Friend Request Read online

  Around eight o’clock I was rewarded for my vigilance. Maria was wearing a midnight-blue knee-length dress that I’m sure we’d seen in Topshop that day we went to the fair. Her hair was loose and she was smiling at the girl next to her, with whom she was arm in arm. I had to look twice before I realised who it was. Maria must have done her own makeover on Esther as she looked pretty decent in a black skirt and dark red wrap-over top. She even had some make-up on. A couple of steps behind them, eyeballing the room like a bodyguard scanning for potential assassins, came Tim. The girls walked over to the bar, seemingly oblivious to everyone else and ordered two cokes, which came served with a straw, like at a children’s party. Maria turned to Tim and asked him something. He shook his head. She looked annoyed and there was a short altercation, which ended with him stomping off to the other side of the hall and flinging himself down in a chair.

  I felt Sophie’s fingers tug on mine. ‘Come on, let’s go to the toilet.’

  We crammed ourselves into a cubicle and Sophie reached inside her bra for the bag. She took out one of the tablets and put it into another small bag, which she laid on the closed loo seat. Taking a heavy Zippo lighter out of her bag, she started to hammer the pill in its bag. It soon began to break up into smaller pieces and after a few minutes had been reduced to a fine dust.

  ‘OK, that should do it,’ she said, holding out the bag, hand totally steady. ‘Ready?’

  Was I? I took the bag anyway.

  ‘I’ll go first, to avoid suspicion,’ she said.

  I waited for a few moments, eyes closed, fear and excitement sending tiny shockwaves around my body. As I walked back down the corridor to the hall alone, the bag of powder now wedged between my breasts, Matt and Sam were walking towards me. Sam’s eyes widened momentarily at the sight of me, and as we drew near I could feel his attraction, tangible in the air between us. Again I felt the thrill of a power I’d never known before. This must be what it was like to be Sophie.

  ‘There you are,’ said Matt. ‘You know you don’t have to do this, right? If it’s easier, you could just go home now, say you’re not feeling well or something.’

  I was moved by his concern, and by his understanding of the fact that I might need an excuse to give Sophie, rather than being able to say I’d simply changed my mind.

  ‘Yeah,’ added Sam. ‘It’s totally up to you. No one’s going to think any worse of you or anything.’

  Except Sophie. The words hung in the air and even though nobody spoke them, I knew they were in all our minds. I also knew that whatever they said, my decision was already made. I’d made it the night of the party at Sam’s house, when I took the E, when I burned my bridges with Maria. If I failed tonight I’d lose Sophie too, and then what would I have?

  ‘Well, as long as you’re sure,’ said Matt doubtfully. ‘I’m going for a slash. Coming, Sam?’

  ‘In a minute, mate,’ said Sam, still looking at me.

  All the doors to the classrooms along the corridor were closed. I had presumed they were locked, but when Sam tried the handle of the nearest one it turned easily.

  ‘Come in here a minute,’ he said.

  I followed him inside. The blinds were drawn, and it was fairly dark although there was some light coming in from the corridor through the high panes of glass that ran along the room just below ceiling level.

  ‘You look amazing tonight,’ he said softly.

  Little flutters rippled through me. I felt like someone else. This was a scenario I had played out so many times in my head, it didn’t seem right that it could be happening in real life. I had my back to the wall and as he stepped towards me I rested my weight against it, not trusting my legs to support me. Sam put his hand to my face and traced a finger gently over my cheek and down the side of my neck. A shudder ran through my entire body. He leaned in and I could see his eyes coming nearer and nearer until everything became a blur. He kissed me softly, holding my top lip between both of his for a second before pulling back.

  ‘Is this OK?’ he asked.

  I nodded, unable to speak.

  He kissed me again, harder this time, his tongue exploring my mouth, pressing up against me so closely that I could barely breathe, hands running over the slippery satin of my dress, my insides turning hot and liquid in response. His fingers pressed hard into my flesh, a delicious pain that shot bolts of electricity through my body, and then I felt his hands slip behind me, searching for and finding the zip, beginning to slide it down.

  ‘No!’ I gasped instinctively, stiffening in his arms.

  He jumped back as if I’d bitten him.

  ‘Sorry! I thought you…’

  ‘No, it’s OK, I did, I mean… I do. It’s just – I haven’t… I’m not used to…’

  He smiled.

  ‘It’s OK. I didn’t mean to pressure you. You’re just so sexy tonight.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I muttered, staring at the floor, hot with shame and fury at myself.

  ‘It’s OK, don’t worry. Really, it doesn’t matter. I shouldn’t have pushed so hard. Let’s leave it for tonight, yeah? Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ I whispered.

  ‘OK, I’ll see you later, yeah?’

  And with that he was gone, leaving me alone in the semi-darkness. I drew a long, shaky breath, only now feeling the coldness of the wall seeping into my back. How could I have been so stupid? Wasn’t this what I wanted, what I’d been dreaming about for God knows how long? And what if he told Matt, who might tell Sophie?

