Chapter Forty-Three #2
Arthur brushes his head against my shoulder, whispers something in my ear but I can’t hear him. “I can’t hear you,” I shout, shake my head. “I need the toilet!”
He nods and I go off upstairs but on my way down the hall, I hear moans. Like, sex moans. I inch closer to the bedroom it’s coming from and then I hear a name.
“Ronan.”
For some reason my stomach dips. I don’t know why.
Maybe because it’s him and being this close to him while he’s having sex makes me nervous or maybe it’s because I thought he was seeing my sister while she was seeing Lenny.
I don’t know—I just feel sick hearing him.
I have an urge to push the door open, see if it is my sister but I obviously know better and instead ignore it, walking straight past and into the bathroom.
It makes me feel weird. I’m still angry at the way he spoke to me the other week in his office. How dare he go and shag some randomer? It’s not my business, I know it isn’t but still—I don’t fucking know.
I finish up in the toilet, and as I walk out, I see Ronan walking out of his room, doing up his fly.
“Alright, one pump wonder?” I call.
He looks over his shoulder, flashes me a grin and a middle finger.
“Ronan!” I call again, going after him as he’s halfway down the stairs. “I want to talk to you!”
He doesn’t hear me, joins the crowd at the bottom of the stairs and disappears. I look behind me to see the girl but she isn’t there—asleep probably with the way I know he fucks (duh, I obviously don’t have a first hand experience (unfortunately) but girls talk and journalists write).
I race down the stairs in hopes of catching up with him but when my eyes land on him, he’s already deep in an animated conversation with a group of men I don’t know—and quite frankly, wouldn’t like to know.
It’s hard to find anyone, think, or talk in here. The red lights flash every few minutes and the DJ is right in front of me, set up in the corner of the foyer. People spill out of the entryway, into the living room, dining room and kitchen.
Everywhere I turn, I’m rubbing shoulders with someone who I may or may not know. I’m not a huge fan of Halloween. Seeing everyone in masks, I don’t like it. Makes them think they can do anything just because they’ve got a cheap (or not so cheap) bit of plastic covering their face.
I do spot Arthur, though, because he hasn’t put his mask back on. Our eyes lock at the same time from across the room. He nods his head over at me and I go to move but a hand on my upper arm stops me. I frown, spin around, a tall man is standing behind me, a gold tragedy mask hiding his face.
I don’t have time to speak, the man pulls me through the crowd, through the kitchen and into the laundry room. It’s pitch black, the sounds from outside muffled.
“What the fuc—”
He rips off his mask, Digby’s face appears in front of me as he flicks the light switch. “Phoebe.”
“What the fuck are you doing!” I throw my arms up, marching straight for the door.
“Wait.” He stops me, puts his arm across the door. “Please,” his voice lowers, his eyes looking down at me. “I need to talk to you.”
“You’re pissed,” I roll my eyes, smelling the vodka coming off him. “I’m not talking to you now.”
“I saw you kiss Arthur.”
I sigh, cross my arms over my chest. “Wasn’t me.”
“Okay, then a really similar looking brunette was out there kissing Arthur.”
“Oh, really? Let me go so I can fuck her up.”
He smiles sarcastically at me. “I bet my side of the bed wasn’t even cold before Arthur jumped in it.”
I scoff. “You cannot show up here, wankered, after not talking to me for over a month and say stuff like that.”
He rolls his eyes, puffs out his chest. “I can do what I like.”
The way he looks at me, eyes pinched, mouth curled up into a snarl and his jaw ticking—it scares me.
Not only that, but I’ve never seen him drunk.
Not properly—not like this. The whole time I was with him, he only ever had about three drinks.
He knew I didn’t like drugs or drunk people so he never got paralytic.
Drunk people are so unpredictable. Will they throw up on me? Will they lash out and hit me? Will they scream and shout and call me horrible names? Will they start breaking down and crying? I don’t fucking know and it stresses me out.
I feel my chest tighten the longer Digby keeps me trapped in here.
All I want is for him to let me go so I can run back to Arthur.
I don’t know why he’s so annoyed over it.
He knew. He fucking knew since the moment Arthur touched British soil that I’d go back to him.
