The Story of Our Lives: A heartwarming story of friendship for summer 2018

She let herself into the hotel room. The debris of their earlier partying was everywhere to be seen: empty champagne flutes and several empty bottles littered the coffee table and bedside tables. Wearily, Sophie gathered them all up and put them on a silver tray that she placed outside the door. Then she brushed her teeth, climbed into bed and fell into a deep, fitful sleep.

‘So what do you do, exactly, working for a record company?’

Melissa frowned as she tried to focus on what he was saying. Her head felt thick and her senses were starting to blur. She had drunk far, far too much champagne. And she had managed to do a couple of lines of coke when the others were preoccupied earlier. She wondered vaguely if she should maybe do another one now to help clear her head a bit. The bottle they had ordered when she first joined the men at the bar was now empty and they had moved on to whisky. ‘Very glamorous. Very, very glamorous,’ she managed.

‘A bit like you,’ the one called John – or was it Joe? – replied.

Melissa smiled prettily. He wasn’t bad-looking. Mid-forties, with icy blue eyes and a strong jawline. He was wearing a wedding ring but if it didn’t bother him, Melissa certainly wasn’t going to let it bother her. He looked like he had a good body under his suit. He wasn’t paunchy like his friend Mark, who seemed to have realized when he was beaten and was now yawning into his whisky.

‘I think I’ll call it a night,’ he said, draining his glass and getting to his feet, a little unsteadily. ‘Have fun,’ he added, giving a lascivious wink as he staggered out of the bar.

‘So…’ Joe – or was it John? – raised one eyebrow at her meaningfully.

‘So…’ Melissa had been here before. Men picked her up all the time. She sometimes wondered if she should play harder to get but she simply didn’t know how. Occasionally, she would stop to think about why she was the way she was and she knew that it wouldn’t take a genius to work out that she was desperate for approval. And love. In the absence of any decent men asking her out, meaningless sex with married strangers gave her a tiny, fleeting taste of both.

‘My room or yours?’ he grinned. He had a nice smile. He also had no hint of doubt that she would sleep with him.

‘Have to be yours. My room-mate won’t appreciate us barging into mine…’

He smiled again. She wished she could remember his name. ‘Mine it is then. Shall we?’ He slid off his stool and crooked his arm for her to take. She slipped her arm through his, taking care not to hurt her roughly bandaged hand, and together they made their way out of the bar.

‘Goodnight!’ the barman called after them.

Melissa turned to wave and recoiled slightly at the look he gave her. Did he think she was a hooker?

‘Ignore him, he’s just jealous,’ Joe or John said, guiding her towards the lifts with a sudden urgency.

‘Worried you’ll be spotted by a friend of your wife’s?’ Melissa said as the lift doors closed behind them.

Immediately the doors closed, he pushed her up against the mirrored lift wall and kissed her hard, his tongue finding hers and his hands moving under her top to find her breasts, which he squeezed roughly. ‘My wife doesn’t understand me,’ he murmured, unzipping her white jeans and sliding his hands down to cup her buttocks. He lifted her up as if she was weightless and Melissa wrapped her legs around his waist, fumbling for the zip of his trousers. They dropped to the floor and she caught sight of his bare behind in the mirror as he slid inside her.

‘No!’ she gasped as he began to thrust.

He stopped abruptly and looked at her in shock. ‘No? Bit late for that, isn’t it?’

‘I meant, we need to use something.’

His face softened and he pulled out of her, letting her drop gently to her feet. ‘Shit. Of course. Sorry. Couldn’t help myself.’

A loud ping made them both jump and simultaneously they pulled up and zipped their trousers just in time for the lift doors to open. He grabbed her hand and led her out of the lift, Melissa scurrying to keep up with his long strides. Within seconds he had opened the door to his room and pulled her in. He raced to the bedside table where he retrieved a condom and held it up triumphantly. ‘There!’ he said, his eyes narrowing with undisguised lust. ‘Now, where were we?’

The next morning Sophie awoke with a start. She immediately glanced over to Melissa’s bed. It was empty. The niggle of discomfort she had felt last night instantly became a huge, pressing weight as her stomach dropped with fear. She should never have left her. What sort of friend was she to have abandoned her, knowing she was drunk and high on coke? She picked up her mobile phone and looked at it, praying for a message. There was none. She found Melissa’s number and dialled, tensing as she did so. It rang out, before clicking through to an answering service. Sophie hung up without leaving a message.

