Cross Her Heart

Hey, Lisa, it’s Simon. I know this is wholly inappropriate and I can always pretend it’s about work, but I wondered if you’d like to have dinner with me next week? Anyway, no need to reply straight away. Think about it. (before you say yes;-)). Enjoy the rest of your weekend. Sx

My emotions have raced from anxiety to calm to anxiety again and I don’t know quite how to process this. The memory of warm citrus scent fills my head.

No. I can’t. I can’t let a man in again. I can’t.

I delete the text and climb the stairs in the dark.

9

MARILYN

We wait, as we always do, until Lisa is through the front door, give her one last wave goodnight, before Richard pulls away.

‘Sorry if we kept you hanging about,’ I say. ‘I didn’t realise the time.’

‘It was that good a night?’

‘Ha, no.’ I look at him, a comedy bored expression on my face. ‘A Penny company night out. You can imagine. All work talk and pretending to be enjoying myself. I’d rather have been at home. I almost called you to come early, but I didn’t want to make Lisa feel she had to leave too.’ I’m over-explaining, despite my attempt at humour. Richard has always worked for himself. He doesn’t understand the whole office politics thing, no matter how many years I’ve had this job. He thinks it’s all some social whirl all day.

‘Isn’t it Lisa’s birthday soon?’ he asks, his eyes on the road. ‘The big four-o?’

‘A couple of months I think.’

‘We should do something for her. Organise a party. You could ask all the people at work along. Any other friends she has.’

I stiffen. Invite work into my home life? I can think of nothing worse. ‘She’s not a party person.’ Outside, the night flashes by. Where would we have it? Somewhere expensive? Somewhere to show off at? Regardless of everything else that screams at me this is a bad idea, we can’t afford to host a party.

‘Maybe not, but she’s changed over the years. She’s not the little shy mouse she was when you first started working together.’

He’s right, she isn’t. It’s still there sometimes, the unsettled edge which used to come off her like electricity, but it’s not an everyday thing. She walks with her shoulders back now and laughs easily. I became friends with her at first because I felt a bit sorry for her, not that I’d ever tell her so, but then I saw the person behind the shyness, wry, clever and kind, and things changed. Best friends. We’re there for each other. I love her. It’s as simple as that and I love her new confidence. It’s part of why I keep my secret from her. She doesn’t need any more shit in her life. I figure she’s had enough in her past one way or another. Plus, if I tell, I have to admit it to myself. I can’t face that.

‘We’ve all changed,’ I say, the words heavy, and as he glances across at me, I add, ‘It’s been ten years. My thighs have definitely changed.’

‘Your thighs are gorgeous.’ He looks back at the road. ‘But she’ll only be forty once and she doesn’t have anyone else to organise something for her. Ava won’t do it. She can’t arrange her own fortieth birthday and we’re her best friends.’

The thought is sweet, sometimes he is so very sweet, and my words come out too fast, my tongue loose after one glass of wine too many. ‘She may have a boyfriend to celebrate with by then.’

‘Oh?’ Now he’s looking at me properly, the road ahead empty of cars. ‘Come on. Spill.’ He smiles, white teeth in the darkness.

I fluster. I shouldn’t have said anything. This isn’t his business. This isn’t my business. Lisa would hate me talking about it. ‘Oh, it’s nothing really. Just someone at work.’

‘There’s a hot new man in the office? You didn’t say.’

The seat feels warm under me. ‘He’s not staff. He’s a client of hers. He owns a hotel chain or something.’ I sound dis-interested. Maybe too disinterested. It’s hard to get the balance right. ‘He’s opening a new one in town.’

‘A hot new boyfriend for Lisa? Sounds great. She’s been single too long. About time she got back out there.’

‘He’s not good-looking.’ Houses go by outside, lights still on in some, and I wonder at the lives inside, all the truths people hide behind those walls. Private lives. ‘But they like each other.’

They do like each other, however defensive Lisa might have been tonight. That was just nerves and embarrassment because she doesn’t know how to handle it. I wish I could tell her to relax. She deserves some happiness. Some fun at least. It’s been lovely to see her in the delicate dance around each other that comes at the beginning of something. The glow she has after their meetings, the endless meetings no client needs to have so many of, the smiling she doesn’t know she’s doing. I’m full of joy for her. Simon has the potential for a happy ever after.

