‘When I first met you and Josh, I didn’t get why you were friends – you both seemed so different – but I can see how much he means to you,’ she had said.
‘He’s family.’ I hadn’t told Anna about my parents, not wanting to evoke that look of pity, but we were almost at the end of our holiday and it seemed like the right time. ‘Nine years ago my parents moved to Australia.’
‘Without you?’ Her fingers tightened around mine. I could hardly bear to look at her face but when I did, I could see a desire to understand. Her eyes searching mine.
‘Yeah. Well, they wanted me to go with them. Dad’s family are from there and his dad wasn’t well. It’s too far to keep visiting so…’ I shrugged.
‘But you must have been only…’ Anna worked it out in her head. ‘Sixteen?’
‘Yeah.’
‘That’s so young. Why didn’t you go?’
‘I nearly did, but the thought of carrying on my education in a foreign country seemed so daunting. Josh suggested I move in with his family; I spent so much time there anyway. After endless conversations between my parents and Josh’s, it was decided I’d stay in the UK until I’d finished my A Levels, but after I’d left school I wanted to go to the same university as Josh. My parents were cold people, distant. I’d never felt that close to them. They’d settled because Mum was pregnant with me but before that they’d always travelled. I felt I had tied them down. Josh and his family… I… I just belonged there. They put up with me every single uni holiday and after I’d finished my degree… Honestly, who’d want to trade the grey skies and constant dampness that is the north of England for a blazing sun and a beach on your doorstep, right?’
‘Right.’ Anna trailed a finger over my wrist. ‘But now you and Josh have a flat together?’
‘Yeah, just a small one. Despite our degrees, neither of us have high-flying careers. Josh temps – he never wants to be tied to anything or anyone – and I’ve been so focused on going away I guess I haven’t really made the best of the time I’ve had here. You’re happy living with your mum though?’
‘I am, but moving back home at twenty-four feels like a backward step.’ Anna sighed.
‘Where does Nell live? Could you share with her?’
‘No. She rents a house with a couple of girls she works with. I don’t think I could keep up with them. My liver couldn’t anyway.’
‘She’s certainly giving Josh a run for his money. Where did you meet her?’
‘Ah. Now there’s a story. We met during our first few days at uni. She was the drunk girl in the loo,’ Anna said.
‘The what?’
‘You know. In a bar there’s always a drunk girl comforting a complete stranger in the toilets. Telling her she looks amazing. That she is amazing. That the bastard who had made her cry isn’t worth her tears.’
I nodded although I didn’t know at all. It must be a girl thing. Still, it wasn’t hard to imagine Nell determined and vocal, flying the flag for female empowerment.
‘And that was your fiancé you were crying over?’ I asked.
‘Nah. He came later. I was crying over some random I’d met earlier that night who ended up snogging the face off of someone else. I was a bit drunk. A lot drunk. Fresher’s week.’ Anna shuddered.
‘I’d like to snog the face off you.’ I dove on her, covering her face in wet kisses, while she shrieked in mock disgust.
I replayed the highlights of our time together while I showered and dressed that last morning. Whatever angle I looked at it from, Anna was my perfect woman and tomorrow she was leaving. We both were.
Today, though, we were visiting the home of some literary author I had never heard of and, judging by the fact we were the only people standing in his library, no one else had heard of him either.
‘Imagine writing a story that people would still read hundreds of years after you’d died.’ Anna’s face shone as she gazed at his typewriter in awe. I didn’t read books but I got it. She felt about words the way I felt about films and music. The way I felt about travel.
The way I now felt about her, but I couldn’t tell her that. In twenty-four hours, we’d be nothing but a memory.
Anna glanced around the room before stretching her arm across the security rope and running her fingers over the keys. ‘He once touched these. Imagine how happy he must have been sitting here, dreaming up characters.’
‘Haven’t you ever wanted to write?’ I asked.
‘I’d like to but I’m not sure what.’
‘Have you tried?’
‘No.’
‘Everyone has something to say; it’s a matter of figuring out what that something is. What book would you write, if you could?’
‘A love story.’ Anna didn’t think twice. ‘One with a happy ending.’
‘A clichéd ending.’
‘Happy,’ Anna insisted. ‘Listen, this board says that he never finished his last work. Or did he and it wasn’t published. I can’t make sense of the way it’s worded.’ Anna frowned as she read the poorly translated sign again.
‘It must annoy you when you read things written incorrectly, Miss Teacher?’ I asked.
‘Not at all – I’m not the grammar police,’ Anna said too lightly. By now, I knew her better than that. I raised my eyebrows.
‘Okay, it does annoy me a bit,’ she conceded.
I crossed my arms and waited.
‘Okay. Okay!’ Anna grinned. ‘It really irritates me. Honestly, I once wouldn’t go into a steakhouse in London because it had been named Stephens Steaks without an apostrophe.’
‘That’s awful,’ I said.
‘I know.’
‘Imagine naming a steak house “Stephen’s”. It hardly screams Wild West.’
‘Shut up,’ Anna laughed. ‘There must be things that annoy you?’
‘People who think the Eighties were uncool.’
‘Oh.’ Anna kept a straight face. ‘We’re back to talking about the Eighties. Again. Shame we have to go. You realize what the time is?’ She checked her watch.
‘No?’ I said. My watch still wasn’t working after its dunking in the sea.
‘It’s Hammer time,’ Anna sang as she stretched out the sides of her shorts in a homage to MC Hammer rather than a mickey-take, I’d like to think. ‘You can’t touch this.’
I laughed while I watched her terrible dance. ‘I think you’ll find, Anna Adlington, that particular song was perhaps the Nineties.’
‘Shut up and touch this.’ Anna wrapped her arms around me and pushed her body against mine. Who was I to argue?
‘Last night then. Is it stupid to ask what your plans are?’ Josh splashed aftershave onto his cheeks. He hadn’t been able to charm Nell but they were hanging out most of the time. Each other’s wingmen apparently. I think the fact she hadn’t fallen for him was what was keeping him interested. I zipped up the one pair of jeans I’d brought. They were splattered crimson because I’d clumsily knocked a glass of sangria over them and couldn’t rinse the stain out under the tap.