With or Without You

by Shari Low

  ‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, and not in a gushy overwhelmed way. More in the way you’d react to cold-callers trying to flog you double glazing.

  ‘It’s your birthday and we weren’t going to let you ignore it,’ I replied, before using Finn as emotional blackmail and backup yet again. ‘Were we, Finn?’

  ‘Nope,’ he said. ‘Happy burfday!’ I’d forgotten to point out that it only had to be said once.

  Almost grudgingly, she opened the door and let us in. I was fairly sure if Finn wasn’t there, she’d have found some reason to send us packing. Justin was lying on the sofa watching American football, so Nate immediately went and joined him. I plonked Finn between them, then Chloe and I followed Sasha into the kitchen, and put our haul on the table.

  ‘Spaghetti carbonara, pancetta tagliatelle, lasagne, chicken arrabbiata, focaccia, bruschetta and a banoffee pie for dessert.’

  It was all her favourite foods, and the main courses were from her favourite restaurant. It might have been the aromas, but she definitely softened.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said, and I could see she meant it.

  ‘Did you have plans? Did we spoil anything?’ Chloe asked. It had been our big fear – that Justin had arranged something and we’d gate-crashed his moment. Or maybe that was wishful thinking on our part, a futile hope that Justin would make some effort to treat her to something special.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sasha said with a shrug. ‘Justin only got home ten minutes ago, and he put the game on as soon as he came in.’

  ‘Did he even remember it was your birthday?’ I asked, astonished.

  ‘Yes. That’s why he’s home early. He usually doesn’t make it back until after ten.’

  I don’t know what shocked me more – the fact that she was admitting this to us or the fact that she seemed to be accepting it all. This wasn’t Sasha. The woman I knew wouldn’t stand for such blatant disregard. She didn’t put up with being treated badly, she didn’t let anyone get away with being an arse and she certainly wouldn’t shut down her life for a guy who was being, quite frankly, a rude git.

  But then, this wasn’t Justin either. Was it? The Justin we used to know was funny, and crazy and made everyone’s life far more entertaining. And that was all good until the alcohol stopped being a social thing and morphed into a demon he couldn’t control.

  Chloe and I met each other’s gaze and I could tell she was thinking exactly the same thing. We had to support Sasha – and Justin – no questions asked. She’d chosen this and we’d be there for her, bringing her bloody pasta and trying to make life better, until things improved for them and they found their way back to a happier, emotionally healthier place.

  ‘Plates?’ I asked, and Sasha dug a stack out of a cupboard. We began to dish out the food, the strained atmosphere making it a pretty much silent affair.

  ‘I don’t even have wine…’ she said, with an edge of exasperation.

  ‘That’s okay, we’re both working tomorrow,’ I answered. I didn’t say that we’d all made a pact not to drink when Justin was around. We just hoped he would eventually see that we could still have a good laugh without it, and maybe it would encourage him to start hanging out with us all again.

  We carried the food in on three trays, and Finn was delighted to see it coming.

  ‘Happy burfday!’ he cheered. I really needed to stress that it was a one-off deal.

  Justin – a little grudgingly – switched off the TV and we all sat around the table. I tried to rationalise the situation in my mind. Sasha was miserable. Justin was troubled. The life they were living was so much less than it should be, but maybe this was just one of those blips in a relationship, one of those low points that they’d look back on in twenty years and be proud of themselves for getting through it.

  And let’s face it, I couldn’t judge. It wasn’t as if Nate and I were swinging from the chandeliers and basking in marital bliss. We were still firmly in flatmate central. Sex once a fortnight, lots of going through the motions, and don’t expect gales of laughter or deep conversations. The biggest sexual thrill I’d had in the last year was a moment of frisson with Richard, which I was now fairly sure I’d imagined.

  Sasha and Justin were clearly having problems, but they had an underlying cause that they could work on.

  Nate and I had no excuse.

  The tension was lingering until Chloe decided to spice things up with a bit of gossip.

  ‘I had a pretty unusual conversation the other day,’ she said, teasing out the mystery.

