Alice Adams - Invincible Summer

Then one day it occurred to her that it cut both ways: she also didn’t know how Eva was doing. What if Eva was having a bad time too, needing a friend, and she hadn’t been there for her? She had got so used to the new world in which everything always went brilliantly for Eva and badly for Sylvie that she’d somehow developed a mental block about the fact that this wasn’t an immutable law of the universe. That day she didn’t put the phone down. She dialled the number and waited.

*

It was dark when Eva arrived home from work, as it would be every day for many months to come. It wasn’t the cold that got her down in winter so much as the lack of daylight, she thought grouchily as she pushed the apartment door closed behind her. She arrived at work in the dark and left in the dark, making the days blur together. The sitting room was empty, and she remembered that Julian had mentioned this morning that he had a couple of evening training sessions booked, so she had the place to herself. Because so many of his clients wanted after-work slots, Eva often got home to an empty flat and was grateful to have an hour or two in which she didn’t have to string a sentence together at the end of a hectic day.

Pausing only to retrieve an apple from the kitchen, she kicked off her shoes and sank down onto the sofa, at which point her phone started to ring from the depths of the bag she had dropped in the hallway as she came in. Cursing, she ran to the bag and dumped its contents on the floor in order to find the offending item. The shock of seeing Sylvie’s name on the screen made her freeze on her knees on the carpet. It had been over six months since they’d argued, and neither had made any attempt to contact the other. Eva had thought about it numerous times, always concluding that if Sylvie hadn’t meant what she said then she would have phoned and apologized, and if she had, well, then she was better off without her.

Should she answer? What if Sylvie had dialled Eva’s number accidentally? But if she didn’t answer she might be missing the chance to work things out with her oldest friend, something she wanted more than she cared to admit even to herself.

‘Hello?’ she said warily down the line.

‘It’s Sylvie.’

So she had meant to call.

‘Yes, I saw. It’s been a while, huh?’ Eva tried to make her voice sound cautiously friendly.

‘I know. Listen, do you want to meet up?’

Sylvie’s own voice was neutral and it still wasn’t clear to Eva what was going on in the conversation. ‘I guess. This is a little weird though, isn’t it? After all the stuff you said last time I saw you?’

‘Look, I wanted to tell you that I was drunk and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of it.’

‘I don’t know, Sylvie.’ Eva sat back against the wall of the hallway and raked her fingers through her hair. ‘It sounded a lot like you did mean it. You were pretty specific. About how smug I am and how I was always your gawky sidekick? Can you imagine how it makes me feel, knowing that was how you thought of me through all those years of supposed friendship?’

Sylvie groaned. ‘You’re really going to make me work for this, aren’t you? Okay, look. I don’t know why I said that stuff. The stupid thing is, it’s not even true. I was always glad to have a friend like you because you were so down to earth. Okay, you wore some pretty dodgy clothes, but you were so totally artless. In a good way, I mean, you were never calculating what was in it for you like most people always are.’

‘Oh. Well, that’s a nice thing to say. . I think.’

‘It’s intended that way, honestly. You sort of anchored me to the ground because you used to look up to me and I wanted to be the version of myself that you reflected back at me. But things weren’t always exactly how they looked. You used to be impressed by stupid things I did, like sleeping with random guys when I was off my face, when you should have been telling me to stop being such a fuckwit.’ She sighed down the line.

‘Well, I was always a bit envious of you,’ Eva admitted, ‘because everyone fancied you and you got all the attention. Everything always seemed to come so easily to you, which was the complete opposite to me. And of course I never told you to stop, because you always looked like you were having such a good time. At least, you used to. Maybe not so much in recent years.’

‘A lot’s changed though, hasn’t it? And it was weird for me how different everything was after we left uni. Now you’re doing so well and in a lot of ways I really admire you, but sometimes it feels like you’ve bought into all the City bullshit a bit too much, like you’re not the old Eva anymore because the old Eva wouldn’t bang on all the time about the size of her fucking bonus or how much her broker spent on a bottle of Petrus at Gordon Ramsay. She might have been a bit wide-eyed, but she would have known deep down that none of that really matters. You taught me that, and I don’t think you even know it yourself anymore.’ Sylvie paused. ‘Anyway, this is starting to sound like I’m having a go at you again and that’s the last thing I want to do, I’m just trying to explain and mainly what I want to say is that I had a really bad patch where I acted like a dick, but I’m sorry and I’m doing a lot better now and you’re my best friend and I miss you.’

Her voice broke a bit when she said that, and Eva wondered whether maybe she was crying.

‘I’m sorry too,’ she told her. ‘I’m sorry if I was boastful. I didn’t mean to sound smug or make you feel bad. I’ve missed you horribly and I’ve been completely miserable without you, to be honest.’

Only now that she was saying it aloud did she realize just how true it was. Eva had allowed herself to feel anger and outrage, but mostly what this had been doing was masking sadness and now she couldn’t understand why she hadn’t recognized this and just called her friend sooner. She had been too proud, she realized, and would probably have carried on being too proud forever if Sylvie hadn’t phoned. What a pointless thing ego was, how much damage it did. Suppose neither of them had ever called and they had both just carried on like that, stubborn and unhappy? The thought made her eyes well up with tears, and she let out an involuntary little sob.

Sylvie audibly blew her nose. ‘How about meeting up and burying the hatchet? When are you free?’

Eva tried to think fast. Her schedule was full, but suggesting a day a week or two away would make it look as though Sylvie was at the bottom of her priority list, which was part of what had caused the argument in the first place.

‘I’m going away with Julian for the weekend on Friday, but how about tomorrow night?’ she suggested. ‘I’ve got desk drinks straight after work, but I could escape by eight thirty. We’ll be in the Canary Wharf Corney & Barrow, on the terrace overlooking the dock. Why don’t you come and rescue me?’

*

Eva remained sitting in the gloom of the hallway for several minutes after they hung up, and had only just started to stuff the scattered pens and tampons and other assorted detritus back into her bag when her phone rang again. She sighed to see Big Paul’s name on the screen, since it was nearly nine o’clock at night and presumably he was calling because something had gone wrong at work. Julian would be home soon and she could feel her precious minutes of downtime slipping away. She cleared her throat and carefully wiped her eyes with a grubby tissue before picking up, even though he couldn’t see her.

‘What’s up, big guy? Are you still in the office?’

‘Yeah. I’ve been stuck on a teleconference with New York for hours. I thought I better give you the heads-up on something I picked up from the sales guys at the end of the call. You know that Bellwether Trust order on tomorrow’s close? You just got another one and it’s double the size. Big day for you tomorrow.’