Page 108 of The One Plus One
‘It’s not fine.’ She sighed. ‘I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t take it out on you.’
‘It’s okay. It’s been a crappy day. Look, I’m going to have a bath, and then I think we should just get some sleep.’
‘I’ll be up when I’ve finished this.’ She inhaled again.
Ed waited for a moment, then left her staring at the fire. It was a mark of how tired he was that he didn’t think any further than the bath.
He must have nodded off in the water. He had run it deep, pouring in whatever unguents and potions he could find on the side without looking to see what they were, and sinking in gratefully, letting the hot water ease out some of the tensions of the day. He tried not to think. Not about Jess, downstairs, staring bleakly into the flames, not about his mother, a couple of hours away, awaiting a son who wouldn’t come. He just needed a few minutes of not having to think about anything. He lowered his head as far as he could into the water while still breathing.
He dozed. But some strange tension seemed to have crept into Ed’s bones: he couldn’t quite relax, even as he closed his eyes. And then he became aware of the sound: a distant revving noise, uneven and dissonant, a whining chainsaw, or a driver learning how to accelerate. He opened an eye, wishing it would just go away. He had thought that this place, of all places, might offer the tiniest bit of peace. Just one night with no noise or drama. Was it really so much to ask?
‘Jess?’ he called, when it became too irritating. He wondered if there was a music system downstairs. Something she could turn on to drown it out.
And then he realized the cause of his vague discomfort. It was his own car he could hear.
He sat there, bolt upright, for a split second, then leapt from the bath, wrapping a towel around his waist. He ran down the stairs two at a time, past the empty sofa, past Norman, who lifted his head quizzically from his spot in front of the fire, and wrestled with the front door until he had it open. A blast of cold air hit him. He was just in time to see his car bunny-hopping its way forward from its place in front of the cabin, and along the curved gravel drive. He leapt off the steps and as he ran he could just make out Jess at the wheel, craning forward to see through the windscreen. She didn’t have any headlights on.
‘Jesus Christ. JESS!’ He sprinted across the grass, still dripping, one hand clutching at the towel around his waist, trying to cross the lawn to block her before she could get round the drive to the road. Her face swivelled briefly towards him, her eyes widening as she saw him. There was an audible crunch as she wrestled with the gears.
‘JESS!’
He was at the car. He threw himself at the bonnet, thumping it, then at the side, wrenching at the driver’s door. It opened before she could fumble for the lock, sending him swinging sideways.
‘What the hell are you doing?’
But she didn’t stop. He was running now, unnaturally long steps, braced against the swinging door, one hand on the wheel, the gravel sharp under his feet. The towel had long since disappeared.
‘Get off!’
‘Stop the car! JESS, STOP THE CAR!’
‘Get off, Ed! You’ll get hurt!’ She batted at his hand, and the car swerved dangerously to the left.
‘What the –’ With a leap he managed to wrestle the keys from the ignition. The car juddered and stalled abruptly. His right shoulder collided hard with the door. Jess’s nose hit the steering-wheel with a crack. The airbag, as if in afterthought, inflated with awhoosh.
‘FUCK.’ Ed landed heavily on his side, his head hitting something hard. ‘FUCK IT.’ He lay on the ground winded, his head spinning. It took a second for his thoughts to clear, and then he scrambled unsteadily to his feet, hauling himself up by the still-open door. He could see, through blurred vision, that they were feet from the lake, its shoreline an inky black near his wheels. Jess’s arms rested against the airbag, her face buried in the gap between them, a faint wisp of smoke curling upwards from its seams. He reached across her and pulled on the handbrake, before she could somehow set the thing in motion again.
‘What the hell were you doing? What were you DOING?’ Adrenalin and pain coursed through him. The woman was a nightmare. She was chaos. What the hell had she been thinking? What the hell hadhebeen thinking, agreeing to any part of this? ‘Jesus, my head. Oh, no. Where’s my towel? Where’s the damn towel?’
Lights were flicking on in the other cabins. He glanced up, and there were silhouettes in windows that he hadn’t known were there, figures looking out at him. He cuppedhimself as best he could with one hand and half walked, half ran for the towel, which was lying, muddied, halfway along the path, a glowing, crumpled pennant. As he walked, he lifted his other hand towards them as if to say, Nothing to see here (given the cold night air, this had swiftly become true), and a couple of them shut their curtains hurriedly.
She was sitting where he had left her. ‘Do you know how much you’ve drunk tonight?’ he yelled, through the open door. ‘How much dope you’ve smoked? You could have killed yourself. You could have killed us both.’
He wanted to shake her, to show her the madness of what she had just done. ‘Are you really so determined to dig yourself deeper and deeper into more crap? What the hell iswrongwith you?’
And then he heard it. She had her head in her hands and she was crying into them, a soft, desolate sound. ‘I’m sorry.’
Ed deflated a little, hitched the towel around his waist. ‘What the hell were you doing, Jess? You must know this is crazy behaviour.’
‘I wanted to get them. I couldn’t leave them there. With him.’
He took a breath, made a fist and released it. ‘But we’ve discussed this. They’re absolutely fine. Nicky said he’d call if there were any problems. And we’re going to get them first thing tomorrow. You know that. So what the hell –’
‘I’m scared, Ed.’
‘Scared? Of what?’
Her nose was bleeding, a dark scarlet trickle winding its way down to her lip, her eyes smudged black with mascara. ‘I’m scared that…I’m scared that they’ll like it at Marty’s.’ Her face crumpled. ‘I’m scared they won’t want to come back.’
