Doll by Nicky Singer

times.”
    “How can you be so sure?”
    “Because every time her mother goes in the sin bin—”
    “Detox clinic, darling.”
    “Tilly’s gran brings her to school. But her gran doesn’t drive her to the gate. Too embarrassed apparendy. Drops her about three roads away. Makes her walk.”
    “The poor girl,” said Susan Spark. “The poor, poor girl.”
    “Still,” said Mrs Van Day. “No need to take it out on Mercy. What would be the justification for that?”
    Was it then that Jan left the room, mumbling something that might have meant he needed to relieve some bodily function? But he came to his room, and now Mercy has come. As he knew she would. He looks at her beautiful mouth. The chilli seeds were like nettle stings on her lips, she said.
    “What is it with these seeds?” Mercy says. “What part of them stays on your hands? I just rubbed my eye and hey presto – sting sting sting. So I’ve just had to wash again,” she adds, as if it’s an explanation for her being upstairs.
    The skin of her eyelids is pale and transparent. He can see thin blue veins. How delicate she is, he thinks.
    “I’m sorry,” she says then, “about – well, the restaurant.”
    “Sorry?”
    “You must have thought …”
    He thought nothing, just watched the way her face dissolved to bone.
    “You know, it can’t have been pleasant to watch.”
    And this is it, of course, her fear, the thing she wants to say. She is afraid that she lost control. That she looked ugly. But, even contorted, Mercy’s face could not be ugly.
    He shrugs. “Not your fault,” he says inadequately. But how can he talk about beauty and bone?
    There’s a pause and then Mercy asks: “Do you know her, then? Tilly?”
    What is he to say? He has seen the girl but not met her. Been addressed by her but made no reply. She walks in his dreams.
    “Only the way she looked at you…”
    “No,” he says, “I do not know her.” The words are true, but not true. They sound like a betrayal.
    Something in Mercy’s body seems to relax. She smiles. “I’ve known her for ever. We used to be friends. Good friends, in fact. In the days when she was charmingly eccentric as opposed to seriously weird.”
    He waits. Perhaps he was wrong. Perhaps this is what Mercedes Van Day has come to say.
    “Not that it was ever an ‘equal’ friendship, even at the beginning,” Mercy continues. “She was always a little, well, secretive. Kept something back. And, of course, she never invited me to her place. Even though she came to my house quite often. I never knew why. Until I called on her unexpectedly one day.”
    He says nothing, but his head is lifted.
    “She tried to stop me coming in. Said her mum was asleep. ‘Don’t worry’ I said, ‘we can tiptoe.’ Well, we did tiptoe, right past her mum who was lying on the sofa in the drawing room. Then there was a moan, and a sort of choking noise and then her mother rolled off the sofa and landed on the floor. In a puddle of her own vomit.” Mercy pauses. “It was disgusting. And do you know the worst thing? Her mother nevereven moved. Just lay there. Where she’d landed. Anyway, afterwards Tilly denied it happened. Said I’d made it up. Called me ‘a filthy liar’. Said that at school, in front of everyone.” She smiles again. “I’m afraid our friendship took a bit of a downhill turn after that.”
    Mercy crosses the room to where Jan’s guitar is standing against the wall. She strums a finger across the strings.
    “Are you going to play at the Celeb Night?” she asks.
    Jan shrugs.
    “You should. Your mum says you’re amazing.”
    He winces.
    Mercy laughs. “Go on. I’ll put money on you.”
    “Mercy!” It’s Mrs Van Day calling. “We need to go. Cindy’s coming!”
    Mercy looks at her watch. “Oh – the dressmaker.”
    Jan gets up and as he does so, Mercy catches sight of something in his hand.
    “What’s that?” she asks. “Oh God, it’s not the doll is it? Oh, it is, let’s see