The Wild Girls Read online

  ‘He’s fine, we’re all good. Have you got a busy day today?’

  Chris nods, takes a slurp of his coffee. The noise grates on Hannah slightly but she forces herself to ignore it. Chris is a lawyer, working in commercial law but wanting to make a move to family. ‘Commercial law is so boring, Hannah,’ he tells her all the time, and she wants to scream at him to try being cooped up with a baby for twenty-four hours a day, with nobody to talk to except Peppa Pig on the screen. Hannah hates Peppa Pig. She has started to dream about her; her rounded pink snout, the high-pitched sound of her voice. She taunts Hannah; in nightmares, the pig’s mother blinks her long eyelashes directly into hers, tickling her skin.

  But of course Hannah never says that.

  ‘Remember the Clarksons are coming over tomorrow night,’ Chris says, and Hannah’s heart sinks like a stone beneath her nightie – naturally, she’d forgotten. Most of the time now, her brain feels like a sieve with extra holes. The Clarksons are Chris’s colleagues, invited for a hideous double-date dinner in an attempt to rally Hannah’s spirits, give her some company. Chris doesn’t understand why she hasn’t been in touch with the girls in so long, why their close-knit friendship has become so distant. She hasn’t yet found the words to explain it to him. Every time Hannah thinks about it, she feels a weird mix of emotions, but mainly she feels so guilty that she wants to disappear, hide under the baby’s cot and never be found.

  As Chris reaches down to kiss Max goodbye, Hannah gets a whiff of his aftershave – it smells different, new.

  ‘See you later,’ he tells her, kissing her on the mouth, and she puts her hand on the back of his neck, trying to recreate the old passion, find their spark. Who are you wearing new aftershave for? she wants to ask him, but she knows she’s being ridiculous – this is Chris, for God’s sake, and so Hannah says nothing, just waves and smiles at him as he backs out of the baby’s room.

  Max has miraculously stayed sleeping, so she takes the opportunity to sift through the mail her husband has left on the side, noticing the messy, chipped polish on her nails as she does so. There’s never time to replace it. She doesn’t understand the mothers with neat nails. A bill, addressed to Chris, a Boden catalogue (is she really that old?), a flyer advertising some Valentine’s Day lingerie (chance would be a fine thing) and something else. A stiff, square envelope, addressed to her. Briefly, Hannah wonders if it’s from his mother – she often sends cards, her little way of checking how they are (read: checking how she is coping with Jean’s longed-for grandson) but her latest was last week and this feels a bit soon for a second, even by Jean’s standards.

  Hannah rips the paper, and the invitation tumbles out – nice, thick card, expensive. Someone with money – not his mother, then. Hannah thinks it must be a work thing, and then she sees the name and it’s as though she’s been dunked in cold water. The memory flashes back through her like a bolt of electricity. The cold of the wall against her jeans. The darkness of the sky. An unfamiliar hand rubbing her back.

  Guilt crawls up her throat, and Hannah puts her fingers to her neck as if she can stop it in its tracks. She can’t change the past; she should know that by now. Her necklace, a thin gold chain from Chris, is cold underneath her fingertips, and she rolls it against her skin, pressing down harder than she needs to, imprinting herself with its tiny interlocking pattern.

  Just then, her phone, caught in the folds of her nightie, beeps loudly with a message. It’s a familiar name, but one she hasn’t seen in months: Grace Carter. There are only three words, and Hannah cannot work out the tone – hesitant, or accusing?

  The message says: Are you invited?

  Chapter One

  14th February

  London

  Grace

  I’m working from home today, so I spend most of the morning on my laptop, googling photos of Botswana. I don’t even bother with a shower or my contact lenses, just sit there in my scrubby white dressing gown, glasses on, scrolling through the pictures. It says the temperature over there is thirty degrees, even in February, and it only gets hotter in March. Felicity always hated having a March birthday, said she wanted to be born in the summer when everyone was in the mood to drink rosé at any time of day. I continue scrolling through the websites, lose myself slightly in the images – imagining the hot sun on my back, the rustle of the grass underneath my feet. It’s been so long since I left London. Sometimes, I feel like I’m destined to be in Peckham forever, as though my soul will wander the busy streets for years after I die.

