It’s fair to say I was almost completely sober on the walk back to my house, which took a lot longer than the fifteen minutes it should have done. This was because Suzanne seemed utterly incapable of walking more than five steps without either slumping on to the floor and crying or throwing up into a bush. I had never seen anyone so completely, definitionally wasted.
Between the bouts of tears and retching, Suzanne would talk. She told me she loved me. She told me she was sorry. She told me her mother had once told her she was a disappointment. She told me she’d once tried to step in front of a bus, and had been yanked back by a passer-by, who’d then yelled in her face that she was an idiot. She’d lost her virginity to her best friend’s brother when she was fourteen. She had never told anyone this. She loved me. Did I love her? No one loved her. She was a disappointment. She was sorry.
I gave up trying to respond to these proclamations and revelations when it became clear she was too much in her own head to really hear me. Twice I had to physically hold her up while she sobbed into my shoulder, her fingers clutching my arms tightly enough to bruise.
The walk home took us almost half an hour. I rooted around in my bag for my keys while Suzanne stood blinking under the sensor light. I glanced at her dishevelled figure as I eased my key into the lock as quietly as possible, suddenly remembering the first time she’d stood in my doorway. She’d seemed so together then.
‘Caddy,’ she whispered to me as I guided her over the front step and into the house.
‘Yes?’ I whispered back, pushing the door shut in increments.
‘Nothing.’
I turned to look at her in exasperation. Even in the darkness I saw the wicked, mischievous grin that had spread across her face. I had to laugh, albeit quietly. ‘Do you know how ridiculous you are?’
Before she could respond, there was a creak on the stairs. I froze, clenching my fist around my keys. I’d really hoped I wouldn’t have to face my mother until the following morning, when Suzanne had sobered up and regained some semblance of her charming self.
‘Caddy?’ A whisper from the stairs. ‘Is that you?’
It was Tarin. Thank God.
She turned on the kitchen light and gestured to us to follow her in there. She was still wearing day clothes, her hair loose around her shoulders. Her gaze took in both of us, an odd expression on her face. Was she amused? She didn’t speak for a moment and then said, ‘Christ. What happened?’
‘My life,’ Suzanne said morosely, before I could even open my mouth.
‘Oh, melodrama!’ Tarin said, her eyebrows raising. ‘How lovely!’ She was definitely amused, but there was something else in there too. It might have been sadness.
‘Is it still melodrama if it’s true?’ I asked.
‘Yes!’ Tarin looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Even more so.’
‘Tarin,’ Suzanne said earnestly, ‘I wish I had a sister. I wish you were my sister.’
‘Oh darling, you’re wasted, aren’t you?’ Tarin’s whispered voice softened. ‘You poor thing.’ She said this with no trace of sarcasm. The sincerity was almost painful.
Suzanne and I went up to my room as quietly as possible, Tarin following with a glass of water for each of us. She set the glasses on my beside cabinet and then looked at me expectantly. Suzanne sank on to my bed, pulled off her shoes and then curled herself inwards, umbrella-like, on top of the covers.
‘You should get a bucket or something,’ Tarin whispered to me.
‘I think it’s out of her system,’ I said.
‘Don’t be so sure,’ Tarin said, with the voice of someone who’d learned from experience. ‘Make sure she doesn’t fall asleep on her back. Just in case.’
I looked at my friend, her arms curved protectively over her face, lying on my bed, shoulders already slack with sleep.
‘I don’t want to be a downer,’ Tarin added in the same low voice, ‘but you do realize you’re going to be in major trouble tomorrow?’
‘I don’t care,’ I said, realizing that I really didn’t. ‘I couldn’t leave her on her own there. And she wouldn’t have been able to get home safely by herself.’
A look of something like pride passed over my sister’s face, followed by a smile. ‘Night, Cadders. If you need me, just come right in and get me, OK?’
I found a bowl in the cupboard by the bathroom and put it by the bed, just in case. I turned the light off and climbed carefully over Suzanne to get to the free side of the bed. I was just settling into sleep when her voice startled me awake.
‘Buonanotte?’ she whispered, almost like a question.
I smiled. ‘Buonanotte.’
I had a vague idea that I would be able to hustle Suzanne out of the house in the morning before either of my parents realized she was there. Unfortunately my mother took it upon herself to walk right into my room before either of us had even woken up.
‘Oh, you are here,’ she said. I’d never noticed how loud her voice was before. ‘I thought I saw your shoes by the door.’