In a Dark, Dark Wood

3

NINA AND I looked at each other. My heart was thudding like a stray echo of the door knocker, but I tried to keep my face calm.

Ten years. Had she changed? Had I changed?

I swallowed.

There was the sound of Flo’s feet echoing in the high atrium of the hallway, then metal shrieking on metal as she opened the heavy door, followed by the murmur of voices as whoever it was came into the house.

I listened carefully. It didn’t sound like Clare. In fact beneath Flo’s laugh I could hear something that sounded distinctly … male?

Nina rolled over and raised herself up on one elbow. ‘Well, well, well … sounds like the fully Y-chromosomed Tom has arrived.’

‘Nina …’

‘What? What are you looking at me like that for? Shall we go downstairs and meet the cock in the hen house?’

‘Nina! Don’t.’

‘Don’t what?’ She swung her feet to the floor and stood up.

‘Don’t embarrass us. Him.’

‘If we’re hens, naturally that makes him a cock. I’m using the term in its purely zoological sense.’

‘Nina!’

But she was gone, loping down the glass stairs in her stockinged feet, and I heard her voice floating up the stairwell. ‘Hello, don’t think we’ve met …’

Don’t think we’ve met. Well, it definitely wasn’t Clare then. I took a deep breath and followed her down into the hallway.

I saw the little group from above first. By the front door was a girl with smooth shiny black hair tied in a knot at the base of her skull – presumably Melanie. She was smiling and nodding at something Flo was saying, but she had a mobile in her hand and was poking distractedly at the screen even while Flo talked. On the opposite side was a bloke, Burberry case in hand. He had smooth chestnut hair and was immaculately dressed in a white shirt that must have been professionally laundered – no normal person could produce creased sleeves like that – and a pair of grey wool trousers that screamed Paul Smith. He looked up as he heard my feet on the stairs and smiled.

‘Hi, I’m Tom.’

‘Hi, I’m Nora.’ I forced myself down the last few stand, and then held out my hand. There was something incredibly familiar about his face, and I tried to figure out what it was while we shook, but I couldn’t place it. Instead I turned to the dark-haired girl. ‘And you must be … Melanie?’

‘Um, hi, yeah.’ She looked up and gave a flustered smile. ‘Sorry, I just … I left my six-month-old at home with my partner. First time I’ve done it. I really wanted to call home and check in. Isn’t there any reception here?’

‘Not really,’ Flo said apologetically. Her face was flushed with nerves or excitement, I wasn’t sure which. ‘Sorry. You can sometimes get a bit from the top end of the garden or the balconies, depending on what network you’re on. But there’s a landline in the living room. Let me show you.’

She led the way through and I turned back to Tom. I still had an odd feeling I’d seen him somewhere before.

‘So, how do you know Clare’ I asked awkwardly.

‘Oh, you know. Theatre connections. Everyone knows everyone! It was actually through my husband originally – he’s a director.’

Nina gave me a theatrical wink behind Tom’s back. I frowned furiously and then rearranged my face as I saw Tom looking puzzled.

‘Sorry, go on,’ Nina said seriously.

‘Anyway, I met Clare at a fundraiser for the Royal Theatre Company. Bruce was directing something there, we just got talking shop.’

‘You’re an actor?’ Nina asked.

‘No, playwright.’

It’s always strange meeting another writer. A little feeling of camaraderie, a masonic bond. I wonder if plumbers feel like this meeting other plumbers, or if accountants give each other secret nods. Maybe it’s because we meet comparatively rarely; writers tend to spend the bulk of their working life alone.

‘Nora’s a writer,’ Nina said. She eyed us both as if unleashing two bantam-weights into the ring to scrap it out.

‘Oh really?’ Tom looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. ‘What do you write?’

Ugh. The question I hate. I’ve never got comfortable talking about my writing – never got over that feeling of people riffling through my private thoughts.

‘Um … fiction,’ I said vaguely. Crime fiction was the truth, but if you say that people want to suggest plots and motives for murder.

‘Really? What name do you write under?’

Nice way of saying ‘Have I heard of you?’ Most people phrase it less gracefully.

