Frances and Morgan
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Chapter Three
Monday mornings were never easy for Morgan. No matter what kind of weekend had passed there was always a reluctance that ran bone-deep on the part of the café staff to get dug in to the various trials of a new week. Morgan spat toothpaste into the sink and sighed. How very much she would have liked to go on sleeping.
By the time she arrived at the café, a little chilled by the cold morning air, Morgan found suspended inside the locked front door the message that the place was closed. For one wild moment she saw her job – such as it was – disappearing over the far horizon. Then common sense kicked in and she knocked on the door. No luck there, and she had to hammer on the glass until Kaye appeared from the direction of the kitchen. It was clearly going to be a morning to remember: Kaye was looking tired and vengeful and was smoking the remnants of a joint, which she took out of her mouth and handed to Morgan as she opened the door. Morgan took the dying hit. Kaye flicked the remains into the drain and said without emphasis: “Victoria is sick. She told me, when she phoned at half past fucking six this morning that she had fucking flu and that while she will try to make it in later in the week, we shouldn’t hold our breath. Which translates to she’ll be in by Friday if she’s in at all. And all this means that me and my failed Maths O Level are on the fucking till and taking orders and fucking serving, while you, Chuck, are doing the cooking. Lucky fucking you. Lucky fucking us.”
Morgan opened her mouth to say that she couldn’t cook before considering that she’d covered so often for Victoria that she knew how to make most things. And if she didn’t remember straight away, all she had to do was look up the recipes in Victoria’s food folder. Not the end of the world. But she was tired and dispirited: there would be no day on auto-pilot; she would have to think. And it wouldn’t be just the one day, if Kaye was right. There was nothing much for Morgan to do except to swear, briefly and quietly, and then get to work.
Kaye nodded. “You get started on whatever it is you need to get started on. Probably scones and shit. I’ll get the coffee machine started up and then it’ll be espressos for you until we slam the fucking door shut at the close of play.” She went off toward the counter and Morgan went through to the kitchen. In another moment Morgan heard the juggernaut roar of the resurrecting coffee machine.
Oh, she should never have taken that hit. Opening up the industrial fridge and staring into it Morgan was aware of a shift of consciousness and for a moment had to shut her eyes and breathe through her mouth to keep from falling over. Recovered, she drew a more steady breath and began the labours of the day. It would not be a good time to faint, as for a horrible moment she had thought she would. She drank a tall glass of water, and when Kaye came into with a double espresso for her Morgan added two teaspoons of sugar and downed the cup in one. The caffeine rush kicked in; suddenly she could work
By the end of that frenetic Monday neither of them had much to say. The part-time staff had come in - thankfully – to carry them through the dinner hour rush, and the day hadn’t been a disaster. But it had been madly hectic - after the day’s chilly onset the weather had turned nice and everyone was out on the streets, Londoners responding typically to the slightest hint of sunshine - and both ended the day on the auto-pilot to which Morgan had originally aspired. Morgan in particular could hardly even speak. Even blinking was an effort.
By the time Kaye had the café front sorted out, and Morgan had completed all essential preparation work for the following day, both felt disoriented and flat. Kaye suggested a quick pizza somewhere close by but Morgan shook her head. A day working with food was enough to put her off it for life. So, no thanks. “A drink then. And take these for tomorrow.” Kaye reached out the tin in which she kept her joints and stash and decanted from it a couple of joints and a smattering of little blue tablets. These she handed Morgan. “Speed,” she said, simply. “For tomorrow. Don’t for fuck’s sake take them tonight. Tonight just smoke and enjoy. Get nicely stoned tonight, and let the world take care of itself.” She grinned.
That night Morgan did as instructed, and smoked. Still reluctant to eat she made herself a pot of tea and was working on her second cup when she lit up. It was an odd night, still warm, and the streets were busy.
Morgan sat smoking in the unstable armchair, which she had dragged over to the window. She couldn’t see the street from there, though she could hear the rising sounds clearly, she could only see rooftops and a patch of sky. It was a long way from the neatly-appointed, rather clinical bedroom she’d had at home. It seemed odd and almost dysfunctional now that she was free to recollect, to call home, home. It had been the location of her growing up, that was all. It was strange to think that those four walls - tastefully decorated and innocent of posters (another of Rebecca’s godlike rulings) - had contained all of her comparatively uneventful childhood, her young adulthood, and all that stuff. Now she could do what she wanted with the four walls that surrounded her, and she desired to do nothing at all. Not even to decorate, as Cathy had her room, waiting until Rebecca was out before she started in with the black emulsion.