‘Maybe we should go out for dinner with them,’ Richard says, as he pulls into the drive. ‘There could be some work in it for me.’

‘That would be nice,’ I answer. I’ve got no intention of setting up a foursome dinner with Lisa and Simon. They haven’t had a date yet, and Richard would push for work, I know he would, and then Simon would either offer him something out of pity or have to awkwardly ignore all the hints. Either way, it would be terrible.

‘But let’s see if they actually go out together first, okay?’

‘Okay. It’s sweet how you look after her.’ He kisses me on the forehead before unlocking the front door.

I watch Richard go inside before following, taking one last breath of clean night air. So many times I’ve been tempted to tell Lisa what’s going on, and I’m glad I haven’t. She needs hope. She’s had something bad happen in her past, that much is clear even if she closes down when I ask her about it. I can’t burden her with my problems. And maybe it will get better. Maybe it will go back to how it was at the beginning. We all need hope, me included.

Richard says nothing more about it until we’re getting ready for bed. I’m taking my make-up off, suddenly tired, when I see him looking at me in my reflection in the mirror.

‘What?’ I ask, a smear of cold cream across my cheeks.

‘What did you mean when you said he wasn’t good- looking?’

And so it begins.

10

AVA

I’m glad Courtney didn’t stay over. I just wanted to wash him out of me. It’s not him I think about all the time. The first thing I did after was check my phone for a Facebook message but there was nothing. I wanted to cry.

By the time we came downstairs, everyone was drunk and Ange was snogging Darryl in the kitchen, but after ten minutes or so, Jodie told the boys it was time to go. It felt clinical. Done what you came here for, now fuck off. I didn’t argue. It suited me when they left although after that came the interrogation as the girls wanted all the details. Did it sting? It stung me the first time. Did he get it in okay? Oh my God, how big? How was he after? I’d tried to stay excited about it but I felt hollow and sad. My first time shouldn’t have been like that. So nothingy. There wasn’t even any blood on the bed.

This morning it all feels like something that maybe happened in a dream, but the slightly dull ache between my thighs reminds me it was real. Can I dump him now? No. I’d look like such a tramp, and he’d be upset and who knows what he’d do, what he’d say or tweet or whatever. Call me fat and ugly and all that shit. I remember all the Snapchat crap that happened with Meg in Year Ten when she’d sent Christian pictures of her tits. At least I was never that stupid with Courtney. Anyway, I do like him. I don’t want to hurt his feelings. It’s all a mess.

I lean against the door frame as I puff on the cigarette. We don’t smoke much or often – it’s shit for our lung capacity – but there are times. And this is one of them. Jodie’s mum, Amelia, apparently smokes occasionally and Jodie found the packet last night, after which Lizzie insisted we smoked to celebrate the death of virginity and one more girl being safe from vampires in the night. Weird punch and a cigarette. What a way to celebrate. I’d spent most of the time going to the loo – I think he’s burst my bladder with his big cock – to check my messages, and coming out with a big fake grin on my face to cover my disappointment at my empty inbox.

The tobacco tastes horrible now I’m sober, and I don’t inhale. Only Jodie and Lizzie inhale. Does he smoke? I haven’t asked him. I mentally add it to the list of things I want to know about him. If he ever messages me again. Was he having sex last night? Was he thinking about me?

‘I’ll have to shower before I go,’ I say, as a breeze blows my smoke back at me. ‘If my mum smells this on me, she’ll go apeshit.’

‘Tell her my mum was here and smoking.’

‘It’s not worth the hassle. You know what she’s like. She forgets I’m growing up sometimes.’

The others have gone. Ange had to get home for some family lunch and Lizzie’s mum collected her half an hour ago. She’d offered me a lift too, but I can’t face my mum yet. She’ll want to talk, for me to tell her all about my night, and I’m going to have to come up with something to placate her or just storm up to my bedroom and hide under my duvet, which is what I really want to do. She makes me moody and then my being moody hurts her feelings. Anyway, it’s not ten thirty yet. If Angela hadn’t had to get up, we’d all be lounging in bed.

‘Did she never smoke?’ Jodie asks.

‘Nope. She doesn’t drink much either. And she was probably a total loser when she was my age.’ It feels disloyal but it makes me sound cooler when really I’m the mouse of our group – the most ordinary one. Maybe that’s what bothers me. Maybe me and Mum are too alike. Both boringly average.