‘L.N. Shaw,’ I said. ‘The N doesn’t stand for anything, I don’t have a middle name. I just put that in because L. Shaw sounded odd, whereas L.N. is more pronounceable, if you know what I mean. So you write plays?’

‘Yes. I’m always rather jealous of novelists – the way you get to control everything. You don’t have to deal with actors massacring your best lines.’ He flashed a smile, showing unnaturally perfect white teeth. I wondered if he’d had porcelain veneers fitted.

‘But it must be nice working with other people?’ I ventured. ‘Sharing the responsibility, I mean. A play’s a big thing, right?’

‘Yes, I suppose so. You have to share the glory but at least when the shit hits the fan it’s a collective splattering, I guess.’

I was about to say something else when there was a ‘ching’ from the living room as Melanie put down the phone. Tom turned to look towards the sound, and something about the angle of his head, or his expression, made me suddenly realise where I’d seen him before.

That picture. Clare’s profile picture from Facebook. It was him. So the person in her photo wasn’t her new partner at all.

I was still processing this when Melanie came out smiling. ‘Phew, got through to Bill. All absolutely fine on the home front. Sorry I was a bit distracted – I’ve never been away for the night before and it’s a bit of a leap of faith. Not that Bill won’t manage, I’m sure he will but … oh anyway, I should stop rabbiting on. You’re Nora, is that right?’

‘Go through into the living room!’ Flo called from the kitchen. ‘I’m making tea.’

Obediently we trooped through and I watched Tom and Melanie as they took in the huge room, with its long glass wall.

‘That view of the forest is quite something, isn’t it?’ Tom said at last.

‘Yes.’ I stared out into the woods. It was growing dark and somehow the shadows made it feel as if all the trees had taken a collective step towards the house, edging in to shut out the sky. ‘It makes you feel a bit exposed somehow, doesn’t it? I think it’s the lack of curtains.’

‘Bit like having your skirt tucked into your knickers at the back!’ Melanie said unexpectedly, and then laughed.

‘I like it,’ Tom said. ‘It feels like a stage.’

‘And we’re the audience?’ Melanie asked. ‘This production seems a bit boring. The actors are rather wooden!’ She pointed out to the trees, in case we hadn’t got the pun. ‘Geddit? Trees, wood …’

‘We got it,’ Nina said sourly. ‘But I don’t think that’s what Tim meant, was it?’

‘Tom,’ Tom said. There was a slight edge to his voice. ‘But no, I was thinking of it the other way around. We’re the actors.’ He turned to face the glass wall. ‘The audience … the audience is out there.’

For some reason his words made me shiver. Perhaps it was the tree trunks, like silent watchers in the growing dark. Or perhaps it was the lingering chill that Tom and Melanie had brought with them from the outside. Either way, leaving London the weather had felt like autumn; suddenly, so much further north, it felt like winter had come overnight. It wasn’t just the close-growing pines shutting out the light with their dense needles, nor the cold, crisp air with its promise of frost to come. The night was drawing in, and the house felt more and more like a glass cage, blasting its light blindly out into the dusk, like a lantern in the dark. I imagined a thousand moths circling and shivering, drawn inexorably to its glow, only to perish against the cold, inhospitable glass.

‘I’m cold,’ I said to change the subject.

‘Me too.’ Nina rubbed her arms. ‘Think we can get that stove-thing working? Is it gas?’

Melanie knelt in front of it. ‘It’s wood.’ She struggled with a handle and then a door in the front popped open. ‘I’ve got one a bit similar at home. Flo!’ she shouted through to the kitchen, ‘Is it OK if we light the stove?’

‘Yep!’ Flo yelled back. ‘There’s firelighters on the mantelpiece. Inside a pot. I’ll be through in a tick if you can’t work it out.’

Tom moved across to the mantelpiece and started peering into the handful of minimalist pots but then he stopped, his eyes arrested by the same sight that had stopped me in my tracks earlier.

‘Ker-rist.’ It was the shotgun, perched on its wooden pegs, just above eye-level. ‘Haven’t they heard of Chekhov round here?’

