Fruit Fly

Chapter 1 Mallory

As I start up my sixth game of Candy Crush while sat on the closed toilet seat, I have a very clear and rational realisation.

I, too, am a piece of exploding computerised fruit.

That is the extent of me. Here one moment, only to be pulverised into a spray of sweet nothing the very next. Obliterated. Forgotten.

Outside, I can hear the voices of my guests and the music droning on. Why won’t they leave?

The truth is, if I did explode, I don’t think they’d notice. At least not at first. They would pretend that they cared – at my funeral. That I was important to them. That I had made a mark on their lives in some beautiful and profound way. But they would lie.

One of them lied earlier. A woman I have met only once.

‘Mallory is basically Clarissa Dalloway,’ she proclaimed loudly to my kitchen full of arty (pretentious) intellectual types, pointing in my direction with a mouthful of hummus.

Hummus I had bought from Tesco and put in the poshest-looking bowl I could find.

I’d sprinkled some coriander on top and pretended I’d made it.

(I suppose I lie too. But it’s different.) ‘Clarissa Fucking Dalloway,’ she repeated, whilst pulling a face like the mouthful was precipitating an orgasm.

I swallowed my jealousy. I haven’t had an orgasm in years, let alone one triggered by Tesco’s ownbrand hummus.

‘Mallory throws the best parties in North London.’

Today is the first time this woman has stepped foot inside my house.

But I laughed obligingly. And the guests all agreed, crowded round my kitchen island, nodding, a bobbing sea of wire-rimmed glasses, trilbies, rolled up cigarettes tucked behind ears (lobes studded with hoops and dangling crosses).

Everyone defying the vape trend because they are too real, too hardcore and altogether too brilliant to care about lung cancer, like their Tate Modern memberships and Birkenstocks somehow make them immune.

Some even clapped. I waved them off, like they were being silly.

No, no. I am nothing like Mrs Dalloway. But I wouldn’t actually know.

I have never read Mrs Dalloway, despite pretending to be well-versed in the literary greats so often that I’ve almost convinced myself I have.

What is actually true is that I googled the synopsis – like I do with most of the classics – binged on an overview of the themes and style on Wikipedia, mentally crammed in some sentences that sounded important and now just recite them at people.

It seems to have worked. I can even quote bits.

She sliced like a knife through everything.

That’s a good one.

‘Mal?’

I move my finger across my screen with utter precision, slaying five yellow Jelly Tots in a row. I watch them detonate, the vibrations of my phone tingle my fingers in such a satisfying rhythm that I make an audible gasp.

‘Mal, are you in there?’

I do have to be careful. Virginia Woolf comes up annoyingly often within the conversations of this wannabe Bloomsbury set, like she has been adopted as some kind of Mother Figure (she’s a style icon, a homeware influencer, just a total fucking mood).

And so, I bought an early edition of Mrs Dalloway from eBay for more than the price of an iPad, bent the pages and put it in the downstairs bathroom – where I am currently sat.

It is placed for everyone to see: right on top of the pile of neatly (strategically) arranged books on the shelf, next to the peace lily and the bougie scented candle that smells strongly like lavender, perfectly masking the stench of my deception.

You’d think I’d just read the thing.

She felt very young, and at the same time, unspeakably aged.

Another good one.

I can see it in front of me. Its forcibly broken spine.

My lies, bent into unread pages.

We all lie.

‘Mal, are you in there?’

Virginia Woolf killed herself with stones in her pockets. I may not have technically read her books, but I do know that much.

‘Mal!’

It’s romantic, isn’t it? Suicide. There is something romantic about it. Sometimes. Not always. Not the ones on the train tracks or in the wardrobes with ties and belts. More the ones in the forests or rivers or lakes. The peaceful ones. I think so.

If I admitted that to my guests, maybe they would leave. Which is what I want.

‘Mallory?’ My husband’s gruff Irish lilt through the door. Fuck’s sake. ‘Mal, Joanie is asking where we keep the J?ger.’

We have J?ger because we are still young and cool. Effortlessly. That’s important.

‘I’m just in the bathroom, darling.’ I never call him darling unless other people are around to hear it. I take my glass of champagne and down the remainder of its contents. I’m not drunk enough.

He is so handsome. So sexy. Everyone tells me. My knees still go weak. They do.

They do.

‘I swear it was in the cupboard in the kitchen island?’ He is slurring.

‘No, it’s above the—’

Damn it. I died.

In Candy Crush, not in reality. ‘I’ll be two minutes!’

