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8
THEA

I opened my eyes and instantly closed them again, wincing as even that tiny movement, just that miniscule eyelid flutter, caused a fresh wave of pain inside my skull. Why the hell was the room so bright? What time was it? My clock was right there on the bedside table, inches from my face. Could I risk it? Oh, for God’s sake, Thea. I opened just one eye this time, squinting to minimize the damage. Twenty past eleven. Eleven in the morning? It must be, yes, and I clearly hadn’t managed to close the curtains when I’d passed out last night, the sun flooding in as if it were June and not January. I winced again as a passing car honked its horn on the road outside, sending a spasm of pain through my head, then moved my right hand slowly under the duvet, running it cautiously down my body. I was wearing a jumper, jeans … and oh, great. Shoes. Yes, definitely trainers, still on my feet.

My stomach lurched suddenly, and I knew I was going to be sick. Moaning, I pushed the duvet aside and stumbled to the ensuite, the room swaying and swirling around me, and crashed painfully to my knees beside the toilet, my hands shaking uncontrollably as I pushed the lid up and leaned over the bowl.

When I’d finished, I slumped to the floor, the tiles cool against my burning forehead, traces of vomit still on my cracked lips. Why did I do this to myself? Why? What was the point? Because I hated myself, that’s why. Because I was constantly filled with shame and self-disgust and pain, and alcohol helped to numb it, to sedate me, just for a while. But I’d clearly gone too far, yet again. Did I really think that drinking myself into oblivion would help? I must have yet again last night, mustn’t I? I didn’t even remember what I’d drunk, or what I’d done … and what about Nell? Oh shit, where was Nell?

I sat up so suddenly that the room started spinning again, my head throbbing violently, black flashes strobing in front of my eyes. I took a few gasping breaths, trying to calm myself, trying to stop the nausea taking a grip again. Then slowly, I remembered. Isla. Isla had been here last night, hadn’t she? And Nell wasn’t here. Yesterday had been Friday, and she was with her father. With him until Monday, after school. With him for two more days. That was assuming that today was still Saturday, and that I hadn’t been so wasted I’d actually lost a whole day …

I crawled, like a baby, on hands and knees, off the tiles and back onto the soft bedroom carpet, then collapsed again, my eyes shut tightly against the burning sunlight. A few minutes later, thirst and self-loathing taking over, I dragged myself up into a standing position and slowly peeled my clothes off, leaving them on the floor where they fell. I could tidy up later, when I felt more human, I thought, my hand still trembling as I reached for the bottle of water that somehow, miraculously, was sitting on my bedside table. I drank the entire thing down, then staggered back to the bathroom and stood under a hot shower for a long time.

It was nearly twelve thirty by the time I made it downstairs, wearing a clean pair of navy leggings and an oversized, soft blue sweatshirt, my hair still damp. I suddenly felt ravenous, cramming bread into the toaster and cutting chunks from a block of Cheddar I found in the fridge, ramming it into my mouth, the events of last night slowly coming back to me.

Isla had arrived not long after seven, escaping London for the weekend as she almost always did. She was based there during the week, working as a producer on the Thursday night chat show Yak Yak Yak, the one which interviewed all the most controversial guests – the ex-cons, the kiss and tellers, the unapologetic racists who wanted to close Britain’s doors to immigrants. Isla worked long hours during the week, but once the live show had gone out on Thursday night and the Friday debrief was over, she liked to leave the city for a day or two before the madness started again on Monday. And to see me, of course. We talked on the phone pretty much every day, but it wasn’t the same as being together in the same room.

We’d met in a backstreet pub in Soho about fifteen years before, not long after I’d left university and moved to London; me, a skinny, quiet country girl from Somerset, trying to make my way in the big city’s fashion industry, her a loud, funny Edinburgh lass, all spiky red hair and dark lipstick, already a runner for a daytime TV show and determined to hustle her way to the top.

I’d been in the pub with a couple of people from work, and had only started talking to Isla because I’d somehow managed to trip and spill my cider all down her black T-shirt on my way back from the bar. When I, mortified, had offered this now very damp stranger a tissue to clean up the mess, she’d simply laughed, slapped away the hand that was ineffectually dabbing at her, and told me not to worry about it, and just to buy her a drink instead. And then I’d admired her necklace, a chunky gold lizard on a long shimmering chain, and that had been that. We’d ended up chatting for hours, two young women at the beginning of our careers, our London adventure, sharing our hopes and dreams and realizing that despite our very obvious personality differences, we were both so similar, deep down. Not just the lonely only child thing, but our hopes and desires for the future too, both fiercely ambitious, determined to succeed, both wanting many of the same things out of life.

