by Camilla Way
‘Yeah?’ She grins at me. ‘And how was James? Will you see him again?’
‘Maybe.’ I shrug. ‘He said something about going for a drink some time.’
‘Nice one!’ She nudges me in the ribs and despite myself I laugh.
We stand by the window and look out at the sea of lights in silence.
‘Wow,’ Monica says.
‘Yeah, you kind of forget what a shithole this place is when you look out at that.’
We turn and consider the poky, cluttered space, at Heather’s things still piled up in the hall. ‘It’s not so bad,’ she lies.
‘I suppose I’ll get it sorted one day.’ I turn to her and smile. ‘Thanks for looking after Maya tonight.’
She shrugs. ‘Nothing else to do – the boys were both out and I don’t like staying in on my own.’
I hesitate, before putting an awkward hand on her arm. ‘I mean it though,’ I say. ‘Thanks for being so good to me over the past few weeks.’
She smiles again and we stand there for a while, the two of us, up here in my tiny kitchen, looking out at the city far below.
Later, after Monica has gone home and Maya begins to stir, I take her to the sofa with me and idly watch the muted TV screen while she drinks her milk. I hold her to me, her head tucked neatly beneath my chin, her body warm against mine, and in the midnight peace I think about my mother. A memory comes to me from when I was six, the day my dad left home. I’m sobbing, holding on to his arm, begging him to stay as he packs his bags in angry silence. ‘Mum!’ I scream, turning to where she stands in the doorway, watching him with a pale pinched face. ‘Don’t make him go! Please don’t make him go.’ But she turns away into the kitchen and shuts the door behind her. A few minutes later my father leaves and I scream at the closed kitchen door with all the fury I can muster, ‘I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!’
But then another memory comes to me, a recollection of being held myself when I was very small in the same way I’m holding Maya now: the sensation of my face against my mother’s chest; the smell and warmth of her skin, the feeling of being wholly and completely safe. I look down at Maya. I didn’t know what love was all about, I think, until I had you.
I’m about to go to bed when I hear the noise outside my flat. I freeze in the passageway, straining my ears. There it is again. A creak on the stairs that lead directly to my door. Perhaps it’s Monica – maybe she’s forgotten something. I wait and a few moments later hear the sound again, but louder this time – footsteps retreating back down the stairs to the landing below. Fear prickles my scalp. Who on earth? One of the other tenants? I creep to my door and, after listening for a while longer, hesitantly open it and look out. Nothing. The stairwell is silent now. I step out on to the landing but no one’s there. Someone had been outside my door though. Hadn’t they? I suddenly notice that the door to the communal store cupboard on the floor below is slightly open. It’s a large space – big enough for my neighbour to keep his bike in. Big enough to hide in. I stare at it. Hadn’t it been closed when I’d passed earlier? I wait for a few moments more, before eventually going back inside my flat, and, feeling a little ridiculous, double-lock the door behind me.
Before
On Monday I stay off school, telling Mum I’m ill and resolving not to return till the end of the week. Each time I think about the party I’m gripped by cold horror. But though I’m thankful not to have to face anyone for a while, the empty hours and days seem to stretch out endlessly before me. At first I lie on the sofa in my pyjamas, watching my Friends videos and eating whatever I can sneak from the kitchen, deciding to get dressed as soon as Mum starts getting annoyed with me. But the strange thing is, she never does. In fact she barely seems to notice me as I lie amongst my empty wrappers and crumb-covered plates. ‘I have to go out now,’ she calls from the hallway as she’s halfway out the door each morning, and I wonder why she’s suddenly so busy, an unsettled sort of feeling rising in me, before I fast-forward to the next episode of Friends, and open another bag of crisps, and think about what Edie might be up to today.
And as the days pass, the more I think about Edie and about what happened that night, the more I think that perhaps I’d been wrong to be so cross with her. Maybe she hadn’t really wanted to take those drugs at all. Maybe Connor had made her do it. A picture pops into my head of him standing over her with a syringe in his hand as she cowers in fear, and my anger is replaced by anxiety. What a terrible friend I’d been! Instead of helping her I’d judged her and told her off. I should have been taking care of her! On impulse I turn off the telly and run to the hall phone, my heart beating fast as I dial her number. But it rings and rings and nobody picks up. I put down the phone, promising myself that I’ll try again later, that I won’t give up until I’ve made sure she’s OK.
