by Rebecca Reid
Max sighed. ‘Come on, Coco. You knew her. You know what it means.’
‘Say it.’
‘She killed herself.’
Chloe shook her head, as if she were trying to shake the knowledge out of her ears. ‘Why?’
‘I don’t think there was a reason.’
‘You didn’t ask?’
‘Why would he tell me that?’
‘You’re her ex-boyfriend. You were together for six years.’
‘A long time ago. It’s not my business. It’s got nothing to do with either of us, or anything that happened back then. People don’t kill themselves because of a falling-out they had fifteen years earlier. She was ill then and, clearly, she was still ill. That’s it.’
Chloe paused. She traced her finger in a circle on the cheap Ikea kitchen table. Of course he wanted to claim it wasn’t their fault. Of course he wasn’t going to allow even the tiniest hint of guilt to creep in. That way would lie ruin.
She knew what she had to do.
‘What are you doing now?’ she asked.
‘I’m about to head to Verity’s. She’s cooking supper.’
‘Does she know?’
‘Of course not.’
Why would he have told her? Their life was going to carry on unchanged. He would be greeted with a kiss from Verity and drink a glass of wine and compliment whatever pretentious dish she had cooked up, not caring that, somewhere, Zadie’s body was lying in a morgue, waiting to be buried or burned.
Chloe swallowed, pulling herself together.
‘I don’t want to be alone,’ she said in a small voice.
‘Where’s Rav?’ Max said after a slight pause.
‘Australia. You sent him there, remember?’
‘Ah, yes.’ Silence fell between them again and she forced herself to wait for him to break it first. ‘Want to come over?’
She breathed a silent sigh of relief. ‘What about Verity?’
‘I’ll tell her I’ve got to work. She’ll understand. I’ll send a car for half an hour’s time.’
‘Thanks, Max. I really appreciate it. See you soon,’ she made herself say, then hung up, her hands starting to tremble.
15
Then
Chloe was ready too early. She had left plenty of time to get ready, wanting to luxuriate in a bath, take care over her make-up and make the whole thing as much like a country-house weekend in a novel as she could manage. Only, with her legs and underarms already shaved and her hair already clean, her bath didn’t take long. Neither did a bit of foundation, some eyeliner, mascara and lipstick. Plus, she’d only packed one suitable outfit, a pale pink dress – a surprisingly successful Christmas present from her mother. So, with half an hour until the party was supposed to start, she sat on the bed, watching the hands on the clock move, thinking up things to say to her fellow party guests then hating herself for trying so hard. Finally, the spindly black hands pointed at the six and the seven.
The room they had been in earlier was transformed. The fire was low and there were candles everywhere. The rugs had been magicked away and the sofas placed against the walls, leaving a wide, open space. A table groaned with champagne flutes, fizzing in expectation of guests. Chloe flushed when she realized that she was the first person downstairs.
‘I think you may be the only one of Zadie’s friends who has ever been on time,’ came a voice behind her. Chloe turned to see Zadie’s father smiling, in black tie. ‘Drink?’
Chloe nodded. ‘Yes, please.’
Mr Lister handed her a glass and tapped it lightly with his own.
‘Happy New Year,’ she said politely.
‘And to you, my dear. We were so glad that Zadie invited you. She usually ignores anything we suggest, on principle.’
She spluttered a little as his meaning hit her. His words stung, of course. But Chloe tried very hard to let them bounce off her, as if she had always been aware that her invitation came from Mr and Mrs Lister, not Zadie herself.
‘What are your hopes for the coming year?’ Mr Lister asked.
It struck Chloe as a surprisingly personal question. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I’d like to pass my exams.’
‘I can see why Zadie calls you a good influence.’
‘Does she?’ Is that why you made her invite me is what she really wanted to say.
‘The way he says it makes it sound boring,’ said Zadie, coming through the door at the far side of the room, ‘but it’s meant as a compliment.’ She threw her arms around Chloe. Her dress was bright green, contrasting beautifully with her very unlikely tan.
