Her Closest Friend (ARC)

by Clare Boyd

  Maybe one day she would understand.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Sophie parked the Saab in the lay-by down the road from Naomi’s house.

  The walk up the hill in the dark was hampered by potholes, and she twisted her weak ankle on a crumbled fragment of tarmac.

  She didn’t want to use the torch in case she was seen. Her right palm itched and throbbed.

  Originally, she had not planned on sneaking around. She had intended to park up in the drive, openly, and apologise to Naomi face-to-face, like a grown-up.

  After Naomi’s phone call, Sophie had confronted how despicable her Facebook attack had been: concocted too late at night, in the throes of an attack of jealousy, too tired to see sense. The hurt in Naomi’s voice had cut right through her. She had wanted the ground to swallow up her shame, but, stupidly, she had tried to defend herself, to wriggle out of it, by deflecting the blame.

  After receiving Naomi’s text, Sophie had pulled up the Alcoholics Anonymous website and read the section ‘Is AA for you?’, which had included a questionnaire, a test she had been nervous about attempting. If she answered four or more questions with a ‘yes’, the blurb warned, she would need help. She had answered ‘yes’ to only two of the questions. Then she had answered them as if she were Naomi. Naomi could have answered ‘yes’ to six of them. It seemed to Sophie that Naomi’s accusations were a projection of her own struggles with the bottle.

  On the drive to Naomi’s, she had rehearsed what she would say to her, how she would persuade her to hear her out, just for five minutes, which she had anticipated would unfold into a lengthier heart to heart: I need help, Sophie would say, making clear her good intentions to stop drinking, fairly sure that Naomi would forgive her if she went along with the AA smokescreen.

  They had been good intentions, yes. They truly had been.

  For all that, it was the number of cars parked up in Naomi’s drive that had sent her focus and purpose veering off course. It seemed Naomi was having a party, which suggested she was moving on rather more quickly than Sophie had expected.

  There was something brazen about having a party with other friends – no doubt Meg and some other bores – on this day, the day she had fallen out with the person she viewed almost like a sister. And something sly in it, having failed to mention it on the phone this morning.

  Sophie edged past a large black Mercedes and hugged the low wall of the flower bed, where the gravel was sparse, to ensure her footsteps to the house were as quiet as possible. She could hear music from inside, and Harley barking, as though he had sniffed her out already.

  Along the side of the house, she made her way to one small window that looked into the laundry room, from which she would have a view of the kitchen table, where the guests would be sat.

  If the door to the laundry room was open, she would be able to see what was going on. If someone had been standing at the window on the other side, she would have been discovered instantly. The light reflections on the inside, and the darkness that enveloped her, would work in her favour. As she leant her back to the wall, summoning her courage, her heartbeat seemed to sit inside her head rather than inside her chest.

  Slowly she slid her cheek along the scratchy brickwork and edged around to look in.

  The sight of the smiling faces of Meg and Cynthia, huddled at one end with Naomi, sent the noise of their laughter crashing into her eardrums: a racket of happiness, a blast of rejection. Whether she imagined their laughter or heard it in reality, her breath was taken away by a sudden sense of loss. Not loss, exactly; loneliness, or perhaps both, like the onset of a condition, sped up inside her, hollowing her out in a matter of seconds.

  When she allowed the air to rush back into her lungs, she gulped noisily and then froze, remembering that there was only one wall between them and her compromised position.

  Harley began barking again. She detected his scratching at the bifold windows.

  She had to get away. If they let him out, she would be discovered.

  As she crept back along the wall, she heard the unmistakable slide of the bifold doors, and before she could escape, Harley was yapping at her heels.

  A strong smell of cigarette smoke engulfed the fresh air.

  ‘Who’s there?’ a nervous but forceful female voice said.

  Sophie slowly turned to face her.

  A haze of smoky orange light shone around Meg’s cropped head of hair.

  ‘Sophie? Is that you?’

  Gathering herself, knowing there was nothing she could do but front this out, Sophie replied, ‘Oh, hi Meg. I was knocking on the front door for ages and nobody heard. I was going to come round the back. But don’t worry, I didn’t realise she was entertaining. I’ll come back another time.’

