Your Closest Friend

by Karen Perry

  Bitch.

  After that, the messages start up in earnest. Your Closest Friend is angry with me, the messages dripping with fury.

  Liar.

  Cheat.

  Whore.

  They zip through, lighting my phone up with their toxic rage, pinging at all hours of the day and night. I know they will die out eventually, once his fury is spent, but they’re bothersome nonetheless, and untypical of Finn. I’ve learned in the past how nasty he can be once he feels abandoned or scorned, but the brevity and sharpness of these messages, little fragments of digitized shrapnel, seem inconsistent with the more complex and thought-out nature of his previous attacks.

  I’m sitting at the kitchen table the following Saturday afternoon, making the most of a quiet half-hour to catch up on some work administration. Jeff has taken Mabel to buy new shoes, and Amy is down in the basement doing her laundry, when my phone lights up with a message. That now-familiar sinking feeling comes over me as I read it.

  Traitor.

  I put the phone down and think. How am I going to get this to stop?

  The door opens and Amy comes in from the hall, her basket of clean laundry tucked under one arm.

  ‘Hey,’ she says in a hollow tone as she passes, her flip-flops scudding over the floor.

  There’s something downcast about her lately, like she’s lumbering under the weight of her own little cloud. It’s been mildly irritating, but now it makes me pause.

  ‘Amy,’ I say, stopping her as she reaches her bedroom door. ‘Did you just text me?’

  ‘What?’

  She takes a few steps towards where I’m sitting at the table. I hold up my phone.

  ‘I just got a message and I was wondering if it was from you?’

  ‘No. Look.’ She points to the worktop and I see her iPhone plugged into the charger.

  ‘Have you tried calling the number?’ she asks.

  I explain that I have, but any time I do, the number rings out or gets cut off and there’s no voicemail facility.

  ‘How many messages have you got?’ she presses, and I feel her rising curiosity.

  ‘Not many. A few.’

  ‘YCF,’ she reads over my shoulder, and hastily I flip my phone over. ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Nothing,’ I say quickly, regretting this line of conversation. I get to my feet and turn to face her. ‘Actually, Amy, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about, while we’re alone.’

  ‘Oh?’ She hitches the basket a little higher on her hip, and waits.

  ‘It’s about Christmas. One of Jeff’s colleagues in Berlin has offered us the use of his holiday house in the Black Forest, and we’ve decided to take him up on the offer. It will be fun for Mabel – mountains, snow. Also, we’ve accepted an offer on this place and it looks like the sale will go through towards the end of December –’

  ‘But where will we live?’ she cuts in.

  The word ‘we’ snags in my head. ‘That’s what I want to talk to you about. You see, we’ve found a house that we love –’

  ‘Where?’

  I hesitate, surprised by my own reluctance to tell her. ‘Near Dulwich. We’ve put in an offer and we’re hopeful of getting it, and if we don’t, then we’ll have to rent while we keep looking … Anyway,’ I stop myself from divulging too many details, ‘it seems like a good time for you to start thinking about what’s next for you.’

  ‘For me?’ There’s a stunned look about her, like she hasn’t seen this coming.

  ‘Yes. Soon it will be a new year, a new start for all of us.’

  ‘You don’t want me any more?’

  ‘Amy,’ I laugh gently. I can’t help it – the baldness of her statement, the hint of desperation in it. I’m embarrassed for her. ‘It’s not that we’re not happy with your work, or that we’re not grateful for all you’ve done. I don’t know where I’d have been without you these past couple of months! But we think, once we move, that we might make some changes. Mabel can stay in after-school club until I finish work, and we want to arrange for someone to come in for the mornings when Jeff’s not there – someone who lives near the new house, we hope, who can help us out with the school run.’ I say all of this carefully, aware of the brittleness of her mood. I can sense how close she is to tears. ‘This was always supposed to be a temporary arrangement. Come on. Surely you wouldn’t want to live with us for ever!’

  She flashes me a look that I can’t quite fathom, and just as quickly averts her eyes.

  ‘No,’ she says softly.

