My Best Friend's Girl (5 page)

With shaking hands I pulled the wet top I’d taken off earlier over the white T-shirt. Then remembered the T-shirt was hers. My lying, cheating friend’s. I ripped the top off, pulled off the T-shirt and threw it on the ground, then tugged on my damp top over my braless body.

“Kam, let’s talk about this,” she pleaded. “Please, Kam, let’s talk.”

It was a halfhearted plea. I wasn’t a talker when I was upset. I was the ignore-it-in-the-hope-it’ll-go-away type. Besides, what was there to talk about? How good my fiancé was in bed? What marks out of ten we’d both give him? Ask if he knew Tegan was his daughter and was he still going to marry me? He’d done this awful thing but was planning to say “I do” in two months’ time. In eight weeks—
eight weeks
—he was going to stand up in front of everyone we knew and declare that he loved me; that he was going to forsake all others. Except he wasn’t, was he? He certainly hadn’t in the past so why would he in the future?

“He doesn’t know about Tegan,” Del said. Her voice was strong, clear, determined. When it came to Tegan, she wasn’t going to mess about. Especially not with this. “I don’t want him to know,” she continued. “I don’t want to upset Tegan’s life. Whatever else you do, don’t ruin Tegan’s life. It’s not her fault.”

I wish I had it in me to call her names. To slap her face and pull out her hair. The best I could do was to walk out.

And never go back.

chapter 5

I
’m here to see Tiga,” I said to the woman who answered the door to the five-bedroom detached house a fifteen-minute taxi ride from the center of Guildford.

She looked at me blankly and then I remembered I was the only person on earth who called Tegan “Tiga.” “I mean, I’m here to see Tegan.”

A spark of recognition ignited in Muriel’s eyes. She was Del’s stepmother. A slight, fragile woman whose graying hair had been set on big rollers and hairsprayed to within an inch of snapping. Even in this heat, at the height of summer, she wore a green cardigan twinset, a brown tweed skirt, and creamy pearls at her wrinkled throat. She seemed so respectable, normal. However, I knew that pure evil pulsed through this woman’s veins.

Del had shown me what this woman was capable of. I’d seen the silvery welts on Del’s thighs from where her stepmother had stubbed out cigarettes on her. The little finger on her left hand that hadn’t grown straight after this woman had wrenched it out of its socket. The scar under her hairline where Muriel had thrown a glass at her.

“I’m Kamryn. Tegan’s godmother?” I said, flattening out my voice to hide my hatred. “Lucinda-Jayne’s friend?” Del had dropped “Lucinda-Jayne” the second she got to college in favor of her middle name, Adele. When we graduated from college she changed her surname to Brannon, her mother’s maiden name. To the people who met her after Leeds she was Adele Brannon. We’d had a big celebration when she finally changed her name by deed poll. But her father still called her Lucinda-Jayne and she wouldn’t dream of correcting him.

More recognition blossomed in Muriel’s eyes, although it should have been an inferno of recognition by now—I was the only one of Del’s friends she’d met over the years. Del wasn’t exactly rushing back to the bosom of her family at every opportunity so she took only one person back home with her—me.

“Yes, I remember who you are.” A slur streaked Muriel’s voice. Was it sherry, wine or gin and tonic she’d been spending time with today? They’d been her constant companions when we’d met years ago. Obviously nothing had changed.

“So, can I see Tegan?” I asked, when it became clear she wasn’t about to say anything else.

“She’s not available right now,” she replied.

“She’s out?”

“No. She’s not receiving visitors.”

“A five-year-old isn’t receiving visitors?” I replied, irritated and incredulous in equal measures. “Somehow, I can’t imagine her saying, ‘If anyone calls, tell them I shall be out.’”

Muriel sneered down her nose as if I was something smelly and disgusting she’d trodden in. “The little madam is being punished,” she said contemptuously, “if it’s any business of yours.”

“It is my business.” Every one of my words was carefully modulated to prevent me screaming. “I’m her godmother. I’ve been asked to look after her if anything happens to her mother.”

“You will have to call another time because, as I explained, she is being punished.”

