Pp. 51–60
so fucking complicated. They had to come up with their own solution to the problem instead of just doing what they were told. Yeah, well, how did that work out? About as well as how they tried to “solve the situation” with Callum.
So in January 1995 a deep chill had settled over Caldwell Street. Christmas cheer kept many of the houses there warm, but the memory of New Year’s soon faded and dutiful husbands and wives and housemates returned to their dreary commutes in a world made barren by winter. Even the sky embraced a gray pallor which it refused to shed no matter how the winds changed. Under this sky, the wind making her nose run and whipping her hair into her eyes, Maeve returned to house number 215, dragging her dad’s old rucksack behind her like a disobedient dog. Placing a foot on either side of the crack in the pavement that led up to the door, Maeve brushed her hair away with a gloved hand and let the rucksack slip from her fingers. Since she last saw it, the house looked like it had been beaten and left for dead. The door’s green paint against the gray walls resembled a bruise. The roof sagged like a crushed skull. A smell of rubbish, like spoiled milk, drifted down the street from uncollected bin bags. A nagging tug pulled behind her sternum, and she pressed a hand there, hoping to push the feeling either away or at least deep enough inside herself that she would no longer notice it. In the end, it was not the cold that made her enter, or the promise of her large private room, or the new electric teakettle she’d received for Christmas now clanking in the rucksack. She carried her bag to the door because Oliver’s car was not there.
Inside, a wall of warm air struck her. Hollis had promised to turn down the thermostat before he left. She supposed he could have forgotten, although that didn’t seem like him. Her fingers, frozen inside her thin gloves, warmed as she set the new kettle in the kitchen and carried the rest of her things upstairs. The heat of the house matched the burning shame she carried within. At least a quiet house meant she had time to decompress before the others returned. Time to pretend she felt perfectly normal. She was shedding her winter coat when she stopped outside the door to her room. The open door.
“What are you doing?”
Ellie spun round, Maeve’s package of Oreos in hand, crumbs on her lips, and red rims beneath her eyes.
“Oh! Maeve, I’m so sorry. I was really hungry, but I didn’t get to the shop yet. I promise I’ll buy you more.” She spoke too quickly, even for Ellie, and they both knew it.
“I didn’t think anyone else was back.” Maeve dragged her bag into the room, pulling it in a half-circle around Ellie who did not move.
“I got in earlier this morning. Daddy dropped me off.” She kept standing in the way as Maeve unpacked her clothes, reminding Maeve of a character in one of Max’s video games—stuck in a useless loop, repeating the same action as the hero maneuvered around it to complete a mission.
“Did you have a nice Christmas?” Ellie asked.
“Yeah. It was all right.” The natural response would be to ask Ellie how her Christmas was. She didn’t want to. Ellie told her anyway.
“Mine was very nice. Daddy took us to Edinburgh for Hogmanay. It was so wonderful. I’d been to Edinburgh before but never then, and we drank coffee and ate sweets at this little café that was right beneath the castle and there was the tiniest bit of snow on the ground, enough to make it look magical, and it was so beautiful and almost European and Daddy said that if I’m very good maybe next year he and Mummy will take us to Paris for New Year’s.”
At the word magical, Ellie had started crying, and now she’d run out of words. Maeve didn’t want to look at her. It wasn’t her fault Ellie was homesick, and she wasn’t much in the mood to comfort anyway. Besides, Ellie cried all the time. Maeve cried, too, but no one knew it because she kept it private like she was supposed to, locked in her room at night, under the covers, with a pillow to muffle her so no one would hear. But everyone knew when Ellie cried because Ellie made a point of letting everyone know and they would rally around her and hug her and tell her everything would be all right. When Maeve cried, no one even looked at her until the next morning when, even after she’d washed the tears from her face and brushed her hair and teeth, one of them would inevitably tell her, “You look like shit.”
Maeve ignored her and stuffed clean socks into her dresser drawer, hoping Ellie would take the hint, but the sniffing and whimpering continued.
“Forget about the biscuits,” she said. What did she care? They were 25p. Then she glanced in the plastic crate where she kept all of her non-refrigerated food. There was no other way to keep it safe from these vultures. All that remained were a tin of baked beans and the stale, half-eaten pack of Oreos she’d forgotten to take home with her.
“What the hell, Ellie? Where’s my food?”
Ellie pressed the Oreos against her chest as if protecting an infant, tears on her cheeks. Maeve pushed past her and headed across the hall. Ellie called after her then, but Maeve didn’t stop. A mess of food packaging littered the floors of Ellie’s room.
“You said you just got back.”
Ellie looked at her feet.
“How long have you been here?”
Her lower lip quivered.
“Christ, what is it? Are you having some kind of mental breakdown? The university has counselors, you know.”
Ellie’s voice was a whisper. “They’re not back until tomorrow.”
Below them, the front door opened and shut. From the sound of his footsteps alone, they both knew who it was.
“Hello? Anybody home? Fuck, it’s hot as hell in here. Hollis, if you forgot to turn down the thermostat, I’m not paying for it!”
“Don’t tell him I’m here. Please don’t,” Ellie said. Maeve bit the inside of her cheek. What did it matter if Oliver knew who was here? It would be nice to see Little Miss Ellie squirm, let her face her own awkward situations instead of using someone else as a buffer. But then she saw Ellie’s eyes and they reflected the same panic Maeve had seen when she’d woken up New Year’s Day in a strange bed, in a strange house.
“Hell-oooo?”
“Go to my room.”
Ellie did so as Maeve intercepted Oliver at the top of the stairs. He’d cut his hair and wore a new designer jacket that hugged him in all the right places. Maeve dug her fingers into the cuffs of her sleeves.
“Hey!” she said.
“I knew someone was here. What’s with the fucking sauna?”
“The house was freezing when I got in, so I thought it would heat up faster if I turned it all the way up.”
“Well, Jesus, it’s hot enough now.”
“Sorry. I’ll fix it.” She hurried down to adjust the thermostat, and he trotted after her.
“Anyone else back yet?”
“Not yet. It’s just us!” She laughed because she was nervous, but it sounded like she was flirting and why did she always have to embarrass herself? She coughed, then tried to cover her tracks. “But Hollis is due back soon. I think Lorna might not be back until tomorrow? Her classes start a day later.”
“No Lorna? Excellent!” He slipped off his jacket and tossed it over the brown armchair. “Perfect night for a party.”