Truly Madly Guilty, Page 28

'So we turned up at the club, and I thought we might have trouble taking it seriously, but there was this woman in charge of the auditions. Her name was Emerald Blaze. I know. It sounds comical, but honestly, she was formidable. As soon as we saw her we took it dead seriously. She was an amazing dancer. She moved in slow motion. It made me think of silk. Slippery silk. Almost too sexy. Like you were seeing something you shouldn't see. She said, "Girls, it's not about fancy pole tricks. It's about the tease." That advice earned me a lot of money. So the first thing we had to do was just walk up onstage, walk around the pole and walk off. It doesn't sound like much but it was terrifying, knowing all the girls were watching and judging you, and of course we weren't used to the high heels yet - I thought I was going to fall - and what else? I remember Emerald had this whole thing about not being yourself. You had to come up with a stage name and invent your own backstory. Should I stop?'

  'What?' Clementine kneaded her stomach with her fists. The traffic inched forward. 'No. Please don't stop. Keep talking. What was your stage name?'

  'Barbie. Kind of embarrassing. I used to love my Barbie dolls.'

  'Please keep talking,' she said.

  And so Tiffany talked.

  She talked about the deep bass beat of the music and the haze of cigarette smoke and the drugs and the girls and the rules and how she got pretty good on the pole, she could do lots of spinning tricks, and hold herself out perpendicular to the pole, although it hurt her shoulders afterwards, but she'd done gymnastics at a competitive level as a kid, so ...

  Clementine thought of Holly's gymnastic classes. Maybe it was time for her to learn the violin instead.

  The car inched forward.

  'Go on,' she said.

  Tiffany went on.

  She talked about the one time she had to push the panic button doing a private show, but that was honestly the only time she didn't feel safe, and the barrister who wanted to just sit there and tenderly hold her feet, and how she saw him a few weeks later, being interviewed about a case on TV, and the scruffy-looking guy in a faded polo shirt who turned out to be mega-rich and handed over stacks of tipping dollars, not like the bankers in expensive suits who teased you with a single token, it was worth two dollars for God's sake, and the young country boys who kept on going back to the ATM for more cash and booking her again until finally she said, 'Fellas, this is it. I've got nothing more to show you,' and the B-grade celebrity who used to book her and Erin for shower shows and say 'Bravo! Bravo!' as if he were at the opera.

  'Or the symphony.' Tiffany looked sideways at Clementine.

  'Shower shows?' said Clementine.

  'Yes, so you'd have a shower while your customer sat on a couch and watched you loofah up - or soap each other up, if there were two of you. I liked the shower shows. The club got really hot and sticky. It was a relief to cool off.'

  'Right,' said Clementine. God Almighty. Shower shows. She wondered if she was going to be sick. There was a very good chance she was going to be sick.

  'Should I stop talking now?' said Tiffany.

  'No,' said Clementine. She closed her eyes, saw Ruby and opened them again. 'Keep talking!' she said in a louder voice.

  And so for the next twenty surreal minutes, while Clementine fixed her eyes on the brakelights of the car in front and willed them to vanish, Tiffany talked and talked, and the words flowed over Clementine and she kept losing track, hearing only fragments: the podiums in the private rooms were really hard so you carried this small fluffy rug ... some girls needed to drink to work but I ... competitive, this one night I thought to hell with it ...

  Until finally they came to the traffic cones, and the bright white flashing lights, and a tow truck slowly lifting a small mangled red car up by its bumper bar at an unnatural angle and a policeman waving them on and Tiffany said, in a suddenly very different tone of voice, 'Right then,' and put her foot down hard on the accelerator, and neither of them said another word until they drove into the hospital car park.

  chapter fifty-nine

  'So did it work? Did you remember anything more?' said Oliver. They were sitting at the dining room table eating the chicken curry he'd made. Outside, the rain eased to a drizzle as if it were thinking about stopping, but Erika wasn't falling for that. There was nothing else on the polished expanse of mahogany except what they needed: shining cutlery, placemats, un-smudged glasses of iced water on coasters. Sitting down to eat at a table like this was something neither of them ever took for granted. Before they ate, their eyes always met in brief acknowledgement, an unspoken moment of gratitude for space and order.

