Recent Friends

“He’s dead.” I can hear her sobbing down the phone. Her breath is ragged as though she’s been running. At first I don’t know what to say, and I lower my phone and stare out the window. The orange glow from the street light in the back lane seeps through the trees, softly illuminating my pathetic excuse for a garden. The cheap twin patio set my mum bought for me in the summer when I first moved in is covered in an inch of snow, making it almost pretty. “Soph? You there?” I come back to myself and lift the phone to my ear.

“Yes! I’m here,” I pause, still at a loss for the right words, or even any words at all. “I’m really sorry, hun.” I cringe. The “hun” sounded so affected, so insincere. I pause again. Really, what do you say?

“Can, can you come over? I mean, I’m sorry to ask. I know it’s late. But, I, I mean, I don’t really know what to do…” Her voice trails away and is left to hang in the stillness of my meagre kitchen. A week’s worth of dishes are piled in the sink and cover the entirety of my worktop, all one metre of it. I slap my palm to my forehead and jolt myself into action.

“God, yeah, of course. Of course Izzy,” I grind to a halt once more. “Look, Iz, I’m so sorry. It’ll be okay, you know? It’ll be okay. I’ll be right there. Be with you in ten.” I hear her sigh in relief on the other end.

“Thank you,” and she hangs up. I put my phone in my dressing gown pocket and grab one of the glasses already discarded on the side. I run the cold tap and fill it to the brim, gulping down the ice, cold water. Then I pad into the tiny hallway and swap my slippers for trainers and my dressing gown for a thick, heavy coat. My keys are already in my pocket and I head out my front door.

I pull my coat tightly around me as I cross the street and pause as I insert my keys in the car door. I’m touched that Isabelle had chosen to call me. We had become close, that was true, but our friendship was still very recent, in the context of all her other friendships. She had many friends who she’d known for years, from school even, and honestly I wouldn’t have expected to be her first call at a time of tragedy. Her father had been sick for a long while now, and she’d often confided in me over coffee, but still, I was touched.

I’d met Izzy about six months ago, at a life drawing class at the local community centre. I hadn’t done anything even remotely artistic since sixth form, and since I’d just turned thirty-two, that meant I hadn’t attempted anything remotely creative for well over a decade. There wasn’t much opportunity for creativity in the office that I worked in, where I spent eight hours of my day alternately staring at invoices on a computer screen, and staring at the hard copies of said invoices as I filed them away. Why we still kept hard copies was beyond me. I decided on my birthday, which had been spent at a depressing BYOB Mexican restaurant with “friends” from my office, that it was time to get off my arse and do something I enjoyed again. This had become somewhat of a tradition, admittedly. Each birthday would remind me of how boring my life had turned out and I’d resolve to take control, to make a change. At twenty nine I’d started salsa classes, for about three weeks. Thirty had seen me complete a beginner’s course in rock climbing, never to scale a multi-coloured climbing wall, let alone an actual rock face again. Thirty one, I’d taken a beginner’s French course and decided I would get a job in France. At thirty-two, I’d forgotten all French beyond “Bonjour” and “Je m’apelle Sophie” and saw an ad for a life drawing class on the notice board at my local Costa. At the first class, Izzy had turned up ten minutes late (I would later learn that she was forever late) and taken the only available seat next to mine. We didn’t really chat in that first class, but when she’d looked at my hopeless attempt at sketching out the human form and I’d looked at hers, we caught each other’s eye and giggled. The week after, I purposefully left my bag on the chair next to me and when, ten minutes late again, she’d arrived, it was the only chair she could take. That week, the position of our seats in the circle had treated us to a full frontal of the male model. When we’d finished our drawings we were both wiping streaming eyes and we’d rushed out of the hall like two silly teenage girls, collapsing in hysterics in the foyer. As we turned away from the disapproving glances of the other students as they filed out of the community hall, Izzy had leaned in and said, “Do you, um, fancy, getting a coffee?”