It struck Morgan that she was in many ways happier in her rather gloomy bed-sit than she had ever been at home. She was closer to freedom than she ever had been, though trapped - who wasn’t? - by the old necessity of working for a living. She had never considered the future when she was back at home, because all of Rebecca’s roads led to college. Rebecca had her plans neatly set out for both her daughters: O Levels at sixteen, A Levels at eighteen and then college. University. Free at twenty one, to take on the world of employment, had everything gone according to plan. Or had Rebecca had some other, longer term plans? For all that Morgan and Katie had talked, they’d never discussed the future. Had Katie already figured out that that was a subject with which she need never concern herself?
But though Rebecca’s plans for her daughters had been etched in stone, rock had crumbled when Cathy had decided that the academic pattern was not for her and announced that she was (a) leaving school and (b) going to Italy with her boyfriend and his family for at least six months. Cathy’s decision had changed a lot of things for Morgan, and then Katie had died and that had changed everything else.
Leaning back in her chair Morgan thought about Katie’s death, which had been shocking but not wholly unexpected. The depression that ran through Katie’s family was like a black serpent; Katie’s mother had been hospitalised several times while Katie’s grandmother had gone downstairs one morning and stuck her head into the gas oven. She’d waited until the house was empty, and she’d left a note, which Katie had inherited.
Morgan had known from the start that Katie was in some strange way not maimed but vulnerable. She had been smart enough, smarter than Morgan, and attractive in embryonic fashion. But the black serpent had bitten deep and there had always been in Katie an element of the strange, almost of the fey. There was no doubt that the girl was different, and that she had to work hard to fit in. Had the school discipline been less effective, Katie’s life might have been made utterly miserable, but what few opportunities for bullying there were caused only minor injuries. But to Morgan it wasn’t surprising that Katie had killed herself. Only surprising that she’d lasted as long as she had.
No-one had bullied Morgan at school, which was a blessing, considering how often she got the shit kicked out of her at home. Jesus, she thought, how very little I miss Rebecca. Morgan could not in fact bear to visualise that serious, handsome face, with its cold eyes that had been so often fixed on her in an expression of dislike and disapproval. Why would she want to bring that face to mind? Inhaling deeply in response to the thought of Rebecca, Morgan retained the smoke too long. When she exhaled her head and stomach roiled. Sweat broke out across her forehead and her vision blurred. For a moment she was frightened. Then she lurched up out of the chair and staggered to the sink, convinced she was going to be sick. She turned the cold tap on to full and forced her head beneath the icy torrent. She stayed there, fingers white from gripping, letting the cold water blast down upon her until dizziness and nausea had subsided.
Pretty well soaked, she towelled herself down, changed her tee-shirt and put a shirt over that, and let herself out into the evening.
It was still warm. People sitting outside where they could, and there were chairs on the pavement, jackets ripped off and left hanging. At every café and pub she passed there were people sitting outside at tables, talking, laughing, arguing, drinking cold beer, chilled wine and cocktails. The sun was fast disappearing in the west. Aimless but restive, she walked to the station and stood waiting impatiently for the tube, and shutting her eyes to the blast and rush of hot air that preceded it. She went back to the city centre, back, if she had thought about it, to the area where she’d first met Frances. The meeting at the NFT had been a one-off coincidence, a minor miracle. Now Morgan suspected that she would never see Frances again. The last thing she had done was to grab her personal stereo so she had a soundtrack to set against the happenings of the night. She set it to run on constant.
Morgan walked for miles. As the evening moved toward night the warmth that had hung over the city all day faded, leaving the streets cool and damp, and she was cold pretty soon, but she did not want to be still. It was only when she was in danger of missing the last tube of the evening that she turned toward home. Once inside her room she locked the door and leaned back against it. It took a real effort of will to cross the room and lie down on the bed.
