Too Close For Comfort (32 page)

‘Me too,’ she said, her voice wobbling. ‘I’ve been a shit friend. I’ve just had nothing left.’

She swooped down, grabbed her clutch. She shook some powder onto a make-up mirror, straightened it with a card, pulled out a rolled-up note.

‘Lys, don’t. You don’t need to do that.’

Her eyes blazed.

‘What about if I like it? What about if it’s the only thing getting me through? Why don’t you try some and then tell me what I should do?’

She leant down low over the wrought-iron table and snorted it up, defiant, made a little noise of satisfaction once it disappeared. It took everything I had to not simply stand up and walk away,
but I couldn’t leave her there, wallowing in the confirmation of everything she’d just said. I felt so far away from her right then, so lonely, even though we were sitting inches apart.
I knew it was the same for her, alone on her dark high.

‘I don’t want to,’ I said, even though part of me, in that moment, actually did. Or at least I wanted to want to. I wanted to be brave enough, abandoned enough, far enough away
from my painful childhood. ‘But I’m not judging you.’

It was a lie, and we both knew it. Why had truth become so ruinously expensive for us? She drained her glass, that manic quality back in full effect as the drugs took hold.

‘Why did you say that thing about Susan?’ she demanded.

I paused – I didn’t want to make Lori’s life any harder than it already was.

‘I don’t know – I just keep hearing her name.’

Lysette took a pull on her cigarette, an accusing look on her face. ‘What, from the police?’

I started calculating, aware I could use the advantage of my relative sobriety. ‘I’m not sure.’

Lysette stared at me, her face an appeal for clemency. ‘We did look after her, Mia, we did.’

‘Right,’ I said.

‘I didn’t even think we should let her take the blame for it, but it was Kimberley’s house.’ Her eyes blazed. ‘It would’ve been all over the papers.
He’d have had to resign. And for Sarah – she could’ve . . .’ Tears began to run down her cheeks, laying her mascara to waste: she looked almost ghoulish in the
faint-light.

‘She could’ve gone to prison, Mia!’ I could hear the desperation in her voice. ‘Imagine how that would’ve been for Max. And my kids – Ged could’ve left.
But now . . .’

I couldn’t keep treating her like a difficult patient – I pulled my chair closer, flung out my arms to gather her close. ‘Tell me what happened, Lys. I won’t judge you, I
promise you that.’

‘Everyone’s acting like it’s over,’ she said, her voice low and intense. ‘But it’s not over for me! It’s such a fucking mess, and Sarah’s not here
to clean it up.’ Her voice rose, desperate. ‘It’s getting worse!’

‘What do you mean?’ Lysette shook her head, refused to answer. ‘You don’t need to go through this on your own.’

‘I’m not on my own – but I am on my own!’ Her fists balled with frustration. ‘It’s not just down to me.’

‘What – Kimberley and Alex and Helena? You know I heard you in the kitchen . . .’ I stared at her, willing her to focus. This was our chance. ‘I know you’re all
hiding something.’

‘I know you don’t like her, but she is my friend.’

She was too drunk, too high, to follow a straight line. I had to dodge and weave to keep us on the same track.

‘I know she is,’ I said, my voice deliberately soothing. ‘And you know her much better than I do.’

It was like we’d summoned her up with the power of our words – a spiteful blonde sprite. She sailed into the isolated quad, the heavy door slamming behind her.

‘There you are! I was worried.’

‘Hi, Kimberley,’ I said, through gritted teeth.

She pulled up another chair, perched on it. I considered her, Lysette’s words blaring in my head.
It was Kimberley’s house. He’d have had to
resign.

‘Have you kissed and made up?’ she asked, looking between us expectantly.

‘I love Mia,’ said Lysette, squeezing in closer. I couldn’t help thinking it was the kind of sentimental line which came from a line.

‘It’s freezing out here!’ said Kimberley. She rubbed hard at Lysette’s bare arm, taking in her ravaged face but choosing not to pass comment. ‘Don’t you want
to come back inside? Quick trip to the loos and hit the dance floor?’

‘Don’t worry about the loos,’ I said, emboldened. ‘Lysette’s been quite open about the coke out here.’

Her eyes betrayed her, but she immediately got herself under control.

‘Your make-up’s a little bit . . .’ she said, gesturing to Lysette. She turned to me, gaze intense. ‘I’m so sorry if I upset you earlier.’

I shot straight back. ‘You didn’t.’

