by Sara Barnard
‘I don’t know.’ Suzanne was smiling, leaning closer to examine the picture. ‘I guess I didn’t realize I was important enough for your wall.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh God, that was a pathetic thing to say. Please forget I said that.’
We talked about nothing for a while as Suzanne roamed around my room, studying various photographs and running her fingers along the spines of my books. Finally she came across my collection of nail varnishes and held one up hopefully.
‘Can I do your nails?’
We settled, cross-legged and facing each other, my back against the wall and my hand splayed out on the floor. We were both quiet for the first few nails.
‘So you had a fight with Sarah?’ I prompted finally.
She nodded. I thought about the first time I’d met Sarah, when she and Suzanne had picked me up on the way to Rosie’s house, way back in September. The two of them had seemed like friends. What had happened?
‘I thought you got along pretty well,’ I said. Suzanne had chosen a teal nail varnish from a set Tarin had bought me a couple of years earlier that I hadn’t even opened, loyal as I was to my spectrum of pinks.
‘We did,’ Suzanne said. The teal had sparkles in it. ‘Sarah’s really nice. I mean, it was kind of weird at first, but I think we were both getting used to it. But seeing my dad . . . you know, at the marina?’ I nodded. ‘It really got to me. I tried to shake it off, but it feels like it changed everything.’
I hesitated. ‘Am I allowed to ask why?’
Her head was slightly bent, but I saw the smile quirk over her face. ‘You can ask me anything, Cads.’ There was a pause. After a moment, she looked up to grin at me. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Why has it changed everything?’ I asked obediently.
Her head dipped again. ‘Because it turned out she knew he’d be in Brighton. And she didn’t tell me.’
‘Oh,’ I said quietly.
‘She says they all decided not to tell me, because the chances of us, like, running into each other or whatever were so remote. Which I guess they were. But it happened. And it was like . . . I don’t know. Just a really horrible shock, I guess. I mean, I trusted her, and now I feel like I can’t. I thought she was on my side.’
‘She is on your side,’ I said immediately.
Suzanne shook her head. ‘No, she’s not.’ She was quiet for a while, concentrating hard on my index finger, sweeping the polish across my nail. I was about to change the subject when she spoke. ‘She wants us to go back to my parents’ for Christmas.’
I was so surprised my head actually jerked, causing my hand to spasm.
‘Hand still, please.’ Suzanne said, not looking at me. ‘And I know. It sounds bad, right? That was pretty much my reaction when she first said it, last week.’
‘I don’t get it. Why would she suggest something like that? You’re obviously not going to go, right?’
‘Well, for her it’s not this terrible thing. She’s been saying for a while that I should see my mother. Trying to arrange dinner, things like that. I’ve said no for a while. I’ve actually been worried that she’s going to give up trying to convince me and one day I’ll come home and Mum will be there.’ She sighed and dipped the brush back into the bottle. ‘Anyway, that hasn’t happened yet thankfully. But Sarah’s moved on from that now to say we should spend Christmas with them. Her reasoning is that all of us will be there together, her and me and my parents and my brother. Nothing will happen, she says, and it will be good for all of us.’
‘But that’s not the point, right?’ I said carefully.
‘What’s not the point?’
‘That nothing will happen.’
Suzanne stopped, the brush tip just above my finger. She looked at me, letting out a tchts of frustration. ‘Yes, that’s exactly it. See, you get it. Why doesn’t she get it? She’s been making me feel like I’m being completely unreasonable.’
‘I don’t get why she’d think you’d be OK with that.’
‘She knows I’m not. But she says I probably never will be, that it’s the kind of thing I just have to do. Otherwise I’ll always feel like I can’t. She says until we’ve all sat down together we’ll never be in a position to move forward.’
‘But what about when you saw your dad that time?’
At this, Suzanne smiled a humourless smile and resumed painting my nails. ‘Sarah says that he says he ignored me out of respect for me. Apparently he thought that I’d “freak out” if he came over. Can you believe that?’ She’d clearly meant this to be a flippant question, but it came out earnest, like she was really asking me.
