The Day She Came Back(36)
‘Well, no, not yet! But she wouldn’t, would she, if she was clever; she’d bide her time!’
Daksha lay two chunky logs on the flames, which had now truly taken hold, and took up her place in the opposite corner of the sofa. The two sat awkwardly.
‘I’m worried about you.’
‘So you’ve said, Daks! God! Give it up! What do you want me to do? Jump up and down? Make out to be happy? Sing? What are you, my mother? Wouldn’t that be absolutely brilliant? No mum for eighteen years and then suddenly I’ve got Mrs Joshi cooking my food and cleaning the kitchen, Sarah, and now you! Mother figures crawling out of the woodwork! Oh, lucky me!’ It frightened her a little how close to the surface her anger lurked, revealed by the most minor verbal scratch of irritation.
Daksha stared at her.
There was a beat or two of uncomfortable, unbearable silence, which rang loudly, cocooning them. And suddenly, in that beautiful room with floral paintings on the walls, vintage cushions nestling into the crooks of the arms of the sofas and chairs and a glorious orange fire roaring in the grate, it felt like the least cosy place she could imagine.
‘Do you want me to stay here tonight? Or would you rather I went home?’ Daksha asked calmly.
‘I don’t care! I don’t care right now!’ Victoria rammed her fingers into her fringe, hating the words that left her mouth, hating the bitter tang of regret on which they coasted from her tongue and hating more than anything the fact that everyone had lied to her! But she didn’t know how to stop, how to calm down, and she certainly didn’t know how to apologise. Her emotions were a whirling tornado, stoppered inside a bottle, and try as she might, she couldn’t smash it. Everything felt like too much, even having to be nice to her friend. Her very, very best friend in the whole wide world. She despised the moment, knowing she would hate it for as long as it lived in her memory.
Daksha calmly stood and smoothed her jeans. ‘In that case, I think I’ll go and pack my stuff and get my mum to collect me.’
‘Whatever you want.’ Victoria pulled the blanket up to her chin and slid down on the sofa.
‘What I want is to go home,’ Daksha spoke directly, if quietly, as she left the room.
Victoria felt the sharp pang of regret at the thought of her friend leaving her alone, but misplaced pride and confusion prevented her from speaking up and trying to make things good. It was self-punishing and felt appropriate for her state of mind, in which she kept reminding herself that she was the victim in all of this. She heard Daksha clatter down the stairs and stayed put.
When the car beeped on the drive, Victoria sat up. She felt torn between running to the hallway, throwing her arms around her friend and crying out her apology, and wanting nothing more than to be by herself, alone with her thoughts and the photograph and letters that offered such a horrible insight. It was still surreal to her that Prim had let her down in this way and that even Grandpa had known, Bernard too, but not her. Daksha stood in the doorway to the drawing room with her overnight bag in her hands and resting against her shins.
‘I took the chicken out of the oven.’
‘You haven’t eaten.’ Victoria felt bad that Mrs Joshi had cooked for them both.
‘I’m not hungry.’ Daksha wrinkled her nose, as if even the thought of food was more than she could stand. ‘You know where I am if you need me.’
‘Yep.’
Victoria watched her go and heard the clunk of the front door, followed by the sound of the car crunching its way across the gravel to the lane, and then it was quiet. It was the first time she had been on her own, properly on her own, since Prim’s death. She felt odd, tired, sad and already lonely.
Is this what it will be like now?
Slipping down further on the sofa with her knees curled to her chest and her head sinking into a silk cushion as the fire crackled in the grate, she fell into a deep and restful sleep, claimed by exhaustion . . .
The beep of her phone woke her with a start.
There was a split second when she didn’t know where she was. Her neck ached, as she had slept with it at an odd angle, and she felt the chill of the early hours in her bones. It was unusual for her to wake and find herself downstairs and not in her bed. And again, a recurring theme in recent weeks, her first thought was where’s Prim? Before the sharp bite of reality clamped her throat, making breathing momentarily tricky. And not only this, but the Prim she had relied on, Prim her friend, her mentor, her mother figure – well, she didn’t even exist. This thought was enough to plunge her into an icy pool of loneliness where it was all she could do to stay afloat.
The room was now in darkness, the fire long ago dwindled. And of course no Daksha. Jumping up, she switched on the table lamp at the back of the sofa and was glad of the soft light that helped calm her racing pulse. Pulling the patchwork eiderdown from the back of one of the chairs, she wrapped it around herself. Finally, sitting in her quilted wigwam, her breathing settled and her chill subsided.
Victoria reached for her phone and was surprised to see the beep had come from a Facebook alert and not, as she had assumed, a text from Daksha. It was a message request from Flynn McNamara. Her gut leapt with expectation. She accepted it immediately and read the words with more than a pinch of curiosity.
What you doing?
The message was as uninformative as it was random and surprising. It made her laugh, a welcome distraction that lifted her momentarily from the emotional tempest in which she was mired. She considered her response before replying with: