The Friend

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘Yes, of course,’ I say.

  ‘And if there’s ever anything I can tell you about how things work around here …’

  ‘I’ll ask.’ Someone else. ‘Thank you so much, Teri,’ I say and I walk up to the gates to ask the teacher releasing the pupils what is taking my children so long.

  FRIDAY

  Cece

  8:30 p.m. Sol wasn’t happy when I’d asked if he could be in tonight so I could go out again with my newly found friends. He’d thought about saying no, then he’d huffed about leaving work on time in the middle of a big project, then he’d sulked at me – there is no other word for the scrunched-up lips and glower as he’d walked through the door at seven o’clock. He’d sulked some more as I put out dinner, as I washed and tidied up. Then he’d ‘hmmm’-ed me as I got ready. And had finally ‘right’-ed me as I left.

  I, for the most part, ignored it. Things haven’t been brilliant between us the last two weeks; we’ve both been ignoring the fact that we haven’t had a proper conversation in the last fortnight beyond ‘what time will you be home?’ and ‘I won’t be back for dinner’. We haven’t even touched each other, let alone anything else amorous in months. I am feeling better because I have friends and the children have friends, but I am also unsettled and more than a little scared because I am clearly losing my best friend and lover. I am clearly headed down …

  I do what I have been doing for weeks, months now, and decide not to think about it as I arrive at Maxie’s house with a bottle of Kahlúa, ready to mix cocktails.

  ‘OK, mixtras,’ Maxie says as we stand in her kitchen. ‘We are going to be mixing a new cocktail tonight. One that we are going to call “the Cece”.’

  ‘Oh, just get on with it,’ Hazel says. She is sitting beside me in front of Maxie’s table/mixing area, and has been glued to me since I arrived. I think she feels a little guilty about how she behaved last week and is trying to make up for it by never leaving my side.

  Anaya stands on the other side of the table, with her array of ‘virgin’ ingredients. ‘Yes, Maxie, get on with it,’ she says.

  ‘You lot, you have no respect for the process,’ Maxie said.

  ‘Oh, please. “The process.” I’ve heard it all now,’ Hazel says.

  ‘Oh, oh, I’d forgotten about “the process”,’ Anaya giggles. ‘The process, the process, let’s all respect the process,’ she sings.

  ‘You mock, but has anyone ever mixed cocktails as beautifully as me? I don’t think so.’ Maxie looks at the array of spirits and mixers on the table in front of us. ‘For The Cece, since she has brought Kahlúa, I am going to need this, this, this and this.’ She pulls towards her a bottle of Green Bols, a bottle of Blue Bols, my bottle of Kahlúa and a bottle of Irish Cream. From the side, she collects four small clear glasses that are shaped like tulips with short stems. Behind those glasses she has small, jewel-coloured cordial glasses similar to the ones I gave Sol for Christmas one year.

  ‘We need these glasses and we need a very steady hand.’ She opens the Green Bols and pours it carefully until there is a layer of green at the bottom of the glass. She then pours in a dash of Blue Bols. Carefully, carefully she pours a layer of Kahlúa so it sits on the green-blue layer. She then pours a layer of Baileys so it sits on top. ‘And, ta-dah! Here we have the Cece.’ She grins at us, her face so much like that of a child who has finally cracked a problem move they’ve been practising for weeks and weeks. ‘What do you think, Cece? How do you like your namesake cocktail?’

  ‘It’s fantastic,’ I reply. Truly. It’s a thing of beauty. ‘I especially like the nod to my teal-green jacket.’

  ‘That does look lovely,’ Anaya says and tips her head to one side to look at it a bit better.

  Hazel is silent for a moment longer than necessary. We all look at her and she visibly gulps, as though swallowing back some emotion. ‘It’s beautiful,’ she whispers. ‘Truly. It’s one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘Steady on,’ Maxie says. ‘It ain’t the Mona Lisa—’

  ‘You steady on,’ I cut in. ‘If Hazel thinks The Cece is beautiful, then The Cece is beautiful.’

  Maxie opens her mouth and Anaya’s mobile ringing replaces her words. ‘Oops, sorry. That’s not Sanjay’s ringtone so I’ll need to take this,’ she says. ‘It might be work.’

