Bad Friends

‘Great.’ I took a last deep drag and dropped the fag into the toilet-bowl, where it died with a tiny fizz. Wiping my sweating hands on my jeans, I opened the door, awkwardly leaning round on one crutch to come out.

‘Darling!’ Amanda hugged me, sniffing the air. ‘Smoking, you naughty girl? How are you, you poor old thing?’ I felt like her pet Labrador.

‘Oh, you know.’

‘Look, do you want to come through now? Take the weight off your poor foot. Is it very sore?’ She glanced down at my leg like it might snap. Like it might fall off. My crutch got caught on the sink, and I stumbled, just a little, wincing as Amanda grabbed my arm.

‘It’s okay,’ I said, and I heard my own voice ringing outside my own ears. ‘It’s just the wine.’

She frowned.

‘I’m not pissed.’ Actually, that wasn’t entirely true. I hadn’t eaten anything apart from painkillers since God knew when. ‘Don’t be silly. True professional, me. But I might just have a quick top-up before –’

Amanda took my arm, gliding me swiftly through the door toward the studio. She was like a little wiry foxhound; I was clenched between her teeth and she was not going to let me get away again. I debated bashing her over the head with a crutch and making a run for it. A stumble for it.

‘No time, darling.’ Her headset cackled. ‘In the break, maybe.’ She assessed me with speed. ‘You should have been to make-up.’

Daisy appeared in the corridor, checking her mobile with overwhelming indolence, and Amanda glared at her.

‘That phone should be off, young lady. You’re very pale, you know, Maggie.’

‘Pale and uninteresting,’ I joked. But nobody laughed. Anxiety set in again.

‘Amanda.’ This was the point of no return. I took a deep breath, pulled her to one side. ‘I’m really not sure – I really don’t think I can do this, actually.’

‘Course you can, darling. Gosh, if I had a pound for everyone who nearly changed their minds before we started, I’d be a millionaire! And they all come off loving it. All wanting more.’

‘This is me, Amanda, remember?’ I muttered. The old platitudes would not wash, of that I was quite sure. Pissed or not.

She had the grace to flush slightly. ‘Look, I’m going to get Kay up here with some blusher for you. And you,’ she poked Daisy with her clipboard, ‘get Maggie another drink for her nerves. Stick some wine in a water-bottle. Just don’t let any of the other guests see, for Christ’s sake.’

We were at the studio door. We were in the studio. It was so hot in here already. Sally had taken the floor now to do her bit. The audience was laughing at some feeble joke. They loved it, lapped it up. Charlie rushed in, rushed to my side. ‘All right, Mags?’ No one ever called me Mags, least of all Charlie. Unless …

‘Oh, you know,’ I grimaced. ‘Fine and dandy.’ I imagined slapping my thigh like a principal boy.

Charlie smiled, his teeth shining brilliantly white under the bright lights. ‘Just remember, darling, you’re going to get closure now. And that’s what you need.’

‘Closure,’ I repeated like a well-schooled parrot. ‘What I need.’

Headlines from the days after the accident suddenly flashed up on the studio monitors. My heart began to race as I was forced to read them. The Sun screamed ‘CRASH COACHCARNAGE’; the Express enquired politely ‘HORSES ON THEMOTORWAY: WHO IS TO BLAME?’; the Mail screeched ‘GOVERNMENT’S ROADS CAUSE TRAGEDY’.

I tore my eyes away just as Daisy arrived with the water-bottle. I took a huge swig. Now Kay was here in a fug of sweet scent and a cloud of powder that always made me think of my mother.

‘You all right, ducks?’ I loved Kay. I wished she was my mum.

‘Just a bit of blush to brighten you up, a dab of powder to stop the shine, okay? You can manage without mascara, you lucky girl.’

Pete the soundman rolled up to check my mike. He adjusted it slightly with his hairy little hands, taking pantomime care not to delve too deeply down my V-neck. He winked at me. ‘Funny to see you on this side. Break a leg.’ Then he backed into my plaster cast and went puce.

