My Best Friend's Girl

by Dorothy Koomson

  I shook my head, trying to dislodge the thought, trying to remove the very idea from my mind. My eyes flew back to the picture. From that smiling snapshot, Tegan’s nose was a dead giveaway. She was Nate’s child.

  Everything fell into place, like the final pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. The pieces had been there all along, of course, I simply hadn’t seen them. Hadn’t seen the bigger picture until that moment. Now I knew why Tegan looked so familiar. It wasn’t because she was her mother’s double, which she was in most ways, it was because she had the same ski-slope nose as her father, the shape of his large eyes, his sardonic twist of the lip. I’d seen those features all along, but my mind hadn’t made the connection.

  I’d asked Del who the father was when she first found out she was pregnant. She’d tearfully told me that it’d been an accident, that he wasn’t around, that he was a married man she’d met through work.

  “Bastard,” I’d hissed.

  “No,” she’d replied. “He didn’t mean for it to happen. Neither did I, it was an accident. No one’s to blame.”

  Every conversation we’d had about the father of her baby whizzed through my head: every time she said he wasn’t capable of loving her, let alone a child; how she’d repeated that it was a mistake—the best thing that had happened to her, but still a mistake; all those hours she’d declared she didn’t need the father messing her life up. And there was me, the surrogate father. The one who went to antenatal classes, who’d been in the delivery room almost gagging at what I saw, who helped out as much as I could—all the while encouraging her to tell the daddy because it was morally right, that even if she didn’t want him to know, he had a right. He had to earn his bastard stripes by rejecting her and the child. And, I often said, Tegan might want to know. “What are you going to tell her then? That you didn’t want him to know he’s a father so she wasn’t allowed to have a dad?”

  She’d replied, “I’ll worry about that when I have to.”

  Now she had to.

  I was a prize idiot. A big fat festering idiot who’d been lecturing her, pushing her to tell the love of my life that he’d knocked her up.

  I launched myself off the sofa but once on my feet I found I was almost doubled up from the searing pain in my stomach. I was still winded by the shock. My face creased up as it all hit me full force.

  Nate had a child. Nate had fathered my best friend’s child.

  I started to gather up my things: the damp bra I’d taken off; my belt that I’d discarded because it was cutting into my stomach; the notebook with the list of wedding guests; the map of the tables; the colored pens. I fumbled around for them, shoving them into my bag, running a hand through my black hair to neaten it. I spotted my socks slung on the floor beside the other sofa but I wasn’t going near her so I shoved my bare feet into my trainers.

  With shaking hands I pulled the wet top I’d taken off earlier over the white T-shirt. Then remembered the T-shirt was hers. My lying, cheating friend’s. I ripped the top off, pulled off the T-shirt and threw it on the ground, then tugged on my damp top over my braless body.

  “Kam, let’s talk about this,” she pleaded. “Please, Kam, let’s talk.”

  It was a halfhearted plea. I wasn’t a talker when I was upset. I was the ignore-it-in-the-hope-it’ll-go-away type. Besides, what was there to talk about? How good my fiancé was in bed? What marks out of ten we’d both give him? Ask if he knew Tegan was his daughter and was he still going to marry me? He’d done this awful thing but was planning to say “I do” in two months’ time. In eight weeks—eight weeks—he was going to stand up in front of everyone we knew and declare that he loved me; that he was going to forsake all others. Except he wasn’t, was he? He certainly hadn’t in the past so why would he in the future?

  “He doesn’t know about Tegan,” Del said. Her voice was strong, clear, determined. When it came to Tegan, she wasn’t going to mess about. Especially not with this. “I don’t want him to know,” she continued. “I don’t want to upset Tegan’s life. Whatever else you do, don’t ruin Tegan’s life. It’s not her fault.”

  I wish I had it in me to call her names. To slap her face and pull out her hair. The best I could do was to walk out.

  And never go back.

  chapter 5

  I’m here to see Tiga,” I said to the woman who answered the door to the five-bedroom detached house a fifteen-minute taxi ride from the center of Guildford.

  She looked at me blankly and then I remembered I was the only person on earth who called Tegan “Tiga.” “I mean, I’m here to see Tegan.”

