tubular bed in 1980s grey that he’d had back then – and remembered how I’d had some of my most uncomfortable nights in it. It was like sleeping on a climbing frame, and yet, in the times we’d snatched together, it was also where I was happiest; where, for a while, I could forget about Mum, curling around Joe’s warm, strong body. We’d lie there in the dark, thrilled just to be naked together.
Joe was obviously sleeping in this room because there was a wash bag on the bed. I stood looking at it, feeling a wave of sadness. Imagine coming home, to sleep in your childhood bed, knowing your mother is to be buried the next day. Just then, the door flew open, making me jump. It was Joe. He slammed it shut, his back towards me, swearing, leaning his forehead against it for a moment, before fiddling in his inside jacket pocket and producing a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. He unscrewed the top, muttered something about
Sorry Mum
and
have to do this
, and then tipped his head back and took a swig. Then he saw me.
‘Bloody hell, you nearly gave me a heart attack!’ he said.
Then, when he’d realized what he’d said, ‘That’s going to keep on happening, isn’t it?’
I smiled. ‘Probably.’
‘Do you want some?’ he said, holding the bottle out. ‘Can I just say, it was a huge oversight by me not to have organised booze at this wake.’
‘Yup,’ I said, taking a gulp. ‘Still, I don’t need booze to relax.’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘’Coz I do.’
I handed him the bottle back. ‘Jack Daniel’s? Going for the hard liquor, then?’
‘I can’t take any risks,’ he said. ‘It needs to reach my bloodstream instantly. I just can’t
talk
to people any longer.’
There was a long silence, during which we just sort of looked at each other.
‘So, er … the bathroom’s two doors down,’ he said, thumbing in that general direction when I just stood there, still clutching Miss Knickerless. ‘Same place it’s always been.’
I felt my cheeks grow hot.
‘God, sorry. I couldn’t resist, I just had this mad desire to—’
‘Snoop around my bedroom?’
‘Oh, shit, I’m sorry.’
‘I’m joking, Robyn.’ His eyebrows gave a little flicker of amusement. ‘It’s actually really sweet.’
He looked pale as anything, washed out. I’d forgotten about that bit, the
tiredness
,
and he pushed the stuff to the side, collapsing on the bed.
‘I should go,’ I said. He’d come up here to be alone, lose himself, and here I was, making that impossible, but he said, ‘Don’t
go
. Why do you keep on wanting to go?’
He looked genuinely annoyed – Joe and his transparency.
‘I don’t know, because you want to be on your own?’
He tutted, dramatically. ‘I don’t want to be on my own. I just can’t take much more of people, of Betty. We’re only on 1978. There’s thirty-odd years to get through yet.’
I laughed, despite myself.
‘I needed someone to save me. Where were you, Robbie?’ he said, turning on his side.
‘Snooping round your bedroom?’
I sat down on the bed next to him. Up close, it was like he’d changed even less, and I had this urge to give him a hug, but wondered whether that was appropriate, him lying on a bed and all, so I said, ‘It’ll be over soon. They’ll all bugger off home and then you can go to sleep or watch a film. That’s what I did.’
‘Really, what did you watch?’
‘
The Evil Dead
.’
‘You
are
joking?’
‘I’m not, as it happens. It’s my job, you see. You start off quite PC and normal and, before you know it, you can’t operate in normal society.’
Joe thought this was really funny. ‘So, basically, you’ve become like, the world’s most un-PC mental-health nurse? Telling schizophrenics to get real?’
‘Something like that, yes.’
We were both giggling now – funeral hysteria.
‘So, anyway, let’s get back to this
Evil Dead
thing,’ he said. ‘Talk me through that.’
‘Well, I found that the key is distraction,
Allyson Young
Becket
Mickey Spillane
Rachel Kramer Bussel
Reana Malori
J.M. Madden
Jan Karon
Jenny Jeans
Skylar M. Cates
Kasie West