The Friend Page 9

  Four of us left the house together, Harmony ‘yeah, yeah’ing me when I repeatedly told her to keep in touch with me all day as she was going off to Brighton to meet some new friends. Sol is working. After his grand gesture on Monday, I thought we were getting back on track and we’d be spending Saturdays together, but no. Nothing any of us said could persuade him to come for a walk, even for a few minutes. He barely even looked up from his laptop while we were having an early lunch, while we rifled through boxes, gathering things together to take out with us, even while we were putting on shoes.

  Work is Sol’s new best friend – his wife, too, it seems. Work has slipped into the spaces where I belonged, where I belong. I park those thoughts; they’re not helpful, and they’ll only make me miss this gift of a day.

  We are heading down towards the pier, which shimmers in the distance, passing the beach huts Brighton is famous for as we walk. I’ve seen them in pictures, on television, even in the flesh when we came house-hunting, but this is the first time I have seen so many of them opened up and full of people.

  The seafront is transformed by them and it is like wandering through a colourful market bazaar. Some people recline on stripy deckchairs, the doors propped open, showing the stuff they have crammed inside; others have placed tables out on the promenade; others still have large, brightly coloured parasols anchored with concrete blocks. A group of good-looking men sit on green fold-up chairs around a small fold-up table playing cards with a pile of money in the middle, and cans of beers beside their hands. They are playing so intensely, I think they’ve forgotten they are on the beach. A woman has spread a tartan blanket on the hot ground outside her hut, and is playing with a huge camera, regularly lifting it to her face and taking shots of the vista. We walk on, past two women hunched over slowly sizzling sausages on a tinfoil disposable barbecue that they have perched on top of a fire they’ve created in the centre of a ring of stones. We all look in wonder at the couple who have a dog up on its hind legs, performing tricks in return for doggy treats. Another beach hut is home to people stripping off shorts and T-shirts and struggling into shorty wetsuits, ready to head down to the beach. A man sits in another hut, holding a six-month-old baby on his knee, while his other half reclines on a spread of cushions, playing with an older toddler.

  ‘There’s Frankie,’ Oscar says as we pass one of the beach huts.

  ‘Who’s Frankie?’ I ask.

  Oscar stops and turns around, points to the hut we’ve just moved on from. Its green doors are propped open, and two blue-and-white deckchairs are placed facing each other. On the ground is a picnic blanket and to the side is a large cream parasol, anchored, like most of the others we’ve seen, by a large marble-coloured concrete block. In one of the deckchairs there is a woman with black and brown ringlety hair wearing sunglasses, with her legs pulled up reading a book. It’s a good one, that book, I read it a while back. On the purple picnic blanket sits a boy about Oscar and Ore’s age, who is playing with a small yellow bucket, a stick and a pile of stones. He’s wearing a blue fisherman’s hat, and his arms have been slathered in sunblock. He’s playing intensely and I can barely see his face, so how Oscar saw enough of him to know, I have no idea.

  ‘He’s in my class,’ Oscar says.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s his mum and that’s him.’

  ‘Oh, right. Do you want to go and say hello?’ I ask my son.

  ‘Hi, Frankie,’ Oscar calls from quite a distance. The mother looks up, takes her sunglasses off, and I realise I have seen her this week. I saw her on the first day, and I’ve seen her since. Most of the time she looks harried, stressed, particularly unhappy. This is the first time I’ve seen her look relaxed, and when she smiles, she looks like the first person I would go and talk to if I walked into a roomful of strangers.

  ‘Hi?’ she says getting to her feet. She comes towards us, as Frankie stands up. She extends her hand and the bracelets on her wrist tinkle as she does so. ‘I’m Maxie. I think I’ve seen you at the school gates.’

  ‘Hi, Oscar,’ Frankie says before I can reply to his mother. ‘Hi, Ore. Do you want to play with me? I’m making a scientific formula that’s going to power cars in the future.’

  ‘Cool,’ the boys say at the same time and dart across to the front of the beach hut. The three of them huddle down onto the blanket and begin playing, as if they’ve been together all morning. Frankie shows them what he was making, and the boys listen while picking up and examining his collection of pebbles.

