The Friend Read online

  I’d laughed. ‘I trust people,’ I’d told her. ‘I take them at face value until they prove otherwise.’

  ‘Yes, I do that too. But only for people I don’t want to be friends with. I liked you so much the first time I met you that I had to find out if you had the potential to be a psycho killer or stalker before I saw you again.’

  ‘You,’ I’d said with a laugh. ‘You’re so lucky you’re otherwise nice, because you could seriously piss someone off.’

  Yvonne clearly wanted to be Anaya’s friend with the amount of research she had done on her.

  ‘Although you have clearly looked me up on the internet, Yvonne, you actually don’t know me at all if you think that. No, I’m sorry, I’m not going to join the Parents’ Council.’

  Yvonne was nothing if not perceptive, and with the look Anaya was giving her, she knew being somewhere else was a good idea. She moved away to try to engage other people in conversation.

  ‘You should take that as a compliment, you know,’ I told Anaya quietly. I felt bad for Yvonne, who didn’t understand that researching someone was one thing, but repeating what she found out was another. I also felt bad for Anaya, who probably thought Yvonne had been gossiping about her. ‘I know it might not seem like it, but it’s only cos she likes you.’

  Anaya raised a sceptical, unconvinced eyebrow at me.

  ‘Honestly, Yvonne only ever researches people she wants to be friends with.’ I swung my gaze around the other people who were arriving to pick up their children. ‘I bet very few of these plebs even got so much as her logging on to the web on her phone, let alone spending time doing extra reading about them.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ was Anaya’s reply.

  ‘Well, cheers for that,’ Maxie said. ‘It’s always nice to be reminded that I’m so incredibly dull that someone won’t even bother to type my name into a search engine.’

  I couldn’t tell if she was genuinely offended or not. ‘No, no, come on now, Maxie. Did you tell her you were a copywriter?’ I said quickly.

  ‘I did not,’ she replied.

  ‘Well, there you are then. Research. Proper, proper research.’

  ‘Yeah, well, good luck with that, Yvonne and anyone who wants to do searches on me – my surname is Smith, there are billions of us,’ Maxie replied with an amused giggle. ‘I’m surprised she even found out I was a copywriter.’

  ‘And I’ve changed my name a million times,’ Anaya added, giggling too.

  ‘And you might as well call me an international woman of misery,’ I said.

  ‘I think you mean “mystery”,’ Anaya corrected.

  ‘Oh no, I’ve seen her first thing in the morning, she definitely means “misery”,’ Maxie helpfully supplied.

  ‘Rudeness!’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Truthness!’ they both replied. And all three of us cracked up laughing. Calvin sat on my hip, unimpressed – or rather, uninterested in what we were doing. This was the first time I’d laughed with adults in a long time. At the events I went to with Walter, they always seemed to be laughing at an in-joke someone had told five minutes before we arrived, even if we’d been there for hours. I would laugh and pretend I understood why they were laughing, feeling like a fraud all the while. I laughed with the children at their TV shows, at their back-to-front jokes. And Yvonne, my only real friend from recent times, wasn’t the type of person who I laughed and joked with. She was serious, and she was fun, but we didn’t do silly laughing. I enjoyed it so much, standing at the school gates with Maxie and Anaya laughing and laughing just for the sake of it. We didn’t know each other, we were all doing this for the first time, and we found the same things funny.

  ‘Coffee, tomorrow?’ Maxie said. ‘Down at that Milk ’n’ Cookees?’

  ‘Yes, sure,’ Anaya replied.

  ‘Count me in as long as you don’t mind me bringing this one with me,’ I said.

  ‘No problem at all,’ Maxie replied.

  ‘Shall I invite Yvonne?’ I asked. ‘She really is a sweetheart and she has a heart of gold.’

  They both looked in her direction. ‘Not tomorrow,’ Anaya said. ‘I think I need a little distance right now. Next time, for sure.’

  ‘All right, next time.’

  5:10 a.m. My mobile buzzed.

  Maybe. Let me think about it. A xxx

  November, 2012

  ‘Isn’t this exciting? The first meeting of the official Wednesday Morning Coffee Club,’ Yvonne said to us. She was very close to clapping her hands in excitement.

