by Anna Kent
‘This is really good,’ Grace said with her mouth full as we ate off plates balanced on our knees. We were catching up on the latest series of Cold Feet – a series we’d last watched back when we lived together. Grace pointed with her knife to the screen. ‘I don’t know why that guy can’t just get a job in a supermarket. I would if I were him. Anything to get an income.’
‘Yeah, I know, right,’ I said. ‘Speaking of jobs, tell me all about yours.’
‘Ah, right, well I’m going to be a GP in an Urgent Care Emergency Department,’ Grace said, and that sounded interesting, so I paused the show.
‘Like, critical care stuff? Road accidents, stabbings and…?’
‘Yes, I guess.’ She shrugged. ‘Whatever comes through the door. But there’ll also be walk-ins – probably a lot of those. You know: chest pains, strokes, falls, broken bones.’
‘Interesting.’
‘Yeah. No two days the same.’
‘And you get to save lives.’
Grace gave me a funny look. ‘Well, yes. That’s why I went into medicine. But you can save a life in the GP’s office as well, by diagnosing something like high blood pressure and treating it; or by getting someone to change their habits to beat diabetes. It doesn’t all have to be blood and guts to be life-saving.’
‘I guess,’ I said, nodding. ‘How many lives do you think you’ve saved already? In your career to date, I mean?’ I asked.
Grace laughed. ‘I couldn’t say.’
‘I mean, like, hundreds? Thousands?’
‘Well, in an indirect way – like I said just now – thousands for sure. Maybe tens of thousands.’
‘Wow,’ I said. ‘I can’t imagine how that must feel. All my work does is decorate the houses of rich people.’
Grace gave a little laugh. ‘Well, I don’t really think about it. It’s not something I focus on. I’m always just dealing with the next thing that comes along, and doing my best to treat that, or solve it. Anyway, I like this job because I think they’re quite flexible on hours – at least that’s what they told me – I think I’m allowed to work up to ten sessions a week, but there’s a possibility I could do it part-time, which would be brilliant because there are other things I want to do too. Volunteer work.’
‘Oh really?’ For a moment I had the crazy idea she might join me at the hospice. I saw the two of us going in together, working together as a team, taking care of the patients – but Grace was a doctor: why would she be making cups of tea and changing the water glasses with me?
‘I’m looking at a volunteer post in which I’m trying to connect underprivileged communities with the right healthcare. You know, acting as a sort of go-between.’
‘That sounds right up your street.’
‘Well, I’ve a lot to learn having been away so long, but I’ll get there. I feel so strongly about people being able to access healthcare.’
‘You always have,’ I said. ‘It’s so worthy.’
She smiled. ‘You shouldn’t take it so personally when people say art is… “self-indulgent”, or just for the rich. Art is for everyone. Plenty of people get enjoyment from it.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘We can’t all be doctors!’
I flinched and took a deep swig of my wine. ‘I work at the hospice as well…’
‘Well then,’ said Grace. ‘You’re doing your bit. Hopefully it makes you feel less guilty about spending your days farting about with a paintbrush.’ Another little laugh.
I opened my mouth to remind her about Mr Keyson, about how I’d gone out of my way to paint his dog for him before he died, and how happy that had made both Mrs K and me but I knew she’d patronize me with another of those empty smiles, and that would take away from the beauty, the altruism, of the gesture. Thankfully my phone rang and I pounced on it: as I’d hoped, it was Rohan.
‘Sorry,’ I said to Grace, and connected the call. ‘Hey,’ I said, and Rohan’s voice came on the line as clear as if he were in the next room.
‘Hey, how are you?’
‘Good, thanks. How about you? How’s New York?’
‘God, it’s so busy! This is the first chance I’ve had to call – I’ve got a quick break for lunch. I can see why they needed me here. I haven’t had a moment to myself since I landed. It’s all been, “meet this person; meet that person”.’
‘It’s good to be busy. Where are you staying?’
‘I’m in a company flat in the financial district, close to the office in Lower Manhattan.’
