The Two Lives of Lydia Bird(3)

‘Up where?’ I say, sitting up straighter, clocking the glass of water and bottle of pills in Elle’s hand.

‘Bed,’ she says, an edge of steel to her voice.

‘I’m fine here,’ I mutter, even though our sofa isn’t actually all that comfortable to sleep on. ‘It’s not even bedtime. We can watch …’ I bat my hand towards the TV in the corner, trying to remember any of the soaps. I sigh, annoyed that my tired brain can’t muster it. ‘You know, that one with the pub and the bald men and the shouting.’

She smiles and rolls her eyes. ‘You mean EastEnders.’

‘That’s the one,’ I say, distracted as I scan the room for the remote to turn the TV on.

‘It’ll have finished by now. Besides, you haven’t watched EastEnders for the last five years or more,’ she says, having none of it.

I screw my face up. ‘I have. There’s … there’s that woman with the dangly earrings and … and the one played by Barbara Windsor,’ I say, lifting my chin.

Elle shakes her head. ‘Both dead,’ she says.

Poor them, I think, and their poor families.

Elle holds her hand out. ‘It’s time to go to bed, Lydia,’ she says, gentle and firm, more nurse than sister.

Hot tears prick the back of my retinas. ‘I don’t think I can.’

‘You can,’ she says, resolute, her hand still outstretched. ‘What else are you going to do? Sleep on the sofa for the rest of your life?’

‘Would that be so bad?’

Elle perches next to me and picks up my hand, the pills in her lap. ‘It would, really, Lyds,’ she says. ‘If it was Freddie left here alone rather than you, you’d want him to get some proper sleep, wouldn’t you?’

I nod, miserable. Of course I would.

‘In fact, you’d haunt him rotten until he went to bed,’ she says, rubbing her thumb over my knuckles, and I half choke on the permanent ball of tears I’ve been trying to breathe around since the day Freddie died.

I watch her shake a small neon-pink tablet into her palm. Is that all it’s going to take to put me straight? A few weeks of solid sleep and I’ll be ship-shape-shiny and good to go again?

Elle holds my gaze, unwavering, and tears slide down my cheeks as I realize how shattered I am; I’m as emotionally and physically low as I can go. Or at least I hope I am, because I don’t think I’ll survive if there’s further to fall than this. Taking the pill with trembling fingers, I put it in my mouth and wash it down. At my bedroom door, I turn to Elle.

‘I need to do this on my own,’ I whisper.

She brushes my lank hair out of my eyes. ‘You sure?’ Her dark eyes study my face. ‘I can stay with you until you’re asleep, if you like?’

I sniff, looking at the floor, crying as usual. ‘I know you could,’ I say, catching hold of her hand and holding on tight. ‘But I think I’d better …’ I can’t quite find the words I need; I don’t know if it’s because the tablet is having an effect or simply because there aren’t any adequate words.

Elle nods. ‘I’ll be just downstairs if you want me, okay? I’m not going anywhere.’

My fingers close around the handle. I’ve kept the door shut since the day Mum changed the bed linen, not wanting to catch even an accidental glimpse of the pristine bed on my way to the bathroom. I’ve built it up into this thing in my head, this alien place, as off-limits as a crime scene criss-crossed with yellow tape.

‘It’s just a bed,’ I whisper, slowly pushing the door open. There’s no yellow tape blocking my entry and there are no monsters under the bed. But there’s no Freddie Hunter either and that’s every kind of heartbreaking.

‘Just a bed,’ Elle says, her hand soothing on my back. ‘A place to rest.’

But she’s lying. We both know it’s so much more than that. This room, mine and Freddie’s bedroom, was one of the main reasons we bought this house. Airy, bathed in daylight thanks to the low-slung sash windows and honey floorboards, striped by bright slices of moonlight on clear summer nights.

Someone, Elle presumably, has been in already to switch on the lamp on my side of the bed, a pool of mellow light to welcome me, even though the sun hasn’t quite set yet. She’s turned the bed down too; it’s all more hotel than bedroom. The overwhelming scent in here when I close the door is line-fresh bed linen. No traces of my perfume mingled with Freddie’s aftershave, no office-crumpled shirts slung carelessly over the armchair or shoes kicked off before they could make it as far as the bottom of the wardrobe. It’s neat as a new pin; I feel like a visitor in my own life.

‘It’s just a bed,’ I whisper again, sitting on the edge of the mattress. I close my eyes as I lie down, curling on to my side beneath the quilt.

We spent more than we should have on bedding befitting of our Savoy bed; white cotton sheets with a higher thread count than most hotels I’ve ever stayed in. As my body slides against the sheets, I realize they’re already warm. Elle’s put a hot-water bottle in here for me, my lovely sister, taking away the chill of clean sheets. My bed, our bed, envelops me like an old friend I feel guilty for neglecting.

I lie on my side of the mattress, my body painful with sorrow, my arms outstretched to find him as always. Then I push the hot-water bottle to his side, warming the sheets before I move across and lie there myself, clutching the heat of the bottle to my chest with both arms. I bury my wet face in his pillow and wail like a wounded animal, a noise as alien as it is uncontrollable.