And now Renee arrived. She sauntered onto set like the true diva she was; and the audience went mad. They always did. They had no idea of the blood and sweat we poured out for Renee, of the tears (ours) and the tantrums (hers) and, and –

She held her hands up for quiet. Silence dropped like a blanket across the studio. Now Renee was talking. Oh, I knew exactly why she was so captivating. She drew them in – she was every man’s friend, every woman’s confidante, as she cast her bountiful eye upon them. Like flapping fish on a line she reeled them closer, until they were prone with ecstasy. She dropped her voice, inviting them to lean in, to share her world.

And in this trice, as I listened, as her words washed over me, I began to relax a little. I still felt the surge of adrenaline, but I could play Renee at her own game; I knew exactly how to do it. God knew I’d been in this business long enough. Once I was as naïve as our audience; a true innocent believing everything we revealed on television was for the greater good. Now I was hardened and desperate to escape this trap, so I’d done my deal with Charlie. I’d let Charlie use what he had on me, what happened before the accident, when my world had finally caved in, because I was still too weak to fight when he first came to me. I just didn’t know any more if it was the right decision to have made.

But this morning I did at least know what they wanted from me and I had to give it to them. For me, it was a one-time, only-time thing, to be on this side with my make-up done and my mike tucked down my top, under my blue armchair the drink no one in the audience knew was there. I took a final swig and pushed it back with my good foot. I took a deep breath, and remembered Charlie’s promise. I remembered Charlie’s threats. I just had to ensure I didn’t reveal too much. I thought of being on the running track at school and my dad shouting on the touchline, ‘Keep going, Maggie, keep on’, as I drove myself forward, and I was ready. Whatever Renee threw at me, I was ready.

Renee was delivering her final droplets of wisdom and waving her final fickle wave before she left the floor. Kay gave my hand a final squeeze and Charlie stood behind the curtain and sleeked back his thick and greying hair before giving me an obsequious thumbs-up. Amanda was counting us down, the titles were up on the monitors and the tension that is a live show was zinging in the air, as palpable as the sweat that had started to run down my back. And then Renee was back on the floor, waving, the audience cheering and clapping and whistling until she snapped on the gravitas this subject would take, and hush fell.

And it was then that I noticed the girl for the first time. She was sitting two chairs away from me, on the other side of the eminent trauma psychologist Sally had wheeled on. She was stunning. A cloud of dark hair framed a little heart face and she held her arm, her plaster-casted arm, gingerly in her other hand. As if she felt my stare, she turned and blinked and smiled at me, a smile that filled those big violet eyes, eyes like bottomless buckets of emotion, and I felt very odd. Like – what do they say? Like a ghost had walked over my grave.

Chapter Two (#u1b5226d4-3425-5d33-ae63-8df7ffd09c40)

Fortunately for the show, Sally’s anti turned up just in time to go on air. Unfortunately for him, though. The poor man never had a hope in hell. He was just fodder, pure gladiatorial bait – thrown to the hungry audience who were ready for a mauling. Simeon Fernandez, his name was. He was some kind of new-age cognitive therapist wanting to expound his theories on post-traumatic stress being purely in the mind. More to the point, he had a new book to promote. And it was he who brought Fay and me together.

Renee gave Fernandez the floor very early. His fleshy face was flushed with self-importance as he waffled on a bit about this theory and that, Renee pacing lightly behind him, her deadly stance disguised in casual lilac batwings. Lilac mohair. I tried to concentrate, staring hard at Fernandez’s chins that wobbled as he spoke. I wondered if Renee’s jumper was as scratchy as it looked. My leg was really aching, and my little toe had just begun to itch inside the cast when my name resounded like a whip-crack round the studio.

