Chapter 20
Josh
Until seven o’clock in the evening – the time I was born – I find myself able to do little more than stare at the clock and the seconds inching by, time unfolding in agonising increments.
Rachel keeps reminding me I’ve made it this far. But by now I can barely speak, let alone think rationally. Until that clock strikes seven, all I can seem to do is pace, fidget, repeat, knowing every breath I take will turn out to be either a blank, or a bullet.
I’ve been doing some very messed-up maths in my head for a few weeks now, trying to figure out precisely how many minutes it takes for someone to die from a heart attack, stroke, aneurysm.
Attempting to pinpoint the exact moment at which I might be home and dry. And until I get there, I cannot relax.
Eventually, finally, in the most serene way imaginable, the clock strikes seven. And then one minute past. And then two.
Inside my head, the blood is roaring like a waterfall.
I’ve made it.
What the actual fuck?
Did that pill save my life?
A heady mix of euphoria and adrenaline is pinballing its way around my nervous system, and I’m not quite sure how to contain it. So far, I’ve called my mother and my friends, and left an overly sentimental message on Wilf’s machine which I know he will hate and instantly delete.
I go over to where Rachel is still sitting motionless at the kitchen table.
The toast we made an hour or so ago, because neither of us could stomach proper food, is cold and untouched in front of her.
Usually, on our birthdays, I cook. I make a big deal of it – planning a meal I think she’ll love, making my once-yearly trip to our brusque local butcher, buying scallops in shells from the van at the market.
I dabble in lemongrass and samphire, burrata and spiced rice.
I craft buttery Béarnaises and pillow-soft dumplings, seduce her with dangerous cocktails.
This year, though, I couldn’t face doing any of it.
I sit down. Across the table, Rachel takes my hand. Her eyes are shimmering with tears. ‘You made it.’
‘I made it,’ I echo.
I should add, It’s all going to be okay now. But that feels so far from the truth.
To get here, tonight, was all I ever wanted. Yet, now, it feels infuriatingly anticlimactic. As though I cheated my way to safety.
Which, of course, I did.
‘How do you feel?’ she asks.
The adrenaline begins to ebb. I let a long breath go with it. ‘Weird,’ I confess.
‘Me too.’ And then, ‘Why aren’t we celebrating?’
Tears begin to clot my throat. ‘Because today wasn’t just about today, was it?’
She shakes her head. But the expression on her face is odd, unreadable. It’s as though she’s looking through me. As if she doesn’t feel anything at all.
Soon after that, she makes her way to the bathroom. When she doesn’t re-emerge after ten minutes or so, I go to find her.
‘Rach?’ I tap nervously against the door.
No reply.
A hot rush of panic hits me. Surely she’s not in there taking the pill? Because I know that is not what she wants.
‘Rach?’ I knock on the door more urgently.
A couple of moments pass, then the lock twists, and she opens the door.
‘You’re not . . . Are you okay?’
She shrugs softly, tugs her cardigan a little more closely around her.
Then she turns to sit down on the closed seat of the loo, where she has obviously been for the past ten minutes.
‘Why am I not more happy, Josh?’ She shakes her head, rubs her face.
‘You’re alive. You didn’t die. We should be fucking ecstatic, shouldn’t we? ’
I squat in front of her and take her hands. They are limp and unfeeling, her skin cold in mine. ‘This is probably normal. I mean, not normal, but . . . understandable. This has all been . . . well, a fucking nightmare, frankly.’
She scans me for a moment, as if she’s looking for something she’s lost. ‘I’m scared.’
‘I know,’ I say softly. The guilt of having done this to her is a constant cog in my chest, grinding, grinding.
‘No, I mean, I’m scared that I’ll never feel happy at big moments again. I feel numb right now. Like, I’m not feeling anything.’
Dissociation, maybe? A protection mechanism? Her mind shutting down, a hangover from childhood?
‘My main memory of my mum is that she always seemed numb, Josh. Even on big occasions. Birthdays, Christmases. Like she’d checked out of life. And I feel checked out right now.’
‘You’re not checked out. You’re talking to me about it. That’s proof that you’re not.’
‘I asked her, once, why she used to throw things and drink and scream at my dad. Do you know what she said?’
I just shake my head, wait for her to tell me.
In the slight light of the bathroom, Rachel’s face looks sunken and pale, unsettlingly ghostly. ‘She said it was because she wanted to feel something. Anything. Any fucking feeling at all, she said.’
‘Rach—’
‘I couldn’t bear it, Josh, if I turned into her. I mean it: I don’t think I could stand it. Just going through the motions of life. Not feeling the way I’m meant to, at all the big moments.’
‘You won’t; this is temporary—’
A small, tight laugh. ‘But it’s not. How we are now is as permanent as it gets. You’re going to be twenty-nine forever. Nothing will be the same again. The life we’d planned . . . it’s gone for good. And I’m worried that a part of me will always be grieving that.’
And when we grieve, we go numb, I think.
I try one last time to reassure her. ‘You will never be your mum, Rach.’
‘How can you say that?’ She gives me the saddest look imaginable. ‘I’m her daughter. I’m already halfway there.’