Page 52 of If I Could Say Goodbye
‘Have a good day, and remember your one-hundred-watt smile, Hailey.’ I don’t look at her as I say it; I don’t want to see the one-hundred-watt roll of her eyes.
Ed’s hand grabs mine as I reach for the handle; I turn to look at him.
‘I love you,’ he says.
‘You too,’ I reply and walk away from my family towards Nessa’s.
‘Hi. Jesus, you look like shite,’ I greet Nessa.
‘I haven’t slept . . . you?’
‘Like a log . . . it’s the tablets. Maybe you should try—’
‘I can’t. What if Erica needed me and I didn’t wake up?’
I follow Nessa into the kitchen. She is wearing a loose white shirt tied in the middle above denim shorts. I look down at my own jeans: there is a brown stain of something nondescript and the material of my black top is too thick for a day where the sun is shouting so loudly from the sky.
The kitchen is clean. The sun reflects in the silver tap as it spews water into the kettle, the room soon filling with the rattle and groan of the kettle while Nessa spoons coffee into a cafetière. The table is strewn with paper; a laptop perches on top of a notebook surrounded by several half-filled coffee cups. I nod towards the laptop as she passes me the sugar bowl. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Good. At least that’s how it felt at three this morning, it might be a different story when I look at it in the harsh light of day, but that’s sleep deprivation for you, isn’t it?’ She adds water, the grains of coffee rising to the top as Nessa adds the lid and plunger.
‘Talk to her, Jen. You need to talk to her about how you’re feeling.’
Kerry is plunging the coffee down. Her hair is being held in place by a red-and-white-spotted head scarf, like the day she dressed up as a land girl for Hailey’s VE Day school fair: a pair of dungarees hang from her frame over a pale blue T-shirt.
I blink.
She is gone: the coffee is still percolating; Nessa is pouring milk into a jug and is arranging cups onto a tray. ‘Shall we go into the garden? You like your coffee strong, right? Kerry always plunged the plunger too early, didn’t she?’
Kerry sticks her tongue out behind Nessa’s back but the image fades, shudders, like the image of another train passing yours.
The sounds of the kitchen are becoming distant: Nessa’s voice runs away from me; I try to move towards it but I’m stuck; I’m paused. Nessa continues to move around the kitchen, the minute hand on the clock continues to tock, steam is still billowing from the kettle . . . but I’m still on pause. My eyes try to search the room for Kerry, but they won’t move; I need to breathe, but I can’t. A fly is bouncing in front of me, its jerky flight path zigzagging in front of my face. Nessa’s hand flaps it away, then her eyes meet mine, the panic I’m feeling reflecting in her eyes.
‘Jen? Jen!’
Red coat, red boots, emerald ring, car brakes and my name.
‘Jen? Oh God, Jen!’
I blink.
The play button has been pushed and I find myself clutching on to Nessa; my body is reaching for her, desperate to hold on; I don’t want the pause button to be hit again by mistake.
She holds me, as my body heaves and shakes, the tears salty along my lips as I repeat the words: ‘It should have been me.’
I don’t know how long I have been crying, how long I have been wrapped in Nessa’s arms on her kitchen floor. She hasn’t tried to move, hasn’t tried to talk; she has just held me.
‘We need to get you to a doctor, Jen,’ she says softly.
‘A doctor won’t bring her back.’ I pull away from her and wipe my face with my hands as she stands, holding out her hand to me, which I use to stand myself up. I smooth down my hair, suddenly embarrassed by my episode.
‘You won’t tell Ed, will you? That I’m, well, about . . .’ I flap my hands in the direction of where I had just been having a panic attack, ‘that?’
‘Jen . . . I don’t feel comfortable keeping something like this to myself, I—’
‘Please Ness, he’s worried about me enough. Look, I’ll change, have something to eat and then go home for a lie down . . . OK?’
She chews her bottom lip.