  Botswana would be something different. It would be an adventure. And I’d get to see the girls again, after all this time. Girls – it’s ridiculous to call them that, now that we are all women in our thirties, but that is what we’ve always been. That silly nickname: the wild girls. Old habits die hard, after all. The thought of seeing them makes my stomach twist. Memories spin in my mind, like tricks of the light that I cannot quite catch.

  Perhaps I don’t want to.

  I picture them; Alice Warner, her long black hair trailing down her back, her wide smile, the smell of her musky perfume as she leans in close to me, sharing a secret. The look on her face after she’s had a few too many glasses of red wine – which, let’s face it, used to happen more often than not. The way her eyes glow when she’s got gossip. And Hannah Jones, God, Hannah. The sensible one – the one we all needed the most. The mother hen – a real mother now, judging by her latest Instagram photos that I look at sometimes on long, lonely evenings, but am too scared to like. The one who’d tuck the covers around you after a night out, be first up in the morning making tea and toast. Those big blue eyes that made you think everything was going to be all right; her clean, calm home; that pale English rose skin that she didn’t even have to do anything to. Like an advert for serenity, was Hannah.

  And Felicity Denbigh. The one who kept us all together – until she didn’t anymore. I conjure her up – that bright, almost white-blonde hair that she smoothed down twenty times a day, a surprising, infectious cackle of a laugh that strangers always thought she was faking. The silver rings on her fingers, the way they glinted in the light. Her bright red lipstick, no matter what. Felicity the fun one. The popular one. The one you want around.

  Only she hasn’t been around – not for two years. Suddenly, as I think of them, the way we were, I am struck with a visceral pang of longing that almost makes me gasp. The room seems starker, shabbier, even more lonely than it already is. Without their energy, their friendship, my own life has dwindled even further somehow, lost its shine. It’s not that the flat isn’t all right – it’s OK in the summer, when the sun beams into the living room and we don’t have to worry about the heating as much. Rosie does so much exercise that she’s always boiling, but I can’t say the same for myself.

  I moved to this flat two years ago, after everything happened and I stopped seeing the girls, and ever since, my life has been… I don’t even know what the word is. Static, I suppose. I thought I was doing the right thing by keeping my distance from them all, and of course, I couldn’t go near Felicity. But maybe I was wrong.

  I exhale. It’s taken me a long time to admit it to myself, but it’s true. As everyone around me moves forward – having babies, getting married, buying houses, moving, in Felicity’s case, to New York – I have stayed still. Worse than still – sinking.

  And this invitation has got to be the thing that gets me out. I check my phone, and my stomach lurches as I see the little red notification pop up, like a finger tapping me on the shoulder, impossible to ignore. One new message.

  Hannah has replied.

  Hannah

  Hannah doesn’t respond to Grace’s message straight away. She needs some time to think. For Felicity to invite them now, after all this time – it feels odd to her. Is it a peace offering? A sign that she wants things to go back to how they were? Or is it simply another chance to show off – to tell the world how much better her life is than the rest of theirs?

  That’s the th
ing about Felicity, Hannah thinks. Everything about her life has to be the best. The best job, the best boyfriend – although actually, she’s not sure whether Felicity and Nathaniel are still together anymore – the best incredibly glamorous apartment in central Manhattan. On forgiving days, Hannah thinks it is because of what happened to her, what her father did – and on other days she is not so sure. She hates thinking about Felicity’s father; Michael Denbigh has been known to pop up in her dreams and she quickly pushes the thought away.

  When Felicity first moved to New York, two years ago, so soon after the night everything fell apart, she promised them all that she’d keep in touch. Hannah thinks of the message she sent telling them about the move, how sudden and abrupt it felt. But in it, she did say she’d call, Hannah knows she did. She’d even sent Felicity flowers. Lilies, for her new flat. She remembered afterwards that Felicity always said they reminded her of funerals, but she’d only meant them as a nice gesture. Or an olive branch, perhaps, after that night. Felicity had never acknowledged receipt. She probably thought she didn’t owe her anything, after what Hannah had done. Or perhaps she’d sent them to the wrong address; Felicity didn’t give them many details about where she would be living, or who she’d be living with over there. Hannah wonders whether Nate went with her, or whether their love story burned out in the way Felicity’s often did. She has imagined Felicity’s life many times over the past two years; picturing a spacious, shiny flat on the Upper East Side, Felicity swinging her legs in and out of bright yellow taxis. She’s no idea what it’s really been like, because Felicity hasn’t been in contact.

