Who Did You Tell (ARC) Read online

  ‘I guess so.’

  She folds the top of the bag and passes it over to me. She low-

  ers her voice. ‘I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Astrid, but

  when you were sharing the other week I got the impression that

  you’ve lost someone close to you recently.’

  I take hold of the bag. I need to be more careful at meetings

  in future. I must have said more than I thought I had.

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  ‘I know it’s none of my business,’ she says. ‘But, well, you

  know, I lost my mother recently, so if you ever want to talk . . .’

  ‘Thanks.’ I turn to leave, but she hasn’t finished with me yet.

  ‘There’s a lot of guilt when someone dies, especially if it’s . . .’

  She pauses. ‘Especially if it’s a . . . troubled relationship.’

  I stare at her. ‘I don’t remember saying anything about hav-

  ing a troubled relationship.’

  Her face reddens. ‘Oh, but you must have done. Maybe you

  don’t remember. You were very upset when you were talking.

  Was it someone close to you? A brother or boyfriend, perhaps?’

  ‘A boyfriend.’ The words are out before I have a chance to

  think better of it. This is how they operate, people like her.

  They latch on to some little snippet you’ve told them and use it

  to reel you in.

  ‘I’m sorry to hear that,’ Rosie says.

  It isn’t till I’m out on the street that I work out what it is

  about her I don’t like, apart from the nosiness and the silly lit-

  tle sayings and the incessant attempts to befriend me. Her

  smile doesn’t quite reach her eyes. There’s something else too.

  Trapped behind that caring, sharing, successful sobriety act, I

  can still see the nasty fucked- up drunk she once was.

  Takes one to know one, I guess.

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  Mum holds my new swimming costume out in front of her.

  ‘This will suit you a lot better than my old one.’

  ‘Well, I didn’t like to say anything, but . . .’

  ‘That’s not like you, darling. Not saying anything.’

  We both laugh. We haven’t teased each other in this jokey

  way for ages. It feels good. Although the fact that it feels good

  is now making me feel bad about all the times I’ve been mean

  to her in the past. Which then gets me thinking that, actually,

  that wasn’t always my fault because she can be so fucking

  annoying sometimes. So now the good feeling is all spoilt

  because it’s got mixed up with guilt and resentment. That’s the

  trouble with emotions; they zigzag all over the place and leave

  you exhausted. Leave you wanting a drink to make them soft at

  the edges.

  If I knew for sure that there was a bottle of vodka somewhere

  in this house, or wine, or beer. Sherry. Cider – anything, in

  fact – I’d drink it. I’d drink all of it, every last drop. And then I’d scrape together the last of the money in my pockets and

  anything else I could get my hands on, the contents of

  Mum’s loose- change bowl for instance, and I’d go down to the

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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  Co- op and buy whatever I could afford. And I’d sit on the beach

  and drink it all and then I’d come home and I’d see Mum’s

  face, all screwed up and angry, and I’d hear what came out of

  her mouth, but it wouldn’t be words, it’d be noise. A harsh, jar-

  ring noise. The sort of noise that sets your nerves on edge and

  makes you want to drink even more so you don’t have to hear

  it any longer and you don’t have to see the way her mouth

  moves and the way her pupils dilate, and you don’t have to feel

  her pain because it’s your pain too. It’s always your pain.

  ‘Astrid? Astrid?’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  ‘I said, what do you fancy for supper?’

  Josh’s text arrives in the nick of time. It saves me from the

  downward spiral of my thoughts.

  ‘I’ve just got back from my swim. Do you want to meet me at

  the chippie? I’m starving. xx’

  ‘Sounds great. What time?’

  ‘7 o’clock? I’m just going to have a quick shower.’

  ‘Ok. See you soon. xx’

  It isn’t till my hand’s on the front door half an hour later that

  I remember Mum’s taken a vegetable curry out of the freezer.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘In here, darling.’

  She’s watching the evening news in the living room. I keep

  my voice as light and friendly as I can. ‘You don’t mind if I have

  that curry tomorrow, do you? Only Josh has asked me out for

  fish and chips.’

  She looks at my new dress and something unreadable flick-

  ers across her face. This really is like being a teenager again.

  Only now it’s worse, far worse. Back then it felt like the power

  was all mine. I knew it all, had my whole life in front of me.

  Navigating Mum’s moods was just something I had to do for a

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  couple more years and then I’d be free. Now I’m back where I

  started. I’ve had my taste of freedom, and look where it got me.

  ‘Of course I don’t mind,’ she says. ‘Are you bringing it back

  here to eat?’

  ‘No, we’ll probably sit on a bench or something. It’s a nice

  warm evening.’

  ‘You haven’t told him, have you.’

  The way she says it, it’s more of a statement than a question.

