What My Best Friend Did

by Lucy Dawson

  ‘Alice, can you even hear yourself?’

  ‘And don’t you even care that she’s mentally ill? Doesn’t that worry you?’

  ‘So you do want details,’ Tom said patiently. ‘Look, I never really got to know Gretchen in London, for obvious reasons, but despite her illness, everything you yourself told me about her is true. She’s incredibly funny, generous, kind and spontaneous—’

  ‘As well as manipulative, devious, will shag anything when hyper, goes on spending sprees like she’s using Monopoly money,’ I cut in viciously.

  Tom took a deep breath and didn’t rise. ‘We just have a lot of fun together. As far as the manic thing goes, it hasn’t been an issue. She was very frank about it from the start, she takes her medication . . . and sometimes she gets a bit ratty or a bit sad, but I just leave her to work through it calmly.’

  ‘Gets a bit ratty?’ I repeated in disbelief. ‘Are you fucking kidding me? I’ve seen her try to get out of a moving car!’

  ‘Al, please,’ Tom paused. ‘This isn’t fair to Gretch . . . and this isn’t like you.’

  ‘So tell me how you just “met”,’ I said, like a police officer determined to re-examine the evidence and find the giveaway clue.

  ‘Jesus, Alice,’ he said, exhausted. ‘She moved here, she didn’t know anyone else. She had no idea how to find medical support, couldn’t tell anyone on her course because she didn’t want them to know about her condition. She remembered you telling her I was out here on secondment and remembered what firm I was with. She was desperate – you know what it must have cost her to call someone she’d only met twice? And not exactly under the best of circumstances on the last occasion . . .’

  ‘But that’s just not true!’ I burst. ‘She told me and Ba—’ I stopped quickly. ‘Told me before she left that she’d already lined up a therapist. Why didn’t he or she help her out with medical support? Why call you?’

  ‘Maybe they let her down, maybe they simply didn’t know – everyone out here calls themselves a shrink,’ Tom said. ‘It’s embarrassing.’

  Could he even hear himself? Since when was he an expert on psychiatry?

  ‘Oh come on, Tom.’

  ‘How would you know if I’m right or not?’ he said, losing patience. ‘You don’t live here – I do.’

  ‘She’s manipulated both of us – and you’re too stupid to see it!’

  ‘What, she made you fall for her brother too, did she?’ he snapped. ‘Look, I’m a bloke, Al – you’re right, I’m just not that complicated. We met, I liked her, I wasn’t with anyone else. That’s all. I accept that it would have been far more convenient to get together with someone you didn’t know, but no one can help who they fall for. You proved that with Bailey,’ he managed to say his name with difficulty, ‘and that wasn’t meant as a dig. It sounded like it, but it wasn’t.’

  ‘It didn’t occur to you that it might upset me?’

  ‘You want the honest answer, Al?’ he cut in swiftly. ‘Actually yes, at first it did, and much as I hate to admit it, there was a big part of me that wanted to get back at you. I mean, fuck, Alice, you took him to Paris with you?’

  I gasped. ‘Vic said she wouldn’t tell you!’

  ‘She didn’t. I rang and Luc answered, let it slip by mistake. But I can honestly tell you that what I feel for Gretchen now. . .’

  Hearing him talk about her like that made me feel nauseous. It was all wrong!

  ‘. . . has nothing to do with that. Nothing at all. I’m not doing it to hurt you, Alice. I loved you.’

  And that said it all – the past tense. I couldn’t listen to any more.

  I hung up and just sat there, paralysed.

  How could she? How could he? But particularly, how could one of my best friends do this to me and not even tell me about it until after it had been happening for what appeared to be ages? I thought back over all the phone calls where we had chatted away aimlessly about stuff and nothing: her course, my work, the tutors she liked, my family news. And all the time she had met Tom and was dating him. Sleeping with him. I looked around me slowly, as if seeing her belongings through new eyes. I was sitting on her sofa, living in her flat, which, of course, had been her idea too.

  I felt shaken by the frightening ease with which she’d expertly manoeuvred everything into position, but as I sat there, continuing to slot the pieces into place, a wave of anger, hurt, bitter betrayal and jealousy began to swell within me.

