Watching Edie

by Camilla Way

  Sometimes I come for an hour, sometimes the whole afternoon. Just enough time to reassure myself that she’s OK. Every morning I pack up my school bag and say goodbye to Dad, then I go and sit in the rec and wait until enough time has passed and I think someone will be up and about in the flat, and then I make my way over there, knocking on the battered blue door, steeling myself for whatever mood Connor might be in, wondering if today’s the day he’ll let me know exactly why I’m here.

  This morning when I arrive at the estate Connor and several of his friends are spilling from the lift, Edie hanging on to Connor’s arm, her face lit with excitement. They’re all very drunk and I’m struck by the strangeness of seeing them out in the world like this, the sunlight revealing the pasty hollows of their faces, their dirty clothes and lank hair.

  ‘Heifer!’ Connor says when he sees me, letting go of Edie and putting an arm around me. ‘C’mon, we’re going on a little trip.’

  I shrink from his touch and his arm tightens, pushing me forward so I stumble. ‘Come on, fuck’s sake,’ he says irritably, already moving away, and I trail after them. We drive to the quarry in three cars, me in the back of Connor’s, squashed between the one who’s called Tully, the Welsh one they call Boyo. Music blasts so loudly from the speakers it hurts my ears and the countryside rushes past in a yellowy green blur. I stare down at Boyo’s hands resting on his knee, his fingers short and dirty, the nails bitten to the quick, LOVE and HATE inked on to his knuckles.

  When we reach the quarry we join a group already sprawled in the shade of some trees, far away from the people sunbathing and swimming on the other side. I find a spot at the edge of the group, as near to Edie as I dare, though she pretends she hasn’t seen me. Connor’s loud and expansive today, swigging from a bottle of whisky, cocky and aggressive as he jokes with his friends. And it’s as though the others, feeding off his mood, become louder and wilder too, the atmosphere in the close, warm air prickly and unpredictable.

  Suddenly Connor looks over at Edie. ‘Go and get my fags,’ he says, slinging his car keys at her so hard that she ducks out of the way just in time and they land in the scrubby grass behind her. I reach for them and for the first time in ages our eyes meet. ‘Edie …’ I say.

  Her eyes are hostile as she holds out her hand. ‘What?’

  ‘I … are you OK?’ I want to tell her that I know about the fight with her mum, that I know how unhappy she is, but of course I can’t.

  ‘Give me the keys,’ she says flatly.

  ‘I—’ But she snatches them from my hand and turns away.

  The morning passes slowly. I watch without really paying attention as a skinny, weasel-faced boy named Niall shows Connor the contents of a holdall. I catch a glimpse of a jumble of electrical equipment: a laptop, a DVD player, a couple of cameras and mobile phones. Connor pulls out one of the cameras and laughs. ‘Nice one,’ he says, before turning to point it at Edie. ‘No don’t, I look awful!’ she giggles, waving her hand in front of her face. He takes a picture then tosses the camera down carelessly in the grass, turning away again. And there it stays, until after they are all far too drunk to remember it, and I slip it into the pocket of my jeans and take it home with me.

  Months later, when I take the film to be developed, besides the endless shots of an elderly Chinese couple’s barge holiday, there she is, Edie, laughing at the camera, her hand a pink blur in the foreground, and there I am sitting just behind and staring away in the direction of the quarry. I will study it endlessly, in the months and years that follow; that smile of hers, the expression in those large brown eyes, trying to see if I can find any clue, any warning of what was to come.

  After

  James and I sit on a bench by the sandpit, watching Stan build a castle for Maya. For the first time in days I feel myself begin to relax. I huddle deeper inside my coat and blow warmth on my hands as James joins the kids and enthusiastically tries to help, adding pebbles and twigs to Stan’s creation, suggesting turrets and moats. At last Stan turns and rolls his eyes at him so witheringly that I laugh out loud, a little giddy with the relief of being out of the flat.

  Since I’d returned home last week and found my door unlocked, every moment that I spend there sees me jumping at the slightest noise, the sound of footsteps on the stairs sending me into a blind panic, Jennifer’s warning ringing in my ears. But today, right now, I feel OK. There’s something about James that makes my fear and paranoia feel smaller, somehow, less insurmountable. Since we’d kissed in the park we had met for drinks and dinner a few times and I’d begun to look forward to our time together, to miss him when he wasn’t around.

