He tried to remember what had been here before the bus shelter, and an image of an old-fashioned red telephone box came to mind. He’d used it to speak to girls so that his parents couldn’t overhear his conversations, and had once even phoned emergency services to report a traffic accident he’d witnessed from the same box.
After about twenty minutes, a woman with dirty-blonde hair pulled back into a severe ponytail — what he’d heard referred to as a ‘council-estate facelift’ — emerged from the front door. She was wearing white running shoes, baggy grey sweatpants and a voluminous purple sweatshirt with the words ‘Will Dance for Money’ printed across the front. She carried a large sports bag to the silver Citroen people-carrier parked on the drive, opened the boot, and placed the bag inside. She jogged back to the front door, closed and locked it, and then climbed into the car and started the engine.
Simon knew her. It was Jane Fell — Jane Cole, now — the girl he used to go out with, back in the day. A twinge of what might have been guilt or simply regret tugged at his guts. He knew that he’d done wrong by the young girl he had left behind, but he was glad that the woman she’d grown into had found someone to settle down with — even if it was one of his best friends.
He watched her from the bus shelter as she sat in the car fiddling with the dashboard stereo, looking for a song she liked. She used to be beautiful, but now she looked tired, worn out. She was old before her time. He knew that the Coles had kids, twins: a boy and a girl. He also knew that she worked part-time in a Pound Shop in Near Grove, just to help out with the bills. Her hair was a dull shade of yellow rather than the pure blonde it had once been. She was carrying two, maybe three, extra stone of weight. He guessed that she was going to the gym or a dancing class — which would explain the obscure slogan on her sweatshirt. He wished that he could walk over there, open the car door, and say hello. Just say hello to the girl he’d once loved, who was now trapped inside the body of a woman who looked too exhausted to even care.
Smiling — presumably she’d found the right song — she pulled out of the drive and turned left, heading back the way he’d come. Simon huddled inside the bus shelter, tilting his head down but still managing to keep track of her as she passed him by.
For a moment he felt stranded there, caught in a moment between the past and the present, but once the car had turned the corner and vanished from sight he was able to shake the feeling and break free. She was no longer the girl he had known. She had a life now, a family. He had his own story, too, and it was a tale of success and hard work, of money and models and penthouse apartments. They were both different people, now; they were not the kids they had once been. All that had changed, it was gone.
He turned his attention back to the house. The bedroom curtains were open wide, which meant that Brendan must be up and about. Simon checked his watch. It was 1:30 PM. Perhaps, like him, Brendan had trouble sleeping. Maybe he sat up drinking after his night shifts, trying to quieten his demons.
Simon left the relative safety of the bus shelter and walked across to the house. He stood on the pavement outside, feeling exposed, trying to see through the net curtains strung like giant grey cobwebs across the ground floor windows. He could not make anything out: the place might even be empty.
“Here we go,” he said, blowing air through his lips.
Simon walked through the gate and along the front path, took one hand out of his jacket pocket and knocked on the door. Then, impatient to get this over with, he rang the door buzzer. Through the etched glass panel, he watched a blurry shape appear at the far end of the hallway, grow closer, and finally reach out to open the door. He almost ran away then; his instinct was to bolt, to get the hell out of there and never come back. But he put his hands back in his pockets and stood his ground, remembering that they used to be friends. Best friends. He tried to focus on that fact more than any other, because it might just stop the man who was now opening the door from punching him in the face and kicking him into the street.
The man — short, with thinning fair hair, watery eyes and a nervous grin — opened the door and took a step back into the hallway.
“Hello, Brendan,” said Simon, tensing against a potential blow.
“Simon Ridley? Is it really you, Simon?” The nervous grin became a smile, and then faded, dropping from his face like a sheet pulled away from a corpse. His eyes narrowed; his cheeks tightened. “What the fuck are you doing here?”
“Yeah,” said Simon. “It’s good to see you, too.”
Brendan’s mouth was hanging open, his lower jaw slack and immobile. Simon had only ever seen this expression in films, and the sight of it now, in real life, was almost enough to make him laugh out loud. But he didn’t. He kept it all inside, because he didn’t want to alienate his old friend before they’d even had a chance to talk. He didn’t want to push too hard. “It’s been a long time,” he said, smiling. “Too long…”
Brendan seemed to compose himself; he shook his head, smiled, and took a step forward, onto the doorstep. “I suppose you’d better come in. We don’t want to stand talking out here. I’ll get us a couple of beers from the fridge.” He opened the door wide, turned away, and walked along the hall.
“Okay,” said Simon. He entered the house and closed the door behind him. He followed his host into the kitchen, where Brendan was leaning into the fridge to pull out two cans of bitter.
“Is this okay? I don’t drink anything stronger for breakfast.” He winked. It was a purely instinctive action, and the quip was probably one he’d used a hundred times before, but the very fact that he was able to make light of the situation made Simon relax.
“That’s fine,” said Simon. “Thanks.” He reached out and took a can, popped the ring pull and dropped it into the bin by the back door. The kitchen was small and neat, with modern silver appliances, a pine breakfast bar, and varnished wooden cabinets. “Nice place.”
Brendan took a long swallow from his can, burped quietly, and then looked around the kitchen. “It’s okay, I suppose. Probably a lot different from your millionaire’s mansion, though.” He saluted Simon with his beer can.
Simon shook his head. “I live in a small flat. I have a tiny kitchen, two cramped bedrooms, and a view of grungy London streets. It’s hardly Buckingham Palace.”
“And a mattress stuffed with fifty pound notes, no doubt.” Brendan winked to show that he was joking. “Come on through. We can talk in the living room.”
The other downstairs room was twice the size of the kitchen, and dominated by a huge flat-screen television with cables streaming out of the back to connect the set to three separate games consoles. The Mario Brothers were paused mid-leap on the screen, their legs flickering, as if they were desperate to start moving again. There were framed landscape prints on the walls and family photographs on the mantelpiece, and the room contained too much furniture. A pine bureau was pushed up against the party wall, a bookcase stood packed with ornaments, and a pair of leather sofas and matching recliner armchair were gathered around a coffee table in the centre of the floor.
Brendan sat down on one sofa, so Simon took the other. They stared at each other at an angle. Suddenly Simon forgot why he’d come here. He’d run out of things to say before he had even said anything. He’d lost his bearings, and forgotten where the door was. The room was a box with a sealed lid. The net curtains at the window were opaque; he could see nothing of the outside world through them. They were spider-webs blocking his view.