  While she talks, she is reaching into her bag and pulling out the silver phone. She looks at the screen and is visibly shaken by the name that pops up. I can’t see who it is, but she stares at it like it is a ghost, then she looks up at Hazel and Maxie. Her hand starts to tremble violently enough for us all to see. The other two frown at her reaction. ‘Erm … I don’t need to take this now,’ she says and virtually throws her phone back into her bag.

  Hazel’s phone lights up next, ringing on the side where she left it earlier. Puzzled, she goes to it, then blanches when she sees the screen and takes a step back. She then looks at Maxie and Anaya, with the exact same expression that Anaya had seconds before. Anaya returns her look, but Maxie is still openly mystified. Hazel backs further away from her phone and then returns to her place beside me, still pale and trembling slightly. Maxie’s mobile starts after that. The others avoid looking at her, and she frowns as she moves towards her phone like a woman approaching the gallows.

  I wonder if my phone’s going to ring next and I’ll discover that by coming here tonight I’ve accidentally walked into the plot of a horror movie. When Maxie reaches her phone, she looks at it and doesn’t react. She stares at the screen, which is probably flashing the name and identity of the person who is calling her. I watch her, the others watch her: she stares at the screen and breathes deeply a few times, then pushes the phone back against the cream-coloured blender. It rings desolately a few times before cutting out. I’m sure she takes a second to fix her face before she turns to us again.

  Seconds later, her house phone starts to ring. All three of them stare at the white-and-red landline phone that sits on the counter. Maxie marches to the other end of the kitchen and snatches the white phone cord out of the wall socket. Instead of coming straight back towards the table, she grabs her mobile from the side and switches it off.

  Hazel and Anaya in robotic fashion do the same with their mobiles.

  ‘Right, where were we?’ Maxie says.

  ‘Erm …’ Hazel says, as though fuzzy-headed.

  They’re clearly being harassed by someone. I know that look – I had it more than once in my last job when people used to find out what I really did and would take to calling and calling me, trying to intimidate me by rarely leaving messages.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I ask them all.

  Anaya smiles, Maxie nods, Hazel stares at a point in the middle of the table. ‘It’s not been a brilliant time,’ Maxie says.

  ‘Yeah.’ Anaya rubs her eyes with her fingers, pinches her nose like she is about to develop a migraine. ‘It’s not been a brilliant time. But I’m having fun tonight. Like I had fun last time with the knitting.’

  ‘Me too,’ Maxie says. ‘Shall we go back to the cocktail and try to move on?’

  ‘Yeah, good idea,’ Anaya says.

  Hazel doesn’t say anything. She sits very still and stares at the middle of the table.

  ‘So, Hazel,’ I say to her loudly, to bring her out of whichever trance she’s in. ‘Tell me how beautiful you think The Cece is.’

  She looks at me then. ‘Hmmm?’ she says.

  ‘You were telling us how beautiful The Cece is? You got rather breathless about it, if I recall?’ I say to her, still speaking with a raised voice to keep her attention.

  ‘I did not say that!’ she says, back in the room with us at last.

  ‘Er, yes you did. “The Cece is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”, to quote you.’

  ‘That’s hilarious!’ Anaya laughs. ‘She sounded exactly like you.’

  ‘She didn’t!’

  ‘Oh, but she did,’ Maxie laughs.

  ‘I don’t so
und that nasally with a hint of Brum.’

  ‘You do, actually,’ Maxie and Anaya say together. They turn to each other and shout, ‘Jinx!’

  We slide back to where we were then, laughing and joking and making cocktails. And now we’re back here, in this room having fun, I’m going to pretend that interlude with the phone calls didn’t happen because it is nothing to do with me.

  Part 4

  MONDAY

  Cece

  9:15 a.m. I haven’t gone to Milk ’n’ Cookees today to grab a coffee before I walk home. Instead, I’ve strolled down onto the seafront, along the beach, quite far from the school, then cut up towards the centre of Brighton.

  Once I’ve bought a coffee in this café, I plan on wandering all the way into the centre of Brighton to have a proper look at the shops. I haven’t had a real chance to do that yet without having the boys with me, so today is the day for it.

