Your Closest Friend

by Karen Perry

  Today, things are made easier by the temazepam I have taken. My first appointment with the dental hygienist preceded this meeting, and I followed Dr Nichol’s instructions and took the sedative in advance. I had been curious to learn the effects of it, envisaging myself riding the Tube to the surgery, half-dazed, my mouth slack and drooling. But in truth, I felt fully conscious, in control of myself. And yet there was a definite ease inside me, like a gentle lull in my thoughts, a warm feeling of untouchability. Like nothing could harm me.

  I suppose I carried some remnants of that into the bedroom with Finn. Those trailing feelings of calm. Happiness, even. But now, when he presses me to stay, and I hear the whine coming into his voice, a wariness starts inside me, the effects of the drug wearing off.

  ‘So? That leaves us tonight,’ he presses.

  ‘I can’t. Mabel needs me.’

  ‘Well, bring her over here! She can stay too. We’ll set her up in one of the spare rooms where my nephews sleep when they visit.’

  The notion strikes fear into my heart and I tug my wrist free of his grasp and sit up. I can feel my heartbeat quicken as I reach for my clothes. By raising the notion of introducing himself to Mabel, Finn has defiled something. I can’t explain it. Although I trick myself out of thinking about Jeff, the mention of her name touches upon a nerve that is too raw. I cannot contemplate bringing her here. It frightens me to think of it, because I know that any such meeting between my little girl and my lover would mean the breaking apart of my marriage. It would mean wrenching my little girl away from her father, and that is something I cannot countenance.

  ‘I have to go home.’

  ‘This is your home.’

  ‘No, it’s not.’

  I pull my T-shirt on, reach for my jeans.

  ‘It’s more your home than the place you live in,’ he continues, a dangerous edge coming into his voice. ‘The dead wife’s place. You said it yourself.’

  He’s making no effort to get out of bed, but he’s moved over to my side of the mattress, leaning in as I bend down to look for my shoes.

  ‘What kind of a man does that? Insists on living in his dead wife’s apartment? How could he do that to you? Doesn’t he know how weird and uncomfortable that makes you feel?’

  ‘I’ve already told you,’ I say quietly, keeping my voice level, even though something is rising in me now. ‘It’s because of Olivia. It’s been her home since she was born –’

  ‘But it’s not her home now, is it? She’s been at university for two years. Christ, even before that she was packed off to boarding school! That place ceased to be home for her since you moved in.’

  ‘Just leave it, Finn. Christ.’

  There’s anger in my voice that I don’t try to hide. Why is he doing this, saying these things? I thought it was understood between us that while we are here together, neither one of us can talk about the realities of our separate lives. What we share in this bedroom is an escape from the everyday. Why is he inviting it in, knowing how dangerous such a conversation might be?

  I’m fully dressed, ready to leave, but he pulls me down so that I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, his arm holding me there.

  ‘Face it, sweetheart. He’s stuck in the past.’

  I look down at him, read the need in his face. ‘Maybe he’s not the only one.’

  ‘I love you,’ he tells me, the words and the naked hope in his expression making him vulnerable.

  It’s been years since that expression has been used between us. My anger, having flared briefly, dies away. I lean down, cup his face with my hands, kiss him softly on the lips.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I say.

  A recalibration happens after I leave him. As I walk away from Elphiron Road towards Parsons Green, I spend those last minutes replaying our time together in my mind, shoring it up for when I must let it go, put it behind me, resume my normal life. This happens somewhere after West Brompton. By the time I’ve changed to the Overground, I’m feeling more like myself, returned to my usual persona. I am no longer a lover, an adulteress, a cheat. I am mother, wife, stepmother, successful radio producer. I am all of these things. I take out my phone and turn off flight mode, wait a few seconds before the barrage of emails and texts comes at me. I check my phone messages first – among them is a missed call from Jeff. He hasn’t left a voicemail. The knowledge of this leaves me curiously unmoved. No needling of guilt. Nothing. Perhaps it’s some vestige of the temazepam still coursing through my system. Or maybe it’s an indicator of how far I’ve drifted from him.

