Honey(89)
“He was a family friend.” Her voice rising. “Look, you’re just being paranoid because of—” Perhaps she shouldn’t.
“Because of what, Yrsa?”
“Because you’ve been cheated on before. And I’m not the one who’s been reading your messages.”
“I wasn’t ‘reading your messages,’ they popped up on your phone.”
Another misstep. Yrsa thought it best not to switch off her notifications, as that’s not normal.
“Don’t accuse me of invading your privacy,” he says.
“Then don’t accuse me of cheating.” She stands up from the sofa.
“Did you sleep with him, over summer?” He stands.
“Oh fuck you.” Her brain suddenly feels too busy to be having an argument. “Did you sleep with anyone else over summer?” She throws back.
“Why were you having dinner round his flat that night?” Isiah is slightly pacing.
“So I’m not allowed to have male friends now?”
“Don’t do that. Don’t make me sound like I’m crazy.”
“Sorry, but you are being—”
“Did you change his name on your phone?”
She’s underestimated him, her boyfriend, completely. She knows her silence has already been too long. “No.”
“Right.” He walks into her bedroom, she follows, he throws his bag onto the bed.
“What are you doing?”
He doesn’t say anything, shoving clothes in without folding them.
“Stop.” Yrsa tries to take the clothes back out—the jumper she always wears, his hat—but he holds her back.
“We’re not even having a conversation about this?”
It’s a bus hurtling toward her.
“What is there to say?” He unplugs his charger.
“You can’t do this. It’s my birthday.”
This makes him scoff, the scoff makes her hate him. He has his bag over his shoulder even though he hasn’t done it up. She stands before the door. “You can’t do this, Isiah. You can’t just leave. You can’t be going through my phone and then just leave.” She brings her voice back down like this is nothing, it’s nothing.
“Yrsa, get out the way.”
“I’m not moving until we talk about this.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.” He shouts it and it makes her step aside. It’s every light off. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m sorry.” Touching her hand, opening the door.
III
GOD IS GOD AND I AM NOT
I
The willows are completely without leaves.
* * *
People are traveling home for Christmas and the heating in the flat switches on and off at random intervals.
“Isiah and I broke up.”
“When are you coming home?”
“End of next week.”
“You should come sooner.”
“I have work to do.”
“Has Ida left?”
“Yes.”
“It would be better if you came home.”
* * *
In the quiet Yrsa is remembering things. Things like how, the week of her Grandmother’s death, she went with her mother to pick clothes up from the house. She waited in the kitchen, looking out onto the garden. It didn’t make sense. “Why have the roses been dug up?” she asked when Candice came back downstairs. “Have they?” Her mother didn’t give the question time, but the flowers were gone. The soil upturned.
* * *
Hey, I know you’re angry but can we talk?
* * *
Cambridge’s cobbled streets ice over and she stays inside more. Ida sends her photos of Copenhagen alongside how are you today texts. Yrsa watches Sex and the City reruns, deletes every photo of Isiah, thinks of ways to kill him.
* * *
Her mother phones. “Your dad wants turkey for Christmas but I’m thinking of doing duck.”
“Sure.”
“As it’s just the three of us.”
“Okay.”
“What have you done today?”
“Stop checking in on me, I’m not a child.”
“I don’t appreciate that tone.”
* * *
She sees Anna in Sainsbury’s. She’s buying fruit, wearing a cream coat. She’s dyed her hair, looks younger. Yrsa smiles at her but she doesn’t see.
* * *
I’m still not ready to talk, and I can’t say when I will be. Also, sorry to tell you like this, but Blake’s health’s been getting worse and we’re going to move her into a home closer to us in London. I’ll give you the details when we know so you can still go and visit her. I hope everything’s okay with you
* * *
Carolers sing in Market Square and Yrsa buys Christmas presents. Socks for her dad, a framed poster that says World’s Best Mum in purple cursive for Candice. She drinks mulled wine from a paper cup until it turns cold.