Chapter Text
Everything is falling apart.
Beatrice, who is genetically predisposed to punctuality, has moved from early to on time to entirely, horrifically, late. On the passenger seat of her car, the flowers she bought at the florist this afternoon are beginning to wilt, and her phone buzzes with another missed call from one or another of her friends.
Between here and her flat, she has come face to face with a farcical accumulation of obstacles: the extensive roadworks and the unclear London signposting and now, most frustratingly of all, the fact that Mary and Shannon’s new place is located on a very long street of identical terraced houses. In the dark, it’s hard to make out the numbers and she crawls along the road between a line of parked cars trying to figure out where on earth she’s supposed to be.
She could blame any of these things for her uncharacteristic lateness but ultimately, she knows, it’s her own fault: she had only left twenty minutes earlier than necessary rather than her typical thirty.
At long last, her headlights flash over the coveted number 72 and, in a rare showing of good luck, there’s a place for her to park not far away. The relief is short-lived when she realises the car in front of hers is Lilith’s Range Rover and that, of course, means the rest of her friends have probably already arrived ahead of her.
She hurries to the front door feeling frazzled and out of sorts, almost forgetting her phone in the car and having to run back to get it. Everyone else probably didn’t have the same trouble finding the house as she did, she considers as she waits for someone to answer the door - Mary and Shannon have been in their ‘new’ place for almost six months and Beatrice is almost certainly the last one to see it.
Just as she’s staring down at her sad-looking flowers, considering whether they’re a rather paltry, six-month-late housewarming gift, the door opens and a wave of warmth and conversation wash over her.
“Are you alright?” is the first thing Shannon says, “You’re never late.” Then she pulls Beatrice into a hug and shuffles her out of the cold London street and into the house.
“I’m so sorry - I couldn’t find it.” Beatrice holds out the flowers, “These are for you and Mary. To say - well - “
“They’re beautiful,” Shannon smiles easily and takes the bouquet from her with one hand. “C’mon, everyone’s dying to see you.”
Beatrice finds herself being led down the hall and into the living room, and then she’s enveloped by the chatter of her excited friends.
Camila gets up first, throws her arms around her and tells her, “Oh my God, Bea, your hair is so long, have you - “
Already though she’s pushed aside by Lilith, and Beatrice breathes in the familiar scent of her expensive perfume as her friend kisses her cheek, then Mary is hugging her with one arm, the other occupied by a pitcher of some luminous orange cocktail, as Shannon asks, “Babe, where’s that vase your sister bought us - I need to put these in some water.”
Lilith moves to pour herself another glass of wine and Camila is talking rapid-fire about the state of London traffic and Beatrice is happy to see them, she is - it’s the first time in eight months - but she’s also sweaty and out of sorts and -
A soft hand lands on her arm and in her ear, Ava’s voice says, “Take a breath.”
Obediently, Beatrice does. She feels her rib cage expand and then relax, and only when she has fully exhaled does Ava press an oversized gin and tonic into her hands.
Beatrice turns to look at her then properly, takes in her wide grin and how ludicrously underdressed she is for the cold and feels a little better. Ava is leaning on her cane though and Beatrice frowns down at it.
“Bad flare-up?” she asks. Ava usually uses her cane out of the house, thanks to what she affectionately refers to as her “fucked up spinal cord”, but she doesn’t typically need it just for moving around a flat.
Ava shrugs nonchalantly, “Just today - got some pain. It’s fine. Come and sit down, we want to hear how you are.”
She gestures to the only empty seat on the couch and Beatrice shakes her head, “You sit there and I’ll sit on the floor.”
Ava rolls her eyes at her but does as she’s asked, telling Camila in Spanish as she sits, “ English people are such fucking worriers.”
Beatrice huffs and laughs and Ava gives her a sideways glance and a grin, knowing all too well that Beatrice can understand her.
Almost as soon as Shannon has returned from putting the flowers in water and Mary has refreshed their drinks, all heads swivel towards her. “Tell us what you’ve been doing,” Shannon says, sitting on the arm of Mary’s chair and lounging easily on her girlfriend’s shoulder.
Now seated comfortably on the floor, her head next to Ava’s knee and cradling her ludicrously strong gin and tonic, Beatrice at least feels settled enough to give a coherent answer.
“It was a standard contract,” she tells them. They look at her expectantly and she realises she might have to give them a little more.
Despite working in the same career for a decade and knowing most of her friends for even longer than that, Beatrice has never managed to disabuse them of the notion that her job is terribly exciting. There is something of a mystique to long sea voyages that the reality - working as an engineer for a shipping company - never quite lives up to. No matter how many times she describes trying to fix an engine problem on a thousand-foot container ship in the middle of the Atlantic after four hours of sleep, everyone seems to imagine something much more romantic.
“I went to Thailand,” she offers, “Then Australia and then China. Tell me what you’ve all been doing though, I’m sure I’ve missed out on loads.”
They let her push them into a different topic of conversation, knowing her well enough and long enough not to force her to talk about herself too much.
Instead, Camila begins to talk about the new tech startup she’s part of, with some complicated descriptions of her coding projects that even Beatrice - probably the second most technical among them - doesn’t really understand.
“What happened to the last startup?” she asks. The other problem with long sea voyages - aside from the lack of romance - is the relative scarcity of news. Satellite phones mean it isn’t quite as remote as it once was, but bad weather and busy schedules frequently interrupt communication.
Camila winces a little at the question, “That one turned out to be moderately evil,” she admits, “Which I definitely couldn’t have known when they hired me.”
“All tech startups are sorta evil though, aren’t they?” Mary asks.
The poorly hidden grin on her face makes it obvious she’s baiting her but Camila rises to the challenge, and the conversation devolves into a familiar back-and-forth. Beatrice settles back against the couch and lets herself sink into the easy bickering for the first time in too long.
