“I don’t know how more people don’t crack up and take the law into their own hands and just kill the bloke.” Matt had discovered things he’d never before thought about: that only one in ten reported rapes make it to court; that out of them, only six in a hundred result in a conviction. And what about all the rapes that are never reported, because the girl is too scared. Of her rapist? Of the police? All those rapes unacknowledged, unavenged. It was enough to drive him mad. How was the world as normal as it was? How was all that rage and injustice and grief and fear contained?
When Matt saw that Maeve would never return to Goliath, that he didn’t have to stay to protect her, he left too.
He had been determined that he wouldn’t leave, that that bastard wouldn’t drive him out, the way he’d got rid of Maeve, but he was tired of shaking with rage in meetings, of trembling so much that his fingers couldn’t type if your man was in the vicinity. It was a point of pride that Matt never let David see any weakness, any reaction at all. In his head he tortured him lengthily and horribly but in real life he presented a bland nothingy expression. A show of imperturbability was all that remained to him, a paper-thin comfort, but something nonetheless.
As for David, there was no evidence of remorse or guilt. He never spoke directly to Matt but the smirk in his eyes said it all. You took her from me and I fucked it up on you.
Matt left Goliath and went on to bigger and better at Edios. Evidently, he could still do his job.
Both Matt and Maeve started taking antidepressants, then they began weekly appointments with Dr. Shrigley until Dr. Shrigley tried to get Matt to admit that sometimes he’d doubted Maeve’s story, so Matt stopped going.
But he did doubt Maeve. Sometimes. How could he not? Everyone else doubted her and he was only human. At times he hated her. He’d feel irrational rage that she’d got raped, that she’d ruined everything.
It was almost two years before Maeve got a job, a tiny, tame little thing, gifted to her because she was the only applicant who would agree to the very low salary. A routine was the way to go, she realized. That would keep her safe. She kept things very small and very predictable, and sometimes she caught a glimpse of all that she had lost. Had she really been that person, that light-hearted innocent who’d loved everyone? Who had approached the world with a wide-open heart, as if life were a great, big, juicy red apple, just waiting for her to bite into it?
She’d had it all. Within the bounds of her ordinary life, she’d had nirvana. She’d been loved and she’d had friends, a job, ordinary decent happiness. And it was all gone.
They kept track of David. But Matt didn’t know that Maeve did and Maeve didn’t know that Matt did. Now and again, independently of each other, they showed up outside No Brainer, in the hope that David might be showing signs of remorse, but they always came away feeling worse.
Even at the most hopeless of times, Matt showed an occasional burst of his old optimism and came up with bright ideas to cure them: they’d take up horse-riding or hillwalking or badminton or—most frequent of all—they’d move house.
Nothing lasted and nothing worked.
“Time wounds all heels,” Matt sometimes said to Maeve.
But somewhere along the way, three years had passed and they were still wounded and waiting.
Day 1 . . .
Conall hustled Lydia up the stairs and into his bedroom. He was desperate for her.
“What did you think?” Lydia shimmied out from under his grasp. “When you saw Matt in the bath?”
Conall tightened his lips. He didn’t want to talk about it. When he’d opened that bathroom door, he’d been rooted to the spot with horror. Every one of his muscles had seized up and the backs of his calves had started cramping.
From all the blood and guts on the telly he’d expected to be inured to carnage, but CSI: Miami could never convey the power of a real dead person.
He kept seeing it again: the bath filled with Matt’s blood; crimson blossoms swirling through the water; the waxy, lifeless face lolling on the taut red waterline.
“I thought he was dead,” he said.
As he’d hovered in the doorway of that bathroom, the world felt like it had stopped turning, and battling with his horror was grief, a mesmerizing sense of loss at the waste of the young man’s life.
In his time, Conall had done a lot of living: he’d driven expensive cars at shamefully reckless speeds; he’d taken risks in his career that could have cost millions; he had experienced a lot of beauty—magazine-style girlfriends, priceless art, the most scenic spots on the planet. But in that endless moment he understood that you only truly know the value of life when you’re face to face with death. Life seemed so appallingly valuable he wanted to howl.
“You thought he was dead?” Lydia said. “Nasty.”
“It’s over now.” At least he hoped it was, but his calves were spasming again. He reached for Lydia, but she backed across his enormous bedroom. He followed her.
“Why did you call for Katie?” Lydia asked. “To come and help you?”
“Because . . . she was the obvious person.”
“What way obvious?”
“She knows about first aid.”
“Owning seven different versions of Savlon doesn’t make you a paramedic. I asked her in your so-called Flying Bottle—thanks for that, by the way. Really rub it in, your private joke, why don’t you? Anyway, she knows zip about first aid.”
Conall looked quizzical. “Your point?”
“You were scared, really, really scared and Katie was the one you wanted.”
Elaborately, he rolled his eyes.
“Oh no,” she said. “You don’t do that to me. I’m not one of your sappy girls.”
“I know you’re not one of my ‘sappy girls.’ ”
“No. I know I’m not one of your sappy girls.”
“Okay.” He said with elaborate patience. “You know you’re not one of my ‘sappy girls.’ ”
“You’re not getting it, are you?”
