drown myself in that pond, how cold the water would feel on my face. Except I wasn’t thinking that; she was. Christ on a bike, the way she stared. The longing was written into her body as sure as ink on a page. I tied Archie to the leg of the bench and went to join her. I stood close, felt the pull towards that black mirror. If I pushed her in now, I could drown her – I knew that. I was bigger than her, stronger, and I had the advantage of surprise. All these years I’d existed as water flowing around my loved ones, fluid around their needs, keeping them afloat; now I was water once again and she was a drop, a drop ready to lose its meniscus, to become part of the whole, part of me. That was the ultimate connection: drops together with other drops lost all boundaries, became water. Cohesion, that was the word I wanted. In her death, it was possible I’d experience cohesion. Or at least something real, something important. I didn’t know how that would be, only that I wanted it.
I placed my hand on her back, between her shoulder blades. I could just—
She turned to look at me, stepped back.
‘What do you do with your fag butt?’ she asked, throwing hers down but crouching to pick it up once she’d ground it out with her boot.
I staggered backwards, almost fell. ‘I just put it out like you’re doing.’ I wondered if she could hear the change in my voice. I barely had the breath to say the words. ‘I pick it up and either find a bin or take it home. Doesn’t do to litter, does it? I can’t stand people who litter.’
‘I’d better get to my friend’s,’ she said.
‘Yes. Let’s get going.’
I look up to find Blue Eyes studying me. Intent is how you’d describe her expression.
‘And that’s the last you remember?’ she asks. ‘She left you in the gardens?’
‘No, we walked back down. I helped her over the railings. Passed her the dog. I asked her if she wanted me to walk her the rest of the way and she said no. We parted company on Boston Avenue, just along from… from where she was found.’
12
Rachel
‘So you remember nothing after saying goodbye?’
‘No. Next thing I was back home, hanging up the dog lead and my coat. I remember having a shower and getting into bed and I remember how cold I was, which was weird because I’m always so hot these days. I had to get up and put my dressing gown on. Trembling from head to toe I was, flipping like one of those fortune-telling fish you put on the palm of your hand. I remember Mark climbing into bed later. He was warm, always is. I used to call him my hot-water bottle. I can remember spooning against him, trying to get some warmth. That’s the last I remember.’
I’m lying, but the rest is none of her beeswax. I was in the mood, to put it bluntly. That conversation with Jo had lit something inside me. Obviously I had no idea what had already happened to her by then; all I knew was that the connection between us had made me feel alive in a way I hadn’t for a long time. I circled my arm around Mark’s waist, thinking how a year ago he’d had too much of a belly for me to reach round him but how now, despite him drinking more, I could almost touch my fingers to the mattress on the other side. I kissed the warm hollow between his shoulders, smelled his skin, stroked him, pushed my hands through the hair on his chest. But nothing stirred. After a minute, he grumbled, lifting my hand away as if it were an object he needed to put to one side. A moment later he was snoring and I was lying on my back closing my eyes tight against the sting of rejection, opening them again, making kaleidoscopes. Another moment and heat was climbing the walls of me, shortening my breath. Sweat ran in trickles into my hair. I kicked the covers off and wrestled myself out of my dressing gown. I was boiling, literally, boiling like a kettle.
And more. I can’t explain it; it was like I was carrying all the anger of the world in that moment. All the anger of women. You see, they talk about hormones and they talk