by David Mark
Liz manages a smile for Carly. Glances around; a weird wooziness creeping in at the periphery of her senses. Takes stock. The evening is still cold and blue and there is no disguising that she has well and truly been in the wars. She watches as Carly clocks the injuries and she vanishes from the window at once. Liz sighs, theatrically, wishing she smoked so she could light up and delay the inevitable. She knows exactly what is going through Carly’s mind. What now? What drama are you caught up in? What mess have you created? What have you done wrong that I’m going to have to put right?
The door swings opens as Sylvia pulls away.
‘What the fuck have you done to yourself?’ asks Carly, standing on the front step, arms folded, a vision in too-big T-shirt and too-small leggings, both feet stuffed into colossal unicorn slippers and hair scraped tightly back from a face that has always made Liz think of a particularly well-carved turnip lantern.
‘Long story … I’ll … not as bad …’
Carly’s expression changes as she takes in her big sister’s injuries. Softens, at the state of her, then hardens again at the thought of there being a perpetrator behind the wounds.
‘Sorry I didn’t call first,’ say Liz, stuck to the pavement and unsure of herself. On the far side of the road she sees a young mum, pushing a vintage pram with huge, thin wheels. She looks like she has another child on the way. Either that, or there’s a frozen turkey stuffed down the front of her hoodie. Liz watches her. Knows her. Pities and envies her. This was her terror, when she was young. Being one of them. Being like the girls she grew up around. Being her mum, or her sister, or any one of the pregnant teens who mistook a shag around the back of the kebab shop as a proclamation of devotion, and who pushed out kid after kid just to improve the odds of somebody, some day, giving a shit about her.
She can’t seem to get herself to leave the spot. Just stares at her sister, wondering why the hell she thought this was a good idea. She doesn’t normally run to Carly in times of crisis. Carly would disagree, but Liz is steadfast in her belief that her little sister has only been involved at the very periphery of her many catastrophes, and that she has protected her from the worst of her mistakes. She steels herself. Coughs some assertiveness into her voice. Tries her best smile.
‘Is it OK if I come in? I’m a bit of a state. Car crash, sort of thing. I need to get cleaned up. I think Jay’s going to hit the wall …’
Carly shifts on the front step. Pulls a face, awkward now. Shows teeth and squints, like she’s staring at the sun.
‘Close the door, Carly, it’s freezing …’
It’s not Glen’s voice. It’s Jay’s.
Liz holds on to the smell of Jude. Breathes it in, trying to silence the voices that rise in song. Voices that ring out, discordant, as they offer up their hypotheses.
An affair.
They’re screwing.
No, an intervention. They’ve been planning to put you away. Don’t go in, there’ll be doctors and social workers …
No, they’re definitely screwing …
‘It’s not what it looks like,’ says Carly, stepping back and opening the door wider. ‘Honest. Come in.’
Not what it looks like?
Liz hopes to God that her sister is lying. Hopes she finally has the excuse she needs to ditch her partner, and run for the hills. Or better yet, the valleys. One valley in particular.
She follows her sister inside – cardigan cradled like a child.
EIGHT
They haven’t been screwing. That much is obvious from the look on Jay’s face. Were he to have been caught with his trousers down he would have his face turned to the wall, or be hiding beneath a pillow, feigning sleep. Sex embarrasses him. He’s embarrassed by his need for it; his momentary lack of control. He can’t reconcile the opposing parts of his self-image; the man in the tie, the careerist, working hard, doing well, paying his mortgage and composting his teabags; he’s happy for the world to see this perfectly honed caricature of a man on the up. He can’t make room within that picture for what he refers to as ‘all the sticky business’. Doesn’t like to talk about their ‘bedroom antics’. Liz is usually quick to point out that there isn’t much to tell. Their couplings are infrequent and workmanlike. He says ‘sorry’ before the end. Needs to be left alone afterwards. Goes to the bathroom, which at least gives her time to finish herself off.
