Her Closest Friend (ARC)

by Clare Boyd

  She took a photograph of it with her phone. It came out blurred. Her hands weren’t steady. Leaning her arms into the desk to hold them still, she managed to frame a clean shot.

  For full impact, Sophie decided to create a new post for each photograph. The first of her jaunty captions read:

  Throwback Saturday! When you’re young and drink too many Jack and Cokes… Sophie and I outside The Swan in 1998! exeteruniversity bestdaysofourlives foreverfriends

  The next post was of Naomi in a low-cut black minidress with her arms looped around the shoulders of two young men in tuxedos. She was laughing, looking beautiful with red lipstick and diamanté earrings. The two young men had one hand clamped to each boob. A little inkling of Naomi’s floozy ways back then.

  There were three others that she deemed suitable for posting. One of Naomi sitting on the pavement, smoking, with her purple knickers showing; one of Naomi on the dance floor of a nightclub holding two shot glasses up to her eyes like spectacles; one of Sophie and Naomi together, with Naomi sticking her middle finger up and pulling an unpleasant face at the camera.

  For each post she carefully worded her upbeat strapline. To the casual onlooker, it would be an innocent nostalgia trip. Many would relate to those hedonistic days of wild parties and too much drinking. Less so for Naomi, whose wine blogging advocated drinking in moderation; whose drinking problem had once led to trauma.

  The last post was of Naomi hugging Trey, the mild-mannered Canadian boyfriend of Amelie, a friend of theirs. It had been an innocent hug, but who knew?

  Hugging Amelie’s boyfriend! What was I thinking?! maneater getaroom handsoffmyman

  Sophie’s heart fluttered as she clicked the little blue button, sending it from her private world, from the little bedroom belonging to a nobody, into the public arena, where the whoring of private moments is celebrated, where whole lives are seemingly understood by a few cheap posts; where Naomi’s past would become imprinted on her friends’ minds. All of her previous close-ups of water droplets running down cold glasses of rosé, elbows on weathered picnic tables, postcard backdrops of harbours or cityscapes, would be effectively smeared with a greasy stain. These new posts would wipe dirt across her depiction of healthy drinking, would mar her airbrushed lifestyle.

  When she saw her latest post pop up on her newsfeed, she reimagined the photograph with Adam in Trey’s place, with Naomi’s arms around Adam’s neck, and her stomach heaved.

  Watery sick lay in a puddle by her sleeping bag. She left it. All the energy had been sucked out of her, a sudden depressurisation, like a hole in an airlocked plane. She let her head fall back onto the cushion and passed out with her phone in her raw, weeping palm.

  In the middle of the night, her brain had stirred her awake with nightmares in words, written across her eyeballs in blinking letters, snippets of Mrs Ilene Parker’s letter:

  See this photograph of him, look into his eyes… how you can live with yourself for leaving us in limbo for so long… Your dishonesty continues to ruin more lives than you can imagine… if you have a heart… face the consequences… end our suffering.

  Chapter Thirteen

  I had woken up feeling revived by a long, deep sleep and lie-in. Harley was a reassuring lump at the bottom of the bed, where I had let him sleep while Charlie was away. For a second, I wondered if Adam’s unsettling visit had been a dream.

  It had not been. And I lay there, thinking about Sophie. I wished I could talk it through with Charlie, who was due back home later today in time for our dinner party, which we had organised months ago.

  Worries about last Thursday morning, when she had left Dylan alone, niggled at me. I was his godmother, I had a responsibility of care. And I loved him, in a way, despite how intense and awkward he could be. Sophie’s smothering of him, and her babying, had ruined his naturally sweet nature. I believed that Adam’s criticism of Sophie, his fears for Dylan, were real. As were the effects of Adam’s own selfish actions on her state of mind. Deep down, he knew his affair had ripped their family apart and he could not face up to his own guilt. It was easier to label Sophie as the mad and unhinged wife than to accept that he was to blame for her distress, and, in turn, for Dylan’s. Her heavy drinking was a normal reaction to the breakdown of a marriage, but it was not going to help her cause or Dylan’s.

