By the time the pie is ready, we’ve worked our way through all the crisps and made a start on a second bottle. She’s been regaling me with tales of her sister’s love life, as well as filling me in on bits of news about my old colleagues at Blue Door. She is going to the drinks thing that I was havering about when she arrived and she’s adamant that I have to come. She hasn’t mentioned her girls yet, nor asked about Henry. Although she adores Henry, and I love Maya and Phoebe too, we don’t talk about them that much. I do have friends that I made through Henry with whom the conversation nearly always revolves around fussy eaters, managing behaviour or the pros and cons of swimming lessons, but I love that that’s not the case with me and Polly. She’s a proper friend.
As I spoon the meagre pie out of its tin-foil dish onto two plates, adding several slices of French bread and a handful of salad, I ask how the girls are.
‘They’re OK. Well, Maya is.’
Maya is a robust and lively eight-year-old with an astonishing and enviable disregard for the opinions of others, whereas her sister at twelve grows quieter and more withdrawn every time I see her. I’d assumed this was the usual march of adolescence, the inevitable desire for independence, otherness, and the subsequent drawing away from one’s parents and any adults associated with them.
‘And Phoebe?’
‘She’s been having some trouble at school. With the other girls.’
An icy finger curls around my stomach, taking away my appetite.
‘You mean – she’s being bullied?’
‘I’m not sure you’d call it bullying. It’s so… subtle. Girls this age – they can be so vile.’
Don’t I know it.
‘What have they been doing?’
In some ways I don’t want to know. I find this a difficult topic at the best of times, but right now I don’t know if I will be able to keep my composure.
‘It’s hard to quantify. Leaving her out of stuff, not telling her about things until it’s too late for her to go, undermining her confidence in the way she looks. I don’t think she even tells me all of it. This new girl started halfway through term and she’s thrown everything out of whack. She’s turned Phoebe’s best friend against her. She’s a real alpha female.’ She pauses. ‘Actually, what she is is a fucking little bitch.’
The venom in Polly’s voice shocks me. I’ve hardly ever even heard her swear, let alone speak so viciously about a child.
‘Phoebe’s always been so funny, so sparky, and now it’s like she’s shrinking. She’s fading away, that person she used to be. And of course I knew she would change as she got older, grow away from me, but I thought that the essence of her, what makes her who she is, would still be there. But it’s going; she’s losing it. This girl, she’s taking it away, she’s taking Phoebe away.’
Polly is trying very hard not to cry. I am desperately sorry for her, but it’s incredibly hard for me to respond in a normal way. This is such an emotive subject for me that I don’t know what the normal response is. The only experience I have of it as a mother is Henry telling me that Jasper and Dylan wouldn’t play trains with him in choosing time, which although it hurt my heart beyond measure, is hardly the same.
‘Have you been into the school?’ I manage.
‘Oh yes, several times. They’re doing their best, but like I said, it’s subtle. There’s only so much they can do. Friendship issues, they call it. Funny kind of friendship.’
She looks down at her barely touched plate. I want so badly for her to know that I understand, to offer some comfort.
‘I had… something similar when I was at school,’ I say haltingly.
‘Really?’ Polly looks up. ‘What happened?’
‘Oh, I won’t go into it all now, but… I do understand. I remember what it’s like to be a teenage girl.’
‘Oh Lou, would you speak to her? She looks up to you.’
I must look sceptical because she goes on, ‘No, she really does. She thinks you’re so cool with your own creative business, and bringing Henry up on your own.’
‘I don’t know, Polly. I’m not sure I’d be able to say anything useful…’
Oh God, what have I got myself into?
‘Of course you would. You just said you had something similar happen to you. Even hearing that would help her. Please.’
Of course that’s not exactly what I said, but I can’t tell her that in fact I experienced it from the other side.
‘OK, I’ll give her a ring tomorrow.’ What else can I say?
‘Thank you. I really appreciate it.’ She touches my arm lightly. ‘Anyway, enough about that. I’m sick to death of thinking about it, to be honest. Let’s talk about you – you haven’t said much. Is anything up?’
It’s my turn to look down, flattening the mashed potato with my fork. There’s a part of me that longs to confide in her, to unburden myself to someone who genuinely cares about me and has nothing to do with the past. I am just so tired. Tired of keeping it all inside me, of never being able to fully let go.
‘No… not really.’
‘I knew it! What is it? Have you met someone? Oh my God, is it someone from the website?’
She looks so hopeful that I am tempted to make something up, but I don’t.
‘No, nothing like that. I haven’t even checked the email address you set up, to be honest. I don’t know if my heart’s in it, Poll.’
‘OK, we’ll do that in a minute. Tell me what’s up first.’
I decide to go for a heavily watered-down version of the truth.
‘I was contacted on Facebook by someone I was at school with.’
‘Yes, that girl you went to see last Friday. Sophie, isn’t it?’
‘No, this was someone else. I’ve never told you about this, but at the end of my last year at school, a girl died at a party in the school hall.’
‘What, she died right there in the hall?’
‘No. She – they think… well, they think she must have been drunk or something. Our school was close to the cliffs at Sharne Bay. The last time anyone saw Maria she was wandering off in that direction. She was never seen again.’
I’m painfully aware of the huge holes in my story, the dark spaces that gape like missing teeth between my words. Polly, however, is agog.
‘So they didn’t find her body?’
‘No, but that’s not unusual, there’ve been several cases over the years where people jumped and their bodies were never found. It became a bit like Beachy Head, sort of a famous suicide spot. It depends on all sorts of things – the tides, the weather – whether bodies get washed up or not.’
‘So who was the message from?’
‘That’s the thing. It was from her. From Maria.’
‘From the dead girl?’ Polly’s fork stops halfway between the plate and her mouth. ‘But how horrible, that’s sick. Who on earth would do that?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘And why to you? Was she a particular friend of yours?’