Ava nudges her shoulder with her leg and leans down to say in her ear, “Hey, I missed you. I like your hair long.”
She skates her hand around to Beatrice’s shoulder, her fingers brushing the nape of her neck, and lets it lay there for a moment before she adds, “And I needed you back because none of these people appreciate good music.”
Beatrice snorts, “Your tastes are rather niche.”
“ You listen to monks chanting for fun,” Ava points out, “But you do also like ABBA, so…”
“Gregorian chanting is good workout music,” Beatrice argues, “And ABBA is just good music.”
For a moment, they grin at each other, until they’re pulled away by Camila saying, “Ava, back me up here.”
Somehow, in the moments they were distracted, the conversation turned to a familiar argument for the group: the best language in the world. They share a dozen languages between them and it’s mostly an excuse to tease each other, but one that never fails to get them going.
“Tell them Spanish is the most beautiful language,” Camila directs Ava.
Ava shrugs, “Portuguese though…”
Just because she likes to irritate the rest of them, Lilith suggests “Voynichese?”
Shannon rolls her eyes, “The unknown language no one can translate? Be serious. I keep telling you all that Gaelic - ”
Beatrice, who knows the right answer, lets them get on with the argument. Instead, she turns her attention to the room they’re sitting in, not having seen much of Mary and Shannon’s new place. Behind the armchair Mary is sitting in, she spots an acoustic guitar leaning against the wall and she frowns, knowing that neither Mary or Shannon play. From the “fuck fascists” sticker and the bi-flag strap though, she’s certain it’s Ava’s.
Her attention more focused now, she looks around and sees Ava’s baseball cap resting on a side table, although there would be no reason for her to bring it on a cold, dark night like this. The cane, too, gives her pause: Beatrice has been close to Ava long enough to know that her condition is worsened by poor rest.
She looks up at Ava suddenly, “Are you staying here?”
There is a pause in conversation, a moment of awkwardness.
Ava clears her throat, “Uh, yeah. Sleeping on the couch, just for a couple of nights.”
Beatrice frowns. For the past few years, Ava has been living in a series of house shares with several other people, a situation which doubles as some sort of amorphous, ever-shifting sexual relationship she has never been able to wrap her head around. “You aren’t living with Chanel anymore?”
“No. You remember Zori, right?”
Beatrice hadn’t minded Chanel or Randall - even JC had been tolerable most of the time - but she had never much liked Zori. She nods.
“Yeah.” Ava lets out a nervous laugh, “Kind of a funny story, actually. So it turns out that instead of collecting our rent and paying it to the landlord like she said she was, she was stealing it and investing it in crypto. Which means we got evicted and I’m crashing here until I can figure out something longer term.”
Never before have Beatrice and Ava’s definitions of “a funny story” differed quite so starkly.
“She stole your money?” she asks, “Are you taking her to court? Did you call the police? Why didn’t you tell me?”
She knows why, though. Ava didn’t tell her because there was nothing she could do, out in the middle of the ocean, and she’d have only worried and stewed on it endlessly.
“Bea,” Camila says gently, “Let’s not get into this now.”
Ava frowns down at her though and Beatrice stares up at her, and finally, she says, “You should stay with me.”
She doesn’t have to look at the rest of her friends to know they’re sharing glances between them.
“You hate having people in your flat,” Lilith points out, “I’ve only been there twice and you’ve lived there for three years.”
Beatrice does hate having people in her flat, although really only because she’s gone for so much of the time that it barely feels like hers. She’d rather be with the rest of them, in their warm and familiar homes, than her own cold place.
“I have a spare bedroom,” she says to Ava, “It makes much more sense than sleeping on a couch.”
There is a pause. Ava looks up and meets Mary’s eyes briefly then turns back to Beatrice. “Yeah.” She nods slowly, “That would be good. If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” Beatrice says firmly. It might be the quickest decision she’s ever made in her life, “I can help you move your things tomorrow.”
*
As it turns out, Ava doesn’t have much in the way of things to move. When Mary drops her off the next morning, Ava only has her guitar, an IKEA bag full of clothes, and a small cardboard box containing a houseplant and a few books.
“Is this everything?” Beatrice asks doubtfully. Somehow, she had imagined Ava having much more.
Ava shrugs, “I move around a lot. It’s easier not having much to pack.”
Mary has to leave them, citing an early delivery at her restaurant, so it’s just Beatrice who helps Ava with her things. Ava insists on carrying her guitar, although she’s breathing hard by the time they make it down the hallway into the flat. She only rolls her eyes at Beatrice’s concerned glance though.
“Couple days in a real bed and I’ll be running up and down the hall like a springer spaniel,” she informs her.
Beatrice laughs, “Just try not to disturb the neighbours.”
Inside Beatrice’s living room, Ava’s head twists and turns, the expression on her face making it seem like she’s in an art gallery and not a fairly standard two-bedroom one-bath.
“Nice place,” she says.
It’s not, really. The flat isn’t much more than the blank slate it had been when Beatrice bought it a couple of years ago - white walls and essential furniture.
“You’ve been here before,” Beatrice points out.
Ava shakes her head though, “Nope. Neither has Mary - she was really mad she had to leave so soon. She wanted to see inside your secret lair.”
Beatrice looks around at the empty state of her living room. It’s not that she intentionally deters her friends from coming here, just that there doesn’t seem to be any need for it. She bought it because it seemed like a sensible place to put her money and it provides a place to sleep when she’s at home. That’s about all.
“I’m afraid she’d be terribly disappointed,” she offers, “It’s not much.”
“You have some sort of phobia of wall art?” Ava teases. It makes Beatrice smile.
“I’m not home often enough to buy any.” She holds up the cardboard box she’s still carrying, “If you want to rest a little, I can put your things in your room?”
