The Friend

by Dorothy Koomson

  Oh, that felt good. I fling the door open again and slam it even louder. I’m so glad I couldn’t afford the soft closures when the kitchen was fitted.

  That last slam does it: Maxie appears in the kitchen and shuts the door behind her.

  ‘We can all hear you, you know,’ she says.

  ‘Good!’ I say loudly.

  ‘Shhhh, keep your voice down.’

  ‘NO!’ I shout.

  ‘OK, what is your problem?’

  ‘Are you insane, bringing someone else here? After everything that’s happened, you’ve decided to bring someone else into this mess?’

  ‘Look, she’s new, she needs friends and I thought, you know, we are nice people. We don’t sit around in Milk ’n’ Cookees only deigning to speak to people if they’ve got the right clothes and look desperate enough to settle for scraps of attention. No one else has really bothered with her and I can see how difficult and awkward she feels at the school gates. And Frankie loves her boys. When they came over for tea, I got to talk to her properly and she’s really nice.’

  My stomach flips. ‘They came over for tea?’ I ask. Maxie rarely lets anyone come over for tea. My children have been less than twenty times over the years I’ve known her, but she met this woman seconds ago and she has had them in her home.

  ‘Yes, I thought I told you.’

  ‘No, you didn’t. We’ve barely been talking let alone anything else. But you seem to have time to do stuff like make new friends.’

  ‘Anaya has met her as well.’

  ‘So Anaya thought it was a good idea that she comes tonight too?’

  ‘Well, yeah,’ Maxie says.

  ‘Have you three had coffee without me?’ I ask. ‘When I couldn’t make it the other day, did you have this woman with you instead?’

  ‘We asked her to come so she could meet you. Obviously when you couldn’t come because you were starting work early, you didn’t get to meet her.’

  This is how Yvonne felt. I can see it now. How easy it is to become The Friend. The one who is the outsider and people start to unintentionally plot against. Which is even worse when you think about everything else that is happening. About the secrets we now have to keep for each other and ourselves.

  ‘You could have asked before you brought her here,’ I tell Maxie. I am not going to become Yvonne. Or the person who goes down for this, as they say on the television.

  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I just want you to get to know her. She really is nice. And she was so excited to meet you. She was saying that Camille and her son Ore are really good friends. She’s wanted to text you a few times to arrange a play date but wasn’t sure how you’d take it.’

  I look over Maxie, seeing her how Yvonne must have seen her. She’s intimidating in that she’s so open and effusive, when she likes you. But she isn’t actually that open. She keeps her home and her husband off-limits to all but the most select. She very rarely joins in our talks about our relationships. I don’t, for example, know how she met her husband. I don’t know why she and Ed moved to Brighton. I don’t know if she and Ed are planning on having any more children. We’ve been close friends for years, she’s held my hand through some of the biggest disasters I’ve faced to date, and yet I hardly know her. Same with Anaya. I share a huge secret with her, but I hardly know her. I know as much about them as I do about this new woman sitting in my living room right now.

  I lick my lips. I need to think about this. I need to think about who I am trusting with one of my biggest secrets. Not right now, though. I have to put all of this out of my head and concentrate on being friendly to this stranger my friends have brought to my house.

  I walk to the cupboard I was just abusing, and open up its neighbour to take out an extra cocktail glass. ‘Well, all I can say is, she’d better be able to knit because I sure as hell ain’t teaching her.’

  Maxie smiles at me. Relieved. That I’m going to give this Cece a chance? Or that I haven’t worked out what she’s up to yet?

  March, 2014

  Yvonne called them.

  I was grateful and resentful at the same time. I was still numb around the edges, the fingers of my mind grasping for anything familiar to hold on to. I didn’t really want anyone else here to see it. It was like that monster you can pretend doesn’t live in your wardrobe – the moment, the absolute second someone else sees it too, it becomes real. The minute Anaya and Maxie walked in, gathered me into their arms and told me how sorry they were, was the minute it became real.

