Sweet Damage (24 page)

‘You were,' I say. ‘A complete bitch. Why?'

‘I'm not sure.' She stares at her beer, takes a sip, puts her glass down. ‘I was thinking about it all last night. God, I had a shit night, Tim. Had the most enormous fight with Patrick, so I had to stay at Mum's flat. And then I couldn't sleep because all this crap was going round and round in my head.'

‘Yeah?'

‘The thing is, though, I wasn't actually all that upset over Patrick. I mean, I knew we were going to break up eventually. It was inevitable. I was more upset about the fight we had. I felt like crap afterwards, thinking about some of the things you said to me. In fact, I think I just did the whole recording thing so I could bust Patrick and get my mind off my own behaviour. Make someone else feel like the bad guy for once.' She takes another sip of her drink, and when she looks up she really has got tears in her eyes. She smiles weakly. ‘You did me a favour. Made me think a bit. And I owe you an apology. A big one.'

I shake my head, ready to tell her to forget it, but she puts her hand over mine.

‘No. Just listen. I need to say some stuff.' She leans forward. ‘I couldn't get to sleep last night. I was feeling sorry for myself at first, feeling homeless and friendless and hard done by. I kept thinking how unfair everything was, how mean you were, what a shit Patrick was. And then for some reason, I don't even know why, I remembered what the headmaster at school told me that time I got suspended for playing a trick on Kelly Putland.'

‘No idea what you're talking about,' I say. ‘Don't remember the girl or the trick.'

‘Doesn't matter. The point is what the principal said. She basically told me I'd get exactly what I deserved if I didn't wake up to myself and start treating people right. She said I was selfish, self-obsessed. She said I needed to learn some empathy. God, Tim, it was really horrible, really hard to listen to.
So
confronting and awful. Anyway, I stayed up all night and thought everything through – honestly, you know? I thought about how I treated Patrick, how I never properly committed to him, how I was always looking out in case there was someone or something better. I always do that. I always think the grass is greener somewhere else. Anyway, then I thought a lot about my reaction to Anna, and my fight with you, until eventually I had this, well, this epiphany, I guess, and I realised that I was being completely unfair to Anna. I lay there and I tried to imagine what it must be like to be her, you know? I tried to make myself have some empathy for her . . .' She lifts her hands. ‘. . . And eventually I realised how lucky I actually am. To have my sanity. To be mentally healthy. The thing is, Tim, Anna's such a hopeless case I just couldn't imagine what it must be like to be her. And that in itself says a lot, don't you think?'

I roll my eyes. ‘Don't beat yourself up too much, Lilla. And, don't worry, Anna's nowhere near as hopeless as you seem to think. In fact she's—'

‘Okay. Whatever,' she interrupts. ‘That doesn't actually matter. The point is, I want to apologise. You were right. I was being intolerant and bitchy and I'm sorry.'

‘No worries,' I shrug. ‘Thanks.'

‘And there's something else too. Something you and I need to resolve.'

‘What?'

‘It's about the other stuff you said. In bed. The night of the party.' She puts her hand on mine, squeezes. ‘You were right. I've been stringing you along. Using you as an ego boost, just like you said. I know how you feel about me and I suppose I wanted you to keep feeling that way. It's nice having you there, just in case, you know? Like a big security blanket. But it's not fair. I know that now. The truth is I just wanted you to want me, even if I didn't want you back. It's a crappy way to behave. Especially when I know I just want to be friends. I don't want anything else. You need to know that.' She takes a breath. ‘I'm sorry, Tim. Really sorry.'

Her admission, which would have stung like hell a few short days ago, slides over me without leaving a scratch, and I'm surprised by the complete lack of hurt, by my own indifference. ‘It's all good,' I say. ‘Apology accepted. No harm done.'

She looks surprised. ‘That's it?'

‘What do you mean,
that's it
? What were you expecting?'

‘I don't know. A bit more than that. You were pretty angry with me the other day. And I probably deserve your anger. I certainly deserve something.'

I shrug, lift my glass, drink my beer. Despite her supposed new insight, her insistence that she wants to change, she looks distinctly unimpressed by my lack of reaction. I'm sure she'd prefer it if I broke down in tears, begged her to come back to me. She doesn't like me being indifferent, so eager to leave her.