“Sure.” Ava nods. As Beatrice turns to walk away though, she calls, “Bea.”
Beatrice turns to look at her, still sitting on the sofa with her cane resting between her knees. Ava opens a mouth to say something and then closes it again. After a moment, she tries instead, “Thanks for letting me stay.”
“Of course.” Beatrice nods, “Make yourself at home.”
“Can I tell you something?” Ava is chewing the inside of her lip as if she’s nervous. Beatrice has known her for a long time and is very familiar with the list of things that make Ava nervous: hospitals, babies when their heads are still floppy, large spiders (but not small spiders - she thinks they’re cute). Beatrice hasn’t ever been one of the things on that list.
She takes a step closer to her. “Of course.”
“I’m kinda worried about living here.” Ava looks around the flat and Beatrice wonders what she sees when she does. “I mean, I know you like your space and you’re neat and private and every time you came to see me at my old place I cleaned for like, the entire day beforehand. Did you know that? And - “
“Ava,” Beatrice interrupts before the ramble can pick up any more speed. “I spend months at a time living on a ship in close quarters with thirty other people. When I was a cadet, I had to share a cabin.”
“Yeah, but…” Ava trails off still looking uncertain, “It won’t be for long, anyway. Just until I get the money together for the deposit on a new place. You’ll barely even have a chance to get sick of me.”
Beatrice wants to say something reassuring like I couldn’t ever get sick of you, but she knows from experience that platitudes like that ring hollow to Ava. Instead, she returns to the tried and true: gentle teasing. “I’ll remember that when you wake me up singing in the shower.”
But Ava doesn’t wake her up singing in the shower the next morning. Beatrice is awake early, her sleep schedule irrevocably broken from eight months working six hours on and six hours off, and she hears Ava creeping around the flat as if she’s trying to make as little noise as possible. She closes the door behind her very gently and when she begins to hum to herself she abruptly stops, as if she has just reminded herself that she’s supposed to be quiet.
In answer, Beatrice makes far more commotion getting out of bed than she ever usually would. She hopes Ava will realise that she doesn’t mind the noise, but when she steps out of her bedroom and into the short hallway that leads to her living room, she finds Ava staring at her wide-eyed.
“Shit, I woke you up.”
“I was awake already,” Beatrice is quick to say - maybe too quick, because Ava looks like she doesn’t believe her.
“Sorry.” She pulls a face, “I’ll be out of your way soon anyway - I’ll be home from work around two.”
“Two?” Beatrice questions. It seems early, but then Ava works at a local music shop with her friend Michael, teaching the occasional private guitar lesson on the side, and as far as Beatrice can work out the two of them don’t bother with such stifling formalities as “shift patterns” and “regular opening and closing times”. God knows how the store has stayed open.
Ava nods, “Got to pick Phoebe and Sebastian up from school.”
It takes Beatrice a moment to catch her meaning. “Lilith’s Phoebe and Sebastian?”
Her obvious confusion makes Ava laugh, “Yeah, I pick them up two days a week and hang out with them until Lilith gets home from work.” She pauses for a moment before offering, “You can come with me if you want? I bet they’d be happy to see you.”
“I’d like that,” Beatrice agrees. The answering smile Ava gives her is overwhelming.
*
The rest of the day is spent in listless wandering - half-heartedly completing chores that have been left undone while she’s been gone from home, thumbing through the books on her shelves and deciding that none of them interest her. She watches half an hour of daytime television and then shuts it off in irritation, decides to do laundry instead before she remembers she already did it all.
It’s always like this when she first gets back: she has no routine, no way to occupy herself. Within a few days, she knows, she’ll be longing to be back on a ship.
By the time Ava gets home, Beatrice feels a little like a dog pining for her owner to come back and play fetch with her. She really is looking forward to seeing Phoebe and Sebastian though, and - she will admit only to herself - to seeing the way Ava interacts with them.
It’s not that she doubts Ava’s ability to take care of two children - quite the opposite, really, she imagines she’s very good at it. It’s just that Lilith and Ava have always had a prickly relationship, the sort of people who are part of the same friendship group but not really close, and she’s surprised Lilith would ask Ava to take on a task like that.
When they reach the school that afternoon though, it’s clear that Ava must have been doing this, at the very least, for the last few months, because she greets a few parents cheerfully at the school gate and Phoebe and Sebastian don’t look in the least bit surprised to see her. It’s Beatrice who’s something of a novelty: Sebastian, only six, is shy of her, and clings to Ava’s hand as they walk back to Lilith’s house. Phoebe, now at the grand old age of eight, is already showing signs of having inherited her mother’s ruthless ambition though, and she tells Beatrice at length about her plans to become captain of the school football team.
Ava has a key to Lilith’s house and she lets them into the spacious hallway then herds the children immediately into the kitchen. She navigates the place easily, knowing just where to find the glasses to pour them some juice each.
“How long have you been helping out?” Beatrice asks.
“Just since the start of the school year. Since - you know - “ she glances down at the kids bickering over something, and mouths the word Adriel at Beatrice.
It makes sense: Lilith’s divorce has been rumbling along for a while now, and she imagines it’s been hard on both of them.
“Okay, homework,” Ava tells Phoebe and Sebastian cheerfully, “Beatrice can help you while I make dinner?” At Beatrice’s clear look of surprise, Ava laughs, “Lilith’s rules, I just follow them. If it was up to me we’d eat ice cream and watch movies.”
“My homework is quite complicated,” Phoebe says doubtfully, “Are you sure she’ll be able to help?”
“Beatrice is the smartest person I know,” Ava tells her seriously, “And she’s way better at maths than me.”
Sebastian squints suspiciously up at her, as though he doesn’t believe that anyone could be smarter than Ava, and Beatrice doesn’t entirely blame him. She’s not convinced she’s up to homework help either.
