At the risk of Ben thinking I’m insane, I tell him I’d rather stay at the shop until it’s time to meet my friends. I get through the rest of the afternoon by comforting myself with the fact that I’ll soon be getting out of my head with Jess and Lisa. The bonus being that while doing so, they might offer me some sound advice – or at the very least a shoulder to cry on.

I love Jess and Lisa. I really do. I met them at tech college; our eyes met across a crowded registration hall. That was fourteen years ago. We hit it off immediately and have been proper mates to one another ever since. In Jess I saw a soulmate, a partner in crime. In Lisa I spotted a calming influence, someone who might help me fill out the forms correctly and get me into the right classroom at the right time. I needed them both. Need doesn’t always turn to affection; often it sours. But we worked well together as a unit, a team. We watched each other’s backs and still do.

Jess is funny, witty and careless (bordering on the reckless). She is the perfect person to call if you’ve ever done anything stupid that you regret (she can usually trump the stupidity or at least knows someone else who can). She is fabulously non-judgemental, which has been important to me throughout my twenties.

Jess chose to attend tech college rather than stay on at school because she was dating a boy who was also studying there at the time. The boy who gets the title ‘Her First Love’, but no more mention in this story because she fell out with him the summer before we started our courses, which was predictable but inconvenient. Jess changed vocation three times before the Christmas

Lisa is also funny and witty but she’s altogether more aware of consequences than either Jess or me. She’s always been great to have around to flash up a big amber light, if any of our single-girl antics threatened to get out of hand. Obviously, since I’ve been with Adam, Lisa hasn’t had to play the role of babysitter with me quite so much, but Jess still manages to get into her share of scrapes. Lisa’s common sense is as invaluable as her frequent cry of ‘I told you so’ is irritating. Lisa loves a plan. Even back in college she kept meticulous spreadsheets on everything – from her savings account (including target figures, short-term and for twenty years on) to number of sexual partners (she ranked performance and cross-checked against income – more of this to follow).

I’ve always hovered somewhere between total awe and absolute horror at Lisa’s level of control in every single aspect of her life. Lisa studied secretarial skills and

Lisa is not a natural beauty; she is a girl who makes the best of herself. Even fourteen years ago when she didn’t have a spare penny to toss she always looked a million dollars. She works out, she’s always immaculately dressed and I’ve never, ever seen her without makeup. Reportedly she didn’t relax this rule even when she was fully dilated and the midwife was asking her to push.

Lisa’s plan was to get a job in the City, as a PA. In the financial district there are about thirty men to every woman and every last one of them earns a salary the length of a telephone number. Lisa wanted one of them. There were times I worried she wanted any one of them – which isn’t a nice thing to think about a pal – but there were occasions when I really had to question her quality control. She didn’t seem too fussed if the guy was dark, blond, tall, short, fat, thin, funny or a git. She just wanted a large stone from Tiffany and ultimately a large house in Esher. There were loads of details in between about where they’d honeymoon and which restaurants they’d go to and stuff, but I used to tune out when Lisa itemized every single strategic particular in operation ‘Bag a Rich Guy’. It was bad enough that Jess and I, acting as wingmen, had to trail all the way out to Docklands to visit noisy bar after noisy bar, night after night (just to be hit upon or patronized by turn).

Her plan came together. By the time Lisa was twenty-three she was the proud owner of an Amanda Wakeley

Charlie is a nice enough guy. Considering the lack of direction on the brief, I think Lisa did well. He’s clearly intelligent (although a bit dry), he’s handsome enough (the sort of looks my mum would approve of but not the sort of look that turns heads or flips stomachs). The important thing is Charlie clearly adores Lisa. He is always showering her with expensive gifts, especially when he’s had to work late.

I ache to see both Jess and Lisa this evening. Although I share a flat with Jess, my early starts and her late dates have meant that we haven’t had a chance to catch up since Friday. I need to tell them about my row with Adam. Jess will assure me that while issuing an ultimatum to Adam was a dumb idea, she knows someone who… oh, I don’t know… who has done something even more silly to back their lover into a corner, causing him to growl and spit and claw. Right now, I can’t think of exactly what might be sillier but that’s the point of Jess – she will be able to do so. And Lisa will tell me to take a deep breath. She’ll understand why I need a game plan. Why I ache to move this relationship to the next level and she will confirm that I am within my moral rights and in my right mind. She’ll find me a solution. A dignified way of moving this on. That’s what friends are for.




