‘Yes,’ I whisper. And because I have no idea what else to do I get up and put the kettle on and I make some tea while Heather talks, for all the world as though this is an ordinary visit – two old friends catching up: how she lives in Birmingham now (‘We moved not long after you left’), the newsagent’s where she works part-time.
As she talks I take in little glances. Such an ordinary-looking woman. A bit on the large side, her chubby hands folded in front of her on the table, her soft Welsh accent, her shoulder-length hair, her eager smile. ‘Do you still live with your mum and dad?’ I ask, for something to say, falling in with the game she’s playing, if that’s what this is. And she nods. Yes, I think – it would be hard, even now, to imagine her coping without them. She was never stupid, Heather, not backwards or anything like that – in fact she’d always done well at school. But despite her cleverness there’d always been an inexplicable something missing somehow, an innocence that made her vulnerable, too easily led astray. I sit down in the chair next to her. ‘Heather,’ I say quickly, before I lose my nerve, ‘Heather, what do you want?’
Instead of answering, she reaches over and, taking me by surprise, gently pulls a strand of my hair between her fingers. ‘Still so pretty, Edie,’ she says, dreamily. ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’ And I can’t help it: I flinch so obviously that I have to get to my feet, clattering the tea things together in the sink, her eyes boring into my back.
‘Can I see your flat?’ she asks, and when I nod she goes and stands at the door to my tiny living room. I follow her, and together we look in at the cramped, dusty mess, the fold-down bed, the rail of clothes, the crappy, second-hand telly. ‘It’s lovely,’ she says in a hushed voice, ‘you’re so lucky,’ and I have to stifle a sudden desire to laugh. If you had asked me at sixteen what sort of person I would become, what sort of life my future self might lead, I would never have pictured this.
It occurs to me that she must have found her way to London by herself, before making her way through the city to get here, and I’m both impressed and horrified by this. The thought hits me that she might expect to stay the night, and the idea is so awful that I blurt, ‘Heather, I’m sorry but I have to go out, I have to go out soon and it’s been so nice to see you again but I really do have to—’
Her face falls. ‘Oh.’ She looks around the room wistfully, disappointment etched into her face. ‘Maybe I could stay here until you get back.’
She eyes my sofa hopefully and I try very hard to keep the panic from my voice as I lie, ‘I’m going away for a few days actually, with friends,’ and I begin to steer her back towards the kitchen. ‘I’m sorry.’ Reluctantly she nods and follows me to where she’s left her coat and bag. I watch her, my heart sinking, knowing I should relent. She’s only been here fifteen minutes after all. But I stand there as she puts her coat on, and I say nothing.
‘Can I have your number?’ she asks. ‘I could phone you and then next time we could spend the day or even the weekend together.’ There’s such longing in her eyes that I feel myself nodding hopelessly, and she rummages eagerly in her bag. I watch her, my arms folded tightly, as she slowly punches my name into her mobile.
She looks up expectantly, but my posture or the angle in which I’m standing reveals something to her and as realization dawns, her mouth gapes. ‘You’re pregnant!’ she says.
For the briefest moment I see something in her eyes that makes me shudder, though I don’t know why – just for a second something else peeps out at me from behind her hazel stare. My hands fly defensively to my belly and an image, gone almost before it’s there, of Heri’s face flickers across my mind. I don’t reply.
‘Well,’ she says after a silence, ‘congratulations. How lovely.’ As she continues to gaze at me her pupils twitch intently, and sensing that she’s about to ask more questions, I rattle off my number and watch as she punches it in, agonizingly slowly, until finally I open the door, say goodbye as warmly as I know how, and at last she turns to leave. But before she does she stops and pauses and says very softly, ‘Do you remember the quarry, Edie? How we used to go up there together, all of us?’
I feel momentarily light-headed, a wave of nausea washes over me, and when I speak my voice is barely a whisper. ‘Yes.’
She nods. ‘Me too. I think about it all the time.’ And then she leaves, her sensible lace-ups clattering upon the staircase as she retreats lower and lower. I lean against the wall, weak with relief, until from far below I hear the front door’s heavy slam as she closes it behind her, like a jailor.
Year 11 leavers’ day, and everywhere you look girls are writing on each other’s shirts in felt-tip pen, drinking from Coke cans I think they’ve filled with something else, throwing flour bombs out of top-floor windows. I sit on the bench below the library window and watch. They’re all going up to the rec later to get drunk – I’d heard them talking about it in the loos. They hadn’t asked me, but I don’t really mind because Mum always worries if I’m back late. I see Nicola Gates over by the water fountain, but she turns away when I wave.
And that’s when I first see Edie. Walking across the forecourt in the direction of the main doors. As I watch, her face appearing then disappearing behind others in the crowd, she stops, her eyes squinting up at the building before darting around herself again and then finally landing upon me. I hold my breath. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone so pretty before, not in real life.
Then there she is, standing right in front of me, and at first I’m too distracted by all the different parts of her to take in what she’s saying: the smell of the leather jacket she’s carrying over her arm, mixed with something else, something soft and appley, her eyes, big and golden brown with lots of black eyeliner, pale mauve varnish on her nails. In the hollow of her clavicle is a little gold locket with a tiny green stone in the middle. If you were to put your finger beneath it you’d feel the jump jump jump of her pulse.
‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘What?’
She smiles. ‘The office. Where is it?’ Her voice is clear and sure with a northern accent – Manchester maybe.
Of all the people she could have stopped to ask, she’d picked me. I get to my feet. ‘I’m going that way myself,’ I tell her, though I wasn’t. ‘I’ll walk with you if you like.’
She nods, shrugs. ‘Yeah, OK. Ta.’
As we walk, I see Sheridan Alsop and Amy Carter standing by the water fountain. They stop talking and watch us as we pass. I have a mad impulse to link my arm through hers, this stranger who walks beside me, and I imagine us strolling along like that, arm in arm like best friends. How amazed Amy and Sheridan would be to see that! I don’t though, of course. People don’t like it when you do that sort of thing, I’ve realized.
‘My name’s Heather,’ I tell her instead.
‘I’m Edie. Well, Edith really. But how lame’s that?’ She looks around herself then shakes her head, ‘Bloody hell, this place.’
‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘I know! Totally lame, isn’t it? Are you going to come to school here then?’
She nods. ‘Starting my A-levels in September.’
‘I’m doing my A-levels here too! What’re you studying? I’m taking Biology and Maths and Chemistry. I was going to do a language as well but Mum and Dad said it was pointless because it’s not what I need to read Medicine at uni. Best to concentrate on just the three. What with all my volunteering work and everything too. I’m going to be a doctor one day and—’ I stop myself, my mouth snapping shut. I always talk too much, Mum says. I bite my lip, waiting for Edie to look at me the way the other girls do.
But she doesn’t, she only smiles again. Her long brown hair swings in front of her face and she pushes it away,