‘Trust me, it will warm you up.’
She took a sip and felt her face flush with the burn of alcohol.
‘What is that?’
It was so foul she worried it would produce an instant hangover whose chemical legacy would leave its taste on her brain forever.
‘Fernet Branca. It has its roots in the unlikely crossroads where centuries of herbal remedies collided with robust capitalism. Mr Branca sent it to a Milanese hospital during a virulent outbreak of Asiatic cholera. It wasn’t a cure but the stuff seemed to help.’
‘Probably because it got the patients drunk.’
‘It’s also good for the digestion,’ he said, ‘and curse pains. Allegedly.’
‘Bottoms up!’ saluted Esme and drained the glass. She immediately felt a warmth coat her throat and a sting of medicinal wellbeing. ‘Wow. I already feel better.’
Dan refilled her glass and she began sifting through a pile of books; Kafka, Hemmingway, Orwell and lots of names she didn’t recognize ending in ‘-sky’.
‘No Harold Robbins, then.’
Dan laughed, ‘Trust me, I love a good blockbuster as much as the next person. Who’s to say what great literature is? It’s so subjective and as long it gives pleasure it doesn’t matter if it is Jackie Collins or Joseph Conrad. I learn from both and as long as I am writing often, and writing well, I don’t need to be hanging out in the British Library all the time. Nightclubs and dog homes are just as great as literary research centres.’
It was Esme’s turn to laugh. ‘Cece says you are going to be the next big thing. Have you begun your novel?’ She immediately felt awkward having mentioned her name.
Dan looked slightly irritated. ‘I wish she’d shut up about that. There is nothing worse than being under someone else’s pressure and there is still a long way to go.’
An answer but not an answer, thought Esme, ‘Well, I’d love to read it when you’re done.’
‘Nah—’ Dan looked away with a reluctant smile and Esme saw that he was embarrassed. ‘You wouldn’t be able to read it. I hardly can myself.’ This first hint of shyness and uncertainty made Esme want to kiss him again. ‘My handwriting’s terrible,’ Dan said, with a short, defeated chuckle.
Instead Esme said, ‘Is that an excuse?’
‘Yes,’ he admitted.
‘Stop being self-conscious about your writing. You are the expert when it comes to the world you are creating, no one else. So be bold and write on,’ she said in a raised voice, like a war cry.
She blushed, and in the silence that followed, she felt the crackle of lustful static pass between them. She couldn’t bring herself to meet his gaze – doubtful, encouraging, embarrassed, she couldn’t tell.
Before she had time to look up, his mouth came down on hers. And that was it. All the self-control went, like water crashing through a broken dam. Esme put her arms around his neck and he pulled her against him… His hands flattened against her back… and she was up on the tips of her toes, kissing him as fiercely as he was kissing her… He clung to her more tightly, knotting his hands in her hair, telling her, with the press of his mouth on hers, all the things she had thought but could never say out loud.
There was always one glass that tipped her over – unfairly and jokingly – into being drunk and afterwards, she decided that was the glass that was responsible for her going to bed with Dan. The sex had been good, great even, but it was a consolation prize compared to the desire she had felt for him. He had fallen into a deep post-coital sleep and she lay rigid, staring up at the ceiling listening to the white noise of wheels and water spray; the rhythmic splatter of rain. Esme tried to do up the borrowed shirt but it no longer had any buttons after Dan had ripped it off. The fabric was in tatters.
What had she done?
Loyalty was one of the things Esme valued most and yet, here she lay, next to the evidence that she had betrayed her friend. And even more than the betrayal of sleeping with Cece’s boyfriend, Esme was a thief. She had stolen her friend’s trust in Dan and herself. This could never be repeated, she swore. She would have to lock this secret away and would always have to dodge and skirt around the deceit.
Dan stirred and turned, throwing his arm over her, a heavy weight that pinned her to the bed. As she began to ease herself out, she heard a key scrabble with the lock. She stopped, alarmed, feeling that it was she who had broken and entered rather than whoever was trying to get in. Slowly she slipped back under the covers, peering over the sheets hoping to see who it was without them being able to identify her.
