One of the Girls(72)

‘Quite the bump on the head Robyn had,’ her mother said, something sharp in her tone.

‘It was,’ Bella agreed. ‘How are you feeling this morning?’ She crossed the kitchen, about to take a seat at the table – but Robyn stood.

‘Exhausted. I could use a bit more sleep. You okay getting home?’

‘Oh. Sure. I need to head back. I’ve got the car, so …’ Bella didn’t have any belongings with her, so she simply gathered her shoes and car keys, and moved into the hallway.

Robyn opened the front door, eyes still lowered.

Barefoot on the front step, faux-leather heels dangling from her hand, Bella asked, ‘You okay?’

Robyn touched a hand to her head. ‘Turns out alcohol plus a concussion aren’t a great mix. Can barely remember a thing.’

Bella’s face flamed. ‘Right.’

A long, awkward silence followed.

‘I guess I better go then,’ Bella said.

‘Sure. See you,’ Robyn had said, gaze trailing to the ground in front of her feet.

Humiliation stung Bella’s cheeks as she hurried across the cul de sac in her glittering dress. She slung her shoes on the passenger seat, stabbed the key into the ignition, then stalled the car twice. Finally, she roared away with a screeching, over-revved gear change. Stereo volume dialled to max, the bellow of music drowned the smack of her palm as she slammed it into the steering wheel.

Now, standing on the beach, she faced Robyn. ‘I remember everything about that night – and I know you do, too.’

In the darkness, Robyn held her gaze.

What was it she wanted: an apology? An admission? Or simply an acknowledgement that it’d happened at all?

‘I’m so sorry,’ Robyn said eventually, before dropping her head, skirting Bella, then disappearing into the shadows.





64

Eleanor

Laughter and wood smoke curled into the night as Eleanor slipped away from the beach fire.

They’d tried, the others. Fen listening as she talked about Sam. Robyn always checking she had a drink and asking her opinion on the playlist. Lexi making space for her by the beach fire, wanting to chat. But Eleanor couldn’t pretend any longer. She was exhausted by it all – the smiling, the talking, the saying one thing but thinking something entirely different.

She wrapped the bottle of vodka within a blanket and placed it in the foot of the rowing boat. Shielded by darkness, she dragged the boat towards the shoreline, keeping her distance from the fire. She hoped no one would notice, asking why she was going out rowing alone, at night. What would she say? That she couldn’t bear to be in her own skin a moment longer? That she’d survived three nights of the hen weekend, watching one woman glowing at their centre, and couldn’t do it anymore?

She wasn’t even sure what this was – rowing out into the night with a bottle of spirits. Or maybe she did know. After all, she’d woken months before on her bathroom floor, cheek pressed to the linoleum, vision blurred. She remembered that place. The terrifying truth was that she was only ever one twist of a pill bottle away from it; one step from a cliff edge; one dive into the deep.

She splashed through the shallows – the party loud enough to swallow her escape – then hauled herself over the side of the boat. Grappling with the oars, she began to row. At first, she moved jerkily, with short, uneven strokes, but soon enough a pleasing rhythm mellowed through her arms, water dripping silver from the oars. She watched the glow of the beach fire and the silhouettes of the others fading in her wake.

She rowed for some time, the moon lighting a path that led her away from the cove.

When her arms began to tire, she set down the oars. There. She’d drift, let the currents decide.

She lifted the bottle of vodka to her lips and took a heavy gulp, the alcohol burning her throat. Then she laid the blanket across the foot of the boat and arranged herself on top, making a pillow of her arms.

The stars. All the stars.

At home, if she woke in the middle of the night and couldn’t get back to sleep, she’d step out onto the little balcony of her flat, tip her head to the sky, searching for the few stars that the city lights hadn’t muted. It made her problems feel small. Life and the universe and all of it so large and looming, while she – with that black stone of sadness lodged in her chest – was so small.

Exhaustion crashed over her. It was so tiring to pretend. Sometimes when she was at the supermarket or waiting in a traffic jam, she’d look around her and think: How many of you are pretending to be happy, to feel normal, right now? Or is it only me? She was out in the world walking and talking and cooking and eating and showing people in a thousand different ways that she was okay. But she wasn’t.

Ed had told her she was depressed. His solution was a gym membership – as if her sadness could be physically exercised from her. Then, after the sleeping-pills incident, he insisted she see a doctor. She went through the motions, taking the prescription for antidepressants to the pharmacy, knowing those pills wouldn’t touch her lips.

A drug couldn’t make her happy.

Only Sam.

Out here in the boat, she was free to think about him. She liked to save her memories throughout the day, storing them up, like the way she’d save chocolate as a child, wanting to enjoy the sweet, creamy flavour alone.

Now, she let her mind roam towards him. She thought of his fondness for stopping in the street to talk to other people’s dogs, crouching as he rubbed behind their ears, saying, ‘All right there, mate? That good?’ She thought of how he liked to wear socks in bed, even in summer. My feet like cosy. She thought about his love of board games. Not just Monopoly and Scrabble but old games, ones she remembered vaguely from childhood, like Mouse Trap and Operation.