What did Digby expect from me? A ring, two kids and a forever home? That was never going to happen.
“Digby,” I sigh. “Can you just let me go? I promise we’ll talk but not now.”
He shakes his head. “Don’t want to talk to you anyway. Don’t want to talk to no bitch that can’t survive on her own.”
“Very nice,” I nod. “Now can you let me out?”
“What’s going to happen when Arthur dies, Phoebe?” He cocks his head. “What are you going to do then?”
“Fuck off,” I shove at his chest, his arm falls from the door and I push it open.
“Fucking bitch,” I hear him mutter.
Even though out here, in the kitchen is a fucking circus, I feel like I’ve just stepped outside into a cold winters day with the way my lungs burn as I take in a deep breath. I was suffocating in there, borderline panicking.
I know he doesn’t mean what he said. Drunk people never do but it doesn’t make the wound any less open.
The door to the laundry room opens behind me and Digby stumbles out, using my shoulders to hold himself up.
“Fuck off,” I spit, shrugging him off.
He smiles wonkily, grabs my wrists in an attempt to dance with me but I push him away—it’s too late, though. Arthur’s already seen us from across the room.
He blinks a few times, cocks his head, a confused smile on his lips. It takes him a second. I push Digby further away from me but it doesn’t seem to make a difference to Arthur. He’s just watched us walk out of the laundry room together.
And now, if this was him and Astrid, I’d be pissed. Of course I would be. But would he really think that lowly of me? Does he really think I’d do that to him?
Apparently so.
I snap out of it, barge through everyone in the kitchen and try to reach Arthur but he turns around, walks away and blends seamlessly into the thick throng of people. I stand in the doorway of the kitchen, trying to spot him but he’s nowhere to be seen.
My heart starts racing.
I push through the crowds, march over to the bar and demand a bottle of champagne. He seems hesitant at first but once I tell him my name, he reaches under the bar and uncorks a bottle of 2012 Cristal before passing it over to me.
I drink straight from the bottle, the bubbles burning down my throat. I haven’t had a drink all night so far. But Arthur hates me and Digby makes me think I hate myself more than I already do—maybe I do. Maybe I do hate myself that much. I must do. There’s no other reason for this string of events.
All I wanted was for Arthur to come back and now he has, I can’t seem to hang on to him for longer than five minutes. I had a better grip on him when he was on drugs.
I go outside, to the front where the paparazzi start blinding me. One of the security standing by the front door asks if I need a cab but I shake my head. I don’t think I do.
Maybe I need a cab? Should I take one anyway?
I nod up at him a second later and he waves one down for me.
I jump into the back with my bottle of champagne, drinking and drinking and drinking until I’ve drained it dry and bubbles pop in my stomach.
That’s the shit thing about champagne—the bubbles fill your head unlike wine.
They pop and fizzle and cloud everything you thought you knew.
I feel bad about leaving. I didn’t say goodbye to anyone and Spencer was around there somewhere and I didn’t even say hello to her.
I needed to talk to Ronan about my sister, as well.
And now I’ve failed myself and my sister and Arthur and that isn’t something I’m used to because once upon a time, my sister was still here and I had Arthur.
Nothing I could’ve done back then would’ve failed Arthur.
The only person he failed was himself. I never viewed him as a failure.
I saw him as mine and nobody else’s. Maybe that was selfish.
Maybe I should’ve let him go, let him find someone else who didn’t put up with his shit but then maybe I was just a child and why can’t anyone else see that—?
“Just here okay?”
I blink a few times, look up at the cabbie through the seats. I nod, not really feeling like I did and hand him a couple notes. I didn’t count it so it was probably over the bill but he doesn’t complain. I jump out of the back, staggering on my feet as he drives off.
I’m not sure why I came to my mothers.
I’m not really sure about a lot of things.
But I think I came to her because of the pictures she showed me. I haven’t forgotten about them—quite the opposite, actually. I’ve thought about them everyday since. I wished she had shown me them earlier. I wished she would’ve let me understand her from the beginning.
I wish for a lot of things and regret a lot of things and hate myself for a lot of things and I’m unsure about a lot of things and confused about a lot of things.