But later that day, something happens to push Edie from my mind completely. I’m back on the sofa watching TV when Mum and Dad come into the room. I can tell straight away there’s something wrong. I sit up, hastily running a hand through my greasy hair, pushing a Mars Bar wrapper behind my back. ‘Hi,’ I say quickly, muting the telly. ‘Sorry, I was about to …’ But the strange way Mum’s looking at me stops me in my tracks. ‘What?’ I say. ‘What’s the matter?’
‘We need to talk, Heather,’ she says.
I look from her to Dad, who’s turned to the window and is staring out at the street. My heart thuds. ‘Why? What’s happened?’
She sits, and then, not quite meeting my gaze, clears her throat and says, ‘I’m leaving, Heather.’
Nobody says anything for a long time, the silence seems to buckle beneath the weight of her words, my shock so profound I feel myself begin to shake. I laugh, a strange, unnatural sound in the quiet. ‘What?’ I say. ‘What do you mean?’ Because if I pretend not to understand, perhaps it will prevent it from being true. She doesn’t answer at first and my eyes swim with tears.
She purses her mouth. ‘Your father and I have decided to separate,’ she says, in the matter-of-fact, slightly exasperated voice she might have used to tell me my room’s untidy. ‘I’m very sorry, Heather,’ she adds. For a while nobody speaks until at last something alters in her expression and we stare back at each other for a long moment before she says, softly, her voice catching, ‘It has all been too difficult, you see.’ And I feel myself nodding, because I know why this is happening, how this started, know exactly when our old life began to fray and unravel. I had caused this.
My father hasn’t moved from his position by the window, his shoulders held tight, rigid, his head very still. ‘But where will you go?’ I whisper.
‘I’ll be staying in Langley, with a friend.’
‘Who?’ I ask. ‘What friend?’ My mother doesn’t have any friends.
Dad makes a peculiar, strangled sort of sound from the other end of the room and I look at him in surprise.
‘Jonathan,’ she says. ‘Jonathan Pryce. From church.’
A mental snapshot of a man in a burgundy waterproof, glasses and a beard, who had dropped Mum home a few times after some fundraiser or other. I shake my head, ‘But … but …’ What? Was she … having an … was that where she’d been going when I saw her that time? To … him? The idea was utterly ridiculous. I watch her open-mouthed but she’s looking away now, her face resuming its usual primness.
She gets up and begins to collect the dishes and sweet wrappers from where they lie scattered around me on the sofa. Painful tears sting my eyes. What will we do when she’s no longer here? How will I cope? How will Dad cope? It’s impossible. ‘Mum,’ I say, ‘please don’t go.’
She pauses at the door, and I’m shocked to notice that the plates in her hands are trembling. She glances at me and then away. ‘I’ll be in touch. When I’m settled, you can come round. I’ll only be in Langley.’ Her eyes dart to Dad’s back as she says, ‘We thought it best not to disrupt your studies …’
‘But when are you going?’
‘Today. Now. I’m sorry, I’m very
sorry.’ And with that she leaves.
Dad turns and we regard each other wordlessly for a second or two. He opens his mouth as if to speak, but closes it again as though he’s thought better of it, before hurrying away too. On the TV, Ross and Rachel kiss for the first time in Central Perk. I love this bit; it’s one of my favourites. I turn the sound back on as the studio audience erupts into cheers and applause and I stare numbly at the screen until the end credits come up, the chirpy theme tune filling the stunned and empty room.
A week passes before I see Edie again. Seven days of Mum’s absence, of my father and I mostly keeping to our own corners of the house, silent and shell-shocked. Though I still haven’t returned to school I wait for Edie nearly every day as near to its gates as I dare, not wanting to risk running into Vicky or Alice. And finally I see her. The sight of her takes my breath away. She’s wearing a short purple dress beneath her coat, a green scarf wrapped around her neck. Her hair is a golden chestnut in the sun, the cold turning her lips and cheeks rosy red. The sight fills my heart, the awfulness of the last week melting away and it’s all I can do not to run to her.
