People in Season (10 page)

‘I don’t see why you’re so upset. It’s a good law. It keeps types like her out of power. People can get on with their lives knowing they’re voting for officials with a conscience. Not being tricked by some masked animals.’

‘Oh, really, Ava, you don’t believe that.’ Joanne spits, dead set on finishing her rant. ‘Everything I have is because of those children and it’s all coming down on me now. Don’t you see? If I can live like this, the way I do, if I can go on happy, it only means one thing doesn’t it?’

Ava, drowsy, blinks once.

‘And when I’m taken for that god damn scan it’s going to say it. I’m untouched.’

Words can tire a mind. They build into sentences that go around in circles, running on top of each other in such a fugue that, unless they can be flushed out through the mouth, drive a person to madness. Joanne had come here to vent, and now, emptied of the story, she’s reaching out for reassurance. Ava senses this and is relieved to know her obligation in the matter, to pat her editor on the back and tell her everything will be alright, has finally arrived. She lifts herself up with a deep breath, sure she can summon the warmth to do so, but before she can, Joanne has sunk to the ground and the glass that her hand had coddled drops from her fingers to roll in an arc on the rug. Ava is about to scream, only now that the thing is empty it doesn’t really matter. She picks up the glass and puts it on a coaster. Joanne is on her knees, retching on an attempt at a guttural cry and clawing at Ava’s night gown, who, looking down on her, bites her lip to keep from calling the woman repugnant. She can’t be untouched, Ava decides. She’s too pathetic.

‘Nice dreams?’ Alistair asks, sardonic. He’s never had a dream.

‘I don’t remember,’ Ava sniffs. She rarely has them herself.

‘I thought I heard you laughing in your sleep.’

***

It’s a brand new day, wrapped in gift paper for the couple like a thoughtful Christmas present. Through a sleepy haze Ava spots a blemish on Alistair’s back, the swollen mark ugly on his olive skin. She rolls over to find a better view. Rising, he lets the sheets fall from him. Ava hears him open the curtains and stretching in front of the window, naked, until his back makes a series of pops and he prowls about the room, cracking other bones along the way. He slips into his underwear when he happens to see them and stalks about searching for the other pieces of his costume, a shirt and a tie, slacks. His coat is balled up in the corner. ‘Socks,’ he says, whistles, and says again, ‘Socks.’ As he checks under the bed, he changes the statement to a question.

‘Sitting room,’ Ava mumbles into her pillow.

Her memories of last night have yet to rouse her. When they do, it’s in a rush, as shocking as a bucket of ice water thrown over her bed. Oh no, she remembers, the days aren’t separate. Events from one bleed into the happenings of the next. It can be a terrible inconvenience. She jumps after a beat, shook by the image of Joanne on her couch, probably still asleep – if she’s lucky. Alistair’s hand is reaching for the doorknob when she bolts up and warns him to stop, but he opens it anyway and stands looking at the putrid woman. She’s wheezing, a cushion is over her head to block out the harsh morning light, and splayed like a starfish, her skirt is knotted up to her waist, one leg hanging over the side so that her foot is planted on the ground in a practiced method to keep her head from spinning. Ava, quietly angry, puts her hand over Alistair’s to pull the door closed. His arm goes stiff as oak to keep it open.

‘Alistair.’

‘She doesn’t seem so important.’

‘Well she is,’ Ava hisses, ‘she could destroy you if she wanted, so if you don’t mind, let’s save the introductions for another time.’

Joanne rolls over, the cushion falls to the ground, and her elbow pushes a groan out of her mouth as it leans into her side. Hand on forehead, she howls in pain. Ava, expecting the mummy to rise, pushes Alistair and fights him for control of the doorknob before he gives up. Interest already lost, he falls back onto the bed.

‘I need to be out of here in half an hour,’ he announces.

Hushing him, Ava is incredulous, ‘Are you actually being this stupid right now?’

‘If you don’t get my socks and wallet out of there I’m going to have to get them myself.’ He explains the matter to her like it’s a simple mathematical problem, a situation where it’s silly to get emotional about the only solution, ‘Half an hour is plenty of time.’

Experienced as she is in devastating looks, Ava tries to cut him down with a narrowing of her eyes. ‘She’s hung over. She won’t leave till noon.’

‘Thirty minutes.’

At that, Ava turns about, teeth gritted as she opens the bedroom door, and slides through a crack to close it behind her. Stood over the woman, the reek of alcohol, stale cigarette smoke and perfumed sweat forms a cloud that floats up to meet her gagging face.

