Page 4 of When We Were Friends
To check that she hadn’t missed anything important, Paige scrolled back through emails from the last few weeks.
Dailsworth High.
She hadn’t opened those newsletters for years. Her old teachers had probably left. With money from the local council or lottery funding, the school would have no doubt been made over beyond recognition. Paige didn’t need details about any class reunions. She’d never go in case she ran into those three. Yet… something told her to open this one. Paige put a manicured hand up to cover a yawn and half-heartedly read its first news item.
No! It couldn’t be true.
Jasmine Whitewas the new head teacher? She sat bolt upright and an ache grew inside. As if they’d seen each other yesterday, she could picture her best friends’ faces, Morgan rolling her eyes at this revelation, Emily doing her best to find the positives and Tiff’s over-dramatic arms flailing in the air.
Surrounded by her bitchy clique, popular Jasmine would follow them around at break, making kissing noises and asking if they’d ever had a boyfriend. They were mean to other pupils too who didn’t look up to the popular crew, but Jasmine especially enjoyed being cruel to Paige and her friends, perhaps because they succeeded in rarely showing that the insults bothered them. She said Morgan smelt like the sports’ changing rooms and Emily had bat ears, and every time they passed Tiff, she’d give a really loud oink. As for Paige, Jasmine would say she was a stuck-up cow who thought she was better than everyone else. In Year Seven, Jasmine had actually tried to make friends with Paige but listening to her parents’ stories, Paige had picked up how to spot people more interested in money than genuine friendship. So she’d ignored Jasmine’s fawning comments about her clothes, her house, her parents’ new car.
Paige’s eye swept over the rest of the newsletter and she was about to close her inbox when a sentence caught her eye, mentioning a date in February. Paige focused intently on each word and was still transfixed half an hour later when her first client rang the doorbell. She gave the sentence one last glance.
Good grief. Good God.She got up and opened the door. ‘Good morning, so very nice to see you.’
* * *
Emily snuggled into her wearable hooded blanket that smelt like it hadn’t been washed since forever, making it even more appealing to her tortoiseshell cat, Smudge, who slept on her lap. Scrolling down her phone, she saw the email from Dailsworth High. Curled up on the sofa, she glugged her mug of wine, hoping it would drown out the teenage boys outside throwing bang snaps. Even though it was now seven in the evening, she’d not been up long, having handed in her notice on New Year’s Eve. She’d spent the days since catching up with the last couple of years’ missed sleep – and Netflix too, plenty of takeout and a lifetime’s worth of hangovers. She’d only just started checking emails again; it was the middle of February and six weeks since she’d been signed off ill. The emergency care matron had phoned her the day after she’d left and insisted she take back her resignation. Emily had humoured her, for the sick pay. Her first counselling session was due at the beginning of March. Waste of bloody time.
She prepared to do the usual – skim the school news and then delete. However, this time, a name caught her eye and Emily gasped. Jasmine White in charge? Back in her schooldays, Emily had done her best to find the good in the pupil every girl wanted to be, with her model figure and string of boyfriends, with her pinches, shoves, and words that stung sharper than the nettles at the bottom of the sports field, away from the eyes and ears of teachers. Smudge listened as Emily told him all about her and the other three’s old nemesis.
Younger, naïve Emily and scheming Jasmine: stupid cows, the pair of them.
Unable to stop herself, Emily read the whole article and studied the photo. The thin eyebrows had grown more straggly, the lips shone less brightly, the flowing mane of wavy hair was severely tied back. Smudge yawned. Emily couldn’t leave it; who’d have ever guessed Jasmine would lose her glamour? A warm sensation infused Emily, not because of the wine. She’d gone through a phase in Year Ten of having bad acne, and Jasmine would always offer her concealer really loudly. Young Emily told herself she was just being helpful, despite Jasmine’s laughter – despite Emily’s own secret tears in the toilets.
Emily sat very still as an acronym jumped into view. TSGS.What the…?Was this a joke? Her heart pounded and she couldn’t breathe for a moment until out of nowhere, a sob catapulted from her chest. Smudge jumped up and looked at her curiously. Wine tipped over the edge of her mug and onto the sleeve of the old, stained jumper she’d knitted in happier times, sticking out from under her hooded blanket. Tears ran down her face as her whole body shuddered and memories fought their way through a haze of cheap Chardonnay. How she and her three friends used to practice kissing on pillows during sleepovers. Paige would give the others tips, as she’d actually had experience, and Tiff was always the most enthusiastic, saying she’d need a good technique for her acting career. Then there was the silly dance they’d do to ‘Hey Ya’ by OutKast, shakey-shaking their bottoms. It was rare for them all to like the same piece of music. How they’d do baking at Morgan’s and lick out the bowl, fighting over the wooden spoon, giggling as cake batter ended up in their hair. Best of all, the excitement in the pit of Emily’ stomach as they’d creep into the school basement and plan another investigation. The Secret Gift Society had offered a total escape from her difficult mother, from bullies, from the general angst of adolescence.
But then Hugo’s image arrived, his smirking mouth telling everyone at the prom to be quiet, then as hush fell, he pointed to her, Morgan, Paige and Tiff. As his explosive revelations rang out, the girls turned angrily on each other. She’d never forgotten the humiliation dripping over her like a bottle of poisonous venom, soaking into every pore as all the pupils gazed, jaws dropped, at the four of them. It wasn’t as if she could go home and be comforted by her mother, so Emily had stuffed her emotions down, deep inside.
