Shelley tried to ignore the painful feeling of her face and hands chapping in the wind. For early May, the weather had been mild but in the depths of the graveyard, she felt the cold. She sat on a grey bench a few feet away from Nicole who stood at her mother’s grave.
By the time Shelley stood up to leave, her body was stiff. Every bone felt like it had been replaced with ice. She struggled as she threaded her frozen arm through Nicole’s.
“Does this cemetery have a Resident Lurker?” Shelley asked as they followed the twisted paths that crisscrossed between the gravestones.
“What’s that when it’s at home?”
“When it’s in the cemetery, you mean.” Shelley smiled. “There’s a creep I keep seeing when I go to see Will.”
“Like a flasher?” Nicole asked.
“No, otherwise he’d be a Resident Flasher and this one doesn’t flash. He only does lurking.”
“Maybe you just haven’t seen him.”
“No, he couldn’t. He wears a shell suit. You need a raincoat to flash, otherwise how do you get it out?” Shelley shivered, and she didn’t think it was purely due to the cold air. For warmth, she drew Nicole closer, pulling tighter on the link of their arms. “He stares at me, like he’s looking through me. He really creeps me out... I don’t know why I’m making a joke out of this.”
Nicole steered them onto the main path that led back to the car park where she’d left her Chimaera. “You were trying to cheer me up... and it’s a coping mechanism.”
“I was trying to give you a coping mechanism? How very generous of me.” Shelley grinned.
“No. Well, actually, yes, but that’s not what I meant.” Nicole tucked a few rogue strands of blonde hair back underneath her black beret. “It’s your coping mechanism.”
“Crack is for coping.” Thank fuck I didn’t say junk.
“Crack’s what happens when your coping mechanisms internally stop working. You look for others, externally. But then they stop working too, and that’s when you’re really fucked.”
“That’s me,” Shelley said, half joking. She pulled out the box of Benson and Hedges from her handbag. “You’re talking very textbook. Is this what you’re doing with Doctor Fielding?”
Nicole nodded. “I’ve got inappropriate coping mechanisms.”
“Is that what she told you?” Shelley stopped to light her cigarette by a gravestone so worn by the elements the lettering was illegible scribbles, and so overgrown that it looked like it hadn’t been tended to once during the twentieth century. “That’s not very nice of her to say that.”
“She’s being honest, that’s her job. Some are choices I made – crack, working, sex, food, spending – what I do to myself. But what’s happened to my mind, shutting down, I didn’t choose that.”
“It’s a learned response to past experience. I remember she used to say that. But I think it’s a good thing. It’s like your mind’s got its own way of protecting itself.” Shelley held her purple Clipper under Nicole’s cigarette.
With her cigarette lit, Nicole carried on walking. Shelley tucked her lighter into the front pocket of her handbag and tottered along the path behind her friend. Once she caught up, she slipped her arm through Nicole’s and slowed down their pace.
“I hardly remember anything nowadays and what I do... it’s just snippets, unfinished,” Nicole said.
“There’s not much that happens that I wanna remember.”
“I wanna remember normal things, like what I did last week.” Nicole took a deep breath. “For some people, some things might be too painful to remember, but it’s not helpful when it happens on everything. Sometimes I don’t even feel like I’m in my own body.”
“I like being absent, dissociated enough that I can’t feel. Automatic protection in advance, just in case it’s needed.”
“I don’t wanna be a machine. I’m a human being.” Nicole untangled her arm from Shelley’s. She stamped her cigarette into the ground and shoved her hands into the pockets of her red coat. Without Shelley slowing her down, Nicole returned to taking her standard long strides and Shelley couldn’t maintain their walking in sync. To keep up, she had to jog.
“It’s like I get told a white lie to protect my feelings.” Nicole stopped by the black obelisk, the memorial for the Katyn Forest massacre. “Actually, it’s not. I don’t even get a lie. I just don’t get the truth. And it doesn’t protect my feelings ’cos I still get them anyway, the fucked up emotions, and they’re fucking up my mind, only with less information.”
Nicole’s eyes were shining. Shelley took a tissue from her handbag and passed it to her. As Nicole wiped her eyes, Shelley read the sorrow the vandals had graffitied on her friend’s face.
