by Sue Watson
‘I know, I know,’ she says, sounding defeated, ‘but I can’t help how I feel, and I thought he felt the same. So before I got out of the taxi, I kissed him goodnight, and he kissed me back… you know, tongues and…’
I nod, living the moment with her, remembering the first time Matt and I kissed like that.
‘And for a minute I really thought…’ She pauses. ‘But he pulled away, lifted my hands from his shoulders like I was clinging to him and had to be removed. “Goodnight Amber,” he said, like he was talking to a little kid. I felt like a fool, but Lucy, it broke my heart.’ She lets out a small sob. I’ve never seen her like this before. My heart goes out to her and I just feel so angry that a man like that can have this effect on a strong, independent woman like Amber.
‘I’m sorry, Amber, he’s a pig. He didn’t deserve you. And there are so many more men out there – kinder, nicer men who stay for the long haul,’ I add, thinking of Matt.
‘I know, but it’s crazy, isn’t it? As hard as I try not to, I still love him. I watch him at work sometimes and have to stop myself from just going into his office and kissing him, full on the lips.’
I feel for her. It must be awful to be faced by the object of your affection all day every day and know it’s one-sided, that it’s over. ‘If you see him every day, how on earth are you ever going to move on?’
She’s staring down into her mug of tea. ‘I don’t know, but I have to stay at the studio. I won’t get work like this anywhere else right now. And I really thought… hoped he might change his mind. Even after he finished it last year, I thought that seeing me at work every day he would crumble, like he always has in the past when we’ve broken up.’
I can only imagine Ben ‘crumbling’ over Amber; it’s what most men seem to do. Apart from being extremely beautiful, she has this dazzling energy and those deep bronze eyes, quite mesmerising and intriguing, like they’re keeping a secret. She’s also very determined, and I imagine she’s always got what she wants where men are concerned. Her looks and seduction techniques have obviously always worked in the past, both at work and play, but Ben seems to be the one that got away. I think she wants him because she can’t have him. That’s what women like Amber live for – the challenge, the chase – and he’s certainly giving her that.
‘Do you think he’s playing games with me?’ she asks.
‘In what way?’
‘Well, is he playing hard to get?’
I doubt that very much, but don’t want to hurt her, so put my lips together and my head to one side with a ‘maybe’ look.
‘He’s been without me for a year,’ she carries on, oblivious to my opinion anyway. ‘He’s seen that the grass isn’t greener and maybe he still wants me… or why would he share a taxi and then play hard to get?’
‘I don’t know, Amber. I’ve only ever been in a relationship with Matt and we’re pretty transparent. I don’t know what you and Ben are like; perhaps he is playing hard to get,’ I offer. She clearly thinks he is – or wants to think he is – and though I want to be honest I don’t want to shatter her illusions totally, and what do I know? I don’t know the moron. ‘Would you expect him to do that – to pretend he doesn’t care when he does?’ I ask, trying to play the therapist and throw her question back at her.
‘Perhaps.’
‘Well then, he might be,’ I say, not really believing this myself, but I haven’t a clue, I’ve never even met him. People are strange, as the song goes, and who can ever understand the workings of the human mind when love’s involved?
Amber smiles at me, squeezes my hand. ‘Thanks Lucy.’ She looks hopeful and I don’t want to hurt her, but wonder if I should be a little stronger in my condemnation of him.
‘If he is playing games,’ I start, not wanting to give my friend false hope, ‘you have to ask yourself: do you really want to be with someone like that?’
‘Oh, I don’t know. Men! Let’s not talk about it,’ she says. ‘It makes me angry now just to think of him.’
‘Okay,’ I say, surprised at this sudden cut in the conversation. I can’t help but feel there was more to this relationship than she’s letting on, but knowing Amber it could be a while before she tells me. If ever. ‘Let’s just hope that one day soon you’ll be able to kiss him goodbye… metaphorically, I mean. And not with tongues.’ I giggle.
She laughs. ‘Never with tongues. He’s not good enough for my tongue,’ she says.
‘Let’s leave it there, shall we, Miss Young? That’s quite enough about tongues, thank you,’ I say, playing the teacher for her amusement.
