Too Close For Comfort (3 page)

‘Hi, darling,’ I said, perching gingerly on the corner of the chaotic bed, ‘have you decided you’re better off going fully nocturnal?’

I winced as soon as I said it, embarrassed by my flat-footed attempt at normality.

‘What can I say?’ she said, managing a vague semblance of a smile. ‘I’ve always been a fox.’ Then her face crumpled in on itself, and I pole-vaulted across the bed
to envelop her in my arms. ‘Mia . . .’ she said again and again as I stroked her hair, and felt the tsunami of her tears soaking through my silk shirt.

‘I know,’ I said, even though I didn’t, not really. It’s the only way we can survive, I think, telling each other these little lullaby lies, a baton pass for when life
gets too hard.

Eventually her sobs grew less jagged and she pulled away, threw herself back against the pile of pillows.

‘She’s only twenty-seven!’ she said, angry fists balled up in her lap.
Was
, I thought, the word small and devastating. ‘I just
can’t . . . she wouldn’t do something like that. Max needs her too much!’

Sarah’s crumpled body was found at the bottom of a car park on the edges of Peterborough, her phone in her pocket, the shattered screen covering up a text, not sent or even addressed.
I’m sorry it had said, a single X on the bottom.

‘The thing with depression is that it’s so easy to hide. But it is a proper illness.’

‘She wasn’t depressed,’ said Lysette firmly.

I changed tack. It was only three days since Sarah’s death; of course she was too traumatised to think straight.

‘When did you last see her?’

‘The day . . .’ She gulped, voice wobbling all over the place. ‘The day she . . . it happened. In the morning. We were wetting ourselves laughing
after drop-off about’ – she waved her hand, dismissed it – ‘just school stuff, the teachers – she was taking the piss that way she always did. We went for coffee and
then it was suddenly lunchtime. That was what it was like with her.’ She looked up at me, eyes plaintive. ‘I can’t imagine this place without her, Mia!’

‘Of course you can’t. It’s just happened – it’s still completely unbelievable. Have you spoken to Joshua?’

Joshua was Sarah’s husband. I hadn’t met him, only heard about him. ‘Josh-yew-a,’ Lysette would say, in a funny voice, mocking his properness. He was forty-five going on
a hundred, according to her. The most improper thing he’d ever done was leaving his first family for a twenty-year-old he claimed he couldn’t live without.

‘Yeah, I did. He’s such a fucking robot. He was talking about trying to keep everything “normal” for Max. He’s sending him back to school next week!’

‘Wow.’

I work with bereaved children sometimes. They might not always have the words, but they have all the feelings bottled up inside. I let them stage bloody battles and drownings in my sand tray,
knowing that, unlike in real life, they can smooth out the devastation with the palm of their hand once the hour is up.

‘No one’s coping,’ said Lysette, clutching my hand tightly. ‘Kimberley and Helena and Alex are all walking round like zombies. I said maybe you could talk to
them?’

‘Kimberley Farthing?’ I asked, and she nodded. I felt a jolt of interest about the mysterious woman behind those wrought-iron gates, then remembered what was important. ‘Lys, I
didn’t come here to be a therapist. I’m just here to support you.’

She jerked the duvet upwards like it was a shield.

‘Yeah, no. Course.’

‘I’m too close. Besides, I’m only here until Tuesday morning.’

‘The funeral’s on Tuesday. If the, if the . . .’ She can’t get the words out. ‘If the coroner releases the body over the weekend.’ She
collapsed again, body racked by sobs, the sweet, musky smell that came off her telling me she hadn’t managed to leave bed all day. I held her, feeling unexpectedly useless. I hated feeling
useless. ‘She wouldn’t kill herself, Mia. She wouldn’t do that to us.’

I circled her back with my palm, determined not to reason with her.

‘Whatever you need, OK? Whatever takes the tiniest piece of this off your shoulders.’

‘You could take Saffron to school tomorrow,’ she said, her face still pressed against my shoulder. ‘You’d be a lot more fun than me.’

‘Of course.’

‘And you could get me a glass of red.’

I surveyed the devastation of her bedroom.

‘How about we get one together?’