She rolls her eyes when she sees me. ‘If you’re going to lecture me again, Heather, seriously you can—’
‘I’m not,’ I say hastily, jogging to keep in step with her long stride.
‘Good. Because I’m not in the mood.’
Bad temper crackles off her, and I wonder what has happened to make her so cross. She’s walking even faster now, as though she’s trying to lose me, and it hits me that she really doesn’t want to talk to me, she doesn’t want anything to do with me any more, because of what happened at Alice’s party. Everything’s ruined and it’s all my fault. When I burst into tears she glances back at me and stops.
‘Oh, Heather,’ she says wearily. ‘What on earth’s the matter?’
We have reached the high street and I sit down on a bench by the bus stop. She sighs and sits next to me, and I tell her about Mum.
‘You are kidding me?’ She shakes her head in disbelief. ‘Holy fuck. That’s nuts.’ She doesn’t say anything for a while, then takes out a cigarette and lighting it says thoughtfully, ‘Goes to show though, doesn’t it?’
I find a tissue in my pocket and blow my nose. ‘Show what?’
‘Well, you know, that you never can tell about people.’
I lean my head on her shoulder and she puts an arm around me, and we sit like that in silence for a while. At last she says, ‘What the hell did you do to Alice, by the way?’
I twist the tissue between my fingers. ‘It was an accident,’ I say.
‘Well she’s absolutely raging. She says the only reason she didn’t call the police on you is because she didn’t want her mum finding out about the party.’
‘Is it … is it broken, her finger?’
‘No, course not.’ And she looks at me as though she’s a little impressed. ‘It’s only sprained, but she’s got a splint on it and everything. To be honest, I didn’t know you had it in you.’
I look down at my feet and she nudges me in the arm. ‘Come on, let’s go and get a drink.’
The King’s Arms is almost empty when we arrive, apart from a very drunk old woman sitting by herself and a couple of lads playing pool. Cigarette smoke hangs in thick yellow banks and a country and western song plays from the only unbroken speaker. My stomach flutters apprehensively as we approach the bar, but when Edie asks confidently for two vodka and Cokes, the middle-aged barman serves us without a murmur. ‘You got any money?’ she asks me, when he’s put the drinks in front of us.
Once I’ve paid we take them over to a corner table and Edie lights a cigarette and smiles. I sip my drink and feel myself begin to relax for the first time since Mum left. It’s nice here, just the two of us. ‘Think my dad’s going a bit loopy,’ I tell her. ‘He hasn’t even wound his clocks all week. Hardly comes out of his study.’
She exhales a long stream of smoke. ‘Seriously, Heather, you’re best off out of it. Do your A-levels, get yourself to uni, you’ll be well away. Do you good, if you ask me.’
And that’s when I tell her my idea. I hadn’t planned to, it was my secret that I turned to whenever I felt sad, pulling it down from a high shelf in my mind to stare wonderingly at it, occasionally adding a little detail, honing it and polishing it until it shone. It feels right though, somehow, to tell Edie all about it now. I lean forward and say in a rush, ‘I’m going to apply to a London uni. Mum and Dad think I want to go to Edinburgh, but I don’t. That way when you go to Saint Martins we can see each other all the time. Maybe even be flatmates!’ Eagerly I wait for her response.
But she only smiles, a distant, grown-up sort of smile, and flicks away some ash. ‘Yeah, well, I don’t know if I’ll even bother with all that, to be honest.’
My mouth falls open in astonishment. ‘But … why? You’re so good. That’s all you ever wanted!’
She frowns at me as though I’m being a bit dim. ‘But I’m not going to leave Connor, am I? I mean, God, Heather, some people go their whole lives not finding love like this, you know? Never finding their soulmate? I know you don’t really understand yet, but you will one day. When you’ve found it you don’t just let it go.’ She takes a sip of her drink and sits back.
I stare at her in dismay.
‘Have you got any more money?’ she asks, and I nod dully, reaching into my bag for my purse. Dad had given me enough cash to do a weekly shop. I was supposed to go to Co-op and get a cab back with it all, but it didn’t seem that important any more.