The woman moved to shut the door, and all the rage, the hatred and anger simmering inside erupted. I lunged forward, every muscle in my body tensed as the palm of my hand slapped against the blue door and held it open. “Punished for what?” I said.

Having jumped slightly at my advance, Muriel glanced away.

“Punished for what?” I asked, a snarling edge to my voice.

Muriel said nothing.

“I’d like to see her.”

“She isn’t allowed to see anyone.”

“I’m not leaving until I see her.”

She lowered her voice. “I can’t let you in. You don’t know what Ronald will do to me if I let you see her.”

“You obviously don’t know what I’ll do to you if you don’t,” I said in a tone that was menacing and scary, even to me. I was certain I’d heard that line in a movie but it was out of my mouth before I could stop myself. Traveling two hundred miles in a day, seeing my friend on the verge of death, now coming back to this place where Del had suffered so much…All of this had shaped my mood.

Muriel’s body relaxed in resignation as she let go of the door, turned and headed up the large staircase, muttering just loud enough, “It’s not even as if we want her here.”

I let out a deep, silent breath of relief—
what if she’d made me stand up to her for real?
Best not to think about it.

The house hadn’t changed much from eight years ago when Del and I had made a flying visit to get the rest of the clothes and books she had left here. The trip had been an excuse. She’d lived without those things for years, why decide she desperately needed them now? I guessed that Del had returned to make peace with her father, to reach out to him one last time. He’d been ultrapolite because she’d had a guest with her but also excessively dismissive. It was one of the most chilling things I’d ever seen (and the second I was alone later, I called my parents for a quick chat). When we climbed into the back of the taxi, Del didn’t have to tell me she intended never to return there, I knew it. She’d done her best to reconnect with her family and now she had to leave it.

The same cream carpet I remembered lined the floors, the same magnolia paint covered the walls, the same depressing pictures of country scenes hung on those magnolia walls. The atmosphere was the only thing that was different—it had stagnated. Had become decrepit, barren, lifeless.

Muriel stopped outside a white paneled door. There was a key in the lock, which she reached for. Her liver-spotted hand paused at the key before she turned it.
They’d locked Tegan in? THEY’D LOCKED HER IN? Where did they think a child who wasn’t tall enough to reach the front door handle would go if she left her room?

Tegan’s room was twice the size of my living room. The walls were magnolia too but in here the carpet was royal blue. Two of the walls were lined with white bookcases and on each shelf sat dolls, play bricks, cuddly toys, teddies and books. None of them looked as if they’d been touched or played with; they were ornaments, perfect, untouchable relics of that thing called childhood. The neatly made single bed sat beside a large window that overlooked the wide expanse of garden.

Despite the brightly colored children’s belongings, the room was cold and uninviting. At the center of the room was a small red plastic table and a yellow plastic chair, and at the table sat Tegan.

Even from a distance I could see everything was wrong. She sat stock-still on her chair, her small body rigid with fear. Her pale blond hair hung around her face in dirty, unwashed clumps, her pink top was grubby and creased. And her eyes were fixed on the plate of food in front of her.

Shock punched me a fraction below my solar plexus. The last time I saw Tegan she’d been staring at me with big, enraptured eyes as I read her a story. She had been a child that took nothing sitting down, lying down or standing still. Everything was full-on where she was concerned. She was always wanting to run or play or read or laugh or to get someone in a hug.

“Tiga,” I whispered. I moved slowly across the room toward her. “Tiga, it’s Auntie Kamryn, do you remember me?” I bobbed down beside her and looked at her as I waited for her to reply.

A few seconds passed before she nodded. Nodded but kept her eyes forward, fixed on her plate. The plate was loaded with gray boiled potatoes, dried and shriveled peas and a desiccated pork chop covered in a skin of white mold. The smell of the rotting meal assaulted my nostrils and I drew back, half retching.

“So you do remember Auntie Kamryn?” I said, fighting the gagging in my throat.

Tegan nodded again.

“That’s brilliant. And did Mummy tell you that you might come and stay with Auntie Kamryn for a little while?”

Tegan nodded.

“How do you feel about that?”

She raised her shoulders and lowered them. Then a tiny, hoarse voice said, “Don’t know.”

