Chapter 43
She’d been in the hospital for one night, but when she got home, everything had changed. The whole edifice of her life had come tumbling down, and it wasn’t going to be as easy to stitch back together as the wound on her head had been. She’d ended up with eighteen staples. She’d fallen back against the concrete bench, splitting her scalp open and being very fortunate not to have suffered a concussion – at least not one that had yet shown itself. Apparently, given the lack of personal identifying belongings, the passer-by who found her assumed she’d been mugged. Nope. Just fainting from woefully low blood sugar.
After showering, she stood in front of her bathroom mirror and angled another behind her to assess the damage. She’d made a right mess of it, alright, the sutures like giant ants crawling in her blood-matted hair. She ran her fingers along them like braille. What did they say? You’re a fuck up.
There would be no washing her hair for a couple of days, but what did that matter? She wouldn’t be going anywhere, at least not until her new bank cards came through. And then where? Then what? Sure, she would see the girls at some point, but the last thing she wanted to do was sit in some bar listening to all the amazing times they’d had. But what did she want to do? What did she even like doing? It was almost too cliched to admit, but after the last couple of months, she had no idea who the heck she was anymore.
She had received an email from work this morning. Employment terminated effective immediately. She would receive four months’ severance pay, provided she didn’t make a fuss. She should start a complaints procedure and take Tony to court for unfair dismissal, but the email had outlined the catalogue of wrongdoing that had left them no choice but to let her go. Of course, it was Ollie’s trumped-up charges of workplace bullying of which she was apparently ‘guilty’ – the hatchet job was complete.
She went and laid down on her bed. She longed for sleep, yet the whirring blades of her restless mind refused to stop. She’d had plenty of time to think about what Tasha had said. Maybe her dig about preferring things to people had been true. She was out of practice with people. Things, they were easy. Things didn’t let you down. They didn’t betray you, or leave you, or die on you. Things could be replaced. But she was surrounded by stuff now and what did it serve her? A hole in her soul had opened up, and it would not be filled with stupid trinkets. These laughable proxies for happiness, as Jasper would probably call them. Where was he right now? Had he found Tasha? What would Gayle have said about the Wolfe news? Trying to make sense of everything that had happened was like trying to make sense of a dream. She gazed around her room and considered the sheer volume of things she owned. Books she’d never read, clothes she’d never worn, handbags she’d never used. Shame nibbled at her. Those people at Cedar Lodge who had barely anything, and here she was saddled with all this shit. She was a prisoner of her possessions, crushed by their collective weight. The whole thing was a clutterfuck. She was stuffocating.
She had the sudden overwhelming urge to build a bonfire and watch it all go up in flames. To be rid of the evidence of her material gluttony. She would happily pile each and every item onto a pyre and let it blacken and char, watch as great acrid columns of poisonous vapour curled up into the atmosphere, a prolonged puff of smoke and then, as if by magic, gone, just like her bag.
She lifted a small marble jewellery tray from her bedside table, tested its heft in her hands, and then launched it with all her might towards a picture frame on the opposite wall. The shards of glass fell as noisily as her sobs.