‘Hello, darling, you look lovely – are you feeling better? Chloe here was all on her own.’
Zadie cocked her head. ‘What do you mean? I’ve been fine all day.’
Mr Lister looked as if he was going to say something, but then stopped. ‘I’m going to go and chivvy your mother. She can’t be the last down at her own party.’
Zadie topped up a champagne glass right to the rim, then sipped from it to stop it from spilling. ‘I’m so glad you’re here.’
‘Thank you for inviting me. Are you okay?’
‘Why do people keep asking me that?’
‘Your mother said you weren’t having a good day, then Max said you were asleep, so I was just—’
‘I’m fine,’ snapped Zadie. It was the first time she’d ever been anything even approaching sharp with Chloe. ‘Where’s Max?’
Chloe sensed that being confused, or suggesting that Zadie should know where Zadie’s boyfriend was, might go down badly. ‘I’m not sure,’ she said. ‘I saw him a bit earlier, when we were having tea.’
‘Did he behave himself? Make an effort to talk to people?’
‘Yes,’ Chloe lied. ‘He looked like he was having a good time.’
Not long after Chloe and Zadie had come downstairs the room was heaving, loud with chatter and the clink of glasses. Chloe’s parents didn’t have parties, not really. Sometimes they had a few friends over and sat in the garden with the ‘girls’, who drank sweet rosé, and the ‘boys’ (everyone was in their late forties), who drank beer. But this kind of party, where people with interesting jobs and interesting lives milled around talking to each other, flirting, laughing, and would all fall into their various bedrooms upstairs afterwards, this was an entirely different thing. There was pretty French music on in the background and the children had been allowed to stay up on the proviso that they passed around tray after tray of blinis. Chloe had found herself embroiled in a long conversation with an attractive middle-aged literary agent when Zadie came up behind her and placed her cold hand on the naked portion of her back. Chloe jumped, then laughed. The man excused himself.
‘He’s a complete pervert,’ Zadie whispered in her ear. ‘Honestly, tell him the worst idea for a book ever and he’ll swear blind he could get it published, all while looking down your top. No follow-through, though. I tried to kiss him once when I was sixteen and he looked like he was going to cry.’
‘Who did you try to kiss?’ asked Max, sliding behind Zadie and wrapping his arms around her torso. ‘Was this a recent development?’
‘Obviously not. I only have eyes for you.’ She twisted her neck to kiss him. Chloe shifted her weight between her feet, unsure where to look.
‘Shall we?’
Zadie nodded. ‘Come on, Chlo. Nearly midnight.’
Chloe followed them upstairs, Zadie and Max both carrying bottles of champagne, then up some more stairs, then up another smaller flight to a glass door which opened out on to the roof. The cold stole the air from Chloe’s body.
‘Look up!’ said Zadie, her teeth chattering. The stars above them were unlike anything Chloe had ever seen before. She searched for the right metaphor, something devoid of cliché, but failed. Her head was heavy as she tipped it back, as if it were filled with the champagne she had been drinking all evening. Zadie tipped some between her lips from the bottle she was holding and walked towards the edge.
‘
Careful,’ said Max, who had taken a spot sitting on a chimneypot. ‘You’re off your tits. I don’t want to start the New Year by telling your parents they’ve only got four kids left.’
Zadie laughed too loud, and drank again. Max held his bottle out to Chloe, who took it gratefully.
‘Cold?’
‘Fucking freezing.’
Max shrugged off his jacket and gave it to her.
‘I can’t.’
‘Yes, you can. If you don’t, then I’m a prick.’
She wrapped the jacket around her, feeling the warmness he had left in it seep into her skin. It smelled of CK One and cigarette smoke.
‘Chloe, come and look over the side!’ shouted Zadie, who was still standing perilously close to the edge.
‘I don’t like heights,’ Chloe lied. She didn’t dislike heights if it was a skyscraper or a roller coaster. She disliked heights which were genuinely dangerous.
‘Come on! It’s amazing, it makes you feel all tiny.’
