Page 13 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

It’s too much for my hung-over brain to handle. I don’t want toast, or water, or to wake up and find he isn’t here, so I just go back through to the living room and sit on the floor beside Freddie’s chair, my head against his knee. He absently strokes my hair and makes a joke about me not being able to hold my drink, and he’s too engrossed in the game to notice the damp patch on the knee of his jeans from my tears. I hide my face in my hair and close my eyes, too tired to do anything but press myself against his warm solidity. I don’t think there can be much time left in the football match; I try to focus on my watch, but my eyes are bleary. Go home, Jonah Jones, I think. Go home so I can lie out on the sofa beside Freddie and ask him about his day; I need to listen to the rumble of his chest against my ear as he speaks. He winds my hair around his fingers, and I battle, properly battle, not to fall asleep, but it’s no good. My eyelids are lead-lined. I can’t seem to lift them, even though I’m desperate to stay awake, because I’m missing him already.

Saturday 12 May

This is hideous. I’ve just woken up alone in the living room, water rather than beers on the table, no cold pizza and no Freddie. This. This is why I don’t go to sleep. Because waking up and remembering that he’s dead all over again is too cruel, too harrowing. The price of dreaming about him is higher than I could ever hope to pay; it’s a higher price than anyone should ever have to pay. For no logical reason, fragments of Tennyson’s most famous poem still lodged in my brain from school roll around inside my head as I lie on the sofa trying to summon the will to get up: ‘’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all’ – that one, the only one everyone knows. Well, Tennyson my friend, I bet your wife didn’t wrap herself around a tree and leave you all Billy-no-mates, did she? Because if she had, you might have thought it more prudent not to love at all. I sigh, feeling uncharitable, because I also recall from my studies that Tennyson wrote the poem while grieving for his beloved best friend, so perhaps his heart did go through the wringer somewhat too. I wonder if he cried as much as I have. It’s cathartic sometimes, crying, and at other times it’s the loneliest thing in the world, knowing no one is coming to give me a consolation hug. I don’t fight it when tears run down my face again right now, for poor old Tennyson, and for poor old me.

Saturday 12 May

‘Feeling better now?’

I wasn’t going to take another pill. I limped through to eight o’clock and then caved in, washing one down as I climbed into bed for an early night.

And now I’ve woken up on the sofa with my head on Freddie’s lap. He’s absently smoothing my hair while he watches some police drama on TV, and I’ve obviously been snoozing off the remains of my headache.

I flip on to my back. ‘Think so,’ I say, catching hold of his hand.

‘You’ve missed half of this,’ he says. ‘Shall I rewind it?’

I glance at the screen, but I’ve no clue what show it is so I shake my head.

‘You were snoring like a beast, Lyds,’ he says, laughing under his breath. It’s his running joke: he always tells me I snore loudly and I always deny it. I don’t think I snore at all, he just says it to wind me up.

‘I bet Keira Knightley snores,’ I say.

He raises his eyebrows. ‘Nah. She probably sighs softly, like a …’

‘Trucker?’ I suggest.

‘Kitten,’ he says.

‘Kittens don’t sigh,’ I say. ‘They bite your toes when you sleep.’

Freddie considers it for a second. ‘I quite like the idea of Keira Knightley biting my toes.’

‘She’d have super-sharp teeth,’ I say. ‘It’d hurt.’

‘Hmm,’ he frowns. ‘You know I’m not good with pain.’

It’s true. For a big, competitive man, Freddie is a real wimp when he’s hurt.

‘Maybe I better stick with you,’ he says. ‘Keira sounds too much like hard work.’

I lift his hand up and place my own against it, palm to palm, noticing how much bigger his is.

‘Even if I snore like a hog?’

He laces his fingers with mine. ‘Even if you snore like a field full of hogs.’

I bring his hand to my face and kiss his fingers. ‘That’s not very romantic, you know,’ I say.

He pauses the show he’s watching and looks down at me, his blue eyes amused.

‘How about if I say you’re a very pretty hog?’

I twist my mouth, thinking, then shake my head. ‘Still not romantic.’

He nods slowly. ‘Okay,’ he says. ‘Not a hog at all?’

‘Bit better,’ I say, hanging out for more, trying not to smile as I pull myself up to sit in his lap, my legs stretched out on the sofa.

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