  I suddenly realize that he’s speaking to me. ‘Sorry, I was miles away, what did you say?’ I ask.

  He grins. ‘I was just thinking about your drawing, wondering why you stopped doing it.’

  I shrug. The truth was it reminded me too much of the person I used to be, before Fremton, before Connor, when I was still a kid, and saw the world so differently. The few attempts I’d made as an adult, producing the sketches James had seen in my flat, had only made me feel sad, reminding me of what I’d lost.

  ‘You’re wasted as a waitress, I reckon,’ James says. ‘Your stuff was really good.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ I say and turn back to watching the children, hoping that the subject will be dropped.

  We leave an hour or so later and when James says goodbye he adds, ‘How about lunch tomorrow?’

  I smile. ‘That’d be nice, maybe Monica will have Maya for a couple of hours.’

  He nods. ‘Great.’ And I feel again the pull of attraction as he holds me in his gaze.

  The kitchen fridge ticks loudly in the silence as I pour myself another glass of beer. For the tenth time since I put her down for the night I go to check Maya as she sleeps in her cot then check my front door to reassure myself it’s securely locked. I pace around the small space of my kitchen, restlessly going from the window to the table and back before fetching another can of beer from the fridge. I have started to drink again recently – something I hadn’t done since leaving Fremton. But lately, the evenings here alone with Maya have felt too long to endure completely sober. Desperate to distract myself from thoughts of Heather, I go to my bookshelf and search for my old sketchpad and pencils.

  I stare down at the blank sheet in front of me. It’s been so long since I attempted to draw anything that I feel too nervous to try, and for a long time I look at the empty white paper, unsure of how to begin. At last I take a deep breath and, my hand feeling heavy and clumsy, pick up a pencil.

  I start by drawing Maya, the easiest subject to begin with. My hands move slowly at first but soon gather speed as I become engrossed in recreating the exact expression of her eyes, the way her black curls fall against her cheeks. Soon I’m so absorbed that when Maya murmurs in her sleep across the hall I look up in surprise, and realize that for the past hour or so I had entirely forgotten myself. Next I draw Monica sitting, in my mind’s eye, at her kitchen table, Benson & Hedges in hand, the tattoos that twist and wind their way along her arms gleaming behind the cloud of smoke curling from her cigarette, her eyes, bright and candid, gazing coolly back at me. Another hour passes as I work through sheet after sheet, drawing now an enchanted forest for Maya, its trees and hollows alive with animals and birds. And when I finally put down my pencil I’m filled with a sense of satisfaction I’d almost forgotten I was capable of.

  It’s nearly midnight and I’m about to go to bed when my mobile rings, shrill and shocking in the silence. Perhaps it’s Monica, or Uncle Geoff, I tell myself nervously as I look over to where it lies on my kitchen table. Some sort of emergency that’s made them call so late. I pick it up, not recognizing the number that flashes on the screen. ‘Hello?’ There’s no one there. ‘Hello? Hello? Who is this?’ Nothing. But I can just about make out the sound of someone breathing. ‘Hello?’ I sense the other person listening to my voice and fear drips icily through me. ‘Go away!’ I shout. ‘L
eave me alone!’ Impulsively I fling the phone away from me, watching it clatter to the floor. Almost immediately it begins to ring again. I stand and watch it buzz and vibrate upon the lino before I run to it and turn it off.

  The narrow pub table is all that separates us, our empty lunch plates and glasses littering its surface, the tips of our fingers almost but not quite touching. I had been laughing at something James had said a moment before, but now a lull falls upon our conversation, the noises of the busy pub rumbling on around us. The late afternoon sun shines through the window in two gold bars across his face, his eyes glowing brown and amber in its light. There’s a small scar at the bottom of his chin and I imagine myself reaching over and touching it, feeling the soft bumps and grooves with my finger. The air between us crackles, waits. ‘Shall we go?’ he says, and wordlessly I nod. In the street as we walk his hand casually brushes then catches mine and the electric charge that shoots through me makes my skin tingle.

  When we reach his house I hesitate. ‘Well …’ I say. ‘I guess I better …’

  He smiles, still holding my hand, and pulls me gently towards him. ‘Come in,’ he says.

