by Camilla Way
We traipse down the narrow hallway, past the packed-out living room and into the kitchen, and I realize I feel very drunk, the rum I’d gulped on the way over combining queasily with the stuffy heat of the house. In the kitchen we find Vicky giggling at a group of boys who are downing shots of vodka, slamming each one on to the table and cheering each other on. Her smile freezes as we all pile in, and I see her exchange a glance with Alice, who stands uncertainly in the doorway behind us. In that moment they seem very young, their vodka-drinking friends like fresh-faced kids compared to Connor and his mates.
No one speaks until Connor, going over and slapping one of the boys on the back so hard he stumbles, says, ‘You got some of that for me have you, mate?’ before taking the bottle of vodka from his hands and carrying it away with him. The boy shrugs and ducks his head, his eyes flitting nervously to his friends. At that moment Rabbit opens the fridge and pulls out a four-pack of beer. I see Vicky open her mouth to say something, before glancing over at Alice and shutting it again. I watch the two of them, so uncertain and flustered for once, in fascination.
Edie tugs at my arm. ‘Come on,’ she says, ‘let’s go and dance.’
I follow her along the hallway, as more people arrive at the front door, surging into the house on a wave of cold air and raised voices. Edie takes my hand and pulls me after her into the crowded lounge full of people jumping around to the music that thumps from the speakers, the air thick with cigarette smoke. She picks up an almost-full bottle of wine from a bookshelf and, holding it aloft, grins then downs some of it and passes it to me before she fights her way into the throng.
I stand and watch her dance for a while and I’m filled with admiration. I could never move like that: I wouldn’t know how to begin. I clutch the wine bottle self-consciously, too hot in my coat that I don’t want to take off in case I lose Edie’s present, and I’m pushed this way and that as more people try to get past me and into the room. Eventually I stumble towards a sofa, sinking down into it gratefully, taking swig after swig of the wine for something to do. Time blurs and lurches past, song follows song and still Edie dances. I have begun to feel horribly drunk, my eyelids heavy, my head spinning, my belly slopping with nausea. Suddenly a very drunk boy sits down next to me and begins shouting something in my ear. I try to focus on his words but the music’s too loud and I feel as though I’m going to be sick. Stumbling to my feet I try to catch sight of Edie, but she’s vanished.
In the hallway I grab hold of the banister and begin to haul myself up the stairs, fighting my way past the people sitting or standing on almost every step, wanting only to find Edie, to make the horrible churning sickness stop. When at last I reach the bathroom and find it locked, I push at one of the bedroom doors instead, hoping for somewhere quiet to sit and clear my head. But the scene that greets me there makes me stop in confusion. Edie is sitting on the bed, her head bowed over the bedside table, Connor and Rabbit standing behind her, watching in silence. They look up sharply when I come in. ‘Edie?’ I say, in confusion. And then, taking a step nearer, I see the three thin lines of white powder. I watch in astonishment as Edie puts a rolled-up note to her nose and gives a long hard sniff before she straightens up and looks at me, eyes wide and bright, her face flushed. ‘Hiya, Heather,’ she says.
I can only stare at her, shock reverberating through me. ‘See you later, babe,’ she says to Connor, passing him the note and getting to her feet, before walking past me and out into the hall. After a stunned moment, I follow.
‘Edie!’ I hiss, grabbing hold of her arm. ‘Was that … are you … on drugs?!’ I gape at her incredulously.
She laughs. ‘Chill out, Heather. It’s only a bit of coke. Everybody does it.’ She shrugs and begins to make her way down the stairs, while I trail after her.
At the bottom I put my hand out to stop her. ‘Edie!’
But she pulls away, ‘Jesus, Heather, you’ve really got to lighten up. It’s a party, for Christ’s sake.’
I watch as she disappears into the lounge. I want to go home. Dazedly I wander into the kitchen, inching my way through the noisy crowd until I reach the sink. Amongst the dirty glasses filled with beer and cigarette butts I find an empty tumbler and fill it with cold water before gulping it back and holding the cool glass to my forehead. Dully I pull the gift-wrapped package from my pocket. The paper’s creased and tired-looking now. I hadn’t even had a chance to give it to her. Disappointment swells inside of me. It’s only then that I notice Vicky and Alice talking intensely to each other a few feet away.
