Don't Ask

by Hilary Freeman

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I can just pretend that Laura never existed. Alex will get over it, won’t she? It’s not like she and Laura were ever really close; we – they – had only met once. She’d be a bit confused, maybe a bit miffed for a while, and then she’d forget about me, I mean Laura, and get on with her life.’

  ‘Exactly. And Jack will never find out. Absolutely no damage done.’

  Katie made it sound so clean and simple, so easy. To her, erasing Alex from my life would be no greater an effort than crossing a name off a list. But that’s all Alex was to her: a name. She hadn’t spent time with her, talking to her and getting to know her. She hadn’t met Alex’s dad, or allowed him to buy her gifts. She didn’t care about Alex’s feelings.

  I switched on my computer and prepared myself for the task of going straight into Laura’s Topfriendz profile and deleting it. But by the time the login screen had come on I didn’t feel so comfortable about doing that. Surely there must be a less cruel way of getting rid of Alex, a way to let her down gently? Maybe I could start by being really rude and objectionable, so that she’d begin to find me, I mean Laura, irritating or offensive and not want to be her friend any more. A series of fart gags might work, or a string of non-stop swear words, as if I’d suddenly developed Tourette’s. I could come up with something terrible, like a racist or sexist remark that she couldn’t ignore, something so nasty that no one in their right mind would tolerate. Perhaps I could deliberately cause a row over something . . . football, maybe? I could tell her I’d suddenly become a Tottenham Hotspur fan (which, for an Arsenal fan, would be the equivalent of becoming a suicide bomber) and she wouldn’t want to speak to me again. My sudden personality change would shock her, but she’d either think I was a raving lunatic or that I now trusted her enough to reveal my true colours. Either way, she’d run a mile, relieved that she hadn’t wasted any more time on Laura. Wouldn’t that work just as well?

  That approach didn’t feel right, either. I know it sounds pathetic, but I didn’t like the idea of Alex, or anyone, hating Laura or thinking badly of her. She was part of me, after all. I wondered if there was a way of just letting my friendship with Alex slide, of deliberately engineering it so that we drifted apart, just as I had with the girls I’d genuinely met and befriended at summer camp. I could be slack in answering Alex’s messages, not phone when I said I would and forget to return her calls. Eventually, she’d grow fed up with chasing me and wonder why we’d ever become friends. No one would be hurt; nobody would hate anyone. It was the perfect solution. But how long would it take? Weeks? Months? Would I be able to hide it from Jack in the meantime? What if Alex was persistent and refused to let our friendship go? What if she turned into Laura’s stalker . . .?

  As Laura’s profile page downloaded, I was shocked to see what a mess it looked. Since I’d started talking to Alex I hadn’t done anything to update it, and it had grown out of control, like an abandoned forest. I had about a million new friend requests, there were pop-ups and adverts everywhere and someone had posted a string of rude videos on my message board. It needed serious pruning. I wondered if you could employ web gardeners to do the job for you.

  There were five messages in my inbox, two of which were from the ever-persistent Igor, one from the Topfriendz administrator and one from a band inviting me to buy their latest EP. The last message had been sent only a couple of hours earlier. It was from Alex.

  Hi Laura.

  It was so lovely to see you earlier. Wasn’t the match brill? I had such a fun afternoon and I really hope you did too. My dad thinks you’re great – which you should take as a major compliment, because he hardly ever likes my friends – and he says you must come to another match with us soon, if you’d like to, of course. I’m going to have a party for my eighteenth birthday in a few weeks, which you must come to, if you can. I’d love you to meet some of my other friends.

  Anyway, speak soon.

  Love Alex xxx

  I found myself smiling, involuntarily. Alex was so warm and so sweet, wasn’t she? Her message was lovely. She said she’d had a great time with me and, when I thought about it, I’d had a great time at the match too, in a way. I was certain it wasn’t like thinking about an exam in retrospect and deciding it wasn’t so bad after all. I genuinely had had fun. What’s more, what Alex said was so flattering. She obviously really liked me, even though – unbeknown to her – I’d been at my worst all afternoon: dressed horribly, acting stupid, holding my tongue. Her dad liked me too, and she said he didn’t like any of her friends. Perhaps, I thought, I simply can’t help being naturally charming and likable, even in disguise.