He’s sitting on the leather sofa, looking very much at home. He’s dressed in his work clothes; neat white shirt, one-tone tie, brown hair shaved to a precise four millimetres around a pink monk’s tonsure of exposed pate. He’s slim. Rangy. He always looks a little sour; as though something he didn’t enjoy eating is now repeating on him. She never really thought him handsome, though there had definitely been something oddly attractive about him in the beginning. She’d thought him clever. Perhaps even a little eccentric. He’d certainly seemed bookish, and she had imagined him a regular listener to topical debate shows. Presumed him to have some endearing eccentricity; a passion for antique bicycles or Toby jugs. She wrote a script for him in her head. Wrote a life. She filled her shifts this way – daydreaming, fantasizing, cocooned inside her own head as she banged coffee cups and frothed milk, lost in the steam of the coffee shop. She hadn’t realized then how much work she had done on his behalf, re-imagining the awkward, slightly haughty man who came in three times a week and who routinely played with his phone while waiting for his skinny one-shot latte. She was already a little bit in love with him by the time she discovered that he was pathologically normal. No eccentricities. No hidden passions. No ambition, save a desire to put in a conservatory and perhaps one day take his Audi around the Nürburgring in Germany. She hadn’t known what that was. He’d explained it on their first date; a tense, stilted occasion at the little wine bar by the river. There wouldn’t have been a second date if she hadn’t been so dead-set on finding out about his hidden depths. He claimed he was in love with her by date four. The words had been nice to hear and she had returned the sentiment almost out of obligation. She got to know his daughter, Anya. Three years old at the time. Awkward and very sweet. Jay didn’t really know what to do with her but was cute in his bumbling awkwardness. She met his ex-wife too; a highly-strung, dark-haired specimen, even slimmer than Jay and with a mouth that always seemed to be sucking a blockage through an invisible straw. Liz only decided that he might be ‘the one’ when he dabbled with the idea of ending things. He said she was too difficult to read – too unpredictable. He never knew if he was coming or going; whether she’d be happy or sad; contented or disgusted. He didn’t have the energy to keep trying to talk her into better moods – not when there was nothing, as far as he could tell, actually the matter with her. The idea of losing him turned Liz inside out. She didn’t recognize the person she became in the hours that followed his exasperated threat. She’d begged and screamed, snotted and pleaded: cursed his name and vowed to be whatever, whoever, he needed if he would just give her another chance; keep her, not throw her away. He’d kept her, but whatever equality there had been in the relationship before was wiped away. He knew he had her. Knew that the threat of ending things was enough to keep her obedient, grateful and compliant. She, to her eternal shame, was pitifully grateful for the courtesy. Her last three partners had all knocked her around, and for all his faults he didn’t do that. Never needed to.
‘Been street fighting, Elizabeth?’ asks Jay, sitting up. He angles his head to better see the dirt. His eyes narrow as he spies the crusted blood in her hairline. ‘See, Carly, I told you there would be an explanation. Win, did you? Should I see the state of the other guy? It’s in the blood, isn’t it? Some people are just scrappers.’
Carly gives a dutiful laugh. She’s always had a decent enough relationship with Jay. She reckons him a bit boring, a bit up-his-own-arse, but she frequently tells Liz that a lot of people have it much worse.
‘Nice house, little runabout car, bills paid in full and on-time – you’ve got it good. He even tells you he lo
ves you! I think if Glen said that to me I’d die of shock! He does, like – in his way. They’re not good with emotions, are they? Men …’
Liz can’t seem to make herself move further into the room. She doesn’t really like Carly’s house. It’s not as asinine and joyless as Jay’s own fantasy front room, but it’s not far off. The TV forms the focal point, wall-mounted above the artificial fire. There’s no art on the cream-and-cocoa wallpaper, save for a big canvas bearing the motivational slogan Live, Laugh, Love. The coffee table is clear glass supported on the paws of a reclining otter. It supports three remote controls and two empty mugs. Jay has clearly been here for a while.
‘He was worrying,’ says Carly, brightly. ‘I was too, though I’ve been telling him – you’re doing better, aren’t you? Big day today, wasn’t it? No doubt needed a bit of time afterwards to process it all. I’ll stick the kettle back on. You’re a bit grubby, actually, Liz. Shall I take that and put it straight in the washer …’
Carly reaches out for the cardigan and Liz, instinctively, snatches it back. Carly pulls a face. ‘Maybe a shower, eh? Then you can tell us how it went.’
