by Shari Low
When they finally got to their corridor, Marina kissed them goodnight and opened her door directly across from theirs, while Yvie steered Verity into her own room. Her sister flopped down on the bed, remarkably managing not to spill a single drop of her cocktail.
Yvie wasn’t sure she was going to have much success, but the sickening feeling in her gut told her she had to try.
‘Verity, what did you mean when you said you knew something about Ned?’
Verity’s head shot round to meet her gaze, as if she was shocked that Yvie knew anything. ‘Nothing. I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget it.’
‘But, Verity, if it’s something bad, we need to talk about whether we should tell Zoe.’
‘Exactly!’ Verity wailed, pushing her body up so she was leaning on her elbows. ‘I tried to tell her. I called her earlier, but she didn’t answer. I need to tell her, Yvie.’
‘Tell her what?’
‘That… that… Ned tried to pick me up on Your Next Date! Well, not me, exactly. A woman I made up to try to see if he’d start up a conversation with her. And he did. I know how twisted this all sounds.’ All Yvie cared about was that the secret didn’t involve her. Verity didn’t know. Thank God, she didn’t know.
‘Listen, darling, don’t worry about it. Just get some sleep and we can talk about it again in the morning. We’ll sort it out.’
Yvie wasn’t sure that was true, but anything to get away. Verity seemed to be sobering up a little now – Yvie just hoped that she wouldn’t sober up enough to notice that every part of her was shaking, partly from anxiety, partly from relief, partly because her heart was pounding and her blood thundering in her ears. The feeling of suffocation was beginning to wrap its way around her. She needed to get out of there and back to her own room.
She left Verity trying valiantly to take her stilettos off and went through the connecting door into her own room, closing it behind her.
She didn’t even make it to the bed before her legs buckled and the fear consumed her, full on, straight to the height of the worst panic attack she’d ever had. She pulled at the neck of the kaftan, knowing logically that it wasn’t choking her but feeling the opposite. She gasped for breath but couldn’t make her lungs work. She felt a weight on her chest and she knew… this couldn’t be a panic attack, it had to be worse. It was a full-scale heart attack and she was going to die, right here, on the floor of this hotel.
A sound. The adjoining door opening. ‘Yvie, do you think I should go find Zoe now and tell her that… Yvie! What the hell…?’ Verity rushed towards her, fell to the floor beside her. ‘Oh God, Yvie what’s wrong? What’s happened? What should I do?’
Yvie didn’t have enough breath to answer, still gasping like a fish out of water, desperately flailing on the floor.
Verity panicked, stood up, dashed out into the corridor, kicking a bin into the doorway so the door wouldn’t shut behind her, then started banging on Marina’s door. ‘Marina! Marina! Wake up! I need help! It’s Yvie. I need you to open your door! Hurry up! Marina!’
A noise.
A door opening.
A pause.
Then Verity’s voice again.
‘Who the hell is he?’
35
Marina – Las Vegas, One Month Ago
Marina knew when she was caught. It was like finding the kids with their phones under their pillows or the time she saw Oscar in the amusement arcade in town when he should have been in double physics. Caught. No feasible excuse. Hands up.
But right now, she had no time to think about the consequences of that because Verity was screaming about Yvie and, through the open door across from her, she could see her youngest sister lying on the floor. Fuck.
Pulling the hotel robe around her, she charged across the corridor, no idea what was going on. Was she choking? Some kind of allergic reaction? Had her drink been spiked? God knows, she’d warned them about… Fuck it, she’d find out the facts later.
She practically skidded down to her knees, lifted Yvie’s head, pushed back the sodding hair from her face. ‘Yvie! Yvie!’
He sister was staring at her, wide-eyed, breathless, struggling so hard to say something…
‘I’m having… having…’
Marina suddenly realised what was going on. This had happened at the tennis club a couple of years ago to her mixed doubles partner, a stockbroker who had just lost a fortune in some crash and who slid to the ground at the side of the court. At first, they’d thought it was his heart, but they’d learned later it was a horrific panic attack.