There were times - this was one - when Morgan began to wonder if perhaps she had dreamed up Frances. Perhaps Frances had never existed at all outside of her imagination. But that made no sense; what about the wonderful apartment, and those views out over the park? She couldn’t have imagined them. When she brought to mind the image of Frances she heard at the same time Frances’ voice. The memory of that voice was too vivid. It was too easy to recollect tones that seduced, demanded, and eventually dismissed. She rolled off the bed, stripped and washed and collapsed into bed, exhausted and confused. But she couldn’t sleep: her body ached from the demands of the day, and her legs had carried her too far. Her beleaguered brain was spinning. It had been a mistake to think about home, and madness to think about Frances, whom she’d probably never see again.
But what had struck her most vividly about Frances was not just the sex, but the confidence inherent in everything that Frances did. Here was someone who knew what she wanted, and who was prepared to take it. It never occurred to Morgan that her inexperience and comparative innocence might have represented an equally compelling appeal.
No-one else she had known behaved with such assurance: even Cathy’s brightness paled into insignificance beside Frances. Morgan had often envied Cathy the likeable, affectionate persona that generally enlivened and charmed those around her, and which could even win over Rebecca on occasion. Plus of course Cathy was attractive - which had to help – and immediate. Everything about Cathy, good and bad, was there in the moment of meeting.
If Cathy represented all things positive, Katie was all things dark. She was the only completely unambitious person that Morgan had ever known. Katie’s only aspiration, it had turned out, was for death. Her fantasy life meant more to her than the flesh and blood incarnation she ultimately rejected. Morgan had accepted Katie’s suicide, though she never understood the motivations.
Rebecca wanted a lot out of life, and was ambitious for herself and her daughters. She was intelligent and driven. She also drank far too much and contemplated too little, and prided herself upon the order she had established within her world. She had to some extent failed with Cathy, over the whole leaving school and not going to college issue, but this made her more determined to shape Morgan’s world. She had railroaded Morgan into a promise of sixth form and university only to lose her entirely. Now she was bereft of both daughters. It was possible that she might miss them, but it seemed unlikely. If she was going to regret the loss of either, it was more likely to be Cathy, even if Cathy had stood up to Rebecca and then defied her completely. In all likelihood Rebecca might be happier free of them both. Morgan imagined that she wouldn’t be missed.
Morgan went to the window and looked out at the sky. Back at home - if it was as fine there, and it probably was - she might have been gazing out over a blue and pink sky. Here over the city the sky was black and orange. There the air wouldn’t stink of car fumes and dust but of wood fires and salt. There would be frosts and bright starry skies. In the city night sky there were no stars visible. She sighed and went to bed, and her dreams that night were lonely and confused; in all of them she was trying desperately to make her way to some nameless place, though obstacles of a dozen different types prevented her.
The week went on for ever. Each day began in the same fashion, with Morgan standing in the kitchen, hands on hips, regarding the list of daily tasks and wishing she was still in bed. With Victoria gone and the extra staff in only at lunchtime, Kaye and Morgan were exhausted at the end of every day. By the time they’d finished cleaning up and preparing for the next day, they were usually too exhausted even to speak. By what felt like the process of osmosis they would find themselves, at the day’s end, taking up residence in the wine bar across the road. On one occasion Morgan was asleep, her head resting on the table-top, by the time Kaye brought over their order. At night, back in her room, she managed little more than a brisk wash before falling into bed and sleeping like a stone until morning. On some level she must have known that the two of them could not withstand much more, and they were both of them too tired even to discuss how life might be when Victoria returned.
By Thursday they both began to recover a little: Kaye was going to be seeing Steve, while Morgan was fantasising about sleeping for two straight days and nights. That was all she wanted: she wouldn’t need even to eat. Two days to recover and then Victoria would be back and life would settle down again.
But on the Friday things fell apart. Victoria was no better and wouldn’t be back for another week. On hearing the news that Sylvia had phoned through, Kaye went off on a swearing jag of sublime obscenity.
Morgan thought, “I can’t do this,” ending up back in the kitchen, her hands resting on the sink, staring blindly into the drainer as if some mystic guidance might come rising up from the drain. It was not until Kaye came in and shook her gently by the shoulder, whilst asking, in her usual fashion, just what the bloody fuck Morgan thought she was doing that she regained the ability to move.
“Much as I don’t personally give a toss if the earth opens up and swallows us whole, we are due to open up in a little over an hour and it might be easier all round if we have something to offer the fuckwits when they arrive. Sylvia will be around this afternoon with our pay, which is right now the one fucking reason to keep on going. Give me some fucking rolls to butter or something. I know it’s shit, Chuck, but otherwise we’re screwed.”
