My Best Friend’s Life

‘Roxy!’

And apparently herself was to be found eating Shreddies at her mother’s kitchen table. She pulled open Ginny’s wardrobe. She used the term loosely. This cupboard was so dilapidated that she just knew whoever had built it had had loads of unidentified bits left over at the end and had chucked them instead of investigating where they’d gone wrong. One door hung off its hinge, one leg had been replaced by a pile of books, and there were just bare screws where the knobs should be.

So, what to wear to work? As Ginny had borrowed her boots, the only footwear she had with her was a pair of Louboutin peep-toe platforms that she’d shoved in her overnight bag. She flicked through the rail:

–Jeans, from a supermarket–she’d rather take her own life.

–Three gypsy skirts, assorted colours–only useful if she needed an emergency tent while camping, a hobby up there on her enjoyment list somewhere between basket-weaving and piercing her clitoris with a stapler.

–Two cheap denim miniskirts–definitely handy, if she planned on taking up residence in a trailer in a Southern US state.

–Three pairs of black trousers of unidentifiable make or fabric. One of those would have to do. She felt the fabric–pure new wool. Kidding. They were of such high-grade polyester that if she went within twenty yards of any type of incendiary device there was a good chance she’d spontaneously combust.

She pulled a sweater from Ginny’s drawer, then immediately tossed it to one side when she realised it had butterflies on it. Dear God. This couldn’t get any worse. She pulled out another sweater and inspected it: pink wool with embroidered red reindeers. Reindeers. In October.

She turned back to the wardrobe and dragged a white blouse from the furthest end of the rail. It was probably Gin’s old school shirt, but since it was that or the reindeers, it was going on. She’d leave the top couple of buttons open so that her Agent Provocateur slate-grey silk bra peeped out, giving the whole outfit a small but significant edge of style. She pulled her hair back and gripped it in a tortoiseshell clasp. There was no point even looking for a decent pair of straighteners–she knew without even asking that Ginny thought GHD was a violent offence that carried a mandatory two-year sentence.

She plodded down to join Rosie O’Donnell and Martina Navratilova. God, she couldn’t even look them in the eye. She knew she was being ridiculous–the chances of middle-aged-woman on middle-aged-woman action even registering on her mother’s radar were about as high as Vera having a part-time job as a stripper. Shit, that reminded her. She’d forgotten to phone Jude to let him know Ginny was coming. No matter, she knew he wouldn’t mind. He was such a sweetheart. Kind, generous, self-deprecating and built like an Adonis–just a shame that he was such a serial shagger, she wouldn’t touch his privates without the protection of antibacterial spray and a pair of marigolds.

She wandered into the kitchen. ‘Morning, Mum. Morning, Auntie Violet,’ she grumbled as she pulled out a chair and sat down.

‘Morning, darling,’ said her mother, Vera, kissing her on her head. ‘Oh, it’s so lovely to have you here, dear. Just like the old days.’

Roxy tried valiantly to muster a smile as she attempted to masticate soggy Shreddies. The welcome mat at the kitchen door would have tasted better. Urgh, she missed her lightly toasted bagel with organic marmalade.

She sighed as her mother and aunt bustled off to attend to the rest of their morning routine.

As soon as they’d left the room she picked up the phone. Ginny answered on the first ring.

‘Your life is officially crap,’ Roxy announced.

‘And this is a newsflash to you?’ Ginny laughed. ‘Anyway, it’s not crap. There are loads of nice things about my life.’

‘Name three without hesitation.’

‘Darren, my mother and…erm…’

‘Sorry, time’s up! And anyway, the joy of having two people you love is outweighed by the fact that you possess a butterfly jumper. Have I taught you nothing?’

‘You know, you are so shallow, Roxy. One butterfly jumper doesn’t make me a bad person…’

‘No, but the reindeer one proves you’re a fucking lunatic.’

Ginny shrieked with laughter. ‘Don’t let my mother hear you swearing–before you know it she’ll have the rosary beads out and Father Murphy will be making house calls.’

‘Jesus, shoot me now,’ Roxy muttered.

‘Not sure that Jesus actually takes requests. Anyway, why aren’t you on your way to work?’

‘Just going. What are you doing?’

‘Oh, I’m still in bed. Jude just brought me an orange juice and a warm bagel. With marmalade.’

‘I’ve never liked you.’

