The Reunion, page 16
It’s quiet enough for everyone to hear her hiss, ‘Leave me alone.’
Henry looks like he’s the one that’s been hit as Emma helps her past.
I should feel pleased by this – I’ve got what I came for – but any satisfaction I might feel was hollowed out the second Freja hit the ground. For one crazy moment seeing her lie still, I thought he might have killed her. And it would have been my fault. My actions could have really hurt someone. I don’t want to be this person. Sod the revenge; the email is enough. I want to get out of here. I slip out of the fire escape and walk round the side of the building. I’ll call Nick from here and get him to come out. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to stay around much longer anyway.
‘Emily.’
‘God, you gave me a fright.’ Of all the people I didn’t want to follow me, Lyla ranks in the top three.
‘I know what you did.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Even to my own ears, my voice sounds false. With a few notable exceptions, I’ve always been terrible at keeping secrets. And she knows it.
‘The envelope. I know it was you in the bathroom. You’re the one who slid it under Freja’s door. I saw your shoes.’
My gaze drops guiltily to my shoes. They’re nondescript black peep-toes. Regulation Chanel Rouge Noir nails. A dozen other women could be wearing the same ones. She’s bluffing. It’s what she does. She’s not the only one who can read the enemy.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ I give a nervous smile.
Lyla shakes her head in a sanctimonious way that makes me want to smack her. ‘Wrecking a marriage is funny to you, is it?’
I’m sick of Lyla pushing me around. I’ve never been able to stand up to her. Until now. ‘I’m not the one who smacked their wife in the face.’
‘You might as well have done.’
‘How dare you stand here judging me after what you did?’ I didn’t want to take the bait but I can’t help it.
‘After what I did?’ Lyla widens her eyes like the picture of innocence. ‘Newsflash. You guys were broken up. And he came on to me. It was about five hundred years ago. Get over it.’
I can’t help my mouth making a small circle. I still can’t fathom that she doesn’t feel any regret for betraying me. Then I think of the other secret that she’s keeping. No wonder she doesn’t feel regret. She’s not capable of it.
‘I know Henry hurt you.’ Lyla sounds so condescending, I desperately want to wipe the smile off her face. ‘But you didn’t have to ruin his marriage and disfigure his wife over it. That cut might actually scar.’
‘You’d know about scars,’ I snap back at her and immediately regret it. I don’t want my attempt to hold her to account to dribble out; the world deserves to know what she’s done without her scrambling for excuses or a way to get out of it. Any thoughts I had about leaving evaporate. I’m not leaving until I’ve done what I came to.
‘That’s so typical of you.’ The true meaning of what I’m saying sails past Lyla. ‘Always looking for someone else to blame when perhaps the real reason you ended up in that mess is closer to home.’
Any resolve I had about staying calm disappears. ‘How dare you.’ The words scrape against my throat. ‘Do you have any idea what it’s like to live under that kind of cloud? Do you know what it’s like to meet someone for the first time and wonder whether they might have already seen you naked? Do you know how violating that is? I’ve spent fifteen years being ashamed of myself. And I was the victim. You, Lyla –’ I spit out her name as though I can’t bear to have it in my mouth ‘– you’re the one who should be ashamed. You ruined my life. So don’t you dare preach to me.’
‘I ruined your life? Hardly. I don’t think you’re doing too badly.’
She’s like one of those serial killers who really believe they’re innocent.
‘I walked out of here with nothing because of you.’
‘That was your decision. You can’t lay that at my door.’
‘Yes, I can,’ I shriek. ‘It was your candid camera that drove me out. That photo destroyed me. That’s right, I know it was you. My sister found the IP address. I know it came from Henry’s staircase. You were the only one with a phone good enough to take those kinds of pictures – you never stopped banging on about it. And Will was techy enough to put the pictures up.’
She opens her mouth but I draw in such a deep breath I can practically feel the oxygen hit my brain and carry on. I will not let her interrupt me. ‘So don’t try and wriggle out of it. Or tell me it was just a joke. If it were just a joke it wouldn’t be a fucking crime.’