Emily pushed the memories down again. She had enough problems in her current life without reliving ones from the past. A message for The Secret Gift Society? She could do without Morgan’s razor-sharp brain working out what a failure Emily had become, or Paige, who was no doubt a millionaire by now with a luxury lifestyle and successful husband to match, smugly sympathising with Emily for her recent marriage break-up. As for Tiff, with her aspirations of fame and glamour, Emily’s life couldn’t be more diametric. Whichever of the others had called this stupid meeting in two weeks, they could eff right off.
* * *
Friday 24 February and Tiff paced up and down in her old teenage bedroom. The discussion in her head wouldn’t quieten down. A meeting had been called for tomorrow, at her old school, in that grotty basement. She’d read the Dailsworth High newsletter weeks ago and was still confused. To reunite or not reunite – a Shakespearian tragedy in the making.
She was in between acting jobs and home from London, visiting her parents. Shortly after the terrible events at the school prom in 2004, her mum and dad had received an inheritance and moved from Dailsworth to fancy Wilmslow. She’d forgotten Manchester’s nip in the winter months and had let Mum make her a hot water bottle to take to bed last night.
Tiff rolled up her sleeves and sifted through paperwork, doing her best to focus and prepare for her next project starting in the middle of April. However, a magazine caught her attention, placed prominently on the dressing table, ‘Tiff’ on the front in a sparkly dress. Her parents couldn’t be prouder of the way her career had taken off. Both felt they hadn’t had opportunities. Her dad had always wanted to be a jazz singer and her mum’s fantasy had been to be a member of theTop of the Popsdance troupe, Pan’s People. Since the day Tiff could walk, they’d signed her up for extra-curricular lessons they could barely afford. Along with their genes, Tiff had inherited their dreams.
What would Tiff’s old friends think of her now? She lay on her bed, turned on her Spotify playlist and rolled onto her front, legs raised from the knee down and kicking in the air in time to the music, as if time had spun back nineteen years and she wasn’t in her thirties. ‘If I Ain’t Got You’ by Alicia Keys had come on the radio, one day not long after the girls split. She’d danced to it, alone, crying in her bedroom, missing the others like crazy, realising how difficult it was going to be to shake off their friendship, laughing through tears at how the others would have raced to turn off the slushy track. Emily preferred boy band McFly on repeat, Morgan, The Killers, and Paige, her parents’ favourite: The Beatles.
Perhaps the newsletter message had been planted by an admirer of Tiff’s career, who’d found out about her childhood club and was using it as bait to meet up: a scenario as likely as any of the other girls wanting to meet up after what Hugo did. Disgust flooded through her body. Hugo had reduced the four of them to a bunch of disloyal hypocrites. Everyone at the prom had sneered, even those pupils The Secret Gift Society had helped. Sympathy arrived in the form of their French teacher Mlle Vachon, who’d also been their personal tutor for the entire five years of high school. She’d be in her mid-seventies now. On the quiet, they affectionately called her Miss Moo Moo, as the wordvachemeant cow. She’d ushered the four of them into a classroom and did her best to mediate. It lasted all of a few minutes before one by one the girls ran away, each declaring they never wanted to see the others again. To Tiff’s surprise, gentle Emily had been the one who’d bolted first.
Tiff sat up, head in her hands. She wouldn’t recall that prom night. She wouldn’t. But like a jeering member in a theatre audience, the memory she’d suppressed for most of the years since got bigger, got louder, it wouldn’t go away…
It was 2004. A warm June evening. The four girls had danced, holding hands, having just been to their last ever secret society meeting in the basement. But then Hugo had started talking after the track ‘She Bangs’ stopped playing. Despite everything that had happened, Tiff still loved Ricky Martin. The head had just been about to announce the prom king and queen. As his voice got louder, pupils gathered around, fascinated by his talk of The Secret Gift Society. Tiff and Emily, Morgan and Paige had exchanged bewildered glances, disbelief etched across their faces. Then they’d cowered as he’d revealed far more personal secrets than the fact they’d formed a private club. A student being sick at the back of the hall had distracted supervisors from hearing the commotion Hugo was creating. He’d ended his tirade with a smirk and the words, ‘Don’t blame me, girlies, you’re the ones who’d sworn an allegiance to each other. Now everyone knows why your stupid society means nothing, like the lies it made up about me.’ Tiff shivered as she remembered how Paige had dropped her drink, the glass smashing and red punch splashing up her white dress.
Then Paige had turned on Morgan as soon as Hugo stopped talking. ‘But you hate boys,’ she’d said incredulously. ‘I assumed you were gay.’
Bigger laughs from the crowd and jeers oflezzie, caused angry tears to glisten. How Tiff had stared at Morgan, the only one out of the other three she’d never seen cry before. ‘How could you know me so badly?’ Morgan had replied, flinching as the crowd jeered. ‘What about you… Princess Paige? According to Hugo, you’ve been getting close to someone who’s always mocked the very sight of us, even though their parents don’t own a Porsche or go clay pigeon shooting. What a come down for a precious, spoilt brat.’
Paige’s chin had trembled and her head gave a slow, disbelieving shake in Morgan’s direction.
‘Poor shy little Emily, what a front you’ve put on,’ Tiff had spat. ‘They say it’s the shy ones you should watch. After what Hugo’s said, it’s clear you’re nothing but a two-faced slut.’
Emily had jumped, cheeks burning as the room sniggered. ‘What makes you think you’re any better than me?’ she’d whimpered. ‘Better a phony than… a fatty. It’s like being friends with… Jabba the Hutt.’
Adult Tiff’s face puckered behind her hands, as an image from that evening came into her head, of the crowd laughing and pointing at the four friends, of how Emily’s hand had shot up to her own mouth, as if trying, too late, to stop the insult.
