The Friend

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘Mum? Mum, are you OK?’ Calvin says suddenly.

  I jerk myself upright, try to pull myself together. I shouldn’t do that in front of him. Or any of the kids. Or anyone. No one can know about this.

  ‘Yes, yes, I am.’

  His face is creased with concern, wrinkled by worry. I go to touch his cheek but I’m trembling so I have to return my hand to my side without touching him. ‘I’m fine, sweetheart, really, I’m fine.’ I force myself to stand like everything is normal.

  ‘I’m sorry we didn’t listen to you,’ he says. His voice is panicky. Scrabbling around to find a reason why I’m acting the way I am. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I will listen to you from now on. Promise.’ He holds out his little finger. He wants me to hook my pinkie through it, to accept his promise by linking with him. ‘Promise.’

  ‘When do you lot ever listen to me?’ I say to him. ‘I’m not upset about that.’ I shake my head. ‘I mean, yes, it’s not great that you lot never listen to me, but you know, that’s not what has upset me right now.’ I start moving the pans off the stove, onto the saucepan stand at the end of the kitchen. Oven! I’m meant to be turning on the oven.

  ‘Did Daddy tell you off again?’ Calvin asks. He’s not going to be fobbed off as easily as he used to be. He has been growing into that stage when children are more worried for those around them than for themselves. I like this phase he’s in, but it also means that the baby years are over. I’ll have that void in my life which a very young child has filled for years.

  ‘No, sweetheart, Walter – I mean, Daddy – didn’t tell me off again.’ Walter hasn’t been in touch since the night … Since he made that call that led to what happened to Yvonne. I can’t think about that, though. I can’t.

  I bend down and hug Calvin, then I let him go, and with my hands on his shoulders, I march him out into the hall.

  ‘OK,’ I say loudly from my place at the bottom of the stairs. ‘I am about to put dinner in the oven. In that time, you need to pick up your stuff, and get upstairs, wash your hands and start your homework.’ I know they can hear me, but they’re all ignoring me. Even the one I am holding in front of me. ‘If that does not happen, I will be putting it all in the bin. And you’ll be the ones explaining to Mrs Carpenter why you’ve got no sports kit, no homework books, or library books. And don’t think I’ll be buying you new stuff until next year, either. It’ll take me five minutes to get dinner on. After that, it’s aaallllll up to you.’

  Calvin gasps; he believes me and breaks free to quickly gather his belongings. First he attempts to hang up his blazer, but when he can’t quite reach the hook, he throws it down and snatches up his bag and then runs up the stairs, heading straight for the bedroom he shares with Russell.

  The other two stay in place, messing with the instruments in the playroom and flicking through channels on the television. ‘Cool, guys,’ I say. ‘You do what you think is best. And when your stuff is in the bin, you can think up the right excuse to tell Mrs Carpenter. Of course, “my mum threw it in the bin because I wouldn’t move it and wouldn’t do my homework” might not get the sort of sympathy you hope it will, but I guess we’ll find out tomorrow, heh?’

  Calmly, I walk back into the kitchen and shut the door behind me. I head for the clingfilm-wrapped lasagne, which has been defrosting on the side all day. Once I’ve freed it from its covering, I press at the top, checking that it is properly defrosted. I prod a little more, before I pull a large metal baking tray from the small second oven and line that with greaseproof paper. Carefully, I place the large ceramic dish on it and slide them into the oven. From the fridge I take out broccoli and green beans, then take my time to remove the florets from the stems, to top and tail the beans, to wash them, place them in the steamer, ready for them to go on when the lasagne is nearly done.

  I do all this slowly and precisely, giving the other two time to think about whether I was serious, whether they should maybe not test me. By the time I open the kitchen door, all their belongings have been removed from the hall, their blazers hung up, and they have also disappeared upstairs.