  She was supposed to be one of my best friends. Everyone, everything that was important to me was now revolving around her.

  I wasn’t sure I could bear it.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  I arrived back at Gretchen’s silent flat and slung my copy of Loot on the table. It was oppressively quiet after the buzz and hum of having been on location in a busy restaurant in Mayfair all day, where the presence of other people and their chatter had comfortingly washed over me. There was no TV on or kettle just boiled, no one to ask me how my day had been. Just Gretchen’s fucking Andy Warhol pictures laughing down at me. I decided to call Vic.

  ‘Salut, Alice,’ Luc answered, his calm, assured doctor’s voice sounding in my ear. ‘I hear you are having difficult times. I’m sorry for this. You would I think like to talk with Victoria? Or perhaps with me?’

  ‘Er, it was actually Vic I was after,’ I said, a bit confused by his offer. ‘If she’s there?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said politely. ‘She is just finishing eating in fact. Here she is now.’

  ‘Hi, Al.’ Vic came on the line, speaking through a mouthful. ‘How are you?’

  ‘Going crazy,’ I said. ‘I have to get out of this flat, Vic. You don’t understand what it’s like, feeling trapped in her space, but I literally can’t find anywhere.’ I looked around Gretchen’s flat and shivered. ‘Trying to move house in the run-up to Christmas is virtually impossible. Only truly desperate people are trying to find room at the inn.’

  ‘Well, you’re not desperate, not yet.’ I heard her cutlery clatter on to a plate in the background. ‘Thanks, Luc, that was lovely . . . I know you hate being there, Al, and I can totally understand why, but she’s in another country and it’s not like you’re having to live with her. When’s she due back?’

  ‘I assume it’s still the end of November – two weeks. If I haven’t found anywhere by the end of this week I’m just going to have to get a hotel or sleep at the studio or something.’

  ‘But it’s Wednesday today!’ Vic yawned. ‘So you’ve got what, barely three full days?’

  ‘I know. I’ve been scanning the papers religiously for short lets, long lets,’ I said tiredly, ‘but I just can’t afford a one-bed on my own, so that leaves me with a flat share. Bearing in mind I’ve got a lot of expensive camera gear, trying to find one with some semi-normal people that isn’t a crack house, or a mouldy hole with rickety windows you expect to see someone silently climbing through in the dead of night, isn’t exactly easy. A few people have said some stuff might come up in the New Year, but that isn’t much help now.’

  ‘What about one of the uni lot?’ Vic yawned again. ‘God, sorry Al! I’ve just had a really long day at work. It’s actually really tiring trying to focus on catching the odd word you can understand when people speak so fast. I really have to concentrate or it all merges into one big French blah. Anyway, the uni girls—’

  ‘OK,’ I said. ‘Imagine how this would sound if you were one of them: “Hi, it’s Alice here. Now, I know that recently I’ve barely seen you apart from the odd birthday drink, mostly because work’s been really busy but also because I’m pretty lazy and it was easier to sit in on a Friday night with my then boyfriend than make the effort to meet up with you. Well, I’m not with him any more – he’s going out with my so-called best friend, who’s mad, and in fact I’ve just split up with someone else entirely! Oh, and did I mention I need somewhere to live? I was thinking your place might do the trick. See you Friday?”’

  ‘I take your point,’ Vic sig
hed. ‘Fair enough.’

  ‘Moreover it’s embarrassing. I’m too old for this shit – begging a spare room. This whole me staying in her flat thing seemed such a good idea at the time, such a convenient, easy option. I never stopped to think about what would happen if we fell out. It never occurred to me that we would.’

  I felt the now familiar mixture of sadness and anger swirling in my gut as I thought about Gretchen. I’d analysed our friendship for hours since I’d found out about her and Tom, and had come to the conclusion that anything she and I had must have been entirely built on sand. It had all fallen away as quickly as it had begun, to the point that I wasn’t sure if it had ever really been there at all, even though it had grown to be so important to me. Was it my payback for expecting too much from someone who perhaps should never have been more than a cocktails and coffee buddy? She had, after all, once admitted she’d wanted to use me to expand her fashion contacts.

