Whistle in the Dark

by Emma Healey

  Meg leaned against the stepladder and looked into Jen’s face.

  ‘They’re for Lana, aren’t they? Bloody hell. I never got given condoms when I was a teenager.’

  ‘No, they’re not exactly for Lana. I mean, unless she needs them. In which case, safe sex, you know, is very important.’ She was aware of the obvious message in her voice and imagined Lana rolling her eyes. ‘Did you need condoms as a teenager?’ Jen asked Meg.

  ‘I might have done.’

  Jen tried to stop her eyebrows from rising, but it was a struggle. ‘So there were boys, then?’

  ‘Mum, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Well, darling, if you won’t tell me, how can I know?’

  ‘Condoms aren’t just for cocks, Mother, okay?’

  ‘I’m aware of that,’ Jen said.

  In fact, she had been thinking about this for days. Lana had insisted she hadn’t had sex, so Jen had been looking up alternative uses, reading articles on survivalist websites. It turned out condoms could act as makeshift water bottles, could be stuffed with moss for pillows, could be made into slingshots for hunting, could be used to stop your matches getting wet, to stop lots of things getting wet.

  Experiment

  What you’ll need:

  One pair of walking boots (still muddy from your recent holiday in the Peak District)

  One pair of thick woollen walking socks

  One pair of shorts

  A bath filled ankle-deep with cold water

  Two condoms

  Time on your own (without a daughter or husband to disturb/discover you)

  What to do:

  Change into the shorts (don’t look in a mirror, this is not about how lumpen your thighs are). Put on the socks and walking boots and try standing in the bath. Make a note of how wet/cold your feet get.

  Take off the boots and socks and see if it is possible to get them or your feet dry without the aid of a towel/hair dryer/radiator. Wring the socks out, squeeze the padded parts of the boots, shake your feet.

  Now repeat the experiment, but before pulling on the damp socks and boots, encase each foot in a Durex Thin Feel condom. Note how your feet feel inside the condoms, both in and out of the water. (Try not to see your feet as two joints of vacuum-packed meat. Try not to think how long you’d have to stew those joints before they were edible. Try to focus on the task at hand.)

  Once you have the socks and boots on again, walk about in the bath as much as you can.

  Take off the boots. Take off the socks. Take off the condoms. Notice what marks the tops of the condoms leave on the skin around your ankles.

  Questions to ask:

  How wet/cold were your feet when you didn’t have the condoms on?

  Were your feet warmer/dryer when you did have the condoms on? Despite the socks being wet?

  When you took the condoms off, how dry were your feet underneath?

  Did the condoms successfully stop your feet from getting/remaining wet/cold?

  Was it easy to walk about with a slippery latex layer between your feet and your socks? Was it pleasant? Were any blisters soothed by the material?

  Did the condoms break when you pulled them off?

  Could the marks that the tops of the condoms left on your skin be mistaken for ligature marks (especially by an anxious parent)?

  Come on

  ‘So you think Lana used them as makeshift blister socks?’ Hugh said. ‘This is a rather far-fetched excuse, if you’re trying to cover up sleeping with someone else.’ He’d spotted the discarded condoms in the bin and the open packet in the bathroom cabinet, while getting ready for bed.

  His tone was comfortable and Jen didn’t bother to reassure him. She spat her toothpaste into the sink instead.

  ‘It shows a certain amount of ingenuity, if you’re right, though. Not that we should be congratulating her, obviously. Have you asked Lana whether your guess has any basis in reality?’

  ‘No. I’m not sure if I could bear it if she said I was wrong. I’m not sure I can go back to imagining alternative explanations. And on the other hand, she might tell me I’m right because she doesn’t want to admit she had sex with someone, or someone had sex with her.’

  ‘Hmmm.’ He rinsed his toothbrush under the tap and turned the open box in his left hand. ‘I haven’t looked at a box of condoms for a long time. D’you remember the old packaging? Men and women hugging and smiling. They looked like they belonged on the covers of Mills and Boon novels.’

