‘Nonsense. You’ve been alone a long time. You were vulnerable, the stupid moron just picked up on it. You’ll always be my friend, Bea.’
‘What about Marin and Nate?’
‘Marin’s my friend too but Nate, well, I’m not sure I want to be his friend anymore. I know you and I know Nate. I know which one carries the can for this one, Bea. And it’s not the one who’s been alone for ten years bringing up her son, being a proper friend to us all.’
I lean against him, weak with relief. He’s not judging me. I might survive this after all, I think, if I still have some people who believe in me.
41
Sid
I have just settled myself perfectly on the couch with the cushions just so to rest my neck on, a cup of tea, mySaturday-morning toast and the various remotes within easy distance. My perfect Saturday morning at home. I’m still in my PJs and fluffy socks because I get cold feet. Giselle is the same, runs in the family, she said, your grandmother was exactly the same. I have only a faint memory of my grandmother because she and my mother didn’t get on; the whole happycommune-living style of life didn’t go down too well in the leafy suburb my mother came from, but that’s OK. If Granny Harrington had wanted to know me, she would have known me. So here I am: feet warm, ready to dive into a new episode of— The doorbell rings. I jerk so quickly that I spill my tea. I really do have a very intense startle reflex. Sometimes people notice it but most of the time they don’t. Cursing a little bit I put the tea on the coffee table, wipe myself down, aware that I am now drenched with warm tea and go to the door, muttering that if it’s some member of the residence committee with the newsletter about moving the bins a quarter of a centimetre to the right, then there is a very good possibility I will whack them over the head with the pottery vase in the hall. This is a Saturday morning and it’s sacrosanct. I peer through my peephole to see who is on the other side. I have to stand on mytippy-toes to do it because those little holes are made for really tall people. At this point all I can see is a bit of a neck and then I see azipped-up fleece and realise it’s Finn.
What’s Finn doing here? He’s never been in my apartment, we haven’t got that far yet, although I’ve asked him, and he’s going to cook me dinner in his tonight. What’s he doing here hours earlier when he’s due to pick me up at seven?
I open the door. ‘Hello. You’re a bit early.’
‘Can I come in? Sorry for turning up unannounced but I need someone to talk to.’
In all the time I have known Finn, which, admittedly, is not very long, he’s never looked like this, upset, anxious, distressed.
‘Sure,’ I say, letting him in, thinking, maybe he is slightly mentally unstable and is off his meds and is now going to produce a hatchet from behind his back. I really must stop watching thetrue-crime stuff. Too many people kill other people with hatchets, who’d have known? I follow him carefully into the sitting room and note that unless he has the hatchet stuffed down his trousers, he’s hiding it very well.
‘Really sorry to barge in on you like this,’ he says, and plonks himself down on the armchair, not even looking around or commenting upon thesemi-bare state of the apartment. Marc did take a fair amount of the furniture with him.
‘Do you want a cup of tea?’ I say, scooping up my cup.
‘Tea, that would be lovely,’ he says distractedly.
I’m not really sure what to do with this new distressed Finn, so I hide in the kitchen peering around the wall to see what he’s doing now. He’s sitting back staring into space and I think that this would be the time when a companion animal, preferably a cat, would be very beneficial, because the cat could go and sit on Finn and calm him. Maybe I should get one of those TV cats that you can turn on and look at. I must look into that. I return with tea and sugar, because even though he doesn’t take sugar in his coffee, which I know from having multiple coffees with him, he might with tea. He eschews the sugar, pours milk carefully into the tea and looks up at me.
‘Biscuits,’ I say, ‘biscuits.’ The one thing I’m fully supplied with at all times is biscuits, because box sets and chocolate and wine or tea and sitting on your own a lot, means biscuits. So far none of this has told on my waist but I feel sure from listening to other people around the office that there will come a point in my life when everything I have ever eaten decides to lodge itself around my belly. Still, hasn’t happened yet: onwards with the biscuits. I bring another, more chocolatey pack in and sit at the other end of the couch just in case.
‘So what’s up?’ I say.
‘It’s Nate, he has had a heart attack.’
‘Oh, oh I’m so sorry, Finn,’ and suddenly I understand. Nate, Finn and Steve have been friends since college, which is a long time ago. They are very close friends.
‘I’m really sorry, how is he, was it a serious attack? How’s Marin?’
It’s then that Finn looks at me and I see he has got a haunted cast to his face.
‘Marin is in bits,’ he says, ‘Nate is still in cardiac care and there’s more to this story.’
‘Spit it out,’ I say.
‘He was with Bea when it happened. I was round with her yesterday and apparently they had aone-night thing. It sounds like Nate tried it on when Bea was vulnerable, and she’s devastated. I mean, she is so not that person –’
‘If she’s been on her own since her son was a baby, she’s lonely, Finn,’ I said.
‘I know she is. So Nate turns up and hugs her –’
‘And gets her into bed because, God forbid, if Nate doesn’t get what he wants –’ I say harshly.
Finn is a little astonished at my tone but says nothing. ‘So he goes over there again on Thursday night and when Bea tried to throw him out, he had a heart attack. Bea brought him in the ambulance. The middle of the night.’
To my credit I don’t blink or gasp or do any of those things. In fact, I don’t know if I’m that surprised. But the feeling sends a shiver up me. I knew I was right about Nate. He went back again and Bea had to threaten to call the police.
