“I think we’d already lost our youth to not being young anymore.”
For the tiniest of moments, I’d thought I’d managed to say something that wasn’t horrendously counterproductive. “Then wehaveto do this,” Bridge exclaimed. “We have to do it for the people we used to be.”
“The person I used to be was an arsehole.”
“And I loved that arsehole. I want to see that arsehole again.”
“How about,” I offered desperately, “I show you that arsehole after you’ve had your baby.”
“It won’t be the same.”
“It will. Arseholes change very little. It’s their whole thing, figuratively and literally.”
“I’m calling a cab.”
“Don’t call a cab. Please don’t call a cab.”
“I’ve called a cab.”
There was no way this was going to end well. And there was no way it wasn’t going to be my fault. “But your water broke.”
“And if I start having a baby on the bridge, you can rush me across the city on a madcap drive to the hospital.”
“Tell me that’s not going to happen.”
“Of course it’s not going to happen.”
“Okay, now you’re making me feel like it’s definitely going to happen.”
“Then”—it was Bridge’s triumphant voice—“you’d better come meet me, or I’ll be giving birth alone on a bridge at 3:02 in the morning.”
“Look,” I said. “I know you’re an independent woman who can make her own decisions, but this seems like a really, really bad decision.”
“Tough. You owe me.”
“What do you mean, I owe you?”
“One, you dated Oliver by yourself despite my best attempts to get you together. Two, you flaked on your own wedding that I was really looking forward to. Three, you got a civil partnership for—and I quote—‘legal reasons’ and didn’t even let me be your witness. Four, you’re putting the next step of my Luc and Oliver Eternal Happiness Plan in jeopardy.”
“Wait,” I said. “What? What is this plan?”
“Cab’s here. Byeeee.”
* * *
It was only when I’d been sitting in a cab of my own for about twenty minutes, and had realised I was going to be in it for at least twenty minutes more, that it finally dawned on me that I was no longer in myleap spontaneously into a taxi like Carrie Bradshawera and more in mylive in the suburbs and have a lawnera. And, thinking about it, the fact that Carrie Bradshaw was my icon of choice for youth, freedom, and troubled singleness meant I was squarely in mytoo old for this shitera. As, ironically enough, was Carrie Bradshaw, ifAnd Just Like That…was anything to go by.
After paying the full fifty quid (including tip) it took to get fromHavering to Central London in a reasonable time at an unreasonable hour, I scrambled out the cab, mildly relieved that I’d at least got there first and hadn’t left my pregnant friend standing around on a windy London landmark when she should have been in bed resting.
While I waited, I stared at the Thames, which—much like me—looked a lot better at night. When, instead of being the sludgy grey sewer of the nation, it became a brilliant mirror of coloured lights and reflected possibilities. Okay. Not much like me at all, actually. And, as I stared, I contemplated all the ways I could have handled this better. I could have not panic-dialled Bridge over something I was beginning to remember was trivial. I could have tried harder to dissuade her from this objectively terrible plan. I could have told Oliver, except that would have been embarrassing, or Tom, except that would have been patriarchal. I could just have been less of a fuckup in general. Always. Like, my whole life.
“Luuuuuc,” cried Bridge.
And I turned round to see her emerging, slowly and sideways, from a taxi.
“Oh my God,” I said. “You look—”
“Glowing?”