  A spark of recognition ignited in Muriel’s eyes. She was Del’s stepmother. A slight, fragile woman whose graying hair had been set on big rollers and hairsprayed to within an inch of snapping. Even in this heat, at the height of summer, she wore a green cardigan twinset, a brown tweed skirt, and creamy pearls at her wrinkled throat. She seemed so respectable, normal. However, I knew that pure evil pulsed through this woman’s veins.

  Del had shown me what this woman was capable of. I’d seen the silvery welts on Del’s thighs from where her stepmother had stubbed out cigarettes on her. The little finger on her left hand that hadn’t grown straight after this woman had wrenched it out of its socket. The scar under her hairline where Muriel had thrown a glass at her.

  “I’m Kamryn. Tegan’s godmother?” I said, flattening out my voice to hide my hatred. “Lucinda-Jayne’s friend?” Del had dropped “Lucinda-Jayne” the second she got to college in favor of her middle name, Adele. When we graduated from college she changed her surname to Brannon, her mother’s maiden name. To the people who met her after Leeds she was Adele Brannon. We’d had a big celebration when she finally changed her name by deed poll. But her father still called her Lucinda-Jayne and she wouldn’t dream of correcting him.

  More recognition blossomed in Muriel’s eyes, although it should have been an inferno of recognition by now—I was the only one of Del’s friends she’d met over the years. Del wasn’t exactly rushing back to the bosom of her family at every opportunity so she took only one person back home with her—me.

  “Yes, I remember who you are.” A slur streaked Muriel’s voice. Was it sherry, wine or gin and tonic she’d been spending time with today? They’d been her constant companions when we’d met years ago. Obviously nothing had changed.

  “So, can I see Tegan?” I asked, when it became clear she wasn’t about to say anything else.

  “She’s not available right now,” she replied.

  “She’s out?”

  “No. She’s not receiving visitors.”

  “A five-year-old isn’t receiving visitors?” I replied, irritated and incredulous in equal measures. “Somehow, I can’t imagine her saying, ‘If anyone calls, tell them I shall be out.’”

  Muriel sneered down her nose as if I was something smelly and disgusting she’d trodden in. “The little madam is being punished,” she said contemptuously, “if it’s any business of yours.”

  “It is my business.” Every one of my words was carefully modulated to prevent me screaming. “I’m her godmother. I’ve been asked to look after her if anything happens to her mother.”

  “You will have to call another time because, as I explained, she is being punished.”

  The woman moved to shut the door, and all the rage, the hatred and anger simmering inside erupted. I lunged forward, every muscle in my body tensed as the palm of my hand slapped against the blue door and held it open. “Punished for what?” I said.

  Having jumped slightly at my advance, Muriel glanced away.

  “Punished for what?” I asked, a snarling edge to my voice.

  Muriel said nothing.

  “I’d like to see her.”

  “She isn’t allowed to see anyone.”

  “I’m not leaving until I see her.”

  She lowered her voice. “I can’t let you in. You don’t know what Ronald will do to me if I let you see her.”

  “You obviously don’t know wh
at I’ll do to you if you don’t,” I said in a tone that was menacing and scary, even to me. I was certain I’d heard that line in a movie but it was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. Traveling two hundred miles in a day, seeing my friend on the verge of death, now coming back to this place where Del had suffered so much…All of this had shaped my mood.

  Muriel’s body relaxed in resignation as she let go of the door, turned and headed up the large staircase, muttering just loud enough, “It’s not even as if we want her here.”

  I let out a deep, silent breath of relief—what if she’d made me stand up to her for real? Best not to think about it.

  The house hadn’t changed much from eight years ago when Del and I had made a flying visit to get the rest of the clothes and books she had left here. The trip had been an excuse. She’d lived without those things for years, why decide she desperately needed them now? I guessed that Del had returned to make peace with her father, to reach out to him one last time. He’d been ultrapolite because she’d had a guest with her but also excessively dismissive. It was one of the most chilling things I’d ever seen (and the second I was alone later, I called my parents for a quick chat). When we climbed into the back of the taxi, Del didn’t have to tell me she intended never to return there, I knew it. She’d done her best to reconnect with her family and now she had to leave it.

