Read Online Can We Still Be Friends by Alexandra Shulman - Free Book Online

Annie didn’t want to be a banker, or have ‘a career’ anyway. It was a different kind of a life she was after, but that didn’t mean Letty was right.
    The front door of the flat banged and Flick bolted out of the bathroom, where she had been investigating the toilet bowl. ‘Sal?’ called Annie, hauling herself out of the water and wrapping herself in a towel. She walked into the hall, where Sal stood, pale and tearful, with what looked like a nasty bruise under her eye. Her thin white dress was crumpled and she was bereft of her usual bounce. ‘What’s happened?’
    Annie let her towel fall to put an arm round the shaking frame of her friend and guide her to the sofa, where she stood beside her, naked. ‘Let me put something on,’ she said.
    ‘It’s OK. I’m OK. Just thick,’ said Sal, fumbling in her bag for a cigarette.
    ‘I think I’d better have one too,’ said Annie, now wrapped in her gown. ‘So tell me. What’s happened?’
    Sal recounted her evening; the boredom of the quiet day, her excitement at being taken somewhere glamorous.
    ‘I just thought it would be fun to go for a walk. Stuart and I seemed to be having a great time. I guess I should have known right from the start. I mean, what was he doing round here anyway? I suppose I could have got away from him less violently. But Annie, I was frightened. I promise you, he was holding me so tight. It could have been rape. What a wanker.’
    Annie knew that attack was always Sal’s chosen form of defence. Tempered negotiation had no part in her make-up. It never had been, whether she was dealing with people or with inanimate objects. Another person would no doubt have been able to extricate themselves in a less combative manner. But then another person might not have found themselves walking drunk through Hyde Park with a married boss late at night. Sal’s usual bravura had disappeared, and tears had begun to streak her face, her nose now red with crying. ‘I don’t know why they do it. I mean, can’t they tell we’re not interested. I’m so pleased you’re here.’ She paced around, walking over to where Annie sat. ‘I just feel terrible. How could I be so
stupid
? And what am I going to do about work? I don’t want anyone to know.’
    Annie gave her a hug, wrapping her small bony frame. Sal could smell her friend’s bath essence. ‘You’ll be OK. You know what? I don’t think he’s going to want anyone to know about this either. He was just drunk. Keep your head down. It’ll pass.’
    ‘But only the other day Doug was telling me about how it’s always the girls who get fired. This kind of thing happens all the time,’ Sal wailed.
    ‘You won’t get fired. Trust me. Come on. Let me tuck you up. Make you a cup of tea.’
    Annie spoke from a position of total ignorance but, if she or Sal were to get any sleep tonight, Sal had to feel secure about her job. Sal Turner,
Sunday Herald
. That was who she was. It was not, she decided, the right time to ask Sal if Jackson had called. Nor even to mention that she’d met him. She would have to wait till the morning, when Sal would hopefully be feeling better. Annie’s good newswould not gain the response she felt it deserved from her friend in her current state of mind. She wanted to present it in all its glory, uncontaminated by one of Sal’s messes. Even if she learnt that Jackson
had
called, she wouldn’t be able to bask in the knowledge when she was having to deal with Sal’s misfortune.
    As Annie surveyed her options, she could hear her mother’s voice, with its faintly nasal cadence, as if the surface had been ever so slightly scratched: ‘Darling, I always think that
blue
’s your colour. I regard myself as a pink person, but you’re definitely a blue girl. Pink does you no favours.’
    Hanging on the open door of the built-in wardrobe was a bright-blue dress threaded with silver strands, the deep V of the neck leading to a high waist. It was Annie’s lucky dress. She had