Read Frozen for Free Online Page B

lopsided mischief.
    We first met when I was thirteen, shortly after Verity moved into the village, although I had seen him at school before then. He was in the year above me. He had been an isolated boy, often sitting alone, occasionally hovering at the edges of the group of larger boys who used to dominate the playground. But our friendship had nothing to do with school. It developed in the evenings and at weekends. Throughout our teenage years, we would sit and share silences, watching the river slide past, or the clouds drift, or the stream of car headlights on the distant Oxford ring-road. I think it was isolation that kept us together. It was something we both understood; we held ourselves a little apart from the world. In many ways we were both solitary types during our youth, trapped into being who we were by chance events, by the pressures of life in a small community, and by our families: his, large and uncaring and occasionally violent; mine, a single scared woman, lonely, confused and haunted by regrets. In our silences, Adam and I found comfort.
    As adults, we changed and remained the same. After university, Adam took pupillage with a large barrister's chambers in London. I spent a year finishing my arts course at Oxford Polytechnic, and then moved to London also, hoping to establish myself as a photographer but earning most of my cash as a less-than-average interior decorator. Perhaps we were both compensating for our backgrounds. Whatever the reason, I lived in a garret and struggled to make ends meet, while Adam became a paid-up member of the establishment. We remained close, but our social circles were so far apart that we rarely saw each other's friends.
    Adam was ambitious, socially and professionally. He was not aggressive or pushy but, in his own thoughtful, methodical way, he gradually “arrived.” By thirty he was a successful barrister, working in corporate arbitration. By thirty-five he was a QC and had branched into politics, working three days a week at the Bar, and the rest of the time serving as a councillor for Wandsworth. His aim was to move full-time into national politics, with legal consultancy as a sideline. He looked set to achieve it; word had it he was a hot favourite for selection as a candidate at the next general election. Needless to say, his political colours were far from red.
    Adam married the same year he took silk (that's becoming a QC to you and me), making a grand entry to both the social and professional stages simultaneously. Sarah McKyle was pretty but not attractive, charming but not warm. She was nervous, a bit scatty, but kind in that brusque way that the children of moneyed families so often are. She was bossy but insecure, thoughtful but distracted. I felt neutral about her. I couldn't see what Adam saw in her—but then, I didn't have to, because I wasn't the one marrying her. And she had many good qualities. She was generous and thoughtful. There was always a present at Christmas and on my birthday, wrapped in conservative paper, all the edges impossibly neat. It was always a silk tie or a scarf, or handkerchiefs. But Adam loved her, and that was what counted. With Sarah on his arm, at last he belonged ... sort of...
    But between ourselves, I was simply Harry, and he was simply Adam. And we sat and watched the world, these days, from the pine tables of designer pubs and restaurants. We shared silences and stupid stories, and left our real lives at the door. I would not have had it any other way.
    *
    After a few pints, and a couple of hours, though, my friendship with Adam was hardly at the front of my mind.
    “Why'd she do it, Ads?”
    “Hmm?”
    “Doesn't make sense.”
    It must have been the tenth time that evening I'd said that. I couldn't help chewing at what had happened, with the doggedness that only truly drunk people can muster. There was a mystery there somewhere, there had to be. For the last couple of months she had been so positive, so full of purpose.