Precious Thing (26 page)

‘A bouquet for the birthday girl. I knew you’d approve, Rachel,’ she says, ‘and Clara loves them, don’t you?’

‘Yeppp,’ you slur and you raise your hand drunkenly in the air as if raising a glass to me. The normal sane and sober Clara wouldn’t have sat back and let this happen; you wouldn’t have let Niamh uproot one single flower, not knowing everything you do about my plants and what they mean to me. Niamh has plied you with so much alcohol she’s poisoned you. I have let you get too close to her and now she is destroying the Clara I know and love. She is killing everything that is beautiful.

I can’t breathe. Niamh must see my reaction because she is smiling an awful smile which reveals her yellow cigarette teeth. She emits a laugh that is rasping and throaty and echoed by your own. Witches under a burning sky. But you don’t know what you’re doing, Clara. This is her fault. ‘Now are you going to do something useful for a change?’ She grabs the empty jug of Pimm’s from the table and waves it in my direction.

The fire in my belly has been burning all day long but with that laugh it ignites into a full-blown blaze. I take one last look at the sunflowers, the peonies and the irises and
whoosh
it is raging through me, consuming me. My skin is breaking out in goose bumps, not from cold but from heat. The flames are in my throat, in my head. I can’t control this fire. It controls me.

I grab the jug and go into the kitchen, leaving it on the side for a moment. I’m thinking –
I need her to be quiet, I can’t listen to her any more
,
I need to protect you from her
– and I’m wondering how I can make her shut up, how I can extinguish her just for a little while. And then I have an idea and I’m flying upstairs. I’m in the bathroom and they are there, right in front of me. Two packets, like it is fate or something. I take one of them in my hands, a blister pack cool in my hot palms. The tablets Niamh needs to make her sleep. There is only one missing which means there are eleven left. But I won’t use them all, just a few. I’m back in the kitchen bursting them out of the foil, one by one. I keep going. There’s a spoon in my hand and I’m grinding them down methodically. There is no hurry. Then before me is a fine white powder. I make up a jug of Pimm’s and vodka and pour you a glass and Niamh another. And into hers I spoon the white dust. I watch it float on top and stir. Round and round until it disappears. Then I top it up with vodka.

The grass is cool on my feet as I walk across the garden towards her. I hand you your drink first which you accept, eyes half shut. And then I hand Niamh hers. ‘At last,’ she says.

At last, I think.

I’m in the kitchen again, watching her gulp. I see each mouthful make its way down her gullet. One after another. She is thirsty, a thirst that burns through her; it must be quenched. And then the glass is empty.

Upstairs in my bedroom, I watch from the window. I hear you chat for a while, the slur of your words. Unfinished sentences linger in the air. A little later I see Niamh lift herself from the chair, and you get up too. ‘Time for bed,’ she says and you mumble your agreement. You follow her upstairs. And then she asks you to grab her sleeping tablets from the bathroom. You retrace your steps and return a few minutes later, to give them to her.

‘Thanks,’ I hear Niamh say to you. ‘Goodnight, birthday girl.’ There’s the
mwah
sound of a kiss but then Niamh ruins the moment because I hear her tripping over something and crashing into her bedroom. I think she will be too drunk to take any more tablets.

Ten minutes later I pass by her bedroom, en route to the bathroom to brush my teeth. Her door is ajar. She is lying across the bed fully dressed. Next to her is the blister pack but I can’t see if it’s empty or not and it’s been so long since I heard silence, I don’t want to do anything to disturb it.

The next morning I wake to you shaking me. I smell your breath before I open my eyes, rancid and thick with alcohol. You’re pulling on my arm. For a brief moment I forget the night before. ‘She’s been sick,’ you say, your voice laced with panic, and then I remember and I’m up and out of bed, in my mother’s room. I am standing over her body which is cold and pale beneath the tan of her skin. There’s sick on the pillow, red from the Pimm’s and regurgitated salad too. I knew having so many salads was a bad idea. You are screaming, your shrieks rattle around the room and pierce my head. I am the child cowering beneath the cushions watching a scary film. I don’t want to look and yet I do. I can’t help myself. Her body is motionless, so still and quiet, and I creep over to it, half expecting her to leap out at me. I creep closer because I know I need to check her, to see if she is still alive, but the stench is overpowering. I hold my arm up to my nose and then I am next to her. Taking her wrist I put my finger over her veins to check her pulse, just like I’ve seen them do on TV. Nothing. I watch her chest for any signs that a life might still be in there, beating faintly. Nothing.