  I stand at the bottom of the stairs and smile to myself. A momentary sense of smugness washes over me. I don’t get to experience that very often when it comes to being a parent. Usually I feel like I am running at a hundred miles an hour just to stand still; often I feel like I am working very hard to not permanently damage one of the children. I’ve never been one of those serene parents who breezes through life, managing to do it all and do it well. I’m not like Yvonne, who made it look easy to run her family and life with precision; who was perfect in every way.

  I’m thinking about her in the past tense. And she’s still here, she’s still with us, hanging on. Waiting, I think, to tell everyone all about me and what I did.

  Cece

  5:45 p.m. Oscar and Ore are both standing in the kitchen, looking at me like I have wronged them. I do not have snacks beyond apples and oranges and slices of pineapple. I am going to serve them cottage pie for dinner. And the television still hasn’t been hooked up, so they have to make do with reading their books and doing their homework. The end of the world, apparently.

  ‘You see, the thing is, Mum—’ Oscar begins, ready to talk his way out of having to consume the mash-topped pie. He’s cut short by the key in the lock.

  Harmony! lights up in both their eyes – she’ll save them from this disaster that is the first night after school with Mum.

  ‘We’re back!’ Harmony calls. I look at the cooker clock. She’s back early, since she finishes at five-thirty and it’s at least half an hour on the bus. And who’s this ‘we’? I hope she hasn’t been getting lifts from strange people. We’ve only just moved here; I’m about to run into the corridor when Harmony comes into the kitchen followed by Sol.

  ‘Dad came to get me from school,’ she says, dumping her rucksack by the kitchen door.

  ‘How was your day?’ I ask her, staring at Sol.

  ‘Oh, fine. Fine,’ Harmony says dismissively. ‘Lessons were cool and lots of cool people.’

  ‘I didn’t know you’d be picking her up from school,’ I say to Sol.

  ‘Ah, I had a reminder this morning that I need to do more,’ he replies with a smile. ‘Anyways …’ He comes further into the kitchen. ‘I can see from those two faces that there’s a potato-topped pie for dinner,’ he says to the boys.

  Harmony stops bending down to hug her brothers and fires her gaze in my direction. ‘Oh, what?’ she says.

  ‘What is wrong with my pies?’ I screech.

  The children all move to explain the problem and ‘Nothing,’ Sol says over them. He looks reproachfully at the children, telling them not to say a word. ‘They are delicious. I think the thing is, we seem to have them quite regularly? We don’t get a chance to appreciate them because they’re often on the menu, but anyway, I’m sure this one will freeze rather nicely for another day, because I’m going to take you all out to dinner to celebrate first day of school, first Monday in our new house and first weekday of us all being together.’

  ‘No potato pie?’ Ore says excitedly.

  ‘We’re going out for dinner,’ Sol confirms.

  ‘Not unless you all get changed and wash hands and all that stuff,’ I say, feeling bad for my poor maligned cottage pie.

  The room empties in seconds.

  ‘So …’ Sol says once we’re alone.

  ‘So …?’ I reply.

  He slips his arms around my waist and gazes down at me. ‘So … Are you going to stop with the potato-topped pies?’

  ‘Git,’ I say, and dig my fingers into his sides while he tries to wiggle away from me.

  ‘Beautiful,’ he replies and tries to tickle me back.

  It doesn’t seem so bad right now, being here. With him. And them. It doesn’t feel so bad at all.

  Hazel

  6 p.m. The children are joking and talking with their mouths full as we sit around the dinner table, eating lasagne and vegetables. I’m here with
them but I can’t help my thoughts drifting over to another side of Brighton, to what it must be like in the Whidmore household. They will have gone from after-school club to the hospital to visit their wife and mother. They will have sat by her bedside, praying for even the smallest sign that she knew they were there. Then home, to homework, to dinner, to another night climbing into bed and hoping she’ll wake up. Hoping she will tell all about the moments leading up to her attempted murder.

