About eight years ago, everything changed. We were out clubbing and as usual we stood out—she with her curves, dark skin and feather-cut black hair, me with my slender frame, pale skin and masses of blond hair. I was wearing shiny black trousers, a denim bustier top and my denim stilettos while Kam wore her black velvet jacket, dark blue jeans and white top. I’d forced her to complete the look with a pair of my black suede stilettos.
This club was a new one but seemed to be full of the same old disgusting men. I had to drink to compensate for the lack of talent, while Kam dispatched every man who approached her with her acid tongue and acrid expressions. One man, probably the sexiest-looking one in the club, did get close enough to her to move in for a kiss, but at the last second she turned her back on him and walked away. We left after that.
I was the drunker of the two of us, so in the taxi back to our flat in north London I was allowed to lay my head on her thigh and fall asleep while she stayed awake to get us home.
“I’m going to do it with Nate,” Kam said.
“I thought you’d already shagged him,” I replied, not opening my eyes.
“I have,” she said. “No, I mean, I’m going to go out with him. Date him. Properly.”
“Is that why you didn’t snog that man?” I asked, my interest piqued, but not enough to make me open my eyes.
“Yes,” she mumbled. “I…I think I might like him.”
My eyes flew open and I sat bolt upright but she turned away to stare out the window before I could see into her eyes. She’d met Nate at a party a few months earlier and for some reason had given him her real phone number. Since day one she’d been giving him the runaround. She’d screen his calls, only phoning back days later. If she did answer the phone she’d be very nonchalant and vague about when they’d next meet up. Most shockingly, even for her, she shagged him after their first official date—which was afternoon coffee in north London—because she’d been convinced it would get rid of him. Not Nate. He hung in there. He’d dismantled her defenses, I didn’t realize how successfully until that moment.
“What?” I said.
“I think I might like him,” she repeated, studiously staring out of the window.
Bloody hell! Those six words were her equivalent to “I’m falling in love with him.” When she’d hardened her heart, Kamryn had chucked out all ambiguity about her feelings toward men. She knew which men she wanted to sleep with, which ones were just friends, which ones she would date but would never bed. For her to admit she wasn’t sure about a man meant he was special.
“Really?” I said to her.
She nodded but wouldn’t look at me.
“Wake me up when we get home,” she said. She was embarrassed and vulnerable, she’d exposed a part of herself that hadn’t been seen in years: she was unsure about a man. Kam closed her eyes, rested her head against the window and pretty soon she was asleep.
I watched her sleep as the cab made its way through the dark London streets. I was still reeling. Kam is in love. Wow! I suddenly felt sick. What if he’s a bastard? What if he loses interest once he’s got her undivided attention? It’s happened before, what if it happens again? Kam will never recover. I had to do something. I was extremely drunk, hideously tired and a little shaken up—obviously the perfect time to make a decision to protect Kam’s heart. And that decision was to tell the taxi driver in hushed tones to head for another address…
After three knocks and three rings of the bell, the door of the house in Tuffnell Park with eight stone steps leading up to it was answered. I’d dropped Kam off here a few times so I knew it was the right house. I asked the taxi driver to wait a minute while I went to get something.
“Adele?” Nate said as he opened the door. He was wearing jeans and a T-shirt, and even though it was three a.m. he didn’t look as if he’d been asleep. Nate was good-looking. Not as sexy as the man Kam had been dancing with in the club, but he had something about him. Strong features, sexily messy brown-black hair and big navy-blue eyes. “Is Kamryn all right? What’s happened?”
“She’s in the taxi. I had to come here. I tell you”—I poked him in his chest—“if you hurt my friend, I kill you. You treat her right or I kill you. No messing.” I added another poke for good measure. “Proper, proper kill you.”
He didn’t say anything but even in my drunken state I could tell he didn’t believe me.