“Just keep them busy,” Ava says lowly in Beatrice’s ear, making her jump, “I need to chop up some vegetables really small so they don’t know they’re eating them.”
With some trepidation, Sebastian lets her sit down next to him and take his books out of his school bag. Subtraction, it turns out, is frustrating, and she ends up taking fruit out of the bowl on the table to help him figure it out. It seems to be effective though, both in making him laugh and getting the right answer down on his worksheet. Meanwhile, Phoebe’s grammar work really is complicated, and Beatrice has to stretch her memory back to diagramming sentences to help her with it.
Stirring a pasta sauce, Ava watches them with amusement, “Didn’t you go to Oxford, Bea?”
Beatrice glares at her, “I didn’t study grammar at Oxford.”
“Maybe you should have,” Phoebe suggests, filling out the next answer by herself.
Beatrice takes this as a sign that she needs to apply herself and turns back to the homework with determination. When she glances over her shoulder a minute later though, she finds Ava still watching her. The smile on her face is small and private, nothing like her usual blinding grin. When their eyes meet, Ava ducks her head and turns away.
By the time Lilith gets home at six, homework has been completed and Ava and the children are settled in front of a movie about singing animals while Beatrice cleans up in the kitchen.
Phoebe and Sebastian are on their feet almost as soon as the front door opens, running to Lilith joyously. Lilith’s usually sharp features are soft as she wraps her arms around them, letting both of them excitedly tell her about their days at the same time. Beatrice knows she should step away, let them have their moment, but she can’t help watching them: children who adore their mother so completely that they want to share everything with her. She hadn’t done that with her own parents - she knew from a young age that her tiny childhood joys were uninteresting to them.
She retreats back into the kitchen after a moment and, a few minutes later, Lilith joins her.
“Ava says they’re going to finish their movie before you leave,” she says, going to pour herself a glass of wine.
“Alright.” Beatrice nods, wiping the remains of Sebastian’s pasta sauce off the kitchen table. “I hope you didn’t mind me tagging along - Ava invited me.”
“Of course not.” Lilith shakes her head and sinks down into a chair tiredly, “You’re always welcome to come and see them - I wish they saw more of you, honestly. You’d probably counterbalance Ava’s terrible taste in movies.”
Beatrice laughs a little, “I was surprised that you asked her to look after them. You two never really seemed to get along before.” For a moment, she wonders if Lilith and Ava are involved, and the thought makes her stomach twist.
Lilith dismisses the thought before it even really has time to form though. “It’s not about me. They love her and she’s great with them. Besides, I didn’t want them to grow up with nannies and boarding schools like we did.”
Beatrice nods - she knows that part of the reason for Lilith’s divorce is that Adriel had seen nothing wrong with such an arrangement, would have happily shipped Phoebe off aged seven if Lilith had allowed it. “How are things with Adriel?”
Lilith rolls her eyes, “He’s still fighting for full custody, the arsehole, even though he’s never fucking home. My mother is being a complete bitch about it as well.”
It’s not something that entirely surprises Beatrice: Lilith’s mother is a difficult woman, abrasive and charismatic at the same time. When Beatrice’s own parents cut her off when she was seventeen, it was Lilith’s mother who pushed an application through their boarding school’s hardship fund to ensure Bea could at least finish her education there. But she still rubbed elbows with Beatrice’s parents at parties, even after they made it clear that a gay daughter was no child of theirs. In Lilith now, as adults, Beatrice can see the parts of her influenced by her mother and the ways she is trying very hard to be different.
“She thinks he should have full custody?” she asks, running out of things to clean and leaning back against the kitchen counter instead.
Lilith snorts, “She thinks I should stay married to him. What’s a little misery when you’re keeping up appearances, right?”
Sometimes, Beatrice wonders if she didn’t get the better end of the deal: she never has to worry about what her parents think of her choices again.
From the living room, there is a burst of laughter, Ava’s even louder than the children’s, and Beatrice looks towards the noise with a smile. When she turns back, Lilith is watching her.
“So,” her friend begins. Beatrice knows her well enough to expect the worst. “How is the grand flatmate experiment going?”
“The grand flatmate experiment?” Beatrice questions, “Is that what we’re calling it?”
Lilith’s lips curl upwards, “That’s what we’ve dubbed it, yes.” Beatrice does not bother to ask who ‘ we’ refers to. “We’re taking bets on whether you’ll smother her in her sleep.”
“Why are you so sure I’m the one with murderous intent here?” Beatrice protests, “Maybe she’ll smother me in my sleep.”
Lilith stares at her for a long minute as though she’s trying to work something out, and then she barks out a laugh, “I don’t think so.”
Before Beatrice can ask what makes her so sure, Ava appears in the doorway to the kitchen. “Ready to go?” she asks.
“Yes. Let me just say goodbye to Phoebe and Sebastian.”
Beatrice straightens from where she’s leaning against the counter and moves towards the door. When she glances back over her shoulder, Lilith mouths don’t kill her.
*
Beatrice does not like to think about some of the truly disgusting bars she has patronised over the years in order to watch Ava perform, but the pub where she’s landed a regular Tuesday night gig is, thankfully, very pleasant. Not only does it have polite staff and clean floors, but the bathrooms are reliably stocked with toilet paper and hand soap.
(This, incidentally, is the sort of thing that Ava says marks Beatrice out as being hopelessly ‘over thirty’ compared to Ava’s very youthful twenty-nine.)
A rush of warm air hits her when she enters, a welcome relief from the frosty street outside, although it seems not many people ventured out into the cold tonight - the pub is disappointingly empty. It makes it easy to spot Ava though, leaning up against the bar talking to a woman Bea doesn’t recognise, and Beatrice is pleased for the opportunity to be able to wish her luck before her set.
