Your Closest Friend

by Karen Perry

  ‘You’re wasting your time,’ I tell him. ‘She isn’t home.’

  His eyes whip in my direction.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Cara.’ I state her name plainly, watch him blink in confusion.

  ‘Do I know you?’ he asks, hostility in his voice now that he’s been caught out, his little spying mission aborted.

  ‘No, but I recognize you. And I’m a friend of hers, so …’

  He tucks in his chin, hunches a little further in his jacket, swept by sudden shame.

  ‘Do you want to come in?’

  ‘No,’ he answers quickly, shaking his head vigorously. There’s something vulnerable about him, like he’s teetering on the brink of collapse.

  ‘Hey, are you okay?’ I ask gently, reaching out to touch his sleeve.

  He sniffs and looks up and there are tears streaming down his cheeks. Goddamn, I think, the idea slowly turning over and forming in my head.

  ‘Why don’t we go somewhere?’ I suggest. ‘Get a coffee and talk. I’m Amy, by the way.’

  And even though I’m a complete stranger, he allows me to draw him away. I take him up the hill to the Café Parisienne and he talks for well over an hour, fuelling himself with a string of espressos. It’s his dollar so I keep ordering cappuccinos until I’m hopping with the caffeine, my stomach churning.

  I already know about the affair, so it’s no shock. The juicy details make me queasy but I nod and smile my sympathy, drawing him in. I try to imagine him sober. Even in this sodden, dishevelled state there’s a kind of roguish quality to him that could be charming, if that’s what you’re into. I’ve seen the house he lives in – a goddamned palace – but right now he looks like a tramp. Greasy, stringy hair, three days’ worth of stubble, clothes that look like they’ve been lived in and slept in for the best part of a week. That’s what rejection does to some people. Sends them over the cliff. I should know – I’ve been there.

  I’m starting to lose interest in him, the confessional bilge that’s coming out of his mouth, and I’m about to interrupt with an excuse for leaving, when he says, ‘I’ve been playing this game with her.’

  There’s an air of apology about the way he says this, but also something furtive about the way his eyes won’t quite meet mine.

  ‘What sort of game?’

  ‘This sort of secret admirer joke. At least it was meant to be a joke, but also a coded way of reminding her how close we’ve always been.’

  ‘What kind of joke?’ I ask.

  And that’s when he tells me about the messages, the texts.

  ‘Your Closest Friend?’ I repeat, and I can barely keep the disgust from my voice.

  ‘I know,’ he says, half-laughing in an embarrassed way. ‘Pathetic, right?’

  He’s misread the look on my face for pity, when what I’m feeling is sudden and intense anger. This strung-out mess of a man thinks that he is closest to Cara? The audacity of his assumption – the sheer wrongness of it – makes me twitchy and tense and I have to pinch the skin on the back of my hand under the table while I listen as he explains it all to me: the separate phone, the untraceable number, the array of text messages, as well as the occasional postcard sent to her workplace.

  ‘Does she know that it’s you?’ I ask.

  He nods. ‘She guessed.’

  ‘So why continue?’

  He shrugs, and mumbles something about romantic gestures and excitement, but it’s all just bullshit. I see clearly what he’s like – the type who needs to control, even when he’s not with her, pushing and cajoling her with his little game. Have her dancing on strings like a goddamned puppet. He’s a fucking stalker and I understand immediately how dangerous he is to her.

  ‘You’ve got to stop,’ I tell him.

  He winces. ‘I know, I know. It’s just – what else can I do? She won’t talk to me. She won’t answer my calls.’

  He exhales, a sharp burst of breath, and for a second it looks like he might start crying again.

  ‘Let me see if I can help you,’ I offer.

  The look that comes over his face is so nakedly hopeful, it almost makes me feel ashamed.

  ‘Give me your number,’ I tell him.

  He obliges without question. I punch in the digits, then stow my phone away in my back pocket as I get to my feet.

  ‘You’re going?’ he asks, desperation leaking into his voice.

