Atlantic Shift

by Emily Barr

  ‘Hello, Louise,’ I say. This is not entirely a surprise. She looks stressed. She’s wearing a lightweight black suit with a short skirt and a fitted jacket. I keep walking.

  ‘You got my message?’ she asks, walking alongside me. ‘And my card?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply, without looking at her.

  ‘Why didn’t you call?’

  I still don’t look round. ‘Because,’ I say, ‘I didn’t want to. I didn’t see any point in our becoming friends now, and to be honest I’m surprised that you want that. You made it very clear fifteen years ago how you felt about me and I don’t think anything that’s happened will change that.’

  She walks companionably next to me. ‘But I wanted to apologise. At least let me do that.’

  I still don’t look at her. ‘OK, you’ve apologised. Thank you. Fine. It’s all forgotten. Now let’s get on with our lives.’

  ‘We were such good friends.’

  ‘No we weren’t.’

  ‘You know we were. For years.’

  ‘Good friends don’t ruin each other’s lives.’

  Her voice is soft and persuasive. ‘You’ve done fine. Look at you. You’re nothing like you used to be. You’re a huge success. You’re on an advert. I know I did a terrible thing, and I’m sure it did ruin your life for a year or so, but you have more than bounced back. At least come for a drink with me and let me talk to you. Please.’ I look at her. She looks back at me with big, soft eyes. ‘We have all done stupid things, especially as teenagers. We have all been cruel. We all have regrets.’

  I see a trace of my old friend, the old Louise, in her face, hear her in her voice. Perhaps I have wanted to be friends with her again for all these years. Maybe that is why she has been on my mind so much.

  ‘I’m meeting someone in twenty minutes,’ I say brusquely. ‘Have you got a phone you can lend me? I’ll put him off for half an hour.’ She hands me a tiny mobile, and I call Ron. ‘Right,’ I tell her, handing it back and already regretting what I am doing, but knowing I need to get her out of my life, or into it. I can’t have her hanging around on the periphery any more. ‘Thirty minutes.’

  We go to the nearest bar, which happens to be an Irish pub. I have a vodka and tonic, and Louise drinks a glass of sauvignon.

  ‘So?’ I say, as coolly as I can. ‘What can I do for you?’

  She smiles eagerly. ‘You can say you forgive me.’

  This troubles me. ‘Why?’ I demand. I notice men at nearby tables turning to look at us, and lower my voice. ‘Why do you want me to forgive you now? I would love to forgive you for spreading the gossip about me, Louise, but I don’t think I can. You were the only friend I had and you ruined it for me. I have hated you ever since. You have no idea how what you did has affected me.’

  She stays calm. ‘Evie, teenage girls do stupid things. I was stupid, I know. I’m not making excuses. I wanted to be friends with all the popular girls, and I still am friends with some of them. I didn’t realise quite what I was doing. What gets me is the fact that you are clearly more than fine. My telling the others didn’t do any lasting damage. So what’s the problem?’

  ‘Who are you in touch with?’ I ask her.

  She begins counting on her fingers. ‘Katya. Sarah B. Sarah H. Jess. They’re all in London except Jess. Jess is in Hong Kong. Katya’s got a little girl. Sarah B is pregnant.’

  I cut her off. ‘So it’s been worth it. You traded me in for them, and you’ve got some lasting friendships out of it.’

  ‘That’s not the way it is.’

  ‘That’s the way it looks,’ I tell her. I am stung by the names of the popular girls. I hate all of them. I don’t want to know what they’re doing. ‘And I don’t want to sound sorry for myself, but there was lasting damage, and that’s just a fact. Going through a pregnancy like that and then finding yourself without a single friend is not something you get over. I’m not saying any more. Louise, please accept that I have the right not to want to be friends with you.’ I knock back my drink, and stand up. I do not want to give in to Louise and agree to be friends again. A small part of me does, but I am resisting.

  ‘Don’t you want to know anything about what I’ve done since school?’ she asks plaintively.

  ‘If you’d been tending to the orphaned children of Sierra Leone I might be impressed with you. Making a vast amount of money in Manhattan doesn’t really cut it for me, I’m afraid.’

