The Broken

by Tamar Cohen

  ‘God, I’m on fire tonight. What’s going on?’ she laughed, after a man with hair cropped close to his head to disguise his premature baldness had come over expressly to inform her that she was the most beautiful woman in the room.

  But Hannah had seen how she did it, holding a man’s gaze across the room just that fraction longer than was strictly acceptable, drawing him in with a playful half-smile, then looking away after he’d committed himself to coming over, glancing up as he arrived as if surprised to find him there.

  ‘I told you this would be fun, didn’t I? Well? Didn’t I?’

  They moved from the table to the bar, and Sasha was swaying and standing too near, and Hannah was feeling cross and out of place. Most people in here were five or ten years younger than they were, cool, confident types who didn’t need to keep glancing at their phones in case of child-related emergencies, women whose cropped tops and cut-away dresses revealed taut abdominals that had never seen a pregnancy.

  ‘You look like you’re in the waiting room at the dentist, not out enjoying yourself.’

  The man had appeared from nowhere, materializing by her shoulder and speaking from the side of his mouth. She glanced up sharply and was surprised to find herself looking into a pair of shockingly blue, clearly amused eyes set into a ruggedly chiselled face.

  ‘It’s not really my scene,’ she said.

  ‘Mine neither. I was dragged along by a group of mates. We’re on a stag night. You can’t imagine the hell.’

  Hannah smiled, the grumpiness of just a few moments ago miraculously melting away.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  Hannah had been vaguely aware of Sasha’s intense gaze flicking between her and the unknown stranger during the course of this brief exchange.

  ‘I’m Ed.’ The man whose name was Ed nodded at Sasha, without making any attempt to move closer to her. Sasha’s lip-glossed smile spread like a stain over her face.

  ‘And you came all the way over here because you thought Hannah was about to top herself! That’s so sweet. But don’t worry, that’s just her regular default expression, although she can also do bored and indifferent. Don’t be alarmed, she can’t help it. Inside, she’s positively beaming!’

  Hannah felt a wave of anger, sudden and ferocious. How dare Sasha try to score points by putting her down? She hadn’t wanted to come in the first place. Was it any wonder she wasn’t exactly dancing a happy jig in this overloud, overheated place?

  Ed smiled at her, and she was conscious of his arm brushing hers and a burning sensation where their skin touched.

  ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I rather like Hannah’s default expression.’

  Sasha’s features seem to freeze. Through her flattered embarrassment, Hannah had a flash of insight. Sasha was jealous.

  Of her.

  Meanwhile, she’d moved her arm so that it was no longer quite touching Ed’s, but in a way this was even worse because now the hairs on both their arms seemed to be reaching out to make contact, creating an unsettling tingling effect.

  ‘Do you want to dance?’

  For a moment, Hannah allowed herself the fantasy. It had been so long since she’d felt anything like this, what harm could it do? She would step forward with this charismatic stranger with his pale-blue T-shirt that set off his tan, and his eagle tattoo, and his jeans loosely hanging off his narrow hips, and the faint whiff of nicotine that hugged him close, reminding her of boys she had lusted after in her youth. And he would take her hand as they pushed through the sea of bodies to find a space and she would feel once again that particular thrill of closing your fingers around an unknown hand, the shocking vulnerability of another person’s soft palm in yours. And when they arrived on the dance floor the force of the crowd would push them together until they had no choice but to—

  ‘Oi-oi!’

  Sasha thrust herself between Hannah and her fantasy suitor, shattering the daydream.

  ‘Hands off my mate. She’s a happily married woman, I’ll have you know.’ Sasha was speaking in a loud, faux-jolly voice Hannah had never heard before. ‘If you’re after a dance, I’m afraid you’re going to have to make do with me – the sad, single friend.’ She pouted, tilting her head down and gazing up at him through her lashes. Then, with a final flick of her hair, she grabbed his hand, the very one Hannah had just been fantasizing about, thrust her bag at Sasha to look after, and pulled him off in the direction of the dance floor. He turned his head to Hannah as he was led away and gave her a helpless What can you do? look. She smiled and shrugged, hoping her face didn’t betray the ugly feeling that gushed, acidic and corrosive, through her gut.

