by Carrie Elks
Somehow we make it back to his room. He switches on the lights and I blink rapidly, the brightness hurting my brain. I stumble across the floor, my path impeded by a myriad of half-painted canvasses propped against walls and chests of drawers and even the bedstead. The riot of colours assault my senses and make me want to cry.
Then he’s touching me again. Pulling me onto his half-made bed, kicking the crumpled covers down until there’s only us and the mattress and peace and love. He spends hours undressing me, kissing and licking each newly exposed inch of skin. When his eyes meet mine I can see the concentration behind his glassy expression, as if he’s determined not to miss a single piece of my body. His lips are slow, smooth, gentle, and they feel like heaven.
When we’re both naked, he presses his body against mine. It feels as though we are liquid flesh, melting into each other, and the concept of us seems a foreign thing. We are we, me, him, Niall and Beth, one person, one body, one heart, one breath.
As he pushes inside I can feel every inch of him sliding into me. I cling to him tightly, my mouth pressed against his, kissing him, feeling him, taking him. When he grinds against me, his cries rough and breathless, I know it’s going to feel better than any drug.
Then we’re coming and coming, with liquid bodies and aching muscles. His breath is mine as our mouths move together, and the pleasure is so intense it almost hurts. Then, as the fireworks exploding inside my closed eyes fade into the shadows, I feel his lips pressed to my cheek, soft and gentle. Warm moans wafting against my skin.
“Beth.”
The way he says it makes my eyes sting. Reverent. Amazed.
We are all arms and legs, tangled together; bound by crazy, sticky-sweet love. And a hundred tiny jolts pulse through me as he pulls out, my body still buzzing with pleasure. We fall asleep, a mess of hot flesh and deep sighs, our bodies drenched with sweat. When we wake in the morning, the pale light of dawn piercing through the half-shut curtains, we are still twisted together as one.
Even as we come down, I can feel everything has changed. I’m no longer the girl I used to be.
Because now, I’m his girl.
5
I spend the next morning bent over the toilet in Lara’s cramped, old-fashioned bathroom, vomiting in the bowl as she scoops my damp hair away from my face. She holds it in a ponytail so it won’t get splashed. In between heaves I tell her I’m never going to drink again, that beer is the work of the devil, and she’s a terrible influence on me.
She just laughs and passes me a damp facecloth. I press it to my skin, feeling it cool my overheated flesh.
By lunchtime I’m almost passing for normal. My head is pretty fuzzy, but at least I can walk without bending over in two. I don’t remember hangovers being this bad when I was younger. Even coming down from an E is a walk in the park compared with this nausea.
“I’m too old for this,” I moan as Lara bundles me up in a jacket and drags me to the nearest cafe. “I shouldn’t have drunk that last glass of Baileys.”
“Oh, you remember that, do you?”
I close my eyes, and wish I could shut my nose off, too. The cafe smells of bacon and greasy chips and I feel my stomach churn again. Lara orders us both a full English breakfast and I’m too exhausted even to refuse.
Of course, when it arrives, I gobble up the lot. As always, bacon is the ultimate hangover cure.
“So...” Lara pours us both a second mug of tea. “…Niall Joseph.”
I take a sip. It’s liquid heaven. “What about him?”
She tips her head to the side and gives me an are-you-kidding-me look. “He’s the guy?”
Placing my mug back on the scratched wooden table, I rest my chin on my hands. “Yup.”
“How do you feel about seeing him again?”
“Is this a counselling session? Should I be expecting a bill for fifty pounds an hour?” The waitress takes away our plates and I sigh with relief. No matter how good the breakfast tastes, seeing the remains congealing on the white plate is doing nothing for my lingering nausea.
“I’m not your counsellor, I’m your friend. But I do think you should talk to somebody, a professional. You haven’t been yourself for weeks.”
“I’m not going to fall into depression just because Niall Joseph has waltzed back into my life. I got over that years ago. It means nothing. I worked through all that crap when it happened.”
I’m a different person to the girl who could barely bring herself to breathe. Stronger, more together.
“Why did you drink so much last night?”
Her question makes me bristle. “I haven’t been on a night out like that in ages. I misjudged. It’s a lot easier to be circumspect when you’re drinking hundred-pound bottles of wine.” I sound flippant, because I want to stop remembering it all. Niall, Digby, that hot, humid night when everything changed. If I don’t think about it, I can cope.
Just about.
Lara looks at me and her lips start to twitch. The corners of my mouth rise up in response. A moment later we both collapse into a fit of giggles. I sound like such a loser. Sometimes I think I’m two different people: the Beth who wears jeans and sweaters, who drinks beer and spends her days with addicts, versus the Beth who eats elegant dinners and sips fine wine and listens silently to much older men putting the world to rights. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to decide which person I am; which me I prefer.
The thought is still on my mind when Simon finally arrives home on Sunday evening. By that time I’m fully recovered from my hangover and feeling more like my old self. Any thoughts of depression and angst and Niall Joseph are squashed firmly down, and the smile which lights my face when my husband walks through the door is almost genuine.
