The Things We Do to Our Friends(74)

“Of course you can! This was always going to be hard, but it will pass. These things will feel easier with time. Come back to us. It sounds like Finn has his own stuff going on; maybe your theory’s wrong, maybe he’s on something?”

“I really don’t think so. I’ve ended it with him anyway. I don’t want him being brought into all this. How do I make her leave me alone? For good. I was wondering if I should speak to her?” I said.

She shook her head. “I wouldn’t.”

“Why?”

“What would you say? If she did do it, it’s about you coming back. That’s what she wants. It’s all she wants. She talks about you all the time.”

Despite myself, there was a dizzying rush of satisfaction at the idea of Tabitha talking about me.

“There are two options here,” she said. “You come back or you don’t. You can try to forget about everything that happened and we can keep going with what we were doing. Before that night, we were fine, weren’t we? Maybe it can all be fine again.”

“I’m not sure. I can’t go back because I’m not sleeping or eating—”

“None of that.” She cut me off. “We’ll sleep when we’re dead.”

It was harsh, but she softened the words with a smile and gave my arm a comforting squeeze. “Look on the bright side. Finn’s okay.”

I thought back to the two of them: Tabitha and Ava. Their bodies entwined on that bed. I wasn’t even sure why I trusted Ava or wanted her advice, but I did.

“I can’t go back,” I said.

She smiled. “I understand, but I don’t think there is an out for you.”

“I guess I just don’t get why it’s so important that I’m part of it.”

“Because you’re good at it.”

“Surely that’s not enough?”

“It’s enough for now.”

We both sipped on our drinks, and I thought we might stay and chat more. I asked her about Imogen and Samuel.

“They’re not involved anymore,” she said, sighing.

“Not involved? What do you mean? They’re not in the group?”

Even as I said it I realized how hard it was to sum up what Imogen and Samuel…were. Friends, colleagues, enemies, advisers? Flailing legs of The Shiver cut off?

“They just left.” She closed down that topic of conversation promptly.

Interesting. So that was what Samuel had been trying to spit out. And the fact they’d left was maddening. I wanted to scream, because it was so unfair that they were allowed to leave. It hurt much more than I would have ever thought, and I knew it was because I wasn’t permitted to. I was trapped, but also fully disposable.

“Why have they left?” I persisted.

But she just shrugged and changed the subject. “It’s funny, when you think of Finn being poisoned, because we’re always careful with that kind of thing. This drink,” she said, holding it toward me. “You saw them pour it, I assume?”

“Sure,” I said. I was pretty certain I’d been the first person to order wine in a long time. The barman had had to root around for a while to find something to give me.

“That’s good. You know I saved Tabitha once.” She said it so offhandedly, as if it was perfectly natural. That thing she did, that they all did, changing the subject so quickly, and then forcing me to be the one to ask the questions.

“In what way?”

“Her drink. It was spiked. Back in London just before we came to Edinburgh for the first time. I didn’t see who had done it.” She shook her head at her own stupidity.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Her face was quite blank. “Don’t be. It was fine in the end—you should have seen her, though. It was so strange for Tabitha to be out of control, stumbling,” she said.

“You saved her,” I stated.

She just took another large gulp from her glass. Because of her silence, I did what I always did, and filled in the scenes myself. Tabitha’s limbs loose, her hair in her face, unable to speak, with predators circling her. I was angry for her, of course, but it didn’t take away from what she was doing.

Ava shrugged, and I pressed for more, but she wouldn’t say another word on it. And I could tell there was to be no more talking about Samuel or Imogen, or even about Tabitha. About any of it.

Ava stood up. “Stay in touch. This isn’t the end.” But she was less confident than usual.

Final words, and then she was gone, out into the night. The men at the bar all surveyed her as she left, and she didn’t look back even though she must have felt all our eyes boring into her.





63


I found traces of fungus everywhere, and I was sure that the mold was a contributing factor to my illness. I saw it in my bedroom next. The path was visible, like the trail from a snail, up from the skirting boards, seeping across the wall then settling in a greenish cloud, and it wouldn’t stay there, cowardly and confined to the wall; the naked spores would gravitate toward the warm moisture of my breath, and then, of course, they’d make their way into my lungs.

It didn’t look the same as in the pub. It was mossier, more like forest lichen with hard, defined edges on the patches that had formed. Thinking about it growing away, larger and thicker every minute, made sleep impossible. My limbs were filled with cement. I almost felt like I might never sleep again. Spores in my lungs and hands around my neck. And the mold reminded me so much of my mother, ill in her room, lying there without a cure, and of Samuel in a mock-seizure on the floor.