Bad Friends

by Seeber, Claire

  ‘Tell me something, Maggie.’ There was desperation in my mother’s tone; it made me feel panicked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Just something. Anything you like.’

  My mind darted around like a minnow looking for a way between fat tunas. I wanted to land the right thing at my mum’s feet – but I didn’t know what that was.

  ‘I’ve been doing the cooking. I’m learning shepherd’s pie. Gar helps sometimes, but mainly I do it all now.’ Which wasn’t really true; Gar did nearly everything, though I helped a lot. ‘Mainly I cook for us now. I’m good at scrambled eggs. I’ll cook you some when you come home.’

  I didn’t say I’d nearly burnt the house down with my first solo effort. I was just trying to make my mother proud; reassuring her that we were coping without her guiding hand. Only, as I’ve got older, I’m haunted by my own words; fearful she thought I was saying I didn’t need her any more.

  Because, actually, I was utterly lost without her, floundering around, frantic that she should come home. I loved my dad but he didn’t dance around the kitchen with me to silly pop, or play Chopsticks on the piano, or teach me duets; he couldn’t plait my hair just right, or cure my tummy-aches with magic hands.

  I needed my mother desperately; I just didn’t know how to say it.

  ‘I’m so glad you love to cook, my Mag. Just like me.’

  One tear crept down my mother’s freckled face – and even that tear was dull. My smile froze. Right then, I didn’t want to be like her. Her tears embarrassed me; I was thirteen and bewildered. And God, that haunts me too.

  My dad arrived then with a floral tea-tray that looked faintly ridiculous in his large bony hands. ‘And how are my two favourite girls in all the world?’

  His jovial tone smashed empty on the ridged brown carpet as we stared at him.

  ‘Dad!’ I scowled. ‘What about Gar? She’s your favourite too.’

  My mother looked away.

  Perhaps she was deciding then.

  In the car on the way home, I asked my father, ‘Can I go to Bel’s when we get home?’

  ‘No,’ he snapped, so unlike him, ‘you can’t. It’s too late. It’s a school night. You’ve got homework.’

  I sulked ferociously until I realised he hadn’t even noticed. Then I put my trainers up on the dashboard and read Just Seventeen. He didn’t tell me to stop reading that rubbish, like he usually would. He didn’t even tell me to put my feet down again.

  The next week my father had to cancel the holiday to France.

  Somewhere between Reading and London, fog began to drift across the road, hanging in the air like wet icing-sugar. By the time we arrived at the city’s outskirts the fog was so thick we’d reached a virtual crawl. Near the Chiswick roundabout, Seb started to put his coat on. My heart sank.

  ‘Can you drop me at Hammersmith tube?’ he asked.

  So this was it. Another man down the tube – literally, driven off by my family history.

  ‘Sure,’ I said brightly, as we slid to a halt at a red light. ‘Thanks for a nice weekend.’

  He laughed. ‘Is that it then?’

  I looked at him. ‘I don’t know. Is it?’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought so, would you?’

  I smiled. ‘Okay then.’

  He regarded me for a moment. ‘I don’t know what it is about you, Maggie, but you’re not at all what I expected.’

  ‘Oh.’ The lights turned green. ‘I’m not sure that’s a compliment.’

  ‘It is, babe, it is.’ He swung his bag from the back seat. ‘See you, Digby. Look after Maggie for me.’

  He kissed me once, hard – and then he was gone, into the traffic, weaving elegantly through the blur of shiny-backed monsters, before disappearing into the tube. I switched the stereo back on and headed home, though I felt like I’d just left my heart in Cornwall yet again.

  Monday morning in Borough Market was always quiet after the frenetic weekend, and the street was deserted as I pulled up outside the flat to unload. The cake-shop, its lights normally a welcoming beacon, was still shuttered; the fog meant I couldn’t see much further than the next lamppost. Digby had shot off the minute I’d opened the car door and I whistled for him now, a shiver coursing down my spine. I wanted to get inside quickly.