  'No,' said Erika. 'The fountain is gone. It's all concreted over. The backyard looks scarred. It was kind of sad.'

  'I guess they didn't want the memory,' said Oliver.

  'Whereas I did want the memory,' said Erika. She carefully put down her knife and fork. ('Stop waving your cutlery about!' Pam used to tell Clementine and her brothers; Erika was the only one who listened. Clementine still liked to emphasise a point with her fork.)

  'Yes,' said Oliver. 'I know.'

  'I've written it down, you know, everything I do and don't remember.' In fact, she'd typed it up in a Word document (saved as 'Memory.doc') in the hope that treating it like a professional problem would bring about a professional solution.

  'Good idea,' said Oliver. He was listening to her, but she could tell he was also listening to the gurgling sound of rainwater cascading from their overflowing gutters onto their back deck. He was worried about the timber starting to rot.

  'I remember coming out of the house holding the plates,' said Erika. Her memories were like the rapid flashes of a strobe light: on, off, on, off. 'And then next thing I'm in the fountain, and you're there, and together we're lifting up Ruby between us, but I can't remember anything in between. It's completely blank. I don't remember seeing Ruby, or getting to the fountain. Suddenly I'm just in there.'

  'You dropped the plates and you ran,' said Oliver. 'You screamed for Clementine and then you ran. I saw you running.'

  'Yes, but why can't I remember that?' said Erika. 'Why can't I remember thinking: "Oh my God, Ruby is in the fountain?" How could I forget that?'

  'The shock, the alcohol, the medication - all those things,' said Oliver. 'Honestly, I think you have to let it go.'

  'Yes,' sighed Erika. She picked up her cutlery again. 'I know. You're right.'

  She should tell him now that Clementine had agreed to be their egg donor. It was cruel to withhold information that would make him so happy.

  'How bad was your mother's place today?' asked Oliver.

  'The worst it's been in a while.'

  'I'm sorry,' said Oliver. 'And I'm sorry you had to go on your own.'

  'It's fine. I didn't do much. I kind of gave up. The bad news is that the woman next door is selling.'

  'Okay,' said Oliver, carefully chewing. 'So that's a problem.' She watched him weighing it all up.

  'She was nice about it,' said Erika.

  'We'll just have to work with her,' said Oliver. 'Find out exactly when she's listing, the open-for-inspection times.'

  'I feel like Mum might deliberately sabotage her,' said Erika. 'Just to be malicious.'

  'Possibly,' said Oliver. He'd grown up with purposeless malice too, but he accepted it like the weather, whereas Erika still resisted it, resented it, tried to find meaning behind it. She thought of her mother's laugh when the rubbish bag had split. Why would she laugh? How was that funny?

  'We'll work it out,' said Oliver. 'We forget about the inside and focus on the outside. That's all that matters until the neighbour sells.'

  He'd always been so gloriously calm when it came to the problem of Sylvia.

  When he realised how distressed Erika got whenever she visited her mother's house, which used to be a couple of times a week, he had initially insisted that she simply refuse to ever go there, but Erika's sense of responsibility for her mother couldn't let her do that. She needed to ensure her mother's living conditions hadn't
become a fire or health hazard. So Oliver developed a plan, with a spreadsheet of course, setting out a schedule of visits. The idea was that Erika would go to her mother's place only six times a year, together with Oliver, and each time they went they would have at least six hours blocked out, and they would be armed and ready for battle, with gloves and masks and rubbish bags. There would be no more going over for 'dinner' as if Sylvia were a normal mother. What a sick joke those dinner invitations had always been. Sylvia would promise to make some meal from Erika's childhood - long, long ago, before the kitchen disappeared, she'd been a good cook - but the meal had never, ever materialised, and yet each time part of Erika had believed that it would happen, even though she knew perfectly well that Sylvia's kitchen was no longer usable. 'I was a little tired,' Sylvia would say. 'Shall we just get takeaways?' Those nights had always ended in a screaming match over the state of the house. Now Erika no longer begged her mother to seek professional help. Oliver had helped her see that Sylvia was never going to change. She would never be cured. Oliver said to Erika, 'You get professional help. You can't change her, but you can change how you react to her.' So that's what she'd done.

