Bookends Read Free Page A

the way that Eddie had described.
    We assumed that Eddie’s crush had blinded him to her actual attributes. We assumed she’d be pretty. Striking, even. But unassuming.
    And then Eddie announced she was coming to stay for the weekend. He was giving up his bed, he said, and would be staying the night at Sarah’s so that Elizabeth would be comfortable.
    ‘Yeah, yeah,’ Josh ribbed him. ‘Bet you’ll be sneaking back into your bed in the middle of the night, Sarah won’t be too happy about that.’ Sarah was not, at that stage, a permanent fixture, but we could see that Eddie had, up until this visit from the infamous Elizabeth, fallen for her.
    Eddie looked shocked. ‘Absolutely not. I’d never dream of doing anything. You know how I feel about Sarah, and anyway Elizabeth is my friend. That’s all.’
    We all caught Eddie’s excitement in the days before Elizabeth was due to arrive. All of us except Portia.
    ‘Don’t you want to meet this paragon of female loveliness?’ I asked her, and Jesus, how clear this memory is. I remember asking that question. I remember exactly where we were, and the memory is so strong I can suddenly smell it.
    I can smell the old seaside café, perched on the side of one of the narrow cobbled streets running up from the beach. During term time it was filled with students, noisily chattering, shouting at one another, sitting for hours over one cup of coffee, but then during the holidays it was full of old ladies, scarves wrapped around their hair, gnarled fingers clutching iced buns.
    I loved it best during the holidays. I loved staying there, seeing the town in a completely new light, feeling like a local rather than an unwanted student. I loved sitting in the café by myself, often with a book, but usually the book was only for show, enabling me to listen in on their conversations.
    I remember that day with Portia. I was supposed to be at a lecture, but I skipped it, vowing to make up for it later. I remember queuing for two steaming mugs of sweet, milky tea, and debating whether to treat myself to a bun, but deciding against it because those were the days when I actually cared what I looked like.
    Portia and I were sitting at a tiny table with our lighters precariously balanced on our packets of Marlboros, the air smelling of smoke, and freshly baked cakes, and salt from the sea. I remember being full of the joys of a flirtation with a boy called Sam, and telling Portia everything about the night before, in minute detail.
    And, being Portia, she listened and laughed in all the right places, and encouraged me every step of the way, and when I had finished I said I couldn’t wait to meet Elizabeth. And Portia didn’t say anything.
    ‘You’re coming with, aren’t you?’ I asked, having told her that all of us were going with Eddie to the train station to pick her up. Portia shrugged.
    ‘Why wouldn’t you come?’
    She shrugged again, then smiled suddenly. ‘I’m sure I will,’ she said brightly. ‘I’ve just got to go to the library, so I might have to miss the grand arrival.’
    And it didn’t occur to me at the time that there might have been more to it.
    ‘What do you think she’s like?’ I giggled. ‘Do you think she’s as perfect as Eddie makes out?’
    ‘She’s probably a total bitch,’ Portia said, which seemed out of character and took me by surprise, but then I entered into the spirit of things.
    ‘Or hugely fat,’ I chuckled, mentally applauding myself for resisting the bun.
    ‘Yup. She’s probably put on ten stone since Eddie last saw her, eating for comfort now that he’s gone. Either that or she’s balding.’
    I looked at Portia as if she were mad, and we both cracked up laughing.
    Portia didn’t come with to pick up Elizabeth, and in the end neither did I. Josh took Eddie and Sarah, as he was the only one of us with a car, and I sat in the kitchen at home, waiting for them, and waiting for Portia to come back from the library.
    I’d just made