The morbids, p.21
The Morbids, page 21
‘So what is it about?’
The earth shifted again, just a fraction of a degree, but that was all it took. Another tsunami, water bubbling out through the drains, dissolving the ground beneath us. Liquefaction. ‘I don’t … I can’t tell you.’
‘Oh.’ He straightened, shoulders tensed, jaw locked so tight. ‘Okay then.’
‘I want to.’ I took a breath. ‘I’ve wanted to since … But I can’t.’
‘Why not?’
You’re too much.
She gets weird sometimes. It’s why my dad left.
‘I’m scared,’ I said finally.
He stared at me like I was a stranger.
‘You’re scared?’ he asked, after a long time. His voice had dropped to nearly nothing but it was so hard he may as well have shouted it. ‘You?’
There was something awful in his expression, and I couldn’t respond.
‘Cait.’ He shook his head. ‘I have been all-in here. From the beginning. Before that. Anything you wanted. Everything you wanted. I wanted you to meet my family, be a part of my life. Because I—’ Another shake. A sigh. Defeated. ‘We’ve been together for, what? Two months? And you said I was never coming to your flat and I thought you were joking.’ His voice changed. ‘But I’ve never been to your flat, have I? You don’t even let me drive you home.’
I bit my lip, looking down.
‘I don’t even know where you live.’ He exhaled.
I couldn’t answer. There was something wrong with me.
‘You told me you’ve never done this before, but then …’
A brain tumour. I had a brain tumour. God, it had to be a brain tumour. That was why I was like this. That was why I had done this. ‘I haven’t.’
Why I was still doing it. Why I couldn’t stop.
‘Come on, Cait.’ He pleaded. ‘I wasn’t just being paranoid, was I? About Dex?’
My breath caught. I just wanted it to stop. All of it.
‘I see you at work,’ he went on. ‘After work, at my place. Or the pub. You don’t talk about yourself. You joke. You tell me stories about being a kid, or who you used to be, but not …’ He looked up at the sky, at the impending missile strike that was going to take us both out. ‘As far as I know, you have exactly one friend, and when I’ve suggested meeting her, you make excuses.’
‘It’s not—’ A freak lightning bolt from a storm we hadn’t seen brewing.
‘I’ve known you for months, Caitlin.’ His voice came up again, just a fraction, another rush of anger. ‘And I have let you all the way in. And I’ve been waiting for you to do the same but you won’t. And you’re scared?’
I looked at him, not sure what to say.
‘You won’t tell me anything. You—’
‘You didn’t tell me you’d been to New York.’
The words came out before I could stop them, and as soon as they had I wanted them back. I felt naked, completely exposed.
He frowned, confused. ‘How …’ He sighed. ‘What does that—’
‘Nothing.’ I shook my head, felt my eyes get hot. I pressed the heels of my palms over them, trying to make it stop, all of it. ‘Never mind.’
‘Cait.’ His voice softened, and I knew he’d moved closer. I could almost see him, the look on his face. I knew that look.
It’s why my dad left.
I just wanted it all to stop.
‘What happened, Cait? Tell me.’ He was begging, desperate.
All of it. I wanted it to stop.
The thought pushed me back, and he had to hold on to my arms to stop me from falling over. ‘Whatever it is, we can fix it. I can—’
‘You can’t fix it.’ Owen hadn’t fixed Frannie. Twelve years they’d been together. She’d told us that once. Twelve years, and still—
‘We can try.’ He exhaled. ‘Caitlin, please.’
‘Don’t.’ I pulled away, stepped back. Lina couldn’t fix her mum. I couldn’t fix anything. My hands shifted and I could see his face again. Different now. Lost. Scared. Scaring me.
‘Please. Just tell me.’
It was so small it shattered something inside me. Glitter. Glass.
‘You want to know?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer.
‘Do you?’ I asked again. ‘Because if I tell you it’s there and then …’
I looked at his face. Still. Scared. Desperate.
‘Okay.’ I gave in. Too much. ‘Okay.’
I took a breath. Another one. He didn’t move.
