Tightrope

by Marnie Riches

  ‘Oh, here we go again! For fuck’s sake, Mitch,’ Boo said, swinging her legs out of bed and crossing the room just to put some distance between her and the emotionally volatile guy she called a boyfriend. She pulled her worn-out terry towelling dressing gown over her large breasts. Tied the belt, feeling unattractive and lumpen. ‘Just chill out, will you? People gossip. And if they haven’t got anything real to talk about, they make it up. You’re being ridiculous.’ Finding a tinny on her bookshelf that still had some foul-smelling stale lager sitting in the bottom, Boo took a swig. She felt instantly dirtied by it and flung the can into an already overflowing bin which attested to last night’s excess. She moved to her desk, grabbing her old plastic kettle.

  ‘Ridiculous, am I? Well, I think I love you more than you love me. I’m in danger of getting my heart broken here. Can I trust you with my heart, Boo? Can I trust you with all those other guys?’

  ‘Oh, shut your face. I’m going to fill the kettle.’ She felt vulnerable and exposed, despite having covered her nakedness. ‘And keep your voice down! I bet Holy Jo can hear every bloody word.’

  ‘I couldn’t give a monkey’s flying arsehole about Holy Jo.’

  ‘Well, I could. She’s my neighbour. I’ve got to live on this corridor. Anyway, you’ve just got a paranoid head on. You smoked too much.’

  ‘I didn’t smoke enough.’ Mitch pressed his eyes with the palms of his shaking hands. ‘Skin up, will you?’

  Wanting to placate him, Boo considered that maybe there was something worth smoking in one of the butts in the ashtray. She was sure there had been a good chunk of hash left. Where was it now? Rifling through the remnants, she spied nothing but relics of their drug-fuelled indulgence : burnt out tobacco and lipstick-stained roaches. There were two wine glasses on the desk, next to the ashtray. Hers. Mitch’s. Souvenirs of the start of the evening, when everything had been a riot and a blast. Scroll forward six hours and they still hadn’t been to sleep, though the wintry sun had risen enough to cast its dim light onto the blanket of snow that covered the college grounds.

  ‘Let me make a brew first.’

  She slid her phone into her dressing gown pocket and closed the door of her college room behind her before Mitch could interrogate her yet again.

  In the shared kitchen, beneath the unforgiving strip light that she knew made her look as much like death as she felt, she filled the kettle. Swallowing down tears along with her pride, the desperate need to hear a familiar voice that didn’t belong to Mitch surged within her. She picked her phone out of her pocket and dialled home. Expecting to be redirected to voicemail to hear the comforting rumble of her father’s voice on the recorded message, she was surprised when her mother picked up. The instant cold comfort coming down the line made her shiver.

  ‘What do you want?’ the old lady said by way of greeting.

  ‘You’re awake? This early?’

  ‘I haven’t been to bed yet. Now, what do you want?’

  ‘I’m homesick,’ Boo said in a small voice. ‘I know I said I’d be back for Dad’s birthday, but I need to come home earlier. Please.’

  ‘Running back to your parents every time you get homesick is not the point of going away to university, young lady. You need to learn self-reliance if you’re ever going to grow up.’

  ‘What skin is it off your nose if I’m at home a few days longer?’

  ‘Please yourself. Do what you want. Come home or don’t come home.’

  Her mother’s indifference bit deep. ‘Lend us some money for the train fare, then. I’ll have to change my ticket and I’m skint.’

  The old lady scoffed. ‘You’ve got some fucking cheek, you have.’

  ‘Well, if you can’t send me the money, can you come and get me?’ Boo asked, clutching the phone to her ear. Her headache was registering a 7.5 on the hangover Richter scale. Today of all days, she really didn’t need this. Not after such a heavy night.

  ‘How many times do I have to tell you? I can’t just drop everything.’ Her mother was being unnecessarily shrill, which meant she was still tanked from the previous day. Hell, perhaps she’d already had her early sharpener. Breakfast in their house. Every time she shrieked down the line, Boo felt the voice stab at the back of her eyes.

  ‘You’re drunk, aren’t you?’ Boo leaned on the water-splashed Formica worktop, tracing her finger dolefully along the grout between the standard-issue tiles of the splashback.

