The Exclusives

by Rebecca Thornton

  ‘OK, no worries. I’ll make my own way down.’ I find myself doing an odd little skip, to show her I don’t care but I trip and my ankle folds in on itself. It doesn’t hurt very much but I feel myself about to burst into tears. You stupid fool. I smile again and walk off. I feel like every part of me is being dragged to the floor by some invisible, iron weight and my heart spikes with the pain. Could Freya have really told someone and if so who? And how can I shut her up?

  2014

  The next morning, the hospital rings. It’s me who picks up the phone. I’m calm. The interruption from the dark, snaking corridors of sleep is a welcome relief.

  ‘It’s Doris. From the hospital. It’s about your mother.’ I get ready to say I’m sorry. That we’ll come and sign the death certificate if needs be. I open my mouth, eager to sound pulled together. ‘She’s fine. Rallying. It’s just a courtesy call really.’ I hang up, thinking of her heart and the strength with which it’s beating. Whether it’s getting fainter and fainter, or whether the thrum of it jolts the flow of blood back around her body. I go and tell Father. He’s on his way out and, when I give him the update, he snatches a big, black umbrella off the wooden pegs by the door in an act of what I can only describe as impatience. For a few seconds, I’m shocked, then realise that I feel the same way. I want to get back to Jordan. I want to leave the claustrophobia of this half-death, half-life limbo.

  Five days later and she is still going. I’ve vowed to get up to speed with paperwork and research and my days are spent in the British Library and the evenings with Father, in The Ivy. Petrified I’m going to bump into someone I know and have to face the usual barrage of questions, I ask Father to book the tables at the back of the restaurant, in a quiet corner. He looks worried by this. ‘Why?’ he keeps asking, and then I realise he has had to deal with these forms of paranoia before and I reassure him. ‘Just feeling tired. Don’t want to have to deal with everyone.’

  Most of all, though, I’m scared I’ll bump into Freya without warning. Caught off guard when I’m at my most vulnerable and I won’t have rehearsed what to say. I sneak around the streets of London, swerving around every single person with blonde hair, regardless of how tall, how short. I wonder if she is still even blonde. I’m sure I would sense her, though. The serenity of her, amongst the thrum of strangers. My internal radar is on overdrive, trying to pick up cues and movements of what I once knew to be Freya. It’s exhausting and I wonder if it’s a form of latent grief, this paranoia, or whether it’s just the start of things to come.

  The only person I can tolerate right now would be Toby. I text him to say I’m in London. ‘Great news, me too,’ comes his prompt reply. ‘Frontline Club, tonight. I’m giving a talk on Afghanistan. I’ll leave you a ticket at the front desk.’

  I text back quickly, annoyed at his presumptuousness and annoyed I’ll end up going, despite the risks involved. The talk is insanely boring. Not least because I have heard these stories a million times before. I scan the room and wonder if the mother of his child-to-be is there. The talk winds up and Toby gives me a smile from the stage. ‘Any questions?’ asks the person leading the discussion. I raise my hand and ask about withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Toby looks stumped. I have no idea why I’ve asked it. We’ve been over this topic of discussion so many times. It’s one of those heated, passionate subjects that we have differing opinions on that are always, always followed by him leading me to bed. It is a joke between us, if one of us mentions Iraq, we know it is a coded plea for sex. He reddens and so do I but I carry on staring.

  ‘Well?’ I say.

  Toby stutters and gives a half-laugh. ‘Right. Anyway, so . . . I . . .’ But by then I am not listening to his answer because I’ve forgotten to switch my phone on to silent and I look down and it’s Father, who has texted to tell me I am to ring home straightaway.

  ‘She was comfortable when she died,’ say the nurses at the hospital. There was a small mention in The Times of Mother’s death, only in relation to my father’s work, and now it is up to me and Father to plan the funeral. I have never done anything like this before. I get to work in a matter-of-fact way, alone. It’s helping, me hiding behind my computer. I haven’t seen anyone since I found out. Toby had taken me home after his talk and made me whisky and hot water. Bloody whisky. He had not said anything about my behaviour, instead, asking if I wanted to stay the night.

  ‘What about your girlfriend?’ I had said, shivering. ‘What’s her name again?’