  I go through my emails next, taking out a notepad I always keep in my bag, and jotting down a To Do list: people I need to contact, messages I need to respond to, fires that will have to be put out and others that need igniting. The text messages I leave until last. There’re not many – one from my dad, another from the dentist reminding me of the date and time of my appointment. Finally, there’s one from my closest friend. Despite myself, I feel a little jolt of nerves, a pleasurable fritz of electricity going through me right to my groin. It’s been so long since I’ve received one of these messages, and I picture Finn still in bed, thinking about our afternoon together, reaching for his secret phone. I open up the text, savouring the transgressive moment of it a little before I re-enter normal life. My eyes pass over the words.

  Bad girl.

  That’s it. No signature. No kiss. Just those two words.

  I stare at them for a second then close the message. The sexual excitement drains away into disappointment, and something else. A feeling of unease. The message could be read as teasing, but there’s something bad-tempered about it. Sulky. When we were together in the years before, there were times when I glimpsed a nasty streak running through Finn, particularly when the show became an all-consuming part of his life and his fame began to grow. That success seemed to breed within him a needy child, selfish and petulant and occasionally cruel. If those around him did not respond to his demands with sufficient urgency, he would turn on them with lacerating scorn. Sometimes, he would hold back his anger and plot a more elaborate revenge. A lover of the practical joke, this also manifested itself in darker moments as nasty stunts, set-ups designed to humiliate, precursors to cutting that person off. I think of his neediness, his evident unhappiness at my refusal to stay and the dangerous edge when he spoke of Claire: ‘the dead wife’, as he called her. Bad girl. Was it an admonishment for my behaviour, and if so, then how dare he, knowing the risks I was taking just to be with him?

  Angry thoughts stir in my head like wasps as I leave the station and walk home. Evening has come on quickly, the sky already dark, orange street lamps illuminating a gentle mist that leaves my hair and skin feeling damp as I enter the building. I’ve deleted the text, buried my phone in my bag, and as I climb the stairs to my home, I resolve not to look at the damn thing until tomorrow morning.

  The apartment feels different, as soon as I walk in, busier, an air of quiet industry about it. I can hear the TV on in the sitting room, although the room looks empty. As I place my keys on the hall table, Mabel comes hurtling out of the kitchen towards me, flinging herself into my open arms, shouting, ‘Mummy!’

  Her joy tears at my heart, and I swing her around, and clasp her to my hip even though she’s five years old and almost too big for this kind of lifting.

  ‘Daddy’s home!’ she cries.

  Nerves in my chest kick out with fright. I’ve barely time to take this in, when Jeff appears from the kitchen behind her, and comes forward to kiss me.

  ‘You’re home,’ I say when he draws back, the blood rushing to my face.

  ‘I’m home,’ he echoes.

  ‘We weren’t expecting you until tomorrow.’

  I busy myself with putting Mabel down and walking with her into the kitchen, grateful for the distraction so I can compose myself. The thought crosses my mind that I need to shower. I’m terrified my body will give away the secrets of my afternoon.

  Olivia is sitting at the kitchen table,
dabbing purple polish on her fingernails. The whole room reeks of the chemical odour. She looks up briefly, but doesn’t reply when I greet her.

  ‘I had nothing major on, so I thought I’d come back early,’ Jeff says, giving me a quick assessing gaze. ‘You look shocked.’

  ‘Do I?’ I laugh, and put a hand to my cheek. My face is burning, my heart thumping all over the place. ‘What time did you get in?’

  ‘This morning, just after eleven. And I don’t have to be back in Berlin until Tuesday.’ He picks up a knife and resumes chopping an onion. ‘I called at the office, thinking I’d surprise you, but they told me you’d gone for the day.’

  ‘I had an appointment with the dental hygienist.’

  ‘I saw that on the calendar. But that can’t have taken all afternoon, surely?’

  ‘Depends on how dirty her mouth was,’ Olivia says softly, not looking up.

