Chapter 42
Mallory
I need fresh air.
I need space. I need to breathe. To think.
To plot out the end of the book. I decide the back patio is the best place for me to do this.
Currently, there is no surveillance device monitoring the rear of the house, so I shouldn’t be noticed.
The keys for the Crittall doors in the kitchen remain in the fruit bowl.
Ronan hasn’t moved them yet. There are some Vogue menthols stashed somewhere in one of the old cooking pots in a drawer, behind the J?ger. I will also need these.
As I descend the staircase from the attic, past the first floor, I check my mother’s bedroom door is shut.
It is, but as I pass it, something prickles at the back of my neck, a warning – a sign to be quiet – making me move as lightly as I can.
I avoid creaks from the floorboards beneath the chic woollen runner lining the stairs, and then I am safely on the tiles of the ground floor hallway. I move gently into the kitchen.
It’s dark.
I should keep the lights off.
Feeling my way through the room, I become aware of the buzz in my brain – a soundless electrical charge.
It seems to amplify each movement I make, putting me in a state of hyper-awareness.
The pad of my feet on the herringbone floor.
My breath moving in and out of my nostrils.
The click of my knees as I kneel down next to the island to open the cupboard door.
The clunk of the latch, reverberating into my body like a clap.
I pause, holding my breath, waiting for it to pass through me, listening.
When I am sure that no one else has heard, that no one has followed me down the stairs, I start gently sifting through the pots.
The Vogues are at the bottom of an old Le Creuset casserole dish next to a matchbox.
Bingo. I stand, take the keys from next to the pineapple that was delivered today by Ocado (for aesthetic reasons only – no one will eat it) and unlock the back door.
As I step out onto the cold porch slabs, the air hits. The sudden change in temperature does something to the back of my throat, my muscles and the fluid in my eyes – shocking me. I immediately feel like I might burst into tears.
No. Control it. Box breathing. Reality checking.
List four things you see in front of you.
I pull the doors closed and check off a list of things that enter my vision on our perfectly landscaped patio.
The bay tree. The decidedly mismatched planters.
The Nkuku outdoor table that can be set at two different heights. The porcelain bird bath.
I pause. Why did we get that? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a bird go anywhere near the thing, let alone bathe in it. It would have more use as an ashtray.
This is it. This is my reality.
As I stare at the blue and white swirls of paint covering its shiny exterior, my mind feels like it might slip. Slip into a terrain I do not want it to enter.
I can’t finish this book without Leo.
I will be in this house forever.
As I look down at the Vogue cigarette now resting between my fingers, something odd happens.
I feel my consciousness move. It shifts, transporting me to outside of my own body.
I see myself from above. A bird’s eye view of a woman about to light a cigarette on her back patio.
It’s not just like I’m being filmed on a drone camera.
I notice that I don’t look like me. Or how I think I look.
There is a certain grading to the image: a wistful and melancholic hue, like a scene from a low-budget but very cool indie film.
And it looks... kind of chic. Very: Girl, Interrupted.
But more romantic. More subtle. It momentarily eases my nerves.
Well, no – it doesn’t – but it gives them some kind of...
Meaning. Importance. Profundity. The idea that someone might see them, that someone might say, Yes – yes!
I’ve felt like that too – oh my gosh, it’s awful, fills me with a strange warmth.
And they would cry, because I am crying.
A bond would form between me and that person.
I find myself wondering if Saoirse Ronan smokes. She would, in this scene. I have always felt some strange affinity with her.
I have.
I see the image of me smile.
I strike the match, stopping to allow the nostalgic sting of its fumes to seep into me, then touch the flame to the cigarette. I inhale deeply. Once. Twice. Three times. Like Saoirse might.
It does the opposite of what it is supposed to.
With each drag I am pulled back inside my body, and a deep unease rises.
It’s as if the menthol is smoking out the facade that I have attempted to generate over the past two weeks (fine, seven years), revealing only a well of raw and damaged nerves.
My hands begin to shake as my mind more than slips.
It tumbles. There is no camera. And no one is watching.
None of this means anything. That’s the truth.
Beneath it all, beneath everything we spend all our lives creating, are we all like this?