She buys a round of drinks, and then another and then some more. I hand note after note to her until I’ve lost track of how much I’ve given her, and I don’t care. The strange thing is, I don’t even feel very drunk. It’s like the alcohol just sits in the pit of my belly, its effect not spreading to the rest of me, like I’m too numb to feel anything. I watch Edie as she talks, her eyes alight as she tells me how wonderful Connor is, how good looking, how clever, how sexy. It’s only when she’s on her sixth or seventh vodka – I’d started giving her mine to drink when I’d begun to feel sick – that something changes in her mood.
There’s a darkness in her eyes as she fixes them on my face and murmurs, her words slurring a bit, ‘I just wish … I don’t know. I wish I could make him happy, you know?’
‘What do you mean?’
She shakes her head and doesn’t answer at first. And when she finally speaks, her voice is very quiet. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes I feel like I could love him and love him for ever and it would never be enough. Like there’s this big hole right in the centre of him and nothing will ever fill it.’ She stares down at her drink. ‘When he gets in his moods, you know, his really bad ones, it’s like nothing I say is right and I don’t know what to do to make it better.’ She looks at me and I reach over and take her hand. ‘I don’t know why he has to be so cruel to me.’
‘Cruel?’
‘I do everything he asks, Heather, everything, but it’s never enough; never.’
I feel a ripple of unease. ‘What sort of things? What do you mean?’ Her eyes slide away, and she falls silent. ‘How is he cruel to you, Edie?’ I persist, my voice rising.
She begins to cry and I feel my heart might break. ‘Does he hurt you?’ Adrenalin pulses through me. She doesn’t reply and I hold her hand tightly and feel such an intense rush of anger and hatred for Connor that I think I could scream with it. How dare he be cruel to her? How could he? When she loves him so much, when she’s so lovely and kind? I pick up one of the glasses and knock back the drink in one gulp. My words come out in a rush. ‘You have to finish with him, Edie.’
The spell is broken. She jerks her head up and snorts as though I’ve understood nothing, as though I’m the most stupid person in the world. ‘Don’t be an idiot, Heather,’ she snaps. ‘I love him. Why would I finish with him? He’s all I have. Don’t you see that? I don’t have anything else.’
You have me! I say silently, and I think abo
ut the drugs he makes her take and how unhappy she is, how he makes her do things she won’t tell me about; awful, disgusting things, probably. How she’s not going to art college any more, and before I know what I’m saying, the words are out of my mouth. They’re out of my mouth and there’s no way of taking them back again. ‘You have to finish with him because he’s cheating on you,’ I blurt. ‘He doesn’t love you. He loves someone else.’
I don’t even know where it came from, the lie. I hadn’t known I was going to say it. When she doesn’t reply I look up and see the meaning of my words break across her face. Her mouth hangs open in astonishment and she’s gone very pale, but I notice with a tiny shock of revelation that despite her horror she isn’t entirely surprised – not completely.
‘What the fuck are you talking about?’
‘I …’
‘What do you mean?’ she demands again. ‘Why would you say that? You’re lying, aren’t you?’
I look at her angry face and feel myself waver. ‘I’m not lying,’ I tell her. ‘I saw him! Down by the … um … the canal. He was holding hands with some girl, and then he … then he kissed her!’
‘Why didn’t you say something before?’
I feel a rush of sick regret. ‘I didn’t want to upset you.’
‘Well … when? When the fuck is this supposed to have happened?’
‘The other evening,’ I stammer, frightened now by the way she’s shouting at me.
There’s a long, awful silence. The world seems to hold its breath. The pub and its music and the lads playing pool all melt away, and my heart thuds against my ribs. And then, all at once, her face crumples, all the fight and anger knocked out of her, and I realize that she believes me. She believes me completely. And I’m not sure if this is because she has so much faith in me, or so little in Connor, but I watch her, fascinated, as the devastation sweeps across her face: I did that.
She sinks her head into her hands and begins to cry again, great heaving sobs, her face soon a mess of tears and snot that she doesn’t even bother to wipe away. After a second or two I put my arms around her and hold her to me tightly, a strange excitement rising inside me as I stroke her hair and whisper, ‘I’m so sorry, it’ll be all right. It’ll all be OK.’