  Jen shook her head and wondered, as she put the mouthwash away, if he was remembering their first meeting. It had involved a packet of condoms.

  She had still been seeing the possibly-probably cheating boyfriend – the boyfriend who’d inspired the overnight drive – when she met Hugh. It was all a matter of chance and bad timing. A party in Oxford which Jen only went to because her boyfriend had left for a family wedding in Devon and hadn’t invited her. A late arrival because she’d misjudged the train schedule. A lonely, lengthy hour in the kitchen, trying not to monopolize and annoy the host (the one person she knew).

  On top of that, she’d been wearing a wide-sleeved blouse under a waistcoat, the sort of thing her London friends wore: not too girly, sometimes deliberately stained with a bit of oil paint or India ink, something to let people know you were an artist. But of course, everyone at the party had been dressed in proper party frocks with bows on the hip, or mini-skirts with military-style jackets. Not a paint-splash to be seen.

  She’d been wondering whether to slip away when Hugh introduced himself.

  ‘I’ve been, I hope reliably, informed that you’re the only other person here who is gainfully employed and so has to get the last train back to London. I propose we stick close so that neither of us forgets the time.’

  He’d had curly hair and a way of raising his eyebrows, as if asking her to laugh at the rest of the crowd (she found out later none of them were close friends).

  So rather than leave early, she had stayed on, until it was just the two of them walking to the station, and he had stopped at a corner shop while she waited outside, listening to the whoops of Thursday-evening partygoers and watching the purpling sky and feeling part of the night, of the fun. She had appreciated her own youth (something she rarely did), and felt suddenly that she, too, would be engaging in a few whoops in the not-too-distant future.

  And then, on the way home, as their train went through a tunnel and the lights briefly cut out, he’d put a packet of condoms on the table.

  ‘Is that a come-on?’ she’d asked, laughing.

  ‘Do you know,’ he’d said quietly. ‘It is.’

  Which had made her laugh more.

  ‘You said you had a boyfriend, but it’s always difficult to know how serious…or what that means.’

  ‘It means a man I live with who I’d never knowingly betray.’

  He’d nodded and slowly drawn his hands back, taking the packet with them, as if by performing this action smoothly he could erase the last few minutes.

  She hadn’t been able to help smiling.

  ‘Sorry,’ he’d said, when the box was safely out of view.

  She’d shrugged. ‘At least you were planning on practising safe sex.’

  They had both tried to look out of the window, but the train had stopped in the tunnel and it was dark outside and the glass had become a mirror, forcing them to gaze back into the near-empty carriage and narrowly miss eye contact over and over again. She’d raised the buffet-car beer to her mouth, the fizzing smell of it making her nauseous. The alcohol seemed necessary, though, so she’d taken a warm, painful gulp.

  Wanting to repair the easy friendship they’d developed over the last few hours, she’d tried to think of something to say.

  ‘If I wasn’t already with someone –’ she’d begun.

  ‘Yes,’ he’d said, cutting her off.

  ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry. You’re under no obligation. I’m not going to ask you to cover the cost of the p
rophylactics in recompense.’

  Relieved at his return to conversation, she had tried to carry it further into safer territory. ‘What’s the most you’ve ever spent on a date?’ she’d asked.

  ‘What a very sexist question. Why not ask what is the most a date has ever spent on me?’

  She’d laughed. ‘Because you wouldn’t necessarily know that, would you? The most I’ve ever spent was…well, my boyfriend made me buy him dinner in a fancy French place in Soho when we were first going out. I didn’t realize I was paying till the last minute.’

  ‘Charming.’

  ‘But it was half worth it. We were just starting on crèmes brûlées when Sophia Loren walked in.’

  ‘Ooh, and is she a massive hero of yours? Did you go all starry-eyed?’

  She’d kicked him under the table. ‘No, but it’s nice to be able to say I’ve eaten at the same restaurant, at the same time, just a few tables away.’

  ‘You could have said that without having to buy an expensive dinner.’

