Best Friends Forever Read online

  BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

  Also by Dawn Goodwin

  The Accident

  The Pupil

  BEST FRIENDS FOREVER

  DAWN GOODWIN

  AN IMPRINT OF HEAD OF ZEUS

  www.ariafiction.com

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2019 by Aria, an imprint of Head of Zeus Ltd

  Copyright © Dawn Goodwin, 2019

  The moral right of Dawn Goodwin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781788549349

  Cover design © Charlotte Abrams-Simpson

  Aria

  c/o Head of Zeus

  First Floor East

  5–8 Hardwick Street

  London EC1R 4RG

  www.ariafiction.com

  For my best friend

  Contents

  Also by Dawn Goodwin

  Welcome Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  13 May 2012

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  September 1986

  Chapter 3

  October 1986

  Chapter 4

  November 1988

  Chapter 5

  December 1989

  Chapter 6

  July 1990

  August 1992

  Chapter 7

  July 1995

  Chapter 8

  31 December 1999

  Chapter 9

  May 2005

  February 2006

  Chapter 10

  February 2011

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  December 1989

  Chapter 13

  6 May 2012

  13 May 2012 – 4 p.m.

  13 May 2012 – 7 p.m.

  13 May 2012 – 7.35 p.m.

  13 May 2012 – 7.55 p.m.

  13 May 2012 – 7.55 p.m.

  Chapter 14

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Become an Aria Addict

  13 May 2012

  The rain pelted against Vicky’s bedroom window, the storm outside in full voice, moaning and clambering at the glass and bricks.

  She sat up in her bed, wincing as her brain thudded against her skull. She hadn’t realised she’d fallen asleep. An almost empty bottle of red wine on her bedside table glared at her accusingly. Next to it, teetering close to the edge, sat a half-full glass, the rim stained with lipstick.

  She ran a hand through her matted hair. It was still damp from the rain earlier. Her face felt tight, her eyes dry, whether from the tears or the cold outside, she wasn’t sure.

  She felt wrung out.

  Her phone started ringing, the same insistent chime that had pulled her from unconsciousness moments ago.

  The ringing stopped, then started up again almost immediately. She scrambled around for the phone. It was here somewhere. She must’ve had it in her hand when she fell asleep, but where had she dropped it? She felt around under her pillow and pulled out the vibrating mobile.

  She expected to see Anna’s name on the screen, but it was a voicemail message. ‘Vicky, it’s David. You need to call me back. It’s Anna. There’s been—’

  His voice sounded like it had cracked wide open.

  But Vicky didn’t need to hear what he was saying. She knew.

  The truth was out.

  ‘Sorry, I don’t want to tell you in a message like this. Call me back. It’s Anna. It’s Anna…’ His voice petered out.

  Vicky listened to the message again, her body cold, her stomach hollow.

  She scrolled through her recent calls. She had called Anna four times tonight, sent her countless WhatsApp messages. None of them had been read. No little blue ticks showing that she was just being aired.

  She looked back through the messages. What had she said in them? Her eyes tripped over the typed words and emojis.

  She had to call David back. It would look strange if she didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as she thought.

  She drained the glass of wine, then refilled it with the last of the bottle. Guilt was giving her quite a thirst. A single, red drop of wine ran down the stem of the glass. Vicky watched its progress, then wiped it away with a trembling finger before it reached the bottom.

  She hit redial. It rang for a second before David answered. ‘Vicky.’ He sounded strange, like a deflated balloon, his voice cavernous.

  ‘David, I’m so sorry. I don’t know what to say—’

  ‘You know already? Who told you?’

  ‘I – er…’

  He cut her off. ‘What am I going to do without her? What are the kids going to do?’

  ‘We can work it out, David.’

  ‘I told her not to drive that death trap of a car. I offered to trade it in. But she wouldn’t listen. She kept saying it was the one thing her dad had given her in between stepmothers that she couldn’t part with. Now look. It’s killed her.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘With the rain and the terrible suspension, she must’ve – I don’t want to think about that. I have to explain it to the kids, call her father. Jesus.’

  Vicky’s brain scrambled to hold onto the words he had said. ‘She’s dead?’

  ‘I know, I can’t believe it either. I keep expecting the police to come back and say it was a mistake. Someone else had been driving. Even that it was a sick joke. Anything but this.’

  ‘She’s dead.’

  ‘I have to go. I just… thought you should know. I’m sorry.’

  ‘David, wait! What—’ But he was already gone.

  Vicky stared at the reflection looking back at her from the mirror across the room.

  What had they done?

  1

  David opened the fridge and stared at the jars and bottles, bags of limp lettuce and neatly stacked Tupperware boxes. Casseroles, lasagnes, cottage pie, all donated with sympathy. Or pity.

