Little Friends

by Jane Shemilt

  The girls brighten when Martin arrives with Charley and Blake. Poppy takes them on a little tour of the equipment, pointing out the smooth joints and bright colours of the house, proud of her father’s work. Charley hangs upside down from the bars, her hair touching the ground; Sorrel laughs, clapping her hands. Blake careers down the slide, Ash on his lap.

  ‘Grace can’t make it after all.’ Martin’s eyes follow his son as he carries Ash up the steps and down the slide again. ‘She’s waiting in for the plumber; the washing machine broke down, tonight of all nights.’

  Eve can see he believes what he’s been told though she recognizes an excuse, a lie. She gives him a flute of champagne and they tip glasses. He laughs aloud with pleasure as she knew he would when he hears about Ash’s first word. Eric glances over from the barbecue and then back to the coals, his expression unreadable.

  Melissa and Paul arrive with a huge bunch of flowers in crackling cellophane. Izzy is wearing ripped jeans and a tee-shirt; Poppy glances at her friend and quickly wipes the glitter from her cheeks. Paul looks elegant in white linen, a leather bag slung over his shoulder; Melissa is stunning in a silk trouser suit with a matching scarf. Paul propels his wife forward, one hand on her elbow, another at her back. A perfect couple, as handsome as film stars, though when Melissa hands Eve the flowers, Eve sees there is a mark under the creamy foundation, a dark swelling like a bruise on her right cheekbone.

  ‘Stupid me; I slipped in the flower shop,’ Melissa explains with a little laugh. ‘The floor was wet.’

  ‘Oh, poor Melly.’

  ‘I bought this for Ash,’ she says quickly, handing him a little teddy in a sparkly blue waistcoat; he hugs it to his neck, his eyes disappearing in a wide smile.

  ‘Just look at this food!’ Melissa’s gaze sweeps the table hungrily as she takes in the piles of little pies, the gleaming slices of salmon, bowls of salad, thick slabs of homemade bread studded with olives. Both women watch Paul as he produces bottles of ginger beer from his bag, deftly unscrews the tops and hands one to each child with a low bow.

  ‘You have a very clever Daddy,’ he tells Ash, shaking the small hand. ‘He did good work for me too.’ Ash stares at him wide-eyed, Sorrel giggles.

  ‘May I have a grand tour?’ he asks her; she takes his hand, pulling him over the bark chips to the little swing. Eve glances at Melissa, smiling. She hadn’t realized Paul could be so charming to children, but Melissa is staring at her husband, her face expressionless. The fall must have shaken her up; beneath the glamour she seems tired, a little fragile. Eve turns back to watch Paul swinging back and forth with Sorrel by his side and Ash on his lap.

  ‘Excellent!’ Paul puts Ash down, kisses Sorrel swiftly on the head and climbs the steps to the veranda. He joins Eric at the barbecue, handing him another beer and chatting as he pokes at the food with a fork. Eric adjusts the coals, lays out the steaks, and turns the sausages. Eve watches, interested. This is probably what happened when they worked together in Paul’s garden; the older man talking, Eric getting on with the job in hand. It seems to work; they look comfortable together.

  Beneath the steps Izzy is inspecting the faces clustered around her, one by one, as if choosing a favourite; she puts an arm around Poppy who grins widely and they retreat to the little house. Blake takes Ash by the hand and follows them. Sorrel and Charley walk in after the others, and the door is shut. Eve meets Eric’s eyes, she raises her glass to him, he tips his bottle of beer to her, his playground has just been christened. She sits down at the table, Melissa next to her and Martin the other side, so close she is conscious of his sleeve lightly brushing her arm each time he lifts his glass to his mouth.

  ‘Izzy’s told us how well she’s doing.’ Melissa places cool fingers on Eve’s other arm. ‘Especially maths. We’re thrilled. How on earth do you do it?’

  Eve studies her friend’s face, masking surprise. She sends weekly reports home with Izzy. They are clear, Izzy’s work is careless. Her problem is different from Poppy’s and Blake’s. They reverse numbers, struggle with order and have trouble with columns of tens and units; the kind of difficulties she was expecting. After a good start, Izzy fails to finish her sums; it’s as though she’s bored. It occurs to her that Izzy could be discarding the reports before they reach her mother.

