Cath Staincliffe - Ruthless

‘It’s Rachel, Mum.’ Dorothy just didn’t get the friendship. Not that Janet did all the time. She and Rachel didn’t always see eye to eye on things. They were at different stages of life, different backgrounds, but something just clicked.

‘We’re off to get some air,’ Janet said.

‘At this hour?’ Dorothy said.

‘They called it walking the dog in my day,’ Ade grumbled from the living room. In my day? He talked like an old fogey sometimes.

‘Won’t be long,’ Janet said, glancing at Rachel who looked lairy, wondering if she’d put her foot in it. Janet gave her a little nod, it’s OK . Grabbed her coat.

‘It’s raining,’ Dorothy said.

‘It’s stopped, actually,’ Rachel pointed out.

Dorothy rolled her eyes. Before there could be any more sniping Janet opened the front door and got them out of the house.

She took a gulp of air, cool, damp, and another.

‘How is she?’ Rachel took her arm.

‘Asleep now. Oh God, I need a drink. Come on.’ As they walked up to the junction where the pub was, Janet filled her in. ‘You know Elise never puts a foot wrong, quick to point the finger, moral high ground and all that, then… it’s like she’s fallen off a cliff, Rachel.’ She thought of the look on Elise’s face, the deep sadness but worse than that the shame. ‘She lied to us about everything, about this party, she said there was a group going and everyone’s parents had said yes. But Vivien and Ken, Olivia’s parents, had gone off on a romantic weekend in Edinburgh thinking Olivia was having a sleepover at our house. Next thing they know, Olivia is dead. And of course Elise had told us she was staying at Olivia’s.’

‘That’s an old one,’ Rachel said.

‘Yes,’ Janet said. Her own teenage years had been disruptive in a very different way, the breakdown at sixteen had seen her in a mental hospital for several weeks. Recovering from that, supported by Ade, she’d never really had the wild teenage rebellion other people did.

The pub was warm and not too busy. Janet and Rachel got seats in one of the old-fashioned booths, benches with wooden panelling and frosted glass above which afforded them some privacy.

Rachel went for drinks. Janet asked for a double gin and tonic. She closed her eyes for a moment, images from the last twenty-four hours crowding in her head, the shocked tableau of youngsters at the party, Olivia on the stretcher, Elise sobbing when she learned about the death, Vivien alternately bewildered and frantic.

‘Where did you get the drugs?’ Janet had asked Elise when they got home from the hospital. Ade there, looking thunderstruck.

Elise had tugged at her hair, stalling.

Janet waited. Something she was used to, practised in. One of the tools of her trade as an interviewer. Patience, silence.

Ade opened his mouth to speak, Janet moved her hand, don’t.

‘This girl came to the party, she had them. She went round seeing what people wanted, I wasn’t that bothered but…’

‘Go on,’ Janet said gently.

‘Olivia really wanted to try something. She wanted me to buy some Ecstasy.’

‘You bought them?’ Janet said.

‘I had the taxi money,’ she said in a small voice. For the mythical taxi home. Except they’d intended staying out all night. And Olivia wouldn’t have had extra cash with her parents unaware of the party plan.

‘I wasn’t sure about it,’ Elise said, ‘but the girl said she’d got some Paradise. Legal. It would be like taking an E.’

Ade’s face drained as he heard the casual reference. Janet shot him a warning look.

‘It was legal,’ she said, ‘that’s why we picked it.’

‘It was bloody stupid,’ Ade growled, ‘that’s what it was.’

‘I know that now!’ Elise cried. ‘But Olivia was so… she really wanted to take something and everybody else was.’

‘Who was this girl?’ said Janet.

‘I don’t know. I’ve never seen her before.’

‘Not in school?’

‘No.’

‘Was she there when Olivia got sick?’ Janet said. ‘No, she went, she wasn’t there long, just while she was selling things. Will they arrest me?’ She looked terrified, fists clenched together, mouth wide with panic. Shaking.

‘No,’ Janet said. She had moved closer and held her daughter by the shoulders. ‘But they will want to talk to you and you must tell them everything, OK?’

‘Bought you some crisps,’ Rachel said, breaking Janet’s train of thought. ‘Keep your strength up.’

‘They’ll do the job,’ Janet said sarkily.

‘Be grateful,’ Rachel said, ‘or I’ll eat them.’ She studied her friend. ‘Do they know what she took?’

‘Not yet, probably some variant on meow meow. Elise described it as a small white tablet with a palm tree on, called Paradise. Sound familiar?’

Rachel nodded. ‘Like we found at the Perrys’. Town’s awash with it, according to the drug squad, it’s new on the scene.’

‘She kept saying it’s legal. I said to her so’s bleach and caustic soda and ground glass – it doesn’t mean it’s safe. They’d have been safer with something illegal. At least people know what to look out for, how to deal with it, and if there’s a dodgy batch around word gets out.’

‘Elise took it too?’

‘Yeah, she felt weird,’ she said, ‘but you would, wouldn’t you, when your mate-’ Sudden tears robbed her of speech. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said eventually.

‘Don’t be daft,’ Rachel chided.

‘What’s so awful is there is nothing, nothing Elise can do to make it right. It’s final. And she’ll have to live with that for the rest of her life.’

‘It wasn’t her fault though,’ Rachel said.

‘She lied-’

‘Yes, but she didn’t force Olivia to take the stuff, did she?’

‘No, of course not.’

‘She’d no idea it’d cause any harm, or she’d not have taken it herself,’ Rachel said.

‘OK,’ Janet agreed.

‘She got help as soon as she could, yes?’

‘Yes, of course.’

‘So, it was an accident, you have to tell her that. How could she have known? No one could,’ Rachel said.

‘She’s so hard on other people, she’ll be the same with herself.’

‘Can’t think where she gets that from,’ Rachel said.

Janet put her glass down. ‘I’m not hard.’

‘Sure you are. Principled, you’d call it, conscientious.’

‘Fair-minded, maybe,’ Janet countered.

‘If you like. Keep my seat warm.’

Janet watched Rachel head off for a smoke. She was right. Horrible and tragic though Olivia’s death was, it was an accident, but Janet didn’t know how on earth she’d get Elise to accept that. Dorothy wasn’t helping matters. She regarded drug use with the same unreserved horror others might have for bestiality or cannibalism.

‘It’s part of the landscape,’ Janet tried to tell her. ‘Everyone who tries it doesn’t end up addicted to crack cocaine or turning tricks to fund a heroin habit.’

‘Some will,’ her mother had retorted. ‘You never messed about with drugs, did you?’

‘Only Librium and Mogadon,’ Janet said dryly.

‘Don’t be flip,’ Dorothy said. ‘You were ill. I mean for kicks.’

‘No, Mum, but these days I’d be a rare exception.’

Ade hadn’t said much at all up to that point but he chipped in, ‘She needs to take responsibility for her actions.’

‘How exactly?’ Janet demanded. ‘She’s torn apart with guilt, she’s lost her best friend. How does she take responsibility for that?’

He had evaded the question, he was blustering, and she saw that. He was worried for Elise, felt terrible about Olivia, but he didn’t know how to deal with it so he was talking rubbish. ‘I never wanted her to go in the first place.’