Keep Your Friends Close

by Paula Daly

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I say to her, and she steps towards me as if to block my passage into the hallway. ‘Where’s Sean?’ I demand.

  ‘He’s in the shower. We’re staying here tonight, Natty. It’s probably best if you go before the girls see you.’

  I glare at her, fuming. ‘You’re doing what? Not a chance. Move out of the way.’

  She stays right where she is.

  ‘And what’s wrong with your face?’ I add, taking a proper look at her. She has the beginnings of two black eyes and a row of ugly stitches on her chin. Scowling, I say, ‘There’s no way I did that to you. No way. What the hell have you done? Thrown yourself down the stairs?’

  She doesn’t answer so I barge past, shoving her against the front door, and come face to face with Alice – who’s sitting at the foot of the stairs in her leopard-print onesie.

  She’s sniffling into a handkerchief and, as I approach, she shrinks away as if she’s actually scared.

  ‘What have they told you, Alice?’ I say, incensed that they’ve been poisoning the girls’ minds the first opportunity they got. ‘What has . . . what has that woman said to you?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Alice stammers, taken aback. ‘Nothing, Mummy. What’s happened? Daddy said the police might keep you there all night so he had to stay here . . . and Eve can’t be left alone because . . .’ she starts to cry ‘. . . Eve can’t be left alone because of the trauma to her head. Mummy, did you do that to her? Daddy said you almost killed her.’

  I put my hand on her shoulder and she stares up at me, unblinking.

  ‘Alice, I did not do that to Eve. I promise you, I did not do that.’

  I turn around and see Eve standing a few feet away, a wide-eyed, doleful expression on her face.

  Eve is wearing a Laura Ashley tea dress with a silly white Peter Pan collar at the neck. It’s the kind of outfit a savvy lawyer would place his defendant in to give her an air of purity and innocence.

  ‘What did you do?’ I hiss at her. ‘Did you smash your face against the wall like Myra Hindley? So that you’ll be less menacing?’

  Eve always was ever so slightly rodent-looking; she’d spend hours at university trying to ‘open up’ her small eyes. Using a combination of liquid liner and brown eyeshadow at the outer edges, she’d declare that, with clever application, she knew how to enhance her beauty. But, really, the effect was minimal.

  ‘Natty,’ she says compassionately, ‘please stop. This is not helping anyone, least of all Alice. I understand your emotions got the better of you today, and I’m really sorry about what you’re going through. But what you’re accusing me of is just preposterous . . . and besides,’ she says, her tone slightly mocking now, ‘there’s no evidence that Myra Hindley ever actually did that. It’s a rumour never proven to be true.’

  I turn back to Alice and can tell by her face she thinks Eve is being reasonable. I’m losing her confidence and I don’t know what to do.

  ‘Will you have to go to prison?’ Alice asks me in a quiet voice.

  Suddenly, I am drowning. I want to run at Eve and punch her. I want to grab her by the hair and drag her out of my house. But my daughter is watching my actions carefully, like she’s not quite sure who I am any more. I am paralysed from doing anything about it.

  Just then, Sean appears on the stairs. He is clean and dewy-looking, fresh out of the shower. In his hand is my overnight bag.

  ‘I’ve packed a few things for you, Nat,’ he says. ‘I’ve told your dad you’ll be staying there for a while.’

  My mouth gapes open. ‘Not a chance. This is my home. These are my children. You two stay here over my dead body.’

  Eve clears her throat. ‘Natty, have the police viewed the CCTV yet?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ I lie.

  ‘Well,’ she begins, ‘we’re under the impression that they’ve not. They will be watching it first thing tomorrow morning, and you know what they’re going to find, Natty. You know what it will show.’

  I don’t speak.

  Sean descends the last few stairs, taking care not to nudge Alice’s head with the bag. He ushers me towards the door and, softly, so Alice can’t hear, says, ‘I don’t think it would be good for the girls to see you taken in again. We’ve played it down so far, Natty, but they’re not stupid. Do you really want them to witness your arrest tomorrow? Is that what you want?’