  ‘Izzy’s doing well with writing and reading.’ She puts her hand over Melissa’s. ‘Her maths still needs a little work.’

  ‘Paul said it’s getting better.’ Melissa falters, slipping her hand away.

  ‘I sense a clever mind; once she decides to improve, she’ll fly, I know it.’

  Melissa stares at the playhouse where her daughter has disappeared; she looks mystified.

  ‘Well, we love what you’re doing.’ Martin’s whisper in her ear raises goosebumps. He reaches to pour champagne into Melissa’s glass and then hers, his hand resting briefly, burningly on her shoulder. By the time Eric has straightened from the barbecue, calling to the children, Martin’s hands are back in his lap. Eric circles the table, a steak drops on to Martin’s plate, spattering a little blood. Melissa jolts and reaches for the salad. The children settle noisily around their table, Blake elbowing Charley to sit next to Izzy. Poppy is on her other side. Eve pours a tiny amount of rosé into a beaker, diluting it to the faintest pink with water; she gives it to Sorrel.

  ‘Is it dreadful of me?’ she whispers to Martin. ‘She adores it, I think it makes her feel grown-up.’ He shakes his head, laughing.

  Eve raises her glass. ‘Happy birthday to my special boy.’

  Izzy has taken Ash on her lap. Sorrel kisses his cheek and Poppy gives him a sausage from the barbecue, which he crams into his mouth. The children sing the happy birthday song, everyone joining in except for Izzy who wraps her arms around him as if he was her present, a birthday gift especially for her.

  Grace

  Blake forgot his inhaler, it’s been left on the table.

  She tries to ignore it as she pulls the clothes from the washing machine. Martin believed the story about how it was broken though his clothes were spinning around at the time.

  She unlocks the glass doors to the little balcony and hangs the clothes on the rack, careful not to tread on Blake’s tomato plants. The air is very warm. Up here you could be on the balcony of a hotel or the prow of some great ship. Today has been perfect, another missed perfect day. The rim of the sun is sinking fast. A plane sweeps by ripping the peace, the red taillights puncture the blue. A point of scarlet flares in the car park below like an echo or a warning. A man is smoking down there; she can’t see his face but he might have clocked her, outlined against the window. Grace steps back inside, shuts the doors then lowers the blinds. Two or three hours of peaceful writing time stretch ahead, time she’d never normally have, though she’s had to sacrifice the chance to be with everyone and she’d wanted that too. She pulls her notebook from its hiding place, opens it at the marked page and starts to write, then pauses. Her eyes flick to the paragraph above, she crosses out a line, writes another, changes the last word, looks up for inspiration. Her gaze meets Blake’s inhaler again, his fingerprints in chocolate outlined on the blue plastic. He doesn’t need it often but he just might be wheezing tonight. Charley said there’d be a bonfire, the smoke could start him off. Martin might not notice until it’s too late. She puts her pencil down, slowly closes her notebook and climbs on the stool to slide it back on the shelf.

  She strips out of her jeans and finds the red beach dress scrunched at the back of a drawer, something in nylon, bought online for a weekend at a campsite in Devon last year but never worn. She snaps off the label and slips it on, then she shoves her feet into Charley’s jewelled flip-flops and slings her bag over her shoulder. She takes out a few coins from the Quality Street tin; she’ll buy a present for the little boy on the way, Martin won’t have remembered. At the moment of stepping outside the block of flats, she realizes her door keys, the ones with a little red tab, aren’t on the main key ring which has opened u
p a little. They must have slipped off in the flat. Martin will have his keys; it doesn’t matter – but a moment later she realizes it does. The boy with the green-soled trainers has appeared from the shadows and is standing in front of her blocking her way; without keys she can’t escape back into safety. He steps nearer; so near she can see the yellow of pustules on his cheek and the pitted scars of older ones, white powder clogging the hairs of a nostril. There is a low-pitched humming noise in her head, like a warning, but it’s too late. In her hurry, she forgot the rules. The boy chucks his cigarette down in a violent motion; that was the red light in the car park. He must have been waiting for her since Martin left.