  ‘I’m Cece,’ I say to Maxie. ‘We were kind of heading to the pier. But apparently not. Sorry to invade your Saturday afternoon.’

  ‘Not at all,’ she says and brushes away my concerns with a light wave of her hand. ‘Frankie talks about Oscar all the time. He says he’s got a cool twin brother – Ore – I’m guessing that’s him.’

  ‘My son has not mentioned anyone from his class. To hear him tell it, you’d think there was no one else in his class except him and the teacher. Oh well, at least they’ve made friends. That’s the biggest worry when you go somewhere new, isn’t it? That they’ll make friends and won’t feel like the new kids for too long.’

  Maxie moves back to her seat and beckons me to come and sit down with her. I do as she asks, although I almost collapse back into the seat as I’m not used to sitting on something so low and unsupported. Maxie unclips the cool box beside her seat, which I didn’t notice before, and hands me a cold, sweating bottle of water.

  ‘Frankie said you moved from London?’ she asks.

  ‘Yeah, north-west London. My husband landed a big promotion down here so we eventually all packed up and came too.’

  ‘And you didn’t mind leaving it all behind?’ she asks.

  Of course not, is the answer I should be able to hand out. Of course I didn’t mind. ‘Honestly?’ I say, lowering my voice. ‘I wasn’t sure. The kids weren’t sure. But him commuting a few days a week, and then living here on his own and coming back some weekends, was no way to have a family life. So, no, I don’t suppose I did mind in the bigger picture.’

  ‘That’s a very good way of looking at it.’

  ‘Have you lived in Brighton all your life?’ I ask. I sit back in the deckchair. If I aim for a certain angle, it’s not too odd to sit like this. I can’t move, of course, but it’s all right. And if I unclench a bit, it’s almost comfortable. And the hazy sun, the salty air, the beach sounds, all make it impossible to keep myself tight and tense. Maxie sits back, scoops her legs under herself and unscrews her water bottle.

  ‘No, I’m from up North. Can’t you hear the accent?’

  ‘Honestly, no,’ I reply. ‘You sound like you’re from … Oh, I don’t know. I’m rubbish with anything but the most obvious accents.’

  ‘Well, blooming hell, what if I talked like that? Would you be able to tell I’m a Yorkshire lass born and bred, then?’ She giggles at the end of her sentence. And her face creases. She’s pretty and beautiful. I’m guessing one of her parents is white as she has light brown skin, darker brown freckles are dotted across her nose and over her cheeks, her eyes are a deep chocolate brown and her lips are glossed with a red-brown colour.

  ‘Well, yes, when you speak like that, of course,’ I laugh. ‘How did you end up down here, then?’

  ‘Do you know, I’m not entirely sure. I’ve lived in various places and we moved here just before Frankie turned one. Can’t imagine living anywhere else, now. Ed, that’s my husband, he travels a lot for work, but if his work took him elsewhere permanently, I’d have to seriously think about letting him go on his own.’

  She looks wistful for a moment, as if she’s thought it through and seriously doesn’t intend to leave this place. I don’t blame her. If I had a seafront property, even in the form of a beach hut, I wouldn’t leave, either.

  ‘Thankfully Ed’s never really been interested in leaving here. If that moment—’ She stops talking, and looks at her son, suddenly aware that he can probably he
ar every word she’s saying. ‘Anyway, how are you finding it?’

  ‘Fine.’ I wonder if I should ask about what happened on our first day, about the atmosphere that hangs over the school, the way parents drop their children off, even the ones who are clearly in a rush to get to work, and don’t leave until all the children are inside. I wonder if I should ask her if the reason why she has looked so harrowed and stressed all week is because she knows Yvonne Whidmore, the woman who was attacked and left for dead on the playground?

  Maxie must know her because Madison, Yvonne Whidmore’s daughter, is in Oscar’s class with Frankie. ‘Has anyone been in touch to welcome you to the school yet?’ she asks.