She climbed out of bed and walked to the window, aware that a cold sweat of panic had broken out on her forehead. Where the hell was Melissa? Just as she was wondering whether she should call the police, there was a familiar click and whirr as the door opened and Melissa crept in, looking almost comical as she tried to tiptoe across the carpet, seemingly not noticing Sophie standing by the window.

‘Where the bloody hell have you been?’ Sophie yelled, fear and panic and relief coursing through her veins all at once. She knew she sounded like a mother scolding her naughty child but she didn’t care. She was suddenly filled with a simmering rage.

Melissa’s already huge eyes widened as she looked at Sophie in surprise. ‘Oh, hey, Soph. I was trying not to wake you.’ She swallowed a giggle as she spoke, infuriating Sophie even more.

‘Well, as you can see, I’m already awake. Mainly because I was bloody well worrying about where you were!’

Melissa sighed deeply. ‘I’m fine! You didn’t need to worry about me. I can look after myself.’ She pulled off her blood-spattered white jeans to reveal a tiny black thong that showed off her perfectly formed bottom. She then took off her top and slid into bed. ‘God, I’m seriously knackered though.’ She snuggled down and closed her eyes.

Before she knew what she was doing, Sophie had crossed the room and pulled back the duvet, causing Melissa to yelp in shock as she tried in vain to grab it back.

‘Where have you been?’ Sophie demanded, clutching the duvet to her chest.

Melissa rolled her eyes. ‘I spent the night with that guy…’

‘What guy?’

Melissa frowned and sat up, pulling her knees to her chest to protect her modesty. ‘The one in the bar. Jesus, Soph, I don’t know what the big deal is.’

Sophie sat down on her own bed. She didn’t really know what the big deal was either but she was so angry. Was she jealous? ‘But you don’t know anything about him. He could be an axe murderer – he could be married…’

‘He is,’ Melissa said in a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Well, he’s not an axe murderer, obviously. But he is married.’

‘And doesn’t that bother you at all? Sleeping with someone else’s husband?’

Melissa raised her eyes for a second, as if pondering the question. ‘Nope.’

‘Well, maybe it should,’ Sophie said, feeling about a hundred years old.

‘I don’t think you’re in any position to preach to me about morality, Sophie.’ Melissa’s voice was gentle but her face had hardened slightly.

Sophie quailed. Melissa was right. She was in no position to lecture anyone. She stood up and threw the duvet at Melissa, before turning and heading for the bathroom.

‘Soph!’ Melissa called after her. ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—’

The rest of her words were lost as Sophie switched on the bath taps and ran herself a deep, hot bath. She wanted to cry but, like yesterday, she couldn’t. She hadn’t cried for a very long time and it was only now that she realized just how odd that was. She turned off the taps and walked back out into the bedroom.

Melissa looked up at her with wide, wet eyes. ‘Are you OK, Soph? I’m really worried about you.’

Sophie frowned. ‘No, I don’t think I am. I think I might need help.’

JULY 2000

‘In entertainment news, a new reality game show, Big Brother, airs for the first time in Britain tonight. The show sees twelve contestants kept in a custom-built house, with their every move monitored on camera. Each week one housemate will be evicted by public vote.’

BATH

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Sophie pressed hard on the brakes as she drove down the steep, winding road towards the centre of Bath. To her right she could see the city laid out beneath her, rows and rows of honeycombcoloured houses in their Regency splendour. It was a damp, misty day, when the sun hadn’t quite been able to burn through, but nothing could dampen Sophie’s excitement at seeing everyone again. It had been a year since their last get-together at Amy’s wedding and she wished now that she had been in a better frame of mind to enjoy what was probably the most glamorous wedding she had ever been to.

‘Well, this looks pretty special.’ Steve got out of the car in the shingle-covered car park in front of the ancient grey-stone church. It stood in the middle of the Wiltshire countryside, secluded from the rest of the world by woods and fields that had remained unchanged for centuries. He looked around him in wonder for a few seconds, before his eyes alighted on Sophie. ‘And so do you, sweetheart. You look absolutely stunning.’