  ‘I’m not working at the moment. I’m getting divorced.’

  ‘Oh, right. Still doesn’t do it for me. I’m getting divorced too.’

  ‘I know. From Jack.’

  ‘You read the magazines.’

  ‘If I see your name, then yes, I do. I know about Dan, too. You should have stuck with him - he’s doing great.’

  ‘Please give up, Louise. This isn’t going to happen the way you want it to.’

  ‘Am I embarrassing you?’

  I look at her. I have to be hard. I cannot let her back into my life. ‘Yes.’

  She puts her drink down, and her expression hardens. ‘Good,’ she says, in a completely different tone. ‘You know, Evie, I can think of many people who would be interested to hear about your illegitimate child. I’ve kept your secret for a long time now.’

  ‘Someone told the Sun, but they couldn’t find any proof.’

  ‘I know, that was Katya. Katya is my best friend. We only did it to scare you. Otherwise we would have told them where she was born - St Vincent’s, wasn’t it? - and they would have found themselves with a story on their hands.’

  I stare at her. ‘Are you threatening me?’

  She laughs. It is an unpleasant sound. ‘No! Of course not. Just trying to get your attention.’

  I put my head in my hands. ‘You haven’t changed. You’re as vindictive as ever. I can’t believe I thought you genuinely wanted to apologise. The least you can do is buy me another drink.’ She smiles serenely and stands up to go to the bar. ‘Double!’ I call at her back, and she gives me a thumbs-up without turning round.

  ‘I don’t understand what you want,’ I tell her, when we’re settled back with our drinks. ‘You are saying you’ll make the story public, complete with hospital details, unless . . .? What? Money?’

  She smiles. Her sweet smile is beginning to make me murderous. I can still discern the vicious teenager behind it. In the years since I have seen her, Louise has learned to mask her inner bitch, but it is still there.

  Even then, she would never choose a confrontation. She likes to pretend that everyone is best friends, all the time. She does her dirty work with a smiling face.

  ‘Of course I don’t want your money,’ she assures me with a tinkling laugh. ‘I have money of my own. I had the forethought to marry a rich man. I have lovely apartments here and in London. You should come over sometime.’

  ‘So, what?’

  ‘I want you to admit that everything that happened was your own fault. Not mine. That’s all. It is easily done.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You see yourself as the innocent victim. You still do, I can see that. Remember, Evie, that I know something most people don’t know. I know who the father is.’

  I look at her, baffled. ‘So? He’s not exactly Prince William, or Elvis Presley. I don’t think News International would stop the presses for Mark Parker.’

  ‘You don’t know what happened, do you?’

  She wants me to ask what she means, so I don’t. ‘Did you ever tell him?’ I ask her.

  ‘Oh yes, I told him. He didn’t believe me.’

  I look at the next table, where four men in badly fitting suits are drinking pints of Guinness. One of them catches my eye and leers. I look away.

  ‘I was fifteen,’ I tell her. ‘I was under the age of consent. It was statutory rape.’

  ‘But it wasn’t actual rape, was it? I was in the next room. I didn’t hear you screaming. You were up for it. You knew exactly what you were doing.’

  ‘I was terrified.
I hated it. I wanted you to think I was cool, that was all. I was a silly little girl.’

  ‘You made my brother take your virginity because I dared you to. How pathetic is that? You had his baby and you gave it away without even telling him. It wasn’t just your baby that you got rid of. It was my niece. Remember? So, you clearly don’t know what happened to my brother.’

  ‘Of course I don’t. I don’t exactly have fond memories.’

  ‘He killed himself.’

  I look at her closely. I think she would say anything to get to me. She is playing mind games.

  ‘Right,’ I say, suspiciously.

  ‘You don’t believe me. He’s dead. He hung himself last year. It wasn’t a cry for help. He took an overdose and then hung himself, just to be sure. He’d been there for days when I found him.’

  ‘Is that true?’

  Her face is pinched and pale. ‘Yes, it’s true.’ She takes a piece of paper from her handbag, and passes it across the table to me. ‘I thought you might not believe me.’