‘Okay, Mrs Metcalf, whatever you say. There will be no more suggestions of smut in front of Miss this morning.’
‘And talking of me being Miss, I have to get to work,’ I say, picking up her still-full breakfast plate and throwing the contents in the bin.
Her face drops. ‘Oh, Lucy, I’ve just had a horrible thought – I’m not at work today, and if I go home… what if he knows where I live?’
I have to say, I’m glad she’s finally taking the stalker seriously.
‘You don’t have to go home if you’d rather not, sweetie,’ I say. ‘You’re welcome to stay here – Matt and I will both be at work all day, but you’ll be quite safe. Even if your stalker – whoever he is – knows where you live, he’ll hardly know you’re staying three doors down.’
She looks relieved. ‘Thank you so much, Lucy. It’s just for today… I guess I suddenly feel a bit creeped out.’
‘Of course you do, and you’re welcome to stay here. I only wish I didn’t have to rush off,’ I say, putting on my jacket and grabbing a pile of books to take with me. I’m already in danger of being late, and if the traffic’s against me I’m likely to miss morning registration; I’ve never been late for work. ‘You relax, eat whatever’s in the fridge, watch the telly… Oh, and there are lots of books…’ I’m heading out of the kitchen, grabbing my keys with one hand while looking for my phone.
‘Lucy… I just realised I’m in your pyjamas…’ She stands up expectantly, and I turn and notice how much better they look on her, like a different pair.
‘Yes… That’s okay, have a pyjama day.’ Why is she looking at me like that? What does she want me to do? I’m going to be late.
‘I would rather go and get my stuff…’
Oh God, I can’t let her go home alone, given what’s going on, but I don’t have time for this. Knowing Amber, she’ll want to shower and put on a full face of make-up before she can step outside of the house. I can’t find my phone anywhere, and I feel hot.
‘Okay, we can….’ Where the hell is my phone? ‘We can… go to your house together later after I’ve been to work… and you can get changed and… Have you seen my phone?’
She shakes her head, oblivious to my stress as I try to retrace my phone ‘steps’. I had it first thing because I checked the news and commented to Matt about the chance of a teacher’s strike.
I’m now lifting newspapers and tea towels. ‘I’m sure I last had it in the kitchen,’ I say, and I ask Amber to move so I can check under her chair, but she’s in her own little world and I have to say her name a couple of times before she even reacts.
‘Sorry, Lucy, I’m miles away,’ she says, and I feel bad making a fuss about my missing phone when she’s got bigger things to worry about. ‘But the thing is, I couldn’t possibly wear pyjamas all day. And if he were hanging around… I mean, what if he knocked on the door and… and I needed to run?’
Where the hell is my phone? Shit!
‘I’ll just have to go to work without it,’ I say, almost to myself.
‘Sorry, I’m being silly and selfish,’ she suddenly says.
‘No, no, you’re not, it’s just that…’ I might actually have a heart attack.
‘Lucy, you’re angry with me and I don’t blame you…’
‘No I’m not.’
‘There’s me feeling sorry for myself and you’ve got to get to work. I’ll be fine back home, hone
stly. I’ll go now.’
‘No, no…’ I get up from the floor, where I’ve been surveying the whole surface area for my phone.
Amber’s now taking her bag containing last night’s clothes from the chair and I feel terrible. I’ve spent the last few minutes completely ignoring her, oblivious to her fear and anguish.
‘Lucy, I’ll be fine,’ she’s saying, but tellingly she isn’t looking at me.
‘Absolutely not,’ I insist. And that’s when I come to my senses and realise this isn’t about me being late for bloody work, it’s about me being there for my friend. ‘Sod work,’ I say, relief flooding through my veins at having given myself permission to step back and not have a coronary. I take off my jacket and abandon the so-far-fruitless search for my phone. ‘The teaching assistant can cope for an hour. So I’ll be late and miss registration and assembly – it’s not life and death,’ I add, in an attempt to convince myself as much as Amber, but deep down I know it’s the right thing to do. So we leave the house together, and I push all thoughts of being late from my head. For now.