‘At least she’s there for you.’ Jodie doesn’t look at me, but stares out into the garden before throwing her butt down on the path. She nods at me to do the same. ‘I’ll clean up later.’

She makes us huge cups of milky coffee and we go into the lounge, slouching into the furniture. Her home is like a show house – beautiful but impersonal. It never fails to surprise me.

‘I don’t know why we moved here,’ Jodie says, curling her small frame up in the armchair. ‘It wasn’t so bad in our old house, but now she’s always in Paris. She comes home once a month for a night if I’m lucky, and I’m sure that’s just to check I haven’t wrecked anything. She needn’t have bought a house at all.’

It sounds like heaven to me, but then I see Jodie’s face and realise maybe it’s not as good as I imagine.

Jodie shrugs. ‘You know I’ve never met her new man?’ She pauses. ‘She used to at least be home at weekends, but now she doesn’t even bother with those. Got to stay in France to see him apparently. God forbid she should want to see me. It’s not as if I even really want her here, but I want her to want to, if you know what I mean.’

It’s only me Jodie opens up to like this. We’ve splintered from the others a bit. She’s older and recently I feel older too. Because of him.

‘But then she’s always been weird,’ she continues. ‘Like I’m not really here. Not a real person. A pet maybe. She makes sure I have everything I need, but that’s it. I can’t say I know very much about her at all. She had me really young, did I tell you that? I didn’t live with her for years. Until I was about eight. She paid some people to look after me, how wrong is that? She was off travelling or working or both.’

‘How often do you see your dad?’ I know her dad’s not around but that’s it. Swimming, clothes, music, sex, bitching, booze, those are the things we four, the Fabulous Four, talk about most.

‘I don’t,’ she says. ‘He left when I was born. My mum gave me a photo once to show me what he looked like, but you know what, I’m not even sure it was him.’

We’ve been getting closer over the weeks but suddenly I feel a surge of proper unity with her. As if foundations are being set underneath us. This is something the others can’t be part of.

‘I don’t care who my dad is,’ I say. ‘I totally honestly don’t.’ I pause. ‘A while back someone at school said maybe my dad was a rapist. You know, like he raped my mum and she didn’t abort me? And that’s why she’s never had a boyfriend or anything.’

‘Wow.’ Her eyes have widened. ‘That’s some messed-up shit.’

‘Yeah. I mean, I don’t believe it, but it’s the only time I’ve ever cared about who he was. The rest, well. It’s hard to miss a ghost. I don’t even have a photograph.’

‘Did you tell your mum about the rapist thing?’

‘Yeah. She was horrified. She was fussing around me, re-assuring me.’ I laugh. ‘How fucked up is it to be reassured that your dad is just some bloke your mum shagged round the back of a pub after drinking too much.’

I see her face.

‘I’m exaggerating. It wasn’t round the back of a pub, but she says it was a drunken one-night stand.’

‘At least she can’t have a go at you for anything to do with sex.’

I laugh again, but I’m thinking of last night. My first sex. The only sex I’ve had. Shit sex. I can’t imagine having any one-night stands. ‘I haven’t told her about Courtney yet.’

‘Are you guys a proper thing now?’

I stare down at my cooling coffee. ‘He wants it to be. I’m not so sure.’

‘I thought you were crazy about him. Was it the sex? First time’s always bad, so don’t judge him on it. Unless it was you who was shit.’

I half-heartedly throw a cushion at her. ‘Shut up. It’s not that. It’s complicated.’

‘Someone else?’

She sits up straighter, curious, and I know I should have lied and said everything was fine. I need to shut this down. ‘Maybe.’ Everything I say is potentially making it worse. I wish I hadn’t opened my mouth. If Jodie tells Ange I’m interested in someone, she’s going to presume it’s someone at school and be on my case all the time to know who. I’ll have to make someone up. Pick some boy at random. I can’t think of anyone I fancy in Year Thirteen. ‘But it’s only a crush.’ My face is flushing with worry. ‘It’s not going to be anything.’

‘Don’t worry. I won’t say anything to Ange,’ Jodie says, reading my mind. ‘I love her, but she’s got a big gob and I wouldn’t want her knowing my secrets, if I had any.’

