Page 21 of Between Us

‘Neither has Matt.’

‘It’s not Matt I’m worried about. It’s Dev,’ Roisin said.

‘He has gone a bit Viv “spend spend spend” Nicholson.’

‘Was she the football pools winner in the Sixties who blew it all up the wall?’

‘Aye. Ended up bankrupt,’ Joe said.

‘Shit, don’t say that. You don’t think he could do that, do you?’

‘I dunno – didn’t say anything to Dev, but it’s fifty-fifty I can come to any of it, including the wedding, anyway. No idea what my schedule will look like then.’

‘What? No one’s going to expect you to miss a wedding?’ Roisin said.

‘I think Hollywood people are capable of expecting me to miss births, deaths, weddings, the lot,’ Joe said. ‘Still. No point telling Dev that until it happens.’

She could’ve done with Joe breaking it to her gently, and as if it was as much her bad news as Dev’s. It wasn’t nothing to her to discover he might not be at her side at the occasion of one of their dearest friends tying the knot. He’d never be on the pictures, they’d share no memories of the day? That hadn’t mattered?

‘Er … when were you going to tell me?’

‘Well, see above. Not worth getting upset about until it happens.’

Except he had just worried her with it.

She felt as if Joe kept trapping her inside riddles. He might be great at dialogue but a hyper empath, he was not.

Roisin didn’t say anything more, as it wasn’t the time. But once again, she suspected The Time would not obligingly create itself.

Roisin was jolted awake by the air-tearing sound of a high-pitched scream. She sat up, shaking, trying to orientate herself in the inky proper darkness of the countryside. The scream was followed by the sound of feet thundering across the landing beyond.

She turned to look at Joe, who as usual had wrapped himself in a tight cigar of sheet and remained deeply asleep. Their old flat used to be surrounded by regular high volume, post-kebab shop hoopla, cars backfiring, R’n’B played by neighbours at four a.m. Joe never stirred. It was his superpower.

There followed muffled voices, possibly male or female, or both. There was an odd but powerful dull bang that Roisin couldn’t place, although she was at least sure it wasn’t a gun shot. It was followed by another, this time bloodcurdling, female scream that sliced through Roisin like a hot knife through cold butter.

She jumped out of bed in a spike of adrenaline and fumbled desperately for the Liberty print kimono that she’d only bought when she knew she was coming on this trip. Roisin wasn’t super keen on her friends knowing she often slept in an old pair of cropped leggings and a t-shirt for ‘RaccoonLodge NYC: A Place Where People Come To Mix And Mex!’

Yes, don’t take premenstrual RoshWear on tour,Joe said.Leave the dressing gown of doom, the Tony Soprano robe, at home. And the slippers that look like Fraggle hooves.

She bumped along the unfamiliar passageway in the dark and out onto the landing, which contained Dev in vest and joggers and Anita, abundantly braless in silk camisole and big French knickers. Roisin envied the physically confident. Or possibly, the simply semi-conscious in an emergency.

‘I told you, I thought she was in trouble,’ Matt was saying, beyond them. He was in only boxer shorts, looking sleep-rumpled, peculiarly culpable and, it had to be noted, extremely abdominally honed.Thatwas why you went to the gym on holiday.

‘I couldn’t open the door,’ Matt said. ‘I was acting, not thinking.’

‘Because she’d locked it!’ Anita said.

‘I know thatnow…’

‘What’s the other explanation for it not opening, though? Did you think the ghost had the other side of the handle?’ Dev said, entertained.

‘Honestly, I don’t know. I panicked …’

Matt’s sheepish demeanour reminded Roisin of when her brother Ryan, aged seventeen, stoned, had put in the windscreen of her neighbour’s car while climbing on it. He was trying to wave down an alien that had turned out to be aMinionsballoon.

13

‘I thought I was helping,’ Matt said, in a defeated voice. ‘I didn’t mean to upset her … Ah, God …’

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