  Felicity always used to be the one who kept them together – made the effort to see the three of them regularly, kept the invites flowing. She made it fun, too – constantly laughing, pouring more drinks, lightening them all as the weight of their lives grew heavier and heavier. It’s only looking back that Hannah can see a kind of desperation in Felicity’s neediness, a darkness shuttered up behind her eyes. When they were teenagers, it was Felicity’s house they gathered at, clustered together up in the attic, playing endless games of truth or dare whilst her father stalked around downstairs, the house empty after the death of her mother. Hannah used to wonder whether her own mother would have put a stop to the games they were playing; their dares growing bolder and bolder, pushing themselves to see how far they would go. They called themselves the wild girls, after Alice overheard Felicity’s father calling them ‘feral’, with more than a hint of despairing anger in his voice. Hannah closes her eyes, remembering the sensation of the attic – the candles flickering, the dust motes glowing in the air. An open window, a glimpse of the night sky. Felicity’s voice telling her to jump. Her arms, spreadeagled in the air as she fell, landing winded in the garden as the others peered down at her from above. Looking back, it was dangerous. She could’ve broken her neck. Felicity’s dad had helped her up, in the end, his hand too far down her back. Even now, she can remember the sensation of it – an uncomfortable churn that she tries not to think about. The bruises smattered her skin for days. She’d been lucky not to face serious injury.

  The games were always instigated by Felicity. She was the flame; the other three were the moths, grey and unpalatable in comparison. When she left so soon after that night two years ago, the group floundered, sputtered out. None of them knew how to be anymore. And so they stopped – their little friendship group abruptly cut off, after so many years together. Hannah began to lose herself in the fertility details, the painful ins and outs of them, all the while clinging to Chris like a life raft. The closeness they’d all had had come to an end. The wild girls were no more.

  Only now, it turns out that maybe it was all just on pause.

  Beside Hannah, Max stirs in his cot. He’ll want feeding soon, but if she is lucky and quick, she might be able to have a shower whilst he’s still sleeping. The idea of hot water pounding onto her shoulders, easing the ache in her muscles is seductive; a moment of peace, a chance to think, just for a few minutes. She’ll leave the door open, so that she can hear him if he cries.

  Before Hannah can think about it too much longer, she taps out a reply to Grace. Yes. The invite came this morning. I don’t know if I’ll go yet. A pause. She could leave it at that, turn her phone off and pretend nothing ever happened. Go back to her day, back to the endless routine of nappy-changing and breastfeeding, of trying to seem interesting to her husband as her breasts throb uncomfortably beneath her blouse and her son’s blue eyes watch her, following her around the room in case she does something wrong. But Hannah’s fingers carry on writing, as though she is not in control at all. Will you?

  Hannah hits send, and leaves the phone in Max’s room as she heads for the shower. She hears it beep instantly again, but this time she ignores it, continues stripping off her clothes, steps into the hot steam of the water and tilts her face upwards into the stream. Her body feels cumbersome, loaded with weight and with worry, and she runs her hands over her stretchmarks and her hips, squeezing the flesh a little bit too hard. Hannah forces her mind to go blank. She doesn’t want to know the answer to her question. Not yet.

  Alice

  They did a class project on Africa once, at school. The kids drew pictures of the animals – elephants, gazelle, leopards, strange four-legged creatures dotted around the pages of their workbooks, the sky above them a bright line of blue, simple and opaque. They wanted to paint their faces; Alice had said no and felt guilty for the rest of the week. Most of these children will never go to Botswana – most of them will probably never leave Hackney. Would it really have killed her to let them wear a bit of face paint? Tom would say she is too strict, that the way she always plays by the rules stifles the children’s creativity. What he really means is that it stifles him.