  I wondered if, in her mind, it had ever really gone beyond that; if she’d meant what she said during her depression, about how she hadn’t wanted to lose me. Whatever her motives for any of it, she’d obviously now got everything she needed from our relationship and was ready to move on to the next. I could now see how others before me could have fallen by the wayside, illness or no illness. But in quieter moments I just felt bereft, unable to see how she could have done it all: lied, manipulated . . . all when she knew Tom was special to me. I thought I had meant more to her than that.

  Could I have done anything differently, given the chance? But done what? Asked on first meeting her if she was of sound mind? But then, it wasn’t her illness that was the problem – it was her. How she’d chosen to behave. It was nothing more than bad luck, us meeting. She had just seemed a fun person. It had certainly proven to be a life changing friendship.

  And in spite of everything, much as I was still angry with myself for wasting my time and energy, I had waited for her to ring and apologise again. She hadn’t. Through silence, she neatly made her point that we were done.

  ‘Of all the people to make friends with,’ I said, trying to lighten the tone, ‘I pick the mentally unstable social deviant. You know the only positive thing to come out of this utterly shit month is that I’ve lost about a stone without even trying.’ I curled my feet up and under me.

  ‘Perfect! You’re thin, heartbroken – you should come to Paris!’ Vic paused. ‘You could stay here for a bit while you found your pêche?’

  ‘And three-wheel it on yours and Luc’s French bicyclette made for two? Thanks, but I need to start standing on my own two pieds. Pêche means fishing by the way,’ I explained helpfully. ‘Pieds is feet.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘No wonder buying stockings the other day was such hard work. Do you think you might just be better off moving home for a bit?’

  ‘Four hours on a train on top of a working day?’ I said. ‘And if the commute didn’t kill me, Fran would. She’s round at Mum and Dad’s all the time: cross, fed up of being pregnant and spoiling for a fight. Maybe I should see if a local church has a nativity crib where I can bunk down? If I can get a shepherd to sling his crook, I’m laughing.’

  ‘I think you’re being very brave, you know,’ Vic said firmly, ‘and I’m proud of you. I know it’s hard not being part of the team any more when they both used to belong exclusively to you, and I think you’re doing amazingly well. You’re nearly there, Al. Chin up. Now, sweetheart, I’m sorry to cut this short but I’ve got to go now. I really am trashed and I’m on a long day tomorrow.’

  ‘Oh are you?’ Appalled, I suddenly realised that I’d been on the phone to her for ages and hadn’t asked a single question about how she was. ‘I’m so sorry, Vic. I’ve just gone on and on about me and not asked anything about what you’ve been up to.’

  She hesitated. ‘It’s all right,’ she said finally. ‘You’re having a tough time at the moment. I understand, honestly I do. You’re going to be OK, Al – I promise.’

  Her words comforted me later, as I sat worrying on Gretchen’s sofa in the dark, watching crappy Wednesday night TV intently in my pyjamas, bed socks pulled up and no make-up on, eating my tea: a family sized bag of Doritos. I’d just got a text message that a flat I’d been going to see in the morning had been let earlier in the afternoon. Time, along with my options, was running out.

  All thoughts slipped from my mind, however, as I heard voices the other side of the front door and saw the handle begin to turn slowly. Someone was out there trying to break in! For reasons best known to myself, I immediately turned the sound down on the TV, it was just an instant reaction. I froze completely rigid. Then I heard a key scratchily slip-sliding around the lock.

  The door burst open and, like a bad dream, there they were: Tom and Gretchen, very real and right in front of me, piling in, laughing breathlessly, bags slipping off their shoulders. Gretchen reached for the light switch saying confusedly, ‘The TV’s on!’ She obviously couldn’t see me, immobile with shock on the sofa, but as the big light flooded the flat, she leapt out of her skin to find me sitting there motionless and exclaimed, ‘Shit! Alice?’

  Her arm dropped heavily by her side. She was totally floored to see me. She had obviously thought that I was so outraged, so hurt and betrayed, I had packed up and shipped out in a blaze of, ‘I’m not living a second longer in her flat.’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she said, astonished. ‘I mean, I thought . . . well, I didn’t think – we didn’t expect . . .’ She glanced at Tom, who was carefully putting his bag down and assessing the situation. He glanced back at her and that was enough. Just that, a shared coupled-up ‘look’ that didn’t even need words.