When Rupert and I had moved to Cheltenham, Isla had come to visit and fallen in love with the place. Three weeks later, she’d rented a cute little bedsit near the hospital, just a few minutes’ walk away from our house.

‘My Cotswold retreat!’ she’d announced. And so Isla had remained an important part of my life, to my joy and delight, although Rupert wasn’t quite so keen sometimes. He’d grown to tolerate her, even enjoy her company at times, over the years, despite his initial concerns about our ‘obsessive’ relationship. But … well, Isla was Isla. You either got her, or you didn’t, and Rupert never did, not entirely. For me, though, he put up with her frequent presence, and she in turn gradually thawed towards him too, grudgingly accepting that, for me, my husband was a non-negotiable extra now.

‘He’s OK, your Rupert,’ she’d finally admitted, about a year after we got married. Not exactly gushing, but I’d hugged her anyway.

And so they rubbed along all right, the two of them. Most of the time, anyway. Rupert’s biggest issue with Isla was … well, her perennial singleness, really. She had boyfriends, of course she did, but few of them lasted more than a few dates, many – the frequent married ones – just one-night flings. While I enjoyed living the wild single life vicariously through my friend, Rupert disapproved.

‘She’s just so … well, she acts like a twenty-year-old,’ he would say. ‘She leads you astray. She drinks too much, way too much, and so do you, when she’s around. And she hates kids. How can you be friends with someone who hates kids?’

She didn’t hate kids though, not exactly. She’d been brought up in a tough part of Edinburgh by an abusive, single mother, walked out on by a violent father when she’d been just five years old. And she’d vowed, vowed from a very young age, she’d always told me, that motherhood was not for her. She didn’t have a strong maternal instinct anyway (‘Kids are just so boring, Thea’), but her big fear was, she said, that she might cause another child to be hurt the way she’d been hurt. Not because she herself had any violent tendencies, far from it. But she was scared that she’d pick the wrong man, and that the child would suffer because of that.

‘You know me, I always go for the bad boys, Thea. I’d get it wrong, I know I would. It’s not worth the risk. And it’s not for me, anyway, being a mum. I really don’t like them very much, which isn’t exactly ideal. And Christ, I’d be terrible at the whole caring thing. I can barely remember to feed myself most of the time … can you imagine? I can’t even keep a house plant alive.’

And so her decision had been made. As a result, she wished that, like her, I’d chosen to stay child-free, as she put it, too – she didn’t like how they ‘cramped my style’. The children took up so much of my time, time that I would have normally spent with her, and she definitely hated that, hated that I was often tired and distracted, hated my lack of energy when I was pregnant, and my inability to be spontaneous once I became a mother. She couldn’t just whisk me off for an impromptu drunken night on the town anymore, not after Nell arrived, and she’d been pretty horrified when I’d told her I was pregnant again with Zander.

‘Christ, Thea, two? Wasn’t one enough? Are you seriously going to have it?’ she’d said, clearly exasperated. It sounded horribly selfish, when I thought back to it now, the way she behaved, the things she said – it sounded like it was all about her, that my wants and needs and feelings didn’t enter into it at all. But I knew she wasn’t selfish, not really. She was, on the contrary, one of the most generous women I knew, always turning up with gifts for Nell and, later, Zander, even though she didn’t have much interest in them, not really; always there on the end of the phone when I’d had a bad day and needed to talk, always ready to drop everything for me.

So no, not selfish. She was just … insecure, I supposed. Desperately insecure, despite her brash, confident exterior, and terrified that she was going to lose me, her best friend, her surrogate sister, to these tiny, new, needy humans, despite my constant reassurances that that would never happen.

And it didn’t. I made sure of that, made sure that, despite Isla’s fears, my children didn’t really affect our friendship at all. We were too strong for that by then anyway, had too much shared history. When she arrived in Cheltenham after her week in London we’d stay in instead of going out, downing bottles of wine and Prosecco or, on sunny Saturdays, taking Nell and later Zander, too, out with us for long boozy lunches in beer gardens and bistros with pretty outdoor seating areas.

It wasn’t perfect – Isla was sometimes irritated on those days, the days I needed to bring the children with me and, if I was really honest, she basically ignored them most of the time, although I thought she’d warmed to Nell in recent months, just a little, as my daughter had grown and developed into the feisty, intelligent little girl she now was.