‘Or the others?’ I ask. ‘I don’t want it to be a thing. I’m sure me and Courtney will be fine.’

‘I swear,’ she says. ‘Your secret’s safe. But if anything happens, you have to tell me first. Deal?’

‘Deal.’

For a moment I’m tempted to tell her everything. To tell her what’s really turned me off Courtney. The friend request. The messages. Everything about him. But suddenly, she’s up on her feet and saying I should grab the spare room shower and she’ll use her en-suite, and then we should go.

‘Shit,’ I say when we get back to mine and I’m rummaging in my bag. ‘I’ve lost my keys.’

‘Check the car floor,’ Jodie leans over. ‘I always find stuff down there.’

I scrabble around under the seat, but they’re not there. My house key, swim-locker key and school-locker key, all on a key ring with a pair of big red Mick Jagger lips. Gone.

‘Nope. Fuck it. Where can they be?’

Jodie roots around but comes up empty-handed, and then it dawns on me. ‘That dumb bitch in the pub who knocked my bag over.’

‘What about her?’

‘I don’t remember picking my keys up.’

‘You must have.’ She looks in my bag as if maybe my eyes aren’t working properly. ‘She was helping pick stuff up. Maybe she put them in a side pocket.’

I let her look, but I’ve already searched everything.

‘Your mum’s in though, right?’ she says.

‘Yeah, but I’ll take the spare from down the side. She’ll want to change the locks if she thinks I’ve lost mine, even though there’s no address or anything on them. You know what she’s like.’

‘You don’t have to explain your mum to me, remember. The weird mums club, that’s us.’

I grin and I want to say a thousand things to her but I think they’ll all make me sound lame, so instead I say, ‘I hear ya, sister,’ and climb out of the car. ‘See you at training on Monday. But text me, bitch.’

‘Happy revising!’ she calls out, and I groan. Three exams this week, and I can’t find a shit to give about any of them.

She toots her horn as she pulls away, and I hurry down to the side gate and lift the loose brick on the wall, peeling away the taped key underneath. I know Mum will have heard the car. She’ll be waiting for me.

11

LISA

It’s pouring summer rain, but it’s so good to be driving Ava to school again. This used to be our everyday routine until Year Ten, when it became cooler to get the bus. It’s wonderful that my daughter is so independent and busy, but I still have a sneaky delight when she needs a lift, even though the journey takes me the wrong way to work through rush-hour traffic.

There’s no swim training this morning – and I’m glad because Ava has two exams today – and in this weather a ride with Mum is definitely preferable to waiting for the bus. For all her sportiness, Ava has never liked bad weather. She feels the cold too much, and now there’s the added worry of how it will affect the way she looks. They make me smile a little, these worries of her youth. I like how she’s preoccupied by such things, because it means her life is relatively carefree. I’ve done a good job in that regard. I don’t pride myself on much, but I do think I am, in my own way, a good mother.

The radio is on at my usual station. It’s the local one which tends to play more music from the eighties and nineties but Ava doesn’t complain. She’s head down over her phone, texting or whatever it is they do to talk to each other.

‘Everything okay?’ I ask as her fingers fly over the keyboard. I keep my tone light. It’s dangerous ground, showing any interest in Ava’s life these days. In the wrong mood – and those come more frequently recently – she can bite my head off. I know it’s normal. I’ve seen enough TV shows with surly kids in them to know I’ve had a good run before we got here, but it still stings when it happens.

‘Yeah. Last-minute nerves and stuff.’ She glances up at me. ‘Is it okay if the girls come round after my afternoon exam?’

I almost say no, there’s still a week or so of GCSEs left, but after two papers today she’ll probably need to relax. I’ve studied her exam schedule and she only has revision sessions tomorrow, so a few hours with her friends might be nice. Also – and I hate myself for thinking it – if they’re in the house, I know where she is.

‘Sure. Have they got exams today too?’

‘Lizzie has Geography AS I think. Ange is in History this afternoon with me, but she doesn’t have double Science this morning. Jodie’s all done. Her term is pretty much over.’

Her phone goes silent and she looks away, out of her water-streaked window at the headlights that dance in the muggy morning. ‘Her mum’s back in Paris again,’ she says. ‘New boyfriend there as well. I used to think it was cool her mum was away so much, but I think it pisses Jodie off a bit. Must be weird to be in that big house on her own all the time, looking after it for her mum when she could be having a great time in halls.’