  A small queue has formed behind me and I step out of the way to wait for my coffee and, once I have it, I begin to leave.

  ‘Cece,’ a voice says from the line. ‘Cece, hi. Hi.’

  I stop short, causing the person who was coming up behind me to tut and then sidestep me to get out. It can’t be, I think. I take my time turning to the man in the line. It can be and it is.

  He is taller than me, the same height and build as Sol or thereabouts. He’s white, though, with blond hair that he wears short, green eyes that focus intently on whatever you’re saying. He also dresses like an off-duty policeman with black trousers that sit snuggly around his rugby-player hips, white shirt with the top button open and a brown leather jacket.

  ‘Hello, Gareth,’ I say. I want my voice to be flat and unemotional. I do not want him to know that my heart actually stopped beating when I heard his voice and that my insides melted when I saw his face.

  He smiles, overtly relieved that I remember him. How could I forget him? Every time I look at Harmony, I’m reminded of him. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he says. His smile deepens, moves away from relief into something that could be genuine pleasure.

  ‘Bye then.’

  Gareth steps into my path. ‘Do you fancy a coffee?’ he asks.

  ‘I’ve got mine to go,’ I say. ‘Maybe another time.’ As in, never.

  ‘You don’t mind if my friend has her coffee here, do you, Norman?’ Gareth calls over my shoulder to the barista. When he has his answer, he says to me: ‘See? He doesn’t mind.’ His high-wattage smile dims a little – he’s nervous, worried that I’m not going to give him a chance. It’s not as if he’s sought me out over the years, made a nuisance of himself through the myriad ways available to not let the past stay in the past. But now he’s here (there’s no way this meeting is a coincidence – no one would be dim enough to believe that) and he wants something. What that is, I have no idea. But in the grand scheme of things, I’m probably better off finding out what Gareth wants now, instead of him turning up again when I’m with Sol, or, even worse, Harmony.

  March, 2001

  Heat. Gareth and I were all about sizzling, fizzing, burning heat. Whenever we got together we were like a fire that got way out of control way too quickly. ‘Ah, ah, ahhhhh,’ he gasped between huge great gulps of air as he flopped back onto the bed. ‘Ah, ah. I never … I never … never … knew that could be like that.’

  My fingers slowly let go of his shoulders and I moved my legs over and away from him as I rolled off and flopped down beside him on his narrow single bed. How he could talk right then, I didn’t know. I was sure my mouth would spill out incomprehensible burbles if I tried to speak. I was tingling all over, every part of me alive with the afterglow of being with him.

  ‘I thought I was going to have a heart attack at the end there,’ he gasped, through deep, laboured breaths, ‘so I did.’ In moments like this, after we’d done stuff like that and his guard was down and he seemed free to be who he was, his Irish accent crept out from behind the bland blanket he threw over his voice most of the time. ‘You could quite possibly be the death of me if we carry on like that,’ he said, still breathing hard.

  I wasn’t risking a burble so I said nothing, continued to melt into the uncomfortable bed and waited for my body and mind to reconnect.

  Gareth lazily stroked his fingers across my stomach, probably to remind himself that we were still naked and together. ‘How …?’ He broke off from the question he frequently asked. He couldn’t fathom it. We’d spotted each other on the first day, both of us sharing that seconds-too-long glance, both of us acknowledging the heat even across a crowded mess hall, and we’d both known it would be good when we finally got together. ‘Good’ was underestimating ourselves though, as we’d found out three days later. That was why he always asked this question: How the hell did we get to have such great sex when we barely know each other? I never had an answer.

  Casually, I looked around his room, small and functional, just like mine. Neat and orderly, too, like mine. The room felt like him, and smelt like him. As I scanned the room, my eyes happened to glance at his desk clock. Immediately I sat up. ‘No!’ I said. ‘We are going to be late back.’

  ‘Nooo!’ he said. He checked his wrist, got confirmation from his watch that we had too few minutes to get dressed and get back out there before anyone knew we were missing. ‘Nooooo!’