  He couldn’t remember what he was looking for. He stood, his mind blank, his hand clutching the handle and the cold air tickling his face. His eyes fell on a half-eaten jar of lemon curd on the top shelf.

  Anna loved lemon curd on sourdough toast. He had always hated the texture of it. Now the jar would never be finished. He grabbed it and flung it hard across the room. It hit the blue mosaic tiles on the kitchen wall and shattered, the yellow gloop sticking like snot.

  He sunk to the ground, his back against the fridge, as sobs wrenched from his gut.

  The fridge began to beep, outraged at being left open for so long, but David stayed on the floor, his chest heaving, watching the lemon curd ooze down the tiles Anna had chosen.

  Minutes passed and he knew he should get up but willing his legs to move was beyond him. His eyes flicked to the clock above the kitchen doorway. The kids would be home any minute. That thought alone propelled him to his feet, a little unsteadily. He swiped at his wet cheeks and sniffed loudly.

  Stepping over the mess, he headed into the hallway, then up the stairs, every step laboured. The sun streamed into the corridor at the top of the stairwell, pushing with insistence through the open door of the main bedroom, desperate for him to noti
ce, but he merely walked through it and sat heavily on the bed. He needed to pull himself together, splash water on his face, plaster on a mask that would convince his kids he was in control. Someone needed to be – for them.

  His eyes flicked to the bedside table. Anna’s belongings were neatly stacked next to her alarm clock. On the day after the accident, her alarm had gone off at 6.30 a.m. as it always did and he had simply lain in the empty bed after a sleepless night, letting the cheerful banter of the radio DJs wash over him, disbelieving, hoping she was already downstairs.

  She wasn’t.

  Now, his eyes ran over the box of tissues, the tiny china bowl where she put her jewellery each night, a couple of hairbands with strands of her dark hair clinging to the elastic, and the pile of books, neatly stacked, spines facing out the way she liked it. A complete contrast to his side where used tissues lay amid a jumble of magazines, pens, spare change and a book he had been trying to get into for months, lying open, face down, the spine cracked.

  David picked up the book Anna had been reading and scanned the back of it. A woman with a secret who was trying to put her past behind her and make it as a writer apparently. He remembered Anna saying how good it was, her face a mask of concentration when she was reading. The corner of a page close to the end was turned over. She had almost finished it. Now she would never get the chance to see how it ended, what the big secret actually was. Maybe he should read it instead. He got to his feet and placed it carefully on his own bedside table, then straightened up the magazines, stacked the books, balled up the used tissues and scooped the spare change into his pocket, trying to mirror the other side of the bed where dust was starting to settle.

  It had been four weeks since the accident.

  Four weeks since he had lost his wife.

  Lost was a funny word for death. He knew where she had been, but wasn’t sure where she had gone. She certainly wasn’t here. So yes, she was lost. And so was he.

  He walked into the en suite bathroom and flushed the tissues away, then flushed the evidence of his tears away too, the water like a cold slap on his cheeks.

  The doorbell chimed downstairs and he inhaled deeply, exhaled slowly and went to greet his children.

  His mother had said it would be less confusing for them if they returned to school as soon as possible. A routine would help them cope, she’d said. He wasn’t sure if it was working or not. They were quiet a lot of the time. Understandable, considering the bottom had dropped out of their small world. The one constant, the woman who was their everything, was suddenly gone and, at the ages of five and seven, they were facing a future without her. The thought made him want to weep again, but he was now at the door and it was opening and they were in front of him, their eyes wide and their smiles a ghostly reflection of their mother.

  ‘Hi guys! How was school?’

  He hugged them close to him before they dumped their book bags and headed into the kitchen, on the hunt for after-school sustenance. He followed them with his eyes, then turned to his mother. ‘How were they today?’

  Louisa Price gently placed a warm hand on her son’s cheek. ‘They were fine, David, they were fine,’ she said before following her grandchildren down the hallway.

  A moment later, her voice reached him where he was still standing, head down. ‘What on earth happened in here?’

  *

  David sat at the kitchen table, staring into a cup of coffee while his mother cleaned up the bits of broken jam jar. She was rambling away while she worked, the words a jumble of sounds and syllables without meaning. The kids had plonked down in front of the television in the lounge as soon as they’d shed their coats and the canned TV laughter now added to the white noise in his ears. They weren’t joining in the laughter though. Harper and Lewis hadn’t laughed in weeks.

  ‘Nanny, I’m hungry,’ Lewis whined from the other room.

  ‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ Louisa called back, wincing as she got to her feet, the wet cloth clenched in her fist. David could feel her eyes on the back of his neck, but carried on staring hypnotised into the coffee.

  ‘Did you hear what I said?’ Louisa said gently as she rinsed the cloth at the sink.

  He looked up then. ‘Hmm?’

  ‘About the Olympics torches they have to make for school?’ Her sigh was almost inaudible. ‘Let me get them a snack, then we need to talk.’ She rummaged in the fridge, pulling out ham, cucumber and carrots.

