And then they waited.
Dave hugged Anita, while opposite them Shazia and Nihal sat immobile: poles of the same emotional compass. Fran and Marcus stood by the window, staring out at the orange halos of light in the darkness, trying not to imagine what might have happened to Jess, while Dom paced. And Sal? Sal sat on her own, near the door, hunched over her phone, lost in the world beyond the hospital, where the accident was a dramatic local news story, not a real event. Her croaky voice broke through their personal purgatories. ‘Christ! There’s so many photos.’
Dom went and sat next to her. She passed him her phone. The others watched as he swiped the screen – imagining what he was looking at. Fran couldn’t bear it. ‘Please, Dom, don’t.’ But Anita looked up and stretched out her hand. After Dom had seen enough, he passed her the phone. Anita’s and Dave’s faces creased and crumpled as they flicked through the images. Anita’s hand went to her mouth and the sobbing started up again. Dave offered the phone to Nihal, who reached out and took it, but Shazia’s recoil was so severe that he tossed the phone straight back at Dave. Dave then offered it to Marcus. Marcus’s ‘No!’ was so loud that they all jumped. Fran turned away and closed her eyes.
She knew them all, liked them all, but she wished at that moment that she’d never met any of them. Never spent a minute – never mind what felt like a lifetime – with Dom; never got to know and respect Sal; never learnt to appreciate Shazia and Nihal’s quiet humour; never found enough common ground with Dave and Anita to be around them, occasionally, for short periods without wanting to scream. In that claustrophobic room, waiting to hear just how bad it was, Fran wished, fervently, that Jess had never made friends with the children of any of these people.
Chapter 4
TWENTY MONTHS EARLIER
AS SOON as the date for the prom was confirmed, Dom stepped up and offered to host the ‘pre-party’. No one put in a counter-bid. The other parents were happy to leave him to it. Marcus did jokingly question since when had a pre-prom party become a thing – but he got shouted down by Jess and Fran. Fran informed him, semi-seriously, that the high school prom was an important rite of passage, a step over the threshold from childhood to adulthood; and, she confessed, coming closer to the truth, that she was looking forward to seeing them all in their finery. Marcus smiled and tuned out the subsequent discussion about the pros and cons of spray-tans and whether ‘hair up’ or ‘hair down’ was the way to go.
Five months later they were glad Dom had offered to host the party. The staging was idyllic. There were clusters of silver helium balloons, platters of posh canapés and trays of real champagne in crystal flutes. The weather was just what the girls’ dresses demanded, balmy and still. And the sunlight was exactly right, soft and pink-tinged – perfect for the hundreds of selfies that were being taken. It was typical Dom, totally over the top and unnecessarily costly, but at the same time all very, very lovely. As the booze flowed and the kids laughed and shimmered around on the immaculate lawn, the mood was upbeat.
They all looked great. The lads suited and pointy-toe-shoed, the girls transformed by false lashes, fake tan and imitation designer dresses. It was like watching a group of children playing dress-up and pulling it off. Fran found herself surprisingly moved to see them all together, possibly for the last time. Most of them had been friends since primary school; Jess, Harry and Jake went even further back, to nursery and playgroup. They’d shared sleepovers, chicken pox, multiple birthday parties and a seemingly never-ending round of car journeys to out-of-the-way running tracks and football fields. She knew them all, had been part of their growing up. Indeed, it was down to the kids that the adults knew each other at all. The shared experiences and responsibilities of being parents of kids who were similar ages had bred friendships that would otherwise never have flourished.
Take Anita and Sal. They were hardly bosom buddies – a world apart in attitude and volume – but there they were, standing side-by-side, both smiling, sharing the moment in Dom’s sun-dappled back garden. Dom himself was ‘circulating’, chatting to everyone, orchestrating the mood, topping up drinks; rather too quickly for Fran’s liking – they were only fifteen and sixteen, after all. Fran could hear him cracking jokes about prom-night traditions that strayed perilously close to being in very poor taste. This was a side of Dom that Fran was very familiar with, but could do without. The showman who – given an audience, and any audience would do – couldn’t stop himself playing to it. It was the Dom that most people saw: brash, loud, confident. It was not the gentler, occasionally vulnerable Dom who had few real friends, but whose friendship, once earnt, was fiercely loyal.
