A/N:
[1] This chapter is rated M.
[2] This chapter contains an explicit scene of sexual assault. If you wish to skip over it, that's possible! I've signalled it with a ".." line break, rather than my usual "." break.
Same as always, thanks for reviewing, your words keep a smile on my face :)
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Nous étions formidables. [We were wonderful.]
Formidable - Stromae
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Tears don't dry, she's learnt. They sink. Sink into your skin; scar red, painful cheeks and Martha Costello, well, she's never been one to work out her frustration on a treadmill. She likes frozen food heated up in the oven and boxes of Ben & Jerry's. Likes to work.
There's no work, anymore.
Years of law, logic, and ILACs drive her to the next best thing on her list: she dances.
It's the way she deals with things, has taught herself to deal with things. Alone in her student halls in Manchester when she failed Torts her first year, crying herself to sleep, thinking she'd never make it to morning. Got very drunk, that night, remembers her mother over the landline and how she suggested Martha come home, her sweet voice betraying excitement in her ear.
'You'll learn to be problem solvers,' they told her in bar school as she worked endlessly, split the little time she had between solicitors, barristers and clients, trying to make ends meet. The thing is: she's never been taught to consider her own problems, has she? So, again, she dances. The music loud in her ears, echoing in her flat, letting her head bounce from side to side against the flow; it releases endorphins, she's learnt, dulls the noise in her head.
Martha made a playlist for Billy, a while back, the closest thing to a mixtape. It had: Coldplay, Florence and the Machine and that song from that band from Bury that she really likes. She recalls: Joy Division and Clive, and Sean. He used to listen to rock, she remembers, Smells Like Teen Spirit blasting out of his window back home, his punk hair and early tattoos; she suspects it might be the reason why her mother never really warmed up to him.
Tonight, Martha wants: Springsteen and Blondie, maybe Cyndi Lauper. Her iPod plays: PJ Harvey, Laura Marling and Radiohead. You're not going to get anywhere with that, Mar, a voice whispers, in her ear. She moves between the four walls of her living room: it feels like being trapped in a cage, books and books of criminal statutes threatening to fall over. She doesn't know where to look, where not to look, and how she's going to drag herself to court on Monday.
Billy's dead. Everything she's ever known is kind of dead.
And frankly, it's all her fault.
.
So, she drinks.
It's the other thing she's taught herself to do (well, maybe the bar did, or living in student halls for two years, she's not sure), wine tainting her lips redder than makeup ever could, softening the cushions on her couch, lulling her to sleep. With her eyes closed, she can remember the taste of Clive's mouth over hers in that empty courtroom, months ago; it's funny, she muses, how his happiness always seems to be tied to her losses.
She tries, tries so hard to fall asleep, lying in bed still fully clothed, working her way through a bottle of Merlot. It doesn't work, though. Minutes pass and she's still staring at the ceiling of her bedroom, almost wishing for inexistent cracks in the paint to trace from the corner of her eyes. Who are you? they asked, back in Chambers, and: someone who's angry, she thinks. Someone who's sad.
Her mother had warned her, back then, hadn't she? 'You're leaving us for nothing more than a bunch of posh Londoners who'll never take you in,' she'd said, enraged; Martha's university bags half-full and scattered around her room on the highest floor of their house, head bumping into the sloped ceiling every time she got up. Who are you? she asks, again, looking at her reflection in the mirror as she slips on jeans and a clean top, letting her blonde curls fall free and frame her face. She needs to get out. Needs to hear music she doesn't know, voices that don't hurt. The hot summer air assaults her nostrils when she makes it out of her flat; she looks for a pub - any pub - with a band, and songs loud enough that they will change the beat of her heart (maybe if she dances hard enough, it won't hurt as bad).
.
The floor of the bar that she ends up at is dark, wood tired and worn out under her feet. The soles of her shoes stick to the ground with remnants of sugar, spilled alcohol and all that London has to offer on a Friday night. Martha orders her fourth (fifth?) shot of vodka from the bar and looks around as the liquid is poured, someone else sliding in next to her to order their own.
