A User's Guide to Make-Believe

by Jane Alexander

  Ruby crossed her arms, stayed firmly planted in the doorway. ‘No, I don’t.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘Because it’s too loud!’

  ‘Oh, well.’ The kettle began to whistle: Harrie got up to make the tea, tousled Ruby’s head on the way past. ‘This is Mummy’s friend Cassie, remember? And she’s very funny, so we might be laughing quite a bit I’m afraid.’

  Cassie smiled and waved. ‘Hello, Ruby.’

  ‘No!’ Ruby spun on her heel, and stomped off down the hall.

  ‘We’ll try to keep it down …’ Cassie called after her.

  ‘Sorry about that. Honestly, she’s turning into a little dictator. She doesn’t like me talking on the phone, telling stories to her sister, leaving the house without her, ever …’ Harrie’s voice was shaky, and Cassie wasn’t too sure if it was the remnants of the giggles or the onset of tired and emotional.

  ‘How is baby Ayesha? Is she upstairs?’

  ‘Yeah, she’s sleeping, for once. I sometimes think I should keep her awake in the day, you know, jab pins in her or something, and then she might sleep at night for more than an hour at a time. And of course she wakes Ruby, and then you’ve got two of them to deal with …’

  ‘God. I don’t know how you’re still upright.’ She’d done it herself, of course, days without sleep – but no, you couldn’t compare. Her Make-Believe with the slog, the blood and guts of motherhood. It wasn’t at all the same.

  Harrie hoisted the smile of someone who has no alternative. ‘Hoooo …’ she breathed out long and hard, like she was taking control again. ‘I just keep reminding myself it won’t last for ever – thank Christ.’

  Hey, Cassie wanted to say, remember the all-nighters we pulled in the run-up to the Make-Believe launch, when we were both still new and enthusiastic? Remember that time we slept in the office, and you ate instant coffee straight from the jar to keep you awake? Instead, she smiled sympathy. It was like Russian dolls. On the surface, there was this image of motherhood, all calm and radiant and complete. And then inside that was the shell-shocked soldier on a forced march, staggering on with no end in sight. And inside that was the kernel, the unconditional bit, the jump-in-front-of-a-bullet bit. It was all different levels of real.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Harrie, ‘that’s not exciting – let’s hear your news. You have a gentleman.’

  ‘Well. Sort of.’

  ‘What’s “sort of”? He’s a man. With whom you’re having sex.’

  Solemnly, Cassie agreed: ‘Yes … yes, I am.’

  ‘Which is a hell of a lot more than I am at the moment, so less of the “sort of” and tell me all about him …’

  Eager to oblige, Cassie smiled and leant in. Then she hesitated. It was as if she knew the deep-down Lewis, without having to know the facts of him. She knew that he softened the hard edges of her world, that nights without him felt somehow chilled, left her huddling under the covers in her platform bed even at the height of summer. But that wasn’t what Harrie was asking.

  ‘Alright then – three questions,’ Harrie said. ‘Where did you meet him, what does he look like, what does his father do?’

  Cassie laughed. ‘In reverse order: no idea; tall, dark and’ – she made a so-so gesture with her hand – ‘kind of vaguely handsome; and, at the group.’

  ‘Oh, wow. Great. So – you’re back there again?’

  ‘Yeah, but don’t worry.’ Cassie put on a comedy voice. ‘I haven’t relapsed.’ Straight away, she imagined Jake listening, and felt ashamed. Why had she done that – said it like that? To make it seem less twelve-step? To show she didn’t really need to be there? That she was different from the rest of them, with their ordinary, tawdry dependencies?

  In any case, the group seemed to have run them into silence. Cassie reached for a biscuit, took the chance to change the subject.

  ‘So remind me again, when are you due back at work?’ She already knew the answer – but it was a safe way to nudge the conversation in the right direction. She had to be careful with this. Had to take her time.

  ‘Not till January,’ Harrie said. ‘Another six months’ maternity, plus some holiday. To be honest I’d go back sooner. Get my brain working again.’

  ‘I suppose you feel a bit out of it. So much can happen in a year.’

  ‘Although, I know once I’ve been back there a week it’ll feel like I’ve never been away.’