He gazed at her, then something changed behind his eyes. “You’re . . . breaking up with me?”
“Love of God, took you long enough. I can’t believe your nerve, bringing me back here to have sex, when it’s Katie you want.”
“I don’t want her. I want you.”
“Love of God.” She shook her head. “You haven’t a clue. You’d want to cop on to yourself or you’ll never be happy.”
She disappeared into the bathroom and reappeared with a cluster of bottles—shampoo and things—and threw them into her bag.
“What are you doing?”
“Getting my stuff.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m going, thick-arse. In case you have to explain to people what’s after happening, here it is: I’ve broken it off with you. And no, we can’t be friends. You don’t really do friends, do you? Another thing you’d want to sort out. I’ll be bad-mouthing you every chance I get. If there’s a rumor going round town that you’re a premature ejaculator, I’m the one who started it.”
She opened the bedside cabinet, fished out a packet of condoms and slid them into her jeans pocket. “Mine,” she said. Then she cast one last contemptuous look around the room, checking that she had everything, before swaggering from the room and thundering down the stairs.
The house shuddered when she slammed the front door behind her. Automatically, Conall reached for his BlackBerry. What was Lydia’s problem? She was too much of an attack dog, that’s what it was. How could you reason with someone like her? Katie had been the obvious person to call for. She was capable, she was an adult, she understood things, she was . . . well, simply obvious.
Four new emails had arrived, and he read them hungrily, clicking quickly from one to the next, but none of them did the trick. He didn’t feel so good, everything seemed slightly surreal. Sort of nasty. He put on Bruce Springsteen’s Nebraska, but there was so much loss in it that he changed to the Sex Pistols. All that frenzied guitar didn’t f
eel good either. Madame Butterfly maybe, but two minutes of listening to that aching abandonment and suddenly he had tears in his eyes. He wasn’t having that! In alarm, he shut it off. Silence was safer.
He lay on his giant bed, staring at the far wall. Time passed and, after a period of nothingness, he wondered if he should ring Katie. Just to find out what was happening with Matt.
Then he realized that Lydia was the one he should be ringing—apologizing, explaining, all that. There were rules, Conall knew. You weren’t supposed to prefer your ex-girlfriend to your current one. But he didn’t prefer Katie. It had been an emergency, for crying out loud: someone was dying, things needed to be done and done quickly. Katie had been the right person.
Or maybe Lydia was right, he admitted reluctantly. Maybe she was the one he should have called for. But she was so hard and what he’d needed, in those moments when it had seemed like the horror was going to overwhelm him . . . what he’d needed right then, was soft.
Day 1 . . .
“Into the pillow,” the nurse said. “Do it into the pillow, or you’ll have to leave.”
Maeve looked up. Her face was hot and sore with salt and her eyes were so swollen she could barely see. Another surge of uncontrollable feeling rushed up through her.
“Pillow!” the nurse said. “There’s other people here. They’re upset too.”
Maeve doubled over and buried her face into the pillow, which had appeared from somewhere, and shrieked, “How could you do this to me? How could you leave me here all alone? I will never forgive you.”
When she’d finally understood what Matt had done, she’d landed with an almighty bump back in her body, back in Maeve. It was like that suddenly present, super-real sensation when your ears pop on a plane. She was alive and in agony and blind with fury.
A red-curtained screen-on-wheels had been wrapped around Matt’s trolley, in an attempt to give them some privacy from the rest of the ER. Maeve sat beside him on a hard, hospital chair. His wrists had been stitched, taped and swaddled in pristine white bandages; he’d been given 4 liters of blood and 2 liters of electrolytes. Wires connected him to drips and green beepy monitors. He looked at death’s door but he was going to live.
“You must really hate me to do that to me!”
His eyes were closed, he looked unconscious, but she thought he was faking it.
“As soon as they let you out of this place, you get yourself straight round to our flat and move your stuff out.” She lifted her face from the pillow, she couldn’t stop herself. “Go to a hotel, move in with your parents.” She tasted blood at the back of her throat. “I don’t care where you go.”
“Pillow!”
Fionn paced up and down in the hospital car park. The ER was like the waiting room in hell, with its clusters of injured people crying and wailing, trailing entourages. Someone had given Jemima their chair, but there was nowhere for him. Not that he was able to sit, he was too agitated. He was feeling bad. Angry, actually. First with Jemima for insisting that he escort her to the hospital, leaving Katie with that territorial Conall. And, secondly, with Maeve for treating him like the anti-Christ. Somewhere during this evening’s dramatic events, he’d realized that the emotion which used to light up Maeve’s face at the sight of him wasn’t awe. It was fear. Terrible paralyzing fear. He felt foolish, really quite sore, that he’d thought she was mad about him. And why wasn’t she? Everyone else loved him.
They’d been here for hours. He wasn’t sure how long but it was properly night now, good and dark.
He’d had enough of this.
He stomped back in through the polythene doors. Someone was shrieking like a banshee. It was Maeve, still at it. She’d end up being sectioned if she didn’t watch it.
“What did I miss?” he asked Jemima. “Did he die or something?”