She eyes the dancefloor, a good two hundred people laughing and moving in sync to Toxic by Britney Spears, her head already buzzing from the bottle of wine she's had at home; she's moving in to get her drink when a man standing to her right offers to pay for it. For a moment, Martha stills, silent and unsure what to say. Their orders are similar (hers: translucent; his: brown, handed over with a slice of lemon and a touch of salt) - he gives her a large smile and says: "Can I get yours, too?"
Before she knows it, Martha's letting their glasses clink against each other, nodding at him and downing her drink as he hands over his card to the bartender.
Discretely, she chooses to consider him (her handsome, dark stranger). He's tall, that she can tell. Short, brown hair, on the wrong side of his thirties. A pair of sunglasses hangs loosely from the pocket of his shirt; he looks a bit like a tourist but: good enough, she catches herself thinking as he smiles confidently and turns back to face her, leaning against the side of the counter. He's not the kind of person she'd usually go for, objectively (but then her type has sucked, lately), and she guesses she's always had a bad boy 'thing', after all (or so her mother used to insist). As a teenager, she discovered she liked the way the boys felt, next to her. Liked the way they smelled, the way their hands grazed and groped at her skin. She likes the sex, too, she's not going to make a secret out of it. The sex, she thinks, is pleasurable as much as it is a weapon, sometimes, like during her first year at uni when she felt Sean's gaze on her in a club in Manchester and let another guy she didn't even like shove his tongue down her throat, just to prove a point.
Brown Hair's friends hover behind him, watching intently as he moves closer to her. "What's your name?" he asks, drapes an arm over the counter, leaning in, a hand on her shoulder; she hears laughter, distant in the background. The bartender drops two pints of beer in front of them and as her lips caress the liquid, she feels her stomach protest slightly. She sets the drink down again, briefly considers stopping there.
The thing is, she'd thought dancing would get her problems out of her system. She'd thought drinking would, too. Yet, the first name she thinks of, her head spinning in a dark pub that smells like sweat, is still Billy's. Billy, Billy, Billy, the voice in her head repeats; she shuts her eyes. When she opens them again, her gaze focuses on Brown Hair, hazy on the details of his face.
She's not particularly proud of the solution she considers, but she's been told that releases endorphins, too. "Does it matter?" she blurts out, shaking her head to the beat. Her fingers hook onto the belt hoop of his jeans.
His hand is on her waist before she knows it. "I suppose not," he says.
She grabs his arm and swiftly navigates them to the toilets, at the other end of the crowded bar. You should have gotten on that plane, a voice says, in her head.
"Oh, shut up," she slurs at no one in particular.
..
Letting the door close behind them, she finds herself pushed against it. His palms are large, strong, running down her sides, lips catching hers. She tastes the bitterness of lemon and tequila in his mouth, fingernails digging into the flesh of his back. It's been years since she's last done something like this, something real, and dirty, something that would make someone like bloody Harriet blush, and it makes her want to shove it in Clive's face. See, she thinks, I can have fun, too.
Brown Hair tastes good, feels good, too. Wild.
She tugs his shirt out of his trousers, accidentally rips a button open; he doesn't seem to notice as her fingers trail over his skin, pulling him closer. He's quite fit, she realises, her palms over his bare stomach; he nudges her legs open with his knee, his thigh pressing into her. She's in heels tonight – the real four-inch shit, not the short ones she wears to court - and her balance isn't the greatest so she almost falls off and sinks into his thigh, a loud moan escaping her mouth. His lips find her neck, suck. "Oh God," she exhales, a gasp cutting her breaths.
He flicks a thumb over her nipple; she feels him smirk against her skin.
Her instincts kick in, eventually, and she takes the lead, feeling him through his jeans as she moves against him. "Tease," he mutters against her neck when she almost stops, the lightest touch of her fingers remaining. A laugh escapes her lips; she begins to unbutton his trousers, pull down his flies, her hand grazing his skin. He breathes out against her chest, hands cascading down to her hips. His fingers start mimicking her own movements, slowly, teasingly working their way into her knickers, slipping between the fabric of her underwear and her skin.
"Fuck," she swears against his mouth; she's already so bloody wet it's almost embarrassing.
In a couple of swift motions, she feels his hand on her, stroking the skin under her underwear, humming against her mouth. His fingers travel South, curving into her jeans; her heart races, head slightly spinning as she holds onto him for balance - truth be told, she does appreciate that he's allowing a bit of foreplay into their drunken encounter. Her chin over his shoulder, in slow motion, she feels his fingers moving, sliding inside her. Her hips buck against his hand, instinctively, moving towards him. Yet, somehow, she feels herself freeze.