Liz considers the different ways the next hour of her life could pan out. She could go upstairs, take a shower, clean herself up, then come and tell them both that she crashed the car and spent the afternoon with a man she doesn’t know. She could listen to their exclamations. The criticisms. The sighs and the rising voices and the endless lectures about making better decisions and not continually putting herself in harm’s way. Or she could lie.
‘Was OK,’ she mumbles. ‘Bit late getting started – got a bit turned around with the country roads. Made it, though. She was nice. Early days, but maybe it will do me some good. She says I’m not a lost cause.’
‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ asks Carly, directing her words to Jay, who is sitting back on the sofa and looking at his phone.
He glances up. ‘I messaged you four times this afternoon after we got cut off. Not a word. Carly neither. I needed you to get Anya. Some problem with the after-school club – the woman’s got food poisoning or some such. Thankfully Carly stepped in.’
‘You picked up Anya?’ asks Liz, turning to her sister. ‘She barely knows you.’
‘That’s hardly fair,’ says Carly, temper flashing in her eyes. ‘I’ve known her from before she can remember. And I’m not exactly the Child Catcher, about to carry her off – not with three of my own!’
Liz squeezes her hands together, radiating crossness. She doesn’t know why she doesn’t like the idea of Carly picking up Anya, she just doesn’t. Her mind fills with pictures. Sees Anya laughing and spooning ice cream from the carton while Cool Aunt Carly puts on her favourite movie and makes hot chocolate and does all the things that Liz prides herself on being good at.
‘Fixed, are you?’ asks Jay, again. ‘For sixty-five quid I hope so. More, if you consider the cost of asking Carly to step up and get a taxi over to the school. Nightmare afternoon all round. The halfwits in Shipping have calculated the invoices based on a fifty-three-week year and it’s all down to Muggins here to fix. Best if you take Anya home and I’ll scoot back to the office. Chicken Kievs would be nice, for later, if you still have the energy after all your, y’know, feeeeelings.’
‘There was a problem with the car,’ says Liz, quietly. ‘It wouldn’t start. I thought it might be the exhaust, but I got underneath and had a good look and it all seemed fine. Scratched myself coming back up. Tried to push it on my own – I’m aching all over. Lady from the café by the church took pity on me and phoned a friend who was heading this way. Car’s been towed to a garage. I feel really sore.’
It’s not a great lie, but she sounds convincing as she says it. The short, stilted sentences suggest that she really hasn’t the energy for too many questions and the whole episode is very much in keeping with her reputation as being bloody useless. Jay rolls his eyes.
‘More expense! Right, you stay here with Anya and I’ll pick you up when I’m done. That’s all right, Carly, yes?’
‘Yeah, she’s happy playing.’
‘The day I’ve had,’ he grumbles, standing up and arching his back. He briefly looks like a bowstring, ready to snap.
Liz stays still. She can’t meet his eyes. All she wants is to be left alone with her phone and a decent Wi-Fi signal. She wants to put her head back in the valley where she briefly became somebody else.
Jay bends down as he makes for the door. Seems to think about kissing her cheek, then wrinkles his nose as he sees how grimy she is. ‘Don’t let Anya see you like that,’ he says. ‘She always holds you in high regard.’
Liz stays still after the door has closed and the sound of an Audi, parked a little way up the street, has rumbled away. Then she turns to Carly, who has both eyebrows raised, and her arms open. ‘Car broke down? My arse …’
‘I can’t,’ says Liz, raising her hands in defence. ‘I can’t have you being shitty with me. I’ve no energy.’
‘Shitty with you? Liz, I was just worrying. You don’t think my head was full of horrible thoughts? Jesus, you’ve been suicidal for bloody ever and today you go missing after seeing your shrink!’
‘I didn’t even get there. I crashed. I thought I was going to die. I don’t even know if I was scared of it or wanted it. And a man was horrid, and then another man was nice, and … and … and …’
‘It’s an old T-shirt,’ Carly says, her whole face softening, so that for a moment she looks like their grandmother rather than their mam. ‘Come here.’
