Girl Seven (27 page)

Pulling my vest up to my neck, she ran her lips across my stomach and the base of my ribs. Raising herself to press her mouth to mine again, I felt her hand slide along my leg to the inside of my thigh underneath my skirt to between my legs.

I swallowed and shut my eyes as she rubbed me through the fabric of my tights. It wasn’t that hot but I was already sweating, small electric pulses shooting up through my abdomen.

‘Is this OK?’ she asked.

‘Yes!’

Writhing against the floor, I grasped her hand and interlinked my fingers through hers, pressing her fingertips and palm against me as I arched my hips a little.

I opened my eyes and Seiko was watching our hands, fascinated. I shut them again and grasped at any part of her body I could reach. I’d touched her before, loads of times, but never like this. Her body felt completely different now that I had total access to it. I’d never noticed how deep the curve was where her waist met her hips before. Her collarbone was sharp. I pushed my fingers into her mouth and she sucked.

When I met her eyes she giggled and blushed.

I started laughing as well, even though I could hardly breathe, almost delirious with arousal. I took my fingers out of her mouth, pulled my skirt up and pushed my hand into my underwear.

Biting her lip, Seiko followed my lead and I started panting at her hand resting on top of mine, bringing me to orgasm—

I was about to cry out when we both heard voices outside the window and then the front door. Pulling my skirt down, we scrambled back into stiff seating positions. By the time her parents came in we were watching the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie without touching, sitting a bit too far away from each other and bit too artificially posed, but they didn’t notice. They had no reason to.

The movie was too quiet or maybe my senses were just dulled from the shock.

I was being offered jasmine tea and I came to enough to nod and say thanks.

Seiko was so damn good at acting naturally that, as I looked at her, I wondered whether what had just happened had been some sort of hallucination. But she caught my eyes for a second and I knew that it wasn’t.

I stayed in her bed that night, as I did every night I stayed there. It wasn’t as if there was anything to suspect, with two girls who had been friends and sleeping in each other’s beds since kindergarten.

We didn’t really talk about it then, as it was happening. I guess we both felt too inexperienced to articulate the complexity of the things that needed to be said. Looking back, I wish I’d had the guts to say everything to her I’d wanted to.

I had Nic drop me a couple of streets away from Mark’s spare flat, so that he wouldn’t see where I was living, and walked the rest of the way as if I were in a trance. My mind was blank. There was nothing in me except a concrete thudding of emotion.

I supposed I didn’t have much time until someone tried to find me, so I packed as soon as I let myself in. I laid my passport on the bed, away from everything else, so that it didn’t get lost amongst my few possessions.

When that was done I made the mistake of laying my head down for a moment, and when I opened my eyes the day’s early hours had passed.
Shit.
I got up and rubbed my eyes, touching the strap of my overnight bag. I lifted it and glanced at the door, but put it down again. There was still something I had to do. I stood frozen in the centre of the bedroom and, still blinking sleep out of my eyes, called a number from the landline. I hung up, and then called again.

Seiko answered the phone immediately the second time, in Japanese. I knew it was never far from her hand. The sound of her voice choked me, made me have to sit down on the floor beside my bed and listen instead of talk. I felt as though if I opened my mouth my soul would come rushing out.

‘Hello?’

I breathed, but couldn’t speak. It was as if I was on the phone to a version of my younger self, peering down a wormhole, back past all the hideous things I’d done.

‘Hello?’

She was patient and tenacious, Seiko. It would take her a while to hang up.

‘... Hello?’ she said again, with no trace of frustration.

I was hurting my own face, pressing the phone against it with such ferocity.

There was a long silence.

I panicked suddenly that she might hang up and tried to say something of worth.

But she got there first.

‘... Kiki?’

My exhale was audible down the line. Addressing me by my name made it harder to say anything back. People had always called me Kiki, here and there: Noel, girls at work, but it had always meant more coming from her.

‘Kiki, is that you?’

I breathed, and breathed, and breathed, and spoke.

‘How... did you know?’

