The Best of Friends

by Alex Day

  The two weeks Dan spends with me and the boys in Corsica are blissful, like a second honeymoon. I don’t know what’s happened but I can’t remember the last time he was so loving, so attentive. Perhaps it’s true that absence makes the heart grow fonder – though I’m not sure that’s ever been the case before! Or maybe he’s sensed how I’ve changed, how determined I am to be different, to include him more. From now on, we’ll be one big, happy family, everyone mucking in together, sharing our joys and our disappointments like proper families do.

  The fantasy lasts right until the moment we get home and I climb into bed, pleasantly tired from the journey. I altered our flights so that we would all return together. It cut a week or so off the time we’d intended to stay in Corsica but I couldn’t bear to say goodbye to Dan. I want our newfound bliss to last forever. Now, as I lie in bed enjoying the natural, rather than air-conditioned, cool, Dan is downstairs quickly writing an urgent work email. I suppose some things will never change. But I don’t mind; he’ll be here soon.

  The housekeeper has put fresh sheets on the bed and I luxuriate in the crisp white linen. It’s been line-dried outside so that it smells of an English summer day. I remember that I left an unfinished detective novel on the bedside table and reach out a hand to pick it up. It can’t have been very compelling if I’m not desperate to find out whodunit. But I feel a duty to the author to at least read the last few pages and see if I’m surprised by the outcome. The book isn’t on the table so I lean over and scrabble around under the bed in case it has fallen. Agnes is great in many ways, reliable and trustworthy, but she is very much of the ‘out of sight, out of mind’ school of cleaning. If the book has been knocked to the floor by a frenzy of the vigorous hovering at which she is particularly adept, she won’t have noticed it.

  My hand makes contact with a block of paper and cardboard. But not just that. Next to it, I feel the cold solidity of metal, the slinky ridges of a chain. Ignoring the book, I pull what must be a piece of jewellery out from its hiding place and examine it closely. It is a silver chain with a collection of charms hanging from it: a die, an arrowhead, and a heart. I notice that the chain has not been undone but is broken. Easy enough to replace. I lay it carefully down on the bedside table, turn onto my back and lie completely still, staring at the ceiling.

  The necklace is not mine.

  But somehow it’s got into my house, into my room. Into my bed.

  When Dan enters the room, I’m sitting up, the pillows propped behind me, my eyes fixed on him as he opens the door, smiling in anticipation. He’s wearing just a towel, his erection pushing it proudly forward. He must have showered in another bathroom so that, when he came to me, he’d be ready for action. He moves forward to stand beside the bed and lets the towel drop.

  I say nothing, but just hold the necklace out towards him, the chain dangling from my fingers, the charms swaying to and fro. If I weren’t so upset, I’d think it was funny the way his erection disappears, dwindling away in a matter of seconds, leaving his penis flaccid and dropping. If I had a pair of scissors or a knife I’d cut it off.

  And from his reaction, from the dismay that’s swept across his face like a thundercloud in the Corsican mountains, it’s obvious that he’s guilty. He must know this too, as he doesn’t even try to explain. Doesn’t give any feeble excuses and platitudes, no ‘I don’t know how it got there’, or ‘It must belong to the cleaner’. He just looks at the piece of jewellery as if he could murder it. And then bends down to pick up the towel and wrap it back around his waist.

  ‘Go,’ I say to him. ‘I don’t want to be near you anymore. I want you to leave.’

  Dan sits on the bed beside me and instinctively I jerk my legs away. Even though I’ve got the duvet between me and him, the thought of touching any part of him nauseates me.

  ‘We should talk about this, Charlotte,’ he says, his voice hushed but insistent. ‘I can explain.’

  That’s when I scream. I throw my head back and let the sound come out, as loud and terrible as I can manage, until my throat is sore and I have to stop.

  The silence that follows is the most profound I’ve ever heard. I can’t believe I haven’t disturbed the boys but they’re probably in the basement still, or with earphones rammed so deep in their ears they’re incapable of hearing anything except whatever mind-destroying rubbish is emanating from their devices.

  ‘Just go, Dan,’ I say. ‘Just get out of my sight.’