I slowly reached out to tuck a lock of her unwashed hair behind her right ear so I could see her face but before I made contact she flinched away from me, her hands flying up as though to protect herself from an attack.

I recoiled too, my heart racing with fear and horror. She thought I might hurt her. This small, frail creature thought I might hurt her. I stared at her and felt my heartbeat increase. Then I noticed her right hand—three red lines were streaked across its swollen palm. Around her right wrist were blue-black-purple bruises that looked like large handprints, as though someone had held her hand open as they whacked her with a cane.

It was those red lines marking her young skin that did it. Inside, I snapped. I wasn’t even remotely close to screaming, lashing out or overturning furniture, though. I was angry. Completely, totally angry. It spilled through me until it dampened every other emotion and I felt nothing else.

I suddenly knew what I had to do.

I clambered to my feet and Tegan relaxed from her cringe. I marched across the room to the white wardrobe and the white chest of drawers beside it. I yanked open the top drawer, checked inside. It was filled with neatly folded tops. I grabbed a handful of tops and then slammed the drawer shut, opened another drawer, gathered another bundle of clothes. I yanked open the third drawer and took the vests and pants in there.

“What are you doing?” Muriel shrieked.

I ignored her. My arms were filled with brightly colored clothes. I went to my holdall, wrenched back the zip and shoved everything inside.

“You can’t do this!” Muriel screamed at me as I opened the wardrobe doors.

“Clearly I can do this,” I said, as I reached for a couple of coats and some shoes, “because I
am
doing it.”

“I’ll call the police,” she threatened.

My head whipped round to glare at her. “Be my guest. I’d love to hear you explain why Tegan hasn’t been washed in days, why she’s sat in front of rotting food and how she got the marks on her hand. Actually, hang on, I’ll call the police myself.” I chucked Tegan’s clothes in the general direction of my holdall, reached into my coat pocket and pulled out my mobile. “What’s the number again? Oh yes.” I punched keys on the phone. “Do you want to press ‘call’ or shall I?”

“Take her, we’ll be glad to see the back of her,” Muriel spat before turning on her heels and storming out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

When the door shut behind her I waited a second to see if she was going to lock it, meaning I
would
have to call the police to get us out of there, but no, she just shut the door. I turned back to Tegan. Her face, with its tearstained cheeks, ski-slope nose and pouty lips, was turned up to me. Her royal blue eyes, ringed with red, stared at me as though she thought I was insane.

I went to her, bobbed down beside her. I didn’t get too close for fear of scaring her again. “Do you have a favorite toy?” I asked her.

She nodded suspiciously.

“OK, go get it and anything else that you love and bring it to me.”

Her eyes widened in alarm.

“We’re going away,” I explained. “You’re going to come and stay with Auntie Kamryn.”

Tegan, although clearly tempted by the idea of getting out of there, was nobody’s fool and continued to regard me suspiciously. We didn’t have time for this. For all I knew Muriel was calling her husband. He could be on the way back. This was his house, his home ground so he’d have the advantage. And I couldn’t be sure that he wouldn’t become violent.

“Come on, Tiga, get your stuff and we can go see your mummy tomorrow.”

“Mummy?” Her pale face brightened. “Mummy?”

“Yes, Mummy.”

Her chair didn’t make a sound on the deep-pile carpet as she pushed it back and stood up. She went to her bed, got down on the floor and from under it she pulled a multicolored rucksack. She held the rucksack out to me. I grinned at her and she smiled back at me. This kid and I were singing from the same songbook at last.

Time passed. I don’t know how much but by the end of its passing, I was standing on the corner of a street in a town I didn’t know very well, a child in my arms and half a dozen bags—including my holdall, her rucksack and four carrier bags—at my feet. I didn’t have a clue where I—no, we—were going. I didn’t have any cab numbers, didn’t know where the nearest bus stop was.

“Do you know what today is?” I asked Tegan.

She looked into my eyes, as though nothing I said would surprise her, then she shook her head.

“It’s my birthday.” It was too. Although this morning seemed a million years ago, it was still my birthday.

She nodded and managed a small, confused smile. “Happy birthday,” she whispered, then rested her tired head on my shoulder.