  I unfold it. It is a yellow cutting from the Bristol Evening Post. Bedminster man found dead, reads the headline. His name is there. Mark Parker, 32, was found dead in his flat in Bedminster after family became worried and broke into his home. The dead man was found by his sister, Louise, 29.

  This shocks me, and scares me. I don’t know what she is planning. My voice falters. ‘I’m really sorry,’ I tell her, trying to maintain eye contact, ‘but it wasn’t connected with me, was it? I hadn’t seen him for fourteen years.’ I look at her face. ‘But I am sorry,’ I repeat. ‘I really am. It must be devastating for you and your family.’

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  ‘And in what sense is this my doing?’

  She looks away. ‘Mark was lonely. He had no one. If he’d had a child, he would never have done it. He needed responsibilities. He needed someone in his life. When you gave away that baby, you killed him.’

  I wish I had a phone. I would text Ron secretly under the table, and get him to come here, now.

  ‘That’s not fair, Louise,’ I tell her as calmly as I can. I am casting around for a way out of the bar. If I ran, she would probably catch me. I’d have to take my shoes off first, or I’d trip up. I slip them off under the table, just in case. ‘I couldn’t even face the fact that I was pregnant until my mum noticed,’ I remind her. ‘I was very, very young and naive. I had no idea what to do. Yes, if I’d been, say, twenty, or twenty-two, and your brother had got me pregnant, of course I would have involved him in the decision. But I was fifteen. Fifteen! And it was too late for an abortion. At least Mark’s daughter, your niece, does exist, somewhere in the world. Is that some sort of comfort?’

  Louise snorts. ‘You can cut that crap.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Does the name Tessa mean anything to you? My mother said years ago that your mum and Phil had a little girl. I knew straight away what you’d done. You hadn’t had her adopted at all. You’d changed your mind and got her back, and you hadn’t told Mark or me. Then I saw her name on that card.’ She stares at me, challenging. I sigh.

  ‘I knew at the concert that that was what you thought. It isn’t true, Louise. Tessa’s twelve, and she really is Mum’s and Phil’s. It’s easy enough to prove that if that’s what you want.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Really.’

  ‘I know you’re lying.’

  ‘I know I’m not.’

  ‘It’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? You go away to America to have a baby, Mark’s baby, and give her up, and then the next thing we know, a baby girl has suddenly appeared at your parents’ house.’

  ‘Three years later. People have babies, Louise. It wasn’t that rare, last time I checked.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘I don’t care.’

  ‘As I said before, I can make you care.’

  I stand up. ‘Right. I’ve had enough of this. I was on my way out when you accosted me. Now I’m going to the loo.’

  ‘The loo! That’s very quaint. They must love you out here. It’s called the bathroom, honey. The restroom.’

  I look back at her as I walk away. My shoes are still under the table, and I’ve got my handbag with me, in case I decide to run away. Luckily there is a payphone next to the toilet door, round the corner from our table. I pump it full of quarters and dial Ron’s cellphone, whose number, thank God, is written in my diary.

  ‘It’s me,’ I tell him breathlessly. ‘I’m with Louise. Yes, that girl. She’s scaring me. Will you come and find us? We’re at O’Flanagan’s Bar on First near Sixty-fifth. Come now. Please. Sorry to do this to you. Thanks. Quick as you can.’

  I go to the loo, while I’m here, and buy two large vodka and tonics on my way back to the table. I will stick it out, and wait for Ron.

  ‘So?’ I say, looking at Louise as calmly as I can. ‘Where were we? I think you were in the process of blackmailing me.’

  ‘Oh, Evie, I would never blackmail you,’ she gushes. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. All I want is justice.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning that Tessa belongs to my family as much as she does to yours. We want her. We want access to her, and we want her surname changed to Parker. It’s only fair. She’s all that’s left of Mark.’

  ‘Tessa is not Mark’s child!’ I tell her, too loudly. The men at the next table go quiet, and I lower my voice again. ‘She is not my child. We can do a DNA test if you like, to prove it. I don’t dispute that Mark was the father of my daughter, but that baby was adopted, here in New York. You have to believe me.’

  ‘It seems to me that you are a popular girl. Last time I was in Britain I couldn’t help noticing you in the papers every day wittering on about your marriage. The British tabloids are quite something, don’t you think? I could help them out with a few facts.’

