In a Dark, Dark Wood (10 page)

‘It’ll give him something to look at, poor sod.’ Clare pulled down her top, laughing, and flung herself back on the sofa. She drained her shot. ‘Mels?’ she called out.

But Melanie had dragged the phone out into the hall; only the trailing wire and the sound of her low, urgent voice gave away her location. ‘… And he took the bottle?’ we heard from the hallway. ‘How many ounces?’

‘Screw that,’ Nina said decisively. ‘Man overboard. Right. I have never … I have never … I have never …’ She looked from me to Clare, and there was suddenly a very wicked expression on her face. My stomach flipped. Nina, drunk, is not always a nice person to be around. ‘I have never fucked James Cooper.’

There was an uncertain laugh round the room. Clare shrugged and drank.

Then her cornflower blue eyes, and Nina’s coffee brown ones turned on me. There was an absolute silence, broken only by Florence and the Machine telling us that her boy built coffins.

‘Fuck you, Nina.’ My hand was trembling as I tossed back the drink. Then I got up and walked out into the hallway, my cheeks burning, and suddenly feeling very, very drunk.

‘You can always give him half a banana for breakfast,’ Melanie was saying. ‘But if you give him grapes, cut them in half first or use that mesh thing.’

I pushed past her up the stairs, Flo’s bemused, ‘What? What happened?’ following me as I fled.

On the landing I burst into the bathroom and locked the door behind me. Then I knelt in front of the toilet retching and retching until there was nothing left to throw up.

Oh Christ, I was drunk. Drunk enough to go downstairs and smack Nina for the shit-stirring bitch she was. OK, she didn’t know the full picture about me and James. But she knew enough to realise that she was putting me in a horrible position – and Clare.

For a minute I hated them all: Nina for goading me with her horrible needling questions, Flo and Tom for gawping as I drank, Clare for forcing me to come. And most of all I hated James – for asking Clare to marry him, for starting this whole chain off. I even hated poor, blameless, oblivious Melanie just for being here.

My stomach heaved again, but there was nothing left apart from a vile taste of tequila in my mouth as I stood and spat into the toilet bowl. Then I flushed, and went to the mirror to rinse out my mouth and splash water on my face. I was white, with a blotchy, hectic flush on my cheekbones and my mascara was smudged.

‘Lee?’ There was a knock at the door. I recognised Clare’s voice and put my face in my hands.

‘I n-need a minute.’ Ugh, I was stammering. I hadn’t stammered since I left school. Somehow I had shed it, along with the sad, awkward personality of Lee the moment I stepped out of Reading. Nora had never stammered. I was slipping back into Lee.

‘Lee, I’m sorry. Nina shouldn’t have—’

Oh fuck off
, I thought.
Please. Just leave me alone.

There was the sound of low voices outside the door, and I tried, with shaking fingers, to fix my mascara using toilet paper.

God this was pathetic. It was like being back at school – bitch fights and sniping and everything. I had sworn never to go back. This had been a mistake. A dreadful, dreadful mistake.

‘I’m sorry, Nora.’ It was Nina’s voice, slurred with alcohol but tinged with real concern – at least it sounded so. ‘I didn’t think … please, come out.’

‘I need to go to bed,’ I said. There was a catch in my throat, hoarseness from throwing up.

‘Le … Nora,
please
,’ Clare begged. ‘Come on, I’m sorry. Nina’s sorry.’

I took a deep breath and slid back the lock.

They were standing outside, their expressions hangdog in the bright light from the bathroom.

‘Please, Lee,’ Clare took my hand. ‘Come back down.’

‘It’s fine,’ I said. ‘Honestly. But I really am tired, I was up at five to catch the train.’

‘All right …’ Clare let go of my hand reluctantly. ‘As long as you’re not going off in a snit.’

I felt my teeth grit in spite of myself.
Be calm. Don’t make this all about you.

‘No, I’m not g-going off in a “snit”,’ I said, trying to keep my voice light. ‘I’m just tired. Now, I’m going to brush my teeth. See you in the morning.’

I elbowed past them to the bedroom to get my washbag, and when I came back they were still there, Nina tapping her foot on the parquet.

‘So you really mean it?’ she said. ‘You’re bailing out? Christ, Lee, it was just a joke. If anyone’s got a right to be offended it’s Clare, and she’s taking it OK. Have you lost your sense of humour since school?’

