Friend Request Page 11

  ‘A couple of years ago, not long before you and I became properly friends, me and Claire and Joanne were this tight group of three.’

  I remembered. From the outside it seemed like they had won the prize, the three of them huddled together every day in a corner of the playground, screaming with laughter, an unattainable ideal of shared lip gloss and secrets. Everyone wanted to get close to them that year, but they were so tight that it was impossible.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve ever been in a group of three friends, but it’s a terrible number. When things were good it was amazing, but we were always falling out and it often seemed to be me that was frozen out. Do you remember that Dieppe trip?’

  Summer 1987. Esther Harcourt had been in my dormitory, and on the first night there, we’d spoken for the first time in years. I’d been homesick and she’d comforted me, made me laugh, and I’d wondered whether I’d made a mistake cutting her out so comprehensively. The next day though when she’d put on her too-short jeans and bright blue cagoule, I’d known I’d made the right decision. I’d spent the day with Lorna Sixsmith, and that night I’d stayed up chatting to the others in our room while Esther had lain reading on her bed.

  ‘We fell out badly during that trip,’ Sophie went on, linking her arm through mine. We were passing the little shop that served the estate; it looked ghostly and abandoned under the streetlights. ‘Well, I say we fell out; it was more like Claire and Joanne went off without me; I never really knew why. I hung out with Sue, so I wasn’t on my own, but all the time I could see the two of them, whispering in corners, giggling at private jokes. On the coach on the way home, I was sitting in the seat in front of them and they were talking in a private language. Not a whole language obviously, but they had all these code words for things and people.’

  Poor, poor Sophie. I could see her, sitting alone in a double seat, face pressed to the window, her forehead stinging against the cool glass.

  ‘Obviously we’re friends again now but Claire can be… difficult, you know? She’s always trying to get one up on me; whatever I’ve done she always has to go one better. Everything’s always on her terms. It was after that Dieppe trip that you and I started to get close, do you remember?’

  Of course I remembered. The first time she sat with me at lunch, I was so excited I could barely sleep that night.

  ‘That’s why I got so upset about you and Maria. I know it’s silly, of course you can be friends with whoever you like. It just felt like it was all happening again, you know? Like I was losing you to her.’

  ‘You won’t lose me, Sophie. You’re —’ Could I risk this? I took a deep breath. ‘You’re my best friend.’

  She pulled me closer to her. ‘Thanks. I know I can always depend on you.’

  We walked on, arm in arm, having a real heart to heart; the only thing we didn’t talk about was boys, whether there was anyone we fancied. Maybe Sophie felt it wasn’t the time, that we were going deeper than that; I didn’t ask her because I didn’t want to know the answer. We did talk about our parents though.

  ‘I know mine love me,’ I said, ‘but they have no idea about what’s really going on in my life. All the time I’m at home, it’s like I’m just marking time, waiting to leave the house and start living again. I don’t feel like they know me at all.’

  ‘My mum likes to think she’s my best friend,’ Sophie said. Her mum is like an adult version of her, always groomed and glamorous, poised and full of charm. Sophie once told me that she has a weekly appointment at the beauty parlour. I thought with a sudden pang of my mum’s bare face and sensible shoes. She’s probably never been to a beauty parlour in her life. ‘Whatever happens to me,’ Sophie went on, ‘she’s always got a story about how something similar happened to her, and some brilliant advice based on her own experiences. As if I’d take her advice. Look where she’s ended up.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘Her and my dad are always fighting. They wait till they think I’m asleep usually, but I hear them.’

  ‘Do you think they’ll get divorced?’

  ‘I wish they would.’ She laughed. ‘Then I’d get two of everything. Mind you, it doesn’t always work like that. Do you know about Sam Parker’s mum?’

  ‘No,’ I said, trying not to betray any emotion. ‘What about her?’

  ‘She just upped and left him and his dad a few years ago. Ran off with some other bloke. Sam hasn’t seen her since.’

  ‘God, how awful. Poor Sam.’

  ‘I know. He never mentions her, but you can tell he’s fucked up about it.’

  We walked in silence for a few minutes, drinking in the stillness. Every house was in darkness and the cool air smelled crisp and clean, untainted by car fumes or cooking smells. With my arm tucked in hers, it felt like we were the only two people in the world.

  As we turned back into Matt’s road, Sophie’s attention was caught by something on the front doorstep of the huge house on the corner.

  ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’ she said, grinning.

  ‘What?’ I looked at her in confusion. She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the step. We were nearly at the door when the security light clicked on, bathing us in a harsh yellow light. Sophie snatched the bottle of milk from beside the step and we turned and raced madly towards Matt’s house, breathless and giggling. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so happy in my whole life.

