My last birthday. My thirty-fifth, just last month. Black Friday, I had called it.
Chapter 11
It had been eight thirty in the evening when we reached the restaurant, a little bit drunk and a little bit high. Carmel had arrived home earlier than expected, wearing a royal-purple dress and looking at least seven feet tall in her heels. Her eerie grace was astonishing, her skin a gleaming blue-black like polished marble.
‘You’re early,’ I told her. ‘And you look amazing. You’re not meant to look better than me. It’s my birthday. Sort it out.’
‘Happy birthday!’ Carmel sang, reaching for an ashtray. She tucked the bottle under her arm and headed for the kitchen. ‘Consider my punctuality my gift to you.’
‘Can I exchange it for something else?’
Then Carmel’s voice, floating in from the kitchen. ‘Guess who I’ve just seen?’
‘I’ve no id—’
‘Oh, come on. You’re no fun! Guess! I’ll give you a clue.’
Carmel made a complicated mime swinging her arm between her legs.
I snorted laughter. ‘The Elephant Man!’
‘Yesssss! God, I love this hot weather.’
The Elephant Man had become our pet name for one of the two cyclists who lived above us on account of his generously stuffed Lycra and his much-imagined sexual prowess. The other was known affectionately as The Anaconda. We were children, Carmel and I, snorting giggles into our cupped hands.
‘Did he say hello to you?’
‘No. God, no. Never spoken to me since that time he caught me looking at him with those binoculars.’
I laughed, filled with warmth and good feeling. Carmel poured champagne into glasses, handing one to me.
‘Where’s Marco?’ She flicked through a magazine. ‘What did he get you?’
‘He’s meeting us at the restaurant. I haven’t had my present yet.’
Silence.
‘Did Marco choose this restaurant, Stella?’
‘Yes.’
Our eyes met and she shrugged. ‘Yeah, I thought so.’
‘Listen, I know it’s expensive, which is why I asked you all not to buy me anything. This is your gift to me, coming out for this meal. I don’t want anything else. You are coming, aren’t you, Carmel? Please say you are.’
‘Sure. Sure. Got an advance on my wages.’
‘I said I’d pay for you.’
‘And I said I wouldn’t let you. It’s your birthday, you dick.’
Carmel turned the page of the magazine delicately, wetting her finger to do so. She looked up at me, head slightly tilted.
‘This is what you wanted tonight, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
‘A meal out at your boyfriend’s favourite restaurant?’
‘That’s right.’
Valkoinen Huone served reindeer and crayfish and salted liquorice liquor at extortionate prices, and without Marco paying for me, I would never have been able to afford to eat there. Out of all the people I had invited, only a handful had been able to accept, and of those, two had already dropped out earlier in the week. I had asked Marco to consider changing the venue to somewhere less expensive. We had been in bed, our legs tangled together, my hand against his firm chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath the soft pads of my fingers. He had shaken his head with what seemed like genuine regret.
‘Afraid not, baby. You understand, don’t you, how hard it was to get this booking, how popular this restaurant is?’
He leaned over to kiss me. ‘Your real friends will find a way to be there,’ he had said.
I swallowed the champagne quickly and immediately refilled my glass.
‘I’ve got you something,’ Carmel said.
‘I told you not to!’
‘I know you did.’
A little black bag tied up with ribbon. It was matte and smooth and very plain. Inside, tissue paper, and inside that a bracelet of thick silver.
‘Oh, Carmel. Oh, this is so pretty!’
‘You sound surprised.’
I was surprised. Our usual gifts to each other were always tat.
‘You remember the present you bought me that Christmas at my parents’?’ Carmel said, her eyes glittering. ‘What was it called again?’
I laughed.
‘The Butt Buster. I did warn you not to open it in front of everyone.’
‘That was a good Christmas.’
‘Yes, your brother still talks about it. Do you think it scarred him for life?’
‘I hope so,’ she said, still grinning.
I lifted the bracelet and turned it this way and that in the light. ‘Oh, this is beautiful, thank you. I shall wear it always.’
Inside, an inscription: ‘I love you, you dick x’
Carmel crossed the room and hugged me, enveloping me in the comforting musky scent of her perfume.
‘Happy birthday. You’ll always be a dick, but I do love you to pieces.’
On the tables of the dimly lit restaurant were wild flowers and rosemary in hand-thrown clay vases. Marco greeted us with a mild frown of puzzlement.
‘Been drinking, Stella?’
‘It’s her birthday.’ Carmel smiled pleasantly, before taking a seat. ‘Let go of the reins a little, Marco.’
I looked around, smiling. My friends, I thought. Those who had been able to make it. Those who had been able to afford it, I corrected myself.
It was good to see Martha and James again; it felt as if it had been a long time. Perhaps it had. I was losing days sometimes. They had recently moved to a bigger house just outside London and as I sat next to them I felt a guilty stab at skipping their housewarming, their invitations to dinner, for drinks. Things have just been busy, I had told Martha over the phone, but we’ll see you soon though, I promise. Her hair was tucked up in blonde curls so light and soft and feathery that I wanted to nest in them.
‘Happy birthday, Stella,’ James was saying, leaning across to kiss me. ‘Great restaurant. We’ve had to take out a second mortgage to come here, obviously. We’re just drinking the college funds for our kids.’
‘He means thank you for inviting us,’ Martha said. ‘It’s lovely to see you.’
‘No, thank you. I’m thrilled you’re here. The waiting list is nearly eighteen months long. Marco only managed to get the table because he plays golf with the owner.’
‘Oh yeah?’ James said in exactly the same way Carmel had; the same measured, careful tone. He sipped his wine. ‘We figured it had been Marco’s choice. Didn’t he want us to come or something?’
I saw Martha dig him carefully in the ribs with her elbow and quickly looked away. Marco, sitting opposite me across the table, caught my eye and smiled. I returned it, pouring myself a drink, but I felt sour and cold. A thought then, dark and toxic like a droplet of ink in water. Didn’t he want us to come or something?
After dinner we had gone on to a late bar and then to a basement in Brixton where we drank and danced until I lost a shoe and my make-up had become a sooty blur. Towards the end of the night Marco put one hand on my hip and the other, the one holding a bottle of beer, around my neck.
‘When do I get you to myself?’ he said, into the crease between my collar and my ear, and ten minutes later we were in a cab, two hours from sunrise and twenty minutes from home. I had yawned, leaning my head against the window, watching the lights, the neon blurs, the eyeless city.