Your Closest Friend

by Karen Perry

  ‘Alright,’ he says on an exhalation.

  ‘Why is Olivia home, anyway? I thought she had some internship lined up at the university before term starts?’

  ‘I don’t know. Some mess with a boyfriend.’ There is a note of mild exasperation parcelled in his tone. It touches upon the soft bewilderment so frequently inspired by his beloved but wilful daughter, the flurry of dramas that tend to kick up around her.

  ‘Is she staying?’

  ‘Just until Monday, I think. We’ll need to think what to do about the rooms –’

  ‘Don’t worry about that,’ I say quickly, and then ask him when he’ll be home.

  ‘Tomorrow afternoon,’ he says brightly. ‘Tell Mabel I’ll be home in time for tea.’

  ‘I miss you,’ I tell him.

  He answers straight away, ‘I miss you too. This week – it’s been good at work and everything. But the evenings, the nights in the hotel, they really drag.’

  ‘You should get out – see the city while you can,’ I tell him.

  ‘Yes, but … it’s not the same, being here without you.’ And in the instant that he says this, and for several moments after we say our goodbyes, I forget the fault lines running criss-cross through our marriage.

  Lunchtime comes, and Finn still hasn’t called. I try to limit the number of times I check my phone. News reports speak of an improvised bomb exploding on the Tube. There is footage of ambulances leaving the scene, police swarming the area, the shocked faces of passers-by. I scan the newsreels for his name, his face, trying to quell the rising panic by rationalizing: his lifestyle meant he was rarely out of bed by nine o’clock, let alone dressed and on a Tube heading into the city. His work is patchy and freelance, he keeps his own hours. Still, I can’t help feeling the deepening nudge of anxiety – intuition telling me that something is wrong. I am longing for some kind of sign from him. Even a message from YCF would be welcome – any indication that he is alright.

  I have no appetite, but I force myself to leave the building and run to the nearest coffee shop for a sandwich. Is it just my imagination, or is there an edge of nerves in every face, the sway of fear taking over? Everywhere I look, there are TV screens showing the news, people craning their necks, looking for updates. Halfway through my sandwich, I scan the contacts on my phone for Gerry Higgins – one of Finn’s closest friends. I haven’t spoken to him in almost a decade, and when he hears my voice on the line, his surprise is evident.

  ‘I was just wondering if you’d heard from Finn?’ I ask, nerves jumping in my voice.

  ‘Um, no, not today,’ he answers, questions pinging in his tone. ‘The last time I spoke to him was a month ago. Is everything alright, Cara?’

  ‘Yes!’ I say, a little too eagerly. ‘It’s an old college reunion thing I’ve been told about. I’m just trying to get in touch with him, and there’s been no answer, so …’

  ‘Well, you know Finn. He hates that kind of thing.’

  ‘Right!’

  There is an excruciating moment of chit-chat, and I know Gerry is reading through the thin layer of my small talk to the real context of my call. The TV screen in the corner is showing footage of ambulances parked beneath the underpass outside Parsons Green station, shocked onlookers standing on the street. I hang up quickly.

  Back at Wogan House, I scan through the security barriers and jab the button to call the lift, and when it comes and the doors open, and I look into the gaping maw of the blank, innocuous space, a coldness comes over me like a douse of icy water.

  The doors to the empty lift stand open.

  I have been working so hard to push down the thoughts of that night in Shoreditch, to keep the memory of it at bay, but now, suddenly, I am staring not at the lift but at that cramped, windowless room. The smell of disinfectant invades my nostrils, I can see the dull sheen of plastic encasing the bottles of mineral water, the glare of the overhead light.

  The eyes of the security guard are on my back now, and there’s a prickling of sweat between my shoulder blades. The lift waits in front of me like a trap.

  Get in, you idiot.

  I take the stairs instead.

  It’s past four o’clock, and I’m usually out of the office by now, but I take the time to make one last call.

  ‘Hi, Cara,’ Amy says as soon as she picks up, and I read some nerves in her voice, some prescience about why I might be calling.

  ‘Is everything alright at home?’

  ‘Yeah. We’re just in the door.’

