Clare picked up Ros twice on her stumble across the lane. She’d wasted valuable time locating her bag and coat and come running out of Peter and Diane’s house as Ros lost her footing and landed on her hands and knees in the dirt.
“He’s lying.” Ros lurched to her feet, stumbled, and fell forward again.
Clare put her arms around her.
She got her home, she let the dogs out in her search for tissues; a roll grabbed from the downstairs loo, Crosby and Nash happy to see them, how were they to know of disaster? Amidst the disarray of shoes kicked off, coats discarded, bags dropped, they wagged about asking for food, and settled disappointed by the Aga. Clare made coffee.
“Bring it upstairs, would you?” Ros wandered away out of the kitchen leaving soggy, scrunched toilet paper in her wake, no more blood, just snot and tears. Clare heard the creak of stairs and checked her phone. No messages from Tessa. She left it on the counter, and found Ros face down on her bed, cries muffled by her pillow.
The cups of coffee on Ros’ bedside table, Clare sat carefully on the edge of the mattress and stroked her friend’s back as if she were a frightened horse. “It’s going to be all right.”
“No,” Ros screamed, and her shoulders shook. “No, no, no.” She pummelled the bed like a little girl, her t-shirt rucked, she still had her cowboy boots on. Clare gently eased them off, and Ros snaked out of her jeans, the ankles caught on her heels, and she raised her eyes and arms to heaven, let her hands fall limp as if this was the last straw; together they yanked the denim. Ros took off her t-shirt, too, showing the pin prick stab of blood where Peter’s knife had pierced her; already a dried scar, angry, furious, it wouldn’t kill her. She touched it and looked at Clare.
“I’m so sorry.”
Ros shook her head.
“It isn’t like her,” a lie. She’d asked Scott more than once, why do you stay? when Tessa, ill and violent, had thrown a bottle at him. I’ve got my demons he’d stared into his pint. But it had always been on the up, when she was flying, heading for section, not after and on the way down.
Ros stripped off her bra. Clare pretended to look for pyjamas, her hands on an ancient dresser.
“Drawers.” Ros’ voice was small. “And antiseptic in the bathroom.”
Clare took a pair of Calvin Kline yoga pants and a baggy top from the bottom drawer that took both hands to open.
“And can you get my cigarettes?”
A Dettol wipe from the bathroom cabinet, Ros’s jacket on the kitchen floor where she’d dropped it, cigarettes in the top pocket, a bottle of vodka from the freezer, Clare grabbed her own bag as well and slung it over her shoulder, she was sure she had a lighter in there somewhere.
Ros framed by pillows, pyjamas on, duvet tucked, hair tangled, mascara smudged, she tore the antiseptic wipe open with her teeth, lifted her baggy t-shirt, dabbed at the miniature hole Tessa had made, a brown stain, she tossed it onto the floor and lit her cigarette; a long drag of Marlboro Light, and an attempted smile as smoke curled in the air between them but her mouth crumpled and she started crying again. Clare held out more toilet roll.
Ros waved it away. “Downstairs. Under the sink. It hurts my nose. Sorry,” so Clare ran downstairs again and fetched a box of extra soft Kleenex from amongst bottles of floor cleaner and spare J-cloths, a pile of plates Ros never used. She flicked off the lights on her way out.
When she got back, Ros had poured them both a shot.
Clare found a spot in the middle of Ros’ bed where she could sit cross-legged, but she could still feel Ros’ foot hard up against her thigh.
“Can you believe him?” Ros tried to smile again.
“Actually, I can’t.” She had seen it coming, this electric charge, what straight woman wouldn’t be seduced by Scott? How was Ros to know he flirted with everyone, made hay with that voice of his, Tessa his shield from ever having to follow through. Her illness suited him, she’d thought it more than once. Like a man carrying a baby, all the cooing and good looks made trustworthy by a woman at home except his was a position of extra saint, I don’t know how he stays with her, and goodness knows she’s lucky to have him. He’d told her Tessa’s father had said we appreciate you taking her off our hands, old boy, you’re a braver man than most, as if she was a carton of something rotten, a dead weight, not a drop of wonderful about her. Somewhere in that Irish story he loved her, but Sussex had made him soft, he’d sold Tessa for a place with the rugby dads, his voice lost amongst attitudes of blame, the misunderstanding of human nature; he’d betrayed her long before Ros. Clare took one of Ros’ cigarettes. “He’s a complete shit.”
