Page 7 of Between Us

Suede’s ‘Trash’was blaring from a distant zone as they rolled and hefted their luggage into an incredible vaulted hallway. It was decorated with busts of statues on plinths, and a huge stone vase, the size of a small child, held an explosive flower display of white lilies, lime-green hydrangeas, gladioli and snapdragons: the sort you got in hotel lobbies. They gazed up the carved wooden balustrades of the broad stairway, lit by a stained-glass window.

‘Those are stairs you descend down for dinner,’ Gina said, as they all oohed and aahed.

‘And you can. Dinner at seven p.m. With canapes in the drawing room first,’ Joe said, ushering them onwards. The deal was, the men cooked tonight, the women tomorrow. It was rather cheesy to split the teams this way, but no one could think of a different rationale.

They found Dev and Anita on stools at the bar. The room was done out with a crystal chandelier, noisy flock wallpaper and a neon sign on the wall that readIT’S MIDDAY SOMEWHERE. It also had a music system, evidently.

Dev jumped down at sight of them. ‘GIRLS! Have you seen! We’ve got fuckin’ HENS!’ he shouted, doing fist pulls in time with crotch thrusts to the song, facial expression set in an underbite.

‘Are you planning on having sex with them?’ Roisin said.

Dev continued his gyrations, shouting, ‘ALSO DUCKS!’ while doing a perturbing ass-slapping mime.

His fiancée, Anita, abandoned what looked like a fishbowl G&T with juniper berries and located the stereo, reducing Suede to a level where they could communicate.

‘WHADDYATHINK?’ Dev said, in the new quiet, throwing his arms wide. ‘Some Bruce Wayne wild shit, no?!’

‘Awful, dismal, shabby,’ Meredith said. ‘Very threadbare, isn’t it?’

‘Ask for your money back,’ Gina agreed. ‘So dark! Needs some of those Velux skylights putting in.’

‘Honestly, Dev,’ Roisin said, free to be sincere now the British part was covered, ‘out of this world.We don’t deserve you, or this.’

‘No one else I’d rather have here.’ He beamed, gathering them all at once in large arms. Anita joined in.

‘Wait until you see how many dresses I’ve brought,’ she said, voice muffled.

‘We practically needed a trailer,’ Dev said.

The voluptuous Anita was a make-up artist – speciality, shades for Asian skin tones – with a huge Instagram following; she and Dev had met exchanging DMs.

The group loved Anita, having got off to a shaky start when she turned up post-fame and pre-rehab. It was a period when they were at maximum suspicion of New Dev Pals and actively trying to rid him of druggy parasites. Being a man who made friends with such ease and openness was terrible for an addict with a recognisable face.

Thus, Dev’s old guard were initially near certain she was dating the infamous Dev Doshi for what the kids calledclout. In fact, she was solid gold and good for him – someone asebullient as Dev, without the hyperactive edge. She’d stuck by him getting clean and kept him out of places where he might meet unhelpful influences.

They were living in rented digs while they had the family house of their dreams built in Alderley Edge.

When Dev said he’d proposed a few months back, they were able to offer a full-throated and wholehearted HOORAH.

‘Oh my life! And finally, it’s the gentleman con artist, Mr Staff WiFi!’ Joe said, having lifted a swag of drape to peer out of the window.

4

‘Staff WiFi’ was one of Joe’s more recent nicknames for Matt. Whenever they were in a venue with crap coverage on public WiFi, Matt would be merrily messaging away. When asked how come it was possible, he would shrugoh, I got the password for staff WiFi,doing a hand flap in the direction of front of house.

There was absolutely no reason why a customer who wanted the staff password should get it, other than the fact the customer looked like a cowboy as imagined byCosmopolitan.

They clustered around the window to see Matt striding up the hill towards them in a Crombie coat, large boots with yellow laces (half unlaced), a canvas duffle bag slung over his shoulder. He’d have a look of a man out of time, who’d clambered through a torn rift in space, apart from the fact he had a pair of headphones clamped round his ears.

‘Why’s he on foot?’ Meredith said.

‘Look at this absolute plum,’ Joe chortled. ‘Like he’s auditioning for the nextDoctor Who.’

‘He was getting an airport taxi. He’s been in Portugal with …’ Roisin, in vain, ransacked her mind for the name. ‘Cassie?’ She held her hands out in hopeful prayer, teeth gritted.

‘Hah, Cassie is LONG gone,’ Meredith snorted. ‘You’resoApril-May.’ She tutted. ‘This was … does it begin with an L …’

The trouble was they didn’t file Matt’s glamorous girl pals by names so much as salient detail for the post-fact analysis.

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