Page 41 of The Life She Could Have Lived

NO

Anna gestured to the barman for another and grimaced at him as she raised the shot glass and knocked it back. She felt hands on her shoulders and jumped, but when she turned, it was just Nia.

‘I’ve been looking for you,’ Nia said, her face full of concern.

‘Where?’

‘Well, I called your mobile, and then I went to your flat, and then I thought I’d try some of the local eating and drinking establishments. And here you are.’

‘Here I am.’

‘Do you know what time it is, Anna?’

Anna looked at her watch. ‘Yes. It’s twelve twenty-five.’

‘Bit early for shots, don’t you think?’

Nia gave the barman a stern look and he held his hands up as if to say it was nothing to do with him. He was young, late twenties or just about early thirties.

‘Oh, guess what?’ Anna squealed. ‘This is Julius!’

Nia smiled tightly. ‘Oh yes?’

‘Another please, Julius,’ Anna said.

The barman looked from Anna to Nia and back again.

‘No,’ Nia said sharply. ‘I’m taking her home.’

Anna wanted to protest but didn’t have the energy. She slid off the bar stool and felt suddenly much more drunk than she had when she’d been sitting down.

‘Have you eaten anything?’ Nia asked.

Anna shook her head.

‘Right.’

When they were at the door, Nia’s arm hooked firmly through Anna’s, Nia turned and looked at the barman again.

‘If she comes in again, don’t let her get this drunk.’

It was a five-minute walk back to Anna’s flat, and she let herself be pulled along the Balham streets by Nia.

They didn’t say much. At Anna’s front door, Nia helped her find her keys and they went inside.

Once Anna was settled on the sofa, Nia looked through the fridge and then said she was going out again.

‘I’m just nipping back to Sainsbury’s to get you some food. Don’t go anywhere.’

Anna had no intention of going anywhere, but soon after Nia left, she found that she was crying.

Had she cried in the bar? Had she told that young barman everything?

How she had thought she’d finally found her happy ending with Ben, only for him to have a heart attack and die on her less than four years later?

She had no idea. All she remembered was heading out for a quick walk and then feeling herself pulled towards that bar, where she’d drunk with Ben a handful of times.

She’d thought perhaps she’d go in for some lunch, but once she was inside, sitting on a bar stool, she had known.

She’d gone in for one reason and one reason only, and that was to search for oblivion.

It seemed like no time at all had passed before Nia was back, a bag of shopping in each hand. She talked to Anna as she unpacked the bags in the kitchen.

‘Milk, tea, biscuits, bread, cereal, soup, cheese, eggs, potatoes, carrots, salad. This should keep you going for a bit. What would you like now, for lunch? Shall I make you a sandwich?’

Anna stood up and went through to the kitchen. ‘Why were you looking for me today?’

‘What do you mean?’

Anna shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I just… Don’t you have things you should be doing, with Jamie and Cara?’

‘Don’t do this,’ Nia said, pulling slices of bread from the packet she’d just opened. ‘Don’t shut me out.’

‘I don’t want to be a burden.’

‘And you’re not.’

They didn’t talk much while Nia made sandwiches and tea. They carried them into the living room, sat down on the sofa.

‘Have you thought any more about going back to work?’ Nia asked. ‘Have they been in touch?’

‘No,’ Anna said.

She thought about going back to the office. It was unimaginable at the moment. All those people there who relied on her, who expected her to make decisions and know what she was talking about. To focus. To sit at her desk for an entire day and not scream or cry or throw things. She wasn’t ready.

‘I can’t do it,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine being able to do it.’

‘You will,’ Nia said, reaching out and touching Anna’s arm. ‘You just need more time, that’s all.’

Anna put her plate down on the floor, the sandwich untouched.

She saw the way Nia looked at her, the worry there.

She knew she had lost weight, that she was drinking too much, that she wasn’t dealing with things.

But how did people do it? How could they stand to be in their own skin, all day, every day ?

