And Cee doesn’t need to hear any more than that. She moves at pace, sheathing her knives and disinfecting the surfaces, turning off the harsh strip lights and slamming the heavy metal door behind her. In the taxi, she winds down the window, because it’s what she’s been told to do. They say to wash your hands for thirty seconds at a time, a death sentence for her already-raw knuckles. They say to be wary of people with coughs, to wear a mask, to not touch anything on the tube. I have three children, she wants to say. Licking railings is practically a vocation for them. So she worries about her sons, and her restaurant, and her sister, and everything else. Cee likes to be in control, and the entire world is spinning out of it. The taxi moves quickly towards Clara’s rented flat, up Shaftesbury Avenue, past Tottenham Court Road and into Bloomsbury. She stares out across empty streets, a city in the process of shutting down.
‘Hello?’ Cee says, into the Ring doorbell outside Clara’s flat in Islington. No answer. ‘Are you serious? You asked me to come.’
Cee rubs her thumb and forefinger together, wonders who else has pressed this doorbell. She squirts some sanitiser into her hands, swears under her breath. She hadn’t even realised her sister was back in town. They’re both so stubborn, both so focused on their own things. It’s only your third baby. It’s only your second film. Clara has become more flighty and fickle than ever. They’ve fought, about Clara’s self-sabotage, about Cee’s self-righteousness. Cee feels as furious as anyone at Clara’s insistence on burning bridges just for something to do. And yet, she feels guilty, too. With Seb, Clara had stabilised. The three siblings had finally found some even ground. Now Seb is gone, and the stabilisers are off, and Clara’s cries for help have once again been falling on deaf ears. Cee should have listened. They’re Cowans, after all. If the world doesn’t like them, they have to look out for each other.
A click, and the door to Clara’s building opens. Cee steps inside, finds it chilly. The walls are bare. The only other flat is dead silent. She climbs the stairs, sees that Clara’s door is already open. Inside, another ghost town. Expensive art on the walls. Furniture that came with the place. A kitchen that has never been used. Cee traces a finger along the spotless hobs, peeks around the corner at Clara’s unmade bed.
‘Hello?’ she shouts.
A quiet reply from the en suite bathroom. ‘I’m in here.’
Cee follows her sister’s voice, preparing her scarf as an impromptu face-covering, worried that Clara is ill, not knowing what illness means right now and whether she’ll be alright, whether any of them are going to be alright. The bathroom door is ajar, and Cee pushes it open with her foot. Clara is onthe floor. She’s wearing a creased set of silk pyjamas, and she’s sitting next to the toilet, folded in on herself, wet-eyed and wide-eyed and staring up at her sister like she doesn’t know what to do.
‘What is it?’ Cee says.
And that’s when she sees the pregnancy test.
a wrong number
He doesn’t answer the phone to unknown callers. But the woman leaves a voicemail, which is how he knows she’s got the wrong number.
Seb,she says.How are you?But perhaps this sounds wrong; she changes her tone.I don’t know how long it’s been since we last spoke. I don’t even know if this is still your number.Traffic in the background. She’s outside, on her own.Things aren’t good. I don’t know why I felt the need to call and tell you that. But I always told you everything. Only you.He imagines her, this unknown woman, drawing her arms in tight.No one saw me until you. Now I’ve lost you, and everyone’s looking, and I’ve never felt more invisible.She sniffs.There was an email I never sent. There were so many things I wish I’d done differently.She sounds nervous, on the verge of hysterical tears.‘I’m done’ can mean different things, can’t it? This conversation is over. Our life is over.The sound of several slow breaths, like she’s trying to steady herself.There’s something you should—Her voice cracks.There’s something I have to—She still can’t say it.I don’t know how to do this without you. I don’t know what to do. I thought I’d know who I was without you, but I don’t. I hoped I’d be over it by now, but I’m not. And theworst thing is, I don’t know where you are, so I don’t know how to find you. Or maybe I do, and that’s worse. Maybe I know that you wouldn’t want me to find you, if I did.
The sound of another woman’s muffled voice, a sliding door.
Happy birthday, Seb, the caller says.And—She bites back a sob.I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.Someone is trying to coax her away from the phone.Everyone needs people, remember? And I need you. So come back to me. Please come back to me.
The voicemail ends. Because it’s a wrong number, the man who received it presses ‘delete’.
nora, 0
Nothing, at first. And then, everything.
Darkness, then light, togetherness, then
the opposite.
She is no longer one with her mother.
Instead, she is one with everything else.
Born with her most primitive senses, touch being the strongest.
Strange hands hold her up to lights that are too bright,
then place her down on skin she recognises.
She is. She is. She is. She is
Hungry.
She exists in an immediate world.
Hungry. Hungry.
She can hear only loud noises.
Hungry. Hungry. Hungry.