  On the way home from school, she pulls the invitation from her bag again. Red ink has furred onto the edge, a leaky biro to blame. As she walks, Alice re-reads it, properly this time. It’s only then that she notices the small print at the bottom, like a little afterthought: all expenses paid. She blinks, stops in the middle of the street. A group of teenagers pushes past her, hoods up, gum on their breath, and a woman with a raffia shopping bag tuts loudly, but Alice ignores them all. All expenses paid? God. Is Felicity really so rich that she can pay for her friends to come on holiday? Alice thinks of her own dwindling bank balance, and for a moment, the hot, blind panic that has threatened to overtake her recently rises up, climbing her throat and creating pins and needles in her hands. But while Alice exists on discounted sandwiches and tap water, thanks to the massive weight of their mortgage that hangs over her head like an axe, Felicity rents an apartment in New York yet can somehow afford to fly her friends out to Botswana to celebrate her birthday.

  In what world, Alice thinks to herself, is that fair?

  Chapter Two

  Grace

  In the end, it’s my flatmate Rosie who acts as the catalyst. Well, Rosie and her boyfriend, Ben. I can’t say I like Ben; he’s just one of those people that are hard to get on with. It’s obvious what he thinks of me – he thinks I’m in the way, that if I would just go ahead and move out, he and Rosie would be able to have this flat all to themselves. But it’s my name on the rental agreement, and there’s nothing he can do about that. I was living here before Rosie even met him.

  They came in late, on Valentine’s Day night. I was in my pyjamas – if I’m honest, I hadn’t changed out of them all day, I didn’t see the point. I could tell they were a bit drunk – well, Ben was, Rosie always watches it because of all her gym work – and Ben leaned towards me slightly, a weird smirk on his face. There were lipstick marks on his cheeks and chin, as if they’d been kissing, and for a second, something had hung in the air as I stared at them. Then Rosie started talking.

  ‘We had a lovely meal, didn’t we, Ben? Honestly, Grace, it was so delicious. Sexy Fish, the place was called. I bet you’d like it.’

  I nodded, pushed my glasses up my nose, just for something to do.
I felt awkward in my own flat, which in turn made me feel irritated; irrationally so.

  ‘I don’t know if you would like it there, Grace,’ Ben said, and he grinned, started laughing a bit at his own joke. He had a sort of choking laugh, staccato and mean.

  I felt the muscles in my stomach clench in preparation.

  ‘Come on, Ben, let’s go to bed,’ Rosie said, but she was a bit giggly too. I could tell she was on his side.

  I decided to be brave. ‘Why wouldn’t I like it there, Ben?’

  More sniggering. He’s good-looking, is Ben, there’s no two ways about it – attractive in that macho, stereotypical way. The sort of man Felicity would like. Very symmetrical, like her old boyfriend, Nathaniel. But in that moment, he looked ugly. Further proof that appearances can be deceiving.

  ‘Well. Sexy Fish.’ He gestured at me, his eyes roving over my unwashed, mousey brown hair, my slightly coffee-stained pyjamas. My glasses. Everything.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like your scene, that’s all. Sexy Fish.’

  The humiliation was rising up my cheeks, but with it a sort of anger. Bubbling up, closer to the surface. The skin underneath my arms felt wet, damp with embarrassment and sweat.

  ‘Ben! God, sorry, ignore him, Grace,’ Rosie said, and she grabbed his arm, started tugging him towards the bedroom. They disappeared into the corridor, out of sight, but I could hear them laughing as they went, Rosie shushing him frantically but not properly. I only caught snatches of Ben’s words – lonely, spinster, weirdo. Leech.

  I sat still in the half-light of the kitchen after they retreated, thinking about my life, how small I had let it become, and how it had to change. I thought about the all-expenses-paid note, how crazy it would be. How much fun, too. I thought about the past, about my three best friends – letting myself remember them all, as they really were, not as I wanted them to be. The wild girls. The thought almost makes me laugh – I haven’t left the house for almost a fortnight, wild is the last word anyone would use to describe me. I imagined us all, together again – what might happen. What might come to light. I thought about who might be there, and what that might mean for me. Would it be worth the risk? I considered it, carefully, the way I would a mathematical equation at work.