‘I can feel tiny from over here.’
‘Come onnnn.’
Chloe stood up. Max put his hand on her forearm. ‘You are allowed to say no to her, you know. She needs it.’
Zadie turned. ‘You’re talking about me.’
‘No, we’re not. I’m just telling Chloe she doesn’t have to risk her neck to entertain you. You need to play nicely with your toys. Any memory of any previous ones?’
Zadie pouted. ‘She’s my friend. Not yours.’
Max snorted. ‘Is that true? Chloe?’
She should object to being used as a toy, she knew that. But the feeling that both Zadie and Max cared who she preferred was more intoxicating than the champagne.
‘I’m Zadie’s first,’ she smiled. ‘She is my room-mate, after all.’ It was supposed to sound playful, but it hadn’t quite landed. Max considered her, then stood, pulled Zadie back then ran his hands over her shoulders, down her arms, and kissed her, lightly at first but then harder, more insistently. Zadie seemed to like it, melting her body into his.
Chloe stood, pulling Max’s jacket around her, trying to work out what to do. Should she go inside? Max’s hands were on Zadie’s ribs, breasts, legs now. She didn’t want to watch it; she didn’t want to look. Was he doing this because she had said she was on Zadie’s side? Was it some kind of punishment? Or were they just drunk and in love? She took a step towards the door and then stopped. If she went downstairs, she’d have to answer questions about where Zadie was and why she wasn’t with her. She stopped, rooted to the spot. Zadie pulled away from Max.
‘Max, you’re being gross. Chloe doesn’t want to watch a live sex show.’
‘Oh, I don’t know. People pay a lot of money for that sort of stuff in some places.’
‘Chloe, do you want to watch me and Max have sex?’
The question was rhetorical. She knew that. But in asking it Zadie had made it seem like a genuine invitation. Max looked slowly between them, and something in the atmosphere became charged. The idea of watching his body, his huge shoulders and thick arms, his narrow torso, on top of Zadie’s bird-like nakedness was undeniably thrilling. It wasn’t as if she wanted to see it because it would turn her on, more that the idea of seeing the two people she was so fascinated by doing something so private and so intimate would be so completely remarkable.
‘No,’ she said. ‘A very kind offer, but no.’
Zadie giggled. ‘Of course, a threesome would probably be a bit much for your first time.’
Chloe tensed, knowing what was about to happen yet praying it wouldn’t.
‘You’re not?’ asked Max, his eyes wide.
Chloe could feel herself turning crimson. Maybe she had enough make-up on to cover it.
‘You’re a virgin?’ Max exclaimed. ‘But you’re hot?!’
The embarrassment was so acute Chloe couldn’t bring herself to enjoy the compliment. Before she could think of an appropriate response a huge pink-and-blue explosion above made her jump.
The three of them settled on the freezing roof, the awkwardness of the moment forgotten. Chloe and Zadie were sharing Max’s jacket, all of them wearing champagne for warmth, as overhead the sky burst into colour after colour after colour.
‘Happy New Year!’ said Chloe as the fireworks finally finished and the smoke hung in the inky air.
‘Cheers,’ said Max, tilting his glass against hers.
‘Happy New Year, my two favourite people,’ said Zadie.
After a while, even the drink couldn’t keep them warm, so the three of them descended the stairs. ‘This is my room,’ said Max. ‘Right next door to Mummy and Daddy, so there’s no corridor-creeping to be had, as if their darling daughter was still virgo intacta.’ A smile played across his lips as he directed those last words at Chloe.
Chloe resolved that the moment – no, the second – she had the chance to have sex, she was going to do it. And then she would make sure that Zadie told Max, so that the word ‘virgin’ couldn’t haunt her any longer.
Chloe followed behind Zadie. As they reached her room Chloe paused, one hand steadying her on the door frame.
‘Can I ask something?’
‘Of course.’
‘Your dad said that he and your mum told you to invite me.’