As Carly folds her arms around her, Liz lets it out. Cries, her face against Carly’s chest, all snot and tears and salty dirt, until she’s sure there’s nothing left.
NINE
They’ve been drinking for a couple of hours now. Carly’s on the white wine: a decorative raspberry floating in the top of her glass, pilfered from a bar in town in protest at the cost of the Chardonnay. Glen has a can of cider in his meaty fist. He’s changed out of his work overalls and into a T-shirt and shorts and with each sip his bare legs drift apart a little further, spreading out with the sluggish inevitability of tectonic plates. Their eldest, Suki, has been sixteen for a few weeks now but drinks her peach schnapps and lemonade like somebody pretty experienced in the art. Liz, on the floor, back to the wall, is sipping the last of the whisky liqueur that she had bought for Carly last Christmas. Stag’s Breath, it’s called. Warm and gold and honeyed, it never fails to bring out the colour in her cheeks, or to nudge her softly towards a languid, dreamy state of mind. She isn’t hurting any more. Carly made fishcakes, mashed potato and beans for tea: sprinkling half a block of Double Gloucester over Liz’s portion, with a wink that said ‘I remember how you like it’. Liz had wolfed it down. Necked two paracetamol as a palate cleanser before tucking in to Viennetta and blackcurrant jelly. She feels pleasantly satisfied. It’s nearly dark outside and the streetlamp is casting a soft-yellow glow through the front window. Anybody walking past can see in from the street but Liz is taking no care to offer an affected picture of herself. She’s feeling uncommonly comfortable in her borrowed clothes: vest, tracksuit top and a plain corduroy skirt; all a little too big. Were it not for the fact that she will be the first to identify the problem when Glen’s legs reach maximum separation, she could almost consider herself relaxed.
‘Mum, can we watch …?’
‘Yeah, you know the password.’
‘Is Anya allowed …?’
‘Yeah, but nothing more than a fifteen. Don’t put any horrors on, she’s not ready.’
‘Thanks, Mum. Crisps?’
‘If you can’t find them you’ve eaten them.’
Liz is always slightly in awe of the way her sister has taken to parenthood. She’s a true Mamma Bear; fiercely protective of her own precious cubs. She works part-time in the convenience store on the corner of the road but somehow manages to find a way to make sure her kids are always washed, clothed, fed and watered, and Liz has never been able to identify an area in
which any of the three children could consider themselves lacking. Glen makes just about enough money delivering furniture for an international sofa company, and Carly could get a First from Oxford if they offered degrees on how to make the most of the Benefits system. She gets literally everything they’re entitled to, from supplements to rebates. She’s offered to do the same for Liz. Thrown words at her that mean next to nothing: PIP; Universal Credit; Working Tax Credit. Liz has all but turned her face to the wall. It’s all too complicated and it muddies her thoughts. At least with the envelopes that Jay leaves on the mantelpiece, she can feel the cash in her hand. It’s real. Authentic. If she were suddenly self-sufficient she fears she would have all but run out of excuses to leave.
‘You look all dreamy, love,’ says Glen, smiling at Liz. He’s a big chap, all curves and concentric circles, with a hairless head that he shaves and polishes to a bowling-ball gleam every morning and night, lest somebody suggest he is losing his hair. He’s been with Carly for years now and is the dad of her youngest, Kai. Suki’s dad hasn’t been seen since he knocked Carly up at fifteen. The middle kid, Elemental-Chi, is half Caribbean and head-turningly attractive. She’s ten, and Carly remains convinced that her middle child is the product of some passing energy force that chimed in harmony with her energized womb, rather than a bang on the beach with a limbo dancer whose name is lost in a cloud of rum and cokes. Glen loves them all the same, and Liz fancies that he would extend the same love to Anya at a moment’s notice if circumstances necessitated it. He enjoyed teasing her at tea-time; gently making fun of her nice manners, asking whether her designer spectacles were available with windscreen wipers, or whether the posh school she attends had chosen a green blazer to hide the snot on the sleeves.