‘’S’all right. Needed my beauty sleep,’ said Karen, yawning.
‘James didn’t seem to think so last night,’ said Amy. ‘He kept saying you were perfect.’
‘James? Was that his name? All right if I make a cuppa?’
‘If you can find a cup. And we’ve only got Earl Grey.’
Karen pulled a pained face and bent down to open the fridge, looking for milk. ‘No way. Has someone really labelled his sausages?’
Amy raised her eyebrows. ‘Shared houses, it can get very political.’
‘Yeah, I saw the washing-up rota.’ It had been neatly drawn up in felt-tip pen – multiple colours, so Karen knew it wasn’t the boys’ work – and Blu-tacked to the kitchen cupboard, right above the overflowing sink.
‘So when are you coming back to Westmead?’ she added. Amy had mentioned it was the last week of term and Karen couldn’t wait to have her best mate back in Bristol.
‘I’m not.’
‘It’s not so bad, you know.’ Karen switched on the kettle so she didn’t have to look her friend in the eye.
‘No, I don’t mean that. It’s just that now I’m out, I want to keep going, you know? There’s a big wide world out there and I want to see it. David and Max are going to Goa for two weeks and they’ve asked me to join them, so maybe I’ll do that if I can get a bit more money together. But I’ll probably just head to London. You know you can earn six quid an hour doing corporate waitressing shifts. And Juliet reckons she can get me some work experience at the magazine house that publishes Mode.’
‘Sounds amazing,’ Karen said wistfully.
‘Got to play catch-up with you, haven’t I?’ Amy said. ‘You’ve got your own money and your own place, a car . . .’
‘You mean a shitty flat and a rusty Fiat Panda. It’s not exactly glam, Ames.’
Amy grinned back and Karen wondered if she was just being kind. She wasn’t stupid; she knew that her friend’s life was on a different path. She had noticed it immediately that first term when Amy had started at Oxford Brookes and she had come up from Bristol to gatecrash the freshers’ bop. She had never seen or heard anything like it: she’d met people dressed in wetsuits drinking yards of ale, spoken to girls who’d taken their ponies to boarding school, and learned about alien things like seminars and wine societies. But over the past few months, since Amy had moved in with a group of students from Oxford University, she had orbited in an even more remote parallel universe. Her new friends didn’t just sound posh; they were practically royal. As for the student house, it might have woodchip on the ceiling, but perched in the town centre, surrounded by the colleges’ golden domes and secret doorways, it was like something out of a fairy tale.
Karen made herself a tea, although she didn’t like the floral smell rising from her mug.
‘So how’s Lee?’ said Amy.
Karen sat down at the table, sighing.
‘That good, huh?’
‘Ah, he’s . . . I dunno, Ames. He’s all right, I suppose. There are plenty of girls who’d give their right arm to be going out with him, but he’s . . .’
What? What was he? Karen thought. Violent? Sometimes, after he’d had eight or ten pints, but then who wasn’t after a skinful? And it wasn’t even that anyway. He was disappointing. That was it. He was good-looking, he had a Golf GTI and Patrick Cox shoes. But that was all. And she had the sense that this was all he’d ever have, because it was all he wanted. Westmead suited Lee; it was his world. Karen had always thought it would be enough for her too. She dropped her hands helplessly onto the table.
‘I dunno, I just thought he’d be something. And he isn’t.’
Amy looked at her, nodding, and Karen could tell she understood. Like, actually, really understood. She didn’t have to tell her the details: that Lee had once threatened to push her out of a taxi for talking to the driver, or that he would go into a rage if she wore heels that he said made her look like a slag. She didn’t need to tell Amy anything because she just knew. That was best friends for you. When you’d grown up together, sharing crushes and dramas, you didn’t need to explain.
For a moment, Karen felt like they were sixteen again, sitting in McDonald’s sharing a milkshake, bitching about teachers and boys, talking about their dreams. They were going to hitch down to London and go to one of those clubs they’d read about in Amy’s magazines, i-D or The Face. They’d meet a rich bloke and he’d offer them modelling contracts. Or they’d go to America and open a shop selling jewellery or perfume. But Amy had done something about those dreams: got a place at Oxford Brookes, worked for the student paper, met all these interesting and exciting people. Karen had done nothing.
‘When do you have to get back?’ asked Amy, glancing up at the clock above the fridge.
‘Trying to get rid of me?’ Karen smiled.
Amy blushed guiltil
y. ‘Not at all. It’s just that it’s the ball tonight and Juliet’s got me in with the caterers. I’ve got to be there at three.’
‘Can’t I stay?’
She looked doubtful. ‘I’ll be working till gone midnight and everyone else has got tickets.’