Her Closest Friend (ARC)

by Clare Boyd

  With his words ringing in her ears, Sophie sat on her bed and pulled out the cuttings, sifting through them to read one particular article.

  When she had first read it, she had been standing in the newsagents on the high street in Exeter. Her focus on the content of that article had been so intense, she could have been the only person alive on the planet.

  The Exeter Local

  * * *

  5th August 1999

  * * *

  YOUNG MAN KILLED IN HIT-AND-RUN

  * * *

  A 22-year-old student, Jason Parker, has died in an alleged hit-and-run crash in Exeter.

  Parker was reported missing two weeks prior to the discovery of his body, which was found in the undergrowth close to Stoke Road.

  In a statement, Devon and Cornwall Police said: ‘The investigation into the young man’s death is in the early stages, but it is believed his injuries are consistent with being involved in a road traffic collision.’

  The area was thoroughly searched, police added, but a vehicle has not been found.

  A post-mortem is due to be carried out and officers continue to make local enquiries.

  Strangely, Sophie recalled feeling sad that Jason Parker had warranted only a small article in the local newspaper, an impersonal yellow police sign and a small bunch of flowers pinned to a tree near to where his body was found. Her sadness had quickly passed: if Naomi had read about this man’s death, it might have turned out very differently for both of them. But she had been thousands of miles away, jumping off waterfalls on islands in the Pacific and partying under full moons, blissfully ignorant of what she had caused.

  Sophie tucked the article away and felt the rising of bile, which tasted bitter, like resentment.

  It was the middle of the night, but Sophie was lying wide awake. She was fighting the urge to call Adam in Portugal, where he was working. If Adam had been there, next to her, she would have asked him if she should go ahead with her plan to surprise Naomi at her Pilates class tomorrow morning.

  Hold her close, Deda had said.

  Over the weekend, she had driven to Naomi’s house, lying to Adam about where she had been going: to get milk, to clear her head, to pick up the newspapers. He had no inkling of her revolving worry about Naomi, whom she now believed might be terminally ill.

  I won’t be here forever, Deda had said.

  By the time the piercing noise of her alarm clock burst into the darkness at 6 a.m. on Thursday morning, Sophie had decided. She would go to Pilates.

  Any form of communication with Naomi would be preferable to her silence, even if it involved a shouting match.

  She pulled on a pair of black leggings and a t-shirt and shook the dried mud off her trainers.

  It felt painful to crease her hand to tie her laces. Water eczema on her right palm had flared up. It had been ten years since the last bout. The blisters prickled and itched. Thoughts of Naomi swirled.

  Dylan had not yet stirred, and she wondered if she could leave him to sleep. Knowing how distressed he would be if he woke up and found her gone, she decided to wake him and dress him and take him over to her grandfather’s.

  ‘Why do I have to go?’ he whined as she dragged him by the arm to the cottage.

  ‘I don’t want you to be on your own,’ Sophie cried crossly, worried that she was going to be late for the class.

  ‘But it smells in there!’ he wailed.

  She grabbed him by the shoulders and snapped at him. ‘Stop being so ungrateful, you little brat.’

  It was unlike Sophie to shout at him, and he stopped whining abruptly.

  She led him into the house and through to the sitting room.

  ‘You must be as quiet as a mouse. Deda’s asleep upstairs.’

  Before she left, she warmed Dylan a meat pasty and sat him down on the footstool with a stack of her old comics. ‘I won’t be long.’

  Tears slipped down his cheeks.

  ‘Don’t cry,’ she said. ‘You’re safe here. It’s the safest place in the world,’ she reassured him, kissing him goodbye, tasting the salty tears.

  The emotional cord between them was snapped as she drove off towards the high street where the fitness studio was located.

  The car park was empty, except for two estate cars and Naomi’s black Volvo 4x4. Her guts churned. Furtively, she walked across the dark car park to the beacon of the lit-up frosted glass entrance.

  Having paid at the reception desk, she peered into the studio space. Both Naomi and Meg were already sitting at the far right-hand corner on their rolled-out mats, cross-legged, chatting.

  Sophie walked across the polished pine floor, her chest thundering.

  When Naomi caught Sophie’s approach, her features froze.