It's almost an out of body experience, really, like she's watching it happen from above. Wait, her own voice echoes in her head, the lights dancing in front of her; she feels like she's going to faint. Slowly, Martha closes her eyes, tries to breathe.
It must be a couple of seconds before she comes to her senses, feels him still hard against her hand. The Earth spins around her and she's beginning to feel the sickening taste of alcohol making its way to the back up her throat; it makes it hard not to gag. His fingertips snap, next to her ear. The sound loud; it makes her jump. "Come on," he says, pleads, his voice hoarse and frustrated as he tugs at her jeans.
Her bum is pressed up against the door. She reckons she would have to lift it up a bit for him to pull down her pants, but finds herself unable to move. His palms seem to spread all over her body, keeping her in place as he presses against her stomach; it seems like he's trying to elicit some kind of reaction out of her, help her along.
"Wait," she whispers.
He doesn't hear. Or, at least, that's what she thinks. The music is loud in their ears, after all, Martha can still make out the lyrics. And the walls came tumbling down in the city that we love. Grey clouds roll over the hills bringing darkness from above.
"Wait," she repeats, louder, this time. He kisses her neck, gropes at her breasts; she's actively trying not to retch. But if you close your eyes, does it almost feel like nothing changed at all? And if you close your eyes – A shout escapes her mouth: "Stop!"
And for a short blissful moment, her words do seem to have the desired impact: his hands freeze against her hips; Brown Hair relents. She feels him pull back, a rush of air exiting her lungs, relief flooding her brain. Martha blinks, twice, until his palms move back onto her shoulders, strong-arming her. "Come on," he sighs, heavy in her ear, against her frame. He smells of sweat and stale beer. "You're not going to stop now, are you?" he insists.
His lips and stubble are raw against her cheek, his fingers snake back down inside her pants. She tries to push him away, close her legs in the process, but nothing seems to help. "No!" she shouts, this time, wishing for someone - anyone - to hear (clear denial of consent, her slow, drunken brain presses), but he's heavy against her again, his body trapping hers against the door. She can't even kick him as he forces a hand onto her mouth, hard, to stop her from screaming again.
It's a little bit of a blur, almost an automatic reaction: she bites down on his skin, hard. He groans and something heavy hits the side of her head in retaliation. Martha feels warm liquid cascading down her face; it tastes like metal at the corner of her mouth.
In one fluid movement, his hands find her forearms again. She understands what's about to happen as soon as they do, feels him trying to switch positions, turn her to face the door. As in slow motion, she becomes aware of each one of her heartbeats, fear weighing down her stomach: with her back to him, she won't be able to move. Her instincts kick in, again, and she holds onto his shoulders as strong as she can when he grabs hers, keeping them face-to-face. He wrestles; she's not strong enough, won't be able to hold on forever, can already feel her limbs grow weaker in the struggle, unable to keep up with the intensity of his pull. Don't let him win, she thinks, and oddly: you led him here, they'll tear you apart in cross.
She's got one chance, she knows, before he traps her again between himself and the stall. She grabs the flesh of his arms with as much force as she can still muster, gaining a tiny bit of leverage, pushing herself away from the door. He's caught off guard, tries to resist as he stumbles backwards. Martha keeps holding him until her fingers go numb, his biceps flexing as he moves and struggles against her. Using her momentum as she pushes him away, she leans onto him and slams her knee into the space between his legs as hard as she can –
She hears him scream. Her eyes - wide open as she staggers backwards – see him fall to the floor, his back hitting the toilet seat in a dull and painful crack. For an instant, she wonders if she's killed him, or if the toilet seat's hit his spine strong enough that he'll end up paralysed for the rest of his life and feels almost guilty. She stays there, barely able to stand, still.
"You, fucking cunt," she hears him say as he writhes in pain (not dead, she thinks), his words barely registering until out of the corner of her eyes, she sees him beginning to move, pushing himself back on his knees (not paralysed either, she adds).
She thinks of kicking him again, but the world spins around her and she doesn't think her balance would hold. Go, the voice in her head says and for once she listens, stumbling over her heels on the way out. Outside the bathroom, she finds an exit sign to her right and pushes the door open onto a side street, runs as fast as she possibly can.