There are pins and needles in my head, they’re rushing up and down my arms. I’m shaking because no matter how much you don’t like your mother it’s a bit of a shock to see her cold and dead first thing in the morning. And then amongst the fear and the shock it hits me like a cool breeze in the stifling heat.
She will never hurt me again
. She will never speak to me again or look at me as if I am a piece of shit on her shoes. I don’t have to be her daughter any more. I am free of her, forever. That’s when the eerie calm descends on me and I feel more in control than I have ever been. A delicious relief washes over me and extinguishes the embers of last night’s fire.

The ambulance is on its way, and you are still sobbing, but I’m trying to think practically. Niamh is (was) always so slovenly and it shows in her bedroom. The air is rank, hot and heavy with sick and stale alcohol. I open a window to let a breeze flow through. Her clothes are crumpled up, strewn on the carpet – though I’m grateful she’s still wearing yesterday’s underwear and I don’t have to pick it up. There are half-empty cups of coffee on the bedside table, films of milk floating on top, and the empty blister pack of sleeping tablets too. I take them away and throw them in the bin.

They carry out a postmortem on her body ‘It’s just procedure,’ the policewoman who has been assigned to me explained, nothing to worry about. And I don’t worry about it. I am convinced Niamh pickled herself in alcohol; it was simply a matter of her body giving up on her. That was the real cause of her death. Sure enough when the results come through they reveal cirrhosis of the liver and high levels of sleeping pills in her blood. The perfect storm.

We share everything, don’t we, Clara? No secret is too great, no truth too heavy. We don’t judge. We listen, we understand. That’s why I tell you, the week after she dies.

The day starts well – a call from your dad:
Could I help?
he says breathlessly. I can tell he’s in a hurry. In my mind’s eye I see him running around your house, his dark hair still shower-wet, spraying that aftershave of his, the one we tease him about but really I secretly love, all citrussy and fresh, (It’s Issey Miyake, I know because I found it in his en suite one day). Anyway, he said you weren’t coping very well. ‘I have surgery all day, Rachel, can you come round and make sure she’s OK?’ I can’t imagine anyone ever refuses your dad. I love it when he takes me into his confidence and makes me feel so special, like I alone have the power to solve his problems. At work I imagine him all scrubbed up in theatre, directing an army of nurses and junior doctors, his cool, steady hands, knowing exactly what to do.

I tell him
yes, of course, I’ll be there
and he says, ‘You’re a gem, Rach,’ which makes me smile, the way he sounds so grateful.

By ten thirty I’m at your house and we’re in the kitchen hiding from the white heat outside. The sunshine isn’t a novelty any more. People cross the road to find shade, dart in and out of shops to be blasted by air conditioning. Yesterday I stuck my head in amongst the frozen peas at Sainsbury’s. I had no intention of buying them, I hate peas. I just needed to cool my head.

But you don’t look like you’ve seen the sun in a long time. In fact your appearance shocks me: your hair is lank, you look smaller, like you’ve shrunk two sizes in a week. I want to cheer you up and I don’t think talking about Niamh will help so I keep coming up with suggestions:
let’s play some music, watch MTV, why don’t we go to town?
Even when I share the ripest bit of gossip around,
Shelly Peters shagged Simon Dunstan at the weekend
, you give me nothing back.

Niamh’s gone and she’s still coming between us.

‘I think it’s my fault,’ you say eventually. We’ve moved to the living room and are sprawled on the sofa next to each other. I have to hand it to your dad, he has very good taste. The walls are painted in one of those white colours that’s not quite white, tasteful paintings add splashes of colour around the room. There are lots of photographs of you alone, and you and him together. There is even one of the two of us sitting under the tree in your back garden. He took the shot with my camera and I had it framed for his birthday last year, suggesting the perfect spot for it in his living-room gallery.

I take a sip of my Lipton’s iced tea, which I brought for us because it’s your favourite. ‘Why would you say that?’ I ask.