  ‘Don’t be trying to Parents’ Council this, Vonny,’ Maxie said. ‘This is just four friends having a coffee and a chat. And besides, this is like the third time, so I don’t know what you’re on about.’ The second she said it, I could see Maxie knew the mistake she’d made.

  Yvonne looked at me first, trying to find out if this was right – we’d met up twice before I’d officially asked her along. When she’d taken in my look of horror, she looked at Anaya, then finally at Maxie the Mouth (as I had decided to rename her). ‘You’ve met before?’ Yvonne asked in a quiet, hurt voice.

  ‘It wasn’t like that, Yvonne,’ Maxie said. ‘We just kind of ended up here at the same time.’

  Yvonne, in response, glanced at me again.

  ‘And that’s why we asked you this time,’ Anaya said quickly. She knew my guilt-soaked face would give the game away. ‘We knew it wasn’t as much fun because you weren’t with us.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Maxie said. ‘And we were talking about meeting when we all had a bit more time, like in the evenings, and inviting you.’

  Maxie was lying, but she – all of us – could see Yvonne was hurt and Maxie wanted to make up for running her mouth off.

  ‘Yeah,’ Anaya said. ‘I was trying to convince these two that they should come over one evening and I’ll get a yoga tutor over and we can all throw a few yoga moves.’

  ‘You can imagine how well that went down,’ Maxie said. ‘But Hazel here then said out of all of us you were the one who would look best in yoga gear. Even better than gym bunny here.’ She nodded towards Anaya. ‘You can imagine how well that went down.’

  Anaya eyed Maxie distastefully. ‘Then the idea of making cocktails was floated,’ Anaya said. She bobbed her head towards Maxie. ‘Guess who suggested that?’

  ‘And then we were discussing …’ Maxie ran out of steam. We weren’t good enough friends or even long enough acquaintances to keep up the pretence.

  ‘Knitting,’ I said. ‘That was what I was going to suggest last time before we all had to dash off because we weren’t here for very long.’

  ‘Knitting?’ Anaya and Maxie repeated at the same time. They both looked as though I was suggesting wrestling with crocodiles.

  ‘Yes,’ I said firmly, decisively. ‘Knitting.’

  ‘I don’t knit,’ Anaya stated.

  ‘Neither do I,’ Maxie added.

  ‘You do, don’t you, Yvonne?’ I said to her.

  She smiled at me, and her body, which had visibly clenched when she’d found out we’d met without her, finally loosened up. ‘I do. I’m a champion knitter.’

  ‘As am I,’ I said. ‘So, it’s settled then, two against two. Knitting it is. We meet up once a week to knit.’

  ‘Bollocks do we,’ Maxie said.

  ‘I think that’s a brilliant idea,’ Yvonne said.

  ‘I’m not spending whatever free time I have learning to knit,’ Maxie protested.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ Yvonne said. ‘Of course you are. It will be fun. We get knitting needles, we get wool and we meet up at Hazel’s for knitting fun.’

  ‘Erm, probably not the best idea,’ I said. ‘If I’m doing something, I need to be far, far away from where the kids are because even if Walter is there, I’ll spend the night going up and down to them.’

  ‘Same,’ Anaya said. ‘If I’m there, they only want Mama.’

  ‘Same,’ Maxie said.

  ‘Same,’ Yvonne admitted.

  Eventually, Maxie sighed and ey
ed us up as though she was about to induct us into a secret society, one that we could only leave on pain of death. She licked her lips and sighed again, this time resigned to her fate. ‘All right, the weather’s not too bad at the moment so maybe we can go knitting at my beach hut.’

  ‘You have a beach hut?’ Yvonne said. ‘I’ve always wanted a beach hut. Trevor will not hear of it because we technically live within walking distance of the beach. I am so jealous you have one.’

  ‘Yeah, well. If we must knit, at least we can do it on the seafront.’

  ‘This is going to be perfect,’ Yvonne said. ‘I’ve always wanted to spend time in a beach hut.’

  ‘Me too,’ Anaya admitted.