  ‘But I won’t be arrested,’ I say. ‘Eve caused those injuries herself. She’s done it to trap me, Sean. She’s done it to get her hands on my kids and—’

  Sean puts the bag down and closes his eyes. ‘Natty, just listen to yourself. This is absurd. Neither of us wants it to be this way, we don’t want you to lose the girls, but this needs dealing with. And the last thing I want is for Alice and Felicity to see their mother as a criminal.’

  ‘I’m not a criminal!’ I shriek.

  Whispering, he replies, ‘But the law says that you are. Do you really want the whole thing dragged out in front of them?’

  I wring my hands helplessly. I’m trying to think, but I can’t. I look over at Alice on the stairs, and I’m trembling. She can’t find out like this.

  He leans in and speaks into my ear. ‘Go now. Don’t let them see what you’ve done. I’ll make sure they never know, but you’ve got to play fair, you must leave Eve alone.’

  One last glance at Alice and I see I have no option. I have to comply.

  Sean opens the door and we go outside. I take the bag from his hand and my keys from my pocket.

  ‘Let me order you a taxi, Natty,’ he says, ‘your car’s not fit to drive . . . look at it.’ The car is a real mess. The front is a total wreck and the side has a deep gouge the whole way along it. ‘You might get pulled over by the police because the headlights are out.’

  ‘It’ll be fine,’ I say. ‘If I’m going to leave I need to go now.’ He drops his head. He doesn’t want this, he doesn’t want to send me away from my home, I can feel it.

  ‘You won’t sleep in our bed again, will you, Sean?’ I ask him, tearing up. ‘You won’t let Eve into our bed?’

  And he says, ‘No.’

  Still looking downwards, he shakes his head. ‘No, I won’t do that, Natty.’

  I sit here sobbing as my dad slowly and methodically rolls the Rizla back and forth between his thumb and forefinger. He licks along the edge and lights it, and the pungent smell of Drum tobacco and cannabis resin fills the air. He’s always enjoyed the occasional joint. I’ve tried reasoning with him to stop, but he simply won’t.

  Wincing as a thread of smoke catches his eye, he says to me, ‘You want some?’

  I stop crying for a second and glare at him. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘Might make you feel better?’

  ‘Dad, there is another woman in my house. How is a joint supposed to make me feel better?’

  He shrugs as if to say, It might.

  ‘I’m losing my home,’ I snap at him crossly. ‘I’m losing my home and my kids to a woman who was supposed to be my friend. And you want me to sit around getting stoned so we can end up discussing – what? The Vikings? Or how the pyramids were built?’

  ‘It got me through when your mum died,’ he says reasonably.

  ‘Yeah, well, I’m not you. And hold that ashtray beneath that joint, will you? I can’t go sending the chair back to the nursing home full of rock burns.’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m getting a drink,’ I say, rubbing the back of my neck. ‘Do you want anything?’

  ‘No. See if you can get the cat in while you’re up.’

  Gazing into the darkness, I stand at the back door sipping water, trying to calm myself. It’s a mild night, low cloud, no sign of any stars. Shaking the Cat Crunchies box up a couple of times, I call out, ‘Morris!’ and do that ch-ch-ch-ch thing cats answer to.

  People say they’re either a cat person or a dog person. I am neither. Nothing against them per se; it’s the fur I can’t stand, gets all over everything. Pets, or t
he lack of, has been a running battle in our house since the girls were small. The closest we ever came to being pet owners was bringing home the school guinea pigs for the weekend. But, amazingly, we were struck off that rota when I forgot to take them back and had to return the guinea pigs at Monday lunchtime in a taxi. (In my defence, there was a particularly difficult guest at the hotel I had to attend to.)

  I shut the door and go through to my dad. ‘The cat doesn’t want to come in.’

  ‘Try him again in an hour,’ he says. His words are slowed; they’ve already taken on that sleepy quality. ‘There’s some brandy in the cupboard above the kettle, Natty,’ he says. ‘Pour yourself a glass.’

  ‘I don’t want any.’

  ‘Come here,’ he says gently, and I think he wants to hug me. ‘Come here, love.’