  ‘I suppose,’ she’d said, rolling her eyes, ‘but I prefer not having to lie.’ She had been enjoying herself, pleased they’d got over any awkwardness, any hard feelings about her refusal. But it turned out they hadn’t left the subject that far behind.

  ‘So, when you get off this train, will he be meeting you?’

  ‘My boyfriend?’ she’d asked. ‘No, he’s at a wedding this weekend.’

  ‘I see.’

  And just like that they’d been back to spotting points of light through the black of the night, or she had been. He had settled further and further into his seat, sinking until his head was only just visible. Eyes closed, breath steady, he had promptly fallen asleep, fast asleep, relaxed enough to let his mouth drop open. She’d tried not to look – it had seemed rude to take advantage when he was vulnerable like that – but soon she was narrowing her eyes in the direction of his nostrils (downy), the underside of his top row of teeth (unstained, as he wasn’t a smoker) and his eyelids (paler than the rest of his skin, almost blue).

  Feeling guilty, she’d drunk more of the unpleasant beer, raised the pages of her book and tried to read, but had found it hard to concentrate and instead stole glances at the unguarded face. He’d begun to snore. To distract herself, she had looked directly at her own face, studied her own nostrils, teeth and eyes, run a hand through her hair and wondered what it was he’d seen in her that had made him stop for condoms on the walk to the station (she knew now why he’d stopped).

  The monochrome of the window’s reflection was flattering and she liked herself in it, admired herself even, her dark, messy hair, her dark, liner-smudged eyes, her dark, red-wine-stained lips. She’d been drunkenly tracing her lips with her tongue when Hugh had woken, finally, with a start and blinked up at her.

  ‘You look like a disembodied head,’ she’d said, teasing him before he could tease her. ‘On a plate.’

  He had laughed and wormed his way up the seat. ‘Like Holofernes?’ he’d said. ‘That would make you Judith, wouldn’t it? My seductress, my slayer.’

  She’d smiled and gone back to her book, pushing her beer can away, aware that he had taken it up to drink from. It was a shame, she had thought, because they were getting to be great friends, but she wouldn’t be able to see him again. Except, of course, she had.

  Corporeal friends

  ‘Friendship is complicated, isn’t it?’ Maya said, putting the basket down on the kitchen table.

  Jen agreed and poured hot water over Earl Grey tea bags and wondered what made people stay in touch, what made them feel close, why some people were with you for life while others drifted away. She felt she’d missed out on some of the best potential friendships just because of geography or scheduling, because someone had moved or because their working hours weren’t compatible with hers. This seemed unfair, shallow, that the meeting of minds should be hampered by material concerns.

  Once upon a time she’d thought she might be close friends with Maya but, despite physical proximity and similar timetables and children in the same class at school, they’d never properly clicked. It had been easy to drift apart when their daughters stopped being close friends. So Jen had been surprised to find her at the front door with a pretty basket full of food.

  ‘Just some apricots and cherries, some dates. And then a few other goodies. Biscuits and chocolate. I should have come round earlier. I thought you might need some cheering up.’

  Jen had invited Maya in, and the woman had looked around the kitchen in a way that made Jen glad she’d washed up all the pans and dusted the Japanese cups that morning. Maya was an oversized woman, tall and wide-hipped, with large hands and feet, and she wore crisp little bows or knitted flowers in her hair in a desperate attempt to seem dainty. She was also obsessively tidy, keeping her house and her person eerily neat. Jen imagined that someone had once called Maya sloppy because of her size and she’d spent the rest of her life trying to shake off that label.

  ‘Teenage girls’ friendships are especially volatile,’ Maya said now. ‘One minute they’d do anything for each other, the next they’re clawing each other’s eyes out, and then they’re back to fierce devotion again.’

  ‘I suppose so.’ Jen opened the paper bag of dates and bit the flesh from the stone. It was delicious and melted like caramel. She could see the chocolate bars were the fancy kind, 85 per cent cocoa with cinnamon, chilli or Madagascan vanilla, and the biscuits were Dutch stroopwafels in a little beribboned bag.

