Chapter 10
TEN
Naomi:
She fucking ambushed me
I typed into the Girlfriends’ Club WhatsApp later, aware that I was maybe being just a tiny bit of a drama llama but not caring.
At the time I’d been first blindsided, then genuinely furious. My mother-in-law, as guiltily as a woman surprised with her lover when her husband arrives home, had immediately insisted on offering me tea and switching the game from cribbage to gin rummy, and I found myself unable to refuse. So I endured a tortuous hour playing cards – which I sucked at; I’d started losing to the children at snap about a year before – drinking the kind of herbal tea that tasted of grass clippings, and listening to Bridget and Zara chatting about Paris.
‘Such a beautiful city,’ Bridget rhapsodised. ‘And always so clean! When I compare the London Underground to the Metro – ugh.’
‘My apartment’s right in the centre of the dixième ,’ Zara said, ‘so I mostly walk everywhere. But yes, arriving here has been quite a shock to the system, haha! I’m only out for a few weeks and then I’ll be heading back home. It truly does feel like home now.’
I gritted my teeth and checked my cards – a useless collection of unconnected, off-suit low numbers, apart from the jack of hearts. Why are you staying, Naomi? I asked myself. You’re a grown-up – just make your excuses and go!
But somehow, I couldn’t. It felt almost like leaving them to it would have been somehow perilous – as if allowing Zara unfettered access to my mother-in-law, her tea, the biscuits I’d brought and a pack of playing cards would be the beginning of a dangerously slippery slope that could lead anywhere.
‘You should come and visit, Nome,’ Zara said, casually laying down the king, queen and ace of spades. ‘It’s been years.’
‘Patch has always loved travelling,’ Bridget said, as if I kept him chained to the kitchen table or something.
At last, I was rescued by the British Gas man turning up to read Bridget’s meter, and I was able to say goodbye. Zara did, too, kissing Bridget as if she was her long-lost aunt and promising to visit soon.
Then, as soon as the front door had closed behind us and I was preparing to say the briefest possible goodbye to her, Zara said, ever so casually, ‘Oh, Nome, about my pashmina.’
Startled, I replied, ‘Yes – what about it?’
‘You do still have it, don’t you?’
‘Of course.’ What did she think I’d done, flogged it on Vinted in the four days since Andy’s funeral?
‘Do you mind awfully if I pop back to yours and pick it up? It’s just, I’m so used to having a black pash in my bag. In case of emergencies, you know, like the one on Friday. And I’m getting all twitchy without it. It’s like my Linus blanket.’ She gave a tinkly, self-deprecating little laugh.
Put on the spot, I couldn’t think of a decent excuse. It was too early for needing to collect the children from nursery to be plausible. I clearly wasn’t going out to lunch or to the gym.
So I said, ‘Okay. I mean, of course you can. Shall we get the bus?’
‘Haha, no need for that. Come on, let’s Uber it.’
‘You – okay, let me get my phone and I’ll order one.’
Except I didn’t have my phone. So I heard my voice giving her my home address, and watched helplessly as she entered it into hers.
I half-expected the cab journey to pass in awkward silence, but I’d reckoned without Zara’s Teflon self-confidence – or was it just the hide of a rhino?
As soon as the car door thumped shut and we settled into the pine-scented interior, she began giving me what I later described to the Girlfriends’ Club as an interrogation the Stasi would have been proud of.
‘So – E17. Where’s that postcode exactly?’ she asked, frowning earnestly down at her phone. ‘My London geography’s gone to shit since I’ve lived abroad. Is it Hackney?’
‘Haha, no. We couldn’t have afforded Hackney if we wanted to. It’s further north than that and a lot less fashionable.’
‘And you’ve lived there how long?’
‘Four and a bit years.’ I hesitated, torn between wanting to give away as little information about my life as I could and needing to emphasise its stability, its permanence. ‘We moved in just before the twins were born.’
‘Twins! Oh my God, I did not know that. How adorable. Identical? You know I have an identical twin sister, Zoe? What are yours called?’
‘They’re a boy and a girl. Toby and Meredith.’ It felt odd telling her our children’s names – frightening, almost. Like I was handing her some sort of power over them. And as for her twin sister, who she’d never mentioned before – I wasn’t sure I wanted to ask her about that.
But what else could I say? I’m not telling you what they’re called and you can’t make me – way to make myself look like I was the weird one here, not her.
‘That must be quite the handful, with Patch being away so much.’ She smiled sympathetically.
‘He isn’t so much any more,’ I replied defensively. ‘He got promoted so he doesn’t do the six weeks offshore thing any more – he’s mostly based in London and only travels sometimes.’
And now I’d given her a clue to my husband’s whereabouts.
‘And you?’ she probed. ‘Still doing the old nine to five?’
I shook my head, watching her wide, guileless eyes follow the movement. ‘I’m a stay-at-home mum, for now. I went back after maternity leave but it was too much, so we decided I’d best pack it in for a bit. But I’m thinking of going back once they start school.’
‘And how about the old gang? Abbie, Kate, Rowan – you guys still see each other?’
‘Yes, same as always. Second Wednesday of every month. But we talk online every day.’