‘Sounds very you,’ I said. Grace shifted in her chair and looked pointedly at me and then at the television. I slipped out of the room.
‘It’s a luxury high-rise,’ Rohan was saying, ‘the antithesis of our house, obv, but I think you’d like it.’
‘Hmm.’
‘It’s got these amazing floor-to-ceiling windows that face Brooklyn Bridge. If you were here, you’d sit there all day just staring at the view – I know I would if I had the chance. You’d paint it, for sure – and, get this! Even the bathroom has windows that overlook the East River. I look out at that when I go for a shit!’
‘Charming!’
There was a swimming pool, too, he told me, and a load of sporting facilities, a roof terrace and even a private cinema.
‘Not that I’ll get to use it. But you know what? It’s actually really nice to be in an apartment. I love being high up – I really like the bird’s-eye view of the city.’
‘And you finally got to live somewhere brand new, too,’ I said.
Rohan laughed. ‘Yep. Mum would be proud.’
‘Speaking of which,’ I said, ‘she came over this morning…’
‘Oh really?’ he said, his voice cautious. ‘What did she want?’
‘Checking I was okay on my own…’
‘Aka checking up on you!’ Rohan said, with a little laugh because we both knew it was true. ‘But Grace’s with you, isn’t she? Did she arrive okay? How’s that going?’
‘Oh… good,’ I said, looking back towards the living-room door, trying to judge whether or not she could hear me. There was a burst of laughter from inside the room – she must have put Cold Feet back on.
‘Yeah, it’s nice to see her,’ I said carefully. ‘She’s changed a bit.’
‘Well – it’s been four years, to be fair, and she’ll have had a lot of new experiences in Oz.’
‘I know, but…’
‘In what way?’ he said, and out came the story of the roast chicken and the fancy organic, pescatarian diet.
‘She could have told you before you went to all that trouble,’ Rohan said. ‘How difficult would that have been?’
I sighed. ‘Well, you know what? I think she’s right. I took her to a wholefood shop and we stocked up on all this heathy stuff.’ I paused. ‘I mean, you really are what you eat. You should always buy the best you can afford. It’s investment in yourself.’
‘If you say so,’ said Rohan. ‘But you’re never going to wean me off a good fry-up, so don’t even try.’
I laughed. ‘As if I would.’
We chatted a bit more, then hung up. Back in the living room, the congealed remains of my dinner sat on the coffee table.
‘You should have told him to call back later,’ Grace said, nodding at the food. ‘Now your dinner’s ruined. It’s not good to jump to his every beck and call. Keep him on his toes.’
‘Yeah, but…’ I shrugged, the irony not lost on me that, while she might dispense relationship advice, I was the one with a husband.
‘He wouldn’t have been able to call back till after work,’ I said, ‘and they’re five hours behind… I probably wouldn’t have got to talk to him till at least this time tomorrow.’
‘And the problem with that is what?’ Grace shook her head dismissively, and that old familiar feeling I used to get came flooding back: the feeling that she didn’t want me to have anyone else in my life. The feeling that, once again, I’d somehow let her down.
Twenty-Seven
You s
houldn’t take it so personally when people say art is… ‘self-indulgent’. You shouldn’t feel guilty spending your days farting about with a paintbrush.
I needed to be stronger. I needed to arm myself against Grace. That much was apparent, and the key to that lay in understanding what our friendship was. After she went to bed, I opened up the iPad and, feeling like an absolute traitor, I searched ‘toxic friends’ once more.
Your friend blurts out criticism with a self-righteous attitude. Yes. Your friend tells you that you need to change. Yep. You’re walking on eggshells. Dear God, yes. You’re riding an emotional rollercoaster with your friend at the controls. Totally! I scrolled and clicked through to other websites: Women’s Health magazine, Psychology Today, reddit. They all told the same story.
You feel used. You’re giving more than you’re getting. The inconsistency and lack of predictability leaves you doubting everything.
I pressed my hand to my mouth, my throat thick with emotion. This was it. This was our friendship to a tee. How had I not seen it before?
