Page 29 of When We Were Friends
‘I’ve observed a lot of deaths,’ said Emily. ‘The hardest to watch were those where the relationship between the patient and next of kin was conflicted. The last time it happened, there was a middle-aged son. He was gay and his mother had never understood hischoices, as she put it. He did the minimum in her final days. Strict visiting hours only, sitting by the bed but not holding her hand. Then she went. Suddenly. A panicked voice rose out from that end of the ward – his. As white as the tiles on the ward’s floor, he stood shaking as I confirmed the worst. You’d expect to see a sense of release, but it hit him hard. I’ll never forget that howl – grief for the mum who’d loved him so much as a little boy, grief for what could have been in later life.’ She shook her head. ‘But however many times I’ve witnessed it during my career, I’ve never understood it with reference to my mother.’
Oh, Emily. Morgan wanted to hold her tight.
‘A few months before the prom, my world fell apart,’ continued Emily, in a taut voice. ‘Perhaps Hugo sensed the trauma.’
‘The funeral must have been devastating,’ said Morgan and she nodded.
Red blotches appeared on Emily’s cheeks and she fiddled with the cuff of her jumper’s sleeve, looking away. ‘No,’ she said, eventually, ‘it was about something else, just before that. I wanted to talk to you three, share what had happened. I cried myself to sleep every night, but we had exams and, of course, were all secretly hooking up with Hugo. I couldn’t tell you about the biggest thing that had ever happened in my life.’ She lifted her chin. ‘If you three didn’t guess I’d suffered a tragedy, when that sleazeball Hugo did, then what did that say about our friendship?’
A server came over to clear their plates. A tannoy announced their flight was boarding. Emily pushed herself up.
‘Was it something to do with your mum dying?’ asked Tiff.
‘You could say that,’ replied Emily in a flat voice. ‘You see, the funeral never really took place.’
17
MORGAN
On the aeroplane, they fell into their old familiar pairs: Morgan next to Paige, Emily and Tiff together. Minutes before boarding, Tiff went to one side and took a call from her agent before hurrying aboard the plane with the others. She looked ruffled, happy, all kinds of impulsive. Paige gazed out of the window, and after the buzz of taking off, Morgan pretended to read. Emily’s mother didn’t have a funeral? She must have had a direct cremation then. Morgan’s dad had bumped into Emily’s father one day, asked how everything was going. He’d started to cry. Over a pint, it spilled out: the guilt at not being there for his wife, not going to appointments at The Christie cancer hospital, guilt at Emily having to carry the burden, at their young son struggling without either parent. But he needed his driving job; money had always been tight, what with his wife’s social life. He’d spoken of the hours he spent trailing internet sites, looking for a miracle cure.
Despite her appearance, Emily’s mum’s spirit didn’t wane, she was still full of jokes, of celebrity gossip, of the latest fashions. She would have definitely wanted a fancy send-off.
Halfway through the flight, a child suffered a panic attack, due to turbulence. Tiff waved to the air steward. ‘My friend is a nurse, perhaps she can help.’ She pushed Emily’s shoulder, waking her up.
When they finally landed in Nice, despite her disgruntled expression, Emily had insisted on staying with the child until the paramedics boarded. Finally, at the rail station, the women got on the train to Fréjus. Morgan lapped up the sights: the fields of green, Baroque-style churches, winding roads, the palm trees, the ocean in the distance, cyclists with the breeze blowing their hair. Halfway into their journey they passed through Cannes. Tiff leant nearer to the window, as if expecting to see the film festival’s red carpet. Emily slept again and Paige stared straight ahead, deep in thought. Ninety minutes later, conversation was still at a minimum when they disembarked and got into a taxi. Tiff gave the driver her friend’s address. Sure enough, it wasn’t far, just on the outskirts of the town, following a drive passing medieval-looking buildings, terracotta stone cafés with tables outside and a shopping mall. Morgan wound down the window and inhaled. Even the air smelt different: of the vanilla plants winding up tree trunks along the boulevards, and the sweet aroma of pastries wafting out of a nearby boulangerie.
The villa itself was at the top of a hill and apparently a fifteen-minute stroll from the beach. Morgan clambered out of the car and stretched, basking in the Riviera, confronted by a pool that looked as if it had come straight out of glitzy movie. With all her heart, she wished that Olly were here. Wherever they’d gone on holiday throughout his youth, be the swimming option chlorinated or salty, be the beaches sandy or pebble-covered, Olly would be the first into the water and would always come up laughing. She wouldn’t put it past him to try to swim in Lake Geneva.
