by Rebecca Reid
‘A helicopter?’ said Georgia, her eyes wide. She sat up and began to scrape her hair into a bun, as if having her hair tied up would make her more able to cope with whatever was about to happen.
‘Why would there be a helicopter?’ asked Nancy. Her voice was low and slow, but she was grabbing for her socks, pulling them on, as if she was getting ready to run.
‘I called the police,’ said Lila. The bit of skin was too short. She put her finger to her mouth and tried biting it instead.
‘You did what?’ asked Georgia.
‘I called the police,’ she repeated.
‘What did you say?’ asked Nancy super slowly, as if Lila didn’t speak English.
‘I told them the truth,’ she said. She watched her friends’ faces flood with horror. ‘I told them that Heidi pushed Miss Brandon.’
NOW
Georgia
‘Lila?’ Georgia called through the wooden door. ‘Lila, can you unlock the door, please?’
There was no answer. Classic. If she had passed out with her head cradled in the loo bowl, they would have to wait for her to wake up, which could be hours. ‘Lila, please,’ she tried again.
‘Shall I try?’ asked Nancy.
No, Georgia wanted to say. No, you shouldn’t try because it will probably work and I can’t bear the fact that she’ll listen to you when she doesn’t listen to me, just like she always did, in spite of the fact that I’m the one who’s actually been a friend to her lately.
‘Sure,’ said Georgia.
Nancy stepped forward and knocked gently on the door. ‘Li? Can I come in?’
There was no reply. Pleasure swelled in Georgia’s stomach, covering the gnawing feeling that had been there all evening. ‘Lils, Georgia’s got a key, we can unlock the door from out here, but it’s a pain to dig it out and I’ve told her she’s overreacting. You’re coming out, right?’
Georgia didn’t have another key, and Nancy had said nothing of the sort. But of course it worked, because it was Nancy and everything Nancy ever did always worked. There was a flushing noise and the door handle turned. Swaying in the doorway, her black eye make-up etched down her face like smudged charcoal, was Lila.
‘I’m fine,’ she moaned, her head tipping forward as if it was too heavy for her neck. ‘Fine.’
‘I know,’ said Nancy. ‘We’re going upstairs to chat for a bit. Come with us.’
Lila didn’t say anything.
‘We’re going to hang out upstairs, grab some time away from the boys,’ Georgia heard herself say. ‘Come on.’
Lila didn’t move.
‘Or you can stay down here,’ said Nancy. And we’ll talk about you behind your back, said the unspoken words between them. Lila lurched forward. If she was sick again, especially on the carpet, Georgia decided she wouldn’t clean it up. Roo could pay for a fucking professional to come round.
They walked behind Lila, who moved slowly, one hand on the banister and the other on the wall, swaying from side to side and dragging her feet up each step. It was an irritating, affected way of walking and Georgia was sure that if she tried she could walk properly. Eventually they reached the second spare room, next door to where Brett and Nancy were sleeping.
‘Put her in my room,’ said Nancy. ‘In case she needs to yak in the en-suite.’
‘Charming,’ said Georgia, but she did as she was told. ‘You don’t mind swapping rooms?’
Nancy shook her head. ‘We’re happy anywhere.’
Even when it was only the two of them, her oldest friend wouldn’t drop the act. She thought back to Nancy at the start of the evening, her little eighteen-plus performance. The boys downstairs had been convinced, believing that they were accidentally party to a spontaneous new couple who couldn’t get enough of each other. Georgia knew better.
Lila crashed on to the bed, still fully dressed. The soles of her feet were filthy – black from walking around outside with bare feet. Georgia tried not to think about the smears they would leave all over the fresh white sheets.
‘Should I take her necklaces off?’ asked Georgia, looking at the mess of tangled gold chains around Lila’s neck. Nancy shook her head. ‘Let’s just get her changed.’
Georgia took off Lila’s top, replaced it with one of Nancy’s T-shirts, peeled off her jeans and folded them on a chair, marvelling at how anyone could be so tiny, and dressed her in some pyjama bottoms. She could feel Nancy’s eyes on them. She took more care than usual, careful to make her actions look as if they were motivated entirely by love, trying to act as if the routine came naturally to her. It had, once upon a time. But this had happened again and again and again. It was too much to ask of one person.