  ‘Just fuck off, will you.’ She turns her head away, trying for an exasperated tone though her heart is banging so hard her voice trembles.

  ‘Fuck off?’ He’s not taken in. The ribbed wall of his chest pushes at her. ‘Fuck off?’ he whispers in her ear as he clutches her hair, pushing her violently around until she faces away from him. He shoves something against her face, a small plastic bag full of white powder. ‘Want some?’

  Something slides round her neck, leathery, pulled tight. The fear in her head ratchets up, there’s no room for thought. He pulls hard and she chokes, struggling for breath. Their feet shuffle together as if in a dance as she is pushed, stumbling and gasping, behind the high wooden screen where the rubbish is kept. He thrusts her forward till her chest hits the wheelie bin. Her mind is empty of thought, hot fluid trickles over her feet. Urine, hers. He clamps her neck so her face is forced down on to the lid of a bin as her dress is yanked to her waist. He releases his grip; she hears the grating whisper of a zip. His thighs are tight against her buttocks; he fumbles at his trousers.

  Scalding fury takes over; he thinks he can do this, thinks he can get away with it and he might, man against woman, white against black. Her thoughts switch on. He’s forgotten her hands are free, he doesn’t see her slide them into the bag which has swung forward around her neck. While his fingers are scrabbling at her pants, tearing cloth and skin, hers push aside the purse and inhaler and close on Blake’s penknife. She flicks open the blade, her hands still deep in the bag as he snarls in her ear. ‘You’ve had this coming, stuck-up bitch.’

  She jabs back fast and hard. The knife is snagged by his jeans. He doesn’t pause, doesn’t notice, he is beginning to straddle her, putting both thighs alongside hers, pushing into her, missing, swearing. He bends to bite her neck and she jabs backwards again, higher this time; the knife glides through the cloth of his tee-shirt and into skin, a layer of firmer tissue after that. He screams, a high-pitched shriek, and falls away from her; his shoulders and then his head hit the tarmac with a bang. She runs to the car, her breath hurting her throat, her bag swinging about her neck, the dress around her waist. The car key misses the lock twice. Once inside she doesn’t look back. She drives fast, swerving out of the car park then along the road; she takes the second left, skids half up on the pavement and brakes sharply. She raises her hips, pulls off her pants and shoves them in the glove compartment, DNA from his skin if it comes to that. She leans forward and takes slow, trembling breaths, trying to calm herself; her heart is still pounding, her head still full of noise, but none of it makes sense. After a few minutes she wipes her face with her palms and pulls out her phone. She jabs at a number three times.

  ‘A pusher on the Blackberry Estate’s been stabbed; he’s loaded with coke. He’s by the rubbish bins behind the fence.’ Her voice isn’t like her voice. She gives the address and cuts the call; she won’t hang around. Her father’s stories about white police swell the roaring fear, about what they did to his countrymen; he’d warn her she could be blamed for her own assault. In any case, the police don’t need her story; that boy has enough coke on him for months in jail, years maybe. He’ll say nothing about her, surely. Attempted rape would mean extra years. She’ll say nothing to Martin, either; he comes from a different world; he’d make her go to the police or even tell them himself, not understanding the dangers. She could end up in jail. She’ll cope, she always does.

  She lifts her head. The grey metal strips of a drain cover gleam dully from the gutter a few metres away. She inches the car forward and brakes just beside it; she looks round checking the street is empty then opens the door and leaning out, drops the knife through the grating. She hears, or imagines she hears, a faint answering splash. She straightens, straps on her belt and begins to drive; lucky it’s not far – it’s difficult to see through eyes streaming with angry tears. Fury and triumph are hot in her throat. She shucks off the wet flip-flops when she arrives and gets out. Fireworks bang and crackle beyond the house, shooting sparks high above the roof. She can hear Blake’s voice with the others, shouting loudly. The inhaler wasn’t needed after all; she could laugh if her stomach wasn’t twisting with longing for Martin and her kids, for alcohol and warmth.

