Nicola Barker - Love Your Enemies

She looked up from her novel and stared momentarily out of the window — through a pair of yellowy nets — hoping to catch a glimpse of Stephanie trotting down the road towards her, but instead, all she saw was the reflection of a nearby street-light in the glass of the window, a bleary, streaky, visual sludge. Her eyes returned to the words on the page.

The pub was empty apart from two men slouching at the bar, a young couple, who seemed to be recovering from a recent argument, sitting in an alcove, and over towards the door a pensioner who was reading a late edition of the Evening Standard . Someone had put some money into the juke box, which was playing ‘Suspicious Minds’. Jane imagined that it might have been the male half of the young couple.

As her eyes sped across the page, Jane thought for a moment about her boyfriend Mitch and Stephanie’s boyfriend Chris. She wondered what they were doing. Maybe they were watching the football on television, or maybe they were playing snooker.

The pub’s doors swung open. Everybody turned towards them. Jane had earlier been engaged in a heated debate with herself about how to react when the doors opened. Initially she had decided that it was best if she ignored the various comings and goings around her. She had endeavoured to create the impression of calculated indifference, preoccupation, oblivion. Later, however, she had decided that it might be appropriate to look up fleetingly from her book towards the door so that people who might be looking at her would know immediately that the only reason for her continuing presence in the pub was the fact that she was waiting for someone. She was expecting someone. It made her feel less vulnerable, also less approachable.

On this occasion she was glad that she had looked up. Stephanie stood in the doorway, looking ruffled and indecisive. Jane waved at her and smiled. Stephanie caught her eye, smiled back, relieved, then pointed her finger towards the bar. Jane nodded. Stephanie then pointed a finger towards Jane’s drink. Jane shook her head and placed a prim, flat hand over the top of her glass. Stephanie walked to the bar and ordered a gin and tonic.

Jane watched her, at last relaxing in the pub’s worn, red velvet environs, putting down her book and leaning back in her chair. She watched Stephanie as she waited for her drink and then paid for it. Stephanie was still wearing her uniform — she worked in John Lewis, the Oxford Street branch — and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. She looked young for twenty-four. Jane thought it must be the way that she had tied back her hair. As Stephanie approached her Jane said ironically, ‘I’m surprised the barman served you, Steph, you don’t look eighteen with your hair tied back like that.’

Stephanie put her spirits glass down and squeezed in between the table and the seat. As she sat down she touched her hair with a free hand and looked unnecessarily self-conscious, then said, ‘I think the barman’d serve a large squirrel if it appeared at the counter and asked for a pint of lager. He doesn’t look too discriminating.’

Jane shrugged. Stephanie pointed towards Jane’s book. ‘Jilly Cooper. Good?’

Jane picked up the book and put it into her bag. ‘Something to read. It’s not like you to be late.’

Stephanie frowned, ‘I know. I’ve had a bit of a strange day. Sorry.’

Jane raised her eyebrows, professionally interested. ‘Busy?’

Stephanie shrugged. ‘Not too bad. You?’

Jane shook her head. ‘So so.’

They both picked up their drinks and took a sip. On returning her glass to the table Stephanie put her hands to the back of her head and pulled her hairband out. She then shook free her hair which fell about her shoulders in semi-curls. Jane watched her as she did this and couldn’t help thinking that Stephanie was looking particularly well, strangely spruce, as though she had just had a shower, an odd post-swimming clean-washed look. She sniffed the air for a trace of chlorine but could smell none. ‘You haven’t been swimming, have you? Marshall Street pool?’

Stephanie looked guilty, ‘No. Well, yes. Well, I had a shower, that’s all.’

Jane frowned. ‘Where’s your towel? Why did you have a shower? That’s odd. Are you wearing any make-up? Why did you have a shower?’

Stephanie looked overwhelmed, ‘I … I needed a shower. I hired a towel.’

Jane began to pull a fastidious expression.

‘Honestly, it was perfectly clean.’ Stephanie’s face crumpled. ‘Oh God! I feel … I don’t know. I was going to say I feel awful, but in fact I feel almost the opposite.’ She thought for a moment. ‘I feel rather, almost hysterical. Pent up. I’ve done the strangest thing.’

Jane was frowning. ‘Is everything all right at work?’

Stephanie nodded wordlessly.

‘Chris? Nothing’s happened between you and Chris?’

Stephanie shook her head, ‘No, Chris is fine.’ She frowned. ‘I don’t feel as if I can tell you …’

Jane clucked her tongue, exasperated. ‘What can’t you tell me? You always tell me everything. What’s going on?’

They had been best friends since primary school. Jane had always been dominant and Stephanie softer, better intentioned but easily swayed. She saw life as a set of rules which she obeyed. Jane saw life as a set of rules which she supported. She thought Stephanie’s passivity occasionally subversive, but knew her well enough to be sure of her back-up and understanding in most situations. They came from the same stock, a simmering, warm if unadventurous stew of suburban values; their schooling the same, parents the same, boyfriends the same, and their ambitions …?

Jane stared at Stephanie across the table and wondered what it was that she had done. She shoved around a set of geometric boundaries in her mind, a variety of fully contained and containable possibilities. ‘Pregnant?’

Stephanie grimaced. She looked up at Jane and felt almost helpless; she must tell her because who else could she tell? (God knows, not her mother.) And the notion of saying nothing was virtually inconceivable. She knew that all acts suffered in the doing because of the inevitability of the telling. She must tell her.

Jane watched, waiting. Stephanie took a further sip of her drink, laced her hands together on her lap and then took a deep breath. ‘I’m downstairs in the Men’s Knitwear Department this week, occasionally on the till, but mainly involved with stock, pricing, you know …’

Jane nodded, she had a picture of the knitwear department in her mind, and a cardigan that she wanted to buy for Mitch. ‘Knitwear Department. So?’

Stephanie looked down at her hands. ‘Well, I was … It was dead during the last hour, you know how it can be, hardly anyone about, and I was tidying up, straightening jumpers on hangers and refolding … I don’t know if it’s the same in the bank, but the last hour is always the worst and the best, the way the minute-hand keeps you in but the hour-hand points towards the door …’

Jane was nonplussed by Stephanie’s attempts to wax lyrical. ‘The last hour. Right.’

Stephanie took a deep breath. She knew this wasn’t going to be easy. ‘I was folding up some vests and socks when I noticed a man nearby, well, I think that initially there were two of them, but the other one wandered off. They were skins, really tall in puffy green jackets and tight, short jeans and boots …’

Jane frowned. ‘White trash.’

Stephanie bit her lip and nodded. ‘Really short hair, just like, just really short, soft, like a coloured shadow on the scalp. But smart, not like normal skins, with bleached trousers and tattoos on their necks, like ugly roosters, dirty. This one was smart …’

Jane reiterated her earlier point, which made a class distinction as opposed to a value judgement. ‘White trash. Yuk. Shoplifting I bet. Pringle jumpers or long socks for under their boots.’