Watching Edie: The most unsettling psychological thriller you’ll read this year

‘Mum,’ I say nervously, ‘this is—’ but Edie walks in front of me, giving Mum a big smile. ‘Hiya, I’m Edie. I’m going to be starting at Heather’s school. Wow,’ she adds, gazing around herself, ‘look at all those clocks, bet you’re never late, are you?’

‘Um, no,’ my mother replies faintly as I grab hold of Edie’s arm.

‘Come on,’ I say, ‘let’s go to my room,’ and together we run up the stairs, laughter bubbling in my chest, leaving my mum standing by herself in the hall, staring after us.

When I close my bedroom door I look at Edie standing by my bed and feel suddenly shy. ‘I love your skirt,’ I tell her at last. ‘And your hair.’ I look down at my own clothes bought for me by Mum. ‘I wish I looked like you.’

‘Don’t be daft,’ she says, wandering over to my dressing table and picking up a tube of spot cream. ‘You should see me without my make-up.’

‘I don’t wear any,’ I admit. ‘I don’t know how to do it.’

‘I can show you if you want.’ She rummages in her bag and pulls out some mascara and lipstick. ‘This is all I’ve got, though. How about you?’

I hesitate, not sure whether to show her at first, but then I figure of all the things I could share with her, all the secrets I could reveal about myself, this one’s probably not the worst. I go and lift a shoebox down from the top of my wardrobe and pull off the lid. We both stare down at its contents: a mass of unopened lipsticks, mascaras, foundations and eye shadows. I have everything, in every shade.

Edie whistles. ‘Wow. Where’d you get the money for all that?’

‘I suppose I … well, actually … I stole them.’ Even as I say the words the feeling I get when I do it comes back to me; the awful, almost sickening fear of how terrible the consequences would be if I were caught somehow only making it more addictive. I never wear any of it, though – it’s like I have no desire for it once I’ve slipped it up my sleeve in Boots.

She’s still staring at me open-mouthed. ‘What, shoplifted?’ She says it so loudly and sounds so scandalized that I glance at my closed door in alarm.

‘Shussh!’ I hiss urgently. Our eyes meet and though I have no idea why, we both burst out laughing. And pretty soon we can’t seem to stop. The laughter gathers and swells until neither of us can speak, and finally I have to sit on the bed and hold my stomach, barely able to breathe. I have never laughed like this with anyone before. I don’t even know exactly what’s so funny. Edie flops down next to me and I look at her and I think, I love you.

‘Come on,’ she says, and taking my hand pulls me up off the bed and sits me in front of my dressing-table mirror. She starts with my hair, picking up my brush and running it gently through my thick yellow frizz. I close my eyes. The touch of her hands on me, the slow, patient stroke of the brush, it’s all so wonderful, so lovely. I can smell the cigarette smoke on her fingers, a scent of apples when she moves. A hush falls, there’s only the ticking of the clocks beyond my closed door and the sound of the bristles against my scalp.

And then, into the silence, she says, ‘Did you see that lad I was talking to, in the square?’

I open my eyes. The brush stops. When I look up at her reflection I find her watching me, waiting for a response. ‘Yes,’ I admit.

‘Had you ever seen him before?’

I shake my head.

‘Me neither. He said his name was Connor.’ And by the way she says it, I somehow know that she has longed to say the name out loud, loves the shape and sound of it on her tongue.

There’s a silence. ‘He seemed to like you,’ I offer at last, understanding that it’s what she wants, and instantly her face lights up.

‘You think?’ A strange half-smile plays around her lips as she turns back to her reflection in the mirror, and I can tell that she’s no longer here with me, that it’s him in the room with her now, not me.

Even before we reach the top of the hill we hear it: the screams and music and the dull roar of generators, loudspeaker voices and a klaxon’s wail. And then, there we are, Edie and I, looking down at it all spread out below us, the coloured lights and the big wheel and the people and the caravans and the stalls. A magical, other world transported into the middle of Braxton fields.