  On the way downstairs, I could hear the girls’ cartoons from the television room. I snuck past, allowing them more time to slouch around this morning, giving me more time to catch up on work and write the Sky article I had been unable to face yesterday.

  Settled at the kitchen table with a strong coffee, I let out a heavy sigh, pleased that I had resisted another glass of wine after Adam had left last night, even though I had wanted it very badly.

  No thanks to Sophie and her dramas, my head was clear, as was my conscience. I had not slipped backwards, regressing to the bad old days, when I would break my promises to Charlie, when one binge could lead to weeks of heavy drinking and vicious hangovers. I had not forgotten about that bold black-and-red arrow in the documentary, whose warnings I had refused to heed for so many years after viewing it. I had denied how often my boozy weekend lunches with Sophie had stretched into night-long binges; how the sneaky glass or three before the girls’ bath time had eased the boredom of routine; how I had waited for Charlie to go to bed before opening the second bottle of weekday wine; how the Bloody Marys with my brunch on Sundays were not a choice but a need; how I had stood behind the fridge door and taken neat slugs from an open bottle for top-ups; how I had lied to my doctor to get a double-dose prescription of my PPI medication for my acid stomach; how all of my jeans had remained folded in the back of the drawer in favour of stretchy trousers. It had taken years before the message of the black-and-red arrow had hit home.

  This morning, willpower intact, I watched the whirling cursor on my computer, wondering how I should address Sophie’s drinking problem, which I had conveniently ignored for too long. As her closest friend, it was up to me to be the bearer of an uncomfortable truth, out of love, to save her from herself, just as Charlie had saved me from myself.

  Before checking the newsfeed, I clicked into my Facebook notifications.

  While the page loaded, I scrolled through the photographs on my mobile of the Burgundy wine selfies. I chose the best shot and turned back to my laptop, where I was amazed to see over fifty notifications waiting for me in response to one of my Facebook posts. My latest post had been three days ago, and I wondered why there was a flurry of responses now.

  I was intrigued as I clicked into the earliest tagged notification.

  A photograph sprang onto my screen and my insides lurched.

  ‘Oh my god.’ I clicked into the next one. ‘Oh no, no, no.’

  The ugly photograph was blurred by my tears as I clicked into the next post, and the next and the next. The images of my purple knickers and thick cellulite, my damp chin and nasty grimaces, my aggressive hand gestures and flirtatious antics made me sick to my stomach. I came to the last post of me hanging suggestively off the neck of Amelie’s boyfriend – what was his name again? – which I had no recollection of. The hashtag suggested I was trying to steal him. I could not remember stealing this man from Amelie. But who could say? My memories of those three years at university were patchy, at best. It had been Sophie who had filled in the gaps, just as she was doing so effectively now.

  The flesh on my face pulsed. Collectively, the photographs built an obnoxious bigger picture of me.

  I began taking down each post, petrified that there were more to come.

  I could not believe that Sophie had hacked into my account, that she could be so cruel. What had prompted her to do it? How much damage had she done already? It was ten in the morning, yet already there were so many comments. Some were friendly, others edgy. One comment, from an older man wearing a black roll neck, read: ‘Any chance I could cop a feel of those too?’ to which he had added a devil emoji. Another comment was from an Exeter student, who
se name I vaguely recognised: ‘Hello “Pint O’Wine” Naomi!! Remember the lost hours in the park?!’ She had included two winking emojis.

  ‘Pint O’Wine’ had been my nickname at university, derived from one night at a pub when I had used a friend’s pint glass to drink wine from, to save me the bother of endlessly filling up the ‘silly little glasses’, as I had joked at the time. I had enjoyed the laughter from my new friends, the buzz of confidence, revelled in the new identity I had formed out of the shy, frizzy-haired, chubby girl in the frilly blouses. ‘Dead boring from Dedham!’ or ‘Nerdy Naomi strikes again!’ the class bully at my secondary school had sniggered every time I had achieved a decent grade. In my new guise, as I drank, the boy’s words had faded. The alcohol had helped me to leave behind that squirming feeling, that sense of my pen sliding in my fingers as I had sweated, as others had tittered.