‘So,' I say. I'm impatient to get going now – I want to get back to Anna. ‘Is there something else? You said there were several things you wanted to talk about.'

‘There is one more thing.' She lets go of my hand, sits up straighter, clears her throat. ‘I need a favour.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Can I stay at your place for a while?'

That makes me laugh. Sometimes I can't help but admire Lilla's nerve. ‘Anna's place, you mean?'

‘Anna's place, then. Can I? Just for a week or two?'

‘I thought you said it was a hole.'

‘I didn't say that. Maybe I said it was weird or spooky. I probably said it was cold. I'm quite sure I never used the word
hole
.'

I watch her face, take a slow drink of my beer.

‘Look, I've got nowhere else to go, all right? I can't stay at the flat with Patrick. Not now. And if I stay any longer at Mum's you'll be visiting me at East Wing before long. I'll go mental. I'm ready to strangle her and I've only been there one night.' She leans forward
.
‘Come on, Tim, you owe me. I let you stay with me and Patrick when you got back from Indonesia. And that wasn't exactly the ideal situation. I just need somewhere to stay until I can sort myself out. A few weeks, tops. I know I'm going to have to apologise to Anna. And I will. And I am really sorry. I'm prepared to do a fair bit of grovelling.'

‘I don't think so,' I say.

‘Why not? Really. I'm genuinely sorry. Surely Anna will—'

‘No,' I interrupt. ‘What I mean is you won't have to grovel. I doubt that Anna has even thought about it since you left. We've been a bit preoccupied.'

She looks at me carefully. ‘So? You're really together, then?'

‘I guess.'

‘What do you mean, you
guess
? Either you are or you're not!'

‘I suppose we are, then,' I say.

‘You said Anna was having a hard time,' Lilla probes. ‘So what happened?'

I shake my head. ‘Not gonna say. It's none of your business. If you really want to know about Anna you'll have to ask her yourself.'

Lilla begs me to tell her, promising to be discreet and sensitive, but I keep my mouth shut. While we finish our beers I direct the conversation onto other things – work, the weather, neutral stuff like that. She tries to convince me to stay and have another drink but I tell her I have to go. I say goodbye and promise to ask Anna tonight and get back to her straight away.

*

Anna is startled by Lilla's request – not surprisingly – but I tell her what Lilla said and how sorry she is, and Anna is quiet for only a second before she gives me her answer. I text Lilla, letting her know she has a place to stay, and then I toss my phone aside and give my full attention to Anna, who is warm and soft and willing beside me.

61

L
ILLA TURNS UP THE NEXT MORNING
. I'
M JUST RETURNING FROM
the shops when she arrives in her shitbox of a car. She drives too fast up the driveway and parks right up near the house, crunching on her handbrake so that the tyres skid. As if that isn't enough of an arrival, she follows up by tooting her horn twice and jumping out of the car.

‘I'm here!' she shouts, waving.

‘No kidding,' I say. I leave my backpack on the front porch and go over to her car, which is stuffed full with boxes and bags.

‘Holy shit, Lilla. What have you brought?'

‘Clothes. Music.' She shrugs. ‘Just the essentials. Not that much.'

I reach into the back seat, grab a garbage bag full of clothes.

Lilla takes another one and we walk into the house.

‘So where's Anna?' she asks. ‘Is she out?'

For a moment I think she's joking, or being deliberately mean, then I remember that she doesn't actually know about Anna's agoraphobia. I wonder if I should at least have told her about that – it might have spared us all some future awkwardness. But Anna appears at the end of the hallway and walks towards us, and it's impossible to mention it.

‘Hi Lilla,' Anna smiles. ‘Do you need a hand?'

Lilla lets her bag of clothes fall to the floor. Before she speaks, she glances at me, looking sheepish, embarrassed. I almost feel sorry for her.

‘Thanks so much for letting me stay,' she says. ‘Really. It's fantastic. I just . . . well . . . I don't know what I would have done otherwise.'

Anna waves her hand dismissively. ‘It's nothing. Don't worry about it.'