  Then I ask, ‘Is Olivia there?’

  A hesitation, before she says, ‘No. She went out.’ I can tell from the way she’s holding her breath, so different to her usual gushy optimism, that Jeff was right: something happened between them. But right now, I’ve got my own worries to deal with, my own problems to sort out.

  ‘Look, I don’t know what happened between you, but we’ll talk about it when I get home, okay?’

  She says, ‘Okay,’ in a very small voice, and then I tell her that I’m going to be late. That something’s come up at work. Her voice lifts a fraction as she tells me she’ll save some dinner for me, but there’s a deep note of unhappiness there.

  I carry something of that note with me as I head out into the afternoon. The streets seem unusually busy for this hour, as if the commuters have all decided to leave early, perhaps anticipating the disruption caused by the shut-down of part of the Underground network. There’s little chance of getting where I need to go by public transport, and to walk would take an hour and a half, so the first chance I get, I flag a taxi and climb in the back seat.

  The cabbie, when I give him the address, squints at me through the rear-view mirror.

  ‘Not sure about that,’ he says. ‘It’s murder down there. Traffic-wise even.’

  ‘Just see how close you can get,’ I tell him. ‘I can walk the last part.’

  He turns off Regent Street on to Conduit Street, telling me how large parts of Parsons Green have been cordoned off.

  ‘A complete no-go zone,’ he says.

  Blocks have been set up at all the airports and major transport hubs, trying to apprehend the terrorist.

  ‘Waterloo is a fucking nightmare, apparently.’

  Rosary beads dangle from the rear-view mirror. The traffic chokes the city streets and we make agonizingly slow progress; I feel the frustration building up inside me as I keep thumbing the screen of my phone for updates, desperate for a sign.

  By the time the taxi has reached the Kings Road, every way seems clogged with cars and trucks. I can’t sit still any longer, so I get out and walk.

  It’s been years since I walked through this part of London, once so familiar to me. I pass the Chelsea Theatre Company where Finn and I once spent an afternoon watching an experimental theatre production featuring sock puppets. Fairly sozzled at the time, the two of us had snorted and giggled our way through the performance, expecting at any moment to be asked to leave. Finn had started doing the quiz show by then, and was already experiencing the first flush of fame. When we walked into a venue, you’d see people doing a double-take, nudging their friends, eyes turning in our direction.

  It seemed like a boon when he landed the gig – a panellist on a popular quiz show on Channel 4, every Friday night. One of the scouts had spotted him at the Edinburgh Fringe, then later in the Comedy Club. The money was colossal – far more than either of us had ever dreamed of. By sheer fluke, I had landed a production job with GLR, and was pulling in my own wages, but these were eclipsed by the deal Finn signed. By the time he renegotiated his contract for the fourth season, he was able to buy the house on Elphiron Road – a four-bedroomed Victorian in the middle of the row. Our neighbours were bankers and lawyers and diplomats; a successful actress lived with her boyfriend and their child several doors down. The money seemed to be pouring in, and we went a little mad redecorating, installing a bar and a games room, a hot tub in the garden. It was Finn’s house, paid for with his money, but it felt like ours.
/>   It was not until after he bought the house that the cracks in our relationship properly developed. He was drinking heavily then. A few pints after the show would turn into a three-day bender followed by swift and debilitating remorse. He would just about have picked himself up when Friday night would swing round again and it would start all over. There were always people hanging around the house. One time I came home from my shift at GLR to find half the cast of EastEnders partying in our kitchen. The only time we seemed to be alone was when we went out – quiet Sunday pints in the White Horse, or cocktails at the Eelbrook, next to the Common.

  The show, which had once seemed such a godsend, eventually proved his undoing. Yes, it brought him fame and wealth, but he couldn’t seem to get over his disdain for the way he achieved it. Once, in a rare moment of truthful self-assessment, he told me it would have been different if he had achieved these things through some higher art – writing or painting perhaps – instead of grubbing it out making cheap cracks about celebrities for a booze-riddled Friday night audience. He could be contemptuous of his fans and even though onscreen he came across as wry and boyish, in private he became increasingly demanding, occasionally cruel. Money was an obsession, even though he was raking in more than either of us had ever dreamed of. Still, it wasn’t enough. He would bitch about how others earned more than he did, eventually quitting the show in a childish fit of scorn when he discovered one of the other panellists was commanding a higher fee. Rumour had it that he quit before he could be fired. The drinking was well out of hand at that point.