Lila flopped backwards and Nancy, kicking off her shoes, lay down next to her. Georgia followed suit, because this was clearly what they were going to do. Lie next to each other, Lila in the middle as always, pretending to be close. Were all friendships like this? Were all failings and confessions seen as weaknesses to be exploited? Or were there actually people who could tell their friends something embarrassing or sad without knowing it was bringing them joy?
‘What’s going on, Li?’ Nancy said, stroking Lila’s long hair. ‘You’re a bit of a mess.’
Lila nodded.
‘Why?’
‘You know why,’ she murmured, crushing the heel of her hand into her eye, smudging the mascara even more. ‘I told you.’
‘Is that it?’ Nancy asked. ‘You’re not using that as a distraction from Roo?’
‘Roo? What do you mean, Roo?’ asked Lila.
What was Nancy playing at? Georgia watched her stroke Lila’s arm.
‘Nothing,’ said Nancy. ‘I only meant that it seemed like you weren’t having an easy time.’
A silence filled the room. Georgia took a long breath, trying to catch the scent of the diffuser she’d chosen for in here. Pink Peppercorn, it was called. But Pink Peppercorn wasn’t covering the smell of stale smoke and sick and alcohol from Lila’s skin. There was no way Nancy’s words had been accidental. Nancy didn’t have accidents. She didn’t let things slip. Every word she said was chosen.
‘That’s not what you meant,’ Lila slurred, pulling herself up to a sitting position.
‘She didn’t mean anything,’ said Georgia, trying to calm Lila down.
‘How do you know?’ Lila asked.
Georgia hesitated. Nancy had been right. They had to have this conversation. They had to know how bad it was. Whether Lila might tell their secret.
‘It’s probably nothing,’ said Georgia.
‘Tell me,’ said Lila again, her voice cracking. ‘Tell me what’s happening.’
‘Tell her, Georgia,’ said Nancy. ‘She deserves to know.’
‘Know what?’ said Lila, panic rising.
Georgia took a long breath, her eyes focused on the ceiling. ‘It’s probably nothing. But Charlie saw Roo at the Harbour Club a few weeks ago, with a woman.’
Silence again. Silence was lovely.
Silence was safe.
‘What were they doing?’ asked Lila, her voice calm.
Georgia waited a moment. She thought that it would hurt to tell Lila, but it didn’t seem to hurt at all. ‘Kissing.’
The three of them stayed still and silent, shoulder to shoulder. Georgia wasn’t sure how much time passed.
‘I don’t care,’ Lila slurred.
‘You should,’ said Nancy.
‘I don’t. We never have sex any more.’
‘That doesn’t mean he can cheat,’ said Nancy. Georgia wondered how often ‘never’ was. Did she mean truly never? Or just rarely?
‘He’d be better off without me,’ said Lila quietly.
Neither Georgia nor Nancy said a word. ‘He’d find someone else,’ Lila went on. ‘Someone who’s better at all of it.’
A long pause. ‘No one would be better than you,’ said Nancy flatly.
‘I’m not good at it,’ said Lila. ‘Any of it. I wasn’t supposed to – I shouldn’t hav
e—’ Her words were becoming more and more jumbled and tears were slipping from her eyes again, black tears which would stain the pillowcases. How many times had Georgia’s cleaner held another pillowcase up, sighing about the stains from Lila’s mascara?
‘What do you mean, “shouldn’t have”?’ asked Georgia. ‘What did you do?’
Lila murmured a reply that Georgia couldn’t hear. ‘What?’ she asked.
‘The woman from the Harbour Club,’ said Lila weakly. ‘I’m so tired.’
‘What about her?’ asked Nancy.
‘She’s Roo’s friend from uni. She’s called Venetia.’ She locked eyes with Nancy. ‘I want to go to sleep for a while. I never sleep any more.’
Lila said the woman’s name with a contempt that Georgia hadn’t heard in her voice for years.
‘You’re not sleeping?’ asked Nancy.
Lila shook her head. ‘Not since I lost the baby.’
Nancy sighed. ‘I could – no, no, you’ve had too much to drink.’
