Chapter 27
? Festive train journey
I boarded the busy train, which was full of spirited office workers
heading home after Christmas parties, and found a spot near the door
where I could gaze out of the window. Josh had come back almost exactly
two hours later, as Saskia had predicted, although he’d gone straight to
his room after a quick glance and a tight grin in my direction. Again,
exactly what Saskia had told me to expect.
Talking so openly with my sister-in-law had been incredibly helpful but, at the same time, I couldn’t shake off a sense of sadness that I’d never bothered to get to know her before now.
In fact, I’d barely given her any thought at all beyond the bitching sessions with Elle about her latest Instagram posts, which always dripped with earnestness.
I felt guilty for laughing at her now. Because she was bloody nice.
And clever. And so obviously head-over-heels in love with my brother.
A part of me was jealous of what they had – the same thing I’d believed I’d had with Tom just a few days ago, which was absurd.
The train jolted suddenly, so I reached for a nearby pole to steady myself, only to grab a fellow passenger’s tube of festive gift wrap poking out of their backpack by mistake.
They must have detected the brief change in pressure, as they spun around fast to look at me, just as I removed my hand in what must have come across as a pick-pockety manner.
‘Sorry, I thought it was the pole!’ They looked at me as if I was mad, which was fair enough, backing away slowly as if I might make another grab for it. Why did this kind of ridiculous thing always happen to me?
The Bermondsey rooftops flashed past the window, the blink blink blink of Canary Wharf’s summit in the distance.
That familiar flashing had always felt like a beacon beckoning me home after a long day in the office, but right now it felt like its relentless pulses were piercing my skull, each blink reminding me of something else that was lacking or collapsing in my life.
Flash: No job.
Flash: No sign of my best friend.
Flash: No Tom Brinton.
Flash: No fucking clue about anything any more.
I leant against the upholstered bum ledge next to the door – designed for a six-foot man, of course, so too high to be of any use to short women like me – and, with one hand permanently attached to my suitcase, closed my eyes for a few moments.
I rubbed my eyebrows with my thumb and forefinger, hoping it would somehow sculpt all my mashed-up thoughts into some kind of recognisable form.
But all it succeeded in doing was making my head pound even further.
The rain was whipping around cruelly as I exited the station at Hither Green.
I’d only been away for just over a week, but it felt like much longer.
I abandoned my wet luggage and coat in the hallway and went straight to the kitchen to put the kettle on.
But something wasn’t quite right. There were a few mugs piled up in the sink, and an unfamiliar box of herbal teabags was open on one of the countertops.
I picked up the box and sniffed it, as if I was a dog trying to catch a scent.
I dropped the box back down, turned slowly and looked around the living room.
The fibre-optic Christmas tree was switched on.
I had definitely switched it off before I’d left.
And the radiators were hot to the touch, when I’d adjusted the central heating to the lowest anti-frost setting or whatever it was called. What the fuck was going on?
I poked my head into the bathroom. All seemed normal – no freaky messages written in lipstick on the mirror.
My bedroom was undisturbed, too. The door to the spare room at the front of the flat was closed, as always.
I pushed it open… and found Elle, curled up in bed, awake but vacant. The room stank of stale farts.
‘Elle? What’s going on? Is everything okay?’
She sat up but said nothing. This figure didn’t feel like Elle.
For one thing, rotting in bed had never been a habit I’d associated with her for the entirety of our twenty-five-year friendship.
That was my specialty. And, when I switched on the bedside lamp, I noticed her eyes had zero sparkle, as if her spirit had retreated deep inside.
‘Why are you here? Aren’t you meant to be heading to Stevenage round about now for Christmas?’
More silence. I sighed, and opened one of the windows to try and freshen the room up. She continued to say nothing.
‘You’re scaring me, Elle. I’m calling Rory.’
‘No! Don’t. Please. He thinks I’m with you in Scarnbrook.’
‘What?’
‘I… really don’t have the energy to explain right now.’ She collapsed back down onto the mattress and turned away from me.
‘Snap out of it, Elle. I know this job stuff is shit for the both of us, and we need to talk about it, but we also need to talk about the strings you’ve been pulling for my article.’
‘It was a good article,’ she whispered, although it was muffled by the pillow.
