Susan Lewis - One Minute Later

By the time Vivi was ready to leave the flat she’d taken three more calls from various friends, and had managed to book herself a Shellac manicure for eight on Monday evening. She probably ought to make a hair appointment sometime soon, too, for the random whirl of waves clustered around her face and neck was in need of some taming.

Wearing ripped skinny jeans, a pair of flat strappy sandals and a waist-length leather jacket, she decided to walk to Beaufort House. The weather was too good to miss a moment of it, and capturing its buoyancy in her stride she seemed about to break into a dance as she started off down the street.

As she was turning into the Fulham Road her phone rang again, and seeing it was her half-brother, Mark, she swiftly clicked on. ‘Hey you! What are you doing up so early?’ she cried.

‘My phone went off,’ he grumbled. ‘I was working until four this morning and I’m back on at five this evening, but no one cares about me.’ A sport and exercise student at Birmingham Uni, he’d taken a job as a barman at Pitcher and Piano to provide himself with some spending money. His father, Gil, was covering the lion’s share of his other expenses, including his rent and the small car he used to bomb around town. ‘Happy birthday,’ he said with a yawn.

‘Thanks. So Mum called to remind you?’

‘What do you think? Not that I’d forgotten, I just wouldn’t have remembered until I woke up. So, are you back from New York?’

‘Yesterday. Off to Singapore on Wednesday.’ Of course. That was why she couldn’t make a sushi dinner with Greg and the others. She’d better check her calendar to be sure she was up to speed with everything else. Waiting for an ambulance to cut its siren as it pulled into Chelsea and Westminster A & E, she started across the road, saying, ‘Any chance of you getting to London sometime soon? I feel as though I haven’t seen you for ages.’

‘Since Christmas,’ he reminded her, ‘but I get that you’re missing me. It happens. I have to deal with it all the time.’

Laughing, she said, ‘So how many hearts have you broken this week?’

‘Lost count, but hey, who’s taking care of mine?’

‘That tough old thing? I think it can take care of itself.’

‘Brutal. How’s Greg? Are we ever going to meet him?’

‘He’s OK. Actually I haven’t seen him since …’ She tried to think. ‘It’s been too long. Did you get to the Six Nations match in the end?’

‘You bet. The bloke’s a genius. I already thanked him for the tickets, by the way.’

‘Great. Did Gil go with you?’

‘Sure. Then we drove all the way back to Kesterly to take Mum for dinner in case she was feeling left out.’

Vivienne had to laugh.

‘Did she tell you she’s taken up running?’ Mark asked.

‘You’re kidding.’

‘No, I went out with her while I was there. She’s pretty fit, actually, but I guess that’s no surprise when she goes to the gym quite regularly. Dad reckons the running thing is so she can run with you when you go home, or maybe she wants to do a marathon with you?’

And this , Vivienne was thinking, is why my mother is so confusing. She doesn’t mention anything about it to me, but Gil is probably right , she’ll have me in mind on one level or another, because she always has – and if not me then Mark, or Gil, then back to me …

‘Listen,’ she said to Mark, ‘I’ll let you get some more sleep before you have to go back on shift. Speak soon. Love you.’

‘Right back at you,’ and he was gone.

She pressed on towards Beaufort Street, and checked her phone to see if any more texts had arrived in the last few minutes. Several had: more birthday messages from friends and colleagues, also one from Gil, who had no doubt also sent flowers, because he always did.

The only person she knew for a fact she wouldn’t get a call or anything else from on this, or any other day, was her real father, because she never did.

Beaufort House was in the World’s End part of Chelsea, on the corner of Beaufort Street and the famous King’s Road. It was an area that Vivienne found as electrifying as the City where she worked, though for entirely different reasons. The buzz here was all about being social, cosmopolitan, and fabulously multicultural. The restaurants were as diverse as their deliciously exotic ingredients, the fashions as outrageous as they were expensive and the interior design shops as inspirational as a genie’s bottle full of crazy dreams. It could hardly be more different from her home town with its unedifying mix of tired terraces, fish-and-chip shops and donkey rides. On the other hand, she was ready to concede that Kesterly had its charms too, just not enough of them to have kept her there past her eighteenth birthday, when she’d launched herself with high excitement and yes, some trepidation on London. Being in the capital had been her goal for as long as she could remember, so too had been studying hard and working her way into a high-powered job that would open doors to all kinds of other worlds, and make her feel as important and accomplished as she’d always longed to be.

It was happening every day, sometimes in small ways, other times in great significant bursts. The headiness of success was as intoxicating as the champagne she and her friends cracked to celebrate it while the satisfaction of knowing she’d bested a rival, or helped seal a long-fought-for merger, was perhaps the greatest kick of all. Though she wasn’t particularly aware of how much everyone valued her as a colleague or friend, the way she was greeted as she entered the bustling, airy bar of Beaufort House made her swell with pride and pleasure.

‘About bloody time!’

‘Happy birthday!’

‘Champagne’s on you.’

‘Someone get the goddess a glass.’

The other five GaLs were already there, grouped around their usual table next to the window, and as a flute was thrust into Vivienne’s hand it seemed the entire room joined in a rousing chorus of ‘Happy Birthday’.

It was exhilarating and hilarious as perfect strangers bowed or raised glasses, and a couple of bar staff shimmied about with more champagne.

As the fun died down and Vivienne sank laughing into the chair they’d reserved for her, she gasped and laughed again as Trudy pointed her to the pile of gifts at the end of the cushioned bench seat.

‘All for you,’ Trudy declared exultantly.

‘All for one, one for all!’ Sachi sang out, her engaging French accent resonating even in those few simple words.

Saanvi, whose stunning black hair and exquisite features made her as exotic as the Indian divinity she was named for, began passing the gifts along. Saanvi’s much older husband ran a global macro hedge fund, where Saanvi had recently been promoted to head up the quantitative risk management team.

‘How many carats did Greg manage?’ Shaz, their Australian derivatives lawyer, wanted to know. Though Shaz mainly worked out of Frankfurt, she was back and forth to London all the time.

‘I’m sure it’ll be at least seven,’ Vivienne shot back, causing another raucous uplift of glasses to toast the prediction.

They’d shared so much during their time at uni that sometimes it felt as though they hadn’t had a life before. They never judged one another in negative ways; they did everything they could to support each other, because they understood who they were and what power their friendship gave them.

These GaLs were her family away from home, the rock that kept her safe and strong; the exclusive network that made everything possible.

‘Are you in Singapore on Thursday?’ Trudy wanted to know.

‘I leave on Wednesday,’ Vivi told her.

‘Saanvi, did you hear that?’ Trudy demanded. ‘She is going to Singapore on Wednesday.’