  The bitchiness of her comment barely grazes me, I’m so consumed with desperation, clutching around the recesses of my brain for a plausible alibi. I’m aware of sweat beading on my upper lip, nerves trembling in my stomach. But I’m also aware that Jeff has made no attempt, beyond a weary intake of breath, to admonish his daughter for her remark. Finished with the onion now, he pauses, knife in hand, awaiting my answer.

  ‘She was with me.’

  I turn around and see Amy in the hall. A paperback is in her hand, and there’s something reluctant about her, like she can’t decide where to go to read her book. Jeff looks past me towards her.

  ‘There was a service for Neil,’ she continues in her quiet voice. ‘The guy we were in the room with – the guy who got killed. His funeral mass was in Lewisham this afternoon. We both went.’

  ‘I see,’ Jeff says. His eyes glance back at me, caution in them. ‘Are you alright?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say brightly. ‘I’m fine.’

  I turn towards the stairs that lead to our bedroom, relieved at my reprieve. At the return, I pause to look back down. Jeff has started chopping peppers, Olivia is chatting about some play that’s on at the New Vic that she’s thinking of seeing. But my attention is drawn to Amy. She stands a little way off by the sink, wrapped in her own little bubble. She runs water into a glass, then turns to drink it, and I think perhaps she will glance up and see me, and I can flash her a quick smile of gratitude. But she doesn’t look, just keeps on standing there, taking sips from the glass, her face blank and unreadable.

  The following day, when I come home from work, Jeff is there with Mabel. He has made arrangements for us to go to dinner. There is no sign of Amy.

  ‘I told her she could have the day off,’ Jeff tells me. ‘No point in her hanging around if I’m here.’

  ‘But what about dinner? Won’t we need a babysitter?’

  He has it all arranged. Olivia is going to stay and do the honours. He tells me she’s quite content to spend a night in for once.

  I don’t question him about Olivia’s continued presence or when she might return to Oxford and her internship, trying to keep my uneasiness about the situation hidden. It’s not that difficult to do. There are so many things I’m hiding from him now – so many thoughts and feelings – that when we go out to dinner and spend a perfectly pleasant evening together, it feels like the front I present him with is only a representation of me, a cardboard cut-out, a reanimation of the person I used to be.

  Later, when we come home and I’m alone in the bathroom wiping off my make-up, I stare at myself in the mirror, pink-cheeked and tired-looking now the mask has dropped, and think to myself: Fraud.

  What the hell am I doing?

  On Saturday, Jeff and I take Mabel to Kensington Zoo. As we move from one enclosure to another, I note the russet tinge already starting to eat through the green of the ancient oaks and sycamores that punctuate the skyline. I am ready for autumn, longing for it, in fact, nourishing the naive belief that putting the heat-heavy summer behind me can make my future clearer, ease this trouble that’s been kicked alive inside.

  That afternoon, I take a long hot bath while listening to Radio 4 and afterwards, Olivia and Jeff make curry while Mabel and I cuddle up on the couch and watch Moana together, the occasional drift of conversation and laughter from the kitchen reaching me as I curl around my little girl. A mild, relaxing day, the only dent in it the latest text from my closest friend playing on my mind. At first, it had seemed a device to get my attention, a romantic ploy to win my affections. But now that we are deep into our affair, it seems to have changed its purpose. The tenor of Thursday’s message was a marked shift from the earlier notes of love and desire. This one, though brief, seemed mulish and pouty, the voice of a spoilt child brooding over not getting his way.

  Amy is gone for the whole weekend. There has been no opportunity to speak to her alone since her muted performance in the kitchen on Thursday evening, lying to Jeff, unprompted. My thoughts keep returning to that moment: Why did she lie for me? And how did she know I needed an alibi?

  As it happens, the first chance I get to speak to Amy about it is on Monday morning.

  I’m at work, in the editing suite, making a final cut of an interview we’d pre-recorded last week, when my phone rings.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ she says when I answer.

  There’s an intensity to her voice, an urgency. She knows, I think.