  He’s clinging to the bottom rung here but I’ve had quite enough. All this time I’ve been sitting here, listening to his sob story, a hard stone weighing down my heart, thinking: This is what she loves? This is what she chooses? I push the thoughts away from me, storing all those bad feelings up for later.

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ I tell him in a kindly voice. ‘Then I’ll call you.’

  I can feel his eyes on my back as I walk away – I can almost imagine the light of hope in them. But when I get to the door and glance back, he’s sitting with one elbow on the table, supporting his head, eyes fixed dully on the next table. He’s not looking at me at all.

  I don’t call him. Instead, I wait until Saturday and then go around to his house.

  ‘Amy,’ he says with surprise.

  He’s standing in the doorway, dressed in jogging pants and a T-shirt, flip-flops on his feet. His hair is still wet from the shower.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind,’ I say. ‘I was going to call but I was in the neighbourhood, so …’

  I smile, lifting my arms a little and then letting them fall back to my sides. He’s still looking confused, questions milling around behind his eyes, but then he shakes them away and opens the door wide.

  I try not to gawp at the surroundings. The cathedral height of the hall ceiling. The kitchen island – a fucking continent, more like. An empty cereal bowl and spoon are marooned in the middle of it, a smattering of cornflakes litter the surface.

  ‘Listen, I’m sorry about the other morning,’ he begins, scratching at the side of his face. ‘I was in a state. You were very good to entertain my … well, my grievances.’

  ‘It’s alright,’ I shrug, standing awkwardly by the island. I don’t know whether or not to sit, suddenly unsure of myself. I’d wanted to get inside the house, but now what?

  ‘I feel terrible, having involved you,’ he goes on. ‘It’s a private matter, between me and Cara. I should talk directly to her, rather than dragging you into it.’

  ‘I don’t mind being dragged.’

  He nods but looks uncomfortable. A frown of confusion forms and he asks, ‘How did you know where I live?’

  ‘I looked up her Rolodex.’

  ‘Did you speak to her? About meeting me?’

  ‘Yeah, kind of.’

  He puts his hands to his hips, exhales briefly. He’s sober and clear-headed, but he looks unprepared for this.

  ‘Could we sit down and talk?’ I ask.

  He nods, directing me to a round table in the curve of a bay window. The garden outside looks overgrown and neglected, drifts of yellowed weeds waving in the breeze.

  ‘Let’s have coffee,’ he says, fiddling with the Gaggia, but then he stops and says, ‘Fuck. I’ve run out.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘I’ve no milk either. Maybe we should go out?’ He’s pointing to the door, like he wants me to go with him.

  Sensing my opportunity, I say, ‘Can I use your bathroom first?’

  A brief hesitation appears on his face, and then he says, ‘Tell you what. I’ll head to the shops while you’re in the loo. I’ll be back in five minutes.’

  He directs me to the cloakroom in the hall, and I wait inside till I hear the front door slam, then I’m out and flying up the stairs, two at a time, not even bothering with the living room or any of the spaces on the ground floor. He said five minutes, but I’m guessing it will be more like ten and I don’t intend to waste any of them. I go straight to the bedroom. People always hide their private shit in bedrooms, even in massive houses like this one. The bed is a giant raft in the middle of the room,
still unmade, heat coming from the open door of the en suite where he recently showered.

  The phone is on the window ledge, plugged into the charger. A clunky-looking thing. I check to make sure it’s not password protected, then slip it into my pocket quickly, the charger too. I have a quick rummage in his chest of drawers before snooping in the wardrobe. At the back, behind the rows of shoes, is an old cigar box. I kneel on the floor and draw it down on to my lap, open it and peer inside.

  ‘Goddamn,’ I say to myself. I cannot believe my luck.

  I’m back in the kitchen, staring out into the garden, when he comes in. As well as coffee and milk, he’s bought fresh pastries, and we sit at the kitchen table and chat, tearing pieces off the croissants and pains aux raisins, stuffing them into our mouths as we talk.

  ‘She does love you,’ I tell him, ‘she’s just really messed up at the moment. It’s like she doesn’t know what she wants.’

