attack). He swerves, my lovely cornet goes splodge and the bird lands next to it and stares. Giving me the beady eye and a squawk.
I double up, hands on knees, panting from the unexpected exertion, and shock. ‘Bugger, I was enjoying that.’
‘Told you! Never fling food around in Brighton, they’re the food police.’ He nods at the bird.
‘Mafia more like. That bird looks evil.’
We share a look. The dangerous intense-stare bit has been forgotten, which is good. Lick the icing off the cake and you risk ruining the lot, don’t you? Then feeling sick and wishing you hadn’t.
I reach for my camera, but the seagull has scarpered, and Freddie is laughing. ‘You always did take photos of everything, didn’t you? I remember at school.’
‘Everything!’ It’s cute that he remembers, but a bit embarrassing. I don’t remember much about him at all. I guess I was one self-obsessed teen who didn’t look beyond my groups of girlfriends, and the odd show-off cocky guy who was hot. I don’t think Freddie was hot back then, he was the quiet, geeky type.
But as I think about it, something deep in my memory stirs. Freddie helping us set up our photo exhibition for our GCSE exam, Freddie embarrassed when we both reached for the same picture, then more embarrassed when we dropped it, and both bent down to pick it up.
Freddie who painted the unassuming black-and-white still-life pictures that made something catch in my throat, even though I was a brash teenager who couldn’t explain why.
‘Your pictures were ace.’
‘Pretentious, “chocolate box” was how one art teacher described them, I think,’ he says without a trace of rancour.
‘They were good.’
‘They wanted Banksy and anger, not broken hearts and whimsy.’
‘They were wrong.’ I snap a picture of him, then one of our feet on the sand, so that I don’t have to look him in the eye and be embarrassed. ‘You’ve got quite big feet, haven’t you?’
‘You know what they say?’ He jiggles his eyebrows, then glances down, a cheeky grin on his face.
‘No, what’s that then?’ I try to keep a straight face and fail.
He colours up, a slight tinge of pink along his cheekbones, then suddenly laughs and sweeps me off my feet. The whole world is whizzing round, I can feel the warm imprint of every single one of his fingers, especially the one that has somehow slipped under my T-shirt, and it could be awkward.
‘Bugger.’ He staggers off balance, does a daft pirouette and we collapse to the ground. ‘Oof.’
I think that noise is because a fair bit of my weight landed on his stomach.
‘God, you’re a weight.’
‘Your own fault.’ I wave a finger at him, secretly, smugly glad that he did his silly dance so that I’d be the one that landed on top, and he’d be the one that was crushed.
We dust ourselves down, avoiding eye contact. Rolling on the beach isn’t exactly standard flatmate stuff, is it? And even if it was, I wouldn’t be doing it, because I still haven’t figured where I want to fit in the whole relationship arena. Not since Andy did what he did. I think I need casual, except I always seem to duck out of actual dates – because what’s the point, if you know from the start that it’s never going to work out?
‘At least it stopped you taking photos.’
‘You’ve done it now.’ He’s not looking, he’s bent over, so taking his feet from under him is easy. So is planting one foot, warrior style, on his chest and taking a photo. ‘When this is all over, that is going viral!’ I glance at the picture on my phone, check it’s not blurry. It’s not. He’s laughing, a hint of white teeth between his parted lips, lines fanning out from his eyes which are looking straight into the lens. There’s a single strand of honey-brown hair on his brow, curled by the sea air. I want to reach out, brush it away. So instead I stare at my screen. ‘I’ll have to do some retouching of course, sex it up.’
He laughs, then, with one sweep of his long leg, he’s taken mine from under me and I find myself sitting on damp sand.
As I go down, he gets up, and strides away before I can retaliate. He’s grinning though as he looks over his shoulder. ‘First one back gets to pick the movie.’
‘That’s cheating!’
‘Says she. Come on, you’ve got to get your latest dose of Ibiza online.’
I struggle to my feet as he jogs on the spot. But the second I’m upright, he’s off.
Bugger. He’ll pick some really gory, scary, film and I’ll have to spend the evening peeping out from behind a cushion or googling the ending.
‘Surprise!’ Rachel leaps up and waves madly as I walk into the dimly lit bar. It’s not so dimly lit that I wouldn’t have spotted her though. ‘We’re here! We’re in Brighton!’ She makes a whoop noise before launching herself at me for a mega hug. And she looks so happy, I immediately resolve to never even think about not liking Michael ever again. Once I’ve warned him that castration is still on my agenda. And as long as I don’t have to sit next to him. ‘Look who’s here!’
Rachel is grasping my arm and has moved to one side so I can see who is behind her. I look, and forget all about Michael, and cutting his balls off.
Surprise is the understatement of the year. I’ve been swept back to my days of spots and teenage angst.
‘Remember Maddie?’
‘Oh my God! Of course I do! What a brilliant surprise, how long has it been? You’ve not changed a bit!’ She hasn’t. Maddie has still got the neat, glossy swinging hair, kitten heels and matching accessories that she’s always had. Her perfection could be annoying. But it never has been. She’s too sweet, kind and considerate, and for want of a better word, nice. She is the Audrey Hepburn of the modern day.
Maddie waves wildly with both hands and looks genuinely pleased to see me. In fact, she looks relieved, if I’m honest, which is odd. I don’t ever remember being her favourite. We got on fine, but when we were at high school I drank, smoked and laughed too much for us ever to be bosom buddies.
‘Hey, stranger! You’ve changed lots … in a totally good way, though!’ Her smile and tone is so warm that I get all choked up inside. I think I’ve forgotten what is was like to spend proper time with real friends. Apart from Freddie. But time with girlfriends is different, isn’t it? ‘Look at you, all super star and you’re looking amazing. Those photos on Instagram are fab, you always were dead artistic! Rachel told me they were yours really, not that woman you work for. I look at every single one, I’m so pleased for you!’
I blush and feel guilty. Not out of false modesty (I am quite chuffed with my work for Coral), but because while Maddie has been following my career, I haven’t got a clue what she’s been up to since she picked up her exam results and walked out of high school for the very last time.
Maddie wasn’t a high achiever at school, all she’d ever wanted was to get married and be a stay at home mum. She’d been a natural when it came to looking after people. She cared. Out of Rachel’s group of friends, she had been the one that had welcomed me in without question, even though we were so different. She was the one that didn’t raise an eyebrow because I was in the year below them, the kid that Rach found behind the bicycle shed.
She was also the only girl I knew at school who never dated wildly. While the rest of us were oozing an hormonal smog and snogging in all directions, she only had eyes for one boy: Jack. Jack was her first, her only and I bet you any money