No one says anything but Cora walks round to stand at my shoulder and hug me into her soft expensive neon pink cashmere from above, my face inhaling what must be half a bottle of Chanel. My breath shakes.
Asha reaches across to do small rhythmic strokes on my arm. Emma tightens her grip around me, clutching on to both of my palms with small, chapped hands. Her arm feels skinnier, I notice. A lot skinnier. I look up and realise that’s the case all over. I’ve been so consumed by what’s happening to me that I haven’t noticed that Emma’s gym trips have paid off. She must have lost two stone. She looks lovely.
I look down at their hands then up, at their faces.
I am encased from all sides and whether they are the same as me or different, whether they are ‘mum friends’ or whether we will know each other in ten years’ time or not, this is something meaningful. I lean back into them, hold their hands tighter.
‘One other thing,’ I say, quietly now. ‘The website operators told me where the video was posted from.’
I look up at their faces.
‘It was round here; it was sent from Cheshire.’
I see my friends exchange a look.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘Someone so close. I think that might be the creepiest thing of all.’
26
Scarlett
19 June
I wake up next to somebody I shouldn’t. Someone I’ve only slept next to once before, away from home.
We headed back to theirs after the pub and I stayed over.
Shit, shit, shit.
I reach down to the floor and pick up my bag.
See my phone, on silent, showing sixteen missed calls from Ed.
It’s 5 a.m.
I message quickly.
Shit.
All fine, stayed at Cora’s, too much to drink, sorry, I type.
This is like being nineteen. How has my life taken this turn? I might miss the music and the highs sometimes but I do not miss this paranoia, this emergency alarm of a wake-up. I think of Poppy at home, warm in her bed.
Cora rolls over.
‘Can you be quiet?’ she mutters. ‘If anyone but a baby wakes me up before 7 a.m., I do not deal well. In fact even when it’s a baby, I do not deal well.’
She turns back away from me and I lie there, still, as though this is a one-night stand and I’m running on awkward adrenalin.
I try not to move and I stare at Cora.
Silk sheets pulled around her waist, silk pyjamas and eye mask on. The bedside table similar to when we were away but messier; piles and piles of fancy pots, face masks, hefty glossy magazines, junk.
Just like the last time I woke up with her, she can’t have been as drunk as me last night. I can’t remember a thing. I wouldn’t have been capable of finding my pyjamas even if I’d been in the same house as them.
What the hell was I thinking, staying at Cora’s?
My phone beeps. Ed.
You can’t do that, Scarlett. I’ve been up all night freaking out.
Didn’t know where the hell you were. Jesus, we have a child here. I nearly called the police.
But you didn’t, I think. What’s the point of nearly? Would nearly have found me if I was in trouble?
It’s irrational to be angry about something that didn’t happen but nothing is rational now.
I sit up in bed, try to move stealthily but even expensive silk sheets aren’t silent. Cora grumbles.
‘Look, before you go, you should know something,’ she murmurs and my body is on its hind legs again, primed. ‘I’ve seen mention of stuff online about a mum blogger and a sex tape. All anon, and obviously I had no idea it was relevant … until last night. But someone might have connected the dots, hon. And the press are gunning for influencers at the moment. If you don’t want to be on the front page of MailOnline, I’d think about deleting the blog. Going quiet. For a while at least. And delete social media too, Scarlett. Seriously. You need to make yourself uninteresting.’
Her head is still on her pillow; her voice muffled but her message clear.
My stomach makes an odd noise. My insides flare with a mix of terror and last night’s wine.
Every time I think I can’t take another hit, it comes.
I mutter yes, I will, and thanks for telling me and then I slope out, Cora muttering instructions for the door and the intimidating security gate as I go.
‘Lock and put the key back through, hon,’ she mutters, a soft foot with bright red nails sticking out of the duvet as I walk past. ‘And meet me at the coffee shop at ten. I’ll message the girls. We’ll all need coffee and sugar this morning.
I let myself out and tremble as I walk home, terrified of being even more exposed than I already am, running eventually because I just need to move fast, do something.
I told Asha, Cora and Emma about the video. The last remaining people in my life who didn’t know, and now they do. It’s out. It’s staying out.
When my key opens the door, all I get is stony silence. Ed is up and dressed, despite the fact it’s before 6 a.m., and he stalks around the house.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again as he walks past me in the kitchen without a word. ‘I got drunk with the girls.’
He looks at me.
‘Not a problem. Not like you have responsibilities.’
And I snap then. ‘Like you did when you left me?’
He says nothing but his eyes are still on mine. It’s unnerving. Eventually I walk away. How am I going to tell him that there’s no money to be made from the blog now, either? That I’m about to walk out of this room and shut everything to do with Cheshire Mama down.
‘Whatever this is …’ Ed says then, eyes on the clothes I have slept in and