‘Oh, sword through my heart. Now get to work. And remember to keep all my records up to date–it took me months to devise that system and get it up and running.’

‘Ginny, you really need to get a life. And I don’t mean mine. Anyway, how’d Mr Motivator take the news of your thirty-day desertion?’

‘Fine.’

‘Honestly?’

‘Yeah, fine.’

‘You haven’t told him yet, have you?’

‘Not exactly. Okay, not at all. He got cut off last night and I’ve not been able to reach him since. So I was thinking, since we’re doing this role-reversal thing and I’ve spent my entire life delivering messages of doom for you, maybe you could break the news. Gently. He’s doing a Bums & Tums class in the back room of the library for the Young Catholic Mothers this morning at nine thirty. But please, please, Roxy, promise that you’ll say you begged me to help you. I don’t want him to be pissed off before I’ve had a chance to explain it properly to him.’

Roxy groaned. ‘Ginny, it might have escaped your notice, but your boyfriend isn’t exactly my biggest fan. He’s never liked me since I tried to set you up with Jason Morrison in fourth-year PE. You’d have been much better off with him–he’s made it to the first team at Millwall.’

‘Yep, and the Sunday Mirror had two pages of photographs of him snorting coke off some female’s nipples at a dogging site last weekend.’

‘Well, no one’s perfect. Okay, I’ll break the news gently. Anyway, better go before my mother grounds me for late time-keeping. Oh, and if I die today, tell the doctors it was polyester poisoning–it’ll save them doing a post mortem.’

She hung up as her mother hurried back into the room. ‘Come on, dear, if I don’t open up the community centre then the Perky Pensioners committee will be loitering on the pavement and those mobile oxygen tanks are such an obstruction to passers-by.’

Roxy somehow resisted the urge to stab herself to death with her Shreddies spoon.

‘Okay, you go warm up the car and I’ll just get my bag.’

‘Car? Oh, no, dear, Violet’s got me on a diet and exercise plan and I think it’s starting to work–I’ve lost two pounds this month! Although that might be something to do with starting the change. Anyway, we walk to work. Look, I’ve got my pedometer–10,000 steps a day–got to keep the bones strong and the muscles flexible.’

Roxy’s life flashed before her. Or, rather, the life of her £650 Louboutin shoes. She felt like she’d just been told a family member was on life support and unlikely to make it.

This couldn’t get any worse.

‘Oh, and Roxy, love, you need to do up your shirt–your button’s come loose and you’re flashing your underwear.’

Half an hour, three blisters and two toes with frostbite later, Roxy hobbled into the community centre through a throng of senior citizens in felt headwear and plastic footwear. But at least they looked comfortable. She contemplated offering one of them fifty quid for a pair of shoes that came from the same kind of catalogue that sold bath chairs and those long rods with the grippers that allowed you to pick things up without bending down.

Her mother kissed her goodbye and toddled twenty yards to the entrance of the doctor’s surgery where she’d been the receptionist since dinosaurs roamed the earth.

Roxy moped across the corridor and followed Auntie Violet into the library. Located in an annex off the back of the community centre, it was the book depository that time forgot.

She dumped her bag in the staffroom and readjusted her hair, before snorting at the ridiculousness of it. Who was she trying to impress? Johnny Depp was hardly going to wander into the Farnham Hills library, find himself overcome with wild abandon and an insatiable desire for her before bending her over the gardening section and shagging her senseless. And anyway, wasn’t she absolutely, definitely, resolutely off men?

She wandered into the main section of the library and marvelled at how nothing, absolutely nothing, had changed in the twenty years she’d been coming here. The walls were still that impossibly depressing shade of inconsequential grey. The plastic flooring, probably manufactured by some seismic shift in the earth’s crust before time began, still stuck to your feet as you walked. The overhead fluorescent lighting could still bring on a migraine in under thirty seconds. And the rows and rows of books were still propped on thick hardwood shelves that buckled precariously in the middle.

The reception desk, or rather the four-foot-by-twelve-foot plank of Formica that masqueraded as Mission Control, still had bits peeling off the edges and smelled of Flash. Roxy sank to her knees and peered under the counter. Yep, still there–a carved love heart with ‘Roxy loves Stevie’ engraved in the middle. She’d done it in the summer of ’94 when her mother had made her work every day for two weeks as punishment for getting caught smoking a roll-up in the park pavilion. She’d have made her work for six weeks if she’d realised that the roll-up contained a couple of grams of the finest Moroccan weed.

