CHAPTER 29
I looked round the long table, where about twenty people sat, laughing, joking, spilling sauce down their shirts, oblivious to the scene outside. Karen was on the other side of me from Larinda.

“What are your plans tonight, Kaz? I have a spare bed”

I got a soft smile for that. “We were sort of hoping you might. Just, don’t like to impose”

I squeezed her hand under the table. “Don’t be daft. I’ll lay out some fresh bedding when we get in, and if we spin past the all-night garage I can grab some bread and shit for breakfast. When do you need to be back?”

“Not till late; Dad’s taking him to the Science Museum”

“How is he?”

She snorted. “You and those birds! He decided to make a bird book, of the ones he has seen, yeah? But with his own mnemonics or names. Trouble is, it took a while to explain that cutting the pictures out of a twenty-odd quid book was a bit…wasteful, though in the end we used the internet and a colour printer. It’s turned out quite good, really; sort of beginner’s guide to remembering what they are, rather than how to identify them. I mean, it’s worked out doing the same job, in the end, but it’s such a different approach–I’m babbling, aren’t I?”

“You’re proud of him, aren’t you?”

I realised Larinda was peering over from my other side, as Karen weighed her response.

“Rob…yes, I am, very proud. He’s a sweet boy, once you get past the tics, and if you balance a bit of steering with some acceptance…shit, you know that, don’t you? You do it with him, you understand”

Larinda called across me. “You asked him, then?”

“Yeah, and he said yes too”

Hang on. “You already asked Larinda?”

Karen grinned. “Always ask the one who doesn’t wear the trousers---sorry, sorry Rob, I didn’t mean it like that!”

Larinda nudged me. “Live together, share the decisions. I am not going down the same shit road as last time, so sorry if I overstep, yeah, but, shit, you know what I mean. And I already put some sheets out”

Terry was obviously trying very hard not to laugh, and all three of us, as well as Rachel, turned to stare at him.

“Sorry, but…”

He whispered in his wife’s ear, and she laughed out loud before repeating the whisper into our own ears, one by one.

“Terry says you should remember that the Chinese ideogram for ‘trouble’ means ‘two women under the same roof’ “

I almost loved him, right then. Rachel snorted, and then, somewhat wistfully, asked “You got any room?”

I looked at her closely, and there were little hints of pain behind her eyes.

“You OK, kid?”

“Ah, Rob; just a bit down. Saw something earlier on, and, well, it would be nice to have an evening with friends, yeah? Not an empty flat sort of thing”

Once more, Larinda took over. “Back in five” she said, and disappeared out the door. Six minutes later, she was back, with a small bag, which she handed to Rachel.

“Can’t do you no fresh knickers, Rach, but there’s a toothbrush and a face cloth in there. As Rob says, we’ll stop by the all-nighter and pick up some pigging-out stuff for the morning, yeah?”

Karen was looking thoughtful. “You two got bikes? Just, you know, one day…”

I started to laugh at that, the mood from MAC’s ghost lifting. “Don’t listen, girls, she’s on her evangelical schtick again. Before you know it, you’ll be buying tents made of cobwebs and elf spoo and sleeping in fields in February”

Karen laughed again, ostentatiously taking Terry’s hand. “And what’s wrong with that? Some of us have got more than our righteous souls to keep us properly warm, yeah?”

I suddenly realised exactly how much things had changed for me. Not so long ago, I would have twitched with resentment at a scene like that, especially after Kaz’s comment about getting fed up waiting for me to make a move on her. Now, I looked at the two of them and simply felt soppy. Two good friends, in love together, and yes, Terry was a good friend. He had taken me as I was, simply and openly, accepted my revelations and carried on as if I was telling him I had some minor ailment that the doctor would have me cured from shortly. No drama, no fuss, just a mate.

Finally, I was seeing him through her eyes; just without the lust. Perhaps it was Larinda’s presence in my life, but I was realising how blessed I truly was. Then I looked up at Rachel.