The streets are completely covered in pristine snow, and as I drive towards Izzy’s house I feel bad for spoiling the unmarred beauty of it with my tracks. The radio is still on from the last time I was in my car and Aretha Franklin is doing her thing on Gold FM. I turn the radio off. It seems wildly inappropriate somehow. The first time Izzy had been in my car she’d laughed at all of the stations saved in my radio. “Gold? Absolute radio 50s? Absolute radio 60s? Radio Four? Do they even play music? Are you thirty two or fifty two?” Izzy and I had a lot in common, although music, it seemed, wasn’t one of them. She, like me, hated her job and saw it going nowhere, with no apparent idea of where she even wanted to go. She was a couple of years younger, but equally feeling the same desperate sense that her life was quickly passing her by before she’d even taken her hand out of her pocket, let alone got a grip. She’d taken the art class for the exact same reason I had, and we’d bonded frequently over coffee at how useless we both were. Whilst finding a boyfriend was of course a priority for me, mostly to assuage my mother’s fears that I would die alone, Izzy was even more so preoccupied with this particular task. She was constantly on Tinder dates. I myself could not bring myself to do it. How could you be sure that you weren’t meeting a complete psychopath? What could you expect from meeting someone you knew nothing about? But she did keep me entertained with a steady flow of disasters: “You’re either a loser or a bruiser! He said that was his philosophy, and he punched the air every time he said it! And he must have said it ten times!” she’d wailed into her hands after one particularly tragic date. It was that day that she’d also confided in me about her dad.

As I pull into Izzy’s street, my heart begins to pound. What am I actually going to say to her? Maybe I don’t need to say anything. Maybe I just need to be there. That’s what mum’s always saying, sometimes listening is the best thing you can do. And I had listened to Izzy, and she’d listened to me. After we’d finished the six week art course, with a couple of actually half decent sketches under our belts, mine and Izzy’s friendship had continued. We’d meet for coffee at least once a week. Sometimes we’d meet up on our lunch breaks. We went shopping, went on nights out, held each other’s hair in the pub loos when we threw up. I’d never met any of her other friends, but over the past six months, we’d become very close.

I pull into an available space a few houses down from Izzy’s. It suddenly occurred to me how few times I’d actually been to her house. She’d been over to mine loads, but, come to think of it, I think I’d only been to hers twice, and even then I’d only stepped inside the front room for half an hour. I climb out of the car and stuff my hands into my pockets. Why didn’t I change out of my pyjamas? My breath unfurls in thick plumes as I hurry down the pavement to her door. I raise my hand to ring the door bell and hesitate for a second, my finger hovering over the little, round button. Get a grip. Just be there to listen. I ring the door bell and wait for Izzy to appear. The house is in complete darkness, and I imagine Izzy getting up from the floor somewhere to come to the door. The door opens and I see Izzy stood there in jeans and a white sweater with a dark splatter pattern across the front, or maybe it’s not a pattern, maybe she’s been painting; she did say she was redoing her bedroom walls. Her dark, brown hair is tied back in a ponytail, but most of it has fallen free and hangs limply around her face. One eye is black where her mascara has run and smudged.

“Sophie!” she launches herself at me before I can say anything and she’s crying, and shaking and babbling, in desperate whispers, things that I can’t discern. I had expected to hug her straight away and tell her how sorry I was, and did she want a cup of tea? But she’s gripping my coat and crying and still babbling and for a moment I just stand there in shock. Then she suddenly freezes and looks out into the street as though she’s seen someone or something sinister. I turn to look into the street behind me, but it is still, and quiet, and snowy, and pretty. She bolts back inside the house and drags me inside with her, quietly closing the front door. She drags me into the back room and sits down at the dining table with her head in her hands. Finally, she’s silent. For a moment I just stand there dazed. Then it dawns on me that I still haven’t actually said anything. Izzy just sits there with her head in her hands, very still. She’s stopped crying.

“Izzy? Iz, I’m, I’m so sorry.” She remains motionless. I move around to the other side of the table. “You know, I know I didn’t know your dad, but he sounds like he was such an amazing person. Do you, do you want…” I can’t and don’t know how to end the question. Izzy looks up at me. I can’t be sure because it’s dark, but she looks confused.

“What?” She stares at me through the darkness.

“Have you, spoken to your mum? Do you want me to drive you over there?” I know that she was closer to her dad than her mum, in fact that she and her mum rarely spoke, but surely, at a time like this... It suddenly occurred to me how strange it was that she wasn’t already with her family. With her mum, her two sisters. The room stays still and silent. I reach out to turn on a lamp in the corner.

“No!” As the room floods with light it captures Izzy’s face with her mouth a perfect O, her hand stretched out across the table as though to stop me. I freeze.

“Izzy? What- Wh-,” I try to make sense of what I’m looking at. Izzy sits back down in her chair and starts crying again. Her shoulders shuddering, but there is no sound. Her hair falls down over her face but I can already see that she isn’t wearing any make up. It isn’t mascara. Izzy has a black eye. I look down at her jumper. It isn’t a pattern on her jumper; it’s red paint.

“Izzy, what happened?” I move around the table and put my arm around her shoulders but she still doesn’t speak. “Iz? You said, on the phone, you said your dad…”

“What?” she croaks, finally looking up at me, her face a mask of confusion. “My dad?” Now it was my turn to be confused.

