In a Dark, Dark Wood

‘… miss you too. God, I wish I were home with you. Are you in bed?’ Long pause. ‘You’re breaking up. Yeah, the reception’s awful, I tried to phone you last night but there was nothing. I’ve only got half a bar now.’ Another pause. ‘No, just some bloke called Tom. He’s OK. Oh sweetheart, Jess, I love you—’

I coughed. I didn’t want to burst in on the middle of her conversation. Nina doesn’t let her guard down often and when she does, she doesn’t like it to be seen. I know that from experience.

‘… wish I were snuggled up with you. I’m missing you so much. It’s the back of beyond up here – nothing but trees and hills. I’m half-tempted to leave but I don’t think Nora—’

I coughed again, louder, and rattled the handle, and she broke off and called, ‘Hello?’

I opened the door and she grinned.

‘Oh, Nora’s just come in. We’re sharing a room. What? It’s breaking up again.’ Pause. ‘Ha – don’t worry, definitely not! Yeah, I’ll tell her. OK, I’d better go. I can hardly hear you. I love you too. Bye. Love you.’ She hung up and smiled up at me from the pile of pillows. ‘Jess says hi.’

‘Oh, glad you got through to her. Is she all right?’ I love Jess. She is small and round and comfortable with a smile that lights up a room and no snark about her at all – the exact opposite of Nina in fact. They’re the perfect couple.

‘Yeah, she’s fine. Missing me. Natch.’ Nina stretched until her joints popped, and then sighed. ‘God, I wish she was here. Or I wasn’t. One of the two.’

‘Well, there’s a vacancy. We’re one down.’

‘What?’

‘Melanie, she’s gone. The landline’s down and it was the last straw.’

‘Christ, you’re kidding? It’s like Agatha Effing Christie and the Ten Little Eskimos.’

‘Indians.’

‘What?’

‘Ten Little Indians. In the book.’

‘It was Eskimos.’

‘It bloody wasn’t.’ I sat down on the bed. ‘It was the N-word, actually, if you’re going for the original, then Indians, then soldiers when they decided that offing ethnic minorities was maybe a bit strange. It was never Eskimos.’

‘Well, whatever.’ Nina dismissed the Eskimos with a wave of her hand. ‘Is there any coffee down there?’

‘Nope. Just tea, remember?’ I reached for a jumper, pulled it over my head and smoothed my hair. ‘Clare doesn’t drink coffee, so neither do we.’

‘Oh, God, fucking Flo and the satellite of love. How’s she taking Melanie’s departure?’

‘Hmm. Listen, and you might be able to …’ I trailed off, and we both heard the unmistakeable sound of heavy sobs coming up from the kitchen. Nina rolled her eyes.

‘She is unhinged. I really mean that. She was weird when they were at university – have you noticed how she copies what Clare wears? She used to do that back then too. But now …’

‘I don’t think she’s unhinged.’ I shifted uncomfortably. ‘Clare’s a powerful personality – if you’re not very confident …’ I stopped, struggling to put into words the feeling that I’d always had – that my own personality was a space, a vacuum that someone like Clare could rush into to fill. It was something that I knew Nina would never understand – with all her faults, lack of personality is not one of them. She lay there, eyeing me speculatively from the pillow and then shrugged.

‘Clare’s perfect, do you know what I mean?’ I said at last. ‘It’s easy to want that for yourself, and feel like imitation is the way to get it.’

‘Maybe.’ Nina sat up, pulling her skimpy vest top straight. ‘I still think Flo’s a few cherries short of a trifle. But whatever. Look, I’ve been meaning to say, I really am sorry about last night. I had no idea it was such a sore spot for you. But seriously, why did you come if you still feel like that about it all?’

I pulled on my jeans and then stood, chewing my lip, thinking over what I had and hadn’t told Nina. It’s always my instinct to keep my cards close to my chest, I don’t know why. I dislike giving people, even friends, the smallest hold over me. I’ve always been a private person, and that tendency has grown since I started to live alone and work alone. But I knew, too, that tendency could send me as crazy as Flo in my own way – if I let it.

‘I came because—’ I took a breath, and then forced myself on ‘—because I had no idea that Clare was marrying James.’

‘What?’ Nina swung her legs out of bed and looked at me. I gave a tremulous shrug. Put like that, it did sound … kind of pathetic. ‘What, are you serious? So Clare, like, lured you here to spring that shit on you?’

‘N-not exactly.’ Shit. Stop stammering. ‘She said she wanted to tell me to my face. That she felt she owed me that.’

‘Fuck that!’ Nina pulled a shirt over her head, and for a moment her voice was muffled, then it cleared as her head popped out, her cheeks pink with indignation. ‘If she wanted to meet you face to face the normal thing to do would be to invite you out for a drink! Not lure you into some God-forsaken forest. What was she thinking?’

‘I … I don’t think she meant it like that.’ Christ, what was I doing defending her? ‘I think she just didn’t think—’

‘Ugh!’ Nina stood up and began brushing her hair angrily, the strands crackling as she dragged the brush through them. ‘How does she get away with pulling this crap? And she comes out of it smelling like roses every time! Do you remember when she told everyone in Year Ten that I fancied Debbie Harry? And then claimed it was because she felt bad that I was having to ‘live a lie’ and everyone acted like she was doing me a fucking favour?’

‘I—’ I didn’t know what to say. The Debbie Harry incident had been brutal. I still remembered Nina’s shocked expression when she came into the classroom and Clare was humming ‘Hanging on the Telephone’ with that particular smile on her face, and the whole class sniggering.

‘It’s all about her. It’s about how she looks and feels. Back then she wanted to look like the caring, liberal, accepting friend and so out it comes, sod whether I’m ready to tell people, and now she wants to feel like she can swan off into the sunset with James and no guilt – so hey presto, force you into a position where you’ve got pretty much no choice at all over whether you forgive her.’

I hadn’t looked at it like that. But in a way, Nina was right.

‘I’m not upset about what Clare’s done,’ I said, although I knew in my heart that this was only partly true. ‘What’s really been bothering me …’

‘What?’

But suddenly I couldn’t say it. The feeling of nakedness was back, and I only shook my head and turned away, pulling on my socks.

What I had been about to say, before I lost my nerve, was: how much did James know about it? Had he gone along with this plan?

‘We can go,’ Nina said conversationally as she buttoned up her own jeans and stood up to stretch, all six-foot-one of her. ‘We could drive off into the sunset and leave Clare and Flo to the crazy together.’

‘And Tom.’

‘Oh, yeah, and Tom.’

‘We could, couldn’t we …’ It was an enticing picture and I thought about it for a minute as Nina began brushing her hair.

But we couldn’t. I knew that really. Or rather I couldn’t.

If I’d said no, before I even got here, that would have been one thing. But backing out now, halfway though the hen – there was only one interpretation. I could imagine them all speculating about it after I was gone: poor Nora, poor cow, she’s so screwed up over James, she ruined Clare’s hen because she couldn’t be happy for her.

And worst of all – would know. I could see it now, the two of them in their perfect flat in London, curled up in bed together, Clare sighing with concern over me. I’m worried James, it’s like she’s never got over you.