‘This is a support group. People call us the Morbids.’ My voice shook. I paused, tried to steady it. ‘Do you remember when you asked me if I ever thought about dying?’
He nodded, just a fraction.
‘Well, I do. I think about dying all the time. I think about how I’m going to die, how one night someone is just going to come up behind me on the street and put their hands around my throat and drag me away.’
I tasted bile.
‘I think about that moment when it all disappears. All the ways it could happen. It’s why I don’t sleep. When I sleep I have nightmares about it. All the fucking time. All the time.’ I looked away. ‘Or I did. Until we—’
He winced, small, soft. I glanced up, at his face. Pale, even in the darkness. His jaw tight, eyes fixed on me.
‘I was in an accident. A couple of years ago. It was Matt’s birthday party and I got an Uber home, and this van just—’
I heard him exhale.
‘We got hit. From the side. Hard.’
There was glitter. And blood. At first I thought it was my blood and when I saw it I went cold, so cold I was drowning in ice, but it wasn’t mine. The windscreen had come apart and there was blood and the driver was impossibly still and it smelled like rusty nails. Hot and sour.
‘The driver was unlucky. I—’
I was fine. I had glass in my hair and when I moved my head it looked like glitter. I couldn’t lift my arm, but I didn’t say so, because I just wanted to go home. I wanted people to stop talking to me.
But I was fine. Lucky.
The baby seat had come loose and slammed into my shoulder, but I didn’t notice, didn’t even feel it, not until the next day.
‘I walked away.’ I looked down at my boots. I’d been wearing heels that night. Stupid shoes for walking. Stupid shoes for doing anything.
‘But ever since then …’ I blinked, and everything blurred. Tears again. ‘It’s all I can think about.’
The next day I couldn’t get out of bed. Everything hurt. The day after the bruise came up on my shoulder, down my arm, where the seatbelt had yanked me back. Helen, my flatmate, insisted I see a doctor. She drove me in her car and I sat in the passenger seat like a frightened rabbit, bracing for impact. The doctor said I was in shock and gave me some valium which I didn’t take because I was fine, and some painkillers for my shoulder. I took those—two with water every eight hours, and I slept and slept and slept, for I don’t know how long. All I could think about was dying, that I was supposed to be dead, I was supposed to be sitting where that baby seat was, I was supposed to have a tonne of metal and glass and moulded plastic impaled in my chest. All I could think about was that walk home. How quiet it had been, how easy it would have been for someone to snatch me, to pull me into their car. I looked at the painkillers and forgot how many I’d taken and wondered if they should have killed me too.
‘Cait …’ I saw his head shake, turn.
‘My flat smells like cat piss.’ I went on. ‘It always has. The windows don’t seal properly and the paint is peeling off the ceiling in sheets and it’s so noisy. Sometimes the trucks come so close I think they’re going to tear the walls off. And sometimes I want them to, because at least then I wouldn’t be lying there hating myself for not being able to sleep.’
He made a sound, achingly sad.
‘I moved there after the accident. It was only supposed to be temporary, because I was going to die, so it didn’t matter.’ I laughed softly. ‘I can show it to you if you want. But we’ll have to walk, because …’
I didn’t want to finish the sentence, and I knew I didn’t have to.
‘You’re right about Dex. It was a long time ago.’ I frowned. ‘It was stupid. I—’ I shook my head. ‘It wasn’t important. It felt important at the time.’ The time. The date. ‘I was having a hard time and I just wanted to feel—’
Something. Anything.
‘I didn’t come here at first, not for a few months. My doctor gave me a pamphlet and I thought it was ridiculous. I thought it would go away. It did, a little bit. Enough.’
Enough that I could get a job, enough that Lina left me alone, stopped looking at me like she pitied me, like I was pathetic. And the days ticked by. Christmas. New Year. February.
‘But then it got worse. So I started coming here. There are nurses and we talk about it and it—’ I closed my eyes, saw Frannie’s. ‘I thought it was helping, keeping me safe. I thought as long as I kept coming here, I was okay.’