‘Say that again?’
She turned over and glared at me with misplaced defiance. ‘I said it was a good article, all right? Happy now I’ve given you your little nugget of praise?’
I was so used to seeking her approval that I couldn’t help but feel wounded. My automatic response in this situation would be to fawn and fix. But fawning and fixing had only led me here. And, now I really didn’t have anything else to lose, it was time to try something different: confrontation.
‘Happy?! I’m anything but happy. The last few days have been horrific, not helped by the fact you’ve been completely ignoring me.’
She sat bolt upright again, this time throwing aside the bedcovers and standing to face me, her eyes regaining some of their fire, although her legs appeared to be a little shaky.
‘ Me ignoring you ? I’ve barely heard from you all week!
I needed you, Mally! Frannie’s been sick, Rory’s been working around the clock covering for a colleague, and I’ve been having to deal with angry freelancers who are demanding to be paid for articles that will never be published…
you’re not the only one with problems, you know! ’
‘If things were that bad, you should have called! Or sent another message! I’m not a mind-reader.’
She pushed past me and ran to the bathroom, locking the door behind her. I could hear her sobs echo off the tiles. It must’ve only been the second time she’d cried in my presence. I tapped on the bathroom door gently.
‘Elle? I’m getting really worried. Let me in, please? Otherwise, I’ll have no choice but to call Rory.’
I was tempted to phone him regardless of whether she let me in or not. Because I was fast realising I didn’t know Elle as well as I thought I did.
But then I realised something else: Elle had undoubtedly made some bad decisions, but she’d come here in her moment of need.
Because I was still her safety net, even though I was paying way too high a price for that, and this friendship was anything but equal.
I’d call Rory when the time was right, but for the time being this was up to us and us alone to resolve.
Elle unlocked the door and I immediately put my arms around her, tightly.
The last time I’d seen her this upset was when I’d told her about the conditional offer I’d received from Bristol University, and my plan to stay in Scarnbrook for my degree.
I’d been taken aback by her reaction that day, and she’d eventually confessed that she’d been banking on me coming to Cardiff with her.
‘We need to escape this place, Mally!’ she’d said, with seemingly zero awareness of how much the village meant to me and my family.
As I held her now – conscious that she was refusing to relax into the embrace – I wondered how my life might’ve turned out if I’d stood up to Elle back then and accepted the place at my local uni. Whether we’d still be friends. Would Livvie – would my entire family – have made it if I’d stayed?
Tears stung my eyes as I murmured, ‘It’s okay, it’s okay.
We’ll figure this out and make everything all right.
’ I had no intention of changing the course of my life for her any more like I’d done back then – and countless times since – but right now, in this moment, both of us needed to feel better before things could move on. She extracted herself from my arms.
‘Fuck, Mally. I’m sorry, okay? I guess you know the truth about me now, hmm? I’m a cold-hearted bitch who doesn’t deserve good people like you in my life.’
‘Stop talking like that, Elle. I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to push me away so I don’t get too close. But this isn’t the kind of relationship you can deliberately sabotage with a throwaway comment about my bad breath. We’ve come too far for that.’
‘Huh, you and Tom Brinton really did hit it off, didn’t you?’
‘I’m sure you know all about it. I can’t believe you set me up like that. It was really cruel. I genuinely thought he liked me.’
Elle sighed. ‘I wasn’t in touch with anyone else – just Ryan. I only heard about what was going on between you and Tom from him.’
‘Yeah, but you know what Scarnbrook’s like. Everyone talks to everyone. I swear the whole village knew I was back before I’d even stepped foot in that shitty Airbnb. Hang on, did you book a dodgy place on purpose?’
‘Umm, I may have done…’
‘Elle!’ Despite everything, I couldn’t help but admire how bloody good she was at her job. After all, the depressing nature of the accommodation had inspired the final angle for my piece.
Elle looked at the floor and wrapped a strand of her dark hair around her forefinger, just like she used to do at school. ‘You uncovered a good story.’
‘Even though it won’t get published now.’
I grabbed a tissue from the loo roll holder and blew my nose, sitting on the closed toilet seat. Elle sat opposite me on the edge of the bath, and I handed her her own wad of bog roll.