  ‘She’s not my girlfriend. She’s the mother of my child.’

  ‘Well, maybe you should make her your girlfriend.’

  I had wanted to take that back but I was too tired. Too exhausted after realising again and again that Mother was finally dead, waiting for her spirit to dovetail mine. I hadn’t stayed. Father had texted, asking me to go home and, for once, I had done the right thing. Two days later, I still couldn’t really get my head around the fact that she had gone, or make sense of what she had been like when she was alive. I still haven’t cried. My skin has gone dry, though, and I keep rubbing moisturiser over my body, with little effect. I feel oddly alive and awake but I figure it’s the shock.

  And then that night, like a monster creeping up from beneath the bed where I am already shivering and scared, I receive an email from Freya.

  Josephine, I’m so sorry to learn of Alice’s death. I remember her as a good woman, when she wasn’t ill, and I am sending my condolences to both you and your father. I know you don’t want to see me, but I am afraid I just can’t accept that. There are things we need to talk about. I would also like to say sorry about your loss in person, so how about we meet in London before you go back to Jordan? I could come and visit you at your home, or wherever you are now? If not, I’ll still look you up in Jordan. As I said I really need to talk to you. If you could send me your postal address, I’d be grateful. Freya.

  She’s written to my new email address. I quickly Google florists, to distract myself from trying to work out if she’s following me. But she’s inside my head. How the hell has she managed to get my contact details? I check my new phone. Nothing. Then I get back to my computer again. Whilst I’m typing, a peculiar sensation overcomes me, as though the room is tilting and takes on a strange phosphorescent glow. Then my head begins to throb and Father knocks on the door.

  ‘Here,’ he says, putting a cup of tea next to my computer.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You alright? How are you feeling? It’s all a bit strange, isn’t it?’

  ‘I’m doing fine. Thanks.’

  ‘Well, if you ever need to talk. Your mother, she . . .’

  ‘She what?’

  ‘She . . . she . . . I don’t know. I just feel like we never really spoke about things.’

  He rubs his knee. I laugh. That has to be the understatement of the century. He goes on.

  ‘We had to hide it from you. I did, rather. Me and Amy. We couldn’t tell you what it was really like. The episodes. The voices. The self-harming. You were too young and when you got older it just seemed wrong, but I thought you always must have known.’

  ‘I’d better get back to the florists,’ I say, sounding curter than I mean to. I know how difficult it must have been for him.

  ‘J . . .’

  ‘Yes? I’m fine, seriously.’

  ‘OK.’ He gets up to leave and I point at my screen.

  ‘I got an email from Freya. Did you give her my email address? Or give it to Rollo?’

  I try to flatten out her name but I can feel my voice wavering. Father sits back down and rests his right elbow on my desk, smoothing away a tea stain with his left hand.

  ‘Of course I didn’t. No. Freya? As in . . . Freya?’

  ‘Yes. As in . . . yes. Her.’

  He whitens. ‘What did she say?’

  ‘Just how sorry she was about Mother.’

  He gets up to leave the room again. I know he blames me for destroying his relationshi
p with Rollo. I want to tell him I miss Rollo too, but instead I flip down my computer screen and lie on the bed. Three hours later and the thoughts are still hurtling through my brain. They consist of the following:

  1)My mother being burnt into ashes (because whichever way I look at it, that’s about the sum of it). What then? What then?

  2)Who we will invite to the funeral and who will turn up. Where is Mother now?

  3)The email from Freya. Her tone of voice. Telling me what to do.

  4)The picture of the flyer from that night. The outline keeps appearing, at first, just the outline. Then, slowly, the image shifts, becoming more and more menacing. The man on the flyer has started to take on a devilish form.

  Interspersed with all these disconnected thoughts are flashes of green light and Freya’s eyes and odd snatches of the smell of sweet cigarettes in the club. There goes the thump of the music and, although I try to revisit that night, I can’t get beyond the strobes and the dance floor that jumps up and down with our feet. Has Freya forgotten too? Is that why she wants to see me?

