Can We Still Be Friends (37 page)

Annie had taken trouble to dress for the occasion. It was important to her that she looked like the kind of person she imagined Gioia would feel comfortable with, although she realized that such an idea exposed her as the shallow character she knew Gioia thought she was. But, even so, it mattered to her – she couldn’t help it. She had been torn between a panelled black linen skirt that floated just above her ankles and a pair of loose white Nicole Farhi trousers which didn’t appear particularly expensive but managed not to look ungainly. It was a pity she’d got rid of so many of her second-hand dresses. They would have been perfect with their colours and patterns. When she got back, she decided she was going to buy some more, even if Charlie didn’t like them. She decided on the trousers and a pale sea-green Ghost shirt with small buttons that fitted into hoops of the fabric all the way down the front.

‘It’s a bit like walking into the saloon bar in a Western and not knowing if it’s going to turn nasty,’ Sal muttered as they walked towards the couple, who showed no awareness, until the last moment, of their arrival. Kendra jumped up and came round to kiss them, while Gioia remained seated, holding the palm of her hand up in more of a benediction than a greeting. Kendra suggested that Annie sit next to Gioia, with Sal opposite Annie, and, for the first minutes, her chatter gave away her own anxiety about the meeting.

‘So. You have to have the sardines, like I said, and we’ll get some
vinho verde
, which is the local white – a bit fizzy,’ Kendra pronounced, taking control in a way neither Sal nor Annie remembered of her. ‘Gioia was just saying that you should take a look at the
Mouth of Hell if you get time, which is the furthest point of the mainland before the ocean.’ Both the others found themselves smiling at Gioia with exaggerated pleasure at this suggestion.

Initially, Gioia let the friends’ chat flutter around her, not reacting at all, until Annie said something about how happy Kendra looked, and her mask broke into a smile.

From that point on, nobody could have suggested that the conversation rattled along, but each of them around the table did their best to place tentative conversational bandages over the areas where they considered another wounded, apart from Gioia, who, appearing to feel that she had made her peace offering, was now seated monumentally, receiving homage graciously but also as if it were her due.

A fly fizzed noisily on the electric fly killer above the table as Sal offered her apology, over the huge sardines, which dwarfed anything of that description in London.

‘I don’t know if you know, Gioia, but I’m on the programme now. It’s made me understand how important it is – and not just for me but for other people – to make amends for the things I’ve done that have hurt people.’ She started to pick at the dribbles of wax on the wine bottle. ‘I know none of us want to go over everything, but I’ve got to say I’m so sorry for the pain I’ve caused you and, of course, Ken. And while I’m at it, I might as well say it to you too, Annie, because I know it was hurtful to Charlie too.’

Annie kicked Kendra under the table, mouthing ‘AA’, but she also wished that Sal hadn’t brought up Charlie’s name. He was an intruder at this table and, although it was behind them, it was of course partially his operation that had driven Kendra and Gioia out.

‘I don’t know much about that stuff, but let’s say the past’s the past,’ Gioia declared, pausing to give her verdict the necessary weight. ‘We have to move on. Me and Ken have. We’re starting over, good and proper.’ Annie looked at Kendra, who was seated opposite her. Was that what she wanted? She wasn’t quite sure. Gioia reached out for the last piece of bread in the basket to wipe over the garlicky detritus of her plate. ‘Now, let’s get coffee down the road.’

It was a short distance to the local harbour once they had finished the meal. There, large boats were moored at the quay, alongside smaller ones which lay on the ground with their hulls in the air like babies positioned on their stomachs for the night. It was cooler by far than in daytime, and the masts rattled noisily in the dark as they strolled past before agreeing on an early turn-in.

‘Tomorrow, though, I’m going to hammer you at poker,’ Gioia offered as she and Kendra walked them home. ‘No mercy.’

Sal took that as forgiveness.

The next few days slipped past. Annie was unable to resist buying three huge platters with small oranges painted on them and had wanted to spend hours in the roadside pottery, much to the boredom of Sal, who had confined herself to a single coffee cup and saucer.

‘I know Charlie’s going to hate these, but too bad,’ Annie said as they drove away. ‘He can’t stand this kind of stuff, but I’m going to start getting my own things again.’