Edie nudges me in the ribs and I look down to see a bottle of vodka in her hand. I shake my head but when she grins and thrusts it at me again, something makes me hesitate. Real life recedes and in its place I see spread out below me in the lights and music and laughter a million shimmering possibilities. On impulse I take the bottle from her and swig it back, the liquid choking and burning my throat, making me splutter while Edie laughs. ‘Come on,’ she says, grabbing my hand, and we run down the hill together, to where the fair waits for us, the vodka trailing excitement through me like a firework.

I can’t believe I’m here, that my parents have let me come. I’d walked in on one of their arguments earlier, too excited by Edie’s phone call to notice the sound of voices hissing from beneath the closed kitchen door like a gas leak. I think Dad had let me go to make Mum cross. ‘For pity’s sake, Jennifer, she’s sixteen,’ he’d said, and I ran to get my coat, not daring to catch Mum’s eye, my head already full of Edie and of what we’d do tonight.

And now here we are in the midst of it all: little kids with fluorescent rings around their necks, candy floss and giant cuddly toys and goldfish in bags, groups of lads with cans of beer and girls shrieking on the Hearts and Diamonds. A loudspeaker booms a thudding bass aswe stand by a ride called Moon Rocket that sends a cage of screaming people soaring into the air. It’s amazing, the colours and noise and lights, but when I turn to Edie I suddenly realize that she’s scanning the crowds as if searching for something. ‘Are you all right?’ I ask her.

She shrugs. ‘Yeah, sure. What shall we go on? Have you got any money?’ Excitedly I pull out the handful of notes I’d grabbed from my savings box before coming tonight and her eyes widen. ‘Christ, Heather,’ she laughs. ‘You been robbing banks now too?’

We go on everything, running from ride to ride. I don’t mind paying for everything at all. I drink more vodka and I laugh and scream as if, were I to stop for a moment, the night might end, the fair and all its possibilities might vanish. But when I notice again Edie’s distracted expression I understand with a stab of disappointment that it’s him she’s looking for, the lad from the square – it’s him who she came for tonight. And soon I’m searching him out too, in the gaps between the rides where the fair’s bright lights don’t quite reach, faces lingering in the shadows, mouths sucking on cigarettes and sipping from cans. Strangers’ eyes flickering back at us, but he’s not there.

The last ride we go on is the waltzers and we spin round and round, the speed and the motion causing Edie to slide along the plastic seat towards me. I feel her softness and her hard angles as she lands against me, catch the scent of her hair. We’re dizzy when we get off, giddy and disorientated and laughing, but I look up and there he is. Standing with some other lads a few metres away, down by the side of the dodgems, huddled over something that they’re passing between them. It’s him. He’s half-turned away from us but it’s definitely Connor, and suddenly he looks up, his face flashing red, yellow, purple, green, his eyes scanning the crowds before landing on Edie, dark and steady as the barrels of a gun.

I try to steer her away but I’m too late. Her eyes are locked on his and it’s as if he’s a magician, a hypnotist, the way she goes to him, as though sleepwalking, as though the rest of the world and all its light and music has vanished. I trail after her and just before she reaches him I pull on her arm. ‘What?’ she asks, without looking away from him, without dropping his eyes, even for a second.

‘It’s late. I better go home.’

‘OK,’ she says, already moving off again. ‘I’ll see you later, yeah?’

‘Aren’t you coming?’

‘No.’ She shrugs off my hand and I feel a sharp slap of rejection. ‘Go home,’ she says. ‘I’m staying here.’ And she moves away, to where he’s waiting for her. For a moment I watch her go before I turn back through the crowds alone.

After (#ulink_759352f3-309b-5e6e-862e-869ae1813745)

The floorboards are bare except for a large, colourful rug, the shelves full of paperback books. Somewhere, down the hall, a crackling record plays a song by a man with a scratchy, rasping voice. I sit on the sofa alone, twisting my fingers together, wishing I hadn’t come. Above my head, occasional thumps and dragging sounds are interrupted by intermittent swearing: the man who had opened the door to me three minutes ago had clearly forgotten I was coming. ‘Won’t be long,’ he shouts, and I go to the bay window to look out at the street.