“The fear, the anger, the dread, the pain, I’ve got it all,” Nicole said, her hands now out of her pockets: one holding the white tissue, both gesturing in the air, “but I don’t know all the facts. It’s like my mind rejected them, or stored them in my subconscious because it would’ve been too shocking to know, to really know, to fully remember everything.”
“Some things are best left unknown,” Shelley told her.
***
The plan was to drive from the cemetery in Gunnersbury to Tara’s in Earl’s Court, so they could work on what they had in store for the rapist. To Shelley, it didn’t feel right to be doing it on a day when Nicole was clearly distraught. Shelley tried to talk her round.
“He could be out raping other girls. We can’t just leave him to it,” Nicole said.
Having strapped on her seatbelt, Shelley took out one of the pre-rolled joints from her cigarette box. She lit up as they were driving out the cemetery. She hoped the dope would satisfy her enough that she wouldn’t end up on the pipe. After the conversation in the cemetery with Nicole, her heart wasn’t in the meeting. Even more so, because it was at Tara’s where they always ended up on the pipe. Although she wanted a hit, she didn’t want it to be crack, not on its own without heroin and a needle. Shelley was adamant that today there would be no crack at Tara’s.
“My dad’s been in touch,” Nicole said, as they zoomed down Chiswick High Road. Nicole explained that she’d received a letter from him before the trial, but had only just decided to reply. Shelley was upset that Nicole hadn’t confided in her sooner, but then – like Shelley – Nicole never spoke of her absent father. They’d only ever had one conversation on the subject and that had taken place in 1995 – the year after Shelley started working and had met Nicole.
“Do you want to see him?” Shelley asked.
“I don’t know. I’ll speak to the others first. I don’t want anyone upset.” Nicole took a deep drag on the joint Shelley passed her.
Unlike Shelley, Nicole knew her father. Though he had abandoned her too, he was present for the first few years of her life. He’d left Nicole’s mother for another woman when Nicole was young. Shelley couldn’t recall the exact age, maybe six or seven. She’d told Shelley that from the day he left, he’d never come back to see her or her younger brother and sisters. He’d had a new family. He’d remarried and had more children. So she had more than her three siblings but she didn’t know the names of the others, their ages, if they were boys or girls, or how many of them there were. Shelley wondered if Nicole would be able to forgive her father. Nicole’s mother had blamed him for her alcoholism, which is what sent her to an early grave. Briefly, Shelley asked herself the same question, but it was a waste of time.
***
On a side street off the Cromwell Road, Shelley and Nicole stood waiting outside Tara’s building. Was her intercom really broken or was there someone she was avoiding? Again, Tara didn’t answer.
Eventually, she buzzed them in after Nicole phoned from her mobile. Walking up the stairs, Shelley recalled the state of Tara last time she’d seen her. On entering the airless flat, Shelley noted there was no improvement today. Her dirty clothes consisted of a well-worn, grey tracksuit top and baggy sweatpants. In her imagination, Shelley added an orange bib and pictured her friend in prison.
As soon as their feet were on the dirty carpet in the cramped hall, Tara asked them to buy some crack. Surprising herself, Shelley declined. She’d planned not to take crack – but usually her plans not to failed. Her fix in the morning to stave off the sickness must’ve given her willpower a boost – though her mood could have still benefited from some tweaking.
Not happy with Shelley’s answer, Tara tried to sway Nicole. But Nicole stood her ground. “We need to keep our heads clear,” she told Tara.
Nicole led the way into the lounge and took her usual spot on the navy sofa. Tara sat on her armchair and Shelley stood awkwardly by the door. She was thirsty but she didn’t want to drink from a vessel kept in the filth-pit that was Tara’s flat.
“Can I wash my hands in your kitchen?” Shelley asked.
“If you like, or use the bathroom,” Tara replied.
Shelley turned back into the lounge. Something was different. Tara no longer had a television. Shelley felt pity for Tara as she walked through to the kitchen. Tara had most likely sold her television for crack.
With the tap turned on, Shelley carefully leant over the pile of pots and crockery in the sink and drank from the flowing water.
“I’ll get you a glass.”
Shelley flinched. Her chin narrowly missed the faucet. She hadn’t realised Tara had come into the kitchen. Tara took a glass from the cupboard and passed it to Shelley. Before filling the glass with water, Shelley rinsed it a few times under the hot tap.