  I had left by then. It was a quiet enough parting in the end. No histrionics, no hurled accusations, no tearful pleading. I simply told him that there wasn’t a place for me in his life. Squeezed out by the booze, the crowds, the demands of the show, he hardly even noticed I was there any more. Some shadowy background figure emptying the ashtrays and taking out the bottles. I pitied him, I suppose – the self-loathing, the dips towards melancholy. But it was not enough to keep me there.

  I did love him, though. There was never any doubting that. Even after I left him, those feelings remained. And as I cross the Common, turning the corner on to Crondace Road, I remember the pain in my heart the day I left. All those feelings of anger and grief in a complicated knot alongside the deep burn of first love. And now, as I trace the route back towards that house I once called home, feelings with the same mix of complexity announce themselves: fear, anxiety, frustration, concern and the ever-present hum of love.

  The door has been repainted a glossy aubergine, but otherwise, the place is utterly familiar. I ring the doorbell, my heart pounding, and wait. I ring again and stand back, looking up at the bedroom windows for signs of life. The curtains to the living room are drawn shut against the dusky evening light. When there is still no answer, I reach up to the ledge above the electricity meter box, fingers feeling around for the key we used to keep hidden. I’m up on tiptoe, frantically rummaging there, when the door opens and Finn stares at me.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he asks.

  There’s a bewildered look about him, standing there in his bathrobe, his hair dripping. The bloodshot eyes, the downward cast of remorse in them, it all sweeps through me, so fucking obvious and yet I’ve been blindsided by it. Falling off the wagon, taking to the bottle, any communication with the outside world blocked out, knowing the guilt trip it will inevitably bring. I’m so angry and relieved at the same time that when I open my mouth to speak what tips out is not words but a gasp. Tears shudder through me, and I’m standing there, my whole body shaking with spasms, when I feel him grab me by the arm, pulling me inside. The hall door slams shut, the sound of it reverberating hard in my head as I press back against the wall, the muscles in my chest still jagged with emotion, and feel him leaning into me, the familiarity of his smell, of his mouth when it meets mine, his arms around my waist. And I realize, with a sense of inevitability or honesty, that I knew all along that one day I would be back here, being led up the stairs by this man in this house where nothing much has changed except for the silence.

  The rooms around us are empty now, the party long over, as he brings me into the bedroom, mercifully dark, the shutters pulled fast against the gloaming. Until now, my behaviour has been somewhat defensible – harmless flirting, a couple of meetings, no bodily contact, save the holding of hands. But now, I feel myself unfolding to his touch. When he peels my top off, unclasps my bra with well-practised ease, I do nothing to resist. I don’t hesitate or pause for even a second to marvel at or recoil from what we are doing. I feel, for the first time in so long, utterly present. Completely real. Desire pulses through my flesh and bones, it prickles along my nerve endings, traces routes over my scalp. When he enters me, a sound is emitted from my throat. Not the sharp intake of shock or excitement; this, rather, is the exhaled burst of surprised relief, the shuddering joy of finally – after so many years of waiting and longing, even though I didn’t know it – finally, coming home.

  10.

  Amy

  I put down the phone, my heartbeat cranked up to ninety, a blizzard of thoughts storming through my head. Had she been cool with me? She seemed cool with me. Something stiff about her words: ‘Look, I don’t know what happened between you, but we’ll talk about it when I get home, okay?’ What did she mean by that? Talk to me about it, like showing me the door? A little kick of panic at that, which makes me think of the Gibson upstairs. Should I just take it now? I’d done a little googling, reckoned I could get a couple of grand for it. I’d made a list of vintage guitar stores where I could try my luck, once the time comes when I have to leave.

  Fuck that stupid bitch, Olivia, I think, a stab of venom piercing my heart as I go back into the kitchen and try to arrange my thoughts. Supercilious cow, staring down her long nose at me. Why the fuck did she have to walk in?