  I had to accept Walter had left. I used to dream of it, of not having to fend off his aggressively lewd advances, not having to pick up after him, or listen to his rants about how much I cost and how little I contributed. I dreamt of it, but when it had become reality, I’d begged him not to do it. I’d got down on my knees, literally, and begged him to stay. Pleaded with him for another chance. Promised I would change every little thing about me if he wouldn’t leave.

  The more I’d begged, the more contempt he had developed for me. I hadn’t been able to stop, though. Russell, Camille and Calvin deserved to grow up in a home with two parents and if that meant doing anything, promising everything, then that was what I’d do. ‘We can try for another baby,’ I’d said in desperation and the sneer had become set on his handsome features. He’d looked me up and down then spat: ‘What makes you think I’d even be able to get it up with you? You repulse me.’

  It was almost as if Yvonne knew – she had come over to drop off a knitting pattern and had leant on the doorbell until I opened it. ‘What’s he done now?’ she’d said when she saw the state of me. My eyes had hurt when I blinked they were so swollen from crying, my lips were raw and sore because I had chewed on them so constantly and I’d practically pulled off my fingernails clinging to him. He’d waited until I’d got the children to bed before telling me his plans for the future and how they didn’t involve me.

  ‘He’s gone, he’s left me,’ I’d said. ‘I don’t want him to be gone. I don’t want him to be gone.’ I’d said that so she wouldn’t say anything bad. So that she would understand this was the worst thing in the world to happen to me and she wasn’t allowed to trash him.

  Her arms had been warm around me, then the others were there, and their arms were around me too. Then it was real, then it had happened and he was gone and he wasn’t coming back. None of them said I was better off without him. They held me, they comforted me. Yvonne organised a rota with the three of them to each collect the children from school, take them home for tea and a sleepover, while another sat with me and stopped me calling him for as long as possible before they gave in, gave me the phone, then let me cry in their arms after I’d subjected myself to his absolute, unrelenting cruelty. He was all business, all talk about how long he would let me live in ‘his’ house until it had to be sold and I would have to find somewhere to rent, how we wouldn’t need solicitors if I didn’t get greedy, how he had to think about his future and his money. After every phone call that Yvonne was there for, she would say afterwards: ‘When you’re ready, let me know, and we can turn this whole thing around.’

  On the tenth day, Yvonne’s turn to sit with me, after he had screamed at me to leave him alone, I realised that he hadn’t once asked about the children. How they were coping, how I was managing to make sure they were fed and clothed and taken to school on time. These were the children he’d been so desperate to have, so keen to see me stay at home and look after. Once that realisation hit, I saw all of it like standing in front of a door. The door had finally been opened and I could see not daylight but the night, the stars that lit the way to my new future. There was nothing to be afraid of in this dark – it was another part of the way I was existing in the world. The only thing to be scared of, absolutely terrified of, would be standing in front of the door, seeing the night, the darkness rich with possibilities, burgeoning with the many, many paths of my life, and staying where I was because I thought that I could somehow will my life back to the way it had been.
/>
  I dried my eyes on the too-long sleeves of the cardigan I’d been wearing for four days, and I looked across my kitchen table at Yvonne. I remembered the conversation we’d had here about whether I wanted a fourth child; how Yvonne had tried to tell me that I didn’t have to do what Walter wanted just because Walter wanted it. She had been trying to tell me, in a roundabout way that I might listen to, that I was in charge of my own life, my own destiny. And I was in charge of the lives, the destinies of my children, too. If I kept on as I was, I would be homeless, penniless, and so would they.

  ‘I’m ready,’ I said to her.

  Her lips twisted into a smile I hadn’t seen before, and a determination took over her face. She carefully unhooked her little sky-blue bag that hung on the left-hand corner of the chair she sat on, and slowly she unzipped it. She pulled out a rectangle of white card and slid it across the table.

  ‘He’s not going to know what’s hit him,’ she said. With her words, I took that step. Pushed myself through the doorway into the dark unknown, looking up to the stars and knowing the only way out of this place was to go forwards, to follow the line of stars until I reached the next phase of my life.