Lilla looks down, pushes the toe of her shoe into her bag of clothes. ‘I was rude the other day and I'm really sorry. It was stupid. I don't even know why I behaved like that. You must think I'm awful, a real idiot.' She looks up, smiles tentatively. ‘But I'm not. At least, I'm going to try hard not to be from now on. You'll see. And if I do behave like a dickhead again I give you full permission to tell me so, or just kick me out. Whatever you prefer.'

Anna laughs. Lilla treads untidily over her bag of clothes and gives her a hug.

Lilla insists on seeing each room before she chooses one – and naturally she barges her way into Anna and Benjamin's old room.

‘This is gorgeous,' she says. ‘I'll have this one.'

Anna is silent, bites her lip, looks down at her feet.

‘Maybe not, Lilla,' I say. ‘Maybe you—'

‘It's okay,' Anna says. ‘It's fine, Tim. She can have it.'

Lilla either doesn't notice Anna's aversion to the idea or doesn't care. She claps her hands together. ‘Great,' she says. ‘I just love this shade of green. So calming and fresh. I just love it!'

We help Lilla get her stuff upstairs. Anna manages to help without actually going outside, and without making that fact obvious. By the time we've emptied her car the room is covered with bags and boxes, clothes spilling out everywhere.

‘Thanks so much, you two,' Lilla says, looking around. ‘You guys should go and have fun – I can pack everything away. I've actually taken a bit of time off work so I can move and get some other stuff done, but I promise I'm not going to be a nuisance. I'm going to get this done in a flash, then I'm going out. Shopping for some new clothes. Retail therapy. You'll see.' She looks at Anna. ‘I'm totally not going to get in your way. You won't even know I'm here.'

62

T
IM HAS TO WORK EARLY THAT DAY TO PREPARE FOR A BUSY NIGHT AND
he leaves the house before lunch. Anna sits in the attic for a while but eventually gets hungry and goes downstairs. She stops at Lilla's room and knocks on the door. Lilla's room is tidy, her things packed away, her bed made. There are already a few books stacked in the built-in shelves, a retro vase, a large framed photo of Lilla looking glamorous. There has been nothing in those shelves since Anna removed Benjamin's things and stored them in boxes: his books and rattles, his stuffed panda, a yellow giraffe that Fiona had bought him. The toys he was never old enough to appreciate. Seeing Lilla's things where Benjamin's used to be hurts like a blow, stops her dead in her tracks
.

‘Hey, Anna.' Lilla is staring at her. ‘What are you doing? What are you looking at?'

‘Nothing.' Anna shakes her head, forces herself to breathe, to smile. ‘I'm on my way to the kitchen. Do you want something to eat? An omelette?'

‘Sure,' Lilla says. ‘Sounds great.'

Lilla sits at the kitchen table and watches while Anna cooks the eggs. Anna's still not a versatile or creative cook, but Tim has shown her how to make a few things, one of those being a decent omelette, and she's become good at making them light and fluffy, just the way Tim does.

‘This is good,' Lilla says when she's taken a few mouthfuls. ‘You can cook.'

‘No,' Anna says. ‘Not really. Tim's just shown me a few things.'

‘So? You and Tim?' Lilla lifts her eyebrows suggestively. ‘How's that going?'

‘Fine.'

‘Do you think,' Lilla says, waving her fork in the air, ‘that it could be serious between you two? I hope so, for Tim's sake. He's the kind of bloke who really needs a girlfriend. You know what I mean? The kind of bloke who's a bit lost when he's on his own.'

Anna can't believe what she's hearing. And though she's no longer angry, or even hurt – she's been far too happy to really give it much thought – she heard every word Lilla said to Tim the other day, remembers perfectly well the way Lilla described her.

She doesn't respond, but that doesn't seem to bother Lilla. She leans back, runs her hands through her hair.

‘You know, of course, that Tim and I used to go out? Before Patrick? We broke up because we had this big fight about my mum. He just doesn't understand what it's like to grow up disadvantaged. He has such a tight family. The whole nuclear thing, you know? And he has no idea what it's like to be poor, otherwise he wouldn't be wasting his time in that bloody kitchen. Although, God, I really shouldn't be saying this to you. You obviously don't know what it's like to be disadvantaged either.' She gestures at the room, then smiles apologetically. ‘Sorry. Don't mean to be rude. It's just that rich people like you are just completely oblivious to what it's like for others. I know you can't help it. It's inevitable. Just comes with the territory.'