I wanted to laugh too because Phin and I were the same person, but I couldn’t feel it any more, that intense connection had gone, and now all I could feel was cold, hard horror.
Sally ran from the room; Phin followed her, then David, still in his bath towel. I looked at Birdie awkwardly.
‘Sorry,’ I said, for some strange reason.
She just gawped at me, before leaving the room too.
Then it was just me and my mother and my father.
My father got to his feet. ‘Whose idea was it?’ he said. ‘The drugs?’
I shrugged. I could feel the trip passing from my being. I could feel myself drifting back to reality. ‘I don’t know.’
‘It was him, wasn’t it?’
‘I don’t know,’ I repeated.
He sighed. ‘There will be repercussions, young man,’ he said gruffly. ‘We will need to discuss them. But for now, let’s get you a glass of water and something to eat. Something stodgy. Some toast, Martina?’
My mother nodded, and I followed her sheepishly to the kitchen.
I could hear voices raised overhead: Sally’s glassy vowels, David’s boom, Birdie’s whining. I could hear footsteps, doors opening and closing. My mother and I exchanged a glance as she posted bread into the toaster for me.
‘Is that true?’ asked my mother. ‘What Phin said about David and Birdie?’
I nodded.
She cleared her throat but said nothing.
A moment later we heard the front door bang shut. I peered into the hallway and saw Justin, his hands filled with hessian bags, returning from his Saturday market stall. Soon enough his voice was added to the symphony of shouting coming from above.
My mother passed me the toast and I ate it silently. I remembered the strange dread I’d felt seeing Birdie and David kissing the week before, the sense of something putrid being unleashed into the world, as though they were keys and they’d unlocked each other. And then I thought of the feeling of Phin’s hand in my hand on the roof, and thought that we were also keys unlocking each other, but letting out something remarkable and good.
‘What’s going to happen?’ I asked.
‘I have no idea,’ said my mother. ‘But it’s not good. It’s not good at all.’
30
Michael is in the cellar and Lucy has cleaned for over an hour. She collects a bin bag from the front door; it’s filled with blood-sodden paper towels, a pair of Joy’s latex gloves and every last trace of their meal: empty wine bottles, beer bottles, napkins, uneaten panzanella. She has dressed the cuts on her back with plasters from Michael’s en suite and in her bag are three thousand euros taken from a drawer in his bedside cabinet.
She glances at the Maserati as she passes it on the driveway. She feels a strange wave of sadness pass over her: Michael will never drive another performance car. Michael will never book another spontaneous flight to Martinique, never pop the cork on another bottle of vintage champagne, never write his stupid book, never jump in his pool in all his clothes, never give a woman a hundred red roses, never fuck anyone, never kiss anyone …
Never hurt anyone.
The feeling passes. She drops the bin bag in a huge municipal bin by the beach. Adrenaline courses through her, keeping her centred and strong. She buys two bags full of snacks and drinks for the children. Marco texts her at 5 p.m. Where are you?
At the shops, she replies. Be home soon.
The children are cooperative. They look in the bag of snacks and treats with disbelief. ‘We’re going to England,’ she tells them, mustering a light and whimsical tone. ‘We’re going to meet my friend’s daughter, to celebrate her birthday.’