I’ve made a point of not swearing since I had the twins – one of the countless ways I’ve tried to be a good mum and delineate their childhood from mine. But it turns out swearing is like riding a bike; you never forget. And saying ‘fucking’ sounded so good, I think I’ll say it again. ‘You were supposed to be my fucking friends. And you ruined me.’
‘Listen, I…’ Lyla shakes her head.
‘No, you listen,’ I say firmly. I take off the silver Tiffany cuff Helen gave me and hold my wrist up so she can see the silver scar tissue underneath. ‘I almost took my own life because of that photograph. And that’s on you.’
Twenty-One
Then
I’m not really looking when I step out on to the road. The traffic’s too loud and the smell of the tarmac is clogging my nostrils. Being in Canary Wharf is like living on a building site. Every day a new shiny tower goes up like a totem of success, while I sleep in my sister’s spare room and try to work out what to do with my life. Most days I don’t leave the flat but Helen’s out of milk. I’ve been putting it off all day even though it’s the least I can do since all I do is clutter up her apartment, drinking chocolate milk and eating buttered toast. I cram mouthful after mouthful down my throat but I don’t even taste it.
All the people around me are dressed in suits and walking with intent. I’m wearing the hoodie I slept in. I keep my head down. I don’t want to make eye contact. Each time I see a set of broad shoulders or flash of dark hair, I cringe. I know Lyla was planning on working in the City and that Will scored a place on a coveted graduate banking programme. I ricochet between wanting to bump into one of them and being terrified of it. It’s never them.
The daylight is hurting my eyes. I close them briefly and step out, Tesco bag in hand. There’s a screech and a cacophony of swearing as a guy on a motorbike comes skidding by. He swerves to avoid me, the whole bike dipping to touch the ground.
‘Are you trying to kill yourself?’ the driver screams, sticking his finger up at me as he roars past.
I mumble an apology but he’s long gone. I feel shaken all the way home, even though he didn’t even come that close to me. When I get back to the flat, I unpack the groceries in a daze, leaving the milk on the side and putting the bread in the fridge before I realise my mistake. There are a hundred things I should be doing this afternoon. Helen’s circled some job adverts for me and there are mounds of washing and ironing I could do to help. Instead, I just sit on the sofa, flicking through daytime TV. There are a couple of old quiz shows, horse racing and a terrible American made-for-TV movie that doesn’t hold my attention. It’s all so pointless. I feel like I’m wasting away. I think about the man on the motorbike shouting and how my first reaction when I heard the tyres was one of disappointment.
The movie finishes and I feel overcome by the urge to do something. If I wasn’t so unfit, I’d go for a run – Helen likes to jog around the Limehouse Basin on Saturday mornings – and run until my lungs burn. I don’t have the energy. Right now, I’m barely existing. I drift into the kitchen to cut myself some of the bread I bought. If I can’t run, I might as well eat. Some days I like to cram the insides of a loaf into my mouth until my cheeks are full. Something about the sensation of chewing is comforting.
When the bread knife slips, it genuinely is an accident. It’s so blunt (judging from the dust on her skirting boards, Helen’s not really into domestic upkeep) that it bounces off the top of my thumb without leaving more than a scratch. It smarts a bit though and it’s that feeling – the short sharp sting and the release that comes with it – that makes me reach into the drawer and take out Helen’s paring knife. It’s the sharpest knife in the kitchen – Helen peels apples with it. I think of her expertly turning the knife and taking off the skin in one long strip. Then I hold the blade to my wrist and scrape it across, pushing it in so deep it practically grazes the bone.