  ‘I can’t dump Alex,’ I said aloud, even though there was no one awake to hear me. ‘I don’t want to. I like her.’

  I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t hurt Alex. It was too cruel. If Laura vanished off the face of the earth, there might be terrible repercussions for Alex. She would feel abandoned, betrayed, confused . . . She might never be able to trust anyone again. It could ruin her life, for ever. What if she reported Laura’s disappearance to the police and there was a full-scale murder enquiry? What if she went mad because nobody believed her and ended her days in a hospital, dribbling and blathering on to the nurses about a missing girl called Laura Thompson, whom everybody said had never existed?

  While I didn’t want to hurt Alex, if I’m honest, that was only part of it: it was mainly about me. I couldn’t delete Laura because I didn’t want my little adventure to end yet. Before Alex, I hadn’t made a new friend in ages. I knew everybody in my class at school and Sixth Form college was over a year away. I was bored. Alex could introduce me to new people, and teach me new things. Maybe spending time with her would make me sporty and fit too. Not that I could imagine doing any actual exercise with her, but who’s to say it wouldn’t happen naturally, like catching a cold, if I hung around her for long enough?

  I still didn’t know why she and Jack had broken up and I had no guarantee that Jack would ever tell me. Alex could fill in the gaps so I wouldn’t keep bugging him about it. If I tried really, really hard, I could almost convince myself that it would be good for our relationship. As long as Jack didn’t find out what I’d been up to, there was no reason why I couldn’t be a loyal girlfriend to him and a good friend to Alex. Everyone has secrets; I’m sure I read somewhere that it’s healthy to hold a few things back.

  Maybe, one day, when we were firm friends (I hadn’t determined quite how our friendship would become legitimate, but I’d worry about that another time), I’d be able to tell Alex the truth. By then, she wouldn’t mind because she’d know I was trustworthy and a good person. And how, in the future, we’d laugh about the way we had met. How ridiculous it would seem. I imagined us twenty years on, when we we’d be really old, sitting around a dinner table, with my husband Jack (who would be a successful sports reporter with his own TV show and the best celebrity party invites), and whoever Alex married (for some reason, in my fantasy her husband had a beard), talking about our youth.

  ‘I can’t believe Lily changed her name and pretended to be someone else!’ Alex would say.

  ‘I know! What was she like!’ Jack would reply. ‘That’s my Lily for you.’ He’d laugh and squeeze my hand, and I’d stroke the swirly, whirly bit on the top of his head, which still wouldn’t lie flat and was now streaked with silver.

  ‘I think the name you used began with an “L” . . .’ Alex would say. ‘Lisa? Leah? No, Laura, wasn’t it? Yes, that’s right. Could you pass the wine please, Laura. Ha ha!’

  And we’d all fall about.

  Twenty years in the past, I sat alone in my bedroom and told myself everything would work out fine. Then I read Alex’s message again, pressed the reply button and typed:

  It was so lovely to see you too. And to meet your dad. Tell him thanks again for the scarf. I’d love to come to your party and meet your friends. Let’s speak v. soon.

  Love Laura xxxx

  Before I went to bed, I texted Katie: Laura
nt dead. Wl xplain. Sorry xx

  I waited for about ten minutes, hoping we might chat about it, but she didn’t reply. That wasn’t like her. I told myself she must have been asleep.

  Chapter 14

  When I next saw Jack, two days after the night of revelations, he turned up at my house, unexpectedly, with a present.

  ‘This is for you,’ he said, nervously, even before I’d fully opened the front door. He pushed a small package wrapped in shiny ‘Many Happy Returns’ paper into my hands and gave me a clumsy kiss. The wrapping was clearly second hand, a leftover from someone’s birthday, because I could see faded marks from old sticky tape on one side. ‘I’m sorry about the wrapping,’ he added, with an embarrassed grin. ‘I mean the balloons and stuff. I do know it’s not your birthday for months – I just couldn’t find any other paper.’

  ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘I mean, oh my God. I mean, thank you.’

