We stared at each other, our tempers on a hair-trigger. Kit backed down first, as I knew he would if I waited for long enough; it was rare I exploited his ingrained acquiescence but I made no bones about it now. ‘Look, I really don’t want to fall out with you over her,’ he said. He opened his arms. I leaned against him but let my hands hang heavy by my sides.
I spent two more days trying to think of an opener for my talk with Beth. Cold-calling companies at work was nothing compared to this conversation. Beth’s skin was a thick hide in places, little more than a membrane in others. You never knew how she was going to react.
In the event, she rang us. As soon as I knew who it was I put her on speakerphone. Kit came to stand next to me in front of the phone, arms folded, frowning at the floor.
‘They threw out the appeal.’ Beth’s voice bounced off the walls of our little flat, the machine’s distortion making it impossible to judge her tone. ‘We were right all along. It was eyewitnesses from the campfire. The judges said they weren’t relevant to the issue of consent. All that money spent and he still can’t escape justice.’
‘That’s brilliant,’ I said. If she noticed the detachment in my voice, it didn’t seem to bother her.
‘Can we go out to dinner to celebrate? My treat. To say thanks for everything you’ve done for me.’
I didn’t answer quickly enough.
‘Laura?’
‘I’m here.’ I drew a fortifying breath. ‘It’s just, dinner? After what happened last time. We hardly parted on the best of terms.’
Kit flexed his stockinged foot, an unintentional reminder of what she’d done. Beth didn’t know he was listening in, I registered. The old panic crept in that she might choose now to broach my lie in court.
‘Yeah, well, look . . .’ I recognised the strain of control in her voice. ‘You said things, I said things. I mean, I won’t pretend it didn’t hurt. But I can forgive and forget if you can.’
I felt the weight of Kit’s foot in my lap again, blood oozing from torn skin. ‘It’s hardly the same thing,’ I said. ‘It’s hardly in the same league. You can’t just lash out like that!’
Beth paused before speaking. ‘Laura, emotions run high when you’ve been through what I have.’ It was the first time she’d directly used her ordeal against me; at least I stopped myself from saying she couldn’t use that as an excuse. ‘I don’t understand why you’re being so weird about it. What do you want me to say?’
‘Sorry would be a start,’ I said.
‘Me apologise to you?’ Her breathing went heavy, then stopped altogether.
‘She’s hung up on me!’ I said to Kit. I replaced the receiver with belated gentleness. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Kit cautiously. ‘She does seem to sort of shut down when you challenge her.’
‘I’m ringing her back,’ I said.
Kit gently put his hand over the receiver.
‘Maybe you should calm down a bit first,’ he said. ‘Your hands are shaking.’
I was shaking all over. The only thing worse than a confrontation is having it snatched away from you. But he was right; if I spoke to her now, I’d say something I regretted.
‘How has this all gone wrong so quickly?’ I said. ‘I thought she was my friend. I didn’t even know her.’
To his credit, he didn’t say – he has never said – I told you so.
*
No room should be more familiar in the dark than one’s own bedroom but suddenly it was as strange as a hotel room in the middle of the night. The smoke was a spur in my throat and pins in my eyes. I managed to pull on a long T-shirt and the knickers that were still on the floor where I’d left them.
‘Kit!’ I shook his shoulders. ‘Something’s burning.’ That was an understatement. The whole flat was on fire. ‘Kit, for fuck’s sake, wake up!’ He had never seemed heavier, or more asleep, and for a few awful darkening seconds, I thought he was dead. ‘KIT!’ I smacked him full in the face and he coughed himself awake, assessing the situation in seconds. He pulled on his shorts, immediately wide awake, focused.
‘It’s coming from the staircase,’ he said. ‘Get on the bed.’
He forced open the window that doubled as a fire escape; it turned the whole flat into a flue, sucking the smoke through our bedroom and bringing with it a huge cascade of orange flame. We both ducked as things escalated next door. There was some kind of explosion; even through the boom we heard the glass shatter in the sitting room. Smoke scraped me out from the inside. ‘All our stuff,’ I gasped. I meant just one thing: the photograph of me and my mum in Greenham Common. The thought of her picture blackening and curling seemed intolerable; preventing it felt worth risking my life. It can’t have been more than three seconds but grief is cunning that way. Like smoke, it finds and fills the tiniest spaces. Kit pulled at my T-shirt; it tore as I made for the sitting room, just as the orange dragon of flame bounded up to the bedroom door.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ His voice cracked with the effort of shouting.
‘I need my mum,’ I said. He knew me well enough to infer the thought process behind the words and acted with superhero speed, charging past me and pulling the bedroom door closed. The sound he made as his bare left hand closed over the red-hot door handle was like nothing I ever want to hear again. The scream broke his voice; it cracked halfway through and gave way to ragged breathing. He pushed me with his right hand towards the fire escape. The metal staircase to the street was engulfed with smoke and hot to the touch, so Kit shoved me roughly through to the safety of the rooftops. We climbed, half-dressed and in bare feet, across to where the tiles were cool and tried to make sense of what was happening underneath us.
‘I’m sorry,’ I wanted to say, but I had no voice even to whisper.