  June, 2015

  ‘Thanks and everything, you lot, but no thanks. I’m going to use this time when they’re not here to really centre myself. You know, I haven’t been without the kids since … well, since they were born, except for those nights out with you all at the beach hut and stuff. I’ll be fine, honestly, you don’t have to worry about me. It’s so lovely of you to care. I’ll be fine.’

  Clearly, they had spent time training like Olympic athletes in a synchronised sport because they all looked at me, glanced at each other and then rolled their eyes. In unison. Walter had left over a year ago, we’d been divorced six months and in that time he’d barely asked about the children let alone seen them. But when the divorce didn’t go the way he envisaged – and I wasn’t living in rented accommodation far away from family and friends, begging him for scraps of money, and he’d had to pay for his children and share ‘his’ money so I could house and feed his children – he’d decided that he wanted to hurt me by having the children overnight after all.

  Which is why my friends were all dressed up and standing in my house demanding I come out with them. They, like Walter, thought that me being without the children for two nights, being in my house all alone, would traumatise me. He was wrong, of course – I wasn’t going to suffer without them. I would be fine. And my friends were wrong, too. I was fine. Absolutely fine.

  ‘Just go and get changed,’ Maxie said after they listened to me explain how fine I was.

  ‘No—’

  ‘I swear, you do not want all three of us dragging you upstairs and dressing you,’ Yvonne stated.

  ‘Yeah, Haze,’ Anaya agreed. ‘We are mothers: we got wrestling clothes onto wriggling beings down to a fine art a long, long time ago. Do you seriously think we’ll have any trouble getting you dressed and made-up?’

  ‘Guys, thank you. I honestly couldn’t have got through this divorce without you all, but this is a time I need to stop and pause and really take it all in.’

  ‘You can do that in the new wine bar down near George Street,’ Yvonne said.

  ‘Do you know what it’s cost me in babysitting for tonight?’ Maxie asked, although it was clearly rhetorical. ‘I’ve had to bribe my husband with all sorts of promises so he won’t let Frankie stay up watching horror films while eating sweets and drinking pop … It’s costing me a lot to be standing here tonight so I am going to make sure we all enjoy every single second of it, even if it kills you.’

  Anaya spoke next: ‘And you know what? If my teetotal witch of a mother-in-law finds out I’ve been on the same street as a bar, let alone inside one, she’ll have those divorce papers she’s had drawn up since the day we got married under Sanjay’s nose before I can even explain to him that I didn’t touch a drop. This is costing me big too. So go and get dressed, OK? Get dressed and things don’t need to get unpleasant.’

  I focused on Yvonne, waited for her to tell me the price of coming here to take me out. She stared at me blankly. ‘Well?’ I coaxed. ‘What’s it cost you to come here tonight?’

  She screwed up her beautiful face, deeply offended at the idea. ‘Nothing,’ she exclaimed. ‘This is part of our deal, isn’t it? I tell you what to do when I know it’s for the best, and you do it.’ She nodded towards the hall and stairs. ‘Go get dressed. That’s the last time any of us is going to ask nicely. Next time, we’ll be treating you like an unruly toddler. I don’t know about these two, but my children only ever wriggled once. After that first time, even at their young ages, they knew not to mess with me.’

  Later, I threw my arms around Yvonne. ‘Thank you for bringing me out,’ I whispered into her ear. I was grateful to her, and the others, but especially to her, for all she’d done for me.

  ‘No problem, baby girl, absolutely no problem.’

  Cece

  9 p.m. ‘It’ll be fine,’ they said. ‘She won’t mind,’ they said. ‘She’ll love to meet you. Especially if Ore and Camille are friends,’ they said.

  It is not fine. Hazel took one look at me and had some sort of internal explosion.

  ‘Sorry about that,’ Hazel says when she and Maxie return to the living room.

  ‘No problem,’ I say. I’m starting to wonder if I should fake some sort of problem and then go home. I do not want to be where I am not wanted.