‘So what do you think of our new look then? We’re all high-tech now and no mistake,’ boomed Auntie Violet as she joined her behind the desk.

‘Oww.’ Roxy banged her head on the underside of the desk, then prised herself upright.

She glanced along the counter, looking for some signs that the new millennium had actually arrived: a laptop, an MP3 player, a cordless phone–Christ, an electric kettle would be progress–but nothing, just yards of box files, record cards, a blue plastic penholder and a phone that still had a circular dial.

‘No, over there!’ gestured Violet, pointing down the feverishly popular Historical Romance aisle to two archaic-looking computers sitting side by side, each one complete with its very own grey plastic chair. Yep, thought Roxy, the producers of Gadget magazine would get a hard-on if they saw this lot.

‘They’re in such demand that we sometimes have to have a waiting list and limit the use to twenty minutes per person. Imagine! Oh, and remember old Reverend Stewart? Well, he’s banned from them–caught him looking at a site called “Babes with Biggies” and it wasn’t referring about their feet. Of course, he said it was an accident but we’re not convinced. His eyes are too far apart.’

With that, she turned on her heel. ‘Anyway, I’ll get the kettle on. Tea, love? Course you will. Milk and two sugars, I remember,’ she added with a wink. ‘It’s lovely to have you here, Roxy–we do miss you, you know. I’ll just get the tea and then you can tell me everything you’ve been up to. Dying to hear about all those city boys you’ve been courting. Back in a min–and since it’s a special occasion I’ll break out the Penguins!’

Roxy couldn’t decide what hurt more–the toes that were curled in excruciating mortification, the teeth that were clenched in horror, the jaw that was fixed into a manic, tortured grin, or the forehead that was thudding repeatedly off the desk.

This. Was. Never. Going. To. Work.

This wasn’t a city detox, it was a Saga tour to insanity. She’d never do it. She couldn’t. She wanted her old life back. Fuck it, she’d even take Felix back and just threaten to amputate his organ somewhere around the testicles if it was caught in enemy territory again. She wanted her job, she wanted her flat and she wanted Petrov, her bisexual, bilateral thigh trainer.

She let the cool stickiness of the Formica soothe her wrinkled brow. See! Bloody wrinkles! That settled it; she was on the next train out of here.

‘S’cuse me.’

There was nothing, nothing on God’s earth that could make her suffer this for a nanosecond longer.

‘S’cuse me.’

She rolled her head so that her left cheek was now on the Formica, and she squinted to focus.

It couldn’t be! She jolted up. Nope, it wasn’t. But it was pretty damn close. If she was squinting. In a dark alley. Wearing sunglasses.

So a bloke who, on reflection, had nothing in common with Johnny Depp, except long, brown un-brushed hair and gorgeous hazel eyes, was standing in front of her with an expectant grin on his face.

‘Hi,’ he said.

Okay, not exactly knocking her out with super-smooth chat, but hey, he was male, he was relatively good-looking and he didn’t appear, on first impression, to have any psychotic personality disorders–he therefore qualified in the category of ‘reality distraction’. She briefly wondered if he’d just stand at the desk all day and allow her to look at him and perhaps fondle his man parts on an hourly basis to ease the inevitable boredom. If she wasn’t off men, that was. And she was. Definitely. Until hell froze over or the real Johnny Depp appeared in front of her wearing nothing but a ‘Roxy Be Mine’ badge.

Farnham Hills Porn Prevention Officer chose that moment to reappear.

‘Oh, hello Mitch, love, how are you this morning? Fancy a Penguin?’

‘I’m grand, thanks, Mrs Wallis,’ he burred in a soft Irish accent. ‘Where’s Ginny then? Having a day off today?’

‘A few days off, actually. She’s gone up to London for a wee bit of excitement. You know how you young things are these days. Anyway, this is our Roxy, Vera from the doctor’s surgery’s daughter. Her and our Ginny have been best friends since they were still peeing in nappies.’

Toes re-curled. Jaw reset into manic grin.

Violet turned to Roxy. ‘And this is Mitch. Father Murphy’s nephew. He’s over from Ireland and staying at the chapel house with his uncle while he finishes writing his new novel. Imagine, a real writer in Farnham Hills!’

Roxy was indeed imagining. Mitch. Laptop. Naked.

