having not managed to eat anything on the plane. She ordered a glass of dry white wine and by the time the waiter returned with it, she had chosen Penang king prawns.
Without the prop of a menu there was nothing to occupy her attention and she felt faintly conspicuous dining alone. It would be one of many small hurdles she’d need to face each and every day of this trip and suddenly the scale of the undertaking daunted her. She locked her legs at her ankles and tucked them beneath her chair, then flattened her hands on her thighs, consciously trying to relax. She congratulated herself: she had boarded a plane for the first time in years, and was now sitting alone in a restaurant, in a country she’d never visited.
I’m doing just fine
. Reaching for her wine, she drained half of it, then set Mia’s journal in front of her.
On the plane she’d only read the first entry, enough to learn where Mia and Finn stayed and ate. She had promised herself that she would savour each sentence, breathing life into the entries by experiencing them in the places Mia had been. Opening the journal, she felt oddly reassured by the company of Mia’s words, as if it were her sister sitting in front of her. She smiled as she read,
‘Even Finn blushed when the waiter swapped his chopsticks for a spoon. Not even a fork – a spoon!’
She pictured the remnants of Finn’s dinner spread across the starched white tablecloth, Mia laughing the infectious giggle Katie had always loved.
She thought of the times she’d heard Finn and Mia’s explosions of laughter through her bedroom wall, great whooping sounds that would go on for minutes, each of them spurring on the other. If she went next door, she might find Finn with a pair of trousers belted at his ribs taking off one of their teachers with uncanny accuracy, or see that they’d drawn handlebar moustaches and wire spectacles on each other’s faces in black felt-tip. She wished she could step into the room and laugh with them but often she found herself frozen in the doorway, her arms folded over her chest.
It wasn’t that Katie resented their friendship – she had a tight group of friends herself who she could call on in any crisis. What she did resent, and it took her some years to pin down the essence of this, was the way Mia responded to Finn. She laughed harder and more frequently in his company; they talked for hours covering all sorts of topics, when Mia was often a silent presence at home; and he had a knack of diffusing her dark moods, which Katie seemed only able to ignite.
‘Excuse me? Is this chair free?’
Startled, she glanced up from the journal. A man in a pastel-yellow polo shirt indicated the chair opposite her.
‘Yes.’ Imagining he intended to remove the chair, she was taken aback to find him lowering himself onto it, placing a tall glass of beer at her table and stretching a hand towards her. ‘Mark.’
His fingers were short and clammy. She didn’t return her name.
‘I’m here with my squash buddies,’ he said, nodding to the table of men she’d passed on her way into the restaurant. ‘But having lost,
again
, I couldn’t sit through the point-by-point debrief. You don’t mind me joining you, I hope?’
She did mind. Enormously. In other circumstances, Katie would have explained that she was unavailable, softening the blow with a flattering remark, and then the man could have been on his way, dignity intact. However, with the weariness of the day leaning on her shoulders, her usual social graces eluded her entirely.
‘So,’ Mark said, taking her silence as encouragement, ‘where are you from?’
She placed her left hand, engagement ring facing towards him, on the stem of her wineglass. ‘London.’
‘Big Ben. Madame Tussauds. Covent Garden.’ He laughed. ‘I visited a couple of years back. Damn cold. Pretty, though. Very pretty.’
She picked up her wine and took a drink.
The man’s gaze moved to the journal.
Without the prop of a menu there was nothing to occupy her attention and she felt faintly conspicuous dining alone. It would be one of many small hurdles she’d need to face each and every day of this trip and suddenly the scale of the undertaking daunted her. She locked her legs at her ankles and tucked them beneath her chair, then flattened her hands on her thighs, consciously trying to relax. She congratulated herself: she had boarded a plane for the first time in years, and was now sitting alone in a restaurant, in a country she’d never visited.
I’m doing just fine
. Reaching for her wine, she drained half of it, then set Mia’s journal in front of her.
On the plane she’d only read the first entry, enough to learn where Mia and Finn stayed and ate. She had promised herself that she would savour each sentence, breathing life into the entries by experiencing them in the places Mia had been. Opening the journal, she felt oddly reassured by the company of Mia’s words, as if it were her sister sitting in front of her. She smiled as she read,
‘Even Finn blushed when the waiter swapped his chopsticks for a spoon. Not even a fork – a spoon!’
She pictured the remnants of Finn’s dinner spread across the starched white tablecloth, Mia laughing the infectious giggle Katie had always loved.
She thought of the times she’d heard Finn and Mia’s explosions of laughter through her bedroom wall, great whooping sounds that would go on for minutes, each of them spurring on the other. If she went next door, she might find Finn with a pair of trousers belted at his ribs taking off one of their teachers with uncanny accuracy, or see that they’d drawn handlebar moustaches and wire spectacles on each other’s faces in black felt-tip. She wished she could step into the room and laugh with them but often she found herself frozen in the doorway, her arms folded over her chest.
It wasn’t that Katie resented their friendship – she had a tight group of friends herself who she could call on in any crisis. What she did resent, and it took her some years to pin down the essence of this, was the way Mia responded to Finn. She laughed harder and more frequently in his company; they talked for hours covering all sorts of topics, when Mia was often a silent presence at home; and he had a knack of diffusing her dark moods, which Katie seemed only able to ignite.
‘Excuse me? Is this chair free?’
Startled, she glanced up from the journal. A man in a pastel-yellow polo shirt indicated the chair opposite her.
‘Yes.’ Imagining he intended to remove the chair, she was taken aback to find him lowering himself onto it, placing a tall glass of beer at her table and stretching a hand towards her. ‘Mark.’
His fingers were short and clammy. She didn’t return her name.
‘I’m here with my squash buddies,’ he said, nodding to the table of men she’d passed on her way into the restaurant. ‘But having lost,
again
, I couldn’t sit through the point-by-point debrief. You don’t mind me joining you, I hope?’
She did mind. Enormously. In other circumstances, Katie would have explained that she was unavailable, softening the blow with a flattering remark, and then the man could have been on his way, dignity intact. However, with the weariness of the day leaning on her shoulders, her usual social graces eluded her entirely.
‘So,’ Mark said, taking her silence as encouragement, ‘where are you from?’
She placed her left hand, engagement ring facing towards him, on the stem of her wineglass. ‘London.’
‘Big Ben. Madame Tussauds. Covent Garden.’ He laughed. ‘I visited a couple of years back. Damn cold. Pretty, though. Very pretty.’
She picked up her wine and took a drink.
The man’s gaze moved to the journal.
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