumps at the end of the lawn, their gloves, pads and bat left on the grass waiting for their return from school. Clemmie’s pink paddling pool sits a strategic distance away at the other end, half full of water. The lawn, recently mown, is emerald, and the apple and pear trees at the bottom of the garden next to the wall that leads to the woods beyond are in full leaf. Max and Charlie will be home soon; the kids always eat together at 5 p.m., so Clemmie skips upstairs to change out of her uniform, and Elizabeth steps out of the kitchen French doors and gestures to Bry to join her at the garden table in front of the knobbled flint wall that is covered in creeping jasmine.

‘I know it’s early, but it’s your husband’s fault . . .’ She hands Bry a glass of the Sancerre.

‘He is such a bad influence,’ Bry agrees.

Bry closes her eyes, feeling the July sun pour over her skin like warm cream while Elizabeth starts to tell Bry about her ‘meeting from hell’, and Bry thinks, Yes, yes, this is what the long winter wait was for, these simple, beautiful pleasures.

For Bry, being with Elizabeth is the easiest, most natural thing in the world. But it hasn’t always been this way. When they’d first met at university, Elizabeth had been dating a friend of Bry’s called Adam. No one in Bry’s friendship group understood why laid-back, crumpled Adam was dating this tall, statuesque blonde who looked Norwegian but was actually from Essex. She was organised, cynical, and hated recreational drugs and excessive drinking, which made her – in Bry’s misted view – an uptight pain in the arse.

It wasn’t until Adam dumped her and Bry heard Elizabeth crying in the next-door cubicle in the pub toilets (I’m only upset because he got there first ) that Bry started to like her. She passed her loo roll under the cubicle door and after that they’d got steadily and thoroughly pissed together. It revolutionised Bry’s life. She discovered in Elizabeth a relationship where there was no room for competition, for comparisons or envy, simply because they were so different. They weren’t exactly chalk and cheese; more like cheese and pineapple – a weird, unexpected pairing that just worked. She’d never met someone her own age who was like Elizabeth: she was into politics, wasn’t ashamed to say she wanted to make money, but she laughed easily and cared more about others than anyone Bry had ever met. Whereas Bry wanted to be an artist, was in love with all things bohemian and hated politics. Bry wore a hemp scarf wrapped around her head and Elizabeth carried a little black handbag, which held her phone, a book, a fold-up hairbrush and her perfectly organised wallet. Elizabeth kept all her receipts; Bry stored fivers in her bra. Bry held her hands in the air, swaying her whole body when she danced, while Elizabeth sidestepped, buttocks clenched hard as a walnut, and kept a close eye on her watch. It was as if each was discovering a fascinating new country in the other, a place they’d never choose to live but somewhere they knew they could always seek refuge when their own world was shaking.

‘Bry, you’re not even listening to me!’

Bry opens her eyes. Elizabeth has her phone in front of her and is pecking away at her calendar with one finger.

‘So obviously, it’s July already, and with the fete, barbecue, Clemmie’s birthday and end-of-term stuff, there aren’t any free weekends left. So how about we organise your birthday camping trip early August – say, the weekend of the third?’

Bry had suggested way back in the safety of February that perhaps a camping weekend would be the best way to celebrate the fucking appalling fact that she was turning forty, and Elizabeth, of course, hasn’t forgotten. Bry flushes, hot and uncomfortable.

‘Can we talk about it another time?’ she groans. ‘Prefer- ably never.’

Elizabeth puts her phone down, keeps her blue eyes on her friend as she takes a sip of wine, and says, ‘Look, Bry, I know you won’t believe me, but you’re actually in very good shape for forty.’