  And here we are, in his kitchen. Suddenly unsure, I walk to one of his paintings and pretend to look at it for a while. I don’t hear him follow me until he’s there, turning me around, lifting my chin and kissing me, pushing me against the wall, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me until I’m hard up against him and his lips are on my neck, my mouth, and I don’t know what I had expected, but not this urgency, this passion, or that my body would respond with such strength. My lips brush his jaw, I breathe in the scent of his neck, and his hands are up beneath my top now, unhooking my bra, and I’m surprised at how much I want him, as if my body has taken over and I can think of nothing other than having his naked skin against mine, and I haven’t felt this way, this desire for someone since … since him, since Connor … And everything stops.

  ‘What?’ he says, pulling away to look at me, a little breathless.

  Connor’s face, Connor’s eyes, Connor’s lips. It takes everything I have to push him from my mind. ‘What?’ James asks again, his brow furrowed in concern. ‘What’s wrong?’

  I shake my head. ‘Nothing,’ I say firmly. ‘Nothing.’ And he smiles again and pulls me towards the stairs.

  In his bedroom we kiss as he begins to undress me and together we sink on to his bed. I reach out to unbuckle his belt but again I freeze. Suddenly Connor is everywhere: his cold, watchful presence lingering in every corner, his scent on James’s sheets, his taste on James’s lips. Fear paralyses me. It had been different with Heri and all those others before him, where sex had been about nothing more than the physical, but here, now, with James, something has changed. I close my eyes tightly against the memories but there’s no escape. There I am again as darkness falls upon the quarry, where everything around me is panic and confusion, the horror of it, the belief that I would not, could not survive what was about to happen. I open my eyes and stare into James’s worried face and realize that I’m shaking.

  ‘Hey,’ he says, ‘hey, hey, Edie, it’s OK, it’s all right.’ He puts his arms around me and holds me closely as I tremble against him, cold with fear.

  The rain has begun to fall heavily by the time I walk home from James’s, and I wrap my coat tightly around myself, pulling my hood up against the downpour. Then, as I near the park, something catches my eye and I stop. The road is badly lit here but I can still make out a figure hurrying away from me, towards the park’s gate. A sudden fear claws at me. It’s Heather – the trudging gait, the shoulder-length hair, the broad build, it’s definitely her, I’m certain of it. I call her name but my hoarse, fearful voice is whipped away by the wind. I hurry after her, calling her again but she doesn’t stop. I break into a run and just before the park’s gates I reach her. Adrenalin surges through me as I put a hand on her shoulder and she stops and turns. And there we stand, looking into each other’s faces, the rain pouring down on us. The sight of her like a punch to the throat. I can hardly believe that it’s her, that here she is, in front of me at last.

  Her expression is unreadable as she stares back at me. ‘Heather,’ I say, my voice ragged, breathless. ‘Heather, I—’ but at that moment she turns again and runs off into the park, its darkness swallowing her instantly. I stare after her, knowing I should follow, entirely unable to move. I think of Monica’s flat, smashed to bits. I hear again Jennifer’s voice: ‘Be careful, Edie.’ The thoughts chase around and around as I remain there, frozen in indecision, before fear gets the better of me and I turn back towards home, to where Maya is.

  That night as soon as I get into bed, the phone calls start again. Each time I pick up and say Heather’s name the line goes dead until at last I turn it off, throwing it across the room as though it were a grenade. I watch it as it skids across the kitchen floor before coming to a rest beneath a chair. And then I go back to bed and pull the duvet tight around me, knowing I won’t sleep tonight.

  Before

  We are about to leave the quarry and go home when the fight breaks out. The heat that’s been steadily building all afternoon has reached boiling point and we’re sluggish and silent as we sit around in the dust. Even Connor’s good mood has gradually soured beneath the sky’s hard blue glare. Thick yellow smoke hangs motionless in the air around us and my burning eyes drift to where Liam sits nearby, making some sort of pipe with a plastic bottle, foil and a Biro, his brow furrowed in concentration, his hands deft.

  At that moment he looks up, glancing around himself and patting his pockets. ‘Anyone got a light?’ he asks. And that’s how it begins.

  Connor, a few metres away, holds up his lighter and as Liam raises his arm to catch it, Connor throws it hard at his face. A nasty little smile plays around his lips and there’s a scattering of laughter.

  Liam blinks, rubbing his forehead, ‘Come on, man,’ he says mildly.

