‘God, I’m sorry. Are you all right?’
Rowan searched her friend’s face. ‘Why do you take risks, Tasha?’
‘What risks?’
Rowan held her gaze and she laughed.
‘Oh, come now — I’m practically a recluse!’
Rowan knew she’d pushed it as far as Tasha would allow. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Okay. Let’s shop.’ She veered off in the direction of Next but Tasha dragged her back on course, pinching the sleeve of her jacket between thumb and forefinger.
‘No-no-no-ooo . . .’
‘Come on, Tasha,’ Rowan wheedled, ‘it can’t hurt to look . . .’
‘Hurt?’ Tasha said. ‘I’m getting a migraine at the very thought.’ She continued tugging on Rowan’s sleeve, keeping up the pace, moving implacably towards the designer boutiques and department stores at the more expensive end of town. ‘You told me this was an important wedding.’
‘It is,’ Rowan had to agree. ‘Why d’you think big brother is honouring us with his presence?’
‘Neil mentioned that Alex is flying over from New York,’ Tasha said.
Rowan had dragged Neil to Tasha’s flat on the disastrous night of the party so that she could keep an eye on him. Tasha had taken in the rebellious teen without hesitation, even though she’d been dressed ready to go out.
Tasha’s brow furrowed. ‘I thought you didn’t get on with the Scottish Rowans.’
‘You thought right,’ Rowan said.
‘So, why are they descending on Merseyside?’
Rowan groaned. ‘My second cousin, Stuart, is marrying a church-going Presbyterian girl from the Wirral, and her family want the wedding near home, so we’re expected to be there.’
They ploughed on through throngs of shoppers and business types, dodging market surveyors and street performers.
‘Ah . . . They don’t know that Alex lives in the States?’
‘Why else would he break with his busy schedule to come to Liverpool?’ Rowan knew she sounded bitter. ‘We need them to think he’s still around. If they get to know he’s living in the States, and me working shifts, they’re guaranteed to meddle.’ She felt a sudden wash of emotion, and Tasha, always sensitive to her moods, touched her arm lightly.
‘You okay?’
Rowan blinked back a tear and forced a smile. ‘Oh, you know, just worried about my next Visa card statement.’
They had reached the end of Church Street and, as a distraction, Rowan said, ‘How about Hobbs?’
‘My Aunty Peggy likes Hobbs.’
‘You don’t have an Aunty Peggy.’
‘And you don’t have the fashion gene, which is why you asked me to come with you. How about we take a look at Vivienne Westwood — she might have a cheeky little check that would scandalize the Scots?’
Alarmed, Rowan resisted Tasha’s gentle pressure at her elbow. ‘I don’t want to be conspicuous — I just want to blend in.’
Tasha laughed. ‘Honey, you’re not wallpaper. If you could be bothered to take five minutes on a make-up routine, you’d be gorgeous.’
‘I’ve a friend just like you,’ Rowan said, thinking of Ian Chan. ‘He delivers a compliment with one hand and a smack round the chops with the other.’
‘Maybe you should’ve asked him to help you pick out a frock.’
Rowan stopped dead. ‘Wait a minute — I didn’t say anything about a frock.’
‘If you showed your legs once in a while, you might be surprised by the positive effects on your social life.’
‘I don’t have a social life — and my legs have been on show every night for the past two month. If it’s taught me anything, it’s that too much exposure brings out the worst in men.’
Tasha got behind her and shoved her through the doors of Reiss.
Until Grosvenor Properties poured money into a massive demolition and reconstruction programme, the area from Paradise Street down to the docks was a jumble of slummy sixties low-rise in concrete and bile-coloured bricks. Known locally as ‘The Big Dig’, the transformation, completed in 2008, had involved excavating for underground parking, removing and reinstating a park, and creating new buildings over forty-two acres of the city centre. The friends covered most of it in the course of the next two hours. Tasha allowed a brief respite: coffee at a restaurant overlooking Chavasse Park, during which, with photographic recall and the ruthlessness of a military despot, she recapped the boutiques they had visited, stores they hadn’t, the maybes, must-haves and still-to-be-tried among the dresses, suits, skirts and accessories they had seen.
‘So,’ Tasha said, eyeing Rowan over her cappuccino. ‘How is Neil today?’
‘Hard to tell. We’re not on speaking terms,’ Rowan said.
‘You haven’t spoken to him since the party?’
‘Oh, there’ve been words. But not what you’d call a conversation.’
Tasha spooned some foam from her cup, savouring it like it was fresh cream. ‘It was supposed to be an Xbox session and a few beers with his best mates. The rest of the year group found out.’ She shrugged. ‘You know how it goes.’
‘He’s fifteen years old,’ Rowan said. ‘I’m not even supposed to leave him alone overnight.’
‘He’s nearly sixteen.’
Which was Neil’s same argument the day of the party. He’d flat out refused to sleep another night on their neighbour’s couch, and Rowan had only caved in to his demands because she was too tired to face another teenage strop.
‘Well, he isn’t sixteen yet,’ Rowan said. ‘God, if social services found out he’d been drinking—’
‘He seemed sober to me,’ Tasha said
‘That’s not the point, Tasha. I trusted him, and he let a load of boozed-up kids — worse than that — he let a drug dealer into our house.’
‘Ah, Gary Miller.’
Rowan glanced sharply at her friend. ‘He really opened up to you, didn’t he?’
‘He told me you put Gary flat on his arse.’
Rowan suppressed a smile. ‘Is that what he said?’
‘Mm-hmm. Sounded incredibly proud of his big sister.’
* * *
They descended the steps to the shops as the sky began to shift from pale blue to a greenish haze. Tasha paused for a moment, transfixed, it seemed, by the chilly beauty of the department store ahead of her. On a clear day, if the lighting was right, it seemed to take on the blue-green light reflected from the Mersey a short distance away.
‘It’s beautiful,’ Tasha breathed. ‘I’m going to paint it as an ice palace.’
Rowan had little appreciation of architecture. She liked the modernity of the new buildings, and the fact that everything felt so much cleaner since they had rebuilt the city centre, but that’s about as far as her interest went. Tasha, now only a semester away from graduating in Fine Art, spoke endlessly about colour and light and form and texture, but Rowan could never make any of it stick, and often couldn’t see what it was that had sent her friend into raptures. So she gave a neutral ‘Mm,’ and trudged wearily towards the Met Quarter, the next designer mall on Tasha’s mental tick list.