Chapter 9 Schadenfreude #2
As Catherine rose from the sofa, Francesca’s smirk fell away, and a deep line appeared between her eyebrows. “You’re leaving?”
“I came to check that you’re okay, and…” she waved a hand in Francesca’s direction. “You’re obviously fine, so there’s no reason for me to stick around.”
Francesca sat up, an emotion registering on her face which, if Catherine didn’t know better, could have been mistaken for vulnerability. Her voice came out small, and almost unrecognisable. “Don’t go.”
“I don’t see how my being here is helping you. I came to see if you wanted to talk and whether there was anything I could do to help, but it was clearly a fool’s errand.”
Francesca’s shoulders hunched. “I have this constant pain, right here.” She pressed her hand to her breastbone and rubbed it in a way that made her look fragile, like a tiny bird fallen from a nest.
Despite everything she thought she’d feel seeing Francesca like this, Catherine felt the urge to hold her. She shook that thought away and tried to focus. “What sort of pain?”
“It hurts to breathe sometimes.”
Catherine moved closer, peering into her face as if it might help make sense of the symptoms. “Does it hurt to breathe now?”
Francesca nodded. “You’re not going to make me do those silly breathing exercises from your little blog, are you?”
“Well, that might… wait, you read my blog?"
Ignoring the question, Francesca continued to knead a clenched fist into her chest. “There’s a constant ache right here… and I want to cry all the time. I’ve never been a weeper, but I can’t help myself lately; the tears keep coming.”
“And did these… symptoms start when things ended with Alice?”
Francesca drew another ragged breath and nodded. “Jeremy took me to the hospital before I asked him to bring me here. They hooked me up, did some tests, but everything came back normal. The pain hasn’t gone away, though.”
Catherine sat back and crossed her legs. “The problem isn’t in your chest,” she said with quiet confidence.
A long time ago she’d worked out that Francesca had all the hallmark traits of a personality disorder.
After some back and forth, she’d settled on psychopathy.
Francesca’s constellation of behavioural traits seemed like a textbook case — with enough charm to snap a snake into a coma, she sparkled like a rare gem when she was the centre of attention, but she was also alarmingly manipulative, entirely self-absorbed, and prioritised her own needs above all else.
But, no, she could see it now. Catherine chuckled lightly and picked a piece of fluff from her trousers.
“What?” Francesca twisted around, her anguished look from before replaced by a narrowed gaze. “What are you laughing at?”
After all these years, Catherine realised she’d got it wrong. Unlike someone with purely psychopathic tendencies, Francesca was capable of forming genuine emotional attachments. And the keen sting of rejection would always bite hardest for a narcissist.
“I think you’re suffering from a broken heart.”
Francesca blanched. “Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You were in love, but it was unrequited. You’ve had your heart broken.”
“It wasn’t unrequited. Alice loves me. She needs me, but I wasn’t prepared to give my lifestyle up. I thought she’d see sense and compromise, but no—”
“Did you ever compromise for her?” Catherine asked, but already knew the answer from her own experience.
“I was willing to look past all the silliness and carry on as we were. That’s a compromise.”
Catherine threw up her hands. “You need help; real psychological help.”
Francesca sniffed. “I’m married to a therapist, the last thing I need is help.”
“Jeremy is blind to how you are. You’re capable of causing real hurt, Francesca. You hurt Alice, don’t you see that?”
“I offered her things she could never afford. She hurt me when she threw it all back in my face.”
Catherine laughed and shook her head. “Oh, Francesca, not everyone has a price tag.”
“Don’t you ‘Oh Francesca’ me, like you’re some authority on matters of the heart,” she snarled, her chest pain seemingly forgotten. “You’re a shrivelled old spinster, consumed with jealousy.”
Catherine threw her head back as genuine laughter bubbled up from inside her.
Francesca’s eyes bulged. “What are you laughing at now?”
A tap at the door interrupted. Swiping a tear of laughter from her eye, Catherine stood to let in the room service.
A young porter set out the dishes on the low table and Catherine closed the door behind him.
When she turned back to Francesca, she sat staring at the plates like she didn’t know what to do next.
“Are you going to eat?” Catherine asked.
“Will you have some too?”
Catherine laughed again. “You just called me a shrivelled old spinster, so I’m not about to sit down to dinner with you.”
Francesca waved a hand between them. “You know I say things sometimes in the heat of the moment. Please. Sit with me a while longer.” She shuffled forward, picked up a chip and blew on it before popping it in her mouth. “Look, there’s plenty for us both. We’ll call a truce over chips.”
Catherine flicked her wrist to look at her watch. “Okay, I’ll stay a while longer, but then I have to get back to feed the cat.”
Francesca arched an eyebrow. “That’s not exactly challenging the shrivelled spinster stereotype, you know?”
“It’s my neighbour’s cat. I seem to have a way of getting myself into these… situations.” Catherine retook her seat and poured herself a cup of tea from the pot as Francesca took bird-like pecks from the club sandwich.
“It’s the first time I haven’t been hit by waves of nausea,” she said between mouthfuls of fries.
“Waves of Nausea,” Catherine mused. “Sounds like it could be an Enya album.”
Francesca laughed; a proper laugh that split her mouth wide open and creased the corners of her eyes in a way she’d hate because she’d given too much away. But it made her look so human, so stunningly flawed.
“You know, I thought you were joking the first time you said you liked Enya. There was me with my cool gothic post-punk rock, and you obsessed with a middle-aged Irish woman and her grandma music.”
Catherine’s mouth gaped in mock-outrage. “Enya wasn’t middle-aged in 1988.”
“Yeah, but you might as well have been.”
They both laughed, and something shifted between them. For the first time in a very long time, Francesca’s company didn’t feel discordant. Here they were, getting along. Laughing together like old friends with a shared history and in-jokes.
When the light of day drained away outside, Catherine got up to leave, but for some reason, she paused to see Francesca into bed. And for some reason, Francesca let her.
Francesca’s eyelids drooped, and Catherine brushed away her still-damp hair and kissed her forehead. As she quietly made her way to the door, Francesca’s sleepy voice croaked behind her, “Trusty?”
Catherine spun back around, softened by the sight of the small woman swallowed up in that big bed. “Hmm?”
“Thank you,” she murmured.