I didn’t even need to glance at Chlo to know her eyes were filled with complete disappointment. I could imagine Oscar’s were too, especially since I’d probably demolished his chances of getting laid tonight.
I really shouldn’t have launched into a lecture about serial killers, but it was all I’d been able to think about for the last two years. Every podcast, documentary, and book I’d consumed had been hooked around an obsession with what makes a serial killer tick, although the BBCPanoramaspecial on the TellTale Killer had been bitterly disappointing.
‘What the hell was that, Ruth?’ Chlo demanded as I took another sip of my third – no, fourth – margarita, still feeling quite out of place with such an extravagant glass in the dark and dingy smoking area that also had the aroma of fresh-yet-also-stale piss. How did they manage that concoction, I wondered to myself as Chlo continued her diatribe.
‘Why are you getting so mad?’ I asked indifferently after she paused for breath for a second. ‘I didn’t think he’d be so sensitive about it.’
‘You know, murder isn’t exactly prime first-date conversation material, Ruth.’
‘So, whatisfirst-date conversation material?’ I asked, genuinely curious, I thought Google and Buzzfeed had me covered. Ben and I never really had a first date; we just sort of ended up in each other’s beds after seeing each other in a bar every week for a year, and then never left. Dating was not something that I was particularly skilled at. I had my sexual awakening to a Roman foot soldier with a chiselled jawline in a children’s book about the crucifixion and no man could ever really compare to that particular specimen ever since. Perhaps Nico’s nose and jawline weren’t far off, though.
‘Oh, I don’t know – boring stuff, like dehumidifiers, credit scores, quality bedding, your favourite type of pasta. All the mundane adult shit. But it’s universally agreed, Ruth: you don’t bring up serial killers.’
‘Well, good to know,’ I replied, being a bit facetious and also starting to feel a little bit sozzled. ‘But Nico could have been a fan for all we knew. We could have geeked out about the Long Island Killer together.’
His loss.
‘Oh my God, Ruth,’ Chlo said, incensed. She cupped her hands around her mouth, then dragged them down her taut neck as if trying to massage all of the frustration out of her facial muscles. ‘Look, I really didn’t want to tell you this before, as I thought that maybe then you wouldn’t come, but Nico’s aunt was also killed… two years ago.’
‘Oh,’ I stuttered, feeling the embarrassment and shame begin to rush to redden my cheeks.
‘Yeah, I, stupidly, thought it might have been a good idea for you to meet Nico and that the topic would come up naturally and, I don’t know, you would talk about it or connect or something; it’s not like you’ll go to a therapist or a counsellor or anything.’
She said that last bit quite dejectedly, as if she was finally giving up on the beaten and broken Toyota Aygo she’d treasured since her sixteenth birthday.
‘I’m sorry,’ were only the words I could muster, and I truly was, but I knew Chlo had heard way too many apologies from me over the past few years; I knew a part of her was fed up of trying. I couldn’t say I blamed her either. Chlo was a good friend, far better than I deserved. She had always looked out for me, and even before I lost Greta, I hadn’t treated her as well as I ought to have. People have limits, I realised, and the dial in Chlo’s brain on how she felt about me had clearly swung to the red.
‘Look, Oscar and I are heading to another bar. You’re welcome to join us,’ Chlo said with a half-defeated sigh, gesturing in that peculiar way she did with her hands when she didn’t know what to do with them.
‘No, no, I’m good,’ I murmured, not wanting to further sabotage both of their nights. ‘I should probably head home anyway; I have work tomorrow.’
‘All right. But call a cab. Don’t walk or take the Tube – that would be dumb. Wouldn’t it, Ruth?’ That felt like a parent cautioning her child not to cannonball full of ice cream into the shallow end of the pool. Her tone was a little condescending, especially in the way she called me ‘Ruth’ and not ‘Ruthie’, but I knew she meant well, she was just mad.
I nodded while at the same time tilting my head back to drain the last dregs of my margarita. Chlo was still too annoyed to give me one of her big, warm hugs goodbye, so she strolled back into the bar where Oscar was already holding her coat for her. I could feel the scorching heat of his evil glare as well as the ice-cold chill of his balls from several metres away.
‘Chlo,’ I called after her before she begrudgingly turned her gaze to meet mine. ‘I really am sorry. I didn’t mean to mess things up, I promise.’
She gestured lightly for Oscar to move on ahead without her, then approached me and reached for my hand, her fingers loosely encircling my palm.
‘I love you, Ruthie. I really do. I love yousomuch, but I think it’s time for you to move on from this.’ She steeled herself beforesaying her name. ‘Do you think Greta would want this kind of life for you?’
I instinctively pulled my hand away, shoving it deep into my pocket. ‘This isn’t about Greta,’ I muttered as defiantly as I could.
Chlo gave me a lukewarm smile; having known her for over fifteen years, I knew this was the kind of smile that said she finally understood just how much of a lost cause I really was.
‘Ruthie,’ she said softly, ‘I loved her too but for you, everything since her death has been about Greta. You need to come back to… to the rest of your life and…’
She thought about stopping herself from continuing, maybe she was trying to work out how to say this in the least painful way.
‘You need to stop living in the night she died.’
Ouch.
I knew I should have gone home, but I waited until Oscar and Chlo were out of sight before slipping back to the bar and ordering another margarita. I drank this one even faster than the first four, then decided that one more would be enough to blur my grief and pain into something minuscule, lost in the glazed, hazy blur of a ferociously spinning room, and to dull the sharp, jagged edges of the memories that had been sitting rather snugly in my head for the past two years.
Maybe Chlo was right. I knew other people who had lost friends in tragic circumstances; they all seemed able to quiet the pain and move on with their lives. So why couldn’t I? Why was I stuck in this stage of my life, like it would never end? Why was I trying to imitate a serial killer, hoping it would somehow get justice for Greta? Who does that?
I suppose I could chalk my rather heinous acts up to the sheer weight of guilt I felt, but only now was I coming to the awful realisation that maybe I was actually a terrible person. Awful people mutilate dead bodies; awful people think about telling children that Santa wants to eat Rudloph; awful people push away thepeople closest to them and end up alone. I mean, I had to admit it: I was pretty awful.