  Please, I think. Just remember. But the only things that stick out are run-of-the-mill events: music, dancing, hands in the air and, for us at the time, drugs. And then it hits me: that smell. That grotesque smell of musty sweat and sharp deodorant, the flash of brown hair, the pupils ferociously juddering around the room, the glint of crystal stones on Freya’s denim waistband, the sensation of pleasure mixed with a deep, deep, empty and inwardly rolling pain and then I turn over onto one side, throw up in the bin next to me and pass out.

  I’m wearing a fitted black suit, a tucked-in white shirt and pointed flat pumps. I look like I should be conducting a business meeting but it feels appropriate to the occasion. I wear my hair in a ponytail, with more make-up than usual. Father and I have sent out fifty invitations to the funeral and for a tea afterwards, in the Church Hall. We’ve had everyone respond; impersonal letters, since most of them didn’t know her.

  Walking up to the church, I see a few MPs with their spouses. There are Mother’s two nurses from the hospital and the doctor she’s had for years. Amy is waiting for me by the side of the church. She hugs me and tells me she’s always there for me, no matter what. The day is cold and blue and the cherry blossom trees are throwing pink petals in our hair.

  ‘Hello,’ goes the form. We shake hands. . . . ‘We’re so sorry about your mother,’ they say. No one says anything else. No one asks how I am. Which is a relief, really.

  ‘Thank you,’ I reply, gesturing for the guests to walk inside the church and take a seat. The priest appears and says how sorry he is in a low, sombre voice and I feel like laughing. In fact, I almost snort and Father glances at me concerned; perhaps he thinks I’m crying. I pretend to wipe my nose.

  The service is quick. The priest asks us all to sing, sit, pray, ask God to look after the deceased, pray, sit, stand. He’s conducting the small congregation like he’s commanding a fully staged opera. Father gets up to read. He’s using his work voice, all composed and serious. Halfway through, he stops, rearranges his tie and clears his throat. ‘And let us also please remember Gordon and Kitty, my wife’s late parents.’ Everyone bows their heads, like we used to during school chapel. There’s a lady with blonde hair, curled up into a chignon. She’s wearing a pink fascinator and for a moment I think it’s Freya. She keeps looking at me, but there’s no upward turn to her lip, no emerald sparkle to her eyes. She’s assessing my grief. I make a self-conscious attempt at wiping my eyes. Then it’s one of Mother’s friends reading. A school friend who went quiet when we asked her to say a few words. In the end she had agreed, as long as we paid her train fare from Berkshire. She reads a twee, generic little poem about love and the stars. And then it’s me. I walk up to the lectern and clear my throat. You are in charge of a team of people, get it together, I think. It works and I find myself totally disconnected from the wide-eyed people and the wooden box in front of me.

  Halfway through it hits me, as my gaze falls on the coffin, that there is a dead body and it is my mother’s, little less than two metres away from me, and I stumble on my words. And, out of nowhere, I remember a faint touch on my hand, a little rubbing motion. I don’t know if I am remembering or hallucinating.

  ‘This hand comes from me,’ she is saying. ‘Your daddy and I made this hand, and isn’t it beautiful?’

  I look down at my hands now, holding the reading, and they are rough, builder’s hands. The nails are chipped and smudged, where I’ve tried to varnish them with grey polish. Would Mother still think I’ve got beautiful hands now? Would she see through the hard physical labour that I’ve put them through for the past ten years, to the things I’ve tried to rub out? The service comes to an end, with the coffin rattling into the roaring fire behind.

  We congregate in the hall and I feel a nothingness I know will only be filled by food and wine. There are steaming pork buns, mini steak and kidney pies, fish and chips in paper packets, mozzarella and sundried tomato skewers and sweet-chilli prawns. I take a few pork buns and help myself to the largest glass of white wine on the table.

  ‘Well done. We got through it.’ It’s Father and he’s clutching a half-finished cigar.

  ‘We did. Yes. Not a bad turnout?’ We look around the room. People milling around acting like it’s a networking opportunity. I can’t bring myself to talk to any of them. My mouth doesn’t seem to work properly and I’m very light-headed.

  ‘Want a cigar? Outside?’

  ‘I’d rather have a cigarette,’ I say brightly, pretending to be normal in the hope that it’ll make me feel better.

  ‘Cigarette? Since when did you take up smoking again?’

  ‘Ha. Just need a distraction.’ I force a little laugh.