“You OK?”

“Yeah, just a bit overtaken by all this soppy love shit, and, you know, stuff…”

Realisation hit me as to exactly how lonely she must be. There is a cliché in which the pretty girl is left well alone, because every man thinks he doesn’t stand a chance. In my experience, said cliché is rubbish. For every lonely beauty, there are a hundred arrogant and picky little madams, and for every timid guy too fearful to make an approach there are ten thousand self-obsessed pricks who just KNOW the world is theirs for the seizing. Rachel was like neither. I took a while to study her, the figure I would almost have killed for, the long dark hair and perfect skin, the dressing so sharp that the world parted in submission to her presence. But her eyes…

There was pain there, and loneliness, and I remembered her joke about Essex girls being told. Those eyes now shouted “Victim” and Larinda caught my own expression.

“Rach, want to freshen up, as they say? Rob, you can’t, just yet, yeah?”

“I can’t what?”

“Socialise in the bogs…come on, you”

The two of them trotted off, and Karen turned to me. “What was done to her, Rob?”

“Rachel’s business, pet. If she talks to you, well, then you’ll know, but private, aye?”

Terry snorted. “She’s like a magnet, this one. Gets all the little birds with broken wings…me, James, you, and now, I’ll lay you ten to one, your friend”

He turned to his wife. “Look, love, none of this is a complaint, but you can’t heal the world. I adore you for it, but…”

She smiled at him, and once again my heart melted. “I can have a damned good go, love. Let’s just see with this one, yeah? She might not want to share, so let’s just smile and have a good girly night together”

He put on a mock frown. “Yeah, only bloke in a houseful of bloody women, wonderful”

At that point, with those words, I loved him.

The other two were back in a few minutes, Rachel’s face clearly freshly repaired, and we wound the evening down with the ritual of paying the bill. Look at it, decide that we’ve had similar portions, divide by 22, shovel a huge bundle of cash onto the table, smile, hug, and off. Smiling waiters waved us out the door, and our little group walked arm in arm to the all night shop. As Larinda and the happy couple loaded up with bread, bacon, eggs and so on, I caught Rachel staring at the wine display.

“It would be rude, Jill, wouldn’t it?”

“What would?”

“To stay at a good friend’s and get absolutely paralytic”

“Aye, it would. Getting a bit silly, like, in good company, friends, yeah?”

She looked hard at me, and I could see the tears that wanted to break free. “You are so fucking lucky, girl. She is more than anyone could hope for, and she’s yours, and I am so happy for you. And your friends there…”

“Rachel, knowing them, they see themselves as your friends too now, aye?”

“Whatever. And I think back to that shit that…my ex, yeah, the bastard. Not fair, girl, not fair. And tonight…”

In a flash I knew. “You saw him too, didn’t you? At the window?”

She nodded. “He looked so, so alone, Jill. Nobody deserves that. Man’s a cunt, yeah, but, shit, what have I done?”

I brought her into a gentle embrace. “I thought the same, pet, exactly the same. I thought it was funny, aye, same as you, a great idea, but now I’m not sure, like. I saw his face…”

“You, yeah, the four of you, you all care, you all try and do your best for others, and I never realised how much you were like that. I can’t do that. I see most men and I see his fists, and I say never again, and it’s hard, girl, it’s…lonely”

I smiled, as best I could. “Well, I don’t know what you straight girls see in men. Ewwww!”

“You dykes, all the same, always trying to lead us straight girls off the path of normality…”

I waggled my eyebrows at her. “Want to come back to my place, darling?”

“Yeah, all right then”

With that she was laughing, and then crying, and Larinda was there to pass a tissue, just when needed.

“Jill, can you finish the shopping, and I’ll get this one straight home, get her sorted out and the kettle on, yeah?”

Rachel looked up from my shoulder. “Home? Oh, yeah”

Larinda just nodded, and smiled at me. “Yeah, home”