‘Have you got any tobacco? I need a fag, it’s so hot in here.’ Jimmy gets up and starts to suggest we all call it a night but she cuts him off and I pull out my cigarettes and tell her I’ll come with her. Jimmy finally looks at me.
‘It’s fine. Stay here. I’ll sort this,’ I say as I usher her down the corridor and onto the balcony.
Caro stumbles outside and leans against the balustrade. I produce cigarettes and light her one. I stand over her, aware of how tiny she seems.
‘You are behaving like a lunatic,’ I say, as I drag on my fag. She doesn’t look at me. ‘You have made this night a nightmare. I can only assume you’re desperately unhappy to behave like this. Why are you marrying Jim? Break it off and find someone who has a nice family estate and will let you starve yourself to your heart’s content as long as you look nice on his arm. It’ll be easy. You’ll be happier, Jim won’t be gradually destroyed. I won’t have to pretend to tolerate you. Go on, Caro, you know I’m right.’
She pulls herself up onto the lip of the balcony so that she’s sitting astride it and throws her head back. She’s laughing. It’s the most natural she’s been all night. Caro coughs, sits up straight and tucks her hair behind her ear.
‘You are so stupid,’ she drawls. ‘You are SO STUPID. I don’t want to marry some bonehead with a trust fund. Of course it’s what I should do, but I’d die of boredom. I want to marry Jimmy – he’s kind and he adores me – not like some fusty banker who’d treat me with disdain and fuck his secretary at any opportunity. I want Jimmy.’
I can’t help but roll my eyes. ‘Such a cliché, Caro. Wouldn’t therapy have been cheaper? At least it might help with some of your other issues. They’re not going away, no matter how hard Jim tries to help. Why make him a wreck too?’
There is no point to this, I think. She hates me, we are trying to wound each other with words and neither of us will really land a fatal blow. Caro’s pupils are enormous, black and boring into me.
‘Oh stop it. You don’t get to have an opinion here, you fucking single white female. Wearing green to upstage me at my own engagement party. Christ, I shouldn’t even have to indulge your jealousy and delusions. Everyone’s a wreck, Grace, you should understand that. But we’re adults. We’ll work out a good understanding. I’ll earn the money and he’ll be an upstanding chap and our life will be nice. Simple. Normal. I want normal. He won’t be like Lionel, never there, never warm, always desperate for the next thing.’ She draws on her cigarette. ‘It’ll all be just grand. But for that to happen, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that you probably need to not be A. THING.’ She emphasises those last two words, looking at me, not laughing now.
‘Jimmy loves you, you’re like a weird sister wife, aren’t you? Always around, but not quite his. Part of the family, but you’re not – not really. Sophie is obsessed with a good deed. You were just one of them. Why didn’t you take the hint when you hit 18 and slink off? A grown adult with a boring job isn’t quite the prize that a child with a dead mother is. You’re no use.’
She’s almost shouting, flailing her cigarette in the air. My hands are curled into tight little balls, and I can feel the urge to pull at my throat welling up in me. I move towards her and she leans back, her eyes widening just a little. My head is boiling hot now, and I take one useless deep breath, trying to dispel the adrenaline I can feel flooding my entire body.
*
What might I have done differently in that moment? Would I have pushed her violently, right in the chest, forcing her backwards over the balcony? Would I have grabbed at her foot as she fell, realising my impulsive rage and trying to rectify it – all in the space of a second? Or would I have loomed over her and said something equally as devastating in the hope that I would somehow gain a valuable point or two off her? It’s something I’ve mulled over many times, an interesting little ‘choose your own adventure’ where the path you take leads to dramatically different end scenarios. In all my revised scenarios, I deal with it less impulsively, with a little more style. But then, that’s hindsight for you. In reality, I did nothing. Caro fell off that balcony all by herself, her thin little body unable to cushion her fall. She was dead within seconds. I told you I won. That is, of course, until I didn’t.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
George Thorpe runs through every development surrounding my appeal. He’s meticulous, I’ll give him that. So meticulous that I’m nodding along silently wanting him to hurry up and just give me the highlights. The man seems to think he has to recap every single part of the case before we can get to the part which hopefully gets me out of this place. Am I bored by my own wrongful conviction? Now there’s a thing.