“Oh, no, Clare. Don’t say that. He was caught in the headlights. We hadn’t planned it.” She dropped her head to her hands, “God. Poor Tess. I never meant to hurt her.”
“Of course you didn’t.”
“We got close; you know? Too close. And Tess was away, and he started telling me all these things about their marriage. What was I supposed to do? I thought he was lonely, I mean, it must be so hard. And then one night –”
Clare held her breath.
Ros shook her head as if to shake the memory away. “Afterwards he told me he was going to leave her.”
Clare nodded. “So you did -?”
Ros’ face crumpled again. Whatever she was going to say was lost in a cloud of smoke.
“I’m sorry,” said Clare. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“If it hadn’t been for the play.”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I should have known he was he was using me.”
“I did try to warn you.”
“I thought he was vulnerable.”
“It’s you who’re vulnerable. He took advantage.” She looked vulnerable too, sat there in bed, her skin pale, a protective hand on her belly.
“Everyone thinks I’m so tough.” Ros sniffed. “I put on this… persona, you know? Good-time girl? Always a laugh? It’s not true.”
“I know it’s not true.”
“I do it for the girls. After what they’ve been through.”
Clare wanted to touch her all over. She wanted to pull off the covers and Calvin Klein’s, run her hands down and up those legs, find the old cut where Molly and Issy had been pulled out, the new one where Tessa’s knife had gone in, land at the quiet, dark tunnel of her, get inside; she refilled their glasses. “No one’s going to believe him.”
“But what will I say to Tessa?”
“I’ll talk to her.”
Ros stretched out her hand and touched Clare’s knee. “Would you?”
Clare bit her lip. “She suspected, you know. She kept asking.”
Ros put her glass on the bedside table. “Wait.” She slipped out of bed and padded from the room; Clare heard her going downstairs. If she stripped off her clothes and slipped into bed, if she was there when Ros returned, what then? She put the vodka on the floor. Ros returned with a book, a credit card, a smile, and a small bag clouded with white. “Don’t you think?” She put the book flat between them and cut four lines.
Clare leaned on her elbows, a twenty-pound note from her purse held to her right nostril, her left pressed shut while Ros made faces and pinched her nose and shook her head like a horse. The blast made her face feel scrubbed. “Christ.”
Ros laughed, did another line, picked up her shot glass and downed it.
Cocaine made the plains change shape, and Clare lost track of time and space as line followed shot followed line. She stretched out on the bed, not caring which limbs touched what. Her body was a thing of wonder.
Ros lit a cigarette. “So, when?”
“When what?”
“When did you notice?”
“Notice what?”
“Scott.” Ros’s voice was plaintive. “And me.”
“Oh.” For a moment she’d forgotten. “Lots of times. At the pub, rehearsals, all the time.” It felt like all the time. She couldn’t remember. Ros was all the time.
“And you think Tessa picked up on something, even before, I mean, before she went in?”
“She’s very sensitive.” Tessa was her witch friend. She’d have been burnt at the stake.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Clare refilled their glasses. The effort felt like springing to life from the best of sleeps, as if she didn’t want to stop moving ever. She rearranged herself like Ros, cross-legged, the better to be immersed in the bedroom, the bed, the body of this woman she loved, that she wanted to swallow whole. Her cigarette tasted delicious. “I didn’t want to get in the middle.” Talking was so easy. Her shyness had left her.
“See? She knew. I wasn’t making it up. Only I didn’t see it till she went away. I mean I knew he liked me, but I get a lot of attention, you know? I never do anything about it, but it was different with Scott, from the moment I met him, I remember thinking, shit. I tried to keep him at a safe distance, I really did, but it was always there, bubbling under the surface, waiting, and then she left, if she hadn’t left, none of it would have happened, I didn’t mean it to happen, oh God.” She buried her face in her hands again. “Why do I keep falling for it?”
“We all do stupid things. I do stupid things all the time.”
“Like what?”
Like love someone like you.
Ros exhaled sending smoke above Clare’s head. “Who was your last relationship? How come you never talk about Nancy’s dad? Is he not around?”