  I dug around in my bag for the keys, fumbling as I hurried, annoying myself with my clumsiness. I put my overnight bag and the carrier of groceries from Pendarlin by the front door, which still smelled of fresh paint. And it wasn’t double-locked. I frowned. I was quite sure I’d left it locked – but maybe in my hurry to collect Bel on Friday …

  The rank and fetid air hit me hard as soon as I pushed the door open. I whistled for the bloody dog again, but still he didn’t come. I took a deep breath and steeled myself against the foul smell, propped the street door open with my bags and slowly crept up the stairs.

  At the top of the stairs I froze, my hand already sweating where I clutched the metal banister. I stared and stared, but I couldn’t quite absorb any of it.

  ‘Oh my God.’ My voice was a cracked and empty husk.

  What lay before me was utter carnage – a car crash, a train-wreck of a living room. The flat destroyed, my world turned upside-down: ransacked by someone who could only mean me harm. Rubbish from the bin lay strewn across the kitchen floor, rotting vegetables, old teabags, meat-bones – worse. Alex’s painting of dawn over Waterloo Bridge was slashed to pieces above the fireplace; my framed photos smashed. Every book and CD had been pulled from the shelves and flung across the room; clothes were scattered all down the flight of stairs from the bedroom. I looked closer. No, not my clothes – my underwear.

  And across the back wall, once a stark and brilliant white, were huge words: scrawled in that red paint again, looking like the letters had just bled:

  I’M GETTING CLOSER

  What was that smell? I could taste it in my mouth now, hot and meaty. I gagged as it pervaded every pore.

  And then I heard a noise. My top lip went all clammy. ‘Digby?’ I whispered, but I couldn’t see him. There was a creak on the stair, followed by a footstep. My heart began to gallop faster. What the hell did I do now? I looked around desperately; the bread knife was on the floor about five feet away. I made a lunge for it just as I heard another footstep.

  Alex appeared on the stairs below me.

  ‘What the fuck’s happened here?’ He looked horrified. ‘And what the hell is this?’

  In his hand he held an envelope, from which tumbled a stream of long black curls.

  I burst into tears.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Once DI Fox had established that neither the roof-terrace nor the front door had been forced in any way, he wanted to know who had keys to the flat.

  ‘Only me and my dad. Oh, and Alex’s estate agent.’ I dried my tears fiercely and tried to drink the coffee Alex had brought me from the café across the road. I wanted to get the hell out of the flat as soon as possible, but I had to wait for Fox to finish his questions.

  ‘Estate agent?’ Fox crooked a sandy eyebrow.

  ‘It’s on the market with Costana and Mortimer.’ Alex looked shifty, towering over the smaller man. ‘But actually – the estate agent’s lost his keys, apparently. That’s why I called Maggie the other day.’

  ‘Lost them?’ The policeman frowned. ‘That’s not very professional, is it?’

  ‘Nothing to do with me, mate,’ Alex snapped.

  ‘I didn’t say it was, sir,’ Fox replied mildly.

  ‘He said they were in the office somewhere; they’d probably got mixed up with another set.’

  ‘So you don’t have keys any more yourself?’

  ‘No. I gave my last set back to Maggie, the others to Costana.’

  ‘Right. And what about you, Maggie?’

  ‘I’ve got a set, so has my dad. And there’s the set Alex gave me back. They’re in the bowl on the side.’

  But they weren’t. The bowl my mother had made so many year
s ago was in tiny pieces, the phone ripped out of its socket, wires protruding like plastic guts. I felt like I’d been violated. I sipped my coffee miserably; it tasted as bitter and foul as I felt. ‘Can I go now? I’d really like to get out of here.’

  DI Fox smiled patiently. ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘I’ll help you clean up.’ Sifting through the debris, Alex picked up a pair of frilly pink knickers he’d once much admired. The crotch had been completely ripped out. ‘Nice.’

  ‘Oh God.’ I stared at the flimsy bit of silk. ‘This is doing my head in.’

  ‘Can you leave everything alone, sir, please,’ Fox’s blonde Detective Sergeant interjected, ‘until the SOCOs have done their stuff.’

  ‘The SOCOs.’ Alex dropped the knickers back on the ground. ‘Right. Sorry.’

  ‘Have you seen the dog?’ I asked Alex.

  ‘No. Not since I got here.’

  ‘Can you go and call him?’ I said urgently, peering out of the window onto the street below.

  Alex shrugged. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Just one minute, sir,’ Fox apprehended him. ‘I just wondered – you and Ms Warren are no longer an item, are you?’

