Her Closest Friend (ARC)

by Clare Boyd

  ‘What?’ Sophie said, truly wondering if she had understood him correctly.

  ‘Can I stay here again? Dylan doesn’t like being away from Bear, and there’s no way that dog can handle the Kingston flat.’

  She grinned. ‘I think Dylan and Bear would love it if you stayed here.’

  ‘See you the week after next then,’ he beamed, waving at them both as he drove off.

  Sophie was left glowing, boosted with happiness.

  But as soon as she stepped back inside the cottage, her joy shrivelled. Adam had been holding up a ceiling of unreality and it had just collapsed onto her head in tiny pieces. Thoughts of Naomi began pounding in her skull like an oncoming headache.

  The ostensible reason for driving into town was to visit the pet shop to buy a muzzle and a leather lead for Bear. But in every car and with each person, Sophie searched for Naomi’s plump, pretty face. The face that had always cheered her up.

  The town was school-run busy. The radio warned of a three-day heatwave. She listened to the summery songs on the radio. Her brand-new Volvo smelt of pristine leather and the air-conditioning was on full blast, protecting her from the heat outside. Life should have felt as bright and beautiful as the pop songs and the weather. But her hand itched.

  When she spotted a black Volvo turning left off the roundabout, she craned her neck to see its plate, and came close to bumping into the van in front of her. It was not Naomi’s car. Her mind was scrabbling. She wanted to know what Naomi was doing, what she was thinking, what she was saying behind her back, what she planned to do next: about Bear, about Jason Parker. All of their intertwined troubles were scrambled together into one big mess in her head.

  She would not be able to settle until she saw her.

  Instead of parking up in the high street car park to go to the pet shop, she continued driving and swung the car left into Naomi’s lane and wound up the hill.

  The powerful engine purred as it came to a stop outside Naomi’s driveway. She couldn’t see through the windows in their house, but their car was there. She waited a few minutes.

  Then the front door opened and Naomi came out in a t-shirt and Lycra leggings.

  Sophie yanked up the handbrake and ran over to her, leaving her car in the middle of the lane.

  ‘Naomi!’ she cried, hearing the screech in her voice.

  Naomi’s eyes seemed to recede as she jogged over to her car and slammed herself in.

  ‘Please, hear me out,’ Sophie cried, pressing a palm at her window, but Naomi looked ahead as though Sophie wasn’t there. The black locks flicked down and the car fired up and sped out of the drive, wheels spinning, swerving out of the way of Sophie’s open car door.

  Refusing to let go, Sophie followed behind her, all the way to the high street, where Naomi found a space in the main car park next to the fitness studio. Sophie waited in an available space in the same car park, and watched her greet Meg, who had emerged from a grey Golf. They hugged. Their heads were together as they walked towards the studio entrance. Sophie scrambled out and ran over to them, blocking them, feeling the sun’s heat scorching her pale skin.

  ‘Naomi,’ she said, pleading, tears forming. ‘Please, I just want to talk.’

  ‘Please leave me alone,’ Naomi replied, looking at the ground.

  Meg added, ‘I think it’s best if you give her a bit of space, okay? For the time being.’

  ‘Fuck off, Meg,’ Sophie spat.

  Meg’s bright eyes flared. She did not look scared, like Naomi.

  ‘I think you’re the one who needs to fuck off, Sophie,’ Meg said, with a politeness that riled Sophie further.

  Sophie’s palm bubbled as she watched Meg lead Naomi into the studio. A car beeped its horn and Sophie realised its bumper was at her shins.

  Overheated and sweaty, she returned to her car and waited, scratching at her palm, encouraging the blisters to form. The hour was a lifetime. When Naomi and Meg came out, this time laughing, Sophie did not get out to join them. She let them get into their cars, let Meg drive away first, and then she followed Naomi.

  It was soothing to know that she could. Everywhere Naomi went – into the petrol station, into the chemist on Barnes Hill, into the dry-cleaners in Godalming – Sophie was close behind, careful not to be too close, certain that Naomi had not seen her.

  They continued in convoy into Guildford to the NCP on the hill, where Naomi parked on the fifth storey. Sophie parked on the fourth, waiting for her to take the lift down, watching to see where she went, jogging after her, following her as she walked to the organic café on the sunny side of the cobbled side street.