  I touched the package in my bra, small and unnoticeable to anyone but me. My resolve hardened. I wouldn’t let this night be about what had just happened – or not happened – with Sam. This night would be about something else, something so big that no one would remember anything else about it.

  Chapter 20

  2016

  The night wears on. The volume rises. There is laughter, lots of it. There are the promised eighties tunes and bad dancing. I find that there are people here that I know, or knew. Sophie, Maria, Sam, Matt – they’ve all loomed so large in my mind that I had forgotten that I did have some other friends, especially before that last year at school. Sam has disappeared, swallowed up by the crowd. I’ve done my bit, had a civil conversation with him. Hopefully I can avoid him for the rest of the night.

  The mood in the hall is a potent cocktail of nerves and excitement; as the alcohol levels in our collective bloodstream rise, you can feel everyone slipping back into their teenage selves, as if their adult personas were only something they had been trying on for size.

  Despite an ever-present watchfulness in my core, I’m actually having fun, and when Lorna Sixsmith goes off to the bar to get us more drinks so she can carry on telling me about her divorce, I am totally comfortable on my own. I look around the room, smiling in an alcoholic fug, wondering who else the evening will throw my way. A dark-haired woman in a blue linen dress smiles in friendly recognition across the hall and I wave back. I’m so glad I came now. Maybe this is exactly what I needed. Exorcise those demons.

  Two women are heading my way, one tall with short blonde hair, expensively highlighted, one short and dark. I don’t recognise them at first, but as they draw closer, smiling, the penny drops. It’s Claire Barnes and Joanne Kirby.

  ‘Oh my God, Louise!’ says Claire, giving me a hug.

  I hug her back and Joanne embraces me in turn.

  ‘You look great,’ says Joanne.

  ‘Thanks, so do you both,’ I say automatically.

  ‘Isn’t this weird?’ says Claire. ‘God, I was so nervous about coming.’

  ‘Me too,’ Joanne says fervently. ‘Especially since… you know, being back here, where it happened. Maria, I mean.’

  It’s the first time I’ve heard her name mentioned tonight. I had thought that seeing as we were back here, gathered together in the place she was last seen, that she would be on people’s minds, but it seems they have short memories. Not these two though.

  ‘I’ve always felt so b
ad about her. I thought about not coming actually,’ says Claire. ‘It just didn’t seem right, you know?’

  For a minute I am confused. Claire and Joanne don’t know what I did at the leavers’ party, do they?

  But then Joanne adds, ‘I know. We were so mean to her. What shits we were.’

  I realise she is talking about our daily campaign of isolation, rather than any particular incident.

  ‘I’ve got teenage girls now myself,’ says Claire. ‘I’m always on the watch for anything like this. They get sick of me going on and on about it. If they ever say anything even slightly unkind about another girl, I jump down their throats.’

  I tell them about Polly and Phoebe, and how upset Polly is, and they are sympathetic, suggesting more strategies that Phoebe could use to deflect this girl who is making her life a misery. They are kind, decent women, and I can imagine myself being friends with both of them if I’d met them as adults. We exchange promises to keep in touch, and I actually think we might.

  I’m about to go and speak to the woman in the blue dress (Katie, it’s Katie Barr, the Neneh Cherry fan) when Matt Lewis pops up beside me. I feel a wave of affection. Matt was always nice to me, wasn’t he? He even tried to stop me following through with the plan at the leavers’ party.

  ‘Hey, you,’ I say. Even in my drunken state it doesn’t sound natural. I never say ‘hey, you’. In fact no one says ‘hey, you’ apart from in American movies.

  Matt doesn’t smile; in fact he looks fairly grim.

  ‘I’ve just been talking to Sophie. She told me about the Facebook thing. What the fuck, Louise?’

  I look desperately round. Where is Lorna with those drinks? I spy her over by the bar; she’s been waylaid by someone on her way back, laughing and chatting. She doesn’t seem in any hurry. The bubble I’ve been floating around in is abruptly popped.

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Who else knows? Who have you told, Louise?’

  Despite the music, he’s speaking quietly, so close that I can smell his slightly sour breath, see the pores in his skin.

  ‘I don’t know who knows… I haven’t told anyone, but maybe Sophie did, back then…’

  ‘We were all involved, Louise, and somebody knows. Think. Who have you told? Who else might know what we did?’

  ‘I swear, I’ve never told anyone about what really happened. God, I don’t want it to come out any more than you do. I was the one that… you know… you didn’t do anything…’

  ‘Where do you think Sophie got the stuff from?’ he hisses.

  ‘Sam got it, didn’t he?’

  ‘From me! That’s where he got all his stuff!’ For a second I think he’s going to hit me, but he takes a breath, unclenches his fists. ‘Look, my life hasn’t worked out the way I planned, OK? I messed up a lot of things, but I’ve got a new partner now, she has kids, they live with us. I’ve turned things around. I just don’t want anything to fuck that up, OK? Not only did I get the stuff, I lied to the police. It doesn’t look good, Louise.’

  ‘I lied too. We all did.’ I take a gulp of wine to try and wash away the bad taste in my mouth.

