I swayed and stumbled down the fast-moving train, suitcase trailing in my wake, feeling every twist and turn of the track. Seats were in short supply; when I eventually squeezed my way onto a square of four, my knees were virtually knocking into the skirt-suited woman opposite me. She barely registered my smiled apology, her eyes glued to her phone. I found myself mirroring her, a Pavlovian hand reaching into my bag, but I stopped myself, pushing it back underneath the bulging client files I’d brought to work on during my impromptu absence. I would do what I so often advised those clients to do: come off autopilot and be in the moment. The calmer I could be, the more calm I’d have to offer Lysette.
We passed through a thick ribbon of high-rise blocks and factories belching smoke, but then the urban sprawl gave way to something sparse and beautiful. Trees and fields, buildings as mere punctuation – I even spotted a field of munching cows. I felt myself exhale from deep in my belly, then reminded myself I’d go mad if I couldn’t walk five minutes from my front door and find a decent cup of coffee. I changed trains at Peterborough, swapping the long commuter express for a tiny local service. It was just four carriages long; a grey-haired guard walked the length of it, chatting companionably to the smattering of passengers, all of whom he seemed to know.
When I got off, Lysette’s husband Ged was on the platform, his hand raised in a weary salute. Ged’s handsome, but in a way that would never work for me. A carpenter by trade, he’s scruffy and crumpled, with a broad chest and kind eyes. He’s a stoner, a chronic under-achiever, but he loves Lysette and the three kids passionately – the fact that the eldest two aren’t his has never been any kind of obstacle. He gave me a warm hug, the kind which smelt of rolling tobacco and eau de perspiration.
Eventually he released me. ‘You’re a complete star, coming down for her like this.’
‘Of course.’
‘Yeah, but we know how busy you are,’ he said, and I glowed a little.
His ancient estate car was parked right outside the quaint-looking station. He threw my bags in the boot and started the engine. As we drove towards Little Copping, the landscape was bathed in the kind of ostentatious orangey-pink sunset that could have been a Hollywood special effect. The fields were village lush and green, the big houses that fringed the town built from that reassuringly old, mellow grey stone that perfectly reflects the light. We passed one that was protected by tall wrought-iron gates. Even through the bars, I could see it was in another league. It was huge and sprawling, an artful architect’s take on the classical houses that surrounded it.
‘Fancy,’ I said, trying not to think about the shaky plasterboard and dingy communal entrance that defined my new abode.
‘That’s the Farthings’ place.’
Lysette had told me she’d made friends with MP Nigel Farthing’s wife a couple of years ago, apologising for the blatant name dropping, but unable to hide her excitement at the frisson of fame. Their kids had been hastily pulled out of private school as his star had risen, and she’d swiftly become a mover and shaker in the local community, a permanent fixture on the PTA. He was a Conservative, a rising star in the Cabinet with pretensions to future leadership. He had movie star good looks, and had become a camera-friendly fixture on the news, constantly laying out his case for compassionate capitalism with a heartfelt sincerity which gave even the haters a grudging respect. Now I could see he was the kind of MP with bulging family coffers: even the most optimistic expenses claim wouldn’t give you the means for that pile.
I couldn’t help but gawp. ‘Is it even fancier inside?’
‘You betcha,’ confirmed Ged, with a certain ruefulness.
We were coming into the village proper now – there was the pretty Victorian church, its tall spire puncturing the burnt orange sky. I stared at it, feeling a jolt go through my body at the thought of Sarah’s funeral. I still only knew the barest bones of what had happened, but we were so near the house that it felt unseemly to launch into a round of questions. We skirted the cobbled square, then passed the whitewashed exterior of the local pub, The Black Bull. A few drinkers were spilling out across its outside lawn, enjoying the dying embers of the sun. Ged sped up now, tearing down the country lanes with the terrifying confidence of someone who lived there.