  But next Connor picks up an empty cigarette packet and aims that at his face too, and this time the laughter’s louder. ‘Connor, fuck’s sake,’ says Liam. But his protest is met by more missiles and soon Connor is throwing anything he can get his hands on: an empty beer can, a bunch of keys, one of Edie’s kicked-off trainers. Liam bats them all away. ‘Fuck off,’ he says quietly.

  ‘Awww what’s the matter?’ mocks Connor. ‘You gonna cry?’ He turns to the others, ‘Look at the face on him!’ And then he throws Edie’s other shoe.

  That’s when Liam says it, his eyes lit with temper. ‘I said fuck off, Connor!’ He rubs his face where the keys have made a nick in his skin. ‘Go on! Why don’t you go down Happy Pete’s and fuck your mum.’

  The silence that greets this is absolute. I look from face to face in confusion, alarmed by the sudden tension in the air, but everyone’s staring hard at the ground. Liam’s so livid I can tell he blurts out what he says next without thinking. ‘Hear she only costs a fiver these days. Give her one from me while you’re at it.’

  I look at Edie, but she’s staring down at her hands, her face rigid. Nobody moves. Connor gets up and his eyes are blank; he doesn’t even look angry. But he crosses over to Liam in two seconds flat and I see the panic on Liam’s face as he realizes what’s about to happen. He scrambles backwards, trying to get up, but it’s too late: Connor picks him up by the scruff of his T-shirt and punches him, one quick hard fist square in the middle of his face and Liam’s nose seems to explode with blood.

  And he keeps on punching him. Over and over. Nobody moves, nobody stops him. It’s like something out of a dream, entirely surreal on this beautiful summer’s day, all of us frozen, watching. Liam doesn’t make a sound at first; the only noise is the dull thump of fist hitting flesh. I watch, horrified, unable to move or think or do anything but stare at the blood that’s pouring from Liam’s mouth. At last Connor drops him and I think, that’s it, it’s all over, but it’s not, because now Connor begins to kick him: in the face, in the ribs, in the stomach, while Liam makes awful anim
al howls of pain. Edie and I jump to our feet, screaming for Connor to stop.

  At last he does. He looks down calmly, blankly, at Liam lying broken and bloody on the floor and then he turns away, saying ‘Get him out of here,’ to no one in particular. Three of them drag Liam into one of the cars, his broken battered body, his swollen bloody face.

  After

  The street beneath my window is empty and still, in silent wait for the day to begin. A fox streaks across the pavement, something small and unidentifiable clamped between its teeth. I stand by the window looking out at the pale blue dawn and wait for my daughter to stir. I’d woken earlier as though bursting up through the surface of dark cold water, wide awake and alert in an instant, a nameless dread making my heart race, and when I’d found my phone and turned it on, there had been twenty-two missed calls and three voicemail messages, each of them silent.

  Maya gives a cry from her cot and I go to her, scooping her up in my arms and holding her to me tightly. ‘It’s OK, baby,’ I murmur. ‘It’s all going to be OK.’ After she’s eaten I get dressed and quickly gather her things. It’s time to find Heather, it’s time to make this stop.

  ‘Could you look after Maya for a while?’ I ask, when Monica answers my knock.

  ‘Sure,’ she says, looking at me with concern. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I try to keep my voice level. ‘It’s just that something’s come up. I hate to ask, but it’s important.’

  She takes Maya from me and nods, and I’m grateful when she doesn’t ask any more questions.

  As I walk up to the park I scan the faces of the few people that I pass. Is she nearby? Is she watching me right this moment? I find a bench and pull out my phone. My heart pounds. A fine, icy rain begins to fall as I find Heather’s number and press the Call button. When I hear the ringtone I grip my mobile tightly, half willing her to answer, half terrified that she might. The automated voicemail kicks in and I take a deep breath and speak. ‘Heather,’ I say. ‘It’s me. I know that you’ve been calling me. Come and meet me. I know you’re nearby. We need to talk about what happened in Fremton.’ I think for a second and then add in desperation, ‘Please, Heather. For God’s sake, you’ve got to stop this. You’ve got to leave me alone. I’ll be in the café at the top of the park. I’ll wait for you.’ At last I hang up and putting my head in my hands I sit there for several minutes, the rain soaking me. I know she’s close. I can feel it.