The Furies

by Katie Lowe

  But, I thought, pressing the buttons harder, the rubber imprinting ridges on my thumb, it’s too late for that. She couldn’t help, even if she wanted to. The screen burned bright with early morning kids’ TV, characters burbling mindlessly, and I blinked away tears, feeling hopelessly, terrifyingly adult. I pulled my foot away; dropped the remote beside her, and went back upstairs, slamming the door behind me with a crack.

  I tapped at the studio door, gently. ‘Hello?’ Annabel called from inside, a note of irritation in her voice. I peered through the crack, and she beckoned, with her usual cool smile. ‘Violet,’ she said, simply, as I stood beside the desk.

  I fingered the hem of my skirt, nervously. I hadn’t expected her to be here; didn’t know, now, what I’d intended to say. She laid down her pen, slowly, and stared at me. ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘I …’ I began, nervously. ‘I was wondering if you’d seen the others. If you … If you knew where they were?’

  She gave a half-smile, pity mingling with what I guessed was irritation. ‘I’m not here to assist with your social calendar, Violet,’ she said, though without viciousness. I wondered what she knew, whether the girls had told her what they’d planned.

  ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I’m really sorry. It’s just … They’re not home, and they’re not answering the phone, and I don’t know where else to—’

  She raised a hand, and I stopped, feeling my heart thudding in my chest, cheeks hot with shame. ‘Violet, I can’t tell you anything they’re not telling you themselves.’

  She does know something, I thought. ‘But—’

  ‘Vi-o-let,’ she said, again; each time she said my name it grew a little more clipped, as though saying every letter individually. ‘Let’s not be childish, now. You’re a woman. You’re better than this.’

  I looked down at my hands, the chipped black of my nails, skin dried out by the sea. When I looked up again, she’d returned to her study, and I left, eyes stinging with tears.

  In the corridor, bodies pressed up against one another, slick with sweat, clothes dank with spilled beer and reeking of smoke. Conflicting rhythms thudded like heartbeats; a strobe flickered from a room at the end of the hall, flash rebounding from cracked mirrors pressed into disco balls tacked to the ceiling above.

  ‘Violet?’ Manicured fingers gripped my arm, nails silver and pink; Nicky pulled me squealing into an angular, bony hug. ‘You came!’

  I smiled, loosened her grip. ‘Couldn’t resist.’ Over her shoulder, a broad, sunburned boy in rugby colours pointed at the two of us, muttering something to a taller, bucktoothed teammate. They leered, and I glared back, eyes cold; felt my skin flush hot as they laughed, hate crawling fingers from rib to rib. ‘Fuck you,’ I mouthed; they laughed harder still.

  ‘Have you seen Robin?’ I said, when Nicky finally pulled away, the sweet scent of her perfume metallic, coppery on my lips.

  ‘God, isn’t this party amazing?’ she said, as though she hadn’t heard me. Perhaps she hadn’t; the thrum of beats and constant yowls and yelps seemed to get into everything, drowning out my thoughts. ‘I can’t wait to live on my own.’

  ‘You’re not exactly alone in a place like this,’ I said, watching a girl stumble through the corridor in pyjamas, clutching a steaming mug, dodging boys tackling each other into walls.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Have you seen—’

  ‘Fuck, I am so, so stoned. So stoned. And high, too. Can you be stoned and high in different ways at the same time, do you think?’

  ‘Probably,’ I said, peeling a ribbon of silly string from her shoulder, stuck with sweat. ‘Listen, Nicky—’

  ‘Yeah?’ she said, eyes wide, rolling a little farther back in their sockets, even more doll-like than usual.

  ‘Forget it,’ I said.

  ‘Are you looking for Robin?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘I thought you were. You never come anywhere when I invite you.’

  ‘Nicky—’

  ‘It’s fine; I get it. Whatever.’

  I sighed, forced a smile, jaw tightening with the effort. ‘I’m here because you invited me. I promise.’ I paused, watched her steady herself. ‘I’m here to see you. I was only wondering if you’d seen her around.’

  ‘She’s probably with Andy.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He’s so gross. What does she see in him anyway?’

  ‘I have no idea—’

  ‘I wondered the same thing with Emily, too. White guys with dreadlocks are just—’

  ‘Wait, what?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You mentioned Emily Frost.’