..
She sits on a bench. Observes the scenes in front of her. It's Friday night, crowds of drunken Londoners and tourists walk past, singing in the streets, playfully shoving each other on the pavement. Martha's vision is hazy; it's hard to focus, her balance uncertain, oscillating from left to right and back again as she looks at her feet.
They're bare, she realises, pale skin exposed to the night breeze. There's a cut, on the side of her toe: it bleeds, like the one at her brow. She keeps having to wipe blood away from her face and it keeps coming back, her fingers tinted red; she rubs them on her jeans. There's something not right about her, sitting here, limbs shaking, but the thoughts and images in her head are fuzzy and Martha can't put her finger on what led her here, exactly. "Taxi!" she shouts at no one in particular; the cars don't stop, keep speeding in front of her eyes. She looks around; a homeless man stands in front of her. She tries to narrow her eyes, focus, can't really see his face.
"You alright, love?" he asks. She jumps at the sound of his voice and slides on the bench, away from him.
"Yeah," she nods, trying to make her voice sound even, convincing. Eventually, she hears him trudge away.
She's clutching her handbag. It's wet, smells like beer. Out of habit, she fishes out her mobile, turns it on - a dead weight in her hand - doesn't remember it ever being this heavy. A loud succession of ringing and beeping sounds welcome her with dozens of missed emails and messages, hundreds of notifications popping before her eyes. She squints, trying to read some of them, but the letters just blend into one another; they make her feel dizzy.
Her surroundings are still out of focus, like trapped in an old, dirty lens; she's afloat, notices it gets worse when she closes her eyes, tries not to. Martha can't recall how she got here, or why, really, and suddenly the urge to call someone becomes overpowering, like that need she feels to text Clive whenever she gets very, very drunk. I'll call Billy, she decides, because he's a good friend, and he cares, and he always says he loves her. She doesn't remember the last time she said it back, and she should, really, because he should know, right now, that she's his friend too, because love is so, so important, and nice, she thinks.
Her hands shake, the letters on the screen undecipherable, but the tips of her fingers somehow manage to enter the word 'bukly' into the search bar, and Billy's contact details pop up. She taps his name, smiles when she hears the ringing on the other end of the line. It's late, she tells herself, he's probably not going to pick up. She'll leave a message, she decides, breathes, will try not to slur too much in her speech. The ringing goes off, once, twice, three times.
"Hello?"
She recognises the voice. It's not Billy's. Martha moves the phone from her ear to the front of her eyes, extends her arm as far as she can, tries to read the name displayed. Has she misdialled? No, it says Billy, there, on the screen, but then it's not Billy on the phone, so why is it not –
She places the phone back against her ear, exhales. "Hello?" the voice says, again, and suddenly the memories come tumbling down on her drunken brain: Billy was in hospital again, and she was there too, and then –
Billy, not Billy, Billy isn't there anymore, Billy's –
A strangled gasp escapes her mouth. "Marth?" the voice asks, wary.
She drops the phone by her side.
"Martha!" the voice calls into the receiver again; she hears it even through the noise of the cars. Slowly, she picks the mobile up, examines its broken screen, puts it back against her ear.
"He's dead, Clive," she says, her speech slurred, tears streaming down her face.
"Yeah, yeah, he's dead, Marth. What's going on? You alright?"
Even through her drunkenness, she recognises the worry in Clive's voice, can imagine him clenching his jaw, his words cautious. Her heart thunders in her chest, hands shaking; it's hard to hold onto her phone, loud, pathetic sobs wounding her mouth. Get a grip, the voice in her head says but she can't, feels like someone just plunged their hand into her stomach and is violently pulling her guts out. A memory replays in front of her eyes, Clive gesturing and she hears him shouting at her, earlier, can't make out what he said, or why, and how the fuck did she get here?
"No," she just hears herself say into the phone, finally, tears streaming down her face. "I'm not alright, no."
"Marth, where are you?" Clive asks. She can hear him move as he speaks, switching the phone from ear to ear.
She looks around. Really looks around for the first time since she sat down. It feels very familiar, somehow, with the river, and the trees, and the dark gates. "Thames," she says, adds. "Middle Temple Lane."