  I walk towards him, my arms open, but he doesn’t reach out to receive the embrace as I expect. Instead he says, ‘Take a look,’ gesturing to the large mirror hung above the fireplace.

  ‘That,’ he says, signalling to the angry, contorted reflection staring back at me, ‘is why you need a drink. Go and get one.’

  In the kitchen I find the brandy. Usually, my dad stocks cheap Metaxa 3 stars – alcohol that doubles as lighter fluid – which his friend brings back from Greece twice a year. Tonight, though, there is a large, unopened bottle of Hennessy. I down a shot and immediately pour another.

  ‘Sure you don’t want one?’ I call to him.

  ‘Aye, go on then, I will.’

  As I carry in the glasses, he’s stubbing out the remainder of his joint. ‘Marvellous,’ he says, reaching for the tumbler.

  ‘What time is the carer coming to help you up to bed?’

  ‘It varies.’

  Frowning, I say to him, ‘Should you really be smoking dope in front of them, Dad? I mean, it doesn’t look good.’

  ‘I’m sure they come across worse things.’

  ‘What if they report you?’

  He chuckles. ‘To who?’

  ‘The police.’

  Amused, he raises the glass to his lips. His eyes are already bloodshot – as if he’s stepped out of a chlorinated bath.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ I ask him.

  ‘It’s me who’s supposed to be paranoid,’ he says, motioning to the ashtray, ‘smoking this stuff.’

  ‘I’m not paranoid,’ I protest, and he tilts his head, smiling a little.

  ‘You’re not paranoid,’ he repeats neutrally. ‘You’re not paranoid, yet so far you reckon Eve’s smashed her face up – so she can curry favour with Alice and Felicity. And now you think my home help are police informants. You’re lacking – what do they call it, love? – hard evidence?’

  ‘I just think you should be more careful about openly breaking the law in front of people you don’t really know.’

  ‘I’m not breaking the law,’ he says, and I toss my hair dismissively, thinking: Great, here we go. The justification speech of the seasoned dope smoker. He’ll now launch into the mind-opening properties of cannabis, the stats proving it less harmful than alcohol, the low incidence of violence at Dutch football matches.

  But I don’t get the lecture. Instead he says, ‘Natty, you rammed a woman’s car this afternoon. You did this with a criminal record for assault . . . Now, who d’you reckon ought to be giving out the advice here? Me or you?’

  I close my eyes and sink deep into the sofa.

  ‘Jesus,’ I say in a strangled voice. ‘What am I going to do?’

  ‘Tonight?’ he says. ‘Tonight, you do nothing. Get back to thinking sensibly and drop this nonsense of conspiracy theories – you’re acting like you’ve got a screw loose. Sean is not the first man to leave his wife for another woman, it happens every day. Drop the paranoia, Natty, and get on with living again. If it’s only for the sake of the girls.’

  ‘But you didn’t see her face, Dad! There’s no way I did that kind of damage.’

  ‘How many times did you ram her?’

  ‘Two or three times.’

  ‘Which was it,’ he asks, ‘two, or three?’

  ‘Four,’ I say sheepishly, ‘but there’s absolutely no way I—’

  ‘All right,’ he says, cutting me off. ‘All right, let’s say she did it herself, if that makes you feel any better. It doesn’t change the fact that as soon as the police check the cameras, they’ll see what you did. And what happens then?’

  I toss the remainder of the brandy down my throat. ‘They’ll come for me.’

  ‘That’s right,’ he says sadly. ‘They’ll come for you.’

  He rests his glass on the arm of the chair and sighs heavily.

  ‘What made you do something so bloody stupid, Natty?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, we’ve got till morning to come up with an explanation. After that . . .’

  He doesn’t finish his sentence.

  17

  ASK ANY MOTHER what her biggest fear is and she’ll likely say something bad happening to one of her children. Get that out of the way and you’re in the realm of spiders, heights, enclosed spaces – that sort of thing.

  For me, it’s always been snakes: I’m helplessly treading water in a murky jungle pond when a venomous yellow water snake zigzags its way towards me.

  Well, there’s that . . . and prison.

