Page 88 of The Fall-Out

‘And she said she felt guilty about having been there when he relapsed. She said that was why she’d come to the funeral. To get – you know. Closure.’

‘But even if that did happen, it doesn’t mean Andy’s death was Zara’s fault.’

‘I know. That’s what I told her.’ Kate pushed her hair back from her face. It looked like it took a huge effort to move her hand at all. ‘I wanted to make her feel better. I told her that I’d always blamed myself for it, for years and years. All the times I was there with Andy when he relapsed and I did nothing.’

‘But you did. You did everything you could. Everything anyone could.’

Kate held up a hand to stop me. Her fingers were silhouetted against the sunset now, obscuring the distant bridge. ‘It didn’t feel that way. I told Zara that. And she was sympathetic – she said she got it. And then she said…’

‘What?’

‘She said that all of you thought I was responsible. Because I’d been there all along. I’d been closest to Andy. He and I were – you know. More than friends, all that time, and I hid it from you. She said she understood how that felt, because she felt responsible for what happened too, and blamed herself.’

‘But we never blamed you. Never.’

I could see it now. Zara’s manipulation – so subtle, but so effective. The same as what she’d done to me – telling me that she’d always felt like the odd one out in the group, reminding me – as she must have guessed – that I had felt that way. And that, along with all the guilt I’d felt when I first fell for Patch, causing me to doubt my friends and turn away from them.

‘I wanted to move on from it,’ Kate went on. ‘But I couldn’t. Not quite. Because I wouldn’t have blamed you for blaming me. It made things between us – not the same.’

‘I get it,’ I said. ‘I really do. But can’t you see – that was what she wanted. To drive us apart. And she succeeded.’

Kate nodded. ‘I suppose she did.’

I asked her the question I hadn’t asked Rowan. ‘Why did you believe her? Why did any of us believe her? After what happened before?’

‘That’s what I thought,’ she said. ‘I asked myself – why are you buying this? You know she lies about stuff. But everything she told us before – that was about her. Details about her life and her past that didn’t really matter. This felt different. It felt like it could so easily be real.’

I thought of what she’d told Rowan – introducing doubt and mistrust and fear. Souring things with lies that were based on the things we most feared could be true. Same as she’d done to me.

‘Kate?’ I said. ‘Did she speak to Abbie as well? What did she tell her?’

‘I don’t know. But we should ask her.’

‘We have to. We have to find out. All of us together.’

THIRTY-TWO

OCTOBER 2012

When you ask Abbie about her and Matt’s wedding, she says that the best bit – the bit she remembers most clearly – is Matt’s speech. Which is funny, because he never actually made a speech.

I remember that bit too, of course – Matt standing up, tall and awkward in his suit, surrounded by his friends and family, all willing him to do his best, make them proud, not fuck it up. And Abbie next to him, gazing adoringly up at him, seeing the exact moment when the words he’d composed so carefully and practised so thoroughly simply refused to come, leaving him standing there mouthing mutely like a goldfish. That’s when Abbie stepped in, stood up, poised and graceful in her white dress, made the speech for him and brought the house down.

For a good few months after that, anyone who went round to their house had to watch the wedding video. If you protested because you’d seen it before (perhaps multiple times), she’d say, ‘Okay then, just the best bit,’ and make you watch that, while Matt laughed, shook his head ruefully and said he had no idea what had come over him.

That’s not the bit I remember best, though – not at all.

I remember when we were all standing together at the entrance to the chapel – or rather, the hotel function room where the ceremony was to be held. Abbie was trembling with nerves, white as her dress under her glowing make-up, surrounded by her three bridesmaids: Kate, Rowan and me.

Abbie’s mum fluttered around us, taking a final look at her daughter before she would become a married lady. Her father stood to one side, waiting to walk in with his daughter on his arm, proud but shy, as if he wasn’t used to being surrounded by all these women. Abbie pulled herself upright, shaking out her skirt, and said, ‘Come on, let’s do this.’

Just in time, Rowan clocked the tissues someone had tucked under Abbie’s arms to soak up her nervous perspiration, and whipped them out. Abbie’s mum took them, used one to wipe away a tear from her cheek then tucked them in her handbag and sailed through to take her seat, her rose-coloured hat almost too big to fit through the door.

‘Are we doing this or are we going to hang around out here forever and have me die single?’ Abbie demanded, her nerves apparently forgotten.

‘Come on then, let’s go,’ Kate said.

And then Zara arrived. In defiance of all convention, she was wearing white – a full-length satin dress so long it dragged on the floor like a train. Her hair was longer than I remembered ever seeing it, and seemed to fly out behind her like the banner of an invading army.

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