  ‘I will do. When I’m ready.’

  She nods. Don’t say anything else, Mum. Please, just don’t say

  anything else.

  ‘Don’t leave it too long,’ she says. ‘You know what they

  said . . .’

  ‘At rehab, yes. I know what they said. I was there, remember?’

  Mum presses her lips together. One of those stupid Go Com-

  pare adverts with the twirly- moustached Italian opera singer

  has just come on. Normally, she switches channels the second

  it starts up. Now she just stares at it, stony- faced.

  There’s a queue outside the chippie, but I don’t join it, just in

  case I get to the counter before Josh arrives. I sit on the wall of

  someone’s front garden. That’s the price they pay for living next

  to the chippie, having to put up with strangers’ bums on their

  wall. Mum would hate it. She gets cross when mothers who’ve

  just dropped their children off at school gather on the pave-

  ment outside the house to chat. She says things like: ‘Why can’t

  they have their mothers’ meetings somewhere else?’

  As I’m waiting, something she said a few days ago comes

  back to me, about the young woman she saw staring at the

  house, the one who said she lived there as a child.

  I chew the inside of my lip. I don’t like the thought of her

  turning up at the house when Mum’s on her own. What if she’s

  lying abou
t it being her childhood home?

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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  If it weren’t for all the weird things that have been happen-

  ing lately, I probably wouldn’t be giving it a second thought. I

  mean, some people do things like that, don’t they? Revisit the

  place where they grew up. Wild horses couldn’t drag me back to

  Peckham Rye – too many memories. But what if she’s con-

  nected to all this? What if this woman, whoever she is, is the

  one who sent me that photo?

  Josh drops on to the wall next to me and grabs hold of my

  hand, brings it to his lips. I didn’t even see him approach. He

  gives me a hug. His hair smells of shampoo.

  ‘I saw you with your mum earlier,’ he says as we join the end

  of the queue.

  I stare at him. How is that possible? Then I realize. He must

  have seen me with Helen down on the beach.

  ‘I was going to come over and say hi, but you looked so

  engrossed in your conversation I thought I’d better not.’

  ‘That wasn’t my mum. It was a friend of hers.’

  Why did I say that? Why didn’t I just say it was a friend of

  mine? Why have I tied myself up in another lie? What’s wrong

  with me?

  ‘She was asking me how Mum was,’ I say. ‘Mum isn’t social-

  izing much at the moment.’ Now I’m making things worse,

  spinning another tale. It’s completely unnecessary. He wasn’t

  going to ask what we were talking about. Why would he?

  ‘Depression’s like that,’ he says. ‘Not that I’ve suffered from it

  myself, but I know people who have.’

  I nod. I’m trying to think what he might have seen. Was it

  when we were on the beach or when we were sitting on the

  bench? Was I crying? I can’t remember. I was so immersed in my

  own problems I wasn’t aware of anyone but Helen and myself.

  The woman at the front of the queue is taking ages to make

  up her mind and the people behind her and in front of us are

  rolling their eyes at each other and muttering under their

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  breath. Josh and I are still on the pavement outside because

  there isn’t room for us all in the shop.

  ‘Where were you, when you saw us?’

  He hesitates. Is it my imagination or does he look a bit cagey?

  ‘In the sea,’ he says. ‘Well, just walking out of it.’

  Of course. That’s why I didn’t see him. For once, I wasn’t

  focused on the sea; I was too busy regurgitating bits of my past

  to Helen.

  I’m on the verge of saying that I thought he’d said in his text

  that he’d only got back from swimming a little while ago, but I

  stop myself just in time. Maybe he went earlier too, although

  didn’t he say he was helping his dad sand some floors? Oh, for

  God’s sake, why am I even worrying about this? Josh is a free

  agent. He’s allowed to change his mind, isn’t he? I don’t want

  him to think I’m checking up on him. Maybe he already does.

  The dynamics in a new relationship are so hard to call some-

  times, especially when there’s no alcohol to smooth things

  along.

  ‘The thing is,’ he says, taking hold of my hands and fixing me

  sternly with his eyes, ‘now I know your shameful secret.’

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  20

  Blood rushes to my ears. What does he mean, he knows my

  shameful secret? How does he know? What does he know? I try to swallow, but it takes ages. For a split second, I even wonder

  if maybe Josh has something to do with what’s been going on.

  All those times I just happened to see him down on the beach –

  and it was him who approached me first, wasn’t it?

  I can’t look at him for fear of what I might see in his eyes and

  yet . . . he’s still holding my hand.

  I’ll brazen it out. What else can I do?

  ‘Which one?’ I say, forcing myself to meet his eyes, to smile.

  It’s the standard, jokey response. He can’t possibly know how

  serious a question it is.