‘What the hell am I going to do?’ Vicky is saying. ‘My parents are going to fucking kill me! The neighbours are going to call the police in a minute. I’ve asked people to leave but they won’t listen.’ Alice puts her arms round her as Vicky sinks against her shoulder. ‘This is a nightmare,’ she wails. ‘What am I going to do?’
Suddenly Alice looks up and sees me watching. ‘What the fuck do you want?’ she snaps.
Vicky turns, wiping away her tears. ‘Yeah, Heather. What are you even doing here, anyway?’
‘Edie invited me,’ I mumble.
Her face twists into a sneer. ‘Yeah, well I’m uninviting you, so why don’t you fuck off?’
I stare back at her, drunken exhaustion beginning to overwhelm me. And at that moment she looks down at my hand, still holding Edie’s gift-wrapped necklace. ‘Aaaah,’ she says mockingly. ‘Have you brought me a present? Look, Alice, Heather’s brought me a present!’ Before I have a chance to react she snatches it from my hand, and laughing now, says, ‘Come on then, let’s see!’
A dull anger rises in me. ‘Give it back,’ I say.
But people are starting to look and Vicky is enjoying the attention. ‘Nope!’
I make a lunge for it but stumble, knocking into the table.
‘Watch it,’ Vicky says, ‘fucking ’tard.’ Everybody’s staring now and there’s a smattering of laughter.
‘Give it back!’ I shout, diving for it again but she throws it to Alice, who catches it and holds it above her head, with a high peal of laughter. ‘Come and get it!’
The rage comes from nowhere, it engulfs me, emptying my mind of everything but the need to get Edie’s present back. With a lunge I grab hold of Alice’s wrist and prise her fingers away from the parcel. I don’t know what I’m doing or how much force I’m using until she screams. The room goes silent. She’s cradling her hand, her face a mask of shock. ‘Jesus, my finger!’ she shouts. ‘My fucking finger!’
I gape at her. ‘I … I didn’t …’
‘You’ve fucking broken it! What’s wrong with you?’ Her face has drained of colour.
Vicky, who has been staring at us both open-mouthed, jolts into action. ‘Right, you!’ she says, grabbing my arm. ‘Get the fuck out of my house!’
I stare dumbly back at Alice. ‘I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘I’m so sorry – I just, I didn’t …’
But Vicky is pulling me out of the room. ‘Get lost. Go on.’ She marches me down the hallway, her fingers digging into my arm before opening the door and shoving me out into the street, slamming the door behind me.
After
When I get back from the park I’m surprised to find that the flat’s empty. I stand in the hallway for a moment or two, listening to the silence. I’m so used to Heather’s constant presence that at first I can’t quite believe it, expecting at any moment to hear her familiar tread on the stairs. But when the minutes pass and still she doesn’t return, I sit down with Maya and give her a bottle, a pressure I’d barely been conscious of lifting instantly from my shoulders.
Maya watches me as she drinks, her small fingers wrapped around my wrist. I gaze down at her, taking in the mass of thick black hair that has grown into shiny curls, the enormous dark eyes – Heri’s eyes. I have so much time to make up, I feel as though I’ve wasted so many hours and days and weeks of her life, and now I can barely tear my eyes from her. In my darkest moments over the previous months what had scared me most was the thou
ght that Maya was somehow just a version of me, an extension of all that’s wrong with me. But I see now that she’s entirely herself, her own, separate person, and it’s this realization that has finally unlocked something in me.
Later, when the morning has seeped into afternoon and I’ve put Maya in her cot to nap and still Heather hasn’t returned, I watch the TV idly for a while until I find my thoughts turning to Uncle Geoff. Guilt gnaws at me: I had barely thought of him in the weeks since Heather turned him away, my head too full of my own misery and confusion to allow room for anything else. And yet, he had not made contact with me since either, and that strikes me suddenly as a little strange – no phone calls, no more visits or texts. It was not like him to take offence or sulk, so why hadn’t he been in touch?
I get to my feet and begin to search for my mobile. I look through every drawer and shelf, bag and pocket, but find nothing. Next, with increasing exasperation, I begin to rummage through Heather’s things. At last, wrapped in a jumper and shoved down to the bottom of one of her bags beneath her puzzle books and DVDs, I find it, switched off.