  Through the café window, Sophie saw her sit with her back to Sophie, on the cushioned bench seat, and take out her laptop. The waitress, who brought Naomi a cappuccino, caught Sophie’s eye through the window.

  Worried about looking suspicious, Sophie slipped off to the dingy greasy spoon across the road, where a group of red-faced men laughed at each other over their full English breakfasts. There was no sun brightening this café, just a sweltering, sticky heat inside. Sophie felt hot and agitated, like the man dressed in a Hawaiian shirt in the corner who was pouring a third sachet of sugar into his mug of tea. But the view of Naomi was bright and pretty. The street between them was cut into two by the buildings’ shadow: light and shade.

  Naomi was nearby. Sophie felt close to her, and she was comforted by her closeness. This would have to be enough for now.

  The blisters on her palm had bloomed fully in the heat. It hurt to bend her hand. She used her left hand to lift her mug to her lips and sip her watery, bitter coffee.

  While she watched Naomi slurp the froth on her drink and type furiously, Sophie hoped that Naomi was working on an article for Wine O’Clock.

  Taking her eyes off Naomi’s back for a minute, she checked their social media pages to see if there were any updates. As much as she didn’t want to do the work herself, she had to make sure Naomi was keeping it up. Her livelihood depended on it.

  There was a sweet photograph of Harley and an RIP message, posted yesterday, followed by a badly lit shot of a smeared glass of whisky at 2 a.m. this morning. Already there were 698 likes to the former, and only 109 to the latter. The discrepancy was not surprising. She would keep an eye on the likes on Harley’s post to make sure there weren’t more for Harley than there had been for Bear. She would take Harley’s post down if there were. But this terrible thought made her want to run across the street to Naomi, to tell her that she was sorry about Harley, that she was here, that she would always be here for her, remind her that she would never again find such a loyal friend.

  An hour and a half later, Naomi paid the bill and left the café.

  The journey back home was hampered by traffic, which angered Sophie. Without thinking, she hit her horn, hoping that she had not drawn Naomi’s attention. Anxious, Sophie pulled off at the next turning and took a different route home.

  At first, she was relieved, free, but when she arrived home, the yearning came back, as did the frantic feeling.

  After feeding Bear and letting him run around in the garden, it wasn’t long before Sophie got back in her car again and drove over to Naomi’s lane.

  The waiting outside her house was like a vigil. Sophie felt she was sleepwalking through it. When Naomi didn’t appear, she became lethargic. With her eyes drooping, she surveyed Naomi’s house, which she had once desired. It seemed modest and uninteresting to her, as though the fabric of it had changed. There was something depressing about its peeling paintwork and its dirty brickwork. In the drive, their black Volvo sat dented, six years old, with a rattling exhaust pipe. All of this decrepitude reminded Sophie of Charlie’s redundancy. The Wilsons would not be able to repaint the windows or buy a new car. When she pictured Izzy and Diana’s faces, she imagined sadness in their eyes. Lately, they had looked neglected and depressed, as had Naomi. Her dimple had gone, and her springy blonde curls had fallen flat. Harley had once scampered around the drive, bar
king at squirrels, symbolic of the happy family he had belonged to. Now he was gone, and the whole family was broken. It was unpleasant to see them in this state. She had not predicted how it would feel to witness their downfall, nor had she fully understood how her gain would be to the detriment of Naomi’s well-being. She had just wanted a better life. She had wanted it to be fair. Life isn’t fair, Sophia, her grandfather had said. And it seemed that fairness for Naomi had finally run out, proving his point.

  When Sophie compared their two separate lives, when she thought of her own pretty white cottage and garden, of Bear and Dylan running down the terraces, of her smart Volvo and new summer dresses, of the promise of a future with Adam, she realised she had gained everything and nothing. Her possessions morphed into holograms, unreal and hollow. All she had wanted was Naomi’s friendship. That’s all. But Naomi did not seem to want the same thing.

  Then, Naomi emerged from the house, her make-up heavy like putty. Immediately Sophie perked up and checked the time. She had an hour before she would have to collect Dylan from his after-school club.