Another memory… Yvie, about thirteen, struggling to breathe and their mother coaching her, telling her to slow down, that the doctor was coming.
‘Don’t speak, just breathe!’ Marina ordered. ‘Come on, Yvie, just breathe. I’ve got you. Breathe with me, darling, come on. Breathe with me.’
Marina just kept repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, while Yvie gasped, sweated, trembled, and just when Marina was questioning whether she’d got it right, and was about to yell at Verity to call an ambulance, she felt a shift, a slowing in Yvie’s frantic spasms for breath.
‘That’s it! That’s it, Yvie. Breathe, darling. Try to slow it down. You’re doing it. I’ve got you.’ She said it over and over again, for what seemed like an age but was probably only a few tortuous, excruciating minutes, until Yvie finally regained control, flopping with exhaustion against her.
‘Verity, get some water,’ she ordered calmly, and when she returned with it, Marina helped Yvie’s shaking hands hold it to her mouth.
Eventually, when she was ready, Verity helped to pull her up to a sitting position on the floor, and Marina sat beside Yvie with her arm around her, Verity in front of her, holding her hands.
‘I’m… I’m sorry…’ Yvie began, but Marina gently shushed her.
‘Don’t you dare be sorry. But you have to tell us what’s going on, Yvie. Is this the first time…?’
Marina felt a crushing weight of devastation as Yvie shook her head. How could she not have known this? Why didn’t she notice that something was wrong? Yvie was always so bright and cheery, the happy one, the warm, cuddly, dependable support who was there for everyone else. How was it even possible that none of them had seen this?
After a few moments, Yvie found the strength to speak. ‘It’s been happening for a while. Maybe six months or so.’
‘Why didn’t you say anything?’ Verity gasped and Marina realised that the drunk woman in the lift had quite literally been shocked sober.
Yvie shrugged. ‘You’re all dealing with your own stuff and I thought… I thought I could handle it. I’m a fricking nurse!’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, how could you be so bloody stupid?’ Marina snapped, then immediately reeled as she realised what she’d just done. ‘Oh shit, I’m sorry, Yvie. It’s just… it’s just that…’ How could she explain it? It’s just that she was so terrified of the ground being pulled from beneath her feet, that she felt she had to control every single thing in everyone’s lives, because that was the only way she knew it would be okay.
‘You’re scared,’ Yvie whispered, understanding, getting it.
Of course she would, Marina thought ruefully. She nodded, her arms going around Yvie, pulling her head down on to her shoulder, stroking her hair. ‘Oh, baby,’ Marina murmured, all her anger gone now. Yvie was right. All that irritation and rage… it all came from some deep, dark, petrified place inside her.
And now she needed to understand what was dragging her little sister down too.
‘Do you know why it’s happening? Surely it’s not…’ Why couldn’t they say it? Why could none of them say the words? Why had they all spent twenty years ignoring the biggest thing that had ever happened to them?
‘No. It’s… I think it’s been a lot of things. I’ve just not been feeling myself for ages, and I haven’t been honest about it. I just put a face on, pretended I was fine, but everything has been eating away at me. Meanwhile, I’m eating
everything in sight. I’ve put on so much weight…’
Marina opened her mouth to speak and Yvie knew she was going to say something to refute that.
‘Don’t say I haven’t, because it’s true. I don’t usually mind being heavy, but lately, when I’m around you lot, I’ve been feeling so self-conscious about it. And I’m tired, Marina. I don’t sleep, I don’t take care of myself, I just do what everyone needs me to do and I don’t… I don’t know what I need to do for myself any more. It’s like I’m scared and anxious all day long, and then it just takes one thing, one extra worry or fear, to tip me over and then… and then this happens.’
Marina got it. All of it. Except one crucial bit.
‘But why tonight? What happened to trigger this tonight? We all had a great time, didn’t we?’
‘Some more than most,’ Verity interjected, with a pointed glare at her.
Shit. The guy. Her sister had seen the bloke in her room. Marina shut the thought down. That was unimportant right now.