Sophie flushed under his gaze and self-consciously smoothed down her cappuccino strapless dress. ‘Thanks but I feel like a fairy elephant beside the others. You look great though.’

It was true. Steve looked almost film-star handsome in his dark, slim-cut suit, which contrasted with his blond hair and sparkling blue eyes. His face was tanned and Sophie felt a sudden swell of pride that he was with her. She took his hand and led him towards the church where the others were waiting. They had all stayed overnight together with Amy at the luxurious hotel just a hundred metres away where the reception was being held and Sophie had found the whole night a struggle.

She had started taking antidepressants straight after the hen weekend in Brighton and she was still suffering with some of the side effects. Her head felt as though it was permanently stuffed with cotton wool, which perfectly matched her horribly dry mouth. She couldn’t have any of the free-flowing champagne that the others had vigorously enjoyed last night, especially Melissa, and she felt generally leaden and out of sorts. Her feelings of worthlessness were only exacerbated by the breathtaking beauty of everyone else around her. She felt embarrassed for Amy that she would be spoiling her otherwise perfect wedding photos.

As they reached the church, Melissa bounded over to them. ‘Hey, gorgeous!’ She reached up to wrap her arms around Steve’s neck and pulled him towards her in a warm embrace. Steve glanced nervously at Sophie as Melissa finally let him go, but she couldn’t give him the reassuring smile she knew he wanted. She wouldn’t blame him for fancying Melissa when he was stuck with someone as fat and unattractive as her. Melissa’s strapless dress clung to her perfect curves as if she had been poured into a liquid milk chocolate mould, and her black afro hair had been swept up into a chignon that showed off her toned, brown shoulders and elegant neck.

Emily and her six-year-old son Jack, who was the pageboy, stood off to one side and Sophie steered Steve over towards them, safely away from Melissa. ‘Hi, Em. Hi, Jack.’ Steve crouched down so that his face was at the same level as Jack’s. ‘Love the suit, buddy!’ He tugged at Jack’s miniature dark grey suit. Amy had delivered on her promise not to put him in pantaloons, much to everyone’s relief.

Jack gave Steve a wonky, gap-toothed grin. ‘Mum said I only have to wear it for an hour and then I can get changed into my comfy clothes.’

Steve shook his head vehemently. ‘Oh no, no, no, that won’t do! You need to wear it all day so that everyone thinks you’re the same age as the rest of us.’

Jack’s eyes widened. ‘Do you think they will?’

‘Course they will. But only if you wear your suit. In your comfy clothes they might mistake you for a six-year-old or something.’

Over the top of their heads, Sophie caught Emily’s eye and smiled. Steve stood up. ‘Thank you,’ Emily mouthed to him silently.

‘That was a sweet thing to do,’ Sophie murmured, giving Steve’s hand a squeeze as they walked off. ‘She’s such a great mum, isn’t she?’

Steve glanced back at Emily and shrugged. ‘Who knows? I mean, I don’t know her like you do but she’s always seemed a bit cold to me. I bet she’s not as good a mum as you are.’

Sophie smiled, despite herself. It wasn’t true but she loved Steve for saying it.

Steve reached for Sophie’s hand again. ‘Listen, I’d better get inside and leave you to do your duties.’ He kissed her on the lips, then whispered in her ear, ‘You look beautiful. Don’t forget that.’

Sophie watched him stride into the church with a mixture of feelings. She wanted to believe that she was enough for him. But she couldn’t allow herself. How could she? Beside the others, she felt dull, lumpy and colourless. Amy, standing ahead of her, preparing to walk down the aisle, looked like she had stepped straight out of a Pre-Raphaelite painting. Her smooth, creamy skin was perfectly offset by her flowing, diaphanous ivory gown and tumbling mane of gleaming auburn curls.

‘Steve looks gorgeous in his suit.’

Sophie looked down at Melissa, who had come to stand beside her and linked her arm through hers.

‘He does.’