  ‘Sophie! You made it!’ Meg said with a friendly smile. ‘Put your mat next to ours. We can be the naughty ones at the back.’

  ‘Is that okay?’ Sophie asked, hovering, looking to Naomi for an answer, wishing that there was a space next to Naomi. Meg’s mat was a wedge between them.

  ‘Sure,’ Naomi said, flashing a painfully polite smile. In her lap, her fingers fidgeted.

  The cool edge to her greeting sent a shot of fear through Sophie. She hesitated before laying down her mat.

  ‘Did you find someone to watch your little boy this morning?’ Meg asked Sophie.

  Before Sophie had a chance to answer, the bony Pilates instructor entered the room and clapped her hands, introducing herself in a shrill voice as Louise. Sophie quickly rolled out her mat, noticing that the studio had filled up with seven other women.

  The class began.

  The small repetitive movements were mind-numbing. The exercise bands pressed into the rash on her hand. She glanced over at Naomi, who resolutely refused to catch her eye. Her face was set with steely concentration. Every minute that Sophie spent with Naomi, while being unable to talk to her, was torment.

  As they came to the warm-down, Sophie saw that Naomi was already rolling up her mat, explaining to Meg that she had to leave early. Sophie did the same.

  ‘Your muscles need to warm down, ladies!’ Louise trilled as they left.

  A white mist had spread over the car park.

  ‘Naomi!’ Sophie called out, jogging after her.

  By the time Sophie had reached her car, Naomi was already shut inside.

  Sophie stood in front of the bonnet, refusing to let Naomi get away.

  The car horn blared, making Sophie jump, but she did not move.

  Naomi’s car door flew open.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ she yelled, uninhibited by the other women who were now filtering out of the fitness centre.

  Tears prickled Sophie’s eyes. ‘I wanted to see you. I want to know why you’re not talking to me,’ she pleaded.

  Naomi looked flabbergasted. ‘Are you serious? You really don’t know why I’m angry?’

  ‘No. I don’t understand. I didn’t lose Harley on purpose. He ran off.’

  ‘Did you know that farmer could have shot Harley? Did you?’

  ‘What farmer?’

  Sophie felt new panic rise. The rash on her palm itched ferociously.

  ‘The farmer who found Harley attacking his livestock!’

  Sophie laughed. ‘Harley wouldn’t attack a fly.’

  ‘It is irrelevant whether he did or not, the fact is you let him through the gate. Someone saw you do it.’

  ‘That’s a lie!’ Sophie cried, shocked that she had been seen.

  Naomi’s mouth opened to say something, but she faltered, ‘But… the farmer said…’

  Interrupting, Sophie insisted, ‘No. The farmer is lying. The gate must have been open already! I swear it, Naomi. Harley must have slipped through. When I was looking for him later, I noticed that the gate was pushed to, but it wasn’t clicked onto the latch.’

  ‘But why would the farmer lie?’

  ‘I have no idea. I really don’t. But, I mean, come on Naomi, why would I put Harley into that field wi
th all those sheep on purpose? There’s no logic to it.’

  There was a pause. Then, as though she was thinking out loud, Naomi said, ‘Unless the guy who saw you didn’t want to admit to Gordon that he’d left the gate open himself.’

  ‘What guy? Who’s Gordon?’

  ‘Gordon’s the farmer. He sent an electrician down to the field to fix the live fencing.’

  Sophie relaxed, knowing she had created doubt in Naomi’s mind, just enough for her to wriggle out of this scrape. ‘That sounds more likely.’

  ‘But you still lost him!’

  ‘I’m sorry. I am. I haven’t slept a wink since it happened. But Naomi, you have to admit, Harley has gone walkabout a few times before…’ Sophie reminded her cautiously.

  Naomi rested both hands on top of the open car door. Her fingertips drummed the metal.

  ‘I know. I know.’

  ‘I love him, too, you know. I would never have put him in danger.’

  ‘Of course,’ she sighed, her hands finally calm.

  ‘I wish you’d called me to talk about this,’ Sophie said.

  ‘I should have,’ Naomi admitted.

  ‘Fancy grabbing a quick coffee before the school run?’ Sophie asked, a little shyly.

  ‘Erm, I’m not sure. Charlie leaves for the train at eight thirty.’

