The morning after.
Four bodies. Vague shapes. A stale, sticky smell. Spilled beer and vomit. Cigarette smoke. Weed. A sudden flash from the night before: a couple behind the sofa, bangs and thrusts. An audience looking on. The girl riding and bucking. Big grin on her face, eyes closed. Oblivious.
Marie walks slowly towards the sofa, crouches down. Peers around the back. They’re still there, arms wrapped around each other. Totally out of it. A mist of sex lingers. Something else. Something stronger. She knows who they are: Scott and his new girlfriend, Leanne. Leanne had looked down her nose at Marie at Jack Henderson’s party. She didn’t even know her. She knew Scott a bit, just from him coming into the pub. They might’ve been good together. Too late now.
That makes six.
Marie is in shock. She recognises the feeling. She’s been there before. Everything feels unreal, even when the truth of it all is staring her in the face. Her head spins as she stands up. Her eyes sting. She has a vague memory of waking up in darkness, peeling contact lenses off her parched eyes, tugging at dry eyeballs. She can barely see without them, everything fuzzy-edged and hard to decipher. She squints, stumbles against the sofa. A head lolls against her.
‘Shh, sorry,’ she says, low, under her breath. No response. Why would there be? It was an instinct – that was all. She’s seen this man before. Not even a man, still a boy. Sean. Hayley’s boyfriend. The one she dumped for that boy from the shows. Silly girl.
A girl is draped at an awkward angle. Long, dark hair trailing on the floor. She is wearing a blue dress. Same one she wore to Jack Henderson’s. Must be her favourite at the moment. It is stained now. Ruined. Poor Lauren. Sean sits, head leaning off one side of the sofa, his soft hair tickles her hand. She nudges him gently and his head rolls back onto his chest as she moves carefully away.
Try not to wake them.
On the other side of the room, a skinny figure lies splayed across an armchair, head hanging off one side, legs off the other. She steps closer, but she can already see who it is. Sam. Her heart lurches. She feels responsible. If he hadn’t come . . . if they hadn’t been together . . . if he hadn’t thought he had a chance with her. Marie moves away. She can’t look at him. Under the window, a girl is curled up and facing the wall. Her fair hair is matted and spread out around her like the head of an old mop. Susan Pola. She remembers the name. Unusual. Not from the area. An incomer to the town, like Marie. She remembers her from the night before – dancing, singing. Laughing.
The room shifts. Tilts.
Marie feels sick. Brings up bile and swallows it back. The syrupy taste of Red Bull burns the back of her throat. Memories of vodka and cheap fizzy wine whirl around her head and her stomach like an aspirin fizzing in water. What was she doing? Why had she gone to the party? Her head was all over the place. She’d wanted to get away. She needed to escape from Graeme.
Where is Graeme?
What has he done?
She walks around the room in a haze. All around, there are shadows. Dark patches and pools. Spilled things. Dirty things. She squints, faces swim in and out of focus. She holds her breath . . . thirty . . . twenty-nine . . . twenty-eight. Her head thrums. The smell is getting worse. Body odour. Piss. Carnage and decay. Bottles and cans everywhere. Discarded bits of clothing. Upended ashtrays.
Her stomach lurches again. She has to get out. Now.
It is too quiet. Too claustrophobic.
Wings of panic flutter in her chest. She feels like she is being attacked. Birds flapping and slapping around her head, her body. Hitting her, scratching her.
Ten . . . nine . . . eight . . .
She lifts the latch. The door opens with a squeak and she flinches. Hears a soft thud from somewhere behind her. She turns back. Sees that Lauren’s hand has slid off from where it had been resting on her stomach, and it now flops uselessly on the laminate flooring. But she hasn’t woken up.
Of course she hasn’t.
There’s a faint banging sound. Tap. Tap. Tap. A draft. Someone has left the back door open. Maybe someone is out there now, having a fag or a morning sup from one of the cans of warm beer she imagines to be littering the kitchen worktops. She hesitates. Should she go through? Offer to help clear up? Sort out the drunken mess of bodies scattered across the lounge like a pile of coats?
They’re not drunk, Marie. They’re not asleep.
She squeezes her eyes shut and sparks flip and leap across her vision. No.
No.
She has to get out. She needs air, water and sleep. She needs a wash too. A long hot bath, to get rid of the stink that seems to be seeping into her pores from the toxic air. She needs to shake off the memories of the night before, threatening and bothering her like tiny pinpricks jabbing at her skull.
Something happened. Something went wrong.
I wasn’t there . . . I passed out.
What happened? WHAT HAPPENED?
She walks out into the early morning sun, shielding her eyes. She takes a gulp of fresh air and feels the nausea subside – for now, at least. A chorus of blackbirds twitters in the trees. Anne and Ian’s camper van is parked on the road outside. The awning has been popped up. The curtains closed. Marie hopes they are in there. Hopes they haven’t seen . . .
Marie wonders if she will manage to walk home without bumping into someone, or something . . . or getting knocked down by a car as she stumbles, half-blind, down the road. She hugs her jacket across her chest.
What now, Marie?
She bangs the door shut. Hard. Starts walking. Fast.
Something pings at her. Get away from here. You need to get away.
Behind her in the house, no one flinches. No one stirs.
No one breathes.
She has to find Graeme before the police do. She has to find out what happened. What went wrong.
This is all wrong.
This is not what she wanted. A tear runs down her cheek, tickling, itching. She rubs it away.
Four . . . three . . . two . . . one.
She’s gone.