‘Dan?’
It was Cece. Esme recognized that Australian twang at once. She had a key to Dan’s flat and Esme was in bed with her boyfriend? Ex-boyfriend? Whichever it was, hot shame shot through her. There was nowhere to hide as the only way out was the way in. If she moved too suddenly Dan would wake up and if she stayed put Cece would find her. She opted for the latter, stiff with panic. The light went on in the living room.
‘Dan,’ she said in a yoo-hoo voice. ‘Sorry it’s so late but I’ve only just finished work. The club was heaving.’
The bedroom door was flung open and there was Cece with her shining smile of devoted excitement, her wet clinging clothes and bedraggled hair like some resplendent goddess of the deep. She had never looked more beautiful. Esme hoped she was invisible under the tangle of sheets.
‘Cece! What the fuck are you doing here?’ said Dan, waking and automatically turning on the bedside lamp, going from lifeless form to warrior on the attack in a split second.
‘Oh God,’ Cece muttered as she realized there was a third person in the room.
Dan scrambled off the bed and grabbed his shirt off the floor, his face glowing scarlet. Esme retreated further into the bedclothes. ‘Cece, how did you get in here?’ Dan demanded, playing for time.
‘With a key?’ she said, like he was stupid. ‘I knocked first and you didn’t answer… and you’d given me your spare set the other morning. Don’t you remember?’
Then she came towards the bed and hovered over it for a second. Her face questioned what she saw. She stepped back quickly, trying to step out of the moment. And then she glanced back and locked gazes with Esme, no longer able to hide at such close quarters.
Her dark grey eyes were huge with what Esme could only guess was shock, dissolving quickly into disgust, and they stared directly at Dan. She stood there for a second, disbelief holding her rooted to the ground.
‘I can’t believe this is happening’ she said, her voice filled with hurt. ‘You are both pathetic.’
She threw something at Dan. A gift. Wrapped in blue paper with green ribbon.
‘Happy fucking birthday. I hope it strangles you,’ she shouted as she turned about and left, slamming the front door so hard that something crashed to the floor.
‘It’s your birthday?’ said Esme, stunned, unable to ask the bigger questions. How had she been so gullible? Such an idiot? How had she believed Dan’s line about him and Cece having called it off? In her desperation to find an ally – to not be alone and have someone want her – she’d taken everything at face value. Enraged by herself as much as Dan, she drew back her hand and slapped him across the face. The sound of flesh striking flesh bounced off the walls. Raising her voice to a level just below a shout, she snarled, ‘You asshole.’
‘Oh, grow up, Esme.’
She was about to reply when they both heard the screech of tyres and a sickening thud.
She didn’t have to look. A part of her somehow knew. ‘Cece,’ Esme whispered, then her voice rising to a strangled scream, ‘Oh my God. For fuck sake, Cece!’
She leapt up and ran out the flat, oblivious to the fact she was half naked. The dawn light had begun to arrive and she immediately saw Cece’s motionless body lying in the road, a man standing over her. Esme started to tremble. She staggered and fell off the kerb, her panicked breath coming in shallow bursts. Her eyes welled up, and for a second she couldn’t see anything, just her own tears. She coul
dn’t breathe and she began shaking all over, jerky and painful. It was cold. So terribly cold. She was swimming and wanted to put her feet down on something solid but the water was deeper than she thought and there was nothing there.
The scene before her was both sharp and fuzzy. Time stretched and distorted. The car came rushing into focus and seemed huge and terrifying, yet Cece looked like a speck in the bloodbath of this scene. For a second the scene appeared frozen in time. Esme was rooted to the spot. None of this was happening. It couldn’t be. She held herself as if only her arms could keep her pieced together and watched the driver go up to a woman in a pink dressing gown putting milk bottles out. He gesticulated wildly and turned to point at the limp form by his car. The dressing-gown woman dropped her bottles, a painful, injurious sound that rang down the empty street and she rushed into her house and after an age came back out with a blanket which she placed over Cece.
