in planning a funeral – the one person it’s for can’t attend. Dispensing a Lifetime Achievement award, but with no cutaways to their delighted face in the audience.
It’s not for Susie, it’s for everyone else, my mother said.
She made me strong cups of tea, sitting at her kitchen table, and rubbed my back as she said things like ‘Oh my God, how awful,’ and ‘That is no age, no age at all’ and ‘I know you two girls were thick as thieves’ and ‘I am so sorry, darling’ at intervals as I heaved and near-retched, talking about what happened. I wasn’t holding my emotions in check for anyone else’s sake, I could let it out with my mum. She talked fondly about how she’d always thought Susie looked like Carly Simon, and I got a bittersweet pang of gratitude at a familiar observation that only days ago, would be pleasant but mundane. The value of memories of Susie had shot up, like the hiked price of a rare autograph.
But how does that advice work, in practice? It’s for Susie and not for Susie, at the same time?
‘How is everyone?’ Justin says on his return, setting his cup down, spoon rattling in the saucer.
‘Terrible,’ I say. ‘You?’
‘Minging, yep. I look like I’m in prosthetics to play Winston Churchill, I’m that puffy.’
I laugh weakly. I wish Susie’s laugh was echoing mine.
‘You brought notes, Eve?’ Justin adds.
I look down at my gnawed-looking scrap of paper. ‘Uh yeah. Things we discussed previous.’
In truth, I wanted to look as if I have homework if Fin gets testy about the fact we’ve not sorted much. The delay in the body being released after the postmortem means we can’t book the funeral yet.
The body. The remains, as someone said to me. It made Susie – whole and beautiful, if extinct – sound like a shard of bone found on a dig in a forest.
‘You kind of wonder what aesthetic Manhattan restaurants use, now that even coffee chains in Britain have ripped it off, huh?’ Ed says.
‘Mmm?’
‘The Edison light bulbs, exposed brick walls and the knacked-up brown Chesterfield sofas in here. I mean, that was cutting-edge cool, once.’
‘Hah. Yeah.’
‘The Teacup Girls have got in touch with me, by the way,’ Ed says. ‘They want to offer their input into Susie’s send-off. Also, they want to know why we haven’t changed her Facebook page into an In Memoriam. She has her wall locked down.’
‘What?!’ I say, chest immediately aflame with indignation. ‘Firstly, no way are they having input! They’ll give her horses with feathers on their heads and a Snow White glass coffin and “Wind Beneath My Wings”. Played by Boyzone. On kazoos.’
‘That sounds pretty rad and status quo disruptive to be fair,’ Justin says. ‘Make a note now: that’s what I want.’
‘Also her page isn’t set up for lots of “rest in peace our princess” posts because Susie would loathe that.’
I know why I’m incensed and protective. If attempts are made to rewrite who she was, to rival my claim to her, I’ll lose her by another degree. My Susie is the real Susie.
‘Why did they go to you, and not me?’ I add.
‘Given your reaction, I can’t begin to imagine,’ Ed says, tipping his cup to drink with little finger aloft, and Justin guffaws.
I harrumph and say: ‘Yes well if they know her best female friend would cockblock them doing it, then that tells them they shouldn’t be doing it.’
‘I’ll ask them to message me their thoughts and we can decide whether to use them. I have a feeling they’ll lose interest as time goes on. No one has the right to get across you, Eve. Everyone knows that. You two were practically a marriage.’
I nod and try not to cry for the thousandth time. I will never have a friend like her again. Not only because of our affinity, the sheer timescales. You can’t make new old friends. Doors in your life, open and closing.
Ed sips his Americano and glances across to the staircase.
‘… Oh, speak of the devil. That could be Finlay …?’
I look over.
It’s definitely Finlay. Even if I hadn’t recognised his features, the ink-dark expensive clothing and pristine white Adidas Superstars signal money, and Otherness. And yes, ‘the devil’ seems apt.
He scans the room. I raise my hand, as if in class, to say: ‘Here.’
In three purposeful strides across the room, Finlay Hart is at our table.
My first thought is: he’s taller than I remember. My second thought is: I’m surprised at how