Page 5 of When We Were Friends
Then Hugo had started the chant that went on and on. Despite the teachers’ protestations, all the other pupils joined in…
‘Lezzie. Princess. Slut. Jabba…’
Tiff sat very still for a moment, gripped by the horror of that night in 2004. Then she sniffed and let her hands fall away. She straightened her shoulders, stood up and checked her make-up in the mirror. What did one of the girls – women now – want to gain by calling this meeting? Or… perhaps it was Hugo taking the piss. Maybe the new head, Jasmine White, had left the message as a joke. At one time, she was such a bitch to Tiff, shouting, ‘Oink, oink, oink,’ and getting her cronies to join in.
‘Tiffy, sweetheart, tea’s ready,’ hollered up a voice.
She got to her feet, clenched her jaw and deleted the Dailsworth High email.
3
MORGAN
Morgan had hardly slept last night, her mood swinging up and down as she buzzed at the thought of meeting her old friends today – and worried about Olly. Even though more than two months had passed since their big row. They’d agreed to put it behind them for the festive season. After that, Olly had been busy with his studies. Then it had been Valentine’s Day and his birthday. He hadn’t wanted a party, so she’d taken him out to his favourite pizza restaurant for lunch, her mum and dad went as well. The chat had flowed between her and Olly and for the first time in weeks, their usual warmth came back. He’d been looking forward to going clubbing with friends that evening, taking photos with the new phone Morgan had saved to buy him. It has been worth every hour of overtime to watch him excitedly test out its camera.
A father might have taken him out for his first legal drink, or was that some urban myth? Morgan’s sleep had suffered since he turned eighteen, she’d wake in a panic and would creep into his bedroom and check that the human shape in bed wasn’t a pile of carefully constructed cushions. The fear of him walking away, never speaking to her again, hung around, and her trip to the emergency department back in October still danced in the shadows when she hit the pillows and closed her eyes. Sweat-dripping bad dreams veered between Olly leaving her or her leaving him.
She couldn’t wait for Paige, Emily and Tiff to meet her son. They were bound to turn up today. It has been so long. Her three friends had always been open, warm-hearted, not the types to carry a grudge for eternity. Perhaps they were parents too by now. Was Tiff an actress? Unable to settle, Morgan turned on her bedside light, rummaged around in the bottom of her wardrobe and pulled out an old shoe box. She got back under the duvet and, leaning against the headboard, sifted through the old photos until she came to the notebook.
A broad smile lit up Morgan’s tired face as she mused over the sense of importance The Secret Gift Society used to possess. On the front, in bold letters, they’d written:
TOP SECRET
Closed Cases
It was a record of their successful investigations. She flicked through:The Case of the Unkind Valentine Card, The Case of the Spiked Punch, The Case of the Stolen Packed Lunches. The investigations were innocent enough at first. By Year Eleven, the content had changed, withThe Case of the Two-Timing GirlfriendandThe Case of the Online Bully.Word spread and pupils in their year would ask the girls for help with their troubles.
Morgan hugged her knees. On the very first day of high school, they’d been allotted the same personal tutor, Mlle Vachon. They ended up sitting together every morning, despite their obvious differences, what with Morgan’s practical, no-nonsense attitude, Paige’s understated maturity, Emily’s selfless, quiet nature and Tiff’s loud clumsiness. During the following years, they became aware that each of them had a particular strength that they called a ‘gift’. Common ground was reading and their favourite all-time books included the Enid Blyton’sFamous FiveandSecret Sevennovels, and classic Agatha Christies. Inspiration struck after they inadvertently worked as a team to help a girl in their class find out who was stealing her stationery, and in Year Nine, with earnest intentions, they set up The Secret Gift Society.
Morgan turned the page and pain shot through her chest.The Case of… It was Hugo’s and the investigation that had blown apart the four girls’ friendship. She snapped the notebook shut and covered it once more with photos, before shoving the shoe box back in the wardrobe. She hurried into the bathroom and took a hot shower, forcing herself to sing a cheerful tune, the bad memories evaporating in the steam.
