‘I didn’t see any. But the garage is so close to the wood, and I don’t think the tracks would show there – the snow’s too patchy and broken up.’
Plus, although I didn’t say it, if there’d been any tracks on the forest path my run had probably just effectively obliterated them.
‘Never mind,’ I said, picking up the tea determinedly. ‘This is silly. It was probably just Flo going out to get something.’
‘Yeah, you’re right,’ Melanie said.
She gave a shrug and left the room, and a minute later I heard the ‘ching’ of the receiver as she picked up the handset. But instead of the sound of the dial clicking around, I heard ‘ching, ching, ching’ and then a bang as the receiver was slammed down.
‘For crying out loud, the phone line’s down! Honestly, this is the last straw. What if something’s happened to Ben?’
‘Hang on.’ I put my plate in the dishwasher and followed her into the living room. ‘Let me try. Maybe it’s his number.’
‘It’s not his number.’ She handed me the receiver. ‘It’s dead. Listen.’
She was right. There was no dial tone, just an echoing empty line, and a faint sound of clicking.
‘It must be the snow.’ I thought of the branches in the forest, weighed down by their burden. ‘It must have brought down a tree branch and snapped the line. The engineers’ll get it back up I imagine, but—’
‘But when?’ Melanie said. Her face was pink and upset and there were tears in her eyes. ‘I didn’t want to make a big deal about this to Clare, but this was my first trip away and to be honest, I’m having a pretty shitty time. I know I’m supposed to be all like “Woo! Night out with the girls!” but I don’t want to do this any more – all this drinking and stupid pissing about. I don’t give a fuck who slept with who. I just want to go home and cuddle Ben. You want to know the real reason I woke up early? Because my tits were rock hard with milk and they were so painful they woke me up leaking all over the fucking bed.’ She was really crying now, her nose running. ‘I had to g-get up and pump into the sink. And now this is the l-last straw, I’ve got n-n-no idea if they’re OK. I don’t want to be here any more.’
I stared at her, biting my lip. Part of me wanted to hug her, the other part of me was recoiling from her tear-stained, snot-dripping face.
‘Hey,’ I said awkwardly. ‘Hey, look … if you’re having a shit time …’
But I stopped. She wasn’t listening. She was staring not at me, but out of the window at the snow-bound forest, turning something over in her mind, breathing slowly as her sobs subsided.
‘Melanie?’ I ventured at last.
She turned to look at me, and wiped her face on her dressing-gown sleeve. ‘I’m going to go,’ she said.
It was so sudden that I didn’t know what to say.
‘Flo will kill me, but I don’t care. Clare won’t mind. I don’t think she gave a toss about having a hen in the first place, it was all Flo’s weird obsession with being the world’s best friend. Do you think I can get my car down the drive?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s only a dusting under the trees, but look, what about Tom? You gave him a lift, didn’t you?’
‘Only from Newcastle.’ She wiped her face again. She looked calmer now her mind was made up. ‘I’m sure Clare or Nina or someone will take him back. It’s not a big deal.’
‘I guess.’ I bit my lip, imagining Flo’s reaction to all this. ‘Look, are you sure you don’t want to give it a bit longer? They’ll get the phone line up soon, I’m sure.’
‘No. I’ve made up my mind, I’m going now. I mean, I’ll wait until Flo gets up, but I’m going up to pack now. Oh! What a relief.’ She was smiling suddenly, her face from cloud to sunshine in just a few moments, the dimples back in her cheeks. ‘Thanks for listening. I’m sorry I lost it a bit, but you’ve really straightened me out. I mean you’re right – if you’re having a shit time, what’s the point of being here? Clare wouldn’t want me to hang around feeling miserable.’
I watched her as she made her way slowly up the stairs, presumably to repack her stuff, and pondered her last words.
What was the point of being here? I realised, suddenly, that I hadn’t wanted her to go. Not because I liked her, or would miss her – I didn’t know her well enough for that, though she seemed perfectly nice – but because I’d had some fantasy of my own of escaping. And being one down would make it that much harder – there would be that small amount of extra pressure on the survivors to make up for Melanie’s absence.
And without a car, and without the alibi of a small baby, what reason could I possibly come up with that wouldn’t be construed as sour grapes over James, over the fact that the better woman had won and got my ex-boyfriend for herself?
I thought I had long since stopped giving a fuck what Clare Cavendish thought of me. I realised, as I walked slowly back to the kitchen, that I was wrong.
12
THIS IS HOW I met Clare. It was the first day at primary school, and I was sitting by myself at a desk and trying not to cry. Everyone else had gone to the school nursery and I hadn’t, and I didn’t know anyone. I was small and skinny with hard little braids that my mother knotted into the side of my scalp ‘to keep off the nits’.
I could read, but I didn’t want anyone to know. My mother had said that it would make me unpopular to look like Little Miss Know-It-All and that the teachers would tell me how to do it properly, not my made-up way.
So I was sitting alone as the other children paired up into tables and chatted away, and then Clare walked in. I had never seen anyone so beautiful. Her hair was long and loose, in defiance of the school rules, and it shone in the sunlight like a Pantene commercial. She looked around the room at the other children, one or two of whom were patting the chair beside them hopefully and saying, ‘Clare! Clare, sit with me!’
And she chose me.
I don’t know if you know what it’s like being chosen by someone like Clare. It’s as though a warm searchlight has picked you out and bathed you in its sunshine. You feel at once exposed, and flattered. Everyone looks at you, and you can see them wondering, why her?
Clare sat beside me, and I felt myself transforming from a nobody, into a someone. A someone people might actually want to talk to, be friends with.
She smiled, and I found myself smiling back.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I’m Clare Cavendish and my hair is so long I can sit on it. I’m going to be Mary in the school play.’
‘I’m—’ I tried to answer. ‘I’m L-le—’
I’m Leonora, was what I was trying to say. But Clare only smiled.
‘Hi, Lee.’
‘Clare Cavendish.’ It was the class teacher, banging the rubber on the chalk board to get our attention. ‘Why is your hair not tied back?’
‘It gives me migraines.’ Clare turned her angelic, sunlit face towards the teacher. ‘My mum said I wasn’t to. I’ve got a note from the doctor.’
And that was Clare all over.
Was it really possible that she had a note from the doctor? Would any doctor in their right mind give a five-year-old a note allowing her to have loose hair?
But somehow it didn’t matter. Clare Cavendish had said it, and so it became true. She did become Mary in the school play. And I became Lee. Mousy, stammering Lee. Her best friend.
I never forgot Clare’s action that first day. She could have chosen anyone. She could have played the popularity card and sat with one of the girls with Barbie clips in their hair and Lelli Kelly shoes.
Instead she chose the one girl who was sitting silent, by herself, and she transformed me.
As Clare’s best friend I was always included in games, not condemned to wait, lonely but trying not to look it, at the side of the playground waiting for someone to ask me to play. I was invited to birthday parties because Clare wanted me there, and when it became known that Clare had come to my house for a playdate and had spoken approvingly of my swing and doll’s house, other girls began to accept my faltering invitations.