Heartstream

by Tom Pollock

  Suddenly I thought, What if the medicine doesn’t stop the pain? What if it only stops her telling me it hurts? I watched, helpless. She was like a drowning woman, anchored just below the surface of the sea.

  “Mum?” My whispers became more and more frantic. “Mum, what should I do? What do you want me to do?”

  But she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t wake. All she could do was mumble and moan and hurt. I thought about waking Dad, even waking Charlie, but then what? They’d be just as alone with this as I was.

  So I took her, and I hauled and I dragged and I manhandled her back into a position where I told myself that maybe she’d be a little more comfortable, and every time she whimpered I wanted to curl up around the wound it made in me.

  And then when she was back in bed, I took the bottle of pills, ground one up under the base of the glass the way the doctor had shown us all as we’d lined up like amateur med students, swept the powder into her water glass, diluted it, and put it to her lips.

  She slurped at it, craning her neck forward, eager as a baby.

  I sat there for a while, stroking and crooning and shushing her until she seemed to calm, then I sat a while longer. This, I realized, was as good as it was going to get. There was never going to be a “better”, ever again, just more and more nights like this, until…

  All the air went out of me. I picked up the pill bottle. It felt such a natural fit in my fist. I shook a handful of the little white tablets into my palm, and it still felt abstract, like an experiment, like I wonder what happens if…

  It wasn’t until half the pills were in my mouth that my throat tightened and I realized what I was doing.

  I choked, spat and the pills cannoned off the bedpost. I threw the bottle down and it rolled under the bed. I stood there, gasping and panting. What the fuck was I doing? Charlie was sleeping not ten feet above my head. Charlie. Had I really been ready to check out on him? On Dad? Ease my pain by doubling theirs? Jesus Christ, Amy. You’re a piece of work.

  That was when I knew I wasn’t coping. I was only pretending to cope. People treat you like that’s the same thing, but it’s not. I fled the room, my stomach roiling with self-disgust. I couldn’t be alone any more.

  The patches arrived the next day.

  I descend the stairs as quietly as I can, and push open the door to the makeshift bedroom, almost like Mum’s still in it and I can still disturb her. It’s been stripped, of course. Just a wardrobe, a bedside table with a lamp on it, and a bare mattress sitting on a frame. The silver tape around the window frame glints in the sunlight, and I feel a brief flare of fury that Polly’s desecrated this place.

  The room’s emptiness reinforces the sense of the house being a film set – established for principal photography on Amy Becker’s Mother Dies By Inches and It Pulls Her Family Apart Like Pizza Cheese and then just as rapidly cleared out.

  Aunt Juliet’s shrill voice echoes back to me from some point over the endless preceding months: “How dare you? How dare you turn this into some kind of sordid reality television show?”

  I shiver. The muscles in my neck and jaw tense. I’ve not been in this room since she died. I tried. I even volunteered to be the one who went through the wardrobe and shoved her clothes into bin bags, who hoovered up the last few fragments of herself she left as dust on the floor. It was a bloody-minded challenge to myself: I will not be afraid. But I was, and when it came to it I couldn’t go through with it. Dad had to do it instead.

  I was afraid, and I still am.

  Holding my breath as though what lingers in the air is a smell, I cross the floorboards. My skin feels blistered by the atmosphere in this room and I desperately want to bolt, but I think about Dad, about Charlie.

  Are you ready to check out? I ask myself again. Ready to ease your pain by doubling theirs?

  No? Good. Then do something about it.

  I crouch down beside the bed frame. I grope behind the near leg under the valance. The pill bottle’s still there.

  I pour out a handful of pills and set them on the table. I use the base of the lamp to crush them. A moment’s panic: I’ve got nothing to gather the powder in, but then I see the valance has one of those big papery labels on the hem with washing instructions on it. A few seconds’ work with my teeth tears the fabric. I collect the opiate dust in the label, fold it up into a little envelope, tuck it inside my bra, then I all but run out of the room.

  Back in the kitchen, Polly’s sat bent over the table. Two phones rest on the wood in front of her: mine, and Mum’s hooked up to a charging cable.

  “Oh, there you are,” she says, smiling vaguely at me. “Look at this – you’re so adorable.” There are tears in her eyes.

  I glance at the phone. She’s looking at my baby pictures, Dad beaming into the camera holding me while I cling to my little red cloth. As I watch, she swipes, and now the one on the screen is of me in a fluffy yellow chick costume, still clinging to the cloth. When I was thirteen, Mum had threatened to break into the school intranet site and make that photo the landing page if I didn’t tidy my room.

  For some unknowable reason, Polly cooing over that photo in particular enrages me, and I stifle an urge to stave in her head with her mug.

  You’ve got a job to do, Amy, I tell myself. Survive.

  I pick up my own mug, take a gulp and make an exaggerated face. “Cold,” I announce, too loudly.

  She looks distraught. “Shall I make another pot?”

  “I’ll do it,” I offer. To my own ears, I sound suspiciously eager but she just beams at me, as delighted and unguarded as a little girl.

  “That’s so nice of you!” she exclaims.

  “How do you take it?”