There’s more blood than I expected. It sprays all over Helen’s industrial steel counter. I stare at it in shock. My wrist feels like it’s burning. I have no idea what I was thinking. It feels like my rational brain is observing me from outside my body and wondering what the hell I’m doing. But underneath that I feel a spurt of satisfaction. I’ve been carrying around this pain that nobody can see for months and now at last there’s something to show for it. I pick up the knife again. I genuinely don’t know what to do next. If the bread knife hadn’t slipped I’d still be thinking about watching Countdown. Do I want to cut myself again? To replace my mental pain with the physical? But if I start hacking away at myself, will I be able to stop? I don’t get the chance to find out. There’s a clattering at the door and Helen comes in, laptop case in one hand and handbag in the other. She dumps them both by the door and comes bustling down the corridor into the open-plan kitchen.
‘You’ll never believe the day I’ve…’ Her eyes take in the knife in my hand and the blood on the counter. She freezes. ‘Emmy, what are you doing? What the fuck?’
I let the knife fall on to the counter. ‘I’m sorry.’ I squeeze my eyes shut like a child playing hide and seek who wants to disappear. ‘I don’t know what to do.’
Helen becomes a dervish of action, rushing over to me and yanking me over to the sink. She runs the cut under the tap and starts rummaging through the kitchen cupboards for bandages.
‘Bandages, bandages, where the fuck are they? Where the fuck is anything in this house?’ She’s trying to sound casual but really she sounds scared.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking. I’m such a mess.’
‘You’re not a mess.’ Helen finally locates an unopened packet of gauze. She rips through the plastic and presses the whole roll against the cut.
‘It’s pretty deep.’ She chews on her lip. ‘I think I might have to run you to casualty.’
‘No. I’m fine, honestly. I’ll be fine.’
‘You’re patently not.’ She watches the gauze turn from off-white to pink as the blood seeps in. ‘Is that doing anything?’
She turns back to the cupboard and starts pulling more things out. ‘Here. At last.’ She grabs a massive cloth bandage from the time she sprained her knee a few months ago and grabs my wrist. ‘This’ll do.’
She wraps it around my wrist like a turban, turning the material over and over and pulling it tighter. Then she secures it with one of the safety pins hanging off the end. The sight of it makes me think of the denim shorts I was wearing that night and I clench my fists, trying to shut it out.
‘Emmy.’ Helen’s voice is soft now. ‘What were you doing?’
I sink to the ground, sliding down her kitchen units, holding my injured wrist in front of me like a paw. ‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Were you trying to…’ Helen stops, as if she can’t bring herself to say it. ‘Was that a – were you trying to hurt yourself?’
‘I just wanted to feel something.’ I let my head fall forwards. ‘I’m sad and tired all the time. I wanted to feel something else for once.’
Helen slides down next to me. ‘I’m not going to pretend to know what you’re going through,’ she says. ‘But I’m going to help.’
‘You can’t. It’s hopeless.’
‘What’s hopeless?’
‘I see them everywhere I go,’ I spit. ‘I think about them all the time, wondering why they did that to me, what they’re doing now. I think about them all being so successful and how I’ve fucked everything up. I’m such a loser. I’ve thrown it all away. Everything.’
‘Now, you listen to me.’ Helen sounds fierce now. ‘You’re not a fuck-up. You’re amazing. You’re kind, you’re funny, you’re clever. You’ve got so much to offer. You can’t let people make you feel like you’re nothing.’
‘I am nothing.’
‘No, you’re not. Look, we’re going to beat this. I’ll scale back at work and be around more. We’ll get you some help and you’ll be back on your feet again.’
‘With no degree and no prospects.’
‘So, you’ll do another degree. Or you’ll go back and you’ll finish.’
I shrink away from her. ‘I can’t do that. I can never go back there.’
‘You can make it through this. We can make it through this. This is not your fault.’
I look at her. ‘Yes, it is.’
‘No. It is not.’
‘I’m the one who put myself in that position.’ I feel a spurt of anger. I don’t know where it comes from. I’m not angry with Helen.
‘You did nothing a hundred thousand other people aren’t doing up and down the country every bloody weekend. It was them.’
‘It’s not fair.’
‘No, it’s bloody not.’ Helen grabs me by the shoulders. ‘So get angry. This is not your fault. And the sooner you realise that, the better.’