  ‘You are welcome to stay here over the Christmas holidays if you’ve nothing else arranged,’ I tell her. ‘But once we get back …’

  I leave the sentence hanging. She’s looking straight at me now, no sign of those tears. It’s a hard, flat stare.

  ‘I understand,’ she says in a monotone, then hugging her laundry to her hip, she turns and disappears into her bedroom.

  I think I hear her inside, talking, and presume she’s on the phone to a friend, bitching about me, probably. But I don’t give it much thought. I turn my attention back to my laptop, go through a few more work emails. It’s only after I’ve finished, and closed the laptop, that I realize Amy’s phone is still plugged into the kitchen wall. When I pass her door a minute later, there is nothing, only silence.

  The next few days pass in a blur of activity and obligations. I’m stuck in the office until Thursday, when I meet with a group of students from UCL. It’s for a follow-on piece from one we ran last month on political activism within third-level institutions, and we’ve arranged to meet on campus in Bloomsbury. The group are passionate and engaging, and we talk for the guts of an hour. I’m just wrapping up when I get a call from Katie, and when I answer she sounds breathy and anxious, speaking low into the phone.

  ‘You need to get back to the office,’ she tells me.

  ‘Why? What’s going on?’

  ‘Look, I can’t talk about it over the phone, Cara. I’m sorry to be so cloak-and-dagger, just … Just get here as quickly as you can, and come straight to the meeting room. We’ll be waiting for you.’

  I hang up, nonplussed, distractedly saying my goodbyes to the students, and then I jump in a cab and head back to Wogan House. In the back seat, I glance over my emails, my Twitter feed, then look up the news headlines, but nothing alarming jumps out.

  As soon as I go through the swing doors on to the office floor, I feel it. Groups are huddled around computers in individual cubicles, chatting conspiratorially. Instinctively, my eyes flick to the TV screen in the corner showing the news, but there’s nothing of note, the only information scrolling the ticker-tape is the Dow Jones Index and the NASDAQ 500. Besides, there isn’t the same charge in the air as there was the morning of Parsons Green. There is an edge of amusement to this – like some shared joke being passed around. Down at the end of the room, I can see some of the lads in Marketing standing around laughing. I catch sight of Heather, my boss, her arms folded while she talks to another producer. Finished with their conversation, she nods dismissively and turns to head back to the lifts. Seeing me, she seems to refocus, saying my name as we pass, but holding my gaze just a fraction too long, her expression inscrutable.

  They are gathered in the meeting room, waiting for me – Victor, Derek, Katie, and Mark from IT. His presence throws me. They are standing close together, looking grave, and when I enter the room, the huddle breaks up and the expressions they present to me range from nerves to something mournful.

  ‘What is it? What’s happened?’ I ask from my place at the door, waiting for an answer.

  Katie is rubbing at her lip, Vic is staring at his shoes. It’s Mark who breaks the silence.

  ‘An email was sent from your account,’ he says, taking his hands from his pockets and leaning towards the laptop open on the table. ‘Brace yourself.’

  He clicks on it and an image pops up. My legs weaken.

  It’s a large-scale photograph of me. Not a recent one. And in the photograp
h, I am naked.

  ‘You should sit down,’ Katie says, and I allow myself to be ushered into a chair.

  All the blood has drained from my face. I’d always thought it was an exaggeration, that expression of growing faint, your legs failing, in the face of great shock. Even when I learned my own mother had died, I remained upright, all my limbs functioning. But this is a different kind of shock entirely, and it hits me physically.

  ‘I take it you didn’t send this?’ Mark asks.

  I can only shake my head mutely. I’m furiously trying to process this, my eyes fixed on the picture. I’m aware of some level of humiliation, but the full extent hasn’t sunk in. I’m too busy calculating where this has come from.

  It’s an old picture, obviously, taken at a time in my life before children, before marriage, before any real responsibility or maturity kicked in. Just a silly photograph, the two of us messing around, experimenting. Seen under a different light, it could be playful and innocent, part of a burgeoning sexuality, an exploration of self. But now, writ large across the screen, the word ‘SLUT’ screaming above it, it has become something else. Something lurid and obscene. Something shameful.