  Maya sat down with her mug of tea. ‘And although Lana and Ash haven’t seen so much of each other since Ash moved up to the top set for science, she still considers Lana a person she owes loyalty to.’

  ‘Well, that’s nice.’ Jen was astonished. There had been a falling-out between Ash and Bethany last year and Lana had ended up in the middle, briefly hated by both girls. It had been a big source of tension, though that had been broken when Lana chose Bethany’s side and stopped seeing Ash.

  ‘And I know we haven’t had many chances to get together recently, but I would definitely count you as a friend.’

  ‘Me, too,’ Jen said, but slowly, aware somehow that she was walking into a trap.

  ‘So I was a bit surprised – more than that, disappointed – not to get a call from you.’

  Jen dropped the date stone into the compost caddy. ‘Maya, what are you talking about?’

  ‘Okay. Okay, Jen, I’m going to come clean. I’m not here just to drop this off.’ She drummed her fingers on the side of the basket. ‘I also wanted to talk about Ash staying with you last night.’

  ‘Ash? I think you must be mistaken. I haven’t seen her in ages.’

  ‘Jen, I need you to be honest here.’

  ‘Maya, I am being honest.’

  Maya pulled at her bow so it sat a little flatter on her head. ‘I’m not angry, just a bit bewildered, really. You see, there’s a sort of code, isn’t there, between mothers? I’d have called you if Lana had been staying with us. I’d have called to check. I’m sure you understand – you of all people, after everything you’ve been through with Lana.’

  ‘I do understand, but Maya, Ash hasn’t been here. Perhaps she told you she was staying here and she was actually with someone else.’

  ‘My daughter doesn’t lie to me. Don’t look at me like that. She doesn’t. She stayed here last night at Lana’s request.’

  ‘Lana’s request?’

  ‘Yes. Lana told Ash she didn’t want to be alone in the dark and that you won’t allow her to sleep with a light on. She wanted Ash to keep her company overnight.’

  ‘I do let Lana sleep with a light on.’

  ‘Ash is a kind girl and so she agreed to stay, but she forgot to tell me what she was doing. Her father and I were going out of our minds with worry. Kiran and I are going through a difficult time at the moment – actually, we’re about to start divorce proceedings – so our stress levels are already extremely high.’

  Jen felt a twinge of sympathy, knowing
what it was like to find your child has been out all night, but she couldn’t really concentrate on Maya’s problems. Lana had sneaked a friend into the house, she’d said she was afraid of the dark, she’d admitted this to a girl who’d been her enemy for a year rather than sleep alone.

  ‘The thing is,’ Maya was saying, ‘I was pleased, in a way, to find Lana and Ash spending time together. It’s been rocky between them for quite a while. I blame that Bethany. But, look, I don’t want Ash to stay overnight here, okay?’

  ‘Fine.’ Jen reached for another date, barely listening.

  ‘And I heard – Ash told me – that Lana still won’t say what happened, won’t say where she was when she was missing. So, well, we don’t know what she’s mixed up in, do we, or who she might be involved with?’

  Jen froze, her hand hovering over the bag of dates. ‘What are you trying to say? You think my daughter is a danger to your daughter?’

  ‘No, Jen, of course not. But I know Lana’s been having problems for a while. Ash said she came back to school before the term ended, but I know that doesn’t necessarily mean everything’s sorted. And now I find you don’t even know who’s in your house at night.’

  Jen picked up the basket and dumped it in Maya’s expansive lap. ‘I’ll pay you back for the dates I ate.’

  Maya put the basket back on the table. ‘Don’t be silly, Jen, this is a gift. Look, I think we’ve both got a bit overheated.’ She drew a breath in and the bow in her hair trembled. ‘I apologize, for my part. I’m rather frazzled. Ash didn’t come home till this afternoon and, well, neither did Kiran.’

  Suddenly, Maya was crying. She grabbed at her handbag and pulled out a tissue, which she held to her face, as if the tears were obscene.

  ‘Oh, Maya. I’m sorry you’re having a tough time.’

  ‘I don’t really want a divorce.’