by Agatha Frost
The montage of clips suddenly jumped to a section of the convention Claire hadn’t seen. She guessed it was the Windsor Suite, which was confirmed when Sean, alone in a line and wearing the same grey jumpsuit, suddenly came on screen. Mark had the camera crammed in Sean’s face, with one arm around his neck to drag him into the shot. Mark wore a childish grin as he bounced around, but Sean wasn’t smiling. He pulled away and pushed Mark, who merely laughed and diverted away. It was fast, but Claire heard him mutter ‘weirdo’ into the camera. She glanced up at Sean, but he was staring off into the pub instead of watching the vlog.
The clips cut to a perspective she couldn’t quite place. She realised the camera was looking out from onstage, which meant it was time for the tournament. Suddenly, Mark and Daniel weren’t the only ones in the frame. A helmeted woman (Claire’s mother hadn’t even attempted that part of the costume) dressed in Captain Murphy’s familiar purple suit pushed the camera away. Mark employed the same tactics he’d used with Sean, crammed the camera in her face and attempted to pull her in with one arm. Though it blurred past, Claire didn’t think she was imagining the silver ends of hair hanging from beneath the bottom of the helmet.
When the tournament was so abruptly cut short, the vlog moved outside with the crowd. Claire saw the ambulance and police cars, but Mark didn’t attempt to get any closer to the alley. Instead, he simply filmed everything unfolding. On the edge of the screen, she saw herself standing beside the bench where Damon had been sat. First, she noticed how cool her costume looked on film. Then, more disturbingly, she took in the amount of blood on Damon’s hands; it was so much more than she’d remembered.
When the video ended, Claire exited the full screen, curious to see how many people had viewed it. Almost twelve thousand. The recommended videos showed more of Mark’s vlogs, though most had barely scraped a couple of hundred views. She didn’t doubt the sudden spike in Mark’s popularity was owed to the latest one’s title: ‘REAL STABBING AT SCI-FI CONVENTION *shocking*’.
“I’m going to tell you something my dad told me a long time ago,” she said as she locked her phone and put it away. “It’s never okay to bully someone, but it’s definitely okay to stand up to bullies. Sometimes, that’s all it takes to stop them.”
Sean smiled, and not the awkward, forced smile he’d offered when they’d been waiting together at the convention. He seemed to actually mean it, and she suspected nobody had said anything like that to him before.
“I don’t think I’m in the mood to finish this,” she said, pushing away the pint. “Shall we go and find Damon? I think I know where he is.”
After waving goodbye to Theresa and Malcolm, the friendly owners of the pub, they crossed the quiet square. The sun was on its way down, but the evening was still seasonably bright and warm. Through the window of her flat, Claire saw Sally pacing in her living room, a glass of red wine in one hand while the other gestured wildly; in the chaos of the evening, she’d forgot about Sally’s divorce turmoil.
“I’ll wait here,” Sean said when they were in the shop.
Claire didn’t argue. Upstairs, she found Damon on the couch with a glass of the wine he claimed to hate in hand as Sally talked at him. When he saw her, a look of relief crossed his face.
“I’ve come up with a plan!” Sally announced. “Paul always goes to the gym on Monday nights and stays until closing. Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. He’s like a robot. Never misses it. Even went on holiday. He’ll be there now.”
“Okay?” Claire glanced at the empty bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. “What’s the plan?”
“I’m getting my house back,” she said with a stained grin. “Tonight. We’ve got it all figured out.”
“Sean’s downstairs.” Claire patted Damon on the shoulder over the sofa. “You should probably get him back to yours. He’s had a rough few days.”
“What about my plan?”
“Sorry, Sally,” Damon offered, pressing the glass of wine into Claire’s hands on his way out. “Maybe Wednesday?”
Through her small front window, Claire watched the men walk across the square towards the café. She wondered if Sean knew how much knowledge he’d given her while saying so little.
“You’ll help me, won’t you?”