‘And you look gorgeous in that dress. You make the perfect, gorgeous couple.’ Sophie knew that Melissa was just trying to make her feel better but even so, she was grateful. That was what Melissa always did. She would say or do something spectacularly annoying or upsetting one minute and the next, she would give the most insightful, wise advice and show incredible kindness.

Sophie watched Emily as she smoothed Jack’s hair and dabbed at an imaginary smudge on his cheek, making her think about Emma. They had decided not to bring her to the wedding, even though Amy had made it clear that she was welcome. They had left her at home with Steve’s mum, who was all too delighted to have her. But watching Emily and Jack now, Sophie felt a small ache of yearning. It was an unfamiliar sensation but it was unmistakable. She liked it.

From inside the church, the sound of a string quartet playing drifted out over the still, summer afternoon and Amy turned to look back at them. Her eyes shone with happiness and excitement. Sophie wondered if Amy had ever suffered a crisis of confidence. She doubted it. ‘No turning back now,’ Amy grinned. ‘Let’s go.’

‘Let’s go.’

Sophie looked up at Steve in surprise.

‘Really?’ She couldn’t hide her relief. It was almost ten o’clock and the evening was in full swing but she was desperate for it to be over. ‘Won’t it look bad if we leave now?’

‘I’m not sure anyone will notice if we just slip away.’

They stood for a moment longer, watching the shenanigans on the dance floor, which mainly centred around Melissa. She had been like an Exocet missile for available men all day and now that they had run out, she was busy infuriating numerous wives by making a play for their husbands. Sophie watched her with a combination of envy and unease. Envy because Melissa seemed to find it so easy to let herself go and have fun. Unease because, just like in Brighton, she seemed out of control.

Sophie strongly suspected that it wasn’t just the effects of alcohol she was witnessing and that Melissa was also getting an extra kick from somewhere. Working for a record company, Melissa had often talked about how many people used cocaine. Sophie didn’t particularly disapprove – there were plenty of people in TV who used it too – but she worried about the situations Melissa was getting herself into, especially when it came to men.

As for Amy, she had glided through her big day as if she was walking on air, and she was still positively glowing as she danced with Nick now. It was as though they were caught in their own private, beautiful bubble. She and Nick both looked as though they had stepped straight out of the pages of Vogue and they seemed so happy together. Sophie hadn’t always been sure about Nick. He was almost too good to be true. And it worried her that he had persuaded Amy to give up her job. But then again, she reasoned, Amy had never made any secret of the fact that she was desperate to start a family and she had never been particularly passionate about her career either.

Watching them today, there was no doubting the love they felt for each other, so Sophie had buried any misgivings.

She had done her bridesmaid’s duties and smiled obligingly throughout the day, all the while feeling as if she was standing apart, watching someone else. The strain was huge and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could stand it.

‘Come on – I can see how hard this is for you.’

Sophie’s stomach dropped. ‘Is it that obvious? I thought I was doing a really good job of pretending.’

Steve put his arm around her tense shoulders and pulled her to him, kissing the top of her head as he did so. ‘You are. I’m really proud of you. But I can tell that you’ve had enough. If we go now we can be home by midnight.’

Sophie wrapped her arms around him, breathing in his smell and enjoying the warmth from his body. ‘I love you.’ It was the first time she had said it for months. Probably because it was the first time she had felt it for months.

‘I love you too,’ Steve murmured, with a slight crack in his voice.

From the distance of a year, it was hard to remember how bad she had felt back then. Sophie’s insides curdled with shame if she thought about it for too long, especially how she had felt about her darling Emma, now eighteen months old and only just starting to toddle. Sophie smiled as she pictured her little girl, with her cloud of silky blonde hair and her huge navy blue eyes that always made Sophie melt. It had taken so long to bond with her but when she finally did, it was like a dam bursting and now she couldn’t get enough of her. She’d made sure she’d packed plenty of photos to show the others this time.

It seemed like a lot longer than a year since they had all been together. A new millennium had dawned and Sophie certainly felt as though she had lived a whole life in between. Becoming a mother had changed her. It had shaken her to her core but she had survived and emerged stronger than before.

The fact that Amy – or rather Nick – had organized the Brighton weekend instead of her, had added to her general feeling of being out of kilter. But now, having returned to work as a producer on a big new reality show called Big Brother, and literally being back in the driving seat, she could feel herself regaining some of the vitality she had lost.

