by Byrne, Tanya
I stepped forward then, an eyebrow raised. ‘Everything?’
‘That’s enough!’ Sid barked, standing between us before I could say it, scream her name until my lungs burned. ‘Enough!’
‘Sid—’ she started to say, but he shook his head.
‘No, Nancy. I don’t want to hear any more.’
‘But, Sid!’
‘But, Sid nothing. Do you know that my mother is in intensive care right now?’
She stepped back, but she still looked livid. ‘Of course I do!’
‘So why are you bringing this drama to me right now?’
She laughed and pointed at me. ‘She behaves like a whore and it’s my fault?’
‘Stop calling her a whore,’ he said and my heart doubled in size.
‘I knew you’d defend her.’ Juliet shook her head, but he was unmoved.
‘I don’t know what happened, but you only have to look at Rose to know she’s messed up. I mean, look at the state of her. She’s a wreck.’
Juliet looked me up and down. ‘We all have problems, Sid, but most of us can deal with them without drinking ourselves stupid.’
He crossed his arms and titled his head. ‘What? Like my mum?’
There was a painful silence after he’d said it. Juliet’s jaw clenched.
‘All I’m saying,’ Sid continued, ‘is that Rose needs help and I don’t care if she threw herself at Mike, he didn’t have to catch her. She’s sixteen. She needs someone to be there for her, she doesn’t need some dirty old man trying to get his leg over.’
Juliet slapped him then, so hard he staggered back.
Then I was between them. ‘Go back to your mum, Sid. I’ll deal with this.’
He didn’t move, so I nudged him back with my elbow. ‘Go. It’s okay.’
He did and as soon as Juliet and I were alone, I stepped forward. She stepped back into the railing. ‘Touch him again and I’ll cut your heart out,’ I told her, and I’d never sounded more like a Koll.
Dad would’ve been proud.
She lifted her chin to look at me, her eyes wild and bright and there she was at last, Juliet Shaw, not Nancy Wells. The Juliet Shaw who stabbed my father in the back and brought my whole world crashing down around me. And I knew then that was it.
I was ready.
‘Shut up,’ I told her. As soon as I did, she opened her mouth to say something. I lifted my finger. ‘I said shut up. That’s enough. Enough. We’ll talk about this later.’
She nodded, and I looked at her, really looked at her for the first time, right in the eye. And I didn’t care what she saw, if she saw Rose or Emily.
I wanted her to see.
Val killed herself this morning. When they found her, they made us go to our rooms and wouldn’t let us out until we’d spoken to Doctor Gilyard.
I didn’t have anything to say. I mean, it’s shit, but Val was obviously miserable. Maybe she’s better off. So what Doctor Gilyard wanted to talk about, I don’t know, but she sat in my room for an hour. I know it was an hour because the door was open so I listened to the whole of the one o’clock news before I kicked off my blanket and sat up.
‘Val killed herself. So what?’ I shrugged. ‘Can I have a fag now?’
She looked at me for a long time, then she wrote something in her notebook.
I rolled my eyes and went to stand by the window, looking through the bars at the sad roll of the clouds. The weather had turned again; the sky was pale blue and there was no chill from the glass, no frost gathering at the corners of the window like cobwebs.
‘Maybe it’s you who needs to talk to someone,’ I told her with another shrug.
She looked up then. ‘Why’s that, Emily?’
‘You couldn’t help her. You’re not helping me.’
She looked down again, but she didn’t write anything. ‘What makes you say that?’
‘This isn’t working.’
‘What isn’t working, Emily?’
‘This, this whatever you’re supposed to be doing, isn’t working.’
‘In what way isn’t it working, Emily?’
‘I’m not—’ I stopped, my eyes following a bird as it dipped then soared again.
‘You’re not what, Emily?’
‘Better.’
It was very quiet after I’d said it. I could feel the silence between us, thick as smoke, touching the walls, filling the corners.
‘Do you want to get better, Emily?’