  He stands up, holding the towel to make sure it’s secure, as if he’s read my mind and knows what I’d like to do to him.

  ‘There’s only one thing I want to hear from you right now,’ I blurt out, unable to stop myself, much as I don’t want to engage in any dialogue with him. I take a deep breath and steel myself for the answer.

  ‘Is it hers?’

  I force myself to meet Dan’s eyes.

  ‘Well, is it?’

  Dan blanches visibly, a pallor I’ve never seen before engulfing his face. It’s the first time I’ve seen him utterly floored, so completely disquieted. He opens his mouth as if to reply and then closes it again and swallows so hard I see his Adam’s apple moving.

  Impatient now, I ask for a third time.

  ‘Are you shagging Naomi?’

  Even as I say it, I realise I don’t really believe that Naomi is the guilty party. But if it’s not her, who could it be? Dan wouldn’t bother bringing someone he works with in London all the way down here to the sticks, he’d just go to a hotel in town. And another reason against it being Naomi is that the necklace is far too tasteful, too understated and chic, to belong to her. She’s the type who wears enormous nickel hoops in her ears and fussy trinkets that are more Claire’s Accessories than Pandora. Plus I’m absolutely sure I recognise it, that I’ve seen someone wearing it or something similar, and though I can’t quite put my finger on who it is, I’m certain that it’s not Naomi.

  ‘Just tell me, Dan. Don’t prolong the agony.’

  His expression completely transforms, his eyes that had been narrowed widening in astonishment, the anxiety in his tight lips melting away.

  ‘No, no absolutely not. Naomi?’ He starts to laugh and then, presumably realising the insensitivity of doing so, stops abruptly. ‘Not her, good God no,’ he concludes.

  For some reason, though he’s clearly an even more untrustworthy bastard than I ever knew, I believe him.

  ‘OK.’ I pick up the book that had been the start of this episode, deliberately open its pages and hold it right in front of my face. ‘Now please do what I asked you to earlier and leave. Not just this room, this house. Immediately. And don’t come back.’

  I listen for the sound of his car tyres on the gravel drive, for the engine softly purring into the night. I need to be sure he’s gone because I don’t know what I might do if he tries to come back in here and sweet talk me.

  Only when I’m sure he’s left do I turn out the light. I don’t sleep. Who would, in this situation?

  I feel utterly crushed, all the stuffing knocked out of me so I’m limp and flimsy as a ripped rag doll. There’s so much emotion in my head that there’s none, because I simply cannot even begin to process what is happening to me, to us, to my marriage, and to my family. Everything I’ve worked for, sacrificed myself for, has been blown away in a single puff. I don’t who I am or where I am anymore.

  It’s not a good feeling.

  I’d cry if I thought it would help but I’m not sure it would make any difference. I’ve played it all wrong, done everything wrong – and now I’m here in this echoing house with no idea what the future holds.

  My agony continues well into the small hours. I cannot get the thought out of mind: if not Naomi, then who? In despair, I text you. I just need to vent my feelings, to let out what’s going through my head right at this moment. Despite the fact that it’s 2am, you reply only seconds later.

  This is horrific, your message says, but be strong and don’t do anything stupid.

  A wel
l-judged response. Because when I’m as angry as I am now, I don’t know how far I could take things.

  Chapter 30

  Charlotte

  A couple of weeks have passed. I still feel at sixes and sevens, unable to settle to anything, my misery unabated. I’ve spent a lot of time with you – when you’re not working, of course. It’s September already and the twins are back at school, now joined by Toby. I let Dan say goodbye to him but I drove the children there alone. I couldn’t share a car with Dan, no way.

  I thought I’d miss Toby like I’d lost a limb but I’ve been so distraught that I’ve hardly had the emotional space to notice his absence. The boys think Dan’s on an unexpected and extended business trip. The trouble is that Sam is still at home and his continual plaintive questioning, ‘When will Dad be back?’, ‘Where’s he actually gone though?’, his trembling lip, the incipient tears that continually threaten, all tear me apart. The fact that he’s here and not at school many miles away also means that, at some point, he’s bound to hear the rumours, the gossip I’m sure is already flying around this bloody village. My fury at whoever caused this hurt to my family quadruples by the day.

