by Perks, Heidi
‘Don’t talk to her again,’ I hissed, ‘whatever you do. Don’t tell her where I am.’
‘Anna, you’re lucky I haven’t been to the police yet,’ he said.
I closed my eyes, shook my head. This could have been so much worse if he’d done that. ‘What did you tell Ethan?’ I asked.
‘I said you were staying at a friend’s. I didn’t want to worry him.’
‘Thank you,’ I breathed. Thank God Ethan didn’t think anything was wrong. ‘Tell him I love him. I love you both, Ben, you know that, don’t you?’ When he didn’t answer, I said, ‘Ben?’
‘Yes,’ he replied eventually, resigned, reluctant. I had no idea how he was truly feeling. ‘What do I tell Nancy?’
I mulled it over for a moment. ‘Tell her what you know,’ I said. ‘But ask her not to say anything to the others just yet. She can tell them I needed some time out.’
I told Ben again that I’d be back later that evening, though that wasn’t how things panned out. When I knew I had to stay I sent him another text, telling him I loved him, that I would be back soon.
Now Ben is turning round and placing a mug of peppermint tea in front of me. He pulls out a chair for himself and sits down, watching me expectantly. ‘I need you to start at the beginning,’ he says.
The beginning? I don’t even know when that was. It could have been twenty-two years ago, when I was fourteen, or it might have been further back than that, when I was five and little Grace Goodwin first stuck her head into the playhouse and asked me why I was crying.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be your best friend, Anna,’ she had said so simply. ‘I am already best friends with Katrina Moore but I’ll be yours instead.’ Then she dipped plastic bowls into the plastic sink and rinsed them out with imaginary water.
I don’t have a clue what happened to Katrina Moore after that, I barely remember the girl, but Grace had stuck true to her word and had indeed dumped Katrina in favour of me.
It made me feel so warm inside, that someone cared about me. It had been one long hot summer since my mum had walked out and this was a feeling I didn’t want to lose. I clung on to Grace like a life support, and in return she included me in everything she did. But in return for that, I soon learned that I owed her the same. When in Year 4 Julie Butcher asked me to Paulton’s Park with her family for the day, Grace told me that I’d be hurting her feelings if I went. ‘That’s not fair, Anna. She’s not inviting me and so what am I going to do? And we take you everywhere with us and your dad doesn’t take me anywhere.’
Grace was right, I decided. Of course it wasn’t fair to her. As much as I would have loved to go to Paulton’s Park with Julie, because she was a nice girl and it was so nice to be noticed and asked, I ended up saying no. Four weeks later Catherine had acquiesced that she would take us, no doubt after badgering from Grace.
But right now I don’t think Ben needs to hear stories from the past. Instead I tell him what happened on Wednesday night when our pre-Christmas drinks took a turn for the worse.
We were all there when Grace arrived. Through her smile I saw that she was put out by this, but I didn’t care because I had never wanted to invite her in the first place. It was supposed to be drinks for the four of us, but Grace had been lingering close to our conversations in the playground, eavesdropping and commenting on our plans.
She had sidled up to me and said, ‘Ooh, drinks out on a school night. Sounds very naughty.’ Her smile had lingered for too long to be genuine. ‘When are you going?’
‘Wednesday night,’ Rachel told her. Caitlyn appeared as awkward as I felt as she nibbled her thumbnail, and I could see Nancy fast approaching us. The silence that followed was excruciating and all eyes landed on me to make a decision. ‘I didn’t think you’d be able to get a babysitter so …’ I bit my lip, waving a hand in the air.
‘Of course I can,’ Grace beamed. ‘I’d love to come with you.’
I’d spent three months keeping Grace onside, dancing around between her and my three good friends, none of whom particularly liked her. It was Nancy who had seen through her the most.
‘Anna, you need to tell me what it is about her,’ she had persisted.
‘What do you mean?’ I’d asked.
