The Friend

by Dorothy Koomson

  ‘Really?’ I ask him hesitantly.

  ‘Of course really. What did you think I would say, even if my mother had told me?’

  ‘I don’t know … She might have made out I was a porn star or something.’

  ‘And if she did, and you told me otherwise, I would have believed you. And if you were a porn star, I would have accepted it. You’re the mother of my children; you’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted to marry. Yes, you drive me insane sometimes and you frustrate the hell out of me, but that’s normal. You being so scared of my mother that you keep things like this to yourself is not normal.’

  ‘I’m not scared of your mother,’ I say indignantly. I really am not scared of her. ‘I was scared of how much sway she has on you and your feelings.’

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he replies. He gathers me up in a hug, holds me close to him. Thinking about it now, what was I so scared of? Would I want to be with a man who wouldn’t believe me when I told him about what happened? Would I want to be with a man who wouldn’t believe their son or daughter?

  ‘I didn’t want anyone to know, as well,’ I explain into the folds of his sweatshirt. ‘I was so ashamed about all of it. I wanted to act as though it was something other to me.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. So sorry. I hate that it happened to you, and I really hate that you’ve been living with it all this time and not able to tell me. Well, that’s all going to change. From now. Tomorrow we change the locks, the alarm code and I will not tell my parents until they try to get in here.’ I feel him wince at the thought of it, what it will unleash. ‘I’ll take a few days off work to make sure I’m here to deal with the fallout,’ he then says. ‘And don’t worry, they won’t be getting another key.’

  ‘Are you sure about this? I don’t want you to cave. If you have to, we can blame me and I’ll take the flak.’

  ‘No, no. It won’t be easy but I’ve got to do it. I’m old enough to do this.’ He holds me closer. ‘Anything for you.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What made you decide to tell me now?’ he asks.

  I almost don’t tell him. I’ve come this far, said this much, I don’t want him to know the rest of it, what I had to do to try to keep the status quo. But no more lies, eh, Anaya? No more secrets and lies. So I tell him. All of it. Every little thing about Yvonne and what happened.

  ‘Oh, fuck,’ he says at the end of it. It is that serious, if Sanjay is swearing. Even after I had a go at him all those years ago, he still very rarely swears. It’s just not his thing. Yup, it is that serious. I don’t know how I have managed to convince myself it wasn’t.

  Part 12

  MONDAY

  Cece

  11 a.m. It’s taken Sol six days to revert to git mode. Six whole days. I suppose I should be grateful I had that time where he was him again and we were us again. And I could pretend I’m not spying on my friends and getting them to reveal secrets about themselves so I can tell the police which one of them was lying about her whereabouts when a woman was almost bludgeoned to death.

  With a little bad grace, I collect a trolley from the entrance to the supermarket I’ve driven out to in Hollingbury. I’ve come here for two reasons. One, to make sure I don’t feel guilty about the row I had with Sol earlier and, two, to make sure I see as few people I know from the gates as possible. Two has already gone down in flames – from pulling into the car park and entering the supermarket, I have seen six different people whose children go to Plummer Prep. Some have smiled vaguely at me, others have registered my face but have stared straight through me.

  The main reason for me being here – the row – I am still so angry about I’m sure rage is shimmering around me. Sol rang to ask me to pick up his dry cleaning and would I mind finding his passport and starting on his packing because he’d run out of time to do it before he had to leave for his business trip. When I pointed out that I had no clue he was going away, and that, more importantly, he was meant to be picking up Harmony like he’d promised her he would and driving her to a hockey match because she’d finally been chosen for the team, he treated me to a long silence that revealed he had forgotten. Someone had obviously asked him to go away last-minute and he had said yes, without even bothering to tell me as a courtesy. If he had mentioned it, I would have reminded him about Harmony’s first hockey game he had made a big deal of going to with her because he used to play hockey at school. After the silence, he suggested she get the school bus with everyone else, as she had been going to do until he’d insisted on driving her there and back to make the game special. When I pointed out the crushing disappointment she would feel, he asked me to kindly stop trying to make him feel guilty and would I pack his navy blue suit which was at the dry cleaners. ‘Go love yourself, Sol,’ I told him and hung up.

