Cover Story - 10

Shilpa had secured a high table in the chic, wood-panelled surrounds of Schofield’s, arranged on a mid-century leather stool with one leg wound elegantly round the other. She was in a black silk jumpsuit with Chinese dragon appliques, hair in long bunches, lips Ruby Woo red.

She’d been working in a coffee shop , had she? Bel pointed to the outfit and covertly flicked a couple of Vs at her, behind the men’s backs, as she introduced them all with courteous poise.

‘Very nice to meet you, Shilpa,’ Aaron said, reanimating in the presence of an attractive woman.

Aaron was thirty-one and Bel imagined the plan was to acquire a Mrs Aaron in a timely fashion and have some mini Aarons. For all the irreverent mockery, she sensed he was quite straight-laced traditional. Bel sensed a highly influential father in his background: often Aaron’s cadences and references were those of an older generation.

‘My round, what’s everyone having?’ Bel said.

‘Another Troublemaker, please,’ Shilpa said, with a head tilt smile, prompting Bel to shake her head and mouth you …

‘Pint of … Guinness,’ Aaron said, wincing at the minimal row of draught taps. He had northern thrift, he’d explained to Bel, and only my nan drinks things with glacé cherries.

Connor flipped the menu on the table open. Shilpa gazed at his hair. Bel half expected her to plunge her face into it and inhale, Hannibal Lecter style.

‘Clover Club, if that’s OK, please,’ he said.

‘Good choice,’ Shilpa simpered.

‘Sure,’ Bel said, feeling pathetically grateful at the ten minutes’ peace this was now going to afford her at the bar, while they bashed fruit and swizzled mixtures with long metal implements.

‘Take a seat, I’ll come over,’ said a barman, as she approached, and Bel said a gritted-teeth thanks.

‘How long you known Bel, then, Shilpa?’ Aaron said, as they settled into their positions.

‘Since we were fifteen and both got detentions. Bel was writing letters to her French pen pal, Rodolphe, while pretending to take notes in biology and I defended her. I pointed out she was doing work, because she was writing in French.’

‘’Ow you say, le penis, j’taime, Rodders,’ Aaron said.

‘With this story, you know both our natures,’ Bel muttered, and saw the odious Connor Adams smirking. You don’t know me.

The bunch of chauvinism-based snap judgements Connor had made about Bel weren’t the same as insight. Was Connor posh? His modulated BBC newscaster voice said maybe, but Barking didn’t sound like an area with aristocrats.

‘Bloody ’ell,’ Aaron said, looking past them, ‘That’s Bryant.’

They followed his eyes to a nondescript thirty-something man in a polo shirt with a group of male friends.

‘Sorry, I have to say hello. Murder squad detective. One of my best contacts.’ Aaron pushed his hands into his pockets and wandered over, with his wolfish sort of insouciance.

‘So, you’re not going to believe this,’ Shilpa said, confidentially to Bel, as if Connor wasn’t present, ‘Tim and Rufus have paraded their new girlfriends on Instagram. Together. A foursome, like.’ Shilpa did trout pout lips and a peace sign with one hand, then mimed a face puckered in a kiss.

Bel’s palms and underarms became warm. It didn’t sound like Tim and she didn’t want to assimilate this news with the intern watching her. ‘Ah, really,’ she said neutrally.

Bel’s ex-long-term boyfriend, Tim, and Shilpa’s ex-husband, Rufus, had become friends in the three years or so span when the relationships ran concurrent, Bel splitting with Tim six months ago and Shilpa and Rufus, six months before that. On the unbelievably horrible day when Bel ended things with Tim, he accused her of ‘following Shilpa out the door’.

She suspected that mistaken idea had part-fuelled what sounded like this uncharacteristic fit of passive aggression from him, because he’d know Radio Shilpa would broadcast it.

Tim wasn’t an extremely online person. He only ever used Instagram when he and his men friends wanted a rain pebble-dashed record of reaching the summit at Scafell Pike.

‘A champion two-man trolling, like something out of Sex & The City , and you missed it thanks to your policy of being invisible online,’ Shilpa said.

Bel was distinctly uncomfortable at Connor Adams gathering all these acorns about her. He was pretending to intently browse his phone and mind his business.

‘Well, good luck to them,’ Bel continued, ‘I’ve got no right to complain.’

‘I exercise my right to complain, I think it’s tacky, crass and uncalled for. I don’t want their antics rubbed in my face like a dog being toilet trained with its mess. Me and Rufus said vows in front of two flavours of God. I’ve not so much as soft launched a Hinge date yet, out of respect for what we had.’

Bel always forgot Shilpa’s metabolism of alcohol: she took off like Concorde, then hit altitude and started cruising at a level. They were currently in the ‘nose cone pointed upwards, rapid ascent’ phase.

‘You could not follow Rufus on Instagram, am I thinking too logically?’

‘Yes. You are thinking too logically,’ Shilpa said. ‘Rufus and I are locked in a fake amicable follow-back to keep tabs on one another, while demonstrating we’re not bothered. We’re playing 4D chess, liking each other’s posts immediately to show we’re not pussies with each other on mute, too. He’s the first view on all my Stories. I at least try to wait until his have been up an hour.’

‘But why?’ Bel said. ‘ You left him?’

She said these last three words in a stagey hush, which was ridiculous given the only person listening in was Connor, who could hear what she was saying with perfect clarity. It was more to communicate can we not to Shilpa, which was barely less futile, as Shilpa was in a vigorous yes we shall mode.

‘There is an aggravating aspect which may pique your interest ,’ Shilpa said, tightening her jumpsuit belt, which Bel mimed throttling her with.

‘My interest is stubbornly un-piqued,’ Bel said.

‘Prepare to feast on your own words,’ Shilpa said. ‘Pique incoming.’