reaction it provokes, if we’re recognised any longer.
It’s been five years.
At least I think it has. I’ve lost track of time, thanks to the pills.
The self-pitying pisshead two seats down couldn’t care less. We could be invisible for all the signs he’s giving. Maybe we are. Invisible. Maybe after all the needles they’ve stuck in us and the answers they’ve sucked out of us and the pills they make us eat, endlessly, like sweets – maybe we’re so empty we can’t be seen.
Stranger things have happened.
The woman behind the desk (I don’t think she’s a nurse, just an agency worker paid to pick up the phones) isn’t interested in us. I don’t blame her. Personally, I’m sick of the sight of us. Me and Esther, sitting here in our borrowed clothes, trying to be normal, or pretending to be trying to be normal, in Esther’s case. She was always a sneaky one.
No, I don’t blame Ms Agency Worker, not even when she yawns and points her eyes at the clock, wanting her shift to be over so she can go home – to what, I wonder?
A husband? A family?
I bite my tongue to stop myself thinking any further down that dead end. Just the tip, where all the nerve endings huddle. The tip of my tongue is lumpy with scar tissue, from being bitten too much. I’m not as bad as Esther, whose mouth is full of sour, watery ulcers.
I look away, down the corridor to the glass wall that can’t be broken. Most people who come here are sick or scared,worried for themselves or someone else. That isn’t us. We’re not ill, or not in any normal way. Of course they say Esther was sick, very sick. But they also say she’s better now, and that’s why we’re here.
Esther was famous once. They think maybe the people who come here, sick or scared, will recognise us. Not that they’d know me; at least I doubt it. It was Esther’s face all over the news. But I’m not sure we’re all that different – same eyes, same size – although I’m an inch shorter and less skinny, at least than Esther used to be.
A hospital porter comes to collect the pisshead and I stiffen in panic. I’m the only one who does; not much can panic Esther. She has less to lose, of course, from this experiment.
I could lose everything.
Esther’s already lost that.
I should stop ascribing my emotions to her. That’s what the therapist, Lyn, says. ‘It’s good,’ she says, ‘that you feel empathy. Empathy is important.’
So now I scrabble after empathy, like I scrabble after forgiveness. And mercy too, except I shouldn’t expect too much of that, and so I don’t.
Believe me, I don’t.
You don’t do the things we’ve done and look for mercy.
13
London
In Westbourne Grove, the flat smelt warm and starchy, of rice boiling. Dan was cooking paella. Noah dropped his keys into the bowl in the hall.
He’d done a fair job of disguising his day when he was with Ayana at the women’s refuge. Her recovery was inspiring, and exhausting. Just for a second, he wished for a normal job, something that didn’t demand either humility or courage to get through a day’s work.
In the empty hall, he did what he hadn’t been able to do all day: stood with his head bowed and his shoulders shaking, not hiding any of it. Then he straightened and put the anger away, heading for the kitchen.
• • •
Dan was frying shrimp at the stove. He’d tuned the radio to tinny pop, moving his hips in time to the beat, an easy rhythm. Noah watched from the doorway until Dan’s dance moves had him smiling. ‘Hey, sexy disco man.’
Dan didn’t hear, over the radio and the wok. He waswearing jeans and a red T-shirt, bare feet on the tiled floor. Steam had stuck his blond hair to his forehead.
Noah moved noiselessly, slipping an arm about Dan’s waist and another around his shoulders, baring the back of his neck to a biting kiss.
‘ Ow .’ Dan shook his hand, its thumb branded by hot oil. ‘Noah, you maniac . . . Get off.’
‘Mmm . . . Or I
It’s been five years.
At least I think it has. I’ve lost track of time, thanks to the pills.
The self-pitying pisshead two seats down couldn’t care less. We could be invisible for all the signs he’s giving. Maybe we are. Invisible. Maybe after all the needles they’ve stuck in us and the answers they’ve sucked out of us and the pills they make us eat, endlessly, like sweets – maybe we’re so empty we can’t be seen.
Stranger things have happened.
The woman behind the desk (I don’t think she’s a nurse, just an agency worker paid to pick up the phones) isn’t interested in us. I don’t blame her. Personally, I’m sick of the sight of us. Me and Esther, sitting here in our borrowed clothes, trying to be normal, or pretending to be trying to be normal, in Esther’s case. She was always a sneaky one.
No, I don’t blame Ms Agency Worker, not even when she yawns and points her eyes at the clock, wanting her shift to be over so she can go home – to what, I wonder?
A husband? A family?
I bite my tongue to stop myself thinking any further down that dead end. Just the tip, where all the nerve endings huddle. The tip of my tongue is lumpy with scar tissue, from being bitten too much. I’m not as bad as Esther, whose mouth is full of sour, watery ulcers.
I look away, down the corridor to the glass wall that can’t be broken. Most people who come here are sick or scared,worried for themselves or someone else. That isn’t us. We’re not ill, or not in any normal way. Of course they say Esther was sick, very sick. But they also say she’s better now, and that’s why we’re here.
Esther was famous once. They think maybe the people who come here, sick or scared, will recognise us. Not that they’d know me; at least I doubt it. It was Esther’s face all over the news. But I’m not sure we’re all that different – same eyes, same size – although I’m an inch shorter and less skinny, at least than Esther used to be.
A hospital porter comes to collect the pisshead and I stiffen in panic. I’m the only one who does; not much can panic Esther. She has less to lose, of course, from this experiment.
I could lose everything.
Esther’s already lost that.
I should stop ascribing my emotions to her. That’s what the therapist, Lyn, says. ‘It’s good,’ she says, ‘that you feel empathy. Empathy is important.’
So now I scrabble after empathy, like I scrabble after forgiveness. And mercy too, except I shouldn’t expect too much of that, and so I don’t.
Believe me, I don’t.
You don’t do the things we’ve done and look for mercy.
13
London
In Westbourne Grove, the flat smelt warm and starchy, of rice boiling. Dan was cooking paella. Noah dropped his keys into the bowl in the hall.
He’d done a fair job of disguising his day when he was with Ayana at the women’s refuge. Her recovery was inspiring, and exhausting. Just for a second, he wished for a normal job, something that didn’t demand either humility or courage to get through a day’s work.
In the empty hall, he did what he hadn’t been able to do all day: stood with his head bowed and his shoulders shaking, not hiding any of it. Then he straightened and put the anger away, heading for the kitchen.
• • •
Dan was frying shrimp at the stove. He’d tuned the radio to tinny pop, moving his hips in time to the beat, an easy rhythm. Noah watched from the doorway until Dan’s dance moves had him smiling. ‘Hey, sexy disco man.’
Dan didn’t hear, over the radio and the wok. He waswearing jeans and a red T-shirt, bare feet on the tiled floor. Steam had stuck his blond hair to his forehead.
Noah moved noiselessly, slipping an arm about Dan’s waist and another around his shoulders, baring the back of his neck to a biting kiss.
‘ Ow .’ Dan shook his hand, its thumb branded by hot oil. ‘Noah, you maniac . . . Get off.’
‘Mmm . . . Or I
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