The Things We Do to Our Friends(78)

“I have a migraine coming on. I think I’m going to lie down. Don’t disturb me.”

“Of course! You need to look after yourself,” she said soothingly. Ashley loved it when I was incapacitated.

As I walked from the room, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. “Come here!” I called to Ashley. “Do you see it?”

“See what?” she asked.

“Mold.” I pointed at the wall near the door.

Ashley came rushing back and bent down, looking at the wall with deep interest, her bottom high in the air, her face almost touching the floor.

She turned back to me. “I don’t know, Clare. I’m not sure that I can see anything really, just a stain. Honestly, I wish I could help!” She gave me an apologetic smile like I was a crazy person. “Maybe you should get some more rest. And we can open the windows too—let the air in.”

I went to my bedroom as directed, and I pulled the cover over my head to block out the world. The feeling of remembering and even the idea of dreaming was far too much to bear, so I ignored them all, popped a pill, and welcomed the blackness.





65


Imagine the mess of it all. The mess of me.

Bleeding nails that left crusty crescents of blood on my sheets. Very little sleep. I was far from well enough to socialize, but I was set on convincing Imogen to meet up with me, and finally I managed it.

Imogen had said she’d pick me up, claimed she had something to show me, to explain things, and she arrived in a smart little Mini, beeping her horn outside my flat and leaning over to open the door so I could get in, with a look that wasn’t particularly kind. She was all bundled up in a duffel coat and a pair of mittens, and the effect was unappealing, like an overgrown toddler.

“You look awful!” she said happily.

How refreshingly Imogen.

“I didn’t know you had a car,” I said.

She gave me a smug smile. “Well, I do.”

I had examined the car before I got in. It definitely wasn’t the one from Tabitha’s video, which was something at least.

“Where are we going?” I asked.

“To the beach.”

I came out with it as we set off; it had niggled at me for a while. “Servants’ Christmas. You never told me.”

“Oh my God, I literally can’t believe we’re going to talk about that. I will tell you. It’s why I stuck around as long as I did.”

I waited until she spoke again, and finally she did. “You’re very good at that thing where you just don’t talk, aren’t you? I think you’ve picked it up from Tabitha. They do have something on me, if you can forgive that ridiculous expression, but I’m sure it’s not as sinister as you seem to think it is.”

“You may as well tell me.”

“If you want. Be warned, it doesn’t exactly paint me in the best of lights. My present for Tabitha—it was what I did for her.”

“Which was?”

She sighed. “The whole Servants’ Christmas thing. I think she only set it up because she knew what she wanted from me. She basically told me what I needed to do. She wanted me to write her essays.”

“All of them?”

“Well, it didn’t start like that, but yes, pretty much by the end. You must have been surprised she wasn’t failing? She’s shockingly bad at writing, isn’t she? Even your essays are better than hers.”

“That’s so much work!” I exclaimed, ignoring the dig.

“Yup. It was. But she’d have failed if I hadn’t helped her. I didn’t mind that much at first. I did a fair bit for her at school too, you see. She stuck up for me when I was bullied. I owed her. That’s what she does. She makes it so you feel like you owe her so much. That you should do anything she asks.”

“So, what went wrong?” I asked.

“When I said I was going to stop, she said she’d report me to the university. She’d say I’d written everything. She’s been holding it against me for ages. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’d written that bloody fortune cookie herself. Your intelligence is an asset to be shared…Fuck. Off,” she spat.

I couldn’t picture Tabitha creating custom fortune cookies. For some reason the only person I could think of who had the patience for that was Ava. I remembered Imogen’s vehement reaction at the Chinese restaurant.

“Really?” I asked. “That’s a lot of effort to make a point, and if you were writing her essays for her, it’s a deadlock. She’d get thrown out as well.”

“She wouldn’t care. She knows studying here means a lot more to me than to her. Anyway, she won’t now.”

“Why won’t she now?” I asked.

“I know too much. She’ll never tell anyone about me now,” she said.

“What do you know?”

“You’ll see.” Her focus didn’t leave the road. She was a very slow and careful driver.

“Now, tell me what she’s doing to you?” she asked. Keen to turn the focus away from herself.

“It’s hard to explain. Odd things are happening. Things I don’t understand,” I said.

She was interested, suddenly brightening. “What?”

How could I tell her? Where to even begin?