“I’m serious,” I reassured him, just as the heel of my left shoe slid off the step…For the longest microsecond of my life I was falling, then Nate’s strong hands were on my forearms and he was hauling me inside. My legs had turned to rubber so he had to practically carry me to the lounge doorway. He grabbed his wallet from the side. “Wait here,” he ordered and disappeared outside. He returned a few minutes later followed by an extremely pissed-off Kamryn. I’d graduated from standing in the lounge doorway to lying in the middle of the floor. My legs had stopped supporting me around the same time Nate had gone outside.
Kamryn stalked across the room, threw herself into one of the armchairs and sat glaring at me.
“I’m so pleased to see you both,” Nate said pleasantly. He even sounded as though he meant it. He was obviously a man of even temperament—I certainly wouldn’t be pleasant if someone came round to my house in the small hours and started threatening me.
“You owe Nathaniel for the taxi,” Kamryn said, her arms tightly folded across her chest.
“I had to tell Nate to treat you proper,” I explained to Kam. “Or I would kill him.”
“You got that message across,” Nate reassured. “Thank you, it’s always good to know someone will murder you if you offend them or their kin.”
“You should have seen how many men tried it on with sexy Kamryn tonight,” I said to Nate. “All the men in the club were after her. You’re not her only option, you know. This really good-looking one, he put his hand on her bum.”
Nate’s eyes hardened and he fixed that granite-like gaze on Kamryn as jealousy crept over his features—he wasn’t that even tempered.
“No, no, but she didn’t do anything,” I said quickly. “He tried to kiss her and everything, but she said, ‘Nooooo, I’ve got a boyfriend.’”
“Del…” Kam threatened.
Nate turned to me. “She said that?”
“Oh yes. She said, ‘I’ve got a new boyfriend, he’s called Nate and he’s so sexy, I really love him.’” I pointed at him.
“She loves you, she loves you.”
“Del! Shut up!” Kam said, outraged.
“She loves you, she loves you.”
Kam leapt up out of her chair, stepped forward but wobbled on the unfamiliar heels and fell flat on her face.
“Look, Nate, she’s fallen for you!” I shrieked.
Nate laughed quietly. Kam crawled determinedly forward on her hands and knees toward me.
“She thinks you’re so lovely,” I shouted before she got to me. “She said you’re so funny and sexy. And you’ve got the biggest…” Kam’s hand covered my mouth but I carried on speaking, “Kenis. Hoove kot se geegest kenis ever!”
“SHUT UP!” Kam screeched, then she was on top of me, tickling me with hard, angry digs in the ribs to quiet me. I yelled out for mercy as I fought her off. After a few seconds, Nate came over to us and hauled Kam off me.
“Enough!” he decreed, holding back my angry best friend.
“Kam, I know Adele’s making it all up—I’ve accepted that it’s illegal for you to say anything nice about me. And, Adele, thanks for trying but I’ve got a pretty good idea of how Kam feels about me, so don’t try to make me feel better. Besides, you don’t want to piss off someone you share a flat with, not on my account.”
I pushed my lips together, made a zipping motion across them, then clamped my hands over my mouth. Kam had stopped fighting in Nate’s arms and was staring at him. I think what he said had jolted her; the fact that he knew she wouldn’t ever say anything nice about him, even though she liked him, had thrown her.
He smiled at her with deep affection but in response she glanced away.
“Come on, I think it’s bedtime,” he said.
“No!” I squealed. “We can’t have a threesome!”
“No, darling, I mean, you can sleep in one of my housemates’ beds. They’re all away. Come on.”
They took an arm each and hoisted me up, then helped me up the stairs because I still had legs of rubber. I was deposited on the double bed of a room that smelled of boys but was very tidy. I turned over, kicked my shoes off, then snuggled down into the soft duvet.
“Are you all right there, Del?” Nate asked.
“Yup, am right. Just sleep here. On nice bed. No be sick or nothing.”
“OK. If you need anything, Kam and I will be in my room, right next door,” Nate said.
“Actually, I think I’ll stay here,” Kam stated, every word coated with ice. Anyone would have thought he’d suggested she shave her head, not go sleep with a man she was falling in love with.