  ‘Right. And we’re going to continue lying, all of us. Whatever happens. Is that clear?’

  ‘Yes,’ I whisper, barely trusting myself to speak. I suppose I am as selfish as him – I don’t want the truth to come out any more than he does, after all – but his ruthless disregard for the horror of what we did turns my stomach. How can he be back here and not feel some of the shame and distress that suffuse me?

  ‘And if you get any more of these messages, I want to know. OK? Here’s my number.’ He scribbles it down on a piece of paper and shoves it into my hand. I put it carefully into my handbag, although I have no intention of ringing him, or of telling him about the other messages. I just want this encounter to be over.

  ‘OK.’ He seems satisfied, and with a surge of thankfulness I see Lorna finally making her way back to me, a brimming wine glass in each hand. Matt spies her too and makes his escape. I thought it was just me that couldn’t leave the past behind but it appears I’m not the only one. Just before Lorna reaches me, Sophie bowls over, arms outstretched.

  ‘Louise!’ she coos, her fingers pressing into the soft flesh of my forearm. She’s very drunk, I realise with a twinge of something that feels like fear. In vino veritas. Lorna hands me my wine and smiles at Sophie, who doesn’t even acknowledge her. Lorna shrugs and says she’ll see me later, rolling her eyes at me behind Sophie’s back as she walks off, as if to say, she hasn’t changed.

  ‘Where’s Pete?’ I ask. Typical of Sophie to invite a near-stranger to an event where he knows nobody and then abandon him.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know, somewhere around.’

  ‘So you told Matt about the friend request. You might have checked with me first.’ I must be drunk myself, standing up to Sophie like this.

  ‘Oh God, I’m sorry. Was Matt angry?’

  I wasn’t expecting contrition and it throws me. ‘A bit, but don’t worry about it. You haven’t told anyone else, have you?’

  She looks guilty. ‘Only Sam.’

  ‘Sam knows? When did you tell him? Tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says quickly. ‘Well, no actually. I phoned him the other day, after you came to see me.’

  ‘You phoned him? Why? How did you even have his number?’ The old jealousy rises in my throat, stifling me.

  She sighs impatiently. ‘Does it matter? I messaged him on Facebook to ask for his number.’

  ‘But why did you want to talk to him about it?’

  A strange look passes over her face.

  ‘He was involved, wasn’t he?’ she says quickly. ‘He got us the E. I thought he might have had the same message.’

  ‘And had he?’ I say, my head spinning. Why didn’t Sam mention this when I dropped Henry off the other day? That must have been why he was weird, asking me if I was OK. And why didn’t he say anything when I spoke to him earlier tonight?

  ‘No, he hasn’t had anything. Oh God, Louise, what are we going to do? Who’s doing this?’ I wasn’t expecting this panic from her. In vino veritas indeed.

  ‘I don’t know. Have you had any messages from Maria? Since she friend-requested you?’

  ‘Two.’ Her eyes are huge, like a Disney princess.

  ‘What did they say?’

  ‘I had one not long after the friend request that just said “Still looking good, Sophie”. And then another one this morning.’

  ‘What did it say?’

  ‘It just said “See you at the reunion, Sophie Hannigan”. I mean, it’s a message that anyone could have sent. Nothing scary about it, except that it’s from her.’ Her voice is a whisper and there is real fear in it. ‘Oh God, Louise, what shall we do?’

  ‘Why didn’t you say all this when I came to your flat? Why did you act like it wasn’t a problem?’ My cheeks are flushed; she made me feel so foolish for being upset about the Facebook request from Maria.

  ‘I’ve tried not to think about it. What we did… I know it was wrong. And we all lied too, didn’t we? We lied to the police. But maybe it wasn’t all our fault?’ She’s pleading with me now. ‘I mean, who knows what really happened? There was all sorts going on that night.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  She just shakes her head and repeats, ‘All sorts.’

  I’m going to press her when Pete appears at her side.

  ‘Oh, there you are,’ she says vaguely, looking around, anywhere but at him.

  ‘Yes, here I am,’ he says, voice heavy with sarcasm. ‘I can see you’ve been worried.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake, you don’t need to follow me round like a… like a fucking puppy. Just fucking grow a pair.’

  She flounces off, stumbling on her heels, making a beeline for Sam on the other side of the hall.

  Pete’s face is transformed, pale and angry. ‘Nice friends you’ve got.’

  ‘You’re the one who’s on a date with her,’ I say
crossly. There’s a beat of silence and then we both start to laugh. It’s as if all the tension bound up in the evening has been released in one steady stream of pure mirth, which goes on and on, longer than the joke requires, until gradually we stop, gasping, him pinching the bridge of his nose, me wiping mascara from under my eyes.

  ‘So I guess there’s not going to be a fourth date?’ I say, when I can speak again.

  ‘Oh yes, I thought I might take her to a wedding next. She can meet my parents, I can show her off to all my friends.’

  ‘Sounds delightful. Or how about a work do, something to impress your colleagues?’