  I tell her that I’ll come home early. I’m thinking that we can take Mabel to the playground, and have a quiet word, just the two of us, while Mabel’s on the climbing-frame.

  But Amy cuts me off. ‘I’m downstairs,’ she says, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Can I come up?’

  I meet her at the lift, having overcome my recent fear of it, and walk her across the office, pointing out the various parts that might interest her – my desk space, the studio, the green room where the guests wait. I pass Heather in conversation with another producer and we say hello. I whisper to Amy afterwards, ‘Heather Foley. My boss.’

  In the editing suite, I ask Richard to give us a few minutes, and Amy sits down, looking around her with interested eyes at the consoles and decks, the computer monitors showing waving lines in staccato beats.

  ‘I’m afraid to touch anything,’ she says, laughing in a shy manner as I take a seat opposite. ‘How do you even know what any of this is for?’

  ‘I don’t – well, not all of it. This is the sound engineer’s domain.’

  ‘Oh.’ She looks down at her hands, an air of disappointment about her.

  ‘I wanted to talk to you over the weekend, Amy, but there wasn’t an opportunity.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I wanted to ask you … Why did you tell Jeff I went to the funeral with you?’

  She blinks, shrugs. She can’t seem to bring herself to look me in the eye.

  ‘I dunno. I just thought …’

  ‘Thought what?’

  ‘Thought I was helping you out.’

  ‘I don’t need you to lie for me, Amy –’

  ‘Don’t you?’ She looks up now, defiance in her voice that catches me off-guard.

  ‘Are you angry with me?’

  She shakes her head, looks down again.

  ‘Then what? You’re behaving like I’ve done something to offend you. If there’s something bothering you, something you’re not telling me –’

  ‘It’s Mabel,’ she blurts out.

  The name catches at my heart.

  ‘What about her?’ I ask.

  ‘I’m worried about her. She’s been acting strangely –’

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘I dunno. Quiet. Kind of … closed off, you know? Like there’s something troubling her but she won’t say what.’

  The editing suite is in the heart of the building – a windowless room that tends to be stifling and hot despite the air conditioning. The coldness that comes over me is unexpected.

  ‘At first, I thought she was just tired,’ Amy goes on. ‘Or maybe she was coming down with something. But she’s not sick. And then I realized. S
he’s frightened.’

  The word turns over inside me.

  ‘Frightened of what?’

  ‘I’ve tried to coax it out of her gently but she just clams up. When I pushed her on it, she got upset, said she couldn’t tell me. That it’s a secret.’

  All my fears come alive. Traces of every parent’s paranoia – that someone will secretly harm their child. A stranger. A family friend. The horror of molestation. All of it teems through me, as I splutter out questions: How long has this been going on? Was there anything specific that triggered her suspicions? Who might it be?

  Her answers are vague and non-committal, yet I get the sense that she is holding something back. That she is fearful of saying too much.

  ‘Please, Amy, just tell me what you think. I won’t tell anyone that it came from you. Just please …’

  She holds my gaze, and I read a wavering inside her.

  ‘When I got her dressed for school this morning,’ she begins, still reluctant, ‘I noticed there were bruises on her back. They were hidden beneath her vest. When I saw, she tried to hide them from me. When I asked her about them, she said she didn’t know how she got them.’ She hesitates, before adding quietly, ‘They looked like pinch marks. Bad ones.’

  I suck in my breath, try to quell the nausea inside. ‘Is it some kid in nursery, do you think? Another child that’s picking on her?’ In my mind, I’m thinking that some little brat picking on Mabel, whilst not a happy thought, would be far better than the horrors summoned by my initial fears.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she says firmly. ‘I don’t think a child did this. When I helped her change out of her uniform on Friday, there were no marks on her back. I’d have seen them. She didn’t see any of the kids from nursery over the weekend, and yet the marks were there this morning.’

  I’m baffled by this, my mind running over the past few days, recalling how Mabel has been with me. A little quiet, yes. Perhaps subdued. But I hadn’t observed anything in her behaviour to arouse suspicion. She had seemed relaxed and happy.