  “Normally just milk,” she says, patting her stomach, which is ridiculous because you could break this woman up and use her for coat hangers. “But this time I’ll treat myself to a couple of sugars.”

  I nod and collect her mug. I pour them both out in the sink and put the kettle on. Sweat stipples the nape of my neck. I glance back at her; she’s looking at me with that proprietary fondness I saw back when I made the mistake of watching fan vids. I make a show of scratching my chest, close to my bra strap. It suddenly feels necessary to give every limb and digit an excuse to be where it is.

  “Itchy?” she asks, her face a sympathetic frown. “I’ve got a tube of cream somewhere, for my rashes. Want some?”

  “No, it’s OK. I’ll just scratch it.”

  She shrugs. “It’s your boob.”

  The second her eye flits back to the phone, I make a dart for the pill fold. The paper slips between my sweaty fingers and my heart lurches, but I just manage to cling on with my fingertips, tilting the stream of powder towards Polly’s cup.

  The kettle boils and I fill the teapot, crushing down my desire to pour it instantly. I remember how intently she watched the clock when she brewed the tea. Maybe she’s one of those people who is super-pernickety about their tea. I need to make this the single most irreproachable brew in the history of English afternoons. If she won’t drink it because it’s too weak, I won’t get another chance.

  Every second of the three minutes I leave the bags to brew feels like it takes six months, but she’s completely absorbed in Mum’s phone. I pour the tea, adding as much sugar as I think I can get away with to disguise the flavour.

  “Oh, look!” she exclaims. “There’s one of you as a little platypus!”

  She holds up the phone, making cooing noises. She looks at me for comment. I’m suddenly aware of how unnatural my silence feels.

  Tea goes with conversation, Amy. Make some fucking conversation.

  “I used to be cute.” I offer a self-deprecating shrug.

  “You were lovely then, and you’re lovely now,” Polly insists, accepting the mug from my hand.

  I cast around for something to keep the conversation going. I try desperately not to stare at her mug. My eye lands on the two phones. Mine and Mum’s.

  “Do you not have a phone?�
��

  “Why do you ask that?”

  “You needed mine to message my dad.”

  Her lip quirks. “Sharp girl,” she says approvingly. “No, I don’t. Can you guess why?”

  I squirm a little. I’d intended this to be small talk, but it’s growing like it ate a Mario Mushroom. Still, there doesn’t seem to be a graceful way to switch to another subject.

  “Because if you’d sent the message from your own phone, the police would be able to use it to find out where you bought it, work out who you are.”

  She smiles, nods her encouragement. “Keep going.”

  “They’d try to hack it. Then they’d know everything about you.”

  Dates, locations, people we contact the most, and least, the friends we value most and least. Things you won’t admit to yourself, or plain can’t remember. Hacking someone’s phone tells you more about them than reading their mind.

  “The less certain the police are about me,” she says calmly, “the slower they’ll move. I’d like to extend our time together.”

  “Why?”

  She smiles shyly. “Because I’m your friend, Amy.” She utters a little laugh, and plucks at the front of her bomb vest in a way that almost makes me throw myself under the table. “And from where we are, I’ll understand if it takes a little time for me to prove that to you.”

  My eyes settle on that deadly little green light. “Friends don’t kill friends,” I say.

  She makes a pained face, like I’ve said something hopelessly naive. She lifts her mug and sips.

  “Oh, honey,” she says. “Of course they do.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Cat

  My phone buzzes. It’s Evie.

  You seen this?

  Below her text, a link, and below the link, a preview pane of the gossip site headline:

  POP PRINCE’S SECRET

  LOVER? PHOTO EVIDENCE!!!

  It’s like someone’s plugged a hoover into my lungs. I’m airless, paralysed. I don’t even know how I manage to thumb the link.

  But we were so careful.

  For a moment, I don’t understand what I’m seeing. The picture under the headline is Ryan. He’s walking down a street, Chelsea by the look of it, past black iron railings and fancy red-brick boutiques, but he’s alone. Not even a telltale scrap of ginger hair snapped through a window to give me away.

  Then my eye lands on the circled part of the photo they’ve blown up. It’s the bag Ryan’s carrying, one of those square card ones with rope handles that they give you in fancy shops. It’s glossy black, with one word printed in silver on the side: Lustgarden.

  Has boy band royalty Ryan Richards been buying lacy lingerie for a lusty lady??? the top line of the article asks breathlessly. To help address this vital query, the site’s picture editors have included several shots of models clad in a variety of Lustgarden’s finest wares, including a bra that costs as much as a house, and has roughly the same amount of structural engineering built in. They’ve even written in tiny print underneath: Artist’s impression: is this how Ryan’s lady love looks?

  “Sorry, boys, not quite,” I murmur as I begin to breathe again. “You got the knickers on the third girl right, though.” Lacy purple ones. I’m wearing them now, and they prickle like murder.

  Another message from Evie swoops in.

  Get round here.

  What’s the big deal? So he went shopping.

  Just get your arse round here, Cat. I’m not kidding. I need your help.

  “It’s everywhere!” she groans at me the second she opens the door. Her eyes are puffy. It looks like she’s barely slept, and…

  “Jesus Christ.”

