Chapter Thirty-Three Carys
I can’t leave things unsaid.
Tomorrow, the whole cast has a last day off while we finalise things for our weddings. After that, everyone gets married. I might see her at the filmed reunion, but that’ll be it. Dolly Doherty will walk out of my life forever.
‘Could we not have done that in your flat? Or, you know, anywhere that’s not a tiny, enclosed space that could fall at any moment,’ Dolly says, pressing her palm against her collarbones. It’s possibly the first time I’ve ever seen Dolly look so freaked out.
‘I just needed to talk to you,’ I insist.
‘Okay, so talk.’
I take a deep breath. ‘I’ve come to accept,’ I begin, my voice shaky, ‘that I like women.’
‘Was it all the fucking that gave it away?’ she laughs awkwardly. ‘Sorry, it’s the lift. I make jokes when I’m nervous.’
I almost feel bad about how much she’s stressing out.
‘Can I finish my coming out speech, please?’ I say firmly. ‘And then you can leave.’
She blows out a long breath. ‘Go on. Talk to me, Cherry.’
My heart twists. ‘I’m starting to accept that I like women and that’s a lot for me,’ I continue, conscious that I’m sliding into monotone monologue mode, but I’m too tired to modulate my speech.
‘When I was a teenager, I kind of knew but I had to shove it away. I just didn’t have space to think about it, because so much else was happening – finding out I was autistic right at the end of high school after years of struggling through, trying to understand all the complicated hierarchical rules of friendship groups and then uni too. ’
‘That sounds like a lot,’ she says softly.
‘It was. And being into women, whatever that meant, felt like bottom of the list in some respects, but also one of the most painful ones to look at straight on… excuse the pun. Plus I knew I liked men so, you know, it didn’t seem that relevant.’
I feel a little embarrassed admitting the last part to her specifically.
‘That makes sense. Even when it’s joyful there’s the…’ She pauses as she searches for the words. ‘Recognising how much is going to change for you. That separation from compulsory heterosexuality is hard, really hard. Of course you locked that away.’
‘Yeah, Lina suggested that to me but I didn’t really understand everything about it. I’ve been too scared to look it up.’
‘Not to be your preachy gay elder,’ Dolly says. ‘But it’s the idea our society just assumes every woman likes men and only men. And we can internalise that as our own truth, even if it’s just something that the patriarchy is trying to sell us.’
I feel like my world is cracking open, for perhaps the twelfth time this week. There’s a power in naming the Thing that you’ve been battling against. The silent malevolent force is less terrifying when you name it.
‘Yes, that feels right,’ I say, filing that away in my mind to look up online, and then process, later. I suppose it really did feel like that. ‘I think it makes it more complicated that I do still like Patrick.’
‘I bet. The community can rag on bisexuals, calling them straight or just gay or cheaters or greedy, but youse don’t have it easy.’
‘I’m hardly beating the cheating allegations,’ I sigh, and we both laugh. ‘Anyway, I wanted to say thank you.’
‘Thank me? Carys—’
‘If it wasn’t for you,’ I steamroll ahead or I’ll chicken out of what I want to say.
‘If it wasn’t for whatever this is… was, between us, I wouldn’t have worked it out.
Not for a long time, anyway. I’m still not really sure what to do with the information given the circumstances but I guess I accepted something about myself, even if it feels… I don’t know, not relevant.’
‘It can be relevant even if you’re with Patrick. It’s whatever you want it to be.’
‘Yeah, so, despite everything, I think you deserve a thank you.’
She takes this in, watching me. God, I’m going to miss her just watching me.
‘Carys, you don’t need to thank me. I just—’ She stops herself, glancing up at the ceiling.
I wait, giving her the space. I hate it when people rush me, after all, but, more than that, the sooner we finish speaking, the sooner this is over.
‘I see you, Carys. You’ve got a lot going on in that head of yours, so I’m glad that you worked it out and it has been…
well, an experience to have been a part of that. ’
I can’t help but laugh at that. ‘The Carys is a Bit Gay Experience.’
Dolly laughs and shakes her head. ‘But that’s the thing I can’t help but admire about you.’
‘What, that I’m repressed?’
‘Shut up, I’m trying to be serious.’ Dolly takes a breath.
‘Since we met, I see how hard you’re always working to be present or the “right” kind of person.
