13 June
The house, in the middle of nowhere in the Peak District, is messy with clothes and food strewn everywhere, but we don’t care. For once, we’re not responsible. We’re teenagers again. It’s someone else’s problem.
Emma is shrieking, drunk on a few gin and slims as she is not a big drinker.
‘I thought we were going to go to a spa!’ she slurs, then giggles. ‘What happened to the spaaaaaa?’
I have my long legs propped up on a sofa that is not mine and am in old baggy leggings and bare feet. I have a glass of warm supermarket red wine in my hand. I am on my phone, posting a picture of Poppy I took yesterday, trying to keep up more regular traffic on Cheshire Mama’s Instagram.
I laugh at Emma.
‘Remember the spa you found was a bit … well, shit?’ I say, laughing. ‘We came here instead. I found it on Airbnb.’
Then, we planned to go walking but bad weather and being shattered made us abandon that too.
‘We could get the bus into town?’ says Emma, smoothing down frizz at her temple that keeps popping up ten seconds after she does this. It’s about the tenth time. ‘Have a potter around the shops?’
Everyone ignores her or rolls their eyes. That’s what happens to Emma when she suggests things like potters or cheeky pizzas.
There’s a Chinese takeaway menu floating around somewhere and Emma, perpetually dieting, is talking romantically about fried noodles.
Beyond that, we’re just going to drink and not think about anybody else, and that’s the point of being here.
Someone puts a Sonique song on I like on Spotify and I stand up to dance to it and wonder why no one is acknowledging that this is one of my favourite songs but then I remember that no one knows which songs are my favourites, yet. As I dance with my eyes closed, Cora says something about a group shot.
‘Yes!’ says Asha. ‘A group shot. I’ll get my phone.’
‘I meant tequila,’ says Cora, deadpan, and the next minute I am roaring with laughter and downing one tequila then a second from a bottle that I did not know anyone had brought.
After that, my memory gets blurrier.
A third slips down, I think.
I talk a lot. I know that.
Next thing, I’m waking up in a double bed next to Cora and my eyes are sticky with mascara. My mouth is claggy with a lack of water and the remains of a thick, spicy Asian sauce.
The usual thing happens.
Whereas before I might stir gradually, since the video I wake like somebody at war. I am on high alert, grab my phone, check what I’ve missed, if other disasters have befallen me while I slept. It’s worse when I’ve been drunk and have taken my eye off the ball for longer.
This morning, I grab my phone from this Airbnb’s shabby-chic bedside table.
As soon as I’ve checked my messages to make sure that Poppy is okay, I realise that what I am worried about, today, is not on a phone.
Instead, I think – what did I tell my friends last night? What did I share?
I glance at Cora, gently snoring with an expensive eye mask on and her make-up removed. Next to her on her bedside table sit a messy pile of five tubs of creams I know all cost over £100, two of which have the lids off. She was definitely drinking last night – even steering the shots – but from the evidence, clearly not in the state I was.
I get up and walk down the hall in bare feet on cold wooden floors. I shiver. I open cupboards and drawers and eventually find a chocolate cupcake with half a Crunchie on top of it in a Cora’s Cupcakes branded box and I eat that for breakfast in two bites.
I put the kettle on and lean against the work surface.
The thought that buzzes round my brain constantly comes to the surface again. If not Ollie and Mitch, who? I have a meeting with the lawyer next week but he has been clear: the website operator has taken it down and it’s not appeared anywhere else. Strand one. For strand two, getting whoever did it, the best – the only – way to move this on is to get some evidence, so we can hand that over to police.
As I wait for the kettle to boil, Asha comes in holding two coffees.
She is in leggings and a hoodie and out of breath.
‘Went for a walk,’ she says. ‘The only way I could think of to shift the hangover.’
She nods towards her coffee cup.
‘Wish I’d got up in time to get my order in,’ I mutter, opening cupboards to locate a pot of instant.
‘Good news,’ she says. ‘It’s yours. Got an extra one, for whoever was up first.’
I want to kiss her.
‘Was I … embarrassing last night?’ I say, taking the cup from her hand, sipping even though it burns.
Asha heads across to the sofa. ‘We were all drunk,’ she says. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
But I have more to fear, I think, more to share. That’s what she doesn’t realise.
I drink my coffee with Asha in front of a Friends repeat and then I head back to the bedroom, passing Cora on the way.
‘Just going for a shower,’ she says. Smirks. ‘Bloody hell, I bet you’re feeling rough.’
And I feel disproportionately angry. Just one day, I think. Just one day where I don’t feel shamed would be nice.
I fight the urge to tell her that her cupcake tasted of zero-hours contracts.
Is the key in drinking? Do I need to stop? Or is it too late for me? Am I destined to have an aptly scarlet letter across my chest forever?
I lie on the bed on my front like a teenager in a hungover sulk and scroll through my phone. Pictures, on Facebook and Instagram, from last night, in which I look like a mess. In which my eyes don’t focus.
And then worse.
I open my email and see a message from the website provider. After they agreed to take the video down, Jonathan told me they could potentially give me information about who posted the video. I asked.
And finally, they have something for me.
‘We have been able to pin down the area that the video was sent from,’ it says. ‘Hopefully this will be of some use to you.’
Cora comes into the room.
‘Want some toast?’ she asks.
‘Just give me a second,’ I say, angling my phone away from her, my heart thumping hard.
‘You okay, hon?’ she asks.
I nod, distracted. ‘Uh-huh.’
She stands there, waiting for more.
I look at her. ‘Just got to deal with something at home. I’ll be out in a bit.’
But I have taken it in, even as she stands there. What the next line says. What this means.
Because the area that the video was sent from is not Manchester where Mitch is.
It’s not the Midlands near Ollie.
The video was posted from a place closer to home.
My hands shake now, as Cora walks away.
I shove my things in a bag and tell the girls my hangover is too bad to stay for the rest of the day for a pub Sunday lunch as planned and I head home early. My mind is buzzing about who could have done this, who wants to hurt me so much that they sat in their home in a sleepy, leafy, boring village and posted a video of me having sex with two men.
Because the video was posted in Cheshire.
In the car home, I look around at those fields, those country pubs, that farm shop that sells the good brownies and it feels like they are edging closer to me, surrounding me, so I can’t escape this place now.
Cheshire.
It is too much to be a coincidence.
Someone from the inside of my life is out to get me.
Now I just need to figure out who it is; who I can no longer trust.