Morgan went through the day more like an automaton than a real person. More than once she found herself viewing the work she did as if from a great distance. Sylvia arrived as the café officially closed. She wore her usual air of superiority – making it plain to Kaye that she felt she was slumming it by visiting the café at all - as she marched across the café, examined and removed the weekly takings, and handed over the dull envelopes that contained their pay. Sylvia looked like nothing so much as fairly successful brothel keeper. She ignored the kitchen area, where Morgan was working very hard in an effort not to be drawn into any kind of verbal exchange. Let Kaye deal with the bloody woman; she had seniority after all. Sylvia handed across the brown wage envelopes like a nun passing alms to a couple of quivering alcoholics and then left the place as if it was on fire. Morgan emerged from the safety of the kitchen and watched her go. More than ever it struck her that their boss looked like a tawdry bird of paradise, all bouffant hair, stiff with hairspray, and cheap perfume, and firmly laced into an electric blue suit and a blouse that was all lace and ruffles,
Still, they had been paid. Sylvia had even included a bonus to compensate them for the frantic work and crazy hours that had resulted from Victoria’s absence. A bonus was not something that Morgan had even considered, though Kaye clearly had. Morgan tucked the envelope away with haste and something like embarrassment: she did not want to count the notes and see what Sylvia had thought appropriate reward for all the extra work they’d done. This reaction, which she considered, seemed to her all the more peculiar when she considered that while she resented a bonus for extra, legal, employment, she had had no hesitation in accepting money for sex. But that didn’t matter: what was important was paying the rent, and now she could do so. Sylvia could stuff her fucking café all the same. She’d probably only come in to see that the two of them weren’t ripping off the joint and heading for the airport now that they knew they were due another week of the same.
As she wiped a final surface, and deposited the cloth in a pan of water and bleach, Morgan was damp with sweat and beginning to feel angry as well as exhausted. Katie would have recognised that mood. Morgan’s capacity for anger that bordered upon fury was not new. Always present, it had grown within her during all those long summer days when Cathy was away and Rebecca was in residence. Like two elements in a test tube, hurt and resentment heated and combined before merging with other negative thoughts until the end result broke forth in blind fury. Friday had started badly: it had taken a Herculean effort just to stand, let alone wash and dress, and now that she was free to go home, she was almost too tired to move. Kaye came into the kitchen and smiled at her. “The blue cow’s gone,” she announced, cheerfully. “It’s safe to strike a match. Before I didn’t dare: all that hairspray stuff, it’s fucking dangerous.” She produced a joint of epic proportion and lit it with care. She took a deep hit and passed it to Morgan. “You look like shit, Chuck. Come and sit out back with me.”
Following her, Morgan stripped off that day’s apron and threw it in the direction of the wash bin. “If Victoria doesn’t come back a week on Monday,” said Morgan, waiting as Kaye locked the door behind them, “I am fucking quitting.”
Kaye looked at her and then nodded. “If the little cow doesn’t make it in we’ll both fucking quit,” she said. “Now let’s get stoned and then we can go get pissed.”
It seemed extraordinary that the world could enclose two such separate worlds only half a street apart, but suddenly they were in the wine bar, or on another planet, sat at a table in the open air., the sound of the busy city receding. The stereo system in the pub sang, but it was far enough away that they could hear one another well enough to talk, even if at first neither of them had very much to say. Eventually Kaye said, “A week Monday, right? Fuck: I never thought I’d look forward to seeing the cow, but now that might actually happen…”
“Victoria?”
“That cow. Who the fuck else?” Kaye shook her head at Morgan and said, “You need another drink. No. This round is mine. You sit still. You look like Bella fucking Lugosi. After this you should go home and sleep. You look like shit.”
Sleep. Sleep sounded nice. Morgan drifted, only opening her eyes when Kaye returned. She carried a pitcher of margaritas and wore a broad grin. “Courtesy of Sylvia,” she said, but did not explain. Morgan wasn’t sure she could stomach the tequila, but the salt on her lips tasted good, and the tartness of the lime juice woke her up. She forgot about Victoria. It was easier just to drink, and not to care. She bought the next pitcher.
Some of Kaye’s friends turned up; later Morgan tried to recollect details of that evening and failed. She drank more than she would usually, because the gaiety of alcohol made Kaye cheerful, extravert and engaging, and because her friends seemed nice, and because it was nice to sit back and be entertained.