“It sounds bonkers,” Claire said, closing the curtains, “and I can’t tell if I’d be a better friend helping or talking you out of it.” She paused before adding, “C’mon. Let’s go now before the gym shuts. Funnily enough, it’s not the most bonkers thing to happen tonight.”
“What’s more bonkers than my nutty soon-to-be ex-husband thinking he can kick me out of my house?”
“Ryan tried to kiss me.”
Sally choked and spat her wine all over the corner of Claire’s almost-new grey sofa.
Chapter Eight
“This is huge!” Sally exclaimed as they walked through the side entrance to Starfall Park after a trip to the local home improvement shop. “I told you he loved you too!”
“Oh, give over.” Claire nudged her. “That’s not what it means.”
“What else could it mean?”
“I kissed Taron years ago,” Claire reminded her. “Doesn’t mean I loved him. You know what it’s like. Sometimes the mood just . . . goes there?”
“You kissed Taron while drunk in a nightclub. Ryan, of sober mind, tried to kiss you after eating a salad. If that’s not rational thinking, I don’t know what is. Were you trying to push it there?”
“No,” she replied, before adding, “not intentionally.”
They set off up the steep path towards the top of the giant park.
“Then it was a moment!”
“It was just a silly paint fight.”
“Silly?” Sally pouted. “It’s bloody romantic, if you ask me. Imagine if you had kissed.”
“But we didn’t.” Claire winced at the thought of how she’d handled her exit. “Why did I have to leg it?”
“Because you’re a wuss.”
“I can’t even argue with that.” Claire allowed herself a little laugh. “Whenever we get together, there’s this connection that makes me feel like a kid again. It’s like how you and I have memories going back to the dawn of time, but we’ve also been adding new things. There’s this huge chunk missing from my timeline with Ryan, and it’s almost like those years never happened. And I know they did. We’re both so different, and we’ve changed so much. He has kids, for crying out loud, but – I don’t know how to explain it.” She paused and looked back at the sunset while she caught her breath. “I guess it’s nice to know someone from back then without them knowing every messy detail and bump in the road on the way from there to here.”
“I think I get it.” Sally cupped her hand over her eyes and squinted into the sun. “That’s similar to the way I feel with Damon. We went to the same school and didn’t really know each other, but we’ve known of each other for a long time. Now that I’ve started giving him a chance, I wish I’d made more of an effort years ago. He really is just a nice guy.”
“I’ve been trying to tell you that for ages.” She poked Sally in the ribs with her elbow.
“I know,” Sally said as they set off up the hill again. “I needed to see it for myself.”
“What’s going on with you two, anyway?” Claire asked, watching Sally’s reaction out of the corner of her eye. “I feel like I’ve missed some development.”
“Erm.” Sally scratched at the side of her head, pulling her hair slightly over her face in the process. “We sort of spent a night together.”
“What?” Claire tripped over her own feet.
“Not like that!” She slapped Claire’s arm. “There was no paint fighting and almost kissing, let me tell you. He was a perfect gentleman. It was the night I was going on holiday. I had this huge freak out two hours before we set off for the airport. I came into the village to find you, to ask if I was doing the right thing going, but I think you were at your mum’s. Damon was on his way back from work
and saw me ringing your buzzer. I was . . . in a bit of a state. He took me to his flat.” She laughed. “That place is mental. It’s a proper nerd lair. I kinda loved it.”
“You?” Claire cried. “You’re the queen of interior design.”
“It felt lived in,” she replied. “Seeing where he lived made me properly understand him. I grabbed a bottle of red from the shop and he talked me through everything. He told me I had nothing to lose in giving it one last chance by going, but I always had the option to come home. He calmed me down.”
They paused as they walked around the observatory at the top of the park. The path flattened out and they turned around a row of bushes in the direction of the top entrance. To the right, a group of retired-age men and women were playing a late-night game of crown green bowling.