  David watched her for a moment, then got to his feet and headed towards the French doors and out into the lukewarm June air. He breathed deeply, feeling the weight of claustrophobia lift a little. Not for the first time, he felt the urge to run. He didn’t know where he would go, but his feet burned to start running and not stop, to keep going until he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, couldn’t feel any more. But a faint whisper in his ear told him he couldn’t outrun this.

  Louisa found him there five minutes later, his hands clenched in tight fists, staring out at the grey sky.

  She approached his rigid back carefully. ‘David?’

  He didn’t respond, so she reached out a hand and touched his shoulder lightly. ‘Come. Come and sit with me a moment.’ She led him over to the patio table, ignoring the streaks of dirt and dead leaves that littered the glass surface, symptomatic of the hangover of winter. She pulled out a chair and dusted a cobweb from the seat before he fell into it, the weight on his shoulders dragging him down.

  She paused, then crouched in front of him. ‘David, look at me.’

  It took a moment before he met her stern gaze.

  ‘It’s time to pull yourself together.’

  ‘What?’ He moved to get to his feet again.

  ‘No, listen to me. You need to hear this.’

  Her voice had that tone from his childhood, when he needed reining in for some misdemeanour or other. Except this time he hadn’t done anything wrong.

  ‘David, it’s been a month and I know that’s not long, but…’ She sighed. ‘Nothing I say is going to help you right now, but those two beautiful children in there need their father more than ever and you’re not here. I’ve been where you are. When your father died, I wanted to curl into a ball and shut everything out, but I couldn’t. I had you and your sister to think about and that helped me through, gave me the strength to carry on.’ She smoothed his hair like she used to when he was little. ‘I’m not helping you by being here. It’s time for you to start healing and getting on with the job of being a parent, scary as that is on your own. So tomorrow I’ll return home and you can start creating a new routine with the kids, maybe think about getting back to work, even part-time? Besides, Joyce next door has had enough of looking after Charlie and his smelly litter tray. She’s threatening to evict him. What do you say?’

  He didn’t say anything at first, but a barrage of emotions flittered across his face. Then Lewis burst out of the open door, tears streaming down his face.

  ‘Nanny, Nanny! Harper says I can’t watch Peppa Pig!’

  Louisa got to her feet, her knees creaking as she did, and hugged Lewis to her before heading indoors to resolve yet another situation, exhaustion evident in the wrinkles on her brow. David watched her go, his thoughts whirling.

  A vibration in his pocket distracted him and he pulled out his mobile to read the text that had come through. Probably another message of condolence, people offering their empty wishes and shallow promises of ‘anything we can do to help’. There were less of them with every passing day.

  Been thinking of you a lot lately and hope you’re bearing up ok. Was wondering if I could come and see the kids sometime? I’m always happy to help if you need some time to yourself. Call me? Vicky

  He read the text again, then slipped the phone back into his pocket before following his mother indoors. She was sitting on the couch between Harper and Lewis, her arms hugging them close as they stared at an episode of The Octonauts, a compromise apparently reached. He watched her for a moment, suddenly realising how much
she seemed to have aged in the last few weeks.

  Hadn’t they all?

  He returned to the kitchen, made a cup of Earl Grey tea in a fine bone china cup, added a spoon of sugar and a dash of milk, just the way she liked it, then returned to the lounge and placed the cup on the coffee table in front of her.

  She smiled at him, her brow furrowed.

  ‘You’re right. It’s time. I can’t thank you enough for everything, for being here, but I need to start doing this on my own. So, Chinese for your last night?’

  Her smile was full of pride, worry and love, and his gut clenched as he walked away to find a takeaway menu.

  2

  Vicky felt nervous as she rang the doorbell, which was silly because this house had been her second home for so long. But that was when Anna still lived in it. Vicky had known David a long time, but you could count on one hand the occasions they’d spent time alone.

  She’d seen him at the funeral, of course. Not that she could remember much about it. She’d self-medicated with vodka in order to get through it. But she had been struck by how broken David had looked and she hadn’t known what to do with that. She wasn’t entirely sure what she had expected. He’d always been such a physical presence before, so to see him decimated, like an empty husk, had been a shock. Then her focus had shifted to Lewis and Harper, wide-eyed in their sombre, stiff outfits chosen specially for the occasion, and he had fallen out of her consciousness.

  After that, it became harder to call him, ask him how he was, take that first step of reconnecting, especially as she was quietly battling with the gaping hole left in her own life. Anna had been her constant companion since they were thirteen years old, their only time apart being the university years when Anna had gone off to make something of herself (and meet David) while Vicky stayed behind and watched, an eyewitness to Anna’s much more exciting and privileged life. In those days, she had hoped that Anna would return to her; this time she knew without a doubt that she wouldn’t.