“You said your dad, that he, you said, your dad had died.” I lowered my voice as I completed the sentence in the same way that my grandparents did when they talked about my brother’s boyfriend.

“No I didn’t.” I feel like I’ve stepped into a parallel universe. Izzy sounds different. Her voice, the way she’s speaking. It isn’t the Izzy I know. “I said, he’s dead. And he is. He’s dead.” She wipes her eyes and swipes away the snot from under her nose on her sleeve. I straighten up and move back ever so slightly. My arm is still resting around her shoulders. On the wall opposite us, is a photograph of a man and a woman. A wedding photograph. Izzy sees me looking at it. “I took that down when you came over.” I look more closely at the picture. It’s Izzy. Izzy is the bride in the photograph.

“Izzy, I don’t- I thought- I didn’t-.” Once again words fail me. My head is swimming and slow panic is rising from my stomach.

“He’s dead,” Izzy whispers, still looking at the photograph. “I killed him.”

For a moment I stand completely frozen. Then I think I might laugh. Is this some kind of elaborate, weird prank? I look down at Izzy, then back up at the photograph, trying to make sense of what she’s saying. But it doesn’t make sense. Izzy isn’t married! She doesn’t have a husband! She’s a serial dater. She’s desperate to find a boyfriend! I look back down at Izzy and wonder who exactly I’m looking at, but I’m just looking at Izzy. Izzy who hates her job, just like me. Izzy who wants to travel more, just like me. Izzy who stayed over when we were both too drunk to stand up and lay in a pit of despair with me the next day, eating pizza and watching films. I open my mouth to speak, but there are literally no words. Or there are too many words, all fighting each other to get out.

“I don’t understand what you’re telling me, Iz,” I finally manage.

“He’s upstairs. In the bathroom. I stabbed him.” She delivers these facts as though she’s reading items off a menu that she’s not particularly interested in. I slowly remove my arm from Izzy’s shoulders, suddenly conscious again of the red splatter on her sweater, and stand up straight. Seconds pass without either of us saying a word.

“Right,” I clear my throat and take a seat opposite her at the table, folding my hands out in front of me. “So, you’re married? You have a husband?”

“Yes.”

“How long have you been married?”

“Seven years. We met at uni.” This feels like a bizarre job interview.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” This question stumps her. I try again.

“Why did you-? Did he hurt you?” I gesture to her black eye.

“No.” Now I’m the one that’s stumped.

“So how-?”

“He hit me after I stabbed him the first time.”

“The first time? You stabbed him more than once?” She snorts at this.

“Yes. I had to make sure.”

“Make sure?”

“That I got him.” At these words I feel scared for the first time. My insides turn to water and I realise suddenly that no one but Izzy knows where I am. I look across the table at Isabelle. Who is this person? How can you know someone so well, and still know absolutely nothing? But then, as quickly as the fear came, it melts away. This is Izzy. I do know this girl. She’s my friend.

“Why did you call me?” I think I already know the answer to this one.

“Because I know you’ll help me.”

“Help you?”

“Get rid of him.” I feel my mouth go dry.

“Iz. How am I supposed to help you get rid of a body when I know nothing about him?” She seems puzzled by this. Her head tilts slightly to one side and a furrow forms between her eyebrows.

“Like, does he have family? Do they live nearby? When will they notice he’s gone? What’s his job? Is he supposed to show up for work tomorrow? Who knows he’s in the house with you tonight?” I tick the questions off on my fingers. The absurdity of the situation hits me and I start to laugh.

“What?” Izzy smiles, as though self-conscious, like she’s worried she’s the butt of a joke.

“Nothing,” I chuckle, but I can’t stop, and I’m verging on hysterics, and now we’re both laughing, eyes streaming, like that day in art class. I take a deep breath and try to calm myself down.

“Do you think I should, like, google it?” she asks, picking her phone up from the table.

“Google what?”

“How to get rid of a body.” She starts tapping in her security code. I reach across the table and snatch it from her hands.

“Bloody hell, no!”

“What?” she looks startled.

“Because when the police come, and they will come, Iz, you do not want that in your search history.” I put the phone back down on the table between us and we both stare down at the home screen. It’s us, outside somewhere, drinking wine in big sun hats and sunglasses.

“Aren’t you going to ask me?”

“Ask you what?”

“Why I did it?”

“No,” I pause. “You can tell me if you want, or you can tell me when you want, but I won’t ask you.” She looks down at her hands as she digests this.

“Thank you, Sophie.”

“You’re welcome, Isabelle.”