She nods, grim, without missing a beat. Just like with Hunter, if I expected sheepish, I’m not getting it.
‘That’s it, yeah. Not ideal, hon. But we have something you want, the ability to not post the video elsewhere, not to tell the websites it’s you and let this really go viral. And to keep your other secret. Not share that one with the world. And you have something we want. For Emma, it’s revenge and seeing you suffer. For me it’s simpler: cash. With a little cut for Em, obviously.’
Cora appraises me, sitting there on her cream sofa sodden from running here in the downpour. My hair drips globules onto the leather. She leans over, takes a very long blue fingernail and wipes one off my forehead onto the floor.
‘Would put the heating on for you hon,’ she says. ‘But like I say, too skint.’
She stands, looking at me there, dripping, shaking.
‘Emma likes seeing you broken,’ she says, waving a hand around to indicate that I am demonstrating broken perfectly, right now. ‘You’re less of a rival to her, less likely to turn Robert’s head now you’re a depressed stay-at-home mum in joggers. Not so cool. Not so superior.’
Mascara, I know, is likely streaming down my face.
I stay quiet, digesting.
It’s a lot to digest, see, when your friends turn out to hate you and then attempt to blackmail you. Discussed and disgust, all over again.
Quietly, feeling the sadness seep into my bones with the rainwater, I look up at Cora, and then I find the energy to stand up too. Look her in the eye.
‘I don’t have money,’ I say. ‘I hate to disappoint you but even if I were willing to give it to you, which I’m not, I don’t have it.’
And it’s then that Cora turns. Has me up against the wall of her living room. Just underneath the giant studio photo of her face, of her bare soft shoulders.
She’s not physically imposing at five foot five and an untoned size twelve but I see something in her eyes that scares me for the strength it can give: desperation.
‘This isn’t just me wanting a few quid, Scarlett,’ she hisses, even though no one can hear her. ‘Things are bad. My beautiful house will be repossessed. This is my daughter’s home.’
‘I get that, I do but …’ I start.
‘It’s not just that, Scarlett. It’s the school we’ve had her enrolled in since she was born. It’s the cars, it’s imagining what we do without the fucking nanny and the cleaner and the housekeeper who run our entire existence. It’s our whole life. Everything.’
She has her hand across my neck and it’s hard to get out what I want to say but I try.
‘You can make more money,’ I manage. ‘Michael has a good job. You can get it back.’
No mention of her job because no one in their right mind thought that Cora was paying the mortgage with her Crunchie specials. But what was her former job? She’s never mentioned that before. We’ve never mentioned a lot of things before, I think. That’s been the problem.
In reality, Cora was on what seems to be an unending maternity leave with a token gesture cupcake hobby that allowed her to justify paying somebody else to raise her child. But it’s me who should give her my money? Sure.
Something is happening to her, seizing her and taking over and she pushes harder with her arm across me. I stay as still as I can like there is an angry dog or a large bee coming close. Apply the same theory to any predator, I think. Don’t aggravate. Placate them. Keep them calm.
‘Michael doesn’t have a fucking job,’ she hisses at me. ‘Do you think I would be this terrified if Michael had a job?’
‘What are you on about?’ I start. ‘In the city. With the finance company.’
She goes on about it enough; endless hints about how much cash he brings home. My details are sketchy but I know that much.
‘Sacked,’ she says. ‘For gross misconduct. Apparently he was perving over some new starter. Truly gross misconduct. I was too mortified to tell you all.’
Another omission in a sea of wet wipes and rice cakes.
We stand in silence then while I take that in, or perhaps even while she does too. She looks shell-shocked at her own news.
‘So you need another money maker,’ I say. ‘And that’s me and my misery.’
She nods, grim.
‘Well it’s either that or sell this,’ she says, indicating her fake boobs. ‘But I’m knocking on a bit now. And that’s more your style.’
I wince.
‘Are there really rumours about me on social media? About the blogger with the sex video?’
She laughs, from her belly like I’ve heard so many times before but never at me. Never like this.
‘Yeah that was true!’ she says. ‘That’s what gave me the idea to fill them in. The noticeboards speculate. No one’s put it together yet. But they would lap up the full story. Jesus, who knew you were such a follower, though? The second I mentioned it to you, you deleted everything.’
She’s right. How easily I will remove parts of my life as soon as someone tells me to, I think. Happens all the time. Ed. Cora.
‘It didn’t start off this big,’ she says. ‘I thought I’d help Emma get revenge and make a few quid to help with my credit card debt at the same time. But then Michael lost his job. I was poor growing up, Scarlett, and I can’t be poor again. And don’t give me that bullshit about having no money. I’ve seen your house. You both have good jobs.’
‘No, Cora. No. I left my job. Because of the video. Did you not get that, that night in the pub?’
She waves her arm dismissively. ‘But you’ll get another one,’ she says. ‘Same sort of thing. Well paid.’
Cora has the decency – can you call it that? – to duck her head before she says the