  What I hadn’t wanted to do in the aftermath of the row was feel so guilty that, in the interests of peacekeeping, I would look for his passport and start his packing, so I got in my car and drove over here.

  I’m going to have to take the boys with me tonight to watch her play. They’ll be thrilled that after a day at school, they’ll be standing on the sidelines of a cold hockey pitch watching their sister play. Not. Oscar hates the cold and Ore’s asthma flares up. If I was in London, I could call my mum. Before I saw Gareth, I would have asked Hazel, Anaya or Maxie, but now he’s planted the seed of their potential dangerousness in my mind, I can’t really risk the boys being with any of them without me.

  I push my trolley towards the dried goods aisle and as I turn in, I spot that woman – Teri Haligan – who took over Yvonne Whidmore’s role as class coordinator. She stands at the end of the aisle, a vision in pink Lycra and white trainers and a pink-and-white zip-up top. She is talking to Trevor Whidmore. Teri holds her shopping basket – with its ‘all natural’ cereal bar and bottle of fizzy water – like a picnic hamper, while Trevor Whidmore has a sandwich, crisps, juice and a bar of chocolate in his basket. Teri is simpering at him, her eyes fluttering, her head tipped at an angle that is sympathetic and ‘kiss me’ at the same time. He has a certain amount of affection on his face, but when she places a hand on his chest, he steps backwards. There’s a pattern being formed there. Or has it already been formed? Is there something about them both being out here at the same time, a way of hiding in plain sight? Whatever, I need to move away to contemplate this because any second, one of them is going to feel the weight of my gaze and then they will look up and I will become embroiled in a fake, nicey-nice conversation I can do without. I step backwards, pulling my trolley with me, and turn to go back the way I have come and—

  ‘Oh, hello, Mrs Solarin. Fancy seeing you here,’ Mrs Carpenter says.

  ‘Hello,’ I manage to squeak. I’m immediately tense; scared that she’s going to tell me off because no matter how old I get, I still always think headteachers are going to tell me off.

  There is a posh party going on in her trolley: several bottles of prosecco; platters of olives, cubed cheese, circles of cured meats; and big packets of organic crisps. Party shopping in the middle of the school day? I’m not sure I approve. Shouldn’t she be at school, overseeing the general day-to-day running of the place?

  ‘I’m so glad I ran into you,’ she says. While she speaks, she positions herself in front of the trolley to obscure it from me. She doesn’t want me telling people about her party shopping on school time. ‘I’ve been meaning to contact you to sound you out about you maybe joining the Parents’ Council. I know it can be daunting coming to a new school as well as moving to a new area, so I thought you might like to join the PC to meet people?’

  ‘Me?’ I shake my head. ‘No. Thank you, but no. It’s not my kind of thing at all.’

  She flicks her red-brown hair and tips her head to one side as she looks at me. She’s not that much older than me, but she has the lined skin of someone who likes foreign holidays, and the body of someone who likes to indulge in the things in her trolley. ‘Mrs Solarin, I’ll be honest with you: we could u
se someone like you on the Parents’ Council. Fresh blood, different outlook. People can become jaded and it’s always important for us to freshen things up.’

  Really? I think. The head of the PC is lying in a coma and you think it’s appropriate to be trying to freshen things up?

  ‘Let me be even more honest with you. Mr Whidmore confided in me that you helped him out recently. You went over one night to watch his children while he went to work? Even though you hardly knew him? He was so overcome with the generosity of this gesture. As were the other members of the school leadership team when I told them. We all agreed that you showed the true spirit of Plummer Prep and we would like to have you as part of our team.’

  Inside I raise another eyebrow. Did she say that to him? That my helping him out was my audition to become part of his comatose wife’s group? Really?

  ‘I told him not to tell anyone about that,’ I say. ‘Everyone will be wanting me to take care of their kids if word leaks out.’