  The same cream carpet I remembered lined the floors, the same magnolia paint covered the walls, the same depressing pictures of country scenes hung on those magnolia walls. The atmosphere was the only thing that was different—it had stagnated. Had become decrepit, barren, lifeless.

  Muriel stopped outside a white paneled door. There was a key in the lock, which she reached for. Her liver-spotted hand paused at the key before she turned it. They’d locked Tegan in? THEY’D LOCKED HER IN? Where did they think a child who wasn’t tall enough to reach the front door handle would go if she left her room?

  Tegan’s room was twice the size of my living room. The walls were magnolia too but in here the carpet was royal blue. Two of the walls were lined with white bookcases and on each shelf sat dolls, play bricks, cuddly toys, teddies and books. None of them looked as if they’d been touched or played with; they were ornaments, perfect, untouchable relics of that thing called childhood. The neatly made single bed sat beside a large window that overlooked the wide expanse of garden.

  Despite the brightly colored children’s belongings, the room was cold and uninviting. At the center of the room was a small red plastic table and a yellow plastic chair, and at the table sat Tegan.

  Even from a distance I could see everything was wrong. She sat stock-still on her chair, her small body rigid with fear. Her pale blond hair hung around her face in dirty, unwashed clumps, her pink top was grubby and creased. And her eyes were fixed on the plate of food in front of her.

  Shock punched me a fraction below my solar plexus. The last time I saw Tegan she’d been staring at me with big, enraptured eyes as I read her a story. She had been a child that took nothing sitting down, lying down or standing still. Everything was full-on where she was concerned. She was always wanting to run or play or read or laugh or to get someone in a hug.

  “Tiga,” I whispered. I moved slowly across the room toward her. “Tiga, it’s Auntie Kamryn, do you remember me?” I bobbed down beside her and looked at her as I waited for her to reply.

  A few seconds passed before she nodded. Nodded but kept her eyes forward, fixed on her plate. The plate was loaded with gray boiled potatoes, dried and shriveled peas and a desiccated pork chop covered in a skin of white mold. The smell of the rotting meal assaulted my nostrils and I drew back, half retching.

  “So you do remember Auntie Kamryn?” I said, fighting the gagging in my throat.

  Tegan nodded again.

  “That’s brilliant. And did Mummy tell you that you might come and stay with Auntie Kamryn for a little while?”

  Tegan nodded.

  “How do you feel about that?”

  She raised her shoulders and lowered them. Then a tiny, hoarse voice said, “Don’t know.”

  I slowly reached out to tuck a lock of her unwashed hair behind her right ear so I could see her face but before I made contact she flinched away from me, her hands flying up as though to protect herself from an attack.

  I recoiled too, my heart racing with fear and horror. She thought I might hurt her. This small, frail creature thought I might hurt her. I stared at her and felt my heartbeat increase. Then I noticed her right hand—three red lines were streaked across its swollen palm. Around her right wrist were blue-black-purple bruises that looked like large handprints, as though someone had held her hand open as they whacked her with a cane.

  It was those red lines marking her young skin that did it. Inside, I snapped. I wasn’t even remotely close to screaming, lashing out or overturning furniture, though. I was angry. Completely, totally angry. It spilled through me until it dampened every other emotion and I felt nothing else.

  I suddenly knew what I had to do.

  I clambered to my feet and Tegan relaxed from her cringe. I marched across the room to the white wardrobe and the white chest of drawers beside it. I yanked open the top drawer, checked inside. It was filled with neatly folded tops. I grabbed a handful of tops and then slammed the drawer shut, opened another drawer, gathered another bundle of clothes. I yanked open the third drawer and took the vests and pants in there.

  “What are you doing?” Muriel shrieked.

  I ignored her. My arms were filled with brightly colored clothes. I went to my holdall, wrenched back the zip and shoved everything inside.

  “You can’t do this!” Muriel screamed at me as I opened the wardrobe doors.

  “Clearly I can do this,” I said, as I reached for a couple of coats and some shoes, “because I am doing it.”

  “I’ll call the police,” she threatened.

