Claire Seeber - Fragile Minds

The second low came on Sunday morning, just after I had turned down the exciting opportunity to accompany them to the local church for a spot of guitar-led happy clapping.

‘Leave Ella here with me,’ I offered. My head was clearer today, not as sore and much less hazy than it had felt recently. The paranoia was receding a little. ‘It must be pretty boring for her, all that God stuff.’

‘Oh I can’t,’ Natalie actually simpered. ‘Not today. We have to give thanks as a family.’

‘What for?’ I gazed at her. She looked coy, dying to tell me something, that familiar flush spreading over her chest and up her neck and face. I looked at her bosom that was more voluptuous than normal and her sparkling eyes and I realised.

‘You’re pregnant,’ I said slowly.

‘Oh. Yes,’ and she was almost disappointed that she hadn’t got to announce it, but she was obviously wrestling with guilt too. ‘Are you OK with that?’

‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?’ I moved forward to hug her dutifully. ‘I’m really pleased for you.’

Natalie grabbed my hands and pushed me away from her so she could search my face earnestly. ‘You know why. It must be so hard for you.’ A little tear had gathered in the corner of one of her bovine brown eyes. ‘I – I’d like you to be godmother though,’ she murmured, as if she was bestowing a great gift. ‘It might, you know. Help.’

‘Great,’ I smiled mechanically. And I was pleased for her, of course I was, but nothing helped, least of all this, though she was well-intentioned; and I knew it was impossible for anyone else to understand me. I was trapped in my own distant land, very far from shore; I’d been there since Ned closed his eyes for the last time and slipped quietly from me. ‘Thank you.’ And I hugged her again, just so I didn’t have to look at the pity scrawled across her face.

‘If it’s a boy,’ she started to say, ‘we might call him—’

I heard an imaginary phone ringing in my room upstairs. ‘Sorry, Nat. Better get it, just in case—’ I disappeared before she could finish.

Whilst they were at church, I gathered my few bits and pieces and wrote her a note. I was truly sorry to leave Ella, I loved spending time with her, but I needed to be home now. I needed to be far, far away from my well-meaning sister and the suffocating little nest she called home.

And so here I lay, alone again. In the next room, the phone rang and I heard a calm voice say ‘Leave us messages, please.’

My voice, apparently; swiftly followed by another – male, low. Concerned. I attempted to roll out of bed, but moving hurt so much I emitted a strange ‘ouf’ noise, like the air being pushed from a ball. I lay still, blinded by pain, my ribs still agony from where I’d apparently fallen on Friday. When it subsided, I tried again. Wincing, I stumbled into the other room, snatched the receiver up.

‘Hello?’

‘You’re all right.’ The accented voice was relieved. ‘Thank God.’

‘Who – who is this?’ I caught my reflection in the mirror. Round-eyed, black-shadowed; face scraped like a child’s. My bare feet sank into the sheepskin rug I hated.

‘Claudie. It’s Eduardo. I didn’t know if you’d be there. Your sister called. I thought you might be away.’

‘Away?’ My brow knitted in concentration. ‘Eduardo.’ I made a concerted effort. Eduardo was head of the Academy. In my mind I conjured up an office, papers stacked high, a man in a grey cashmere v-neck, big hands, dark-haired, moving the paperweight, restacking those papers. ‘Oh, Eduardo.’ I sat heavily on the sofa. ‘No, I’m here. Sorry. I think I – I find it hard to wake up sometimes.’

I had got used to a little help recently, the kind of pharmaceutical help I could accept without complication.

‘I’m ringing round everyone to check. You’ve obviously heard what has happened?’

‘About the explosion? Yes,’ my hands clenched unconsciously. ‘Awful.’

‘Awful,’ he agreed. ‘They have only just let us back into the school. But – well, it’s worse than awful, Claudie, I’m afraid.’ I heard his inhalation. ‘There is some very bad news.’

Bad news, bad news. Like a nasty refrain. I stood very quickly, holding my hands in front of me as if warding something off.

‘I’m sorry.’ I sensed his sudden hesitation. ‘I should have thought. Stupid.’ He’d be banging his own head with the heel of his hand, the dramatic Latino. ‘My dear girl—’

‘It’s OK.’ I leant against the wall. ‘Just tell me, please.’

‘It’s Tessa.’

‘Tessa?’ My cracked hands were itching.

Tessa, with her slight limp and her benign face, her hair pulled back so tight. My friend Tessa who had somehow seen me through the past year; with whom I had bonded so strongly through our shared sense of loss. My skin prickled as if someone was scraping me with sandpaper.

‘Tessa’s dead, Claudie. I’m so sorry to have to tell you.’

Absently, I saw that my hand was bleeding, dripping gently onto the cream rug.

Emboldened by my silence, he went on. ‘Tessa was killed outside the Academy. Outright.’ He paused. ‘She wouldn’t have known anything, chicita.’

‘She wouldn’t have known anything,’ I repeated stupidly. My world was closing to a pin-point, black shadows and ghosts fighting for space in my brain.

‘I’m so sorry to have had to tell you,’ he said, and sighed again. ‘I am just pleased for you that you are not here this week. It is a very bad atmosphere. I think it’s good your sister has arranged for you to have this time off.’ I hadn’t had much choice in the matter: Natalie had taken over. ‘Try to rest, my dear. See you soon.’

Tessa was dead. Outside the birds still sang; somewhere nearby a child laughed, shrieked, then laughed again. The rain had stopped. Someone else was playing The Beatles, Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds; Lennon’s voice floated through the warm morning, like dust motes on dusk sunshine. Death was in the room again. I closed my eyes against the cruel world, a world that kept on turning nonetheless, a sob forming in my throat. I imagined myself now, stepping off the bus, fumbling with the clasp of my bag, raising my hand in greeting, happy to see her …

The birds still sang, but my friend Tessa was dead – and I couldn’t help feeling I should have saved her.

7 a.m., and Silver was exhausted already. It had been a horrendous weekend; the worst kind of police work. Counting the dead, identifying and naming the corpses: or rather, what was left of them. Recrimination and finger-pointing and statistics that meant nothing. Contacting the families, working alongside the belligerent and somewhat over-sensitive Counter Terrorist Branch; waiting for the Explosives Officers who were struggling due to the amount of debris caused by the Hoffman Bank partially collapsing, hampered by torrential rain all weekend.

Images stuck to the whiteboards at the end of the office made him wince; the carnage, the tangle of metal, strewn rubber, clothing, the covered dead and the walking wounded. The life-affirming sight of human helping human – only wasn’t it a little late? Too late to make a difference: one human had hated another enough to do this – possibly … A gas leak was still being mooted, but Silver knew the drill, knew this was to prevent panic spreading through the city, another 7/7, another 9/11, the stoic Londoner weary of it all already. The Asians fed up of ever-wary eyes, the Counter Terrorist Branch overworked and frankly baffled. How do you keep tabs on invisible evil that could snake amongst us unseen? Silver was hanged if he knew.

He yawned and stretched as fully as his desk allowed. That bastard Beer was calling him, whispering lovingly in his ear over and again. He needed a long cold pint, smooth as liquid gold down his thirsty aching throat. He swore softly and checked the change in his pocket. Out in the corridor, he bought himself his fifth diet Coke of the night and unwrapped another packet of Orbit. Distractions. He wished he felt fresher, more alert, but he felt tired and rather useless. However much he preferred work to home, he wished himself there now, asleep, oblivious to the world’s inequities. Leaning against the wall wearily, he drank half the can in one go.