This part of New Cross is different from mine. The neat terraced houses have freshly painted front doors in muted shades of green or blue or grey; little olive trees stand neatly outside them in terracotta pots. Down the road a pub that had once been dilapidated for years has tables and hanging baskets out front, where couples drink beer in the sunshine, their babies asleep in expensive buggies. I turn back to the room and look around me, taking in the books, the prints on the walls, the stylish furniture and rugs – the sort of place I’d once imagined myself living, in fact. And I think about that old me as if of a stranger, so certain I’d been that the world would be mine for the taking one day.

At that moment a boy of about five walks into the room. He’s mixed race and very lovely looking with a cloud of light brown Afro hair and deep blue eyes. He’s gazing at me very seriously, as if unsure whether I’m real or not. ‘Hi there,’ I say after a silence, just as the man returns, carrying with effort a cot.

‘Here you go,’ he says, smiling. ‘Sorry about that.’ He puts his hand on the boy’s head and they watch me scrabble about in my bag for my purse.

‘Thirty, was it?’ I ask.

He nods and takes the money I hand him. ‘Cheers. You want me to dismantle it to put in your car, or do you have a van or something?’ It’s only then that I realize – and the stupidity of it leaves me gaping at him with embarrassment – I had entirely forgotten to think about how I’d get it home.

The child and his father look back at me expectantly. Down the hall, the record comes to an end. ‘I don’t have a car,’ I admit.

He looks at me in surprise, his gaze dropping to my seven-month bump. ‘Were you going to carry it home on your back?’

And so, several minutes later, despite my many protestations, I find myself sat between the boy, whose name I learn is Stan, and the man who tells me he’s called James, in the front seat of a battered pickup truck, being driven home with the cot sliding and rattling behind us. I’m overcome with embarrassment.

‘Stop apologizing,’ James says. ‘It’s no trouble, really.’

I glance sideways at him. He’s nice enough looking, with very black skin and an attractive, open face, but though he’s in his thirties and well spoken, he’s wearing a bizarre assortment of clothes: a neon orange jumper with army trousers and paint-splattered boots, his hair cut in peroxide blond tufts. He looks like a student, or a homeless person, I think. During the short drive he’s never quiet or still, whistling between his teeth, commenting on other people’s driving, asking me questions about when I’m due, what I do, where I’m from, all the while ruffling his son’s hair, thumping the horn or drumming his fingers against the steering wheel. I can’t think of anything to say to him. He’s exhausting and I’m relieved when we reach my building at last.

He jumps out and starts unloading the cot on to the pavement. ‘You got someone to help you carry it in?’ he asks. ‘Which floor do you live on?’

I shrug. ‘It’s OK. I can manage.’

He looks at me and I see it dawn on him that there’s no one to help. ‘Don’t be silly,’ he says. ‘I’ll give you a hand.’

And I feel hemmed in by his persistence, his insistence on helping me. I wish he would leave the cot and me alone here on the street. But up the three flights of stairs he follows me, carrying the cot awkwardly, swearing under his breath each time he bangs it against his shin, the little boy trailing after us.

When I open the door to my flat, the threadbare carpet, the old, ugly furniture and the dirty paintwork look suddenly much worse than they did half an hour before. ‘Put it anywhere,’ I say. He hoists it through into the lounge, knocking a shelf and sending its contents scattering, magazines and old bills and a dozen or so loose pages of drawings falling at our feet. I kneel down, hurriedly grabbing at the pictures and stuffing them back into the folder. But it’s too late: he plucks one from where it landed on his foot and begins examining it. ‘These yours?’ he asks, and I feel my face begin to burn, so painful is it to have this stranger – anyone at all – look at my sketches; my inky landscapes peopled by their spindly ghosts.

I hold out my hand to take it from him, but he’s still engrossed. ‘This is actually really good,’ he says slowly, and then he looks at me, his expression different now, curious, reassessing. ‘Do you paint too, or just draw?’ he asks, ‘Because I—’