Lila sat up slightly. ‘What?’
Nancy looked frustrated. ‘I’ve got shit-hot American sleeping pills in my handbag. But you can’t take them with alcohol. At least, not as much as we’ve been drinking tonight.’
Lila’s face crumpled.
‘Just lie down,’ said Georgia. ‘If you lie down, you’ll drift off.’
‘I’ll wake up in the middle of the night,’ whimpered Lila, like a little girl. ‘I always wake up.’
Nancy cocked her head to one side. ‘Could she perhaps have one or two? She’s probably sicked up most of the alcohol anyway.’
‘Absolutely not,’ said Georgia. ‘It’s dangerous.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Nancy.
‘People take overdoses by accident all the time, Nance. Don’t you read the papers? It’s dangerous. You fall asleep and you don’t wake up. Doctors over here don’t even prescribe the stuff you can get in the States any more.’
Lila was staring at the ceiling.
‘I went to see her once, you know?’ she said sleepily. Her lashes butterflied against her cheeks. Georgia touched her arm. She couldn’t be allowed to fall asleep. Not yet. Not until they knew she wouldn’t talk.
‘Who?’
‘Heidi. I went to see her.’
NOW
Nancy
Nancy took a slow breath. This was no time to panic. Before long she would be home, back at work, back in her apartment, thousands of miles away from here.
‘You went to see Heidi?’ she asked, keeping her voice gentle. ‘When she was in prison?’
Lila shook her head, but stopped abruptly, as if it was making her feel even more sick. She retched. Nancy watched Georgia to see whether she’d react to any potential damage to the sheets. To her credit, she didn’t. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the first time that Lila had been sick in the spare room.
‘No,’ she murmured. ‘At her flat. After she got out.’
‘Why?’ asked Georgia, her chin resting in her hands.
‘I needed to.’
‘Why did you do that?’ asked Nancy. It took a superhuman effort to keep her tone light.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. Her head was lolling sideways on the pillow.
Georgia looked nervous. Her eyes kept flicking back and forth to the door, as if one of the boys was going to burst in. They weren’t. There was no chance. Brett wasn’t stupid enough, and the other two were having too much fun trying to let Brett’s coolness rub off on them. Pathetic as it was, Nancy could feel Georgia’s nerves. Perhaps they were contagious. Every word that slipped from Lila’s lips seemed to seep into the fabric of the room, into the world, poisoning it, putting them all in danger.
‘What was it like?’ Nancy heard Georgia ask.
It was a stupid question. Nothing Lila said was going to make any of them feel any better, and feeling guilty wasn’t going to change what happened, what happened back then, what happened to Heidi. None of it.
‘Shit,’ whispered Lila, her eyes closed. ‘Sad and shit. They were making her take all these pills. She didn’t have any stuff. Nothing.’
‘She must have had something,’ Georgia pressed. Nancy blinked. Perhaps this wasn’t weakness. Perhaps it was guilt.
Lila was trying to shake her head again. ‘She had a picture of us, some clothes and some stuff in the bathroom. That was it. And she was so happy to see me. So so happy.’ Lila paused. ‘God, I feel terrible, I didn’t even go to her funeral.’
Tears slipped out of the corners of Lila’s eyes, running down her face and into her hair, leaving inky trails across her skin.
‘She said she understood why I’d done it. Why we’d said what we said. She said she didn’t mind.’
‘We didn’t do anything,’ said Nancy flatly. ‘We were kids. Besides, it was her fault that woman was even up there. You know that.’
‘That’s what she said.’
‘What else did she say?’ asked Nancy.
‘She asked if I’d pushed her, if I’d done it,’ said Lila in a tiny voice. Georgia held herself still. Sixteen years and not one of them had uttered a single word about that day. Not one of them had ever asked the others what role they had played. It was the rule.
‘I didn’t,’ said Lila, her voice almost too quiet to hear.
‘It’s ancient history, Lila,’ said Nancy gently, from the other end of the bed.
‘Two people are dead, because of us,’ snapped Lila, her voice hard, a million miles from her usual breathy tones. ‘She killed herself in that shitty flat because of what we put her through.’
