Page 47 of Pictures of Him

‘Rach,’ I say, ‘what happened? You’re completely wasted. You need to get your head down. Big drive tomorrow.’

‘I’ll take you up, if you want,’ says Harry, moving towards her, but Rachel wobbles to upright.

‘Just a quick sharpener first,’ she says, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a cling-film wrap of cocaine.

‘Oh no, Rach.’ Harry, Alexa and I swoop down on her, a cartoon dustball of pleading and chastisement and recrimination. And then, above the maelstrom, Jack’s voice.

‘Just what the doctor ordered, I’d say.’

The room slides. We could stage a countdown. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six …

Celia shrieks, no other word for it, and hurls herself up from the sofa.

‘No way, Jack! Don’t even think about it. You’re so selfish. I’ve been waiting here for over an hour, we’re late for the babysitter. We have to go.’

I don’t know what gets into Jack; it’s so clear that Celia is in meltdown.

‘We?’ he asks with a half-smile that even I find infuriating. ‘You could go on ahead, couldn’t you?’

Alexa tries to intervene. ‘Jack,’ she says, ‘you really ought to—’

But Celia shouts, ‘No!’ and holds up a hand, apolicewoman halting traffic. Less of a scene, more of a volcanic eruption.

‘I’ve had it. You never think about me or Freddie. It’s always about you. Everyone thinks you’re such a great dad, they don’t know what you’re really like. You turn it on and off whenever you want to.’

And still Jack isn’t getting it.

‘Oh come on, babe,’ he says. ‘Don’t overreact. I can come home a bit later, can’t I? You don’t normally mind.’

‘Actually I do mind,’ Celia says quietly.

Her words linger in the air. There’s a coldness and a determination in her voice that we’ve never heard before. Jack has the sense to rush over and wrap his arms around her.

‘God, I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘You’re right. You’re absolutely right. I’m a thoughtless, selfish dickhead. Why do you put up with me? You should definitely trade me in for someone else.’

He kisses her cheek, once, twice, three times, and scores a reluctant smile. He has a gift for his own repatriation; we’ve seen it many times. Jack and Celia leave, arms around each other, crisis averted, while the rest of us focus on getting Rachel into bed.

I haven’t seen Catherine since she disappeared outside with Ling and I am clenched with dread when I finally reach my own bedroom. Will she be here? Or has the pressure of seeing my friends caused her to flee? In the darkness I almost fall over her blue trainers, kicked off by the door, and I follow a trail of her clothes to the bed, euphoric with relief. ‘You’re still here,’ I whisper into the blackness, but Catherine is asleep.

I reach out a palm and place a hand on her thigh, lightly, just for reassurance; I won’t wake her.

I’d like to ask her how it felt being back amongst my friends after all this time. Did she feel the tension, the way it clung to the atmosphere, a density that at times made it hard to breathe? I’d like to tell her about the dark secret that binds Harry and Jack and me together, but I know I can’t. A stupid, stupid thing that happened a long time ago. A moment of madness like my father’s before me. I’m deeply ashamed of it.

Now

Alexa is here again, talking to Greg about me, about you, and the dramatic intertwining of our pasts. They are not quite out of earshot, and though they speak in lowered voices, I can hear every word. I try not to listen, I try to fixate on the garden outside, the greens and greys and browns, the unchanging backdrop to my newly tiny world. But your name, each time I hear it, cuts through with the clarity of ice.

‘Catherine was hated at university. It must have been so hard on her.’

‘For breaking up with Lucian?’ Greg says. ‘Surely break-ups happen the whole time.’

‘Not like this one. She didn’t explain why she left him and she refused to ever see him again. He just lost the plot. And everyone stopped talking to her, all our friends, lots of other people too.’

Yes, I remember it well. Doors closing on me, one by one, another shrinkage of my world. In the library, I couldn’t bear the stares and the whispering so I simply stopped going there. The old union coffee shop was obviously out of bounds, a mecca for you and your friendsdespite the dreadful coffee. I couldn’t risk pubs or parties, not that the celebratory environment of either suited my permanent heartbreak. There was no respite anywhere and I existed within the walls of our little house in St Paul’s, watched over by Liv first and later by Sam.

‘Catherine just retreated,’ I hear Alexa say. ‘None of us ever saw her again. I thought it might somehow be important. For the way she is now …’

I hear Greg saying something about the events preceding my descent into mutism. Some of them I recognise, some of them I don’t. The word that electrifies, though, like a lethal administration to the heart, is ‘suicide’.

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