For the first time it hit her, what Hugo had missed. An evening came back to her from a couple of years previously. She and Olly had debated physics until late into the night, one of their favourite activities until he became more distant. How water might feel wet, but that was only our perception of it. If you submerged your hand in a bowl of water, and kept it there, the sensation was different to that wetness. This led to a longer discussion about how we never really touch anything, because a human body’s electrons repel those of other objects. This theory blew Olly’s mind but Morgan explained; she read physics books for enjoyment, her parents had never been able to understand. She told him when he lay in bed at night, so comfy, when he felt that dip in the middle of the mattress, actually his body wasn’t touching the bed at all. These chats were some of Morgan’s fondest memories, the two of them swept up in a mutual passion. It was after that particular evening Olly thought seriously about studying physics at university.
Hugo had never even seen his son’s first smile as a baby, the genuine one, not due to wind. He’d not been clutched by Olly’s little hand on the walk to primary school, not watched his serious, oh-so-determined boy deliver his shepherd lines in the nativity show, with a tea towel on his head. Hugo had never wielded that parental power of a hug solving every problem, nor fought him for the last slice of pizza. Most of all, he’d missed the satisfaction of helping his bawling, purple-faced baby grow into a caring, hardworking, intelligent young man who knew his own mind, knew right from wrong. A son to be proud of.
Morgan took in the villa’s whitewashed walls, the cream shutters, the terracotta roof tiles. Birds of prey flew overhead. Emily might know what they were called. The view, across from the pool, mesmerised Morgan. Down to the right was the sandiest beach that curved and disappeared into the distance. To the left, far away, stood the dusty mountain range between Fréjus and Cannes, covered in green vegetation. Back in Manchester, if she squinted through the back window of an upstairs bedroom, she could just spot the tops of the Peak District.
Tonight, they’d stay in and make omelettes. Morgan loved the artless decor, with understated white walls and chunky wooden furniture, and the watercolour of a field of lavender. The wash basin in her and Paige’s room was old-school, with a large jug by the side. The tub in the bathroom was freestanding. The huge bed she and Paige would share was the biggest she’d ever seen.
Tiff poured four glasses of red wine and toasted Belle for her generosity in her absence and then sat down next to Emily, on the natural-linen-look sofa. Morgan and Paige made themselves comfortable on armchairs on the other side of the rustic, oak coffee table. They talked about Hugo and Sylvie, agreeing to visit the address Mlle Vachon had given them first thing tomorrow.
Tiff hadn’t been able to stop fidgeting with her sparkly bangles. ‘I’m sorry about things with your mum, Emily,’ she blurted out. ‘My parents have been… challenging, but I don’t hate them. I used to think I did at school, and sometimes I wonder what career I’d have followed, given the chance to follow my own instincts… but they both had good intentions.’
Emily put down her untouched wine. ‘Well, I’ve told you three how Hugo hooked me in, saying his dad was also ill. How did he succeed with you three?’
Paige remained silent. Tiff ran her finger around the rim of her glass.
‘He said I was different from other girls, chatting for hours without a hint of flirting,’ said Morgan quietly. ‘He liked things simple – I sensed his life was very complicated. I used to worry there was something wrong with me, not raving about boys the way other girls did, more interested in maths than hot guys. I believed I’d never find a relationship, what with me finding clothes and make-up boring. I could never act ditzy around the opposite sex like Jasmine and her friends did. But then Hugo seemed to like me for just being me.’
‘We did too,’ Emily, in a measured tone. ‘Or didn’t that count?’
Paige glared at Emily.
‘Of course it did. But no boy ever had. Hugo said he got sick of the attention he got and that I was a refreshing change.’
Tiff frowned. ‘But that’s why he used to hate us: because we didn’t pander to him like everyone else.’
‘I didn’t take his shit at first,’ said Morgan. ‘I said it didn’t make sense. But he said the attention had become like a drug, he didn’t like it but couldn’t get enough.’ She shook his head. ‘What a naïve fool I was. You only had to look at him at the prom after he’d given his little speech. When all the girls flocked around him saying sorry, they should have voted him prom king after all – he looked as if he’d landed the Sovereign Grant.’ Morgan leant forwards, put her elbows on her knees and rested her chin in her hands. ‘Then the sex stuff… I… I was scared I’d never lose my virginity – that no man would ever want to sleep with me and I’d end up as some lonely old bat with nothing in my life apart from books, biscuits and cats.’
Although now that didn’t actually sound too bad.