  ‘Go on. We’ve got twenty minutes. Just a quick one.’

  There was a pause. She looked over her shoulder, then at her watch and sighed, ‘We’ll get them to go.’

  It wasn’t until Sophie had ordered her cappuccino that she remembered Dylan.

  She made her excuses and ran from the café, put her foot down and took the shortcut through the lanes back home.

  ‘Dylan?’ she whispered.

  In front of the hearth, Dylan was lying on his tummy, propped up on his elbows with an old Beano annual in front of him. The electric fire was on.

  ‘Hello, my darling boy!’ she cooed, lying next to him on her tummy. ‘It’s cosy here, isn’t it?’

  He scratched his elbows. ‘I turned the fire on.’

  ‘It would have been best to wait for Deda to do that when he woke up,’ she said, pulling him onto her lap to inspect the eczema on his elbows and under his armpits and behind his ears. There were telltale blotchy red signs of a fresh flare-up.

  ‘Daddy says that Deda won’t ever wake up,’ he said.

  Sophie pushed him off her lap. ‘Daddy is a mean, mean man for saying that,’ she hissed.

  Dylan climbed back onto her lap and stroked his hand down her hair. ‘It’s okay, Mumma.’

  She kissed his lips. ‘Come on, let’s get some cream on you and get you to school before we disturb Deda. He needs his sleep.’

  ‘Did you bring me a treat?’ he said as they walked over to the shack.

  ‘I promised I would, didn’t I?’

  She rummaged in her bag for the chocolate bar, which he gobbled on the way to school.

  After pushing the last piece of chocolate into his mouth, Dylan said, ‘I want to call Daddy.’

  ‘When you get home from school, you can.’

  ‘No. Now.’

  ‘He’ll be working too hard on his shoot to speak now.’

  ‘You always say he never works hard. You say he plays with swans on the beach.’

  She laughed. ‘Swans around on the beach. It’s an expression for…’ she stopped, refusing to get sidetracked. ‘He’ll be too busy to talk to you right now.’

  ‘No! I want to talk to him, NOW!’ he screeched.

  Trying to stay calm, she clicked the indicator into School Road.

  ‘No, Dylan. We are not calling Daddy.’

  He began to rummage in her bag at his feet. ‘Well, I am!’

  Sophie pulled into a parking space.

  ‘Give that to me now.’

  ‘No. I know your code.’

  She grabbed it from him. He caterwauled, ‘I want Daddeee! I’m not going to school. I want Daddeee!’

  ‘Okay, okay, come on. Calm down. Shhh,’ she soothed, seeing a mother and her two children walk past the car. ‘We’ll call him. But you mustn’t mention anything about staying with Deda this morning, okay?’

  His tears were sucked back into his eyes and he blinked up at her. ‘Okay, Mumma.’

  Sophie clicked on Adam’s name and handed the phone straight to Dylan. There was no answer. She texted him:

  Dylan is refusing to go to school until he talks to you.

  Seconds later, her phone flashed up with Adam’s name.

  ‘Here you go,’ she said, passing over the handset.

  ‘Hello, Daddy,’ he sniffed. ‘Mumma’s fine… I don’t know… Okay… I read three Beanos at Deda’s today…’

  Sophie’s heart stopped. ‘Dylan,’ she whispered, holding her finger to her lips, shush.

  He shot her a defiant scowl. ‘I stayed there all on my own,’ he said to his father.

  Sophie inhaled sharply and then tried to take the phone from him, but Dylan clambered out of the car. The mobile was pressed to his cheek as he headed in the direction of the school playground.

  There were streams of parents and their children on the narrow pavement now. Sophie wove through them towards Dylan.

  As soon as she caught up with him, he hung up.

  ‘Here you go,’ he said innocently, giving it back to her and yanking his school bag out of her other hand.

  ‘What did you tell Daddy?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘Dylan… Tell me the truth now.’

  ‘Bye,’ he called from over his shoulder as he ran through the gates to line up for the bell.

  Her phone began ringing as soon as she turned on the ignition. Of course, it was Adam. To shout at her. She did not pick up.

  All the way home, it rang from her bag. She began to enjoy the power of ignoring it. It seemed she had Adam’s attention, at last. She wondered if this was how Naomi felt in the face of all her calls. Perhaps Naomi had enjoyed feeling powerful too.