  After not being able to cry that first night, I’ve made up for it since. I’ve sobbed and wept and howled and demolished boxes of tissues, leaving my nose permanently sore and red and chapped. Some days I just want to stay in bed with the duvet over my head and block the whole world out. As well as anger, I vacillate between sorrow and fear and self-pity and cannot settle on any of them.

  It’s as if I must experience every horror, one by one, in excruciating detail, before I can move on to the next one and be wrung out with pain again. Despite all Dan’s previous betrayals, he’s never brought someone to the house before. To our home. Our bed. My nest sullied by some trollop, my bed sheets covered with someone else’s bodily fluids. Yes, I know I’m being crude, but anyone would be in these circumstances, wouldn’t they? I haven’t felt agony like this since my mother left us when we were children, and my dad died, a homeless, stinking hobo. I had forgotten that such utter anguish is possible, how much it hurts, how impossible it is to escape it, even for a moment.

  And yet, despite all this, the understanding that I had come to in Corsica, that I love Dan and always will, that we have something together that’s too good to throw away, is always with me. However much I rage and roar, however injured I feel, however my feelings sway like the treetops in a hurricane, I am clinging on to the knowledge of my love for Dan. The trouble is that I’m simply not sure that I can ever forgive him.

  In my hour of need, I’ve leant on you as a true and good friend.

  We’re sitting in my drawing room now, the Japanese anemones, those flowers that signify the last days of summer, tapping at the window glass. It’s dark outside, rain clouds gathered overhead, waiting to unleash another downpour. The phone is right beside me but I don’t worry about it ringing anymore. At the end of the day, as far as my tormentors are concerned, it’s only money they want from me. They don’t want to steal my husband or end my marriage. So I don’t bolt for it when it rings these days, I just answer calmly and of course it’s always nothing – a friend ringing for a chat, one of the boys phoning to ask for money or permission for a weekend exeat to a mate’s house.

  It makes me wonder if all my previous fears were for nothing, just products of my febrile imagination, like Miriam’s visit that day. That perhaps there never was a black car following me or members of the cartel tracking me down, that these were just ordinary people going about their ordinary business and I built them into evil persecutors. Even the phone calls could just have been automated ones from call centres where they dial hundreds of numbers at a time and only a small percentage of those who answer will actually be greeted by a real person on the other end.

  Perhaps I’ve been worrying myself sick for years for no reason. It’s a sobering thought, another thing to give me cause to re-evaluate my life, where I am now, and what I want for the future. Though I don’t usually drink in the day, such soul-searching calls for strong liquor so I pour us both a gin and tonic, garnished with lemon slices from the crop I brought back from the garden of the Corsican villa.

  You are full of sympathy for my predicament, and presumably to demonstrate how deep your empathy is, you tell me about your first boyfriend, how you were betrayed and brutally ousted from your flat by him and his new woman. You had to return to your hometown with all its miserable pretensions, to your unspeakably dull family and their lower middle-class preoccupation with what other people will think. It led you to do something that should be unimaginable, which you now tell me all about.

  As you talk, I study you intently.

  Chapter 31

  Susannah

  Charlotte listens avidly as I tell her the story of Charlie’s treachery, keeping her eyes fixed on my face, bent a little forward so she doesn’t miss a single word. It’s hard to articulate all the details; though the memory is fresh as a summer’s day, the words needed to express it have rusted and corroded so that I must wrench them out of myself with the force of will.

  ‘It was awful,’ I say, slowly and tentatively, feeling my way. ‘It’s hard to believe that another human being could deliver such a devastating blow that it would make someone doubt their own life, their own worth. But that’s …’ I stutter, falter, manage to continue, ‘that’s what Charlie made me feel.’

  ‘It sounds dreadful,’ Charlotte says, sipping her G&T, the ice cubes clinking against the glass as she does so. ‘Absolutely terrible.’ She finishes her drink. ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘I tried to commit suicide.’

  The words are out. I’ve never said them before, never told anyone. Not Justin, not any other of my friends. Charlotte’s gasp of astonishment makes her cough and splutter. Her drink must have gone down the wrong way with the shock and surprise of my confession.

