Page 50 of When We Were Friends
Not long after, the women admitted defeat and gave in to tiredness. Morgan clambered into bed after Paige. She turned off the lights, calmer, warmer inside than she had been for a very long time. She glanced left. Reached out and tugged on Paige’s hair, then turned over and closed her eyes.
The bed remained still until slowly Paige turned around. She reached out and tugged Morgan’s hair back. Tears trickled onto Morgan’s pillow for all the right reasons.
27
MORGAN
Tuesday dawned with palm trees against a blue sky, sunrays sliding through their parakeet green fronds, exactly how Morgan had imagined the south of France. On the way to the airport, she wound down the taxi’s window and savoured the fragrance of vanilla one last time. They passed lines of slender, conical cypress trees. A teacher’s wage could bring her here again. Could going to university be a reality? Emily was considering changing her career. In some ways, Tiff was just at the beginning of hers and Paige was now trying to become a mother. None of her friends’ lives were static, they still had hopes, ambition. Why should Morgan’s be any different?
Friends.
Despite the early April afternoon chill, as they got off their second flight of the day, at Newquay, Cornwall fulfilled her fantasies as well with a violet and peach sunset meeting the sea, on the horizon. Ocean Activities Centre opened at nine o’clock tomorrow. They’d agreed to get there early. All being well, they’d be in London by teatime. Tiff had said for them to stay the night at hers, then the four of them could go up to Manchester the next morning by train. Tiff still had a few days to spend with her parents before filming started on her next show in the Isle of Wight next Wednesday. Olly would be back from Switzerland on Saturday and had sent Morgan several photos of the Large Hadron Collider. He’d briefly explained what he’d learned about energy particles. She’d re-read his messages several times, pride growing in her chest at how his knowledge outstripped hers. Missing someone wasn’t so bad if you knew they were having a good time. Thinking about her friends over the years, Morgan hoped tragedy hadn’t struck their lives. She’d worried about car accidents, job losses, bereavements. As it turned out, they’d not had it easy. She was glad she hadn’t known what they’d been going through during their estrangement.
Too tired to visit one of the local fish restaurants, they ate in the B&B. Paige spoke in monosyllables by the time their mains arrived. Morgan had hoped she’d be more like her old self after last night, the four of them having talked everything through. But still something worried her friend, she could see it. Paige used to get this look on her face ahead of exams, if the girls had a silly fallout, or if rumours said Warner Bros was cancellingThe West Wing. She’d worn that look, on and off, ever since Saturday when they’d met at Gatwick airport. Paige left most of her chips and pushed her plate away, excusing herself and heading to the Ladies.
‘Paige is on a downer,’ said Emily.
‘Perhaps it’s to do with her husband,’ said Morgan. ‘She’s not contacted him at all this week.’
‘Maybe talking to us about her problems getting pregnant has made her dwell on them,’ said Tiff.
‘I’ve got a cousin who couldn’t get pregnant. It destroyed her marriage, they were both desperate to have kids. It must be devastating.’
‘We should try to cheer her up,’ said Emily. ‘Paige always liked Scrabble, didn’t she? I spotted a box by the bar. I’ll ask if we can borrow it.’
By the time Paige had got back, the women had already set it up and ordered two big ice cream sundaes with four spoons.
Paige beamed and selected her tiles, taking charge of the pen and scoring pad. As usual, she took the lead, Morgan coming a close second, Emily refereeing as Tiff made up ridiculous words.
‘Let’s add up the final scores,’ said Morgan and she took the notepad and did the sums. She raised her eyebrows at Emily and Tiff. ‘Wow. That’s a first. We’ve caught Paige up and are all even.’ She checked the numbers again.
‘I was lucky getting that triple word with a letter z in it, otherwise I’d have been way behind,’ said Tiff.
‘Slow and steady kept me in the game,’ said Emily.
‘That’s why our secret society worked,’ said Paige. ‘Each of our approaches was different, but equal in helping solve cases.’
‘Like in Hugo’s case and finding out he was cheating on Amelia,’ said Morgan. ‘His best friend on the football team skidded on ice one morning on the way to school. He fell over and grazed his hand. Even though he used to join in with Hugo’s teasing, you stopped and kindly offered him a plaster, Emily.’
‘He was taken aback. Thanked me,’ said Emily. ‘He explained he was always getting scrapes at football practise, was clumsy, and had a bad fall at the weekly practise, the previous Tuesday, after school. Hugo usually heaved him to his feet but had recently missed a couple of those sessions, including that one.’
‘Very strange considering he was captain. There was no logic in it, so I followed Hugo one night,’ said Morgan.
‘You ended up at Sophie’s house,’ said Paige. ‘So I observed the two of them at school together. Their body language was a dead giveaway. They stood so close together, I caught a couple of lingering looks, they gave each other such full eye contact but broke it as soon as Amelia entered the room.’
‘The final piece of the puzzle was when I spoke to Sophie,’ said Tiff. ‘I was in the canteen reading one of my celebrity magazines. We did drama together. I liked Sophie and never understood what she saw in a loser like Hugo. We got talking about a story. A woman had an affair with a married footballer, the newspapers had made her out to be the villain. Sophie asked me if I agreed, kept pushing for my opinion, which is exactly what I’d have done in her position.’
Their chat moved back to the game as they packed it away.
‘Remember how the highest score in Scrabble, from a single word, if the tiles are put in the right place, over triple scores, is…’
‘One thousand, seven hundred and seventy-eight,’ the others chorused and groaned.
‘You used to tell us thateverygame,’ protested Paige.
‘Glad you haven’t forgotten,’ said Morgan airily. ‘As you may also recall, the word is oxyphenbutazone.’
‘How could we ever forget?’ said Emily, exchanging humorous glances with Paige and Tiff.