‘Chekhov?’ said a voice from the hall. It was Flo, edging through the door with a tray on her hip. ‘The Russian guy? Don’t worry, it’s loaded with blanks. My aunt keeps it for scaring off rabbits. They eat the bulbs and dig up the garden. She shoots at them out of the French windows.’

‘It’s a bit … Texan, isn’t it?’ Tom said. He hurried forward to help Flo with the tray. ‘You know, not that I don’t enjoy the red-neck vibe, but having it right there, in your face … it’s a bit disconcerting for those of us who tend to keep morbid thoughts further at bay.’

‘I know what you mean,’ Flo said. ‘She probably should have a gun cabinet or something. But it was my grandfather’s so it’s sort of a family heirloom. And the veg patch is right outside these doors – well, in the summer anyway – so it’s just more practical having it to hand.’

Melanie got the fire going, Flo began to pour out tea and dish out biscuits and the conversation moved on – to hire-car charges, the cost of rent, whether to put the milk in first. I was silent, thinking.

‘Tea?’

For a moment I didn’t move, didn’t answer. Then Flo tapped me on the shoulder, making me jump.

‘Tea, Lee?’

‘Nora,’ I said. I tried to force a smile. ‘I’m … I’m sorry. Do you have coffee? I should have said, I’m not that keen on tea.’

Flo’s face fell. ‘I’m so sorry, I should have … No, we don’t. It’s probably too late to get anything now – the nearest village is forty minutes away and the shop’ll be shut. I’m so sorry, I was thinking about Clare when I was doing the food shop, and she does love her tea – I never thought—’

‘It’s fine,’ I cut her off with a smile. ‘Honestly.’ I took the cup she held out and sipped at it. It was scalding and it tasted utterly, revoltingly like tea – hot milk and gravy browning.

‘She should be here soon.’ Flo looked at her watch. ‘Shall I run through proceedings so we all know what’s happening?’

We all nodded and Flo got out a list. I felt, rather than heard, Nina’s gusting sigh.

‘So Clare should be here at six, then I thought we’d have a little drinky – I’ve got some champers in the fridge, and I picked up the bits for mojitos and margaritas and stuff – and I thought we wouldn’t bother with a proper sit-down supper—’ Nina’s face fell ‘—I’ve just got some pizzas and dips and stuff and we can stick it all out on the coffee table in here and dig in. And I thought while we did that we could play a few getting-to-know-you games. You all know Clare, obvs, but I don’t think many of us know each other … is that right? In fact, we should probably do a quick round-the-table introduction before Clare gets here, maybe?’

We all looked at each other, sizing each other up, wondering who was going to have the chutzpah to begin. For the first time I tried to fit Tom, Melanie and Flo in with the Clare I knew, and it wasn’t entirely easy.

Tom was obvious – with his expensive clothes and theatre background it wasn’t hard to see what they had in common. Clare had always loved good-looking people, women as well as men, and she took an uncomplicated, generous pride in the attractiveness of friends. There was nothing snide about her admiration – she was beautiful enough herself to be unthreatened by beauty in others – and she loved helping people make the best of themselves, even the less promising candidates like me. I remembered being dragged around to shop after shop before a big night out, with Clare holding up dresses against my skinny bust-less frame and pursing her lips in appraisal until she found the one that was perfect for me. She had an eye for what flattered. She was the one who had told me I should get my hair cropped. I had never listened to her back then. Now, ten years later, I wore it short and I knew she’d been right.

Melanie and Flo were more mysterious. Something Melanie had said during the early emails had made me think she worked as a lawyer, or possibly an accountant, and she did have the faint air of someone who would be more comfortable in a suit. Her handbag and shoes were expensive but the jeans she was wearing were what Clare, ten years ago, would have called ‘mum jeans’ – generic blue, unflatteringly cut to bunch at the top.

Flo’s jeans on the other hand were pure designer, but there was something oddly uncomfortable about the way she wore them. The entire outfit looked like it had been picked wholesale off a display in All Saints with no regard for whether it fitted or flattered her frame, and as I watched she pulled awkwardly at the top, trying to tug it down over the soft chubby bulge where the waist of her jeans cut into her hip. It looked like the kind of outfit Clare might have picked out for herself, but only someone cruel would have suggested it to Flo.