  He would be the most wonderful, calm, wise father. She imagined him explaining the world to a son, a little boy with Ruby and Holly's startling blue eyes, sitting at the table with them, with his own placemat and his own glass of water. Their child would never have to eat a meal sitting on his or her bed because the dining room table had disappeared beneath piles of junk. Their child's friends could come over to play any time. Any time! Even for dinner. They would have extra placemats.

  That was the plan. That was the dream. To give a child the precious gift of an ordinary childhood. It was just that she could see Oliver in the dream so much more clearly than she could see herself.

  Tell him, she told herself. Just tell him. He deserves it.

  'Clementine called again today,' she said. A tiny white lie. 'While I was at Mum's place.'

  Oliver lifted his head and she saw the hope, so naked and raw, it made her feel sick.

  'She's happy to do it,' she said. 'To donate her eggs.'

  Let her do it. They'd saved Ruby's life. A life for a life. Clementine owed them. Let her do it.

  Oliver carefully put down his knife and fork on either side of his plate. His eyes were shining. 'Do you think ...' he began. 'Are you worried she's offering for the wrong reasons? Because of Ruby?'

  Erika shrugged. The movement of her shoulders felt unnatural. She wasn't going to tell him what she'd overheard. It would only upset him. And it shamed her. She didn't want Oliver to know that her closest friend didn't really care for her. 'She says it's nothing to do with that but I guess we'll never really know, will we? Anyway, it's a fair exchange. We saved Ruby, she gives us a baby.'

  'Um ... are you joking?' said Oliver.

  'I don't know if I'm joking,' said Erika reflectively. 'I might be serious. We did save Ruby's life. That's a fact. Why shouldn't they repay us by doing something in return? And what does it matter what her motivations are?'

  Oliver considered. 'Yes, it matters,' he said. 'Doesn't it? If she doesn't really feel comfortable with it? If she wouldn't have done it otherwise?'

  'Well, she has to see the counsellor at the clinic anyway,' said Erika. 'Before it all goes ahead. Surely it's up to the counsellor to talk to her about all that sort of thing. Her motivations. Her ... psychological state.'

  Oliver's brow cleared. There was a procedure to follow. Experts who would decide.

  'You're right,' he said happily. He picked up his cutlery. 'That's great news. Amazing news. A step in the right direction. We'll get there. We'll be parents. One way or another.'

  'Yes,' said Erika. 'Yes, we will.'

  He put down his knife and fork again and wiped the side of his mouth. 'Can I ask you something that might sound strange?'

  Erika stiffened. 'Sure.'

  'The day of the barbeque, Clementine said that you'd always told her you didn't want children. You're not just doing all of this for me, are you?' His glasses slipped forward a fraction as he frowned. 'All that you've had to go through over the last few years ...'

  'It hasn't been that bad,' said Erika.

  IVF had been a well-ordered process. She appreciated the rigour of it, the rules and the science. She especially enjoyed the sterility: the gowns that went straight into a basket after you wore them only once, the booties you put on over your shoes, the blue paper hairnets. And it had been nice, spending time with Oliver, working on this important secret project together. She remembered each retrieval and transfer, breathing in that beautiful antiseptic fragrance, holding Oliver's hand, nothing to do except submit to the process. Oliver had taken on the responsibility of all the medication. He had done all her injections, tenderly, professionally. Never left a single bruise. She didn't mind the early morning blood tests. The dizzy rush to the head. 'Yes, that is correct, that is my name,' she'd say as the nurse held up the neatly labelled test tube of blood in a blue-gloved hand for her to check.

  Clementine would hate those needles. Clementine's terror in return for Oliver's joy. It was an equitable deal, wasn't it?

  'Yes, but you want a baby too, don't you?' said Oliver. 'For yourself? Not just for me?'

  'Of course I do,' said Erika. It had always been for him. Always. That acquisitive desire she'd felt for a little Holly or Ruby of her own was gone now. She wasn't sure exactly why. Probably because of what she'd overheard and maybe because of something else: murky feelings related to those lost moments from her memory.

  But none of that mattered. She ate her chicken curry and let her eyes roam around their beautiful uncluttered room.

  'What's that?' she said suddenly.

  She stood up and went to the bookshelf. There was a sparkle of blue in between the spines of two books. Oliver turned to watch her.

  'Oh,' he said as she pulled out Holly's little blue sequinned bag. 'That.'