The lights of their little cottage were blazing when we pulled up: I could see the pots of herbs that Lysette and Saffron nurtured obsessively lined up on the windowsill of the kitchen. I thought that Lysette would rip the door off its hinges, throw herself into my arms, but there was no immediate sign of her. I stepped into the messy hallway, a jumble of coats of varying sizes hanging off the pegs.
‘Is she upstairs?’ I asked Ged.
He put my bags down, nodded.
‘Tea? Water? Something stronger?’
‘Cup of something herbal. I’ll just say hello to the kids quickly. Is Saffron in bed?’
‘She is,’ he told me, busying himself with the kettle. Now we were here, I could see how muted he was, his movements slow and careful.
It was gone eight, so it was hardly surprising my god-daughter was in bed. Still, I couldn’t help missing her version of a welcome, which always made me feel like I was roughly as magnificent as Beyoncé. Lysette’s two hulking teenagers, Finn and Barney, were lying on the floor of the low-ceilinged living room, hands firmly wrapped around their games consoles. Their size always shocked me anew, like we’d wandered into a fairy story and they’d downed a wizard’s growth potion. The truth was that it gave me a jolt of failure, a visible reminder of my age. The idea that I too was old enough for this – that by now I could have made an almost-man – still seemed ridiculous to me. Looking at them, I couldn’t deny that forty was in spitting distance – that I’d already made some of life’s big choices without even noticing.
‘Hello there,’ I said, unexpectedly awkward, giving them a gauche little wave from the doorway.
It was sweet the way they broke away from their game, leaping up to hug me with genuine warmth. Lysette had done a great job. I hugged them back a little too fiercely, then stepped out.
It was time to go and find her.
*
She was a hump in the middle of the bed, encased in a tangle of duvet and pillows, tissues strewn around the periphery like lifeboats approaching a disaster. I made a pretence of knocking on the open door, and she slowly emerged from the mess. She sat up, grabbed the box of tissues, scrubbing at her wet, swollen face as if it was betraying her. She looked raw and unformed, as if her edges were light pencil lines, attacked by a rubber. I tried to control my expression, protect her from my shock. In twenty-five years of friendship I’d never seen her like this. She was the rock, not the wreck.
‘Hi, darling,’ I said, perching gingerly on the corner of the chaotic bed, ‘have you decided you’re better off going fully nocturnal?’
I winced as soon as I said it, embarrassed by my flat-footed attempt at normality.
‘What can I say?’ she said, managing a vague semblance of a smile. ‘I’ve always been a fox.’ Then her face crumpled in on itself, and I pole-vaulted across the bed to envelop her in my arms. ‘Mia . . .’ she said again and again as I stroked her hair, and felt the tsunami of her tears soaking through my silk shirt.
‘I know,’ I said, even though I didn’t, not really. It’s the only way we can survive, I think, telling each other these little lullaby lies, a baton pass for when life gets too hard.
Eventually her sobs grew less jagged and she pulled away, threw herself back against the pile of pillows.
‘She’s only twenty-seven!’ she said, angry fists balled up in her lap. Was, I thought, the word small and devastating. ‘I just can’t . . . she wouldn’t do something like that. Max needs her too much!’
Sarah’s crumpled body was found at the bottom of a car park on the edges of Peterborough, her phone in her pocket, the shattered screen covering up a text, not sent or even addressed. I’m sorry it had said, a single X on the bottom.
‘The thing with depression is that it’s so easy to hide. But it is a proper illness.’
‘She wasn’t depressed,’ said Lysette firmly.
I changed tack. It was only three days since Sarah’s death; of course she was too traumatised to think straight.
‘When did you last see her?’
‘The day . . .’ She gulped, voice wobbling all over the place. ‘The day she . . . it happened. In the morning. We were wetting ourselves laughing after drop-off about’ – she waved her hand, dismissed it – ‘just school stuff, the teachers – she was taking the piss that way she always did. We went for coffee and then it was suddenly lunchtime. That was what it was like with her.’ She looked up at me, eyes plaintive. ‘I can’t imagine this place without her, Mia!’