  ‘God, so much must have changed since my time. Even in a year.’ She imagined Harrie staring at her, but she didn’t look up to check. ‘I don’t suppose I’d know half the people there now.’

  ‘There have been a few changes.’ Harrie’s voice was cautious, her words carefully empty.

  ‘I kind of keep up, a bit, with what’s going on; you know, product announcements or whatever.’

  ‘Do you? Hasn’t been much to keep up with lately, I wouldn’t have thought. Just, business as usual.’

  ‘Except there has been a bit of a blip, hasn’t there.’ Cassie risked a glance, to see Harrie’s expression. ‘It was in the news the other day, how growth was slower than they’d been planning.’

  It was Harrie’s turn to look away. ‘I’ve actually, I’ve had my hands full here, Cassie. I haven’t been following what’s going on at the office.’

  She was avoiding the issue, for definite. But that didn’t mean anything, not necessarily – because this, Imagen, was something they didn’t talk about. The agreement was unspoken, but solid, and Cassie would never have pushed at it except for the fact that her friend was six months into her leave – the chance that maternity might have distanced her from her professional self, enough that her lips might loosen.

  The flipside, of course, was that if Harrie did give in to gossip, it would be lukewarm at best.

  ‘Yeah,’ Cassie said, ‘there’s been lots of speculation about that, why it might be. Just from what I’ve seen online, you know?’

  ‘I don’t know about that.’ Harrie reached for a biscuit, broke it in two, put one half back into the packet. ‘I’m not really involved with that side of it.’

  Cassie knew she should give it up. Change the subject, chat about light stuff, neutral stuff. Enjoy an afternoon with a friend, instead of acting the undercover agent. This wasn’t like playing at spies – managing operatives, transferring secret documents. This was another kind of spying: manipulative, and grubby. She closed her eyes. Thought of Alan in a secure ward, his confidential treatment. Scrabbling at his scalp, drawing blood. His wet cheeks.

  ‘People wondering whether it’s the result of sales focusing on international launches, or maybe something more unforeseen …’

  Harrie looked alarmed. ‘Come on, Cassie – you know I can’t talk about this. I understand, it must be really hard for you. You want to feel involved. I get that – you feel connected; you have to really care, to do your job well – and you always did do your job well. They want you to feel like Imagen is your family, that’s how they get the best out of you. But it’s not your family. It never was.’ Her face was soft with sympathy. ‘It was just your job. It was only your job you lost.’

  Cassie swallowed. Drank some tea, forcing it down along with the sore lump in her throat. I understand, Harrie said; but she understood nothing, of course. How could she?

  ‘Anyway,’ Harrie was saying, ‘you’d know as much as I do about international launches. There was plenty for me to focus on with the domestic market.’

  Cassie would have given up, if she hadn’t said that. But if Imagen was gearing up as planned for overseas expansion, Harrie would certainly have been involved before she went on leave. A tiny sliver of information – a suggestion that she could still reveal something useful. One more question, but what should she ask? Alan: the injury by his ear, scabbed over, scratched open. ‘I did hear something about next generation receivers being implantable—’

  Abruptly, Harrie was standing. ‘That’s Ayesha,’ she said, and hurried from the room.

  All Cassie could hear was
Ruby singing somewhere down the hall.

  She sat alone in the kitchen, shaking her head at her own idiocy. Harrie was too fucking loyal – to the company, as well as to her. How could she not have predicted this? Because it was Harrie’s loyalty that had kept them in contact, through the whole shitstorm. It would have been the easiest thing in the world for Harrie to let Cassie disappear from her life. Like the rest of Cassie’s former colleagues – the ones she’d thought of as friends, as well as the water-cooler acquaintances. But Harrie hadn’t let that happen. And the only way it could work, their staying friends, was to comply with the spirit of the ban on contact even as they flouted it. They had never touched on what had happened. The fallout, yes. The darkness, yes. The consequences. But not on what Cassie had done to cause it – and not a word, a whisper, about Harrie’s continuing life there.

  ‘Where’s my mummy?’

  Ruby stood in the doorway, clutching a picture book.

  Cassie cleared her throat. ‘She’s just upstairs. Baby Ayesha was crying.’