I do. I used to be able to do this. I used to be able to put food in my mouth and taste it. I used to be able to close my eyes and sleep. Do normal things like paint my nails. When I think of those September afternoons in the park with Sid and Juliet, eating crisps and squabbling over what film to see as the sun melted behind the trees, it feels like for ever ago. Will I ever do anything that normal again? Will I forget? Forget the chill of sitting on damp grass? Will I ever look up at an endless blue sky, or will I only see it in strips from now?
I heard Doctor Gilyard writing and turned towards her again.
‘You look worn out, Emily. I’m going to give you something to help you sleep—’ she started to say, but I wouldn’t let her finish.
‘No!’ I hissed, my fists clenched. ‘No more pills!’
‘Emily—’
I lunged towards her. ‘No more pills! Is that your answer to everything? Talk. Take a pill. Talk. Take a pill. Talk. Take a pill. Talk. Take a pill.’
When she didn’t flinch, I snapped. ‘Do something! Will you just do something!’
‘Do what, Emily?’ she asked, and when she took her glasses off to look at me, I wanted to reach for her shoulders and shake her. But I was so rigid with anger, I couldn’t move; I was sure my spine would snap if I did.
‘Help me!’ I said. Begged. ‘Help me!’
She stood up then, turning to put her notebook on the chair, and the shock of it made me take a step back.
‘Okay, Emily. Come with me.’
‘Where?’ I asked, my cheeks stinging.
She didn’t wait for me to respond, just walked out of my room.
When I followed her on to the mezzanine I could smell chips. That’s all this place smells of: chips. Chips, rolling tobacco and something else, something metallic. Whatever the doors and keys are made of, I guess. That smell you get on your fingers when you’ve been holding a handful of pennies.
I listened to the tap of Doctor Gilyard’s shoes on the steel stairs as she walked down them and when she got to the bottom, I peered over the railing. I watched her go into the TV Room, but before I could tell myself not to give her the satisfaction of doing what she said, I ran down the stairs and followed her in.
When I saw the cello, I took a step back.
‘No.’ I shook my head. I knew she was going to do that.
I knew it.
‘Emily—’ she started to say, but I shook my head at her again.
‘No.’
‘Emily—’
‘No.’ My heart was beating so hard, I thought I might fall over. ‘No. Not here.’
She frowned. ‘Why not here?’
I pointed at the cello. My hand was shaking, but I didn’t care if she saw it. ‘Not here. Don’t bring that in here. You can’t bring that in here.’
‘Why not, Emily?’
‘I won’t play it. I won’t. I won’t go near it.’
I stepped back into the doorway to prove the point. We stared at each other for a moment, me with my arms crossed, her with the cello standing next to her like a faithful dog.
‘It might help, Emily.’
‘How?’ I roared, so loud I’m sure I felt my bones rattle.
‘I know what you think of music therapy, Emily, but—’
‘No! I won’t play that here!’
‘Why not, Emily?’
‘Because it’s beautiful!’ I told her, charging back into the room to stand opposite her. ‘It’s beautiful and I won’t let you ruin it!’
‘Why would playing it here ruin it, Emily?’
<
br /> ‘Because it’s miserable here! Miserable and grey and hopeless and that is so, so beautiful.’ I pointed at the cello again. ‘It can make sounds that will lift you right out of your shoes. I won’t let you ruin it. I won’t.’
She nodded. ‘And because when you played it, you were at your most happy; when you were at St Jude’s; when you were with Sid.’
‘Stop.’
‘You can be happy again, Emily. You will be happy again, Emily.’
She held the bow out to me and I shook my head. ‘No.’
We stared at each other, the bow between us. When I heard my heart beating in my ears, I realised how quiet it was. It was strange. The television was off, I realised, and it made my heart beat harder. I thought of Val then, pictured her hanging from that pipe in her cell, her feet not quite touching the floor and something in me finally gave way.
I snatched the bow from Doctor Gilyard. ‘Fine.’ I felt my blood bubbling – burning – as I reached for the cello, too. ‘But we need an audience.’
