Joanne Sefton - The Guilty Friend

Misty had £22 in her purse. It had to last her until she sorted out a bank account and her grant came through. College food would go on a college bill that she could pay off at the end of term. She might not have got her head round the terminology but she was straight on that much. She thought of the tinned ham and loaf of bread in the cupboard. It wasn’t appealing, but she wouldn’t starve. Would Alex despise her if she suggested a ham sandwich?

‘Are you okay?’

Before she could answer, they were interrupted by a cough behind them.

‘Is the buttery closed, then?’

They turned to see another girl. Like Alex, she was wearing stonewashed jeans, pearl studs in her ears and a blazer-type jacket. Misty couldn’t decide whether to feel insecure, but settled on mildly amused.

‘I’m Karen Cooper. I just arrived today.’

‘First year?’ asked Alex, and, when Karen nodded, she added, ‘Us too. We’re just going to get something to eat, actually. There’s a nice little bistro place not far away. I don’t want to seem bossy, but my family live here, so I know my way around.’

‘Sounds good.’ Karen nodded. ‘Let’s go.’

They both turned to Misty, and she hesitated for a moment, thinking of the tinned ham and the £22. She’d have to go and see the grant office first thing tomorrow. She wasn’t about to skulk back to her room with her tail between her legs.

‘Okay,’ she agreed, ‘let’s go.’

*

The skies were threatening rain and Alex led the way purposefully. Karen, who had long legs and a graceful stride, kept up easily, but Misty found herself distracted at every turn. There was so much to look at as they hurried through streets lined with medieval colleges that looked like castles, and passed rosy pub windows and clothes shops that Misty had heard of but never seen on any high street she visited.

‘Your parents are academics then?’ Karen addressed her question to Alex, but didn’t wait for a response. ‘Didn’t you want to go away to university? Why not Oxford?’

Misty’s ears pricked. Getting away had been her dream for as long as she could remember, but then she’d never really thought about people who lived in places like this already – who didn’t need to escape to them.

Side-on, in the street light, she could see that Alex made a face, but wasn’t sure exactly what her expression meant.

‘It’s a bit complicated,’ she said, eventually. ‘My mum would say I need looking after. I would say she does.’ She gave a hollow laugh. ‘You two have waved your parents on their merry way, haven’t you? I’d swap places with either of you if I could.’

Misty felt taken aback, as if Alex could read her mind. Only a moment ago she’d been thinking about how Alex’s life seemed impossibly charmed. But it didn’t appear that Alex felt that way.

‘We’re here anyway,’ Alex announced. ‘Not the best restaurant in Cambridge. But one of the closest. And just in time.’ She stuck her hand out, and, sure enough, there were fat raindrops starting to plop from the sky. They hurried through the doorway.

Once they were seated at a generous table by the window, a waiter brought menus and Alex announced, ‘We’ll have a bottle of house champagne.’ Panicked, Misty gave a small cough. Splashing out on a ‘cheap’ meal was one thing; this she hadn’t bargained for.

‘Please don’t worry, darlings.’ Alex lowered her voice. ‘My dad’s always in here; he’s got an account. This is my treat – or should I say his.’ There was a giggle and a glint in her eye, as if they were all up to mischief together.

That was the thing about Alex, as Misty would quickly come to learn. Although the way she acted and the things she said should have felt objectionable, or condescending – should have been, in fact, everything that Misty would have expected to despise – they somehow weren’t. Alex had a wonderful warmth, a gift of drawing people in, of making them see the world from her perspective. Misty would soon discover that the world, from that vantage point was a much more colourful and exciting place than she’d previously imagined.

Tasha knew that whoever invented Valentine’s Day must have been a wanker. A sadistic wanker with a hatred of teenagers. It comes at the worst time of the year. When Christmas is over, but it still won’t be warm for ages and the teachers are doling out crap results from crap mock GCSEs. It creeps up on you – you’d forget it was coming and then you’d be in town and see a card shop window stuffed with red heart-shaped balloons and your stomach would jump up and crash down again leaving you feeling queasy.

Tasha estimated that around two per cent of the girls in school actually liked Valentine’s Day. They were the fit ones with boyfriends, or at least boys who would admit to liking them. If it wasn’t for them, everyone else could just ignore it and forget about the whole thing. But they wouldn’t let that happen. Girls like Lola Shirini and Nadya Bansal. They’d been going on about it for ages. The main WhatsApp group for the girls in Tasha’s year was full of messages from them debating which boys were going to get them cards or presents and who else wasn’t going to get anything.

Her friends Claire and Sonal felt exactly the same. The three of them were moaning about it at lunchtime, eating their packed lunches in the music quad. It was freezing, but still better than eating inside and contending with a zoo of screaming Year 7s and 8s and their stinky sandwiches. Sonal was in a bad mood to start with because she’d got a Grade 7 in her history mock. She was expecting an 8 and Tash knew she was hoping for a 9 in the real one, even though she wouldn’t admit it. Tash had got an 8 so Sonal was being a bit pissy with her, even though Tash’s actual mark was only three higher than Sonal’s own.

Claire didn’t do History and didn’t get any marks back that day so she was keeping quiet, but then Claire was a real-life genius anyway and Tash just knew she was going to get a 9 in everything without even trying. Mr Taylor had already told her he thought she’d have a good shot at Oxford or Cambridge. Claire had been on at Tasha’s mum to give her a practice interview, because she’d been to Cambridge herself. She apparently hadn’t paused to think that it did a fat lot of good for Karen. But then perhaps geniuses weren’t renowned for common sense.

Sonal was going on and on about Charles de Gaulle and how she’d been unfairly marked down because she’d forgotten when he died. Then Claire told her to shut up and said that when Sonal and Tash had been in History, she’d been in Geography and Lola had been nudging loads of the girls and getting them to look at something ‘secret’ in her bag. When the bag got passed to Claire, she saw a box of Lindt chocolates and a charm bracelet in a Pandora box. No wonder Lola was pleased with herself. Everyone knew that Pandora bracelets started at £100 or something and apparently this had three or four charms on it already.

After Sonal had whinged about her exam and Claire had told the others about Lola’s bracelet, a Year 7 kid came up out of nowhere and said, ‘Are you Tasha Neville?’ She obviously didn’t have a clue which one of them actually was Tasha, because she was talking more to Claire when she said it. So, Tasha butted in to say she was the girl was they were looking for and the Year 7 shoved this giant pink envelope at her and then ran off sniggering like a fruit loop.

‘Well, open it then!’ Claire and Sonal were all over her. So, she did, and it was a Valentine’s card. It had a pair of those hideous grey teddies that are meant to be cute with massive hearts between them and part of her head was thinking about how it was possibly the worst card that had ever been printed and how she’d be embarrassed to buy it. But at the same time another part of her mind was thinking that this was the first Valentine’s card she’d ever got. Claire and Sonal were obviously mad with jealousy and, after all, it wasn’t like anyone would expect a boy to have good taste in greetings cards so they all decided they could probably overlook the bleurgh grey teddies. For Tash, the amazing thing was that someone actually liked her and wanted to tell her that on Valentine’s Day with a big showy card at school.