‘You’re the only person I’ve ever met who can tolerate silence for that long.’

I felt sick.

‘How are you?’ she asked.

There was no reproach, no hysteria, no questions, nothing about how I’d not stayed in touch or the years we hadn’t spoken and the letters I promised I’d write. My parents would never have been this calm if I hadn’t contacted them for this long.

‘I’m in London,’ I said, biting my lips.

‘I thought so. That’s not answering my question though. How have you been?’

‘I’m...’ I smiled to myself. ‘Honestly, I’ve been better. I prefer it where you are, you know?’

‘You should come and visit more.’

‘I would if I could. I’m saving up.’

‘Can’t your parents come back once in a while? How are they?’

It had been that long. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t been the first person I’d called after I found them. Maybe I’d felt embarrassed? I wasn’t sure...

‘Um, they were in an accident,’ I said, unable to give her anything but the stock story. ‘They all were actually. Kinda just me here now.’

There was a pause. Seiko wasn’t the type to come out with a knee-jerk condolence. I was grateful, having heard enough perfunctory apologies to last me a lifetime. Why did people do that anyway? It’s not as if they’d been the ones to do it.

‘How do you feel?’ she asked.

I was relieved at the question. ‘Nothing yet, I’ve not even cried over them. Is that weird?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘I think... I miss Dad more. Is
that
weird?’

‘It doesn’t sound weird to me. I imagine it’s what most of us feel, maybe missing one person more than the other, but they just don’t say it.’ She laughed. ‘You never had that problem, with not saying things. They were good people.’

‘Mum tried... maybe a little bit too hard, but she tried.’

‘Are you painting?’

I was tempted to lie. It seemed pathetic that I wasn’t painting. A defeat.

‘No, I haven’t done anything like that in a while. Life has been a bit too... real.’

The last time I’d seen her had been the day I left for England for what, although I didn’t know it, would be the last time. She didn’t come to the airport; I hadn’t wanted her to. But then the letters had petered out and then the phone calls and then the emails and then that was it. I had no interest in social media and neither did she. But these were all excuses really, to mask what I really thought: that we had both been glad I’d left. It had saved us both the disappointment and heartache of realizing that Japan was a dead end. There had been nowhere to go, no future that would have satisfied me: pretending to be friends when it had become too painful to even consider wanting to be her friend.

‘Have you changed much?’

I assumed she meant physically, but I wanted to say yes, I’d changed a lot. I wasn’t anyone she would know or recognize any more.

‘No, I’m always going to look fourteen, I think. What about you? You don’t sound different...’

‘I’m not different. I’m never different with you. It’s been a long time but I don’t think I’ll ever forget how to be myself with you.’

‘So you’re not yourself all the time?’

‘Yes, but I’m a different version of myself with everyone. I don’t think I have a personality. I think I’m just a reflection of pieces of other people I’m with at the time. Don’t you think so?’

I had a long think. ‘No. I’m always the same. I don’t think I find other people interesting enough to let them affect me so much.’

Seiko giggled.

I couldn’t help smiling at the sound.

‘Oh, Seven, you’re so bad.’

I realized that without her here my sarcasm had lost its humour. With no one to laugh and counter it with optimism, my dissociative and dismissive tendencies had actually become a noticeable part of my personality. I found people more difficult now than I had ever found them. Seiko I had never found difficult.

‘Are you seeing... anyone?’ I didn’t bother trying to make it sound like I didn’t care.

‘Not really. A bit, but... No, not really. Are you going to come back?’

My voice became strained. ‘I don’t know.’

‘So you mean no?’

‘I mean I don’t know.’

‘You only say you don’t know when you mean no.’ A small laugh. ‘You would never admit to not knowing anything. But... it’s OK, if you don’t want to come back. I suppose your mind could easily have changed since the last time you emailed. You know, you always said you hated it there...’

‘I really don’t know. I mean... I
really
don’t know if I’m going to come back. It’s complicated, you know.’

She didn’t speak for a while.

‘Is it because of me?’