  ‘Right, so next Friday?’ Yvonne suggested. ‘I’ll bring nibbles, a couple of bottles of champagne?’

  She looked at each of us in turn, happy and excited. Her excitement was infectious, something that enveloped us all.

  ‘Ah, knitting-smitting,’ Anaya said. ‘At this stage, I’m just in it to see what amazing nibbles Yvonne’s going to conjure up.’

  ‘Me too,’ Maxie said. ‘They’d better be good, Vonny. None of that shop-bought muck – I want your hard work to be a vital ingredient.’

  Yvonne grinned her twisty-lipped smile. ‘Trust me, ladies,’ she said. ‘Just trust me.’

  8:30 a.m. When I enter Milk ’n’ Cookees, they’re both already sitting there, in our favourite table that’s nearest the booths by the window. There are four spaces, and I take up mine, the one with my back to the window. The fourth one sits empty but heavily occupied. We stare at each other, all of us a little surprised that we have turned up like it is any other Wednesday.

  ‘Coffee?’ Maxie eventually says.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Flat white.’

  ‘Espresso, please,’ Anaya says.

  ‘Cool.’ Maxie gets up, her purse in her hand. ‘I’m going to resist the cake today. I honestly am.’

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Anaya replies. ‘While you’re resisting it, please get me a piece.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I add, ‘I’ll have a slice of all that resistance, too.’

  ‘I am,’ Maxie says indignantly. And with that, we all know that we’re going to try to get back to who we were, how we were with each other, even with that spare seat at our table.

  Part 2

  THURSDAY

  Cece

  8:55 a.m. The nearest café to the school is called Milk ’n’ Cookees. It’s a large space with orange padded booths lining the area underneath the large picture window; the main space has silver, mottle-topped tables and silver bucket chairs. The walls are the colour of buttermilk, the rubber-tiled floor is the colour of freshly baked vanilla biscuits. The glass display counter is a crowded cornucopia of sweet delights. I never say ‘cornucopia’, it’s not the sort of word I’ve ever had occasion to use, but today, seeing what is being paraded in front of my taste buds, there is no other word that would be suitable.

  I can almost taste the breakfast cookies in my mouth, melting and teasing and soothing away every single second of those moments this morning that saw me very nearly resorting to shouting at the boys to get them out of the house. After the first raised words, I gritted my teeth as I reminded Oscar for the third time he really would need to be wearing underpants to classify himself as ‘finished’ and ‘the winner even though Ore brushed his teeth first’; and I almost cracked those very same teeth clenching them to stop myself screaming at Ore for forgetting he was meant to be getting dressed – while he was getting dressed.

  The stress of it, of almost going back to being the shouty, frantic Cece I used to be every weekday morning, is spiralling in my stomach. Calm, I need to be calm. Everything is meant to be different now. I need to remember that being late won’t kill me or the boys. I need to keep in mind that this is all a work in progress, that I’m no longer the woman who needs to get everyone out of the house, drop them at school and then get myself to work by a certain time. This life is not only physically new, but also mentally. I need to change my mindset and that will take time.

  ‘What can I get you, Cookee?’ the Australian woman behind the counter asks. She has a smile that goes nowhere beyond the surface. Not that I blame her – I’m sure my smile would be merely functional if I had to call people ‘cookee’ all day.

  I order a milky coffee in a takeaway cup and wait for it to be made and handed over with an ‘enjoy your day, Cookee’. To the right of the counter a set of stairs leads down. The woman behind the counter shows no interest in me at all, so I go down the stairs, wondering how different it is underground. The stairs take a turn and I find myself in another comfy space, the walls lined with booths, the same type of chairs and tables as there are upstairs. The difference between upstairs and downstairs is the party atmosphere because it is almost full with people, or should that be … parents. I look at them, and I recognise more than a few from standing at the gates over the last few days. In the past four days, I’ve even nodded to a few as we wait on the pavement for our children to go into the building and come pouring out at the end of the day.

