31 WEEKS
HELEN
How do you unmake a friendship? It turns out it is strangely difficult – especially with someone as persistent as Rachel. I never seem to have enough excuses not to see her. She knows I’m free, all the time. She knows I’m not working, that everyone else is. She knows that Daniel and Serena and Katie are usually too busy to see me, and that I don’t see much of Charlie. She knows my parents are dead. She knows my work friends don’t want to meet up with me. She knows all these secrets now – I have revealed them to her, one by one. She knows I’ve got no excuse.
Lately, I’ve started trying to fill my diary, so that I can have a reason not to see her, if I want one. I have started feigning even more medical appointments than I really have – claiming more blood pressure and baby movement scares than have actually occurred. I find myself arranging to get my nails done, my hair cut, just so I can tell her I have things in my diary. But the truth is I’m finding it harder and harder to construct my days around clearing cupboards or alphabetising bookshelves. I am starting to get lonely.
The building work seems to get worse and worse, the foundation dig endless, spewing mountains of rock and soil into the front and back gardens, crushing all Mummy’s flowers and plants. Now that it’s getting cold, dark and wet, it feels increasingly like there is no escape. I trudge through Greenwich like a homeless person, paying ￡2.75 for a cup of tea so that I can shelter in a pub, or a coffee shop, or a museum cafe. But after a while it’s uncomfortable, and the chairs feel hard under my sit bones, and I can’t concentrate on my book. My heartburn flares, my lower back starts to ache, the edge of the table digs into my belly. And meanwhile, my phone sits on the table next to me, and texts from Rachel keep flashing up. Am I all right? Do I feel like ‘hanging out’？ Am I busy? It does get to the point where you wonder if you can keep saying no.
One day, when the rain finally clears and an autumn sun emerges, I decide to go for a walk in the park. I’m in the hallway pulling my shoes on when I hear the knock on the door. Even through the cloudy glass, I can see it is her again. Her wobbly outline shrinks and balloons in the panels in the front door as I turn the key in the lock. I have come to recognise her form, her height. Her way of knocking. Three blows, evenly spaced. Deliberate.
Rachel is standing on the doorstep, grasping one of the grey paper bags from the Italian deli on the hill. It is overflowing with meats, cheeses, olives, a loaf of ciabatta, some shiny green and red apples. She holds it out in front of me, like bait.
‘I should have called first, I know.’ Rachel is grinning. ‘Have you got plans already? I just thought … you said Daniel was away.’
I hesitate. She knows, because I told her when I last saw her two days ago, that Daniel is away for a few nights. She knew I’d be alone. The thought makes me uncomfortable.
‘To be honest, I’m sort of exhausted, Rachel,’ I improvise. ‘I was planning on having a nap this afternoon.’ It’s a pathetic excuse, and we both know it. Rachel’s face falls.
‘Oh,’ she says. ‘Oh, OK then.’
Rachel is shifting the handles of the bag between her fingers. As I watch her, I notice her smile seems a bit off today, as if she is straining to keep the corners of her mouth upturned. She starts to transfer the bag from one hand to another, and as she does so, it falls. Peaches and apples tumble out, followed by a round of cheese, bouncing down the steps at the front of the house like a toy cart wheel.
I sigh, bend down slowly. ‘Here, let me help.’
‘No,’ she says sharply. ‘Don’t, Helen.’
She sounds close to tears. She drops the rest of the bag, starts chasing down the road after the cheese. When she returns, she is sniffing.
‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Ignore me. I’m just, you know. Having a really bad day. I thought you might … I thought maybe …’ She rubs her eyes with a vigour that is slightly alarming, using the heel of her palm, so that her elbow jabs towards me at an odd angle. When she has finished, a half-moon smudge of dark make-up is left under one eye. Oh God, I think.
‘Rachel, I’m sorry,’ I say. ‘Why don’t you come in? I’ll put the kettle on.’
Once inside, Rachel seems much happier. In the kitchen, she switches the radio on and hikes up the volume, pulling knives from the knife block seemingly at random, hauling out the heavy marble boards we save for best and clattering them against each other. She slams down the bread and starts sawing off great hunks of it, so that the knife scrapes against the marble. My fingers twitch. Those knives were a wedding present. They’ll be blunt by the time she’s finished.