Nate, who’d obviously heard it all before, said, “Fair enough. Like I said, I’m next door if you need anything. See you in the morning.”
Kam sat down beside me after he shut the door behind him, then lay down with her back to me.
“Stop being such a hard-faced bitch,” I mumbled.
“Shut up and go to sleep.”
“Only if you’re nice to Nate. He’s lovely. He loves you.”
“You know nothing about it.”
“He loves you. I love you. You don’t need to be a bitch no more.”
I fell asleep before she replied and the next thing I knew, the covers were pulled off me and I was being shaken. “Come on, you silly tart, it’s morning, we’re off,” Kamryn said, shaking and shaking me.
“No, wanna sleep,” I replied, trying to shrug her off.
“Too fucking bad. We’re leaving.” She pulled me out of bed. I sat up slowly, every movement making pain shoot through my head. I wanted water and more sleep, but if Kam wanted to leave, then we had to leave. I only realized how grim things were when I saw my shoes. They’d been transformed overnight from sexy fashion pieces I’d spent a month’s wages on to denim instruments of torture.
“Yeah,” Kam said, indicating the shoes she had on her feet,
“it’s a bitch walking in them in the morning.”
We tottered along the brightening streets, huddled inside our lightweight jackets, looking every inch a pair of hookers who’d been working all night. Every step was agony and I often wore heels, so Kamryn, who lived in trainers, must’ve been going through hell. I took a sidelong glance at her, expecting her to be highly pissed off as well as pained. She was disheveled, tired and her eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep but she wasn’t cross. In fact, a slight, self-satisfied smile was playing on her lips. It could mean only one thing.
“Did you give him the good stuff?” I asked her.
“Oh yes,” she said with a smug sniff. “He won’t be walking straight for a week.”
Since I’ve been in the hospital I’ve had a lot of time to replay bits of my life. That night is often dusted off and played. Especially the bit where she says, “I think I might like him.” She’d told me first that she loved him—she didn’t even say it to Nate until months later. I was so honored she’d told me first that she was in love, it showed how much she thought of me.
I still hate myself for ruining what they had.
chapter 8
Duped.
Hoodwinked. Conned. Duped. Whatever you called it, it had been done to me. I hadn’t realized it, it didn’t even occur to me that it was possible until this morning when Tegan and I had shown up at the hospital.
I’d opened the door to Del’s hospital room and as Tegan ran in and scrambled up onto the bed, Del smiled at me in a way that said she knew my answer was yes. That I was going to take on her child.
But, apparently, Del had always known the answer was going to be in the affirmative because the cheeky minx had already had the legal documents drawn up, naming me as Tegan’s legal guardian. She’d also sent off for the relevant forms so I could get the ball rolling to adopt Tegan. These papers were stashed in the wooden locker by her bed, waiting for me to put my moniker to them. While Tegan was gabbling on at her mother and kissing her face, Del pointed me in the direction of the papers. When I opened the locker I found she’d rather thoughtfully put a pen in there.
“You might as well sign them now,” she said with a grin.
“Yeah, I might as well,” I replied. I hadn’t said a word about what I’d found in Guildford. Nor a word about what I planned to do next. Come to think of it, I hadn’t even said hello.
I’d read through the sheets in a cursory fashion, knowing there was no other way in which Adele could screw me over more than she already had, then resisted the urge to sign “World Class Mug” instead of Kamryn Matika by the Xs on the various pages.
Even now, sitting in the corridor, holding onto a plastic cup of vending machine tea, I seethed a little. But only a little. All right, it was more than a little. I was scared. Confused. Majorly pissed off. This decision had been thrust upon me and I was feeling…What was I feeling? I’d spent most of the night galloping, jogging, walking, limping and crawling through a range of emotions and I’d finally ended up at a place called acceptance. Which felt a lot like resignation. I’d been chased down until I was trapped: I couldn’t take Tegan back to Guildford; I couldn’t leave her to grow up in foster care or in a children’s home. I had no other choice; no way out.