I hated myself. ‘No! God, no! Of course it’s not you. Why would you think I didn’t want to see you?’

‘Because until now I didn’t even think you wanted to
speak
to me.’ It was unlike her to snap. ‘I’m sorry. It’s just been a long time and... I thought we would always talk. Even if it was just talking. I love talking to you. I thought we would always talk.’

If I had been there I would have hugged her and stroked her hair. She loved me stroking her hair. It calmed her down and she became still and quiet and I’d never felt closer to anyone than I had to her when I was doing that.

I could feel the tears welling up in my throat. ‘I thought that too... It’s my fault.’

‘It’s not just your fault.’

‘No, it is. You know when you asked if I’d changed? Well, I have... quite a lot. I’ve done some really... really terrible things. Really bad. I was so stupid; you wouldn’t believe I could be so stupid! I don’t think these things would have happened if you were here, you know.’ I sniffed. ‘I stopped talking because I was ashamed... I didn’t think you’d like me now. I thought you’d hate this person.’

‘I’d never hate you!’

‘No, you don’t know—’

‘What could you have done that’s so bad?’

‘Oh, Jesus...’ I snorted. ‘How long do you have?’

‘I have all day and all night, if you want.’

She meant it too. But I didn’t have all night and she could tell from my hesitation.

‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘You don’t have to talk for that long.’

‘I’d like to. I just can’t. I’ve kinda got to go soon actually.’

‘OK.’

I love you, I wanted to say
. I love you. I fucking love you.

‘It was really nice to hear your voice,’ I said, biting my lip.

‘You too. If you... If you do come back, please come and see me. Promise me that you’ll never come back without seeing me.’

Her voice was small and faraway. I wondered if she was about to cry as well.

‘I promise. I wish I could see you. We should video call or something.’

We would never video call. It sounded ridiculous even as I suggested it. We both hated talking to machines too much.

‘Bye.’

I held her on the line for a few more seconds. ‘... Bye.’

I didn’t have the will to hang up, so she did. I put the phone down beside me on the floor and started to cry a little. That was another reason I’d stopped talking to her: I knew I made her feel as if she wasn’t good enough, and I hated that. I hated that
I
wasn’t good enough. I hated that I’d become the sort of person who would disappoint her. I hated that I’d never be brave enough to tell her what I wanted, or ask her what she wanted, and every time I spoke to her I knew that any slim chance I’d had to make either of us happy was gone.

And now I had to go and kill a man.

I stood up eventually and slung my bag over my shoulder. Some of my clothes were still here, some things that I couldn’t easily carry along with my money and weapons, but every other trace of me, aside from the unlocked chest of drawers, was gone.

With tears still pricking at my eyes, I left.

I wasn’t planning ever to come back.

The care home I found, after stashing my bag in my locker at the Underground and napping for a couple of hours on a row of chairs pushed together in the dressing room, looked expensive. Somewhere in there, behind the rows of flowers and over-friendly signs, was Madeline Gordon. I could have gone straight to her husband but some morbid fascination made me stop by.

I couldn’t go in; it was unlikely Kenneth Gordon would stop by at the exact time I’d chosen, but I stood for a while outside and eyed up the building anyway. I wasn’t sure what early-onset dementia was. I could only assume it was like normal dementia, but one that hit a person younger. Maybe that made it OK? I thought, if she’s at a point where she doesn’t recognize him anyway, did that make what I was about to do so bad?

Feeling this uneasy wasn’t something I’d been prepared for. They didn’t have any children. What if, without him, she wouldn’t have anyone to visit her? What if the money ran out and she had to be moved elsewhere? She could end up in some shoddy council house with a carer who turned up once a day if she was lucky, a carer who maybe wouldn’t really care... It wasn’t her fault her husband was such a scumbag.

But there weren’t any two ways about it. It wasn’t as if he’d left any family members of mine left alive to visit me if I ever ended up in a hospital or care home. If anyone should feel guilty about the consequences of his death it should be Kenneth Gordon. He was the one who was responsible for it, after all.