‘You know, in the week after the accident, I cried so hard that I literally burst the blood vessels in my eyes? I looked like something out of a horror movie. My eyes were literally red in their sockets for about four months. The only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning is knowing that the girls would want me to keep going. That is truly the only thing. Otherwise…’
‘I know,’ I tell her, holding my hands back out for her to hold. She takes them gladly, readily.
‘I know you know, sweetie,’ she replies. ‘I… just never wanted to have the kind of life that made everyone else so grateful for theirs,’ she adds, nodding at me as though to invite me into agreement.
I have an unwelcome and fairly inappropriate thought, given the circumstances. What if Ted were to come around the corner and happen upon this scene? Me, lit flatteringly in the dusky November light, being his step-sister’s strength and confidante. I keep an eye on the corner of the street, hoping against hope that he will somehow materialize.
Later that night, through a white wine haze, I check my emails and notice that Johnny has ignored my request to keep clear and has emailed forty-eight times since I left. The subject headers start as ‘WTF?’, ‘Scotland???’ and ‘ESTHER FFS’, before moving into something more malevolent: ‘I Can’t Believe You’. ‘Mortgage to be fucking paid???’ ‘Are you bloody serious?’ Just as I told him I would, I delete every last one without opening them. The ceiling feels as if it’s coming down on me, but I picture myself pushing its boundary away, holding it on my shoulders.
For the most fleeting of moments, I try to imagine what Johnny is feeling– helplessness? Frustration? Anger? He might just hate me. And yet what is wrong with taking some time out when you need it? I’ve told him that I need time to myself. What more does he want? I am numb with the effort of trying not to think about it. After a while I let it all go, like releasing a balloon into the sky. What’s done here is done.
Back on our wedding day, and unbeknownst to each other, we both ran away from the reception to our hotel room upstairs for a breather at the exact same time. Overwhelmedand euphoric, we looked at each other, barely believing we had hitched our lives to each other’s.
It was the first time our families had ever been in the same room together, and that in itself probably should never have happened. My mum and stepfather Patrick were determined to make the most out of the hotel, combing the corridors for housekeeping carts and, by extension, batches of shampoo, shower caps and UHT milk.
Johnny’s parents call him Jonathan, and are the only ones to call him that. Every time Evelyn trills ‘Jonathan’, images of church fetes and bake sales and country fairs leap to mind. Johnny’s parents are Home Counties and solid and good and decent in a way that is frankly suspicious. They adore Johnny with the dedication and fervour of parents to an only child, which, incidentally, he isn’t. He has a brother, Seb, who was put on this earth solely to be a dick. The type who will pour curry sauce on bananas and eat that while everyone else is sitting down to Sunday roast, just because. Anything to furnish himself with a personality. Anyway, ‘Jonathan’, by comparison, looks positively saintly to his parents. The man could shit right into their laps and they’d simply say, ‘Oh, Jonathan, wonderful. We’ve needed to sort the garden compost for a while.’
But even they had a hard time absolving us for this wedding reception and, specifically, my mother and stepfather’s part in it.
‘Don’t see this for what it isn’t,’ my mum had drunkenly spat earlier during the reception while Patrick propped up the bar, being arrogant and hateful to everyone. He’d just thrown a mushroom vol-au-vent at a waiter, complaining about how shit the food he wasn’t paying for was. ‘All you are doing right now is promising to do the washing upalongside another person for the foreseeable future anyway. No need to have a massive party for it.’
‘Let’s never fight, ever,’ I say to Johnny in our hotel room, emphatically. Every cell within me vibrates with determination about this.
‘Tell you what,’ Johnny says, his voice loosened by champagne. ‘If we’re ever getting into a horrible fight, let’s have a code word that means we should stop immediately. It has to remind us of this exact moment when everything was just right.’
‘Like a safe word? How about “mushroom vol-au-vent”?’ I suggest.
‘Perfect.’ Johnny laughs. ‘Oh yes, that’s the one.’
15
The following day, I go straight back to Bathurst Street as though on a serious mission, and attempt to peer through more windows without looking like some kind of creep. Just walking Ted Levy’s neighbourhood, and knowing that this is exactly what he sees in the world every day when he leaves his own place, makes me somehow feel even closer to him.
Jodie messages me on Facebook, telling me that there’s an apartment party on next weekend, out in the far reaches of the city. ‘It’ll be cool, promise. Just if you find yourself at a loose end– we could hang out, get some cocktails. There will be party favours too, so don’t worry about arranging any of that.’ The message makes the bitter taste about Carrie and Brigitte fade away. I consider going, figuring that it might be good to meet other people here and round out my brand-new social circle. Perhaps flirt with a couple of guys. It might not do any harm to have a few friends to introduce to Ted.
‘Just met Ted Levy doing his grocery shop at 7 a.m. on a Sunday in the Whole Foods in Portland!’ a random woman tweets as I comb through Facebook, MySpace and Twitter. ‘He seemed really shy, but was really sweet given that he was meeting random people at silly o’clock while picking up gefilte fish.’
Portland? What the hell is he doing there? Jesus wept, he feels further away than ever. Even further, somehow, than he was when I was in London.
The Tedettes are naturally desperate for any kind of information. I am keen to throw them a guppy; less keen to give them the full picture.
‘The hotel is nice,’ I post in a group message. ‘Nice view of downtown, although the trouser press is broken LOL so that’s me fucked if I have any board meetings.’
‘Screw the trouser press,’ Layla writes. ‘What about Levy sightings? Have you been to Bathurst Street?’
‘Not yet.’ Lying is disturbingly easy on here. ‘I’ve met a friend, Jodie. I think she’s in advertising or something.’
‘Is she a TL fan?’
‘It hasn’t come up, to be honest.’ I commend myself on sounding like a person with some level of restraint. ‘I’m just enjoying the city for now. It’s a cool place. Promise I will send a few pics from the Horseshoe and Bathurst as soon as I get there.’
Violet messages me privately. ‘What about Naomi? Have you seen her yet.’
I notice the full stop, and how it reads almost like an order, as opposed to a mere enquiry. ‘No, not yet. I sent her a message and hopefully we’ll meet up soon.’
‘Kay.’ I get the impression that while she is doubtless invested, Violet doesn’t want any of it to happen. She and I both know it– I am somehow rupturing the delicate ecosystem of our little online gang.
‘How’s things with you? How’s Adelaide? How’s your mum?’