  She didn’t have a leg to stand on, she knew. She was married. And she couldn’t blame Sasha for wanting to snaffle the first attractive man they’d seen all night. This evening was supposed to be about her, after all. But all the rationalizing in the world couldn’t stop the rage that swept through her as she stood on the edge of the dance floor watching Sasha and Ed weaving their way through the crowd until they disappeared from sight. Her fingers gripped her glass of rum and Coke tightly until her knuckles were four pale splodges under the dimmed lights. She set her face into a ‘good-sport’ expression, ignoring the ache where her half-smile felt heavy and started to sag. A red mist swirled around her brain, but she forced herself to stay very still, concentrating her anger into the pressure of her hand around the glass. The music changed, and then changed again, a relentless bass beat that rattled her insides. Where were they?

  ‘You on your own?’

  A cloud of beery breath engulfed her, almost making her gag. The man who stood swaying next to her was shorter than she was, with hard gelled black hair and fleshy red cheeks.

  ‘You on your own?’ he repeated more loudly, as if she might turn out to be foreign.

  ‘No, I’m with a friend.’

  ‘And she’s left you? That’s not very nice.’

  ‘It’s fine. I’m fine.’

  Hannah kept her eyes fixed on the dance floor, willing Sasha and Ed to reappear.

  ‘Lemme buy you a drink.’

  The man was leaning in close towards her, so the brittle spikes of his hair prickled her cheek.

  ‘No, thanks.’

  She scoured the room again, standing on tiptoe, hoping for a glimpse of Sasha’s black silky head. But nothing.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go somewhere quieter. Have a chat.’

  He put a meaty, clammy hand on her arm, and she jumped back as if burned.

  ‘No! Look, I’m sorry, I’ve got to go to the loo. I’ll see you later.’

  She hurried off without a backward glance, lugging Sasha’s bag as well as her own. In the ladies’ toilets there was the usual queue for the cubicles. Women stood in a straggly line, peering into the mirrors as they waited, touching up their make-up and brushing their hair in the over-bright, greenish light.

  ‘Could take a while,’ the woman in front of Hannah muttered to her. ‘There’s three of ’em in there.’ She indicated the middle cubicle, from which was coming a variety of shrieks and giggles. The woman in front of Hannah put her finger to the side of her nose and inhaled deeply to indicate what might be taking place. ‘And in that one,’ she pointed to the cubicle at the far end, ‘there’s a couple. A bloke and a bird. No prizes for what they’re doing.’

  If the woman’s thin tattooed eyebrows had arched any higher they’d have come clean off her forehead. Just then there came the noise of a bolt being unlocked. The women waiting wearily in the queue suddenly shot to attention as the door to the far cubicle was flung open. Hannah’s idle curiosity about the occupants turned to shock as a figure in a tight black dress came lurching out. Sasha’s lipstick was smudged across her mouth and she was missing an earring. Behind her followed a sheepish-looking Ed, whose expression turned to horror when he caught sight of Hannah.

  Sasha, on the other hand, looked triumphant.

  ‘Hannah! Where’ve you been? I’ve been looking for you all over,’ she gig
gled.

  ‘Slag,’ Hannah heard someone hiss behind her.

  ‘Er, I think I’d better be off,’ said Ed, sidling towards the door.

  ‘Good idea,’ snapped Hannah.

  A woman in the queue behind them called out, ‘Typical man – gets what he wants then buggers off.’

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Hannah turned on Sasha, not caring that the entire queue was listening. ‘You have no idea who that man is or who he’s been with.’

  ‘You’re just jealous,’ sang Sasha.

  Hannah, who was only holding it together by a thread, was relieved when another door opened and she was able to push past Sasha and lock herself away in a cubicle, leaning her head back against the wall, only now aware that she was trembling, her calves visibly shaking through those stupid frumpy jeans. Why had she agreed to come? Sasha was a liability, a joke. Why had she ever thought they had anything in common? Only now could Hannah see the truth about their friendship, that it had been based solely upon convenience and desperation, and a simple need for company. They had different values, different politics (Hannah would never forget Sasha’s shrieks of derision when she told her she’d voted Green in the local elections. Sasha hadn’t even bothered to vote at all), even a different sense of humour.