So, no matter what conflicting emotions were battling inside me, I had to do this. This was my little Tiga, after all. I’d held her minutes after she was born. I’d helped name her. I’d been there when she took her first steps. I’d almost cried when she pointed at me and said, “Win take me,” when Adele had asked her if she wanted to go see Father Christmas one year. I had to do this. How could I not? This was Tiga. How could I not want to take her on?
Very easily, actually, the thought popped into my head before I could stop it. You are a bad person, I chastised myself. A bad, bad person.
A transformation had come over Tegan when we’d arrived. She didn’t seem to notice the tubes and machines around her mother and had practically leapt onto the bed, throwing her arms around her mother’s neck and covering her cheek in kisses. Having hardly said anything to me since Guildford, she was like a clockwork toy that had been wound up after weeks of idleness and was wearing herself down by chatting at super speed, pausing constantly to kiss her mother’s cheek.
I’d slipped out to give them time alone together. I’d forgotten about the bond between them. They were best mates, couldn’t bear to be parted. Weren’t whole without each other. How the hell was Tegan going to cope when…
I cracked another split in the rim of the plastic cup.
What if Del got better?
What if she made a recovery? Went into remission? I seized that thought, clung to it like a life buoy in the sea of despair and self-pity I was currently drowning in. Del would live.
Where was it written that she had to die of this? Had she tried everything? I mean, everything? Every treatment available? And I’m sure it wasn’t my imagination that she was looking better. Brighter. Less gray and mottled and tired. That was probably Tegan’s influence. Having her around obviously made Del feel a million times better, so we could build on that. She and Tegan would spend lots of time together. Her strength would improve and she would live.
About half an hour later Nancy the nurse took Tegan for a walk to the canteen so Del and I could talk.
“You could get well again,” I blurted at her the second the door shut behind Nancy and Tegan. I still hadn’t mastered the tact-in-front-of-an-ill-person thing. “I mean, you could get better.”
Del shook her head slightly. “No.”
“You don’t know that,” I said.
“Yes, I do.”
“Come on, Del, you can’t give up. You can still beat this thing, I know yo
u can. You’re one of, no, you’re the strongest person I know. Look how much shit you’ve had to overcome in the past, course you can—”
“Kam, it’s too late,” Del cut in.
I wasn’t going to be deterred. “You’ve got to fight this. You can beat this,” I said. “There are lots of new treatments, alternative therapies. Have you tried acupuncture, or—”
“Kam.” Her voice was stern enough to halt my wild chatter. “I’ve come to accept this, you will too.”
“But you’ve got to fight,” I whispered.
“I have been fighting. That’s why I’m still here.”
“I can’t believe you’ve given up so easily.”
“Kam, you don’t understand…” Her voice trailed off and she inhaled deeply. “I want to live. God I want to live. I want to see my daughter grow up. I want to have all those teenage fights with Tegan that I was preparing myself for. I want to find cigarettes in her bedroom and have big stand-up rows with her about it. I want to wave her off to university. I want to be the one who gives her away at her wedding. I want to get married myself one day because, you know, I still believe in love.
“I want to have the time to sort out our problems. I thought we had all the time in the world. I thought I had all the time in the world. And now I know that I don’t, I’ve got to accept it. I’ve got to…” Del paused, inhaled again. “I want to live. But I’m not going to. I have to accept that or I’ll be frozen. And I have to be active. I have to make as many plans as I can for Tegan. Do everything I can to make sure her life is sorted. And being with you is the start of that.”
I sniffed back my tears but still they broke free, tumbled down my face. I wiped at my eyes with the palms of my hands, then dried them on my jeans.
“I’ve written her a load of letters,” Del was saying.
“Gotten twenty birthday cards. Twenty Christmas cards. I’ve written them all. It’s amazing how much there is to say, even when you’re writing them for the future. But the letters, they’re for things like her eighteenth birthday. And her twenty-first. And when she’s deciding whether to go to uni; some are just for those times when we’d have a chat. You know, well, you’ll find out how much she likes to chat. Do you remember how she was like that? You’ll find out.”