‘Yes, we did, but… Look, I’m going to tell you because I have to and all I can say is I’m sorry and beg you to try to understand.’
‘Of course we will,’ Verity reassured her, but Marina could see by Yvie’s expression that she wasn’t convinced.
‘Ned,’ Yvie blurted.
Marina didn’t understand. ‘What about him?’
‘Oh God.’ Verity this time. Her voice low now, full of dread and disbelief. ‘You’re in love with him too?’ she asked Yvie.
Questions were ricocheting around in Marina’s brain now, firing off the inside of her head. ‘What are you talking about, Verity? What do you mean ‘in love with him too’? Am I the only one who has no fucking clue what is going on here?’
Verity straightened up, inhaled, blurted, ‘I told Yvie tonight that… Oh, sod it… I tried to take Ned from Zoe. I know, don’t say it! I’ve been a complete bitch and I’m so sorry and it’s a long story that I’ll tell you in a minute, but first I need to know what this has to do with what happened here tonight. Did I do this? Was it because of what I did? Oh God, Yvie, tell me it’s not. Are you in love with him?’ she asked again.
‘It’s not because of you and no I’m not,’ Yvie rushed to reassure her. ‘But it’s a long story…’
‘We’ve got time,’ Marina said, suddenly thinking that she’d left a stranger in her room, he’d probably ransacked the place by now, stolen her money and her passport and was back downstairs spending her cash on cocaine and hookers. She didn’t even feel the need to go and check. Later. One problem at a time and this one was way more important.
‘Remember a couple of years ago, I came into your school,’ she was looking at Verity, ‘to give a talk on a career as a nurse.’
‘I remember that,’ Verity said. ‘Kay was with you too. The kids loved it.’
‘They preferred the delivery guy from Just Eat,’ Yvie chided her, with a very faint smile for the first time since they’d got here. ‘Anyway, after it, Ned and Kay and I, we went out for a drink because she had a babysitter and we wanted to make the most of it – you said you couldn’t come because you had some parents’ meeting but you called me the next day and you weren’t pleased with me for going. I brushed it off, said it wasn’t much of a night, that nothing happened and we all went home early.’
Marina watched as Verity racked her brain, then latched on to the memory. ‘That’s right. I had a family conference for one of my kids. You said you were home for nine.’
‘I lied. We went out, and we had dinner, and then we drank too much, and we ended up in a club, at two o’clock in the morning.’
‘In your nurses’ uniforms?’ Marina asked, always needing to understand the full facts.
‘Yes. Everyone thought we were stripograms. Anyway, Kay went to the loo and…’
Marina had a sinking feeling of dread as she watched Yvie pause and inhale, clearly trying to summon the courage to go on.
After a moment she found her voice again. ‘Ned and I were dancing and then we were in a corner and then he was telling me how attracted he was to me and I thought…’ Yvie closed her eyes, obviously replaying it all in her mind. ‘I thought I’d got lucky. So, so lucky. He was gorgeous, and funny, and he was flirting with me and saying all these things he wanted to do to me. Me!’
Marina felt a piece of her heart chip off. How could her gorgeous, incredible sister think so little of herself that she was so grateful that Ned Merton took an interest in her? And no, the irony that she’d had a similar reaction to his attention didn’t escape her.
Verity looked stricken now, struck speechless for once.
Marina leaned over and lifted her jaw so that her mouth closed.
‘Go on.’
‘He suggested that we all go back to his place, and I agreed and I was so thrilled, so excited. We got there and he told me there were drinks in the fridge, so I went to the loo to fix myself up a bit, then went into the kitchen to get the drinks, and then, when I got back to the living room, he and Kay were gone. I thought it was some kind of stupid prank, but then I opened the bedroom door and… they were in bed. Naked. Having sex.’
‘Oh, Jesus.’ Marina’s words. ‘What did you do?’
‘Nothing. I just got out of there. Went home. Cried.’
‘And you never told…’ Verity began, but Yvie cut her off.
‘I never told anyone. I didn’t tell Kay – she still has no idea he was coming on to me while she was in the toilets at the club. She’d never have done anything with him if she’d known.’