The kitchen clock turned to half past nine. Dailsworth High was only a fifteen-minute walk away. Morgan hadn’t told Olly about meeting her old friends; she didn’t want to get his hopes up about finding his dad. But she had tried to broach the subject of starting to look a few days after he’d scared her so much.
‘Come and sit down for a moment,’ she’d said when he got in from school, and she’d patted the space on the sofa next to her, moving a hammer she’d been using to put up a new bookshelf. He’d shrugged and collapsed into the armchair opposite. Trouble was, she couldn’t find the words.
‘I’ve decided… I’m sorry that…’
Olly had stood up. ‘I’ve got homework.’
It was no good. She couldn’t bring herself to tell him that she would help him find his dad, worried that he’d be crushed if they failed. Life had shown her that disappointments left a scar that never properly healed, even small ones – like how Morgan had always been ahead with maths at primary school, but then the use of calculators at Dailsworth High evened out the playing field – if only a little. Maths was the one thing in life she got completely.
Instead, Morgan did try to find out more by herself. The school secretary was adamant she couldn’t give out alumni details or confirm if Hugo was listed, but said if he was, she’d email and ask if he was happy for Morgan to get in touch. With a deep breath, Morgan had given the go-ahead, but it was weeks now with no comeback.
She brushed her teeth and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, the narrow ledge beneath it always a mess since Olly started shaving. The woman who stared back was a far cry from the girl last seen by Paige, Emily and Tiff. Years of looking after a child who didn’t sleep well had etched black semi-circles under her eyes. The short hair that used to stand defiantly upright lay limp and flat. Yet high school Morgan would probably have liked the sleeveless jumper and plain shirt that she was wearing with simple, straight trousers. She was still the same person underneath: older now, wiser, okay, perhaps a little jaded. But surely the others would recognise their old friend, like she would them?
Morgan pulled on her anorak and headed out the front door, leaves swirling in the wind like the butterflies in her stomach. An urge to skip almost overwhelming her, she made do with whistling.
Dailsworth High had also changed since that fateful prom. The L-shape building was now more like a U with an extra wing that housed the new library and two large computer rooms, along with an extended pastoral care centre for staff and pupils. Occasionally, over the years, Morgan turned up early for parents evening and took a walk first, past the old basement, the still-disused science lab, the hazel tree still standing proud. As if about to attend her first ever rock concert, adrenaline rushed through Morgan with every step that way. Despite the clouds, the night showers had stopped. Being outdoors always lifted her mood. When she was young, Morgan often helped her granddad, a landscape gardener, and as she got older, he paid her to work at weekends, come rain or shine. In the summer, she’d do her homework in the back garden and would take a walk in the local park if she needed to clear her head.
Morgan passed the basement’s horizontal door and went around the back. With her anorak sleeve, she rubbed the window of the science lab. It was still filled with dilapidated desks and chairs, still overgrown with straggly branches. For a moment, she was right back in 2004, holding hands with Paige, Emily and Tiff, that last time they chanted in the dingy basement just before Hugo blew up their friendship.
The clouds darkened and she walked back around to the basement door, stopping dead by the hazel tree.
‘Hello, Morgan.’ A tone crisper than it used to be. The red hair swished back into a ponytail now hung as a sleek bob, the hint of ginger darker now. Paige still wore a blazer but instead of being plain bottle green, it bore a Burberry check.
Stomach fizzing, Morgan waved and hurried over. She’d waited so long for this moment. ‘Paige. Wow. You look great! How are you keeping?’ Her old friend was here, she really was, with that same mole above her lip, that same sophisticated presence no other pupil had. ‘Have you had to come far?’
‘Castlefield. Did you call this meeting?’ she replied in a detached tone.