  I stared at her; her eyes widened even more, mouth opening into a perfect little o.

  ‘You don’t know?’

  ‘Know what?’ I said, flatly.

  ‘He was Emily’s boyfriend when she died. I mean, only for about a week, but still – when she disappeared, he and Robin got together, like, immediately.’ She bit her lip. ‘The official story is, like, bonding over their grief or something. But … Well, it was kind of slutty on Robin’s part.’

  I stared at her. ‘Just hers?’

  ‘Well, god, no – I’m just as much of a feminist as the next girl, obviously, so yeah, gross for him too. But, you know … It was kind of weird. I heard—’ She paused, looking around for a moment, an almost comical nervousness in her eyes. ‘I’d heard she had a thing for him way before he and Emily got together. Like, literally, months before.’

  I thumbed a black scab on my elbow, picking it off; felt an urge to stick dirty fingers in the wound and let it spoil. ‘Weird,’ I said, finally.

  ‘So weird.’ She swayed a little; the broad-shouldered boy pulled her from behind, arms wrapped around her waist. She squealed, giggling, and let him pull her into another room, waving at me as she disappeared. I saw the other boy watching me, sneering in a way I supposed was intended to be seductive, or cool; I turned, coldly, and continued down the corridor, towards the flashing lights.

  Compared to the stifling heat of the corridor, Andy’s room was cold, the windows open wide, swinging in the breeze. Smoke drifted lazily above the group of students draped across the camp bed and propped on chairs, beanbags, and blankets scattered on the floor; the air was thick with tobacco and a sour, boyish smell, damp and unwashed. I looked for Robin, sitting among them, but the only girls in the room were two with matching, bright-pink hair in the far corner, absorbed in their own, intense conversation.

  I sat among the gathered group, catching Andy’s eye for a moment; felt a brief, nervous thrill as he paused, mid-sentence, and watched me sit down. I needed him to notice me: to tell me where she was. I looked away, sidelong, at one of the other boys; pursed my lips a little, in imitation of Emily – the photos I’d seen in Robin’s house, never quite meeting the camera’s gaze (though always, one felt, aware of herself being watched. The will of the figure on the other side of the lens).

  ‘The thing about losing a friend, like I have, in a tragic way, one you don’t see coming,’ Andy said, taking a long swig from a dented can, Adam’s apple ticking steadily with the gulp, ‘is that it gives you real insight into what it means to be alive. A deeper understanding of what’s important in life.’

  A boy beside me nudged my elbow, and smiled. ‘He means sex,’ he said, licking his lips. I stared at him, wordlessly, watched the grin fade. ‘Bitch,’ he said, rising heavily from the floor, brushing my shoulder roughly as he walked away.

  Andy went on, undeterred. ‘I’m not saying I didn’t think about this stuff before – I’ve always leaned kind of heavily towards, you know, deep thinking. The important stuff. Even though it’s hard. But seeing a guy like that – a real good guy, one of the best – cut down in the prime of his life like that? I mean … It’s fucked up. Fucked.’

  A few of those gathered nodded sagely, while the others stared vacantly at whatever luminous glow had gathered just behind their eyes; one, hoodie pulled up around his red-blotch
ed face, raised a bottle of some tropical spirit high in the air. ‘To Tom,’ he slurred, and the others raised their glasses in response. Only Andy didn’t drink to this, staring, jaw hanging slack, at me. I stared back, my heart thudding at the mention of Tom’s name.

  The floor thundered; the room overrun, suddenly, by the rugby team, Nicky raised high on shoulders, squealing, slapping hands with another girl, whose single shoe dropped to the floor and skidded across the carpet. She lost her balance, arms wheeling, and grabbed a handful of fairy lights pinned to the wall, the whole thread crackling down and pitching the room into darkness. ‘Hey, dickhead!’ one of the boys howled, stumbling over me towards Andy, ‘got any weed?’

  Andy remained still, staring up at him, dead eyes peering through the darkness. ‘Get out of my room,’ he said, coldly.

  ‘Not until you hook us up,’ the boy said, grinning; one tooth missing, I noticed, eyes adjusting to the dark. He had a fat lower lip, the upper merging straight into his nose, like a snout; tiny, red eyes, like pinpricks in wet skin. The kind of boy who made himself apelike, ‘character’ supposedly counteracting his hideousness. And somehow, it seemed to work; he licked his lips and grimaced at a girl behind, who giggled, hysterically, back.