I don’t argue with her. Maybe she’s right. Not that it really matters. Whether or not it was my fault, I’ve still messed everything up.
‘Why don’t you see about getting a job?’ Helen says. ‘Something to keep you busy. All this navel gazing isn’t helping. I’ll speak to some friends. I know someone who runs a restaurant. You’ve done waitressing, haven’t you? We’ll get you a counsellor. Find you somewhere to live. We’ll get you out and about. You’ll feel better. We’re going to make this right.’
‘Sure,’ I say, because it sounds like it’s what Helen needs to hear. Not because I actually believe it.
‘And one day they’ll get what’s coming to them. We’ll do it together.’
‘Sure.’
‘Don’t fob me off like that. You’ve got to say it like you mean it.’
‘Say what?’
‘That you’ll make sure they get what’s coming to them.’
‘Fine. I hope they get what’s coming to them.’
‘Not hope, Emmy. It’s not enough to hope that karma catches up with them. You’ve got to make it happen.’
‘Fine.’ I look back down at the bandage. The material’s getting pinker. Perhaps Helen’s right and it will need stitches.
‘Promise me.’
‘Okay, I promise,’ I agree, although I have no intention of sticking to it. I just know what Helen needs to hear.
‘Good. Now get up and get your things. I’m taking you to casualty.’
Twenty-Two
Now 22.00
2 hours to go
‘In all that drama, you’ve missed dessert,’ Nick says when I get back to the table. ‘I saved you a bit of mine.’
I look at the dessert plate in front of him; the dark smears across them suggest brownies or some kind of fondant.
‘Thanks, but I’m not that hungry.’
Nick misinterprets my anxiety. ‘Freja’s going to be fine. Dave saw her into the ambulance. These facial injuries always look worse than they are.’
He looks at me expectantly. Normally we’d be discussing this at length – I’ve always loved that Nick can gossip like a girl – but right now there’s no time.
‘Where did everyone go?’ I notice the spaces further down the table. I glance to my right; the other table is similarly deserted.
‘After what happened, a lot of people have left.’
‘But what about the speeches?’ I try not to sound plaintive.
‘I guess they’re not doing them.’
‘But you said…’ My mind starts to race. I need people. I want them publicly exposed. Caught like rats in a trap.
‘I guess these reunions aren’t for everyone.’ Nick shrugs. ‘I think the mood’s been well and truly killed. Speaking of which, should we make like trees and leave?’
‘What? But it’s not over yet. We can’t go.’
‘Come on.’ Nick puts on the fatherly ‘own up’ voice he uses on the twins. ‘You obviously don’t want to be here. You’ve barely sat down all evening. So why don’t we just put both of us out of our misery and go back to the hotel? Order ice cream and watch a movie.’
‘I’m fine. Really.’ I look over his shoulder, measuring the distance. I have to get to the screen. ‘I don’t want to leave yet.’
‘Then why have you been up and down every five seconds? You haven’t been in your seat for more than a half-hour stretch at a time. You’ve been gone so long Emma was wondering if she should go and check on you at one point.’
‘I’m sorry. Weak bladder. Blame the twins.’
‘Are you sure that’s all it was?’
He’s not a stupid man, my husband. He must know something’s up. If I tell him what’s going on, he might be able to help. But he’s always counselled the children to turn the other cheek. He’s spent hours sitting with Artie in the last few weeks, telling her not to react to the bullying; that if she stoops to their level, she’ll regret it. I think of how much he enjoys coming back to this college. If I involve him, it’ll change things for him. It’s not fair. And from this point, it’s not difficult. All I have to do is plug my phone into the screen and press play. I can do it on my own.
‘I’m sure.’ I curve my mouth into a smile. I need to throw him off the scent. For his own good. I’m not going to be able to do this if he’s watching me like an overprotective parent. ‘Let’s stay. There’re only a couple of hours left of this thing, anyway. Let’s wait till the bitter end. They might even take photos of people who made it to closing, like they did at all the balls.’ I click my fingers. ‘They had a name but I can’t think what it was.’