“No, you’ll be delighted to hear he’s going to survive.”
“So why’s she still shouting and that?”
“She’s distressed.”
“Can’t they give her something?”
“Why ask me? I’m afraid I don’t have medical training.”
Well, tetchy! “Jemima, let’s go.”
“Maeve needs someone with her.”
“She doesn’t even want you here.” Earlier, Maeve had slapped Jemima away when she’d tried to comfort her.
“What Maeve wants and what Maeve needs are two very different things.”
“Does she even know you’re still here?”
“I know I’m here.”
God, Jemima could be infuriating.
“When the storm passes, which it will, she may be glad of my company. But you go home, Fionn. I’ll be perfectly fine. Thank you for escorting me.”
“So, like, what? You’re just going to wait until she stops the shouting? She’s not showing signs of doing that any time soon. Could you not knock off the do-gooding, Jemima? Like, at this hour of your life?”
Jemima gave a little smile. “I may not have many more chances.”
“You?” He snorted. “You’ll outlive us all.”
“I may not, dear heart.” She paused. “Fionn, remember when I had that little brush with cancer?”
“That was years ago.”
“Four—”
“And you’re better now.”
“Well, the thing is, I—”
“Look, if you’re sure you’re not coming, I’m going to head off.”
Taking the stairs three at once, Fionn bounded up to Katie. There were already men at work fitting a new door to Matt and Maeve’s flat. That Conall, Mr. Make-it-Happen, he’d make you puke.
Katie was waiting at her open door. “Well?” She had been crying.
“He’ll live.”
“Thank God, oh thank God for that. And how’s Maeve?”
“Tell me something.” His wounded emotions erupted. “What did I ever do to her? What’s her problem?”
Katie was staring at him. “Something happened to her. Obviously. Something to do with a man or men. We think that maybe she was . . . raped. You can’t take it personally.”
“Yeah, I suppose.”
“She was just as scared of Conall.”
He had to close his eyes. “You’re comparing me to him?”
Silent seconds elapsed, then Katie took him by the hand and led him into the living room. “Fionn, come on. It’s been a bad few hours. We’re all rattled.”
“Yeah, okay,” he muttered. “So what did I miss?”
“Very little. Had a quick drink in the Flying Bottle with the others.”
“What others?”
“Conall, Lydia and Sissy.”
“Hold on a minute. You went with Conall?”
“And Lydia and Sissy.”
“Why?”
“Because we were upset. Because we wanted a drink.”
“And you thought it was okay to go with him, even though he’s your ex-boyfriend? And even though he did his best to make me look like a, a woman-pesterer in front of everyone?”
“Fionn . . .” She wrapped her arms around him. “It’s been a weird, horrible evening. We’re all freaked out. Come and sit down. Come on. Listen, is Jemima okay?”
“Jemima? Never better.”
He let himself be guided to the sofa but, as soon as he was sitting, he felt trapped. “Let’s go out.”
“What? Tonight?”
“Yeah. Now. There’s a thing on in the Residence. Some launch.”
“I don’t want to go out.” Katie sounded shocked. “I couldn’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because someone almost died and we were there. I’m in the horrors. I wouldn’t be able to be happy and chatty. I need to be quiet.”
“A few drinks?”
“Fionn . . . no.”
“You were happy enough to go for a drink with Conall.”
“Fionn.”
“So you’re really not going to come out tonight?”
Katie tilted her head to one side and gazed at him.
He tried to read what she was thinking. She looked scared. She looked confused. She looked—unexpectedly—sad. Then she looked calm and he knew he’d got her. But when she spoke, her words didn’t match her look. “No, Fionn,” she said. “But you go. Have a good time.”
Christ alive. Their heart currents have gone right to hell. They had become as one, a perfect smooth union, but this thing with Matt has sent them flying and they’ve bounced and broken apart, like a peanut tumbling from its shell. And whatever way they landed, it’s altered their heart currents. It’s all arseways. Fionn’s has speeded right up, beating an anxious, urgent tattoo, leaving Katie’s for dust.
I’m in the soup now, rightly in the soup. They’ve all split up, all three couples, and I’ve less than a day to go.
Day Zero (early hours of)
5 hours remaining
“Sorry,” Matt croaked, startling Maeve into wakefulness.
“Oh, you’re alive,” she said. “Sorry about that. Saving your life, and all, but it wasn’t up to me. I’d have let you die.”
“Maeve, I’m really, really sorry.” His tears were flowing freely and he was the very picture of a broken man. “But I wasn’t able to help you. Nothing was going to help.”
“Don’t blame me.”
“I was just a reminder to you of what had happened. And I wanted to kill him all the time. I was bursting with anger every minute of the day and I was knackered from it.”
“And what? You think I enjoyed it?”
“I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t see it that way when I was doing it. I was at the end of my rope. I didn’t feel like I was any use to you.”
“You’re not. You’re going to be allowed out of here at seven o’clock. Come to the flat. I’ll have made a start on packing your stuff.”
“Where will I go?”
“What do I care? You were all set to die on me so don’t be asking me to find you somewhere to live.”
“How will I get home?”