  ‘She’s always crying,’ said Ruby, disgusted. ‘She just cries cries cries. And she needs a new nappy all the time.’

  ‘Did you not cry when you were a baby?’

  Ruby shook her head, definitely: left – right – left. ‘No, I did not cry, and anyway that was a very long time ago.’

  ‘You never cried, not once?’

  But Ruby had lost interest in that conversation. She marched over to Cassie’s chair and thrust out the book she was carrying. ‘Can you read this?’

  ‘Now? You want it now? OK.’ Cassie took the book: The Owl Who Wouldn’t Fly. ‘Um … where do you want to sit?’

  Not on Cassie’s lap, apparently. The little girl climbed onto her mother’s seat, and Cassie angled her own so they could both see the illustrations. She turned the pages, pointing out the parts of the pictures mentioned in the text – the moon, a ladder, a baby owl – and doing funny voices for each of the characters. The voices were new to Ruby. She stared at Cassie instead of the illustrations.

  ‘The end.’ Cassie closed the book.

  Ruby gazed at her with big brown eyes. ‘But it’s not the end if we make up a bit more story.’

  ‘True. So what happens next, do you think?’

  ‘The baby owl flies all the way up to the moon, and …’ Ruby stopped, curled a lock of hair round her finger. Self-conscious, suddenly.

  ‘And when he gets there he meets a family of space-owls,’ Cassie suggested. ‘And they lend him a spacesuit, and they feed him dried frozen worms …’

  ‘Space-worms,’ said Ruby. She screwed up her face, closed her eyes. Loving the let’s pretend. Believing hard.

  ‘Yes, space-worms. And then—’

  ‘But he’s homesick – and he flies back home and – then, he finds his mummy and the end.’ Ruby’s eyes snapped open again.

  ‘That’s a good story,’ said Cassie. Overhead, the stairs creaked.

  ‘Yes, and I’ve actually got another good story. You can read it to me.’ Ruby slid down from her chair, and trotted off to fetch another book.

  Cassie flipped back through The Owl Who Wouldn’t Fly. Ella would like it, perhaps; her niece was only a year older than Ruby, and her birthday was coming up fast. Over on the counter there was a pen, some scrap paper torn into shopping-list strips. Cassie stood up, noted the title and the author, not trusting her memory.

  Harrie’s voice from the hall: ‘Ruby, what are you doing with that? You’re not bothering Cassie, are you?’ A stream of Ruby’s protestations announced them both back into the kitchen, Harrie jigging Ayesha at her shoulder.

  Cassie slipped the note into her pocket. ‘Harrie, sorry – forget that, please. I was being an idiot.’

  Harrie shook her head. ‘No, sure. It’s fine, don’t worry. Hey, say hello to Ayesha. D’you want a hold?’ She passed the baby to Cassie, who cuddled her in the crook of her arm, offered a finger for her to grab.

  ‘Hello, beautiful …’ Under the warmth and the weight of her, Cassie felt her chest constrict as Ayesha curled four fingers, tiny and damp, round Cassie’s one. The baby blinked, tolerating her compliments. Cassie breathed her warm, powdery smell till she was half-smothered by sadness, passed her back to Harrie in an awkward almost hug. They were both pretending. If they pretended hard enough, it might be OK.

  ‘Do you want some more tea?’ But Harrie was still standing, right by the door.

  ‘Thanks, I’d better make a move,’ Cassie said. ‘Let you get on. Get some rest!’

  ‘Fat chance. Almost time for Ruby’s snack. And you!’ Harrie’s face lit into a smile, and Ayesha copied, a bright mirror. ‘Yes! Hungry too, aren’t you? You’ll have to see round the rest of the house, next time,’ she said to Cassie, as they drifted out into the hall. ‘But it’s a bit chaotic upstairs, stuff still in boxes … Hey, how’s your sister, how’re the kids?’

  ‘Oh, they’re all fine, yes. Doing great. And Tim, how’s he?’ A trickle of small-talk carried them to the front door. A goodbye hug, like everything was fine. Cassie smiled at her friend. ‘See you soon,’ she said.

