The Best of Friends by Alex Day (accelerated reader books .txt) 📕

Fran, to enjoy life, away from the stultifying surroundings and relentless, unmitigated pursuit of material gain that seems to be the ultimate goal of every single person in the places we had come from. And in America I could legitimately hope to get a job, to be something in my own right rather than just existing as Dan’s wife. We moved to New York and I began work as an assistant in a film company.

I enjoyed it.

Then I fell pregnant.

We were delighted, obviously. I was still young by my peers’ standards – only twenty-six – but having been with Dan for so long by then, it seemed the obvious next step. Secretly, I hoped that the arrival of children would fill the gaps of my isolation and force me to curb my bad habit forever. But the pregnancy was a difficult one, as is often the way when expecting twins. The weather was awful: bone-cold and grey, day after day. Having grown to hate the heat, now I missed it like one of my own limbs. I dreamt of the sunshine, of the constant feeling, when outside, of being just a bit too hot for comfort, that had characterised the last few years. The glacial conditions were accompanied by ever-worsening morning sickness, which soon developed into hyperemesis gravidarum. At its worst, I was vomiting up to twenty times a day. I spent a week in hospital on a drip.

After that, Dan refused to let me go back to my job. He told me that the only thing that mattered was my health and that of the babies. Which was good, really, as I no longer had a job to go back to. I’d been sacked, caught ‘misusing’ the company phones and computers for personal matters. Pregnancy turned out to be the perfect cover story. Dan never knew. It was a close shave but I got away with it. Perhaps it was that lucky escape that gave me the courage to believe that I always would. Though right now I’m not so sure.

It’s not just the car. The phone calls are more frequent than ever.

They come at odd hours, always number withheld, and when I pick up, there’s a slight pause – just enough to set my heart racing – and then silence, before the long, flat tone of disconnection. Two in one afternoon during the party is some sort of a record, but since then there’s been at least one every five days or so. Which makes me wonder if they are watching me, if they know my routines, have access to my calendar.

If they know my children’s routines.

That latter thought is too chilling. I will stop asking the au pair to do the school run for Toby and Sam and I’ll do it myself. I need to be alert, to know if we’re being followed. That black car gets everywhere. Purring down the main street, past the post office and the greengrocer’s. Slowing down outside the general store as if I might be about to step out onto the pavement.

When we’re friends, if I tell you about it, about any of this, you’ll probably say I’m overreacting, that I’m being paranoid. That I have an over-active imagination. That’s the way people like you, who are somewhat staid and uninventive, think. You might even be right. But in any case, I’m not planning on divulging.

No matter how well we get to know each other, I can’t share this with anyone.

The house is quiet when I enter. I go through to the kitchen. Opening the huge glass windows, I step onto the terrace. I can hear shouts and cries drifting towards me from the adventure playground. We had it constructed not long after we bought the house. It’s custom-designed and hand-built and fits perfectly into the back of what was once the walled vegetable and flower garden. These days, Toby and Sam rarely play on it when they’re alone, but your boys are with them today.

Now that the weather is improving and the evenings are getting lighter, they often go out onto the green for a football match after school and it’s not uncommon for various village boys to drift back here with them afterwards. I don’t mind; in fact, I love that they all congregate here. I like the house and garden to be full of laughter and happiness. I like having my children around me, knowing they are near. Especially in the current circumstances, where fear lingers, ever-present, in the outside world.

Walking along the terrace, I make out four little figures clambering over the wooden structure. They’re supposed to be supervised when playing here. However safely it’s been built, there’s enormous potential for accidents. I’m absolutely against our risk-averse society but, were someone to fall, I’d want there to be an adult around to deal with it. I look for the au pair and see her sitting at a picnic table that the gardener uses for potting plants, huddled into her winter coat even though it’s now May. She’s not only too far away, but she’s also on her phone, which is strictly forbidden when on duty.

She jumps when she sees me approaching and hurriedly shoves the phone in her pocket, starting to explain in her broken English that she needed to make a call and came to get a better signal nearer the house. But she falters halfway through as she realises she’s landing herself in it even further.

I wave her excuses away and tell her she can knock off work now that I’m back. She’s fairly stupid and inclined to be truculent, but the boys quite like her and the main thing is that she’s monumentally unattractive. No temptation for Dan there. She’s also always available for extra babysitting by dint of the fact that she doesn’t ever go out or do anything other than watch YouTube videos in her room in her free time.

Tramping onwards over the grass towards the fortress structure, I soon make out