  Then the following Monday at school, Sophie invited me to go for a fag with her at morning break. We managed to dodge the teachers and half-ran down the path to the woods. It was totally out of bounds, and I felt really nervous but I didn’t want to look stupid in front of Sophie so I tried not to look behind me. We came right through the little wood behind school and out the other side to the cliffs, which is even more out of bounds. Sophie went right to the edge and sat down on the chalky grass next to a sign saying ‘Keep Back’, dangling her feet over the precipice. I hung back, but she turned and beckoned me over, laughing.

  ‘Don’t be such a scaredy cat.’

  I sat down next to her, the grass scratching the back of my legs, my feet hanging into thin air. I didn’t smoke normally but I took the proffered cigarette she had lit for me. There was a faint print from her lipstick on the filter, and as I drew the smoke down I relished the bitter tang across my tongue and down my throat.

  ‘We’ve had this idea,’ Sophie said, her eyes on the horizon. ‘Sort of a prank. To play on Maria.’

  ‘A prank?’ I pulled a tuft of grass loose and scattered the blades over the edge of the cliff. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘She’s a bit up herself, don’t you think?’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘Well, Claire thinks so, and then there’s all these rumours going around about what a slag she was at her old school, and what she got up to. Have you heard about it?’

  ‘No.’ I remembered what Sam had told me at Matt’s kitchen table, but that was just gossip surely, blown out of all proportion.

  ‘It’s some properly gross weird stuff, Louise. Apparently she was sleeping with this boy and she sent him a used tampon in the post. One that had actually been inside her – which was the idea supposedly, like it was meant to turn him on. So Claire had this idea that we could put a used tampon in her bag, for a joke. Not with real blood obviously – we’re going to go up to the art room at lunch and soak one in red paint. I thought you could do it – put it in her bag I mean,’ Sophie went on. ‘You sit behind her in form, don’t you, so it would be easier for you than for anyone else.’

  ‘Oh, I don’t know.’ I shifted back a little from the edge, drawing my knees up, suddenly feeling the precariousness of my position. ‘You sit next to me, can’t you do it?’

  ‘I’d have to lean right over though. She’s directly in front of you, it’ll be less noticeable.’

  ‘I guess so, but – I mean, we don’t know for sure that she did do that, with the tampon, do we?’ I stubbed out my half-smoked cigarette, grinding it into the chalk bes
ide me.

  ‘Matt Lewis’s cousin knows someone who goes to her old school. I swear to God she did it.’

  ‘But even if she did, it just seems like…’ What I wanted to say was that it seemed like a pretty horrible thing to do regardless. Maria hadn’t spoken to me since the night of the party, nor I to her, but I had been hoping we could let our nascent friendship simply slide away, unnoticed. Now Sophie was asking me to raze it to the ground.

  She took a deep drag of her cigarette and breathed out a plume of smoke into the salty air.

  ‘Well, if you don’t want to then of course it’s your choice. I’m just worried about you – if you don’t join in with it you might end up feeling a bit left out. People might wonder if you really are one of the group, you know? I’m not saying I would, but that’s what the others might think.’

  We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes. Sophie lit another cigarette from the stub of her first without offering me one.

  ‘Right, we’d better get back to school then,’ she said eventually, standing up and tugging her skirt down where it had ridden up slightly. She was slipping away from me, I knew it, and I couldn’t help imagining the conversation where she told Claire and maybe even Sam that I had chickened out. I followed her along the path, and as we passed from the open cliff into the shadow of the woodland, I made my decision.

  ‘OK, I’ll do it.’

  She grasped my hand.

  ‘Yay! I knew you would. It’s going to be so funny, honestly.’

  I was overcome by breathless, shaky laughter and we walked back to school arm in arm, giggling all the way.

  As soon as the bell went for lunch we went up to the art room. I kept guard while Sophie went into the room, coming out a few minutes later, smirking.

  ‘That was quick. Where is it?’

  ‘In my bag, of course. In a plastic bag as well. I’m not going to walk around dripping blood in the school corridors, am I?’

  ‘What d’you mean, blood? I thought it was paint.’ A horrible thought flitted across my mind.

  ‘Yes, that’s what I mean – paint.’

  ‘Why haven’t you got paint on your fingers?’

  ‘I’m not totally stupid, Louise. If Maria tells, the first thing they’ll look for is someone covered in red paint. I took some gloves from Mum’s work the other day.’ Sophie’s mum is a dental nurse.

  ‘The other day? When did you decide to play this joke then?’ The blood in my veins dropped a few degrees. It all felt too premeditated, less of a prank than an attack.

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, Louise, does it matter?’ She pulled me into a nearby toilet block. Inside a cubicle, she handed over a small see-through plastic bag, the kind you’d put your sandwiches in. I didn’t look too closely.

  ‘Right, so when we go back to class after lunch, that’ll probably be your best chance, before we go to maths. Just tip it out into her bag. It’s open at the top, isn’t it, no zip or anything? Or get up and pretend to get something if that’s easier, and slip it in as you walk past. Once you’ve done that, put the plastic bag into the bin in our classroom on your way out. Then there’s no way to link it back to us if she tells.’