  ‘Come on then. I’ve got some Camel Lights. Remember you used to steal them to take back to school with you?’ We walk outside, pushing past a group of Father’s colleagues, who are between huge mouthfuls of pork bun and champagne.

  ‘Why did you bring that up, me taking the fags? Harbouring it for all these years?’

  Father takes a step back. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean anything . . . Mother and I . . . that was one of the laughs we used to have, about you nicking cigarettes.’

  ‘Oh. I didn’t mean to snap,’ I reply, contrite.

  ‘It’s OK. You look pale. Have you eaten?’ he asks.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Why does everyone keep asking me that? I watch the people walk past the church, voyeurs, looking at our faces. Interested in what grief looks like on these two people smoking outside the church hall. They all seem so distant, these strangers, like I’m looking at them from underwater.

  I take a cigarette and lean into the flame. I feel awkward smoking in front of a parent and inhale extra loudly to prove to him I’m doing it right. Pathetic, I think. And he offers me another when I’ve extinguished the last and, even though my head is fuzzy and I feel like I’m about to faint, I take it. My third inhale and I feel someone tap me on the shoulder. Please not now, I think. If I turn around too quickly, I might be sick. I turn to Father, who is looking past me and smiling, arms outstretched.

  It’s Rollo.

  Despite the years, I am pleasantly surprised beneath the initial shock to discover he hasn’t really changed. The skin around his neck is a little looser but I still recognise that yellow tie, the one with the small blue Scottie dogs embroidered onto it. His glasses are a little more modern. He’s got thick, black-rimmed frames that magnify his eyes into watery pools and he’s wearing a tight-fitting navy suit. ‘Josephine.’ I can hear him but I’m too busy looking behind his shoulder, heart skittering across my chest, to see if Freya’s with him. Of course there was a possibility she would turn up. Why didn’t I think of it?

  ‘Josephine?’ Father shakes my shoulder and motions with the flat of his palm towards Rollo. ‘Are you alright?’

  I think I’m about to have a heart attack so, without saying a word, I walk towards Mother’s doctor and stand there,
looking at him, waiting for him to say that I am to go to the hospital immediately. My eyes feel dry and exposed. He doesn’t stop his conversation, so I carry on standing where I am relieved he doesn’t think I’m about to die.

  From the corner of my eye I can see Father and Rollo, talking. Father’s looking over at me, palms skywards and giving me a questioning, sympathetic look. I can make out him mouthing the words ‘upset’ and ‘sorry’. I mentally kick myself for not even thinking that Rollo would turn up, after all these years. Has Freya told him she’s tried to get in touch with me? How much does he know? Suddenly, I’m so overwhelmingly terrified she’s going to appear that I put down my glass and walk out.

  I walk around the streets of London, up Sloane Street and on to Knightsbridge, all the way through Green Park and Piccadilly. I stop a few times to have a drink in some of the places in the back streets, standing silently at bar after bar, and I only realise the time when I walk into a pub with a green sign and gold writing on it, and they are calling last orders. I down a shot of tequila and order a double vodka and a thick-lipped man – he looks like he works in the City – comes up and puts his arm around me. For some inexplicable reason, I pull up my chin and stick out my chest, twirling my hair. ‘Why are you crying?’ he asks, thumbing at my face. He stinks of booze and aftershave. ‘I’m not,’ I reply.

  ‘You are. You are. Your collar is soaked. Got a boyfriend?’ he says.

  I don’t reply, just pull him by the elbow and take him to a bar down the road that I know will be open for at least another three hours.

  1996

  Freya and I have not spoken since the incident outside Mrs Kitts’s office. Thoughts of her gather speed in my head at many intervals during the day, mostly when I’m silent and alone. I haven’t really seen her either; once or twice in class where she now sits right at the back and in chapel, as a Prefect, where she’s stationed at various points shushing the younger girls. I am relieved when anything happens to distract me from her. And then finally I get the biggest distraction of all: it’s the day of the Anne Dunne Scholarship announcement, where we will find out who the teachers have put forward. Mrs Kitts had told us at House Meeting the day before. ‘Girls, you’ll find out about who has been put forward tomorrow. The list will be posted on the chapel doors, ready for the service in the morning,’ she had said.