The Things We Do to Our Friends(25)

One of Tabitha’s essays, ripped from the manila envelope, was strewn on the floor. I picked it up and flicked through. Looping scrawl on the last page stated: “Big improvement—much more cohesive.”

I put the essay down, back on the floor where it seemed to live, and, warming up to my exploration, I went down to the far end of the corridor. There were three bedrooms. The doors were unmarked and I wasn’t clear on which one belonged to whom.

All three doors were shut. I called out their names again, but no one answered.

Was it so late that everyone was sleeping? I pushed open the first bedroom door, thinking that maybe I’d find one of them there.

I recognized that the room belonged to Ava without knowing quite how. White walls and a bed carefully made with a beautiful spread that changed almost imperceptibly, thread by thread, from the lightest, airiest blue to a deep navy flecked with gold. There was nothing on the floor or the walls.

I opened her wardrobe, and her shoes were lined up, the shirts ironed, and some of her more extravagant clothes hung neatly.

The second bedroom was Imogen’s—the same layout and nothing too fancy. Like Ava’s room, it was tidy, with to-do lists pinned up and some books from our course reading list on the shelf in alphabetical order. Photos—far too many of Samuel. Not a shrine to Samuel, that would be too extreme for Imogen, but certainly a curated collection.

The third and final bedroom was Tabitha’s. Three doors. There’s a symmetry to three. Three craves comparison in every fairy tale. You can’t help but line them up: two that are not quite right and, always, miraculously, one that is a perfect fit.

First Ava. Then Imogen. But as soon as I walked in, it felt like Tabitha’s was the room I wanted to curl up in, to lie in the mess of it all.

The space was homey. Even though it was the same size as the other two, there was a lot more furniture squeezed in, with a sofa to one side and a laptop on it, open. Her belongings were everywhere and her clothes looked as if they’d leaked from her wardrobe, forming a silky puddle. One wall was lined with books of varying literary tastes, from bound erotica to a selection of paperback crime novels.

There was a towering set of drawers, the top one partially opened, and on display there were many, many framed photographs of Tabitha. Of Ava and Tabitha together, and of a spaniel looking happy with itself in a field, its coat covered in mud. In my head I slotted myself into the picture, imagined Tabitha’s arm looped around my waist.

I opened the drawer a little further. It was full of lingerie. The second was filled with soft knitwear that looked expensive, and I ran my fingers over the pieces, held a cardigan up against myself. Lots of the items still had labels on, and some even had plastic security tags attached. I paused for a moment. This would look bad if she walked in and I was going through her things, but I’d got this far. How could I ignore the third drawer?

The third and final drawer in the third and final room, and it was clearly being used as a dumping ground. There was very little order. Pens and staplers and tape cohabited with batteries and a checkbook. Then bills, notepads, and a whole wedge of files. Letters referencing setting up a business account and some printed tables that looked like budgets. What was Tabitha up to? She was obsessed with us doing something, and I knew she had her sights set on a scheme of some sort, but I wondered why she hadn’t mentioned anything if she actually had an idea of what it might be.

Under the accounts there were more photos. Folded pictures alongside larger, professional prints of a younger Tabitha.

Tabitha and what could only have been Samuel as babies in a café.

Tabitha on a dappled pony, both dotted with red rosettes, their hair in matching plaits.

Tabitha with her head twisted violently, looking back over one shoulder in a puffy prom dress with a corset top. So many photos. I moved some aside and froze when I saw them.

Photos of me.

In one, I was smoking a cigarette outside the library. In another, I was walking toward the bar on the way to work. Another showed me outside the lecture theatre, waiting to go in. The pictures must have dated back to close to the beginning of the term.

They’d been watching me.





19


Looking back on it all now—the dinners, the strong coffees, the drawn-out conversations about nothing memorable—they all merge into one nondescript but nevertheless pleasant assortment of things we did to pass the time. I can recall them all, but there’s a certain intensity when it comes to my memory of the pictures. It’s so easy to transport myself back there. Holding those photographs in one hand and running my fingers over the print where the shot wasn’t quite in focus, so I was all blurred. The matte texture of the paper and the raised seam in the center from the fold.

I should have been shocked. I should have been appalled by the invasion of privacy. And I could tell you that. I could say how affronted I was that they’d stalked me, and how unnerving it was. The Shiver had been spying on me, after all. Working out what I did and where I went.

I could reform the narrative, because now, after so long, I can pull out the parts I like into the brightness and send the aspects I don’t want to share back into the shade. But there’s really no point in doing that. As far as I can, I’d rather be honest and say that I was rather proud when I saw those photos. They cared about me and wanted to befriend me. I was flattered that they thought I was special. I was tempted to take one for myself to keep, but of course I didn’t.