‘Is it all right if we don’t invite Tempe?’ asks Carmen, looking at me sheepishly. ‘It’s just that … she’s not really an old friend, or part of …’
‘The gang?’ I suggest.
‘Yeah.’ She takes a deeper breath. ‘The other girls think she’s a bit of a Karen.’
‘She’s not entitled or shrill.’
‘No, but she seems rather fake. The stories she tells. Her comments. They’re always a little bit off.’
‘She’s trying hard to be liked.’
‘Maybe that’s the problem. Remember the other week when Sara had her hair cut and dyed, and everyone was saying how good she looked? Tempe went out and had her hair cut and coloured exactly the same way.’
‘She used the same stylist.’
‘But don’t you think that’s odd?’
‘OK, yes, I accept that she isn’t everybody’s cup of tea – but Tempe has done so much for me.’
‘I think we should have a rule about inviting new people into our group.’
‘What sort of rule?’
‘We can vote them out.’
‘We’re not playing Survivor,’ I laugh. ‘And I can’t tell Tempe to leave – not until after the wedding.’
‘OK, but we don’t have to tell her about our night out. We won’t put anything on social media. No photographs. No tweets. What she doesn’t know, can’t hurt her.’
I’m not hard to convince, but I still feel a pang of guilt. It’s like I’m nine years old and discovering that I’m the only girl in my dance class who hasn’t been invited to Erica Horner’s ice-skating party. I still don’t know what I did to upset Erica, but that’s why I withdrew from dancing and took up karate instead.
Years later, I bumped into Erica at Victoria station, waiting for a Circle Line train. My heart began to race and I was a child again, desperate to be accepted. She smiled warmly and gave me a hug. The train arrived. We sat side by side, making small talk about university and families. I desperately wanted to ask her why she didn’t invite me to the party, but it seemed childish, like holding a grudge that should have been discarded years ago. As the train came into Blackfriars station, we quickly swapped phone numbers and talked about getting a coffee, but as I ascended the escalator towards daylight, I looked at her contact details and hit delete.
I have been avoiding Tempe since the dishwasher incident. Carmen is right – there’s something not quite right about her. Maybe it’s the way she seems to ‘lean in’ to bad news, making all the right noises, but never sounding completely genuine. At other times, she goes out of her way to be nice about my girlfriends, but there is often a slight barb to her comments, or a double meaning that borders on passive aggression.
Tempe has noticed my retreat. She keeps leaving messages, asking me if something is wrong. I’ve told her that I’m distracted and that I need some space. I feel like saying, ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ but on the list of pathetic excuses that always comes near the top.
It’s difficult because the wedding is a week from Saturday and we still have to finalise the seating plan, and the dress rehearsal, and a hundred different particulars, each a fraction of a whole.
Another complication is that Tempe’s mother is arriving tomorrow. Elsa has been calling me every few days, asking about ‘my Maggie’。 Always cheerful and chatty, I can hear the relief in her voice when I tell her that Tempe is fine and living at the same address. She used the word ‘we’， which makes me think that Mr Brown is coming too.
‘Why did Maggie run away?’ I asked her on her last call.
‘It was a misunderstanding.’
‘An argument?’
‘Something like that. Does she ever talk about me?’
‘Not really.’
‘Is she taking her medication?’
‘What medication?’
There was another pause. ‘For her anxiety. I shouldn’t really talk about it. I’ll explain when we meet.’
42
The flight is twenty minutes late. Chauffeurs and taxi drivers are gathered at either end of the barriers, holding up clipboards and handwritten signs with passenger names and company logos. I borrow a piece of paper and a marker pen from one of them, writing the name Elsa Brown in capital letters. I’m holding the sign above my head when a man steps in front of me. He’s so big that I lean sideways to make sure Mrs Brown isn’t hiding behind him.
‘Philomena McCarthy?’
‘Yes. Are you Mr Brown?’
‘No. I’m Dr Thomas Coyle.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Elsa thought it best if I came instead. I’m a psychiatrist. I was looking after Maggie in Belfast.’
He is so tall that I have to tilt my head to see his face. ‘Why? What was wrong with her?’
‘Let’s talk somewhere more private.’
An awkward silence follows. I toy with my car keys.
‘Why didn’t Elsa tell me?’
‘We were concerned that you might alert Maggie and we’d lose her again.’
There’s that phrase again.
‘Do you often lose her?’
‘A poor choice of words, perhaps.’
He’s in his early forties, with salt-and-pepper hair, and a body assembled from odds and ends, bulging where it should taper, except for his eyes, which are large and brown and full of intelligence. He’s wearing a cotton business shirt, folded to his elbows, tan trousers, baggy around the bottom, and lace-up loafers. A crumpled linen jacket hangs over his arm.
My Fiat is on the second level of the car park. It feels smaller because Dr Coyle’s knees are touching the dashboard and his head is brushing the roof.
‘Are we going to the address?’ he asks as we pass through the boom gate.
‘I want some answers first. I told Elsa I wouldn’t reveal Tempe’s address without getting her permission, or unless I felt it was in her best interests.’
‘It is,’ he says adamantly.
‘Why didn’t Elsa come?’
‘Maggie has a fractious relationship with her parents. She blames them for having her sectioned.’
‘Is Tempe dangerous?’
Coyle treats the question with interest rather than surprise. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘People are usually sectioned when they pose a risk to themselves or to others.’
He considers this for a moment and pats his stomach.
‘Do we have time for breakfast? I’m famished.’
I take him to a café in Richmond, overlooking the river. The outside tables have umbrellas and wooden boxes with cutlery and condiments. The serviettes are pinned beneath painted rocks.
Dr Coyle has a strange way of sucking his teeth while he’s studying the menu, as though he’s imagining how each dish will taste before deciding what he should order. Our coffees arrive. He opens a sugar sachet, but only adds a few granules. The silence is filled with the clack and bang of crockery and hiss of steaming milk.
Coyle takes a small notebook from the pocket of his linen jacket and begins scribbling something on a page.
‘Are you going to be taking notes?’ I ask.