Georgia looked up, trying to breathe, trying to process the information. It wasn’t Lila. Lila hadn’t pushed Miss Brandon.
‘No one meant for it to happen,’ said Georgia, unable to think of anything else to say, leaning forward to stroke Lila’s hair. Lila smacked her hand away. Georgia snapped it back, shocked.
‘You know that’s not true,’ said Lila, pulling the duvet over her tiny body.
Georgia said nothing.
She had always wondered what would happen if anyone found out what they had done. When she was waiting for trains or when the film was about to start at the cinema the question would suddenly lodge itself inside her mind and squeeze out everything else.
She wasn’t stupid enough to consider googling it on her phone, or her laptop, even at work. But very occasionally at an airport she would wander around a shop full of laptops and tablets and her fingers would start to itch.
Manslaughter. Perjury. Murder.
All she had ever wanted to know was how long the sentence would be. How many years she’d lose. Sometimes she would work herself into a worry loop about what might happen if someone started digging into Charlie’s personal life. Even if nothing came of it, even if they thought that she had done nothing wrong and it had all just been a terrible accident, his career would be ruined. He’d shouted at her for nearly an hour when she had forgotten to renew their television licence, years ago. ‘You don’t understand,’ he had told her. ‘I have to be pristine. That’s how it is now.’
And her parents. Her father with his gnarled, twisted bones and her mother who never complained. What would they do without the money she silently transferred to their account every month? The thought was too horrible to entertain. She pinched the skin between her index finger and thumb, trying to distract herself with the pain.
Nancy crossed the room to the window and stooped to get something from her handbag on the armchair. She unscrewed a tube of hand cream and rubbed it into her palms, perfectly calm. ‘Anyone want hand cream?’ she asked, holding out the tube. Lila said nothing and Georgia shook her head. What was Nancy playing at? How was this going to fix anything? Nancy needed to talk to Lila, put the fear of God into her, explain that she would lose Inigo if she kept acting like this, do something. Anything to seal Lila’s lips.
‘The pills are in here, Lila. Like Georgia said, don’t touch them tonight – with the amount you’ve drunk this evening. But when yo
u wake up tomorrow you can take a few home with you, OK? Then you’ll get a couple of nights’ sleep and this will all seem better. I promise.’
Nancy looked down at the Cartier watch she’d worn on her left wrist every day since her twenty-first birthday. ‘We should go back downstairs, Gee. Let Lila get some rest.’
Georgia stroked Lila’s hair, like she was a child, and stood up. ‘You’re lucky you’re drunk, Li. If you weren’t, you’d have to come downstairs and listen to Charlie and Roo prattle on about rugby. We’ll have to rescue poor Brett.’
Lila said nothing. Her gaze was still focused on the ceiling. Georgia followed the line of her eye to the light fitting. It was an antique, a chandelier which she had found in an East London junk market and had lovingly restored. Every tiny crystal caught the light inside it and turned it to rainbows. She was glad that Lila had noticed it. It was perfect to fall asleep under.
‘You go down, George. Check on the boys.’
‘What?’
‘You go downstairs. I’ll stay with Lila for a while, until she falls asleep.’ There was something in Nancy’s voice. An ice which told Georgia that to disobey, to stay lying on the bed, would be a terrible mistake. Obeying Nancy was what they did. It was the glue that held them together. The only thing all three of them had ever agreed on. It was what had always kept them safe.
Georgia dragged herself up, away from the softness of the bed and the warmth of Lila’s body.
‘Sure,’ she said. ‘Night, Li,’ she added, stroking her friend’s hair. ‘Sleep well.’ She heard her voice catch.
Closing the door, she sank down on to the top step and gripped the white spindle which held up the rail, gripped it until it hurt the fleshy palm of her hand. It would be bliss to stay there, to stay sitting. Not to have to go downstairs, not to have to keep pretending that everything was fine. And part of her, the part she liked least, wanted to try to listen. To know what Nancy was going to say to Lila, how Nancy was going to succeed where Georgia would have failed.
When she was little, sitting on the stairs was a punishment. Being removed from whatever was going on and deliberately excluded, forced to sit and listen to everyone else having fun. Funny, that what had once felt like a punishment now felt like the safest place in the world.
