Anna, Harriet and I went off to university in September to Oxford, London and Cambridge respectively and for a few years we still met up occasionally in the holidays to exchange news and brag about boyfriends and engagements. Sometimes we even wrote letters to each other; after all, these were the days before social media, when phone calls in chilly hallways at home were monitored for both cost and content.
Beautiful Anna eventually qualified as a doctor, married Rupert, an eminent surgeon several years her senior, and had two sons. Rupert might have been brilliant and absolutely charming, but he was one of the least practical people I had ever known. Changing the loo paper and finding the end of a roll of clingfilm were completely outside his comfort zone; however, it was somehow impossible to exclaim ‘it’s not brain surgery’ to him, because that was actually his specialism.
Clever Harriet became an English professor specialising in nineteenth-century poets, and later in life married Bruce, another academic who was handsome and funny, stood out from all the dull scholars and was at the same time inherently untrustworthy. Like one of those adorable red-and-white-spotted mushrooms in children’s book illustrations. He was attractive but poisonous.
At nearly forty, Harriet produced twin daughters, an event which rocked Bruce’s idea of how his life should be. Their holidays were still long but became restricted by school term dates and the girls’ activities. Once they moved to York our paths had not crossed very much. And then after seventeen years of marriage, he had upped and left with one of his researchers.
I married Frederick (always Frederick, never Fred or Freddy although since our divorce I always thought of him as Fred just to be ornery), an accountant, had a son and worked as an analyst for a government department, studying documents and compiling data, gradually rising through the ranks until I became a manager of my own team. So, we all achieved a level of success.
In the first few years on the rare occasions when we met up, the three of us had been keen to emphasise our impossible workloads, complain about our bosses and exchange sketchy details we knew of other girls with whom we had been at school. But gradually, as often happens, we drifted even further apart and the memory of that summer and that friendship faded. There were other things to occupy our time, new people and experiences on which to focus.
There was still news over the years, mostly in the form of Christmas newsletters about how terrific everything was, how clever our children were. Making even the most unimportant triumph sound significant.
There were marriages, the arrival of five children between us and then further down the line our respective divorces (Harriet’s and mine; both due to our husband’s tediously similar infidelities.) Anna and Rupert remained married and apparently devoted. After a few years of house moves and then Christmas cards returned as undeliverable, we lost touch completely, despite the bond between us of our school days which we had sworn would be unbreakable.
And then came the internet and, in the year 2000, came Friends Reunited. By modern standards this was a fairly straightforward search engine which apparently had been designed precisely so that people like us could reconnect with school chums or lost lovers. This was then superseded by Facebook and other clever things, and at last people could be found without resorting to private detectives. And eventually, that’s what we did.
* * *
I’m sure that for several years, the three of us must have scrutinised each other’s Facebook pages, the photographs and announcements of house moves and holidays. Christmas sweaters and family snapshots in front of the tree. All three of us probably marvelling at how time had changed us, finding out what we had all been doing in the intervening years, wondering about each other. Perhaps being too uncertain to make proper contact.
At last, out of the blue, Anna made the first move and the three of us met up for the first time in decades one afternoon in December. We were all retired by then and surprisingly enough, we found we were living within a fifteen-mile radius of each other despite various house moves and job changes over the years.
Anna had worked in Scotland for a while, Harriet had lived in Harrogate before returning to live near her family after her divorce, and I’d spent most of my working life in Birmingham.
We met at a café in Worcester we had frequented when we were at school, where we were going to have a proper old-fashioned afternoon tea. It was somehow familiar but at the same time completely different. The practical Formica tables and metal chairs had been replaced with a décor heavy with nostalgia and almost Edwardian cuteness. It wasn’t just a café any longer but an old-fashioned tearoom, where the walls were pretty with William Morris wallpaper, the tables had embroidered cloths and the waitresses wore black dresses and white aprons.
It really did feel like a celebration. With my usual inability to be late for anything, I arrived first and sat waiting, rather nervously. Could we still be friends after all this time? Was there anything left to share? Would Harriet still have that terrible, dirty laugh? Had Anna succumbed to cosmetic surgery as she had always vowed to do once she reached middle age? Back in the days of our innocent teens, all of us agreed that to be thirty or forty was both awful and unimaginable.
Outside, the rain lashed against the windows and inside, the panes were running with condensation. People came in through the doors, shaking umbrellas and grumbling about the weather. Exclaiming with pleasure about the warmth of the room from the wood burner in the corner, admiring the eclectic mix of old-fashioned china cups and saucers on the tables.
I moved my cutlery about and fidgeted in my chair, glancing across at the door every time someone came in.
Then a woman in a red raincoat stood there, looking around the room, her spectacles smeared with rain, closely followed by another slim woman in a tightly belted green coat, who was practically tripping on her heels. They stopped to apologise to each other and then gave cries of amazement and carefully hugged each other.
It was Harriet and Anna of course, chattering away like the old friends they had been, while I sat at the table and worried that they wouldn’t recognise me. I didn’t think I would be able to eat anything even if the loaded cake stands on other tables looked so inviting.
At last, they turned and saw me and I stood up and waved across the room.
‘Lizzie!’ one of then exclaimed.
It took me a few seconds, but then, with a joyful sigh I realised it really was them and I was not forgotten.
‘Anna! Harriet!’
We hugged and stood blocking the path of a little waitress while we rocked back and forth, finally realising that we really should get out of her way.
‘It’s been years!’ Anna said, pushing her smooth grey bob behind her ears. ‘Years and years!’
‘Twenty-seven,’ Harriet said, cleaning her glasses on a tissue. ‘I was working it out on the way. We haven’t all met up since Alison’s dad’s funeral. Remember?’
‘It’s been too long,’ I said, feeling as though I might burst with happiness. ‘I don’t know where the time has gone.’
‘Isn’t it awful?’ Anna agreed. ‘One minute I am twelve, standing outside Miss Heatherton’s study door waiting to be told off, the next I’m sixty-four and retired.’
‘Oh don’t,’ Harriet groaned. ‘Miss Heatherton! I haven’t thought about her in years. How can we be this old? I thought it would take much longer to get here. And yet our children are all grown up now and out in the world.’
‘My son is forty next year,’ I said, ‘I can’t believe it. His relationship broke up a couple of months ago. He never did get married but his ex had two lovely daughters, who have almost been like grandchildren.’
