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‘Not really. Not like I could ask after her friends, is it? I don’t even know their names. And I suppose she couldn’t ask about mine.’ I haven’t seen any of my friends since Abi went missing, if you don’t count the strained one-off visits to see the new baby, visits I cut short to spare them their palpable discomfort.
‘How’s the salon going?’ Matt asks.
‘Oh, her dad’s really pleased with the new business she’s bringing in with the nail bar and the sunbed.’
Matt smiles. ‘That’s great.’
‘She said I should come in some time. She’ll give me a discount. Don’t know why she said that, she always gives me a discount. A good cut and colour would give me a lift, she said, which is clearly code for you look like crap. No offence, I almost replied.’
Matt doesn’t reply. It’s possible I’m boring him, butc’est la vie.
‘Neil’s working all the hours apparently,’ I go on, boring myself now. ‘Bella said she never sees him anymore. Apparently he got tons of work through Johnnie, and she reckons he’ll soon be able to take three months off and work on their house for a change.’ The last phrase I put in invisible quotation marks in imitation of the passive aggression in Bella’s tone.
‘Bella’ll be happy with that,’ Matt replies flatly. ‘And Neil’ll do a great job.’
I nod, feeling thwarted.
‘She’d had her nails done,’ I add. ‘Some new way of doing them apparently. She was pretty serious about it.’
Matt gives me a look and I feel shitty. I never used to be like this. And I did admire them, Bella’s nails.
‘They’re gorgeous,’ I told her, though without taking her hand in mine as I would once have done.
‘Come in,’ she said. ‘I’ll get Courtney to do yours.’
I smiled, said I would. Definitely. Soon.
‘She’d had some false eyelashes put in too,’ I tell Matt now, unable to help myself, wickedness going neck and neck with the self-hate.
‘Yeah?’
He can’t possibly be interested, but I continue anyway. ‘I asked if she’d had them stitched in and she thought that was hilarious. They glue them in apparently. She asked me if I liked them.’
‘And did you?’
I shrug. ‘I mean, she didn’t look bad or anything.’
I’m trying to steer away from saying something disloyal, I am, but I can feel myself driving towards it at top speed and I’ve lost control of the car. Bella can’t look bad is the truth of it, and yes, maybe I am a little jealous. She is so symmetrical, with full lips and dark hair, thick sculpted brows and beautiful, almost turquoise eyes that, I think, come from some Burmese ancestry on her mother’s side. The amplification of the fake eyelashes had taken her expression into the realms of a cartoon. She looked astonished. I felt vaguely trippy just looking at her.
‘I think it would be rude not to at least show our face at the Lovegoods,’ Matt is saying now, changing – or returning to – the subject.
‘Well we wouldn’t want to be rude, would we?’
My sarcasm scratches like nails down a blackboard. Even I wince. But Matt perseveres. ‘It’d be interesting to see their kitchen, wouldn’t it? Apparently the lighting alone cost six grand.’
‘Six thousand pounds? Gosh. We can’t miss out on seeing that.’
He frowns, his head cocked to one side. ‘Ave. Come on.’
I give the merest nod. More than anything, I want him to stop talking. ‘Let me think about it, all right?’
‘Sure. You can always say you have to put Fred to bed if you want to leave.’
‘I said I’d think about it.’
‘OK. Sorry. Just let me know.’ He crosses the kitchen, walking stiffly in his cycling shoes. He grips the door and waits. I can’t look at him.
It is hope that will kill us in the end.
