Nicole
Nicole
Nicole looks over her shoulder to where she has left Abby on a bench with Clio. She sees Abby close her eyes as though to shut out the world and all the pain it inflicts, and her own mind is awash with feelings too complicated to articulate, even to herself. She sees Clio turn her head away from Abby, as though proximity to her mother’s grief is dangerous and she cannot bear to witness it. Nicole experiences a surge of love for Clio, a wish that she could – somehow – insulate her from all this. She’s always had a soft spot for Clio, has seen how difficult it’s been for her, growing up in her sister’s shadow, has watched Abby’s efforts to assure Clio that she is loved every inch as much as Isla. She has observed, over the years, Clio’s inability to believe it, and the steely carapace Clio has erected around herself: a failed attempt to shield herself from her own vulnerability.
Looking around the gathering, Nicole’s eyes scan the crowd for Andrew and Nathaniel, but she cannot see them anywhere. Nathaniel barely said a word this morning before they left, has been quiet ever since the news of Isla’s death, and Nicole does not know how best to help him. For the past couple of years, Nathaniel has tried to keep his feelings for Isla a secret, but Nicole has seen the flush in his cheeks whenever her name is mentioned, heard the longing in his voice when he is talking to her. And she has also seen Isla’s tactful attempts to deflect Nathaniel’s unwanted attention, understood that Isla never thought of Nathaniel that way, that her feelings towards him were purely platonic. Many times, Nicole has begun to broach the subject with Nathaniel – gently, sensitively – but each time Nathaniel has shut her down, his humiliation so acute that Nicole has felt it unkind to continue. Now, given what has happened, she does not know how to acknowledge the exquisite pain of Nathaniel’s grief without embarrassing him, feels paralysed by an overwhelming sense of her own impotence.
‘How’s Abby doing?’
Nicole feels a hand on her arm, turns to see Sita Rani standing next to her.
‘Not great, to be honest. I’m hoping she’ll feel a bit better once today’s out of the way.’
Sita shakes her head. ‘I feel so guilty. If Dev and I hadn’t gone away for the night and said Meera could have a party, this would never have happened.’ She holds her hands up against Nicole’s attempt to interrupt her. ‘I know, it’s a futile way of thinking, but I can’t help myself.’
‘You can’t torture yourself like that. It’s not your fault.’ Nicole squeezes Sita’s hand, thinks about this group of parents she has known for almost seven years, whose children she has watched grow from prepubescence to near-adulthood.
‘I haven’t seen Jack today. Did he not want to come?’
Something catches in Nicole’s throat, and she swallows before answering. ‘No, we decided against it. We felt it was too much for him, at his age. He’s gone to a friend’s for the day.’
She thinks about Jack, about how withdrawn he has been over the past two weeks, even more so than usual. Nicole has already spent months worrying about him. Since his diagnosis six months ago, she has been aware that Jack has behaved differently, perceived himself differently. However many times she tells him that a diagnosis of Inattentive ADHD does not make him a different person – it does not change the way anyone thinks or feels about him – Jack does not seem able to believe her. It’s true that his condition makes him more forgetful, more disorganised, more distractible – these were the reasons she got him tested in the first place – but it does not alter fundamentally who he is: the kind, thoughtful, funny teenage boy she knows him to be. And yet, Jack seems to have become unsure of himself: tentative, less confident, less sociable.
‘How’s Nathaniel doing? It must be hard on him. I know he and Isla have been friends their whole lives.’
As if in Pavlovian response, Nicole’s eyes sweep across the assembled mourners, alight on Nathaniel leaning against a tree trunk, alone. ‘He’s found it tough. But then, it’s been tough for all Isla’s friends.’
‘It’s different for you guys, though. I know how close you all are.’
It is all Nicole can do to nod in response. Memories flit through her mind like grainy footage on an old cine projector. Isla and Nathaniel as toddlers playing in sandpits, in paddling pools, at soft-play centres. Isla and Nathaniel standing side by side, holding hands, grinning impishly on their first day of kindergarten. Isla, Nathaniel, Clio and Jack dressed in costumes to perform plays Isla devised. The four of them jumping off the side of Stuart’s boat into the water at Newtown Creek. Isla comforting Jack after he failed to win a prize in the treasure hunt at Clio’s seventh birthday party, giving him a bumper bag of Haribo instead. Isla and Nathaniel lounging on the sofa in the den, in fits of laughter, watching Elf , Bill and Ted , School of Rock . So many shared memories. So much shared history.
‘It must be especially difficult for Nathaniel, given all the friendship drama over the past few weeks.’
The words jar in Nicole’s head. ‘What friendship drama?’
There is an almost imperceptible flicker of surprise across Sita’s face before she neutralises her expression. ‘Sorry, I just assumed you knew.’
‘Knew what?’
Sita smiles with exaggerated reassurance. ‘I’m sure it’s nothing.’
Impatience stipples Nicole’s skin. ‘It’s clearly not nothing or you wouldn’t have mentioned it. Seriously, Sita, I don’t have space in my head to be worrying about things I don’t even know about. What’s going on?’
Sita looks over her shoulder as if to check nobody’s eavesdropping, lowers her voice. ‘It’s just that Nathaniel seems to have been... slightly frozen out lately. It’s probably just a passing spat or something. You know what teens are like – there’s always friendship issues going on. But Meera said that’s why he wasn’t invited to the party.’
For the second time in less than a minute, Nicole is aware of words snagging in her head as if on a rusty nail. ‘What do you mean, he wasn’t invited to the party?’
‘Meera’s party, I mean. The night of the accident. Sorry, if I’d known in advance that she wasn’t going to invite him, I’d have had a word, told her to be a bit kinder. To be honest, it’s probably a blessing he wasn’t there. I’m not sure any of our kids will ever recover from finding Isla like that.’
Questions scramble in Nicole’s brain, as if she is trying to collate pieces of a jigsaw without knowing what the picture should be. ‘Do you know if Elliot was at the party?’
‘Elliot Mercer?’ Sita nods. ‘Yes, he had to give a statement to the police. So did Meera, obviously.’
Sita continues to talk – about friendships and social cliques and how she wouldn’t want to be a teen again for anything – but Nicole isn’t really listening. Her attention wanders to where her son stands alone, his tall, thin frame like a newly planted sapling that has yet to take root.
Her memory rewinds to the night of the crash: coming downstairs to find Nathaniel in the kitchen, how his presence had startled her after everything she’d been through with Jack. She remembers him telling her that the party had been fine, that he couldn’t remember if Isla was still there when he left, that he had gone to Elliot’s for most of the evening. But now she learns that he had never been at the party and that he couldn’t have gone to Elliot’s because Elliot had been at Meera’s.
Nathaniel leans against the tree, chews at his thumbnail, looks around surreptitiously as though unnerved by his own presence. Something wrenches inside Nicole at the thought of her son being ostracised by people he’s been friends with for years, and she cannot separate her worry for him from her dismay at their behaviour. There is pain that he has not felt able to confide in her, regret that she has not noticed something is wrong. She thinks about the past fortnight, about how preoccupied she has been in the aftermath of Isla’s death, and chastises herself that perhaps she has missed some vital clues as to Nathaniel’s state of mind.
And yet, while her heart breaks for her son, she cannot silence a voice in her head asking the same question, again and again: if Nathaniel was not at the party on the night of Isla’s death, and neither was he at Elliot’s, where was he until ten-twenty at night?