  ‘Get out of my fucking room,’ Andy said, again. A ribbon of tension hung in the air; people began standing, sensing what was coming.

  Nicky grabbed my shoulder from above as she stood. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

  I looked up. ‘Nah,’ I said. ‘I’m fine.’ I felt a strange thrill, a sharpening of teeth; let go of Nicky’s hand as the guy stumbled back, gurgling some incomprehensible call. I looked back as the other boy punched Andy with a solid, meaty thwack; laughed as Andy lunged forwards and bit him, hard, in the upper arm. The boys howled and roared, and people stumbled out of the room, into the corridor outside, the walls shaking with the footsteps as they ran.

  I stepped backwards, into the corner, and stood, watching the boys fight. It was strange and somehow sad, the way they lunged at each other, all sinew and flesh; beast-like. At least when girls hurt each other, we’re clever about it, I thought, grimly.

  It was inevitable: the lumbering one won, through strength alone, though – to Andy’s credit – he fought back with claws and teeth. Still, when it was over, the boy stumbled into the bedside table, wheezing like a boar, and dragged its contents out. Finding what he was looking for, he disappeared out into the corridor, to riotous cheers: a hero’s welcome. Andy lay on the bed, not moving; I wondered if he knew I was there.

  Slowly, he raised himself up onto an elbow; groaned, and lay back down.

  ‘You’re alive, then?’ I said. He flinched, craning his neck to look.

  ‘Oh,’ he said, neck rolling back. ‘It’s you.’

  I stepped forwards, flicked on the light. He hissed; I flicked it off again. ‘Want a tissue or something?’ I said. ‘A plaster, maybe? An ambulance?’

  ‘Fuck off,’ he groaned. ‘I’m fine.’

  I leaned over the bed; his face was slick with blood, one eye swollen fat, pulsing blue. ‘You don’t look fine.’

  ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘Okay then. Have you seen Robin?’

  ‘Ahhh,’ he said. ‘That’s why you’re here. I should’ve guessed. Not to offer comfort in this,’ he rolled up to sitting, steadying himself, hands gripping the mattress, ‘my time of need.’

  ‘I offered. You said no.’

  ‘I didn’t realize you were offering that.’

  I retched. ‘Trust me. I wasn’t. But I can get you a glass of water if you want?’

  ‘One thing leads to another, with things like that … So, yeah, if you don’t mind.’

  I rinsed a cup in the sink, cloudy water spitting from the tap.

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, spitting into it; a thick glob of blood spiralling, strands splitting apart.

  ‘So … have you seen her?’

  He shrugged. ‘Not for a couple of days. Maybe three. I don’t know.’

  ‘She said you’d broken up.’

  ‘Yeah?’ he said, voice tart with disinterest. ‘I can’t say I’m surprised. She’s been kind of a cunt lately.’ He leaned over, groaning as he reached under the bed to reveal a tray, scattered with grinders, papers, and discarded bags.

  I felt a prickle of hatred. How dare you, I thought, a reflex of disgust. How dare you call her that? I blushed, remembering myself. ‘Yeah,’ I said, finally. ‘She really has.’

  ‘Ooof.’ He laughed, pinching strands of tobacco between fingers. ‘I was joking. But you sound like you really mean it.’

  I rolled my eyes. ‘Whatever.’

  ‘She’s told me all about you, you know,’ he said, eyes on me as he licked the paper, slowly. ‘I know all your secrets.’

  There was something about his manner that set my teeth on edge (a turn of phrase I only understood at that moment): the patronizing attitude of a public schoolboy (one which many don’t grow out of, a smugness and superiority they see as their right, a distinctly male trait). I could see him, dreadlocked and pale now, decades hence, some shark-toothed hedge fund manager, with a ‘creative’ bent, stalked by the pang of nostalgia for his university days, ‘changed’ by a year spent ‘helping’ communities in some third-world country. You know the type. I’ve seen him at art shows, buying pornographic paintings with no comprehension of their meaning; I’ve overheard him explaining his ‘collection’ to birdlike, glass-eyed women in galleries, before taking them out to dinner, where he will order their meal for them, and talk endlessly, drearily, of himself.

  ‘I doubt that,’ I said.

