‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have brought it up,’ she whispers in Cassie’s ear. ‘I am happy for you, Pudge. You know that, don’t you?’
Cassie smiles at her old nickname, and nods her head against Nicky’s shoulder. April called her Pudge since Cassie was a baby and Nicky was the only other person allowed to use it.
Cassie thinks about reminding Nicky that it was the sale of the Brixton flat – worth over eight times what April originally paid for it in the late eighties – that paid for everything, but she doesn’t have the energy.
April used to say that Cassie and Nicky, friends since they met at preschool, were more like sisters, which is why they could be so close but be mean to each other as well, because they knew, like sisters know, that they share an unshakeable bond. Cassie loved that idea, of having a sister, someone who she would always love, no matter how annoying they were. The sister relationship always seemed to Cassie to be one of the greatest of them all.
‘Oh, I just remembered.’ Nicky pulls away from Cassie. ‘I got an email from Marcus, about April’s anniversary weekend on the Isle of Wight.’
Cassie groans inwardly, and Nicky spots it immediately.
‘What, Cas? You don’t like the idea?’
‘No, it’s not that exactly. It’s just … I … I just want to spend time here, you know, with Jack.’
‘Well, Jack’s invited too, isn’t he?’
‘Of course, but … we just can’t commit right now, you know. We were thinking about going away maybe this year in July, just the two of us.’
‘Uh huh.’ Nicky nods, her eyes creasing in recognition of Cassie’s bullshit. ‘What’s this really about? The drama last year?’
Marcus had hosted the first-year anniversary of April’s death last July as well. It was the first time Jack and Marcus had met. Marcus had become uncharacteristically antagonistic with alcohol and grief and, somehow, Marcus and Jack had started arguing about an article they’d both read about how property developers contribute more to climate change than any other industry, which had led to Jack storming off in a rage and Cassie and Jack leaving earlier than planned. Marcus couldn’t remember any of it the next morning, but he’d sent an apologetic text a couple of days later.
‘Well, let me know, will you?’ Nicky asks. ‘I won’t go unless you do.’
The old, dependent mantra of their youth sounds ridiculous now. Cassie wishes Nicky wouldn’t use it any more – she should understand things have changed, that the rules are different – but Cassie nods anyway. She looks around the shed, slightly shy, and, changing the subject, says, ‘You do like it?’
Before Nicky can reply, from across the garden there’s a clatter of stainless steel as something heavy-sounding drops from the oven onto the kitchen tiles.
‘Bollocks!’ Jack shouts, and Cassie laughs quickly, grateful for the distraction.
She grabs Nicky’s arm, and steers them out of the shed. ‘I love him, but he’s absolutely shit in the kitchen.’
They decide that, with jumpers on, it’s warm enough in the spring sun to have lunch outside. Jack and Nicky set the outside table while Cassie tries to rescue the salmon fillets Jack dropped and makes a dressing for the salad.
She turns down the radio so she can hear Jack and Nicky talk as they lay silver cutlery and fill water glasses. They’re still learning how to relax with each other, trying to figure out the subtle alchemy in the relationship between old best friend and new husband. Nicky tells Jack about a recent date she went on, an attractive biology teacher she met online whose tongue seemed too big for his mouth. He kept spraying Nicky in fine fountains of spit when he spoke. Jack laughs, careful to strike the right balance between amusement and horror. Cassie’s heard the story before, of course, but she still laughs along from inside the kitchen.
Jonny, Jack and Cassie’s neighbour, is preceded by his half-blind Alsatian, Dennis, who trots around the corner of the red-brick cottage from the drive.
His tail wags as Cassie strokes his shaggy head; she’d love to get a dog, but Jack, being slightly allergic, isn’t at all keen.
Dennis turns away from Cassie at Jonny’s whistle, his eyes cloudy with cataracts, as Jonny follows Dennis around the corner of the cottage. Although they’ve only met twice before, both times in The Hare, Cassie’s never seen Jonny in anything other than shorts and a T-shirt. Today he’s in denim cut-offs.
Jack texted Jonny yesterday, inviting him to join them for lunch. He’d said Jonny must get lonely, on his own in the farm cottage; typical, thoughtful Jack.
Initially, Cassie was mildly irritated that Jack had extended Jonny an invite; she’d wanted the weekend to be about her best friend and husband getting to know each other a bit better. But she was pleased she’d managed to swallow her irritation. She wanted to try to be more empathetic like Jack, and, besides, she told herself, it’d be good for Jack to have a local friend, someone other than her to have a pint with after a stressful day at work.
Jonny hands Cassie a bottle of Prosecco as he kisses her cheeks, lifting his sunglasses off his face, using them to pin his sandy-coloured hair back from his forehead. It’s grown curlier since she last saw him a couple of weeks ago. He’s been growing it since he moved to Buscombe from Hackney four months ago, just a month after Cassie sold the Brixton flat and she and Jack moved down. Jonny jokingly said in the pub that he’s growing his hair as a symbol of freedom since quitting his job as a graphic designer and going freelance. Cassie wondered if it was also a sign of freedom from his wife, Lorna, but she doesn’t know him well enough to ask about her, not yet.
Cassie introduces Jonny and Nicky. They almost clash noses as he tries to kiss both her cheeks, while Nicky only offered one. Nicky laughs in girlish delight, and Cassie immediately recognises the way Nicky’s light-blue eyes slide over Jonny, and how Nicky starts fondling the ends of her long red hair between her slim fingers as he talks.
Jack slaps Jonny on the back as they shake hands and Nicky follows Cassie inside to help bring out glasses for the Prosecco. Cassie pretends not to notice as Nicky’s eyes slide over her reflection, checking her slim silhouette in the mirror as Cassie rifles through drawers trying to find the bottle opener.
‘I know I saw it earlier …’ she mutters, opening another drawer as Nicky picks up a photo of April in a silver frame from the sideboard. It’s Cassie’s favourite, the one where April’s wearing the peacock-blue headscarf Cassie bought her for her last birthday; it’s tied at the top of her head, like she’s a present to the world. April’s smiling hard at the camera, her eyes half moons, the sea a boiling mess of white foam fifty feet below. Just five months after the photo was taken Cassie and Marcus scattered April’s ashes into the sea from those same white cliffs. Cassie opens the same wrong cupboard twice before she finds the wine glasses. Nicky isn’t looking at the photo though, she’s looking at the frame.