I drew my tongue vigorously along the length of my hind leg, determined to drive the nightmarish vision from my mind. I had to remind myself that Debbie had swiftly dismissed the possibility of moving out, and she had even promised to speak to Linda about her leaving. When Jo had finally left the café and they were both slightly the worse for wear, Jo’s parting words to Debbie had been, ‘So, don’t forget: you’re going to talk to Linda tomorrow.’
Debbie had nodded emphatically. ‘Absholutely,’ she had slurred, ‘I’m going to give Linda her marching orders. Or, if not, I’m going to send her round to your place!’
I drifted off to sleep, comforted by the thought that, as long as Debbie kept her word, there were grounds for hoping that the long ordeal of living with Linda might soon come to an end.
During the night, however, Debbie thrashed around under her duvet, waking up almost hourly to gulp down water from the glass by her bed. When her alarm clock sounded in the morning, she emerged from underneath the covers with dark shadows beneath her blood-shot eyes. She yanked the cord of the venetian blind and winced painfully in a shaft of early-morning sunlight.
Debbie was waiting for the kettle to boil in the kitchen when Linda finally stumbled out of the living room, looking similarly sallow-skinned and scarecrow-haired. She had not returned from her night out until after Debbie had gone to bed, and I guessed she too had been drinking. I had heard her unsteady footsteps in the hallway, and her tipsy shushing of Beau as she opened the living-room door.
Linda skulked around the hallway while Debbie stood watching the gurgling kettle.
‘Morning,’ Debbie grunted, to which Linda mumbled something indistinct in reply. They seemed in unspoken agreement that no conversation would be attempted until after they had both had a cup of tea. I stalked between the living room and kitchen while they prepared their breakfast, waiting twitchily for Debbie to fulfil her promise to Jo.
After they had consumed tea and toast, and the colour had begun to return to their cheeks, Debbie asked how Linda’s evening had been. Linda launched into a tirade of gossip about her friends, to which Debbie listened patiently, her face a mask of polite indifference. ‘She kept insisting it wasn’t Botox,’ Linda smirked conspiratorially at the conclusion of her complicated narrative, ‘but I’ve never found a face cream that effective.’ She raised her eyebrows and gave a knowing look over the top of her mug of tea.
Debbie gave a fake sort of laugh, waited for a moment until she was sure Linda had finished, then sat forward earnestly in her chair.
‘Look, Linda, I need to ask you something . . .’ she began, when suddenly a bedroom door flew open above us.
Sophie thundered down from the attic, complaining that she had overslept and was meant to have met her friend Jade twenty minutes ago. Debbie was quickly sucked into dealing with the crisis, helping her daughter find her shoes and purse, while Sophie frantically called Jade on her mobile phone. By the time Sophie was fully equipped and running downstairs, Linda had disappeared into the bathroom.
The moment had passed, and Debbie had no choice but to set about tidying the living room while Linda showered.
When Linda finally emerged from the bathroom in a gust of fragrant steam, she blithely announced, ‘You know, I think it’s about time Beau took a bath, too – he’s been smelling a little . . . doggy . . . recently.’ Under Debbie’s disappointed and faintly disapproving gaze, Linda crouched over Beau on the living-room floor. ‘Isn’t that right, baby? Who’s a smelly boy? Yes, you are!’ she cooed, as the dog rolled onto his back and showed his belly submissively. She scooped the greasy-haired animal into her arms and carried him through to the bathroom, locking the door behind her.
Once Beau had been shampooed and blow-dried, Linda placed him on the sofa, where he sat wide-eyed and motionless, looking like a shell-shocked teddy-bear. No sooner had Linda sat down at the dining table with a newspaper than Debbie started to speak: ‘Linda, I’ve been meaning to talk to you—’
This time Linda’s phone began to beep, vibrating urgently on the dining table next to her newspaper. ‘Sorry, Debs, I’d better just get that,’ she apologized. It was a text from Ray, and Linda spent the next few minutes composing a reply, which entailed much frowning, eye-rolling and furious tapping on the screen.
Debbie sat beside her in silence, flicking unenthusiastically through the pages of an old magazine.
I could tell that, the longer the conversation was put off, the more anxious Debbie was becoming. I began to worry that if she didn’t speak soon, she might lose her nerve completely. However, once Linda had dealt with Ray’s text, Debbie pushed the magazine aside and took a deep breath. ‘Linda, we need to talk—’
The landline started ringing. Debbie groaned at the interruption and looked up at the ceiling in despair.
‘Hold on a second, I’ll just get rid of whoever that is,’ she said to Linda, holding up a hand in a ‘Stay there’ gesture. She dashed across the room to the telephone in the alcove. ‘Hello? Yes, this is Debbie.’ As she talked, she kept her eyes fixed on her sister, as if compelling her not to move. She listened intently to the voice on the other end of the line, then suddenly turned away to face the wall. Her voice, when she answered, had dropped in pitch and volume. ‘Oh, I see. I’m so sorry.’ I stared fixedly at the back of her head, trying to quell the rising panic in my gut. ‘Thank you for letting me know,’ she said shakily, before putting the phone down.
‘Something wrong?’ Linda asked, cuddling the fluffy-haired Beau, who had recovered sufficiently from his bath-time ordeal to slink over to the table and jump into her lap.
When Debbie turned around, her eyes were brimming over with tears and her lip was trembling.
I padded across the rug to sit at her feet. The blood was rushing in my ears and I knew with absolute certainty what the phone call had been about. The question was: did it concern Eddie or Jasper? Or both of them . . . ?
Debbie lowered her eyes to look at me, and I saw a tear slide down her cheek. ‘Oh, Molly, I’m so sorry. Margery’s died.’
I felt as though the ground beneath me was falling away. I peered up at Debbie and tilted my head in confusion. I had been so convinced I knew what Debbie was about to say that her words seemed nonsensical. I stood there, feeling suddenly empty, my mind blank with shock. Then, as Debbie crouched down to stroke me and I began to process what I had heard, the first thought that came into my mind was: at least it wasn’t Eddie. Almost immediately I was hit by a wave of guilt; how could I think such a thing, at a moment like this?
Debbie was stroking my head, doing her best to comfort me, but comfort was not what I needed. I felt confused and numb, and I was suddenly seized by the realization that I needed to be on my own, to absorb in private what had happened. I bolted out of the room, down the stairs and out through the cat flap. I paused to look around me, in a blind panic, wondering which way to turn. Almost immediately I realized that I needed to go to my safe place: the fire escape in the alleyway. I ran around the side of the café, tore along the passage and made straight for the iron stairway.
My mind whirred as I tried to remember when I had last seen Margery. Somehow it felt important to recall our final encounter, and her last words to me. Then it came to me: it was that stormy Sunday – the very day, in fact, when Debbie realized Eddie was missing. Margery had been distracted and agitated and we hadn’t stayed long, and had bumped into David on our way out. My throat tightened when I realized that, the last time I had seen Margery, she hadn’t even seemed to know who I was.