The Girlfriend

by Sarah Naughton

  She’ll be at Abe’s bedside by now, gazing into his gray face, clutching his flaccid hand, her lips moving in silent prayer.

  How could he do it to her?

  Was it simple cowardice? Easier just to let her believe that they had the perfect romance than admit that he was not only unfaithful, but also bisexual? That wouldn’t really fit into Jody’s dreamscape. If she’d found out, it would have been such a horrible shock. Enough to make her do something entirely irrational and out of character? Something violent? Jody? It seems so outlandish.

  I can see her with a knife, wild-haired and crazy-eyed, slashing with anguished abandon at the murderer of her dream, but pushing someone over a banister? That feels like a man’s doing.

  I recounted to Daniel Jody’s story of her and Abe’s first kiss, hamming up the scene of Abe stripped to the waist, beating down the flames with his sodden shirt while Jody swoons by the sink.

  He said, “Then did he sweep her off on his Arab stallion to his yacht in the Caribbean?”

  I laughed. “What do you mean?”

  “Well, it’s a bit Harlequin, isn’t it?”

  At the time, I’d been more interested in teasing him about his knowledge of pulp romance plots, but now…I don’t know. Is it all a bit too perfect? Is Jody making things up to make her relationship look rosier? If so, is she hiding more about herself? Is there actually a violent psychopath hiding behind the mask of pathetic little victim? Am I that bad a judge of character?

  Christ. How much longer do I have to wait in this dump?

  One guy’s hogging a computer while he gabbles on his cell phone in some obscure guttural language, Latvian or Ukrainian or something. I feel like going up to him and tearing the phone out of his hand. I close my eyes and breathe deeply, while manic Latvian laughter ricochets around the café. I’m in the throes of that post-sex low when all I want to do is call Daniel and ask him back for more. That’s the last thing I should do, of course. I already said he could call me, but I’ll just send him straight to voicemail. I certainly don’t want to be embroiled in a relationship with a man who has kids and an ex-wife.

  Finally, the Latvian logs out, and I print out the messages and leave.

  Returning to the flat is a battle against the relentless wind. It tugs at my clothes, roars in my ears and up my nose, as if it’s trying to get inside me. By the time I get to Gordon Terrace, I feel like I’ve run a marathon, but as I turn toward St. Jerome’s, it starts buffeting my back, thrusting me forward, making me stumble over the ridges on the path. They look like tree roots pushing up through the pavement, but there isn’t a single tree as far as the eye can see.

  A woman is standing by the main doors. As I approach the building, I see she’s carrying what looks like a large basket wrapped in paper with a repeating pattern of teddy bears.

  “Sorry.” I move past her to open the door.

  “Oh, excuse me,” she says. Her middle-class accent is incongruous in these surroundings. From behind, she looked younger, but her face suggests she must be in her mid to late sixties. “Do you know Jody Currie, on the fourth floor? It’s just I have a parcel for her, but she doesn’t seem to be in.”

  “I can take it.”

  Then I catch sight of the label. To Jody, with all my love. Helen.

  So this is the aunt who was supposed to be Jody’s guardian but kicked her out to grow up in a foster home, now trying to buy off her own conscience with what smells like a hamper full of bath bombs.

  Without catching her eye, I hold out my arms to take the package.

  “Actually,” she says, “perhaps I could pop up? Maybe she hasn’t heard the buzzer.”

  “I saw her go out,” I say coldly.

  When she doesn’t hand over the present, I look up. Her eyes are hazel and heavily ringed with brown. She’s breathing heavily, the silver locket on her bony chest bouncing the light as it rises and falls.

  “She’s told you, hasn’t she?” she says.

  I make my expression blank. “I’ll make sure she gets the parcel.”

  “Well, it isn’t true. None of it. You should know you can’t believe a word she says.”

  She is lying.

  I glance down at the label again. It’s in slanting block capitals where the notes were in a more looping lower case. But even if she was disguising her handwriting, I can’t imagine what motive she would have to leave me them.