On Huffington Post, I found ‘Warning Signs of a Toxic Friend’:
They’re covetous – they feel bitter when you acquire things they don’t have.
Those looks she gave me when I mentioned Rohan; and the little digs about being married; about the house.
Toxic friends are freeloaders – they take advantage of your generosity and give nothing in return. They can stay at your house for months or years without chipping in for groceries or even offering a thank you.
I couldn’t have made it up.
They’re self-centred. Their life is a drama. They talk too much. They’re judgemental, big-headed, stubborn; they’re picky, needy and difficult to please.
And then, a sentence that forced a shudder through me:
They’re resentful: they never give up their ruthless nature. If they believe you have wronged them, they won’t forget until their mean-spirited wrath is launched on you.
I snapped the iPad shut and went upstairs to paint.
I wasn’t ready yet to use the negative emotions I’d just triggered – just as my relationship with Grace had changed from the day I’d been grateful to have her as a friend to the day I’d finally, dramatically, thrown her out of the flat; the portraits, too, would darken. But, for now, on the third picture, I was still in the happy phase – the innocent phase – and I needed to focus on all that had been good in our friendship.
We had lots in common. During the first week of university, we’d discovered that Grace also used to live not far from where I was brought up, in Kent. Her family had moved away when she was ten but they still visited from time to time, and she knew the same places that I did. Incredulously, we’d listed the places we used to go; all the castles that children got taken to in the summer holidays. Leeds Castle, Hever Castle, Chiddingstone and Bodiam. Maidstone, Rochester, Canterbury, Dover. She, too, had played in Knole Park, been to Howletts Zoo and got lost at Groombridge Place. Over the years, we’d both been subjected to the same ‘edifying’ experiences and days out. We even worked out that we’d both bought chips at the same chippy in the same tiny village.
‘What are the odds?’ Grace had gasped, making me feel special to have this link, this bond, with her. ‘Just imagine if you’re in the background of one of my photos!’ and we’d looked at each other, eyes wide and mouths hanging open at the thought, then scrolled frantically through the pictures on our phones, expanding screens and passing them backwards and forwards to each other.
‘Could this be you?’
‘I had a dress like that!’
‘Nah. I never wore my hair like that!’
When that drew a blank, we flipped the pages of my photo albums, going further back in time, desperate to find a link – some sign that our meeting was written in our destiny – and then we hit the jackpot. There was one picture, of me on a rope bridge in the woods at Groombridge, in which she thought she could identify herself. Pointing a finger to the smudge of a girl in the background, she’d said, ‘I had a T-shirt like that. And those shorts. We have a photo of me at home in those clothes in that place. My hair looked like that. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I think it’s me!’ She’d got onto her laptop and pulled up images of herself from that same day that she stored online and, indeed, the outfit seemed to match. ‘There, look! We first saw each other when we were ten years old! Little did we know!’
The memory made me smile. Although I didn’t keep up with photos these days, I still had the albums Dad had made for me up here in the attic. I pulled out the album, turned to that page and looked now at the grainy figure standing by the little zipwire in the woods.
‘Who knew?’ I said to the picture. ‘Who knew where it’d all end up?’
Suddenly, the sound of a laugh rippled through the house, tearing me from my reverie. I froze, heart thudding, but the silence dragged long enough to make me wonder if I’d imagined it. Then, just as I began to relax, there was another peal of girlish laughter followed by another thick silence. I crept down the attic stairs to Grace’s room and knocked softly on the door. The smell of her perfume flooded the landing.
‘Grace?’ I waited. ‘Grace? Are you awake?’
Once again, a line of light ran along the bottom of the door. I knocked harder. ‘Grace?’ then I tried the handle: locked. Maybe she was watching something on her phone with headphones on. Suddenly, the light snapped off, stealing back what little illumination it had offered. I stood for a moment in the blackness, straining to hear a movement, or anything, from inside the room, then retreated back up the stairs to clean my brushes. It was way past the witching hour, and I needed to get to bed. When I went back down, the light was still off, and the silence thick as treacle.