  ‘No, we are no longer “an item”.’ Rudely, Alex mimicked Fox’s cockney accent. Fox drew himself up to his full height, which was still way below Alex.

  ‘So what were you doing here this morning?’ the policeman asked him in a neutral tone.

  ‘I’d come to get the keys. For the estate agent. And to pick up the rest of my stuff.’

  ‘And what stuff might that be?’ Fox glanced round.

  And it was only then that I noticed the two boxes of Alex’s junk which I’d packed up in misery the other night were still by the door.

  ‘There,’ I mumbled, pointing at the still sealed and apparently untouched cardboard cartons, Alex’s name scrawled on both.

  Our eyes were all drawn to the spot.

  ‘That’s funny.’ Fox knelt down by the boxes and ran a finger over the masking tape that held them shut. ‘No one’s had a go at these, sir. Though everything else has been turned right over. How very fortunate for you.’

  ‘What exactly are you insinuating?’ Alex’s voice dropped dangerously low.

  ‘Nothing at all, sir.’ Fox stood again, reaching for his mobile phone from the pocket of a mac that had seen better days. ‘Not yet, anyway.’ He turned away as his call connected.

  My heart began to hammer again. ‘Alex, where the hell is Digby?’

  ‘He’s probably scavenging outside. You know Digby.’ I imagined that Alex’s face softened as he looked at me. ‘Come on, Mag. We’ll go and find him – and then I’ll give you a lift to work, if you like.’

  I ran down the stairs. ‘I’m not going to bloody work. I just need to find the dog.’

  Outside, the fog was still wafting down the street like a grand dame on her way to a ball. There was no sign of the dog anywhere, although my bags were still leaning against the wall.

  ‘Digby,’ I called, ‘Digby. Here, boy.’ My voice was sharp and cracked. ‘Oh God, Digby, where the hell are you?’

  Mrs Forlani appeared through the fog like a ghastly apparition, in a pink dressing-gown and fluffy slippers, her dark hair wild. She never got dressed before three.

  ‘Bellissima, are you all right?’ She eyed the police car with its top light still flashing through the strings of fog as if it might leap forward and bite her. ‘I ’ave been so worried about you.’

  ‘That’s nice. I’m fine.’ I was gabbling. ‘Or, no, I’m not fine actually. Have you seen my dog?’ I couldn’t stop. ‘I can’t find him. Someone’s broken into the flat. They cut up my underwear. It’s all a terrible mess.’

  ‘Oh my God.’ Mrs Forlani clapped her hands to her face in horror. ‘I say to Matteo, I told you how I was so worried on the telephone the other night. La giovinastra – how do they call them now in the news here – that hoodie waiting around your door. It give me the creep.’

  ‘Creeps,’ I corrected absently, vaguely recalling her message. ‘Have you seen the dog, though?’

  ‘She was very strange.’

  ‘Who was?’

  ‘Her. La ragazza I talk about. This stranger.’

  ‘He,’ I corrected again, walking towards the corner to call Digby. ‘You said it was a “he”.’

  There was a massive crash and a yelp. I nearly jumped out of my skin as Digby shot out of a pile of butcher’s crates. ‘Oh, thank God.’ Falling to my knees, I grabbed him before he could run off again, burying my face in his back. ‘You silly boy. You really scared me.’

  Mrs Forlani was shaking her head fervently at me, her bulgy eyes all wild and starey. ‘No, no, Maggie. It was not an ’e outside your flat. Mio Dio, ma perche’ questi inglesi non mi capiscono mai?’

  Or perhaps it was me that was mad. That was more likely, in fact.

  ‘Ho detto una donna, intendevo una donna! Buon Dio!’ The fluid Italian washed over me as I looked up vacantly from the pavement. ‘Most definitely not a man,’ Mrs Forlani finished crossly, wrapping her dressing-gown tighter around her drooping bosom.

  ‘Get the hell up, Maggie.’ Alex appeared above me. ‘It’s wet down there, for God’s sake.’ He tried to help me up but I felt all crumpled, like a rag-doll, quite happy to be on the floor, next to the dog’s sinewy warmth. I would just lie on the pavement for a while and let all this hideous strangeness go on above me. Without me. But Alex leaned down and grabbed my hand, pulled me to my feet.