  ‘Close it down, for God’s sake,’ Vic mutters, and Mark snaps the laptop shut.

  Vic’s hand falls heavily on my shoulder, gives it a squeeze.

  ‘You alright, love?’

  ‘No,’ I say, my voice a whisper.

  He squeezes again.

  ‘You’ve been hacked,’ Derek announces, and I can’t help feeling he sounds just a little pleased about it.

  ‘Well, that’s stating the bleeding obvious, isn’t it?’ Vic seems more pissed off about this than I am. But I’m still at the shock phase. Anger has yet to reach me.

  ‘When’s the last time you changed your password?’ Mark asks.

  I shake my head. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Well, that’s the first thing you do. Change it immediately. Then get on to the police.’

  The word shakes me from the dreamlike trance I’ve fallen into.

  ‘Wait – what? Police? Is that necessary?’

  ‘This is clearly malicious,’ Mark states, his hands back in his pockets. ‘It’s a criminal offence. You’ll want to find out who did this –’

  ‘But I know who did it.’

  They are all staring at me now. A brief pause falls over them, and I realize they’re waiting for me to say who it is. Who I suspect. I put my hands up to cover my face.

  ‘Who was this sent to?’ I ask from behind cupped hands.

  Katie replies gingerly, ‘It seems like most people on this floor, and a few from upstairs.’

  I think of the look Heather gave me, then shutter my mind to it.

  ‘Anyone else?’

  Another silence.

  Then Katie pipes up once more, ‘I looked at the list. I’m sorry, Cara. They sent it to Jeff.’

  I arranged to meet him outside Topshop on Regent Street. I was terse in my instructions.

  ‘Now,’ I told him. ‘Come right now.’

  He will have picked up on the livid fury seeping through my coldness.

  I have picked a street corner because I don’t want to sit down in a coffee shop or restaurant with him where we will be forced to keep things civil. This is not a cosy chat or a civilized conversation. Blood roils inside me at his betrayal – his malice. Whatever hurt I may have done him is far outweighed by this wanton act of extreme vengeance.

  I am there first, nerves dancing, and as I wait I try to imagine the conversation we’re going to have, a defence mechanism perhaps, so I can circumnavigate whatever he throws at me. Fury channels through me. I am certain of the moral high ground here and for all his spite, his self-regard, he will know it too. He’ll have had time to think about what he’s done, time for regret to start nudging its way in, and when he rounds the corner and comes into view, I fully expect him to look guilty and a little cowed, braced for recrimination, shrunk in his jacket now that the bravado has worn off. That is why I am so surprised to see him come towards me with an expression on his face that mirrors my own righteous indignation back at me.

  ‘You’ve got some bloody nerve,’ I tell him as soon as he’s upon me.

  My arms are crossed tightly over my chest – an obvious display of disapproval perhaps, but I won’t risk any opening for physical contact. I don’t want him to touch me.

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you! You and your little games. Jesus, do you think I’m stupid, Finn? Did you think I wouldn’t know it was you?’

  I am reminded all over again of why things didn’t work out between us – the way he could be petty and mean, vindictive when he didn’t get his own way. I’m reminded of the jokes that turned nasty, the air of chippy entitlement and lack of scruples, the smart-arsed throwaway remarks that cut too deep. I’m reminded of all of this, and with it comes a blinding sense of my own stupidity.

  ‘I’ve been trying to meet with you for weeks. You wouldn’t talk to me. You wouldn’t answer my calls. I needed to speak to you –’

  ‘So this is how you choose to get my attention? By humiliating me?’

  He blinks, the ghost of confusion momentarily breaking up his anger.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Oh, please!’ I say, hard, mirthless laughter bursting from me. ‘Don’t even try to pull that one. I should call the police. In fact, I think I will.’

  ‘Hang on – police?’

  ‘Your Closest Friend? Don’t tell me you’re going to deny it was you?’

  ‘Listen,’ he says, recovering his anger, ‘if you want to make a complaint about a few stupid texts, then be my guest.’

  ‘My closest friend. Jesus, what a joke.’

  ‘It’s what you want, isn’t it? Friendship.’