“How was your weekend?” I pull his coat from his shoulders and place it on a wooden hanger. “You look tired, darling.”
“I am. We had a good time. Took a few shots, drank a few whiskies. Turns out that Andrew’s had the whole lodge renovated.” Simon puts his case at the bottom of the stairs. “How was your weekend?”
We walk into the kitchen and I try to banish the memory of Niall’s angry face. Deep breaths. Equilibrium.
“Mostly quiet. I managed to catch up on some paperwork today. I’ve realised it’s only three months until the gala; I really need to get working on that.” I’m not as daunted by this as I once was. I’ve been in charge of the gala for four years now. I pretty much know what I’m doing. Not that it’s any easier, though. Even if I don’t have that constant feeling of dread as I did that first year.
After a small supper we head upstairs for bed. It’s only nine thirty, but we’re both exhausted, and have to be up for work in the morning. I take a shower—letting the hot water wash away any remnants of the weekend from my skin—and by the time I’ve dried my hair, Simon is in bed, his wire-framed reading glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. He’s making notes on some briefs he has brought home from work. His chest is bare; his body is well maintained in spite of his age. There is a smattering of grey hair from his neck to his stomach and a tiny paunch that even exercise can’t erase. I like the softness of it, even though I know it makes him self-conscious.
When I climb under the covers, he lays the briefs on the bedside table and takes his glasses off. Switching off the bedside lamp, he shuffles down the mattress, turning on his side so he’s facing away from me. In the darkness, I feel the familiar gloom wash over me again. I can kid myself all I want to that I’m okay, that the events of Friday haven’t affected me, but alone in the dark, I start to feel like that nineteen-year-old girl again—full of emotions and unease. I don’t like these raw sensations that seem to be turning me inside out. I prefer the certainty, the almost-numbness I’ve managed to achieve since marrying Simon.
So I snuggle up to his body, spooning him from behind, curling my arm around his chest. My palm splays against his torso, and he reaches up, placing his hand on top of my own. I push myself against him, letting the tip of my thumb brush
against his nipple. A moment later he gently pulls it away.
“I’m really tired.” He sounds apologetic. “I need to get some sleep.”
I know he doesn’t mean for it to come across as a rejection, but that’s how I take it, anyway.
“It’s okay.” My voice is muffled by his back. This is a good thing, because I can feel the tears threatening to escape. I’m almost clinging to him, desperate for the connection, needing to hold on to him as if he’s my only port in a storm. Simon’s breathing starts to slow, becoming light and rhythmic as he falls gently asleep. A tear rolls slowly down my cheek as I try to stop the longing, the desperation to feel him inside me, the need for him to reclaim me in the basest way possible.
Instead, I cry silently, until nothingness takes over.
* * *
Niall and I don’t mention that Friday night again. We’re back to being amicable colleagues, working smoothly and easily together. Trying to keep the kids interested and under control takes up all of our emotional energy; there isn’t enough left over to get into the angst of our past. It’s so much easier to paper over the gaps than try to dig in deeper.
It doesn’t stop me from looking at him, while he’s preoccupied with something else, and wondering exactly what happened to him that summer. Did he get as low as I did? I find myself wanting to know more about what he’s been doing since graduation. I know from Elise’s brief, breathless description that he spent some time in the States, but how did he end up there? What made him come back?
All these things run through my mind as I watch him demonstrating a layering technique to Cameron Gibbs, a particularly mouthy twelve-year-old with a penchant for stealing. For some reason Cameron—whose widowed father has a deep and meaningful relationship with prescription drugs—seems to have taken a shine to Niall. He watches intently as Niall’s long, paint-stained fingers pick up the brush and feather watercolour paint onto the paper. Niall says something to him that I can’t hear, and Cameron’s response is equally quiet. Whatever he says, it makes Niall’s usually smooth forehead crinkle, his lips pulling down with a frown.
Then he looks up at me and beckons me over. My heart beats a little faster as I walk toward them, trying to swallow the memories down as I remember that action so well. The curled fingers, the come-hither stare. I do exactly what I always did—I obey.
Niall starts to talk as soon as I reach the table. “Cameron says he’s never been to an art gallery.”
I don’t know why he looks so surprised. These are deprived inner-city kids whose parents’ priorities include finding drugs, taking drugs, stealing money to afford drugs and very occasionally trying to kick the drug habit. Enriching their children’s cultural knowledge doesn’t come high on their agendas.
“I don’t expect he has.” I glance over at Cameron and smile. He grimaces back. In his world, smiles are for wimps.
“What about the rest of the kids?”
Without answering, I glance around the room. Allegra is bent over her paper, splashing colour on with glorious abandon. A couple of the older kids are sitting at the back flicking paint at each other with their brushes. The rest are either chatting or drawing. “I don’t expect so, Niall. They probably haven’t had the opportunity.”
He chews on his lip. “But they live in London. We’re surrounded by art galleries and museums.”
And also drug dealers and crack dens. I widen my eyes in an attempt to get him to shut up. Cameron watches us interestedly.
“What can I tell you?” I say.