’ She adds the air quotes. ‘I’m not sure it’s even who you want to be, and no one else seems to notice the effort you’re putting in all the time, or the dissonance.
It’s maddening to me, so I don’t know how you manage. ’
I feel seen in a way I never have before.
‘I spend my life trying to make it unnoticeable,’ I say, understanding how sad it might sound if someone else said it. ‘You’re the only one who foiled me.’
‘The only one?’ Her voice catches in her throat.
‘The only one. I guess that’s why it hurt so much when I thought you didn’t want me.’
‘I never said I didn’t want you,’ Dolly whispers. ‘That’s the whole problem.’
I step closer to her, even though I know I shouldn’t.
‘I know. I know the truth now. I heard Whit and her mother talking about your mum. That you’re her carer.
I know what the state of social care and welfare is for disabled people.
So I know that you must be struggling, and that the protection isn’t there long term.
You needed the money for her, didn’t you? ’
Dolly sighs but she doesn’t look angry. If anything, she seems relieved. ‘I didn’t tell you because—’
‘I understand,’ I cut her off. ‘I’m the only one who could have put it all together. I could have got you thrown out.’
‘But you didn’t,’ she says. ‘And that’s on me for not trusting you.’
‘To be fair, for most of the time I was either trying to fight you or fuck you.’
We both laugh sadly.
‘Can I tell you now?’ Dolly says, and this feels like confession.
‘Tell me.’
‘Mum is my favourite person in the whole world, and I nearly fucked things up with her too – she’s, err, kind of angry with me that I did this for her without asking.
’ She pauses now, to hold back tears. ‘Which is fair, that was my fuck up. I just really want to protect her, which she finds maddening because she’s the mum.
She’s so funny and brutal and honest. Just this absolute pillar of a person, she always was. ’
‘Sounds like someone else I know.’
‘She… well, she got sick when I was a teenager. Do you know what seizures are?’ she says, in a rush of air.
‘Yes, from my first aid training I know a bit. Not enough, admittedly.’
‘Well, most people think of epilepsy when we talk about that, but that’s just, like, one kind of seizure.
You can have them for all kinds of reasons.
My mum has this thing called Functional Neurological Disorder.
When I was a teenager, she had a really bad fall at work and we thought it was just a fall, but it very quickly became clear it was not just a fall.
Sometimes her legs wouldn’t move right, or her hands would get stuck clenched up. ’
‘That sounds painful.’
‘Yeah, it’s shit for her. And she started having seizures, like the shaking kind mostly.
It’s really hard because there’s still so much unknown about what it is, other than it being some kind of nerve communication problem, like the software on her computer-brain has gone wrong?
’ She pauses to laugh. ‘Sorry, can you tell I know dick all about computers or neurology?’
‘You’re doing great,’ I insist.
‘Anyway, she’s on a lot of meds for various things that she seems to also have alongside it. It’s like every few years we’d spot something else was going on. So I guess she was just… coping or trying to for too long, and it all went kaput.’
The fuzzing in my brain whispers that this feels a little too familiar. ‘That must be really hard for her.’
Dolly looks a little surprised. ‘You know, usually the first thing people say is “that’s hard for you”, meaning me, and that pisses me the hell off,’ she says with anger.
‘But it’s hard for her. Sure, I help her with a lot of things, and I’ve worked from home for years so I could be there to help care for her, but I don’t have to have the thing, you know? ’
‘Forgive me if this is an ignorant question,’ I say, waiting for her to give me the go-ahead. ‘Does she get any extra help, like someone to come in to help her other than you?’
‘Well, there’s my Auntie Carol and my cousin Jas.
And me. At the moment, we’ve not had much luck getting her at-home care, but—’ She bites down on her lip.
‘Yeah, maybe in the future. It’s a bit complicated.
Plus, looking after her is my pride and joy.
And it’s also a doddle, most of the time. She’s the one who has it tough.’
It all makes sense now. This version of Dolly I thought I knew, this conniving faker with a veneer of kindness, was completely wrong. ‘I think you’re allowed to say that it’s hard for you too, because I imagine it’s a lot of pressure.’
‘Yeah, but what family isn’t? We all have something,’ Dolly says casually.
‘Hmm, yeah,’ I say, not wanting to add that that something was, for a long time, me. ‘But you’ve been doing that while dealing with your own stuff.’ I feel a bit stupid for the euphemism. It’s like I can’t get out of the habit of talking around things. ‘Your endometriosis.’
