‘Rise and shine, sleepyhead. You’re home.’
I’d stuttered awake. I could see the orange streetlights and the building on Griffin Road where Carmel and I lived. It was dark. The taxi driver was leaning over me in the back seat, shaking me gently by the arm. My head rattled against the window. Marco was gone.
‘Come on then. Do you want a hand getting indoors?’
‘Where’s Marco?’
‘That your boyfriend, is it? Got out at Battersea.’ When the taxi driver smiled his skin crinkled as though clutched by an unseen hand. ‘He paid the fare. Come on, out you get.’
‘He left me behind?’
‘He did, yes.’
‘Why?’
The taxi driver shrugged, embarrassed. I thanked him and wandered into the building, fumbling my mobile from my bag. Marco answered as I stood in the hallway of our building. He sounded irritable and tired.
‘What?’
‘You left me! You left me in the taxi by myself!’
For a long moment there was just the sound of his breathing. Then a noisy exhale. ‘You don’t remember.’
My head was starting to ache and my mouth had that sour hungover tang. Something moved restlessly in the pit of my stomach, some creeping dread. I slid to the floor with my back to the wall.
‘You don’t remember the things you said? The things you did?’
‘Wh-what?’
‘We’ve been here before, haven’t we? You have a few drinks and you’re fine and then—’
‘Then what? Then what, Marco?’
Down the hall a door opened to one of the flats, and a head poked out. I ignored it. Quieter now, I said, ‘Then what, Marco?’
‘It’s like you have a trigger. You turn on me. I don’t know, maybe it’s me, maybe I’m the problem. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for us to be around each other anymore.’
‘No, Marco, no, don’t say that.’
‘I’ve got bruises on my shoulder. I can see the marks your teeth left on my arm.’
‘But – I don’t remem—’
‘No, of course not. Of course you don’t. You’d had a lot to drink and you blindsided me. It came out of nowhere: just a fury I’ve never seen. I’m still shaking, Stella.’
I felt the cold floor beneath my stockinged feet and the quick pulse of my heart. It was as though someone had wrapped a flex around my throat and was tightening, tightening.
‘I don’t remember,’ I managed. I stared at the reflection in the gilded mirror opposite. My face was waxy beneath dirty hair. Make-up clotted about my eyes like tar. The contents of my bag had spilled across the floor; a beautiful silk scarf streaked with grime, loose change, a half-empty carton of cigarettes. I pulled these towards me and lit one with fingers not quite steady.
‘The taxi driver didn’t mention it.’
‘Of course he didn’t. He was probably as embarrassed as I was.’
‘I will change, Marco. I will be better, I promise.’
‘Yeah,’ he sighed. ‘Yeah, so you keep telling me.’
‘Excuse me.’ A voice came from down the hallway. I looked up, red-eyed. There was a woman there – I’d seen her before, her and her little yappy dogs, the types which tremble in your arms. She was wearing a dressing gown pinched at the throat with her fingers.
‘Any chance you could move this conversation upstairs? It’s five o’clock in the morning.’
‘Hold on,’ I said to Marco, and then I stood unsteadily and told her fine, told her I’m going.
She gave me a hard look. ‘And you can’t smoke in here. It’s against the building regulations.’
Slowly I gave her the finger. ‘I’m not in the mood,’ I told her. ‘Leave me alone.’
She smiled nastily, showing me yellowing teeth. ‘Give over, love. You’re not a teenager anymore. Papers always said you had a bad attitude and looks like they were right an’ all.’
‘What?’
‘I know who you are. I remember that show. Used to like it too, once upon a time. But reading about all the stuff that happened left a bad taste in my mouth. You were a right little prima donna, weren’t you?’
I stared at her, suddenly furious. In my ear I could hear Marco saying my name, asking me what was going on, but it was as distant as the moon.
‘You don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know what I see. I know that you’re a drunk. I’ve seen you staggering in through the front door five nights out of seven. I’ve lost count of the amount of times you’ve lost your keys. I know you live with another woman. What more do I need to know?’
Her dogs had started barking so I needed to raise my voice. I could just see them in the doorway behind her. She had a stairgate there, like you’d use for babies. All the little dogs were clustered about it, throwing themselves at the bars, yipping. I could smell her flat from where I stood, that musty canine stench.
She snorted. ‘I see you, Katie Marigold. I see what you’ve become. The shine rubbed off you a long time ago.’
Another door opened down the hall, then someone asked what all the fudging racket is. That’s the word they used, fudging. I started walking upstairs, suddenly leaden and drunk. I could barely get my key in the door and all the while I was thinking I am losing my mind.
That evening Marco turned up at the flat and held my cold hands between his own. He showed me a livid bruise on his shoulder, scratches on the flesh of his neck. There was a welt on his wrist where I could see the tiny imprints of teeth. I had apologised effusively, afraid. The fear that he was going to leave me made my skin crawl.
‘I promise to change. I will do anything, Marco.’
Chapter 12
The next morning I wake dry-mouthed, full of a nervous leporine energy. I shower and dress, taking my pill at the bathroom sink, scooping a handful of metallic-tasting water into my mouth. Through the window the cliffs, sheer rock faces like advancing leviathans. Gulls pinwheel against a grey sky, heavy with unshed rain. I pull my jeans over my hips, brush my teeth and wait for the pill to start to work as though descending dark fathoms. The fuzzy edges, the thick, cottony way it fills my ears, I welcome these things. I want them to creep in before the doubts do, before the anxiety and the low hum of despair.
A walk, then. Fresh air. God, but the day seems long.
The road which leads from the cottage to town is pitted and narrow with a stripe of long grass growing up the centre. It is bordered on either side by fields, and in the distance, the sea. I raid the cupboard beneath the stairs and discover an oversized oilskin the colour of egg yolk which reaches my knees. Buoyed by a cup of strong coffee, I leave the house, idly wondering what Carmel is doing, where she is now. Then I remember and feel a sour, childish petulance rising. Marco was right about her. She is a leech.
The town of Tyrlaze curls in the lap of the valley like an affectionate cat. A scattering of cottages in flint and stone, the thin steeple of a church. The little graveyard is neatly kept, the stones leaning at odd angles, cantered towards the sky. The sea glimmers like silvery scales just beyond and the air smells of salt, of wood fires and rain. A handwritten sign is propped outside a cottage – ‘Fresh EGGs LaiDe This MORNing’ and beneath that, in smaller print, ‘Our ChiCkKens Rule The RoOst’. On the ground is a stack of empty cartons next to a tray of eggs lightly speckled with rain. A mud-splattered Land Rover is parked outside the house, surrounded by bickering hens. Bird droppings decorate the garden, the car and the windows like a Pollock painting. I am just leaving when I see an old woman in the doorway, watching me. She has appeared as silently as a fog, marking me with round glassy eyes. Her hands are caked with blood to the wrists. There are spatters of it on her apron, dried to a dusty maroon. I open my mouth to speak but already the pills are making my thoughts thick and treacly. Before I can say anything she has slowly closed the front door, all the while never taking her eyes from me.