Frannie. Geoff. Carlos. All of them. Just sitting there. Waiting.
‘I was careless. One time. I did one thing. One stupid, ridiculous, horrible, selfish thing, and someone died.’
‘What did you do?’
I didn’t answer. It didn’t matter. ‘I’d always been careful. I’d been so careful. My whole life. For years and years. I’d been so careful and then the one time I wasn’t …’
‘Cait.’
For a moment I’d almost forgotten Tom was there. His voice was soft and so, so sad. When I looked up his eyes were huge, defeat pushing down his shoulders. It hurt to look at him.
‘So now you know.’ I turned away.
Everything hurt. Everything had fallen over and broken as it hit the concrete. Shattered. Broken plates. Broken glass.
‘I was being careful. Coming here. It was helping.’ I shook my head. ‘I can’t believe you followed me.’
‘I’m sorry.’ He stepped forward.
‘I wanted to tell you. I’ve never told anyone.’ I gestured towards the door. ‘Not even in there.’
I’d never told them about the accident, what happened after. About taking the pills, two at a time, and sleeping for days, finally getting up and dragging myself to the corner shop to buy cigarettes, cutting my hair over the bathroom sink, because it was still full of glitter and I couldn’t get rid of it. About going back to bed and only getting up to chain-smoke in bursts, and Helen kindly suggesting that I do it further away from the windows and then kindly suggesting I look for another place to live—no hurry, just when I was ready, it wasn’t personal and she was very sorry. About ignoring all the calls from work, from Lina, waking up to find her sitting on my bed and the awful look on her face, and how nothing had ever felt the same since.
I’d never told them about Jenny. About the vomit. About how Lina had wailed.
‘From the first night, I wanted to tell you the story, the whole story. And I didn’t know why. I still don’t. But you made me feel safe and it made me want to just let it out.’
‘I wish you had.’
I glanced at him, away. Too much.
‘I just wanted you to like me.’ I swallowed. ‘I wanted to—’
It’s why my dad left.
I wanted everything. I wanted him, all of him.
Too much.
‘Caitlin.’ He stepped forward again, and this time I was too tired to step back. I let him pull me in, let him wrap his arms around me and squeeze gently and let his lips touch my forehead and I felt the heat in my eyes turn into something else. Tears. Let them fall, silently.
‘Somebody died, Tom. And it was all my fault.’
‘It wasn’t.’
‘It was.’
‘Why? How?’
I shook my head.
‘It’s okay,’ he said, his arms tightening. ‘It’s okay.’
But it wasn’t, no matter how many times he said it. Still, he held me. It felt strange, final, but I let him do it, needed him to do it, one last time.
‘I should go,’ I said, after a long silence.
His hands fell, almost against their will. ‘What?’ He frowned. ‘Where?’
‘Home. My place.’
‘Come to mine.’
I looked at him. He seemed to mean it. Maybe he actually did.
‘Cait, please.’
I wanted to. I wanted to take his hand and go with him and let him fix all of this—let him try—but I shook my head. ‘I need a walk.’
‘I’ll come with you …’
I shook my head again.
‘I’m sorry, Cait.’ He looked at the ground. ‘I’m sorry I followed you.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Are you sure? Are we …’
It was small and unsteady and I nodded, cutting it off before it gathered any air. ‘Yeah. I just need a walk. I’ll see you tomorrow? After work?’
He exhaled. ‘Of course.’
‘Okay.’
‘Cait, you know I—’
‘I know.’ I cut him off. I had to keep him from saying something he might regret, something he didn’t mean.
‘Night, Caitlin.’ He kissed me, but it felt wrong. Empty.
I tried to look at him, but I couldn’t. ‘Night,’ I said to the ground.
He didn’t move, so I did. I turned and walked away, not letting myself turn back, not even for a second.
Careful.
I walked for a long time, felt Tom’s arms around me and his breath on my forehead and saw that look on his face. Heard his voice telling me it was okay, telling me we could fix it. Wishing we could.
