Friend Request Page 14

  I sit back in my chair, my mind skittering around. Is it really possible that Maria is still alive? And why am I only being persecuted now, if Esther’s been receiving these presents for years? Am I being melodramatic to think that I’m in danger? I can’t escape the fact that someone was watching me tonight. My eyes dart around, clocking everyone in the vicinity. Could that red-haired woman be her? Or one of that group of women by the bar?

  Esther is watching me.

  ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t want to upset you. I just thought maybe you ought to know. Even though I’m expecting it, it still shocks me, seeing her name in black and white on the label, every year. I can’t imagine what it must have been like for you to get that Facebook request.’

  The desire to open up to Esther is very strong – the need to loosen this knot inside me that is being pulled tighter and tighter. The pressure in my head that has been building since the day I got the Facebook request threatens to reach bursting point.

  ‘It’s not just the friend request, Esther.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ She drains the last of her G&T and glances at her watch.

  ‘I’ve had other messages, and the day I went to Sophie’s, I’m sure someone was following me, and then…’ I trail off, unwilling to admit how easily I was fooled into the internet date. ‘Do you want a drink?’ I say instead. Another glass of wine and I might just try to tell her the real story of what happened to Maria, start to let a little bit of light in.

  ‘No, I’d better not,’ she says, starting to gather up her things. ‘I need to head over to Liverpool Street, my husband hates me being too late. What do you mean, though; you thought someone was following you?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. It was probably just my imagination.’

  She looks doubtful.

  ‘Honestly, it’s fine!’ I say, attempting to sound breezy. I need to change the subject. ‘I didn’t know you were married.’ Foolishly I’d imagined her to be as alone as I am.

  ‘This didn’t give you a clue?’ She grins, waving her left hand in front of me, where I now see on the fourth finger a platinum band topped by a diamond solitaire.

  ‘What does your husband do?’ I’m panicking at the thought of being left alone, trying to keep her here longer.

  ‘Lawyer, same as me.’ She smiles. ‘Boring!’ I can tell she thinks it’s anything but.

  ‘Great.’ I search my mind, but can think of no intelligent question to ask. She’s a partner, I remember. ‘Is he a partner too?’

  There’s an infinitesimal pause, and a cloud that I can’t identify passes over her face. ‘No, not yet.’

  ‘Kids?’ If I can just keep asking her questions, maybe she’ll stay.

  ‘Yes, two. One of each. You?’ she asks, her eyes flicking to my ring-less finger so quickly that I almost don’t notice.

  ‘Yes. Just one.’ The usual pang at that. At least now I’m divorced people have stopped asking when I’m going to have another. ‘Henry. He’s four.’ I realise that Esther doesn’t know that I married Sam. For some reason I am embarrassed about telling her. She’s got her coat on now and there’s no stopping her. In a few moments I will be alone again, facing my solitary journey home to an empty flat. What if someone is following me?

  ‘Right, I’d better go and get my train, if you’re sure you’ll be OK. It was… good to see you, Louise.’ The words cost her, I can tell, and as she walks away, I’m overcome with an urge to run after her, ask her if we can’t be friends. But I know it’s hopeless. Esther seems willing to try and forgive me for how I treated Maria, and her. But she’d never forgive me if she knew the whole truth. Not in a million years.

  Chapter 16

  He’s always been… protective. He knows what she’s been through. Knows her childhood and teenage years weren’t exactly a bed of roses. He just wants the rest of her life to be happy, that’s all. Doesn’t want anyone else to hurt her. The closer he keeps her, the safer she will be.

  When she was pregnant, she thinks he secretly hoped she would give up work altogether, although that was never really going to be viable. She tries to push away the thought that he resents her professional success, that he’d prefer some slipper-shod hausfrau with dinner on the table. But it worries away at her, this feeling that he can’t cope with her being more successful than him. He’s not having a great time at work, and she feels almost reluctant to shout about her successes. She plays it down.

  Pregnancy had another impact on their relationship too. Giving birth and breastfeeding not only ravaged her physically, they placed her in a new relation to her body. She didn’t know what it was for any more. The things that had used to make her scream with pleasure left her totally unmoved.

  She supposed she ought to have been pleased that he still wanted her. She had friends whose husbands didn’t want to touch them after what they had seen in the delivery room: the blood and gore and screaming, ripping agony of it; they were repulsed by wives with loose-skinned bellies and leaking breasts.

  She finds she has to reassure herself quite often. It’s totally normal, what he wants to do. It falls within the range of normal. And what is normal, anyway? There’s really no such thing, as long as nobody gets hurt. Although sometimes it does hurt, but then that’s all part of the game, isn’t it?

  The main thing to remember is that he gets her. He knows her – he’s the only one that does. She’ll never find that with anyone else. And if she ever starts to forget that, well… he’s there to remind her.

