Shari Low - My Best Friend’s Life

An irritated voice cut through her contraceptive/copulation contemplation. ‘Morning, Violet, morning, Roxy.’

Strange, that someone could manage to say the word ‘Roxy’ in such an insidious tone that it sounded like something you’d throw up after eating raw chicken. She’d almost have preferred it if he’d had the balls to be upfront and greet her with, ‘Morning, have I told you today that I’d prefer you dead? No? Okay, brutal torture, slow demise–lovely.’

Roxy sighed as she turned to face her nemesis. Darren Jenkins. She loathed him. She’d always loathed him. Although under the influence of alcohol or physical torture, she might be prepared to concede that this negative emotion was born around the same time as she offered to show him her boobs in second-year Woodwork in return for his Sony Walkman and he knocked her back. She’d been horrified when Ginny had started seeing him a couple of years later, and over the following decade she’d pretty much avoided straying within a hundred yards of his super-toned thighs.

She had never understood what Ginny saw in him. He might be fit, he might be easy on the eye, he might be testosterone fuelled…but he was about as exciting as a daytrip to a morgue and just as warm. And he didn’t exactly treat Ginny as well as she deserved–last year he’d bought her a steamer for her birthday. A steamer. What the fuck was that about? Who woke up and thought, ‘D’you know what, I’m going to prove to my fiancée how much I adore her by buying a household item that aids the production of healthy vegetables’?

What. A. Prick.

Roxy suddenly realised that a tiny part of her hoped Ginny would meet someone else in London and dump this bore before he had time to save up for a matching sandwich toaster for Ginny’s Christmas present.

She snapped out of her musings when it became clear that they’d all been standing in awkward silence for about ten seconds, Darren staring at her with the type of expression more commonly seen on men who have bodies stored under their kitchen floorboards.

Johnny Depp-ish picked up on the tension and made himself scarce. Brilliant. The first time her hormones had stood to attention in weeks and Darren the Prick had scared him off.

‘Darren, love, I’ve brought in a nice smoothie I made for you last night–mango, kiwi and pineapple. The pineapple was just chunks out of a tin, but I don’t suppose it’ll matter. I’ll just nip back and get it for you.’

As Violet disappeared, Roxy contemplated reattaching her head to the desk while waiting for the inevitable explosion.

‘So, care to tell me what kind of insanity you’ve involved Ginny in this time?’

Houston, we have lift-off. And he was just getting warmed up.

‘You can’t bloody leave her alone, can you? What’s the problem, Roxy? What inconsequential, superficial little blip on your horizon have you blown out of all proportion and roped Ginny into sorting out for you this time?’

Roxy bared her teeth with a smile she pitched at ‘carefree while maintaining an appropriate level of undiluted evil’.

‘Oh, nothing really. I just decided that she was far too happy so I thought I’d fuck things up for her by selling her body to an Eastern European slave trader.’

Darren shook his head as his face cracked with irony. ‘You know, Roxy, you’re priceless. You just use and abuse everyone who has the misfortune to stumble into your screwed-up, pathetic existence.’

Roxy very maturely folded her arms, looked heavenward and ignored him, determined not to even dignify his accusations with a reply.

‘You’re toxic. Always have been.’

She stayed silent. He was a grown man who wore Lycra, for God’s sake. Who cared what he thought of her? She’d never stoop to his level. She’d just take this on the chin and handle it in a manner Ginny would be proud of. Ginny had made her promise to deal with this in a sensitive manner and she would. After everything Ginny had done for her she deserved it. St Roxy of the Blessed Martyrdom–it had a ring to it.

‘And I’m sick of you interfering in Ginny’s life. Why can’t you just piss off and leave us alone?’

Aw, fuck the sainthood.

‘Listen, you twat, if you want a reason that Ginny’s not here, go look in a fucking mirror. You take her for granted, you walk all over her and you bore her baps off. Ginny hasn’t gone to London to save my ass, she’s gone because she was desperate for some excitement, desperate to do something other than sit on a bloody couch night after night waiting for you to honour her with your presence. You have a problem? Take it up with your fiancée and don’t shoot the messenger.’

Silence. Stunned silence. Until a troop of Young Catholic Mothers marched in to have their buttocks remoulded. As Lycra Man backed off in the manner of an armed robber with a hundred SWAT guns pointing at him, Roxy had a feeling of impending doom.

The 1960s telephone burst into life. Roxy snatched up the receiver to hear an anxious Ginny on the line.

‘So did you break it to him gently?’

Roxy bit her lip and then did what all truly good friends do in a crisis–she lied.

‘Of course! I told him I begged you to help and that you should be sainted for services to friendship. He was fine about it. Absolutely fine…’ Roxy closed her eyes. Good Lord, she had to stop. She had to stop. Sod it–in for a penny, in for a huge big whopper that’ll prevent risk of blind fury from irate best chum.

‘In fact, he said you deserved a break and not to worry about him–you’re just to go and enjoy yourself.’

‘Really? Thank God. See, I’ve told you a million times, Roxy–he’s one of the good guys.’

And there it was–the kind of utter blind devotion and unquestioning adoration that a lifetime relationship required.

And that, Roxy thought glumly, is why I’m single.

‘Come on, Ginny, let’s dance–it’s ‘Relight My Fire’!

Ginny shrugged and shook her head. She hated dancing in front of people. She’d memorised every step in the video, but somehow it was easy to do in her bedroom with only her Take That posters as witnesses .

‘Forget it then! Honestly, Ginny, how are you ever going to get a boyfriend when you’re so boring. Boring. Boring. Boring. Well, I’m sick of boring!’

Roxy stormed off in a strop, leaving Ginny squirming in her chair. Roxy would ignore her all night now as punishment for not doing what she wanted–probably not a bad thing because if she got dragged into another smoking incident her mother would kill her. And no matter what Roxy said, those menthol St Moritz cigarettes were revolting .

She loathed these discos: chairs lined along the walls of the hall, a table outside the toilets selling flat Coke and crisps, and Father Murphy spinning records on a double stereo deck that the local pub had donated after the invention of CDs. And all this was witnessed through the haze caused by the two flashing disco lights attached to the front of the deck. Red. Green. Red. Green. Red. Green .

About a hundred youths had taken hours to plan their big night out, pick an outfit and then get dolled-up to the nines, only to be illuminated to the approximate shade of someone with acute gastroenteritis .

‘Move.’

Even over the volume of Lulu singing her lungs out, the aggression in the familiar voice was unmistakable. Ginny raised her eyes to see Fanny Brown staring down at her (actually her real name was Felicity, but Roxy had nicknamed her Fanny years ago and it had stuck, although obviously no one, other than the blatantly suicidal, said it to her face), along with her two pals Dora and Dorothy (aka Dopey and Daftarse, again courtesy of Roxy) .