‘Like I said, we all have something,’ she says, softer now. ‘Have you told anyone else you’re autistic?’
‘Here? God, no.’
‘Not even Patrick?’
I shake my head.
‘Why, Carys? That… I don’t want to presume what it’s like for you, but telling me meant I could understand a bit more what was going on for you. Why haven’t you told him?’
‘Isn’t it obvious? I’m scared of being the something,’ I say, pointedly.
‘Come on, he won’t think that. He adores you.’ I can hear the hesitation in her faux certainty. ‘Sorry, I don’t want to diminish your fears.’
‘It’s easier to lie,’ I admit. ‘I’ve been masking for so long that I don’t know who Carys is half the time. In fact, if I’m honest, the most truthful I’ve felt is with you. How fucked up is that?’
We both laugh sad-laughs. ‘We’re both crazy,’ sighs Dolly, and she takes one of my hands, then both. ‘You know I stayed out all night.’
‘After my meltdown,’ I finish for her, unsure what to do with the swell of emotion cresting in my chest.
We stand together in the corner of the lift, heads bowed but not quite together given our height difference.
‘Thank you for telling me about everything,’ I say.
‘I’m sorry I didn’t until now.’
‘It’s a good way to leave it. With some final truths.’
‘One hell of a goodbye,’ she sighs. ‘But an honest one, if this is where we’re leaving it?’
‘I think we have to. For Patrick and Warren and your mum, and for us.’
‘Fuck, this is all so hard,’ Dolly says, and I know she’s thinking what I am – that it hurts more to say goodbye when the feelings are there. It’s just circumstance, even if it’s of our own making.
I look up into her beautiful eyes that swim with tears. My heart is breaking, but so is hers. It feels fair, that way, to both be falling apart under the weight of the realisation that this is the end for us.
‘We’re both liars, you and I. That’s why we fit so well together.’
I reach up to kiss her, and she leans into it. It’s sweet, soft. A goodbye. We both know it is. I try to drink in every inch of her, every bit of her smell and taste. How do you form a memory of someone in the moment? How do you harness every last bit of them, knowing it’ll be the final time?
There’s no way we can be friends after this. We were never friends; we were always more than that to each other, and that’s why we have to keep apart, if we’re going to have a happy life.
Dolly has to protect her mother. I won’t be the person who stands in the way of that, not any more.
This whole time, I’ve been lying to myself that I’ve not been fighting for her in every barb and argument.
I wanted her to notice me. Even irritation is attention.
If her eyes were on me, she was still here. We were still something.
And now I know I have to let her go.
When our lips break apart, we stay in each other’s arms. We have to break contact in increments.
My heart breaks further when Dolly whispers, ‘I hope he’s good enough for you.’
‘I hope so too. I think he will be.’
‘You really like him, don’t you?’
My heart says enough but my mouth chooses, ‘Yes.’
She pushes an unruly strand of my hair back behind my ears. ‘Well then, tell him if he’s not a good husband, I’ll come drop kick him.’
I laugh but it’s marred with a sob. ‘I’m glad I won’t have to tell Warren that.’
‘Yeah. He’s good. You were right when you said I don’t deserve him.’
I don’t know what to say. What is there even left to say?
The lift starts moving by itself, and soon we are rising back up to the flats we share with our fiancés.
My life with Patrick awaits. My future husband, the man I care so much for.
I can see it now – our flat in London, us both bringing our work home in the form of bottle-feeding lambs, and surprise litters of kittens, and ancient dogs we say we’re just fostering but will adopt.
And the children we’ll have, one day, with bright auburn hair and his laugh and my freckles.
And in embracing that, I have to say goodbye to the shadow version that exists, a future with Dolly. It’s too painful to even picture beyond her waiting at the altar. But I take one last look at that image in my mind, and I say goodbye to that too.
Before the door opens, I kiss her again. Just once.
‘Goodbye, Dolly.’
‘Goodbye, Carys.’
We step out into the corridor like nothing ever happened, and walk to our front doors.
As my key enters the lock, I remember one final thing I want to tell her. ‘Your fake accent is pretty good, by the way,’ I say, giving her a smile.
Her voice drops, lower and thicker, Scouse through and through. ‘You clocked that, huh? People prefer poshos, what can I say?’
I push open the door. ‘Liars forever,’ I promise.
‘Liars forever.’
And with that, I close the door on Dolly Doherty.