The Things We Do to Our Friends(67)
It is no matter, though, because despite how it sounds, they were not bad days.
In many ways they were some of the best.
When Tabitha was around it was as sweet as it had ever been, and she nursed me in a lair of screwed-up tissues, my legs wrapped in knotted sheets and my hair matted. Her T-shirt, which I wore for days, became rank with sweat. I lay there and let Tabitha and Ava bring me trays of plain biscuits and tea and bowls of watery soup, as if I was too ill to have any kind of real food. My mind emptied as Tabitha’s long, cool fingers tucked me into bed. We didn’t discuss anything much, but there was such joy in her curling up with me and pressing her body tight against mine until I fell asleep. She treated me like her favorite pet—all the attention from her that I could possibly want, I got.
When I told my husband that Tabitha was like a mother, it was those precious days that I was recalling. When I was cared for like I’ve never been cared for before or since, really.
After a few days I emerged, my bruises faded, my body feeling a little better. I needed to forget what had happened in the Highlands, and there was enough to distract me with a return to routine.
Tabitha had been excited to start sharing some of her plans about the Advocate—our newest target. She’d bought an expensive-looking barrister wig to “get into character.” It was confusing to me why she’d need to, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask much more.
When I finally left to go back to my flat, she presented me with a sprawling bunch of red roses and freesias. She said, “I’ll make it all better, I promise,” and what a treat it was to just…let her, without considering what that even meant.
In the days afterward, my mobile rang late at night. So late it was almost morning, but I was awake anyway. The number was withheld. When it first buzzed against the table, I thought instinctively of my granny—some accident perhaps—and I jumped to answer it. The caller didn’t speak. They just…waited, and I tried to somehow work out who it was from the soft breathing.
Perhaps it was Tabitha, or maybe Finn? The more I pulled away from him, the more he clung to me with his stories and mild concern. It didn’t seem like the kind of thing either of them would do, though. A journalist, then? Something to do with my past? But why would they stay silent?
Like a slap to the face, the sudden realization came that perhaps it was Sorcha trying to get through to me. Quiet Sorcha with the eyes like a winter’s puddle, who knew more than we had thought.
I hung up.
They rang again. Then they hung up.
Then again, and I answered, and neither of us hung up, and I waited and waited for them to speak, but instead their breathing grew more and more rushed and throaty, and I could hear the forcible attempt to hold back a gush of tears.
“Who is it?” I asked, first in English, then eventually, reluctantly, in French; regardless, they didn’t respond. Every night they called. And I listened.
A woman. I was sure of it, from the pitch of her moan as she started to say something, then pulled back.
Call after call, and I was so tired. The flowers from Tabitha withered straightaway next to the window. The petals dried out, crisped up, and fell onto the floor. I didn’t bother to clean them up and I ended up standing on them, so they pressed into the rug in red little welts.
At first, the reason I didn’t put my phone on silent or turn it off was completely irrational, but in my long list of people it could be, there was the secret thought that it might be my mother. Even though I hadn’t heard from her for years, there was still a small chance. I knew it was unlikely. It would have been out of character for her to call like that.
And then, as the next few days passed, I didn’t hang up because it became a comforting presence. I found it less threatening, and I listened. Just when I felt like the mystery caller was about to reveal themselves, they would suddenly put the phone down. Whoever was on the other end of the line sounded unbearably sad, and we lay there at night together, her crying and me listening. We shared her sadness between us.
Each night, when I drifted off between the calls, I began to dream in distorted Technicolor, like I was watching an old television with a broken aerial. I dreamed of us all. They were more alive than ever and conjoined in the most grotesque forms. Georgia and Ashley, their arms joined together gawkishly, Dina and Adrienne, frozen at the age of sixteen and fixed to each other at the cheeks with roughly sewn stitches. Tabitha and Ava were almost one person. Their shared spine twisted horribly into a ragged S. They danced around, and their movements were stilted, like puppets in a circus top.
The audience were hysterical with silent laughter, tears rolling down their cheeks.
Encore, they mouthed.
And the girls danced again, and again, and again.
57
It was two days before Christmas, and I welcomed the cold. Hoped for snow on the streets so my boots could break through the white sheet of it and leave a trail of footprints. But there wasn’t any proper snow outside, just slush churned by mess and movement in the city. Dirty slush that soaked through my shoes and stained the leather. The cold meant the rats moved inside. I heard them scurrying. Saw one chasing a cat.
Tabitha had told me I needed to come over to hers. Inside, she stood next to the Christmas tree. She looked like she might at any moment transform into an angel and her wings would rise and tear through the skin, puncturing her back and pushing up so she could take off, and I’m not sure why that thought came to me in a flash.