She hears a sigh of relief, holding the phone close to her ear. "Okay, I'm still in Chambers; I'll be there in a minute, do not move."
The line goes dead. She feels like being a good girl, tonight, so she does as instructed, tries not to move. It's hard, though, because her head keeps spinning and her body shifts from left to right like the pendulum of a clock. It's funny how white her feet are against the dark pavement, maybe she should put her shoes back on, then her feet won't be so white anymore, it would be prettier, she thinks, and where are her shoes, anyway?
"Marth!" A shout, from the other side of the street. Miss! she thinks, and: Billy.
She looks up and it's Clive, running towards her; he walks in the middle of the road, cars furiously hooting at him. Before she knows it, he's squatting down next to her, taking off his jacket and draping it over her shoulders. Her lips quiver, face twisted in a painful grimace.
"Jesus, Marth, you're bleeding," he says, his thumb touching her face, blood colouring his finger. "What the hell happened?"
However drunk he thought she was going to be, she realises he didn't expect to find her hunched over like this, teary and shaking, and barefoot in the middle of the night. She wipes a tear away from her eyes with the back of her hand, stares at the tips of her fingers. "I want to go home," her voice pleads, breaking.
"Yeah, let's get you home." His tone is soft, familiar, soothing. She sees his gaze drift to the road next to them. "Can you walk?"
She smiles, weak, nods. Clive pulls her up to her feet; she leans onto him as they wobble closer to the street. Her legs are shaking, her hands are shaking; he drapes an arm over her shoulder. She shivers a little, a cab pulling over as he hails it, helping her inside.
They're silent, throughout the ride. She keeps her eyes focused on the road, her stomach disagreeing with the twists and turns the car seems to take; she briefly covers her mouth with her hand. When they get to her building, he grabs her keys from her handbag before helping her out and leading her past her front door. Stepping into the hallway, she suddenly feels the taste of wine crowd the back of her throat and she runs down to the bathroom faster than she ever thought was possible.
.
Martha's still retching over the toilet a few minutes later, the sickness coming in waves, leaving a gross taste at the back of her throat. There's the wine and the beer, and the shots of vodka she's had; every gag hurts her empty stomach.
When Clive walks in, a few minutes later, she's pushing on the flush, sitting back on her heels; he hands her a glass of water and she takes it, silent, steals a sip, waits to see if she's going to puke again - doesn't. Her whole body aches as they sit down, she against the wall, Clive about a metre from her, his back resting against the doorjamb. A hand runs through her hair, sigh heavy out of her mouth. Martha doesn't feel stone-cold sober, really, and the Earth still spins a bit around her, but she feels better, on the whole. And yet, so much worse.
"God," she sighs, looking down at her hands.
Clive smiles, a short, nervous laugh quickly escapes his mouth. "Yeah," he says, cautiously eyeing her. There is a small plastic package in his palm; he slides it over to her on the floor. "For your -" he starts. His finger touches the side of his face, over his eyebrow; she understands he means hers.
They're Band-Aids, she notes, nods as she pulls one from the box. "Thanks," she says, barely daring to look at him.
"It's okay," he just says, shrugs. "You can go back to hating me tomorrow."
There's no animosity in his voice when he speaks; she briefly wonders if she should say something, negate his words, tell him that she doesn't hate him, that it's more complicated than that. Tell him he should hate her, really, because she hates herself, but her brain's tired, and she can't find the words, so Martha stays silent, just looks down at her hands flat against her thighs. "Why'd you have Billy's phone?" she finally asks, finds the silence oppressive with all the thoughts in her head.
"We just asked to keep it for a bit," he breathes, awkward. "In case someone who doesn't –" A pause. "In case someone tries to call him instead of Chambers."
"Oh."
It makes sense, she thinks, and he has the decency not to ask why she called Billy in the first place. God, how drunk must she have been to forget that – "What happened, Marth?"
Her gaze catches his and they wait, immobile, like children playing statues. His look dares her to move, speak but instead, she's quiet for a bit, looks to the wall, hugs her knees to her chest. Her body moves with every breath she takes; it feels surreal, to be here. When Brown Hair hit the side of her face with the metal soap container, it occurred to her that he might kill her.