  Chapter 17

  1989

  Sophie forgave me for bottling the tampon thing. In fact, she was really sweet about it, said she understood, I shouldn’t have to do anything I wasn’t happy with. She stuck close to me, walking with me in favour of Claire or Joanne, sitting with me at lunch every day. Maria stayed well away, thank God. I hardly saw her except in lessons. Everyone was talking about the leavers’ party, which was happening in a few weeks’ time, at the end of June, mostly about what they were going to take or how they were going to make sure the teachers didn’t twig beforehand and ruin it. Sophie had this mad idea about doing some elaborate practical joke to send us out in style. Something spectacular, something that would make us go down in school history. I went over to hers and we watched this film called Carrie; I’d never been so scared. There wasn’t going to be any pig’s blood involved in Sophie’s plan, but she said there would definitely be a big part in it for me. She didn’t even tell Claire and Joanne about it. The only ones who knew were her and me, Sam and Matt. We needed the boys to get us the stuff, and, anyway, I think Sophie was trying to impress one of them. I didn’t want to think about which of them it could be.

  I knew I wouldn’t bottle it again, wouldn’t let Sophie down. I was sure then that I’d made the right decision, sticking with Sophie and the others. I saw Maria having lunch with Esther most days. She’d be fine. Esther was probably a better friend for her anyway.

  The next big party was at Sam’s house. I was properly invited this time, and not just because of Sophie. In fact Sophie said Sam had specifically asked her if she could bring me. I tried not to read too much into that. I got ready at Sophie’s again, and we walked there from hers. I had no idea where his house was, so when we turned right by the fish and chip shop and started walking up Coombe Road, I was surprised. Not in a snobby way; I just never realised he lived up there. We walked past a gang of grubby little boys playing football on the street. One of them called out something rude to us but we ignored them.

  When Sam opened the door his pupils were so large that his eyes looked nearly black. He enveloped both of us in a huge hug and then danced off back down the hall.

  ‘God, he’s having a good time already, isn’t he?’ I said to Sophie. I was hoping to convey my coolness, to let her know that I understood that he was on something, but she pursed her lips. The floor was carpeted in a sickly green and the wallpaper looked as though it had been there since the 1970s. Sophie pulled me down the corridor and into the kitchen at the back
of the house. If the wallpaper was from the 1970s, the kitchen appeared to date from even earlier than that. Sophie sat me down at the Formica table, which had a sheen of dust and several burns on it. Her face was serious.

  ‘Listen, we need to have a talk.’

  I said nothing, picking with my fingernail at a chip on the surface of the table. Surely she wasn’t going to pull away again, after I’d just got her back?

  ‘We’ve noticed that you have a bit of an attitude about drugs.’

  Who’s ‘we’? I thought, but didn’t say.

  ‘If you don’t want to try anything, then, of course, that’s up to you. But if you are going to be hanging around with us more, then that’s what we do, you know? I wouldn’t want you to feel left out.’

  I thought fast.

  ‘It’s not that I have an attitude. More that I’ve never done anything except smoke a bit of weed, so I’m a bit unsure. What’s E like then?’

  ‘Oh my God, it’s amazing. You’d love it. Everything’s really beautiful and all the colours are really bright and you love everyone, and you just feel extraordinary. Light and happy. Like you could float away.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ I said lamely, embarrassed by my shameful naivety.

  ‘It’s more than good. Do you want to try one tonight?’

  ‘Tonight? What, here? Oh, I don’t know…’ I was frightened of drugs, frightened of losing control, of embarrassing myself.

  She shrugged, unsmiling. ‘Like I said, it’s up to you. I’m going to go and find Claire.’

  She walked out of the room and left me sitting alone at the kitchen table. From the window I could see into the scrubby back garden. There were a couple of torn and rusty sunbeds, one of them lying on its side. I remembered how Maria and I had lain in the garden at Matt’s house, and how relaxed I had felt in her company, alternating between desultory conversation and easy silence. I squeezed the inside of my mouth between my back teeth, chewing on the soft flesh, clawed by indecision. Was it too late to save what I had so nearly had with Maria? A proper friend – someone funny and interesting, who liked me for who I was. She’d forgiven me once – might she not do so again? I had tried to warn her, after all, about the tampon. All I had to do was walk out of this house, go home, and call her. It would be my final chance, I knew that, but still I felt she might give it to me.

  The door flew open and I looked up, expecting to see Sophie back again, but my heart sank when I saw Tim Weston, closely followed by Matt Lewis’s older brother. Tim ground to an abrupt halt when he saw me.

  ‘Oh. I didn’t know you were here.’

  ‘Put these in the fridge, would you, mate?’ Matt’s brother said to Tim, shoving a couple of four-packs of lager into his hands and turning back to the party.

  I pushed my chair as far into the table as it would go as Tim squeezed past me in silence. He removed one of the cans and put the rest in the fridge. He was halfway out of the door when he seemed to make up his mind about something and turned back to me.

  ‘Look, stay away from my sister, OK?’

  ‘Don’t worry, I’m going to.’ The harshness of my voice dismayed me, and I looked down, fiddling with the zip of my top. ‘Is she here?’ I asked more softly.

  ‘No, of course she’s not here,’ he said, throwing himself down in the chair opposite me and banging his can down on the table, causing lager to splash from the hole. ‘Do you have any idea what you’ve done?’