‘Do you ever think about what Magda said?’ Anna asked.

Nia raised her eyebrows. ‘Of course. Do you?’

‘I always thought the tragedy she mentioned was my marriage breakdown, but that wasn’t tragic. Not really. I should have known there would be something else. She meant this.’

Nia looked at Anna for a long time. ‘I thought you didn’t even believe any of it.’

‘I thought I didn’t. But look how many years it’s been, and it’s still hanging over me.’ She paused. ‘I might just go to bed.’

‘Please don’t,’ Nia said. ‘I’m here, I have the whole afternoon. We could watch an old film or talk or just sit here in silence but please let me be here with you.’

Anna was moved by Nia’s gesture. She’d known, hadn’t she, that Nia was the best friend she could wish for?

Somehow, Nia was going to pull her out of this hole, or do her very best to.

Sarah had offered to come over too, and though Anna had said no, she thought often of the offer, of what it meant to her to have people who loved her, despite not having the one she wanted the most.

‘ Sex and the City ,’ Anna said.

‘What?’

‘Let’s watch Sex and the City . I have them all on DVD. I haven’t seen them for years.’

Years ago, before their lives had got serious, Anna and Nia had often spent Sundays together watching TV and eating junk food.

They would wear their comfiest clothes and drag the duvet from the bed of whoever’s flat they were at, and settle down for the day.

Anna wanted to regress, to revert, to forget everything that had happened between those easy days and these hard ones.

But no, that wasn’t quite true. Because she didn’t want to forget Ben altogether.

She just wanted to forget that she had loved him, and he had died .

Nia dug out the DVDs and put one on, and almost immediately Anna felt like a different version of herself.

A version who had believed that things were simpler, that she would marry Edward and stay with him forever.

That life would work out. For a couple of hours, she sat there, her best friend at her side, and allowed herself to pretend that she was still that person.

And then the DVD ended, and when Nia turned to her and asked if she wanted to watch the next one, she shook her head.

‘You know that thing I always used to talk about, that happiness I was looking for and didn’t know what shape it might take or whatever?’

Nia nodded.

‘I didn’t have that with Edward. And once I realised I didn’t, I knew I had to end it.

And then I was stupid enough to think I might have it with David, even though anyone with half a brain could see he was a player and he was never going to be faithful to anyone.

I was so na?ve. But with Ben, I really think I had it.

I really think that was it. It wasn’t perfect, obviously, but it was pretty damn close. ’

‘It was,’ Nia agreed. ‘It shone out of you.’

‘So why did I only get to have it for a few years? It’s not fair.’

Anna knew she sounded like a child who hadn’t got her way, but that was how she felt.

‘It isn’t fair,’ Nia said. ‘But I’m starting to think that you don’t only get one chance, one soulmate, one shot.

I mean, look at you. You could have had a future with that guy James you went on one date with, or you could have stayed with Edward, or you could have met Ben much earlier, and had a life with him.

Or you could have it again, in the future, with someone you haven’t even met yet.

I know you don’t want to hear that, because you’re not ready to move on, and that’s fine.

But one day you will be, and you might just meet someone completely different from Ben, who isn’t better than him but who shows you a different way to be happy.

And then there’s me. I mean, if I wasn’t with Jamie, I might have ended up with that hot friend of Ben’s. ’

‘Aidan?’

‘Ah, yes. Dreamy Aidan. I wonder what he’s doing right now.’

Anna smiled despite herself, and then she took a deep breath. She hoped Nia wouldn’t hate her for what she was about to say. Hoped Jamie wouldn’t, either. Telling Nia this had seemed unimaginable a few years ago, and now it seemed like nothing.

‘That guy, James…’

‘Yes?’ Nia asked. ‘Oh my god, you’ve seen him again, haven’t you? Do you know where he is?’

‘I do,’ Anna said.