Kaye, like Rebecca, could drink hugely and have it not show. Rebecca never slurred a syllable. Enough. I do not want this stuff in my head. Morgan finally stumbled to her feet, gave Kaye a quick hug, and left the group. She managed to seem cheerful, grateful and sociable, right up to the moment she was outside and alone again, and the faked smile that had been making her jaws ache could be dropped.
The wind that blew across the city had turned cold. Late autumn. Winter soon. What trees there were in the city had shed their leaves; it was got dark earlier each day. Soon she would need more than her jacket to keep her warm. That night she had the bonus deep inside her pocket, and she distributed coins she couldn’t honestly afford to the kids in the cardboard boxes that lined the main pathway past St Martin’s. She knew how little space divided them.
That night, dizzy with drink, and knowing that sleep would take a long time to come, Morgan closed her eyes and allowed herself - as she generally did not – the luxury of thinking about Frances. She ran through in her memory all that she could remember of their two meetings, hoping that by doing so she might then dream about her. She had once experimented in touching her own body as Frances had done, but the sensation brought no pleasure. Her own touch was uninspired, and it wasn’t long before she stopped.
*****
“It’s all coming back to me now.”
There were times when Frances wondered if she’d just imagined the whole thing. Had she really picked up a girl, brought her back, fucked her, paid her and then just… let her go? Frances sat at her dressing table, brushing her hair. Like Morgan, Frances had had a long, difficult week; she was glad that it was over. And at dinner that night, an engagement she would have happily cancelled, it was not the conversation - such as it was - or the long, useful week just over that was running through her memory: she was thinking of Morgan.
If her name really had been Morgan. Oh, it probably had been. It might very well have been, the girl didn’t seem a very good liar. She’d responded promptly and convincingly to that sound. Oh, and she’d responded promptly and convincingly to all sorts of other things, too. Frances left her robe on the chair, got into bed, tried to read, realised that she wasn’t taking in a single word and tossed the book to the other side of the bed. A nice bed, a comfortable, broad bed. A bed made for sharing. Frances muttered some dismissive comment, stretched out, turned out the light, shifted over into the centre of the mattress. Inadvertently she sent her book onto the floor. She was tired, had thought herself too tired even to think, and yet here she was, still thinking.
That morning she’d nearly made a complete fool of herself. There they were, discussing gallery matters, talking about good things, sensible things, necessary issues that normally interested and challenged her, and what had come back to mind? Nothing more embarrassing than her own words spoken to the girl. At the memory she’d felt herself go damp. Oh, for god’s sake. She’d had to excuse herself, and it was evident that no-one was surprised at her sudden exit; the face she saw reflected in the gallery mirror was pale as paper. She’d enclosed herself in one of the cubicles, sat down, tried thinking of dull and ordinary things. Tried not to think about how it had felt to know that she had paid to do whatever she wanted to do. What the hell was wrong with paying for sex? People did it all the time, some of them more honest about the transaction than others. The reflection in no way shamed her; it had been - after all - a business agreement, a cash transaction followed by other… transactions. Fuck, she thought, if that girl came through the gallery door right now, I swear I’d ravish her on the floor of my office. She stepped out, rinsed her hands in cool water and pressed her now cool wrists to her forehead. Bloodless she might look, but her pulse was beating strongly, wildly. She could not remember ever feeling so… vivid.
Sleep would never come if she went on at this rate. She reached out over the cool surface of the sheets, felt how nice it was to be able to move as she wanted to, unrestricted by the contours of another body, no matter how desirable that body might be. She thought about waking next to Morgan, the scent of sex still in the room. She had never belonged to the party that ran away from sex in search of showers, and she’d been pleased to see that Morgan too had side-stepped that tendency.
Oh, it didn’t matter if she didn’t sleep. Tomorrow she could rise whenever she felt like, do whatever she felt like doing. Oh, for fuck’s sake ( as Kaye might have said, had she known), that girl’s what I feel like doing. And I don’t know where she lives. I don’t know where she works or what her surname is. I have no number for her, even in the unlikely event of her possessing a phone. Oh, hell, so what? Better by far that I leave things as they are. Madness to try and look for her. Better to rely on my own fingers and memories. It was a crazy thing, and that it happened twice was simply… very good luck. Better that I don’t know. Better that I forget about her. Better that it ended where it did. I don’t even want to see her again. It wouldn’t work. Things are better this way.