I stand and press the flush, for effect. The water runs as I turn the tap, but I don’t wet my hands. I just stare at myself in the mirror above the sink.

I look like I belong here.

‘OK, love.’ I hear a thud on the back of the door. His head?

‘OK.’ His voice, barely audible through the wood, like his mouth is pressed against it. ‘...I’m horny.’

This mirror is distressed. That’s what the man at Neptune’s furniture store told me.

‘This is a distressed mirror.’ I have tried so often to find its emotional anguish, to relate.

But all it means is that the glass is purposefully tarnished to the point where you can’t really see yourself in it at all.

I hate this mirror, but everyone says how cool it is.

My mirror is cool, like my house, my husband and our J?ger.

‘Did you hear me, Mal?’

Yes, I heard you. Yes, I fucking heard you. ‘Sorry?’

‘I’m horny...’

J?ger bombs in a three-floor semi, giving him a semi, in Crouch End at ten p.m. on a Friday night.

This is my life.

My life is enviable.

I have it all.

I turn away from my reflection and open the latch on the door. He stumbles towards me, pushing me back in. ‘Ronan...’

‘We can be quick.’ He kicks the door shut behind him with the back of his foot.

‘But the guests—’

He nuzzles into my neck, the back of my thighs now pressing into the top of the sink.

His face appears in front of me: his intentionally scruffy stubble, ever enduring hairline, heavy brow and bright-green eyes, which are now gone, lost, blurred by a concoction of clumsy lust and unpronounceable Scottish whiskey.

‘Baby...’ My skin prickles. He never calls me baby, unless his eyes look like this.

‘Just quickly...’ His fingers graze my jeans, the inside of my thigh.

He never does that either, unless his eyes look like this. ‘You’re amazing.’

I’ve trained myself not to flinch now. Every time.

I make a small moan, because I know I should.

Thankfully the moan is short-lived, broken off by someone’s voice: neither mine nor his. ‘Oh God!’

The door has swung open and Joanie is stood there, frozen and flushed, half in, half out, glass of Chardonnay in hand.

Ronan turns his head away from my neck, affording me some momentary relief. ‘Oh shit – Joanie, sorry—’

‘No! Please – you two crack on!’ she says, turning on the spot, hand moving over her mouth, eyes wide.

‘Joanie—’ I begin.

‘God! No. Not at all. You two. You two are such...’ She stalls. ‘Fun.’

‘We’re coming out.’

Joanie laughs, like this is all funny. My life is fun and funny. ‘It’s just – people are waiting for Ronan’s speech.’

Ronan’s Speech.

Why Everyone Is Still Here.

‘Ah fuck,’ he says, peeling himself from me. ‘Really?’ He sounds suddenly shy, but Ronan is not shy. ‘Do I have to?’

‘Yes!’ Joanie protests, then lowers her voice. ‘You didn’t hear this from me, but Theo brought party poppers – bless him – so be prepared for some bangs.’

He shakes his head, objecting, but it’s a lie. He wants to give his speech. I know he does, because I have overheard him rehearsing it in the cellar whilst pretending to use the Peloton.

He exhales. ‘Fine.’

Since his recent promotion to one of the commissioning editors for the UK arm of Netflix, everyone wants to hear his genius.

He’s only thirty-eight. Thirty-eight! Can you believe it?

Even Joanie has more to say to him than she does to me now.

There was a time when she called him a walking red flag, but recently she no longer sees the red, just the faded brown of his corduroyed brilliance.

(He loves those cords. They cost him so much money but look like he found them in the bin of an old peoples’ home. And yet, that’s the point.)

He steps out of the bathroom behind Joanie, straightening his shirt.

‘I’ll be right out,’ I say, but as he playfully closes the door on me – making Joanie erupt with her vibrant laugh that I’ve always loved – I shut my eyes. I wait for them both to fade away, down the hallway towards the kitchen, where the twenty other guests wait to be inspired.

My hands are shaking.

They still do it, all these years later. A tremor, starting from the inside.

This is my life.

Listening to the cheer explode from our guests as Ronan takes his place centre stage by the Smeg fridge (double door!), I look back to the stack of books on the shelf next to the candle and the peace lily.

One about Freud, one by Jung, one about dysfunctional attachment styles in adults, a Sylvia Plath poetry collection and a book with a red cover. My book.

I pull it out. The feel of its spine against my fingertips sends a shudder down mine.

The Sunday Times Bestseller

SHALLOW EMBERS

Beneath a simple graphic of a red flame is the author’s name.

Mallory Maddox