‘OK. Large and black, I think, for me.’
‘No problem. And, Claude, can I get you another coffee?’ Lily asked.
He looked at his watch. ‘Ah, it eez almost twelve – midi – oui? Per’aps an apéritif?’
‘A drink? Now?’ Lily said.
‘Go on then,’ Emily interrupted. ‘What do you recommend?’
16
‘Pull over!’ Emily cried, grabbing at Lily’s arm as she drove.
Her tone was so urgent that Lily did as she was asked without question, bumping slightly up a grass verge near an old stone cottage. The minute the car came to a halt, Emily scrambled out and vomited copiously into the undergrowth.
An old man came out of the front door of the cottage and stared at the car in confusion. Lily couldn’t see his expression from where she sat and hoped that meant he couldn’t see the stream of orange-flecked liquid lurching out of her friend’s mouth and was simply wondering why a car was parked close to his drive.
‘Sorry,’ Emily slurred, climbing back into the car, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
‘Are you all right?’ Lily said, making a face.
‘Not sure,’ her friend replied, belching slightly into her balled fist. ‘What was that drink? Eighty per cent proof or something?’
‘To be fair,’ Lily said, ‘you did have four of them.’
‘But it tasted like strawberry,’ Emily said. ‘I kind of… I don’t know. Forgot.’
Looking at her dishevelled friend, Lily couldn’t be angry. Although a few minutes ago she’d been close.
Emily wasn’t an aggressive drunk, she wasn’t one of those people who started picking arguments the minute she was a couple of units down. Instead, she simply got louder, drink by drink. And, even by her standards, she’d excelled herself this afternoon.
Things had started fairly innocuously. Once it was clear that Emily was getting a little tipsy, Lily had gone into the bar and ordered some pizza to soak up the alcohol.
‘Probably best stop now,’ she’d told her friend quietly when she’d asked her for a top up.
‘Ah come on, you only live once,’ Emily had said. ‘Plus, I’m on holiday!’ And she’d filled her little shot glass to the brim.
‘So, you two have been friends for many years?’ Claude had asked, his eyebrows raised slightly in amusement as Emily had tried unsuccessfully to spear a piece of pizza with her fork. ‘You – how you say – go back to the childhood?’
‘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.
‘Hi, Ben.’
‘Hi.’
A silence.
‘I just wanted to call to say… well, I wondered how you were, I suppose.’ Her whole body suddenly ached for him; she wanted his arms around her, wanted him to be on her side again. She sniffed, determined not to cry.
‘I’m OK. Well, not really OK. You know how it is.’
A silence.
‘I do. Look, Ben, I am sorry. I really am. I never… it was never in my plan to leave you, to break us up. But…’
‘I know. But you did leave.’
‘I know, but I suppose I could say… you let me?’
His voice became harder, more guarded. ‘So you’re not calling to say you’re coming home.’
‘No. I’m just… I suppose I just miss you, that’s all.’
The line went dead.
She wished she’d never called. Sipping the last of the tea, she tried to close her eyes, to focus her thoughts on something else. But it was almost impossible.
Half an hour later, the lump on the bed began to groan.
‘Coffee?’ Lily asked.
The lump made a sound that seemed a bit like a yes, so Lily tore open a small stick of instant coffee and poured it into a mug. Then, she boiled the little kettle, filled it and added two sugars for good measure.
She walked to the side of the bed, sat on it, and placed the coffee on the bedside table. ‘Here you go,’ she said, looking at Emily’s ashen face. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Bloody awful.’
‘Physically? Or…?’
‘Oh god. Physically,’ Emily said, gingerly sitting herself up. Then, ‘Hang on. I didn’t… the table… the café. I – my singing. Oh my god, I’m so sorry.’
Lily smiled gently and passed her the mug. Clutching it, Emily carefully blew steam from the top before sipping it and placing it back on the bedside cabinet.
Then: ‘Emily, what’s wrong?’ Lily asked.
‘It’s a bit hot is all. I’ll drink it in a minute. Unless you could put a splash of water in…’
‘Not wrong with the coffee! What’s wrong? With you?’