Her chin comes up, her round, wary eyes watching me. ‘Yes, Jack. Enough. I haven’t come here to fight with you. There’s no reason for you to be so damn rude.’
I glance at her. ‘How’s work?’
She looks for a second as if she’s having trouble keeping up with my swift change of direction. ‘Umm, yeah,’ she says. ‘It’s fine. I like it.’
‘Good for you,’ I nod, pointing at her with my beer bottle. ‘Although I always imagined you’d find something a bit more, you know, grown-up.’ I’m not proud of myself right now. I know how much landing that job meant to Laurie, and that she’ll be damn good at it. I can’t think of another person more full-hearted and kind to answer teenage problems without belittling their worries. I see how my offensive remark hurts her. It would be better for both of us if she just left.
‘Is that so?’
I nod. ‘Everybody has to start somewhere though.’
‘Yes, I suppose they do,’ she says. ‘How’s the job hunt going?’
Oh, clever. Just when I was already feeling like a tosser, she throws that one in. ‘Oh, you know how it is. They’re queuing round the block but I’m keeping my options open.’
‘You should probably buy yourself a new razor if you get called in for any interviews.’
I run my hand defensively over my stubble. Okay, so maybe it’s gone past stubble into minor beard territory. I think I can carry it off. ‘Did you come here for a row? Because you’ll get one.’
‘No, of course not,’ she says, exasperated. ‘Look, Jack. Everybody is worried about you. Sarah. Your mum … I know the accident must have been incredibly tough, and that losing out on your job was really crappy, but you can’t just sit here and rot. That’s not who you are.’
I watch her as she speaks; the way her mouth moves, the even line of her teeth. The beer must be going to my head. ‘You’ve barely changed at all over the years,’ I surprise myself by saying, and her expression slides from concerned to wrong-footed. ‘You still remind me of a street urchin or a Parisian waif.’
She looks startled, as if she’s going to say one thing and then rejects it in favour of something else. ‘Sarah said you’ve thrown your painkillers away.’
‘They were numbing me.’
‘That’s what they’re supposed to do, Jack. Numb the pain.’
I huff, because it wasn’t just my pain they were numbing. It was my brain, too. I’ve been walking like a man in lead boots, too tired to raise my bones from my bed, too fuddled to think any further ahead than my next meal and how long it is until I can go back to bed again. A small part of me acknowledges that the booze is doing pretty much the same thing.
‘I miss you.’ The words don’t register as my own, so much so that I almost look behind me to see if there is someone else here.
Her demeanour changes, and she drops to her knees in front of me, her hands over mine. ‘Look at me. Jack, listen. Please let us help you. Let me help you. Let me be your friend again.’
She’s looking at me sincerely with those big violet eyes of hers, as her fingers squeeze mine.
‘It’s always been like this with us, hasn’t it?’ I don’t have any control over the words spilling from my mouth. ‘When you look at me, I know that you really see me. I don’t think anyone ever has, Lu. Not the way you do.’
She swallows and looks down, frowning and confused by the direction our conversation has taken. I am too.
‘How can I help?’ she says, meeting my eyes again, staying doggedly on message. ‘Shall we make a list of all of the stuff on your mind and work through it?’
The only thing on my mind right now is Laurie. ‘You always smell like summer flowers. It’s my favourite smell in the fucking world.’ What am I doing?
‘Jack …’
I can’t not do this. This is the first time I’ve felt like a man in as long as I can remember, and it feels so damn good, like waking up from a coma. Her hand is warm and fragile in mine, and I do the only thing I can do, or perhaps the one thing I can’t not do. I lower my mouth over hers and kiss her, my mouth trembling, or perhaps it’s hers. I catch her off guard, and for just a second it’s perfect, my hand on her face, her lips warm under mine. And then it isn’t perfect any more, because she wrenches back and away from me, stumbling to her feet.
‘Jesus, Jack, what are you doing?’ She’s breathing fast, one hand on her hip, bending a little as if she’s just stopped running.
‘Isn’t this what you came for?’ I say, spiteful in my shame, wiping the back of my hand across my mouth as if she tastes rancid. ‘While the cat’s away and all that?’
She gasps and presses her hands to her flushed cheeks, horrified by my implication. ‘We’ve been friends for a long time, Jack O’Mara, but if you ever say anything like that to me again, we’re done. Is that clear?’
‘Oh, so high and mighty, Laurie,’ I mock, getting to my feet and pacing because the room suddenly feels claustrophobic. I’ve been cooped up in here for months, and now all I want is to open the door and get out. I’d walk to the edges of our island, and then I’d walk into the sea, and not stop until it’s over. ‘It hasn’t always been like that though, has it? Everything was different when it was you who needed comforting, wasn’t it? When you were sad, bone-tired and wallowing in your own misery?’
She’s shaking her head slowly and her eyes have filled with tears. ‘Please don’t say any more, Jack. It’s not the same and you know it.’
‘Yeah,’ I spit. ‘It was different because it was you who needed me back then, and I wasn’t so fucking high and mighty as to turn you down.’ I jab my finger towards her in the space between us. ‘I took pity on you, and now the tables have turned and you can’t lower yourself to return the fucking favour.’ It’s not true. Not a word of it. I don’t recognize the vicious loser I’ve become. I take a step towards her, to do I don’t know what, and she backs away from me, horrified. I see the person I’ve become in her eyes and it makes me sick. But then, as she moves, that bloody starfish pendant catches my eye and I reach out to grab it. I don’t know why, it’s irrational, I just want to do something to make her stop, but she jerks away from me and it snaps from round her neck. I stare at it for a moment, then throw it to the floor, and we stand stock-still and glare at each other. Her chest is heaving and I can hear my blood rushing in my veins like water crashing against rocks.
Slowly, warily, she stoops down and retrieves her necklace, never taking her eyes off me, as if I am an animal about to attack.
‘Run on home, Starfish, and don’t come back,’ I say, choking on the pathetic endearment I’ve heard Oscar use when he thinks no one’s listening. She sobs, full-on sobs, then she turns and runs, out of the door, out of the flat, out of my life. I watch her go from my window, and then I lie down on the floor and stay there.
Laurie
Jack scared me this morning. No, he horrified me. I don’t know what I’m going to tell Sarah when she asks how my visit went. I’d no idea the state he was in, he’s dangerously low. God knows he’s not a man given to violence or vicious words under normal circumstances; it scared me to see him like that.