  Laughing emojis seemed to swim on the screen before me, multiplying, cackling at me and my disgrace.

  I wondered if there was an emoji that could express profound regret.

  For some, it might have been funny to look back at a bygone era, but for me, it was utterly wretched, as Sophie would surely have known. When I thought of her, my mind flashed white with fury. And then bafflement. The motivation for posting these photographs in such a public arena was unfathomable. I thought of Adam’s warnings about her: if Sophie had a drinking problem, it might explain her actions. Whatever her reasons, I had to find out.

  I closed the kitchen door and called her.

  There was a rustle before she spoke. ‘What time is it?’

  Her voice was gravelly.

  ‘It’s just gone ten.’

  ‘What’s up?’

  Was she really going to play dumb?

  ‘I’ve just looked on Facebook.’

  There was a pause, and some more rustling.

  ‘Did you like them?’ she asked. ‘I found a stack of them when I was clearing out the bedroom.’

  ‘Are you joking?’ The tightness in my throat betrayed my anger.

  ‘The one with those guys’ hands on your boobs was the best. I laughed out loud when I saw it.’

  ‘It didn’t make me laugh.’

  ‘You sound upset.’ She seemed surprised that I might be.

  My ear burnt against the handset. ‘How did you know my password?’

  ‘You use the same one for all your accounts.’

  ‘How dare you hack into my account!’ I cried.

  ‘You’re so oversensitive. It was joke, a trip down memory lane.’

  ‘You have no idea what you’ve done, do you?’

  ‘You’re worried about what your followers think of you?’

  ‘Of course I am!’

  ‘Don’t worry so much. They would’ve enjoyed seeing “Fun Naomi” for a change.’

  ‘Sophie, it undermines everything I post about.’

  ‘Maybe you should think about being more authentic, then,’ she retorted.

  ‘The images I choose to project are my own business, not yours. Okay?’

  ‘That depends on whether that squeaky-clean image has a crappy effect on others, doesn’t it, really?’

  ‘I don’t think that’s fair.’

  ‘There’ll be people out there who might feel depressed when they see how great your life is and how shit theirs is by comparison.’

  ‘Is that how you feel?’

  She snorted, ‘That’s rather superior, Naomi.’

  The kitchen door clicked open. Izzie wandered in. Her knotted curls fell down her bare back and her spotted knickers were on back to front. She reached up into the cupboard for the Rice Krispies and then shoved two bowls and two spoons into the box. ‘Will you bring the milk through to the telly room for me, Mummy?’ she asked, standing in front of the fridge.

  I shook my head and mouthed ‘no’, pointing to the phone in my hand. Izzy glared at me and stormed out, slamming the door. Her reaction seemed to echo the negative energy coming down the phone from Sophie, and I had the melodramatic, self-pitying feeling that the effort to care for those I loved had been futile, that their love for me was conditional, that it could wilt and die as quickly as picked bluebells.

  ‘I always thought I’d been kind to you,’ I said to Sophie.

  ‘Like it’s an effort? Please, don’t put yourself out.’

  Silence fell between us. I considered hanging up then and there.

  ‘Why are you so angry with me?’ I asked her, pained by my own curiosity.

  There was a long silence, and I checked my phone screen to make sure we were still connected.

  ‘I know about you and Adam.’

  I laughed. ‘My god! What?’

  ‘You met in secret.’

  ‘Are you serious? Is that what this is all about?’

  ‘What do you expect me to think?’

  I snorted. ‘Are you seriously suggesting that we’re having it off?’

  ‘Last night… I thought… it did seem unlikely. This morning, I mean, it seemed… less possible.’

  ‘You can say that again!’ I cried.

  She began to whine, ‘But why did he come over to your place while Charlie’s away? And why did he lie to me and say he was working late?’

  Incredulous, I shouted back at her, ‘Because he wanted to talk about YOU! That’s why!’

  A beat, a cough, a low reply, ‘Why?’

  I pressed my forehead onto the bifold windows and stared down at my toes, my fingers rapping the glass. ‘He’s worried about your drinking, Soph.’