  ‘Thanks for coming.’ Harrie held Cassie’s gaze with her punched-looking eyes. ‘You take care, yeah?’ she said. Then she swung the door slowly closed.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Cassie made an adventure track of the fucked-up roads back into town: head down, pedalling fast, shaking the rain from her eyes. A van sliced past too close – touching distance – and she whacked it with the flat of her hand, following up with a finger as it pulled off, horn blaring. She muttered the registration as she kept up behind, knowing she’d forget it the instant she couldn’t read it any more, knowing even if she remembered it the last thing she would do was complain to the police. Knowing that if she did complain, her name would go on record and nothing would be done, since they barely had the manpower to chase up actual, serious crimes. But it made her feel better, a slap and a curse. She’d worked out some of her frustration by the time she reached the bookshop, sandwiched between a vacant unit and a clothes shop that shouted EVERYTHING MUST GO.

  The children’s section was tucked in a corner, bright with beanbags and character cut-outs: princesses and pirates, animals and aliens. Cassie headed straight for the picture books. A week today, Ella would turn five. On her fourth birthday, Cassie had given her nothing. She had barely known if it was summer or winter, was no longer fixed in real time, inside the frame of months and weeks and days that held things steady. So she’d forgotten her niece’s birthday – and when weeks later she had realised, she’d told herself it didn’t matter since Meg would have intercepted any gift that Cassie might have sent, taken it straight to the charity shop.

  Meg would probably do the same with The Owl Who Wouldn’t Fly, but Cassie picked it up anyway. It turned out to be one of a series; she swithered, wondering whether it mattered which story came first, but in the end she chose the same one she’d read with Ruby. She would have liked to buy a birthday card too, but once she’d paid for the book she would have £3.48 to last the next four days, and it would cost her to package and post the book too.

  Just for a moment she thought of dipping into her debt clearance fund – taking a tenner, or even a fiver. But £2.99 for a birthday card was a self-indulgence. It might make her feel good, but it would do nothing to protect the kids. That was what her screen wallpaper was for: the photo a stranger had snapped, of Finn and Ella. To remind herself of the danger she’d put them in.

  It was the only time she’d missed a repayment, the month she’d moved into the bedsit and closed her old bank account, thinking she might outrun the debt. The threat had been swift and efficient. Trusted Financial Solutions might not know where she lived any longer; she’d forgotten they knew where her sister lived. A picture sent to her screen, of the kids playing in the back green. Ella crouching, absorbed by something in the grass, a ladybird maybe – she loved to draw them, used to call them babybirds – Finn beside her, holding aloft a stick which
was no doubt really a sword or a magic wand. It was a charming snapshot, the sort you might frame; and just for a second, Cassie had been confused. She’d thought the picture must have come from Meg. Had been swamped by a tidal wave of relief, of gratitude for her sister’s forgiveness. And then she’d realised. Relief curdled to fear, gratitude to guilt. In less than a minute she had made her back payments – and made certain that each time she picked up her screen she would be confronted by that image. A constant reminder of her responsibility.

  Every month since then, she’d been sure to pay on time.

  She had spent so long lately at Lewis’s flat, with its acres of polished floorboards, that the bedsit felt smaller, more grubby than ever. Cassie propped her rain-wet bike against the wall. Checked the sticky papers for trapped insects. There were only a couple, cockroach babies the size of pumpkin seeds. What she wanted to do was take the papers by their edges and fling them out into the rubbish chute – but that would be a waste. There was plenty of sticky surface left. She left the bodies where they lay, turned her back to the counter so she wouldn’t have to see them.

  She stuck a finger into the soil of her umbrella plant: not too thirsty. Needing just a drop of water. You could kill as easily with too much as with too little. She stood back, examined its leaves, pleased with their shine, with how well she was looking after it.

  ‘You’re doing fine,’ she said out loud, because plants liked to be spoken to.

  A few steps to her under-bed den. She sat cross-legged with The Owl Who Wouldn’t Fly open on one knee, and unlidded her biro. Paused, sucking her pen like a rollie. Then in a rush she wrote her message.

  Dear Ella, I hope you like this book. I chose it for you specially because I thought you would like the baby owl. His bright red legs remind me of you and your red woolly tights, I always remember you looking very cool with your red legs. Hopefully we will read the story together sometime. Wishing you lots of love and a VERY HAPPY BIRTHDAY! Miss you. Auntie Cassie.