She pulled into a side road that took her to the parking spaces behind the tall Regency town house she had rented. It was so much easier now that she could go onto the Internet and book online, seeing the house properly before actually booking it. She climbed out and stretched, looking up at the gleaming sash windows with the sun glinting against the inky blackness and smiled to herself. It was exactly as it had looked online. She took her bag out of the boot and made her way to the back door.

She was casting around for the pot under which the owner had hidden the key when the door flew open. ‘Sophie!’ yelled Amy, tumbling over the step in her hurry to embrace her.

Sophie hugged her tightly, burying her face in Amy’s silky auburn hair, which smelt of summer and combined with her Hermès scent to make Sophie feel light-headed with happiness. They broke apart and held each other at arm’s length. ‘You look incredible.’ Sophie shook her head slightly as she spoke, unable to believe that Amy could look any more beautiful. But she did. There was something new. Something unmistakable. ‘You’re not pregnant, by any chance?’

Amy gave a tiny squeal and clamped her hand over her mouth quickly. ‘Don’t say anything to the others yet. I’m only eight weeks. I don’t want to jinx it.’

Sophie grinned. ‘I’m not sure you’ll be able to keep it a secret. They’ll know the second they clap eyes on you.’

‘Is it really that obvious?’ Amy’s green eyes danced as she spoke, radiating happiness.

Sophie’s gaze moved down to Amy’s belly that, typically, was still as flat as ever. ‘Maybe it’s only obvious to me because I recognize the signs. Emily will probably clock it too.’

‘That’s why I got here early, so that I could see you alone. I’ve been so desperate to speak to someone who’d understand how it feels.’

Sophie nodded, remembering with a sudden, horrible clarity the terror she’d felt at this point in her own pregnancy. She couldn’t possibly identify with Amy’s emotions because she had no experience of the joy that anyone actually intending to become pregnant might feel. ‘Well, let’s go inside and crack open the water to celebrate! To be honest, Amy, they’ll all know the second you refuse a glass of champagne anyway.’

They made their way through the flagstoned lobby into a vast kitchen equipped with all the latest mod cons. Sophie ran her hand longingly over the granite worktop, thinking of her own tiny Ikea galley kitchen back at home.

‘Amazing, isn’t it?’ Amy filled the kettle and put it on to boil while Sophie pulled out a wooden chair and sat down at the huge, stripped oak table.

‘I’m sure it’s not that dissimilar to yours.’ Sophie looked around her in awe as she spoke. She hadn’t been to Amy and Nick’s house in Notting Hill yet but she knew it was spectacular from Melissa, who had crashed there many times after a boozy night out. Apparently, there was a separate flat in the basement that she could use whenever she liked. Melissa had tactlessly told Sophie that the flat alone was bigger than Sophie and Steve’s whole house.

Amy made a cup of tea for Sophie and a cup of hot water for herself. ‘I’ve gone right off tea,’ she mused, as she placed the steaming mug in front of Sophie.

‘I did too but it’ll come back, don’t you worry. So, how’s Nick taken the news?’

Amy sat down opposite Sophie and sighed prettily. ‘He’s thrilled. We’d been trying for a while and we were both starting to get a bit worried. It’s weird though – I just knew when I was pregnant.’

Sophie nodded, enjoying Amy’s delight but envying her too. Her own emotions had been such a mess when she discovered she was pregnant. She couldn’t say she had felt happy at any point in her pregnancy. There was just a cloud of guilt and doubt hovering over her all the way through that tarnished it. Made it less special.

‘Were you the same?’ Amy prompted.

Sophie’s attention snapped back to the present. She had to let all the negativity go. She couldn’t change what had happened so she had to accept it and move on. ‘Um, not really. Emma was a surprise in every way. A happy accident.’

Amy beamed, clearly not guessing for one second that Sophie had been anything other than delighted by her pregnancy. At least she could comfort herself that she had managed to put on a convincing act. Only Melissa knew the truth, which was that at one particularly low point, she had rung a helpline to investigate a termination. But by then it was too late. The thought made her skin prickle with horror now. The idea that her little darling might not have existed was one that she couldn’t contemplate.