by Rebecca Reid
Her mother had always told her that waiting for someone to call was the surest way to make sure they didn’t. But in this case, she was wrong. A few days after Christmas Chloe woke, turned on her phone and, just as she had secretly hoped, there was a text from Zadie. ‘What are you doing for new year? MY PARENTS ARE DRIVING ME FUCKING BONKERS xxxxx.’
What was the right reply? If she said she had no plans, she might get an invitation, which was obviously the ideal. But it would be slightly mortifying to admit that all her friends from home had made arrangements with other people. She’d told her mother that she wanted a quiet one after so much partying at uni, but she wasn’t sure that she had believed her.
‘Not sure yet,’ she typed. ‘You? X.’
The reply came almost immediately. ‘My parents always have a big thing at home. Wanna come?’
Chloe wanted to pinch herself – not in a ‘pinch me, I’m dreaming’ way, but to punish herself for how pathetically excited she was. But there was no point trying to suffocate this kind of excitement. A party at Zadie’s parents’ house would inevitably be something out of Evelyn Waugh.
‘I think I might go to a friend’s for New Year’s Eve,’ Chloe ventured to her mother later, twisting a tea towel between her fingers. She and her mother were washing up after supper while Greg watched television, just as they had every evening since he had moved in.
‘Zadie’s?’
‘Yes,’ said Chloe, surprised. ‘How did you know?’
Her mother sighed. ‘She’s all you talk about, love. Ever since you got back, Zadie this, Zadie that. Zadie went to boarding school where you wore your own clothes, Zadie has four brothers and sisters; Zadie, Zadie, Zadie. Apart from sometimes, when it’s Max, Max, Max.’
‘Oh.’ Chloe felt stung. What was she supposed to say to that?
‘I’m not having a go at you, my love, it’s all right. I just don’t want you to get too attached to a couple of people and miss out on making other friends.’
‘I am making other friends.’
‘Your own friends? Or their friends?’ Her mother was polishing the glasses before putting them away, her favourite part of the cleaning ritual. ‘Because if things go sour with them you want to still have other friends to spend time with.’
‘Why would it go sour with them?’
Her mother seemed to consider her next words carefully. ‘I might not know what I’m talking about. Maybe it won’t happen. It’s just that people like them, people from money, they can see people like us as …’ She paused. Chloe looked at the plate in her hand and imagined just how it would feel to smash it against the countertop. ‘Disposable,’ her mother finished.
‘Max and Zadie aren’t like that.’
‘Hopefully not.’
Her mother’s hands were pink against the white tea towel, patterned with blue veins. Her wrists were twig-like, tiny. ‘I am making other friends as well,’ she repeated, after a little while.
‘Oh?’
‘The girls on my corridor are really sweet. Lissy, she’s one of my good friends. We go to the pub together, and we went out clubbing before the end of term. She’s from a couple of miles down the road.’
Her mother looked as if a weight had been lifted from her shoulders, which made Chloe feel simultaneously furious and comforted.
A few days later Chloe found herself on a train to Zadie’s parents’ house. Or rather, one of Zadie’s parents’ houses – the country pile where the party was going to take place was where they spent weekends and holidays, but there was an apartment in London and a tumble-down cottage in the south of France. Chloe knew this because in the days between Boxing Day and New Year she and Zadie had fallen into the habit of talking on the phone, like teenagers. Every night at nine o’clock, as her parents were thinking about going to bed, the phone would ring. Zadie would be in the bath or smoking on the roof, always something extraordinary, always with a glass of wine in her hand, and they would talk in a way that Chloe hadn’t talked since she was fifteen. About what they wanted to do next week, next month, next decade. About people they disliked, people they admired, books they had read – it was here that Chloe outshone Zadie – and films and plays they had seen, which Zadie knew far more about than Chloe, and current affairs, where they were both cheerfully ill informed.