Martha knew that Clive would ask, so she knows what to say. Has practiced it, in her head, ever since she remembered, in the taxicab, when it began to feel safe again, hands suddenly still. She remembered everything, from the fingers she hooked on the belt hoops of his trousers to his hand in her pants, to her kick in his nuts. Maybe she brought this upon herself, didn't she? Self-destruction, or something along those lines, isn't that what Clive argued, actually, when she took on Sean's case? She's not sure, not sure of anything, other than the fact that this is all her fault.
Martha sighs, counts the number of tiles between Clive and her: three horizontal, two down. Not much, really, but he feels further than he's ever been. "I fell," she lies. "I got drunk and I fell."
"Okay." Honestly, she looks at him and doesn't know if he believes her, or if she believes him when he acts like he does. In 1999, after she slept with him the first time and told him she didn't want to be one of his girls, she clenched her jaw and waited in her pencil skirt, legs still bare underneath, wearing a white bra with flowers embroidered on the fabric between her breasts and nothing over it. She waited for him to add a but at the end of his sentence when he said she wouldn't be, but he never did.
Instead, he backed her against the doorframe, hands on her face, and kissed her: 'It's already done, Marth. You're just going to have to trust me, now,' he added with a smirk.
It sounded so easy, to him; she always wished she could have explained what it was like to be her. To be scared, cautious, unsure of ever being able to depend on people. She never said, though, and maybe in light of recent events she was right not to. But then, the voice in her head argues, if she never really trusted him, why does the betrayal hurt so much, leaving open gashes beneath her skin?
Clive catches her look, now, nods, but doesn't move. They sit in silence for a few more minutes, the both of them engrossed in their own thoughts and yeah, she considers it. Considers Brown Hair and his hands on her hips, groping at her arse, considers telling him. There's something holding her back, though, the words Harriet quoted and the belief that Martha had in Clive that evaporated when he stopped being her best friend, stopped joking about how she meant more to him than anyone else.
Her breathing tames, eventually, limbs relaxed; she catches herself yawning loudly a few moments later, hears him laugh from his spot against the doorjamb. "What time is it?" she asks vaguely, suppressing another yawn.
He glances at his watch. "Two-thirty," he says, smiling. "I think we're past your bed time."
She laughs, lets herself nod.
"Come on," he says, pushing on his hands to haul himself up. "I'll go get you more water and some ibuprofen for tomorrow."
.
Later, she's sitting on her bed when Clive knocks softly against the open door, clean face, clean teeth, clean clothes, having dropped liberal amounts of antiseptic on her wounds. He walks into the room somewhat shyly, carefully lays a glass down on her nightstand, sets a couple of pills next to it. He retreats, a few steps, walking back towards the door and: it's been a weird day, she wants to tell him. A weird year, hasn't it? There's a look of loneliness on his face that she's grown quite accustomed to, over the months, and Martha wonders if they ever reached an unspoken agreement that whatever they had had come to an end, or if it was all her fault, or his, rather than no one's in particular. She doesn't even know if it's a bad thing, really, that she can't trust him, anymore. She just knows it doesn't mean that she doesn't need him.
Martha speaks before she has time to think, stares straight into his eyes.
"Can you stay?"
She feels stupid, childish for even asking, and she's got no right to, considering the screams and blows they've inflicted on each other, but she really, really doesn't want to be alone, tonight. Doesn't think she blinks before he answers, either. "Sure," he says. "I'll just –" he signals, pointing to the door with his head, pointing to the living room, she knows, to her couch. The thing is, she doesn't really want him on the couch. She wants him close, close enough that she won't be alone, that he'll be able to scare off the monsters under her bed. She wants to feel the weight of his body at her side, the mattress sinking as he moves, soft, mumbled words escaping his mouth. Clive speaks in his sleep, she's learnt over the years, remembers laughing to herself as he told her about the elephant that Billy had just brought into Chambers. That, and having herself slept on her couch for the three days her mum was in London last year, she doesn't really want to inflict that particular uncomfortable back torture on someone his size.
She shakes her head at him. "No," she says. "Stay here. It won't be the first time we've slept together anyway."
It's a little bit of a joke but this time, she doesn't think she breathes before he smiles and answers: "Okay."