We are completely and utterly alone. The reality of it nearly winds me. Anxiety peaks.
We will never truly know anyone.
I lean forward, because I feel nauseous.
I don’t know if it’s a symptom of the nicotine rush or the existential crisis, but it is so intense that I feel like I might vomit.
When I was with Leo, I felt more in the world.
Less in my brain. There was something about him, his energy, the way he moved and talked and experienced life that was urgent, and I had no space to consider. Just to be.
I feel a film of saliva coat the roof of my mouth, tasting bile at the back of my throat. I am going to be sick.
I open my mouth – expecting it to pour out of me.
I wait, hunched over, for what must be minutes, but nothing comes.
When I am sure it won’t, I stand. I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, feeling the faint air of disappointment that I haven’t covered the porch in tonight’s dinner.
In the film version of this, I would have.
But it would have still been, somehow, glamorous. Glamorous but real. A rare blend.
Am I insane?
I look into the bushes at the back wall, next to the shed, flanking the gate that opens out to the cobbled bin alley. A thought enters my mind.
Could he be...? I wouldn’t put it past him.
‘Leo?’ I whisper into the dark. I pause, listening, stock still. ‘Leo?’
No response.
Nothing.
I was wrong. The awful realisation that Ronan and my mother are right takes form inside me. I am childish. I am unstable. What was I thinking? This book was never going to work. It was a fantasy. Something that never belonged to me.
I should be grateful. I have everything. I do. This is it.
Get into reality.
I inhale sharply.
I will leave the book. I will leave Liam and his story and tell Stan that this is not mine to tell.
That I have lost the plot. Not literally, although possibly that also.
I have no way forward. I will explain I have become blocked again.
Perhaps in the future, we could collaborate on something else. I have a romance that I’m working on...
I look up – in some final plea for inspiration – following the trail of smoke into the air with my eyes. My mother’s window is open, right above my head.
Shit. She will smell it.
I forgot she does that. Opens the window of any room she sleeps in.
I tiptoe quickly to the bird bath and push the cigarette into the porcelain, stubbing it out dead, marking the paint with a grey smear.
Then I make my way back into the kitchen, lock the door, put the packet in the Le Creuset casserole dish and place the keys back in the fruit bowl.
I stop, staring at the bowl.
That’s odd.
There are flies. Tiny flies hovering around it. I didn’t notice them before.
I wave my hand over the pineapple in an attempt to disperse them. They move, but immediately seem drawn back towards the fruit. I pick up the pineapple, inspecting it. Did they send me a mouldy one in the Ocado delivery? It seems fine. Firm.
I notice something at the bottom of the bowl.
A single tangerine.
But it is rotting. Half orange, half green with mould. There is a black welt in the middle of the green, oozing something that appears almost poisonous.
It looks like someone has punched it.
That shouldn’t be there.
How did I miss that?
I stand still for a moment, my eyes following the flies as they attempt to re-land on its decaying flesh. The way they seem so intent, so unphased by what they are moving towards.
And then I stick my finger in it. It sinks right in.
I let the gloopy mess swallow it.
I close my eyes.
It is soft and warm.
What am I doing?
I gag. I pull my finger out, take a piece of kitchen roll from the countertop, use it to pick up the tangerine and quickly throw the thing in the bin.
I find the bleach under the sink and spray the inside of the bowl.
I wipe it down. I wash my hands, careful not to make too much noise with the water running out of the faucet, and use the Aesop Resurrection hand cream, inhaling the soothing scent of lavender.
Wiping moisturiser residue on a towel, I glance around the kitchen – checking nothing is out of the ordinary – then make my way back into the hallway.
But before I begin to ascend the stairs, I stop.
The light is on in the living room.
That’s odd. I never leave the light on. I am almost one hundred percent certain that I turned it off. When I open the door, I see Mum sat in my armchair in front of the bookcase, under the glow of the corner lamp. The TV is on, but muted. She is reading.
I squint. She is reading my book.
‘Mum?’
‘Jesus.’ She jumps, startled. Pulls down her glasses. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I came down for a glass of water. What are you doing?’
‘I couldn’t sleep.’