The Other Side of the Door by Nicci French (best novels to read for students .txt) 📕

‘No.’

‘Nobody ever warned me about motherhood. They told me about how awful childbirth was, but not about what it’s like to love your baby so much that you’re their prisoner. This is a great relief for me. Just being normal. I’ll go and make that coffee while you’re getting dressed.’

As I rooted through a bin-bag for something old to wear, I already felt weary and fragile. I’d been having trouble keeping down any food, especially since the satchel had been delivered, and felt permanently queasy, my legs reedy and weak. I went into the kitchen where Sally was making coffee, and tried to smile at her while I endured the sensation that I was having an internal haemorrhage.

‘This is so good for me,’ she said, as she handed me the mug, and I felt ashamed of my impulse to throw her out of the house and slam the door behind her. She’d been so hospitable to the band as well. I told myself to be polite, to make an effort, to say something nice.

I needn’t have bothered because I didn’t have much of a chance to say anything at all. Sally was behaving like someone who had been released after years of solitary confinement, as she often did when we spent any time alone together, away from her sleep-deprived, child-clogged routines. She talked and talked and talked. She talked about the frustrations of her home life, of course, which seemed sharper than normal—not just the usual anxiety about being a stay-at-home mother while Richard worked, which had unbalanced their relationship in a way that she hadn’t expected—but now with something close to panic or even a kind of fear, I thought. I asked her why she didn’t go back to work, return their marriage to the equality it had had before, but she shook her head violently. ‘That’s not it,’ she said. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘What don’t I understand?’

‘This isn’t about not working. It’s about—about not being me. Anyway, I don’t want to leave Lola. It would be like ripping my heart out.’

‘But you’re always wanting to leave her!’

‘No. Not like that. Just—you know, moments of flight.’

‘Are things getting worse between you and Richard?’ I asked. I was trying to behave in the way I would have done a few weeks ago; I was trying to remember how to be myself, the self I seemed to have temporarily mislaid in all the madness and horror. ‘You can always tell me.’

‘Huh,’ she said. She seemed about to say more, but visibly stopped herself and started marching around the flat, interrogating me about my plans for redecoration. Apart from ripping out old kitchen units, which I had no idea how to do, painting and putting up a few shelves, I didn’t have any, but that was fine because all of a sudden Sally had lots, most of them not particularly helpful. She wandered around commenting on cracks in the plaster, rapping on walls. I didn’t mind now. I didn’t feel like talking or even thinking, and it was restful to sip my milky coffee and let my mind go blank while Sally had ideas that I wouldn’t be able to carry out in a million years. The milky coffee tasted like some sort of baby food but it was warm and probably had useful vitamins and minerals in it.

When Sally briskly announced that we had better get on, I was almost disappointed. ‘So what do we start with?’ she said.

‘Painting this wall,’ I said. ‘That’s really all I had in mind for today. One wall would make me feel better.’

Sally looked at it doubtfully. ‘Doesn’t it need an undercoat?’

‘My idea was that we just keep painting until we can’t see any of the colour underneath.’

‘Strictly speaking, you ought to fill that big crack.’ She ran her fingernail down it.

‘The paint will fill it in,’ I said. ‘A bit. This is only temporary. If I ever have any money, I’ll do it properly. In fact, if I ever have any money, I’ll move.’

‘You’ll meet someone soon,’ said Sally, out of the blue, her words sliding under my guard like a knife between my ribs. ‘I predict it. You’ll meet someone and fall in love again.’ She added, a bit wistfully, ‘Men adore you.’

I stared at her, stricken, and couldn’t speak.

‘Oh, Bonnie, don’t look at me like that! I didn’t mean anything,’ she said.

‘It’s fine,’ I managed.

‘Me and my big mouth.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘Is it because of Amos?’

‘No. No.’

‘Come here. Hang on, give me your mug—you’re spilling the dregs.’

As she took it from me, Sally suddenly looked at me, apparently surprised and confused at the same time. Our eyes met, and she blushed a deep crimson. She went back into the kitchen with the mugs, and I heard the tap running. It didn’t take long to wash two mugs, but it gave me time to collect my feelings. In my one attempt at professionalism, I spread an old sheet under the wall we were going to paint. Not that the carpet deserved much protection: it might have looked better with splashes of paint on it. I took the sheet away again. When Sally came back she seemed distracted.

‘I’ve got these brushes,’ I said, aiming for cheerfulness. ‘You can have the big one or the little one.’

She didn’t hear me.

‘I said—’

‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘This sounds stupid. I couldn’t help noticing your neck.’

I flinched. I had almost forgotten about the bruise, which had faded to a dirty yellow now, and was a bit puffy. ‘It’s nothing,’ I said. I couldn’t think of a single good reason why I would have a bruise on my neck. ‘An accident.’

‘No. It’s not that,’ she said, and blinked several times. ‘I don’t mean to sound rude, but you wouldn’t mind telling me where you got that necklace, would you?’

Twisting uncomfortably, I peered down at it. Why on earth had I put it on? My mind went fuzzy. ‘I don’t know,’ I said.