‘I can see there is something about your friendship with her that doesn’t make you happy. You act differently around her, you do things you don’t want to do.’ She was right that I didn’t want to go to Grace’s for macaroni cheese, but how could I admit this? How could I tell anyone the truth when Grace knows the worst thing I have ever done? I’d had no choice but to play it carefully, I knew what Grace was like.
I’d seen it a lot more clearly after she left for Australia. One day the sense had struck me as fast and as hard as a lightning bolt: that I had lied to the police, and hadn’t done anything more for Heather that night because I had listened to Grace.
All the blame I’d been putting on myself – that if I had called the police and sent someone to help as soon as I’d got home, she might still be alive – had been controlled by Grace.
I push my mug of tea away, across the table. I chose peppermint to soothe my nerves but even the smell of it makes me feel sick now, as my mind has already begun darting from five nights ago to all the events that changed its course.
Over the last three months I have lived on edge, fearing that Grace might tell someone about the night. But it has only been over the last couple of weeks that she has been dropping it into conversation again. Do you think of Heather, Anna? Do you regret what we did? I know I do.
‘Go on.’ Ben is pressing me and I need to focus my thoughts on last Wednesday.
‘I drank far more than I should have,’ I start. ‘I should have kept my head clearer, because I had a feeling things might get a little out of control.’ It was the first night we’d all been out since Ben’s party, and after a few drinks I imagined there would be words, secret conversations, questions, and so far Ben was the only person I’d told what I saw that night.
I pull the mug of tea towards me again and take a small sip, grimacing. The teabag has been left in too long and it tastes bitter, but my mouth is dry and I need something.
‘I thought Grace might leave earlier than she did. I could see she wasn’t enjoying herself and she didn’t want to be there. I didn’t care that she was being left out because I wanted her to go.’ I glance at Ben, searching his face for disapproval, but he looks more anxious than anything.
‘She didn’t join in the first round of tequilas, so I kept buying more on purpose, but she wasn’t going anywhere. Her eyes were on me all evening, watching me, judging me.’ I stop short of telling Ben that Grace had quizzed me about smoking because Ben doesn’t like my occasional habit. I don’t either, but that night I’d smoked more than usual because I needed time outside away from her and I needed to calm my nerves.
‘I think I kept drinking more because I was so on edge. All evening Grace was watching me. I felt like I might slip up at any moment, only the more I drank the more I didn’t care. I just wanted her to leave.’
Eventually Ben asks, ‘Why did you never tell me she was this bad? I mean, I got the impression you hadn’t bothered to see her since she’s been back because you’ve hardly made time for her. I just thought you didn’t have anything in common any more?’
I wrap my hands around my mug again and say, ‘I can’t drink this. I’m going to make a normal one.’
‘I’ll do it.’ Ben pushes his chair from the table to get up. ‘You carry on talking.’
‘The other night, ‘Grace didn’t go home like I wanted her to,’ I continue. ‘And then at one point she followed me to the toilets and started questioning me.’ I replay the conversation in my head as I tell him.
Grace had said, ‘You know you really don’t seem yourself tonight, Anna.’ On their own the words didn’t sound like much, but I knew the tone and had seen the darkness of Grace’s eyes too many times to dismiss them. She was pressing closer to me, until I was b
acked up against the sink. She managed to keep enough distance though, so she couldn’t actually be accused of threatening me but I felt threatened all the same.
‘You don’t have to look after me any more,’ I had spat, emboldened by the tequila running through my veins. I’d avoided speaking to Grace so harshly since she had been back in Clearwater. In fact, I don’t think I’d spoken to her this way since we were fourteen and I was emboldened by Heather. After that I’ve always been too afraid of what she knew, what she might tell people.
But I didn’t care on Wednesday night. My words had come out in desperation as much as anything. I wanted her out of my life. I was sick of dancing to her tune, of inviting her for drinks out of what Nancy called a misplaced loyalty, but what I knew was fear.
After our conversation in the toilets Grace found me in there again later. It was possibly only ten minutes before she finally left the Old Vic. Her eyes were narrowed into thin slits as she stood behind me in front of the mirror and said, ‘Nancy has a hold on you.’