When I turn it back on I find countless missed calls and text after text from my uncle, sent over the previous six weeks: ‘Are you OK?’ and, ‘Look, love, I’m worried about you’, and, ‘Please drop me a line to tell me you’re all right.’ Some of them Heather had replied to. ‘Hi, I’m fine. Just busy, Edie.’ Or, ‘Sorry I missed your call, will be in touch, E.’ My jaw drops in shock.
Next I listen to my voicemail, my heart twisting when I hear the hurt in my uncle’s voice. ‘I know your friend said you don’t want visitors, but I’m worried about you. Everything OK, is it?’ He pauses before adding, ‘You know if you need help you can always count on me, don’t you, Edie love?’ And another, more recent, his voice guarded and tight: ‘Did you get my letter, love? Look, I won’t bother you again, but I just wanted to check that you …’ his voice trails off and he sighs resignedly. ‘Anyway. Be nice to have a chat.’ There’s another pause and then he puts the phone down. I feel his baffled hurt keenly.
What letter? My mind spins. Why didn’t Heather tell me? Why did she text him, pretending to be me? Anger flares inside me and I remember how, back in Fremton, she had lied and deceived me once before. How bloody dare she? Immediately I try Geoff’s number, but though it rings and rings, he doesn’t pick up. I pace around my flat. Where is Heather anyway? Monica’s words from this morning come back to me: I used to see her hanging around outside, at two, three in the morning …
I look at the boxes of Heather’s junk, her clothes hanging over the backs of chairs, the smell of fried onions suddenly thick in the air. I look down and find several strands of thick yellow hair clinging to my jumper and feel a little sick – no matter how many I pick off these days there always seems to be another. My head starts to ache and I feel my neck and shoulders tense. Glancing at Maya, sleeping soundly, I sigh and go to the bathroom and run myself a bath.
It was something I used to enjoy, before Maya, before Heather, having a long soak in the middle of the day when I didn’t have a shift at the restaurant. I turn the radio on and sink into the water, closing my eyes against the clouds of steam, letting my mind drift to the music, forcing Heather and my uncle from my mind for a while. Instead I think of Monica, of her smile as she’d teased me in the park today. Idly I daydream about getting to know her better, picturing myself asking her casually round for a coffee, knowing I probably never will. And then James’s face unexpectedly appears to me, his large warm eyes, the way he’d looked at me in the park, and I feel a gentle creep of heat. ‘Jesus,’ I say out loud, laughing at myself, before I lie back and submerge myself in the water.
It’s only fifteen minutes or so later when I leave the bathroom wrapped in a towel. I think about making myself a sandwich and as I pass the living room I glance in at Maya’s cot to check that she’s still sleeping. And then I stop in confusion. ‘Heather?’ I call. I go to the kitchen and, irrationally, the bathroom I’d only just left, but the flat, including Maya’s cot, is empty. A cold, sharp fear grips me. Hurriedly, panic beginning to course through me, I dress and leave the flat, running down the stairs to the ground floor two at a time. Out on the doorstep I look frantically to left and right but the street is deserted. I freeze in indecision before impulsively turning left, setting off at a run.
Calm down, I tell myself as I hurry along the street. After all, Heather has taken Maya countless times while I’ve barely noticed or cared where they were or when they’d be back. But what Monica had told me about Heather had frightened me – and why would she take Maya without saying anything? Why sneak around while I’m in the bath, quietly appearing from wherever she’d been to grab her and then vanish again? What the fuck was she playing at? A feeling of dread grows inside me and, running now, I retrace my steps towards the park.
When I find it empty I hurry back to the flat, hoping that Heather might have returned without me seeing her, but there’s no one there. The fridge ticks noisily in the silence. I sink into a chair, my heart pounding as I try to think of a rational explanation for where they could be. I feel Maya’s absence like a physical pain. They’ve gone for a walk, that’s all, I tell myself. They’ll be back any minute! And yet the nagging unease I’d felt since my conversation with Monica has sharpened into panic. What had I been thinking, letting Heather move in, entrusting Maya to her care? I think about the cuts on Heather’s arms, and that long awful summer before I left. A memory of a long-ago party returns to me. Hadn’t something happened between Heather and another girl there? Alison, Alice maybe – a broken finger or something? Heather had caused it. I can’t quite remember why. Probably too wasted, I think with a rush of self-hatred. Shame engulfs me. The fact was, I had been so desperate when Maya was born that I couldn’t have cared less who I’d allowed to help me – or what their motives might be. But surely Heather wouldn’t hurt Maya? My eyes fill with tears and at last I get to my feet, unable to wait a minute longer, and I run down the stairs to Monica’s flat and pound on her door.
