My Best Friend's Girl

by Dorothy Koomson

  “Suppose,” I’d mumbled, eager to change the subject; desperate to stop her using the D word.

  “One of my biggest regrets is that I don’t know that many people. I wish I’d made the effort to touch more lives.”

  She had touched lives, I wish she’d known that. The church was filled to capacity, with two rows of people standing at the back. People did care and did remember; they had dusted off their black suits, black dresses, black skirts and tops and, like a steady stream of mournful ravens, had flocked to St. Agnes’s. I’d contacted only a couple of the places where Del worked, put notices in her local paper, another in a couple of the media trade magazines, and one on our university’s website. Word of mouth must have done the rest.

  My whole family was here, even my older brother who lived and worked in Japan and hadn’t known Del that well had flown in for it. And my sister’s family had driven down from Manchester to be here. Nancy, Adele’s nurse, had come and brought her husband.

  Adele’s father wasn’t there. Wasn’t there, didn’t want to be there, hadn’t even sent flowers. He didn’t care. That was the stark reality of it. Of all the things from the past few weeks, his reaction had caused me a disproportionate amount of hurt.

  I’d rung Mr. Hamilton-Mackenzie to tell him what happened on the day Adele died, and after a long silence he’d said, “Thank you for letting me know.” He hadn’t asked about Tegan, hadn’t shouted about my raid on their home and I guessed it was the shock. His only child had died and it had shaken him in the same way it had me; had reminded him that he hadn’t seen her in the weeks before her death and now he’d never get the chance.

  “I’ll let you know about the funeral arrangements,” I’d said and he thanked me again before hanging up.

  A week later, three days ago, I called him again.

  “Kamryn,” he’d said warmly when he answered the phone, “how are you?”

  I’d been thrown; thought for a moment I’d dialed the wrong number. “As fine as can be expected in these circumstances,” I said cautiously.

  I heard something catch in his voice as he said, “I know. I’m still coming to terms with this myself.”

  “I’m calling about the funeral,” I said, the evil thoughts I’d had about him melting away like ice left out in the noonday sun. I was right, death had made him accept that he loved his daughter; he was going to redeem himself.

  “The funeral, ah, yes.”

  “It’s on Friday. I’ve done almost everything that Del couldn’t do herself…”

  “Del?” he interjected, his voice stern.

  “I mean Lucinda-Jayne. She made most of the arrangements with the undertaker—she wanted to be cremated—and I’ve sorted out the details. But if you want to add any readings or hymns let me know and we can work it out.”

  Silence. I fancied I could hear him pulling himself together, trying to suppress the tears in his voice, trying not to fall apart before he could tell me what he wanted. “I won’t be attending. Neither my wife nor I will be attending.”

  “Why?” rose up in my throat as a protest, but I stopped myself in time. This was why Del was always broken up after every phone call. Why every time she spoke to him she believed he might have changed, because he knew how to lure you in, to con you into thinking you were conversing with a decent person.

  I took a deep breath. “OK,” I exhaled. I had no strength to argue with him, nor even to talk to him. What was there to say to this man? Was I meant to beg him to come to his own daughter’s funeral?

  He had no idea how difficult the preceding week had been. That one of my many tasks was identifying Adele’s body. I hadn’t flinched in the morgue when I was asked to confirm that the person lying motionless in front of me was the woman who used to throw her head back and laugh; the friend who had once rugby-tackled me for the last packet of crisps in our flat; the girl who’d often be found adjusting her bra straps, fiddling with the top button of her jeans, rebuckling her belt, twisting her hair round her fingers while she grinned.

  The person in front of me was lifeless. No expression on her pale gray face. Her lips were pressed together, her eyes closed, her hair nothing but thin blond wisps on her head. I’d stared at her, lying on a hospital trolley, serene and delicate. Will she be cold if I touch her? I wondered. Would she be as cold and fragile as she seemed? Because that’s what she looked like, frozen and frail, not at all like my friend.

  No, I’d almost said to the hospital official, that isn’t Lucinda-Jayne Adele Hamilton-Mackenzie. And she isn’t Adele Brannon. And she certainly isn’t Del. That person isn’t anyone I know.