  She looks stricken. ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realise. We were meeting about—’

  ‘I’m joking, I’m joking,’ I tell her. I didn’t realise she has no sense of humour. The first time I met her she was quite jolly, relaxed. So this must be another overshadowing from what happened on her school premises.

  ‘Oh, I see.’ She offers me a smile. ‘I’m sorry, everything that has happened has been so difficult for all of us, as I’m sure you can imagine. That is why we’re trying to expand our family, draw people in and hold them close. If you understand what I mean?’

  I nod. I don’t fully understand what she means – how can I when I’ve never been in that situation? But I do understand that need to cling on to things at certain points in your life, to embrace the new and try to make it familiar and part of your world as a panacea for all the other crap you can’t do anything about. ‘I’ll think about it,’ I say gently.

  ‘Oh, thank you, Mrs Solarin. I can’t wait to tell the other members of the Parents’ Council and the Senior Management Team that you’ll be on board. It will be such a boost for the school’s morale to see that the new parents are keen to become part of the school, because you know this was a one-off incident. Thank you, Mrs Solarin. You have made my day that bit brighter.’

  Hang on, I didn’t actually say that, I go to tell her, but she is off down the aisle, virtually whistling with happiness before I can utter another word. I’ve so been played.

  WEDNESDAY

  Cece

  4:15 p.m. I really should not be here.

  Places like this, events like this, are created and held for parents with better temperaments than I. I stand on the sidelines between the two pitches behind the school, wearing the mums’ uniform of padded black knee-length coat, hood up against the drizzle, hands in pockets against the cold, boots up to your knees fighting the mud while I watch my boys play football. When the other school Oscar and Ore are playing climbed out of their minibuses and walked down the path to the fields on the far side of the school, I gulped. They are huge. Overgrown beings masquerading as children, bred to win at all costs. Most of them seem a full head taller than most of the boys in Ore and Oscar’s classes, and certainly a width bigger than my two boys.

  They played matches in their London school, of course, but they seemed fewer and further between. And, most importantly, I wasn’t there for them. I wasn’t able to get away from work so I rarely – if ever – saw the other side striding out, looking like they didn’t know the meaning of the word ‘friendly’.

  This by-product of working – not seeing my offspring go up against bigger children – is something I will be eternally grateful for. It’s got me this far, relatively emotionally unscathed. These things, these ‘matches’ – friendly or otherwise – are for mothers who know how to restrain themselves; who can watch their youngest child perform a slide tackle and not flinch; who can see their middle child stand in goal, ready to face a penalty, and not scream when the ball misses his face by millimetres. (It was bad enough on Monday watching Harmony and she looked the same size as most of the children on the hockey pitch.)

  I should not be here, it is not good for me. I doubt it’s good for the boys, either. They do not need to see every facet of my neurosis about my children being hurt played out on this muddy field. They need to be able to throw themselves – quite literally sometimes – into the games without worrying about me storming in there and snatching them away to somewhere safe.

  ‘First time?’ Maxie says.

  ‘How do you mean?’ I reply. I can’t look at her, I can’t take my eyes off the boys. I’m standing facing the whitewashed cricket pavilion while most parents are facing one field or the other. I have to face the pavilion so I can keep an eye on both matches on both fields at the same time.

  ‘You should see the trauma on your face,’ she jokes. ‘You look how I feel about Frankie playing. I’ve mostly got used to it now.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘I don’t come to the matches very often. His dad does, if he’s around. He can watch without worry. Me, not so much. He’s away tonight so I’ve forced myself to come. It’s not so bad but don’t get me started on rugby.’

  My eyes widen and whip round to look at her. ‘Rugby?’ I whisper, triggered into my idea of neurotic parent hell with that word. I’d actually ignored that whole section of the uniform list.

  ‘GOAL!’ the shout goes up, the ref’s whistle pierces the air and I turn to see Ore with his hands in the air, running around as fast as his mud-caked legs will carry him, while his teammates try to hug him. I clap and shout, with the R-word ringing in my ears.

  ‘Sorry,’ Maxie says. ‘Didn’t mean to make you miss the goal.’