That won’t keep her dry, thought Esme, her face, her eyes, soaked with tears and rainwater, her hands and legs vibrating like plucked strings. She wanted to disappear into the thin air but was immobilized by guilt so heavy she couldn’t move. There was no noise. It was as if the rising dawn ate the sound. It swallowed the quietly spoken words of the driver’s inadequate apology. And whatever blame he took, Esme felt her responsibility at the root of it all.
I put her in front of the car. It’s my fault she got mown down.
In the distance, she heard a siren. Ambulance. Dressing-gown lady must have called 999, Esme thought, realizing she hadn’t even been able to do that for Cece. The blue flashing lights flung shadows along the street that grew longer and hungrier the closer the vehicle got. A female paramedic knelt down beside Cece. She was talking to her, running her hands down her body, shining a torch in her eyes held open with latex-covered fingers. A male paramedic helped lift Cece onto a stretcher and into the back of the ambulance. Somewhere deep inside, Esme registered that their frantic efforts suggested hope that Cece was still there, inside that motionless body, fighting to come back.
Esme felt fairground activity swirled about in a blur. It seemed like no one else could see her. She felt split in two. Her real self standing here, horror-struck, but it felt like she’d left the ghost of her body in Dan’s flat. She could almost feel it, looking at her and not liking what she saw. She knew she could never escape her own judging gaze.
A guilty person can still love someone else, can’t they? Even when they’ve hurt them and let them down?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Police had joined the small cluster. One officer was talking to the driver, writing down his words while another two were taping the area off. They spoke to dressing-gown lady, who shook her head, clasping her hands in prayer, dabbing her eyes, her robe darkening in the rain, a wet red shroud around her shoulders. She made a sign of the cross and bowed her head at the ambulance as it drove away.
The departure of the ambulance broke the spell and Esme realized she had to move, had to do something, had to find out where they were taking her friend, if she was all right. She thought about going back inside Dan’s flat but knew she would rather die of hypothermia than come face to face with her co-perpetrator. He was no friend. Friends ask you questions; enemies question you.
Shoeless and naked from her pants down, she tugged at a cuff of her shirt, trying in vain to cover herself. The police had cordoned off the area with blue-and-white tape that said POLICE LINE DO NOT CROSS and all of a sudden this was a crime scene. Esme didn’t know whether she should identify herself but she didn’t know what to say. Although she hadn’t been a witness to the accident, she still felt she had caused it. Maybe she could just ask the officers what had happened – see what they said about Cece, but she wasn’t ready to hear what they had to say in case it was the news she dreaded. The police tape whipped and snapped in the wind and she started to stumble away. But her guilt tracked her as she walked, an ugly shadow made by herself. She could feel tears stream down her face – in some kind of frenzied competition with the rain.
She had no coat, no bag, no money to get her anywhere. Even if she had, there were no taxis at this hour and anyway, where would she go? Not back to the gallery. Not to Bill and Javier’s. For a crazy moment she thought she should head to Cece’s. Cece would scoop her up, she thought – then remembered with a sick jolt that Cece was in an ambulance, fate unknown.
In the end, she didn’t flag a cab down. One stopped without her hailing it and she got in, almost faint with relief. The driver could recognize a woman in distress, but she was even more thankful that he asked her no questions. He didn’t ask about her tears, her state of undress or obvious lack of money. She gave the driver Suki’s address.
The London streets were beginning to stir with early risers and night-workers at the end of their shift, going about their business as if nothing had happened. Each time the taxi turned a corner Esme slid across the seat, her legs slippery and wet.
She should have done something. The thought of her friend lying in the middle of the road, unconscious, burrowed into her heart. It coiled in her guts as she wedged herself further into the corner of the cab and clung on to the armrest. Guilt wound her shoulders as she climbed out of the cab, hungry and exhausted from the nightmare. She felt unbalanced, like she’d crossed a line she hadn’t known existed.
‘Fucking hell, Esme.’ Suki pulled her inside when she answered the door, confused to have been woken at such an hour. She put a coat around her. ‘What the fuck happened? Have you been raped?’
‘Will you pay the taxi?’ Esme asked automatically, but the driver had already gone.
Staggering into the living room Esme fell onto the sofa, her teeth chattering.
‘It’s Cece.’