  Back in the classroom, I sat at my desk, trembling from head to toe. Claire and Joanne chatted artificially to each other in their seats across the aisle from me, jittery and skittish with anticipation. Maria walked into the room with Esther, both of them laughing as they passed down the aisle. Maria was studiously avoiding my eye but there was a telltale flush on her chest as she hung her bag on the back of her chair and sat down in front of me. Her hair was neatly tied in a ponytail.

  I put my hand into my bag and felt the sandwich bag, smooth and slippery, the tampon a squelchy lump between my finger and thumb. Was I really going to do this? I could feel Sophie brimming with supressed laughter to my right, and I anticipated the warmth I would feel as I basked in her approval later. I would be the one whose arm she sought as we walked into town after school, not Claire. Maybe she’d ask me to sleep over so we could relive what we had done, giggling together under the covers, partners in crime. I closed my hand a little tighter on the bag and its gruesome contents.

  I tried not to look at Maria as I began to pull the bag out; tried to force myself to visualise what would happen if I didn’t do it, how scornful Sophie would be. I pictured myself walking home alone, studiously avoiding the sight of Sophie clinging ostentatiously to Claire as they swanned off into town together. I closed my eyes for a second, and when I opened them, the first thing I saw was the nape of Maria’s neck, white and vulnerable, the clasp of her gold heart necklace just slightly off-centre.

  Instantly I felt as though I’d sunk into a warm bath. Relief suffused me as I realised that I wasn’t going through with it. I pushed the plastic bag back into my school bag with a shaking hand. Despite what I had already done to Maria, the way I had callously thrown aside our friendship, I couldn’t do this to her. It felt so calculated, so gross, so spiteful. And although part of the relief I felt was for Maria, and how thankful I was that this wasn’t going to happen to her, it was also for me. I was relieved that I wasn’t the sort of person who would do something like this. I had thought for a horrible moment that I was.

  There were only a couple of minutes left before the bell would go for maths. Sophie’s leg pressed against mine under the table, and Claire and Joanne were openly staring, willing me to action. I knew Sophie was looking at me too, but I kept my eyes fixed on our form teacher, her words like a foreign language, floating meaninglessly over the pounding of the blood in my head.

  The pressure against my leg lessened, and that was when I realised that Sophie was taking matters into her own hands. She reached into my bag and took something out, something that she held in her closed fist. If Maria hadn’t hung her bag on the side of the chair nearest to Sophie, I don’t think Sophie could have done it without drawing undue attention to herself, but she simply reached across me, shook the bag and withdrew her hand all in one smooth motion. For a final touch, she slipped the sandwich bag back into my school bag with a pointed glare at me.

  I don’t know exactly what Sophie was expecting in terms of a reaction from Maria. I heard Maria say to Esther that she needed to check if she had her maths textbook. Before I knew it, my hand shot out and tapped her on the shoulder.

  ‘Maria. There’s something I need to —’

  She cut me off as soon as I began to speak.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she said in a low, cold voice without looking up from her bag.

  ‘No, I know, but please —’

  ‘I said, leave me alone.’ This time she did look at me, hardening her face, determined not to betray the slightest hint of emotion.

  I sat back, defeated, as she opened her bag and started to reach in. It felt as though the whole world was holding its breath. Her hand stopped. I could feel rather than see Sophie’s anticipation next to me, but if she was hoping for screams and histrionics she was disappointed.

  Maria stared into her bag for a few seconds, the blood that had rushed to her face whilst she was speaking to me seeping out of it, leaving her skin pale and thinly stretched over her bones. She withdrew her hand, inch by inch, and stood up slowly.

  ‘I’m just going to the toilet. I’ll see you in maths,’ she said to Esther. Her voice was low but impressively steady.

  As she left the room, she turned to look at me, her face impassive. If she was close to tears she didn’t show it. The impression she gave was one of sheer fury, the kind that can fling objects across the room with its power. Without speaking, she told me she had the measure of me now, that she would make sure I would live to regret this day. I sat motionless at my desk, and felt a cold chill of fear trickle down my spine.

  Chapter 14

  2016

  Usually I wake as soon as Henry pushes open the door, but the morning after my dinner with Polly, the first thing I am aware of is his warm body slipping under the duvet in the semi-darkness, his hair t
ickling my face as he snuggles into me. I glance at the clock; it’s nine o’clock already, he’s slept much later than he normally would. I pull him closer, burying my nose in the nape of his neck, wondering as I always do when he will lose this delicious smell. He won’t smell like this when he’s fifteen, but what about in five years’ time? Will I still be able to breathe him into me like this? Sometimes I wonder what the effect of all this love will be on him later in life. All the experts seem to agree that you can’t give a child too much love, but what if you can? What if you smother him with it, or ruin him for ever by raising his expectations of how other people will feel about him? Nobody will ever love him this much again.

  He sighs happily. ‘What day is it?’