  I was out of bed first. Over the last ten years or so I had managed to perfect the art of getting dressed and getting to where I needed to be – school, sixth form, outside the Peel statue downstairs every morning for inspection – with seconds to spare. Knickers, bra, tights were on before he’d even managed to roll off the bed and start to locate his trousers. Blouse. Skirt. Tie. Feet shoved into shoes. I grabbed my tiepin and slipped it into place in the middle of my black and white chequered tie. I quickly ran my fingers through the strands of my cheek-length black bob, to make sure it looked respectable and not like I’d grabbed a quickie during refs. He was still trying to straighten out his trousers.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m going to have to go,’ I said. I grabbed my books and pen from the floor by his bed.

  ‘Yes, yes, you go,’ he fussed, his accent rinsed clean of his heritage and now as unremarkable as someone who grew up in Generic Town, UK. ‘I’ll screw you later,’ he added as I headed towards the door.

  I laughed. He probably didn’t even realise what he’d said. ‘Not if I screw you first,’ I replied as I opened the door, checked no one was in the corridor and then made a dash for it. I was not meant to be in the male accommodation and I would be in big trouble if I was caught. If I hurried, I would make it to ‘Searching Premises and Suspects in a Policing Context’ without anyone knowing I’d skipped lunch to go screw another cadet. I turned the corner and as I neared the end of the corridor, ready to take the stairs two at a time, someone barged into me from behind, bouncing me into the wall.

  ‘Oh, Cee-Dee, didn’t see you there.’ Duke. If Gareth was heat, Duke was cold. Frigid, bleak, cold. Despite some stiff competition, he was probably the most alpha male on the course, and he constantly looked like he had something spiky and unpleasant shoved up his backside. ‘You’ve shoved yourself into a wall.’

  I said nothing and was about to move towards the stairs when he barged me against the wall again. ‘You’ve done it again,’ he said. ‘You really should be careful.’ Obviously he wanted to say something. He did this – cornered me when no one was around, said something vile to make me believe I wasn’t wanted in the police force. I didn’t move; it was easier, quicker to hear him out and let him walk away. ‘I saw you,’ he said, a nasty hitch of his lip to go with it. ‘You and Gareth think you’re so clever, don’t you? I saw yer. I know what you’re doing.’ He looked me up and down. ‘I don’t know how he can bring himself to dip his nib into your type of ink.’ He leant in close. ‘Or maybe I should have a go and see what it’s all about.’

  In reply, I raised my hand and examined my nails. They needed clipping and filing and buffing. An essential part of being an officer was mak
ing sure you were neat, groomed and well presented. I was in every other way, but I’d let my nails run to ruin. My nail-examining, of course, enraged Duke, but he didn’t have time to do anything about it. We were both now late for a class, and anyone could come along at any minute. He used his shoulder to shove me forwards. ‘I’m going to make sure you don’t finish this course, Cee-Dee. You watch and see.’

  Yeah, good luck with that, I replied silently as I ran for the stairs.

  9:20 a.m. We sit by the window, Gareth with his cappuccino in a proper coffee cup, me with mine in my beige takeaway cup.

  ‘So, how’ve you been?’ he says. His voice still has the shadow of a hint of Cork, where he was born, running through it.

  ‘Fine. And you?’

  ‘Fine,’ he says.

  ‘Great. We’re both fine. Isn’t that lovely.’

  Gareth grins at me, lowers his gaze. I used to love it when he’d do that. (I never told him that, obviously.) I used to imagine all the things going through his mind when he smiled and didn’t meet my eye. ‘You’ve not changed,’ he says.

  ‘No, I haven’t. People generally don’t change. We are who we are, especially when we hit adulthood.’ So much is loaded into those three, innocuous sentences. Will he notice?

  From the way his green eyes are suddenly on me and wounded but defensive – he took those words exactly the way I meant them. ‘People can and do change. I did, anyway.’

  ‘Of course you did.’

  ‘I have,’ he insists, both words stern and clipped.

  I give him a one-shouldered shrug, but it is my turn to deliberately lower my gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, gently. ‘I never got the chance to say that. To apologise. You just disappeared – I had no way of getting in touch with you. I knew virtually nothing about you to even know where to start looking. I was young and stupid and scared. And I’m sorry. I really am.’