  ‘Cheers, Louise. Why were we ever friends?’

  She takes a delicate sip and puts her drink down. ‘Why? Because you were a total loser, weren’t you? No one else would be your friend and you clung on to me like a pathetic little kid. I took pity on you. I even introduced you to my brother. Got you some bedroom action. Helped you lose that geeky “virgin” label.’

  ‘You’re saying Mark committed suicide because of me. That isn’t true. He didn’t even believe you about the baby.’

  ‘Don’t flatter yourself. He wasn’t depressed because he was cut up about a godawful random shag he had when he was seventeen. Christ, no. He was depressed about a lot of other things, and he was lonely. If he had known about Tessa, who was living three miles away from him at the time, he would have had something to live for.’

  I look around, hoping to see Ron. Then I look back at Louise, at her controlled features, at the pain she is projecting on to me. I must keep her away from Darcey at all costs.

  ‘Louise,’ I say, trying to mollify her for now. ‘I’m so sorry about Mark. I had no idea. I can see how painful this is for you, and I’d like to help in any way I can. But I can assure you that Tessa is not Mark’s daughter. Tessa is my half-sister, and she’s completely innocent. Please leave her out of it.’

  Louise smiles. Nothing makes her lose her temper. ‘Of course she’s innocent. I don’t want to harm her, or corrupt her, or anything like that. We like Tessa. That’s why we want to see more of her.’

  ‘She’s nothing to do with you.’

  ‘You know she is. It’s a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it, giving your child to your parents to pass off as their own?’

  I look closely at her. ‘Is there anything I could say that would make you change your mind? Suppose your assumption was incorrect? What would make you accept that?’

  She shrugs. ‘I would like a DNA test, actually. I want to see it on paper that that girl is my niece. Just to stop you pretending.’

  ‘Then we’ll fix one up. I’ll explain all this to Mum and Phil and they’ll find a way of making it OK for Tess. All right? I’m going back to Britain soon anyway.’
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  She opens her mouth to make yet another calm, vicious reply. I look round, and, to my intense relief, I see Ron striding towards our table. He looks tense.

  ‘Ron!’ I say, with the first genuine smile of the evening.

  ‘Hello, Evie,’ he says, charmingly, and kisses me on the cheek. ‘Fancy seeing you here.’ He looks questioningly at Louise.

  ‘This is Louise,’ I tell him. She is furious at the interruption, but she doesn’t say so. ‘You didn’t quite meet at Lincoln Center.’

  ‘No,’ says Louise, smiling. ‘I was sent away before I could tell Evie’s friends about her scurrilous past.’

  ‘Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you now,’ says Ron, unruffled. She takes his extended hand reluctantly. I move over and make room for him at the table. Ron goes to the bar to buy drinks.

  ‘Is that your lover?’ Louise hisses, as soon as he’s out of earshot. ‘Bit old for you, darling. From one extreme to the other.’

  ‘No,’ I tell her. ‘He’s a friend. He lives round here too. I’ve been to this bar with him before.’ In fact, his city apartment is on the other side of the park, but I am keen to present this meeting as coincidence.

  ‘Does he know about your past?’

  ‘None of your business.’

  She laughs. ‘He doesn’t, does he? Would he be interested to find out, do you think?’

  ‘Fuck off, Louise.’

  Louise looks up as Ron sets three drinks down on the table and takes the chair next to mine. She smiles at him and twirls a strand of hair around her finger.

  ‘Sorry to interrupt you, ladies,’ he says, looking at me with concern.

  ‘No, not at all,’ I say quickly. He has bought himself a pint of Guinness. ‘Louise was just accusing me of killing her brother.’

  He frowns. ‘I’m sorry?’

  Louise is taken aback, but only momentarily. Between us, we tell him the story. He looks from me to Louise, and back again. I let Louise tell him her version, and just interject ‘which isn’t true’ from time to time.

  When she finishes, the silence lasts about ten seconds.

  ‘Louise,’ says Ron, eventually. She fiddles with an earring and looks down at the table, then back at Ron. She is flirting with him. He puts a reassuring hand on my knee, under the table.