‘Tomorrow, Gioia’s free all day, so we decided we’d take you to this great beach we know further down the coast. We’ll take a picnic – it’s spectacular there.’

They pulled into the fish stall to buy that evening’s barbecue. ‘I can’t bear it. We’re halfway through our stay already. I really don’t want to go back,’ said Annie. Watching Kendra examine the catches of the previous night, she realized that what she had said was really true. It was becoming clearer that, by returning to Charlie, she would be going back to somewhere she didn’t want to be.

‘I’ll tell you something,’ Kendra replied once she had been handed the bag of fillets. ‘Gioia’s right. Up to a point. We’ve made a new start over here. But, when you do that, you bring yourselves with you. It’s not really possible to get away from everything.’

‘On the programme, we call it doing a geographical.’ Sal bobbed up.

Kendra realized that Sal probably had to buy into the whole thing lock, stock and barrel, but surely it wasn’t necessary to talk
AA jargon all the time? They all had lives to live, and not everything had to be put into a twelve-step context. It was irritating, all this ‘One day at a time’, ‘Keep it simple’ – it wasn’t as if these were new ideas. ‘I mean, don’t get me wrong,’ she continued, ignoring Sal’s interruption, ‘I love it here, but I’m finding – weird as this must sound – that I kind of miss my folks. I know … I know … I did everything I could to get as far away from them as possible. But now they’re not in my face, I can see them more clearly. I don’t want to live with them, but I’m not 100 per cent about being this cut off. It’s not the distance I’m talking about – after all, the Algarve is hardly the Falkland Islands. No. It’s more psychological. I think Gioia’s enjoying the desperado thing more than me. It’s like we’re on the run, in some ways. Having you both here has made me realize that, I guess.’

They strolled to the little café where the chequered tablecloths were clipped against the wind and plates of buns sat under glass covered with grains of sugar large as sea salt.

‘Will you come back?’ Sal asked.

‘Don’t know. It’s difficult. I’m not going to think about it right now. I will. But not today. Nor tomorrow. Probably.’

When Sal opened the dark wooden shutters the next morning, the sky revealed was not its usual blue. She had suspected as much as she lay on her bed looking at where the join in the warped wood had allowed a chink of light. On other days, it would be sharp, but not today. Since she’d stopped drinking, she’d been waking early. In the past, she didn’t remember ever being awake before Annie, unless she’d set at least two alarms and, even then, when they lived together, her flatmate would often have to come in and shake her.

‘What’s the time?’ A groggy voice emerged from the other bed.

‘Nearly nine, but the weather looks like it’s turned. It’s not sunny. I wonder if that means we’ll scrap the picnic.’

‘The cloud will probably burn off.’ Annie sat up. A pale-blue slip
was rumpled around her and Sal could see a red patch near the crease of her underarm.

Everything looked different without the glaze of sun: the whitewash of the houses grubbier, the dusty yards revealed as the parched patches they were, saved only by the bright pots of flowers. Even the café down the road where they had made a habit of breakfasting on coffee and rolls with a slab of delicious rubbery cheese had lost a degree of its charm.

‘It must be pretty gloomy here in the winter,’ Annie said, looking over to where a cement mixer sat outside a half-built house. ‘The Algarve is made for the sun. When you come down to it, there’s not much else here. Apart from the sea.’

‘I suppose, after how it was in London, this still felt good. And it’s cheap. Anyway,’ Sal added briskly, ‘look over there – the cloud is breaking.’

There was enough brightness lurking behind the cloud for them all to agree that the picnic was still on. As they drove towards the west, the small car began to fill with the smell of cheese and an undefined fishiness.

‘Bit of a pong in here.’ Sal was the first to comment.

‘That’s Gioia’s paste. It’s delicious. Wait till you taste it – anchovies, garlic, parsley, all smashed up,’ Kendra told them.

‘Maybe …’ Sal sounded unsure. ‘But can you open the window, Gioia? These back ones won’t budge, and I’m feeling sick.’ Gioia sniffed the air as she wound down the glass.

‘There’s hardly any wind today. Last night there was a storm out to sea, and it’s left this calm.’ She stuck her nose out like a dog. ‘It’s muggy. Unusual.’

