Conversations with Friends(55)

I went to the library after that to start an essay that was due in two weeks’ time. My clothes were still damp from the rain and I could hear a thin ringing noise in my right ear, but I mostly ignored that. My real concern was for the acuity of my critical faculties. I wasn’t sure if I remembered exactly what the word ‘epistemic’ meant, or if I was still able to read. For a few minutes I laid my head down on the library table and listened to the ringing noise get louder and louder, until it felt almost like a friend who was talking to me. You could die, I thought, and it was a nice relaxing thought at the time. I imagined death like a switch, switching off all the pain and noise, cancelling everything.

When I left the library it was still raining and it felt unbelievably cold. My teeth were chattering and I couldn’t remember any words in English. Rain moved across the footpath in shallow waves like a special effect. I had no umbrella and I perceived that my face and hair were becoming wet, too wet to feel normal. I saw Bobbi sheltering outside the arts building and I started to walk toward her, trying to remember what people usually said to each other as a greeting. This felt effortful in an unfamiliar way. I raised my hand to wave at her and she came toward me, very quickly I thought, saying something I didn’t understand.

Then I blacked out. When I woke up again I was lying under the shelter with some people standing around me, and I was saying the word: what? Everyone seemed relieved I was talking. A security guard was saying something into a walkie-talkie, but I couldn’t hear him. The pain in my abdomen felt tight like a fist and I tried to sit up and see if Bobbi was there. I saw her on the phone, holding her free ear shut with a hand as if struggling to hear the other person. The rain was loud like an untuned radio.

Oh, she’s awake, Bobbi said into the phone. One second.

Bobbi looked at me then. Are you okay? she said. She looked clean and dry like a model from a catalogue. My hair was leaking water onto my face. I’m fine, I said. She went back to talking on the phone, I couldn’t hear what she was saying. I tried to wipe my face with my sleeve but my sleeves were even wetter than my face was. Outside the shelter the rain fell white like milk. Bobbi put her phone away and helped me to sit up straight.

I’m sorry, I said. I’m so sorry.

Is it the thing you had before? said Bobbi.

I nodded my head. Bobbi pulled her sleeve over her hand and wiped my face. Her sweater was dry and very soft. Thanks, I said. People started to disperse, the security guard went to look around the corner.

Do you need to go back to hospital? she said.

I think they’ll just tell me to wait for this scan.

Let’s go home then. Okay?

She linked her arm under mine and we walked out onto Nassau Street, where there was a taxi passing right outside. The driver pulled up and let us get in the back even though the cars behind were beeping. Bobbi gave our address and I let my head loll back and gazed out the window while they talked. The streetlights bathed people’s figures in angelic light. I saw shopfronts, and faces in bus windows. Then my eyes closed.

When we reached our street, Bobbi insisted on paying. Outside the building I gripped the iron railings and waited for her to unlock the door. Inside she asked me if I’d like a bath. I nodded, yes. I braced myself against the corridor wall. She went to run the bath and I slowly took off my coat. A terrific pain was beating inside my body. Bobbi reappeared in front of me and took my coat to hang it up.

Are you going to need help getting out of your clothes? she said.

I thought of the story I had sent to Valerie that morning, a story which I now remembered was explicitly about Bobbi, a story which characterised Bobbi as a mystery so total I couldn’t endure her, a force I couldn’t subjugate with my will, and the love of my life. I paled at this memory. Somehow I hadn’t been conscious of it, or had forced myself not to be conscious, and now I remembered.

Don’t get upset, she said. I’ve seen you undressed hundreds of times.

I tried to smile, although my breath moved in and out of my lips in a way that probably contorted the smile.

Don’t remind me, I said.

Oh, come on. It wasn’t all bad. We had some fun.

You sound like you’re flirting.

She laughed. In the story I had described a house party after the Leaving Cert, when I drank a shoulder of vodka and then spent the night throwing up. Whenever anyone tried to look after me I would push them away and say: I want Bobbi. Bobbi wasn’t even at the party.

I’ll undress you in a very unsexy way, she said. Don’t worry.

The bath was still running. We went inside the bathroom and I sat on the closed toilet seat while she rolled her sleeves up to test the temperature. She told me it was hot. I was wearing a white blouse that day, and I tried to undo the buttons but my hands were trembling. Bobbi shut the tap off and crouched down to finish unbuttoning for me. Her fingers were wet and left little dark prints around the buttonholes. She scooped my arms out of the sleeves easily, like she was peeling a potato.

And there’s going to be blood everywhere, I said.

Lucky it’s me here and not your boyfriend.

No, don’t. I’m fighting with him. It’s, uh. Things aren’t very good.

She stood up and went to the bath again. She seemed distracted suddenly. In the white bathroom light her hair and fingernails gleamed.

Does he know you’re sick? she said.

I shook my head. She said something about getting me a towel and then left the room. Gradually I stood up, finished undressing myself and managed to climb into the bath.