The train slowed into the station. It was the kind of place they filmed period dramas. Standing on the platform in jeans and a jumper was Max. Chloe’s relief that someone had come to collect her and that she hadn’t been forgotten was swallowed by her nerves. Why had Zadie sent Max? Memories of his finger on her bare arm at the Lounge flickered through her mind.
Max took Chloe’s suitcase and swung it from one hand, even though it had wheels. ‘You’ve packed light.’
‘It’s only one night.’
‘You should see what Zadie takes when we go anywhere. Despite the fact that none of her clothes are more than about an inch big.’
Chloe laughed politely, but then felt disloyal. ‘Where is Zadie?’
Max beeped his keys at an Audi and slung her suitcase in the back. ‘She’s at home, bit of a family drama over lunch. Plus, she can’t drive, so she’s not much use on the station runs.’
‘It’s nice of you to pick me up.’
‘I’m bloody delighted to get out of that house.’
Max drove exactly as Chloe would have imagined – fast but accurate, taking corners with alarming speed and astonishing control. He casually ignored speed restrictions and yet somehow Chloe felt safe. He only slowed down when they reached the brow of a hill, at which point he momentarily flicked the indicator and swung on to a long, cream-pebbled drive. At the bottom of it stood a breathtakingly pretty house made of yellow stone covered in snaky green ivy.
‘Woah,’ she said, under her breath.
Max stuck the car between a battered Land Rover and an even more battered Polo. ‘I know. It’s ridiculous. It’s Hogwarts.’
Chloe lowered her brow. ‘I thought you’d be …’ She stopped, unable to think of a polite way to finish her sentence.
Max seemed unperturbed. ‘My parents have a nice four-bed in London. This is a different fucking league. As far as they’re concerned, I’m the Artful Dodger.’ He pulled his keys from the ignition. ‘Are you okay?’
There was no point in lying. ‘I’m nervous.’
‘I’m not surprised. But it’s fine. We go in, they tell you where your room is, you unpack, even if you’re only staying one night. Then you go back downstairs at four thirty, there’ll be tea, we’ll all stand around talking, then you’ll get ready, and then we’ll all get so drunk that we won’t remember what happened, only they’ll call it getting “blotto” and it’s such expensive booze that you’ll actually feel okay tomorrow. As long as you call it a loo not a toilet and you’re nice to the dogs, they’ll like you.’ He opened the car door. ‘Now come on. Otherwise they’ll try to convince Zadie we’re having a dalliance so that she’ll dump me.’
Chloe laughed a little too loud.
It was just as Max had described. He had opened the huge front door and pointed her up some stairs to a pretty little bedroom at the far end of the first-floor corridor. It had twin beds, a proper dressing table with a stool, and an en suite bathroom that contained the kind of claw-foot bath that her mother would have given a kidney for. It was almost dark outside now, but she could see the outline of a swimming pool, all tucked away for winter. The house sat in the middle of two wide, square lawns which gave way into woodlands. Was all of this theirs? What a place to have grown up.
She put her clothes into the wardrobe, remembering Max’s words about unpacking even though she wasn’t staying long. He had been more helpful than perhaps he realized in his induction to how the Listers lived.
The clock on the mantelpiece said four thirty so, haltingly, she made her way downstairs, first to the hall, then, following a hum of conversation, she opened a door into a warm orange room filled with people, adults milling around in jeans and
sensible jumpers, teenagers splayed on sofas in hoodies and denim mini-skirts, various dogs lying in front of a roaring fire. Max was standing by the farthest window. A group of children were piled up on a sofa, their shoes on the cushions, hands filled with cake.
‘Chloe!’ said a slender woman. It took Chloe a moment to realize that it was Zadie’s mother. She was less made up than she had been the first time Chloe had met her, and her hair was pulled back. She looked years younger, and much softer. ‘I’m so glad you could come. Would you like some tea?’
On a table at the side of the room there was sort of afternoon tea set up, pretty pink-and-gold tea cups with saucers, several slightly wonky home-made-looking cakes and a variety of sandwiches curling at the edges. ‘Yes, please,’ she said.
Mrs Lister pulled her away to the tea table and started piling up a plate with things to eat. ‘I’m not just saying this, but you really must eat up now, we won’t have supper until ridiculously late because we’ve got thirty people coming and I’m very disorganized.’
‘Gosh, you’re doing all the cooking?’ Chloe hadn’t ever said ‘gosh’ before in her life.
Mrs Lister laughed. ‘It’s only beef bourguignon, nothing very exciting. I did most of it yesterday. The hardest bit has been keeping the dogs out of the larder. I’m terrified they’ll get in and eat all the cheese, then we’ll have a revolt on our hands.’ She pressed the plate and a tea cup into Chloe’s hands. ‘Have you got everything you need?’
‘Absolutely, yes,’ Chloe said. ‘I haven’t seen Zadie, though.’
‘Zadie is having one of her moods. You know how she gets.’
‘How she gets?’ Chloe realized too late that, as Zadie’s room-mate, she would have seen every single one of her moods for the last ten weeks, not just intermittent flashes of her. ‘Oh, yes, of course.’
‘But she does seem to be better since she’s been living with you,’ Mrs Lister added. ‘At least some of the time. She said you really cheered her up recently, after a fight with Max.’ The change in her tone when she spoke Max’s name was almost inaudible. But not quite.
‘She’s great to me, too,’ Chloe said. ‘It’s a two-way street.’
Somehow, Chloe had said the perfect thing. Mrs Lister smiled a huge, genuine smile. ‘I really am so glad that you came—’ It sounded as if she had been going to continue her sentence, but before she could there was a wail from the sofa as a child who looked about five – Chloe assumed it was Zadie’s youngest brother, William – slid on to the floor and banged his elbow. Mrs Lister was there in a moment. She looked down at her hands, one taken up with the plate of food and the other with a cup of Earl Grey. There wasn’t anywhere obvious to sit, certainly nowhere she would be able to balance the cup and the plate. Max was still standing by the window, looking out into the dark. She went over to join him.
‘I think the expression is usually “Penny for them?”’
Max jerked up, as if her voice had pulled him back from wherever he had been.
‘Fuck me, you’re hungry.’ He looked at her plate.
‘I didn’t fill it, Zadie’s mum did.’
Max raised one eyebrow. ‘Really? She must like you.’
‘I think she does, yeah. Remember, Zadie and I live together.’
‘Ah, yes, of course, the grand housing deception.’ His voice was soaked with contempt.
‘She told me that they wouldn’t pay her fees if she told them the truth.’
He scoffed. ‘Bollocks. They’d have one brief argument and then get over it. You think they want to tell all their nice friends that their bonkers daughter dropped out of university? Zadie’s all better now – that’s their story and they’re sticking to it.’
‘All better?’
Max shook his head and Chloe wasn’t bold enough to press him. ‘Where is Zadie?’
‘Sleeping, I think. She likes a disco nap before a late night.’ He took a sandwich off Chloe’s plate. ‘You should eat some of that. Astrid never serves dinner before about ten – you can starve to death in this house. Or drink yourself to death. Whichever comes first.’
Mrs Lister clinked a teaspoon against her cup and addressed the room. ‘Don’t worry, I’m not going to sing. I only wanted to say that we’ll expect you all downstairs dressed to the nines at half past seven. Last one down doesn’t get a drink.’
‘Do you really think she likes me?’ Chloe asked, sotto voce.
‘Trust me,’ replied Max. ‘If they didn’t, you’d know about it.’