I paced out of the room, the rubber endpin of the cello bouncing on the lino as I swept into the mess. Doctor Gilyard followed me in as fourteen heads looked up from their plastic plates of chips and over-cooked sausages.
I dragged a chair into the middle of the floor and sat on it. I didn’t touch the cello the way I did that afternoon in the music shop in Camden, with awe – with longing – I just parted my knees and put it on the floor, my hand grabbing at the neck as I dragged the bow across it. It made the most awful sound, nails-on-a-chalk-board awful, and I felt everyone in the room wince. I looked up at Doctor Gilyard then, Doctor Gilyard in her neat black heels and her neat black pencil skirt, and I did it again and again until the cello was screaming out. The sound was so painful – so vicious – and when my eyes darted over to the table to find no one looking at me any more, I realised that is what I do to people, I make them look away, as though I’m a mad man who has stumbled on to their carriage on the tube ranting about God.
So I stared at the table, at the fourteen heads dipped, staring at their half-eaten dinners, and played harder and harder until I could feel tears spilling off my jaw. I wanted to hurt them, to make them listen to the sound I heard in my head all the time, the battle between the Emily I was and the Emily I actually am so they could know what it’s like.
So they could hear how it’s killing me.
But from nowhere, my bow grazed the strings at just the right point to produce a sound so clear – so sweet – it made me shiver. So I tried to find it again and when I did, I shivered once more. I can’t remember the last time I shivered like that, the last time I felt so light. It wasn’t happiness, I know, at least not the happiness I felt at St Jude’s or when I was with Sid, but it was enough to make me play until the cello sang, until I was breathless and everyone looked up from their dinner. Until Doctor Gilyard stepped closer and nurses began to hover in the doorway. Until I lifted each one of them out of their shoes.
This is why I didn’t want to play the cello, because I knew this would happen, that I wouldn’t sleep, that playing again would make my whole body hum with heat and hope, like it did that afternoon at the music shop in Camden when I thought I could do anything. That I could fly.
I have so much I want to say; I can’t write it quickly enough. There’s a dent in my finger from holding the pen so hard. I know we’re getting to the good stuff. This is what you want, right? You don’t care about who I was and how I felt and my inane conversations about tattoos. You just want to know what happened, why I did it. That’s why you’re reading this, right?
So okay, this is why I did it.
Sid came to my flat after I had had the fight with Juliet.
He’d never been to my flat before – I didn’t think he knew where I lived – but there he was when I opened the front door, pale and exhausted, his hands in his pockets.
‘I can’t go home,’ he said before I could say hello, and he sounded out of breath, as though he’d run all the way from the hospital.
‘You shouldn’t be here,’ I told him, but I stepped back to let him in and he followed me, peeling off his jacket as he kicked the door shut behind him.
‘You okay?’
‘What are you doing here, Sid?’ I asked, walking into the living room. But I knew. As soon as I saw him, I knew.
I waited for him to say it, my hands shaking as I leaned down and picked my box of cigarettes off the coffee table. When I turned to face him again he was watching me as I lit one. I don’t know if he was waiting for me to take a drag then hand it to him, but I didn’t.
‘I came to see if you were alright,’ he said, taking a step towards me.
He was staring at the heart-shaped bruise darkening on my cheek, so I turned my face away. ‘I’m fine.’
‘Are you?’
I took a drag on my cigarette and blew the smoke towards the television. I remember that there was an ad on for a furniture shop or a supermarket, or something. I remember this little boy in red tartan pyjamas ripping open a Christmas present. When ‘Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree’ started playing, I snatched the remote off the sofa and turned it off. Then the flat was too quiet – too still. It made my heart pounding in my ears sound even louder. It was so loud that I half expected my neighbour to start banging on the wall, telling me to shut up. So loud that I almost didn’t hear him say, ‘You didn’t, did you?’
‘Do what?’ I said, and I don’t know why. I wanted to hear him say it, I guess.
‘Sleep with Mike.’
‘What’s it to you?’ I leaned down and stubbed my cigarette out in the ashtray on the coffee table. ‘I can sleep with whomever I like.’
I made a point of looking at him then, made myself look him in the eye.