  “What do you mean?”

  “All the fairy tales about her past, her family. My son. The rape.”

  I stare at her. The rape?

  “No smoke without fire, they say, don’t they?” Her eyes are a mass of tiny thread veins. “He could never get away from it. What she said he’d done, him and his friend. Their mates stuck by them, of course, but there are enough people who insist you always have to believe the victim. They never took into account her background. She was so damaged…”

  Her junkie son raped Jody, and now she’s accusing Jody of lying about it. Disgusted, I push past her and open the door.

  “Goodbye.”

  “We loved her,” she says.

  “Clearly not enough.”

  Her face twists in anguish. “But we had a responsibility toward our own flesh and blood, didn’t we? If it had been just us, we would have managed, but when she started lying about our son… Her accusations destroyed him.”

  “Sounds like he destroyed himself. It was nothing to do with her.”

  Helen’s hands are still clasped around the present, gradually turning blue in the cold. There’s a sudden snatch of wind, and the label twists and tears itself free to flap across the grass, but her eyes don’t leave my face.

  “What did she tell you?”

  Jody never mentioned this rape. Why should she? But still, I can’t quite bring myself to close the door.

  “You promised to look after her, to bring her up as your own, and then because your son became a drug addict, you decided you couldn’t cope and kicked her out. And these accusations…” I emphasize the words with contempt. “If it comes down to Jody’s word versus the word of a drug addict, I know who I’d trust. You had a responsibility to look after that girl. However difficult it was, you were her aunt. Her parents entrusted her to you.”

  I hold Helen’s gaze. I may not have been the best of sisters to Abe, but I’m here, aren’t I? I’m doing my duty. This woman abandoned hers.

  “But I’m not her aunt.” Helen’s bloodshot eyes are wide and bewildered. “I was her foster mother.”

  I stare at her for a moment, then I force the door closed.

  “Felix turned to drugs because of what she did!” Her voice is muffled by the glass. “She cried rape against our son and his friend, and it destroyed his life!”

  I push through the inner door, my chest tight.

  “She lies about everything. Everything.” Her voice is drowned by the wind. “She’s dangerous!”

  Inside the sanctuary of the stairwell, I stop and lean against the wall, breathing heavily. My head is spinning.

  Jody lied to me about Helen.

  The light through the stained glass is subdued, a dull-red wash darkening the concrete.

  What else has she lied about?

  I run back outside. Helen is hobbling along Gordon Terrace, hunched against the wind, the basket wobbling in her hands.

  Dodging the piles of dog shit and ridges of bursting pavement, I set off after her. I need her to tell me exactly what happened with this alleged rape. Did Jody make it all up, or are Helen’s maternal instincts blinding her to the unpalatable truth about her son, the rapist junkie?

  I step out onto Gordon Terrace, my sneakers slipping on a discarded chip bag—or maybe they’re Abe’s sneakers: I’ve started wearing his clothes without a second thought, as if they are my own.

  Helen is almost at the main street, but to get th
ere, she must run the gauntlet of a gang of youths in low-crotch jeans and pulled-up hoodies. They’ve separated into two lines on the sidewalk to let her through, but they are clearly saying something to her. Their laughter’s like the yapping of dogs. One of them reaches out for the parcel, and she yanks it away, breaking into an awkward trot, making them laugh all the harder.

  I think about calling out to her, but that will attract their attention.

  What’s the point anyway? I slump against a lamppost. Who’s to say Helen will tell me the truth any more than Jody? What was it Daniel said? There’s no such thing as truth, only what you can make someone believe. Helen will want me to believe Jody is guilty so her son can be innocent.

  She reaches the end of the terrace and turns onto the main street, the awkward parcel still clutched to her chest. The youths have noticed me, so I turn and head back to the church. But the idea of passing another evening in gloomy, wine-fogged solitude is pretty unappealing, so against my better judgment, I take out my phone to call Daniel.