  Although the layout of the café isn’t conducive to sitting in a group, they manage it, the fifteen or so of them. They sit with coffees and toast and wraps and the opened wrappers of complimentary coffee biscuits in front of them, and chat like the old friends they are. One of the parents, who I’ve stood next to and whose child has left the building with Oscar, glances up and spots me. She smiles and lifts her hand in a brief wave. I smile back, lift my hand too. I should go and talk to her. Try to make friends. Things will be so much easier if I make friends. I gather every molecule of courage I have, and move to go over and say hello. Maybe she’ll tell me to pull up a chair, ask my name, introduce me to a few other mothers … Maybe I’ll be a part of them, even if it is for a few sips of coffee, but I can sit with the group I sort of belong to now, and I can try to fit in, continue to convince myself that Brighton is actually our home. I brighten up my smile, go to take a step towards the table – and her face clenches in horror at the thought of me speaking to her. She then quickly cuts eye contact and lowers her head. A couple of other people see the look on her face and turn to look at me, and do the same thing, offer a weak, vague smile, nod or raise a hand, then lower their heads in horror in case I want to join them. This causes a ripple effect amongst the group when others spot what those sitting next to or opposite them are doing.

  Is it me? Well, obviously it’s me, but what part of me? Is it ‘the new person’ that is me? A stranger they don’t want to take the time to get to know?

  Is it the way I look? Am I dressed too differently? Is my skin the wrong shade for them?

  Is it the timing of my arrival? Do they think I’ve followed them here, expecting to be allowed access to their group because I have stood next to them in the playground? Or are they having a super-serious discussion that they don’t want anyone – let alone a stranger – to hear?

  Whatever it is, it’s clearly something that means I can’t go over and say hello, ask their names, vaguely introduce myself. I plaster what I hope is a pleasant, unbothered smile on my face, and go back up the stairs.

  Of course, this was never a problem in London. In London I was always a drop’n’runner. I was also, on my picking-up days, an ‘arrive at the last minute/pushing the limits of the teachers’ patience’-er, who rarely saw other parents except at school events and performances. I could small-talk with those people because we’d all been new at the same time, we’d all watched our children change and grow, while we changed and grew into the different roles that being parents demanded of us.

  Everyone else in my family seems to have friends: after four days Ore and Oscar are always leaving the school talking intently to a different person; Harmony’s phone never stops pinging with messages from her new friends; and Sol clearly has friends after being here for three months. It’s only me who hasn’t had much luck. Yes, it’s only been four days, but I’d like someone to notice me and want to
be my friend.

  The bell of the café tings as I allow it to close behind me. My skin is burning with humiliation and rejection. Would it have killed even one of those people to smile and say hello? Obviously. Obviously.

  To spite them, I smile and say hello to every single person I pass on the road from the café to home. That’ll show them, I think as I push the key into my front door and the alarm starts to bleep. It takes nothing to be a friendly, decent human being. It takes nothing at all to welcome someone when they’re new, and vulnerable and unsure of their place in the world now they don’t have a job and they have hours to fill until they are with their children again.

  SATURDAY

  Hazel

  5:05 a.m. Another night of not brilliant sleep and I’m here in the kitchen again. My mobile, sitting on the counter beside the cooker, lights up.

  Have to go back to the beach hut today. Frankie has been asking all week. Feel sick thinking about being there. Mx

  I read the message, then immediately delete it. Once her message has gone, I know I can’t reply because there’s no way I’d go back there. And there’s nothing I can say that will make it any better for her.

  5:10 a.m.

  Hope it’s not too awful. Will be thinking of you. A xxx

  Anaya is so good at that. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say, but she was straight in there. Poor Maxie. Poor Maxie.

  Cece

  12:35 p.m. It’s September but the sun is high and fierce, a shimmering, bright disc in the pure, undulating blue of the sky. I inhale and the briny breeze of the seafront fills me up.

  I thought the kids would want to chill out, having moved last weekend and gone straight to school, that they would have wanted to sleep in, at least stay in their pyjamas and maybe start unpacking their stuff, but no, they wanted to go out. They’ve been itching to get out there and walk along the beach, because that’s why we moved, after all. I sold it to them that they were going to get to go to the beach every day if that’s what they wanted. And that’s what they wanted on this glorious Saturday.