My head snapped up; apparently Renee was introducing me. There was really no escape now as ‘Victim Maggie Warren’ bounced off the walls to the sympathy of those devils in the audience. I forced a smile (though I knew Charlie would have much preferred a sob) and then Renee was on me. She came right up and took the chair beside me, perching on the very edge so she could really get to me. I tried not to lean away. Our knees were actually touching and I could smell her cloying scent, so sweet and sickly that my stomach churned – or perhaps that was the booze. I realised too late I couldn’t back up in my seat without my crutch clattering loudly to the ground. I was stranded there; so near that I could count the open pores round her nose. She held my hand, and looked deep into my eyes. Her coloured contact lenses were unnaturally bright in the hideous studio light, and I stifled the urge to laugh hysterically.

‘Mr Fernandez has written a book on stress,’ Renee breathed at me, her Welsh lilt so soft and caring. ‘He thinks it’s in the mind, and we must fight to overcome it,’ – Mr Fernandez nodded smugly, his chins juddering like Sunday custard in a jug – ‘but, Maggie, you’re testament to the fact that a terrible accident can utterly change your life, aren’t you?’

Was I?

‘Am I?’

I blinked. The muscle in my cheek twitched with an influx of adrenaline.

Renee frowned. Her pancake cracked a little. Charlie coughed most unsubtly from the sidelines. Utter silence fell; the audience leaned forward as one. They waited. I waited. Renee covered my hand kindly (she hadn’t so much as shaken it in the past two years) with both of hers – and then I pulled it back quickly, suppressing an exclamation. I was sure she’d pinched me; just a tiny pinch, so tiny that no one else would know, but a pinch nevertheless. I absorbed Charlie’s scowl; remembered his words the other night. I breathed deeply. Auto-drive clicked on.

‘Sorry. Yes.’ How alien Renee’s eyes looked. Other-worldly. ‘Of course it did. Has. It’s turned everything on its head. I –’ I paused for what must have seemed like effect, searching desperately for something sensible to say. Anything to say. ‘I don’t think my life will ever be the same again.’

Renee sat up in triumph. I’d come up trumps. I slumped in my seat. God, it was hot in here. Fernandez immediately weighed in, uninvited, with how I should overcome my trauma. I was still a young woman, I mustn’t give in to my weaknesses. I must believe in positive thought.

‘Come on, Maggie. Stress is all in the mind, I promise you.’ He looked at the audience hopefully. I looked at him mournfully. I tapped my bad leg sadly. And then I wasn’t acting any longer; I was transported briefly into the heart of my own pain.

‘This, though, Mr Fernandez, my damaged leg, I mean, this isn’t in the mind – is it?’ A bubble of misery, like an astronaut’s helmet, sealed snug around my head. I must shake it off. Showing real emotion on live TV was not my intention. ‘I might never walk properly again,’ I murmured. ‘I used to run, you know.’

The audience went wild in their seats. They were sure of Mr Fernandez’s role now. He was the Wolf to my Red Riding Hood, the absolute villain on the floor, and they could rip into him as they’d been primed. I swallowed hard and milked it like I knew I must.

‘I can’t work. I need to have help at home,’ (sort of true) ‘I have nightmares.’ (Painfully true. I couldn’t continue on that tack.) I twisted the tissue that Renee had pressed into my hand; recovered myself just enough to go on. I cleared my throat.

‘I have a bad limp, I’ve had to have my foot put back in plaster again because –’

A little voice chimed in. ‘It’s changed my life utterly too.’

Renee turned to the voice, the epitome of eager concern. ‘Fay Carter, you too were on the coach that crashed that terrible night. Can you tell us exactly what happened? We can see Maggie is struggling to give us the painful facts.’

A matronly woman in the front row actually said ‘Ah.’ I smiled weakly, the last lot of painkillers finally kicking in. But Fay was only too glad to join the fray – like a sleek little greyhound tensed against the starting-gate, she was off. I slumped with relief. Surely I’d done enough?