‘No.’ He shook his head. ‘No. You wouldn’t.’
‘Wouldn’t I?’
He lifted his chin, adamant. ‘No. The Rose I know wouldn’t do that.’
I almost laughed.
Rose.
We stared at each other across the living room for a moment and looking back on it now, I think he might have loved me. I’d catch him looking at me sometimes, not like he looked at Juliet, I admit, but we’d be walking through the park, arguing about song lyrics and he’d look at me like he was trying to decide, like he was waiting for me to make him laugh one more time or to mock him for his weakness for Springsteen and then he’d know for sure. And I could have loved him too. That wild, uncontainable kind of love. Let’s-pack-a-bag-and-run kind of love. The sort of love that starts wars and brings down governments.
So Doctor Gilyard’s right; I could have let myself be Rose. He would never have known. I could have grabbed him and kissed him until he couldn’t breathe, until he forgot every word he knew except for my name. But he wasn’t looking at me, was he? He was looking at Rose Glass. And I’m not Rose Glass. I’m not sixteen. I’ve never lived in Barnsbury. My hair isn’t even red.
‘I wish I could be who you think I am,’ I told him and he frowned.
‘But you are.’
I thought of Juliet then, of what she had done, of what I wanted to do to her, and something in me reignited.
‘You don’t know me, Sid. You don’t know what I’ve done. What I’m capable of.’
He took a step towards me. ‘I don’t care. It doesn’t matter.’
‘It does. It has to. It’s who I am. It’s made me who I am.’
‘Don’t say that. You can be whoever you want to be, Rose,’ he said, and I smiled.
That was the last time I let anyone call me Rose.
He didn’t want me, that’s why I did it. That’s what they say in the papers, isn’t it? Hell hath no fury, and all that. But the truth is: I chose her not him. Emily not Rose. I know what I did to Juliet. I hold my hands up to it, sign my name across it. I know what she lost, but I lost something too, you know. I could have been happy.
I could have been happy.
But that doesn’t sell newspapers, does it?
You know the rest: how it ended, under that tree in Brighton. I don’t how Juliet got there; I think she ran all the way from London. When she found me at the top of the hill, she sounded so out of breath that she could have. I don’t know how she found me, either, under that tree, the one by the cottage with the red-painted shutters. I don’t even remember giving her the address when I called.
But there she was.
‘Rose!’ she gasped, running towards me.
It was what I wanted, her wide eyed and terrified and me ready, at last. When I called her sobbing, I knew she’d come. I’m going to kill myself, I told her, I’m going to drag a knife across my wrists and bleed out into the grass. Earth to earth. But when I saw her, I was furious. She came. Even after everything I’d done, she came. She shouldn’t have. She should have told me to fuck off, told me that we weren’t friends any more, told me to call Mike. But she didn’t and I hated her so much then.
Have you ever met someone like that? Someone so good – not perfect, but good – that they make you feel rotten? If Sid made me feel like I could fly, then Juliet made me feel like I’d never leave the ground, that I’d live out the rest of my days in the gutter.
‘Rose,’ she gasped again when she got to me.
When I’d left London, the weather was foul, the sky grey and the clouds so thick you couldn’t tell if it was night or day. But suddenly, the sun punched through the clouds and I could see for miles. Miles and miles. All I could see was her, her lips parted and the sunlight catching on her eyelashes, and I was ready at last – at last – but then I saw Sid.
He looked terrified. ‘Ro,’ he called out as he ran towards me.
‘What are you doing here?’ I wanted to roar, but it came out as a whisper.
He wasn’t supposed to be there. See? I told you not to believe everything you read, it was just supposed to be me and Juliet. But there he was.
I turned to Juliet. I thought of her sitting on the floor of that bookshop with a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird between her fingers and I felt my resolve harden.
‘Why did you bring him?’ She didn’t answer, but I knew and I was giddy. ‘You need him,’ I told her with a slow smile. I’d always known she loved him, but she needed him. As long as I’d known her, she’d never needed anyone, but then she did.
