Beth
Beth
Two weeks before
Before her grandad died, she’d always thought she was strong. Resilient. She coped with the glandular fever by telling herself that she would look back on it one day and feel proud of herself for surviving it. Everyone remarked on her strength of spirit.
But now she feels fragile. There’s no looking back on the loss of her grandfather in any way that’s positive. He’s gone forever. The first person she’s truly loved and lost.
He survived the operation – a miracle in itself. Then he woke up, had a cup of tea, and promptly died of a heart attack.
At least she got to see him one last time. All thanks to Nick.
Nick, who’d waited in the car all that time, and let her sob into his chest before leaving her with her parents and driving back up to university on his own.
On the train back up north after the funeral, all she can seem to think about is Nick.
She misses that feeling she had as they drove down in the car together: that feeling of being completely safe. At ease.
She’d hated being at home for the past two days. She found herself yearning for the friendship and support that has so quickly developed between her and Nick. The funeral itself was upsetting enough but ever since her father’s affair, Beth has found it difficult to talk to her mother. This has undoubtedly been the worst part of the whole disgusting situation: the distance it has created between them. But no matter how hard she tries, Beth can’t understand how her mum could have just forgiven him. Just taken him back, as though she didn’t deserve so much better.
But that makes Beth feel bad for feeling cross with her mum, when of course, it was her father who had carried out the betrayal. He was the one she should be angry with, but instead she found herself thinking of him as rather pathetic.
The woman concerned was his boss, too. And she was five years older than him. It was all so embarrassing.
Beth is sure no matter how old she gets, she will never understand her parents’ relationship.
*
When she arrives back at the Asylum four hours later, she pushes open the door to the kitchen, hoping that Nick will be inside.
But only Rosa is there, flicking through a magazine. Her thick dark hair piled up on top of her head.
‘Hi,’ Beth says.
‘Oh!’ Rosa says, looking up at her. Her lips twist, but the result isn’t exactly a smile. ‘You’re back. How was it? Hope it wasn’t too horrible.’
Beth narrows her eyes. She gets the sense that Rosa doesn’t like her much, although she doesn’t really know why. They’ve never fallen out. But Beth feels a frostiness emanating from Rosa whenever they are alone together. As though Rosa knows something that she doesn’t.
‘It was awful,’ she says, giving a resigned smile. ‘But thanks.’
Rosa stands up, closes the magazine.
‘Let me make you a cup of tea,’ she says. ‘Here, come and sit down. You must have had a really long journey. You’re from Sussex right?’
Beth nods.
‘I’ve never been that far south. Milk no sugar?’
Rosa is from Manchester. Beth nods again.
While the kettle boils, rather than turning to Beth to chat, Rosa keeps her back to her.
‘At least Parker drove you down before, so you could see your grandad one last time,’ Rosa says, as she sets down the mug in front of Beth. ‘That was nice of him.’
‘It was.’
‘I didn’t realise you two were so close.’
Beth blinks. Rosa pulls a cigarette out of the packet on the table and offers her one.
‘No, thanks,’ Beth says.
Rosa exhales the smoke away from the table.
‘Won’t you set the alarm off?’ Beth asks, then kicks herself. That sounded patronising. Not how you make friends.
‘Nah, I sorted it,’ Rosa says, and Beth follows her gaze to the ceiling. The smoke alarm has a frilly pink shower cap wrapped around it. ‘Stupid thing is so oversensitive anyway.’
Beth nods.
‘So what did you and Parker talk about?’ Rosa asks, raising an eyebrow. ‘It must have been a long journey.’
‘Oh, I can’t remember. It was a fortnight ago. I slept for most of it,’ Beth says. She doesn’t trust this line of questioning. ‘I was a bit… wrung out. It was the middle of the night.’
‘I’m so sorry, Beth.’
There’s genuine feeling in Rosa’s eyes now.
‘Thanks.’
The pair fall into silence. Beth wishes she could think of something, anything , to say. But the more she searches, the harder it seems.
‘You two have become good friends right? Has he mentioned Anna at all?’
Rosa asks the question lightly, as though commenting on the weather. Beth stares at her. Does Rosa like Nick? She has never considered this before. That she might have a crush on him. Perhaps that’s what this is all about.
She pulls this thought out a little more, tries to examine it closely. Perhaps Rosa has been waiting all this time for Nick and Anna to stop seeing one another so she can make her move.
Rosa is watching her expectantly.
‘No, not really,’ she says, trying to remember. ‘Just something about her being smarter than him.’
‘Well, Anna is smarter than him,’ Rosa says, tapping the ash from her cigarette into a long-drained coffee cup.
‘Oh.’
‘Anna and I went to school together. Didn’t you know?’
Suddenly it all makes sense: her subtle but pervasive feeling of isolation, the sensation that everyone else in the flat was getting on so much better with each other than with her. It wasn’t just because she came up to university late.
Rosa and Anna are friends. Why had no one told her this before? Why hadn’t she realised?
Rosa doesn’t fancy Nick. Rosa is trying to warn Beth off. To protect her friend Anna.
Rosa can tell.
‘Oh right, no… I had no idea. How funny.’
‘Yeah. She was head girl. Anna was – is – one of my best friends. I’m quite protective of her, as I’m sure you can imagine,’ Rosa says, dropping the end of her cigarette into the cup. ‘She’s a little more… naive than me, let’s say. All hearts and fucking rainbows about life. Never had anything bad happen to her; thinks the world is full of good people. Put it this way, it’s a good job she has me.’
Beth swallows.
‘That’s nice. That you ended up living together at uni too.’
Rosa nods.
‘We requested it on our application. If we’re going to have the time of our lives, then, well, we wanted to do it together.’
Beth takes a sip of tea.
She wants to get up and take her mug into her bedroom and close the door and go to sleep. But it’s 2 p.m. and an unusually fierce October sun is blazing outside the window and the university curtains are ineffectual against it. Plus she hates sleeping in the daytime. She did far too much of that in the summer.
‘We should all hang out one night,’ Rosa says, cutting through her thoughts. ‘Just us girls. Get to know each other a bit better. I mean, you really missed out didn’t you? Coming up to uni late.’
‘Yeah. I was really sick.’
‘I know. Such a shame. You didn’t think it might be better to defer for a year?’
Beth shakes her head. Was the question loaded, or is she being paranoid?
‘I was really keen to get back to normal life,’ she replies, trying not to sound too snappy.
‘Yeah. Well, let’s try to organise something for next week shall we?’
Beth nods.
‘I’d better go and unpack,’ Beth says, nodding at her overnight bag. She wishes someone else would come in and diffuse the peculiar tension that has formed. ‘Thanks for the tea.’
‘No problem,’ Rosa says, looking at her sideways. ‘I have a lecture at 3 anyway. Glad you’re doing OK. Sorry again about your grandad.’