It’s only when she gets closer that she recognises Ava’s conversation for what it really is: Ava is leaning forward towards the girl with a smile and the girl reaches out to touch the tattoo on Ava’s wrist, laughs just a little too loudly. It’s not an activity she generally participates in, but Beatrice is able to identify flirting when she sees it. By the time she does though, she’s too close to back away easily and she hesitates for a moment, unsure how to avoid interrupting.
Before she can act, Ava spots her from the corner of her eye and turns immediately towards her.
“Bea,” she greets happily, as though they hadn’t seen each other at home just a few hours before, leaning in to hug her and kiss her cheek. “You made it, been forever since you saw me play.”
“Of course,” Beatrice confirms. Tuesday nights are something of a regular meeting point for their little group, but she would still attend even if she was the only one here. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to - “
“Oh, no, it’s cool.” Ava turns to gesture towards the girl she was talking to (flirting with), “This is Dora, she’s one of the regulars here.”
Dora, judging by her wide eyes and stiff shoulders, clearly feels horribly awkward. “Yeah. Shit, I didn’t realise you had a - uh.”
Beatrice is quite certain the last, unsaid word of that sentence would have been ‘girlfriend’, but if Ava realises then she doesn’t acknowledge it.
Instead, she declares proudly, “Beatrice is my biggest fan - right, Bea? She’s been listening to me play since we were teenagers.”
“I have,” Beatrice agrees, “If she had a fan club I like to think I would be president.”
Ava nods solemnly, “She’d be good at it too. Very organised.”
Dora smiles, “You two are cute. How did you meet?”
“Prison,” Ava says cheerfully, throwing an arm around Beatrice’s shoulders. “She was my bitch.”
She manages to keep a straight face for all of about ten seconds, right up until Dora looks between the two of them doubtfully and says, “ She was your bitch?”
Beatrice rolls her eyes, “She’s making that up.” Still, she lets Ava hang on to her shoulder, despite the warmth in the pub. “Do you have time for a drink before your set?”
“Yep.” Ava nods enthusiastically, seeming to have forgotten she had been midway through flirting with Dora before all of this. Dora, at least, seems thankful to escape the confusing conversation with the two of them, and she has disappeared by the time Bea and Ava have their drinks.
They make their way to a table in the corner where Mary, Shannon and Camila are already seated - and, judging by the empty glasses on the table, a couple of drinks deep.
“Hey, do you remember how we actually met?” Ava asks, nudging Beatrice vigorously enough that she nearly spills her lager.
Immediately, their friends all groan: it’s Ava’s favourite story to tell and they’ve heard it countless times before. Beatrice doesn’t mind though - she likes the way Ava talks about it, as if it were the beginning of a blockbuster movie.
“Of course I do.” Beatrice laughs, “But you can remind me if you like.”
In Beatrice’s final year of boarding school - the one that Lilith’s mother fought for her to have - an exchange was arranged with an inner city high school that was described by their imperious headmistress as being “diverse”. This word was said with the same intonation as someone who had recently ingested cat piss.
As far as Beatrice has ever been able to work out, the intention was some kind of well-meaning opportunity to expand their horizons: the public school kids would come to their leafy, countryside boarding school and aspire to attend such an institution, and in turn the boarding school students would go to the high school and… well. She never did find out what they were meant to learn by going to the other school - some of her classmates’ parents complained and the entire thing was cancelled before they went there.
The day of the visit to the boarding school was a bad one for Beatrice: it had been her eighteenth birthday three days before and she had only just come to accept that there was no belated phone call from her parents and no birthday card lost in the post. They had excised her, thoroughly and utterly, from their lives without a second thought.
Already, she had been accepted into Oxford University, and that too overwhelmed her: the thought of venturing out of the familiar walls of the boarding school and into the future with no guiding hand to support her was terrifying.
For the first time in her life, she skipped her French class that morning and sneaked outside instead. She went to the gravelled area behind the school kitchens that smelled of rubbish and overcooked meat, a place that her classmates never bothered to go and where she knew she could be reliably alone. And she would have been, if not for the grinding gears of the universe that meant Ava had chosen that exact time and location to sneak away from their tour for a cigarette.
“Are you alright?” Ava asked when she found Beatrice crying next to an old milk crate.
Embarrassed, Beatrice swiped at her eyes, swallowed and nodded, “Yes, of course. Shouldn’t you be inside?”
“Shouldn’t you be inside?” Ava countered, “Seriously, you don’t look alright. Do you want to talk about it? I’m a pretty good listener - voted St Michael’s best listener three years running.”
Ava was disarmingly beautiful, even in her dishevelled school uniform with a crooked tie and too-short skirt, and she made Beatrice laugh at a time when she didn’t laugh very often. Bea found herself pouring the entire thing out to her: her parents, Lilith’s mother, Oxford.
When she was finished, Ava held up her hand and said, “Hey, I don’t have any parents either. High-five!”
Beatrice was too surprised to do anything but laugh and hold up her hand to tentatively return the high-five. Then, Ava wrapped her arms around her tightly and Beatrice, who couldn’t remember the last time anyone had hugged her, stood there for a long time, trying and failing not to sob into Ava’s shoulder. She remembers still the way Ava had felt: warm and fragrant.
Afterwards, they shared a cigarette and Beatrice coughed so hard she was nearly sick.
Ava tells it much better than Beatrice ever could though: when she says it, the whole thing - the high-five, the cigarette - sounds formative and important. Even Mary, who complains the loudest about having to hear the story again, is listening with rapt attention by the end.