  ‘Spill the details immediately,’ I demanded playfully, desperate to make tonight fun.

  ‘I got poked,’ Chloe went on.

  ‘You got what?’ Sasha interjected, horrified.

  ‘Stand down, Sasha,’ Chloe laughed. ‘It was on that new internet thingy… Facepage.’

  ‘Facebook!’ I corrected her, before going on, ‘I joined that last year but it all seemed like too much work and just a bit weird to let the world know what you were doing every day. Some people were putting up pictures of their dinner. Seriously. Who wants to see that?’ I didn’t get it at all. Number one, who’d be interested in what anyone had for their tea, or what they were wearing? And number two, why would anyone think putting up pictures of their cat would be in the least bit interesting to anyone else? If I were down to my last tenner, I’d bet it on the whole thing being scrapped in no time.

  ‘So what happened after you got poked?’ Sasha asked.

  ‘I poked him back.’

  Nate, clearly puzzled, entered into the conversation. ‘Poked who back?’

  I was hoping Nate’s contribution would encourage Justin to join the discussion, but he seemed completely disinterested.

  Unlike the rest of us. Except, obviously, for Finn, who was more interested in his spaghetti.

  Chloe paused, building up anticipation.

  It must be someone good. Maybe she’d finally tracked down Usher.

  ‘Connor!’ she said, with a huge grin. If there was a list of potential pokers, Connor wouldn’t even have made my top ten.

  ‘Our Connor? In Chicago?’ I clarified.

  ‘Yup,’ Chloe beamed. ‘We ended up chatting for ages through the… argh what are they called?’

  ‘The private messages?’ I offered.

  ‘That’s it!’ she said. ‘The messages!’

  Well this was news. Nate still chatted to him every couple of weeks or so on the phone, but invariably, he’d finish the call and I’d ask, ‘What was Connor saying?’ and the reply would be a shrug and ‘Not much.’ I’d now given up asking, so I knew nothing about the status of his love-life.

  ‘Tell us everything,’ Sasha demanded.

  ‘Well, he’s still engaged to Cindy, but they haven’t set a date yet.’ Despite an admirable attempt to conceal her irritation at this nugget of gossip, she failed miserably. ‘And he’s been promoted to Vice President of his division.’

  I made a mental note to ask Nate exactly what it was that Connor did. I knew it was something to do with managing athletes, but that was it.

  ‘We just chatted about… stuff.’ Despite the fact that they’d only communicated over the internet, there was a twinkle in her eye that I hadn’t seen with Rob or Danny.

  ‘Stuff?’ Sasha asked with an edge of cynicism.

  ‘Yes, and it was nice. We haven’t had an actual conversation in over ten years, so it was good to chat, even if it was all typed. My fingers were aching afterwards.’

  ‘Well, I’m totally impressed,’ I told her truthfully. Maybe I’d check out that Facebook thing again myself. ‘And next time you’re poking him, tell him that we all send our love.’

  The laughter lifted the mood and spurred a dozen different conversations, most of them funny, until we got to a point where – apart from the fact that Justin barely contributed and seemed to have an upset stomach because he kept disappearing to the toilet – it felt almost like old times.

  Finn started to get sleepy as we cleared a
way the plates, so I lay him on the thick fur rug, with a pillow under his head and a swaddle of blankets around him.

  We gabbed for another hour or so over coffee, then I used Finn as a reason for us to take off and get him back to bed. Justin hadn’t said a word since dinner ended, so it was obvious that he was ready for us to leave.

  Still, tonight was a good start. Baby steps. I was so glad we did it. Once Sasha relaxed she seemed to really enjoy herself and there was the occasional glimmer of our favourite sarcasm queen of bygone times.

  We hugged at the door. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t think I realised how much I needed that.’

  ‘Any time,’ I answered, grateful that we’d got it right. It could just as easily have gone very wrong.

  Justin was next, and I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and hugged him close. ‘We love you, you know that?’ I whispered, out of earshot, because that kind of emotional stuff had always embarrassed him.

  It seemed to strike a chord. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Thanks for doing this for Sasha.’ Not the time for me to point out that he should have been the one doing it, I decided. Like I said, baby steps.