  ‘I don’t see that that’s any of your business, young lady.’ She was over-enunciating, as well as high-pitched. Definitely drunk. ‘If you must know, I’m preparing for my exhibition. I’ve got forty-eight hours before the doors open. Alasdair said he’s expecting some serious buyers on opening night, so I can’t let the ball drop.’

  ‘Please!’ Boo momentarily lost her balance, her elbow slipping from its anchor on the wet worktop. Her stomach lurched from the sudden movement. ‘I can’t stay here a minute longer.’ She softened her voice, hoping to appeal to whatever shred of maternal instinct still lurked inside her mother’s vodka-pickled husk of a body. The sudden tears took her by surprise, and Boo sensed the swell of the deep river of melancholy and loneliness flowing within her. ‘I need my mum.’

  But the hatchet-faced old cow was having none of it. ‘I’m not haring down the motorway to rescue you and five suitcases full of dirty washing just because lover-boy’s gone weird on you again.’

  Boo wiped her eyes roughly on the sleeve of her shabby dressing gown. The heavy, organic smell of last night’s Super Skunk clung to it. Cheap, strong lager was still pungent in her hair, where Mitch had thrown his drink on her. ‘He hasn’t gone weird. It’s just that . . . Please. Get Dad to come.’ Under the stark kitchen light, she felt just as small and lost as she had as a little girl on those nights when a tempest had raged between her parents, just on the other side of her flimsy bedroom door. She started to hiccough with tears. ‘I just want to come home.’

  ‘You’re hungover. That’s all. Get some chips down you, for God’s sake. And in future, learn to hold your drink or don’t bother,’ her mother said.

  Boo’s head pounded, as if the old lady had driven an axe into her skull. The cold sweat on her skin made her shiver. ‘Well, Jesus, Sylvia! Thanks for the sympathy.’ She knew her mother hated it when she used her first name but the old cow’s indifference to her suffering stung. ‘Do you really want me to be stuck here?’ A glance out of the window confirmed that it had started to snow again, hard. The weather was unforgiving this far north, cutting off roads and closing motorways, as though Durham was a psychopathically possessive host that didn’t want any of its visitors ever to leave. The urban warmth of home felt like a world away. ‘The snow’s so thick, if it keeps going at this rate, I could miss Dad’s big day!’

  ‘Your dad’s in one of his funks. He hasn’t got out of bed for four days. I doubt he cares two hoots whether you miss his birthday or not. And if those mates of yours are so bloody wonderful, why don’t you tap them up for cash? That Klingon of a boyfriend of yours is always declaring his undying love for you. Let him put his money where his mouth is.’

  Boo’s rage was ignited by the realisation that she was nothing more than a handy whipping boy for people around her. Making her suffer somehow compensated for their substandard lives. ‘Why do you have to be so nasty?’ she shouted.

  ‘Why do you have to be such a disappointment?’

  Enough. Boo felt like an avatar in a martial arts arcade game that had just taken a lethal kick, draining her life force to zero. She ended the call, throwing the phone against the wall. Its back came apart and the lithium battery went scudding across the floor. ‘Cow!’

  Padding back along the deserted corridor, carrying the full kettle, she was surprised to find Mitch in a state of obvious agitation, rifling through the flotsam and jetsam on her desk.

  ‘Bert’s coming with McIntyre,’ he said. ‘Your God-bothering arsehole of a neighbour dobbed us in. You need to clean up. Now!’

 
Boo felt the blood drain from her lips and the heat leech from her body. ‘Are you shitting me?’

  He shook his head. ‘She just knocked on and said she’d had enough. They’re on their way.’ Though his face was the colour of dirty snow with a fine sheen of sweat that screamed hungover, coming down and exhausted, the truth was clear in those bloodshot eyes. She closed the door.

  ‘You do the ashtrays,’ she said. ‘Empty them in the bin on the corridor below. I’ll get the empties and clear the glass.’

  ‘Get some fresh air in here,’ he said. ‘You can smell the weed right down the corridor.’ He flung the windows wide open, letting an icy blast and a flurry of fat snowflakes inside. Peered below. ‘I can see them. They’re crossing the courtyard. Quick.’ Mitch whipped the stinking ashtray off the desk, sweeping the empty packaging from Rizlas and tobacco and the damning piece of cling film in which the Super Skunk had been wrapped onto the top of the other detritus. ‘Downstairs kitchen, yeah?’