I don’t know Jodie’s mother. I’ve met Angela’s a few times at parents’ evenings, and I think I saw Lizzie’s once from a distance at a swimming event, but Jodie is older and her mother obviously has her own busy life. Our girls are too old for us to have become friends through them, but we all know a little about each other. I wonder what they know of me. Worrier. Doesn’t go out much. No boyfriend.

‘She didn’t even live with her till she was about eight. Not properly. How odd is that? She’s always working away. There’s some cleaning woman who comes in, and there’s always loads of easy food in the fridge and freezer, but it must get boring to live off posh pizza and microwave meals all the time.’

Ava’s nonchalant, but she doesn’t fool me. A warm tingle floods my veins. This is almost a compliment. She might not be coming right out and saying it, but maybe my daughter is realising it’s not so bad to have a mum who’s there for you. I say nothing, but tap my hands on the steering wheel along with the end of Salt-N-Pepa’s ‘Push It’ as she goes back to her texting.

The windscreen wipers cut through the rain and along with the beat of the song, the rhythm is almost comforting. Apparently there are only a few more days of this terrible weather and then we shall all be bathed in glorious summer sunshine. Perfect timing for the end of Ava’s exams. Maybe I should suggest we go away for a weekend somewhere when they’re all done. Just the two of us, like we used to. Paris, perhaps.

‘And now for a request!’ I don’t know who this DJ is but he hasn’t quite mastered the voice they all do on national radio. The ease with which they speak. ‘We haven’t done one for a while, but this one appealed to me. The caller apparently wanted to remain anonymous – obviously shy—’

‘Or married, Steve.’ The cheeky co-host. Every show has one.

‘Oh, you’re a cynic, Bob. I’m sticking with shy. Anyway, not only did the caller want to keep themselves a secret, but they also wouldn’t give up the name of who this song was for! All they’d say is that the person would know. It was their song. And two people never forget their song.’

We’re coming up to the roundabout and I flick my indicator on, peering out to my right, waiting for my turn to go.

‘Since we have no names, I’m making this everyone’s song. All of our listeners out there so, if you’re stuck in traffic in the rain, this one is for you.’

I pull forward with the traffic, and, half smiling at the cheesiness of the DJ, reach to turn the volume up.

‘It’s a classic of 1988. Frankie Vein and “Drive Away, Baby”.’

My hand freezes and I stare at the radio as the oh so familiar tune, one I haven’t listened to in years, breaks in. I feel sick.

Leave with me baby, let’s go tonight,

You and me together, stealing into the night.

Is that a deal, is that a deal? We can make it all right.

Drive away with me, drive away, baby, let’s take flight.

The words assault me.

Me. It’s meant for me. It was our song.

An anonymous caller. The bunny rabbit. The strange feeling I’ve had of something being not quite right, that someone’s watching me, and now here’s the song, our song, requested in secret, and I think my heart might explode in my chest with the fear of it all. Frankie Vein’s husky voice fills the car, and fills my head and the years vanish and each lyric is a knife in my brain.

‘Fucking hell, Mum!’

I start suddenly as Ava grips the dashboard, and from outside, a dim and distant place belonging to other people beyond my panic, comes the squealing of brakes and blast of horns. The car stalls as I stop too quickly, my feet leaving the pedals and my breath coming in gasps as I pull myself back into the present as best I can.

Beside me, Ava’s eyes are wide. ‘What are you doing?’

I’ve come to a stop halfway on to the roundabout, and in my daze, all I can see is the anger and road-rage hatred in other drivers’ contorted faces as they go by.

‘Weren’t you looking?’ Ava barks.

‘I … I didn’t … I thought it was clear.’

Frankie Vein is still singing and making my head throb. I want to turn it off but I can’t let Ava see my shaking hands.

‘I should have got the bloody bus,’ she mutters. There she is, my surly teenager. Her disdain kick-starts me into action, and I force myself to turn the key again and move on, watching each exit this time, thankful that we’re so close to the school. The song finally fades out.

‘Great song,’ Steve’s disembodied voice says. ‘Whatever happened to Frankie Vein?’ he asks. ‘Where is she now?’

I can’t turn it off quickly enough. Where is she now? The question makes my face hot and I press my back into the seat as if I can hide inside the fabric.