Mitch held his hand out. With only a slightly embarrassing delay while she attempted to surreptitiously reopen those top two shirt buttons, Roxy reciprocated the gesture.

‘Pleasure to meet you,’ he said. ‘I usually call in every morning to have a coffee and a read of the papers. Hope that’s okay with you?’

Yep, Roxy thought, perhaps this life detox was going to work out fine–just as long as she went with the flow, took the ups with the downs, and managed to nip to the chemist in her lunch hour for a new diaphragm. She re-evaluated her strategy–perhaps the generic term ‘penis embargo’ had been too all-encompassing. Perhaps what she’d really meant was that she was avoiding Felix’s penis. Yep, why should the rest of the world suffer for one man’s sins?

An irritated voice cut through her contraceptive/copulation contemplation. ‘Morning, Violet, morning, Roxy.’

Strange, that someone could manage to say the word ‘Roxy’ in such an insidious tone that it sounded like something you’d throw up after eating raw chicken. She’d almost have preferred it if he’d had the balls to be upfront and greet her with, ‘Morning, have I told you today that I’d prefer you dead? No? Okay, brutal torture, slow demise–lovely.’

Roxy sighed as she turned to face her nemesis. Darren Jenkins. She loathed him. She’d always loathed him. Although under the influence of alcohol or physical torture, she might be prepared to concede that this negative emotion was born around the same time as she offered to show him her boobs in second-year Woodwork in return for his Sony Walkman and he knocked her back. She’d been horrified when Ginny had started seeing him a couple of years later, and over the following decade she’d pretty much avoided straying within a hundred yards of his super-toned thighs.

She had never understood what Ginny saw in him. He might be fit, he might be easy on the eye, he might be testosterone fuelled…but he was about as exciting as a daytrip to a morgue and just as warm. And he didn’t exactly treat Ginny as well as she deserved–last year he’d bought her a steamer for her birthday. A steamer. What the fuck was that about? Who woke up and thought, ‘D’you know what, I’m going to prove to my fiancée how much I adore her by buying a household item that aids the production of healthy vegetables’?

What. A. Prick.

Roxy suddenly realised that a tiny part of her hoped Ginny would meet someone else in London and dump this bore before he had time to save up for a matching sandwich toaster for Ginny’s Christmas present.

She snapped out of her musings when it became clear that they’d all been standing in awkward silence for about ten seconds, Darren staring at her with the type of expression more commonly seen on men who have bodies stored under their kitchen floorboards.

Johnny Depp-ish picked up on the tension and made himself scarce. Brilliant. The first time her hormones had stood to attention in weeks and Darren the Prick had scared him off.

‘Darren, love, I’ve brought in a nice smoothie I made for you last night–mango, kiwi and pineapple. The pineapple was just chunks out of a tin, but I don’t suppose it’ll matter. I’ll just nip back and get it for you.’

As Violet disappeared, Roxy contemplated reattaching her head to the desk while waiting for the inevitable explosion.

‘So, care to tell me what kind of insanity you’ve involved Ginny in this time?’

Houston, we have lift-off. And he was just getting warmed up.

‘You can’t bloody leave her alone, can you? What’s the problem, Roxy? What inconsequential, superficial little blip on your horizon have you blown out of all proportion and roped Ginny into sorting out for you this time?’

Roxy bared her teeth with a smile she pitched at ‘carefree while maintaining an appropriate level of undiluted evil’.

‘Oh, nothing really. I just decided that she was far too happy so I thought I’d fuck things up for her by selling her body to an Eastern European slave trader.’

Darren shook his head as his face cracked with irony. ‘You know, Roxy, you’re priceless. You just use and abuse everyone who has the misfortune to stumble into your screwed-up, pathetic existence.’

Roxy very maturely folded her arms, looked heavenward and ignored him, determined not to even dignify his accusations with a reply.

‘You’re toxic. Always have been.’

She stayed silent. He was a grown man who wore Lycra, for God’s sake. Who cared what he thought of her? She’d never stoop to his level. She’d just take this on the chin and handle it in a manner Ginny would be proud of. Ginny had made her promise to deal with this in a sensitive manner and she would. After everything Ginny had done for her she deserved it. St Roxy of the Blessed Martyrdom–it had a ring to it.

‘And I’m sick of you interfering in Ginny’s life. Why can’t you just piss off and leave us alone?’