The beach was bordered by a dramatic cliff that rose to the left and a low promontory of rock that stretched into the sea, allowing small pools to form where it met the sand. They walked from the car in single file, following Kendra.

‘Most families don’t come this far down, as it’s not near the huts,’ she shouted back over her shoulder. ‘And they don’t like it with kids because of the rocks.’

Annie and Sal were grateful to have finally arrived where they were going to settle, laden as they were with food, blankets, baskets of towels. Despite the grey sky, the sand was already warm. Gioia walked towards the rocks, where she floated a bottle of wine and cans of beer in a natural pool.

‘Can you see out there? How the water has those dark streaks in it today? Normally, you don’t get those colours,’ Kendra pointed out as she sat hugging her knees against her chin under a sweatshirt. ‘And it’s much flatter than usual. I don’t think I’ve seen it like this before.’ She watched Gioia, who had removed the cotton trousers she had been wearing, walk into the sea, her cuff of silver ankle bracelets clearly defined against her skin.

‘It’s fantastic the way she swims. It’s meant to be harder to learn as you get older, but she’s done really well.’

The others watched Gioia as she reached waist high in the water before launching herself in, swimming only a short distance before turning back towards them and then turning around again, in a childlike display.

‘She looks pretty strong already.’ Annie was rubbing suntan cream on to her shoulders, peering at the red under her arm. ‘It’s probably just as well for me it’s not so hot today. I’m starting to peel.’

By the time they began to unpack the picnic, everybody had been in the water, returning with their own story of its chill. It was just like old times, thought Sal, Annie all in a dither about whether to leave the bread in one piece or slice it. She looked in a bag to find the hard-boiled eggs and a little twist of silver foil.

‘Salt?’ she asked Kendra. ‘All mod cons today.’ Sitting cross-legged, she cracked the egg, picking off the shell as Gioia spread her paste on chunks of bread and handed them out. Refusal was clearly not an option.

‘Portugal joined the EC last year, didn’t it?’ Sal asked, munching enthusiastically on the offering. ‘And Spain, I think, too? Has that changed things here?’

‘Most of the guys I speak to seem to think it will. But it’s a
waiting game. They were told it would make them richer,’ Gioia replied. ‘I don’t think they know a blind bit about what it means, but this is a piss-poor country. You just have to look. And they reckon they’ll attract more cash if they’re in with the others. ’Course we don’t really know whether prices have changed, or what’s happened with other things, do we, Ken?’

‘It’ll probably be easier to tell when the tourist season kicks in properly. It’s still so cheap compared to London. That’s how we can live here, at least for now.’

After the picnic was finished, Annie moved away from the others. She had brought her watercolours with her and was experimenting with the effect of using water from the rockpool to give her paintings an initial colour wash. The previous days she had worked with a pure blue but, today, with the different light, she was mixing in Payne’s Grey and some Sap Green. This afternoon there was a completely different look to the sea. Those dark streaks in the water just off the rocks and close to the shore were quite dramatic. To the left she could see a tanker, the red of its hull obvious even at a great distance. It was a welcome addition to the picture. She decided not to include the beach at all, making this one just a study in sea and sky, its impact greatest where they joined.

It was peaceful. Since her depression, painting had been a help. The concentration demanded by looking at things intensely was a diversion from uncomfortable thoughts. Of course, when she was right in the middle of it, she hadn’t been able to go anywhere near her paints. She hadn’t seen the point. But now it was one of the things that had come back, a reminder of what she used to enjoy but had stopped doing and, although it wasn’t Charlie’s fault, somehow she blamed him. The shape of her life had changed and its new form didn’t have the space for some things. When she got back to London, though, she would make sure it did.

Kendra came up to her, looking over her shoulder and commenting appreciatively. ‘I’m going back to the car to get the bats,’ she went on. ‘I want a walk, and a game of beach tennis will wake us all up.’ Her voice woke Gioia, who had fallen asleep near Annie. She
rubbed her eyes and shook sand from the array of plaits and dreadlocks that hung down her back.

‘I’m going in again. That beer’s done me in.’

‘I’ll come too,’ Sal offered, walking ahead before waiting for her at the water’s edge. They both stepped gingerly in, stopping after each cold step to splash the icy water on their bodies in order to acclimatize.