I looked up at her reflection. Here we were again. A twenty-two-year cycle that had gone full circle, and it still managed to conjure up the same feelings inside me – I was being manipulated, only there felt like little I could do about it.
Grace had leaned in closer, her words eerily soft as she said, ‘Nancy controls you.’
Nancy controls you.
Heather controls you.
No Grace, you control me.
‘You’re kidding me, right?’ I’d cried.
She stepped back, wrong-footed. ‘No, I’m not kidding,’ she said as she proceeded to tell me how she had been watching Nancy and the way she was with me and I had eventually told her that I always felt like I had to come and talk to her.
‘It’s you who controls me,’ I had said eventually. ‘You’ve been doing it from the moment you found me in the playhouse when we were five.’
Grace’s mouth curled at its edges. She didn’t like what she was hearing. The plan she had no doubt set out for our friendship over the last three months clearly wasn’t working. She wouldn’t have factored in the kind of close relationships I’d forged with Nancy, Rachel and Caitlyn. Likely she’d thought we could pick up where we left off.
‘Doesn’t she have any other friends?’ Nancy had once asked me in the playground. ‘Why is it you she’s clinging on to?’
‘I want to be with my friends, Grace,’ I said, making a move to step past her. ‘Whatever we had in the past, that was a long time ago. I’m a different person now.’ I hoped she didn’t realise that despite my efforts, my hands were shaking at my sides. I still stopped short of saying I didn’t want her in my life.
But Grace stopped me, pressing a hand against my chest. ‘I still worry about you,’ she said, her eyes flashing with something that looked more threatening than worried. ‘And you must know why. Because I’ve seen it before, haven’t I, Anna? This isn’t the first time I’ve picked up the pieces.’
She wasn’t pushing me, but the touch of her hand made me stumble back against the basins. The air was getting hot in the small bathroom. I just wanted to get out.
But Grace was shaking her head, her cheeks reddening. ‘I was there for you when you needed me most,’ she was saying. ‘And this is how you repay me. You’ve spent three months pushing me away, ignoring me. You and your friends acting like I don’t exist.’
‘Grace, I don’t—’
‘Do you have any idea how much it’s hurt me, Anna? How for once I needed you, only you couldn’t be there for me, like I’ve always been for you. We were best friends,’ she was saying, her eyes wide, tears glistening in their corners. ‘We were like sisters.’ She slapped the palm of her hand against her chest.
‘You know, I should never have done what I did that night,’ she went on. ‘Giving you an alibi, lying to the police and my parents, and poor Heather’s foster mother for you. You can’t have forgiven yourself?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘I haven’t.’ I was close to tears too, but I begged them not to fall. ‘But you can’t keep holding this over me, Grace.’
‘I just need a friend,’ she cried. ‘Like you needed one then. But you weren’t even honest with me that night, were you? There was plenty you didn’t tell me.’
‘What are you going on about?’ I said.
‘Your argument with Heather?’ she spat. ‘You think I didn’t know about what happened just before Heather fell over the cliff?’
‘How do you—’
‘I know, Anna. I know exactly what happened.’
‘You weren’t there,’ I said, shaking my head, the hairs on my arms were standing on end.
Was she?
Grace’s lips contorted into a smile.
‘Tell me,’ I said as she turned her back on me and started to walk out of the toilets.
She must have followed me that night. She must have been there. There when Heather and I had argued, when I’d walked away, when I’d left Heather hanging at the edge of the cliff.
I’d heard a scream and it had taken me at least a minute to get back to the spot where she had been.
My mind started whirring over the events of that long-ago night. ‘Grace, what did you do?’ The bathroom door slammed behind her, leaving me alone in the stark light of the toilets.
Bile rose up my throat, into my mouth, and I turned to spit it into the sink, the sharp burn of tequila stinging my tongue. I’d barely had to wake Grace when I got back to my house. She must have just had time to get home and climb into bed. And she’d been so persistent about me not calling the police.
‘What did you do, Grace?’ I whispered again into the empty bathroom.