As she drifted into sleep a last thought came to her, its tone soft and insinuating, and it said: liar.
*****
“The summer’s out of reach.”
She had meant to sleep until lunchtime, following up the lie-in with an afternoon nap and possibly an early night, so what happened? She woke at half past five, and then again at six, before giving up and getting up and making tea. She sat by the window to drink it, looking out over the city. She could hear the sound of the underground, as it racketed from rail to rail far beneath her; all around were the sounds of a world waking up.
Morgan decided to check out the Saturday market. It would make for a nice walk and on the way she could stop at the corner diner for breakfast. A breakfast that someone else had had to cook. If only she could face the idea of food. Her jeans were looser around her waist and hips than when she’d arrived in the city: having spent the best part of everyday preparing food she could now hardly bear to eat the stuff. She put the plug in the sinkhole and turned the taps and washed. Soon she was dried and dressed. She thought again about food and her stomach turned over. She put a towel over her pillow and stretched out on the bed with her headphones in place, and turned her music on.
It was good that she had agreed to meet Kaye for an hour or so that afternoon. The date gave structure to a day that would otherwise have simply petered out into nothingness. Sometimes at the weekend she went to the cinema, though never again to the NFT. That site had been forever tainted with the hope of seeing Frances. Days off made Morgan feel guilty: with a purpose or a timetable she felt happier. And it was as she reached that conclusion that she saw Katie seated in the armchair. Morgan turned off the music and removed the phones from her ears.
“For the love of god. Rebecca might as well have killed you for all the good escaping’s done you. That mad stupid… bitch has made you incapable of enjoying freedom. After all those months, hell, all those years when she had your time mapped out for you, you really can’t do time off.” Morgan reached for the headphones but Katie’s voice cut through such a paltry defence. “Anyone else would think: hell, it’s been a killer of a week, I’m tired and I am entitled to do nothing without feeling guilty. But you can’t do that, can you? She’s still got you hobbled.”
Morgan nodded; Katie was right, after all. But Katie was after more than just acceptance. She stretched out her legs. She had on blue jeans and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled. Her feet were bare. Morgan remained propped up on her bed. “Honestly. You might as well be in chains. You’d work yourself to death if the café never closed. And for what? I mean, it’s obviously not the pay, because that’s only just above the minimum fucking wage. So what motivates you? What’s your reason for getting out of bed in the morning? For the first time in your life it wouldn’t matter to anyone if you simply slept the day away. No-one would come to turf you out of bed. Eventually of course I guess they’d evict you for non-payment of rent, but for a while you’d be alright. It’s the saddest thing: that bloody woman may be out of your life but she’s still controlling it.”
“No. That’s not true. Of course it’s not true. I’m just getting used to a specific pattern and I don’t want – ”
“You don’t want to admit to yourself that you’re not quite balanced, do you?”
“That’s not fair: I am fucking well balanced. Look at me: I’m entirely balanced. I have a room. I’m holding down a job. I can even pay the rent this week, seeing as Kaye achieved us some kind of bonus I don’t even want to think about.”
“Oh, yes. Well-balanced to the last. Well-balanced thanks to the alcohol, the amphetamines, and the joints, and your friend with Tourette’s. Oh, don’t forget your two occasions of paid sex.” Morgan hadn’t seen her since the second one. “Well, I’m glad you think you’re sane. I knew that living with Rebecca would eventually break you. I thought you hadn’t left it too late but now I begin to wonder.”
“But that’s just the thing: she didn’t break me. And I’m quite sane. Look at me, Katie: I’m still here.”
“Still here? Oh, hell, Morgan, what crap that is. Bits of you are still here. Bits are all. Still, at least you got out. She hurt you and beat you up and might… one day have actually killed you. She might not have meant to do it, but it would have happened, all the same. She’d be drunk and you’d say something - or nothing - and she’d lash out and you’d fall and crack your head on something, if she didn’t put you headfirst into a wall. Goodbye, Morgan, and a big hallo to Rebecca from the women’s prison in Bedford. Or a nice room with padded walls at Broadmoor.”