Flo and Melanie together made a strange contrast with Tom. It was hard to imagine the Clare I’d known with either of them. Was it just that they had been friends at university and had stayed in touch? I knew that kind of friendship, the one you make in Freshers’ Week and realise as time goes on that you’ve nothing in common besides staying in the same halls, but somehow you keep sending birthday cards and Facebook likes. But then, it was ten years since I had known Clare. Maybe the Melanie-and-Flo Clare was the real one now.

As I looked round the circle, I realised that the others were doing the same thing; sizing up the guests they didn’t know, trying to fit the strangers in with their mental image of Clare. I caught Tom’s eye as he stared at me with a frank curiosity that bordered almost on hostility, and dropped my own gaze to the floor. No one wanted to go first. The silence stretched until it threatened to become awkward.

‘I’ll begin,’ Melanie said. She pushed her hair back off her face and fiddled with something at her neckline. I saw that it was a tiny silver cross on a chain, the kind you get as at christenings present. ‘I’m Melanie Cho, well Melanie Blaine-Cho now I guess, but it’s a bit of a mouthful and I’ve kept my own name for work. I shared a house at university with Flo and Clare, but I took two years out before uni so I’m a bit older than the rest of you guys … at least I don’t know about you, Tom? I’m twenty-eight.’

‘Twenty-seven,’ Tom said.

‘So I’m the group granny. I’ve just had a baby, well, six months ago. And I’m breast-feeding so please excuse me if you see me running out of the room with giant wet patches on my boobs.’

‘Are you pumping and dumping?’ Flo asked sympathetically, and over her shoulder I saw Nina go cross-eyed and mime strangling herself. I looked away, refusing to be drawn in.

‘Yes, I thought about trying to bag it, but I thought, well, I’ll probably be drinking and taking it back down will be a right pain. Um … what else? I live in Sheffield. I’m a lawyer, but I’m on maternity leave. My husband’s looking after Ben today. Ben’s our baby. He’s … oh well, you don’t want to hear me bore on. He’s just lovely.’

She smiled, her rather worried face lighting up and two deep dimples forming in her cheeks, and I felt a pang at my heart. Not broodiness – I didn’t want to be pregnant in any way, shape or form – but a pang for that complete, uncomplicated happiness.

‘Go on, show us a piccie,’ Tom said.

Melanie dimpled again and pulled out her phone. ‘Well, if you insist. Look, this was when he was born …’

I saw a picture of her, lying back on a hospital bed, her face bleached to clay-colour and her hair in black rats’ tails around her shoulders, beaming tiredly down at a white bundle in her arms.

I had to look away.

‘And this is him smiling – it wasn’t his first smile, I didn’t catch that, but Bill was away in Dubai so I made sure I snapped the next one and texted him. And this is him now – you can’t see his face very well, he’s got his bowl on his head, bless.’

The baby was unrecognisable from the angry, blue-black stare of the first picture – a chubby fat-faced little thing, crowing with laughter. His face was half-obscured by an orange plastic dish, and some kind of green goop was running down his round cheeks.

‘Bless!’ Flo said. ‘He looks just like Bill, doesn’t he?’

‘Oh my God!’ Tom looked half-amused, half-horrified. ‘Welcome to parenthood. Please abandon your dry-clean-only clothes at the door.’

Melanie tucked her phone away, the smile still on her lips.

‘It is a bit like that. But it’s amazing how quickly you get used to it. It seems completely normal to me now to check my hair for gobs of porridge before I leave the house. Let’s not talk about him anyway, I’m already homesick enough, I don’t want to make it worse. What about you, Nina?’ She turned to where Nina was sitting beside the stove, hugging her knees. ‘I remember we met once at Durham, didn’t we? Or did I imagine that?’

‘No, you’re right, I did come up once. I think I was on my way to see a mate at Newcastle. I don’t remember meeting Flo, but I definitely remember running into you in the bar – was that right?’

Melanie nodded.