But in general, I supposed that Rupert was right about her attitude to kids, even mine. They just weren’t her thing. It was always OK though, once she’d had a few drinks. A glass of bubbly fixed everything, she always said. Rupert was right about that too, although I hated to admit it – Isla did lead me astray, certainly when it came to alcohol. I didn’t drink much at all when she wasn’t around – not in recent years, not since becoming a mum (although that has rather obviously changed somewhat drastically recently) – but when she was, all bets were off. She’d always denied having a drink problem, as such, although I was fairly sure she’d struggle to give it up for any length of time. But if I ever asked her about it, she’d dismiss my concerns with an airy wave.

‘I’m Scottish, Thea. Drinking’s in our blood. And when have you ever seen me with a hangover? It’s stress relief, that’s all. Hush. Here, pass me your glass.’

Oh yes, that girl could drink, and for some reason when she did, I always joined in. The problem was, as she liked to point out, she could down it by the gallon with, seemingly, no major repercussions, whereas I …

I rubbed my eyes, waiting for the toast to pop up, my head beginning to throb again, and hoped the paracetamol I’d just washed down with half a carton of orange juice would kick in quickly. I’d been able to handle the booze when I was younger, no problem at all, but since having the kids … serious lightweight. I’d often offer to be designated driver or, if Rupert and I were walking to one of our numerous haunts nearby, stick to two or three small glasses of wine.

Things had changed, though, over the past few months. Everything had changed. I didn’t need Isla to make me drink too much these days. I was quite capable of doing that all by myself.

The toaster finally spat out its browned offerings, making me jump. I slathered on some butter and layered on the cheese, then turned the grill on, put the toast on a tray underneath it and waited again, listlessly wiping surfaces and stacking empty bottles in the recycling box, my stomach growling. As I put the bottle opener back in its drawer I smiled suddenly as I remembered the conversation Isla and I had had last night as I’d wrangled a stubborn cork out of a crisp Sauvignon Blanc.

‘So, next week we’re interviewing the guy who owns that kids’ play park – you know, the one in Leicester where three kids were seriously injured because the equipment was faulty? And he’s blaming the parents for not keeping an eye on their offspring, and it’s sparked a big debate? Thea?’

Isla had been sitting at the kitchen table, nibbling crisps, filling me in on her week, trying as always to distract me from my thoughts, cheer me up, make me laugh. I’d nodded, struggling with the cork.

‘Yeah, yeah, I know. And?’

‘Well, I suggested we do it outside in the garden set, stick a bouncy castle behind him, have some kids on it, you know, for atmosphere? Light it up all spooky. It’ll look good, I think. Except, of course, the show goes out live, and at eleven o’clock at night legal won’t let us use kids, child employment laws, can’t allow them to work after 7 p.m., blah blah …’

I’d turned and raised an eyebrow at her.

‘I’m not surprised, Isla! Did you have to scrap the idea, then? Pity …’

‘Och, no!’ She’d slapped a hand on the table, a triumphant look on her face. ‘Because I, my dear, am a genius. I’ve hired a load of midgets instead. They’ll just be in the background, dim lighting, so nobody will notice the difference – brilliant, eh?’

I’d stared at her, aghast.

‘A load of … do you mean dwarves? Little people? Seriously?’

She’d nodded, eyes bright, and held out her glass for a refill.

‘Aye. Dressing them up in kids’ clothes. Hey – you don’t have any spares knocking around I can borrow, do you?’

I’d laughed out loud then, long and hard, laughed so much I’d first doubled over then slid slowly to the kitchen floor, tears running down my cheeks. Isla had watched me, slightly bemused, for a minute, then joined in, the two of us shrieking like hysterical banshees. She could do it, even now, in these days of such dark despair – make me laugh until I cried, and last night I had needed to laugh, needed it so desperately. Needed it to numb the pain, if only for a few moments. And I needed to do it with Isla, with the friend with whom I had shared so much. So much laughter over the years, so much happiness.

And now, so many tears, so much pain. So much guilt. Oceans of it, guilt so vast and deep and choking that sometimes I could barely breathe. Guilt that I know Isla felt too, just a little. It wasn’t her fault – it was me, all me. But she was with me, you see, that day. The day it happened. And we were drinking that day too. The day Zander died. Or, I should say, in the interests of accuracy, the day I killed my baby.