  Behind me, I heard the door open again and I swivelled round. Izzy had returned to get the milk from the fridge. She dazzled me with one of her endearing, crooked-tooth grins and said, ‘Sorry for slamming the door.’

  ‘Who’s that?’ Sophie snapped.

  ‘Izzy. She’s getting the milk. All by herself,’ I said, winking at her. Izzy beamed.

  ‘Is she in the room? I’d better go,’ Sophie said.

  I, too, wanted to end this miserable call, but seeing Izzy’s rangy little body – the innocence of it, the vulnerability of her – I thought of Dylan. If he wasn’t safe, I could not turn my back on him.

  ‘Sophie. Adam worried me. Do you think it might be worth looking at how much you’re drink—’

  She interrupted me. ‘Sounds to me like you’re projecting something.’

  ‘This is not about me.’

  ‘It used to be.’

  ‘Okay! Yes! Back then, I drank too much. Yes, I partied hard. Yes, I slept with too many boys. Get over it!’

  ‘Get over it?’

  ‘What difference does it make now?’

  ‘All the difference in the world.’

  ‘Why, Sophie? Why?’ I pleaded.

  There was another long pause.

  ‘I got a third because of you.’

  I had not expected her to say that. A sharp cramp tightened in my abdomen at the memory of that hot, sunny week in June. Her hand had been in mine all week, whenever I had needed it. She had been evasive about her own exam schedule, self-sacrificing, and I had been unquestioning, utterly grateful. Now, I clutched my belly and squeezed my eyes closed. Behind a tall, wide sheet of glass, another me stood, a younger me, dispossessed, banging, asking to be let out, asking to be heard. That young woman would stay there, trapped forever. I had locked her away and I would not let Sophie smash through the glass.

  ‘I’ve said sorry about that,’ I said.

  ‘I had big plans for my life.’

  Quietly, with little conviction, I said, ‘You can’t blame me for everything that went wrong.’

  ‘Can’t I?’

  Without thinking, I hung up on her. I couldn’t hear any more.

  My phone rang as soon as I had placed it on the kitchen table.

  When I saw Sophie’s name, ringing and ringing, hounding me, I pressed my hands to my ears. ‘GO AWAY!’ I wanted to yell.

  I dragged open the window and stepped outside, gulping in the wet air, thirsty for its life force,
welcoming its space. If I slid down the wet lawn and into the trees, I could run through the woods, keep running and running, and never return. It would be my choice. My life. Charlie and the girls would find a way to get on without me. Nobody was irreplaceable.

  Gathering myself, I stepped back inside. I would never leave my family. The young woman behind the glass might do that. Not me. I pulled the window closed and decided to open the case of Burgundy. To taste, of course. Not to drink.

  If it was a good wine, I would share it with my friends this evening at our dinner party, with Meg and Josh, Cynthia and Nathan. Neither Meg nor Cynthia was neurotic or needy or insecure. I did not have to self-deprecate or duck from their envious blows. They had their fair share of problems, but they would not offer them to me with upturned palms, like Sophie, on their knees, expectant and damning, appealing to my inbuilt guilt, blaming me for my different choices. I did not have to nursemaid them, as I had always done with Sophie, who had suggested that she resented the life I promoted on my blog. In truth, it was worse than that: she resented my real life.

  A speech unspooled in my thoughts, possibly written in my head a long time ago: I’m so sorry, Sophie, I can’t help you if you won’t help yourself. I’m so sorry, I’m going to have to step away. And I know you’ll never understand why, that you will always blame me, that you will forever be the victim, that you will never look at yourself and your own actions, and I will try to make peace with that. I have to, to move on. I can’t allow you to drag me down with you. You will never feel the love I give. I am truly sorry for giving up.

  I wanted to say these words out loud to Sophie. They were heartfelt, they were harsh, they were my truth.

  When she called for the tenth time, an hour later, I sent her a text:

  Hi Sophie. You’ve really crossed a line. Worse than that, you don’t seem to understand why it would upset me to post those pictures online. You need help. Until you have your drinking under control, I think it is best that we give each other some space for a while. Naomi