  January, 2012

  I stood in the middle of the supermarket and convinced myself not to scream ‘CAMILLE!’ at the top of my voice. Calvin was in a sling on my front and Russell had been, uncharacteristically, glued to my side all shopping trip. To balance the cosmic scales, of course, Camille, who was usually unfailingly good, had decided to disappear. I’d been scouring the shelves for a particular brand of whisky that Walter had screamed at me about not finding last time, and I’d turned back to put the bottle in the trolley to find her gone. Actually disappeared. I hadn’t heard her unclipping herself or climbing out of the trolley seat; I hadn’t heard her footsteps as she’d made good on her escape plan.

  I’d wanted to start screaming but stopped myself. Because if I didn’t panic outwardly, the bad things that happen to children you take your eyes off for two seconds wouldn’t start. If I stayed calm, controlled, collected, things would work out all right.

  ‘Which way did your sister go, Russell?’ I asked calmly. I gently placed the bottle in the trolley – if I dropped it and smashed it dramatically, that would start that scenario where something bad was going to happen. Russell, in turn, looked surprised that I was speaking to him; in fact shocked that I knew his name. ‘Russell, sweetie, can you tell me which way Camille went?’ I said, crouching down as far as I could with a sleeping, dribbling Calvin strapped to my front. ‘Just point – was it that way or this way?’

  Come on, you stupid woman, I was telling myself while I tried to stay calm. Someone could be leading your daughter through the car park to an unmarked van as you stand here trying to stay calm and trying not to make bad things happen.

  ‘Russell, sweetie,’ I said in a shrill voice, ‘tell Mummy which way Camille went.’

  He took a step away from me, terrified by my rictus face and scary, falsetto voice. If I wasn’t careful, he was going to run for it too.

  ‘Excuse me,’ a voice said to my right.

  I swung towards her, ready to bawl her out for interrupting me while my daughter was missing and my son was preparing to run away, too.

  ‘I think this little one belongs to you?’ she said. This woman, this stranger, had her hands on Camille’s bony little shoulders. ‘I saw you with her earlier. She was trying to climb into one of the freezers.’ She smiled at me, and the first thing I noticed about her was the twist of the left-hand side of her top lip, the way it could so very easily be a bitchy sneer but this smile was rueful and understanding. Still, she was a stranger and she had her hands on my daughter.

  I snatched Camille away, held her protectively against me and took another look at this ‘rescuer’. She was slightly taller than me. She wore an expensive-looking black skirt suit, high heels, and had a sky-blue handbag hooked over her left arm. I was suddenly, glaringly, aware of how casual I was, especially compared to this stranger. ‘Casual’, of course, meant dishevelled, messy, unkempt. I had on red and blue shoes that didn’t match – Russell or Camille had hidden one of each last week and I still hadn’t got around to finding them. I had on jeans that were baggy and unflattering, though you couldn’t really see the breast milk and mashed banana stains on the front of my black top because Calvin was rather kindly hiding his work under the sling I carried him in. And my hair … my hair was so far at the other end of the spectrum from this goddess in front of me.

  ‘She reminds me of my youngest child,’ the woman said, conversationally. ‘I look away, she makes a break for freedom as though life with me is so awful she has to re-enact scenes from The Great Escape every chance she gets.’

  ‘You have children?’ I said. I looked at her again. She had hips that did not carry extra weight; her breasts, impressively emphasised in the V of her suit jacket, were generous but perky. She didn’t look like her body knew what a stretch mark was.

  ‘Yes, of course. Like you.’

  ‘You are nothing like me,’ I said. I sounded awful, bitchy and jealous, but I didn’t mean it like that.

  Her lips twisted again as she smiled. She reminded me of those Hollywood actresses who made their fortune from the shape of their lips. ‘I really am like you,’ she said, completely unfazed by my snippiness.

  ‘Sorry, shouldn’t have said that. It was nasty and uncalled for. Especially when you found my daughter. I’m just so … and you’re so … I can’t see how you would say we’re anything alike.’

  ‘Oh, but we are alike. I just happen to know the secret to not going insane in the face of being a mother, that’s all.’

  ‘Oh, and what’s that?’

  ‘Childcare,’ she said simply. ‘I promise you, it will change your whole life.’

  ‘I can’t use childcare – I don’t work. I can’t justify that sort of expense when I don’t work.’

