A User's Guide to Make-Believe by Jane Alexander

Author:Jane Alexander [Jane Alexander]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780749024246
Publisher: Allison & Busby
Published: 2019-06-14T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

‘I’m really, really sorry.’

The late sun was aiming straight for her eyes. A handful of sand, gritty and hot: she turned from the window, seeking the dark. Felt as if she was being interrogated. Lewis was taking it worse than she’d thought.

‘I’ll get you a new one – I mean I don’t have the money, at the moment, but—’

‘You can’t just. What d’you think I’m going to do with a new one?’ His arms were folded high across his chest, hands clamped in his armpits; his jaw was set sharp-angled, as tight as she’d ever seen it. Keep it in the cupboard in the hall, she nearly said. Lend it out to the next charity case you sleep with.

‘Sorry,’ she said again. But last night she had set up the final repayment. It would go through as soon as her cash deposit cleared. In a couple of days, it would be as if she’d never borrowed the money; as if Ella and Finn had never been collateral for her stupidity. She was sorry for Lewis, hated to see him so wound up by what she’d done – but she’d do it again, in a heartbeat.

‘We agreed you wouldn’t take it to yours!’

She wished he’d stop talking. ‘I know. I did lock it—’

‘What, with your tinny chain? How long d’you think it took them to cut through that?’ He didn’t wait for her to answer. ‘Jesus, you didn’t even take it into your flat, you just left it in the stairwell of some dodgy fucking high-rise?’

Low-rise; but she didn’t correct him. ‘I know – it’s just it was so heavy to – but I should have.’

‘Yeah. You should.’

How many times could she say she was sorry? She didn’t want to be here. Not in this flat. Not in this body. Last night when she’d finally made it home, her neighbour was having another party. She’d asked him to turn it down; he’d asked her in. Ryan, he was called, and he was alright once you talked to him, though she didn’t remember what they’d talked about. Didn’t remember how much she’d drunk. Enough to poison her. Enough to swell her brain in her skull so it ached at every movement. Enough so her stomach lurched at the smell of the food Lewis had been making. She wished she’d stayed in bed, told him she was ill. Put off her confession until tomorrow. It was a resigned kind of self-loathing that had propelled her out of bed, into town on her rattling old bike, to endure his wrath along with her hangover.

He had every right to be angry, but she was surprised just how gracelessly he was behaving. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t afford another bike. It wasn’t as if he even needed one. She’d grovelled about as much as she could bear: now, in the heat of his anger, her guilt was bubbling up into a resentment she’d no right to feel.

Maybe he sensed it. He shook his head, letting go.

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