‘I was thinking it might be fun to mix it up a little this year. I’d like to invite Bianka Langeland to join us.’
‘What?’ screams Anette.
‘What?’ whispers Linda, her sweet face suddenly very pale. ‘Mix it up. Fun.’ She repeats my words as though she’s never heard them before.
‘Yeah. Come on, guys. We don’t want to grow stagnant, right?’ Anette keeps opening and closing her mouth but she says nothing. Linda’s eyes have filled with tears. ‘Look,’ I continue, taken aback by this extreme reaction, ‘trust me on this one. I think it would work out really well. Bianka is so lovely and I really think she’d bring some fresh energy to our group and to the trip. Remember when the three of us went together for the first time? That was actually kind of random, too, and look how well that worked out.’ I take a sip of my coffee and smile my brightest smile at Anette and Linda. Linda peers into her green tea and Anette looks as if she is still completely unable to speak. Then, slowly, she stands up and gathers her stuff together.
‘Anette? What’s happening? We need to talk about this,’ I say. But she’s walked out, her long, skinny legs covering the lobby of the Cannizaro Hotel in just a few furious strides. I raise my eyebrows at Linda, throwing my hands up in the air at the sheer ridiculousness of it all. We’re planning a girls’ trip to my house in Ibiza, not debating membership of the UN Security Council.
‘I’d better, uh—’ whispers Linda, indicating toward the doors, and standing up. She looks like she’s about to have a seizure from sheer stress. ‘I’m going to make sure Anette’s okay.’
And so I find myself alone. I sip my coffee and replay the whole scene in my head. It’s true that this trip has been a long-standing tradition between Anette, Linda and me, but this extreme resistance to change is something else entirely. I’m now totally sure that Andreas is right about inviting Bianka and I won’t be made to feel bad about it. I pull out my phone and message her.
Hey, how’s it going? Want to meet up?
She replies after just a few minutes.
Sure. How about we step outside the box? Meet me in Leyton at 7.
My heart begins to pound hard in my chest at her reply. I’ve lived in London for almost seven years and haven’t exactly explored the city much. I tend to hang out in Wimbledon, Richmond, Chelsea and Kensington, so I have to look up Leyton on the map. I get the bill and half-run back to the house, feeling energized again at the prospect of meeting Bianka this evening.
Seven
Charlotte
She’s waiting for me outside the Tube station at Leyton, a place I’ve never been before. Leyton is miles away from Wimbledon, and I’m intrigued, though not surprised that Bianka suggested meeting here. She told me the last time we met that she wants to ‘get beneath London’s skin’.
When Bianka explained that we were going to an avant-garde gallery opening out here, I was both unnerved and exhilarated in equal measures. Usually, when I meet with friends, it’s to drink coffee in one of the bijou, self-conscious coffee roasteries in the village, or for a glass of wine on the King’s Road or Mayfair, places we’ve come with our husbands and their work associates, and sometimes return to with our girlfriends.
Bianka is leaning against the side of a building, her face lighting up in a slow smile as she watches me approach. I imagine that most people waiting for someone would while away the time scrolling on their phone, but I suppose Bianka isn’t most people; she just waits, seemingly without hurry or annoyance. We hug, and she links her arm through mine as we walk up toward the gallery opening, which is being held in what looks like an industrial warehouse wedged in between tall apartment buildings with hundreds of little balconies.
‘So. Are you into art?’ asks Bianka as we approach the warehouse.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Well. I suppose you could say I grew up surrounded by it. My mother was a painter.’
‘Oh, wow. That’s very cool.’
‘I—’ I start to speak, but as has often been the case when it comes to my mother, I’m unable to continue, I just can’t find the words. Bianka seems to notice and smoothly deflects.
‘Here,’ says Bianka, handing me a glass of lukewarm prosecco in a plastic glass. ‘Oh, wow,’ she continues. ‘Check this stuff out. So beautiful. I’ve been wanting to see this for such a long time. Adler Heung was featured in The Hub magazine last year and I was just blown away by him, so when I heard he was coming to London this month, I was pretty excited.’ I take in the pictures, and try to articulate some thoughts that would suggest that I’m someone who frequents art galleries and have an opinion about their offerings. They’re evocative and laced with a savage beauty I can’t quite describe or even process inside my head, but I find myself transfixed by his use of light.