Jenny wasn’t careful. She was young when she had Lina. The pregnancy was an accident but Jenny was madly in love and she thought they could make a go of it. So she married Lina’s dad and they tried. She tried. She loved him so much. He was different then. Nicer. They were happy, for a while.
She told me that once, years later. Afterwards. Lina and I had fallen asleep watching TV and I’d woken up to go home and found Jenny sitting in the kitchen with a glass of wine, a pack of cigarettes next to her, not even bothering to hide them like she usually did. Maybe she was bad again then. I didn’t know. I didn’t know if Lina knew either. I’d sat with her for a while, not wanting to leave her alone. She never slept very much.
It’s so quiet here, she’d said, staring out the window at the black sky, like she was waiting for something. So bloody quiet. It drives me crazy.
You and Mum, honestly.
I walked and walked. Fast. Until it hurt my chest and I had to gasp for breath and when I smoked cigarettes they stabbed and bit at my lungs. Walked until I was hot, sweaty, my face damp; until the cold sliced at my skin like broken glass, like glitter in fairy floss. Walked until I was lost and there were fewer people and the buildings weren’t so tall, and there wasn’t so far to fall.
She said it all the time.
You and Mum.
That we were switched at birth, that we were the same, Jenny and I.
So bloody quiet.
She didn’t know how I could sleep with all the noise.
I didn’t sleep. I listened. I waited.
New York, I imagined, was never quiet. On TV it was never quiet. Even in pictures, even on postcards, it roared and beeped and flashed and wailed and clanged. It shone, but mostly it roared.
Jenny was sick, and Lina hated being there, hated seeing her like that, so we decided to go somewhere else. Somewhere loud and shiny. I thought she wanted to. I thought I was helping her. I promised I would look after her, make it better. I wanted to take her away.
I was so careful, afterwards. I was always so careful. I didn’t want it to happen to me, didn’t want to hurt like she hurt. I was safe. I did all the right things, all the safe things.
I looked after Lina. I was going to take her away, help her, like I hadn’t been able to that day. It was all for Lina …
Until it wasn’t. Until it was for me. Until I wanted it, so much it hurt. I wanted the noise, the lights, the roar. The wildness, the craziness. I wanted it so much I was willing to give up everything for it.
I was careless. Just once. Just for a second, and it ruined everything.
I had to be more careful. I tried to be careful but I wasn’t careful enough. I needed to try harder.
I walked. And I walked. And I couldn’t remember getting home.
25
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST
‘You okay, Caitlin?’
I blinked. Nic was looking at me. ‘Yeah.’
I wasn’t, and I’d forgotten how to fake it. I hadn’t slept. Not for a second. There was a shake in my words and my hands and that thing rolled up and down my spine constantly. Tom had called in the morning but I hadn’t answered. Hey, his voicemail message said. I just wanted to make sure you got home okay.
Then a pause.
I missed you. I’m sorry about last night. I got scared and paranoid and I—
Another pause, pulling himself back.
I’m glad you told me. Can we talk tonight?
A sigh.
Anyway, call me. Or I’ll see you at Sawyer’s. I finish at ten. I miss you. I—
Then his breath, catching.
Have a good day, Cait.
Then a click, and the robotic voice on my phone asking me if I wanted to listen again. And I did, over and over, and every time his breath caught in that same moment mine did. I wanted to know what he was going to say and every time he didn’t say it my heart hurt. I itched to talk to him, couldn’t stop thinking about it. Aching for it and dreading it at the same time.
‘Caitie?’
I made mistake after mistake. Little ones that nobody else noticed. The wrong wines, too much sugar syrup, skim instead of full cream.
It was quiet, even for a Wednesday, so I had no excuse. I’d already stocked the bar and started cleaning the coffee machine, but everything felt harder than it should. Nic had replaced the usual bluesy instrumentals with French electronica and it seemed to echo off the timber, off-beat. He didn’t seem to care. I looked at him, polishing glasses.
‘You okay?’
‘’Course.’
He studied me. ‘Is Tom coming in tonight?’
I tried to answer but I couldn’t. Tried to plaster on a smile and make a joke, but the cracks ran too deep and nothing seemed funny.