‘Good morning,’ Ava claps her hands.

Clung to the couch in surprise, Joanne is afraid she’s about to be tipped over and pushed off into a never ending fall. As she squints, it’s apparent she doesn’t know where she is.

‘It’s me,’ Ava says. ‘You must have had a fun night.’

Joanne opens her mouth to talk but her throat is clogged with gravel.

‘Sleep well?’

Cringing under Ava’s accusing look, she mutters, ‘I’m in your apartment,’ and examines the room to confirm it. ‘I came here last night, to talk about...’ she’s hoping Ava will finish the sentence for her, but finds she has to piece together the events herself. ‘The riot?’ she asks, not without a hint of hope in her voice.

‘You’d make an awful poker player. You don’t remember do you?’

‘I have a headache,’ Joanne stammers. ‘My throat is dry, Ava, darling...’

A thud comes from the bedroom. Alistair’s after hitting the closet door and both their heads swing around at the sound of it. Feeling the pills in the pocket of her robe, Ava rolls them around in her hand, considering the light bottle between her fingers. They do feel different than the painkillers she normally keeps, though she can’t exactly say why.

‘What was that?’ Joanne demands, frightened.

Ava cocks the lid on the bottle open.

‘Is someone in there?’

And ignoring the question, cocks the lid closed. ‘I don’t have any painkillers Joanne, we’ll have to go down the shop.’

Confused and sleepy, Joanne turns back to Ava. ‘Yes, the shop, just, I need some water darling, and maybe lay down a little longer, rest a few more minutes.’

Another thud sounds from the bedroom and this time Joanne jumps at it, while Ava, prepared, is a model of composure as she pretends nothing has happened. Concentrating on Joanne’s queer behaviour instead, she’s acting as if the woman has imagined something that isn’t there.

‘You must hear that?’ Joanne pleads.

‘Joanne, you’re falling to pieces,’ Ava reaches out and brushes a strand of hair behind the editor’s ear. ‘You’re too stressed. Take a few days off, the place won’t fall apart without you. You’ve had all your interviews with the social agent, right? You just have to wait and see if you’re called up for the electric scan.’

‘And how would dodging him in the meantime look? I swear, I don’t think I could handle it if I get called up. Of all things, why electric shocks?’

In the kitchen, Ava gets some water for Joanne while she keeps an eye out for Alistair’s things. She sighs inwardly when she sees the wallet beside Joanne’s purse. Joanne, following Ava’s gaze, looks behind herself, paranoid, and flicks her knotted hair to the side.

‘Go on, drink this.’

The editor guzzles down the water and feels like a new woman for all of thirty seconds, then sinks back into the chair, instantly ready to fall asleep again. Ava uses the distraction to reach out and snap up the wallet, sliding it into the pocket of her robe with a dab hand.

‘If I wasn’t talking about your story, why am I here?’

‘You tell me,’ Ava wanders about, pretending to tidy the sterile room as she searches for Alistair’s missing socks.

‘You weren’t at that riot.’

Joanne’s voice has taken a deep plunge and sounds up to Ava from the bottom of a well. By the echo of it, Ava understands how deep it goes.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I think,’ Joanne, knowing she has Ava’s attention now, acts perturbed, rubbing the temples of her forehead in vexation. ‘I think that’s what set me off, but, where was I before I got here?’

‘What set you off Joanne?’

‘The riot. Your story. It isn’t true, is it?’

‘It happened,’ Ava says, offended that anybody would say otherwise. ‘Are you saying I made the whole thing up?’

‘I was just saying you weren’t there, but I suppose you could have made up the riot too,’ Joanne, spiteful. ‘Why stop at one lie?’

‘What exactly are you accusing me off?’

‘I think it’s very clear what I’m saying.’

‘That I’m a liar.’

‘If the shoe fits...’

Ava, stunned by the bluntness, winces. ‘You don’t sound worried about it.’

‘Either do you,’ the editor responds with a knowing curl of her lip. ‘Don’t think I couldn’t fire you, Ava.’

The threat is an empty one. Ava is sure that her job is safe, so, ignoring the warning she says, ‘I don’t see why this would have triggered your private meltdown.’

‘God, I hope it was private. Did I say anything I shouldn’t have?’

Rolling the question around, Ava decides to bite her tongue on the matter. ‘Nothing of consequence. Most of what you said made no sense whatsoever.’

‘That must have been fun. Wish I could remember it. I need a good laugh.’

‘Where did you hear this nonsense about my story anyway? User complaints? Just ignore them, nobody reads those things. Just a bunch of internet cranks.’