14
Now
There was no obituary. Chloe had spent the rest of the day searching for one. She signed up to service after service, not even bothering to cover her tracks on the joint account, hoping that someone, somewhere, would be able to tell her what had happened to Zadie. She would be thirty-five. The same age as Chloe. A year and a half younger than Max. What did people die of in their mid-thirties? Childbirth. Cancer. Car accidents. Suicide. She searched for the statistics to back her assumption up. Car accidents and suicide. Then she searched for car accidents on and around Zadie’s death date. There were dozens. None of them fitted her description. She hadn’t had a driving licence back then. And she didn’t exactly seem the type to study for her theory test or learn to reverse around a corner.
There was one weapon in Chloe’s arsenal, one that she had been keeping for years, telling herself she would never use.
She had a phone number for Zadie’s younger sister, Louella, who had been an awkward, moody teenager when they had met all those years ago.
A few years ago, Chloe had found a Facebook post from someone in their local area. This person had lost her phone and had asked all her friends to post their numbers on the page so that she could put them all in her new one. And there, on the page, had been Louella Lister – usually so careful, with her profile locked down – her number in blue and white on the screen.
Chloe had written it down, agonizingly careful not to make a mistake, and kept a copy. If she was honest with herself, she probably knew the number off by heart. Very occasionally, she allowed herself to call it from a withheld number, to make sure that it was still in service. But she had never spoken to Louella. She had never known what to say.
Chloe dialled the number now, her whole body vibrating with excitement, fear and horror at what she was about to do. And on the third ring, a voice, one that sounded less like Zadie’s than Chloe had hoped, answered.
‘Hello?’
Chloe swallowed. She had planned what she was going to say. But now all the words had dried up.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi,’ she forced out. ‘Hi, Louella. It’s Chloe here. I was a friend of’ – she swallowed – ‘Zadie’s. We lived together at university.’
Would her family know that had been a lie? That they hadn’t really lived together?
Louella’s voice was guarded. Hostile. ‘I remember,’ she said. ‘Can I help?’ If she was confused about how Chloe had got hold of her number, she wasn’t saying anything. Maybe her phone had been ringing a lot recently.
‘I heard what happened. I read about it. I just wanted to call – I just wanted to tell you how sorry I am for your loss. That I’m thinking of you all – that …’
Louella’s breathing was audible. ‘That’s very kind,’ she said. Her voice was tight and clipped.
‘I wish I could have done something,’ Chloe ventured, deviating from the script she had written herself. ‘I wish I could have helped.’
‘We all do,’ Louella said, softening. ‘But there’s no one to blame. Apart from that psycho she was seeing at university.’
Chloe’s blood stopped in her veins. ‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ Louella clearly regretted having said anything. She must think Chloe had no idea about any of it. ‘You’re very kind to call. I’ll pass your condolences on to the rest of the family. Goodbye.’
For the first time, perhaps, in her life, Chloe knew exactly what she needed to do.
It was dark n
ow. When had that happened? She remembered getting up to go inside when her hands started to cramp around her phone, thinking that the laptop would be easier to work on. And then a couple of hours later she must have got up to plug in her charger. Had she eaten anything? Not for a while. She searched for some sense of hunger, but it didn’t come. Her mouth felt dry and sticky, her tongue sealed to the roof of her mouth, her lips sealed together.
There was only one person who might have the answers she needed. She watched her finger shake as she dialled the phone.
Max picked up on the third ring.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s Chloe.’
He paused. ‘Hey, Coco.’
‘Zadie’s dead.’
There was a shuffling of papers and the noise of a door being closed gently. ‘I know.’
‘You saw the announcement?’
Another pause. Chloe’s stomach twisted while she waited. ‘Max?’ she said, unable to bear the wait.
‘I spoke to her father.’
Chloe tried to compose herself. She tried to swallow the bile in the back of her throat.
‘What did he say?’
‘Very little. He thanked me for getting in touch, said that it hadn’t been unexpected and that he and Astrid were coping as best they could. Her brothers and sisters are devastated, of course. They’re having a very small family funeral. They don’t want flowers.’
‘Hadn’t been unexpected? What does that mean?’