‘But she had sex with him while you were in the flat!’ Verity gasped, incredulous.
Yvie nodded. ‘I know. But you don’t understand. She was as thrilled as me that she’d met someone. We don’t get out much,’ Yvie admitted, with a rueful smile, before going on, ‘She thought it meant something. Or at least, she did until he kicked her out of bed the next morning and she never heard from him again. She called him a couple of times, but he blocked her.’
Marina could feel her rage rising again. ‘What a bastard.’
‘He is.’
‘Why didn’t you tell me all this at the time?’ Verity asked, still clearly shocked and stunned.
‘Because you worked with him and he was your friend and you liked him. And when you called the next morning you were annoyed as that’s when I sussed out that you might have feelings for him so I just bottled out. I was embarrassed, mostly. I didn’t want you to know how pathetic I was, so I just shut up and tried to forget about it. Kay did too. And then he got together with Zoe, and I thought he was a rebound guy and she’d dump him and then… she didn’t. But by then it was too late to say what had happened because I should have told you long before then. I’d dug a hole with my silence. I just kept hoping it would all go away. Carried on. Acted like it had never happened. I blocked it all out. We’re good at that, aren’t we?’
Another chip of Marina’s heart broke off. Yvie wasn’t wrong. They’d all learned to block out pain far too young.
Verity was still connecting the dots. ‘You know, I’d heard so many rumours that he was a player and I chose to ignore them. Deep down, I think I knew they were true. I guess we’re also good at lying to ourselves.’
Yvie nodded sadly. ‘Worse, I even forced myself to be civil to him when we were all together, so that none of you, especially Zoe, would notice anything was wrong. I actually thought… I thought he’d forgotten all about it. Been too drunk to remember or something. I only realised a couple of months ago that he remembered it all, at your house at Christmas.’
‘When you cut your foot?’ Marina tried to put the pieces together.
‘Yeah, I swiped the wine bottle off the worktop because he was being a dick to me. He warned me not to tell Zoe. Or any of you. Fuck, what a mess. I’m so sorry I let you down.’
‘You didn’t let anyone down,’ Verity spat. ‘He did.’
‘You mean that? You’re not going to come into my room later and suffocate me in my s
leep?’
Verity shrugged, ‘Maybe. But only because I want that kaftan.’
That’s when, just because the night couldn’t get any more surreal, Verity began to laugh, then Yvie, then… Oh, fuck it, Marina was laughing too. This was a mess, an absolute roaring debacle, but they were all okay. It could be sorted. It could be fixed. No permanent damage done.
‘I’m going to have his balls for this,’ Marina promised, wiping away tears of their collective hysteria. She meant it. There was no way that fucker was going to do this to her sister. Zoe would want to know too and she’d feel the same, Marina was sure of it.
‘Eh, can we talk about the balls that are in your room first?’ Yvie asked, eyebrows raised. ‘I know it’s none of our business, but since we’re sharing…’
Marina closed her eyes, thought about it. Like Yvie and Verity, she’d been keeping everything to herself, internalising her feelings, her unhappiness. Maybe it was time to end that.
‘Hang on, I’ll need coffee for this,’ she said, clambering up and reaching for the bedside phone to call room service.
‘And a cinnamon bagel! I think I need my comfort food,’ Yvie added.
Marina ordered cappuccinos and bagels for all of them, then pulled three pillows off the bed, slid back down on to the floor, slipping one of the pillows under her buttocks and giving the others to her sisters.
‘The guy in my room – this wasn’t the first time,’ she began, then watched as their eyes widened with surprise.
‘Seriously? I have no idea who you are right now,’ Verity whistled.
‘Me neither,’ Marina admitted.
‘Hang on, hang on – go back to the start. You’ve been doing this the whole time you’ve been married?’
‘No!’ Marina countered. ‘The first time was about a year ago. I was in Edinburgh in a hotel bar and there was a barman and he was… interested. And before you say anything, V, I know how weak and pathetic that sounds.’