  ‘Sweetheart,’ she said, ‘you do work. Of course you work. And the secret to being successful at any job is the simple art of delegation.’

  ‘Delegation?’

  ‘Delegation. Learn that word, love that word. Because, believe me, two half-day sessions a week with your children in nursery and you will feel like a new woman.’

  ‘Delegation.’ The possibilities of having some time to myself or some time for me and the baby opened up in front of my eyes. The children out somewhere being educationally stimulated while I got to sit still for a few seconds before rushing around doing all the jobs I never seemed to get around to. ‘Delegation.’ I almost sighed the word. That was the sort of word that Walter respected. It didn’t sound ‘emotional’ or ‘female’, it was a good, decent business word. One that he would understand, far more than: I’m going insane. I only agreed to a third because you said you’d help out more, or at least be home relatively on time so I can go to the loo by myself. Never mind have a cup of tea, I’ll forgo the tea, just let me do the toilet thing and we’ll call it quits. Admitting that sort of thing would be seen as emotional and weak by Walter. ‘Delegation’ as in We need to delegate our responsibilities so we can become more effective, efficient parents would not.

  The happy grin spread right across my face.

  ‘I’m Yvonne,’ the stranger said. ‘And I am going to change your life.’

  June, 2012

  We sat at my kitchen table with coffees.

  Despite my new-found ability to delegate, I still didn’t look like Yvonne. I don’t think anyone did, if I was honest, but my whole life had been opened up by being able to drop the older children at nursery. I could take the baby to playgroups. And I could meet people for coffee. In this case, Yvonne. Who was as perfect as always: blonde hair all bundled up into a casual bun, a beautiful red shorts suit and bejewelled sandals. I’d graduated from mismatched shoes and baby-food-stained tops to clean clothes and washed hair. Delegation was liberating.

  Right now, Yvonne was overjoyed that our children were going to be starting at Plummer Prep that September. ‘I can’t wait for us to be school gate mums together,’ she said. ‘We’ve got a head start on everyone else. Do you think you’ll get a job, then? You’ve talked about it ever since I met you, which, it has to be said, feels like years ago, not months ago. So, any idea where you’d like to work?’

  ‘Oh, no, there’s no point thinking about that – Walter’s been talking about another baby.’

  Slowly Yvonne set down her coffee cup and blinked at me a few times as though I’d started screaming at her. She seemed truly horrified by what I had just said.

  ‘Do you even want another child?’ she asked, horror in her voice.

  I glanced over at Calvin, asleep in his cot on the other side of the ki
tchen. My happy ‘surprise’. My third that I would not have if I’d had any real choice in the matter. And that was a terrible thing to think, an awful admission. I was satisfied with two. As Camille and Russell got older, closer to some semblance of independence, Walter had started talking about having a third child. I’d told him no. I was just getting my body back, I was just getting to sleep through the night, I was just remembering what it was like to go somewhere without having a small person hanging off me. We’d talked and talked and talked about it, then he’d got me to agree to at least just using condoms instead of the Pill. Foregone conclusion after that. I’d used condoms all my sexual life, but after only two weeks of them this time around with Walter, I was pregnant again. I didn’t want to be suspicious of him, and I loved Calvin when he was eventually here … but being pregnant with two older children who had only eleven months between them had been a hell I’d never wanted to revisit. A fourth would mean getting a job would be a pipe dream. A fourth would mean I would never get my life back; it would mean being known as nothing more than ‘Mum’.

  ‘Do you want another child?’ Yvonne asked again.

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t think I do, no.’

  ‘So why are you entertaining it? It’s your body.’

  ‘It’s hard to explain,’ I replied simply.

  ‘Tell him if he wants another one he can get a womb and do the necessary hard yards,’ Yvonne said firmly.

  I laughed at what she had said, as though when I had said that to him, he hadn’t smirked at me and said, Why bark when you’ve got a dog to do it for you? before scratching behind my ears and saying, Good girl, Lassie. Good dog.