  ‘What d’you mean?’ I said, not daring to meet his eye.

  ‘She tells me stuff. I know what you’ve done to her. You may not know what she went through in London, but I do. This is the last thing she needs.’

  ‘She’s got Esther, hasn’t she?’ I muttered.

  ‘Yes, and thank God she has, but you know as well as I do that being friends with Esther means she’s cut herself off from ninety per cent of the rest of the year. And anyway, she wanted you. She liked you. And you let her down. And for what? That slapper in there?’ He jerked his hand in the direction of the front room where the music was pounding. ‘I hope you think it’s worth it.’ He stood up and pushed his chair back with a jerk, the legs screeching against the worn lino.

  I sat at the table for a few minutes, not sure whether my legs would carry me if I stood up. Eventually I stepped towards the door, decision made, wondering only whether to tell Sophie I was leaving. However, just as I’d decided to try and sneak away without anyone noticing, the door opened again. I steeled myself for another conversation with Tim, but my stomach gave a foolish flip when I realised that it was Sam. His dirty blond hair was flopping into his eyes, the blue of which was almost entirely obscured by his dilated pupils.

  ‘Lovely Louise! There you are!’ he cried, causing a blush to spread up my neck, even though I knew that the affection he felt for me was purely chemical. He pulled me close and I hugged him back, feeling the heat of his body against my chest, my hands pressed into his back. I kept my eyes closed and inhaled, breathing in a mix of his worn leather jacket, a sweet and sharp citrusy smell and something else indefinable. An unfamiliar feeling rose in me, a desperate wanting that I could hardly name.

  ‘Sit down with me?’ Sam asked.

  We sat down opposite each other and he smiled, reaching out for my hand. My heart was beating so fast I thought it was going to fly up out of my throat.

  ‘Sorry about all this,’ he said, looking around the kitchen.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I looked around at the rusty sink, the ancient yellow kitchen units, one door hanging off and a drawer completely missing, the chipped and stained worktop.

  ‘You know what I mean. It’s a shithole.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ I said, squeezing his hand daringly. ‘Who cares? At least you’ve got the place to yourself for the night. My parents never go anywhere. And even if they did, they’d kill me if I had a party.’

  ‘My dad doesn’t give a shit,’ he said, his face darkening. ‘I’m glad you’re here though.’ His smile reached down inside me, warming me from within.

  I was about to reply when the door swung open once more, this time to admit Sophie. She smiled, looking pointedly at our linked hands on the table. Sam pulled his hand away and stood up, with a final smile at me.

  ‘I’ll see you in a bit, yeah?’ he said. As he passed her, Sophie held her arms out.

  ‘Where’s my hug then, Sammy?’

  Sam enveloped her in his arms, and she slid hers around his waist, watching me over his shoulder. When he headed back towards the living room, Sophie bounced down opposite me at the table.

  ‘You two looked cosy,’ she said with a wicked smile. ‘So, what d’you think? Want to try it?’

  I took a deep breath.

  ‘Have you got anything I can take? Tonight, I mean?’

  She smiled then, and I knew I’d passed the test. I also knew that whatever I’d had with Maria, it was well and truly over now. There would be no more chances.

  Much later, I lay next to Sophie under a heavy goose-down duvet in her soft double bed as dawn broke. I felt as though I had passed through some invisible barrier into another world. I’d always felt at a slight remove from the group. My relationship with the others in it had always been filtered through Sophie, but taking the E had made me feel for the first time that I was really one of them. Images flashed through my mind from the night before: dancing, hugging, laughing; Sam’s arms around me, lifting me up and spinning me around, everything a whirl of colour and light. Weak sunlight filtered through her Laura Ashley curtains and the birds began to squawk and chatter outside. I hadn’t slept, running Sophie’s idea over and over in my head. I had been a bit unsure at first but Sophie promised there wouldn’t be any lasting effects – in fact Maria’d probably love it, might loosen her up a bit. Sam and Matt were up for it too; they thought it was a hilarious idea. We’d decided not to tell anyone else, not even Claire and Joanne. It was going to be our secret, just the four of us. I knew this would cement my place in the group – I was the only one
that could do it. I just needed to hold my nerve.

  Chapter 18

  2016

  I’ve had the lights on in here all morning but they haven’t banished the October gloom, rain lashing from a gunmetal sky against the French windows. All week I’ve been putting off making a decision about the reunion, and even now the day has arrived, I still haven’t clicked on Facebook to say I am attending. Polly is on standby for babysitting. I didn’t want to tell her I was going, but I don’t have anyone else who will have Henry overnight. She wanted to see the Facebook page so I haven’t been able to hide it from her that Sam’s going to be there. She was not impressed. I know she’s only trying to protect me but she doesn’t understand why I feel the need to go. She can’t, because of the huge gaps in my story, the bits I haven’t told her. She doesn’t know how Sharne Bay pulls me, like a scar that itches, drawing your fingers to it, even though you know you should leave it alone to heal.