  My head whipped round to glare at her. “Be my guest. I’d love to hear you explain why Tegan hasn’t been washed in days, why she’s sat in front of rotting food and how she got the marks on her hand. Actually, hang on, I’ll call the police myself.” I chucked Tegan’s clothes in the general direction of my holdall, reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my mobile. “What’s the number again? Oh yes.” I punched keys on the phone. “Do you want to press ‘call’ or shall I?”

  “Take her, we’ll be glad to see the back of her,” Muriel spat before turning on her heels and storming out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  When the door shut behind her I waited a second to see if she was going to lock it, meaning I would have to call the police to get us out of there, but no, she just shut the door. I turned back to Tegan. Her face, with its tearstained cheeks, ski-slope nose and pouty lips, was turned up to me. Her royal blue eyes, ringed with red, stared at me as though she thought I was insane.

  I went to her, bobbed down beside her. I didn’t get too close for fear of scaring her again. “Do you have a favorite toy?” I asked her.

  She nodded suspiciously.

  “OK, go get it and anything else that you love and bring it to me.”

  Her eyes widened in alarm.

  “We’re going away,” I explained. “You’re going to come and stay with Auntie Kamryn.”

  Tegan, although clearly tempted by the idea of getting out of there, was nobody’s fool and continued to regard me suspiciously. We didn’t have time for this. For all I knew Muriel was calling her husband. He could be on the way back. This was his house, his home ground so he’d have the advantage. And I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t become violent.

  “Come on, Tiga, get your stuff and we can go see your mummy tomorrow.”

  “Mummy?” Her pale face brightened. “Mummy?”

  “Yes, Mummy.”

  Her chair didn’t make a sound on the deep-pile carpet as she pushed it back and stood up. She went to her bed, got down on the floor and from under it she pulled a multicolored rucksack. She held the rucksa
ck out to me. I grinned at her and she smiled back at me. This kid and I were singing from the same songbook at last.

  Time passed. I don’t know how much but by the end of its passing, I was standing on the corner of a street in a town I didn’t know very well, a child in my arms and half a dozen bags—including my holdall, her rucksack and four carrier bags—at my feet. I didn’t have a clue where I—no, we—were going. I didn’t have any cab numbers, didn’t know where the nearest bus stop was.

  “Do you know what today is?” I asked Tegan.

  She looked into my eyes, as though nothing I said would surprise her, then she shook her head.

  “It’s my birthday.” It was too. Although this morning seemed a million years ago, it was still my birthday.

  She nodded and managed a small, confused smile. “Happy birthday,” she whispered, then rested her tired head on my shoulder.

  “Thanks,” I replied.

  It’s also the day I’m going to be arrested for kidnapping.

  chapter 6

  Light, the color of twice-used bathwater, strained through the gaps in the beige curtains, trying to brighten my hotel room.

  The coffee I held in my hands had cooled to a freezing black sludge, my body was stiff from sitting in the same position for hours and my eyes ached as I stared at the world that was coming alive outside. I could hear the birds tuning up for their dawn chorus, buses chugging along noisily, cars speeding by, plus the occasional police siren. I’d stopped thinking those police sirens were coming for me a couple of hours ago but my mind was still racing at 100 mph—it had been for most of the night.

  Eight hours earlier, I’d checked us into a hotel that was within walking distance of St. Jude’s Hospital. The room was sparse and small, but it had a double bed, a small cot bed for Tegan and a television—everything we needed.

  As the door closed behind us, I walked over to the cot; Tegan was like an anvil in my arms, my biceps, elbows and forearms were frozen in pain because I’d been holding her for so long. The second we’d got in the back of the taxi that would bring us into central London, Tegan had climbed into my lap, wrapped her arms as far around my torso as they would go, rested her face against my chest and fallen asleep. The whole sixty-minute drive into town I’d had to restrain myself from breathing too deeply or shifting about in case I jostled her awake, although it had to be said she was doing a pretty good impression of being deeply ensconced in dreamland. She hadn’t stirred when I’d shuffled and contorted my way out of the taxi, nor when I talked the receptionist through the registration form, nor when we came up in the elevator to our room. She was likely to be out for the count all night.