“He’s in London.”
“How come we never see him?”
“He’s married. Nancy sees him all the time.”
“A married man?”
“No, I mean, he’s married now. He’s lovely.” She thought of Charlie; handsome sweet Charlie who’d have dropped everything to be with her.
“Is he safe?”
“Safe?” Clare propped herself up. She’d fallen into a slump, been talking to the ceiling. It was easier than looking at Ros.
Ros touched her again. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
“No, it’s fine. He’s lovely.”
If she didn’t know better, she’d have thought Ros looked disappointed. She held out her glass, and Clare nearly fell off the bed, reaching for the bottle. When she looked up, Ros was crying again. “Oh, Ros.”
“I’m such a fuck up.”
“It’s not your fault.” She stroked her arm.
“I should have known. How am I going to face anyone?”
“Everyone will understand.”
“Maybe I’ll go away.”
“No, don’t.”
Ros wiped her nose on her wrist and squeezed Clare’s hand. “You’re so sweet, Clare. You’re so caring.”
It was at that moment that Clare felt herself propelled as if by some greater force. She was half-way up Ros’ body before she knew what she was doing, her mouth against Ros’ lips, her hands in the rough mess of Ros’ hair, her chest pressing into her. She was kissing her and touching her, and for a still, beautiful second, Ros was kissing her back, until she wasn’t. The violence of her shove threw Clare off the bed.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Ros was shouting, she was wiping her mouth, she was telling Clare to get out. Clare, splayed on the floor, couldn’t register what was happening. Her shot glass rolled under the bed. She reached for it as if that was the only mistake of a drunken night.
“Get the fuck out. Get the fuck out of my house.”
Clare got to her feet. Somehow in the moment that had smashed, she’d peeled off her t-shirt. She wrapped her arms around her chest.
“There,” Ros shouted, pointing at the floor.
Clare grabbed it and held it to her skin.
“Get out,” Ros screamed again.
In her stumble downstairs she wondered if Nancy and Molly were asleep in the room next door, whether they’d heard anything, but in the kitchen, as the shouting in her head grew quiet, no footsteps followed her, no Nancy wandered in sleepy-eyed asking what the noise was about. She found her phone on the kitchen counter and stared at it. She wondered why it was so hard to figure out where she was, not Ros’ kitchen, but which planet. She wanted a coffee but didn’t dare turn on the lights, so she stood at the sink in the dark, drinking great gulps of water straight from the tap and threw up half of it.
Get in the car, said her brain. Get in your car and drive home. Leave Nancy here who probably wasn’t here, who’d probably stayed at Diane’s. She looked for her keys. She looked for her bag. She saw it discarded on the floor of Ros’ bedroom. For a second she imagined crawling in, grabbing it, but everything told her that was the cocaine and vodka talking. Her coat, at least, was there where she’d left it when they’d come in and the only drama had been Tessa and Ros; a light stabbing in the Home Counties and a man who’d betrayed them both. Maybe she could walk home. Maybe she could pretend for the hours between now and forever, that none of this had happened. That she hadn’t launched and ripped and buried her mouth in the smudged red of Ros’ lips, that she hadn’t believed for one ecstatic moment, that this was it.
She found her shoes where she’d kicked them off. Crosby and Nash shoving heads beneath her hand, she let them out for a pee. Good, thoughtful Clare, hating herself for her reliability, despising her lack of selfishness. Just once she’d gone out for what she wanted and look where it had got her. She stumbled like Ros but there was no one there to catch her. She made it to the driver’s seat of her bashed up Subaru that stank of horses and a simple life; she sat there shivering, feeling sick, waiting for something to happen that would change this moment into another moment that moved the whole series of fucking awful moments forward. Her hand on her phone, it lit up the night as she sent a text to the only man stupid enough to not care what she’d done, who’d come and get her no matter the hour. The ringer had broken long ago, so she kept it gripped in her hands. The vibration would wake her.
Poor Clare! My feeling sorry for Ros has lessened. Another chapter perfectly executed.
So many hearts in conflict with themselves and each other--I know I sound like a cheesy version of Saunders. But you can just see this stew of emotions boiling over in an explosive instapot of coke, vodka, blood, bitter half-truths, and vulnerabilities... Can't wait for the next!