  I take out vegetables from a net bag, slamming carrots down on the counter – bam! Followed by onions and peppers – bam! bam! I have no earthly idea what she said to Cara, but it can’t be good. The kitchen is so hot, sweat rolling off me. I open the window and then pull off my sweater, and as it comes over my head, I have a sudden flash of me in that gaping dress, giddy as a schoolgirl drunk on rum, nipples flashing, and that bitch silently gawking in the doorway. Bile comes up the back of my throat, and I steady myself at the chopping board, the handle of the knife anchoring me to the present.

  ‘I want something to eat,’ Mabel announces.

  I haven’t noticed her drifting into the kitchen, and now I look down at her by my side, hair in lopsided bunches, a cross expression on her face.

  ‘Dinner will be ready soon,’ I say, taking an onion and slicing off the hairy nub of the end.

  ‘I need something now.’

  ‘You can wait,’ I tell her, keeping my voice low as I peel the bulb and chop it up small.

  If Cara tells me to leave, what should I do? Beg her to let me stay? Tell her that I’m sorry – cry, even?

  I put the gas on under the pan, slide a knob of butter in to melt.

  Or should I haul her secret out for her to see, take the pin out of that grenade and wave that baby in her face? Don’t make me do it, I’ll tell her.

  ‘But I’m hungry now!’ Mabel whines.

  ‘I said to wait.’

  Part of me thrills at the prospect of pushing Cara that far. It’s been sitting there between us from the get-go, this little parcel stuffed under the table that nobody mentions, but we can all hear it ticking away. How fucking good it will feel to release it. Cathartic. Cleansing.

  ‘But I’ve a pain in my tummy from waiting.’

  ‘Then go to the toilet. Jesus.’

  With two hands, I scoop up the chopped onion and dump it in the pan. The butter sizzles and spits, the air filling with the smell of it.

  But if she calls my bluff, what then? I’ll have to leave, and there won’t ever be a chance for us. Where would I even go? Back to Sean’s? The prospect fills me with sudden revulsion. All those stup
id guys and those dumb-ass girls, uppity as hell, looking at me like I’m some kind of freak.

  The thought of it sends my attention back to the hob, stabbing at the frying onions with a spatula, shaking the pan so it rattles over the iron grid.

  But the hollow realization pooling out like cold water over the floor of my gut is that there is nowhere else. Nowhere in this whole city for me to go.

  ‘Amy, please –’

  ‘Goddammit!’

  With lightning speed, I whirl around and fling the spatula across the room in a spray of fat and onions.

  I bend down to her now, and say the words loud and slow into her face. ‘What the fuck? Didn’t I just tell you to wait?’

  The fury is zipping through me, fed by that phone call. That stupid bitch, Olivia!

  Mabel’s hands aren’t pulling at me any more. They’re drawn away to her sides and she’s tucked her chin in a bit, but beyond the shock at my outburst, I can see mutiny forming.

  ‘Daddy always makes me a snack when he’s cooking!’ she shouts.

  I grip her tightly by the arm and haul her towards her bedroom so fast I’m almost lifting her off the ground, snarling, ‘I couldn’t give a fuck what your daddy does.’

  Her chin is tucked even further in and her chest is puffed up, her face reddening, like she’s holding in her breath, and when I let go of her arm and shove her towards her bed, it bursts out of her in a hot explosion of snot and tears.

  ‘I’m telling my mummy on you!’ she yells.

  ‘Knock yourself out,’ I tell her, slamming the door behind me.

  Back in the kitchen, the onions have burnt, the acrid smell surfing the air. The pan hisses angrily when I plunge it into the sink. I’m shaking from the encounter, that sudden burst of rage. She’s just a little kid but she shouldn’t have pushed me. I go to the drinks press, take down the vodka. I tumble ice into a glass and slop the vodka in, the ice knocking against my front teeth as I tip it back.

  She had a play date after nursery with this spoiled brat she’s friends with – Leslie – who lives in this goddamned mansion over in Kensington. Mabel’s always dissatisfied after going there, in the way little kids get even when they’re too young to really understand what envy is.