  The gravel of the drive digs into the soles of her feet. The great front door is open, wide open. Don’t these people care about what they have? She shuts the door behind her and looks about. The high-ceilinged hall disappears into shadows at the far end beyond the stairs; she could be in the entrance of some grand municipal building, surprisingly impersonal. There is a faint smell of damp, the floor is chilly under her feet. She came in through a door into the kitchen when she visited that first time, somewhere at the back of the house; the room had been warm and full of colour, like Eve herself. This part of the house feels different, as though the place belongs to strangers; she could be an intruder gaining entrance. A dog barks from somewhere deep within the house. She runs up the thickly carpeted stairs in front of her to a wide landing. The door to her left opens on a disordered room, an unmade four-poster bed heaped in clothes. She shuts that door and tries another, a bathroom that’s almost as big as their flat. She steps inside and locks the door behind her. The room is warm, the steamy air scented with the oversweet smell of ripe strawberries. There is an oval bath and a walk-in shower with shampoo bottles strewn on the tiled floor, pink liquid oozing out. Grace wipes a patch on the misty window, glimpsing a great bonfire down the garden. Blake is scampering around the flames without a tee-shirt and Charley is following him. Eve’s kids are there, of course, and a girl with blonde hair waving her arms and shouting as if in charge of a game. That must be Izzy. The adults are at a table directly below the window, heads together; three of them are strangers to her. Martin’s shoulders are hunched forward, Eve is next to him, her youngest on her lap. They are talking, almost touching. Martin throws back his head in a laugh. The wave of anger takes her by surprise. If Martin spent more time writing and less having fun, they would have more money. They wouldn’t be living on a cheap estate; she might not have been assaulted just outside her home. He turns to Eve; she can’t see his face but imagines his laughter continuing in a carefree, happy chuckle. Her face burns. A different world, as she’d thought.

  A thin woman with blonde hair is sitting on the other side of Eve, fiddling with the scarf around her neck and glancing at the food spread all over the table, masses of it. A tall, sunburnt guy in shorts is turning slabs of meat on the barbecue; a bloke in white linen lounges next to him, gesticulating with his cigar. He has one of those smooth, actor-type faces with lots of white teeth and seems to be watching the children closely. Well, at least somebody is.

  They pass food, lean across each other to chat or nod, laughing easily like any group of good friends. They have no idea she is watching them from above, wounded and invisible. Thick towels lie twisted on the bathroom floor and she steps over them to reach the basin. There’s a pot of glitter by the taps and little fingerprints on the mirror. She leans close, inspecting her face: a cut under her hairline, a bruise on her forehead, another on her cheek. A thin stream of blood has trickled from the back of her neck round to the front. There are more bruises on her chest. She lifts her dress, there’s one forming on her abdomen where she was forced against the bin, an uneven triangle with irregular edges. Like Africa, and
she wants to laugh. Blood is running down her legs from where his nails tore her flesh. There’s no pain, not yet, just the sharp stink of his sweat and of garbage. She picks up a pink shower cap from the floor and tucks her hair inside. The shower is powerful. She tips her head back, letting the hot water cascade over her face and her dress as well. She waits till the water washes away all the stains then takes off the dress and sluices her body, gritting her teeth until the stinging stops. She towels herself dry and stuffs the towel in the laundry bin under the others. There are plasters with little teddy bears on them in the glass cabinet; she sticks one over the wound on her neck then draws a fingerful of glitter along her cheeks to disguise the bruise. She slips on the wet dress again and shakes her hair over her forehead. Weirdly she looks good, very good.

  She leaves, descending the stairs at a run as the dog barks again. She closes the front door behind her and walks round the drive to the back. Further down the garden the children are still running around the bonfire, leaping and whooping. Blake is hollering at the top of his voice though she can’t make out the words. No one notices her at first as she walks towards them. Martin and Eve are leaning together. The thin blonde looks up first; the two men she saw by the barbecue are now sitting down but both turn and stare as she walks into the candlelight. They get to their feet, a chair is knocked over, the smooth-looking man is still chewing.

  Melissa

  An unfamiliar woman is striding barefoot towards them, not smiling but blazing, as though for battle, coming from or going towards. She’s easily the most beautiful woman Melissa has ever seen. The light from the barbecue licks along her limbs so her dark skin gleams as though wet. She walks the way models do, dipping on each side with every step. Her dress is red, her cheekbones glitter. She looks like a warrior, Melissa thinks, and finds herself wanting to cheer.