A Common Loss by Kirsten Tranter

Author:Kirsten Tranter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Published: 2012-03-13T16:00:00+00:00

Our drinks arrived; I’d ordered a martini in Cynthia’s two-olive style. It tasted salty and made me wish immediately for a glass of water. The dry air sucked moisture away from my skin busily. When Cynthia finally appeared I couldn’t tell whether she’d taken a long time or no time at all.

‘Well done,’ she said. She sat down on the white couch and crossed her legs, lifted her glass and clinked it against mine. ‘Cheers.’

‘Cheers.’

There it was again, her clean smile. There was an electric tension in her body, a restlessness that hadn’t been so obvious before. The lip gloss was still there, shiny like wet candy. Her eyes moved across the terrace, out to the balcony, the skyline. The mountains were out there somewhere beyond the glare of lights, dark and brutal and ancient.

‘It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘In a monstrous kind of way.’

I nodded.

‘So, Cynthia,’ I began, ready with a set of questions about her research.

‘Call me Cyn,’ she said. She laughed. ‘Everyone does. Now, Elliot — there’s no nickname for that, is there? Just Elliot. One l or two?’

‘Two,’ I said.

She smiled. ‘Oh, like in E.T. Now. I just bought some amazing coke from someone in the bathroom. Do you want some?’

‘Cyn,’ I repeated. ‘Of course.’ Her eyes glittered, and suddenly everything seemed to become clear.

‘Of course — like, OK?’

‘Sure. OK. I mean, thanks.’

She laughed again. ‘Relax.’

I tensed at the word, hearing her say it in a way that made me think of Dylan. He would have been the one to acquire the good coke in the bathroom, if he’d been here. I considered whether this was a Dylan memory that would make sense to share with Cynthia.

‘You would have liked Dylan.’ Her eyes brightened. ‘I mean, everyone liked him. But you would have related to him.’

‘Oh, really?’

‘He always had the good drugs.’

‘Huh. Interesting.’ She pressed her hand to mine, and in it was a small plastic bag. ‘Don’t take too long,’ she breathed into my ear, and brought her mouth to her glass.

I tapped a small pinch of powder onto my hand in the bathroom stall, noticing the paleness of my skin in the sparkling overhead light. It was sharp and then numb in my nose, a bitter, glorious trace down the throat. I washed my hands and marveled at the chill of the cold water, the brightness of it.

Time telescoped and collapsed after that as though strobe-lit, patches of illumination followed by blur. More dancing; more drinking. On the dance floor, arms raised above her head for a moment, Cynthia was caught by the white flash of a strobe and appeared to me like a goddess, all silver and powerful and divine. Her arms dropped, the lights changed pattern, and she was human again, a thin film of sweat visible on the skin of her face, eyeliner beginning to smudge.

More cocaine, both of us squeezed together in a stall in the men’s bathroom, where I forgot about Brian and everything else. The

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