‘I gave her the sleeping pills.’ Your lip is quivering and your eyes fill with tears. It’s painful to watch, it’s like you’ve disappeared along with Niamh. ‘I keep on thinking if I hadn’t given them to her she might still be here.’

I want to tell you she’s not worth it, all this guilt and grief. Instead I say, ‘Don’t ever blame yourself, it’s her fault, not yours.’ I move closer to you so I can comfort you.

‘But I gave her the packet. I keep going over and over the moment I did it. I wish I could rewind,’ and you press yourself into me so I feel your sobs beating a rhythm against my chest. I want them to stop. I want my old sunshine Clara back. I would do anything to make you feel better. And that’s when I think of it.

We share everything. No secrets
.

I hold you sobbing in my arms for long enough to convince me it is the right thing to do. I only wanted to protect you from her, make her go away for a little while, so you could see what she was really like. It wasn’t supposed to be like this, with you crippled by guilt. That’s why I tell you, to absolve you from the pain.

‘It’s not your fault, she had taken sleeping pills earlier.’ You pull away from my embrace; the sobbing stops, just as I had wanted, and you raise your head to look at me.

‘How do you know that?’ you ask, hungry for reassurance.

I smile. ‘This is just between me and you, OK,’ and I watch you nod your consent before I continue. ‘I crushed some into the drink I gave her, the Pimm’s. And she drank it all.’

I am expecting to see my smile reflected in your face, I want to see the shadow of guilt lift from you. Instead I recognise something and it is chilling. It is a look other people have given me in the past, in certain situations I vividly recall. But you have never looked at me like this, Clara. You are my friend, you’ve never doubted or questioned. You are loyal. But now you’re looking at me like someone has just ripped a mask from my face and you are seeing me properly for the first time. And whatever is there is filling you with horror.

Stop it, Clara, stop it.

But the look doesn’t go away. You’re scaring me.

‘It’s OK, Clara,’ I say, reaching out to take your hands. ‘She used to crush them up in her bedtime drink herself, that’s what she did.’ It’s a lie of course but I think it might calm you down. Instead you push my hands away.

‘How many did you give her?’ Your eyes are flashing at me.

‘I don’t know … a few, just a few, it doesn’t matter does it? They didn’t kill her. We didn’t kill her.’

Please don’t look at me like you’re frightened, Clara. You have nothing to fear from me.

‘What did you do, Rachel?’ you spit. ‘What the fuck did you do?’ You keep saying it, and I tell you I did nothing. Nothing that she didn’t do herself.

‘Jesus, Clara, listen to me, I didn’t want to hurt her. Don’t twist things. It’s not your fault. It’s not my fault. OK? She died because she was an alcoholic. It’s written in her postmortem results, black and white.’ But my words don’t connect, they can’t reach above the screams which are cutting through me.

‘Get away from me,’ you shout, pushing me, ‘GET AWAY FROM ME.’ And you keep looking away from me then turning back as if you need to check your eyes aren’t deceiving you.

I trusted you.

And now you are turning your back on me. I can see it happening. I can read your thoughts. I know what’s turning over in your mind. You have always believed me, Clara. Even when no one else did at school, it was you, and you only who stuck by me. Your loyalty was so unquestioning. But it is ebbing away.

Marching across the room, you get halfway to the door and then, as if struck by a thought, you swivel round and come back to me.

‘We need to tell the police. You have to tell them.’ You go to the phone hanging on the wall and take it from its cradle and thrust it in my hand.

‘You ring them, tell them, Rachel, tell them what happened.’

I always did everything you said, Clara, unquestioning. And in return you gave me your friendship. Our unspoken pact. But it doesn’t work if one person reneges on the deal.

‘There is nothing to tell,’ I say.

‘Tell them what you just told me, what you just said. Tell them. You gave her the pills.’

You are pulling at your hair with one hand and chewing the nails on the other. The funny, calm, confident Clara is being sucked out of you right before my eyes. You keep screaming at me to call the police, but I won’t. I can’t. I have only just found my freedom from Niamh. I am looking ahead to the future where I can be anyone I want to be. I won’t let you do anything to jeopardise it.

‘You need to calm down, Clara,’ I say and I’m surprised by my voice which seems like someone else’s – deep and measured and in control. I think it suits me.