‘For those of you who don’t know, I’m Nina, I was at school with Clare and Nora. I’m a doctor … well, I’m training to be a surgeon, actually. In fact I just spent three months overseas with Médecins sans Frontières where I learned a whole lot more than I ever wanted to about gunshot trauma wounds … in spite of what the Mail’d have you believe we don’t see a whole load of those in Hackney.’

She rubbed at her face and for the first time since we’d left London I saw her veneer crack a little. I knew Colombia had affected her, but I’d only seen her twice since she came back and both times she hadn’t talked about it, except to make some jokes about the food. For a moment I got a glimmer of what it might be like to patch people together for a living … and sometimes fail.

‘Anyway,’ she forced a smile. ‘Tim, Timmy-boy, Timbo: shoot.’

‘Yes …’ Tom said, with a wry look, ‘well, I suppose the first thing that you should know about me is that my name is Tom. Tom Deauxma. I’m a playwright, as previously advertised. I’m not huge, but I’ve done a lot of fringe stuff and won a few awards. I’m married to the theatre director Bruce Westerly – maybe you’ve heard of him?’

There was a pause. Nina was shaking her head. Tom’s eye travelled around the circle looking for recognition until it rested hopefully on me. Reluctantly I gave a little shake. I felt bad, but lying wasn’t going to help. He gave a small sigh.

‘Oh well, I guess if you’re outside the theatre maybe you don’t notice the director as much. That’s how I know Clare – via her work for the Royal Theatre Company. Bruce does quite a bit with them – and he directed Coriolanus, of course.’

‘Of course,’ Flo said, nodding earnestly. After my previous failure I felt I could at least pretend knowledge of this, so I nodded along with Flo – maybe slightly too enthusiastically: I felt my hair tie slip out. Nina yawned and got up to leave the room without a word.

‘We live in Camden … We have a dog called Spartacus, Sparky for short. He’s a labradoodle. Two years old. He’s completely adorable but not the ideal dog for a couple of workaholics who travel a lot. Luckily we have a brilliant dog-walker. I’m a vegetarian … What else? Oh dear, that’s a terrible indictment, isn’t it? Two minutes and I’ve run out of interesting things to say about myself. Oh – and I have a tattoo of a heart on my shoulder blade. That’s it. How about you, Nora?’

For some unfathomable reason, I felt myself flush scarlet and my fingers lost their grip on the teacup, slopping tea onto my knee. I busied myself wiping it up with the corner of my scarf and then looked up to find Nina had slipped back inside. She was holding her tobacco pouch and rolling up with one hand, watching me steadily with her wide dark eyes as she did.

I forced myself to speak. ‘Not much to tell. I, um … I met Clare at school, like Nina. We—’

We haven’t spoken for ten years.

I don’t know why I’m here.

I don’t know why I’m here.

I swallowed, painfully. ‘We … lost touch a bit, I guess.’ My face felt hot. The stove was really starting to throw out heat. I went to tuck my hair behind my ears, but I’d forgotten it had been cut, and my fingers only skimmed the short strands, my skin warm and damp beneath. ‘Um, I’m a writer. I went to UCL and I started work at a magazine after university but I was pretty crap at it – probably my own fault, I spent all my time scribbling my novel instead of doing research and making contacts. Anyway, I sold my first book when I was twenty-two and I’ve been a full-time writer ever since.’

‘And you support yourself entirely on your books?’ Tom raised an eyebrow. ‘Respect.’

‘Well, not entirely. I mean I do the odd bit of online teaching here and there … editorial reports and stuff. And I was lucky—’ Lucky? I wanted to bite my tongue. ‘Well, maybe not lucky, that’s not the right word, but my grandad died when I was in my teens and I got some money, enough for a tiny studio flat in Hackney. It’s absolutely minuscule, only room for me and my laptop, but I don’t have any rent to pay.’

‘I think it’s really nice that you’ve all kept in touch,’ Tom said. ‘You and Clare and Nina, I mean. I don’t think I’ve kept in contact with any of my friends from school. I’ve got nothing in common with most of them. It wasn’t the happiest time for me.’ He looked at me steadily, and I felt myself flush. I went to tuck my hair again, and then dropped my hand. Was it my imagination or was there something slightly malicious in his gaze? Did he know something?

