Jenn Ashworth - Cold Light

‘Hello?’

Emma’s voice crackles out of the box. ‘It’s me. Are you going to let me in?’

I am reluctant to open the door but the buzzer sounds again, right next to my ear. I feel the noise before I hear it, throbbing along my jaw.

‘Emma?’

‘Come on. It’s cold out here. Open the door.’

I imagine her, hunched in the lobby, whispering urgently into the box. Angry, no doubt, at me dithering.

‘Have you seen what happened?’ Her voice is nasal and echoing. ‘I’ve been watching for –’ I think I can hear her sigh, ‘for two hours. Caught it by accident, just as he started digging. I didn’t realise there was an anniversary coming up.’

That is a lie, and we both know it.

‘I saw it,’ I say. ‘They’ve cancelled the nine o’clock film.’

‘Lola?’

‘I was going to watch it,’ I explain. I think of my evening routine. The film, the crisps, the wine. I can’t remember the last time I had someone in my flat.

‘Lola? I’m still standing here.’

‘Okay,’ I say at last. ‘I’m going to buzz you in now. Don’t come up in the lift – someone’s pissed in it.’

The warning about the lift may or may not be true. It usually stinks, but I’m more concerned about giving myself a few extra minutes to tidy my flat than I am about Emma stepping in something unpleasant.

I pause in front of the television with an armful of wet towels from the bathroom. It’s dark outside – darker still down by the pond where there are no streetlamps. Terry is pointing at the tent, saying something about dogs and evidence. He says ‘painstaking process’. I mute the sound, dump the towels in front of the washer and start grabbing dishes and taking them into the kitchenette. I run out of space in the sink and start to stack sticky bowls and mugs in the cupboard under it, next to the ranks of green glass bottles, saved for recycling. There’s a knock – hesitant and unfriendly. I lift the snib and stand back. Emma shuffles in smelling of alcohol and musty flannels.

‘Did you catch the bus?’ I say, stupidly.

Emma shakes her head. ‘I waited, but it didn’t come.’

‘Is it that bad?’

She moves past me and looks around at the sagging couch, the wine box, the stained carpet and bare walls. She paces, too wound up to sit down. There’s a browning umbrella plant and a row of videos on the windowsill. They’re covered in a fur of dust so thick it looks like mould. I watch her looking at my things.

‘I drove. Probably shouldn’t have,’ she lifts an imaginary glass, ‘but I got sick of waiting and the roads are empty anyway. Everyone glued to the box tonight, eh?’

‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Terry’s going to do an appeal. Witnesses, a phonein. The works.’

‘Oh, God,’ she says and then she sits down with one elbow on her knee and her forehead resting on her palm. ‘This is never going to stop, is it?’

I shrug. ‘Not if he can help it.’

‘All this time, and he’s still—’ She breaks off, yanks her hand through her hair and looks up at me. ‘I didn’t want to stay at home in case his researchers started ringing for an interview again. I couldn’t stand it.’

I look at her, and remember. The two years Terry tried to get us on the air and wouldn’t take no for an answer. As if the police weren’t enough, people wanted us to answer questions on Terry’s programme as well. Emma wasn’t like Chloe – she never wanted to be famous.

‘No one knows about me here. I’m Laura now, not Lola. They won’t ring.’

She sighs, but it isn’t quite relief. ‘I hoped you’d say that.’

We look at the television again: Terry’s mouth moving soundlessly, the dark shapes of the trees against the sky and the phone-in number scrolling along the bottom of the screen. You don’t need to hear what he’s saying to catch his mood – the excitement in the way he holds his head to one side and draws shapes with his hands in the air.

‘Don’t they know who it is yet? Haven’t they said anything about that?’ She curls her fingers against her palms and rests her knuckles against her mouth as if she’s trying to cram her words back down her throat.

I shake my head. ‘Not yet.’

‘Fucking hell.’ Her voice is muffled by the sleeve of her coat. ‘Have you got anything in to drink?’

‘Coffee,’ I say, and she shakes her head. I nudge the box of wine on the floor in front of the sofa with my foot. ‘There’s that, but it’s shit. I’ll get you a glass.’

‘In other cities, people go out for romantic meals on Valentine’s Day. You’ve just got me,’ she says, and although there is humour in it, neither of us laughs.

No one’s celebrated Valentine’s Day round here properly for years. For us, it’s the day we remember the couple who drowned themselves because they were forbidden from seeing each other. Women who didn’t know Chloe wear her picture in lockets around their necks and sigh, hoping they’ll be loved like that one day too.

‘Well, we can make do,’ I say. She raises her head as I hand her a glass and looks around her again.

‘Nice place,’ she says, mildly and without sarcasm.

‘It’s council,’ I say. ‘There’s a legal limit on how bad they can let it get.’

‘Not the lift, though,’ she says and looks at the television. ‘Do they know who it is yet?’ She glugs at the wine and doesn’t realise she’s repeating herself.

Emma had always been at the Valley School with me, but I’d not paid much attention to her. I’d kept my head down generally, until Chloe had arrived at the end of Year Eight and made the girls who’d been picking on me find someone else to torture. But one day when I hadn’t been looking, she started to get closer and closer to Chloe and because Chloe was my best friend, I started to see more of her. It started in the October half term when Chloe turned up with Emma at my house. It was the first time I’d really spoken to Emma, and the first time I realised that Chloe did things without me being there, things that I didn’t know about.

‘Let me in,’ she’d said, and thrown herself through the front door as if she was being chased. I held the door open and looked over the hedge and along the street, but nothing moved except the bits of Evening Post and flyers about personal safety and self-defence classes blowing about on the pavement along with the drifts of leaves in the gutter.

‘We ran all the way,’ she said, panting. ‘I’m knackered.’

Emma nodded at me seriously and hurried in after her. She’d never been in my house before. I shut the door. Chloe was leaning against the hall radiator with one hand resting on her chest. The ends of her fingernails were perfect crescents because she had a soft white pencil she used to colour in the undersides with. Emma went and stood next to her, then, after a minute’s thought, put her arm around Chloe’s shoulders.

‘What’s up with you two?’ I said.

Emma knew better than to tell Chloe’s story for her and Chloe didn’t answer – couldn’t speak, at first. She waved a hand at me to wait while she caught her breath. Her eye-liner was smudged and there was a streak of dirt on the sleeve of her pale jacket.

‘Shh,’ she said, and pointed at the living room door. Barbara was in there with Donald watching Antiques Roadshow . It was an old one. Barbara had a stack of them she’d taped off the telly because they kept Donald calm when they were on, and sent him off on harmless missions to the attic once the programmes had finished.

‘Can we go in your room?’ Chloe said eventually.

‘All right.’

The three of us traipsed up the stairs – Chloe first, leading the way, then Emma, then me, closing all the doors behind us. In my room, Chloe took the seat in front of my desk. Emma sat on the bed. She didn’t take her coat off. I hovered between them, and eventually leaned against the wall. It was an awkward place to be, having nowhere to sit in my own room. There were things lying around – open books and magazines, tapes without their cases, dirty clothes. Chloe was used to it, but with Emma there I realised the place looked shabby and uncared for. I was embarrassed about the peeling gloss on the windowsill, the broken chair fixed with brown tape and the tired anaglypta on the walls. Emma gathered the pages of a tattered copy of Sugar and laid it on my desk.