“And don’t think I haven’t noticed.” Sally peered at Claire out of the corner of her eye. “Nice diversion away from talking about your near-kiss with Ryan. What are you going to do about it?”
“What can I do?”
“Go around and snog his face off and tell him once and for all that you’re madly in love with him and always have been?” Sally winked. “I reckon that’s a good place to start.”
“But what if it really didn’t mean anything?” Claire said in a low voice as they stepped to the side of the path to let a couple with three dogs walk past. “I risk freaking him out and losing him. I-I can’t go through that again.”
“But he tried to kiss you.”
“It came out of nowhere.”
“Did it really, Claire?” Sally rolled her eyes. “Why can’t you see what everyone has seen for ages? Ryan is besotted with you. He acts completely different around you than anyone else.”
“Rubbish.”
“No, seriously.” Sally grabbed her arms. “Mate, you need to look at the facts. He spends most of his free time with you. He spent weeks helping you decorate your shop and put furniture together, all for free. He did you that gorgeous painting of your shop. Do you see me painting you a picture?”
“If you did, it would be terrible.”
“That’s not the point.” Sally sighed. “Stop deflecting. That kiss came out of nowhere for you because you couldn’t have been looking more in the other direction unless you were the girl from The Exorcist. But for Ryan?” Her nostrils flared and she let out a sharp breath. “He doesn’t strike me as the type of guy who goes around almost-kissing women because he fancies a cheeky snog. He’s probably been waiting for that moment for a while. You’re the one so attached to the idea that it’s an unrequited love that you’re unwilling to admit what’s as clear as day in front of your pretty, bespectacled eyes.”
Sally set off through the top entrance, leaving Claire shellshocked, staring towards the game of bowls with a slightly open mouth. Even if Sally had stayed right where she’d been, Claire wouldn’t have been able to reply. It had never crossed her mind to imagine she could be subconsciously ignoring the signs because it was easier to cling to how things had always been. Even now, after a cut-short intimate moment, she grasped for excuses, desperate to come up with reasons why the near-kiss didn’t mean anything. From her knotted stomach, she knew Sally had hit the nail on the head, and she’d done it with a very large hammer.
Deciding not to raise the subject until she was ready to face it, she left the park. Following Sally, she hurried across the grass-covered roundabout in the middle of the cul-de-sac. The residents referred to the area as ‘Upper Northash’ although no such place existed on any maps or official records. With small and neat front gardens, large bay windows, and grand pointy roofs, the detached cottages were some of the nicest in Northash. Built in the 1930s, they were more modern than most of the historic cottages, but still old enough that the proportions hadn’t shrunk to the recent standards for new builds.
“I still remember the day you told me you were moving up here,” Claire said, catching up with Sally right before she opened the front gate. “Felt like you’d properly made it.”
“I felt like that too.” She held the gate open for Claire while she stared out over the park, the view stretching out all the way to the candle factory on the opposite hill on the other side of the curved valley Northash was tucked in. “Come on, we might not have long. I think I know an easy way in.”
Claire followed Sally around the side of the house to the downstairs bathroom window, higher up and smaller than the rest.
“I’m not fitting through there in a month of Sunday’s,” Claire said as she gave Sally a foot up the wall. “It would be like trying to shove a sofa through a letterbox.”
Sally clung onto something within the bathroom and pulled herself inside, just about wriggling through the tight squeeze. Without saying anything, she vanished into the house, leaving Claire on the side path. The closest neighbour stared at Claire from the gap in her curtain, shaking her head as she let the fabric fall. Claire followed the sound of an unlocking door around the back of the house.
“Never compare yourself to a sofa again,” Sally said as she pulled Claire into the kitchen. “And if you must go for furniture, at least go for something fabulous like a chaise lounge.” She dropped to her knees and tipped the hard-plastic-packaged locks from the hardware shop’s orange bag. “Top drawer under the kettle. There should be some scissors and screwdrivers.”
