What If?. Shari Low

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      5

      High – The Lighthouse Family

      I arrive at Paco’s on Chiswick High Road fifteen minutes late due to a wardrobe crisis – pink pedal pushers are NOT for a woman of my curvatures and complexion – and the Number 57 bus driver refusing to go over twenty miles an hour. Chiswick is the most convenient meeting place, given that Kate lives around the corner, I’m only a few miles away, Jess can hop on a direct train from Westminster and Carol is dating a minted bloke who provides a car and driver to take her wherever she wants to go. As I charge into the packed restaurant, it crosses my mind again that I need to ask the others if they know what happened to Sarah, but I get sidetracked by their cheers.

      Kate and Jess have obviously filled Carol in on my day’s deliberations, because in front of them all are glasses full of red liquid – the unmistakable murky hues of the Invaded Vagina. I’ve never asked what’s in it and I’m pretty sure now isn’t the time to find out.

      ‘Cooper,’ Jess greets me, her Glaswegian accent softened by an overtone of posh London. ‘We were just about to call in a search party.’

      There are kisses and hugs all round, before I eventually park myself, desperate to fill them in on my latest episode.

      Jess, dressed in a classic navy power suit, takes charge as usual. As a political researcher and (secret) girlfriend of Basil Asquith, MP, she’s used to participating in important meetings and keeping things in order.

      ‘Right then, who’s got anything major to report this week?’ she asks, her red, chin-length bob not even budging as she scans her audience.

      Three hands shoot up, including mine, one almost decapitating a passing waiter. Bloody hell, THREE major news items. Normally we’re lucky if there’s one and we just fill the rest of the time with essential tasks like swapping salacious celebrity gossip. Most of that comes from Carol and Jess, with occasional top-ups from Kate. I wouldn’t come into contact with a celebrity unless I tripped over one when I was putting my bins out. I definitely have the least glamorous life in my circle.

      ‘Marks out of ten for importance, juiciness and trauma value?’ Jess requests.

      ‘Four,’ Carol replies, through a perfect, rose pink pout. It would be easy to hate her. She hasn’t gained a pound since we were fourteen, and she still has Cindy Crawford’s easy elegance and killer cheekbones. Even more irritating, she can throw on any old thing and achieve the kind of look that would take me a week and a half to put together.

      ‘Nine,’ adds Kate.

      ‘Ten,’ I smile gleefully.

      There’s a round of surprised faces. We haven’t had a ten since Jess caught her boyfriend in bed with his allegedly erstwhile wife and proceeded to assault him with a table lamp, causing him to flee his home with only his ministerial red box covering his dignity. It is a complicated relationship. Jess definitely isn’t the kind of woman who would entertain an affair, but Basil’s marriage has been over for years, and he and his wife keep up the façade for the sake of his political career and her social standing. Personally, I think Jess should run a mile from the pair of them, but she loves him, so I try not to judge.

      We decide to spill in reverse order, leaving the biggest until last. I can barely contain myself so I sip my cocktail to keep my gob otherwise occupied.

      Carol starts with a sigh. ‘Clive wants to take me to Antigua for two weeks.’ Clive is Carol’s latest boyfriend. Private-school educated, great connections, family money and he’s invested well in all sorts of technology that I don’t understand, so two weeks in a luxury resort wouldn’t even make a dent in his petty cash.

      I almost splurt my drink across the table. ‘And that’s a problem?’

      ‘Two weeks! Fourteen whole days and nights of Clive. I mean, he’s very nice and all that, but normally I don’t even hang around long enough to brush my teeth in the mornings. It’s usually meet, expensive dinner somewhere fabulous, his place, orgasm, and then I’m out of there.’

      And she’s not kidding. Carol treats her boyfriends like a session at the gym – a bit of a chore, a few СКАЧАТЬ