  I place our out-for-the-day rucksack on the hot tarmac of the seafront and glance at the boys, playing on the blanket still, even though their collection of stones, rocks and other pieces scavenged from the beach is modest. I’m not sure how the game has held their attention for so long but I’m grateful for the rest. I’ve been running on high these past few months; my life has been an adrenalin-fuelled race to wind up life in London and relocate down here. Sitting down has not been allowed. The longer I sit here, the more my body dissolves into the seat and I realise it’s going to be difficult to get up again.

  ‘No, no one’s been in touch yet. The headmistress did say, just before the boys started, that the Year Three class coordinator would make contact but I haven’t heard anything yet.’

  Maxie inhales deeply, almost dramatically, through her nose, then slips her sunglasses into place. She’s masking those striking, expressive eyes. ‘I thought Mrs Carpenter would have chosen someone else by now,’ she says thoughtfully.

  ‘Howddya mean?’ I ask.

  Even with her mask I see that she rolls her eyes before she turns her head slightly and stares off at another point on the horizon. ‘The head teacher chooses the person who works as the class coordinator. I thought she would have found someone to fill that role by now. Even temporarily …’ She shakes her head slightly, obviously trying to clear a particular thought. ‘Look, I was an admin for the Year Three instant messaging group called PPY3. That’s Plummer Prep Year Three. The other years have their own PP system. I’m not the admin any more, but I think I can still add you. I’ll do that, if you want? You just have to give me your number. When Mrs Carpenter has found someone to replace our last class coordinator, I’m sure they’ll be in touch. Most of the stuff that’s organised, the stuff about what to take in when, and people trying to track down lost uniform, etc., is done by PPY3 anyway. And someone generally knows the answer to most of your burning questions so we’re not in desperate, desperate need of a new class coordinator.’

  I have a burning question: Who tried to kill Yvonne Whidmore, and why? For me, the why is always as important as the who.

  ‘Did your last class coordinator suddenly move to another school or something?’ I ask.

  Maxie stares at me long and cool, wondering if I am taking the piss, which makes me realise how dumb I have been. I’m generally not that stupid but in this instance, I am.

  ‘No,’ she eventually replies. ‘She … A few weeks ago she …’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ I reply.

  ‘Yeah,’ she breathes. ‘Yeah.’

  After a long, awkward silence that not even the market-bazaar atmosphere can alleviate, ‘Do you know her well?’ I ask. I’m careful to use the present tense, to not assign her to the past.

  ‘I suppose so … I mean yes, I knew her, she was my friend.’

  ‘Oh, well, I was sorry to hear about what happened to her.’

  Maxie nods slowly, accepting my partial condolences. She slips off her sunglasses and suddenly she’s back to being open and friendly. ‘So anyway, tell me about you. Where are you living? And do you need a list of the best cocktail bars around here? Because I can get you that. No charge.’

  And with that, Maxie makes it clear she doesn’t want to talk about Yvonne Whidmore.

  Maxie

  8:35 p.m. Why did I do that with Cece? I didn’t have to bring up anything about her being contacted by the class coordinator. I would know if there was a new class coordinator, wouldn’t I? Why the hell did I have to bring her attention to it? Maybe I was just desperate to get it in there first, to bring up Yvonne and see how gossipy she was. I liked Cece, in that way I liked Hazel and Anaya when I first met them, but I suppose I was testing her to see if she had the potential to be ghoulish, to show that fake-gilded concern that so many others have shown on PPY3 and in real life. They don’t say anything to my face, but they will stop talking when I approach, they will ask me how I am, if I’ve heard from Trevor at all, if there’s anything they can do. They all have his number, they all have his email, if they are that concerned they can contact him. They never do, though. Cece seemed to know when to stop asking questions and let me talk about something else. I like that in a person.

  ‘Mum?’ Frankie says.