  He’s staring at me intently, hunched over his coffee, quietly considering everything I say. So different to the last time, when I had to endure a loose stream of verbal diarrhoea from the guy.

  ‘Take this house sale she’s orchestrated. Where the hell did that idea come from? I can’t help but feel she’s running away from something.’

  ‘From what?’

  I shrug and take a slug of coffee. ‘Isn’t it obvious?’

  When he doesn’t answer, I explain. ‘The attack. That’s when all this started. When things started getting out of control for her.’

  ‘But she seemed okay after it.’

  ‘Yeah, on the surface. But I gotta tell you, I’m worried. I think she might be suffering some kind of stress.’

  ‘What? Like PTSD?’ He sounds incredulous.

  ‘Why not? It was pretty fucking traumatic. That guy was coming right for her when I whipped her off the street. When we came out, there were bodies everywhere, blood on the pavement. It could so easily have been her. Don’t you think she’d have been spooked?’

  ‘I suppose. She’s just always been so level-headed. So … steady. Even in the face of deep personal tragedy. She just has this way of keeping herself together. Unlike me,’ he admits, in a self-deprecating way. ‘I suppose it’s one of the things that drew me to her.’

  ‘She’s a Capricorn,’ I say, as if that explains it.

  He shoots me a sceptical glance. ‘Right. If you believe in that kind of thing.’

  ‘Why? What are you?’

  ‘Pisces.’

  ‘Ah!’ I laugh and nod, as if that explains his scepticism.

  He laughs too.

  And then I say it, lightly so as not to seem too obvious, ‘Like Mabel. Cara’s daughter. She’s a Pisces too.’

  ‘Is that so,’ he says, but he’s not really interested.

  ‘Although she should have been born in May. Does that matter? Is she really more of a Taurus?’

  ‘May?’ he asks.

  ‘Right. She was, like, two months premature. She nearly died. Didn’t you know that?’ I ask, innocently, noting the confusion tracking over his face.

  ‘No. I didn’t.’

  ‘That’s strange. That Cara never mentioned it to you. I wonder why she didn’t? Anyway, thanks for the coffee. And the pastries.’

  I suppose I could say more, press the button a little harder. But I can tell from the concentration on his face, the calculations going on in his brain – dates, places, all of it taking shape – that, really, I need say no more.

  ‘It was nice, having this chat with you,’ I tell him at the door, giving him a sunny smile.

  He hardly speaks in reply, a greyish look on his face. And when I round the gate and wave, he’s still standing there, unseeing, beached upon his own doorstep, the waves of realization crashing over him.

  15.

  Cara

  On the last day of October, I drive to the airport with Mabel in the back seat. A gloriously surprising sun beams across the city. It’s Hallowe’en, and as we head down the M25 towards Gatwick, I tell Mabel about the costumes I used to wear as a child, how a group of us would troop around the housing estates, bonfires burning on the green, calling from one door to another, threatening vengeance should the treats not be forthcoming.

  She listens with interest, my child. I see her face in the rear-view mirror, eyes round with concentration, sucked into the circus of her own vivid imagination. It’s a relief to see how she has recovered since the incident with Olivia. Even though she has never openly acknowledged the harm done to her by her half-sister, I sense an ease in her behaviour in the weeks since Olivia stormed out. I’ve been making a special effort since to come home early from work, to be more available to her in the afternoons and evenings. It’s as much a balm to me as it is to her, filling the void left after ending my affair by throwing myself into family life. A new determination has taken hold of me, renewing my belief that I can make this marriage work.

  ‘When will we be there?’ she asks, with excitement more than fatigue.

  ‘Not long now, sweet pea. Looking forward to seeing Daddy?’

  ‘I can’t wait!’ she replies enthusiastically.