For a second I thought of all the replies I could make. It
wasn’t
a joke. She knew full well what that question meant to me, and she’d deliberately brought James up in the one place and at the one time I couldn’t dodge it, or smooth it over.

But what was the point? Like an idiot I’d taken the bait, exploded on cue. It was done.

‘I’m not bailing out,’ I said wearily. ‘It’s gone midnight. I’ve been up since five. Please, I really just want some sleep.’

I realised, even as I said the words, that I was pleading, offering up excuses, trying to absolve myself of guilt for leaving the party. Somehow the realisation stiffened my nerve. We weren’t sixteen any more. We didn’t have to hang around like there was an invisible umbilical cord tethering us together. We’d gone our separate ways and all survived. Me getting some sleep wasn’t going to ruin Clare’s hen for ever, and I didn’t have to justify the decision like a prisoner in the Star Chamber.

‘I’m going to bed,’ I repeated.

There was a pause. Clare and Nina looked at each other, and then Clare said, ‘OK.’

For some irrational reason that single word annoyed me more than anything else – I knew she was only agreeing, but the word had a ring of ‘permission granted’ that made my skin crawl.
I am not yours to boss around any more.

‘Night,’ I said shortly, and pushed past them into the bathroom. Over the running water and the toothbrush’s rasp I could hear them whispering outside, and I deliberately stayed in there, wiping off my mascara with unaccustomed care, until their voices disappeared and I heard their footsteps on the parquet trailing away.

I let out a breath, releasing tension I hadn’t even known I was holding, and felt the muscles in my neck and shoulder unclench.

Why? Why did they still have this power over me, Clare in particular? Why did I
let
them?

I sighed, shoved the toothbrush and toothpaste back into my washbag, pushed open the door and padded up the hallway to the bedroom. It was cool and quiet, quite different from the overheated, over-populated living room. I could hear Jarvis Cocker in the background, his voice floating up the open hallway, but the sound muted to just a muffled bassline when I shut the bedroom door and flopped down on the bed. The relief was indescribable. If I shut my eyes I could almost imagine myself back in my little flat in Hackney; only the sound of traffic and honking horns outside was missing.

I wished myself back there, so powerfully that I could almost
feel
the worn softness of my flowered duvet cover beneath my palm, see the rattan blind that flapped softly at the window on summer nights.

But then there was a knock at the door, and when I opened my eyes, the blank blackness of the forest reflected back at me from the glass wall. I sighed, gearing myself up to answer it, and then the knock came again.

‘Lee?’

I got up and opened the door. It was Flo standing outside, her hands on her hips.

‘Lee! I can’t believe you’re doing this to Clare!’

‘What?’ I felt immensely tired all of a sudden. ‘Doing what? Going to bed?’

‘I’ve gone to loads of effort to make this a perfect weekend for Clare – I’ll kill you if you ruin it on the very first night!’

‘I’m not ruining anything, Flo. You’re the one making this into a big deal, not me. I just want to go to bed. All right?’

‘No, it’s
not
all right. I won’t have you sabotaging everything I’ve worked for!’

‘I just want to go to bed,’ I repeated, like a mantra.

‘Well, I think you’re being a … a selfish
bitch
,’ Flo burst out. Her face was red, and she looked as if she was on the verge of tears. ‘Clare’s … Clare’s the best, OK? And she deserves … she deserves—’ Her chin wobbled.

‘Yeah, whatever,’ I said, and before I could think better of it, I shut the door in her face.

For a minute I heard her outside, breathing heavily, and I thought, if she sobs, I’m going to
have
to go out there and apologise. I can’t sit here and listen to her breaking down outside my door.

But she didn’t. By some huge effort, she got herself together, and went downstairs, leaving me very close to crying myself.

I don’t know when Nina came up, but it was late, very late. I wasn’t asleep, but I was pretending to be, huddled under the duvet with my pillow over my head, as she padded heavily around the room, knocking over tubes of lotion and kicking her suitcase.

‘Are you awake?’ she whispered as she slid into the twin bed next to mine.

I considered ignoring her, but then I sighed and turned over. ‘No. Probably because you’ve knocked over every bottle in the place.’

‘Sorry.’ She huddled down under the sheets, and I saw the glint of her eye as she yawned and blinked tiredly. ‘Look, I’m sorry about earlier. I honestly didn’t …’

‘It’s all right,’ I said wearily. ‘I’m sorry too. I overreacted. I was just tired, and drunk.’ I’d already made up my mind to apologise to Flo in the morning. Whoever was at fault here, it certainly wasn’t her.

