HIGH RISING

It's been three years since we were all together like this, but nothing's changed.

We've changed. Two of us have degrees, one of us has a husband, one of us has travelled across a continent. We've kept in touch, by letters and phone calls and e-mails and occasional encounters, but we've got a lot of catching up to do. And yet we converse and slouch around the house in the same way as we did when we were eighteen and seeing each other daily.

Except there's no Juanita.

But that's not so unfamiliar either. She was always late: never too late, but only just on time. "Sorry!" I can still picture her dashing into the room and launching into a garbled string of explanations that no one cared to hear.

It's not my house anymore, just the house. Where my parents eat and sleep and my brother does likewise to a greater extent. I've been back for a week and I'm still not used to having no mirror in my room. It shattered on the way back from university: seven years bad luck?

My friends blend in with the furniture perfectly. We've been away for some time, but it's still our house.

Juanita never quite fitted in, she was always too noticeable. She would never sit in a chair normally, but on the arm or on the edge. As if she was about to fall or run. She always covered her eyes and whimpered when we watched horror movies, even when the closing credits rolled.

Weird that I would call every other genre a "film", not a "movie".

Weird that we ended up being such good friends. If we were amongst millions, dozens even, we wouldn't have naturally bonded. But there were only twelve girls left in our year by sixth form and we divided into two groups of six: those who played hockey and those who didn't. We were the ones that didn't.

Which was strange. Before then, friendships had crossed that imaginary line and hockey constituted a minute part of the other girls' lives. If anything, it should have been our A Level subjects that split us into the scientists and the artists.

Nobody can settle down. Because, as always, we're waiting for Juanita.

Juanita wasn't Spanish, she just sounded that way, in name and in speech. She spoke precisely, without synonyms or half-sentences. When she used slang, it surprised us, and when she was scared or excited she lapsed into incomprehensible mumblings.

She didn't have a best friend in the group. None of us did, really, but she stood alone even more. We didn't include her because we pitied her, she was one of us, only with weaker links.

There's an unmistakable tension mounting in the air. We're all waiting for her, but this time, she's not only going to be late, but she won't arrive.

We shouldn't be here, doing this. It's morbid. But I think all of us are secretly hoping that just as she ran out three years ago, tonight she'll return.

We knew for a long time that she didn't like anything supernatural. She hated horror films but she could handle enraged psychopathic killers as well as the rest of us; ghosts, on the other hand, made her flee from the room. We never probed into this seemingly irrational fear, but we never probed into anything. For three years, I privately obsessed over a boy in our year and none of the others had a clue.

But as the credits rolled, we'd hear her tremulous voice from behind the door asking, "Is it over yet?" The Ouija Board that Louise brought was another thing entirely.

Most of us were uncertain about it. I tried to be rational: it was only a piece of wood, with some letters on it. What power could it hold? And yet, all the stories I'd read about them in magazines I couldn't quite discard as fiction.

We were privately giddy with relief when nothing happened to the makeshift plachette (a computer disk) when we asked The Powers Of Ouija what A Level grades we'd get. Except Juanita.

"It - moved," she wailed, her sides shaking. "Please, oh, no, please-"

The rest of us exchanged glances. "Let's put it away," Louise said, fed up and tense. Juanita didn't react this violently normally.

And she didn't stop either. The vibrations got more intense, as if an earthquake was building inside her and her words became more difficult to make out. Eventually, she dashed from the room, so quickly that it was almost like she had vanished. A second later, we heard the front door slamming open and closed.

"She'll come back," Raye said after a slight pause. But she didn't.

We've gossiped and amassed enough junk food to last us two hours and we've rewound the video. It's a romantic comedy. And we're all ready to watch it. But we're still waiting.

And we won't say Juanita's name or even mention that something's missing. We're still talking, about university and people we know and knew, and yet our attention is on the door. We're willing Juanita to burst through it, babbling her apologies.

A conversation fades out and there's silence. "Look," I say, "Shall we watch the video now?"


We watch it and we play Truth Or Dare and Consequences and Twister. We're twenty one now, most definitely adults, but it's a sleepover, we're entitled to reverse the digits of our ages.

And we talk about everything except our missing friend. And we want to talk all night, but our eyelids begin to droop. Dani falls asleep first, she's was the one that took a gap year to see Canada and the USA. Consequently, she's got another year of university left, the worst one, poor thing. Sweet dreams, while she still has the chance to sleep.

Then Louise, who's finished her studies, like me. She was always desperate to appear strong, a non-believer in emotional nonsense. She drinks pints and watches football. But I know that she's confused about her future. She doesn't have a boyfriend, she doesn't have a job, and she doesn't have a master plan. Sweet dreams, while she's still in this summer-state of nothing mattering.

Then Annie, who dropped out of university after two years and got married. She doesn't act married, whatever that means. I expected her to have matured overnight, but she's as giggly as she was at thirteen. I wonder what her husband's doing right now? She wants children. Sweet dreams while she has peace.

Why does calm always have to be temporary?

I think Raye's asleep now. She has another two years at university, she's doing medicine. She seems to have the most stable life. She's hard working and she's been seeing the same bloke for over two years and she always seems to have a positive attitude. But what do I know?

Juanita was beautiful. She wasn't exotic - she couldn't be, she was as British as I was - but she was stunning. All the boys fancied her, but she never went out with any of them. Flirting was a game to her. I could never see her growing up, settling down, losing her laughter and energy and craziness.

I suppose now she never will grow up.

I refuse to believe she's dead: she simply vanished without a trace. But one day she has to reappear. Who knows, she might be outside in my back garden right now.

The image of her standing there, tall and slim and surreal, in the middle of the garden, in the middle of the night is extraordinarily vivid. Does that mean she's really there? I have to find out. I push back my bed covers, step over Raye's sleeping bag and open the curtains.

For a second I think I see her, a shadow against the fence. I open my mouth to make an exclamation, but I'm wrong. There's no one there.

Juanita, where are you? I ask silently. We're waiting.

And I hear a voice. "She'll come."

For a moment I think it's Raye, not asleep at all. But she doesn't move. But it was deeper and quieter, unaccented but otherworldly.

I climb back into bed, feeling lighter, more at peace with myself. But despite the warmth of the August air and my duvet, I shiver as I feel Juanita rising above us all.