Dave, Jake’s dad – who was downing champagne like it was beer – laughed raucously at one of Dom’s jokes. Another man’s man. Through the melee, Fran met Marcus’s eye and smiled. It was a moment of marital understanding that made her feel simultaneously mean-spirited and understood. Jake was also laughing, horsing around as usual. He looked resplendent in a dark-red three-piece suit. Jake had always been a little sod, prone to being in the middle of any trouble, but there was such an energy, a lust for life, about him that it was hard not to warm to him. His spivvy suit was the perfect choice. Harry also looked sharp, but in a much more understated way. Harry was the cool one in the group. Popular, without having to make an effort. As he drank his beer and lounged in a deckchair listening to one of Jake’s stories, Fran tried to marry this version of Harry with the little boy who used to follow her around her house.
After Harry’s mum, Adele, upped and left, Harry lost a lot of confidence – understandably; it was a very confusing, upsetting time. Overnight he went from being a boisterous, scabby-kneed seven-year-old, indulged by both his parents, to a cautious child. Being caught up in the middle of a domestic war was not a good place for a little boy. Fran had absorbed a lot of the childcare responsibilities for Dom during those sticky years when his marriage had imploded. She’d seen, close at hand, how both Harry and his three-year-old sister Martha had struggled with the sudden separation from their mum, and with the acrimony that had erupted around the divorce and the custody arrangements. It had been a vicious, vitriolic mess – which Dom had emerged from, eventually, as the victor. He was fierce as a father, as well as a friend. Harry had coped, but there had been a price to pay, a new-found introspection and watchfulness that were unusual in a child.
But look at him now! What, in a little boy, had been a worrying sign of sadness and separateness had transformed into a quite distinctive breed of coolness and self-reliance. Yes, Harry had done all right, despite everything. If Fran felt a sense of pride at being part of that survival and transformation, who could blame her? She’d been his surrogate mum, when he needed her. And though their relationship was no longer as close – which was natural and as it should be – there was still a special bond between the two of them, and she hoped there always would be.
She was jolted out of her reverie by Harry himself meeting her eye, smiling and raising his beer bottle to her in mock salute. Yes, at sixteen, Harry was no longer anyone’s child.
A sudden, very loud crash on the patio drew everyone’s attention.
Mo got to his feet, held up his hands and started apologising. Dom made his way over and righted the fallen heater, his mouth set in a forgiving smile. To be fair to Mo, the need for three huge copper heaters on an early summer’s evening was questionable, but that was Dom – ‘go big or go home’. Fran swallowed another mouthful of champagne and reminded herself to stop being so ungracious. Commotion over, and apologies flapped away, Narinder, Mo’s ‘date’ for the prom – small, bossy, resplendent in cerise – pulled him away from the tables of bottles and glasses and food, obviously not trusting him not to cause another accident. They joined the other kids down on the lawn, adding more colour, life and noise to the gathering.
Fran felt the music from the outdoor speakers enter her spine. She swayed to the beat, feeling the old urge to dance come pushing back up: a sure sign that she was relaxing
, or getting gently oiled. She smiled. It was turning out to be a lovely occasion. A chance for them all to celebrate – the kids to blow off some steam at the end of exams; and the parents to take a moment to appreciate getting their offspring through high school intact.