  Erika opened the bag full of Holly's rocks.

  'She must have left it here,' she said, lifting out a small white polished pebble.

  'The night of the barbeque,' said Oliver.

  'I'll give it back to Clementine,' said Erika.

  'Holly doesn't want it back,' said Oliver. He opened his mouth as if he were about to say something else, but then he changed his mind and instead took a sip of water and replaced the glass carefully on the coaster.

  'Really? I thought she loved -'

  'We might be pregnant by Christmas,' said Oliver dreamily. 'Imagine that.'

  'Imagine that,' agreed Erika, and she dropped the stone back into the bag.

  chapter sixty

  The day of the barbeque

  'Is Ruby dead?' asked Holly, playing with the handle of her little blue sequinned handbag full of rocks, which she held with both hands on her lap.

  'No,' said Erika. 'She's not dead. She went in the helicopter with your daddy to the hospital. She'll be there by now and the doctors will make her better.'

  They were sitting under a duvet on the couch while Oliver made them hot chocolate. Madagascar was on TV. Erika had taken out her contact lenses so all she could see were flashes of colour on the television.

  She had a feeling of impending sleep, like a huge black wave about to crash over her. Except she couldn't fall asleep. Not while Holly was here. And it was only ... what? Around six or seven pm. It felt much later. It felt like the middle of the night.

  'She might die.' Holly stared at the television.

  'I don't think she will, but she's very sick. It's very serious. Yes. She might.'

  'Erika,' said Oliver as he walked into the room carrying the tray with the hot chocolates.

  'What?' Weren't you meant to be as truthful as possible with children? No one knew how long Ruby had been submerged before they'd pulled her out. There were no guarantees. She could have significant brain damage. Hypothermia. She might not make it through the night. Why did Erika feel as if she should know exactly how long Ruby ha
d been under the water for? Why did she feel strangely responsible, as if she'd failed in some way? She'd got to Ruby first. She'd been the first one to act. She wasn't Ruby's parent. But there was something. Something she'd done or not done.

  'There you go,' said Oliver. He was still in his wet clothes. He'd get sick. He handed Holly the mug of hot chocolate. 'I didn't make it too hot but just take a little sip in case, okay?'

  'Thank you,' said Holly loudly.

  'Good manners, Holly,' said Oliver.

  'Get changed,' said Erika as she took the hot chocolate from him. 'You'll catch a cold.'

  'Are you okay?' asked Oliver.

  'Why? Do I not look okay?' She took a sip of her hot chocolate, and somehow missed her mouth. She wiped her finger across her chin.

  'No,' said Oliver. 'You don't.'

  'Manners,' said Holly to Erika.

  'What are you talking about?' snapped Erika. The child wasn't making sense. It occurred to her that she'd just snapped at Holly in exactly the same way Sylvia used to do when Erika was a child. The moment Erika started telling her mother something she would snap, 'What are you talking about?' And Erika would think, Let me finish and then you'll know what I'm talking about!

  'You forgot to say thank you,' said Holly. She looked frightened. 'To Oliver.'

  'Oh,' said Erika. 'Of course. You're right. I'm sorry, Holly, I didn't mean to snap at you.'

  Erika watched two giant teardrops quiver on the bottom eyelashes of Holly's big blue eyes. It was more than just her snapping. Holly wasn't that sensitive.

  'Holly,' she said. 'Holly. Sweetie. It's fine, everything is fine, give me a cuddle, there, although I actually think ... I might ... I'm sorry.' She couldn't hold on. Holly needed her comfort right now but she couldn't give it to her. She handed back the cup to Oliver and he reached out with surprise to take it just in time before it slipped from her hands. 'I'm just so sleepy.'

  She let that big black pool of nothingness take her, drag her under. She could hear a phone ringing, but it was too late, she couldn't get back now, it was much too big and powerful to resist.

  *

  Oliver looked at his comatose wife with a dull, sick sense of recognition. She'd passed out, drunk. It meant she'd effectively left. Gone. Not back until the morning. He'd never ever looked at his wife with dislike before, but as he studied her drooping head and gaping mouth he felt his face distort with resentment. They didn't even know yet if Ruby was going to be okay. How could she sleep? But of course, drunks could always sleep.