Zadie didn’t look flustered. Or embarrassed. What must it be like to be that cool, all the time? ‘They did. They think you’re brilliant. Apparently, you’re a good influence, which I know sounds boring but is actually very nice from them, because they do pretty much hate everyone.’
‘You didn’t invite anyone else.’
‘I invited Max.’
‘But no one else. Did you want me to come? Or was this just to keep convincing them you’re living in our room?’
Zadie picked up Chloe’s hands and gripped them with her long fingers. Her skin was still freezing cold, even with the warmth of the house. ‘I literally never do anything because my parents want me to. I asked you because I wanted you to come. You’re my best friend.’
16
Now
A few minutes later a text pinged, telling her that her driver would arrive in fifteen minutes. So predictable of Max to have a luxury car service on tap. She stood under the lukewarm water of the shower, wondering if she could really go through with the evening. She scrubbed crudely between her legs, under her arms, along her neck. Then she covered herself with an expensive oil Rav’s mother had given her for Christmas. It had a heavy, sexy scent which always felt wrong to wear to work and too grown-up for her.
She pulled a white dress from the wardrobe, which she didn’t wear often because the front needed safety-pinning. The lace of her orange-pink bra peeped out, rude against the white broderie anglaise. She didn’t pin it.
Tinted moisturizer. Mascara. Creamy pink lipstick. Blusher. The freckles had come out across the bridge of her nose in the last few days, making her look younger than she was. Her phone rang just as she was buckling her sandals. She didn’t take a bag – putting her keys in her pocket and her credit card in her phone case, she slammed the door behind her, thankful for the anonymity that living here provided. None of her neighbours knew her, or Rav. They didn’t know that he was away, or that she was going out, and even if they did they wouldn’t care. It was the polar opposite of the cliquey, gossipy cul de sac where her mother and Greg still lived, becoming more obsessed with other people’s comings and goings every single day.
The journey was smooth. Perhaps Max’s driver knew a better route, or it was late enough that the roads were empty, but it took half the time it had when she and Rav had taken a cab together. She rested her head against the car door, the open window wafting cool air over her face, marinating in the surprising calm she felt about what she was about to do.
Max came to the door before she even rang the bell. He must have had an alert that she was coming.
‘Drink?’ he asked as she walked in.
She nodded and kicked off her shoes. They went down to the basement kitchen
and he poured her a large glass of rosé, the palest pink a rosé could be, then pointed towards the open doors.
The garden was clearly managed by someone who wasn’t Max or Verity. It was on two levels, the first an ordered, perfect lawn with uniform-length grass. Steps led down to a second lawn. Chloe felt the soft grass under her feet as she padded towards it.
‘I like that.’ She pointed at a double swing seat.
Max had followed her, his feet also bare, the bottle of rosé in his hand. ‘Verity can’t stand it. Says it’s suburban and tacky.’
They sat down. It was comfortable, still warm from the day. The seat faced back to the house, perfect in its glassy arrogance. ‘Does that mean I’m suburban and tacky?’
‘If you are, I am, too.’
Zadie’s parents had always thought so. Chloe smiled to herself, remembering how incredibly impressed she had been on discovering that his father owned Mangiamo, branches of which still dotted high streets today, clinging on in a world of sourdough pizza and artisanal burrata. They swung back and forward in companionable silence for a while, looking into the light, inky evening, warmed by all the lights from the house.
‘I can’t believe she’s dead,’ said Chloe eventually.
Max seemed to think about it for a while. Then: ‘I can.’
Chloe took a long drink from her glass. ‘Don’t say that.’
‘It’s true.’
‘She was the most alive person I’d ever known.’
‘Some of the time.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She adored you, Chloe, but she only showed you some things. She didn’t show you what she was like in between bouts of being wonderful. She’d lie in bed for days, smash things up, break things. Shoplift for fun. Drink until she threw up. Threaten to kill herself if I did anything that upset her.’
Chloe shook her head. ‘You’re exaggerating.’
Max said nothing.
‘You really hadn’t spoken to her?’
‘No. The first person I’ve spoken to who had anything to do with her was her father, yesterday.’