  I was surprised, in a good way. Jack had never given me a present before or, to be more accurate, he had never given me any present you can’t find on the confectionary shelves in the newsagent (‘I was buying a Snickers bar and thought you might like a Twirl’ or ‘Here, I saved you my last Rolo’). Certainly not a gift-wrapped, ‘I’ve put some thought into this’ present. I wasn’t sure if he wanted me to open it in front of him, or save it for later. I squeezed it between my fingers and traced its outline in my palm, trying, inconspicuously, to work out what was it was, and whether I’d like it, so I could prepare my reaction. It had hard corners, like a box, and there was something inside that rattled.

  ‘Go on then, open it,’ he said, with anxious impatience.

  ‘Yay!’ I grinned. ‘I was hoping you’d say that. Hang on . . .’

  We were still standing in the hall, leaning against the radiator. I motioned towards the living room and he followed me inside. We both perched on the edge of the sofa, as I fumbled with the wrapping paper. He’d put so much sticky tape on that it took me ages to find an opening. When I did, the paper came away in strips, revealing a blue, lidded cardboard box. Lying inside was a silver bracelet covered in turquoise and pink sparkly stones, which were arranged in the shapes of flowers and stars.

  ‘Oh my God, thank you, Jack,’ I said. ‘It’s gorgeous.’

  It was lovely. OK, maybe it wasn’t the colours I’d have chosen for myself – I think gold looks better on me than silver, but boys don’t tend to know about colours and skin tones and undertones, do they? – but it was really pretty, nonetheless. Jack had obviously taken some notice of my taste, because it wasn’t too delicate, or too girly, but solid and chunky, with a sturdy clasp that made a satisfying clicking noise when you closed it. Kerlick. And opened it. Kerlick. And closed it again.

  Jack appeared relieved. His shoulders relaxed and he smiled. ‘I didn’t buy it for you just because you gave me the scarf,’ he said, which was silly, because I hadn’t thought of that explanation until he suggested it. ‘I was planning to get you it, anyway. I saw it and I thought you’d like it, and Ruth said you would. I wanted to give you something to show you how special you are to me.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thanks so much.’ I forced a smile. It’s not that I wasn’t happy, but I didn’t feel special, just confused and guilty. Jack put his arms around me and I felt grateful that when you hug someone you can’t see each other’s faces. ‘Thank you again,’ I said, my mouth pressed into his back . ‘I really do like it.’

  He kissed me and I allowed him to put the bracelet on my wrist. It glittered gorgeously under the spotlights, even though the stones clashed horribly with my brown and red school uniform. Mind you, pretty much everything clashes with that.

  ‘I like you a lot, Lily,’ Jack said. ‘I wanted you to know that.’

  ‘I like you a lot too, Jack.’

  Jack’s mission completed, he went home shortly afterwards and so I didn’t have the chance to ask him any of the questions that had been collecting in my head since he’d told me about his dad. I didn’t get the opportunity the following weekend either, and it didn’t seem right to talk about it on the phone, when we only ever had a few minutes, and there were always other people around.

  Two weeks went by and still Jack hadn’t mentioned his dad again. If I’d imagined that on the night he’d told me he had chosen to open a door and let me in to snoop around in his past, I was dead wrong. It turned out I was the kind of visitor you invite to wait in the porch but don’t allow to come into the actual house. By not asking all my questions that night – which would have been impossible, given that I hadn’t thought of them then – I’d unwittingly missed my chance to uncover any more details. Now the door was bolted shut. Whenever I tried to bring up his dad or his childhood, Jack would change the subject, just like before. Each time I pressed him, he’d tell me, sweetly, that he didn’t want to talk about it: I knew everything anyone needed to know and the matter should stay in the past where it belonged. He’d say things like, ‘It’s not who I am any more, Lily,’ or ‘It’s me and you, right now, that matter, not what happened five years ago.’ And although he never actually said he wished he hadn’t told me, I could see he was thinking it. If we were watching TV together and one of those ‘Stop child cruelty’ adverts came on, he’d shuffle around awkwardly, not looking me in the eye, while I’d cringe inwardly and pretend I hadn’t noticed. It was almost as uncomfortable as sitting through a movie sex scene with my parents.