  Of course, Naomi had a doorbell, and it would have been obvious that she had been entertaining by the number of cars. But what else could Sophie say to explain why she was lurking in the shadows?

  With an unsure sort of laugh, Meg said, ‘Don’t skulk off. I’ll tell Naomi you’re here. Come in and say hello. We wondered why Harley was barking.’

  The talk at the table stopped when she followed Meg in.

  Naomi’s jaw visibly loosened.

  ‘Look who I found on the doorstep!’ Meg said diplomatically.

  Charlie, barely missing a beat, stood to welcome her. ‘Sophie! What a lovely surprise. I’ll get you a glass. Come and join us.’

  She glanced at Naomi, checking to see whether the invite was sanctioned. The hate shot from Naomi’s glare, dart-like, rendering Sophie speechless. She picked at the bandage on her hand.

  Sophie wanted to say, ‘No. I mustn’t. I must go now. I’m not really welcome.’ But the words did not come out.

  An extra chair was found and squeezed in between Naomi and Meg, on the corner. A glass of wine was poured. She wiped her hands on her sweatpants before reaching for it. It was a Burgundy. A dry red wine, but it thickened in her throat like syrup. Syrupy, like the atmosphere her presence had created: sticky and sweet, fake smiles and awkwardness.

  ‘We were just talking about sexual turn-offs!’ Meg announced.

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘It seems Meg doesn’t like clean men,’ Cynthia chuckled.

  ‘It’s not that,’ Meg protested, ‘but a shower takes all the spontaneity out of it, don’t you think?’

  Josh roared with laughter. ‘Next time I’m back from a game of squash then, darling…’ he winked.

  ‘Too much information!’ Naomi cried.

  It was Charlie’s turn to share. ‘Naomi hates me brushing my teeth before we… you know…’

  ‘Charlie!’ Naomi spluttered, rolling her eyes, faking prudishness.

  There were chortles and jokey outcries about Naomi’s peculiar aversion to toothpaste before sex, but Sophie did not laugh. She locked her attention on to Naomi to track her reaction. Naomi performed well, laughing it off. Sophie knew she would be reeling inside.

  Cynthia held both hands up and put on a mock-serious face. ‘I think we should stop ribbing poor Naomi and return to the chat we were having about balls,’ she chuckled.

  ‘That doesn’t sound much safer,’ Sophie said.

  ‘Not the hairy kind. We were complaining about how many we’re all holding up in the air and how regularly they seem to come crashing down on us,’ Meg said.

  Sophie smiled, suddenly uncertain of her place there.

  The men resumed their conversation at the other end of the table, withdrawing to the proverbial card table like Victorian husbands.

  ‘Sophie doesn’t work,’ Naomi stated baldly, immediately separating her.

  ‘I would have loved a career,’ Sophie replied. ‘But Adam’s work is erratic and the childcare was too expensive to make it worthwhile.’

  ‘Out of interest, what career would you have chosen?’ Naomi asked.

  After a couple of slow sips of wine, Sophie offered up her sad story. ‘Something happened during my finals,’ she said, looking into
her lap, pausing for dramatic effect, noticing how Naomi shifted in her seat. ‘I came out with a third, and I lost my confidence. I temped in London for a while – I’d always dreamt of working in publishing, like Bridget Jones! – but my grandad got ill, and then I met Adam, and, you know…’

  Cynthia nodded sympathetically. ‘Life gets in the way. When my son was diagnosed, I backed out of going for Partner, knowing it couldn’t possibly work.’

  Sophie glanced over at Naomi, who gulped at her wine and refused to look at her.

  As the conversation deepened into a confessional about the clash of ambition versus childcare, Sophie’s ear tuned into the conversation at the other end of the table. Charlie and Josh were talking about redundancies, she gleaned.

  ‘When HR comes in, I dive under the bloody desk,’ Josh joked, laughing heartily.

  ‘Jobs for life are more like jobs till fifty, these days,’ Charlie said, standing abruptly, pouring wine at the women’s end of the table, trying to fill up Sophie’s glass for the second time. Sophie had put her hand over the rim. ‘No thanks, I’m driving.’