I struggled for a moment, wanting to answer, but not sure what I could say that wasn’t an outright lie. As I floundered, the silence growing more uncomfortable by the second, the wrongness of this whole situation struck me all over again. What the hell was I doing here? Ten years. Ten years.

‘I think everyone has a shit time at school,’ Nina said at last, breaking the pause. ‘I certainly did.’

I looked at her gratefully and she gave me a little wink.

‘What’s the secret, then?’ Tom asked. ‘To long-lived friendships? How have you managed to keep it up all these years?’

I looked at him again, sharply this time. Why the hell couldn’t he just let it drop? But there was nothing I could say – not without looking like a crazy person.

‘I don’t know,’ I said at last, trying to keep my voice pleasant, but I could feel the strain in my smile. I could only pray that my expression wasn’t as obviously fake as it felt. ‘Luck, I guess.’

‘Significant others?’ Melanie asked.

‘No. Just me. Not even a labradoodle.’ It was meant to raise a laugh, and they duly did, but it was a thin, lacklustre chorus with a pitying note. ‘Flo?’ I said quickly, trying to get the spotlight off myself.

Flo beamed. ‘Well, I met Clare at university. We were both studying History of Art and we got allocated to the same halls of residence. I walked into the Common Room and there she was, sitting in front of EastEnders, chewing her hair – you know that funny way she’s got of twisting a lock around her finger and nibbling on it? So sweet.’

I tried to remember. Had Clare ever done this? It sounded disgusting. A faint memory came of Clare sitting in the café next to the school, twisting her plait around her finger. Maybe she had.

‘She was wearing that blue dress – I think she’s still got it, can’t believe she fits into it! I’ve put on at least a stone since uni! Anyway I went up and said hi, and she said “Oh, I like your scarf,” and we’ve been BFFs ever since. I just – she’s just great, you know? She’s been such an inspiration, so supportive. There’s not many people who—’ She gulped, and broke off, struggling, and to my horror I saw she was welling up. ‘Well, anyway, never mind all that. She’s my rock, and I’d do anything for her. Anything. I just want her to have the best hen night ever, you know? I want it to be perfect. It means everything to me. It’s like – it’s like it’s the last thing I can do for her, you know?’

There were tears in her eyes, and she spoke with an intensity so fierce it was almost frightening. Looking around the circle I saw that I wasn’t the only one taken aback – Tom looked frankly startled, and Nina’s eyebrows had disappeared beneath her fringe. Only Melanie looked totally unconcerned, as if this was a normal level of emotion to feel for your best friend.

‘She’s getting married, not going to prison,’ Nina said drily, but either Flo didn’t hear, or she ignored the remark. Instead she coughed, and swiped at her eyes.

‘Sorry. Oh God, I’m such a sentimental moo! Look at me.’

‘And, er, what do you do now?’ Tom asked politely. As he said it I realised Flo had told us entirely about Clare and almost nothing about herself.

‘Oh.’ Flo looked down at the floor. ‘Well, you know. A bit of this. Bit of that. I … I took some time out after uni. I wasn’t in a good place. Clare was amazing. When I was— Well, never mind that. The thing is, she’s just – just the best friend a girl could have, honestly. God, look at me!’ She blew her nose and stood up. ‘Who’s for more tea?’

We all shook our heads and she took the tray and went through to the kitchen. Melanie took out her phone and checked the signal again.

‘Well, that was weird,’ Nina said flatly.

‘What?’ Melanie looked up.

‘Flo and the quote-unquote “perfect hen”.’ Nina spelled out. ‘Don’t you think she’s a little … intense?’

‘Oh,’ Melanie said. She glanced out of the door towards the kitchen and then lowered her voice. ‘Look, I don’t know if I should be saying this but there’s no sense in beating round the bush. Flo had a bit of a breakdown in her third year. I’m not sure what happened but she dropped out before her finals – she never graduated as far as I know. So that’s why she’s a bit, you know, sensitive, about that period. She doesn’t really like discussing it.’

‘Um, OK,’ Nina said. But I knew what she was thinking. What had been alarming about Flo wasn’t her reserve about what happened after uni – that was the least odd part of the whole thing. It was everything else that had been unnerving.