  ‘You look like you’re thinking of ways to escape a bad date,’ Hazel says.

  I smile nervously. ‘Do I?’

  ‘Yes, and I’m sorry about that. I was just surprised about you being here seeing as my friends didn’t even tell me you existed.’ She adds another glass to the table in the middle of the room. ‘But you’re here now, so I’m sure we’ll have lots of fun.’

  I nod.

  ‘So, can you knit?’

  Can I knit? Well, the internet was very helpful in giving me the general idea. But, can I knit? ‘Thing is, Hazel, I’d like to be honest and say no, but I suspect if I do, your kitchen will be the one to suffer.’

  When she bursts out laughing, the atmosphere in the room breaks and we all relax.

  Part 3

  MONDAY

  Cece

  4:30 p.m. ‘Oh, hello, are you Cece?’

  The woman who stops me is the one who I saw in the café that first week, the one who smiled and then looked horrified when it seemed like I was going to go and speak to her. She is a perfect mother: well turned out, well made-up, sweet-smelling with long blonde hair. She actually reminds me of Yvonne Whidmore in the pictures I’ve seen of her.

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. Now I have three friends who actually seem to like me (Hazel’s initial kitchen abuse notwithstanding), I know I don’t actually need to speak to this woman.

  Over her shoulder, I keep an eye on the school’s front door, waiting for the boys to appear.

  ‘Oh, hello, I’ve noticed you around and wanted to say hello. There never seemed to be the time,’ she gushes. ‘I’m Teri. My child is Nettie, she’s in the same class as one of your twins? Such lovely boys. I’ve been meaning to talk to you.’

  Inside, I roll my eyes. She is rewriting history. What is the point? We both know that she wasn’t interested in me before. Outside, I offer a vague smile so I’m partially but not fully engaging with her nonsense.

  Surprise flashes in her eyes, probably a little disconcerted that I’m not gushing in response. I’ve never been that good at faking it in these situations. ‘Well, anyway, I’m sure no one has properly welcomed you to the school. It must be so hard for you. Moving here and everything. Well, Mrs Carpenter has asked me to be the class coordinator, in place of …’ she places a hand over her chest, ‘well, in place of Mrs Whidmore. Yvonne. I’m sure you heard what happened to her.’ Her concern, I notice, doesn’t go beyond her words, and her body movements. The real seat of concern – her eyes, the set of her mouth, the way she holds herse
lf – are untouched. ‘She was my dear, dear friend, so obviously I feel terrible about it, but Mrs Carpenter thought she wouldn’t mind. I’ve taken over the role of head of the Parents’ Council as well. Like I say, I feel awful about it, but Mrs Carpenter insisted. I was so close to Yvonne so I know she wouldn’t mind me taking over from her.’

  ‘Until she wakes up, you mean?’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘She won’t mind you looking after the roles until she wakes up,’ I say. I wish the boys would hurry up so I can have a legitimate reason to stop talking to this woman in front of me.

  ‘Well, yes, of course,’ she says with a smile that tells me that isn’t what she meant at all. ‘Of course, that’s what I meant. Yvonne wouldn’t want it any other way.’

  ‘What can I do for you?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s what I can do for you,’ she says. ‘And that is, to officially invite you to the class, we’d like to take you to coffee. We often meet on Thursday mornings at Milk ’n’ Cookees. Thought you might like to join us? I’m sure everyone would love to meet you.’

  That would be the Thursday-morning coffee where you could have asked me over when I was new and scared? That would be the Thursday-morning coffee when you completely blanked me and left me feeling small? ‘Oh, thank you, that’s so sweet of you, Teri,’ I can gush now. ‘I’m really busy the next few Thursdays, but I’ll let you know.’ Where are my children?

  Teri’s face contracts a fraction. I was not meant to say that. I was meant to gush at her before, and I’m meant to fall over myself now I’m asked to join her gang. ‘Oh, lovely. Fine.’ She manages to gather up a smile. ‘Just let me know. I’m on PPY3.’