Lysette pulled some clothes on and we went downstairs. Finn and Barney seamlessly removed themselves from the living room, and soon we were ensconced on the tattered pink sofa, wine glasses
(filled by Ged) in hand, toes touching. Mine were bare, red-nailed. Hers were sticking out of the ends of her tracksuit bottoms, clad in a pair of stripy socks. I wriggled mine against hers.

‘I wish I’d had the chance to get to know her properly.’

Lysette was a little calmer now, her tears held at bay. She smiled sadly, lost in a memory.

‘Yeah, you only met her that one time, didn’t you? At Saffron’s party.’

I felt a cold shiver at the thought that we’d been together in this very room. She’d been supervising pass the parcel, but supervising was the wrong word for what she did. The
children were already jacked up on sugary birthday cake and fizzy drinks, and she turned the Black Eyed Peas up loud, shouted out instructions, made sure there was nothing predictable about when
the music stopped. There was a frenzy of shredded paper and squeals and hysterical tears. I sipped tea on the sidelines, impressed and judgemental all at once.

‘She was really fun,’ I said. Lysette was watching me closely as if she was hungry for my words. ‘She was more than that though, wasn’t she? She was kind of wild in a
way.’

‘I wouldn’t call her that,’ she said, quickly.

‘No, I mean . . . I meant it as a compliment.’

She made a non-committal ‘mmm’ sound, and I tried not to feel like I’d said something wrong. We sat there for a minute in a silence that was unfamiliar in its awkwardness.

‘She was so kind,’ said Lysette eventually. ‘Saffron must’ve been two when I met her, and I felt like I was losing it a bit.’

I thought back, tried to recall her being on the edge, but all I remembered was a predictable, overwhelming mix of love and exhaustion. Perhaps I’d been too wrapped up in my own stuff to
recognise the nuance of it.

‘It’d been so long since I’d had a toddler, and I just . . . well, you’ll find out. We came out of some mums and tots group and we were late and she was
insisting on trying to unlock the car door with a twig, and I’d just had it. I mean, I properly bawled at her, and Sarah saw me. I thought she’d give me one of those looks – there
are these special, patented Mummy Looks some of them give you when it’s your kid throwing the Monster Munch – but she didn’t. She laughed at me.’

‘What, actually laughed?’

‘Yeah. I was a bit taken aback, but then she just dragged us off with her. It was summer, and we ended up having gin and tonics in the garden of The Black Bull while the kids played on the
swing set. I think we might’ve got quite pissed. She just knew exactly what I needed.’ She paused. ‘She knew it better than I did.’

‘What happened to your car?’

It was so not the point of the story, and yet somehow it was where my brain went.

‘I guess I got it the next day. She probably drove hers home.’

‘Really?’

Why had she reacted so badly to ‘wild’? Everything she was telling me was painting a picture of a cosy, rural version of that very word.

‘Oh yeah. She used to run red lights on purpose when she had PMT. She was a menace in that car. I was going to have to take points for her, the way she was going.’

I reached out my hand, stroked her calf.

‘You two obviously had such a laugh.’

Lysette’s bottom lip crumpled again. In that moment she looked very young.

‘Not only that, though. I mean she was, she was the best fun, but she really listened to me, too. However I was being, she never judged me or made me feel bad.’ I tried to control my
rampant, narcissistic urge to hold up our friendship against the one she was describing. ‘She just loved me and I loved her back.’

‘I know,’ I said, hugging her again, letting her cry. ‘I know how much you’re hurting.’

I could barely hear her next words. ‘She never meant anything bad to happen.’

‘What do you mean?’ I asked, but Lysette burrowed more deeply into my shoulder, didn’t reply. Eventually she rubbed her eyes with her sleeve, shook herself, took a large gulp
of her wine.

‘Mate, thank you so much for coming down.’ Her smile was still watery, but it was genuine. ‘I really needed you and you just came.’ I felt myself glowing from the inside.
It felt primal and simple and deep all at once. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’

‘I’d always come.’

‘I know you would,’ she said. ‘Come on, tell me what’s been going on with you.’

She never meant anything bad to happen
. The phrase was still flickering for me, but I didn’t want to cost her this fragile calm by pushing her on it. Everything
else felt so trivial, but gradually I managed to tell her about the vampiric priest, and how hard Patrick was working and, eventually, how frustrated I was by my body’s refusal to play
ball.

‘Maybe you can ask Father Dracula to bless your woooomb,’ she said, and we laughed far more than the silliness merited. ‘Sorry,’ she said, wiping her eyes. Her spine
straightened, that bleakness settling back down over her.