When Shelley walked back through to the lounge, she took her place in her usual seat, next to Nicole on the sofa. In front of them was the glass coffee table – Crack Island – on which they usually prepared their pipes. Shelley had that feeling she was missing something, or had forgotten something. She guessed it was the crack.
For a second time, Tara asked if they’d join her in buying a rock, and Shelley expected that she too had the same ‘missing’ feeling. Following the second rebuff, Tara stormed out of the lounge, leaving Nicole and Shelley alone.
After a while, Tara returned. Her eyes were slightly bloodshot and not quite looking in the same direction. “Oh my God, Shelley, you’ve changed your hair!”
“Resident Unobservant, surely it hasn’t taken you this long to notice?” Nicole said.
“Your mind’s on a pipe, isn’t it?” Shelley pulled a cigarette from her twenty-pack and held it out to Tara.
“Fuck you.” Tara’s nose screwed up as her face contorted and reddened. “I was about to say you looked really nice but I won’t bother now.”
“Calm down, love. She didn’t mean it.”
“No, I did mean it.” Shelley put the cigarette she’d earmarked for Tara in her own mouth and lit it. “You’ve got a problem. You sold your laptop and now your TV’s gone. What’s gonna be next?”
“My TV’s getting fixed at the shop. Anyway, it’s not your fucking business.”
“I’m gonna make a cuppa.” Nicole stood up. “When I get back, I want you ladies on your best behaviour.” Nicole smiled at Tara as she walked out of the lounge, and from the hall, she shot a wink in Shelley’s direction.
Guilt and anger tussled to find their order in Shelley’s head. She was angry with Tara for her outburst and also cross with herself. Her honesty she knew could be brutal. And when it was directed at someone for whom she cared, she tended to feel guilty. That she hadn’t mentioned Tara’s son and the reason he didn’t live with her was some consolation. Though she’d thought it, thankfully, she hadn’t converted the thought into spoken words. Reflecting on her intention, she knew it wasn’t to hurt Tara’s feelings. She had wanted to make her see that she couldn’t go on as she was.
“I’m sorry I upset you, Tara. I didn’t mean to,” Shelley said.
“I’m sorry too. I haven’t had a pipe today and I’m climbing the walls.”
Shelley was stumped for what to say. She didn’t want to get into another argument but she was quite sure Tara had taken a pipe since they’d been in her flat. She wanted one herself, but she couldn’t let Nicole down and get high with Tara, not today. Perhaps Tara had taken something else in place of crack that had a similar effect on her eyes. In case she was strung out, Shelley took a fifty-pound note from her purse and pressed it into Tara’s palm.
“Thank you,” Tara said. Her face crumpled as if she was about to cry, but she didn’t. Her head rocked a little, and her slight smile looked forced.
When Nicole came back through with the tea, Shelley examined her mug closely. It didn’t look clean, but she decided it appeared more coffee-stained than dirty, so she took a chance and drank from it.
“Let’s get started,” Nicole said. With a writing pad on her lap and a pen in her hand, she looked as if she was responsible for taking the minutes.
“You can’t take notes, Nic,” Shelley said. “You’re making evidence.”
“I’m trying to be organised, in case I forget anything.”
“Like an organised criminal?” Tara sniggered.
Nicole turned her back on Tara and spoke to Shelley. “I know we’ve gotta be mindful of the police, but whatever’s going on with sick bitch or not, we can’t stall any more.”
“I think we should wait, let things cool down a bit,” Tara said.
“Another girl could be being raped right now for all we know. I can’t live with that,” Nicole said forcefully.
Tara stood up from her armchair and walked out of the lounge.
Nicole shook her head and looked up to the ceiling before returning her attention to Shelley.
“I’ll call Angel from the car,” Shelley said.
“Thanks, love. Shall we go back the North Circ way, then we can check out those empty houses?”
“No. There’s too many squatters,” Shelley said. “I think I can sort something else.”
On the way downstairs, Shelley reflected what a waste of time it had been having their meeting at Tara’s when she’d been absent for most of the conversation. As she reached the front door of the building, she imagined Tara telling Marianne about the change in her appearance. She clambered back up the stairs.
When Tara finally responded to her knocking, Shelley reminded her of the holiday Marianne thought she was on, and that she shouldn’t share her new phone number. Casually, Shelley added, “And don’t mention my new hair.”
“Your cut and colour is safe with me,” Tara said, breathing vodka over Shelley.