  She followed Naomi along the familiar route to the girls’ school.

  When they arrived in School Lane, Sophie parked with a view of Naomi’s Volvo. Izzy and Diana appeared from the gates, hand in hand with Naomi. They looked scruffy as they tramped along the pavement. Their hair was greasy and their white shirts and socks were grey and the pleats in their skirts were gone.

  They climbed in and Naomi drove them home again. Trailing her to the school gates had been a pointless exercise. What had Sophie been expecting?

  Sophie continued sitting outside in her car, in plain view, observing Naomi bundling Izzy and Diana into the house.

  All day she had kept a watch on Naomi and Naomi had not acknowledged her. Whether she had noticed Sophie or not, Sophie felt isolated by Naomi’s silent treatment, rejected. She wondered if it was time to go.

  But minutes before Sophie had to leave to collect Dylan, Izzy skipped out of the house towards Sophie, stopping at the open gate to stare.

  Sophie wound down her window, letting in the wall of heat. ‘Hi, Izzy.’

  ‘Hello,’ Izzy said in a very small voice, checking behind her.

  Then there were rapid footsteps across the gravel. Naomi was walking towards them.

  Sophie’s heart soared. It was finally time to talk.

  ‘Get away from her! Get away!’ Naomi screamed.

  Sophie gaped at Naomi and then at Izzy, who stared at Sophie with wide, frightened eyes. ‘I just wanted to say hello,’ Izzy said.

  Naomi grabbed hold of Izzy’s arm. ‘Get inside. I told you not to come out.’

  ‘But it’s only Sophie, look!’ she cried, wriggling free and pointing at Sophie.

  Naomi and Sophie locked gazes.

  Sophie had never seen anything like it. The vitriol in Naomi’s eyes cut right into Sophie’s soul. A veil of falsehood had slipped from Naomi’s face. She had taken off her good-natured mask to reveal a rawness, a coldness, that Sophie had never seen before. It stopped her heart. She felt a trickle of sweat wriggle down her temple.

  In that one look, Sophie saw her friend’s ghastly transformation, as though Naomi’s face was the personification of Sophie’s guilt.

  Gasping for air, Sophie swung the car round, hyperventilating, pausing as the bumper faced the two retreating figures, mother and daughter, hand in hand. For one second she imagined driving into them, knocking them off their feet, mowing down what she had seen in Naomi’s eyes, what had scared her witless. It threw her back to that night, when her hands on the steering wheel had reacted to a feeling. Jason Parker had hurt her best friend and she had acted out her rage instinctively. One split second and he was dead. The knee-jerk reaction had been born out of hatred for a man who had hurt Naomi, who had been changed, frightened, indelibly marked by this man. It had led to dire consequences: Jason Parker had died, and a mother, like herself, had lost her only son. It was not what she had wanted. She had wanted him to suffer somehow, yes, but not to die.

  In her mouth, at the back of her throat, she could taste the acid she had suppressed for so long. Remorse was burning her gullet, pushing this grim, undeniable, delayed reaction up and out of her mouth, until she was spitting it into the footwell.

  As she pulled up the handbrake for a three-point turn, keen to get away, her foot fell heavily onto the gas pedal, revving the engine by mistake. Naomi turned to look over her shoulder. At the sight of Sophie’s car pointed towards them, she gasped, scooped Izzy up and ran at full pelt into the house.

  Sophie placed her hand on the handbrake lever to make sure she had not acted without thinking first. The handbrake was up and the car remained safe in a stationary position, confirming her own self-control. It proved that her love for Naomi was as intuitive as her hatred for Jason Parker had been.

  With the image of Naomi’s petrified face looming in her mind, Sophie made her way through the lanes to Dylan’s school. On autopilot, she picked him up and took him home.

  She told Dylan to play outside with Bear while she tidied the house, plans spinning.

  An organised house, an organised mind, her grandfather had said.

  After hours of deliberation, it became clear to Sophie that there was only one way of earning Naomi’s respect.

  She called for Dylan in the garden, but he wasn’t responding. She needed to talk to him about her plan. If he wasn’t in the garden, she guessed he would be in the garage, and she was right. He was there with Bear, who was sitting in the boot of the Giulia, where the cuddly toys had once been lined up. The dog’s eyes were ice blue and knowing.