But then, maybe it was formative and important - for all of them. Everything had sort of spiralled from there: Beatrice and Ava had stayed in touch while she was at Oxford and Ava was playing in a series of terrible punk bands across London; Beatrice went to university with Shannon and inadvertently introduced her to Mary, who bartended at one of Ava’s regular gigs. Then Lilith came back from university in the US and fell in with them too, and she met Camila, who was working tech support at the law firm where Lilith interned.
Beatrice often thinks that everything started with them: two kids with no parents skipping class.
“We know, we know, the universe fated you two to become best buddies.” Mary rolls her eyes but there’s clear affection in her voice.
“And fated you to meet your beautiful future girlfriend,” Shannon reminds her with a playful elbow to her ribs.
“Exactly.” Ava grins triumphantly, using her cane to poke Mary in the shoulder, “And don’t you forget it.”
“Whose bright idea was it to give her a weapon?” Mary complains, rubbing her shoulder.
“A team of highly accomplished medical experts gave me a weapon,” Ava retorts.
Mary laughs, “Yeah? Did your team of highly accomplished medical experts also tell you to suck my dick?”
Fortunately, this intellectual debate is interrupted by the owner of the pub waving frantically at Ava to remind her she’s due on stage. Ava takes one last sip of her drink and gets up, squeezing Beatrice’s shoulder as she passes her.
She’s magnetic when she performs; Beatrice has always thought so. There’s something about the easy way she carries herself, how she addresses the sparse crowd like they’re all old friends of hers that she’s delighted to see again. Her voice is gorgeous too, low and honeyed, and Beatrice doesn’t realise she’d missed it until Ava begins her first song - a cover of ‘American Girl’.
When it comes to an end, Mary, Shannon and Camila cheer ostentatiously loudly, and Beatrice blinks, feeling as though she’s waking up from a stupor.
Ava laughs and waves her hand at them to tell them to settle down before she begins her next song, one Beatrice doesn’t recognise.
“So,” Camila says, and Beatrice resents being forced to turn away from Ava just a little. “How’s living together going? You haven’t killed her yet?”
Beatrice huffs, “Why does everyone seem so certain that Ava and I living together will end in murder?” She frowns, a thought occurring to her suddenly, “Has Ava told you she thinks it’s going to go badly?”
“No, of course not.” Camila is quick to reassure her seeing her discomfort, “It’s just, you know, you’re very different.”
Beatrice takes this to mean that she is uptight where Ava is carefree. It’s not an inaccurate characterisation but it hasn’t ever come between them before.
“We’re just messing with you, Bea,” Shannon tells her gently, “We know you’ll be fine.”
On stage, Ava sings, “ Sometimes when you’re alone you can’t look in her eyes. ”
“She seems a little apprehensive about it,” Beatrice admits. “It seems like she’s tiptoeing around me.” She looks mostly at Mary who - perhaps even more than Bea herself - almost certainly understands Ava the best.
Mary shifts uncomfortably in her chair, “I think it’s weird for her. You know her old housemates mostly got high and played video games all day. Your opinion means a lot to her, she’s probably trying to show you that she can be respectful.”
“You wait for a moment she reaches your lips,” Ava sings, “She never quite hits.”
“Ava doesn’t have to worry about my opinion,” Beatrice says firmly.
Mary gives her a long look, as though she’s trying to figure something out, and it reminds Beatrice horribly of the calculated stare Lilith had directed at her a few days earlier.
In the end, though, all she says is, “She’ll come around, Bea. Just give her some time. It’s Ava - you know she can’t act normal for too long.”
Beatrice breathes out, manages to laugh at herself a little for taking it too seriously - as usual. Uptight, just like they think. “You’re probably right.”
As she turns back towards the stage, Ava sings, “Wait for a second, it always comes back to her. You always come back to her. ”
Their eyes meet for a fraction of a second and then Ava brings the song to a close. Beatrice wishes she knew the name of it, but she doesn’t think she’ll ask.
*
In the winter, Shannon’s landscaping business is reduced largely to maintenance - gutter cleaning and clearing debris - but Beatrice doesn’t mind that. She likes to help out when she’s home, both to fill her days until she’s back at sea and to spend more time with her friend. Her mind begins to drift and dwell and spiral if she spends too much time alone, so it’s a relief, on her first day working with Shannon again, to work herself into exhaustion cutting and removing a fallen tree.
Every light in the flat is on when she gets home; Ava tends to wander from room to room, flipping every switch as she goes. When she opens the front door, Beatrice is greeted by the smell of cooking and the sound of Ava singing a Queen song at the top of her lungs - not her polished, practised performance voice, but just her having the time of her life impersonating Freddie Mercury.
Beatrice slips into the kitchen unnoticed. Ava is standing over the stove, stirring something in a pan as she sways her hips in time to the music. Mary was right, as she often is - little by little, Ava is making herself at home.
As usual, she’s underdressed for the weather, in only a cropped t-shirt and tiny shorts. Later, Beatrice knows, she’ll complain that she’s cold and pull a blanket over both of them, wriggle into Bea’s side while they watch a movie. She’s an absurd human being and Beatrice has no idea why anyone wouldn’t want to live with her.
“Having fun?” she asks, and Ava nearly knocks the pan off the stove she jumps so abruptly.
“Shit,” she laughs, righting herself and the pan, “Can you warn me before you sneak up on me or something?”
When she turns, her eyes flick down to how Beatrice is dressed - sweaty and dirt-streaked and still wearing the Masters’ Landscaping polo shirt. Beatrice shifts uncomfortably, aware that she looks - and very likely smells - terrible.
“I just wanted to say hello, I’ll go and shower in a second.”
Ava drags her eyes back upwards and clears her throat. “Uh - no. You’re fine. Sit down for a minute and keep me company.”
Beatrice does, taking off her work boots and placing them neatly beside her.
“Nice socks,” Ava grins at her, and Beatrice looks down at them with a smile - they’re covered in tiny rainbows and hearts.