Nia’s eyes widened and Anna suddenly felt very sober, and wasn’t sure she was doing the right thing.

‘Please don’t be angry with me,’ she said. ‘It’s Jamie. James is Jamie. The first time I met him, when I was back from New York to see you and meet Cara for the first time, it just didn’t seem right to tell you.’

Nia’s mouth was hanging open. ‘What the fuck?’

Anna couldn’t tell whether she was angry or just surprised. She waited.

‘All these years, I’ve been hoping you’ll run into him again, hoping you might get some kind of fairytale ending out of it, and the man in question is my partner?’

Nia started to laugh and then Anna did, and it felt so good, to be laughing, the kind of laughing that hurt a little after a while.

Nia put a hand over her mouth, trying to pull herself together, but it was impossible, and she gave in to it again, and the two of them sat there, side by side, uncontrollable, for some minutes.

There were tears streaming down their faces, and for once, Anna thought, they were not borne of sadness.

‘And Jamie knew? I mean, of course he knew! That bastard!’

Anna thought back to that day in the kitchen, when Nia had been so strung out and stressed about new motherhood, how she and Jamie had decided to keep it between them.

‘God, he’s going to kill me for telling you,’ Anna said. ‘We made a deal.’

‘So, let me get this straight. You’ve kissed my partner?’

Anna remembered the date she and Jamie had gone on. It felt like a million years ago.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘I have. But just the once, and it was, like, a different life. Are you angry?’

‘No,’ Nia said.

And Anna loved her friend so much for the fact that there hadn’t even been a second of hesitation.

‘But I don’t want you to have a fairytale ending with him any more,’ Nia added. ‘If you don’t mind.’

When Nia went home, she hugged Anna on the doorstep. ‘Don’t go out and get drunk on your own. I know I don’t know what you’re going through, but please let me help you. Just call me, okay?’

Anna nodded. She felt better than she had that morning, when she hadn’t been able to see a way through. She felt a little lifted, and that was down to friendship, and she was going to remember it. ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘For finding me, feeding me, all of that.’

‘For not minding that you’ve kissed my husband?’ Nia asked, her eyes bright.

‘This is going to run and run, isn’t it?’ Anna asked.

‘You’d better believe it. ’

The flat felt empty again after Anna closed the door, but not desperately so. She had some toast and tea, and she read a chapter of a book she’d had on the go for ages. And just as she was thinking about heading upstairs to bed, at half nine, her phone rang. It was Ben’s daughter, Stella.

‘Hi, Stella.’

‘Hi. I just wanted to say hello, see how you’re doing.’

Anna felt her heart tighten like a fist in her chest.

‘I’m okay, Stella. Are you?’

‘Yeah, sort of. It’s just, it’s hard, isn’t it? I’ve been thinking about him all day, and you. How happy you made him.’

There was a pause, and Anna thought Stella might be crying.

‘He loved you so much,’ Anna said.

‘He loved you too.’

And then they both said nothing, and Anna could hear Stella’s music playing in the background, and she realised that she missed the noise and bustle of the girls being in the flat.

‘How’s Tess?’

‘Up and down. She got her nose pierced and Mum freaked. Can you imagine what Dad would have said?’

Anna thought about that. She thought he probably wouldn’t have liked it. He’d struggled with his girls growing up, the way she imagined all parents did. But what did any of it matter, in the end? What did a piercing matter, or a tattoo, when at any moment, you could lose someone?

‘Sometimes,’ Stella went on, ‘I wish he’d had something like cancer, and we’d known, had some time to say goodbye, you know?

And other times I think it’s better that it happened the way it did, no notice, no time to prepare.

Because he was himself right up to the end, wasn’t he?

Not some ill, deteriorating version of him. ’

Anna couldn’t speak.

‘Anna?’

‘Yes, Stell?’

‘Do you think we could get together sometime? Go for a coffee or see a film or something?’

‘Yes,’ Anna said. ‘Yes. I would really like that.’