  This had prompted Naomi to look directly at Sophie for the first time. Sophie had answered her with a tiny nod and a shy smile, confirming that it was true, that she had listened, that she was going to turn her life around. She hoped it was enough. There might have been a spark of uncertainty in those eyes, Sophie thought.

  ‘We should have been born Norwegian,’ Meg sighed.

  ‘Real men, real equality,’ Cynthia laughed.

  Sophie glanced at her watch, remembering that she had promised Adam she’d be back within the hour.

  ‘Real men? Bloody hell. Imagine that,’ Sophie grinned. ‘Look, I’d better go. I’m sorry for gatecrashing.’

  As she stood up to leave, Sophie believed that she had accomplished more than she had set out to do, more than she could have hoped for. In spite of the inauspicious start, Naomi had, at the very least, allowed her to stay, which indicated there was room for forgiveness. Moreover, she had made a better impression on Meg and Cynthia than she had at the wine-tasting evening. It was clear neither of them knew about the Facebook episode. For a pleasant moment, Sophie felt she hadn’t stepped too far over the line to be able to step back again into the comfort of Naomi’s friendship.

  But then, when she bent down to Naomi to kiss her goodbye, she saw Naomi’s fingers pressed deep into her thighs.

  Sophie dared to peck her on the cheek and Naomi flinched.

  A blast of words followed. ‘What were you actually doing here tonight?’

  The man-talk at the other end of the table turned to a murmur.

  Sophie thought quickly. Honesty would be the best policy. ‘I wanted to apologise to you, Naomi.’

  Naomi’s stare remained directly ahead of her. Her forefinger on her right hand tapped a funereal drumbeat on the table.

  Charlie’s chair scraped on the floor. He cleared his throat. ‘I’ll walk you to the car, Sophie.’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Sophie replied, and fumbled at the latch of the bifold window, realising how severely she had underestimated Naomi’s wrath. Tears pricked her eyes.

  ‘No,’ Naomi said, ‘I’ll come out with you.’

  Once again, hope bloomed in Sophie’s chest as she stepped aside to let Naomi undo the latch. Perhaps Naomi was going to offer her a final chance.

  Sophie followed her down the side passage, waiting for her to speak.

  At the cars, Naomi stopped. ‘I didn’t want to embarrass you in front of the others, but I don’t really appreciate you turning up on my doorstep like this, Sophie. I made it pretty clear in my text that I wanted some space.’

  ‘I wanted to make it right,’ Sophie said, her hopes dashed. This would be the time to offer up her pre-prepared speech about her intentions to change, but Naomi’s refusal to soften, even for a second, brought old resentment roiling up from the depths of her.

  ‘By spying on me?’

  ‘I wasn’t spying.’

  ‘You might be able to fool Meg and the others, but I know exactly what you were doing and it is totally fucking weird.’

  Like those powerful waves of nausea before you vomit, Sophie tried to swallow down the disagreeable feeling. But there was only one way to feel better. It had to come up and out.

  ‘Too weird for your fancy dinner parties now, am I?’

  Naomi pointed to the bar gate. ‘Please leave.’

  Here ended Sophie’s grovelling apologies. Here ended Naomi’s smugness.

  ‘I used to think you were just playing dumb,’ Sophie began. ‘Thinking that you couldn’t admit it to yourself. But if you’d known, if you’d kept it inside, like I have, it would’ve slowly destroyed you, like it has me. Unless you’re a total psychopath.’

  Naomi stumbled back, then righted herself. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘Yes, you do.’

  ‘I’m going back inside.’ But she didn’t move a muscle.

  ‘Ha! The luxury of your ignorance.’

  ‘I am going to go back inside now,’ she repeated. This time, she began walking away, but Sophie yanked her arm.

  ‘See no evil, hear no evil, eh?’

  ‘You’re hurting me.’

  ‘That night bound us together, whether you like it or not. You think you can walk away, but you can’t. Ever.’

  She twisted her arm out of Sophie’s grip and rubbed at it. ‘I can do whatever I like.’

  ‘Not if I go to the police.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘What the hell would you go to the police about?’

  ‘To make a confession.’

  ‘About a deer?’ Her voice was hoarse with fear.

  ‘It wasn’t a deer, though, was it?’