Claire retrieved the items, and Sally got to work removing the old lock without hesitation.
“You seem to know what you’re doing.”
“Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve done this.” Sally wriggled out the last screw and pulled out the lock sandwiched between the door handles. “Changed them all over when Paul did his vanishing act earlier in the year to ‘find himself.’ I had no intention of letting him in when he inevitably crawled back, but after that whole mess at the factory and everything that happened with Graham, I needed to try to fix it one last time.” She retrieved her phone from her pocket, opened Instagram, and passed it to Claire. “This should have been enough to bring me to my senses, but like you, I was doing my own impression of The Exorcist girl.”
Claire scrolled down Paul’s picture feed. There was no doubt he was good looking, but he was also far too aware of it. The most recent pictures were all from their holiday. Paul by the pool, Paul on the terrace, Paul in the gym. If Claire hadn’t known better, she’d have thought Paul was alone on the holiday; there were no pictures of Sally. She kept scrolling through the next dozen or so random countryside shots and gym mirror selfies. There were even pictures of his car; Claire had never understood the need to post about them, and yet so many people so often did. When she reached the section of pictures from Paul’s travels, Claire’s heart ached for Sally.
“Oh, mate,” she said as she flicked through the endless feed of Paul posing with different women like a playboy on a world tour. “As if he kept all these up.”
“Why break the illusion?” Sally crammed in the new lock before taking her phone back. “No pictures of me or the kids. You can’t even tell he’s a solicitor. He’s just some good looking single guy with a charmed life, faking the perfect existence for a few thousand people. Here, this is her.”
This time, Claire was looking at the profile of a young, tanned woman who described herself to her twenty-thousand followers as a ‘fitness model.’ There was also a coupon code for something called ‘tummy tea’ and an email address for ‘business enquiries’.
“I watched the whole thing play out online when he was away ‘finding himself’,” she muttered, holding a screw between her lips as she twisted another with the screwdriver. “Maddie. He met her in Bali, and they seemed to have a fling. Well, I thought it was a fling.”
She glanced up at Claire, cheeks slightly flushed. “I checked his phone on holiday. Held it up to his face when he was asleep, and it let me in. Probably shouldn’t have, but it confirmed what I’d been thinking the whole holiday. His phone kept going off, always face down on the table. Every time he looked at the screen, he’d do thi
s little smile he couldn’t quite fully hide. I could tell he was trying, though.” She jammed the last screw in. “I didn’t read their whole conversation, but it went on for months. It doesn’t look like they ever really stopped talking. Here I’ve been trying to fix things, going to counselling, and he’s been talking to some twenty-four-year-old wannabe model with teeth brighter than my toilet after a good bleaching.”
“Is that why you came home?”
“I wish I could say it was.” Sally pulled herself up with the help of the handle before checking it worked. “I stewed in it for two days, but it all came out the second we got into it about the mini-bar not being restocked. He didn’t seem to care how I felt, he just kept banging on about me ‘invading his privacy’. That’s when it clicked. I waited until he fell asleep, packed my stuff, and got the nice woman at the reception to help book me a flight home.”
Sally’s phone still in hand, Claire tapped onto another profile as she followed Sally down the hallway to the front door. While Sally got to work unscrewing the second lock, Claire scrolled through her friend’s profile to see a very different story than the one Paul had presented. There were dozens of couple pictures, and even more pictures of their girls. It was the perfect life Claire had always assumed was true. If Sally hadn’t peeled back the curtain earlier in the year and confessed how bad things were under the surface, Claire would never have seen it. She’d always been ‘Sally’s friend’ – never a friend of the couple. She’d also never particularly liked Paul; he was far too smarmy for her. Sally had seemed happy with him, so she’d never interfered. Knowing what she knew now, Claire couldn’t believe she’d been so undeservingly polite to him for so many years.
“I’m so sorry,” Claire said as she returned Sally’s phone. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this sooner?”