  She nodded. They were a crack clean-up team, now, working together to head off a disaster. If she got kicked out of college for possession, she’d never hear the end of it from her mother. Apocalyptic scenarios played out in her mind’s eye : facing Dad’s terminal sorrow as he picked her up and carried her cases on the walk of shame to the car park, every step taking her away from the bright future she’d planned and back towards the wasteland of home. Dad’s unshaven face, bearing its trademark hangdog expression and the pyjama top he never seemed to take off. His eyes, dulled with medication, but still acutely aware of his daughter’s failure. Back to the old soak and her ‘atelier’ that took up half the lounge and the constant influx of weirdo pals – locusts who picked the place clean of food and drink, leaving nothing behind but the resonance of empty laughter ; cigarette burns in the settee.

  Was she turning out any different?

  ‘Don’t let this happen, Boo. You can’t become her.’ As she spoke, she eyed the photograph in the dusty IKEA frame of the three of them. Sylvia, Dad, her. She deliberately placed it face-down. ‘Focus!’

  Trying to juggle empty cans and bottles was no mean feat with shaking hands. Boo failed to swallow down the dry sobs that forced their way out of her sore, swollen gullet. ‘Bin bags. Bin bags! I’ve got no bloody bin bags.’ Blind panic. There were too many cans, spilling from the top of her wastepaper basket with a metallic clatter, covering her feet in splashes of stale lager. Hearing the fire door squeak and clang as it was pushed open at the end of the corridor, she looked around the cramped room in desperation.

  Footsteps click-clacked towards her door in a rhythm that meant business. She knew it was McIntyre, the accommodation manager and Bert, the caretaker. Closer and closer, their military march coming to a halt outside her door. At least they’d knock.

  Holding the bin full of spent cans in one hand, she threw back her duvet with another, poised to spread the evidence over her crumpled bedsheet and cover it over. Air freshener. Where was the air freshener? The place still stank. She spied her deodorant on the bookshelf next to her hand-crafted decorations. Bin or spray? There was time to deal with both, wasn’t there? They’d knock.

  But they didn’t knock. Boo froze when she heard the key in the door. Yelped when she spied the large remnant of skunk, wrapped in cling film, sitting next to her purple cycle helmet. Master key in the lock. The door swung open.

  CHAPTER 5

  Bev

  Hey, Cat. How lovely to connect with you on LinkedIn. You look just like my sort of voter and what impressive credentials, you have.

  J

  Staring at the screen, Bev couldn’t help but feel a thrill that Jerry Fitzwilliam had just held open the virtual door to his world and invited her to walk through. She sank back against the headboard and grinned.

  ‘Beverley Saunders, come on down!’ she said, reading through his LinkedIn profile that listed his various professional achievements, from his years in banking in the City to his stratospheric rise in the world of politics.

  Next, she headed for Facebook, where her friend request had so far been ignored. She clicked through the various Facebook tabs to see what had been posted on his timeline and what kind of a story his photos told.

  Everything that had a ‘public’ status update was extremely formal and clearly focused on his political career.

  This is what you won’t see reported on the television. Labour MPs out in force to support the NHS along with you, the public.

  What a brilliant day I had, visiting Jaguar Land Rover in Castle Bromwich to see new car manufacturing innovation. We want British engineering to show the world how it’s done!

  The feed included numerous photos of him pressing the flesh with workers, nurses, members of the public, children, teachers . . . There was nothing evidently personal from his account. No ‘likes’ for films, music, hobbies, books. Only photos and status updates that felt like professional transmissions, the conversation threads beneath revealing a polite and chatty relationship with his adoring voters, but little else. No innuendo. No indication that he was anything other than squeaky clean and a consummate performer.

  ‘He keeps his private life very private,’ Bev reasoned aloud. She dug a spoon into a new jar of peanut butter and sucked the greasy clump off, savouring the cloying texture against the roof of her mouth. ‘This is no bloody good. I need some dirt.’

