Page 49 of Such a Good Couple
Fury swept over Maggie’s face and Annie jumped up. ‘Gals, we’re all on edge. Let’s go down and eat something.’
Annie turned to gather her phone and silk blazer and tipped back some of her own drink. Things had really nose-dived, she thought regretfully. It was a bad sign that even when it was just the three of them, things were so strained. It had never been like this before. They’d always been so easy with each other. She thought back over the countless nights that they’d performed this exact ritual, getting ready in one or other of their bedrooms: drinking, swapping clothes, mildly bitching about the lads or re-enacting disastrous moments from that day at work. Neverbitching at each other. In twenty years, the most serious row they’d ever had had been the great Centaur Porn Debate of 2015. It was the kind of batshit debate she could only imagine having with the girls. Clara had become passionately enthusiastic about a new erotic fiction novel calledCentaur in My Valley. To Clara’s chagrin, Maggie had insisted that this fell under the umbrella of bestiality, while Annie opted to remain impartial, which inevitably infuriated the other two so much they joined forces against her. To this day, whenever they all got drunk and nostalgic, the idea of getting matching centaur tattoos would come up.
Annie realised with sadness that she was really looking forward to getting home and out of this atmosphere of perpetual tension. Even if going home meant dealing with the logistics of her relationship falling to pieces, at least she’d get to see Rachel.
‘I’m sorry, Maggie.’ Clara shifted in her heeled peep-toe leather boots.
Maggie’s expression remained stony.
Annie stepped forward. ‘Gals, we can’t turn on each other. Not before we get the centaurs on our arses.’
At this, Maggie seemed to thaw slightly and Clara moved to put her arms around her. Maggie grudgingly tolerated the hug. ‘That was a stupid thing to say. And not true …’
‘Well,’ Maggie sighed, ‘it’s notnottrue.’ She looked gloomy but then shrugged. ‘Annie’s right, we can’t be sniping at each other. You both need all your energy to resist losing it with Ollie and Conor.’
A chilly dread blew through Annie at the thought of Conor. Ugh, to have to see him and act nice, not to mention sit on the same plane for six hours. And then what? Share a taxi once they got back to Dublin? Back to their sad, airless flat. She thought of the pristine guestroom they never used. That was going be the only way to get away from each other until they sortedsomething more permanent. And the way things were in Dublin, would that even be possible? She knew plenty of couples who had to stay living together even after they’d split because they couldn’t afford to move out.
A profound weariness washed over her. What does it take to dismantle a twenty-year relationship? Forget the logistics. Who was she now? She’d never even been an adult without Conor at her side, each helping the other through this project that was life. Her sense of loss held a real weight; it was a leaden sadness that dragged at her. Conor had been her partner in the real sense of the word – they’d been a team for so long. Though thinking about how close they’d been during the last two decades was forcing her to examine how that closeness had deserted them when they should have been more together than ever. Still, even though she could see why he was calling time, it was like some crucial part of herself had vanished overnight, the part that was stable and knew what the fuck was going on. She felt rickety and anxious every time she thought about the formless future ahead of her.
‘Annie?’
She looked up at the sound of her name. ‘Sorry … yeah?’
‘It’ll all be okay,’ Maggie said, apparently having read Annie’s thoughts. ‘Try not to project too far into the future. I know it’s easy for me to say but … anything you need, we’re all here. Well, not all of us,’ she corrected herself.
‘I guess the friend group is kinda no more,’ Clara mused, staring into her now empty glass.
Annie nodded slowly. ‘It’s actually mad. No more dinners or holidays or anything. I’d always thought we would end up forming either a commune or a cult in our old age.’
‘Look, did the boys really bring that much to it?’ Maggie tried for a smile that immediately wilted.
‘We still have Fionn,’ Clara piped up, but Annie knew shewas only saying this for Maggie’s sake. If this holiday had shown anything, evenMaggiebarely had Fionn, never mind his friends from college.
‘Let’s go down, it’s quarter past.’ Maggie stuffed her hand into a stack of delicate gold bangles and picked up a gold chainmail purse containing her phone. ‘You guys won’t believe how boring this party is going to be. Everyone imagines celebrity parties are gonna be fascinating but, really, they are just full of the most dull, needy people in the world.’
An hour later and Annie was now in full agreement with Maggie. The party was one of the most uptight, stilted events she’d ever attended. It was worse than that British funeral she’d once gone to.
Everyone was clearly so obsessed with how they were appearing to others that they seemed unable to even take in what was actually happening right in front of them. Annie was fairly certain that she could have literally stripped off and started a one-woman nude food fight and not one of the famouses would notice.
Contributing to the general stiffness of the crowd were the clothes. Most of the women were wearing tiny swatches of material tied to their bodies by dental floss; it wasn’t a comfortable look. The men, Annie noted, were allowed to be fully dressed.
When she, Maggie and Clara had first come down to the deck, which was hung with strings of vintage light bulbs, Annie had experienced a couple of jolts at seeing faces she’d only ever experienced on a screen. She spotted Cameron Diaz, who she’d always liked. Nearby George (Fucking!) Clooney was making his way down the side of the house to the open-sided marquee that had been erected on the beach. Off to the side of this, a string quartet was set up on the sand playing instrumental versions ofsome of the biggest songs of the summer. Dozens of waitstaff whipped efficiently through the guests dispensing champagne, which everyone accepted, and canapés, which most people declined.
When Annie, Maggie and Clara had descended the steps, they immediately spotted Conor and Ollie standing awkwardly together and, without a word, the girls took themselves over to the opposite side of the tent.
‘In a funny way this is kind of nostalgic,’ Clara announced. ‘Remember in college, we were always icing out the guys for whatever bullshit fight one of the couples would be having.’
‘Yeah,’ Annie smiled.
‘God, yeah.’ Maggie nodded, though Annie could see she had a faraway look as she intently watched the people arriving. Searching for Fionn, no doubt, Annie thought. It was coming up to 9 p.m. and he had still not appeared. He’d even sent the twins back with Brody earlier.
‘Remember the Great Whose-Genitals-Are-More-Ugly Row of 2008?’ Annie tried to catch Maggie’s eye to distract her from the misery of waiting. ‘Conor said vaginas were just as visually off-putting as dicks and we all lost our stupid little twenty-one-year-old minds and fell out with the lot of them.’
‘Oh God, yes.’ Clara clapped her hands. ‘I mean, really! They couldn’t have possibly thought vaginas were uglier than cocks. They were just trying to piss us off. That was pure trolling.’
A few minutes later Annie had, most unfortunately, been captured by a creepy director and was immediately in a conversational hostage situation. His slippery lips flapped at speed as he delivered a detailed dissection of the previous eight decades of film that she had in no way asked for and had already tried to escape from several times.
After a couple of attempts to participate in the conversation, she realised that he required absolutely zero responses from herand so she settled back and allowed his words to wash over her as she took in the rest of the crowd.