  Hannah emerged from the cubicle resolved to tell Sasha that she was going home. After that she’d begin the process of disentangling herself from their relationship. Her resolve lasted just as long as it took to catch sight of Sasha sitting in a crumpled heap on the filthy toilet floor, her dress hitched up her thighs, black mascara streaking down her cheeks, her face a mess of tears and snot.

  ‘Oi, you need to get your friend home, you do,’ said a disapproving girl, frozen in the act of reapplying her lipstick by the cracked sink, her hair pulled up into a ponytail so tight it gave her eyes an oriental appearance. ‘You should never have let her get into this state. It’s a fucking disgrace. What kind of friend are you?’

  ‘She’s my best friend,’ sobbed Sasha from the floor. ‘Leave her alone.’

  Hannah felt something tugging at her insides. What was happening to her lately? She’d always prided herself on her loyalty. At school she’d always been the one the other girls would confide in when they had a problem they didn’t want anyone else to know about, yet she’d been about to turn her back on Sasha just because she was having a tough time.

  ‘Come on,’ she said softly, bending to put an arm around the still-weeping Sasha. ‘Let’s get you home.’

  ‘I should think so an’ all,’ remarked the girl with the ponytail.

  Hannah, who had hauled Sasha to her feet and was supporting her on one side, turned to glare at her. ‘How dare you judge her? You don’t know anything about her life and what she’s going through. You should be fucking ashamed.’ The expletive came out sounding prissy, as if she were a child trying out swearing for the first time.

  The girl shook her head, unmoved, the ponytail swinging vigorously from side to side. ‘We’ve all got our problems, sweetheart. But some of us have got a bit of pride as well.’

  Outside the club, Sasha was sick into a bin, her bony shoulder blades jutting pale and sharp in the semi-darkness. Hannah held back her hair and stroked her back, and tried not to meet the bouncers’ eyes. Two cabs pulled up, saw the state of Sasha and sped off again, and the third only agreed to take them when Hannah offered to pay for the car to be valeted if Sasha threw up in it.

  On the way back to Crouch End, through streets lined with scantily clad women, many in a similar state to Sasha, and groups of men laughing over-loudly to compensate for not having pulled, Hannah kept her hand on Sasha’s and willed the night to be over.

  ‘Sash,’ she ventured at one time, sneaking a glance at her friend, who was compressed into a corner of the backseat of the cab like a cornered cat. ‘You know that guy . . . Ed?’

  Hannah shot a nervous look at the driver, a squat, bearded man, who was fiddling impatiently with his radio, trying to find a station that didn’t offend him.

  Sasha made a non-committal noise in reply.

  ‘You were . . . you know . . . careful, weren’t you?’

  Sasha groaned, shrinking still further into the grubby upholstery of the car. Hannah decided not to pursue the subject, but she couldn’t stop thoughts of Sasha and Ed and what had happened in the toilet from surging around her head. It was disgusting. So distasteful and seedy. Like animals mating in public. No self-control. No pride – that awful girl had been right about that. Where was Sasha’s self-respect? To let that man reach out his knotted muscly arms with that stupid tattoo and put his hand up her tiny dress and slide those loose jeans down over his hips. Did they do it standing up, pressed together in that minuscule cubicle, stifling breaths and moans in each other’s skin and hair? Or maybe he was sitting down on the toilet seat – no lid, mind, probably to discourage drug-taking – and she astride him. Hannah pictured Sasha lowering herself on to his thighs, his tanned arms reaching round to guide her down as her dress rode up her thighs. Obscene. That’s what it was.

  And yet . . . oh God.

  ‘You don’t have to come in. Just drop me off.’

  It was the first time Sasha had spoken properly since they’d left the toilets, and her words sounded slurred and heavy, as if they were being dragged from her against her will.

  ‘Don’t be stupid. I’m seeing you home.’

  ‘No. I . . .’

  ‘Forget it, Sasha. I’m not letting you go in on your own. Anyway, I’m desperate for the loo. I’ll come in and walk home from here. It’s only a few minutes.’

  She wasn’t desperate for the loo, but it was the only way she could stop Sasha arguing with her. Not that she particularly wanted to go to Sasha’s house, but she knew she’d feel bad if she left her to deal with a babysitter in this state. It would be so humiliating.

  ‘Who’ve you got babysitting?’

  Sasha looked blank.