  Scrolling way back through several years, she eventually came to some posts from 2009, before he’d got into politics.

  ‘Aha! He’s forgotten to hide his past posts,’ she told the origami model of a frog on her dressing table.

  Finally, here were some clues as to who Jerry Fitzwilliam was. There was a series of photos of him with Angie. She wore only her gobstopper of an engagement ring on her wedding finger. The two were locked in an easy embrace, posing around a table with none other than Sophie and Tim. The status said it was Tim’s birthday dinner at some upmarket brasserie in Alderley Edge – all teak tables, luxuriously upholstered seating and minimalist lighting. The kind of place that was normally frequented by the region’s premiership footballers and Coronation Street stars. It was clearly the time when Jerry and Tim had worked together in finance, both commuting to the City of London for a working week spent in a shared flat in Clapham, according to Sophie.

  Birthday dinner with my brother-from-another-mother and our womenfolk.

  ‘Quite the bromance,’ she said.

  Bev wondered how she’d been unaware of the close friendship, despite decades of knowing Sophie. But then, hadn’t she and Sophie been estranged from one another for all those years because of her intense dislike of Rob? And hadn’t Sophie always quietly kept her as her ‘walk-on-the-wild-side friend’? Novelty Bev, who was always getting it wrong and who desperately needed fixing ; who made Sophie feel better about her own slavish adherence to ‘normal’ ; Bev, who wasn’t stylish enough to parade in front of those facsimile-glitterati friends?

  ‘Let go of the bitterness,’ Bev said, repeating Dr Mo’s mantra. She exhaled deeply, massaging her burning shoulders and neck until her thumbs ached. Rammed another spoonful of peanut butter into her mouth, stuffing her hurt feelings back down as she swallowed. ‘Focus!’ Back to Facebook.

  Scrutinising the photo of Angie, Bev was surprised to see that she had been rail thin back then. Had Jerry been abusing her from the outset? Or had Angie come to the relationship with problems surrounding her body weight and eating? Not that that mattered. If Angie was already emotionally vulnerable, it made sense that an abuser of women would have sought her out as an easy victim, on hand whenever he needed a sadistic ego-boost.

  Scrolling further back into the past, Bev could find nothing more. Frustrated, she searched for Angela Fitzwilliam and was surprised to see her client wasn’t on Facebook at all. The only people Bev knew in her own age group who refused to tweet or post about themselves were people like her therapy-group buddy, Doc. People who were painfully shy, ferociously private or those who had something to hide.
/>   ‘How’s about we try your “brother-from-another-mother”, then, Jerry?’

  She brought up Tim’s Facebook page. That was more revealing. The Fitzwilliams had been tagged in a number of posts from four years earlier, when Jerry had already left the City and just started in local politics, if his Wikipedia page was to be believed. There were Tim and Sophie – the bride and groom, sitting on their top table wearing beatified grins. Next to Tim, Jerry stood in his tailcoat and cravat, reading from a sheet. Mr Best Man. Photo after photo revealed the guests, including a beaming Angie, sitting at a table near the top with her infant son in a high chair.

  ‘And where were we on the big day, Soph?’ Bev said, acknowledging a sudden stab of resentment. She recalled how she and Rob hadn’t even been invited to the grand celebration at a castle in Cheshire, popular with the local new money.

  Everybody looked happy. Even where the Fitzwilliams featured in more recent photos, Bev couldn’t spot any indicators that either of them were anything but blissfully happy. No telling sideways glances that hinted at private anguish. No apparent stiff body language that pointed to an emotional gulf between them. It was all cuddles and smiles and shiny eyes.

  ‘What the hell is going on here?’ Bev wondered aloud. ‘Nobody’s that good at acting. Are they?’ But then she remembered the bruising around Angie’s neck. The woman had been petrified. Of that, Bev was certain. And she had sworn Bev to secrecy over the violence. Not even Sophie knew about it. She couldn’t find out the extent of Jerry’s abuse! No matter how tempting it would be to sound Sophie out, Bev had had to agree a moratorium on quizzing their mutual friend.

  Needing to hear the sincerity in her client’s voice to remind herself that she wasn’t on a fool’s errand, she dialled her number. Angie picked up on the third ring, the sound of crying children in the background.