‘I love blinds at a window,’ she’s saying, as we walk down the drive. She’s still wearing my pyjamas after I convinced her she looked gorgeous in them and we’re chatting about number 11’s new blinds. ‘They give good solid cover – I’m glad I have them. No one can peer inside when I’m on my own.’
‘You don’t have to be on your own,’ I reassure her. ‘You can stay with us whenever you like, for as long as you need to. When she doesn’t answer, I look at her, but she seems to be gazing ahead and I follow her gaze. There’s something on her doorstep. ‘What’s that?’ I ask.
‘I’m not sure,’ she says, sounding scared.
‘It might be a gift from someone… Ben?’ I offer, knowing this is what she wants but at the same time doubting it – why would he suddenly send a gift now, after a year apart?
As we get closer to the doorstep, I can see it’s a small, oblong box, wrapped in flowery wrapping paper and tied with a large pink bow. We look at each other, and I think we’re both thinking the same: it may not be from a friend.
‘Looks pretty,’ I say uncertainly, as we both stand staring at it.
‘Would you mind… picking it up?’ she asks, and I hesitate before bending down to touch it. I look back at Amber, who’s now white with fear, then lift it with both hands.
‘It’s surprisingly light. Could it be jewellery?’ I say, gently shaking it as she steps past me like it’s contagious and opens the front door. She goes inside, and I follow her, grabbing the door with one hand while holding the box with the other.
She quickly turns the alarm off and we go through into the kitchen, where I put the gift on the counter.
‘You know… it might genuinely be a gift,’ I say, nodding.
She just shakes her head. ‘Who would give me a gift out of the blue like this?’
‘I don’t know…’ I gesture towards the box. ‘Are you going to open it?’
‘No.’ She speaks quietly, her fear tangible.
‘Shall I?’ What can I do? One of us has to, and we always knew it wouldn’t be Amber.
‘Would you mind?’
‘No.’ I’m feeling very jumpy as I reach for the pretty pink parcel, like it might be a bomb, or a bracelet. A gift or a gun. Holding it, I try to get a feel for what it is, but it’s impossible to tell. So I approach it like a plaster and rip the paper off quickly in an effort to cause less pain. Under the wrapping paper is the closed box, and it’s very pretty: pale pink, painted with pictures of tiny birds and blossoms. It reminds me of the kimono Amber wore when I first met her at her door. ‘It must be from a friend,’ I say. ‘This box is very you, isn’t it?’
She just looks from the box back to me, wanting me to get on with it I suppose. So, in silence, I push my nails under the flap to open it and reveal an abundance of pink tissue paper.
‘It’s like pass the parcel,’ I joke lamely, pushing both hands into the pink paper and moving them around. Then I feel it – a cold dampness on the ends of my fingers, and I hear myself scream.
Chapter Eight
Lucy
‘What?’ she’s saying loudly, her voice filled with panic. ‘What is it, Lucy? Tell me.’
I don’t answer. In my horror I put the box down and move away, but I know if I don’t open it neither will Amber. So I go back and pull out more tissue paper and more; it’s never-ending. And then the final piece reveals what my hands had touched – the body of a tiny dead bird, covered in blood. I look at Amber, her mouth half-open, her eyes moving slowly from mine to ‘the gift’ and back again. I look down at my hands, red and damp with blood.
The silence is deafening.
She’s looking at me and a tear is crawling down her face like a long, silvery insect.
‘Opening that box has to be the creepiest thing that has ever happened to me,’ I say to Kirsty in school later that day. I have filled her in on everything that has happened since yesterday, and she just keeps saying ‘No… I don’t believe it,’ and by the time I get to the dead bird, she’s open-mouthed.
‘She wanted me to throw the bird away,’ I say, explaining that in the aftermath of the unwrapping, I’d scrubbed my hands, put the bird back in the box and, despite her protestations, left it in Amber’s fridge. She was absolutely horrified and said she didn’t want it in the house, let alone her fridge.
‘It’s evidence, we can’t just throw it away,’ I said, and after helping her pack some essentials (Amber’s definition of the word and mine differ slightly – a silk eye mask, scarlet underwear, three bags of make-up and a box of meditation discs are not something I would need), we headed back to mine. Once there, she asked me to wait with her a little longer.
