‘Oh, bits and bobs, you know. Sales, marketing. This and that.’
I sense that for some reason she’s being deliberately obscure, so I don’t ask any more. I notice that she doesn’t ask me about a partner, or children. Is that because she knows about me and Sam, or because she doesn’t want to talk about her own relationship situation? She seems edgy, as if her incessant questioning is a way of keeping the conversation on the track she wants it on. When she finally runs out of questions, silence falls, and I rack my brains for a new topic. Sophie looks down, fiddling with her glass, uncharacteristically uncertain.
‘It’s so good to see you, Louise,’ she says. ‘You know, you were really important to me. You were the one I could… talk to, I suppose. You seemed to properly care about me, not like some of the others.’
I am verging on speechless. Surely I was the one who had gained from our friendship at school, not her? She was my pass to the other world, the one who kept me from being Esther Harcourt. Looking back, I suppose I provided the uncritical, adoring acolyte she so desperately needed, but at the time I was so desperate to keep her that I never thought to wonder what was in it for her.
I start to reply, but she cuts in, as if already regretting what she’s just said. ‘Soooo… excited about the reunion?’ She smiles, giving the distinct impression that she is well aware that I only found out about it recently. How very Sophie. The conversation has swung so swiftly back onto the regular track that I wonder if I imagined that lowering of her guard.
‘Yes, yes. Should be great,’ I reply. ‘Can’t wait.’
‘You do know Sam’s going? I heard about you two, such a shame.’ So she does know. Does she genuinely think it’s a shame? I was never entirely sure whether anything had happened between her and Sam when we were at school, and a ridiculous teenage part of me pulses with jealousy. She regards me soulfully from under her eyelashes, concern oozing from every pore. ‘Will it be a bit awkward, d’you think?’
‘No, it’ll be fine. It was very amicable,’ I say, as if reading from a script. I could call it My Life As I Want It To Be. Hearing his name from her lips, with the past draped heavy around me, makes the weight on my shoulders press down just that little bit harder. ‘How did you hear?’
‘Oh, you know how these things get around,’ she says. ‘I still see a few of the old gang – Matt, Claire. People talk. I think it was Matt who told me actually – he came to your wedding, didn’t he?’
He came alone, standing awkwardly around in his work suit, not knowing anyone. I remember Polly talking to him, saying afterwards that he was nice. I think she fancied him a bit. Before she was married, obviously.
What did he say to Sophie about Sam and me, I wonder? There’s nobody who knows the intimate details of our relationship. Nobody who knows how we used to spend whole weekends in bed, totally absorbed in each other, turning down invitations to see friends, being everything to each other.
‘You had a baby too, didn’t you?’
‘Yes,’ I say through gritted teeth. ‘We had a baby. Although he’s not a baby any more; he’s four now.’ I suddenly wish desperately that I was at home, peering in through the gap of Henry’s door to check if he’s asleep, going in to kiss him, to breathe in the sleeping scent of him.
‘Oh, sweet.’ She couldn’t be less interested, and anyway Henry is the last thing I want to be talking about with her.
‘What about Tim? Tim Weston?’ I ask, as if the name has just occurred to me. ‘Do you ever see him?’
Sophie looks at me sharply. ‘No, I’ve not seen him for years. Why do you ask?’
‘Oh, I noticed that he was listed on Facebook as going to the reunion and I know he was friends with Matt’s brother, so I thought…’ I tail off. As an introduction to the thing I want to talk to her about, it’s been a spectacular failure.
Sophie starts listing all the others that are going, filling me in on the lives of various people of whom I’ve heard nothing since I left school in 1989. There was no sixth form at Sharne Bay High, although even if there had been there was no way I would have stayed on for it, not after what happened. I went to sixth-form college in a neighbouring town to do my A levels, and after I left home for university, I never looked back. My parents moved to Manchester to be nearer my grandparents during my first year away, so I never spent any holidays in Norfolk and didn’t keep in touch with anyone, throwing myself determinedly if unenthusiastically into university life. By the time Sam and I got together, which was well after our university days, I had completely lost touch with everyone from school, and although I knew Sam saw Matt Lewis from time to time it was very rare and I never joined him.
Maria’s friend request sits in my stomach like a lump of undercooked pasta, preventing me from engaging fully in the conversation – not that it matters as I can barely get a word in. I have that shaky, breathless feeling you get when you know that there’s a huge conversational bomb upcoming, but the other person has no idea. I’ve got my finger in the pin of the grenade, but she can’t even see it.
Eventually there is a lull, so I seize the moment and launch in.
‘Sophie, there’s actually a reason I got in touch… something I need to talk to you about.’
‘Yes?’ she says cautiously, taking a sip of wine.
‘I got a rather… strange friend request on Facebook.’ I take a beat, wanting to give myself a few more seconds of normality. Once I say it, once I let someone else in to this… whatever it is, that’s it, game over. Things will never be the same. ‘It was from Maria Weston.’
I don’t think it’s my imagination that Sophie pales and her eyes widen for a millisecond, before she slips her mask smoothly back into place.
‘Oh, did you get that too?’ She laughs. ‘From the girl who drowned?’
So it’s not just me. There’s a certain comfort in that. But surely even Sophie can’t be so heartless as to be laughing about this. The only possible explanation is that she is faking it, pretending a nonchalance that you might feel about a girl with whom you had had nothing to do, a girl whose life never touched your own.
‘Yes, of course the girl who drowned.’ This comes out rather more forcefully than I intended, and Sophie looks taken aback, perhaps even a little frightened, although she hides it quickly.
‘Is that why you’re here?’ she says, laughing again. ‘It’s obviously a sick joke, probably from someone who’s going to the reunion. I bet everyone’s had the same request.’