  ‘The smoking one,’ he says, pulling an expression of mock-

  disapproval.

  It’s as much as I can do not to laugh out loud. I look down at

  my feet to compose myself, but Josh obviously thinks I’m

  annoyed, or embarrassed, or both.

  He draws me into his arms and hugs me tight. ‘I didn’t

  mean to make you feel bad,’ he says. ‘I was just surprised,

  that’s all.’

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  ‘I want to give up,’ I say.

  ‘Good for you. I tried smoking once, but I was always into

  my swimming so I never really got into it.’ He fingers the hem

  of my new dress. ‘This is nice.’

  ‘You can borrow it if you like.’

  Josh’s shoulders start to shake and, before long, we’re both

  giggling like a couple of schoolkids. I haven’t laughed like this

  for ages. Not since Simon and I were on that park bench drain-

  ing cans of beer, slipping beyond the point of no return. Things

  weren’t so funny after that.

  The chips are good. Crisp on the outside, fluffy on the inside.

  Josh put even more salt on his than I did on mine. It’s nice

  to know he’s got some vices, that he’s not a complete health freak. We’re sitting on a bench in the little garden near the sea-front. The sun is still warm and the sky is tinged with orange

  and red. Gulls circle overhead, waiting to swoop down on a

  dropped chip.

  ‘I bought the paints today,’ I say. ‘The man in the shop was

  really helpful.’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Don’t know his name.’

  ‘Sixtyish. Bald. Glasses.’

  ‘That’s him.’

  ‘Yep, that’s Charlie. He and Dad go sea- fishing sometimes.

  Charlie’s got a boat.’

  I take the last mouthful of my fish and lick my lips. I can’t get

  used to this small- town life, everyone knowing each other. It’s

  kind of nice, although part of me can’t help worrying. Mum

  knows a lot of people round here. I don’t know how many of

  them she’s told about me, apart from her Quaker friend Pam,

  and Quakers aren’t generally the sort to gossip. But then every-

  one does sometimes, don’t they? It’s human nature.

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  WHO DID YOU TELL?

  Last year, a rumour went round that a child- killer was liv-

  ing here under a new identity and some poor shopkeeper got

  falsely accused of being her. Mum said it spread like wildfire. So

  how long will it be before one of them mentions something about

  June Phelps’ alcoholic daughter? And then someone says some-

  thing to someone who happens to know Charlie’s wife and before

  long Charlie’s wife tells Charlie and Charlie tells Josh’s dad.

  Josh shovels up the las
t of his chips with his fingers and

  scrunches his paper napkin into a ball.

  ‘Fancy a quick drink in the Flinstead Arms?’ he says, holding

  his hand out for my rubbish.

  My stomach tenses. Such an innocent, casual question. I

  should have anticipated this, should have prepared an answer,

  but it was all so last minute I didn’t even think.

  ‘I don’t really like leaving Mum on her own too long.’

  A look of disappointment flashes over his face. It sounds like

  a brush- off, I know it does. But what else can I say? It’ll be

  weird just eating our fish and chips and saying goodbye. I can’t

  invite him back to Mum’s. It’ll be unbearable, the three of us

  squeezed into that tiny living room. I’ll be on tenterhooks the

  whole time. There’s no way I’m inviting him up to my dingy

  cell of a bedroom with its squeaky single bed either, and he’s

  not likely to suggest I go back with him to Mistden, not now

  he’s just walked all the way here.

  This is crazy. Surely I can walk into a pub without falling

  apart. I can have a Coke or a lime and soda. I can’t spend my

  whole life avoiding places where people drink. I’ll never be able

  to go anywhere or do anything.

  ‘But I’m sure she’ll be fine for a little while longer. She’s prob-

  ably watching one of her gardening programmes.’

  For fuck’s sake, what the hell are you doing?

  ‘Great,’ he says. ‘I could murder a pint.’

  *

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  The Flinstead Arms is heaving.

  ‘What do you want to drink?’ Josh shouts over the noise.

  My eyes dart towards the bar and the line of optics illuminated

  by spotlights. Smirnoff, Gordon’s, Jack Daniels, Archers, Pernod,

  Bacardi, Courvoisier, Captain Morgan, Teacher’s, Grant’s, Mar-

  tini, Baileys. All the premium spirits glinting seductively. My

  knees tremble. My mouth is dry.

  ‘A lime and soda, please.’ My voice sounds all muffled, as if

  I’ve got a bad head cold. I brace myself for his reaction. The

  jokey comment. The ‘are you serious?’ look.

  ‘With ice?’ he says.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Look, there’s a space near the window. Why don’t you grab it?’

  He wrestles his way to the bar and I head back towards the

  door and the small gap where there’s space to stand by the win-

  dowsill. My heart knocks so fast it’s painful. This is a huge