‘Ah.’ She sighed, her fingers pressed against her lips like she wanted to be blowing out cigarette smoke, not just air. ‘You know, I miss that. I’ve never had a group of friends like you guys, and I don’t expect I ever will again. It gets harder when you’re older, doesn’t it?’
Then why did you fuck it up so badly? So deliberately and unnecessarily? I wanted to know the answer, but at the same time I couldn’t bring myself to ask – because how would I know if what she told me was even true?
So I just said, ‘Yeah. We’re all really lucky.’
And then I asked her a bit about her time living and working in New York, and it turned out she’d spent a couple of years in LA as well, and a year in Hong Kong before returning to Paris. If, of course, any of that was true.
To my relief, the cab drew up outside my house, and Zara jumped swiftly out, thanking the driver and strolling up to the front door before I had the chance to offer to go in and fetch her scarf while she waited in the car.
‘Do you mind if I use your loo?’ she asked. ‘I’m absolutely bursting after all that tea.’
‘Uh… sure. It’s just up the stairs on the left.’
I watched the high heels of her boots disappear on to the landing. Don’t go into our bedroom. Or into the children’s bedroom. And if you could possibly close your eyes when you’re in the bathroom so you don’t notice the state of the floor, that would be good too.
But Zara gave no sign of having noticed anything untoward when she came strolling down the stairs a few minutes later. I’d done a hasty rummage through the blue Ikea bag of dirty washing that was spewing its contents out on to the kitchen floor and located her scarf (thank God I hadn’t put the delicate cashmere and silk garment through a hot wash), as well as my phone (likewise).
‘Love your tiles,’ she said. ‘Honestly, this place is so lovely. It really feels like a home. You should see the hovel I’m renting – it might be central but there’s no room to swing a cat. Not that I’d try swinging Bisou, obviously, she’d never put up with it.’
So then of course I had to ask her about her cat, and listen to a run-down of how she’d adopted a Bengal kitten when she was in Paris and it had been all over the world with her, and was getting on now but she loved her so much she sometimes felt like she might die.
And then, politely refusing my offer to have her scarf dry-cleaned and post it back to her, she left.
Naomi:
So that’s what happened
I typed in the Girlfriends’ Club WhatsApp.
I was perched on the edge of the bathtub, where Toby and Meredith were currently contentedly splashing each other (and me). I reckoned I had about five minutes to finish updating my friends on the day’s events before the twins got bored and started demanding more bubbles or wanting to get out.
Kate:
OMG I can’t believe the brass neck of her! Just turning up like that.
Naomi:
I mean, to be fair, it’s just paying a social visit on an elderly woman and playing cards. It’s not like she was stealing the silver.
Rowan:
Still. That must have been awkward.
Naomi:
Like you won’t believe.
‘Mummy, I’m cold.’ Meredith’s inevitable announcement came a good three minutes later than I’d been expecting it – a welcome reprieve.
‘Come on then, darlings. Bedtime and a story?’
For the next half an hour, I was distracted from any thoughts of Zara by The Cat in the Hat , Aliens Love Underpants and the intoxicating smell of my children, all soapy and sleepy – although I didn’t particularly rate the chances of them staying that way, given Toby’s recent habit of pinging into shouting wakefulness the moment I left the room.
I waited while they fell asleep, perched on the end of Meredith’s bed, not looking at my phone or even thinking about anything much except the way the shadow Toby’s eyelashes cast on his cheek was more visible than the pale ginger lashes themselves, and how Meredith’s lips drooped downwards towards the pillow as she fell asleep, her favourite teddy clamped under her chin.
At last, I felt it was safe to leave the room. I stood, infinitely slowly so as not to cause any vibration in the mattress, tiptoed to the door and stepped out on to the landing.
Only then did I allow myself to breathe.
Retrieving my wine glass from the bathroom, I walked downstairs. The kitchen was a mess – the children’s coats dumped over the backs of chairs, their lunchboxes unwashed next to the sink, my handbag spewing its contents over the kitchen table, which was still littered with the remains of spaghetti bolognese.
It was far from the scene of domestic serenity I’d imagined welcoming my husband home to, back when we’d decided it made sense for me to give up work. And, even though the child-related chaos was somewhat worse now than it had been earlier, it wasn’t the image of mine and Patch’s home I’d have chosen to display to Zara, either.
I glanced at my phone again and saw that the chat had been updated.
Rowan:
That’s so weird. It sounds like she was almost… Nice?
Abbie:
She was always nice. That was one of the things about her. Dangerously nice.
Naomi:
I know, right? I could feel my guard coming down all the time, and I really didn’t want to let it.
Kate:
Want to know something else?
Naomi:
What? Tell us quick, because I need to get cracking.
Kate:
She messaged me on LinkedIn. She’s asked me to meet her for a cocktail next week.
I put down my phone, leaving the others to react to Kate’s announcement. I took the defrosted chicken breasts out of the fridge, along with a couple of bendy carrots, a head of broccoli that was going brown round the edges and some wilting spring onions. My hands moving without my mind being fully engaged, I started vigorously peeling and chopping.
Zara was back. It seemed like she intended to infiltrate our lives as if nothing had happened – as if she could turn the clock back to when we were all friends and none of us would notice, or remember what had happened in the intervening years.
And I had absolutely no idea what to do about it.