  ‘No, don’t worry, probably for the best I didn’t see. I’m sure he’ll be replaying and repeating it for me many times in the coming weeks.’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  We stumble into silence. Uncomfortable and awkward, when it’s never been like that between us. She’s struggling with something, I think. She wants to say something but won’t. She’s not like Anaya, who has to plan to do it; she’s not like Hazel, who will accidentally do it. She is on the verge, but won’t. ‘Haven’t seen you around much, Maxie,’ I say to break the tension. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Yeah, course. Just busy. Busy, busy.’

  Abandoning the pavilion, I rotate slowly in the sideline mud to stare at her. ‘Really?’

  She nods. ‘No.’

  I move towards the cricket pavilion. It’s especially muddy there, Mrs Carpenter explained, because the cricket pitch is unusable except in the driest months. I walk towards there because there are no parents along this area, no one is wearing the type of boots that will withstand those pigsty-like conditions. Maxie follows me. Even then, away from people who don’t want to stand right by a mudslide, I lower my voice: ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘I stole a baby,’ she says to me. Just like that. She doesn’t even particularly lower her voice, but I know it’s masked by shouts from the matches, dissolved in the light drizzle, whisked away on the wind.

  ‘What?’ I say with a half laugh. I wait, for her to cuff my shoulder, grin, or double up in laughter at my face.

  ‘You heard me.’

  I stare at her. I thought she’d wait a bit longer to reveal her secret, that she’d think about it and then talk about it. I didn’t expect this blurted-out confession.

  Her eyes are penetrating my face, probing my mind to see what my reaction is, what I’m thinking, what I’ll say. Over her shoulder I watch Frankie, Ore and Oscar’s best friend, shout to Oscar and the other defenders to get into the goal, while he goes in for a tackle. My older brother used to talk (obsessively) about Pelé, the legendary football player. My brother spent years trying to recreate Pelé’s overhead kick, attempting to throw himself just right so he could connect with the ball and slam it into the goal. He managed it once – after years of practice. I watch Frankie Smith throw himself up and backwards, bring his right leg up
in a perfect arc to connect his foot with the ball as it comes his way and then kick the ball so hard it whizzes straight past the other team’s giant of a goalkeeper.

  ‘GOAL!’ roars everyone on the sidelines for Oscar’s match. ‘GOAL, GOAL, GOAL!’ The shouts get louder; the referee’s whistle strikes the air.

  Maxie continues to watch me.

  ‘Frankie?’ I eventually say.

  She nods.

  This is what Gareth meant: to him, an expert people-reader, she would have been a mass of contradictions. Plain speaker, gregarious, presents as openly honest, but beneath the surface something else lurks, something you can’t put your finger on to suss out. Who would guess that this would be it?

  ‘Are you really shocked?’ she asks.

  I offer her a dry laugh in return, watch Oscar throw his arms around his muddy friend while Frankie rubs his knuckles along Oscar’s forehead, leaving a streak of wet earth. ‘Yeah, I’m shocked.’ I nod. ‘I’m properly shocked. I don’t think anything has ever shocked me this much. Who else knows?’

  ‘You. Me. Ed.’ She inhales. Then exhales: ‘Yvonne.’

  Knowing Yvonne … I look over Maxie again: she’s slightly younger than me, but she is beautiful. Really quite striking. I noticed that at the beach hut when Oscar first pointed out Frankie; she is someone who stands out in a crowd. She said that to me once, that I was so beautiful I stood out in a crowd. I was incredibly flattered. Apart from my husband, no one I know who is beautiful has called me beautiful before. Knowing Yvonne …

  She nods at me. Yes. Nod, nod. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘In case you’re wondering, yes, I did try to kill Yvonne that night.’

  Maxie

  8:25 p.m. Cece picked the pub right around the corner from her house. She insisted that I bring Frankie over for tea, for a bath, and to sleep over because Ed is away. ‘Are you sure, sure, sure you’ll be all right?’ she asked her older daughter, Harmony, before we left for the pub.