I See You(100)

‘Why me?’ And as I say it I can’t believe it has only now occurred to me to ask. ‘Why put me on the website?’

‘I needed a few older women.’ She shrugs. ‘There’s no accounting for people’s tastes.’

‘But I’m your friend!’ Even as I say it I hate myself for how pathetic it sounds, like a schoolyard catfight over who plays with whom.

Melissa’s lips tighten. She stands up abruptly, striding towards the bi-fold doors and gazing into the garden. It’s several seconds before she speaks.

‘I’ve never known anyone moan about their life as much as you do.’ I’d been expecting something different; some indiscretion, committed years ago. Not this. ‘I had my kids too young,’ she mimics.

‘I’ve never said that.’ I look at Katie. ‘I’ve never regretted having you. Either of you.’

‘You walk out on a textbook husband – solvent, funny, hands-on with the kids – and replace him with someone equally textbook.’

‘You have no idea what my marriage to Matt was like. Or what my relationship with Simon is like, come to that.’ At the thought of Simon, guilt overwhelms me. How could I have thought he was responsible for the website? I think of the names, and the scribbled threats I found in Simon’s desk drawer, and for a second I doubt myself, then I realise what they are: research notes. He’s used the Moleskine for exactly the purpose it was intended; to plan his novel. Relief makes me smile, and Melissa looks at me with venom in her eyes.

‘It’s all so easy for you, isn’t it, Zoe? Yet you never stop complaining.’

‘Easy?’ I’d laugh, were it not for the knife in her hand, which catches the light from the skylight and throws rainbows around the room.

‘—and from the second you move in next door it’s the poor me routine. Single mum, struggling to pay the bills, bursting into tears every five minutes.’

‘It was a difficult time,’ I say, in my defence, speaking more to Katie than to Melissa. Katie reaches for my hand; gives me the silent support I need.

‘Whatever you asked for, I gave you. Money, a job, help looking after the kids.’ She spins round; I hear her heels scrape on the tiles then she bends over me, her hair falling over mine, and hisses in my ear. ‘What have you ever given me?’

‘I—’ My mind is blank. Surely I must have done something? But there’s nothing. Melissa and Neil have no children, no pets to look after, no houseplants to water when they’re away on holiday. There’s more to friendship than that though, isn’t there? Do the scales of friendship have to balance so absolutely? ‘You’re jealous,’ I say, and it seems such an insignificant word to justify something of this magnitude; of this horror.

Melissa looks at me as though she’s stepped in something unpleasant. ‘Jealous? Of you?’

But the idea takes root. Grows into something that feels right.

‘You think you’d have been a better mother than me.’

‘I’d have been a more grateful one, that’s for sure,’ she bites back.

‘I love my children.’ I can’t believe she’s even questioning it.

‘You hardly saw them! They were an inconvenience, parcelled off to mine whenever you were sick of them. Who was it who taught Katie how to cook? Who got Justin away from the thieving kids at school? He’d have ended up in prison if it hadn’t have been for me!’

‘You said you were happy to have them.’

‘Because they needed me! What else did they have? A mother who was constantly working, constantly moaning, constantly crying.’

‘That’s not fair, Melissa.’

‘It’s the truth, whether you like it or not.’

Next to me, Katie is silent. I look at her and see she is shaking, her face completely devoid of colour. Melissa straightens. She moves to sit at the swivel chair by her desk, and switches on the computer.

‘Let us go, Melissa.’

She laughs. ‘Oh, come on, Zoe, you’re not that stupid. You know about the website now; you know what I’ve done. I can’t just let you go.’

‘So leave us here!’ I cry, suddenly realising there’s another way. ‘You go, now. Lock us in. We won’t know where you’ve gone, and we won’t tell the police anything you’ve told us. You could delete everything from your computer!’ I’m aware I’m sounding hysterical. I stand up, unsure even as I do so exactly what I’m planning to do.

‘Sit down.’

I can’t feel my legs, yet they move towards Melissa on autopilot.

‘Sit down!’

‘Mum!’

It happens so fast I don’t have time to react. Melissa gets out of her chair and slams in to me, knocking us both to the ground and landing on top of me, pinning me to the floor. Her left fist is clutching my hair, forcing my chin up, and her right hand is holding the knife to my throat.

‘I’m getting tired of this, Zoe.’

‘Get off her!’ Katie screams, pulling at Melissa’s jacket and placing a well-aimed kick to her stomach. She scarcely registers it and I feel the blade of her knife pressing against my skin.

‘Katie.’ My voice is barely a whisper. ‘Stop.’ She hesitates, then backs away, shaking so hard I can hear her teeth chattering. There’s a stinging sensation at my throat.