Cuckoo (aka Claire, Darling)

Chapter Fifty-Five

Chapter Fifty-Five

Harry Barton

It’s the final testimony of the day and I’m the most exhausted I’ve been so far, my eyes swollen and puffy and the ever-present migraine ripping through my skull. Every time I think about Noah, it seems to drill deeper.

‘Mr Barton, how long have you known Mr Coors?’ Dodgson asks.

The young man on the stand looks laidback, his stance straight, shoulders relaxed. I know him, though he hasn’t yet made eye contact with me. Noah’s best friend, Harry. He is pale, his normally dark skin dulled. I wonder if he is always so sickly-hued, or if it is exhaustion from staying up while comforting Noah.

‘Twenty-two years, sir.’

‘And in this time, you’ve known Mr Coors’s girlfriends? His crushes?’

‘As far as I’m aware, I have known everything from his first week-long crush in year seven through to his relationship with Lilah.’

‘Why do you say through to when referencing Lilah Andersson?’

Harry Barton shrugs lightly, as though it’s obvious. ‘Because she was his last proper relationship. They’ve been together ages.’ He recognises his error and winces. ‘They were together ages. He was going to marry her.’

I stare at Harry, then shrink back in surprise when he glares right back, entirely unfazed. He is the first witness who has seemed totally in control of their emotions, their hatred of me. It makes me want to burst into tears, because he seems so real up there, so completely within his rights to be angry with me, to hate me. Yet still, he lies. He had to have known about me, the way I knew about him. I admit, I haven’t met him in person before, but Noah mentioned him in passing to me several times: Harry was a major presence throughout Noah’s teenage years. Surely as a major presence in his more mature life, I would have been mentioned by Noah in my turn? Or perhaps not. Perhaps he was lying about that, on top of everything else, when he told me his friends were pleased he was settling down with me. I don’t know what to believe anymore.

Realising the levels of deceit that have been practised for so long, not just in Noah’s dealings with me, but with his friends and family as well, hits me like a double-decker bus; the notion that he could have lied to us all, broken my trust so completely, kept me a secret and led his double life behind my back. There must be a logical reason for it all. My hopes are resting on this trial ending with a lightbulb going on over my head, a resounding explanation for all of this madness, the final comfort of clarity and understanding. I am owed that much at least. How can one person play so many others for fools?

‘And so despite your close and long-established friendship with Mr Coors, there was never any hint he was conducting a relationship with this woman? That he was cheating on Lilah?’ Dodgson nods over at me, a faint smirk on his mouth that I want to slap away. Because the smirk says it all. Obviously Noah Coors did not date this pathetic excuse for a woman. Look at the state of her. It’s as though it’s an inside joke they’re all in on, that blatant curl of his lip a cruel sting to my wounded pride.

‘I never heard of Noah engaging with Claire in any way,’ Harry replies, his voice free from the slightest tremor. I pick up on that carefully worded answer, and judging by the way Grosvenor lifts her head, she has too.

‘Did Mr Coors ever speak to you about this woman in any other context, outside of a sexual or romantic relationship?’ asks prosecuting counsel.

‘Yes,’ Harry admits. My eyes dart towards him. He spoke about me. I knew Noah would have mentioned me, have shared something about me with his closest friend. I knew it!

‘He told me he met her at Morrisons.’ Harry falters for a moment as though treading water. My heart lifts at the memory of Noah’s eyes locking with mine across the aisle.

‘Well, met is a strong word…’ Harry retracts, tailing off with a frown.

‘What do you mean by that?’ Dodgson asks.

‘Well, he did meet her, I suppose. He spoke to her. Once, at the supermarket, about wine.’

I frown, unsure where he is going with this, fearful of how this warm memory I have of our love-at-first-sight moment is going to become twisted in his account of it.

‘And then, apparently, she became obsessed with Noah. Began stalking him. I mean, I didn’t know it was Claire .’ He glances over at me and swallows, the first sign of nerves. ‘I didn’t know it was this woman,’ he clarifies. ‘I just knew that he met a woman, in the supermarket. He told me about it at the pub over a pint, and we had a bit of a laugh about it. I didn’t take it too seriously, you know? It was just a bit of banter to me, my pal being supposedly stalked. And I didn’t know what she looked like or her name or anything until all of this came to light, and then it clicked. That they were the same person.’

I feel as though my stomach is falling out of my body. Obsessed? Stalked?

‘ And that was the only time she was mentioned?’ Dodgson asks.

‘Yes, we didn’t speak about her after that night.’

‘And what was Mr Coors saying? About their relationship?’

Harry pauses to scratch the back of his head, his nose wrinkling slightly. ‘Well, not much, to be honest. Look, we were a couple of pints in, I can’t remember it too clearly. He just said some weird girl he’d spoken to in Morrisons was stalking him on social media.’

But I didn’t even have him on social media! I thought Noah hated social media?

‘Did Mr Coors seem concerned, or worried about his and Lilah’s safety?’

‘Nah, like I said, it was just a bit of a laugh over pints. That’s why I didn’t bring it up again, why I forgot until all of… this happened. I mean, all the girls fancy Noah, it’s not weird for someone to fancy him and follow him online. He didn’t seem bothered, definitely not concerned about it, or we wouldn’t have made a joke of the whole thing. He didn’t even mention Lilah in this conversation, as far as I can remember. It was just an anecdote, a funny story.’

I can tell from Dodgson’s expression that this is perhaps not what he wanted to hear, and he soon wraps up his questioning, Grosvenor stepping up to take his place. I find myself wondering if it’s worse to be seen as a stalker or a joke. A gimmick. An anecdote.