“Thanks,” I replied.

It’s also the day I’m going to be arrested for kidnapping
.

chapter 6

L
ight, the color of twice-used bathwater, strained through the gaps in the beige curtains, trying to brighten my hotel room.

The coffee I held in my hands had cooled to a freezing black sludge, my body was stiff from sitting in the same position for hours and my eyes ached as I stared at the world that was coming alive outside. I could hear the birds tuning up for their dawn chorus, buses chugging along noisily, cars speeding by, plus the occasional police siren. I’d stopped thinking those police sirens were coming for me a couple of hours ago but my mind was still racing at 100 mph—it had been for most of the night.

Eight hours earlier, I’d checked us into a hotel that was within walking distance of St. Jude’s Hospital. The room was sparse and small, but it had a double bed, a small cot bed for Tegan and a television—everything we needed.

As the door closed behind us, I walked over to the cot; Tegan was like an anvil in my arms, my biceps, elbows and forearms were frozen in pain because I’d been holding her for so long. The second we’d got in the back of the taxi that would bring us into central London, Tegan had climbed into my lap, wrapped her arms as far around my torso as they would go, rested her face against my chest and fallen asleep. The whole sixty-minute drive into town I’d had to restrain myself from breathing too deeply or shifting about in case I jostled her awake, although it had to be said she was doing a pretty good impression of being deeply ensconced in dreamland. She hadn’t stirred when I’d shuffled and contorted my way out of the taxi, nor when I talked the receptionist through the registration form, nor when we came up in the elevator to our room. She was likely to be out for the count all night.

I laid her gently on the cot bed, then nearly jumped out of my skin as her eyes flew open. With her dirty blond hair fanned out around her as she lay on the tiny bed, Tegan’s eyes didn’t leave me as her pale oval face slid into a mire of fear. She was terrified. Wide awake and terrified.

Join the queue, honey,
I thought. I was terrified too. The implications of what I had done were only just starting to hit me. I’d done something big and stupid and I was petrified because of it.

“What’s the matter?” I asked cautiously. My fear that she might burst into tears outweighed all my other fears. I had no clue how to handle a crying child, except maybe to scream “Shut up!” In all the preceding years, with all my nieces and nephews, with Tegan herself, when a tiny person got crysome, I handed them back to the person responsible for them, secure in the knowledge that nothing I could do would appease them so I didn’t have to try. In other words, I passed the buck back to the person who’d chosen to become a parent, who’d chosen to deal with tears, snot and tantrums.

Tegan’s visage of terror didn’t slip, not even for a microsecond as she stared up at me.

“Do you want to sleep in the big bed?” I asked, taking a wild guess at what might be troubling her—apart from being abducted from the place she’d called home for the past few months and being held hostage by a woman she hadn’t seen in two years.

Tegan nodded.

“OK, but let’s have a bath first, all right?”

She nodded.

“And maybe something to eat?”

She nodded again. “OK, good.” That was a plan. A good plan. I could work with this. Bathe her, feed her, get her to go to sleep. Sorted. I got to my feet as Tegan sat up on the small cot bed. She pulled her knees up to her chest, wrapped her arms around them and watched me go across the room to the table with the phone and menu.

I picked up the laminated menu card and scanned it for something that she might like. It was clear that she wasn’t going to speak to me so there was no point in asking her. Burger and fries seemed the easiest choice.

She didn’t move as I did homeyfying things like turning on the telly, flicking through the channels to find something unlikely to corrupt her young mind and putting on a couple more lights. I searched through the bags, found her blue checked pajamas, a clean pair of white knickers and a white undershirt. I lay them on the big bed and went to the bathroom.

It was a functional bathroom with possibly the tiniest showerhead in the world hanging over the bath, but it was clean and mildew-free, a miracle considering it had no window. I pinned back the white shower curtain, then sat on the side of the bathtub to push the plug in and turn on the taps. Once the bath was half full, I drizzled in some bubble bath and agitated the water to try to make some bubbles. It wasn’t as impressive as I would have liked, but it wasn’t as depressing as a white hotel tub with just water in it.

I went back to Tegan and knelt down in front of her. “Can we take off your clothes, then?” I asked gently.

