God, I wish I smoked right now. Susie demanded I give up that vice and then hers contributed to her getting killed.
I head out and adjust my body language to ‘do not speak to me please’ which is contained in the determined scowl, the tension in my shoulders and the lack of eye contact. It works, in part at least as I think people know not to hassle a solo mourner.
I find a table at the edge of the terrace and set my wine down. The bitter temperature is a sobriety aid and the view of the city rooftops at night time is quite lovely. Aided by a deep swig of white wine, I try to find some sort of inner calm.
I briefly imagine standing on the wall, like I’m a swimmer on a diving board, and plunging into the ink-dark tangle of bushes below. Rolling and bouncing down the hill towards the road, until I hit something hard enough to stop me. It feels more appealing than it should.
I glance back at the wake, staring resentfully at the throng beyond the steamed-up windows. What I hate is, yes, of course they’re sorry this happened, but their lives will resume, seamlessly, as soon as they leave.
Nothing for us will ever be the same. It’s like losing a leg and everyone coming to gather round the hospital bed, consoling you over the fact you only have one left, and walking out doing a hop, skip and a jump on their two again. I’m envious of these people.
‘Hey you. Taking a break?’ Ed says at my elbow, giving me a startle.
‘Oh? Yeah.’
I wish I’d planned for his approaching me, thought of something to say that could icily despatch him without revealing anything. One on one, Ed can’t be avoided, the way my injured feelings require. I can’t bear to pretend warmth towards him.
‘It’s gone alright, I think? We did her proud,’ he says. His black tie’s been removed and his dark grey suit looks good with his sandy colouring. May he shrivel and perish.
I shrug.
‘I hope so. Hard to judge. It’s not for people who knew her, this thing, is it?’ I gesture back at the hotel with my glass, and pause. ‘Actually, it’s worse than that,’ I say, vaguely picking a fight. ‘It’s for people who don’t really care.’
‘They care,’ Ed says. ‘Just not as much as we do.’
‘This isn’t the time for your super reasonable balanced perspective. Let a shit thing be shit.’
‘I’m not saying it isn’t shit.’
I hunch my shoulders and turn away from him, looking back at the cloud-streaked ink sky.
‘We’ve got to look after each other. That’s the only way to get through this,’ Ed says, thickly. ‘That’s the only conclusion I’ve drawn.’
I don’t respond.
‘Are you angry with me about anything?’ Ed says, hesitantly. ‘Did I mangle the eulogy?’
‘No.’
‘No to both questions?’
I didn’t know I was going to say it, until this moment. Amid turmoil and inebriation and not knowing what else to do, whomp, it tumbles out of my mouth:
‘You slept with Susie.’
The actual words spoken feel jagged. It’s as if I swallowed something sharp and metallic, and it tears up my insides as it makes its way out of me.
20
‘… What?’
I look at Ed, his stunned expression. And I know, once again, it’s true. Even the near-imperceptible split-second beat before the ‘What?’
For an innocent person, it’d be an immediate: Wait, what?!
Not: ‘[Oh-my-God-how-does-she-know, hard gulp, response required] What?’
‘You heard.’
There was no way it wasn’t true, of course, but somehow the confirmation is still shocking and dramatic. Some truths, like Susie’s passing, are too large to be digested in one go.
Ed’s already pale skin is the colour of a fish’s belly. The people nearest to us, though still beyond earshot, have finished their cigarettes and troop back inside, making this moment of inquisition even more deathly quiet.
‘What do you mean?’
‘What do I mean by “slept with”?
‘I mean, why are you saying that?’
‘Because you did.’
Ed stares at me, desperately trying to read my expression.
‘When?’ he says, though not with composure. I can see his fear.
‘You need me to specify which time period? How many times were there?’
‘No,’ Ed says hurriedly, trying to get control of himself, to work out how to handle this.
A combination of alcohol and incredible, soul-flattening misery has given me a malign super-strength. Every other expression of anger in my life, I realise, always came restrained with concerns about how it made me look, or how it affected the