Aw, fuck the sainthood.

‘Listen, you twat, if you want a reason that Ginny’s not here, go look in a fucking mirror. You take her for granted, you walk all over her and you bore her baps off. Ginny hasn’t gone to London to save my ass, she’s gone because she was desperate for some excitement, desperate to do something other than sit on a bloody couch night after night waiting for you to honour her with your presence. You have a problem? Take it up with your fiancée and don’t shoot the messenger.’

Silence. Stunned silence. Until a troop of Young Catholic Mothers marched in to have their buttocks remoulded. As Lycra Man backed off in the manner of an armed robber with a hundred SWAT guns pointing at him, Roxy had a feeling of impending doom.

The 1960s telephone burst into life. Roxy snatched up the receiver to hear an anxious Ginny on the line.

‘So did you break it to him gently?’

Roxy bit her lip and then did what all truly good friends do in a crisis–she lied.

‘Of course! I told him I begged you to help and that you should be sainted for services to friendship. He was fine about it. Absolutely fine…’ Roxy closed her eyes. Good Lord, she had to stop. She had to stop. Sod it–in for a penny, in for a huge big whopper that’ll prevent risk of blind fury from irate best chum.

‘In fact, he said you deserved a break and not to worry about him–you’re just to go and enjoy yourself.’

‘Really? Thank God. See, I’ve told you a million times, Roxy–he’s one of the good guys.’

And there it was–the kind of utter blind devotion and unquestioning adoration that a lifetime relationship required.

And that, Roxy thought glumly, is why I’m single.

School Disco, Farnham Hills

Hall Christmas 1993

‘Come on, Ginny, let’s dance–it’s ‘Relight My Fire’!

Ginny shrugged and shook her head. She hated dancing in front of people. She’d memorised every step in the video, but somehow it was easy to do in her bedroom with only her Take That posters as witnesses.

‘Forget it then! Honestly, Ginny, how are you ever going to get a boyfriend when you’re so boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. Well, I’m sick of boring!’

Roxy stormed off in a strop, leaving Ginny squirming in her chair. Roxy would ignore her all night now as punishment for not doing what she wanted–probably not a bad thing because if she got dragged into another smoking incident her mother would kill her. And no matter what Roxy said, those menthol St Moritz cigarettes were revolting.

She loathed these discos: chairs lined along the walls of the hall, a table outside the toilets selling flat Coke and crisps, and Father Murphy spinning records on a double stereo deck that the local pub had donated after the invention of CDs. And all this was witnessed through the haze caused by the two flashing disco lights attached to the front of the deck. Red. Green. Red. Green. Red. Green.

About a hundred youths had taken hours to plan their big night out, pick an outfit and then get dolled-up to the nines, only to be illuminated to the approximate shade of someone with acute gastroenteritis.

‘Move.’

Even over the volume of Lulu singing her lungs out, the aggression in the familiar voice was unmistakable. Ginny raised her eyes to see Fanny Brown staring down at her (actually her real name was Felicity, but Roxy had nicknamed her Fanny years ago and it had stuck, although obviously no one, other than the blatantly suicidal, said it to her face), along with her two pals Dora and Dorothy (aka Dopey and Daftarse, again courtesy of Roxy).

‘What?’ Ginny replied tentatively, trying to disguise the slight tremor in her voice. There was no denying it, Fanny Brown terrified her. She’d been suspended twice for fighting, once for stealing, once for threatening behaviour and once for kicking Mr Wilkinson, the Art teacher, in the goolies. Ginny made it a point to stay out of Fanny’s way.

‘I said MOVE! Something wrong with your ears?’ Fanny was bearing down on her so that her face was only six very scary inches from Ginny’s, choking her with the intoxicating fumes from the bottle of Diamond White Fanny had necked before coming to the disco. ‘We want to sit there, so move.’

Ginny’s heart was beating so fast that she was starting to feel dizzy–which at least took her mind off her churning stomach and the ever-increasing desire to throw up or faint. Panic overruled her motor skills and she discovered that although her brain was begging her legs to adjust to a standing position they were too busy trembling with fear to respond.

A split second later, Ginny felt a searing pain in her head and a compelling urge to levitate, the result of Fanny’s hands gripping on to her hair and wrenching it upwards. She was going to die. She was definitely going to die, right in the middle of Gary Barlow singing about needing her love.