“You bought these for me,” Beatrice points out. She tends more towards the “black and sensible” genre of socks.
“Obviously,” Ava snorts. “Hey, I know a secret but I’m not supposed to tell you.”
Beatrice leans back in her chair, watching as Ava flings spices into the food, tastes a little, then adds more. It’s a far cry from Bea’s own careful measurements. “You shouldn’t tell me if you’re not supposed to.”
“Okay, but I really want to.”
Bea raises an eyebrow, “Are you breaking someone’s confidence by telling me?”
“Mm,” Ava hums thoughtfully, “Kinda, but it’s you. I tell you everything.”
“That’s not true.” It's mostly true. Ava is a chronic oversharer and manages to wheedle things out of Beatrice that no one else could.
Ava rolls her eyes, “It’s pretty much true. Anyway, if I don’t tell you it’s just gonna bubble up and bubble up inside me until it explodes out of me like… projectile vomit or something.”
“Ah.” Beatrice nods thoughtfully, “I would rather you didn’t projectile vomit in the kitchen. The bathroom and your own room are fine.”
“It’s like you have no concern for my wellbeing.” Ava pouts.
“I have concern for your moral wellbeing.”
“Boring. Can I tell you the secret yet?”
Beatrice laughs, “I think you’re going to tell me regardless.”
For dramatic effect, Ava turns and points a wooden spoon at Beatrice. “Mary’s proposing,” she informs her with the air of a circus ringmaster.
“Oh, that’s wonderful news.” Beatrice breaks into a smile, “Shannon will be over the moon.”
“I know. Mary wants me to go ring shopping with her.” Ava grins, “She called me this afternoon. But don’t say anything because she made me swear on your life that I wouldn’t tell anybody.”
“Thank you for signing my death warrant.” Beatrice laughs, “How long ago, exactly, did she tell you this?”
“Uh…” Ava glances up at the clock on the wall, “About an hour ago?”
“Mm, I think you did very well keeping the secret for that long.”
“Thank you!” Ava flings her hands up in the air so dramatically that a piece of cooked onion flies off the spoon and across the kitchen, “You can tell Mary that when she yells at me.”
*
MARY [20:13]: It’s been three hours, did she break yet?
BEATRICE [20:18]: Almost the second I saw her.
BEATRICE [20:19]: Congratulations, I’m so happy for both of you.
MARY [20:21]: I knew she’d tell you but threatening her is so much fun.
MARY [20:22]: Thanks Bea. Tell Ava she’s dead meat.
*
“Mary says you’re dead meat.”
Ava’s head is leaning against her shoulder, a blanket spread across both their laps, as she scrolls through real estate listings on her phone. She huffs out a laugh without looking up, “You’ll protect me.”
Beatrice smiles, her eyes on the Star Trek episode she’s watching, “Do you think I could beat Mary in a fight?”
“Hm,” Ava shifts so she can look Beatrice up and down appraisingly. Bea feels herself turning pink at the inspection. “Yeah. You have a black belt, Mary just has the intimidation factor on her side.”
Pleased by this but not wanting to show it, Beatrice gestures to Ava’s phone, “Found anything you like?”
“Nope.” Ava sighs, frustrated, “Everywhere is either insanely expensive or basically a mattress in somebody’s bathtub. I mean, look at me, Bea. I’m too cute to live in a bathroom.”
“You are,” Beatrice agrees, “You don’t have to rush to find somewhere, though. You’re welcome to stay here for as long as you need to.”
Ava looks up at her, amused, “Even after I left the cap off the toothpaste three days running?”
Well, alright. That had been slightly irritating, but Beatrice could live with it.
“Even after that.” She nods, “I mean we’re - you know. We’re - “ She falters. “Best friends.” For some reason, it sounds silly and childish.
One corner of Ava’s lip drops just a fraction of an inch. She nods.
“I’ll keep looking anyway.”
Beatrice feels something sink low down, deep inside her.
*
Lucia insists that she has to come over to give Beatrice back her stuff. They broke up months ago - shortly before Beatrice left for her last contract - and the truth of it is that any stuff Lucia still has she doesn’t want back particularly urgently. Beatrice is too polite to say that to her though, which is how Lucia ends up outside her door on a sunny Saturday afternoon with a small bag of assorted oddments.
“Are you going to invite me in?” she asks after several long seconds of just looking at each other.
“Oh, yes, of course.”
Beatrice should have seen this coming. It isn’t really about the stuff - it’s about having a conversation. She curses herself for not seeing through the ruse.
As Beatrice makes her a cup of tea, Lucia looks around the flat with interest, inspecting Ava’s yoga mat rolled up in the corner with a raised eyebrow and gazing at the pictures on the walls. She hasn’t been here before - they always went to her place.
“So,” Beatrice asks awkwardly as she hands over her mug and sits at what she hopes is a ‘friendly but not cold’ distance from her on the sofa. “How have you been?”
“Good.” Lucia forces a smile, “You didn’t tell me you were back.”
Right for the jugular, then.
“I wasn’t sure you’d want to hear from me,” Beatrice admits. The last conversation they’d had involved a raised voice (Lucia’s) and a futile attempt to understand (Beatrice’s).
Lucia takes one, half-hearted sip from her cup of tea and then puts it down on the side table. “We can’t be friends?”
Beatrice doesn’t date very often, but when she does, she tries to make it clear that her job, her friends, her life, will always come first. She had been happy with Saturday night dinners and occasional sleepovers - Lucia said she was happy with that too, right up until she wasn’t. She wanted more than Beatrice felt able to give, had ideas about moving in together that took Bea completely by surprise.
Although she wouldn’t mind being friends with Lucia, she has a feeling that a similar pattern might repeat itself: her ex-girlfriend would be happy with friendship right up until she wasn’t.