  Goodbyes over, we climbed into the car, and were a few minutes away before Chloe was the first one to speak.

  ‘What do you think, Liv?’ I knew she meant in general, but my mind was elsewhere.

  ‘I think I just smelled alcohol on Justin’s breath,’ I replied.

  Chapter Twelve

  Collision Course

  June 2010

  The hospital monitor beeped steadily, in sync with the whooshing noise of the ventilator.

  ‘This is my fault. It’s all my fault,’ Sasha murmured as she stared, eyes dark, at the bed.

  ‘It’s not, Sasha. You could never have known…’ I tried to console her, but I could see it was pointless because she wasn’t listening.

  Beep. Beep. Beep.

  We’d been listening to it for days. Watching. Waiting. Praying. Neither Sasha nor I had left the hospital, too scared to go in case there was a change. Finn was in nursery during the day, until Nate picked him up after work, then Maisie sat with him while he was sleeping. That’s when Nate would bring food and a change of clothes and stay with us until long after nightfall.

  The hours were endless and nothing changed. The monitor would beep. We’d watch for something, anything. And Sasha would blame herself and I’d try to persuade her that it wasn’t her fault.

  I closed my eyes and the memory started playing, so I opened them again. It happened every time. Every time. But I was so tired and my eyelids dropped again, the need for sleep stronger than my power to stop us going back there to the moment Sasha had called…

  Chloe and I were sitting at my kitchen table, drinking coffee while watching Finn navigate an overloaded spoonful of spaghetti to his mouth, when my mobile rang. ‘Oooh, it’s Auntie Sasha,’ I told him, and his cheesy grin sent pasta sliding down his chin. ‘Hello my love,’ I answered chirpily. ‘Where are you? Chloe and I are waiting patiently for our pizzas.’ She was already half an hour late and we were famished. That’s what happened when we put her in charge of collecting the food on her way here.

  There were no niceties, just straight into the crux of the call. ‘Is Nate home?’

  The tightness of her voice was unmistakable.

  ‘Yes, he just got back. What’s up? What’s happened?’

  ‘Bastard,’ she exclaimed.

  ‘Who is? Nate?’ I wasn’t following this at all.

  ‘No, Justin.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He called to say he’s going to work out late with Nate at the gym, but I just drove past the Clydemont Inn…’ I knew the place. We all used to go there regularly when we were young and sociable, before children and grown-up complications had got in the way. It had a gorgeous restaurant and a really popular bar. It had always been one of Justin’s favourites. ‘And his fucking car is in the fucking car park.’

  ‘What is he doing there?’ I asked, with a growing feeling of impending doom.

  ‘That’s exactly what I want to know,’ Sasha spat.

  ‘Oh God, Sasha where are you?’

  ‘Sitting in the car park watching his car.’

  No, no, no. This wasn’t good. A pissed off Sasha, and a lying Justin, in an establishment that sold alcohol. This could only end badly.

  ‘Do. Not. Do. Anything. Do not go in there without us. We’re on our way.’ I slammed the phone down and made an instant plan.

  ‘Nate, can you come look after Finn?’ I shouted up to him. He appeared at the top of the stairs with a towel round his waist. ‘Sasha’s got a situation…’

  ‘Is she okay? Is it Justin? Is he hurt?’

  ‘No, no! Nothing like that. She’s worried that he’s in a bar. Look, we have to go right now. I’ll call you and fill you in as soon as we get there.’

  ‘Maybe I should go? If he’s in a bar…’ Nate began to object.

  ‘No, Sasha’s outside and we’ll be better at talking her down,’ I told him, feeling sure she needed the female contingent of our circle right now. She’d railroad Nate into anything and he was too nice to object – she needed the calm reasoning, support and restraint that Chloe and I knew how to deliver.

  Chloe’s car was last in the driveway so we took that and roared out of our street, anxieties rising.

  Why? Why did he have to pull stunts like this?