As she breathed in the relaxed atmosphere and the general goodwill, her eyes sought out her daughter. Jess had, as always, put her own very personal spin on the proceedings. A short, dark-purple skater dress and a new pair of pristine white hi tops. She was jittery with excitement, already bopping around the garden – like mother, like daughter – her arm linked with Gabbie, her ‘date’ for the evening. Gabbie was rocking a ‘vintage’ – that is, charity-shop – confection in patterned brown and gold and a pair of sparkly Docs, which Fran knew had cost her more than a new prom dress would have done. Jess and Gabbie seemed young compared to Sal’s daughter, Tish. She looked stunning. She’d opted for a fitted floor-length, off-the-shoulder, pure-white dress that clung to her figure. Jess and Tish were only a few days apart, in terms of birthdays, and yet Tish already had an ownership of, and confidence in, her body that was rare for her age. She was aware of her power and happy to use it. This evening – stunning in her Greek-goddess dress – Tish was absorbing most of the attention from the boys and, somewhat more unsettlingly, some of the dads, but at least it took the heat off the other girls. For that, Fran was grateful. Sixteen was too young. If Jess stayed this side of adulthood for a little while longer, so much the better.
On the lawn the kids drifted, coalesced, photos were taken, then they floated apart and the pattern reconfigured again. Fran felt buzzy with the booze, and it was only 6 p.m. She turned away from the party and headed back into the house, intending to stick the kettle on for a brew.
Dom’s house was as lovely as his garden, remodelled after Adele’s departure and redecorated every eighteen months or so ever since. Dom was never satisfied with anything for very long. The end result was chic and uber-stylish, but the thought of all that deciding on colours and fabrics and furniture, and the pressure of living ‘your best life’ in a virtual show home, made Fran feel tired. What Dom was still trying to prove, she wasn’t altogether sure. She filled the kettle, put it on, then wandered further into the house. The noise of the celebrations followed her, muted by the soft furnishings.
‘Hello there. I was wondering where you’d got to.’
Martha was lying on one of the sofas in the snug, reading The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. She was twelve now, going through that gawky, awkward stage. Fran felt for her. Martha sat up and folded a corner of a page down to mark her place in the book.
‘Are you enjoying it?’
Martha gave a diffident shrug. Fran should have known better than to ask such a direct question. Martha studied the front cover of the paperback as if the picture would give her the right answer. ‘It’s okay. I’m not sure I understand what it’s going on about really.’
Fran sat down beside her. ‘Give it time. It’s one of those books that makes more sense when you’ve read it all.’
Martha pushed the book under one of the cushions, as if embarrassed to be caught reading.
Fran changed the topic. ‘Aren’t you going to come outside and see them all in their glad rags?’
Martha shrugged again, her collarbone moving beneath her pale skin. The vest she was wearing accentuated her thinness. Fran felt a maternal urge to make her a sandwich, but it wasn’t her place, not any more. Though perhaps – she reflected – she should mention Martha’s weight to Dom; another time, when he wasn’t in full party-host mode. Martha wriggled her feet along the couch, bringing her toes to rest against Fran’s hip.
Instinctively, Fran reached down, lifted them up and put them in her lap. ‘They’re cold.’
Martha smiled. ‘You always used to say, “Cold feet, warm heart”.’
Fran smiled, touched by Martha’s reference to their shared history. They sat in comfortable silence as the sounds from the party drifted through the house. Fran could understand why Martha might prefer a book and a room on her own to a garden full of beautiful people. The role of ‘embarrassing little sister’ was not an appealing one. And in many ways Martha was a young twelve-year-old. Physically she was still very much a child; emotionally too, Fran suspected. Her immaturity was unsurprising. Three years old was too young to lose your mum; four, too little to be caught between two warring factions; five, too soon to learn that people can let you down; eight, too young to barely see your mother, aside from high days and holidays. Where the divorce had toughened Harry, it had weakened Martha. She seemed to have lost a layer of protection, and that had made her vulnerable. Fran pulled the end of a throw over Martha’s toes and rubbed them. She heard the kettle click in the kitchen. ‘Do you fancy a cuppa?’
Martha shook her head, but when Fran stood up to go through to the kitchen, the girl followed her.
They talked in fits and starts about high school and how Martha’s riding was going. She obviously still loved visiting the stables. Fran listened patiently about a new hack that Martha and her instructor had discovered, in the valley, which led down to a stream that Sable, Martha’s regular ride, was nervous of crossing. Fran nodded, sipped her tea and half-listened. The draw of the laughter outside grew. Surreptitiously she glanced at the clock. The limo would be arriving soon and the youngsters would be off. She really wanted to take her tea outside and re-join the party. Deep down, a part of her resented having to sacrifice this special time with her own daughter for time with Dom’s. She loved Martha, but her pre-teen shyness made conversation hard work. Fran decided that she would make a move.