She hesitated, possibly unsure if this was the right thing to do. Then, resigning herself to it, she uncurled her body, slid off the bed and stood in front of me, patient and passive. I took off her jacket, then gently tugged her grubby pink top over her head. I had to stop myself from recoiling in horror. She was reed thin, she hadn’t been fed properly in weeks. Her arms were frail little sticks that hung from her scrawny shoulders; her ribs were prominent under her skin and her stomach was concave.

It wasn’t just her thinned body. Her skin…Tears punched at my eyes and my lower jaw started to tremble. Her skin, her beautiful, beautiful skin was blotched and dappled with dirt and bruises and welts. Each of the bruises looked like the result of a slap, a punch or a grab. Each mark was long and straight, as though she’d been whipped with a belt.

How could they do this? How could anyone do this?

I never knew this sort of thing went on. I mean, I knew it existed, and I knew it was awful. But it wasn’t real because I’d never seen it. I’d heard it all from Del, I’d seen her scars, but I couldn’t know, I couldn’t
believe
until this moment.

Stop it,
I ordered myself.
Don’t let her think you’re disgusted by her, that it’s her fault.

I blinked back my tears and inhaled deeply through my nose. I couldn’t fall apart in front of her—it wasn’t fair.

I finished undressing her, fighting every fresh batch of tears that arose with every item of her clothing I removed. It was all over her: the dirt, the bruising, the marking. Then I wrapped her in a big white towel and led her into the bathroom. I stopped, got down on my knees and enveloped her in my arms. “You’ll be all right, sweetie,” I told her. “I’m going to take care of you, OK? I’m going to take care of you.” I had to let her know she was all right. This wouldn’t happen again, she was safe now. She didn’t react as I tried to hug away her pain. How still and silent she stood in my arms made me pull her tiny body closer to me.

While I bathed her I was reminded of the last bath I’d given her. The one where she’d soaked me through and I’d had to borrow a T-shirt from Del. I was reminded this time because it was so different: there was no boisterous splashing, no giggling at the shapes the bubbles made, no trying to wet my clothes. She sat still and let me clean her bruised skin. I wished she’d give me even the slightest indication that she was there in the room with me but her eyes stayed fixed on a point on the tiled wall, her body not resisting any swipe of the washcloth.

Her blond hair fell in straight golden waves to her shoulders when I’d dried it and she was pretty damn cute in her blue checked pajamas. Cute, but silent. A knock at the door made both of us jump, we looked at each other, then at the door. After a few fraught seconds I realized it was probably room service with our food.

Any hunger that had been lurking around my stomach had been knocked out of me when I saw Tegan’s body but when the waiter slid the tray onto the big table, Tegan’s eyes lit up as though she hadn’t seen real food in an age.

I took the burger, fries and soft drink to her, then sat opposite her on the big bed. She didn’t move toward the food for a few seconds, then tentatively reached out and picked up the burger and moved it to her lips. Before she bit into it she looked up at me, silently checking it was OK.

I conjured up my brightest smile then nodded at her.
It’s all right to eat,
I silently replied. She took a nibble of the burger and kept her eyes on me as she chewed. She took another look at me before taking another bite. I welded the encouraging grin to my face and kept it there the whole time. “You don’t have to eat it all,” I said several times, “if you don’t want to finish it, you don’t have to.”

She did want to. She cleaned her plate and drained the soft drink carton, then sat back, staring at me with big scared eyes. Tegan took all her cues from me, unsure what to do next—a case of the completely lost leading the completely lost. I didn’t know what to do next, either. However, being the adult meant I had to pretend or we’d sit here all night.

“Are you tired?” I hazarded.

She nodded. Good, she was sticking to the plan: bath, food, bed.

“OK, come lie down.”

The corners of her mouth turned down, then her jaw started trembling as her eyes filled with tears.
No, no, not crying! I can handle anything except crying.
Weariness was plain on her face, exhaustion was obvious in her movements, so why wasn’t she eager to lie down and sleep?

“What’s the matter, Tiga?” I asked.

“I be scared on my own,” she whispered, then cringed as though she expected me to explode at her.

“Do you want me to lie with you?” I asked gently.

