The Best of Friends by Alex Day (english novels to read .TXT) 📗

I put him down, he turns and wraps himself around his bear, but he doesn’t stir. I thank God again that he’s all right, and then ponder that every cloud has a silver lining. In this case, it was the chance to get to know Charlotte better and much more quickly than would have occurred under normal circumstances; there’s nothing like a crisis to pull people together.

Once I’ve checked on Jamie, who’s also asleep, but fortunately in his own bed as there’s no way I could carry all 5ft of him, I go back downstairs. I’m too tipsy to sleep right now – I’ll have head spin if I so much as try to lie down. And anyway, there’s a TV drama I want to watch. I settle into the warm dent in the cushions where Luke had been lying and fiddle with the remote until I’ve got the channel I want. The opening credits of Look Back in Anger roll, and I concentrate on the unfolding drama.

When I finally crawl upstairs to bed, it’s well after midnight. Setting my alarm for the morning, I have to contemplate the real reason why I’ve been so reluctant for this day to be over and the new one to start. Because tomorrow my parents are coming to lunch and I’ll have to face their quiet disappointment in me, with no escape until they choose to leave. I bury my face in my pillow and fall into a fitful sleep, in which tennis-playing mushrooms loom large.

I wake in the morning feeling groggy from the alcohol and do what everyone does the day after drinking too much, namely swear to myself never to do it again. I start to prepare the lunch, peeling potatoes for the pot roast (cheaper than a joint and anyway, it’s Saturday, not Sunday) and apples for the crumble. Peering in the fridge, I realise I forgot to buy cream and, shouting to the boys that I’ll be back in ten minutes, I put my coat on and head out to the shop. Luke has woken up as right as rain and I’m not worried about him at all anymore, just bemused by his apparent indestructibility.

The only cream in the village shop is UHT single, which isn’t what I want but will have to do. I reach out my hand to take my change whilst tucking the pot into my bag. In a hurry to get back and get on with the cooking, I turn hastily towards the door and walk straight into a previously unseen customer waiting to pay, knocking what he’s carrying out of his hands.

‘I’m so sorry,’ I exclaim, taking in the mess I have caused. On the shop’s uneven linoleum floor lie the remains of a box of eggs, shells, whites and yolks liberally distributed across a wide area – including halfway up the trouser legs of the person who had been trying to buy them.

Who, I see now, is Dan.

‘Oh, hello Dan, gosh, how embarrassing,’ I stutter, and then without pausing for breath, ‘I’ll buy you another box – and pay for these,’ this last addressed to the shopkeeper who is bustling around under the counter, looking for something with which to clear up the mess. I grab the kitchen roll he emerges with and kneel down to start wiping up the egg, which is slimy and slippery and resistant to my efforts. Humiliation suffuses me and I know my face is bright red, making me unable to look anywhere but down at the floor, whilst ineffectually trying to cover my mortification by a stream of apologies and exclamations.

‘Dan, your jeans are filthy, they’re … well, they look rather terrible …’

I’m on my hands and knees, right in front of him, but still incapable of raising my gaze to where it might meet his. ‘Can I take them home and wash them or something?’

There’s a pause, broken only by the sound of egg being slopped about as I continue to chase it ineffectually with my wad of paper. Eventually, the pause has gone on for so long that I simply have to look up. There’s nothing further to lose; whatever impressions he may previously have had of me as a reasonably articulate and together person will be as shattered as the eggs by now.

I see him appraising me, a sardonic half-smile adorning his handsome face. Gradually, in a flush of horror, the realisation dawns of the exact nature of the vista before him. Me, kneeling submissively at his feet, dabbing his shoes with kitchen roll and asking him to take his trousers off and give them to me. The awful, excruciating black comedy of it sweeps across me and I think I might burst into tears.

As I’m struggling to resist the pricking behind my eyes, a bellowing laugh bursts forth from Dan. My humiliation is complete. I am a laughing stock.

‘Susannah, just get up and let Ken do the cleaning,’ he splutters. ‘I think he’ll do a better job than you. And I’ll keep my trousers on, if you don’t mind. I don’t fancy walking home in just my boxers.’

I stagger up from my uncomfortable position, my legs shakier than just the lack of blood flow warrants. I catch his eye and for a second, the tears threaten anew. And then his complicit smile that invites me to share the joke with him draws me in and I see the funny side. I start to laugh, and in moments we are both roaring our heads off, the shopkeeper Ken, also unable to keep a straight face, chuckling wryly in the background.

‘Your eggs,’ I manage to articulate, when I’ve regained my breath and before collapsing into another round of helpless mirth, ‘I must replace them.’

‘It’s fine. Don’t worry about it.’ Dan wipes his hand across his eyes and manages to affect a serious expression for a few moments. ‘But please, look where you’re going in future – most of my clothes are dry clean only.’

We both