There is a big crowd consisting mostly of trendy-looking people much younger than us, and suddenly I feel dowdy and outdated in my Ralph Lauren blouse and high-waisted jeans. Bianka looks like she belongs here with these fashionistas, dressed in a backless black dress and scruffy boots, her hair loose and wild. Her body is lithe and firm; I bet she finds it easy to maintain thanks to keto, as so many people have discovered. She said that I’m the one who got her to try it and that she loved it so much that she’s stuck to it ever since. Still, I imagine she and I are quite different – Bianka strikes me as someone who eats for enjoyment, who unapologetically and unselfconsciously enjoys sex, who sees her body as a vessel for enjoyment. I want to be like her. Around her neck is a simple thin silver necklace, unadorned by any charms, and it looks really effortless and cool; though I have many similar necklaces, I would never have thought to wear one like that, just on its own.
We circle the room, then Bianka tops our glasses up to the brim from an abandoned half-full prosecco bottle on a table in the far corner.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ she says, and though I’m surprised, I follow close behind as she pushes her way through the crowd, toward a side entrance. We step out onto a quiet residential street, and though the sky is totally dark now, the air is still warm.
‘Hot in there,’ says Bianka, and takes a sip of her prosecco, glancing down the empty street as if trying to think of what to do next. I don’t want the night to end, to get back on the Tube and then in an Uber, to unlock the door to our house, I want something to happen, an adventure. And Bianka herself feels like an adventure. ‘Let’s walk,’ she says, gesturing to a sign that reads Leyton Jubilee Park. We pass a primary school and a closed café and then the park is there, like a dark, unexplored country. I raise an eyebrow; I don’t know this neighbourhood or how safe it is in the evening – is it a good idea to walk in the park at night drinking prosecco from open plastic containers? But I wanted an adventure and more time with Bianka, so I smile and fall into step with her as we head down a wide, gravelled path bordered by woods, past a playground, and a mini golf area.
‘Tell me more about yourself,’ says Bianka, stopping on the path before sitting down on a bench. I sit down beside her and she’s staring at me as though I were an incredibly interesting creature, not an overworked, often-sad, exhausted mother of two and a wife who hasn’t had sex with her husband in a very long time. It’s as though she can read my mind because she reaches out and places a small, warm hand on my wrist and squeezes it. It feels like an oddly intimate thing to do, and like a gesture of real care, making me remember what she asked me the very first time we met at the party, Who looks after you? I feel embarrassed at the lump in my throat, the sheen of tears that spring to my eyes. I don’t know what’s happening. I’m not upset; I’m not the kind of person who loses control of her emotions and blubs to a stranger, but I’m also not someone who spends much time thinking about how or what I feel. Bianka doesn’t look surprised or horrified at my strange display of emotion, triggered by an innocent request like ‘Tell me about yourself’.
I decide to tell her something I never talk about, even to my closest friends.
‘When I was fifteen my parents got divorced and my mother moved to Ibiza and basically never came back.’
‘Wow,’ says Bianka. ‘The artist.’
‘Yep. She was Spanish. Born on the island.’
‘So what did you do?’
‘I stayed in Norway with my dad. He was so broken and I didn’t want to leave my friends. I threw myself into my schoolwork and just never stopped until I’d achieved everything I wanted. I was terrified of people feeling sorry for me. I still am.’
Bianka nods. ‘So you ploughed all your efforts into achievement?’
‘I suppose so. But I missed my mother so much.’ I pause, thankful for the darkness hiding my burning cheeks. I have never spoken of that time or of my mother like this to anyone before.
‘Where is she now?’
‘She died a few years later, when I was twenty.’
‘I’m so sorry.’
‘Yeah. Thank you. It is what it is. But losing her is the hardest thing that ever happened to me. I used to lie awake at night wondering if it might have been different if I’d gone with her to Ibiza.’
‘You can’t think like that.’
‘But I do.’