  I sit, revolving slowly on the roundabout, as we talk for almost an hour. He had a good time with his boys. So good that when he describes how they cried as he dropped them off, his voice cracks.

  “They love you, Dan,” I say softly, cupping my hand over the receiver to protect it from the wind. “That’s why they’re upset. Isn’t it worth it to know that?”

  It’s not like me to issue words of comfort, but I’m desperate to keep him on the line.

  He sniffs. “Sage words from the mistress of the heart.”

  I guess he feels he has to lighten the tone or risk spooking me.

  “How was it with…your wife?” The pause is almost imperceptible.

  “Donna? She wants me to move back and give it another go.”

  To my utter surprise, my heart lurches, and it’s hard to catch my breath.

  “Mags?”

  “Sorry, I can’t hear you very well over the wind.”

  “Go inside then, you nutcase.”

  “I will.” I glance over at the church, becoming blacker and more forbidding by the moment. If I don’t go now, I may just chicken out and book into the hotel again. “In a minute. What did you say to her?” I keep my voice light.

  “What, you mean did I say, Sorry, I’m in love with someone else?” His tone is mocking.

  “Hey, look, I should really go. Good luck with everything. I hope it works out for you.”

  “Mags.”

  I hang up, feeling inexplicably wounded.

  The roundabout makes one more slow revolution, and I find myself face-to-face with the group of youths.

  “You got a joint, sexy?” says the tall one at the front.

  “No.” I stand.

  “Can I have a look?” He fingers the zipper of my bag.

  “Like hell you can.”

  “No need for that, bitch,” says one of the others. I glance back at the church, but the windows are all dark. On Gordon Terrace, the few functional streetlamps are flickering into life. The street is deserted.

  “Gimme the bag,” says the tall one conversationally.

  “No.” It’s hanging across my body. He will have to physically assault me to get it off. Unless he cuts the strap.

  He produces a knife. It has a shiny blue handle with a spider graphic. The blade has holes down the blunt edge and is jagged from halfway down the sharp side. I find myself wondering about the holes, then I realize. They’re like the ones in a cheese knife—to prevent them from sticking inside the thing you are trying to slice up.

  The tall one’s eyes are black and pitiless. “Gimme the bag.”

  “Or he’ll cut your tits off,” another adds.

  I have no choice. No one is coming to help me. I’m about to lift the strap over my head when from behind me comes the characteristic creak of the church door opening. The security light blares on.

  The boys’ attention is diverted. This is my chance. I glance back to see whether whoever has come out will retreat rapidly when they see what’s going on or whether they might hold the door open for me to flee into the block.

  To my surprise, it’s the old lady from flat 1. In the harsh light, her hair is the color of Fanta, molded around her head like a crash helmet. Even from here, I can see the splotches of rouge on her cheeks and the ragged slash of shakily applied lipstick. She’s holding up a tablet in a fluffy pink case, the camera trained at our little group.

  Over the wind, her voice is quavering but strong. “Can you see, Martin? Are you recording? There are five of them.” She describes them in turn. “Yes, I’ve already called the police. They’re only on the main street.”

  “She FaceTimin’ us, isn’t it?” one of the boys says.

  “Should teach that old bag a lesson,” another says. He takes a few steps in the direction of the church.

  The old woman doesn’t move. The pink fluff ripples in the wind, but her hair remains utterly still.

  A police siren wails in the distance.

  “Feds comin’, man.”

  The tall one flicks his chin contemptuously in the direction of the church. “Bitch lives here. She ain’t got no shit worth havin’,” he says, then he turns and starts walking back across the grass to the low fence.

  I have the satisfaction of seeing one of them trip over the fence. As he stumbles, his hoodie rides up, revealing an expanse of white underpants and the crack between his pale buttocks.

  I resist a jeering laugh—that might be pushing my luck—and set off quickly in the opposite direction.

  The old woman holds the door open for me, and we hurry into the foyer, making sure it’s shut firmly before passing through to the stairwell, where we pause, panting.

  She extends a hand. “Lula Lyons. Pleased to meet you.”