  I’d done that. The first dead body I’d ever seen was of my best friend. Did Mr. Hamilton-Mackenzie think after that I could find it in me to beg him to come to his daughter’s funeral when I’d done something so devastating?

  “It’s not right that I should have to bury another member of my family,” he said in a voice designed to break the heart of anyone who didn’t know how many times he’d put Adele in the hospital. “I buried her mother. Isn’t that enough? Haven’t I done enough?” He paused to swallow a couple of audible and expertly pitched sobs. “Lucinda-Jayne was the last of my family and I can’t say goodbye. You understand, don’t you, Kamryn? Don’t you?”

  “What about Tegan?” I replied, my voice as even as a sheet of glass. “Isn’t your granddaughter a member of your family?”

  He paused. The pause elongated itself into silence, which became a yawning chasm of arrogant righteousness: he was right and nothing would make him think otherwise, not even something as glaringly obvious as the truth.

  “Goodbye,” I eventually stated, and hung up. That was it. The end. He’d never challenge me if I tried to adopt Tegan. He’d never try to get in touch and, while I was relieved and grateful, that was when the sadness had started to stab at me. Why didn’t he love his child? I found myself asking. How could anyone not love their child? You might not like them all the time, but when they died…

  I slipped an arm around Tegan’s shoulders and pulled her toward me as a sudden need to remind her that I was there for her seized me. I held her to my body hoping I could transmit how much I cared about her through the closeness of our touch. She didn’t react, not even to resist, she sat still and silent.

  I refocused on the priest, listening to his speech about life and death, and Adele. He hadn’t known my friend, he was repeating what I’d written for him. But he went beyond what I’d noted, he talked about the warmth he felt when he spoke to those who knew Adele. How wonderful a friend she must have been because so many people had traveled from all over the country to pay their last respects. He moved on to explain about her being a mother, saying how a parent would always want to live to see her child grow up, but he was sure that Adele’s daughter, Tegan, would be in good hands.

  I wouldn’t count on it, mate, I thought before I could stop myself. That would have made Adele laugh. “Trust you,” she’d have guffawed, “only you would think like that at my funeral.”

  The final prayers were said, the final hymn sung. I got up with the rest of the congregation and turned to follow the four men—two of them my brothers—who picked up the oak coffin with its brass plaque declaring ADELE BRANNON, hoisted it on to their shoulders and began carrying it out of the church.

  I tore my eyes away, couldn’t look, it didn’t seem real. Adele in a box. Adele not walking and talking. Gone. Instead, I cast my line of sight to the back of the church, away from the faces of people seated around me. I couldn’t make eye contact with any of these people and hold it together. If I saw even one teared-up face, I’d lose it. All the hurt I’d pushed down and away since I’d cried in the hotel corridor would come spewing out and I wouldn’t be able to contain it.

  The doors at the back of the church were opened and suddenly it was summer again, hot and bright; the bleak winter of the funeral melting away as light was shed on the dark atmosphere inside. As I gathered my mind together, searching between the black
suits for something to focus on, I saw him. His tall frame dressed in a black suit with a black shirt and tie, his grief-bleached skin, his agonized features, his softly spiked brown hair. I gasped, my body momentarily rigid with shock.

  I craned forward, squinted to get a better look before he disappeared out of the doors. It was him. It was definitely him.

  Nate.

  There was a small service at the crematorium that only my family came to. Words were spoken that I didn’t hear. Slowly the box was pulled away from us, pulled away behind the heavy black curtain, disappearing inch by inch until all that was left were the black curtains swishing together.

  It was over. I looked up at the funeral director who’d made it happen. Do it again. Please, do it again. I pleaded with my eyes. I wasn’t ready. Please rewind so I can pay attention this time. I’d stepped out of my body for a moment, and now she was gone. I bit my lower lip and didn’t move out of my seat as everyone filed out. Once I was alone—Tegan had gone with my mum and dad—I stepped out of the pew and stood in front of the curtain, where she’d disappeared.