She already spent her first few months of her last contract analysing every detail of the relationship, trying to work out when she had given the wrong impression. Beatrice has no desire to lead her on again, accidentally or not.
“I think it might be better for us to have some space from one another,” she says honestly.
Lucia shuffles forward on the couch, taking one of Beatrice’s hands between her own. “We can’t talk about this? This whole breakup thing… I know you’re scared but - “
Beatrice frowns, “I never said I was scared.”
She doesn’t think she was scared but, equally, she knows she isn’t always entirely cognisant of her own emotions. Often they feel separate to her - another person in the same room. A therapist once told her that her parents had forced her to emotionally distance herself and she had dismissed it as rubbish. Then again, she had stopped going to therapy because she hated talking about her feelings.
Regardless.
“We want different things,” she stresses to Lucia, “I’m not ready to move in together or progress beyond what we had.”
A key turns in the lock of the front door, and Ava chooses that exact moment to stroll into the living room, announcing cheerily as she does, “Bea, I’m home, so if you’re walking around naked then please keep doing that.”
She freezes as soon as she sees Lucia though, she and Beatrice’s hands still clasped together. Something hardens in her eyes; they had never liked each other.
“Uh, shit,” Ava says, “Sorry, didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m just gonna…” She points a thumb towards her bedroom and backs up so quickly she nearly trips over her own feet.
Lucia pushes her tongue into the side of her mouth and lets out a humourless laugh, pulling her hands away from Beatrice’s. “Ava. Yeah, I should have known.”
“Should have known what?” Beatrice asks, irritation flickering through her. “Ava is my friend and she needs a place to stay.”
“Right.” Lucia stands, looking down the hallway at Ava’s closed bedroom door. “You know - “ She stops herself though, closes her mouth tightly as though she doesn’t trust the words that might come out of her mouth. “I think it’s best if I leave.”
Beatrice looks at her steadily for a moment, her desire to be polite and reassuring warring with the fact that she doesn't very much want her here anymore. In the end, she thinks of Ava, hiding in her room, and it's that which makes her say, “Alright. Thank you for bringing my things back.”
Almost as soon as the door closes behind Lucia, Ava’s head pops around her door frame as though she’d been listening with her ear pressed against the wall.
“Is she gone?” she stage whispers, “Can I come out?”
Beatrice snorts, “Yes, she’s gone.”
“I’m so sorry, Bea.” Ava emerges from her bedroom fully and comes to take Lucia’s place on the couch. She sits closer though, her knees almost touching Beatrice’s. “I didn’t stop you from having wild getting-back-together sex did I?”
Feeling her cheeks growing pink, Beatrice shakes her head. “Oh, God, no. Of course not. I think she may have wanted to - well, she was trying to - “
Ava purses her lips, “Have wild getting-back-together sex with you?”
Beatrice shrugs one shoulder, “I’m not sure about the sex part, but certainly get back together, yes.”
Usually, Ava’s face is an open book, but her expression now is closed and unreadable. “You don’t want to?”
Sighing, Beatrice leans on the arm of the couch and rests her head on her hand, “No, I don’t. She thinks I’m frightened.”
Ava’s eyebrows knit together, “Frightened?”
“Mm.” Beatrice nods tiredly, “Of progressing our relationship, moving in together and that sort of thing.”
“Oh.” Ava looks back towards the door as though she’ll see Lucia still standing there. It seems painful for her to say it, but finally, she admits, “Maybe she has a point?”
Beatrice looks up, her brows furrowed, “What?”
“Just… you kinda keep people at arm’s length, sometimes, y’know?” Ava shrugs, “You never let people get very close.”
“You’re close,” Beatrice answers after a moment of silence, “Lilith and Camila and Mary and Shannon are close.”
“We’re not dating you,” Ava says. “No chance of us breaking your heart.” She turns her face away, looks towards the switched-off TV and the pictures on the wall. There’s one there of Beatrice’s graduation - Ava has her arms wrapped around her and Bea is squinting into the lens. She was her only guest that day.
“You know yourself best. If you say you’re not scared then I know you’re not,” Ava says after a moment. She stands up abruptly and leans in to kiss the top of Beatrice’s head, “Let me make you some tea.”
She retreats towards the kitchen and Beatrice watches her go.
There had been the other part of Lucia’s visit, of course: seeing Ava and nodding like she understood something. It had been the same look Mary gave her a few days earlier and the same look Lilith gave her before that. One that suggests they’re all in on some secret that Beatrice has yet to comprehend.
But Beatrice isn’t stupid; she knows what they all think. They believe Ava has feelings for her and, maybe, that Beatrice returns them, only she’s too deep in denial or socially inept to recognise it.
Sometimes - always, often, occasionally - Beatrice can concede that they may have a point. At least about her; she could never hope to presume Ava’s opinion on the subject.
It doesn’t matter though.
When Beatrice is working, she often misses a precious hour of sleep to go up onto the deck of the ship at night. There is a certain kind of complete darkness that can only be found hundreds of miles from civilisation and she likes to stand in it, to have no idea where the horizon meets the sea. She will lean over the railing and look down, see nothing but endless darkness below her.
That’s how it feels with Ava, sometimes. She can stare into that sense of possibility - those fleeting looks and pangs of attraction - and find them beautiful. Ultimately, though, she will always choose the safety and sanctity of their friendship; she will choose the girl who hugged her behind the school kitchens and the only guest at her college graduation over some unfathomable unknown.
Whenever she feels the edge is too near, like the urge to stare at it is too strong, she takes a step back. She takes the feelings, the longing, and she stores them carefully away, does not let herself ever think about them.
In the kitchen, Ava begins to hum to herself, a slow song that Beatrice doesn’t recognise. She closes her eyes and listens to her sing.