‘I think they’ll be setting off soon. Are you sure you don’t want to come outside, just for a little bit?’
Martha pulled at her lip.
Fran tried another tack, one that gave Martha the chance to hide in plain sight. ‘It would really help if you could take a few photos of them all for me. I’m useless. I never seem to catch people right.’ She offered Martha her phone, and was pleased when the girl took it from her outstretched hand.
They walked through the house back out into the garden. The sunlight blinded them both, so that for a few seconds they saw only stars.
They were just in time. Anita was getting everyone gathered for the big group shot. There was a lot of self-conscious silliness about who should stand next to who. Anita was insistent that they had to organise themselves into a boy/girl, boy/girl sequence. Martha went down onto the grass and took her place at the end of the line of parental paparazzi. At last the kids got themselves into an ‘Anitaacceptable’ formation. The girls fussed with their hair and fiddled with the straps on their bare shoulders, and the lads buttoned up their jackets across their puffed-out chests. Behind them the balloons twisted and glinted in the still air.
At last Anita shouted, ‘Okay. Everyone ready? One, two, three… Shout “Prom”!’
A ragged chorus of ‘Prom!’ went up.
The best photos were the ones Martha took of the line disintegrating as they collapsed into each other, laughing.
Chapter 5
HARRY HAD expected it to be crap. A party in a local hotel – the bar closed, with all the weirdos and squares from school, patrolled by the Year 11 teachers – that finished at midnight: it was never going be great. And for the first hour it had been totally awkward. Everyone sitting around in their little cliques, drinking warm Coke out of plastic cups, not eating the ‘sad as hell’ buffet. Harry didn’t feel the remotest bit sad about leaving high school. He couldn’t wait to get away from the staff, the other students, the school itself, with its petty rules and high expectations. He was done with it. Period. And then the Prom King and Queen thing! That had been totally embarrassing. All that clapping and foot-stomping, like it mattered. What the hell was he supposed to do with a cardboard crown? But Tish had insisted that he wear it, had crowned him herself, a knowing smirk on her face. She had looked smoking, as always, even with the cheapo plastic tiara plonked on t
op of her elaborate ‘updo’.
It was all so clichéd.
But something about the spotlight and the cheering had crept up on him; that and Tish grinning and twirling and laughing with him up on the stage, mocking the whole thing even as she revelled in it, and in them. The golden couple. Prom royalty. The official seal on their position at the top of the people-pile. It was so cheesy, so naff, so childish – but also so seductive. And when the DJ started playing the bangers, it had shifted up another gear. Jess had dragged them all onto the dance floor and, before he knew it, they were all bopping around, not giving a damn. As the beat took over, Harry forgot that this was just another cheap high school prom – the scene of his last, lame moments at Raincliffe – and started to have fun.
Jake was being Jake, pogoing away quite happily in a bubble of his own sweat and excess energy – Chloe, his ‘date’, long abandoned. That was no surprise really, Chloe was pretty, but she was also a total yawn. Jake had only invited her for one reason, and even that seemed to have been forgotten. Then there was Jess and Gabbie – both barefoot – belting out the lyrics, daft grins plastered on their faces. And Mo – Mo was the real revelation. Watching him throwing shapes with nerdy Narinder was both wrong and totally hilarious.
It felt good to be at the heart of it.
When the DJ put on the power ballads at the end and the crying started, they all linked arms, forming a tight circle. Harry, Jake, Tish, Mo, Narinder, Jess and Gabbie. A sweaty bundle of mates, glued together by time and familiarity. A unit. And as the glitter ball twirled and they all swore allegiance to each other, for ever, they meant it. They were friends and always would be.
One Split Second: A thought-provoking novel about the limits of love and our astonishing capacity to heal Page 2