  A million thoughts were speeding through my mind, each leaving a burning groove where it ran. Adele. Tegan. Work. Heaven. Death. Life. Leukemia. Hotels. Nate.

  I was ashamed to admit I’d been thinking about Nate.

  What was he doing there? He was at a friend’s funeral. How did he know she was gone? He probably saw the notices in the trade press—he was a radio producer. Every question had an obvious answer. It hadn’t occurred to me that he’d turn up. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? Was he in love with her? But they both said it was just the once. And I’d assumed they hadn’t seen each other in the two years since I’d left them.

  I’ll never know for sure, of course. Never find out what really went on… What was wrong with me? Why was I thinking about this stuff? I should be thinking about Del. But Nate kept wrestling his way into my mind.

  I could remember the last time I saw Nate more clearly than the last time I saw Del. I remember the silence with Nate. How he’d stared at me with haunted eyes as I walked out of the door. I’d been expecting everything to end with a fight but it was depressingly quiet. And slow. I always thought if you found out you’d been cheated on, had been cuckolded, that you’d want to lash out, but I hadn’t. It wasn’t in me. I’d walked out of our flat the day I collected my belongings, knowing it was the last time I’d see him, so I’d looked back to take in his unshaven chin, unwashed hair and sleep-deprived eyes. I listened to him say, “Don’t go,” then I walked out.

  I had no grand finale with Adele, no curtain call or fade to black. It was another day, another goodbye. Another entry on the list of “see ya laters” we’d uttered to each other over the years. I’d wracked my brain and still I couldn’t remember what I’d said to her. Did I say goodbye? Did I hug her? Did I say the very disposable “see ya then?” I couldn’t remember and it was breaking my heart. I knew I didn’t have much time left with her, so why didn’t I take in every detail? Why didn’t I hang on to every second?

  The ball of pain in my stomach contracted suddenly, as though an iron fist had been driven deep into the area below my solar plexus. I doubled over, clutching my stomach, trying to hold myself together. How would I have said goodbye if I knew that was the last time I would see her? I don’t know. I would have looked at her, I know that. Had I anyway? Did I turn around and look at her? I can’t remember. I could summon up the look of her from years ago—from college, from after college, from our working years, but not from just a week ago.

  Nate. I was thinking about Nate too, because I didn’t want to think about what came next.

  Next.

  I wish I was a better person, could face this head-on, seize the day, seize the rest of my life. Embrace the idea of taking on a child. Del did it. When she’d found out she was pregnant she’d been shocked, of course, and had wailed about not being able to do it, but a few days later she’d accepted the reality, had obviously thought it through and decided she could do it. And she did it. Brilliantly. I’d thought it through, looked into the future, and all I could see were bleak times. Hardship. Sacrifice. Years and years of being responsible for someone else.

  I was the woman who sometimes ate a bar of chocolate for dinner. The woman who was dreading going home because my flat was a mess. I’d left in a rush all those weeks ago, expecting to go back the next day. Meaning there were clothes everywhere, receipts and papers and magazines and cards and partially unwrapped birthday presents littering my bedroom and lounge floors. New types of mold growing in my fridge, if not on the worktops. Lightbulbs had probably blown. On top of that, a hundred and one things would have to change about my life so that I could slot Tegan into it. So that I could make her a new home.

  Let’s not forget Tegan wasn’t talking to me. There’d be the two of us in a house of silence. Mum had suggested that I leave Tegan in London for a few days while I arranged everything back in Leeds. But no. Even if she didn’t fall apart at the idea of me not being around, I couldn’t do without her. She was the last connection I had to Adele and I needed to hold on to that link whether it was communicating with me or not.

  Footsteps on the wood floor made me straighten up and quickly wipe tears from my eyes. Clearing my throat, I inhaled, scrabbling to re-create the serenity I’d been projecting for the past few days. Everyone thought I was being strong, that I was brave and undaunted; the reality was Kamryn Matika was faking it. I’d painted on this attitude and everyone in the vicinity had fallen for it. I pulled back my shoulders and straightened my back, another deep inhalation stroked more calm into my muscles.