She came out of her cringe but was cautious as she slowly nodded. Her surprise that I didn’t start shouting was palpable.

“OK, you lie down and I’ll take my shoes off.”

Tegan nestled down under the blankets, made sure I was lying facing her, closed her eyes, then fell asleep. Just like that. Out like a light. I waited until I was sure she was deeply asleep before I slid noiselessly out of bed and sat in the chair staring out of the window.

I shifted in the chair, arched my back to try to unknot it, blinked unseeingly at the window.

How had I got myself here? Here. Where this thing called adoption was a serious issue.

I’d left Adele’s bedside determined to only
think
about it. And hadn’t. It wasn’t as if I had to think about it right away, so I had stored it away somewhere in my head to be brought out and considered another time. Except another time had come around a lot quicker than I thought it would.

Less than twenty-four hours ago my biggest decision was which bra would maximize my cleavage in my gold sequin dress. My gold sequin dress. Now that was a memory from a distant age. Was that really me? Was it really me who was planning on dusting my cleavage with gold dust? Because if it was, then how could I be the same person sitting in a hotel armchair thinking about adopting a child?

Me and child.

Kamryn and child.

Never meant to happen.

Children had never been in my sphere of destiny, not on my list of things to do. There were lots of children in my life—eight of them courtesy of my two brothers and sister—and while I loved each one of those little people with all my heart, they weren’t enough to make me want to partake. The time-limit factor was what heightened my enjoyment of being with children—anything more than twenty-four hours with them was asking too much of me.

You had to be prepared to give up everything for children.
Everything
. Time, space, affection. I wasn’t that altruistic, and I wouldn’t pretend I was inclined that way just to look “normal.”

When I was younger, most people thought my lack of interest in children was because I hadn’t met the right man. The right man, they theorized, would conjure up in me the need to procreate. When Nate and I started talking about marriage, everyone—Del included—thought I’d change my mind. That this much-vaunted thing called “maternal instinct” would kick in and I’d start cooing at kids in buggies, swooning over tiny clothes in shops and start planning which room in our flat would become the nursery. Because Nate, my husband to be, was meant to have been the inspiration I needed to crave the fertilization of my eggs.

People constantly asked me when Nate and I would be having children and I replied, “Erm, never.” There was, without exception, surprise then sympathy at my response, then I’d get a variation on, “Are you sure you want to marry Nate when he doesn’t want children?” I began to wonder if anyone had ever seen me as a person in my own right and not simply as a baby-making machine.

I put down the coffee cup on the floor by the armchair, hoisted myself upright. Careful not to bounce the mattress, I slid back into the bed. I lay facing Tegan, examining the contours of her face, seeing Nate. A smile spread across my face as I remembered the number of times I’d done that to Nate over the years we were together: lay in the middle of the night, watching him sleep, resisting the urge to run a finger over his nose, or kiss his eyelids, or whisper “I love you” in his ear. With Nate, I found it nearly impossible to hide my affection, especially when he was asleep and unlikely to witness my weakness for him.

My parents, out of everyone, were hurt the most by my canceling the wedding.

They couldn’t believe that, two months before their big day, it was all off. I had no illusions about that, it was
their
big day. It was what they’d been waiting for most of their lives. I’d thought they were going to throw themselves at Nate’s feet and worship him when we told them we were getting married. Finally someone was willing to take their troublesome eldest daughter off their hands. All I had to do was not ruin it before I said “I do” and then they’d be home free.

So that phone call, the one I made from a hotel room in Leeds two days after I found out what had happened between Nate and Del, the one that went “Nate and I have split up, the wedding’s off and I’m moving to Leeds,” was well received. Well received in that they didn’t have a way to reach down the phone line and throttle me.

Canceling the wedding was a typical Kamryn move as far as they were concerned. I could never get it right; couldn’t do this one normal thing for them. I’d always dressed shabbily, I was never pretty, I’d never had boyfriends, I’d never fit in, and now, the one thing, the
one
thing that would prove I was normal, was off. My siblings—both the older one and the two younger ones—had managed it, had gotten married, had settled down, had reproduced, so why couldn’t I? What was wrong with me?