‘I’ll miss you,’ I said, realizing that I really would.
‘I’ll miss you too,’ she roared at me.
52
The following morning we had the usual stampede down the corridor to the Abbot’s Quarter. We burst in the door, laughing and pushing, in our rush to get to the good chairs. To our surprise there were already two people sitting there.
Time came screeching to a halt for me as I realized in slow motion that I knew the man. I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before but there was something about the way he looked that…
The nano-seconds groaned by as I clocked his hair, his face, his clothes. Who was he? I knew I knew him.
Was it…?
Could it be…?
Oh, my God, it couldn’t possibly be…
It was…
It was.
‘Hello, Luke,’ I heard myself say.
He stood up, taller and bigger than I remembered him. His hair was messy and his handsome face unshaven. So heartstoppingly familiar. I was suffused with delight for the briefest instant. Luke, my Luke, had come to get me! But even as a smile exploded on my face, it was already inching away in confusion. This was all wrong. He wasn’t behaving like my Luke. His expression was granite-grim and he hadn’t leapt on me, kissed me and swung me round the room.
Memories came rushing back of the terrible final scene when he’d broken it off with me. Then with scalp-crawling horror, I remembered the questionnaire. It had arrived in person. How could I have ever thought I’d avoid it?
‘Rachel.’ The unfriendly nod and the fact that he didn’t call me ‘Babe’ indicated he hadn’t come in peace. I shrank with rejection.
The instant where I turned to the tall blonde woman who stood next to him took about an hour. I knew her too. I’d definitely seen her before. Maybe not to talk to, but I knew the face.
Surely it wasn’t…?
No, it couldn’t be…?
What had I ever done to deserve this…?
‘Hello, Brigit,’ I Said, my lips mumbly and numb.
She was as unfriendly as Luke, just giving me a brief ‘Morning’. I quailed.
I turned to Mike and the others, foolishly feeling that I should introduce everyone. My knees trembled with shock and, after I introduced Mike to John Joe, and Chaquie to Misty, shakily sat down on the worst seat. Four or five springs set about gouging tunnels in my bum but I barely felt it.
Luke and Brigit also sat down, looking exhausted and miserable. You could smell the agog interest of Mike and the other inmates.
Meanwhile, I thought I had died and gone to hell. From Luke’s and Brigit’s hostility, I knew their visit indicated something bad. This can’t be happening, I thought repeatedly. This cannot be happening. I was very shaken by both of them being there. But more shaken by Luke. We’d been so close, so easy with each other, and I was devastated by the coldness between us. Whenever we’d been together he’d been wildly, generously affectionate. But now Luke was sitting on the other side of the room from me, bristling with an invisible force field that warned me not to try and touch him under any circumstances.
‘How’s it going, Rachel?’ He finally attempted conversation.
‘Great!’ I found myself saying.
‘Good.’ He nodded, miserably. I wasn’t used to seeing him look miserable, he usually looked so alive. There were any number of things I desperately wanted to know. Have you a new girlfriend? Is she as nice as me? Have you missed me? But I was too stunned to manage anything.
I turned to Brigit. She looked the way she did when she had no make-up on, even though she was plastered in it. That was weird.
It was all weird.
The last time I’d seen or heard from her was in our apartment in New York, as I was leaving for the airport with Margaret and Paul. I’d hugged her, but she’d just stood like a plank of wood. ‘I’ll miss you,’ I’d said.
‘I won’t miss you,’ she’d replied.
And instead of getting upset about it, I’d totally wiped it from my mind. I’d just remembered.
Bitch, I thought.
Josephine arrived and said things about Luke and Brigit arriving unexpectedly from New York. ‘We’d have warned you they were coming, Rachel,’ she smiled, ‘but we didn’t know ourselves until this morning.’
She was lying. I could see it on her face. She’d known they were coming, but she’d kept it from me to cause maximum impact.
Without further ado, Josephine did the introductions and confirmed what I’d suspected. That Luke and Brigit had both come as my Involved Significant Others. Brigit hadn’t done a questionnaire because what she wanted to convey was so important a personal visit was called for.
I felt sick with dread.
‘Brigit, I realize how upset you are,’ Josephine said. ‘So we’ll proceed gently.’ It looked as if Brigit was going to be the warm-up act, with the main feature of Luke to follow.
I braced myself for her accusations, literally sweating with fear. This was the worst thing that could ever happen to me.
I wondered if people felt like this when they were taken into a sound-proofed cell to be tortured by the Inquisition. When they were aware of the horrors that awaited them, but still couldn’t believe it was really about to happen. To them. Not their friend. Not their colleague. Not their brother. Not their daughter. But to them.
‘You’ve known Rachel a long time?’ Josephine asked Brigit.
‘Since we were both ten.’ Brigit’s eyes flickered nervously over mine, then away.
‘Can you tell us about Rachel’s drug-taking.’
‘I’ll try.’ She swallowed.
There was a horrible, loaded silence. Maybe she can’t think of anything to say, I prayed fiercely.
But no.
Brigit spoke.
‘We’ve tried to get her to stop for ages.’ She looked at her lap, her hair hiding her face. ‘Everyone has. Everyone knows she has a problem…’
I was so tense I was almost vibrating. I won’t listen, I repeated, like a mantra. I won’t listen. But bits of her damning indictment made their way to me, despite my best efforts to drown them out.
‘… very aggressive when we tried to talk to her… getting worse and worse… took drugs on her own… stole other people’s… and before going to work… always out of it… lost her job… always telling lies, not just about drugs, but about everything else…’