He kissed me, outside Kerry's bedroom, very quickly, and I let him and told myself it didn't matter, didn't count, I'd done nothing. We had sex, one afternoon after school, on my bed, while Kerry went round the corner to buy cigarettes for him. I couldn't tell myself that didn't count. It took about two painful, horrible minutes, and even before we'd begun I realized I was making the biggest mistake of my life. I was no longer able to stand the sight of his shallow, self-satisfied face. I kept out of his way completely after that. If he was coming round, I went out. If the phone rang, I never answered it. I waited for the flooding shame to subside. He and Kerry stayed together a bit longer, but gradually he stopped calling her and then he didn't return her calls either. A week or so later, when he'd gone back to Hull, Kerry started university. I felt sure he would have left her anyway; I tried to find ways of justifying my actions so they weren't so bad, but never succeeded. I didn't know and didn't want to know how much Kerry minded. I couldn't believe what had happened. Sometimes, I still couldn't believe it. I'd never told anyone about it. Except for my diary. I had written it down almost as a way of getting it out of my head, turning it into an object that could be thrown away, or hidden. Because I never could throw my diary away. It would have been like throwing away a piece of myself.
What I wanted to know now was this: had I done it because he was going out with my elder sister? I came to a stile going over a fence and sat down on it, feeling the dampness of the wood through my trousers, the moistness of the soil through my thin shoes. I put my head in my chilly hands, pressed my thumbs against my ears to seal me into my own interior world. Because if I had done that, what did that make me and what was happening now? What strange, ugly replica of that event was being played out, but now in full view and with everyone witnessing it? In my mind, I heard my mother's hissed commands, Troy 's whimper. I saw them all looking at me. Kerry's white face. I saw Brendan's smile.
More to the immediate point, what was I going to do now? I opened my eyes and stood up. I saw it was cloudy dark, with no moon. Here I was, on some remote lane in the middle of fields and woods, and I had no idea of what to do next. A part of me just wanted to run away so I didn't have to deal with any of this. But you have to run to somewhere, make a decision to drive the car along this road to that town, where you eat that food and sleep in that bed and get up in the morning…
So in the end, I returned to the car and got in it and turned on the ignition and drove back the way I'd come. I was so cold that, even when I turned the inefficient heating full on, I couldn't warm up. I bought milk and cocoa powder and digestive biscuits at the corner shop a few minutes from Laura's flat. When I let myself in, I could hear the sound of taps running in her bathroom, so I made myself a large mug of hot chocolate, with lots of sugar in it, and sat on the sofa with my legs curled up under me and drank it very slowly, trying to make it last.
CHAPTER 19
I plucked up courage and rang my own flat, and Brendan answered. My heart plummeted. I was tempted just to put the phone down, but Brendan would have been able to discover who had called and then he would have rung back or thought of something else and it would all have gone wrong. For me, that is. Again. So I said hello.
'Are you all right, Miranda?' he said.
'What do you mean?'
'It must have been painful for you.'
'Whose fault is that?' I said and then cursed myself immediately. I was like a boxer who had deliberately let his guard down. The punch in the face duly arrived.
'Miranda, Miranda, Miranda,' he said in a horrible soothing tone. 'I wasn't the one who betrayed Kerry.'
'You learned that by reading my diary,' I said. 'And then you lied. You said I told you about it.'
'Does it really matter how I learned about it? But maybe it's all for the best, Miranda. Secrets are bad for families. It's cleansing to get them out into the open.'
For a moment I wondered if I was going insane. It wasn't just what Brendan was saying that made me want to gag. I felt as if his voice was physically contaminating me, even over the phone, as if it were something alive and slimy, oozing its way into my ear.
'I was ringing to say I'm coming round tomorrow to pick up some of my stuff.' I paused. 'If that's all right.'
'Do you know what time?'
I was going to ask why it mattered, but I couldn't be bothered. I would just get sucked back into some sort of argument and somehow come off worse.
'I'll come over on my way back from work.'
'Which will be when?' he said.
'I guess about six-thirty,' I said. 'Does it really matter?'
'We always like to have a welcome ready for you, Miranda,' he said.
'Is Kerry there?'
'No.'
'Can you ask her to call me?'
'Of course,' he said affably.
I put the phone down, rather hard, and then looked guiltily up at Laura. Breaking her phone would not be a helpful contribution to the household. She looked at me with a concerned expression. She was being nice to me yet again.
'Are you all right?' she said.
'You don't want to know,' I said. 'It's just that I feel like I virtually have to make an appointment to visit my own house. I'm sorry. You'll notice I said you don't want to know and then told you.' She smiled and gave me a little hug. 'You know, it's important that you and Tony start having children as soon as possible.'
'Why?'
'Because I'll need to do about eight years of babysitting to pay you back for what you've done for me.'
She laughed.
'I'll hold you to that,' she said. 'But don't mention it to Tony for the moment. Whenever the idea of children gets mentioned, his face closes down.'
Laura and Tony were rushing round the flat getting ready to go out. They had obviously had an argument because Laura was being curt and efficient, and Tony sulky. I was going to have a maudlin, self-pitying Sunday evening alone. I had it all planned. A couple of glasses of wine. A sandwich for dinner, made out of avocado and pre-cooked bacon and a jar of mayonnaise that I'd bought on my way home from work. More wine. A bath. Bed. Drunken stupor. Various sobbing and howling at moments yet to be decided.
I must have looked like a child on a poster because I heard some muttering behind me, Laura hissing, and then Tony asked me if I wanted to come with them.
'What me?' I said, feeling embarrassed and pathetic. 'No, no, my gooseberry costume's in the wash. I'll be fine.'
'Don't be stupid,' said Laura. 'We're going to a party. There'll be loads of people. You'll have a good time. You won't be in our way.' This last sentence she said to Tony rather than me. Turning away from her, he raised his eyebrows in a complicit gesture that I tried not to notice.
'It's not right,' I said.
'Shut up,' said Laura. 'It's a friend of mine, Joanna Gergen. Do you know her?'
'No.'
'Well, she knows about you.'
'Have you told her I'm insane?'
'I've told her you're my best friend. She's having a flat warming. It'll be fun.'
They were insistent, and in the end I let myself be persuaded. I had a thirty-second shower and then took another forty-five seconds to throw my black dress on, and then I sat in the back of their car as we drove across London and tried to apply mascara and lipstick in incredibly adverse conditions.
Joanna had a flat off Ladbroke Grove that must have cost… Well, I made myself not think about how much it cost. I was not at work. I was going to have an evening that was an escape from my wretched normal life. Joanna, who had expensive blonde hair and a shamefully lascivious scarlet dress, looked a little surprised when she opened the door and saw me standing behind Laura and Tony like someone who had come to a fancy dress party as a fifth wheel.
'This is Miranda,' said Laura.
Joanna's face broke into a smile.