  My gaze goes up to my boy. He filled the bath himself, added copious amounts of bubbles and Octonaut toys and then climbed in. The Octonauts are cool and he loves toys that are designed for in-water play. I have to smile when I look at him. He’s a big boy now. He’s shot up so much. I didn’t even really notice. You don’t, when that person is right beside you all the time and you spend day after summer day with them. I was with him for almost every waking minute and even though I looked at him in wonder, as I always do because of what I went through to get him, I didn’t notice how tall he’s become. When we went for his new uniform I knew he’d got bigger because that’s what children do, but it wasn’t until the afternoon pick-up on the first day that I saw him without the daily filter. He came out of the school gates with Oscar, I now realise, and I did a mini double-take. He was taller, he was broader – a proper boy. Not my little boy any more, not my baby-boo; he was a proper boy. That winded me for a moment because he was going to be my only, and that stage had gone by so quickly, I’d been so embroiled in getting it right, I had forgotten to enjoy it.

  But he hasn’t fundamentally changed, not yet. He still likes his Octonaut toys, he still does things like make polar bear ears from bubbles and puts them on his head.

  ‘Yes, my lovely?’ I reply to my boy.

  ‘Can Oscar and Ore come to our house to play?’

  He doesn’t usually ask. He knows what the answer will be, what it almost always has to be. He’s obviously taken with Oscar and Ore.

  ‘We’ll see,’ I say, because much as I want to, I have to remember how dangerous it is right now. I have to think of Yvonne and how that turned out.

  ‘Oh please,’ Frankie says. ‘Please?’

  ‘I said we’ll see,’ I reply.

  ‘But Mum, please. They’re really cool. And they both know so much about sea creatures. Please, Mum. Please don’t say “we’ll see” again because that just means no and it’s not really fair. I hardly ever have friends over. So please, Mum, please. I’ll be your best friend.’

  Usually Frankie accepts a ‘we’ll see’ and moves on. He knows that he can go to the park with his friends, he can play with them at the beach, he can even go to parties as long as I can be there. My anxieties, my husband’s worries, allow me to leave him very, very rarely and only with trusted people. And for the same reasons, rarely do people come here. I won’t let him go to theirs as is the done thing, and I won’t let him out of my sight unless I have to. So he knows not to ask. The only friends who are allowed over are Hazel’s three, Anaya’s two and, of course, Yvonne’s two. Other than that, no one comes over, and certainly no one is begged over.

  ‘I’ll make you a deal,’ I tell Frankie. ‘If their mother sends me her number before bedtime, I will invite them over for a play. How does that sound?’

  Frankie’s face lights up. I haven’t seen him so happy in such a long time that I stare harder at my phone, willing her to text. Not for me, but for Frankie. Like him suddenly growing up, it is only when I see that smile, that joy shining from every feature, that I realise how long it’
s been since I saw it. He smiles, he laughs, he plays around. But he’s not been this type of happy in so long. And that’s what parents are supposed to do, isn’t it? Make your children happy whenever you can. And when you can’t, you’re supposed to step in and do the best you can to change a bad situation for the better. Trevor comes to mind. How he obviously can’t change his current situation, but he is doing his best. He is braving the school gates every morning, head held high, ignoring the lowered voices, the looks, the atmosphere that descends every time he appears.

  Part of that, part of what he is going through, is because of me. But only because I was trying to do what any other parent would do: change a bad situation for the better.

  ‘I won’t tell Dad about them coming over,’ Frankie suddenly says. His voice is very decisive, as though they are definitely coming over and he’s made up his mind that this is the correct course of action.

  ‘Why ever not?’ I ask. ‘Keeping secrets from your mummy and daddy isn’t good, you know? You should tell him. I mean, I’m going to anyway. I’m sure he’ll be really pleased that you’ve got new friends you want to come over to play if I get their mum’s number.’

  ‘Please don’t tell him,’ he says. He is serious, solemn. I watch his features set into a face that wouldn’t look out of place on Ed’s visage. ‘Please. I know he will get sad. He always gets sad when I talk about having friends over.’

  What? ‘He doesn’t,’ I reply. I’m not forceful or probably even convincing in my reply. Ed does do that: he dons a cloak of despair and worry whenever we try to make connections with people outside of the three of us, especially if they involve Frankie. I simply never realised that Frankie noticed his father’s moods. I thought I shielded him from that, thought that the fun we had together was enough to make up for his dad’s unhappiness.