‘It’s OK to laugh,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘You probably need the release.’

‘Yeah,’ she said, unconvinced. She picked up the wine bottle, poured the very last dregs into her glass. I could see murky specks of sediment swirling around as she took a gulp from
it.

‘I bet Sarah would want you to,’ I said quietly. ‘I know I would want you to.’ She turned to me, her eyes blazing.

‘I don’t know that. I don’t know anything any more. The only thing I do know is that there is no way that Sarah would kill herself.’

‘Is it possible that she just lost her balance?’ I tentatively asked. ‘Fell off?’

‘No, not from the position she was found in.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘We should get some sleep.’

She’d sounded crazed by grief the first time she’d denied it. I’d let the words wash over me, too busy searching for a way to make her accept the reality of Sarah’s
suicide to even hear them properly.

This time it was different. I was more porous somehow. The words worked their way in, refused to leave me.

I spy, with my little eye – YOU. I watched her today, I watched her come out of her house and climb into her car, and I felt sick. She strutted to it,
like she didn’t just own that car, she owned the whole street. No – more than that. She owned the whole town, with me stuck right there in the middle. No escape.

When she drove off I nearly followed her, but even though she wouldn’t have known, I didn’t want to give her the satisfaction. I had that feeling, that feeling
where I fucking wanna tear off my skin, and I nearly went into my purse, but I didn’t. I went for my make-up bag instead, put on bright red lips and blew myself a kiss in the mirror, even
though I was bawling. She makes me feel like shit, and I can’t even admit it. Not even to Lysette, even though she knows all my deepest, darkest . . .

Does anyone ever really know our deepest, darkest, though? Because if they did, how could we know they’d still like us, let alone love us? And if they didn’t love
us, and WE didn’t love us, how could we even carry on?

When I smooched it on Max at pick-up he rubbed his little cheek like he hated it, but I knew he loved it from the way he giggled. I snuggled him harder, and none of it
mattered. NONE OF IT. It was just me and him against the world. She can’t take that away from me.

Someone else loved it too. I knew he would – I see the way he looks at me. He says I’m paranoid, that I see things that aren’t there, but it’s not
that. I’ve always had a bit of a sixth sense – I know things I shouldn’t know. In my worst moments, I end up thinking it’s a little bit dangerous.

You can get it back in an instant. Right there and then, I loved being in my skin again. I was younger, sexier. I was a MILF, a minx. The feeling didn’t last all that
long. That’s probably why I texted him later. Something harmless, a little bit funny. He texted straight back – I knew he would, didn’t need a sixth sense for that.

When I was lying in bed listening to him breathing – no, it was snoring – I wondered if what I’d done was really all that harmless. I counted each of his
exhales – it sounds fucking stupid, but I was treasuring them. All the things that seem like harmless fun never end up being all that harmless, do they? I’m too stupid to remember that
fact when it matters. When I’m doing it. Now I’m here in the bathroom writing it down, it’s too late. It’s way too late.

Saffron’s wellies had fat rubber bumblebees on the toes. During the ten-minute walk to school she’d managed to kick their smiley yellow faces against every
conceivable obstacle: lamp-posts, walls – now her angry foot was heading for the gleaming silvery centre of a car wheel.

‘Saffron!’ I softened my voice, hating the shrill upturn it had. ‘That’s someone’s car. You wouldn’t like it if – I don’t know, some strange man
came and kicked Peppa Pig across your bedroom.’

Saffron cocked her head to look round at me like a small, mistrustful owl. She kept her foot suspended in mid-air, quietly letting me know I hadn’t won.

‘You don’t know anything about being six. No one who is six still likes Peppa Pig unless they’re a dum-dum head.’

‘OK, forget Peppa Pig.’ And forget my weird mental image of a Peppa Pig-hating football hooligan ambushing your bedroom. Saffron worshipped me – how could I be doing this
badly, the second she decides to behave like a child instead of an acolyte? ‘The fact is, you can’t go around kicking people’s cars. Come on, we’re going to be
late.’

I stopped, hearing how my impatient words might ring in her ears. Hurry up and get to school, the place where your friend who’s lost his mummy – any child’s worst nightmare
– will either be, or won’t be. I dropped to my knees so I was at her height.