“No.” That was the only thing of which she was wholly sure. “Rebecca was entirely sane. If anyone was a bit off-centre it could only be…”
“I always thought that you were nuts, Morgan. But Rebecca? She said it often enough. Have her words taken root? Has she won?”
Morgan shook her head, and put back on her headphones. She shut her eyes and the turned up the volume of her music until the sound vibrated through her jaw and made it ache. She kept on playing the music until Katie had thrown up her hands in despair and gone.
But as Morgan was due to set out to meet Kaye, she heard Katie’s voice once more. To dull those tones completely would take more than a jug of margaritas, a few little blue pills and a handful of joints. For that she’d need a pre-frontal lobotomy. Still, she thought, at least it’s company. I’m not wholly on my own. At the door she fumbled with the key and said, softly, “Bye, Katie.”
“Goodbye, Morgan. I expect I’ll be seeing you later.”
Kaye was bright and energetic, much more than Morgan would have believed possible after the last week. Just how much of Kaye’s brightness was the result of illegal medication Morgan could not guess. But their afternoon meeting was cheerful enough, and it might have ended quietly and uneventfully had Morgan not gotten stoned.
She’d never had much resistance to medication. The strongest pain-killers she’d ever used had been given her after that fall, when she had slipped on the last stair and gone flying into the hall table, hurrying to answer the phone. Oh, yes. That was what Rebecca had told the nurse in casualty, when she’d driven Morgan along there, Morgan dripping blood on the landing floor, the garden path, the family car. But how natural her hurry had been, rushing down the stairs to grab the envelope and to see how she’d done in those pesky exams…
Rebecca’s lies had sounded very convincing as she told them to the casualty duty nurse. The fact that the results had been good had been the most believable aspect of it all: had Morgan just screwed up, had those results been dreadful or disappointing, Rebecca’s performance might have seemed less convincing, her lies less believable. Why she’d taken the tablets with her when she left, Morgan couldn’t tell. Perhaps she was really duty bound to offer some of them to Kaye, who was so very generous with her own supplies. No. Not a good idea. But how alien it was to Morgan to sit and drink with Kaye. She’d gone through her entire academic career without smoking a single joint, and had never felt much interest in alcohol, after a decade of watching Rebecca’s love affair with gin. But things changed, and this was a brave new world, and with Kaye providing such useful and enjoyable drugs, access to a blurred world seemed rather a fine thing to Morgan. So that afternoon they’d spent a couple of happy hours in the little square, complete with grass and wooden benches, hidden in the depths of Soho. The square was warm in the afternoon sun, and quiet, and no-one came to interrupt them. It was not until Kaye with a shout of surprise noticed the time, and announced that she was fucking late and had to go, that Morgan realised that she wasn’t capable of standing up. She’d started to rise when Kaye stood up, only to sit straight back down again with a thump that bruised her. Morgan’s legs would not support her. Kaye, giggling like a loon, and far from sober herself, staggered off to be sociable elsewhere. Before leaving Morgan she handed her another pill, insignificant and small. Morgan took it with a mouthful of warm coke and smiled her goodbye.
Alone and comparatively helpless in a world that had become fuzzy at the edges, Morgan stretched out on the bench. The sunshine falling upon her was soothing; fatigue met with the alcohol and washed over her. Eyes closed, the light dyed her solitary world red. She thought that she might actually sleep, ridiculous as the notion was, but as she sighed, a change came over her, and her heart began to beat with peculiar and erratic determination, thumping so hard that she thought she feel her ribs vibrate.
Her heart seemed to have grown within her ribcage so that it no longer fitted. Her breathing altered, became erratic, became unreliable. Sweat broke out across her forehead. She tried to sit up and ended up having to push her hands down on the wood to force herself upright. To her side, standing a little distance from the bench, still in white shirt and jeans, but oddly again barefoot, stood Katie. She was saying something that Morgan strained to hear, but the words were indistinct. For the first time since Rebecca’s last outburst, she felt physically afraid. She tried to remain upright but she could feel herself slipping. The ground beneath her began to slope and she swayed in an effort to stay still. She gripped the bench seat hard enough to pick up splinters, and found that if she shut her eyes a horrid nausea began. Katie’s voice was becoming strident, but Morgan still could not distinguish her words. She heard another voice from far away, heard her own name spoken in shocked tones, saw for a moment Frances’ horrified expression before she pitched forward onto the ground, passing out cold for the second time in their relationship.