Chapter Fifteen
Anna
I didn’t dare speak to Grace again that evening. I left the toilets and went back into the pub, allowing Rachel to pull me around in a drunken haze of a dance, and Nancy to ply me with more wine.
I ignored Grace, though I watched her out of the corner of my eye, and she watched my every movement in return.
She left at midnight. I felt sick. Numb. My hands were shaking, only the others didn’t notice as we carried on drinking. Nancy brought up the subject of Ben’s party with me, then later Rachel did too – both hushed, secret discussions between them and me that expanded into arguments, which I couldn’t handle and didn’t even care about in that moment.
My head was too full of the idea that Grace did so much more that evening than give me an alibi. I had to know what I was dealing with. I needed to understand how far she might go to get what she supposedly wanted right now, which appeared to be me.
Ben places a fresh cup of tea on the table. I have given him the gist of my conversation with Grace but I need to tell him the rest. About Heather and my part in what happened to her. About Grace’s alibi and the fact that I ran away on Wednesday night because I’d needed to talk to someone about what had happened twenty-two years ago. I couldn’t carry on playing Grace’s games. Who might I lose next?
‘I need to show you something,’ I say to Ben. I go upstairs and dig into the back of a wardrobe for a box that I bring down. I have kept it since I was a child, locked with a combination: 0706, the night of Heather’s accident, 7 June. I’d chosen the numbers to taunt myself, a stark reminder of something I’d never be able to forget. The box hasn’t been opened in a long while. Still, its contents are as etched into my memory as if I had only placed them there yesterday.
I take out a newspaper clipping and pass it to Ben.
‘This is the girl who went missing in ’ninety-seven?’ he asks as he taps the paper. ‘I remember you talking about this. Didn’t you once say you were at school with her?’
I nod. I had passed it off once in general conversation.
‘I don’t understand,’ Ben says as he skims the cutting and then looks up at me. ‘What has this got to do with anything?’
‘I was friends with Heather,’ I say, ‘for a short time, but we became close. She used to stay at my dad’s sometimes bec
ause her childhood was even crazier than mine.’
‘It says here that she was in care.’
‘She was. She had a lovely foster family who—’ I break off as an image springs into my head of her kindly foster mother on my doorstep. ‘Anyway, Heather was fun but she also got me into a lot of trouble.’
‘You?’ Ben laughs. ‘I thought you were a goody-goody? I thought you always said you wouldn’t say boo to a goose.’
‘Yes, well, when Heather came along she opened my eyes for a while. I think she showed me what kind of person I might have been if I hadn’t been swept up by Grace and her family. I was more influenced by them than I was by my own dad.’
‘Okay,’ Ben says cautiously. He pulls his own mug closer now, though it is long empty, but he needs something to do with his hands and wrapping them around a mug must offer some comfort. ‘So you were close to Heather. I still don’t see what this has to do with anything.’
‘I was with her,’ I tell him. ‘I was at the cliffs the night she …’
Fell. I will myself to finish the sentence. The night Heather fell. Not ‘was pushed’. Instead I say, ‘Disappeared.’
‘You were with her?’
I sense Ben’s anxiety as I nod. ‘She dared me to go to the cliffs with her late at night. We crossed the police tape, which was there because someone had had an accident a few days earlier.
‘I didn’t want to go,’ I continued. ‘But I did. I followed her until she got too close to the edge of the cliff, and …’
‘Wait,’ he says when I pause again. ‘Are you saying you saw what happened to her? That you were actually there when she fell?’ His face has paled, greyer than I’ve ever seen it. ‘And you never told anyone?’
‘I didn’t see what happened. We had an argument, I told her to get back from the edge but she refused, and so I walked away.’ Tears fill my eyes as I relay the story. ‘And then I heard a noise and when I went back she was gone.’ I don’t tell Ben more about the noise: that it was a scream – a scream that the years have elongated and turned into a sickening, blood-curdling shriek; a scream that has woken me from many a nightmare. Thankfully he doesn’t ask either.