  She was wearing an oatmeal cashmere skirt – it looked expensive and understated, flowing over her slim hips and flaring gently out at the bottom, while her black polo neck clung to every soft curve. She looked groomed and sleek, the kind of woman the professional man would be proud to come home to, and I could see, as I glanced at Tom, he was that man.

  His suit was no longer classic, but edgy. Over the seven months it had been since I’d seen him, he’d filled out. As he put his hands on his hips in an ‘I’m anticipating trouble’ stance, pushing his jacket open and causing his shirt to tighten over his pecs and tummy, I could see it was all lean, hard muscle. Someone had dealt with some pent-up hurt down at the gym, that was for sure. He had no tie on and his shoes weren’t the staid Church’s lace-ups he’d left London in, but were very ‘Take no crap and if you have to ask, you can’t afford them.’ His hair was shorter and styled differently and he’d replaced his glasses with lenses, making his eyes look very clear and piercing.

  It was, of course, just perfect that I was sat there looking such a pathetic state. I might as well have had a sign round my neck that said ‘Please give generously.’

  I took a deep breath and said, calmly and with as much dignity as I could manage, ‘I didn’t think you were back for another two weeks. I’ve been having difficulties finding somewhere to live. I’m sorry to have surprised you and I’m very sorry to still be here.’

  There was a silence, then Tom coughed and said, ‘Look, it’s no problem. We can go back to mine, Gretch. Sort this in the morning. We are earlier, obviously. Gretchen’s got this job thing and I transferred back too . . .’ he petered out. ‘Anyway, it’s not important.’

  ‘It’s just not a great time to be moving, in the run-up to Christmas,’ I said. ‘Not that it is, of course, your problem.’

  ‘All right, Tiny Tim,’ Gretchen rolled her eyes and did an embarrassed laugh, ‘I’m not going to throw you out. You can stay as long as you want, you know that. I’m just guessing you don’t really want to live with me. Although there are two bedrooms, so . . .’

  I stared at her. Was her medication too high or something? I didn’t want to be in her flat full stop! She didn’t really, either in her right or mentally unstable mind, think I’d want to live with her? Perhaps I could be on breakfast duty when Tom stayed over? Maybe we’d
all stay up and watch movies together under a duvet eating popcorn, she and I with our hair in pigtails, and before they went off to bed to shag like rabbits, we’d all shout ‘Goodnight!’ like they did on Walton weirdo mountain.

  Then I realised it was an act for Tom’s benefit. Carefully crafted to make her look like the reasonable one, the one who had tried to be nice but had it thrown back in her face. Oh, I wasn’t that green . . . how very Gretchen to think she could smother me with friendship. ‘Thank you, but no,’ I said quietly.

  ‘I understand totally,’ Gretchen said. ‘This must be hard for you . . . I know you probably don’t want to talk now. Well, I know you don’t because you didn’t call me back or anything when I left you all of those messages. But you can absolutely stay here until you have somewhere else to go. I’ll just stay with Tom at his until you’re ready to move.’ She looked at Tom with wide, innocent eyes. ‘That’s OK, isn’t it?’

  ‘Of course!’ he said, looking slightly put on the spot.

  I had to hand it to her – she was even better than I had given her credit for. She’d just taken, what, five seconds to move herself into his flat, while giving him little or no say in the matter.

  He looked at me and there was no guile or malice there. Just honest concern. ‘We really do want to help, Al.’

  ‘That’s settled then,’ Gretchen said quickly. ‘It’s the least we can do. I’ll not trouble you while you’re here. Just let me know when you’ve found somewhere. No rush.’

  Of course there wasn’t, the arrangement suited her down to the ground.

  ‘I’ll pop round tomorrow, just to drop off some things, if that’s OK?’ she asked, and I nodded.

  And with her game, set and match in the bag – Tom picked up the remainder of them – they were gone.

  I was up extra early the following morning. I knew it would be better to be out when she arrived, although part of me very much wanted to be there. But, despite my efforts, at eight a.m. I heard the door go and walked into the kitchen to find her kicking off her shoes, having let herself in. She’d wrong-footed me yet again.