my collar.
Without warning, she grabbed my arm. ‘Careful,’ she gasped, pointing to my feet. I looked down to find a pizza with one bite out of it discarded on the pavement.
‘Could have gone flying…’ she said, steering me around it.
‘What a shame. It even had pineapple on it.’
She made a puking sound. ‘I hate them. Used to work in an Italian joint. Since then I can’t bear those little balls of mozzarella. And the smell of oregano makes me throw up.’
‘Miranda had a thing about sherbet fountains when she was about ten. Only she was the opposite. She was obsessed with them.’
‘Those yellow paper tubes… with liquorice sticking out?’
‘They’re the ones. Miranda kept a stockpile without anyone knowing. She’d have at least three before bedtime. Every night.’ My words were clipped as I snatched my breaths. ‘We’d find half-eaten ones in her sock drawer… under her pillow… hidden in her hiking boots. That summer, we came across boxes of them in the garden shed. But the mice had got to them before she could. Such a mess. Put me off them for life.’
Emily giggled and I felt a tingle of pleasure at making her laugh. ‘I’ll have to buy her one. See what she says!’
We ran through a park, away from the raw exposure of the main road, distanced from the heckling of traffic. It was suddenly hushed, as though we’d crossed into another world.
‘It was nice you were worried about me,’ she said, without any preamble. ‘I had a bit of a meltdown after Miranda’s ceremony.’
‘Are you okay now?’
‘Getting there. I had a nasty shock.’
She said no more and I thought that was all she was going to give me. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a tissue to blow her nose, then spoke again.
‘My friend died falling down stairs years ago. It was a big grand staircase like the one at Miranda’s award night.’
I recalled Emily’s reaction when we’d walked into the entrance hall. I’d thought, like me, she was in awe of the majesty, but instead she was calling out in horror.
She went on. ‘The shoes she had on were too big and she slipped. Tumbled down around ten steps. But that in itself wasn’t what killed her. On the way down she cracked her head open on the exposed stone beside the carpet.’
I reached out and squeezed her arm. ‘Oh, my god, I’m so sorry. What an awful reminder.’ I couldn’t tell if the water coursing down her face was rain or rain diluted with tears.
‘Miranda’s ceremony brought it all back. Sorry I scared you.’
‘Is that why you had to rush to the loo?’
‘I thought I was going to throw up. I didn’t have time to explain.’
Still the rain came down, thrashing the pavement, stabbing our faces with thousands of icy needles. The adversity seemed to bring us together, fighting the ravages of winter side by side.
‘I left straight away.’ She let out a moan. ‘Or I tried to. I got caught by Ralph before I could get away. He was asking me if I knew when Miranda’s birthday was. I said I hadn’t a clue. He was a bit weird actually. He stands way too close. Stares too much. He’s a bit creepy.’
‘I know what you mean.’ I decided to test something out even though it meant telling a white lie. ‘He tried to touch my hair once.’
‘Oh, God – yes, me too! What is it about men and long hair? I suppose Miranda’s hair is really short – maybe he misses running his hands through thick curls or something. Maybe he has some kind of fetish about it.’
Her words were like barbed wire across my face. ‘I’d be very careful around him,’ I warned her. ‘I don’t like him one bit.’
65
In spite of literally being soaked to the skin, I felt categorically euphoric when I got home. That’s endorphins for you. In fact, those feel-good chemicals had sent us into fits of hysterics by the end. We’d found a stretch of deep puddles near the Royal Festival Hall and stamped in them with both feet together, like little kids. We danced and messed about as if we were drunk.
‘When are we running next?’ she’d asked, kicking a cascade of water as far as she could.
‘Not sure. The new man of my dreams and I have had a tiny falling out.’
‘Already?! That’s not good. You need to sort that out, girl. We’ll run on Monday, shall we? Give you the weekend to fix