Page 8 of Murder Most Actual

After dinner, Liza flopped plank-like onto the bed and groaned. “Fuck.”

“What flavour of fuck?” asked Hanna, sitting on a plush armchair and removing her shoes.

“The Ackroyds.” It wasn’t really an explanation, but it didn’t really need one. “I couldn’t have been the only person at that table thinking—”

Hanna flopped down beside her. “That you don’t understand how they’re not divorced already?”

Liza nodded. “Is that how people look at us?”

“I hope not.” It wasn’t Hanna’s hopeful voice. “But probably. Of course, maybe we only think their marriage looks like a car crash inside a dumpster fire because we’re projecting our own issues.”

“Great. So their marriage might be fine, but ours is fucked either way.”

“I mean … fucked is a strong word.” Again, it wasn’t Hanna’s hopeful voice. “We’ve just got some things to work through. And it’ll be hard for a while, but we can get through it.”

Hopeful or not, it was straying close to her patronising voice. “Can you please stop with the everything’s-fine-and-fixable routine? I’m worried. I want you to let me be worried. Is that okay?”

“Sorry.” And suddenly, Hanna had snapped. “Am I the monster who won’t let you have feelings now?”

Sometimes, you had to let these things slide. This wasn’t one of those sometimeses. “You realise there’s a middle ground between ‘the way you’re approaching this isn’t helping me’ and ‘I think you’re Satan’?”

Silence, broken only by the storm outside. The hail had become snow now—the kind of driving snow that piles flurries against anything standing still, and dances ghosts outside the window.

“If …” Liza trailed off. There was no good way to say this. No good way to start it, and no good way to continue it after she’d started. “If I said we should split up, how would that make you feel?”

Hanna looked up, her eyes searching. “What do you mean?”

“Like … if I said we should split up, and you were like … if that was like a relief or something …”

Silence and snow again. For a long time. Liza could feel her heart in her chest, not pounding exactly, just … there, drawing her attention in a way she couldn’t quite remember it doing before.

When Hanna spoke again, it was very slow, very quiet, and very measured, like she was afraid she might scare something away. “Is that what you’re saying?”

“Just—just pretend I am for a second. How do you feel?”

“Sick.” The answer was gratifyingly fast but unsettlingly sharp. “Is that what you want me to say? I feel sick. Happy?”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean, I feel sick too, which is … good, I think?” Good was relative, of course. A part of Liza wished she hadn’t taken them down that road, but another part—perhaps a braver part—hoped confronting the worst would make the shock and the nausea worth it. “I was just … I remember reading or hearing or something that if it’s just over and you admit it’s just over then it’s like—it’s like a weight comes off and you’re just—you’re just free. But I don’t feel like that; I just feel scared and cold, and like I want to die all of a sudden.”

Hanna was lying very still. She’d closed her eyes, like she’d also decided that dying might be a decent idea. “Is this you being helpful?”

“Kind of?”

“Even when you’re practical you’re dramatic.” Hanna’s tone was withering.

“I was just trying to—I don’t know—confront us with the reality of the situation or something.” This wasn’t the sort of conversation you could have when you were both facing the ceiling. Liza rolled awkwardly onto her side. “I don’t want to lose you, and I think us is worth fighting for.”

For a moment, Hanna made no reply; she just lay there breathing softly. “And what does that look like?”

“I don’t know.”

There wasn’t much to say after that. They lay beside one another for a while, not quite certain what to do or say, or if moving had any point, and then, though it was far too early for them to actually be going to sleep, they undressed for bed.

As she was tying her braids with a silk scarf to keep them from bugging her in the night, Liza glanced over at her wife and realised that Hanna was wearing a new bra, something pretty and front-fastening with lace detailing on the back like butterfly wings. “Did you get that for me?”

Hanna shrugged. “I’d say I got it for myself, but you’d know that was a lie. I had a silly idea I’d seduce you.”

It wasn’t the underwear itself so much as the fact she’d bought it. Hanna hated buying lingerie because she was very petite and a couple of adolescent experiences with insensitive fitting room attendants commenting on her lack of bosom had put her off the whole enterprise. “You’re—you didn’t have to. But—fuck—you know I still think you’re gorgeous, right?”

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