Hangover
Hangover
SHE WOKE WITH A POUNDING HEADACHE AND A mouth that felt like it had been carpeted during the night. She opened her eyes and lay still, afraid to move as she revisited the evening before, or tried to.
She couldn’t remember coming home. She cringed to think people might have, must have, seen her in such a state. Imagine if she’d met Ben, or either of her other colleagues. It didn’t bear thinking about.
She turned her head slowly and saw her jeans and top crumpled on the floor. She lifted the blankets and saw that she was still in her underwear. She felt under the pillow and discovered her pyjamas. Her alarm clock said 8.15.
She had no idea what time she’d got back. The room was freezing, her window still open from last evening. The curtains were open too. She climbed slowly out of bed, wincing at the stabbing pain in her head. She bent and retrieved her clothes, which stank of smoke. Grimacing, she let them fall to the floor again.
She’d drunk more than she should with Claire before – they’d often got giggly and silly – but this was a new level. This was blackout territory, and it was terrifying. Anything could have happened.
Claire. Where was Claire? She shrugged on her dressing gown and tiptoed out, planting a palm against the landing wall when the floor seemed to sway beneath her – was she still drunk? She eased open the door to the small room and saw an unused bed and the contents of a make-up bag strewn over the eiderdown.
Claire hadn’t come back. It was morning, and she wasn’t here. Where was she? Ellen sank onto the bed, head continuing to hammer, trying to push down a rising panic. The last thing she remembered was Danny coming into the pub, and nothing after that. Had they gone to the college disco like they’d planned? She had no idea.
In the bathroom mirror she looked at a ghost-white face, and mascara smudges, and hair all over the place. She removed her make-up with a hand that shook and gulped water from the tap and brushed her teeth twice. She ran a wet comb through her hair and pushed and pulled it until it was some way presentable.
Back in her room she dressed, telling herself that Claire was fine, she’d gone home with some man and fallen asleep. Or had she come back here at some stage and thrown pebbles at Ellen’s window, and had Ellen slept right through it?
There was no sound from her aunt’s room. Frances liked to sleep in on Sundays. Ellen hoped fervently that she wouldn’t appear before Claire showed up. If Claire showed up. Of course she’d show up.
She pushed her feet into slippers and went downstairs, every step hurting her head. She opened the front door as quietly as she could, and saw the grass gone white with the first frost of autumn. She walked to the gate, shivering, and looked up the road, as if simply by wanting it badly enough she could conjure up her friend coming towards her, but the place was deserted.
Back in the kitchen she filled a glass with water and gulped it down, and made tea. She sat at the table and sipped the hot liquid, trying to think what to do. Should she hang around here and wait for Claire or go out and try to find her? But she had no idea where to look.
Would Danny know where she’d gone? She couldn’t ring him, their house had no phone, but he was only ten minutes away. She’d walk there, just to feel like she was doing something. If Claire came back in the meantime she’d have to concoct a story for Frances, which she was well able to do.
Ellen got into her jacket. She slung a scarf around her neck and jammed Frances’ dark green knitted hat on her head and opened the front door again – and there was Claire coming up the path, pink-cheeked from the cold, rubbing her hands.
‘Oh good,’ she said cheerfully. ‘I was hoping I wouldn’t meet auntie. I’d kill for a cuppa – I’m frozen solid. Jesus, I was so drunk last night. You must have been as bad.’ She walked past Ellen into the house.
‘I can’t remember half of it. I had visions of you wandering around Galway, looking for this house.’
‘Not at all – you wrote it on my arm, remember?’
‘I’d forgotten that.’
‘I told you there was no fear of me.’ She made for the kitchen. ‘Come on, let’s get that kettle on before I get frostbite.’
‘There’s tea made,’ Ellen told her. ‘Where were you?’
Claire took a mug from the draining board and filled it. ‘You want some? You might need to boil the kettle again.’
Ellen took it to the sink. ‘Where did you spend the night?’
Claire poured milk, yawning. ‘With Danny. I think I told one of his pals to tell you. I need to brush my teeth so badly. Is Frances up yet?’
‘No – shh.’
Claire and Danny. Her two friends had spent the night together.
‘He’s sweet,’ Claire said. ‘I can see why you like him. Any toast?’
Claire and Danny.
They were adults and free spirits. They could sleep with whoever they wanted. Ellen wasn’t interested in him that way, she’d said so to Claire. Just friends, she’d said.
After breakfast they went out, the day having softened a little, the frost melted away. Still no sign of Frances. Staying out of their way, maybe. Letting the young people have their space.