  Someone once said to me that alcoholism was a selfish addiction and much as I had compassion for anyone suffering from this horrendous disease, I knew they were right. Justin had put Sasha through hell over the last few years, and yet Sasha, the most intolerant, demanding, bolshy of us all, the one who didn’t put up with crap or mistreatment, had stood by him and never wavered, to the massive detriment of her own life. On a human level, I’d never been more proud of her. But as a friend, I worried that she was giving one hundred per cent and getting nothing back. Justin barely acknowledged what she’d done for him. He was still detached. Still living in his own head. Still blatantly disregarding everyone around him, especially Sasha. I loved him and I knew it was the disease that was making him behave like this, but if he’d started drinking again then I feared for his future with Sasha. She didn’t deserve this life - she deserved so much more.

  ‘Oh thank God, she’s still in the car,’ I said, as we pulled into the car park next to her twenty minutes later.

  Sasha jumped out of her car and into Chloe’s back seat.

  ‘What’s happened? Did you go in?’ I asked.

  She shook her head. ‘I learned that lesson a long time ago. If he’s drinking and I go charging in there, it’ll end up in a full-scale war. I just want to wait until he comes out and see what state he’s in, then deal with it.’

  It was yet another sign of how much the last few years had changed Sasha. She was the one who’d have stormed the room and damn the consequences.

  ‘Have you suspected he’s been drinking again?’ Chloe asked gently.

  Sasha blew out months of worry and dread before she answered. ‘I don’t know. Sometimes. He’s barely home, and when he comes in, there’s fresh breath, deodorant, all the stuff he says he uses when he showers at the gym, so I never smell anything suspicious.’

  I decided this wasn’t the time to mention that I had suspicions a year ago at her birthday party. If I’d been certain, maybe I’d have said something, but I was too scared of being wrong and causing irreparable damage.

  She went on, ‘He’s never been visibly drunk, but he’s just always… angry. Wound up. Like the whole world’s against him. Sometimes I really, really think he doesn’t want to be with me.’

  ‘But why would he stay then?’ I said. ‘He could leave any time.’

  ‘I think he’s scared to leave in case he falls off the wagon again and fucks his life up. When he’s with me, he has a home, someone to care for him, someone there, stability whether he wants me or not. I think he’s scared to be alone, but hates the fact that h
e has to stay and he resents me for it.’

  The shock made me speechless for a few moments. Sasha always put a face on, always pretended everything was fine, that she was in control, handling her business… but this Sasha was being honest and vulnerable and I’d never wanted to hug her more.

  While we were baring souls, I wanted to know some other stuff.

  ‘I think if the positions were reversed and this was Nate and I, then you’d be telling me to leave him, that life’s too short to stay in a situation that’s so toxic. And yet, you stay. Is it just because you love him? Is it fear? Loyalty?’

  She turned her head away for a moment, staring out the window at the door of the pub. When she turned it back, we saw the tears. In almost twenty years, this was the first time I’d seen her cry.

  ‘My dad died when I was seventeen,’ she said, then paused to steady her voice, turning her head so she was looking out the window again, talking to no one. ‘He was an alcoholic. Had been my whole life. He was the fun drunk, just like Justin used to be. The kind drunk. The one who told you he loved you ten times a day. But he was also the one who forgot to come to school shows, who never turned up for parents’ night, who couldn’t have told you anything about our lives, who spent our food money on anything he could pour down his throat. That was my dad.’

  My gaze met Chloe’s. We had no idea.

  ‘When I was sixteen, my mum decided she couldn’t take it anymore. She’d stayed with him because of us, because of loyalty, because she had nowhere else to go. She’d given her whole life to his disease and she wanted just a little bit of happiness. So she left. Moved in with her sister. Lee and Tony were already out of the house, and she wanted me to go with her, but I couldn’t. How could I leave him?’

  She was choking on her words now, every one of them getting caught in a vacuum of pain.

  ‘I stayed and I tried really hard to take care of him, but I couldn’t. Without my mum, he fell apart, because he had no reason to come home at night, no conscience forcing him to make at least one or two good decisions in the day. I tried, I really did, but he wouldn’t listen to me. He was lost. And he was dead in less than a year.’