The room is warm, lit golden by two large Tiffany lamps. I remember Grandpa used to always bring home a real Fraser fir from Craigie’s Farm every year, and for the whole of December it would sit in the front corner between fireplace and window, glittering and twinkling and shedding its needles, making the whole room smell like a winter forest. Every Christmas Eve, El and I would listen to the grandfather clock ticking ponderously down to midnight, excitedly watching the four crystal glasses full of sherry that sat waiting on the turquoise tiles of the Poirot.
Ross finally looks up at me. His face is wet, eyes red. There’s an empty whisky tumbler next to his knee, a half-full bottle. He holds it out to me. I take it and retreat a few feet, sit on the old leather recliner. The whisky is pretty disgusting, something muddy brown and far too strong, but the burn is familiar, and the warm buzz reward enough.
Ross looks down at an enlarged glossy print of him and El standing in front of a grand sandstone building with Greek columns. He’s wearing what must be the MacAuley tartan, and El is painfully stylish in a short white satin dress and red heels, her hair wound up high but loose. It’s obviously raining and windy; Ross is battling to one-handedly hold a large golf umbrella over both of their heads, and they’re leaning together, El’s hand on his waistcoat, his around her waist, laughing so hard it’s like I can hear them. It’s a beautiful picture, and when Ross goes to turn the page over, his fingers are shaking. I don’t go to him. I can’t. But something in me – warm and familiar and unwanted – hurts for him. Not the pain I felt when he told me about El going missing – fast and hot and fleeting – but deep down, like an ache. Melancholy, old. Indulgent. Like rediscovering the door to Mirrorland. And all I want is for it to go away.
Ross makes another of those terrible sounds, and then he starts to cry, great ragged sobs that make my own throat hurt, my own eyes sting. When he finally looks at me, I nearly flinch from the desperation in his eyes. ‘Christ, Cat. What am I going to do without her?’
I’m suddenly furious with El. Not pissed off, not angry, not resentful. Violently furious. I KNOW THINGS. THINGS HE DOESN’T WANT YOU TO KNOW. Because who else can she mean but Ross? Who else can she expect me to think she means but Ross?
‘I just don’t …’ He’s still crying hard, wiping his cheeks with the heels of his hands. ‘I’m just so scared, Cat. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to go on without her. I don’t know if I can go on with—’
‘Hey. Don’t talk like that. Don’t ever, ever talk like that, okay?’
I abruptly remember another Saturday inside Chief Red Cloud’s teepee, a couple of years after the first. The two of us sitting cross-legged, close enough to touch. A game of hide-and-seek maybe, or a rare occasion when El was speaking to neither one of us.
Ross was scowling. ‘I hate her.’
‘Who?’
‘My mum.’
‘Why?’ I tried to hide my excitement; the growing certainty that what he was telling me, what he was about to tell me, was something that he’d never told El.
He tried to shrug, bowed his head. ‘She hates me. And she hates my dad.’
‘Why?’
Ross was quiet for a long time, and then I heard him swallow. ‘One day after he went to work, she packed two bags and told me we had to leave. We moved here. I moved to a different school. She said I’d see Dad and my friends again. But we’re still here.’
He looked at me then, and his eyes burned with an intensity that was not quite rage, not quite pain. His whole body vibrated with it, and I was deliciously afraid. When I felt brave enough to reach out and touch his hand, I was thrilled when he gripped mine back tightly enough to hurt.
‘Today’s his birthday. I don’t even know where we used to live. She won’t tell me, and I don’t remember.’ A tear splashed against his forearm, ran down to his wrist. ‘I hate her.’
And while he still twisted my fingers hard enough to make my eyes water, he laid his head on my shoulder and sobbed so hard that he lost his voice.
El knows how much Ross loves her. And she knows how Ross loves. Completely. Absolutely. To the exclusion of all else. Is this how she wants him to suffer? Is this what she wants to reduce him to – considering suicide, however seriously, because of what she’s done? But I can’t believe that. I won’t. El is selfish and thoughtless, sometimes she’s cruel. But she loves Ross, I know that. And she would never wish death on anyone, no matter how angry she is, no matter how much she might want to punish them. I stop short, heart skipping, anger draining away. Because that’s not true. Once upon a time she did wish someone dead. We both did.
‘I’m sorry.’ Ross looks at me, presses his lips together in imitation of a smile. ‘And I’m so sorry about tonight. Everything I said. I didn’t mean that either. I was a shithead to you, and I’m sorry.’
‘It’s okay.’
His smile freezes and then falters, stops being a smile at all. ‘I just love her so much. I can’t – oh, for fuck’s sake.’ He starts wiping so furiously at his face and eyes, I want to wince. And it’s his embarrassment, his frustration at his own grief that finally makes me get up and go to him. She doesn’t deserve his tears, his despair. Much less anything else.
‘Ross, stop.’ I kneel down next to him and the photo album, cup his face in both of my hands. His eyes are worse than bloodshot, no longer white at all. His cheeks are rough with stubble, wet and red raw. I wipe them gently with the cool palms of my hands, my fingers, and he closes his eyes, goes limp. I think of his crooked smiles. The excited twist of my stomach whenever he dropped down from that skylight and into our world.
And I do it without thinking, even though I know I was planning on doing it all along. Even before I felt that old, indulgent ache. I lean closer and press my lips against his.
For a moment, he freezes, and I think about drawing back, pretending it was just a peck that landed badly, but I can’t, because I want – need – more. His smell, as unique and inimitable as that of this house, is not enough; the feel of his skin, his stubble, his tears under my fingers is not enough. I need more.
And then I get it. His hands come up to touch my face, my hair. When I press deeper, he lets me, and our kiss goes from chaste to something else in seconds. His mouth is hot, wet. I can feel the thunder of my heartbeat even in my toes. He makes a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan, and I think, Yes. Yes.
Because it’s just the same. The same rush. The same madness. Sweeping everything else away, including sense.
Ross is the one to recover his first. And I can see straightaway that it’s not the same for him. Not any more. He scrambles to his feet, but not before I see the horror on his face. He nearly tips over the whisky glass in his rush to get up and away from me. And it’s only when he has, when I realise that I’m looking at a closed door and kneeling on the floor of an empty room, that I remember to be horrified too.
CHAPTER 8
8 April 2018 at 08:45
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john.smith120594@gmail.com
Re: HE KNOWS
To: Me
CLUE 3. DRAW A CLOWN TO WARN THE TOOTH FAIRY
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El can go screw herself. I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to get up, I’m not going to go into the bathroom, and I’m not going to look. My head is pounding in twin spots right behind my eyes. My stomach gurgles and heaves, and my breath is hot and whisky sour. I’ve no idea how much of it I drank. Too much.