I thought carefully about how to answer this. ‘Um, I guess that would make sense, but I don’t think it makes it any better.’ I hesitated. ‘What do your parents say? About Christmas?’
‘They want me to come, Sarah says. I don’t know if I believe her. I spoke to my brother and he said basically the same thing.’
‘Well, that’s good,’ I said cautiously.
Suzanne shrugged. ‘I don’t know what difference it really makes now. The damage is done.’ She started the second coat on my left hand. ‘That’s not what I’m really worried about anyway. Sarah said something about needing to think to the future, that we couldn’t stay like this forever. But I actually thought this was a forever thing. That it would be me and her for the next few years, until I’m old enough to move out or whatever.’
I felt a stab of sadness, unsure of what to say. I couldn’t even imagine living with such a temporary foundation. I’d assumed it was forever too. Wasn’t Sarah supposed to be the great rescuer in this scenario?
‘So, what – are you going to move back at some point?’
Suzanne looked troubled. ‘Maybe. God, I hope not. But now I’m thinking that this is all some kind of groundwork that Sarah is laying, so she can say, “Oh, see, you’re all fine now, you can go back to live with them and I can have my life back.”’
‘I’m sure that won’t happen,’ I said automatically, even though I wasn’t even the slightest bit sure. ‘Besides—’
She put her hand up to shush me, so suddenly that I did so without question. Her brow had furrowed and she was angling her head slightly towards my bedroom door.
‘What?’ I mouthed.
‘Sarah,’ she mouthed back. She pointed towards the door and mimed listening with her hand to her ear.
I strained to hear, and sure enough I could just about hear the sounds of my mother talking to another woman. I wouldn’t have been able to place the voice as Sarah’s by myself.
‘Shit,’ Suzanne said out loud through a sigh.
‘Why is she here?’ I asked, bewildered.
She made a face as if she really didn’t want to answer this, then said, ‘She made me give her yours and Rosie’s addresses, when we first started being friends. She must have come here first because it’s closer.’
‘Why is she so overprotective?’ I asked. ‘She doesn’t seem like the type.’
‘It’s not that she’s overprotective. She’s just trying to . . . get a grip on me, I guess. Maybe she thinks if I know she’ll come looking for me, I won’t leave.’
‘Do you leave a lot?’
‘Sometimes I just want to be by myself. I just walk for a bit, but I always come back. Usually she doesn’t even notice I’ve gone.’
I thought of the bare window in her room. Always leave an exit clear. So she had meant it.
Suzanne looked towards my window now, twisting her lip thoughtfully. ‘If I leave now, I can get home in ten minutes. Then she can wander around Brighton looking for me for as long as she likes, and I’ll still be there when she gets back.’
‘What if she’s worried about you?’
‘She’s not.’
‘What if you get in trouble?’
She laughed at this. ‘What kind of trouble? Like ground me? I’ll just go anyway. She can’t do anything. Who cares?’
I hesitated, trying to think of the best way to play this. ‘I wonder why m
y parents haven’t come up here to look for you.’
‘They must just assume I’m not here.’ Suzanne had picked up the polish again and was finishing my last two nails. ‘Because obviously if I turned up at your window, you’d tell them immediately.’ She grinned at me.
‘Obviously,’ I said, but a little more weakly. ‘But why’s Sarah still here then?’
‘Probably complaining about me. You know she and your mum have met up a couple of times since that day at the supermarket?’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah. I think it’s the Samaritans thing.’
‘Yeah, people like talking to her because they assume she must be a good listener.’
‘No, I mean . . .’ Suzanne trailed off, then smiled. ‘Yeah, that must be it.’
She’d finished my nails and was twisting the lid back on to the bottle.
‘I think you should go downstairs,’ I said.
Her face fell a little and she looked at me warily. ‘Why? Are you turning me in?’
‘No, I just think that’s the best way to play it. I’ll come downstairs with you, and we’ll say you came to see me. Maybe we can all agree that you can come and see me whenever without needing to ask. Then you’ve got freedom, and she won’t check up on you.’