  It’s almost gratifying that she cares so much, is taking it so seriously, not immediately dismissing it as a young girl’s folly but even so, I don’t know why I’m telling her. I don’t even know why I’m here, sitting in the elegant drawing room of the woman who has what I want … wanted. Whatever. I’ve lost all track of my feelings towards either Dan or Charlotte. But somehow I can’t let go, can’t turn my back on Charlotte, on our relationship. I can’t help it. She’s my best friend. I’ve got no one else, now that Dan is gone.

  ‘I waited until Marjorie and Dennis were out at some Rotary Club do,’ I continue, my eyes fixed on the garden beyond the window, my voice monotone like it’s on automatic playback. ‘I took pills, lots of them. One after the other, swallowing them down with water though they still stuck in my throat. It wasn’t hard though. I enjoyed it.’

  Charlotte is dumbstruck, saying nothing, just listening open-mouthed. She’s finished her drink, I notice. That was quick – but at least she won’t choke again.

  ‘I couldn’t cope,’ I admit. It’s so hard to do this, to admit to her – to anyone – that I didn’t have the resources, mental, emotional, or physical, to deal with what Charlie and Josephine did to me. Perhaps I’m sharing the story with her to make her feel sorry for me, which will in turn serve to mitigate her anger when she finds out it was me who … Or to provide myself with some kind of pre-excuse, a pre-emptive strike before … I don’t know. I really don’t know why I’m doing what I’m doing. But I can’t seem to stop.

  ‘How did you survive?’ she asks, a hint of vicarious pleasure lurking beneath her sympathetic tone.

  ‘My parents came back unexpectedly early – Dennis wasn’t feeling well – and Marjorie found me,’ I respond, briefly.

  We both sit in silence for a moment, absorbing this information, the fact that my mother’s chance appearance is all that prevented my life from being over.

  ‘How dreadful!’ she exclaims, eventually. ‘What an awful shock. She must have been terrified for you.’

  I shrug again. It’s funny how the memory makes me regress right back to b
eing that confused, mixed-up, desperately sad and lonely twenty-something.

  ‘I suppose so,’ I agree. I recall the ambulance arriving whilst I was in a state of semi-consciousness, being rushed to hospital, having my stomach pumped. The concern tinged with reproach shown by the paramedics, the A&E doctors, and worst of all by my parents.

  Why did you do it, Susannah? Surely a broken relationship isn’t worth this? But it wasn’t just Charlie and Josephine by then. It was my criminal act as well and they knew it, though they didn’t say so.

  ‘Did you suffer any lasting damage?’ asks Charlotte, her voice interrupting my reverie. ‘I’ve heard that paracetamol can destroy your liver.’

  ‘I was fine,’ I reply, without hesitation. ‘No lasting effects. All good.’

  There’s another pause, during which we are both presumably contemplating the fragile line that lies between life and death.

  I’m glad I’ve told her, I suddenly decide. I wanted to share the worst time of my life with her. But it’s her husband who’s hurting me now, I think with sudden rancour, and she has no idea about any of it. I’ve been clutching onto her friendship from sheer force of habit. And, if I’m honest, to avoid any possibility of anyone in the village pointing the finger of blame at me. The rumour mill is like a river in full spate, flowing out of control, questions being asked about where Dan is, why his car is never in its usual place in the gravel driveway anymore. If Charlotte and I were suddenly no longer friends, it would be all around the place in nanoseconds.

  Sitting here now, I have a sudden urge to chuck the rest of my drink in her self-satisfied face, to drench her prurient interest in my tarnished past with the juice of her own bitter lemons. But it’s best, I know, to play the long game. To be the considerate, loving friend I’ve always been, standing by my mate in her hour of need. That way Dan will see my true mettle, will recognise me for what I am: the bigger person, moral and upright.

  All I have to do is to hold out until something changes, which surely it will. And when it does, I’ll be there, ready and waiting in the wings, and he’ll already know that I am far, far superior to his superficial, preening wife. The problem is that I really don’t know how long I’m going to be able to keep this up, to maintain the pretence.