  It eventually dawned on me that Jack hadn’t told me about his dad for my benefit at all, even if he’d made it seem that way. Whatever he said, he hadn’t done it to bring us closer, or because he thought I needed to know, or because it would help me to understand him. He’d done it to make himself feel better, like a bulimic throwing up when they’ve gorged on a secret stash of cakes and sweets. After he’d purged himself of his secret, he felt ashamed and wanted to pretend it hadn’t happened. I began to wonder if he’d given me the bracelet to buy my silence. When I put it on, it felt tight and restrictive, like one of those tags that criminals have to wear. Kerlick.

  The fitting of this bracelet means that you are now electronically tagged, Miss Lily Lawton, and if you ask any difficult or deeply personal questions an alarm will sound at the police station and you will be taken directly to jail. Do you understand?

  Katie said I should be satisfied that Jack been honest about his dad at last. ‘Drop it,’ she warned. ‘You know Jack’s big secret now, plus you know he really cares for you. Stop worrying about his waste of space dad. He doesn’t. And so what if he said Alex finished with him when it was the other way round? It’s not against the law. I don’t get what more you want from him. If you keep going on and on about it he’ll just get pissed off.’

  Part of me knew she was right, but I also knew she was still sore at me for not breaking off contact with Alex and fed up with the whole business. What she really wanted was for things to go back to the way they used to be, when it was just the two of us, fooling around and hanging out together. No boys, no complications. Sometimes, I felt I wanted that too. Life was undeniably simpler and a lot less stressful before I met Jack and Alex.

  But, try as I might, I couldn’t stop thinking about Jack’s dad. I suppose it was almost becoming an obsession, although I wouldn’t have admitted that. It was certainly weird; I’d never been particularly interested in anybody else’s parents. They don’t tend to be all that fascinating. Normal parents have three basic modes: tired, hassled or angry; and if you try to talk to them, they don’t listen properly. You have to tolerate them and be polite to them because they come as part of the package with your friends or boyfriends. And they can be useful for food and for lifts.

  Jack’s dad was different. He was one hundred per cent a bad man, and that made him intriguing. I’d never known anyone truly bad before. Sure, I’d met people who did bad things – playground bullies and people who lied and stole things from shops – and, let’s face it, I’m hardly Snow White – but I’d never knowingly met a wicked person
. I wanted to know what he looked like, whether he had an evil aura. Was he a big man? Did he have muscles and tattoos? What did his voice sound like? Was it gruff and deep? Could you tell he was cruel just by looking in his eyes? I also wondered if any of his badness could have leaked into Jack. Even if he hadn’t directly inherited it, they’d lived together for twelve years, which was more than long enough for some of it to have seeped in through his pores. Maybe he didn’t even realise it was there. People always tell me I’m like my dad, even though I can’t see it.

  I decided to see if I could find Jack’s dad on the internet. All I knew was that he was called Mr Mullins and that he was a teacher, so I put ‘Mr Mullins’ and ‘teacher’ into Google. It turned out there were tons of teachers called Mullins; perhaps, for some reason, it’s one of those names that influences what you do, even if you aren’t aware of it, like being called Mr Payne and becoming a dentist. I didn’t know his first name, so I couldn’t narrow my search that way, but I did know that Jack had lived in Milton Keynes. Was his dad still there? Had he taught at a local school? I searched again, this time adding ‘Milton Keynes’ to my keywords. Now there was only one result: a profile of a Mr David Mullins, ‘a headteacher with over twenty years experience in the profession’ – including in Milton Keynes – from a school in Luton. Was he Jack’s dad? Above it was a small, black and white photograph showing a balding man in glasses, with a warm smile. There was something familiar about his expression, the slight lopsidedness of his grin, that made me certain I’d found my man. I stared at the picture for a few minutes, trying to glean something from it. But the man’s face didn’t tell me anything; it certainly didn’t radiate evil and it wasn’t the face of a monster. His eyes didn’t follow me around the room and his teeth didn’t transform into dagger-sharp fangs. He looked average, normal, dull, like the next old guy in a suit. He could have been anyone.