The Best of Friends by Alex Day (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

tried to be friendly and bears no blame for the mess I’ve got myself into. Cursing under my breath, I go to the door.

‘Hi Miriam,’ I say, trying to stop my voice from breaking, fighting back the tears that suddenly prick behind my eyelids. ‘What can I do for you?’

Miriam looks at me, her head cocked to one side. She’s wearing the same black bobble hat she was sporting at the first paper chase back in April, despite the fact that it’s now twenty-five degrees outside. She resembles a particularly idiotic garden gnome. She looks ludicrous. ‘We had an arrangement, for a get together. Don’t you remember?’

‘Sorry, Miriam,’ I splutter, gesturing for her to come in. I pull a ragged piece of toilet paper off the roll – I’ve run out of tissues – and dab at my eyes. ‘Summer cold. It’s really laid me low.’

‘Poor thing. Turmeric could be the answer! Do you have any? The Indians have long sworn by its anti-inflammatory properties.’

‘Right,’ I concur, ‘I have heard something like that. But I’m fine,’ I lie. ‘Nothing a good dose of Nightnurse won’t sort.’

Miriam frowns doubtfully. I’m sure she’s about to warn me of the dangers of such over-the-counter remedies. If it hasn’t come from a herb or a root or been found buried in a hedgerow, it’s at best useless and at worse potentially harmful in her eyes.

‘Anyway, we had put this afternoon aside to go through your first draft – for me to check your facts and so on and so forth.’ Miriam flaps to and fro the cover of the text book she’s pulled onto her lap. ‘But I don’t think now’s the right time, is it?’

‘No,’ I murmur. ‘No, it’s not. I’m sorry, Miriam, but I’m really not feeling too good. I’m going to go back to bed for a bit.’

‘Right you are, dear.’ Miriam stands up and puts her hands on her hips in that hearty, fearless way of hers. ‘I’ll find something that’ll do you good, don’t you worry. I’m thinking lemon balm and sage, with a spot of echinacea root and perhaps some …’

She’s still rambling on as I shut the door behind her and collapse against it, the tears streaming down my face, this time with no attempt to stem them.

Desolation is always worse when someone is kind.

Chapter 26

Susannah

The days pass.

I imagine Dan and Charlotte lying lovingly next to each other on matching sun loungers, sipping cocktails around the infinity pool, the scent of herbs wafting gorgeously around them, Charlotte oblivious to what Dan’s done. I wonder if his mind is also constantly replaying our night together like mine is, turning it over and over and examining and re-examining it. In my fevered and addled state, Dan sometimes morphs into Charlie and back again.

My torment didn’t stop with me finding him and Josephine in bed together, with having to move out of my home – oh no, it didn’t stop there. Hurt piled on hurt like the continuous dumping of rubbish in a landfill site, one truckload of trash upon another.

I managed to find lodgings with a couple of girls from my course, Debs and Simone, who were sweet and kind and full of fascinated, prurient disgust about the way I had been treated. I couldn’t face ever setting foot in the basement again so I wrote a letter to Charlie asking him to pack everything up and they went to collect it for me. Which was nice of them.

When they returned in a taxi (that I paid for; Charlie offered no help of any kind, neither emotional nor financial) loaded down with bags of stuff, so familiar and yet now utterly alien, I wanted to burn the lot of it. Its association with Charlie caused it to be shorn of any pleasure I might once have felt in it. Everything felt tainted, even my clothes, which I’m sure in reality she wouldn’t touch with a bargepole. But just the thought of my things being in the same space as her sickened me.

Simone and Debs helped me to unpack. They were so kind. So thoughtful. They persuaded me that I couldn’t afford to purchase a whole new wardrobe so I needed to keep all the clothes and accessories they had rescued for me, however much I hated the thought. As they talked in soothing, encouraging tones they pulled things out of the bags one by one: jeans, skirts, jumpers, belts. Seeing my apparel like this made me realise how mundane it was, how staid and boring.

Josephine clad herself – minimally – in tiny white leather miniskirts with fishnet stockings and sky-high stilettos, accessorised by exquisite handbags big enough only to hold a mascara and credit card. I wore paisley-print midi-skirts with wool tights and Doc Martens and carried a satchel. It was hardly surprising it was her who Charlie preferred. It was as the truth of this fact was dawning on me like the proverbial penny dropping from a great height that I noticed that Debs and Simone had fallen suddenly silent.

Lifting my eyes from the pile they’d built on my bed, I saw them both staring dumbfounded at the item Simone was holding, her arm outstretched as if trying to keep it as far away from herself as possible in case it bit her.

My eyes slowly tracked the length of her arm. From her splayed fingers dangled a pair of impossibly delectable French knickers, made of shiny and opulent black silk and trimmed with lace.

‘Ooh la la, Susie, what have we ’ere?’ laughed Simone, speaking with an exaggerated French accent. ‘Where on earth did you get zese beauties? They must have cost a fortune.’

As she spoke, Debs reached out to fondle the fabric, so lustrous and delicate it demanded to be felt.

‘Wow!’ Her voice was a stage whisper, as if the knickers might be offended by too loud a noise. ‘These are so gorgeous. Who would have thought you were hiding such garments under those prim A-line