The Broken

by Tamar Cohen

  ‘I didn’t realize your sister being here would rule out you spending time with me.’ Sasha’s voice was thin and reedy. ‘Doesn’t she like me or something?’

  Hannah felt herself blushing. The one time they’d met, Gemma hadn’t much taken to Sasha, pronouncing her the spoilt-princess type. Her heart sank when she saw tears welling up once more in Sasha’s eyes.

  ‘I understand. It must be so wonderful to have a supportive family. You’re so lucky, Hannah. Don’t worry about me. I know I’ve been a burden these last few weeks. I’m sure you can’t wait to spend some time away from me.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It’s not like that.’

  ‘I just don’t know what I’d have done without you. Sometimes I feel I’m going completely crazy. You’re the only one I can talk to.’

  Hannah watched, stricken, as a fat tear made its way down Sasha’s gaunt face, until she couldn’t stand it any more.

  ‘Of course you can still come round when Gemma’s here. She’d love to see you,’ she lied. ‘The three of us will have a laugh together. She’s great fun.’

  ‘It just came out. I felt so sorry for her.’

  ‘Hans, how many times have we been through this? There’s a little word you need to learn. It starts with n and ends with o and it’s got two letters. Can you think what it might be?’

  ‘I know, I know. But with any luck she won’t take me up on it. She could tell I wasn’t that keen.’

  ‘That woman is so self-obsessed she wouldn’t notice if you’re keen or not.’

  ‘Give her a break, Gem. You only met her once. She’s had a really hard time.’

  ‘Ah, bless. Tell you what though, if her husband’s back on the market, send him my way. He was fit.’

  ‘He’s already got another woman. Anyway, where’s your solidarity?’

  ‘Same place as my desire to spend my weekend listening to your friend crying into her designer handbag about how hard done by she is.’

  Hannah sighed, tilting her phone so the noise didn’t carry down the line. Gemma could be very judgemental sometimes, taking against people for no better reason than a limp handshake or a single questionable joke. It had taken years for Josh to overcome the unfavourable first impression he’d created when, seized by nerves at meeting Hannah’s family, he’d drunk too much and ended up droning on loudly and (though she wouldn’t admit it at the time) boringly about the perilous state of secondary education. And Gemma had been even more scathing about Sasha. Hannah could hardly bear to think how hurt Sasha would be if she could hear their conversation. She knew she ought to mount a more vigorous defence of her friend, but as always she found herself swaying in the wind of her sister’s forceful opinion. Though Gemma was a year younger, Hannah couldn’t remember a time when her judgements hadn’t coloured her own. It had been like that even before the thing that happened when they were teenagers, from which none of them – Gemma, Hannah nor their mother – had ever quite recovered. But there was a small part of Hannah that was enjoying not having to be understanding and sympathetic for once. She seemed to spend her entire life tiptoeing around other people at the moment. It felt good to be having a normal conversation – even if it was on the phone to her sister, sixty miles away in Oxford – without having to worry about saying the wrong thing, or upsetting someone by mistake.

  ‘I still don’t understand how you’re managing to stay friends with both of them,’ Gemma continued. ‘I’m surprised Sasha hasn’t issued an ultimatum yet – him or me. I know I would have.’

  Gemma’s own divorce had been finalized four years earlier, and she’d made no secret of the fact that she didn’t want any of her family or friends to keep in touch with her ex, or ‘that wanker I married’, as she insisted on calling Sam at the time.

  ‘It’s different though, because Josh and Dan are such good mates. And Sasha says she feels better knowing we’re in touch with Dan. At least she knows what’s going on in his life.’

  There was a pause on the other end of the phone.

  ‘Hans,’ Gemma said eventually, and her voice was suddenly serious, ‘you need to be careful. Divorces are toxic things. You don’t want to be pulled into someone else’s mess. Be nice, but keep your distance. Understand?’

  11

  ‘She’s here.’

  ‘What? I can’t hear you.’

  ‘She’s here!’

  ‘What? Now?’

  ‘Yes. Look, Dan, I really don’t feel comfortable about this.’

  ‘I know. It’s a fucking shit situation to put you in, but I’ve been going so crazy. I owe you. I really owe you.’