  At home, she made a coffee and settled on the sofa before calling him back. Her stomach flip-flopped as she listened to the European dialling tone. She couldn’t wait to hear his voice.

  ‘Hi, Adam.’

  There was a rustle. He spoke in a hiss. ‘What was Dylan doing on his own in that house?’

  ‘It was only for an hour.’

  ‘Only an hour? Have you gone mad?’

  ‘The cottage is more secure than this bloody shack. Our door doesn’t lock properly, and the window to our bedroom doesn’t even have a lock. Anyone could have walked straight in. I thought he’d be safer over there.’

  Adam let out a strangled laugh, or gasp – Sophie couldn’t tell which – before shouting, ‘He shouldn’t be left alone anywhere, ever!’

  ‘He wasn’t alone. Deda was looking after him.’

  ‘Oh, Jesus! Oh, Christ!’ he cried out, but it was muffled, distant, as though he had dropped the phone away from his mouth. Then his voice came back loudly, too loudly. ‘SOPHIE, HOW CAN A DEAD MAN LOOK AFTER AN EIGHT-YEAR-OLD BOY? SOPHIE, HE’S DEAD. HE’S DEAD, FOR CHRIST’S SAKE!’

  A sharp light shot across Sophie’s vision. She was stunned.

  ‘How can you be so hurtful, Adam?’

  He dropped his voice to a strained, urgent whisper. ‘You need to confront it.’

  A lump formed in her throat. Speaking became difficult. ‘He’s still there in that house. If you came over, you’d see him, too.’

  ‘Okay, Sophie,’ he said, gently, softly, as if he was speaking to a child. ‘That’s fine. You believe that he inhabits that house, in some form. Fair enough. I can’t seem to ever make you see it any different. But you need to promise me that you will never leave Dylan there ever again, not even for five minutes. The wiring is fucked and that heater is a bloody deathtrap. OKAY?’

  She wanted to reassure him that her Dedushka was like an angel looking out for them, more effectively than any living person could, but she felt it might make him angrier.

&
nbsp; ‘OKAY?’ he shouted again.

  ‘Okay. Okay.’ She looked at her hand and saw that the blisters had split. Her palm bled.

  ‘I’ll be back tomorrow morning,’ he stated, and then he hung up on her.

  She threw the phone onto the coffee table and lurched to standing, looking around her for a window to open. There was no air.

  She stumbled and tripped outside, out of their cabin, across the drive towards Deda’s house, the gravel shooting up and hitting her shins, digging into her knees as she fell, sticking into her flesh as she ran on. The key in her hand wouldn’t fit into the lock. Again and again she tried, banging on the door, ‘Deda! Deda!’ she screamed. The key finally slotted in, as though he had heard her cries for help.

  ‘Deda!’

  The house was quiet, like death.

  ‘No! Nooo! Deda,’ she sobbed, crashing into the front room, seeing the dead fire, the dead chair, the dead stool. It was not just empty, it was a void. A void, empty of all the love she had felt earlier that morning, when she and Dylan had lain cosy in the orange glow, sensing Deda’s love all around them, knowing he had one eye from the heavens on them both. But Adam’s words had flushed Deda out, drowned out his spirit, angered him in the next world.

  ‘I’m still here, Deda!’ she whispered, taking the black urn from the shelf next to the triptych, cradling his ashes in her arms; sitting in Deda’s favourite chair, holding him close. ‘I’m still here. Please talk to me.’

  The room remained silent.

  A thorny vine scratched at the window pane. A wood pigeon flapped in the chimney. The mice scuffled above her, where they ate at the mattress and lived in the wardrobe inside his old leather shoes.

  Unable to bear the silence, she sought out the vodka from the cupboard in the kitchen and returned to her usual place on the stool. Trying to find a focus in the chair where his face would be, she conjured him with all her might. She blinked away the blur of tears, trembling as she sipped at the fiery drink, staring at his untouched glass.

  The fire that his coffin had rolled into last year flared into her mind. She had wanted to lie on it and burn with him. The metal bars of the heater in the hearth seemed to sizzle. Absently, she wondered whether her clothes were flammable.