I was sixteen and standing at the vending machine in the school playground, reaching in for the ice-cold can of Coke I’d spent my spare change on. One of the few luxuries I allowed myself, as I was intent on saving all my spare cash to move out as soon as I turned eighteen. I turned, frowning, when a chorus of laughter washed over me. A gaggle of boys from my year were lingering nearby, shooting glances over at me, laughing. I smoothed my ugly school skirt down, tried to keep my chin up as I cracked open my can of Coke. I could feel my skin warming, and prayed I wasn’t reddening visibly.

‘Oi, Claire! Over here, Claire!’ one of them, Marcus, called over to me. I considered them. This had to be a wind-up. But the ones looking my way were smiling, the others uninterested, talking among themselves or kicking at the ground. I looked over my shoulder, unsure what to do.

‘We don’t bite, Claire! We just want to ask you something!’ another boy yelled. Embarrassed by my own insecurity, I forced myself to walk over to them and they quickly enveloped me, closing me in the middle of their circle.

‘Good Coke?’ one asked.

‘Fine,’ I replied with a shrug, trying desperately to seem cool and collected, unbothered by this bizarre display of attention.

‘Right, so the thing is, Claire, Stevie here has something he wants to ask you,’ Marcus said with a laugh, shoving Stevie towards me. He, to his credit, looked just as uncomfortable as I felt at that very moment, shooting Marcus daggers and chewing on his lip with oversized front teeth.

‘Yeah, so, er, I just wondered if you wanted to go prom with me?’ he asked. He blurted it all out in one long sentence and I blinked at him, unsure if I was understanding correctly. His friends had all burst out into laughter and jeers, shoving each other in their excitement like a pack of monkeys. Internally, I was reviewing all the details that attending the prom would involve. I’d need a dress, which was something I didn’t want to spend my money on. I’d have to dance, which was something I had no interest in doing ever since that awful Latin dance class with Mother. I’d have to spend the evening with Stevie, which was not a prospect that particularly excited me. And I’d have to tell Mother, who would undoubtedly find some way to make it all horrible for me.

‘Oh my God, she’s actually considering it!’ one of them bellowed with exaggerated laughter.

‘It was a joke, Claire,’ Stevie said, rolling his eyes as though it was obvious. I flushed furiously, my chest tightening.

‘Claire thought Stevie wanted to take her out!’ one of them yelled with glee, and then they were all laughing as though it was the funniest thing in the world, a couple of them actually doubled over and dramatically clutching their stomachs.

I shoved my way through their horrible, sweaty bodies, escaping them as I hurried away, but their laughter chased me, and above it all, I heard one voice shout: ‘As if she thought anyone would ask her out unless it was a joke !’

‘Mr Barton, I believe you did not answer one of Mr Dodgson’s questions earlier,’ Grosvenor says, going straight for the kill. I knew she’d noticed the same thing I had.

‘Excuse me?’ Harry asks, but I see his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.

‘Mr Dodgson asked you if you knew of a relationship between Mr Coors and the defendant, Miss Arundale, which you denied, but also if Mr Coors had ever cheated on the victim, Miss Andersson. You only answered one of these questions.’ She raises an eyebrow at him knowingly, and Dodgson runs a hand through his hair.

‘I mean, you know… Noah got a lot of attention from the ladies, he’s a good-looking lad…’ Harry’s voice trails off and he rubs the back of his neck.

‘Mr Barton, I ask once more: did you know of Mr Coors having sexual relationships with other women besides Lilah Andersson?’

I watch in fascination as Harry Barton turns an astounding shade of puce, and then, bringing a hand to his face and lowering his head, admits, ‘Yes. Yes, I am aware of Noah cheating on Lilah.’

Gasps from the public gallery and I hear a door slam. I wonder if it is one of Lilah’s relatives.

I can tell Grosvenor is holding back a triumphant smile. ‘How many times would you say he had cheated on Lilah?’

‘I don’t know. I didn’t keep count.’

She pounces on that. ‘So it’s fair to say there were so many women that you were unable to keep track?’

‘I didn’t say that!’ Harry looks more flustered by the second. ‘It wasn’t that many– I tried to stay out of it, that’s all. It wasn’t my business!’

‘Did you ever hear about a Madeline? Or Mads, as Noah called her?’

‘No, no, Noah never told me about them really. Never names, they were just, like, flings, I don’t know. I think he was just trying to let loose before he got tied down, before he married Lilah,’ Harry says. I can hear the fight has left his voice. He knows he has fucked up, that he’s painted his best friend as a lying, cheating scumbag who failed his dead girlfriend in every possible way.

‘So you didn’t know about Miss Choi, who we all know through her testimony was seeing Mr Coors semi-regularly, for quite a decent period of time. Would it be fair to assume that there were quite likely to be other women you did not hear about?’ Grosvenor asks.

Harry sighs, defeated. ‘Yes, I suppose. There were several.’

‘And he’d meet them where?’ Grosvenor pushes.

‘Bars, after work. I’d be there sometimes with him. He made me swear not to say anything to anyone, in case it got back to Lilah. I’m sorry. I feel awful. I thought I was doing right by my mate, I didn’t ever think… If I could go back and change…’ It looks like he might even cry.

‘So is it in fact entirely possible that Mr Coors met my client in a Morrisons supermarket, chatted her up, and she began what she believed was a friendly relationship with him, by following him on social media?’

Harry swallows, and the delay in his reluctant response is palpable. ‘It is possible that Noah lied about it, yes.’

‘And then after that, is it also possible that they began a romantic correspondence and Mr Coors refrained from sharing the ins and outs of this with you, as you seem to have only been given a partial picture of his other romantic entanglements?’

‘I suppose it could have been like that,’ he concedes.

‘That’s all, thanks,’ Grosvenor says, spinning on her heel.