But aren’t we all? If we didn't, wouldn't we just be aliens? Soulless and dull and boring? Isn’t that just what being alive is? There isn’t a guidebook to life.
You’re just thrown out into the world and told to get on with it.
How do you expect anybody to be perfect?
I knock on the front door a couple of times until my mum answers, standing there in her satin kimono.
But there are people who make it better.
There are people who brighten your days like the sun does on the hottest day, apart from, people aren’t seasonal, they’re there to brighten your days even on winter nights and isn’t that beautiful?
However, because you’re human, you sometimes let them go and that isn’t so beautiful.
“Phoebe?” She frowns. “What are you doing, darling?”
She ushers me in, pulling the empty bottle out of my fingers and the second she wraps her arms around me, I crumble like a tall building.
She picks up the elephant resting on my chest and chucks it away just like she did a few years ago when she found out about my self harming and do you know who told her? Arthur. Arthur told my mum about it.
I was in year thirteen. It was a week after something happened between Arthur and I. I think one of our arguments was caught by the press and they posted about it and I was upset. People were commenting horrible, ugly things about me.
I stayed in bed for days, Arthur came round to check on me but I pushed him away. After that, he must’ve gone downstairs, worried, and told my mum.
When I came home from school one day, the second I put my bag down by the door, she walked out of the kitchen and stared at me.
“Show me your arm.”
My stomach dropped because I’d been caught. “What?” I laughed as if I had no idea what she was talking about.
“Show me,” she nodded at my covered arm.
“There’s nothing to show. What are you talking about?”
“Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining. If there isn’t anything to hide, show me.”
I pulled the defense card out from the deck and through it right at her. “Are you checking Freddy’s arm, too? Or is it just mine? You’re being ridiculous and I have homework.”
I walked past her, up the stairs and into my bedroom where she followed right after me.
“Show me!” She shouted, blocking my door.
It was over, the deck had fallen and now all the cards were scattered on the floor. I couldn’t hide it anymore. I started to cry.
“No.”
She took a deep breath. “Fucking show me, Phoebe.”
“Please.” I shook my head, begging but she was already walking over to me, ripping up my school jumper. “Mum, I—”
The way she looked, it made me feel sick. Guilty. Ashamed.
She shook her head, covered her mouth and quietly cried as she stared down at the fresh cuts scattered up my arm. I couldn’t look. I glanced away, my arm caught in her grasp and my dignity flushed away. I felt naked. I felt so unbelievably exposed and disgusted.
I remember that feeling well and I’ve never felt it since.
I needed to wash from the inside out. My heart was pounding.
I could hear it through my clothes. I wanted nothing more in that moment then to pack my bags, run away and never come back.
I was embarrassed, I think. A girl of my societal level doesn’t do that.
It was taboo, unheard of and to my mum, the worst thing in the world.
“Why didn’t you talk to me?” She whispered, guiding me to sit on my bed beside her, arm resting in her lap.
I went mute for that entire evening.
I remember, she took me into my bathroom, ran my bath and cried while I got undressed and sat inside it. She washed my hair and the feel of her fingers racking through my strands, was probably the most out of control I’ve ever felt.
I’m not a big hugger and I’m not overly keen on showing any member of my family affection.
I don’t know why. I just feel gross and embarrassed.
There aren't any hidden meanings behind that, by the way. I wasn’t abused or touched.
Just deeply uncomfortable in my own skin, I guess.
I don’t hate my family, either. I’m really not sure what it is.
But as my mother crouched over the bath and rinsed my hair, I felt the most clean I ever have in my whole life.
It was like a rebirth. She wrapped me in a big, white Terry cloth towel.
And suddenly, my insides felt clean. It was like she washed away all the disgust I had about myself—in that moment.
It feels the same now as my mum, yet again, crouches over my bathtub and washes my hair.
Only this time, the cuts aren’t so visible.
I hate myself just as much as I did back then.
I don’t know if I’ll ever stop hating myself.
I don’t know if my mother will be able to wash it away this time, even if it is for a brief moment.
The ending to tonight will be the same as it was all those years ago, though. Tomorrow morning, I’ll wake up and we’ll both pretend like it never happened and the cleanliness I feel and felt, will wash away with more unrelenting disgust.