  ‘Come on, out of there, you two,’ she said. ‘I want to talk to you about something, Dylan.’

  Dylan climbed out of the boot and followed her into the house.

  In the kitchen, with Dylan standing on a low stool at her side, she whisked sugar and cream and milk and vanilla bean into a pan and brought it to the boil.

  ‘My mother made this hot drink for me, once, before she left me and Deda to look after ourselves.’

  ‘Where did she go?’

  ‘She had grown very tired of me. I was very naughty.’

  ‘Naughtier than me?’

  ‘Very much so,’ Sophie laughed, taking the pan off the heat, dolloping in the butter and chocolate.

  She handed Dylan the whisk, remembering how her mother had kissed her temple, how she had held her hand over Sophie’s as they stirred. She recalled how the hot liquid had splashed up onto their faces. Her mother had said, ‘Careful, my darling’, and she had kissed the inside of Sophie’s right palm. Those words of hers had been the last Sophie remembered. She could hear her voice in her head now, soft and caring. Her right palm – broken and bloody – throbbed with the sense of her mother’s lips pressed there. There must have been more words from her afterwards; a ‘goodnight’ or a ‘brush your teeth’ or a bedtime story, perhaps, but Sophie could not recall them. All she could remember was ‘Careful, my darling’, and then her mind flashed forward to the next morning: waking up, padding into her mother’s room and discovering that she was gone.

  Sophie placed her hands over Dylan’s hot little hands and inhaled the smell of him, just as her mother had back then. Her heart was swollen with love. She wondered if this was how her mother had felt. Sophie was hit by the certain knowledge that this was true. It became as plain as any truth could be. On the evening that they had stirred butter and chocolate, Sophie had felt her mother’s love through her hands, deeply, right to her bones.

  ‘Was she my grandmother?’ Dylan asked.

  ‘She’s still your grandmother. She’s called Suzanne. You met her once when you were a very little baby. She brought you a snow globe all the way from America where she lives.’

  ‘I want to go to America.’

  ‘One day, maybe.’

  ‘Do you miss her?’

  ‘I’ve always been too angry with her to miss her.’

  ‘Why?’

 
; The noise of the metal whisk on the bottom of the pan was like a scraping in Sophie’s head. Her tears fought through the lump in her throat.

  ‘Because she didn’t say goodbye.’

  ‘That’s mean,’ Dylan said simply.

  ‘Dylan, if I had to go away somewhere, I want you to remember that it would never be your fault or because of how naughty you’ve been. It would be because I loved you, not because I didn’t. Do you understand?’

  Dylan stopped whisking and stared at his mother. ‘You’re not going away,’ he said.

  She grabbed his hand. ‘If I do, you mustn’t be a baby about it. Promise? You have to be a really good boy, especially when you stay with Daddy and Natalie.’

  ‘I hate Natalie!’ he screamed, throwing the whisk across the room. ‘I don’t want you to go away.’

  She grabbed his chin, squashing his cheeks, wiping both their faces of their tears, looking straight into his eyes.

  ‘There is something I have to fix, something Mummy did a long time ago that I have to make right, and it might mean I have to go somewhere for a while.’

  ‘How long?’ he whimpered. The rims of his big blue eyes were drooping with the weight of his tears.

  ‘Not long,’ she lied, kissing his head and pulling him into a hug. ‘Not long. And one day, you’ll be proud of Mummy for taking responsibility for the bad thing she did. One day.’

  She did not want to be like her mother. She could not run from what was hard, what was right. Not a day longer could be spent pretending that it was anyone else’s fault, that the world was not on her side, that she was the only person suffering. Everyone suffered in some shape or form, everyone found life taxing, often punishing. Even for those whose lives looked Instagram-perfect on the outside, like Naomi’s, their struggles were going on inside, just as Naomi’s were now.

  Naomi’s spirit had once been a magnet for happiness. What she put out there, she got back. Her true spirit had once embodied happiness and naivety. Fidelity and selflessness. Sophie might have wanted Naomi’s life, but she had not gained it with that same honesty and kindness. She had sought out the material trappings, expecting them to make the difference.