‘No . . . I should’ve known it would be a sensitive area.’

Sucker punch: so many ways to read that sentence.

‘It’s fine.’

‘I always tell my childless friends, enjoy it while it lasts!’ It was obviously her stock phrase: I’d already heard it at dinner. ‘You were telling Lysette my two terrors
were on pretty feisty form, weren’t you? Giving you a taste of the nightmare!’

Her mouth was smiling, but her eyes were doing nothing of the kind. I couldn’t do this. I stood up.

‘Let’s go in,’ I said, but neither of them moved.

‘We’ll catch you up,’ said Lysette, words too fast, too staccato. I couldn’t leave her.

‘Lys . . .’

‘Honestly, you’re so thoughtful,’ said Kimberley, syrupy sweet, ‘but you’re off duty. You really don’t need to babysit.’

*

I stumbled back inside on shaky legs. It wasn’t just my legs: all of me was shaking, inside and out. Lysette had brought out a bottle of white – I hadn’t
realised how much I’d been tipping back as we talked. Now all I wanted was to get away, but the back corridors Lysette had led me down all looked the same. I skittered my way down a seemingly
endless one, portraits of long dead dons looking down at me from the walls, stern and disapproving.

After a couple of wrong turns, I finally arrived on the periphery of the main room. I leaned against a stone pillar, took a moment to collect myself. Nigel’s smile still hadn’t
faltered: he was in the centre of a group of smartly dressed acolytes, all of them laughing in unison. Sarah whispered across my consciousness. I couldn’t imagine her there in that group, all
velvety and smug. How did she fit in – or was the fact that she didn’t the reason she wasn’t here any more? I had an illogical stab of fear for Lysette, then came back down to
earth. Kimberley was a bitch, not a killer.

‘You waiting for them to play “Careless Whisper”?’

Jim was the other side of the pillar, eyes dancing even if his body wasn’t.

‘I was going to go, actually.’

‘Don’t do that. The night is young,’ he added in a silly voice.

I looked at my watch, my goose-bumped arm shaking as I raised my wrist. It was shortly before ten but it felt more like midnight to me.

‘I don’t want to turn into a pumpkin,’ I said.

‘No danger of that,’ he said, voice low.

‘Where’s Rowena?’ I asked, deliberately steely.

‘She’s gone. She’s got an early start.’ With your kids, I thought. ‘I was actually coming to ask you where Lysette was.’ I looked at him, searching for the
right words. I didn’t need to: he read them anyway. ‘Come and tell me about it,’ he said, jerking his head back towards the door I’d come through. I didn’t move
immediately. ‘Mia, this is about my sister.’

I felt foolish – vain and young all at once. My aching feet obediently followed his – it wasn’t like I didn’t need someone to talk to, and he was the only person I could
confide in without it constituting a betrayal. I briefly looked back as I did: there was Lisa, her flouncy dress made out of a fabric more suited to a country house sofa, her hair lacquered into a
solid cone. It might’ve been paranoia, but it felt like her eyes were directly trained on me.

Luckily Jim didn’t head for the quadrangle I’d left Kimberley and Lysette behind in. After a few dead dons he took a sharp right and led me through swing doors to an area behind the
kitchens. I’d have worried about rats if we’d been in London, but here in Cambridge all I could smell was honeysuckle. There was a wooden bench. Jim threw himself down, extracted a
packet of fags from the inside pocket of his artfully creased dinner jacket. Lights blazed from the kitchen, chatter and shouts coming from the chefs and waiting staff.

‘Want one?’ he said, cocking his head. ‘No, of course you don’t.’

‘Yes,’ I said, defiant. I’d had enough of their family’s narrative about me. Jim lit a cigarette for me, waited for my first puff with a look of amused fascination. I
took a tiny, pathetic drag, tried not to choke. He took a puff on his.

‘I envy you,’ he said. ‘Row’s constantly on my tail to give up.’

Was he protecting himself by mentioning her, or subtly implying unhappiness? Sometimes I preferred my treatment room to real life: at least it was there in my job description to force clarity
from people.

‘Yeah, Patrick likes a sneaky fag when he thinks I’m not looking.’

‘Your boyfriend?’

Who needs cameras ‘Fiancé.’

‘Right.’ He sounded faintly amused by the idea – like I’d said back then to Kimberley, it was a ridiculous word, the kind of thing Hyacinth Bucket would say.
‘Where’s my sister? I looked all over for her.’