  The word comes out of his mouth like something distasteful, unclean. His flippancy causes my anger to flare and suddenly, there on the busy street outside Topshop, pedestrians passing us, I launch myself at him, my bare fists pounding against the drum of his chest.

  Startled by this sudden violence, he raises his hands defensively before grabbing hold of my wrists. We struggle against each other for a moment, and up close I can see the broken capillaries in his face, the exertion turning his skin blotchy and almost purple, his eyes rheumy and bloodshot. He’s nothing but a drunk – a washed-up, vain, self-centred has-been.

  ‘How did I ever love you?’ I ask when we eventually break apart. ‘How did I ever think what we had was something precious, something lasting? If you could do this to me?’ And I’m crying now as I say it. ‘If you could take something private – something intimate between us – and send it to my colleagues, my boss, my husband? Those photographs – yes, it was stupid of me to let you take them – but it was part of our relationship. Something cherished – a gift to you. How could you twist it like that? Do you really hate me that much?’

  My voice comes out tremulous and weak. The anger has dissipated, replaced by a terrible sadness like a gaping wound. The full impact of his betrayal is crashing over me, and I feel weakness in my body, a nervy undoing as he fixes me with a look of astonishment.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ he asks, shaking his head, and even through the lens of my own hurt, I can see that his confusion is genuine. ‘I never sent any photographs.’

  ‘But you must have.’

  I’m bewildered at his expression, his repeated denial, as he asserts his innocence.

  ‘Look, I admit that I sent a few texts. But I haven’t sent any in ages. Even if I’d wanted to, I’ve lost the bloody phone. And I certainly never sent any pictures.’

  ‘But the photographs were in your possession –’

  ‘I haven’t looked at them in years! I’m sorry, but I haven’t.’

  ‘They must be on your computer –’

  ‘They were Polaroids.’

  ‘Well then, you must have scanned them, uploaded them. Someone must have hacked your computer.’

  My voice is rising. I’m aw
are I’m sounding a little manic, and he’s giving me a patient look, like he’s waiting for me to rein myself in. But my thoughts are so scattered and confused. I can’t make sense of them.

  ‘I didn’t do this, Cara,’ he says, gently but firmly. ‘And I don’t know who did. Frankly, right now, I don’t care. That’s not why I came here today. That’s not why I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘Oh, Finn, it’s over,’ I tell him. ‘Can’t you just let it be? Can’t you just accept it?’

  He shakes his head, and a wash of exhaustion comes over me. But it quickly goes cold, at what he says next.

  ‘I don’t want you back, Cara. Not now, with all I know. I’m not sure I even want to know you after what you’ve done. I came here today to find out the truth, from your own mouth,’ he says quietly.

  ‘What truth?’

  We’re standing close to each other, close enough for me to see the pulse jump in his neck.

  ‘About Mabel,’ he says, and my heart lurches uncertainly in my chest. ‘About my daughter.’

  16.

  Amy

  For some people, it happens slowly. A winding down of the marriage. No screaming matches. No discoveries of betrayal. Just a quiet falling off of closeness, a smooth-growing distance. And then one day, they sit down at their kitchen table and have a solemn, respectful conversation during which arrangements are made about the children and who gets to stay in the family home, some tears are shed but nothing heated or dramatic, no insults flung, no last-minute pleas to stay. A civilized ending to a civilized relationship. That’s how it happens with some marriages.

  Others need a push.

  I linger near the bottom step, listening for as long as I can. Mabel has long since gone to bed, and in the living room, I’ve left the TV on loud so Cara will think I’m in there watching, not standing here straining to hear what’s going on upstairs.

  It’s easy to tell myself that this is meant to happen. There’s a fateful air to everything that’s happened so far. The way she ran into my path that night, how I chose to snatch her from the darkness and save her. Everything from our teenage years spent under the shadow of absent mothers, to the shared meaning of our names. Beloved. And she is beloved to me. Maybe more so in these last days when she seems to drift from day to night, exhaustion and stress making her zombie-like, her mind elsewhere. And I’m there, always, in the background, caring for her, looking out for her. Waiting.