A few seconds later I hear a hesitant male voice say, ‘Hello?’
‘It’s me,’ I say, ‘Edie, from upstairs,’ and tap my foot impatiently while the bolts are drawn and the locks unturned. When Billy finally opens the door he takes one look at me and calls for his mother.
‘Edie? What’s the matter? What’s happened?’ She pulls me into the kitchen.
‘It’s Heather,’ I tell her, trying to catch my breath. ‘She’s taken Maya and I don’t know where she’s gone.’
‘What do you mean, “taken”? How long have they been gone?’
‘I don’t know! Half an hour, maybe? Have you seen them?’
‘No,’ she says, shaking her head, and I groan in despair.
She shoots me a confused, searching look before leading me to a chair. ‘Well, they can’t have gone far, can they?’ She sits me down. ‘Why don’t I ask the boys to have a quick drive around on the bike and look for them?’ When I nod she gives me a reassuring smile. ‘They’ll find them, Edie. Maya will be fine.’
After she’s gone I try to pull myself together. I go to the sink and rinse my face and stand there for a while, forcing myself to take long, deep breaths. After a minute or two I hear the front door close and Monica returns. We sit together at the kitchen table.
‘What’s going on, Edie?’ Monica asks levelly. ‘I thought you and Heather were friends?’ She shakes her head. ‘Why this panic?’
And it’s then that, to both of our surprise, I begin to cry. Huge uncontrollable sobs that seem to come from nowhere shudder through me, and within seconds my face and hands are a mess of snot and tears. And now that I’ve started, I can’t seem to stop. I cry for myself, for how fucked up I’d been when I met Connor; I cry for Heather and what happened back then. And finally I cry for Maya, for how I’d done nothing but fail her since the moment she was born. Monica doesn’t say a word, but I feel her hand on my arm and I lean against her, sobbing on to her shoulder.<
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‘God. I’m so sorry,’ I say, when I’m able to speak. ‘I’m just so frightened.’ I take the handful of tissues she passes me and hide my face in them.
After a few moments Monica says gently, ‘They’ll find her, Edie. She won’t have gone far.’
I nod, and we sit in silence for a while, waiting for Billy and Ryan to return. I’m grateful when Monica asks no more questions. My phone lies on the table in front of me and I watch the minutes tick away. She gets up to make some coffee and we sit and drink and wait until at last I hear her sons’ key in the door and I spring from my seat. But Ryan and Billy are alone. They shake their heads. ‘No sign of them,’ says Ryan.
I pick up my phone. ‘I’m calling the police.’
But Monica restrains me with a hand on my arm and, after her sons have left the room again, asks calmly, ‘OK, but what are you going to tell them? Why do you think Heather’s taken her? As far as the police will be concerned, your flatmate has taken your little girl out for a walk – so what? They’ve hardly been gone an hour. They’ll ask you why you’re so worried.’ She pauses and says, ‘Why are you so worried, Edie?’
I stare at her, then at the mobile in my hand, and in a brief moment of madness it occurs to me that it would be a relief to tell her everything, right from the beginning. But of course I don’t. I only have to remember my mother’s face to know that I’ll never tell anyone again. Instead I put my head in my hands as a wave of hopelessness crashes over me. ‘I just want my baby back,’ I tell her.
The minutes drag interminably and with every passing one my fear deepens. Where is she? What has Heather done with her? I get up and pace around the room. I think about Heather, and I think about what happened that night at the quarry and my panic grows. What if she hurts Maya? Suddenly I can bear to wait no longer. I reach for my phone and, my hand shaking, begin to dial 999. It’s at that moment that I hear the door to the building slam closed. I take one look at Monica before rushing from her flat. There, in the hall, is Heather, with Maya in her arms.