‘No, it was me,’ Nina said. She flung onto her back and put her hand over her eyes. ‘I was being my usual shit-stirring self. But, you know, it’s been ten years. I think I could be forgiven for assuming …’ She trailed off. But I knew what she meant. You could be forgiven for thinking a normal person would have got over whatever happened, moved on.

‘I know,’ I said wearily. ‘D’you think I don’t? It’s pathetic.’

‘Nora, what happened? Clearly something did. You don’t act like this over a normal break-up.’

‘Nothing happened. He dumped me. End of.’

‘That’s not what I heard.’ She rolled onto her side again, and I felt her gaze on my face in the darkness. ‘I heard you dumped him.’

‘Well, you heard wrong. He dumped me. By text, if you must know.’

I got rid of the phone soon after. The cheerfully insouciant ‘cheep-cheep’ alert never stopped stinging.

‘OK … but still. Look, I never asked, but did he—’

She stopped. I could hear the cogs in her brain turning, trying to work out how to phrase something tricky. I kept silent. Whatever it was she was thinking, I wasn’t going to help her.

‘Oh fuck it, there’s no way to say this without prying, but I have to say it. He didn’t … he didn’t hit you, did he?’

‘
What?
’

I wasn’t expecting that.

‘OK, clearly not, sorry.’ Nina turned onto her back. ‘I’m sorry. But honestly, Lee—’

‘
Nora
.’

‘Sorry! Sorry, Clare’s got me doing it. And you’re right. It doesn’t make any sense. But honestly, though, the way you reacted after you guys split up – you can’t blame people for wondering—’

‘
People
?’

‘Look, we were sixteen – you leaving town and James falling apart was pretty dramatic. There was talk, all right?’

‘Jesus wept.’ I stared up at the ceiling. There was utter silence but for a strange soft patter outside, like rain, but softer. ‘Is that really what people thought?’

‘Yup,’ Nina said laconically. ‘I’d say that was the most popular of the theories. That or gave you an STD.’

God. Poor James. In spite of what he’d done, he didn’t deserve
that
.

‘No,’ I said at last. ‘No, James Cooper did not beat me up.
Or
give me an STD. And you’re very welcome to tell anyone that who “wonders” about it in your hearing. Now, good night, I’m going to sleep.’

‘What then? If it wasn’t that? What happened?’

‘Good night.’

I turned on my side, listening to the silence, the sound of Nina’s exasperated breathing, and the soft patter outside.

And then at last I slept.

10

VOICES. IN THE
corridor outside. They filter into my dream, through the morphine haze, and for a moment I think I’m back at the Glass House, and Clare and Flo are whispering outside my door, their shaking hands holding the gun.

We should have checked the house …

Then I open my eyes, and I remember where I am.

The hospital. The people outside my door are nurses, night orderlies … maybe even the police officer I saw earlier.

I lie there blinking, and trying to make my tired, drug-addled brain work. What time is it? The hospital lights are dimmed for night, but I have no sense of whether it’s 9 p.m. or 4 a.m.

I twist my head to look for my phone. Always when I wake, I check the time on my phone. It’s the first thing I do. But the locker beside my bed is empty. My phone is not there.

There are no clothes hanging on the chair by the window, no pockets in the hospital gown I’m wearing. My phone is gone.

I lie there, looking around the small, dimly-lit room. It’s a private room, which seems odd – but maybe the main ward was full. Or perhaps that’s just how they do things up here. There are no other patients to ask, and no clock on the wall. If the softly blinking green monitor by my head has a time display, I can’t see it.

For a minute I think about calling out, asking the policewoman outside my door what the time is, where I am, what’s happened to me.

But then I realise; she’s talking to someone else, it was their low voices that woke me. I swallow, dry and sticky, and pull my head painfully off the pillow, ready to croak out an appeal. But before I can speak, one sentence filters through the thick glass of the door and glues my dry tongue to the roof of my mouth.

‘Oh Jesus,’ I hear, ‘so now we’re looking at murder?’

11

I WOKE TO
a clear, bright silence, broken only by Nina’s soft snoring in the bed next to mine. But as I lay there, stretching my muscles and wishing I’d refilled my water glass, I began to disentangle the sounds of the forest: birdsong, a snap of twigs, and a soft ‘flump’ that I didn’t recognise, followed by a flurry of gentle sounds like sheets of paper falling to the floor.