Suzanne smiled. ‘As simple as that, huh?’ She glanced towards my window again. ‘It would be a lot easier to just go.’
‘Not in the long run,’ I said.
She was silent for a while, considering this. ‘OK, fine. I’ll try it your way.’ She stood up. ‘Will this get you into trouble?’
Possibly. ‘Shouldn’t do.’
We headed out of my room together and down the hall to the stairs. I could hear Sarah’s voice more clearly as we started down them, her words suddenly decipherable. I tried to get into the kitchen as fast as possible to stop her saying anything bad about Suzanne, but we ended up walking through the door just as she said, ‘The problem is, I thought she’d be grateful. But she’s such hard work.’
There was a terrible silence as Sarah and my parents realized we were there. I glanced behind me at Suzanne, hoping that by some miracle she hadn’t heard, but her face was hard and set. I looked towards Sarah, hoping to see guilt and contrition on her face, but her initial expression of surprise had faded into frustrated anger.
Apologize, I thought to her desperately. If she apologized immediately, things could still be OK.
But she didn’t.
‘Caddy,’ Dad said, patiently but with a hint of annoyance, ‘why didn’t you tell us Suzanne was here?’
‘I didn’t think I needed to,’ I responded, hearing my sullen tone and instantly regretting it. None of this was going right.
‘So you are here,’ Sarah said to Suzanne, her voice shaky with controlled anger. ‘Why didn’t you answer your phone?’
‘I left it behind.’
‘Don’t you care that I can’t get a hold of you when you do that?’
Suzanne looked her right in the eye. ‘No.’
My heart was starting to pound, my hands clammy at my sides. Fights between my own family in my kitchen were bad enough. But a fight between Sarah and Suzanne? I had to fight a childish impulse to run away.
‘I’m trying to look after you,’ Sarah said slowly, angrily. ‘How can I do that when you decide to disappear?’
‘I’m right here,’ Suzanne shot back.
‘OK.’ Mum stood up suddenly, one hand raised slightly. ‘Let’s calm down.’
‘You see what I mean?’ Sarah said to her, the worst possible thing she could have said. She seemed to realize it too, and her face faltered for the first time. ‘Oh,’ she said quietly, almost to herself. ‘Oh, this is difficult.’
‘You mean I am,’ Suzanne said tightly. I could hear suppressed tears in her voice. ‘Hard work, right?’
‘I worry about you.’ Sarah’s voice was earnest and frustrated, rising with each word. ‘How can I know, when you’re not in your room, where you are? How can I be sure that this isn’t the time you won’t come home again?’
My mother took a step forward and said ‘Sarah’ in a quick, warning voice, but she wasn’t looking at Sarah, or even Suzanne. She was looking at me with an anxious, frustrated frown on her face.
For a moment, I still didn’t get it. And then I did. Something in my head finally clicked; Samaritans . . . won’t come home again . . . I’m not allowed to be at home by myself . . . Sarah wasn’t worried Suzanne would get hurt. She was worried she’d hurt herself.
‘I will come home again,’ Suzanne said, and then she started to cry, helplessly, right there in the middle of my kitchen. She pressed a hand to her mouth and turned away from us, her shoulders shaking.
If I’d been a better person, I’d have gone to her straight away, but I was frozen in place by confusion and worry. This was the bit I felt most guilty about later. The beat it took for any of us to move to her side that was just a little bit too long. Both Sarah and my mother went to her, finally, while I stood there clumsily and my dad rubbed his forehead with his fingers, shaking his head.
They left together not long after. The fight had gone from Suzanne, and Sarah seemed, finally, remorseful.
‘Do you want to talk about it?’ Mum asked me.
Maybe I’d have said yes if she hadn’t used her Samaritans voice and face. But she did. And so I didn’t.
I went up to my room and found my phone half-buried under a pile of schoolbooks on my bed. I tapped out a message to Suzanne and sent it.
22.49: I’m sorry. Next time I’ll let you go through the window xxx
22.59: Don’t be sorry. Not your fault x
23.00: Are you OK? x
23.04: No.