6. Fern

Lisa staggers back from the bar carefully balancing a bottle of Chablis in an ice bucket and three glasses on a tray. She weaves her way precariously through the boisterous crowd; her face is tight with concentration. I hope she’s thinking about my dilemma with Adam but it’s more likely that she’s thinking about not upsetting the glasses. Not that we need more glasses – we already have them – as this is our third bottle of the night. Bugger. How many units is that? Too many.

‘I’ve got to stop drinking,’ I mumble.

‘Why?’ asks Jess, who rarely stops drinking until she falls over.

‘Because it’s not helping me think straight,’ I say.

Plus I can’t afford to do this. If I’d known we were going to drink this much I’d have suggested that Lisa come over to our place. You can buy this exact same brand of wine for less than half the price in the supermarket. But I always feel like a killjoy if I suggest a night in. Lisa looks forward to her up-town bids-for-freedom, as she jokingly calls our decreasingly frequent gettogethers. But then, Lisa has no concept of watching the pennies, although she does think the pounds look after themselves as her cash appears like magic. Charlie gives her an enormous allowance, plus he unquestioningly pays off her credit card at the end of every month. Lisa gave

I remember Lisa pointing out that her job as a PA paid less than they’d have to shell out for a wedding planner, so there was no point in her working in the run-up to the wedding since she could save some cash by organizing the wedding herself. Lisa’s reasoning seemed logical, once I accepted that real people actually have wedding planners. I thought they were something Hello! magazine had invented to torment brides-to-be who were suffering at the hands of their interfering mothers. Although the odd thing was that Lisa employed a wedding planner anyway, so that she had someone to discuss lace and stationery with ( Jess and I had a very limited interest in the subject at the time). After the wedding Lisa was flat out remodelling the house (apparently managing interior designers demands a lot of time), and now they have the children no one would dream of suggesting that Lisa ought to go back to work, she’s busy enough – even with the help of a nanny and a cleaner. And somehow, knowing all of this makes me a little shy about admitting to Lisa that I’m a bit short cash-wise; I don’t think she’d understand.

‘Plus binge drinking is V fattening,’ I add aloud.

‘Oh, don’t worry about that, you’ll lose weight without even trying soon,’ says Lisa as she starts to pour the wine.

‘Why, because Adam is going to leave me and I’ll be too heartbroken to eat?’ I wail, with a touch of melodrama that I just can’t resist.

Lisa tuts. ‘No, because as soon as you are engaged you’ll turn into a weight-obsessed freak and go all “nil by mouth”. Everyone does.’

‘You think he’ll ask me to marry him?’ I ask excitedly. I want a confirmation from Lisa that my plan is on track.

‘Probably,’ she says with more honest caution than I want. Why couldn’t she have said certainly? ‘He should do, if he knows what’s good for him. You’re gorgeous, the best thing that ever happened to him. He’d be mad to let you go. You two are so brilliant together.’

‘One of the happiest couples I know,’ confirms Jess with a small hiccup.

‘But?’ I can hear the ‘but’ hanging in the air.

‘Well, men…’ Lisa trails off.

It’s an articulate enough comment. Men don’t know what’s good for them. Men don’t always recognize the best thing that ever happened to them. Men don’t always do the right thing. Men make mistakes. We all do.

‘It’s not in the bag, is it?’ I ask drearily.

Sadly, my best friends shake their heads. I know they love me enough to want to lie to me and enough not to do so. We all take another gulp of our wine and gaze around the bar. It’s noisy and busy. The bar we are in is not the usual sort of place we meet up. Normally we grab a bite to eat at the local Italian. The waiters know us there; the service is perfect – attentive but not over-bearing. The Italian restaurant is always full of other groups of gossipy women, the music is piped out at a reasonable volume and the conversations are conducted at a reasonable pitch. Tonight we’ve tried War Bar in