  “Mags Mackenzie.” Her hand is paper-dry, but the grip is firm. “I think my brother was your caregiver.”

  She nods, her milky eyes bright. “Do you know, the first time I saw you coming up that path, bumping your case over the bodies, your hair all tied back, I thought you were him. Gave me quite a turn.” She shakes her head. “He was such a pretty boy.”

  “Thanks,” I say, nodding at the tablet hanging slackly from her grasp, “for what you did. And please thank the person you were talking to as well for recording them.”

  “Martin?” She gives a wheezy laugh. “Martin Scorsese was my cat. Died last year. And this bloody machine”—she waggles it contemptuously—“hasn’t worked for weeks. Your brother always sorted out my technology. Taught me how to FaceTime my friend in Catford. Not that we really want to see one another’s faces these days. Come in and I’ll give you something to settle your nerves.”

  She moves haltingly, as if in pain, but her clothes are that of a woman sixty years her junior: a gold lamé top with sequined sleeves, a fitted black skirt with a thigh slit, royal-blue fishnet tights, and a pair of crocodile skin, kitten-heeled ankle boots. I smile as I follow her in, then make my face serious again as she turns and asks me to sit down.

  Her flat must have the same dimensions as Abe’s, but you’d never know. The place is decked out like a Persian bazaar. Silk throws billow from the ceiling, studded here and there with silver lanterns, and what I took to be net curtains at the window are actually pieces of antique lace. The floor is layered with what look like flying carpets at rest. The sofa’s a huge mahogany thing, piled with cushions and a slightly chilling rag doll with green paste jewels for eyes. I sit down in the opposite corner to the doll as Lula hobbles to the kitchen behind me. Again, it’s similar in layout to Abe’s, but instead of cabinets, there are rows of open shelves heaving with bric-a-brac: old tins and bottles, jars of multicolored beans, copper pans, stacks of old pudding basins, flowery jugs of utensils.

  “Whisky? Or brandy? I think I’ve got some schnapps here somewhere.”

  “Christ,
yes, please. Whisky.”

  On a mother-of-pearl-inlaid table beside me is a lamp draped with a fringed shawl. It casts an ethereal glow over the photograph next to it—a large version of the one in Abe’s file. It looks like a film studio shot from the forties or fifties. The eyes of the woman in the picture are emerald green, like the doll’s.

  “Are you an actress?” I say.

  “Was,” she snorts. “Last job I did was a corpse on Casualty. But now I’m too old even for that!” She gives a wheezy laugh.

  With her gnarled fingers, she fills two greasy tumblers to the brim and brings them over, then sits down on the club chair opposite with a grunt of effort. Cataracts have turned her green eyes milky opaque.

  “What did you mean when you said you saw me bumping my case over the bodies?”

  She sips her whisky. I notice her lips pull up at each side, Joker style, perhaps from a primitive attempt at a facelift.

  “This is a church,” she says. “So, where’s the graveyard?”

  “I assume they moved it.”

  “They moved the headstones but left the bodies. Over the years, they’ve been gradually coming to the surface. Sometimes, the dogs dig up a bone.”

  I grimace, thinking of what I have been walking over every day, and she laughs again. With the draperies muffling all sound, it seems eerily close to my ear.

  “Isn’t there anyone you want to call? It can really shake you up, that sort of thing.”

  There is. I want to speak to Daniel so badly, my chest aches, but that’s precisely the reason I can’t. Relying on someone else as an emotional crutch means I’ll just end up like Jody.

  “If you don’t mind my just sitting here for a bit, I’ll be fine.”

  “Not at all, lovely. It’s nice to have a visitor. Especially one who reminds me so much of my beautiful boy.” She sips her drink, leaving a scarlet semicircle on the glass.

  “Did you see Abe often?”

  She sighs. “Every Monday evening, he’d come down and have supper with me. Meatballs, or smoked haddock with mashed potatoes, and liquor, half a bottle of whisky and sherry for after. Lovely. I miss him.”