I can hardly wait for Matthew to bring up my breakfast tray so that I can start taking my pills again. I’d forgotten it was a bank holiday yesterday so I haven’t taken any pills for three days now. I never take any at weekends in case Matthew realises how much they affect me, I just hide them in my drawer. Besides, with him around, I don’t really need them to get through the day. I still need them at night though, otherwise I’d lie awake thinking about Jane, about her murder, about her murderer, who still hasn’t been caught. And who is still phoning me.
I caught myself a couple of times during the weekend eyeing the pills, wondering if I could take maybe one, just to calm me. The first time was on Saturday morning when we came back with a car full of shopping. We’d had a coffee out and I’d enjoyed being back in the real world, if only for a while. Back home, I was putting the shopping away, marvelling at how a fridge full of food Title: The Breakdown ARC, Format: 126x198, v1, Output date:08/11/16
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could make me feel that I was back in control of my life when Matthew took out a beer.
‘I may as well start as I mean to go on,’ he said
cheerfully.
‘What do you mean?’ I asked, wondering if he felt
the need to get drunk just to be able to put up with the increasing demands I make on him.
‘Well, if Andy makes one of his curries tonight, we’ll probably be having beer with it.’
I took a long time putting the cheeses we’d bought
into the fridge, playing for time. ‘Are you sure it’s tonight we’re going to Hannah and Andy’s?’
‘Bank Holiday Saturday, that’s what you told me. Do you want me to phone and check?’
The information meant nothing to me but I didn’t
want Matthew to guess I’d forgotten. ‘No, it’s fine.’
He took a sip of his beer and fished his mobile from his pocket. ‘I think I’ll check, all the same. It won’t hurt.’
He phoned Hannah, who confirmed that she was
definitely expecting us.
‘Apparently, you’re bringing dessert,’ Matthew said, when he hung up.
‘Oh yes,’ I said, fighting down panic, hoping I had enough ingredients to at least make a cake of some sort.
‘I could go and get something from Bértrand’s, if
you like.’
‘Maybe one of their strawberry tarts,’ I said gratefully.
‘You don’t mind?’
‘No, of course not.’
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Even though another embarrassment had been
avoided, my mood took a dive. I glanced at the calendar hanging on the wall and saw something written in the square for Saturday. I waited until Matthew had left the room and went over to see what it said. ‘Hannah and Andy’s 7 p.m.’ I tried not to let it get me down but it was hard.
Then, over dinner, Hannah asked if I was looking
forward to going back to school. I hadn’t thought about what I was going to tell people so there was a bit of an awkward silence until Matthew stepped in.
‘Cass has decided to take some time off,’ he explained.
Hannah was too polite to ask why but, over coffee, I saw her deep in conversation with Matthew while Andy kept me busy with photos of the holiday they’d just had.
‘What were you talking about with Hannah?’ I asked
on the way home in the car.
‘It’s normal she’s worried about you,’ he said. ‘You’re her friend.’ And I was glad that we’d be going to bed when we got in and I’d have a legitimate reason for taking some pills.
I hear Matthew’s feet on the stairs so I close my eyes, feigning sleep. If he knows I’m awake he’ll want to chat and all I want are my pills. He puts the tray down and kisses my forehead gently. I pretend to stir a little.
‘Go back to sleep,’ he says softly. ‘I’ll see you tonight.’
The pills are in my mouth before he’s reached the
bottom of the stairs. Then, exhausted by the effort I had to make over the last three days, I decide to stay in
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bed instead of getting dressed and going down to the sitting room as I usually do.
The next thing I know, a persistent ringing wakes
me from a deep sleep. At first I think it’s the phone but when it carries on long after the answering machine should have kicked in, I realise that someone is pressing over and over again on the doorbell.
I lie there, unperturbed by the fact that there’s
someone at the door. For a start, I’m too drugged to care and secondly, the murderer is hardly going to ring on the bell before coming in to kill me, so it must be the postman with more packages of things I don’t remember ordering. It’s only when she begins shouting through the letter box that I realise it’s Rachel.
After shrugging on a dressing gown, I go down and
open the door.
‘At last,’ she says, looking relieved.
‘What are you doing here?’ I mumble, aware that
I’m slurring.
‘We were meant to be meeting for lunch today, at
the Sour Grapes.’
I look at her in dismay. ‘What time is it?’
‘Hold on a minute.’ She takes out her phone. ‘Twenty past one.’
‘I must have fallen asleep,’ I say, because it seems politer than saying I forgot.
‘When you hadn’t turned up by quarter to one, I tried to get hold of you on your mobile until I remembered The Breakdown
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that you’d lost it,’ she explains. ‘Have you bought your-
self a new one yet?’