‘I’m just so nervous, I keep thinking he’s watching me,’ she said, so I stayed a few more minutes, and made her a chamomile tea. She didn’t want to be left alone, but having spent half the morning calming her down, I really had to go into work.
‘It was like something from a horror movie. The tissue paper was covered in blood. No note, nothing, just the dead bird – it was vile,’ I tell Kirsty. It’s now afternoon playtime and we’ve just boiled the kettle for coffee and she’s spooning granules into our mugs as I take the milk from the mini fridge.
‘Oh my God, that’s terrible. What did Amber do?’
‘She cried… Well, we both did – you know what I’m like. I cry at anything,’ I say, pouring the milk into our mugs. I’m trying to keep it light. Just hearing myself tell the story of what was inside the box is so creepy I don’t want to freak Kirsty out.
‘You cry at bloody Coronation Street,’ she agrees, as we walk with our steaming drinks to a corner of the staffroom where we can chat without being overheard. ‘So, has she any idea who…?’ Kirsty’s settling into her chair and I pull mine closer.
On second thoughts, I don’t need to hold back. There’s no chance any of this will freak Kirsty out; she’s positively salivating.
‘No, she hasn’t a clue. At first I thought it might be from Ben – remember, I told you about him, her ex-boyfriend?’
Kirsty nods eagerly while sipping her coffee and, in her enthusiasm, almost causes a collision between mug and teeth.
‘But now, I don’t know. I just can’t see him getting involved after everything,’ I say knowledgably, like Amber Young is my subject on Mastermind. ‘I mean, they’ve been apart for a year now, and as much as she’d love to get back with him, I’m not convinced he feels the same …’
‘Really? You don’t think it could be him?’ she says slowly, screwing up her eyes like she’s considering this deeply. ‘I’m not so sure – stalkers are often ex-boyfriends, and you’ve said yourself it was a strange relationship…’ she adds, taking another sip.
‘True, and it’s not out of the question – she told me they’d shared a taxi the other night, so perhaps he is back on the scene? She loved him to bits,’ I say. ‘He promised her the earth and gave her nothing, and she spent t
wenty years waiting for him.’
‘I don’t think she waited around too much if the doorman at Allegra is to be believed.’ She smirks, dying for me to ask.
I don’t give her the satisfaction. Amber has never made a secret out of the fact she has ‘dalliances’, so I’m not joining in with Kirsty in judging her for that.
‘Anyway, the police are coming over on Wednesday,’ I add, a tantalising caveat that causes Kirsty’s eyebrows to raise, which I note need shaping – something I’d never considered before Amber. She dragged me to her beauty therapist in town, and Olga’s taken ten years off me with a reshape and a monthly hydrating facial. I’ve booked an appointment with Amber’s hairdresser too – I love the way he does her hair, and the colour is ‘to die for’ (as Amber would say).
‘The police?’ Kirsty’s saying, surprised.
‘Yes, I called them from JoJo’s when I saw the text. And we can tell them about the dead bird now.’
‘Ooh, get you – in the posh wine bars. I notice you didn’t invite me, did you?’ she half-jokes, putting down her mug on the arm of the chair. I feel really awkward.
‘Sorry, it’s just… Amber asked me at the last minute… Sorry,’ I repeat, feeling suddenly quite bad that I left Kirsty out. The thing is, Amber and I have a friendship that doesn’t really include Kirsty, and it would be difficult to try and bond us all. And to be honest, I don’t think Kirsty deserves to be invited along on my evenings out with Amber. She’s so mean about her and she’d be horrible to her face too. The last time we got together was at Christmas, and Amber mentioned that we’d been to a spa and started laughing with me about how we were so slippery after our massages that we almost fell in the pool. I was silently willing Amber not to talk about it because I hadn’t mentioned the spa day to Kirsty, but sometimes Amber misses the social cues. Kirsty’s face was like thunder, and she made digs about ‘best friends at the spa’ for ages afterwards. And now she’s making me feel bad that I went to a wine bar with Amber, and I’m irritated with her for producing all this guilt in me.