‘Cece?’
‘She’s been run over.’
‘What?’
Esme pulled Suki down next to her, and held on to her arm for fear she might run off when she was told what happened.
‘Is she OK?’
Loud sobs: ‘I feel so terrible… It was my fault…’
‘Where have they taken her?’
‘Hospital.’
‘Which one? How badly was she hurt?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘How do you know it happened?’
‘I was there.’
‘Well, you must know how she is then.’
Esme shook her head and saw a flash of surprise in Suki’s eyes. ‘What do you mean you don’t know?’
‘I didn’t see it happen. Just heard it.’
Questions registered in Suki’s face.
‘I was staying with a friend of hers and she just turned up and then ran out of the flat. Then came the noise. I knew it was her,’ said Esme, her brain scrambling the details.
‘Why did she run out of the flat?’
Esme put her head back and took a deep breath.
‘I was in bed with her boyfriend. Dan.’
‘You what?’
‘It just sort of happened.’
Suki nodded quickly, her eyes wide, mouth open, ready to catch the next revelation.
‘I ran after her.’
‘But you didn’t go to her? I mean, she might be dead. Shit, Esme.’ Suki’s voice had risen an octave.
‘I froze. I didn’t know what to do. The door locked behind me, I think… That’s where my clothes are. My bag, money, everything…’ Then Esme ground to a halt. ‘What if she’s dead? She didn’t move and then the ambulance came. Oh Suki, she can’t be. She can’t be.’
Suki stiffened and pulled away.
‘Suki, you are the only person I can trust.’ She broke down again, terrified that Suki would abandon her. ‘You are the only friend I can turn to. Please. I mean, look at me. How could I have gone to the hospital like this?’
Something seemed to click in Suki and she suddenly sprung to life. She put her arm around Esme and gave a squeeze. ‘It’s ghastly but sitting here won’t help. You’ll be in shock. And you’re frozen to the bone,’ sh
e said, holding her hands and blowing on them. ‘We need to get you into a bath and then we’ll sort everything out.’
This kindness made Esme cry even harder, swallowing back spasms in her throat, struggling to breathe. Her tears were an ocean trying to drown her from the inside out. Suki handed her a box of tissues.
‘I’ll be right back.’
Esme feebly dug into the sofa, pulling the cushions around her. She jumped when Suki returned and gave her a mug. She took a sip; a nice warm mouthful of regret and self-loathing.
‘Hot sweet tea. I’m running the bath. Let’s get you out of these wet clothes.’
Suki guided her into the bathroom and undressed her. There wasn’t much to take off. Just a shirt and underwear. Esme stepped into the bath. It could have been scalding, lukewarm or cold. She felt nothing.
‘Here’s what we are going to do,’ announced Suki. ‘I’ll cover for you at work, say you are ill. Bill doesn’t need to know what happened. You can stay here and rest.’
‘What about Cece?’
‘I’ll ring around the hospitals. What’s her surname?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Well, there can’t be many girls of our age who got run over this morning. Where did it happen?’
Esme realized she didn’t know the name of the street; had no idea of Dan’s address.
‘Camden,’ she said looking up at Suki.
‘I’ll find out what the local hospitals are. There’s probably only one or two up there.’ She put a clean towel on the radiator. ‘I had better get going. I’ve left some clothes for you on my bed.’ Suki bent down and kissed Esme on the top of her head. ‘Don’t you worry. It’s going to be fine.’
‘Thank you, Suki.’ And Esme meant it.
‘Don’t be silly. You would do the same for me.’
Esme hoped she would have done. She had always thought of herself as a good friend. Until yesterday. Until Cece.
The towel was stiff and Esme rubbed her body with a ferocity that burnt her skin, wanting the pain to override her wretchedness. Her fevered skin made her feel less alone, a welcome sting that helped briefly blank out the horrifying image of Cece’s lifeless form. She rubbed harder, replacing the agony of her actions with a pain she could control. Thunder clapped overhead, a mocking reminder of the previous day. The clouds burst open and rain cascaded down. It made her feel better that things in nature could break, too.
Summer in Mayfair Page 24