  I jumped slightly as a hand slipped into mine. I looked down at the hand, small, perfectly formed, surprisingly cold. They were chubby, pink fingers that I’d marveled at when she was born. I’d stared at them, amazed that even though she was hours old her hands looked as though she’d lived fifty years—they had wrinkles at the knuckles and creases on her palms, just like adult hands.

  My eyes moved from Tegan’s hand to her face. She was looking up at me, her blond bunches hanging backward as she tipped her head right back. Her big blue eyes were fixed on me. I tried to smile at her as she studied me. She opened her mouth, licked her dry lips, then she spoke, her voice small and wavering as each word came out. “Are you my new mummy?”

  I nodded. “Yes, sweetheart, I am.”

  “double-promise for ever and ever, amen?”

  chapter 12

  What do you think of your new home?” I asked Tegan.

  She was sitting at the very center of my cream sofa, wearing a denim dress with a white T-shirt under it. The bruises on her arms had faded away now so she could wear short-sleeved tops without being self-conscious, and without my wanting to cry at what she’d been through. Tegan’s blond hair was in bunches, and she was clutching a rag doll called Meg she’d had since she was a year old. Meg had black wool hair, an orange face and body, big brown eyes surrounded by spiky eyelashes, and a navy blue dress. Meg’s hair was also in bunches secured by elastic bands.

  “It smells,” Tegan replied honestly.

  The girl on the sofa was right. My flat reeked of fish and the other rubbish from the bin, which, day after day, had been breaking down into their odorous parts as though resentful at having been neglected for the six weeks I had been in London. From the doorway I surveyed the room. The place seemed to have grown messier: papers and magazines littered the floor, an upturned shoe in the corner, post that I hadn’t finished opening on my birthday perched precariously on the arm of the sofa.

  “Apart from the smell,” I said to Tegan, pushing the chaos and its resulting shame to the back of my mind.

  Tegan’s face asked me if I was mad. How could she imagine something that was there not being there? That was like asking her to fly to the moon.

  “Hang on,” I said. I left the living room, clambered over our bags that littered the long narrow corridor and entered the kitchen. I recoiled at the stench—it wa
s so overpowering it could strip paint off walls, and the air above the trash area shimmered in the August heat.

  Holding my breath I took the rubbish to the black wheelie bin outside, then returned to wash my hands in the bathroom. Another finger of shame needled me as I noticed the toothpaste spots on the sink taps and the dental floss stuck to the side of the basin. This messiness had to stop, I realized, as I dried my hands on the white hand towel. Now that there was someone else to consider, tidiness had to become a habit rather than a rare occurrence; I had to learn to be fastidiously neat, repeat the mantra “A place for everything and everything in its place” until it became as much a part of my life as brushing my teeth. I returned to the kitchen and opened the big sash window, letting in the heavy, windless air. The smell would soon disperse, the normal smells of a house would be restored.

  On the sofa, Tegan was doing that thing she did so well—sitting still and silent. Waiting. Waiting for me to take the lead, to tell her what came next. The tragic part being I really didn’t know. I hadn’t worked it all out. Life had become a list of events I had to get through: identifying the body, the funeral, collecting Adele’s belongings, moving back to Leeds. One step at a time until the last thing on the list was crossed off. And here we were, in Leeds. That also meant the plan had stopped. I didn’t know what came next. Life, yes. But how?

  “This will be your room,” I told Tegan.

  She glanced down at the sofa then back up at me. What are you talking about? her expression said.

  “We’ll take out the sofa, put it in the smelly kitchen. Except I’m hoping it won’t be smelly by then. We’ll get you a bed, you can have a telly. Not this telly, because it’s far too big, we’ll put that in the kitchen too. No, we’ll get you a small telly, and a video player so you can watch your videos and things. And we can paint the walls whatever color you like. I’m sorry, you can’t have wallpaper because it’ll end in tears—when I was little, my mum and my dad almost got divorced over wallpapering…” Tegan watched me as I rambled. “Anyway, you decide on the color, but only on a color you can live with for a long time, not a scary one that will give you nightmares. Not that I’m saying you’re not allowed to have nightmares, I just don’t want to do anything that will encourage them.