  Naomi’s lips dropped at the corners, dead weights pulling at them. ‘Yes, it was.’

  ‘You wanted it to be. We both wanted it to be a deer.’

  Her head shook from side to side. ‘That night,’ Naomi said, ‘I begged you to go back.’

  Sophie ran her eyes across Naomi’s house. There was a purple glow from Izzy’s bedroom nightlight and a flowery border edging Diana’s blinds. Both girls were cosy and safe inside as they slumbered. The chatter from the kitchen table, where Naomi had sat at its head, would have resumed between her friends and her husband, who loved her so much. Naomi belonged inside with them. But here she was, standing in the cold, on the outside with Sophie. It saddened Sophie to watch how Naomi had tried to form various friendships over the years, with women like Meg, who would become her new best friend and then fall by the wayside. It had been tough shielding her, preventing her from slipping up in a moment of intimacy, of false intimacy. Every detail shared, however naively, had been a potential threat to them both. Each new friend of hers had made Sophie feel anxious, and jealous. The affection had come easily to Naomi. Because she hadn’t been knowingly hiding anything.

  ‘All of this is built on sand,’ Sophie said, sweeping her arm across the setting of domestic bliss.

  Naomi’s face marbled, swirls of leaf shadows whirling through her pallor. It seemed she had turned to stone: a statue depicting her terror, erected for posterity.

  Barely audible, she wheezed, ‘What would I have seen if you’d let me go back, Sophie?’

  ‘Are you sure you’re ready to find out?’

  Then Naomi came to life in a bright flash of noise and movement. She ran at Sophie, pushing her in the chest, screaming in her face. ‘NO! YOU’RE FUCKING WITH MY HEAD, JUST TO SPITE ME! Get the hell off my property! Adam was right. you’ve gone fucking crazy!’

  Sophie let her push her again, and again, further and further out of the drive, until she was in the lane, shoved out – for the time being.

  But not for long.

  Chapter Fifteen

  I ran round the back, tears flying off my cheeks.

  Charlie and Meg leapt from their chairs, ‘Naomi! Darling! We heard screaming. What was that all about?’

  My muscles were trembling, w
orking too hard to hold up my skeleton.

  Meg said, ‘Are you okay? What’s happened? Oh my god, you’re shaking all over.’

  They flanked me, bringing me inside, as though I were a lost stranger found wandering alone in the dark. They led me into the warmth of home. My home. My home built on sand.

  With one look at me, Cynthia said, ‘I’ll make a pot of tea.’

  My sobs took me over. The tears were not of injury or distress, as those huddled around me might have suspected: they were tears of fright.

  ‘What did she say?’ Meg asked, leaving her arm around my shoulder, her head bent into mine, close also to Charlie, whose hand was heavy on top of my fingers, repressing their frenzied dance.

  ‘Did she hurt you?’ Charlie added urgently. ‘Why was she even here?’

  I feared what I might say in that untethered moment.

  Had she hurt me? She had done worse.

  In the silence I left behind, Charlie’s brow furrowed and he looked to Meg, who looked straight at me again. A chain of confusion that I had the power to break. Each time I considered talking, telling them what Sophie had revealed, my chest would expand and my shoulders would shake and the tears would come.

  Rewind, replay, rewind, replay, rewind, replay: looking back into that slice of time, that second in time, that jolt in time, when I heard the thump, when the bulk had hit the windscreen, when the car’s abrupt stop had thrown me into the footwell, there was nothing new. There was no fresh evidence embedded or hidden in that glimmer of the past. Nothing came back to me to prove that the heavy mass was anything other than a deer. Still, the memory was an unchanged, unchangeable imprint on my experience. And I knew of no other way to retrieve more. If there had been more, it had been erased, either by time or by trauma. Had I blanked it out? Had I known? Had there been anything I was not willing to remember?

  I certainly remembered how angry and snappy she had been that night, in the aftermath of the accident, when she had driven me back to campus.

  The cut on my forehead was bleeding, my ribs were bruised, yet she dragged me out of the car, almost by my hair and shoved me in my back a few times, telling me to hurry up, shouting at me for being clumsy when I had tripped up the steps to my floor. I wasn’t surprised or hurt. I was tearful and ashamed.