  ‘I’ve got to go. Remember, not a word of this to Hannah.’ After clicking off the phone, Josh flushed the toilet, just for authenticity. Something was twanging sharply in his chest, making him doubt whether he’d done the right thing. Not that he didn’t believe Dan had the right to see his daughter, whatever he’d done. And September had the right to see her father. Fathers were important. Still, Hannah would be furious if she knew he’d called Dan. They had to make it look like a coincidence – that Dan had just happened to turn up at their house unexpectedly while September was round playing with Lily.

  Emerging from the bathroom, Josh heard the increasingly unfamiliar sound of Hannah shrieking with laughter. Good, he thought. She’d been so stressed recently, restlessly shifting position in bed throughout the night, moving her pillow forward, backwards, to the side, over her head, until they were both wide awake.

  Josh hadn’t been thrilled at first when Hannah told him Gemma was coming to stay. Not that there was any animosity between them any more. They’d long since come to a tacit understanding – or rather a mutual acceptance of their lack of understanding. But he had been hoping for a bit of down time at home, his first chance to think properly about the awful thing that had happened at school – the thing he still half believed he must have invented. No sooner had the memory flitted across his mind than Josh pushed it away again, his heart racing. Not now. He couldn’t deal with that now.

  Gemma was full-on and she brought out a loud, reckless side of Hannah that was normally hidden and that Josh found uncomfortable. Though they never talked about it, Josh suspected that Hannah was still compensating for what happened when they were teenagers – going along with whatever Gemma wanted, even when it went against her nature. Plus there was that usual thing of having someone staying in their tiny flat. Josh had never mastered the art of hosting. He was one of those men who spent half an hour in the toilet straight after breakfast with a coffee and last weekend’s colour supplement, but with only one bathroom even that simple pleasure seemed selfish and unbearably intimate when there were guests in the flat. He’d rush through it and emerge, flame-faced, hoping not to bump into anyone. On Gemma’s last visit he’d been mortified to find her waiting outside the bathroom door in her dressing gown. ‘Thank God, I’m bursting,’ she’d said, darting in after him and locking the door. All day his cheeks had burned when he’d imagined her sitting down on the still-warm seat, breathing in the fetid air.

  ‘He said and it fits exactly into the contours of the rug,’ came Gemma’s voice, followed by another burst of appreciative laughter from her sister.

  ‘Josh, you’ve got to hear Gemma’s latest dating disaster story,’ Hannah said as he walked through the door. ‘It’s too funny.’

  ‘Funny for you!’ Gemma put on a mock pout.

  ‘She went out with a guy who was so boring all he talked about was this coffee table he’d made himself to fit the rectangles on the living-room rug.’

  It was one of those awkward moments where everyone present knows a story that might have been funny first time round hasn’t stood up to repetition.

  ‘It also fitted exactly into the boot of the car,’ Gemma threw in pointlessly.

  ‘We were thinking we might go for a quick potter around the shops,’ said Hannah. ‘You don’t mind, do you? Lily and September are playing really quietly.’

  ‘Not at all. Go for i
t.’

  Josh tried to disguise his relief. With any luck, Dan could nip round to see September without Hannah even knowing he’d been. Not that he was doing anything wrong by reuniting a father with his child, but he didn’t want Hannah to feel – what was the right word? – compromised. That’s it. Sasha was her friend, after all.

  But Josh had forgotten how long it could take Hannah to put any plan into action when she was with her sister. Though it was early afternoon, they were still in their dressing gowns. Hannah hadn’t even bothered to get dressed when Sasha dropped September off an hour earlier. That had been a prickly half-hour, with Sasha and Gemma eyeing each other warily and Sasha talking way too brightly to try to cover up her nerves, brittle as a dried reed, while Gemma smiled politely in an unconvincing way. Sasha had tried to be funny. ‘Remember me? I’m the Tragic Friend,’ she’d introduced herself. It sounded like a line she’d been rehearsing in the car. ‘I’m the person to come to if you want to feel better about your own life.’