  ‘Your babysitter? Who is it?’

  Sasha shrugged. ‘Katia.’

  The word was so indistinctly spoken as to almost not be a word at all, just a sludge of sound.

  ‘Katia?’ Hannah frowned. ‘That’s weird, isn’t it? She never normally babysits.’

  Sasha shrugged again, and retreated into silence as the cab driver drew bad-temperedly up outside her house. Hannah rifled through her purse for cash, baulking at the twenty-five pounds he demanded.

  ‘Can’t find the key.’ Sasha sat down on her doorstep, practically inhaling the contents of her handbag.

  ‘Oh, give it here.’

  Hannah snatched the bag from her, eventually locating the doorkey in an inside pocket and letting them in.

  ‘Katia!’ she called as she helped Sasha into the hallway.

  No answer. She walked into the living room. Nothing, although the television was on – a re-run of a news quiz show, it looked like. A strange choice for a woman with a very limited grasp of English.

  ‘No sign of her,’ Hannah remarked as Sasha lurched into the room and flopped down heavily on the chaise longue.

  ‘She’s staying the night. I told her to go to bed.’

  Hannah was taken aback. Sasha never had people staying the night. She was so particular about everything, so controlling. Although she had her own en suite, she’d confessed to Hannah once that even the sight of other people’s toothbrushes in the guest bathroom made her gag. ‘It defiles it. Do you know what I mean?’

  ‘I’ll be off then. I’ll just go to the loo.’

  Hannah went to the bathroom on the ground floor. She was surprised to find the door to the guest room wide open and the room quite empty. She gazed around at its grey Farrow & Ball painted walls, as if she might find Katia hiding there, somehow camouflaged against them.

  ‘Where did you say Katia was sleeping?’ she asked, re-entering the living room.

  Sasha, who had kicked off her inhospitable shoes and was lying back on the chaise longue, put one hand up over her face. She had her
eyes shut, but Hannah had the distinct impression that she was far from asleep.

  ‘Sasha!’ she prompted, loudly. ‘Where’s Katia?’

  ‘Hmm . . .?’ Sasha murmured, as if she’d just woken up.

  ‘Katia!’ Hannah snapped.

  Sasha opened her eyes just a fraction. ‘She’s upstairs in Dan’s office. Or rather, Dan’s former office,’ she said languorously. ‘I told her to sleep on the sofa there, so she could be nearer September.’

  ‘Oh.’

  But something still didn’t feel right.

  ‘I’ll just pop up and check, shall I? Make sure September is OK.’

  That woke her up all right. Sasha sat up with such alacrity her head seemed to jerk backwards. ‘Leave her alone. She’s fine.’

  Hannah, who was already halfway across the room, stopped, stunned at the sudden ferocity in the other woman’s voice.

  ‘Didn’t mean to jump at you,’ said Sasha, not getting up. ‘September’s been so tired. I don’t want to risk her waking up. That’s all.’

  As Hannah made her way down the outside steps, she couldn’t shake off a sense of misgiving. It was so unlikely that Sasha should have asked Katia to babysit in the first place, let alone to stay over upstairs in what had previously been Dan’s office, a hallowed space that Dan had always fiercely guarded. Of course, no one could blame Sasha now that Dan had left her for letting anyone she wanted sleep there. And yet it seemed so strange, so out of character. But then again, why would she lie about it? Unless . . .

  But no. Hannah wouldn’t allow herself to go any further. People like her and Sasha, they put their kids first. Always. She was allowing the weirdness of the evening to play tricks on her imagination. Sasha might have been a complete liability tonight, but she was a good mother. She’d never do anything to put September at risk.

  It was a moonless night and the street was deserted, the huge houses looming monstrous out of the darkness on both sides. Hannah’s stupid going-out boots made a clicking noise on the pavement as she walked, the echo shockingly loud in the silent urban landscape. A shape appeared from between two parked cars up ahead and Hannah’s heart lurched painfully in her chest. A large fox, its white breast luminous under a dim street light, blocked the path. It stared out at her impassive, unmoving. Hannah stopped, holding her breath. For what seemed like minutes, but could only really have been a few seconds, Hannah and the fox stared at each other in the still early-morning air. Then it turned and disappeared from view as noiselessly as it had arrived.