Twenty-Eight
By the time I woke the next morning, Grace had left for work. I knew she’d gone, even as I lay motionless under the duvet allowing consciousness to slide its way slowly through me. The quietness that surrounded me had a depth to it, a richness that was punctuated only by the occasional scrabble of claws as Alfie chased demons in the hall. When I finally dragged myself downstairs, he scampered ahead of me towards the kitchen, his tail twitching in that way that means, ‘Follow me!’ Miaowing loudly, he led me straight to his food bowls. Grace hadn’t fed him on her way out; she hadn’t even topped up his biscuit bowl.
‘Oh, baby, I’m sorry,’ I said bending to tickle his head. ‘She doesn’t have pets. She doesn’t know.’
He twined about my legs, purring and chirruping as I removed the dirty bowls and replaced them with fresh food and water, then I pottered about in the kitchen, cleaning up the mess from last night. Grace, it seemed, hadn’t had breakfast – not unless she’d washed up her utensils and put them in the cupboards, which seemed unlikely since last night’s dinner plates were still dirty in the sink. I’d just sprayed the counters and was wiping them down when the doorbell rang. I froze. Surely not Meena again?
The doorbell rang again, impatient and jarring, so I rushed over and opened the door just in time to see the back of a delivery man walking down the path.
‘I’m here!’ I called.
‘Grace Shaw?’
I missed a beat. ‘Yes. She lives here.’
There were three parcels, soft, like clothes, but heavier than I’d have imagined, and they flopped in my arms as I took them up to Grace’s room. I stopped at the door, feeling as if to go in would be to trespass, but then I pushed it open with my shoulder and inhaled the unfamiliar scent that lingered in the air – a different deodorant to mine, maybe, and the heavy floral perfume. The bed was half made, the covers neatly folded back and the pillow dented.
Grace’s suitcase stood in the corner. There was a glass of water on the bedside table, alongside other bits and bobs: lip salve, a hair tie, perfume, tissues and a book, the cover of which was curling at the corners. I nodded my approval: it was Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. One of my favourites.
But what caught my eye more than anyth
ing was the line of toys arranged along the windowsill. Dumping the parcels on the bed, I went over and picked them up one by one. A Cabbage Patch doll with chubby cheeks. A grubby lavender-and-white spotted dog with long, floppy ears and a missing eye. The blonde doll from the box in the attic, a squishy-bodied baby doll with a thumb that fit in its mouth, an open Jack-in-the-Box that gave me the creeps, and a couple of Barbies. Thirteen eyes regarded the room as if they knew it better than I did; as if they belonged there and I did not. I wasn’t sure I’d like them watching me while I slept, especially the Jack-in-the-Box. Still, it was Grace’s space now, not mine.
I turned to leave, but then hesitated. What if she wanted to wear her new clothes tomorrow? She wouldn’t mind if I opened them, would she? She might appreciate that I’d hung them. Turning back, I carefully slit open the packaging and held up her purchases one-by-one: she’d ordered a suit, three blouses and a pair of work shoes. A new work wardrobe. Nice.
I opened the wardrobe to hang them and gasped.
The cupboard was full, packed with clothes that gave off a damp, musty smell. I flicked through them: little toddler dresses, dresses for an older girl. Trousers, jeans, blouses, cardigans – even a little blazer for an eight-year-old. They must be from the boxes in the attic. What was Grace playing at? I shuddered and laid her new clothes out on the bed, then left the room with those thirteen eyes boring into the back of my head.
Twenty-Nine
It was inevitable, I suppose, that Grace would meet Tom.
Perhaps she felt protective given it was she who’d advised me on how to approach him in the first place, but she wanted to know everything about my relationship with him: where we went, what we did, what we talked about, what he drank, what he smoked, what we watched on TV, what he was like in bed. Whenever I got home from spending time with him, she’d be there on the sofa, eyes shining, waiting for the latest instalment. It was almost as if she were living the relationship vicariously through me – but something – instinct maybe? Or selfishness? – pushed me to keep them apart for as long as I naturally could, despite her curiosity.