  Sasha had been vague about where she was going. Josh got the feeling Hannah knew but had been sworn to secrecy. He hated this new development – he and Hannah keeping secrets from each other. He guessed Sasha was going on a huge shopping splurge or something like that. She was one of those shopping-therapy kind of people, plus her spending money was a way of winding Dan up. Thankfully Hannah didn’t have that particular gene. It seemed as if Sasha would be gone a while. Long enough for Dan to drop by and spend a little bit of time with September. ‘Ten minutes – five, even,’ he’d pleaded. ‘I just need to see her.’

  Having brought up the possibility of an outing, Hannah and Gemma seemed in no hurry to get going. They wandered in and out of the bathroom and loitered by the table, flicking through the Saturday papers. Hannah decided she couldn’t leave without one more cup of tea, and then, to his dismay, Josh heard Gemma joining in a game of vets with Lily and September. ‘Bring in the patient, Nurse Lily,’ he heard her say. ‘No time to lose. We must operate immediately!’

  Josh grew increasingly anxious, glancing out of the window on the lookout for Dan’s distinctive red car. Why didn’t they just leave? When Dan did arrive, he was driving a powder-blue VW Beetle, which is why Josh didn’t notice him until the doorbell had already rung.

  ‘Dan?’ he heard Hannah exclaim as his heart sank. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Just passing and saw your car and thought I’d drop in for a cup of tea. Josh home?’

  Josh wandered nonchalantly into the hall, wishing he didn’t have one of those faces that broadcast every lie.

  ‘Nice motor,’ he said, attempting a jocular tone that fell immediately flat to his ears.

  ‘I’ve borrowed it.’

  Josh didn’t need to ask whom he’d borrowed it from.

  A shout went up from behind Lily’s closed door.

  ‘’Mergency, ’mergency,’ came September’s unmistakeable strident shrill. ‘I have to chop off his leg ’mediately.’

  Dan’s face broke into a broad grin. ‘I recognize that voice!’

  Josh was impressed and a little bit discomfited by how genuine Dan’s surprise seemed. His friend was exceedingly good at pretending, it occurred to him.

  ‘We must amputate, we must amputate,’ came Gemma’s Dalek impression from behind the door.

  ‘Princess!’ Dan was moving towards Lily’s room. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Daddy!’ The door flew open and September, plastic stethoscope around her neck, rushed out and flung herself at Dan. In spite of his anxiety about the situation and his part in engineering it, Josh couldn’t help feeling a rush of warmth as he watched the two embrace, clutching each other as if they’d been apart for months.

  ‘My God, you’ve grown a foot at least!’ murmured Dan, showering his daughter with kisses. ‘You must be at least as big as me now. If not bigger!’

  ‘I’m not big as you. Silly Daddy!’

  Behind September, Lily appeared in the doorway of her bedroom, twiddling her hair shyly as she watched Dan and September.

  ‘Oi, girls, we’ve a patient with half a leg off on the operating table,’ came Gemma’s voice from inside the room. Seconds later she, too, appeared at the door, clutching a tissue blotted with fake felt-pen blood.

  ‘Oh, hi,’ she said as Dan straightened up, September still clinging to his legs. ‘Remember me? I’m Gemma, aka Dr Death.’

  Dan smiled his charming smile. ‘Course I remember you, Gemma. What a stroke of luck that you’re all here. I must drive past more often!’

  Josh glanced over and noticed that Hannah was frowning.

  ‘Funny that you saw our car, seeing as I had to park it round the corner after picking Gemma up from the station last night.’

  Dan’s smile didn’t falter. ‘Weird. Must be one just like it then.’

  ‘Yeah, very weird.’ Hannah glared at Josh until he looked away.

  ‘I really think Sasha is losing it.’

  ‘Can you blame her?’

  ‘No, I’m serious. You should see the emails she writes. Pages and pages of bile. Some of the stuff is scary, I’m telling you.’

  Josh shot a glance towards the living-room door to make sure there were no small figures lurking there, then he heard September laughing in Lily’s room and relaxed a little. Hannah and Gemma had been gone about an hour, but it was only ten minutes since September had finally slid off Dan’s lap and gone to play, leaving the two men free to talk.

  ‘What kind of stuff?’

  ‘Like she sent me a whole load of links to newspaper articles about gonorrhoea and really sick photographs of syphilitic dicks. She says Sienna has all these disgusting sexual diseases and that basically my dick is going to fall off in a very painful way.’