  ‘Ouch,’ I complained. He forced me to stand; otherwise I think I might have lain down again. Mrs Forlani had recommenced her babbling. ‘Sorry, but you’ve lost me.’ I looked at her.

  ‘It was most definitely una ragazza that I saw. A girl who was trying to enter your flat.’

  And as I stood there gaping at her, trying to comprehend it all, Stefano Costana rounded the corner in a cheap shiny blue suit, his belly straining against his pink shirt.

  ‘Morning all! Sorry if we’re late,’ he said cheerfully. A curl of dark hair poked through the gaping buttons above his waistband. I looked at Alex; Alex looked rather ashen. My mouth dropped open further. Pitter-pattering behind Costana, her face framed perfectly by her black fur hood, was my worst nightmare.

  And as she smiled winningly at us, her hood fell back, and I heard my own sharp intake of breath echo in my ears. It was Fay standing before me, but with newly short hair, cut just like mine and dyed the same shade of red.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  ‘What the hell is she doing here?’ I asked no one in particular. And as no one answered, I asked Fay herself. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’

  She smiled beatifically. ‘I’ve come to see your flat.’

  ‘My flat,’ I repeated numbly. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve heard it’s lovely.’

  ‘It’s not lovely any more. It’s a tip. Literally.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’ She frowned very slightly. ‘It looks very nice on the details. It is for sale, isn’t it?’

  ‘You’re not –’ I stared at her, ‘you’re not thinking of buying it, are you? Not seriously?’

  Stefano Costana looked a little uncomfortable. ‘Sorry – do you two know each other?’

  ‘Oh yes, we’re old friends, aren’t we, Maggie?’ said Fay, at exactly the same moment as I replied, ‘No, not really.’

  She gazed up at me. ‘Do you like my hair, Maggie? I really hope so. I’ve brought you the rest of my curls.’ She tried to hand me an envelope. ‘I posted some the other night when I called round, but now I think it’s best if you have them all.’

  ‘Why would I want them?’ I refused to take the package.

  ‘It’s like a kind of bond. You know, like blood sisters at school. I think the Red Indians used to do it as a sign of friendship.’

  ‘Well, the Red Indians can have them then.’

  ‘It is a bit chilly, though, I must say, round the old ears.’ To my huge relief, she pulled her hood back up.

/>   ‘Aren’t you going to introduce me to your twin?’ Alex muttered, thrusting his hands deep in his pockets. I felt like someone was kneeling on my chest.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve met. Fay Carter. Maggie is my saviour.’ Fay offered her hand to Alex now. She didn’t quite flutter her eyelashes, but … He was so tall and she was so tiny, so doll-like, they looked incongruous next to one another. I had a sudden vision of Alex scooping her up and sticking her in his pocket.

  ‘Did you know about this?’ I muttered, stupefied.

  ‘What, about freako here? Stefano told me he had someone seriously interested in the flat, that’s all.’

  ‘It’s such a fabulous area, isn’t it? Borough Market. Ever since Maggie told me all about it, I’ve wanted to explore,’ Fay breezed.

  All about it? I felt my brow knit anxiously. I hardly remembered mentioning the flat to her. I gazed at Fay. Droplets of fog lingered pearly on her fur-hood, her eyes so enormous with innocent enthusiasm that I could practically see the male hearts around me melting.

  ‘Stefano says it’s very up-and-coming. And when I heard it was your flat, Maggie, I was just so excited. It’s like it was meant to be.’

  ‘But how did you hear it was my flat?’ I shook my head slowly. ‘I don’t understand. How could you possibly know?’

  ‘Stefano must have told me, mustn’t he?’ Fay patted the estate agent’s portly arm with a dainty little hand. ‘After all, it’s not every day you get a famous TV producer’s flat to sell, is it, Stef?’

  ‘That’s right.’ He smiled fondly down at her, his goatee practically quivering with testosterone.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ I muttered. I glanced at Alex to see if she was having a similar effect on him, but he was savaging his nails, almost scowling, staring over at the florist as she put another bucket of greenery out on the pavement.

  DI Fox suddenly materialised at the front door, his pretty DS close behind him. ‘Morning,’ he said coolly. ‘DI Fox. And you are?’