‘It’s a bit more delicate than that. The Gards are involved too, remember? We’re looking for this phantom child of yours. We are, in fact, tethered to the police in our commitment to a reality that doesn’t exist. Just another day at ChatterFive.’

Ava brushes off the accusations, ‘Do they know?’

It’s the closest thing to an admission she’ll ever utter.

‘The Gards found out shortly after I did, probably from the same tipster and frankly, are more embarrassed about it than I am. Do you know how much work they’ve been saying they’ve been doing? The leads they said they had? It’s all nothing. No, they want it buried too, no public embarrassment for anyone, not even you. It’ll be our filthy secret.’ The words are tart on Joanne’s tongue. ‘Another body in the rose patch.’

‘Who told you about it?’

‘An anonymous source,’ she mouths, and to assure Ava she has no idea who it could be, she says, ‘The email came from a disposable account. The photo of the girl you used is remarkably similar to one in our Belfast archive. I suppose that means the tipster is someone in our office, so either they hate me, they hate you, or they hate their job.’

‘Nobody hates me.’ Not giving Joanne a chance to brood on it, Ava clenches her jaw, and glosses over the clue. ‘Anonymous though. That doesn’t say much about the reliability of the source. Can you show me the stock photo? I’m sure it’s different to mine. This will all come to nothing’

‘Will it?’ Joanne asks the room. ‘Do you know how vulnerable this leaves us? We don’t know if he’s a nut job or some mastermind who’s willing to blackmail us – or worse, a nutjob who realises he can blackmail us. This is going to be hanging over us for a long time Ava. You, me, the government. If another media outlet cops onto it – I don’t want to even think about that.’

‘Nothing is hanging over me,’ Ava, indignant now. ‘A riot that’s been confirmed and a girl that’s clearly real, and you’re trying to pin a crime on my article.’

‘But the girl was at a completely different riot...’

‘I gave you a story. It happened, Joanne. Other outlets covered it the night previous. If you want to believe some crazy person’s problem with the details I added then that’s your issue, but don’t try weasel some admission of guilt out of me. Setting me up as an accomplice in case things go wrong for you? That’s sly Joanne, real sly.’

‘I don’t need to drag you into anything. It was your lie, Ava!’ For all the bewilderment on her face, you’d think Ava had just slapped her. ‘Anyway, I just, I can’t bare another secret to carry on my own.’ At this, her scattered thoughts begin to come into some order. Her actions last night, her drunken rant to Ava – nothing understandable she said – are just about in her grasp. ‘Another secret,’ she repeats, using the words to see through the billowing fog. With a sober look, she lets Ava know that she remembers what she told her, everything about the untouched scandal and how it weighs her down. And Ava was going to pretend it never happened, for what? To save face? Joanne picks at a thumbnail, wondering maybe for the first time who exactly is Ava O’Dwyer? The body she talks to doesn’t reveal a thing.

A phone rings in the bedroom. Ava goes back to cleaning the place, apparently deaf to the incoming tone.

‘Aren’t you going to get that?’

But Alistair already has. He’s picked it up and a muffled burst of laughter sounds from him through the bedroom door.

Quick to comment on it, Ava snarls, ‘So now you know Joanne. I met a guy and we had sex. Are you going to make it homepage news?’

‘I didn’t say anything,’ her editor reacts defensively.

‘No, you just got drunk and showed up at my apartment in the middle of the night.’ Finally, Ava see’s the socks, whips them off the ground, and opens the door of her bedroom slightly to slide in without giving Joanne a view. Alistair is dressed, sat on the corner of the bed when she throws the socks at him. His phone is tucked between shoulder and ear as he chats with a woman. The inane female voice can only be described as that of a chipmunk, squeaky and irritating. Ava goes to clip him on the ear when she recognises that it’s the girl he abandoned that night at the auction.

‘What?!’ Alistair rubs his head.

‘I know who that is,’ Ava whispers.

Then, snorting, he simply replies, ‘She has her uses.’

Rushing through her closet and drawers, assembling an outfit for a walk to the coffee shop with Joanne, Ava ignores the remark. She’s about to leave when Alistair calls her back, index finger held up to attract her attention.

‘Five minutes,’ he says.

Ava slams the door behind her.

‘Who is it?’ Joanne teases.

‘Just some idiot I wish wasn’t here.’

‘Ha!’ he replies through the door.

‘Here,’ Ava hands Joanne her handbag, ‘let’s get you some coffee.’

‘Either that’s somebody spectacular you don’t want to share, or someone very ugly you’re ashamed of.’