  Josh grimaced, but really it didn’t sound so outrageous to him. Of course Sasha was going to be vitriolic. Hurt people hurt people, wasn’t that what he and Hannah had been discussing?

  ‘And she’s spending a ton of money. You should see my bank statements. Clothes, shoes . . . Do you know she spent £250 at the White Company the other day? Two hundred and fifty quid on fucking sheets! And the garden. Remember how she insisted on getting it decked a couple of years ago – top-grade Indonesian teak decking, no less? Well, now she’s hired a garden designer to come up with plans for re-landscaping. What the fuck? I’ve tried to get her to meet up so we can talk about selling the house, but she hasn’t replied to any of my calls or emails. Jesus, Josh, I don’t want to get heavy with her, but she’s going to leave me little option.’

  Josh’s stomach gave an uncomfortable lurch at that word heavy. He thought about what Sasha had said to Hannah about the measuring of the bruises.

  ‘Heavy, how?’

  ‘You know, go the legal route.’ Dan looked at Josh’s face and his expression darkened. ‘Fuck me, you thought I meant physically heavy, didn’t you? You thought I was going to beat her up?’

  ‘No, of course I didn’t. I know you wouldn’t do that.’

  ‘Fucking right I wouldn’t. Jesus, Josh. You’re supposed to be my mate.’

  ‘I am. Course I am.’

  Dan was silent for a moment.

  ‘In that case, as you’re my mate, I’ve got something to ask you. Well, you and Hannah, really.’

  Josh didn’t like the sound of that. The muscles along the tops of his legs clenched as Dan spoke.

  ‘I want you to meet Sienna.’

  ‘Are you crazy? No way, Dan. Not happening.’

  ‘Hear me out. I know I’ve been downplaying this thing with her, but the fact is I’m serious about her. She’s important to me, and you two are important to me. I want you to get to know each other.’

  Josh was shaking his head, but deep down in some shallow, ignoble part of himself, he was also feeling flattered. They were important to Dan, he and Hannah. They mattered. He imagined how Dan might have talked about them to Sienna. You’re going to love these guys, he might have said. They have such integrity.

  ‘I can’t,
Dan. We can’t. It would be so unfair to Sasha. Try to see it from her perspective.’

  ‘OK, OK, I’m not asking you to go against your principles, but do me a favour and just think about it. Sienna isn’t going to go away. Sooner or later you’re going to have to meet her.’

  Josh looked down at his hands, broad and fleshy as they’d always seemed to him, with those thick fingers spiked with stubby black hairs. His thumbnails were bitten right down and he felt a flash of annoyance with himself – he thought he’d beaten that childhood habit. He glanced again at the doorway to make sure they were alone. For a second he baulked at asking the question on his tongue. It felt too intrusive, too intimate, as if it might take his relationship with Dan to a level neither of them felt comfortable with. But the words were too big to swallow back down.

  ‘Has it been worth it?’ he blurted out, his face hot. ‘All the misery? What I mean is, do you ever regret it?’

  For a moment, as Dan blinked at him in surprise, Josh worried he had gone too far. Then his friend’s face split open like a pea pod in a smile he didn’t seem able to control.

  ‘Not for one minute,’ he said. ‘If it wasn’t for not being able to see September, I’d be the happiest man alive.’

  Hannah and Gemma were in high spirits when they arrived home. Josh eyed their collection of shopping bags. Some of them were those thick paper ones with the cord handles that came from the more expensive clothes shops. He tried to work out the distribution ratio of bags per woman, but it proved impossible as they dropped them all in a collective heap as they came through the door.

  ‘You’ve been busy,’ he said, attempting jocularity but falling well flat.

  Hannah’s smile shrivelled on her face. ‘Don’t start,’ she snapped.

  ‘I didn’t say anything!’

  He had a right to be concerned about what Hannah was spending. They were only hanging on by a thread, and he knew for a fact that she hadn’t been doing much work recently. No chance of that with Sasha round all the time. It was all right for Gemma, with her secure hospital-administrator job and no dependants. Hannah needed to realize she couldn’t compete.