Or maybe too mad at Ellen, if she’d woken her last night. She felt a creeping sense of dread and wished she knew.
‘I’ll bring my bag,’ Claire said, ‘so we won’t have to backtrack.’ At her insistence, Ellen brought her into the city centre to see the bookshop – closed on Sundays, of course – and then they wandered around until they found a café that was open, and sat with coffees and sugar doughnuts. ‘For the hangover,’ Claire said, biting into one.
She didn’t act like she was hungover. Ellen wrapped hands around her mug, still feeling rough. ‘Will you meet Danny again?’
Claire licked sugar from her fingers. ‘Probably not. A bit too soft and gentle for me.’ She looked at Ellen. ‘You’re not mad at me, are you?’
‘Of course I’m not mad.’
‘You’re acting a bit funny.’
‘I’m hungover, that’s all. Never give me alcohol again.’
‘Never’ – but at four, when the pubs reopened after the holy hour, she dragged Ellen into one. ‘To warm us up,’ she said, ordering two hot ports. They drank them by a roaring fire, and Ellen began to feel slightly more human.
‘Tell Frances I’m sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye,’ Claire said as the bus pulled in at the station. ‘Do you think she knows I didn’t come back?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘I probably won’t get up again anyway – Dad hates having to replace me.’
‘We’ll just have to hope Martin comes home soon.’
‘He’d better.’ She gave Ellen a hug. ‘Thanks for having me. See you soon.’
Back at the house, Ellen found Frances tipping potatoes from a saucepan into a colander. ‘Your friend is gone.’
‘She is, I just left her at the bus station. She said to say thanks.’
‘Wash your hands and you can make a start on the carrots. You had a good night?’
‘We had.’ Ellen pushed up her sleeves and reached for the bar of soap by the sink.
‘I heard you coming in,’ Frances said, returning the drained potatoes to the saucepan.
‘Oh.’ Ellen felt her face reddening.
‘You made a bit of noise on the stairs.’ She shook the saucepan so the potatoes tumbled about.
‘Sorry. I had too much to drink. Sorry, Frances.’ She dried her hands and found the carrots.
Frances opened the oven door and took out the roasting dish with the chicken in it. She tipped in the potatoes, and Ellen heard little sizzles as they hit the hot fat. Was she going to tell Ellen that she’d have to find somewhere else to live?
‘I had to get up for the toilet a bit later,’ she said, closing the oven door with a smart click. ‘I looked in to check that you were both home.’
Ellen’s heart dropped. She’d seen Claire’s empty bed. She opened her mouth to speak and closed it again, having nothing to offer.
‘She got back safe so,’ Frances said.
‘She did. She spent the night with . . . some friends I introduced her to.’ It sounded like the evasion it was.
‘Did she.’ The way she said it left Ellen in no doubt that she knew Claire had gone off with someone. It didn’t take much intelligence to figure that out, and Frances had plenty of intelligence.
‘Be careful,’ Frances said, putting two dinner plates on top of the cooker. ‘Be careful of her, Ellen.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I know she’s your friend, and I can see she likes her fun. Just make sure she doesn’t get you into any trouble.’
‘Trouble?’
‘By association, I mean.’
Ellen gathered up the ribbons of carrot peel and threw them into the bin. ‘I know she can be a bit reckless, but I was glad to have her when my father left. I didn’t handle it well, and she . . . looked out for me.’
‘That’s good, that’s what friends are for, but you have to be your own person, Ellen. Know your own mind. Don’t do anything you don’t want to do, just because someone else is doing it, and calling it fun. That’s all I’ll say.’
Maybe looked out for Ellen wasn’t entirely accurate. Claire had happily gone along with her various rebellions, covering for her when she bunked off school, supplying the cider they drank in the park behind the shopping centre on weekend afternoons, praising the shoplifting Ellen had briefly indulged in. And Ellen had been glad of her, glad to have an ally while she lashed out at a world that had stopped making sense.
‘I hear James got you home on Saturday night,’ Danny said when they met on Wednesday at the roundabout.
It was news to Ellen. She cringed at the thought of them talking about her and how drunk she’d been. ‘I was pretty bad.’
He grinned. ‘Don’t worry, we were all pretty bad. It was one of those crazy nights.’
He made no mention of Claire. She wondered whose idea it had been to go back to his house. Maybe the decision had been mutual, the logical conclusion to an evening of flirting.
It didn’t matter to her. It didn’t matter in the least.