  “What?” Evie snaps.

  “You’re not wearing make-up. Should I be buying tinned food?”

  “When did you get hilarious?” she says flatly, and I press my lips together. It’s a good question. I guess the relieved euphoria from not seeing myself in the photo still hasn’t worn off; it’s making me reckless. “Upstairs, now,” she orders. “Help me. We need damage control.”

  In Evie’s world, you control damage by dealing out damage of your own. Each iPad is open to a different platform: RickResource’s main forum, plus the Everlasting fic and sightings subthreads, plus Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Snapchat. Each is a window on to a field of scorched earth.

  Fuck you for believing it.

  I will destroy you.

  It’s a management set-up, you cretin.

  You’re betraying the community and you know it.

  You’re weak. You’re letting the boys down. They need us to believe in them.

  I will destroy you.

  I will destroy you.

  I will destroy you.

  Most of her interlocutors bail on the thread after a brief exchange. I don’t blame them. The majority of the people she’s talking to live on other continents, but Evie has that particular Internet skill of being able to imply in just a few words that she would be willing to part with time, sleep and international airfares for the pleasure of stabbing you in the face.

  You’re crazy, TP, one of them complains. A goddamn madwoman.

  Oh, we’re all mad here, she snaps back. If you aren’t then, wow, are you in the wrong place.

  “It’s not just the pap shot,” she explains, dropping herself into her desk chair, and absent-mindedly wishing a fiery death on a fellow fan’s entire family. “They’re referencing a source close to the band saying he’s been seen with some mysterious girl.”

  My throat dries. “That’s all they said? A mysterious girl?”

  “That’s the lot.”

  “Vague,” I say as dismissively as I can. “Anonymous. It’s a management ploy, just trying to spin it.”

  Evie smiles wanly. “You know that, and I know that, but it’s giving it juice with the anti-crowd, and some of the weaker Rickers are wobbling. We need to push back; we need to make it visible. I don’t want Nick or Ryan seeing this and thinking we’ve given up on them. With all the pressure management are putting on them to break it off, we’re their bulwark. They need us to keep the faith.”

  I manage to hold her gaze. “Yeah, I know.”

  “We need to stamp on this.”

  I can’t help but agree. Rumours about Ryan’s love life are more common than bad YouTube covers of his songs, but he’s usually linked with some other celebrity. This speculation about the most famous fringe in pop dating an unnamed random has the uncomfortable ring of real reporting; we need to kill it until it’s dead.

  I think for a second, and then pull out my phone, crack open my own Twitter and write: Don’t know what the fuss is about re Ry’s latest shopping trip. Everyone knows R&N play with gender. Peeps assuming it’s a pressie for a girl – your heteronormativity is showing, not to mention how boring you are in the bedroom.

  I sign it off with a hashtag #Knickers4Nick and post it.

  A few seconds later I hear a snort from Evie. “Nice, dubs,” she says, and I feel a glow at her approval.

  “Hang on.” Evie sits bolt upright in her chair. “Horse Girl, you’re a genius! I don’t know why I didn’t think of that.”

  “Think of what?” I say, suddenly wary.

  “Give me a sec.” She’s hammering away at her keys. “I bet someone on RR lives near there … yes.”

  I look at her screen. She’s got a message app open to someone called GetRickorDieTryin’. I just see the bubble Get receipts before she tabs back to Tumblr.

  “What are you doing, E?” I press, trying to keep the anxiety in my chest from bubbling up into my voice.

  “This Ricker I know only lives a couple of doors down from that knicker shop. She loves me. Basically wants to be me. I’ve sent her up there to nose the place out. See if she can get some deets.”

  I feel a prick of heat in each earlobe, sharp enough to re-pierce them. I frantically try to think of a plausible reason to ask her to recall her spy, but my mind is a howling wasteland. Evie, oblivious to my distress, s
ets her rage cannon back to auto-fire and returns to Twitter. I sit, sweating, waiting out the interminable minutes with nothing to say.

  One of the iPads pings. Evie studies it in silence. “Fucking got you!” She punches the air.

  “What?”

  “When I told her to get receipts, I guess she took me literally. She actually charmed the staff into showing it to her.” She grins, holding up the screen. It shows a photo of a credit card receipt in Ryan’s name, showing the purchase of the Petra lace brief in imperial purple. I feel my stomach tumble at the price – briefly I wonder if the reason the damn thing’s so uncomfortable is because it’s made out of platinum wire – but it’s the final detail on the receipt that Evie’s triumphant finger is trained on: the size.

  “You were dead to rights, dubs. He definitely bought them for a guy. No way he’d be getting them that big for any of the waifs the press try to peg him to.”

  I let my breath out slowly. Never in my life have I been more grateful for the backside acreage my mother gave me.

  “Post it,” I say.

  As she complies, my phone buzzes.

  Finished an interview early. You free?

  I ease myself a few degrees around in my chair so that there’s no chance Evie can see my screen.

  Kinda tied up right now. At Evie’s. Your latest shopping trip caused quite a stir.

  Oh?

  Those new knickers you bought me have got half the Internet up in flames.

  I regret nothing.