  I imagine going to prison is not top of most women’s list of fears. The chances of it happening are as remote as, say, choosing to holiday in Baghdad. Logical thinking deems it pretty unlikely.

  But what if you were going? What if suddenly that woman on the front of the newspaper is you?

  Not going to happen, you say. I’m not that sort of person. I don’t lead that sort of life.

  Okay, but ask yourself this: Would you ever kill another person out of desperation? Would you ever kill another person out of jealousy or hatred?

  No, me neither. But somebody has. Somewhere.

  Maybe a woman a little bit like me or you has done such a thing. She didn’t rob a bank, or commit credit-card fraud or traffic drugs. She simply did what she’s here to do – love her family fiercely. And when her family was threatened, she reacted with one of the primitive emotions that exist inside us all. The emotions we’re conditioned to override if we are to live inside a civilized society. She protected her family and now she is being punished.

  It’s 5.50 a.m. and as I lie in the narrow bed, in my childhood room, I know there is a reasonable chance I could be on my way to prison.

  For a first offence, a person committing grievous bodily harm, or the lesser charge of wounding without intent, would be eligible for bail. For a second offence? Not so much.

  So I try to think about what to do. Because this is my second offence. But trying to think cogently about my options while paralysed with fear is hopeless. I get as far as perhaps grabbing my passport, making for the ferry port, when—

  SLAM. The comprehension I’ll never see my kids again knocks me sideways.

  Maybe I do take the penalty. Maybe I go to a women’s prison, serve my time for whatever it is they decide to charge me with – I won’t be in for more than a few months at the most, and—

  SLAM. I won’t see my kids. And if I do see my girls, they’ll be visiting me in prison.

  Now I can’t think of anything because I’m swamped by the hatred of Eve and the whole injustice of it. I’m so enraged with myself for letting her get me into this, the very worst of lose–lose situations.

  I get up, I go downstairs to make a cup of tea, see if I can get the cat in after all. As I walk through the lounge I hear pawing at the bay window, so I double back to the front door, chiding him as I open it. He rubs past me, meowing loudly. He’s a great big brute of a cat – with a black, glossy coat and white belly, he is a close cousin of Looney Tunes’s Sylvester, but he has a smattering of indistinct black spots on his chest, like the dotted fur lining the Queen’s St Edward’s Crown. My dad calls it Morris’s Regal Fur.

  It’s almost daylight, bu
t still the street lamp outside sends a shaft of amber my way, illuminating the doorway and revealing a white envelope at my feet that I failed to spot a moment earlier.

  ‘Natty Wainwright’ is printed across the front. There’s no address or postmark; it must have been hand-delivered during the night.

  I close the door and go to the kitchen. After shaking out a few Cat Crunchies for Morris, I open the letter and a sudden coldness hits my core.

  It says:

  EVE HAS DONE THIS BEFORE. DON’T LET HER TAKE WHAT’S YOURS.

  I stare at the note, my mind running at a hundred miles an hour. It’s handwritten, the letters printed in small, neat capitals, and if I had to guess I’d say it’s from a man. Simply because men tend to stick to capitals – though I could be wrong.

  The paper on which it’s written is a raggedy scrap, torn from a yellow, lined notepad. I’m trying to figure out if this is significant or not when the front door bangs shut and a woman’s voice shouts, ‘Only me!’

  Mad Jackie.

  I’m at the kitchen table, clutching the note in my hand, when I hear heavy footsteps coming my way. She’s straight to the kettle, filling it, before she’s aware of my presence.

  ‘Jesus!’ she exclaims. ‘Bloody hell, I didn’t see you. What are you doing here?’

  ‘Long story.’

  She’s a little ruffled. She opens the fridge and quickly closes it again when she spies her stack of Weight Watchers ready meals on the middle shelf.

  ‘They yours?’ I ask, gesturing.

  And she smiles back at me. ‘What’s that?’ she says brightly, pretending she’s no clue.

  ‘Ocean pie, salmon and broccoli melt, chicken hotpot . . .’

  ‘Oh, those,’ she says. ‘Yes, they’re mine. How’s yer dad doin’ this morning? Has he had a cuppa?’

  ‘Not yet, I don’t think he’s awake.’