The Best of Friends Alex Day (best short novels .TXT) 📖

I arrive at your house, panting and sweating, partly from the rapid walk and partly from the icy fear that trickles through my veins and, these days, never, ever, completely leaves me. I take a moment on the doorstep to calm myself before lifting the knocker and hammering loudly.

Your door opens to a flurry of white that rises up from the uneven wooden floorboards. You let me in and, like Hansel and Gretel with their breadcrumbs, we follow the trail along the hallway to the kitchen. In your sink sits a sheaf of elderflower, creamy blossoms spreading themselves assiduously across every surface.

Ostensibly, I’ve come to offer you congratulations; fortunately, my brain wasn’t so addled on the way here that I failed to muster a reason for dropping in like this. You messaged me a couple of days ago to tell me that you’ve got the job as deputy manager at the tennis club cafe. This is news that’s worth celebrating. Having a bit more cash will make life so much easier for you. Plus you’ll be happier with a focus, a job to give meaning and structure to your days.

I wish I could tell you the real reason why I’m here. But of course I can’t.

‘Been out foraging solo?’ I ask you, determinedly focusing on the here and now rather than the perils of the past – and future.

I’m surprised, as even though you’ve expressed interest in the group, you haven’t actually attended a get-together yet. And I wasn’t aware that you knew anything about what to gather or how to make things with it. You seem altogether too citified, too pristine, to have ever gleaned that sort of information.

‘Oh no,’ you scoff, confirming my surmises. ‘I don’t know the first thing about it, and there’s been so much rain recently. I’ll definitely be a fair-weather forager.’

I might have guessed as much. My own interest in the club is all to do with that need to play a part that was so overwhelming when I first arrived in the village, having secured my ideal house, my ideal life. Being some kind of earth mother, tapping nature’s bounty for sustenance, was an idea that held so much romance I simply couldn’t resist. Plus it would set me up as an innovator, bringing fresh initiatives to the somewhat benighted locals. After all, it’s not just Eva Peron’s prerogative to want to be adored. And actually, the more I foraged and the more I learnt, the more I got into it and now I love it.

And though I clearly don’t need free food, I do need a foil for all the nefariousness of my past, not to mention the excesses of life with Dan.

You fill the kettle, only just managing to get it under the tap as there are so many elderflower stalks in the way.

‘Miriam dropped by earlier,’ you continue, ‘and gave me all this.’ You indicate with a flick of your head towards the frothy mass. ‘She says she’s going to come back later and show me how to make elderflower cordial – she’s convinced the boys will love it. I didn’t like to tell her that Lucozade Sport is more their thing.’

I raise my eyebrows in sympathy. I’ve spent what feels like half a lifetime convincing my boys of the benefits of wholesome fruit drinks rather than the mass-produced fizzy products of multi-national corporations. It’s not easy.

I wonder if Miriam had been on her way back here when I saw her just now. My behaviour will probably have well and truly put her off. She’ll have seen where I was headed and decided to keep a wide berth. For your sake, I hope she makes it at some point or you’ll have to get rid of this lot some other way.

‘I’m loving the idea of it for the cafe, though,’ you continue, oblivious to my distraction. ‘I think there’d be huge potential for introducing foraged and homemade items onto the menu. It’s so on trend right now. I’m definitely going to talk to Naomi about it.’

The kettle boils and you make coffee. I can’t stand instant coffee but I don’t refuse. It’s funny how these conventions of manners never get left behind, isn’t it? I think about all the countries I’ve lived in, all the cultures I’ve been part of, and try to find one where it would be acceptable to say, ‘No thanks, I don’t like your coffee’, and I can’t think of one. So I guess we humans are more alike than we sometimes think.

‘Well done for getting the job,’ I say, and take a quick sip before putting the mug back down on the table. I should ask you to be my spy, my secret agent keeping watch on Naomi but I don’t want to be too obvious. I decide to wait for you to offer, but you don’t.

‘Thanks,’ you say instead. ‘I’m really looking forward to it. Just …’

‘Just what?’

You grimace self-deprecatingly. ‘I bigged up my experience in customer service etc from running my gift shop – but I kind of left out the fact that it was well over a decade ago.’

‘So?’ I don’t know what you’re worried about. Surely anyone can sling a cup of tea and a slice of cake on a table, or add up the takings at the end of the day, can’t they? What qualification or evidence of recent experience would one need for that?

‘Well,’ you reply, and shrug defeatedly, ‘the thing is that Naomi didn’t ask for a CV but if she does … I’m not quite sure what I’ll give her.’

I emit a short laugh. ‘I really don’t think you should worry about Naomi’s judgement. I should imagine she’s just pleased to have been able to recruit someone as amazing as you.’ I take another, very small, sip of coffee. ‘You know, Susannah, the thing about most women around here – and sorry to say it, but it is a