‘Of course you can’t. It’s just happened – it’s still completely unbelievable. Have you spoken to Joshua?’
Joshua was Sarah’s husband. I hadn’t met him, only heard about him. ‘Josh-yew-a,’ Lysette would say, in a funny voice, mocking his properness. He was forty-five going on a hundred, according to her. The most improper thing he’d ever done was leaving his first family for a twenty-year-old he claimed he couldn’t live without.
‘Yeah, I did. He’s such a fucking robot. He was talking about trying to keep everything “normal” for Max. He’s sending him back to school next week!’
‘Wow.’
I work with bereaved children sometimes. They might not always have the words, but they have all the feelings bottled up inside. I let them stage bloody battles and drownings in my sand tray, knowing that, unlike in real life, they can smooth out the devastation with the palm of their hand once the hour is up.
‘No one’s coping,’ said Lysette, clutching my hand tightly. ‘Kimberley and Helena and Alex are all walking round like zombies. I said maybe you could talk to them?’
‘Kimberley Farthing?’ I asked, and she nodded. I felt a jolt of interest about the mysterious woman behind those wrought-iron gates, then remembered what was important. ‘Lys, I didn’t come here to be a therapist. I’m just here to support you.’
She jerked the duvet upwards like it was a shield.
‘Yeah, no. Course.’
‘I’m too close. Besides, I’m only here until Tuesday morning.’
‘The funeral’s on Tuesday. If the, if the . . .’ She can’t get the words out. ‘If the coroner releases the body over the weekend.’ She collapsed again, body racked by sobs, the sweet, musky smell that came off her telling me she hadn’t managed to leave bed all day. I held her, feeling unexpectedly useless. I hated feeling useless. ‘She wouldn’t kill herself, Mia. She wouldn’t do that to us.’
I circled her back with my palm, determined not to reason with her.
‘Whatever you need, OK? Whatever takes the tiniest piece of this off your shoulders.’
‘You could take Saffron to school tomorrow,’ she said, her face still pressed against my shoulder. ‘You’d be a lot more fun than me.’
‘Of course.’
‘And you could get me a glass of red.’
I surveyed the devastation of her bedroom.
‘How about we get one together?’
Lysette pulled some clothes on and we went downstairs. Finn and Barney seamlessly removed themselves from the living room, and soon we were ensconced on the tattered pink sofa, wine glasses (filled by Ged) in hand, toes touching. Mine were bare, red-nailed. Hers were sticking out of the ends of her tracksuit bottoms, clad in a pair of stripy socks. I wriggled mine against hers.
‘I wish I’d had the chance to get to know her properly.’
Lysette was a little calmer now, her tears held at bay. She smiled sadly, lost in a memory.
‘Yeah, you only met her that one time, didn’t you? At Saffron’s party.’
I felt a cold shiver at the thought that we’d been together in this very room. She’d been supervising pass the parcel, but supervising was the wrong word for what she did. The children were already jacked up on sugary birthday cake and fizzy drinks, and she turned the Black Eyed Peas up loud, shouted out instructions, made sure there was nothing predictable about when the music stopped. There was a frenzy of shredded paper and squeals and hysterical tears. I sipped tea on the sidelines, impressed and judgemental all at once.
‘She was really fun,’ I said. Lysette was watching me closely as if she was hungry for my words. ‘She was more than that though, wasn’t she? She was kind of wild in a way.’
‘I wouldn’t call her that,’ she said, quickly.
‘No, I mean . . . I meant it as a compliment.’
She made a non-committal ‘mmm’ sound, and I tried not to feel like I’d said something wrong. We sat there for a minute in a silence that was unfamiliar in its awkwardness.
‘She was so kind,’ said Lysette eventually. ‘Saffron must’ve been two when I met her, and I felt like I was losing it a bit.’