  Her buoyancy matches my own. It’s been ages since I’ve driven the car, and now, behind the wheel, speeding towards the airport, I feel calmly optimistic. Happy, even. For the first time in months, things seem clear to me and I am hopeful for the future. Jeff and I have come to a new understanding of each other. Despite the difficulties of these past few weeks while he’s been away, I can see how energized he is by the work, how bored he had been at home. When this project ends, he will look for another, and I will be supportive of his endeavour. We are moving into a new phase of our lives together and I’m excited at the prospect. Earlier today when I’d spoken to our estate agent, she informed me that there was a second potential buyer now, and while their offer still did not reach our asking price, it was edging closer and she remained confident we would achieve it.

  Spurred on by this news, I’d called Jeff. He was at the airport in Berlin, awaiting his flight. Recently, we’d started speculatively trawling some property websites, and there was a house that had caught our interest; it had an open viewing this afternoon.

  ‘What do you think?’ I’d asked him, fully expecting him to say no, advising against counting chickens before they’d hatched, et cetera. But to my surprise he’d responded with enthusiasm.

  And when we meet him at the Arrivals gate he swings Mabel around, then turns to me, planting a warm kiss on my lips, before he draws back and grins, saying, ‘Come on, then. Take me to see our house.’

  The house is beautiful. Loftier and more generous than the photographs depicted, each room feels elegantly proportioned, solid, with a patina of age suggesting generations of living within these sturdy walls. The viewing is well attended, and we have to squeeze through doorways to assess each room, as other prospective buyers mill about, making their observations.

  ‘What are all these people doing in my kitchen?’ Jeff growls in my ear.

  I smile back at him, relieved and delighted that he feels it too. The sense of belonging – like this house was meant for us. I’d felt it the minute we’d walked through the front door.

  Jeff corners the estate agent, peppering him with questions about heating systems, plumbing, who the vendor is, their reasons for selling, while I take Mabel outside. The back garden is long and narrow, scarcely tended to. A concrete path bisects a strip of patchy lawn, leading down to a clutch of fruit trees, their windfall harvest rotting on the ground. Mabel skips about me, happy to be outdoors and away from the bovine crowd being herded from room to room.

  I look back at the house, and imagine us living here – the three of us. Already I am envisaging a brick patio outside the kitchen, summer mornings spent breakfasting there, reading the paper, Mabel playing on the lawn. I feel calm and relaxed, sure in the knowledge of how right this feels. After the chaos and difficulties of the past few months, the way seems clear.

  It is nearly a month now
since I told Finn it was over. I was calm and reasonable when I broke it to him, explaining that it had been a mistake, taking full responsibility for it – apologizing, even – for reawakening something between us that was best left sleeping. Some pasts aren’t worth returning to. Some loves should be allowed to wither and fade.

  I’d been rigorous about not caving in to his pleas to meet, to reconsider, disciplining myself not to respond to his texts and voicemails, which had grown more whiney and desperate as the weeks progressed. During that time, there were messages from YCF, pleading in tone. I’m waiting for you. And Tell me you’ll change your mind? I read them, then deleted them. Put them to the back of my mind. Part of me was tempted to confront him about these messages. What is the point of all this? I wanted to ask. But I knew him of old. There was no point, not really. They were just a part of his twisted logic. A ploy that had been set in motion and now could not be abandoned.

  Standing here in the garden, I breathe in the autumn air. A breeze trills through the garden, silvering the leaves on the trees next door.

  ‘Will Amy be living here too?’ Mabel asks, interrupting my thoughts.

  I look down at my little girl, remembering my conversation with Amy and briefly regretting having left her with the impression that there would be a place for her in our new home. I will have to set her straight about it soon.

  Mabel waits, and I answer, ‘No, sweet pea. It will just be me, you and Daddy.’

  I watch her think about this for a moment, and then her face breaks into a grin, and she runs back up the path to where Jeff is emerging from the kitchen. I go to follow her, wondering why she hadn’t reacted negatively to the news that Amy will be leaving us, my hand pressed to my bag, when I feel the buzz of my phone.

  I take it out, thumb the screen, my heart turning over.

  ‘Ready to go?’ Jeff asks, scooping Mabel up in his arms as he comes towards me.

  I stash my phone back in my bag, look up and force a smile.

  ‘Ready,’ I say, the one-word message burnt on my retinas.