‘She’s . . .’ The words jammed, that feeling of shock reverberating back through me. All of this, all of this meaningless, ephemeral flirtation was bullshit. Sarah was dead,
and Lysette was on the edge of something very dangerous. ‘Jim, I’m really worried about her.’ My voice shook. ‘You were right about the coke. I went outside with her and she
was just snorting it off a table. Anyone could’ve come out.’ Kimberley did: I’d get to that. ‘Even without what’s happened to Sarah, she’s obviously in a huge
amount of debt, it’s bad with Ged . . . I just don’t know how to help her any more.’

Jim looked down at the ground, his face still and grim. A part of me hoped that he’d spring into action, that their sibling bond would afford him a metaphorical magic wand to wave. He
stood up. I looked up at him, expectant.

‘We need a drink,’ he said. ‘I’m going to ask Jake for some wine.’

He loped off to the kitchen. I shivered, dropped the cigarette I’d pretended to want, ground its glowing tip into the flagstones with my heel, then guiltily hid it under the bench. Jim
emerged with another bottle of white. Jake stuck his head out of the kitchen door a couple of seconds later.

‘There you go, mate,’ he said, pressing a couple of glasses into his hand. He didn’t register me, there in the shadows. Jim sat back down, and I subtly edged down the seat away
from him.

‘Don’t you find it weird,’ I said, ‘the way everyone knows everyone here? I’d feel like I was under surveillance.’

‘You’re clearly a lot more interesting than me,’ he said, balancing the glasses on the slats of the bench and slopping wine into them. He handed me one, his fingers brushing
mine. ‘And the surveillance hasn’t worked so well the last few weeks, has it?’

‘Everyone seems to think they know what happened. Who needs cameras?’

Jim rolled his eyes, took a gulp of his wine.

‘So where is she?’

‘We were out the back. We had this stupid little fight earlier, like we keep doing, and she dragged me off. She was coming out with all this stuff . . .’ I stopped, took a sip from
my drink. It tasted sweet and bitter all at once. I was drunk now, properly drunk. I took another gulp, trying to untangle the chaos inside my head. I couldn’t betray Lysette – her
rambling half-confidences – but equally I needed his help.
She
needed his help. ‘She’s torturing herself. She started saying something about it not being
over, about it getting worse. But then your fit blonde trotted through the door and shut her up.’

Jim was smirking, childishly grateful for a reason to focus on the least important part of the story. Then his face became serious again, the silence lingering.

‘I have tried to talk to her . . .’ he said eventually. ‘After her birthday party, and when I heard about the playdate. Then there was the quiz night – Sarah was out of
control. I didn’t even try that time. I knew by then it wouldn’t do any good.’

‘Joshua’s so straight . . . why were they even together?’

‘Opposites attract, don’t they?’ He was trying to hold my gaze but I didn’t let it snag me. ‘At least for the first few years. Once you’ve got kids,
you’re in it to win it.’

‘He wasn’t the first time around.’

‘All the more reason to stick it out,’ said Jim. ‘Trust me, men don’t like looking like fools.’

He looked away, distracted by a thought, a silent calculation taking place. I was sure it was the same piece that he’d backed away from in the French bistro, the thing that had made him so
angry in The Black Bull. I was gentle, light. I sensed he wanted to unburden himself.

‘What is it, Jim?’

‘Violet told Rowena this thing . . .’ He looked at me, face stricken. ‘It frightened me, Mia. Lysette took her and Saffron into Cambridge one day, and they met up with Sarah.
They were buying all this stuff, shoes and make-up. They were paying for everything in cash – they had loads of it. Violet had never seen so much.’

‘Maybe – maybe Ged got paid in cash for a job, and—’

I could hear myself scrabbling around for a comforting explanation. Jim cut across me.

‘They bribed her not to tell us. Bought her some perfume. Row was furious – she’s only nine. She doesn’t like her having stuff like that.’

‘You must’ve confronted her that time?’

‘Had to. Row won’t let even let the kids go over there without us now. She was . . .’ He had that faraway look again, like he’d like to be anywhere but here, squaring up
to uncomfortable truths. ‘You know what she’s like. She’s emotional but she’s not a bitch.’ His gaze met mine now. ‘She was fucking vile about it – she was
screaming at me. She looked crazy.’

I was shaking, as much from fear as from the rapidly dropping temperature. I shifted closer to Jim, wanting the comfort of his proximity. The slippery fabric of Kimberley’s black dress
rubbed against the grain of the bench, catching me as I moved.