I thought back, tried to recall her being on the edge, but all I remembered was a predictable, overwhelming mix of love and exhaustion. Perhaps I’d been too wrapped up in my own stuff to recognise the nuance of it.
‘It’d been so long since I’d had a toddler, and I just . . . well, you’ll find out. We came out of some mums and tots group and we were late and she was insisting on trying to unlock the car door with a twig, and I’d just had it. I mean, I properly bawled at her, and Sarah saw me. I thought she’d give me one of those looks – there are these special, patented Mummy Looks some of them give you when it’s your kid throwing the Monster Munch – but she didn’t. She laughed at me.’
‘What, actually laughed?’
‘Yeah. I was a bit taken aback, but then she just dragged us off with her. It was summer, and we ended up having gin and tonics in the garden of The Black Bull while the kids played on the swing set. I think we might’ve got quite pissed. She just knew exactly what I needed.’ She paused. ‘She knew it better than I did.’
‘What happened to your car?’
It was so not the point of the story, and yet somehow it was where my brain went.
‘I guess I got it the next day. She probably drove hers home.’
‘Really?’
Why had she reacted so badly to ‘wild’? Everything she was telling me was painting a picture of a cosy, rural version of that very word.
‘Oh yeah. She used to run red lights on purpose when she had PMT. She was a menace in that car. I was going to have to take points for her, the way she was going.’
I reached out my hand, stroked her calf.
‘You two obviously had such a laugh.’
Lysette’s bottom lip crumpled again. In that moment she looked very young.
‘Not only that, though. I mean she was, she was the best fun, but she really listened to me, too. However I was being, she never judged me or made me feel bad.’ I tried to control my rampant, narcissistic urge to hold up our friendship against the one she was describing. ‘She just loved me and I loved her back.’
‘I know,’ I said, hugging her again, letting her cry. ‘I know how much you’re hurting.’
I could barely hear her next words. ‘She never meant anything bad to happen.’
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, but Lysette burrowed more deeply into my shoulder, didn’t reply. Eventually she rubbed her eyes with her sleeve, shook herself, took a large gulp of her wine.
‘Mate, thank you so much for coming down.’ Her smile was still watery, but it was genuine. ‘I really needed you and you just came.’ I felt myself glowing from the inside. It felt primal and simple and deep all at once. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘I’d always come.’
‘I know you would,’ she said. ‘Come on, tell me what’s been going on with you.’
She never meant anything bad to happen. The phrase was still flickering for me, but I didn’t want to cost her this fragile calm by pushing her on it. Everything else felt so trivial, but gradually I managed to tell her about the vampiric priest, and how hard Patrick was working and, eventually, how frustrated I was by my body’s refusal to play ball.
‘Maybe you can ask Father Dracula to bless your woooomb,’ she said, and we laughed far more than the silliness merited. ‘Sorry,’ she said, wiping her eyes. Her spine straightened, that bleakness settling back down over her.
‘It’s OK to laugh,’ I said, as gently as I could. ‘You probably need the release.’
‘Yeah,’ she said, unconvinced. She picked up the wine bottle, poured the very last dregs into her glass. I could see murky specks of sediment swirling around as she took a gulp from it.
‘I bet Sarah would want you to,’ I said quietly. ‘I know I would want you to.’ She turned to me, her eyes blazing.
‘I don’t know that. I don’t know anything any more. The only thing I do know is that there is no way that Sarah would kill herself.’
‘Is it possible that she just lost her balance?’ I tentatively asked. ‘Fell off?’
‘No, not from the position she was found in.’ She stood up abruptly. ‘We should get some sleep.’
She’d sounded crazed by grief the first time she’d denied it. I’d let the words wash over me, too busy searching for a way to make her accept the reality of Sarah’s suicide to even hear them properly.
This time it was different. I was more porous somehow. The words worked their way in, refused to leave me.