Page 19 of The Two Lives of Lydia Bird

Jonah nods, swallows. ‘Told you,’ he mutters, but he’s looking at Freddie’s stone rather than at me. ‘I told you she’d say no.’

Oh, hang on just a minute. ‘You told Freddie I’d say no?’

Pink spots fire up on Jonah’s cheekbones. ‘Was I wrong?’ He isn’t someone who generally raises his voice; he’s the natural mediator in any argument. ‘I told him I was going because I thought it might be good for me and that I’d ask you to join as well. But I told him you’d say no.’

‘Well, there you go then.’ I throw my hands up in the air. ‘You’ve done your duty and now you can leave without feeling guilty.’ I regret the words as soon as they leave my lips.

‘Without feeling guilty,’ he says. ‘Thanks for that, Lydia. Thanks a bloody lot.’

‘What do you expect when you gang up against me with my dead boyfriend?’ I say.

‘It wasn’t ganging up on you,’ he says, more measured than I feel. ‘I just thought it’d be helpful maybe, but I get it. You’re busy, or not interested, or scared, or whatever.’

I snort and shake my head, looking away down the row of grey headstones.

‘Scared?’ I mutter, and he looks my way and shrugs, unapologetic.

‘Tell me I’m wrong?’

I snort again and throw in a huff for good measure. I know he’s trying to goad me and I can’t stop myself from walking straight into it.

‘Scared? You think I’m scared of some poxy school-hall workshop? I’ll tell you what scared looks like, Jonah Jones. It looks like a police car pulling up outside your living-room window, and it looks like having to bury the man you love instead of marrying him. Scared looks like standing in Sainsbury’s thinking about swallowing every damn pill on the medicine shelf because you just remembered that stupid argument you had in the next aisle about biscuits of all things, biscuits, and it winds you. Physically winds you, right here.’ I bang two fingers over my heart hard enough to leave a bruise. ‘Scared looks like knowing how endlessly long life seems without the person you planned on spending it with, and also knowing how shockingly, unexpectedly short it can be. It’s like that trick with the tablecloth and the teacups except we’re human fucking beings getting broken, not teacups, and …’ I stop and gulp in air because I’ve lost my thread about being scared and I’m bloody crying with anger, and because Jonah looks ashen and horrified.

‘Lyds –’ he says, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder.

I shrug him off. ‘Don’t.’

‘I’m sorry, okay?’

‘No. No, it’s not okay. None of this –’ I gesticulate sharply around the graveyard – ‘is ever going to be okay.’

‘I know. I didn’t mean to upset you.’

I don’t know where this landslide of anger has come from. It’s as if Jonah moved a rock and caused an avalanche, and now it’s pouring out of me, uncontrollable as lava.

‘Oh, sure, you didn’t mean to upset me,’ I spit, horrible even to my own ears. ‘Digging at me via a dead man. What is it, Jonah? Do you need someone to chaperone you and tell the supply teacher that you like her?’ He looks confused, as well he might. ‘Just write it on the damn whiteboard. Or ask her out. One or the other, either works, but I’m not up for holding your hand. I’m not your replacement wingman. I’m not Freddie.’

We stare at each other for a moment, and then I turn on my heel and march off, furious.

I can’t tell Jonah what’s really the matter: that my body is knackered and my head is wrecked with the push-me, pull-me of living life with and without Freddie. I lay awake last night and tried to think of a rational way to explain to someone else what’s been happening, but it’s impossible. How can I expect anyone to understand that I sometimes get to be with Freddie when I sleep? I’m not delusional, and I’m not pretending that Freddie’s still alive in my everyday life. But there’s this … this other place where he and I are still together, and it feels like I’m locked in constant battle against its siren call. What will happen when the pills run out? I push the thought aside. I can’t contemplate it.

Sunday 3 June

I don’t know what I’m doing here. I was never particularly fond of school; this is the first time I’ve stepped foot in the place since I collected my A-level results. Actually, I do know what I’m doing here – I’m here because I felt like a bitch for storming off on Jonah yesterday and ended up sending him a sheepish sorry text, saying that maybe I could use some mindfulness after all. He replied it was either that or anger management because I was in danger of turning Hulk and bursting out of my jeans, and I said that I’d better try to make it then, seeing as green clashes with my hair. So here I am, dragging my feet across the concrete drive just as I used to when I was fourteen and hadn’t done my homework. I’m late, deliberately so. He said ten until twelve and it’s already turned eleven. I’m loosely planning to slide in towards the end and hide at the back, then tell Jonah a small white lie that I was there for almost all of it so we can put the bruise of yesterday behind us. We may not see each other every day any more but I don’t want to feel that we’ve fallen out; it seems terribly disloyal to Freddie to turn against his best friend.

As I push open the school hall door the nostalgic smell of floor polish and stale air transports me straight back to morning assembly. I can almost feel my knees aching from sitting cross-legged on the floor while the headmistress lectured us about appropriate behaviour, Freddie on one side loosening his tie, Jonah on the other fiddling with the buttons on his watch. There aren’t nearly enough people in the hall to hide my arrival this morning, twenty or so at most, sitting around tables with tea and cake rather than in regimented lines. Most of them look up when I come in and I pause, unsure, until Jonah stands and makes his way across to me.

‘Thought you’d decided to give it a miss after all,’ he whispers. ‘It’s fine if you don’t want to stay – I shouldn’t have pushed you yesterday.’

‘It’s okay.’ I look around at the gathering, apprehensive. More women than men, a smattering of people around my age but mostly older. A horrible thought strikes me: what if Auntie June and Uncle Bob are here? They love a workshop. I glance about and breathe a sigh of relief when they’re nowhere in sight. ‘How’s it been so far?’

He nods. ‘Yeah, it’s all right. Nice people. Honestly, Lyds, you don’t need to stay, it might not be your bag after all.’ He cricks his neck, something I haven’t seen him do in years. He used to do it when he was anxious; taking exams in this very hall for example. ‘In fact, I’ll grab my phone and come with you.’

I look at him, confused. ‘You asked me to come here,’ I say.

Jonah opens his mouth to say something else, but a woman approaches us, holding her hand out.

‘Hi there,’ she says. ‘I’m Dee. You must be Lydia.’

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