23.05: Do you want to talk about it? x
23.09: Never. Really never. Can we never talk about it? Please?
23.10: Talk about what?
23.11: :) Love you x
One week before Christmas, Tarin and her boyfriend split up. I was the only one who seemed surprised.
‘I had thought she was spending less time with him,’ Mum said. The two of us were in the kitchen, wrapping presents for my younger cousins, while Tarin cried on the phone to her friend in the living room.
‘But they were together for two years,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t that count for anything?’
‘They were happy for most of that time,’ Mum said. ‘I think that’s what matters.’
I made a face. ‘It doesn’t seem worth it.’
‘Why not?’ Mum asked. She was smiling. ‘Because it ends?’
‘Well, yeah.’
‘Maybe we shouldn’t have Christmas then,’ Mum said seriously. ‘It’ll have to end.’
I rolled my eyes. ‘Sarcasm doesn’t suit you, Mum.’
‘My sweet girl.’ Mum leaned over and put an arm around me. ‘This is a good lesson to learn now, when it’s happening to someone else: letting go is just as important as holding on, sometimes. It’s a good thing that Tarin ended this relationship if she wasn’t happy. I’m proud of her.’
‘But she wasted her time,’ I said, frustrated. ‘And now she’s miserable. What was the point if she just had to let go at the end? Isn’t it better to be with someone worth holding on to?’
‘People can spend their whole lives thinking that way,’ Mum said. ‘But people we love come and go, Caddy. That doesn’t mean we loved them any less at the time.’
I tried to talk to Tarin about it, but she refused to talk about Adam, insisting instead that she wanted to spend time with me and Rosie, like we used to do when we were younger.
‘And Suzanne,’ I said.
‘Oh yeah,’ she said. ‘It’s three of you now. I keep forgetting.’
Suzanne was uncharacteristically shy around Tarin at first, letting Rosie and me do most of the talking when the four of us went to Nando’s for a Christmas Eve-Eve dinner. It was the night before Suzanne was to go to Reading with Sarah, something she had almost completely avoided talking about, even when it was just the
three of us. All I knew was that they’d ‘compromised’ and would be spending their Christmas in a hotel with the rest of Suzanne’s family.
After the food arrived, Tarin moved into big-sister mode. I could almost see it happening.
‘So,’ she said to Suzanne, spreading butter on her corn, ‘how’s everything with you? How long have you been in Brighton now?’
‘Fine,’ Suzanne said, in a way that seemed automatic. ‘Um, about five months.’
‘Are you getting on OK?’
I recognized the instinctive concern in Tarin’s voice, but Suzanne seemed, if anything, confused. ‘Yeah, fine,’ she said.
Tarin smiled. ‘Really? You’re a better person than me if that’s true. I was a gigantic mess when I was your age.’
Something lit up in Suzanne’s eyes. ‘Really?’
‘Oh yeah.’ Tarin bit down on her straw. ‘Right, Cads? Wasn’t I a mess?’
‘A big mess,’ I confirmed.
‘I used to sneak out and stuff,’ Tarin explained. ‘Trouble in school.’ She grinned. ‘I was a right cliché, me. I mean, I did have a mental illness. But still. Own your behaviour and all that.’
‘My dad used to beat me up,’ Suzanne replied, using the same matter-of-fact tone as Tarin.
‘That’s shit,’ Tarin said sympathetically. She reached out her fist and Suzanne bumped it obligingly. ‘So’s my mental illness. But look at me!’ She gestured to herself with the chicken wing she was holding. ‘I’m a totally functioning adult. I pay taxes and everything.’
Rosie caught my eye and grinned. The grin said, Your sister is the best. I grinned back. I know.
‘I’m just saying it doesn’t last forever,’ Tarin said. ‘Even if it feels like it will, you know? And you’re still in the middle of it.’ She smiled, encouraging and hopeful. ‘But you’ll be fine, love.’
This was how Tarin talked. Full of darlings and loves and gorgeouses. But the look on Suzanne’s face; it was like no one had ever said that to her before. Such a simple statement with a casual endearment, the kind I barely registered when it was aimed at me.