  ‘You look good, by the way,’ he said, smoke thickening the air with every word. ‘You lose some weight?’

  It took a moment to realize the thrust of his conversation, the leering threat in his tone. I stared at him, blankly.

  ‘Can’t take a compliment, huh?’

  ‘Give me a smoke,’ I said, willing for a distraction.

  ‘I don’t think you realize quite how manipulative she is,’ he said, as though catching my thought. ‘She just uses people. She used Emily. She’s used me. And – judging by the way you’re looking at me now – she’s just about done using you, too.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘“Ooh, Violet,”’ he said, his voice reedy in imitation, ‘“she’s totally in love with me. It’s pathetic.”’

  ‘She didn’t say that.’

  ‘Oh, trust me, she did. What’s the phrase? “With friends like that …”’ He began rolling another joint; the one I held was hardly touched. I kept it, the smoke scratching at my still-raw throat. She wouldn’t, I thought, though I knew it wasn’t true: of course she would. It was the way she talked about everyone else – the way she talked about them, to me. I could hear the sting in her voice as she said it, aloof, above it all.

  She doesn’t care about me, I thought. She made me think she did, and now she’s left me. They all have. They’ve left me to take the blame for the things they’ve done.

  I tucked my legs underneath me at the far end of the bed; Andy leaned back against the wall, lit a smoke. We stared at each other for a while, the two of us left behind. ‘I hate you,’ I said, staring at him.

  He took a long drag, thoughtfully; scratched at his beard, wincing as fingers reached the growing bruise. ‘Doesn’t make it any less true, though, does it?’ He winked. ‘It’s just you and me now, kid.’

  I looked at the closed door, and thought of Tom, his hands on me. The memory made the hairs on my arms bristle, a hot sweat crawl down my neck. And then, I thought of Robin, and wondered how she could love a boy like this. I thought of her, and how hurt she’d be by his cruel, flippant tone; and then, how hurt I was, by what she’d done to me. ‘Sex, love, revenge, and death,’ she’d said, as we rode the elevator to the tower, after that first night in the graveyard. ‘That’s what all these classes are about. They’re all the same.’

  ‘Andy,’ I said, after a moment.

  He didn’t open his
eyes; head back, skull showing through. ‘Mmm-hmm?’

  I leaned forwards, rolling onto my knees. He opened one eye (might have opened both, I suppose, though the swelling made it impossible to tell) and smiled, and I hated him with such violence that my bones ached. But in that moment, I hated Robin still more.

  I held my breath, looking down at his greasy skin, his filthy hair; the bloody nose, cracked lip. The pulsing vein at his temple, rivering over his skull. I leaned in, and I kissed him, his breath yeast-stale and clotted with smoke. He pushed his tongue between my teeth, groping, possessive little prods, and I moaned, lowering myself onto his lap. I hate you, I thought, as he pressed dirty thumbs into my skin, nails black and dry inside me; I swallowed down my nausea, and clawed at his back, feeling cysts split under my fingers. He cried out in pain, and I moaned back, pretended to enjoy myself: performed a great, groaning, filthy show.

  When it was done – when he was done – I wiped myself down with a crisp, mouldering t-shirt I found by the side of the bed, and pulled my jeans up my thighs, arms aching with the effort. I felt ruined, and gut sick; overwhelmed with the absence of pleasure in this stupid victory, dirtied by a betrayal I might never shake off.

  ‘I’ve got to go,’ I said. He rolled over, his nakedness shameless and nauseating, the protruding bones and mottled skin of a corpse. He murmured a goodbye, and closed his eyes, a smear of blood dripping into his pillow.

  In the corridor outside, I caught Nicky’s eye, over the shoulder of some broad-shouldered, bullish sports player. I saw her eyes widen, following me down the hall; swung my hips side to side as I passed, so she’d know just what I’d done.

  I walked through the empty streets, the sun lingering low over the trees, shadows elongated in the afternoon light; my arms burned hot, limbs sticky under my skirt – the whole town possessed by a soporific heat. It was airless, as though encased in amber. Doughy men lay cadaverous in the sun, turning pink, moving only to raise cans to gaping, toothless mouths, the air stinking of hot tarmac and blackened meat. My sunglasses were heart-shaped, lips sticky-sweet with gloss. It had been three days since the party, and I still hadn’t heard from the girls.