The Things We Do to Our Friends(33)

“And then there was Finn…” she continued.

“There still is Finn,” I corrected her.

“Oh, yes, I know. He’s besotted! We all know that.”

I imagined them buzzing around the bar like flies.

“And what if I don’t want to?” I asked.

I was transported back to her flat before we went to get my haircut. There was the to-and-fro, the gentle battle before I did what she always knew I would.

Her tongue was purple and her eyes glittered. She replied, “I think it’s something you need to think about first. I want to give you time to really consider it. Do dig in.”

She started to shovel the risotto into her mouth. I looked at the cheese, oozing in the heat. I knew I needed to be alone for a minute. I stood up and very shakily went to the toilet inside, where I sat, gathering my thoughts. When I came out, Ava was there looking at me, hip cocked.

“What are you doing? Are you okay?” she asked with mild concern.

“I’m fine, but this idea…Why has Tabitha got so fixated on this?”

Even as I said the words, I realized I wasn’t entirely against the idea at all. It was more a surge of something strong and unexpected that felt like jealousy because they hadn’t included me in the planning.

“The idea’s fine; doing it’s another matter. But you should be aware that she knows about you. About what happened in…Périgueux, is it?” She gave me an apologetic smile. “I mean, I wouldn’t bring it up with her if I were you,” she continued. “It does mean she has a bit of an upper hand knowing about your past and all…Look, I’m desperate for a pee. Move out the way?” she asked, crossing her legs.

A quick shard of panic ran through me, so hot and sharp that I nearly yelped like a yappy dog right then and there, nearly pushed her away to stop her from seeing straight through me.

I contained myself. Became hard and icy in the face of her terrible words.

She knew about Périgueux.





25


I like the name Clare, you see, but it has not always been my name.

They seemed to know that. In fact, they seemed to know all about what happened to me when I was sixteen. I assumed they knew that my father is British and my mother is French, and that I had lived in Périgueux my whole life, until I moved to England.

I left because we punished a man one night, me and my friends, Adrienne and Dina. We’d met him down by the lake, and then things happened. We made him pay in a way that was messy and long.

Most of my memories of that night are tacky in my mind. The fizz of the champagne, sour and warm. Then the earthy taste of mushrooms on the wood of the spoon after we stirred them with butter and garlic.

Fingers red and sticky like licked sweeties.

Later, there was screaming.

After it happened, I went to stay permanently with my grandmother in Hull—a town I hated immediately and one where I knew no one. They told me it wasn’t a good idea for me to go back to France—not now and not ever. They told me they’d moved, then when I asked where, they were vague. I finished up my studies via a correspondence course. Even though my English had always been fluent, I picked up idioms methodically. It’s raining cats and dogs. Kill two birds with one stone. My granny had always said I was more English than French.

So began a year of immersion. Of listening to the radio, practicing what the presenter said again and again until my accent was flawless. A year of trying to catch up on popular TV shows, films, jokes. A year of cooking beans on toast and reading crime procedural novels bought from charity shops to test my knowledge of the culture. Waiting for life to begin, applying to universities, thinking about the person I was going to be. Walking the streets at night when they were quiet even though those streets were too rough for it to be advisable.

My parents cut me off and made it clear that they’d done their bit. They’d gotten me that far and even helped me afterward in clearing up the mess I’d made. So much time wasted in courtrooms and the shame of it all. They called it the episode.

They were rid of me, and they would prefer it stayed that way.

We managed to get my name changed and I became Clare.

Clare—I’d chosen it because it was so different from my birth name, which was long and crackled with consonants. “Clare” forced my mouth into a semblance of a smile when I said it, and then it ran over my tongue, short and sweet. Every time the word came out of my mouth at the beginning, I thought of des éclairs au chocolat and how we used to eat them at the expensive school we went to, built over the ruins. We would lick the chocolate slowly off the top and then the cream and finally the light choux pastry, throwing the greasy wax paper to the floor for someone else to pick up.

Tears came to my eyes, tears that I couldn’t help, and I blinked them back, of course, because I didn’t want to show Ava anything. The lump in my throat was like a ball of barbed wire that I couldn’t swallow away. My jaw clenched hard. If I spoke, I’d cry or scream or do both. I managed to control it, but I was so angry at her for dragging it up.

Everything I’d constructed—everything I’d worked so hard on, for so long—torn away. I could hardly believe Tabitha’s betrayal, that she’d dug into my past, refusing to leave it be, poking at something they wouldn’t understand, even if they thought they had the facts. They couldn’t just let it lie.