He pauses for a moment, thinking things through. Then his face lights up and a grin slowly forms on his lips. “We can take them.”
“What?” I wasn’t expecting that.
“You and I. We can take them all on an outing. We can go to the Tate Modern. I know some people there.” He looks so young and enthusiastic it makes me smile.
“You want to take fifteen kids on a day trip to a gallery? How are we going to get there?”
He has an answer for everything. “I’ll hire a coach. It can pick us up here at four; we can spend a couple of hours in the gallery, and then come back. I’ll even stump up for a McDonald’s for them all.”
I notice Cameron’s expression out of the corner of my eye. He looks almost excited. It would be amazing to show them real art, to have Niall talk them through the exhibitions, demonstrating how paint can bring a canvas alive. But these aren’t just any kids. They aren’t used to having to behave in an art gallery, and the older ones can be almost impossible to control. It’d be like herding cats.
“Can we talk over there?” I gesture to the empty desk in the corner of the room and wrap my fingers around his bicep to lure him over. The warmth of his skin leaches through his shirt, the hardness of his biceps through his flesh. He glances down to where my fingers hold him, then looks right into my eyes.
“Sure.”
When we get there I release him. He absentmindedly rubs the spot where I was touching him. “Is there a problem?”
“This isn’t going to work. We can’t take them to a gallery. They’ll end up destroying the place. Cameron will probably try to nick an installation and George will graffiti over some Dali with his spray paint. We’re asking for trouble.”
“You don’t think these kids deserve to see some real paintings?”
He baits and I bite. “Of course I do. They deserve everything and most of them don’t get it. But if something goes wrong and it ends up at the door of the clinic we’ll all be in trouble.”
Niall starts to pull at the paint coating his fingers. I notice it’s oil-based, and as we are only using watercolours he must have come here with them like that. I feel curiosity overtake me, and I’m desperate to know what he was doing, what he was painting.
“I’ll cover us. Let me speak with the Tate and set something up for next Thursday.” He reaches out with jade-stained fingers. “Come on, Beth. Please?”
Next Thursday. I’m meant to be going out with Simon to a party that night, but it won’t start until nine. I figure I’ll be able to do both—take the kids to the gallery then go to the ball. Niall’s so very irresistible, with those pouty lips and ocean-coloured eyes that in spite of my fears, of my misgivings, I find myself nodding in agreement.
My reward is a squeeze of my wrist and an excited grin which practically splits his face in two. Like the Niall-addict I used to be, I take it all in and let him set my pulse on fire.
Feel the burn.
I’m still feeling it when we finish for the day. The kids help clear up in their noisy, haphazard way, washing pots in the Belfast sink and managing to spill dirty grey water onto the floor below. It sprays over the white tiles surrounding the sink area.
When they’re gone I clean up again, wiping down the white porcelain. Niall picks up the paintings and hangs them up on the string I’ve wired across the ceiling for just that purpose, securing them with clothes pegs.
“I’m sorry if I pushed you into a corner.”
“What?” An image pops into my head—Niall manhandling me into a wall, pressing his body into mine. I can almost feel the outline of his chest against mine. I shake my head, trying to get it out of my mind.
“Over the gallery. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.” His voice is so soft I have to step closer to hear him. “I feel bad for railroading you.”
“You didn’t railroad me.” I am lying through my teeth. I don’t want to be the weak one anymore. The girl so easily led astray. “It’ll be great; I’m looking forward to it.”
His smile is confused. “Okay. Well, thanks for agreeing to it. I owe you one.”
I raise my eyebrows and nod. For a moment I find it easy to pretend this could work, that we could be two colleagues taking a group of kids on an outing. No issues, no history. Just good, clean friends.
I’m clearly delusional.
6
Nobody’s seen Daisy MacArthur for a while. The last time anyone heard from her was almost two weeks ago, when she cancel
led her appointment with Lara. Since then I’ve tried calling and messaging her with no response. A lump of lead lies at the bottom of my gut when I think of all the things that could have gone wrong.
Every one of them comes back to the same root cause: Darren.
Her lowlife scumbag of a boyfriend drifts in and out of her world like a crisp packet on a breeze. Every time, he wreaks havoc then disappears, leaving Daisy to pick up the pieces of her broken life. It gets harder each time. She thinks they’re star-crossed lovers, destined to be together, torn apart by fate. In her mind, he’s her Byron, her Romeo. Not Darren Tebbit, local drug dealer and all-round asshole.
Daisy was brought up by a single mother in a council flat not far from here. She watched her mum die a slow, lingering death from lung cancer when Daisy was only twelve. Her next four years were spent in the system, pushed from foster care to group home then back again. No wonder she was seduced by the idea of a white knight riding in to save her.
She’s never told me who Allegra’s father is—and I’ve never asked. I figure she’ll tell me when she’s ready, or if it’s something important to her. All I know is she had Allegra at the age of sixteen, the right time to score herself a council flat, paid for by social services. The dad could have been another kid at the home or school. Perhaps a teacher or a care worker. I honestly have no idea. She wasn’t the first teenager in the care system to think a baby would solve all her problems.