She climbs onto her side of the bed as he steps out of his clothes, pretends not to look when he bends over, shirtless, to untie his shoes, the muscles in his stomach flexing with the movement. He slides into bed, turning the bedside lamp off, settling next to her.
He lies on his side, looking directly into her eyes in the dark; the moon shades a soft light over his face. Martha smiles weakly, her features close to his, reminds herself of the present moment. The present moment is good, she thinks, safe.
She must still look shaken, though, or anxious, because she sees his lips move, his voice whisper. "Hug?" he asks and she puffs out a quiet chuckle, nods, her hair slightly falling into her face. He lifts his arm up under the quilt as she turns around, lies down with her back to his chest, spooning into him. She feels his fingers softly stroking her scalp through her hair and she must fall asleep like that, she guesses, because she doesn't remember anything else.
.
Until, well. Well, well, well.
Martha Costello awakes to a deathly pounding in her head.
Frankly, it feels like her whole brain is being compressed between two plates of granite, something that extends from the back of her skull to the bones in her jaw; she groans, eyes closed, turns around, attempts to fall back to sleep.
It takes her a while to fully emerge, muster up the strength to open her eyes. The room is dark, blinds still shut; she can see the sun hitting the back of them if she squints. Clive's gone from her side but she can hear kitchen noises coming from outside her bedroom door, the memories of the night before slowly coming back to her.
She weighs the pros and cons of getting up. Pro: she'll be able to down the water and the tablets that still sit on her bedside table, and maybe get coffee in the kitchen. Con: she's not sure her stomach will appreciate the move. Armed with the knowledge that she'll have to surface eventually, if only to pee, she hoists herself up, carefully flinging her legs to the side of her bed, her palms resting flat by her sides. Her alarm clock reads 9:32.
Slowly, Martha drinks the water, swallows the tablets, decides she'll pull herself up when the clock gets to 35. Makes it out the door a couple of minutes later, the sun violently attacking her face; her eyes squint. She hears Clive's voice coming from the kitchen, walks down the corridor and into it as he speaks.
"Someone's emerging," he says, holding out a cup of coffee. She takes it, gladly, steals a sip. Her stomach rumbles. "I made breakfast," he adds.
She looks around, looks at him standing in front of the sink. He's washing a pan, a plate with sunny side up eggs, beans and bacon sitting next to him. She's tempted to point out that she's got a dishwasher – anything to reduce the time spent doing household chores to a minimum (she actually has a maid that comes in once a week because she can't be bothered to do it herself; sometimes, she even sends her shopping for food) - but decides against making the effort to speak. Her head rests between her hands as she sighs, she hears him sitting down in front of her, pushing the plate in her direction. "You should eat something," he insists.
She shakes her head, barely dares to bite on a slice of bread, not knowing if her stomach will be willing to keep anything down. It strangely reminds her of being pregnant. All she gives him is a sigh in lieu of an answer, makes herself sip more coffee.
"Believe me, you should –"
"I've been hungover before, Clive."
The words come out snappier than she intends, but she's tired, and every time he speaks, the pounding in her head grows stronger. She sighs, shakes her head, thinks about the way he saw her, last night, the way he came to get her even after what she told him, hit him in the face and screamed in front of everybody. She had reason to, sure, but it doesn't mean that he owed her anything, and especially not the right to let her fall asleep in his arms.
"Sorry," she says. He's there, doesn't have to be.
They sit in silence for a while, she with her coffee, he periodically picking at her plate. There's always been comfort in Clive's silences. They used to work for hours on end, the both of them holed up in their room in Chambers, going through mountains of unused. With Sean, every time he looked at her and didn't say anything, she wondered what he was thinking, and what he could possibly be hiding from her. Before she left for uni, he got her a bike, a token of forgiveness for one of his sins: it was one those old race ones with thin tyres and a crossbar in the middle. She'd jump on and off it as she rushed in and out of class, cruised her way through Manchester without once touching the handlebar. Neither of them had the money, she knew, so she wondered for a long time who he'd nicked it from, never dared to ask.
"Can I ask you something?" Clive's fork stops all movement when she speaks; he lays it down on the side of the plate, looks up at her.
"Yeah."
Martha catches his gaze, purses her lips. She thinks sometimes, there are questions in her head that she doesn't want to know the answer to. That might just be one of them. "What Harriet said: did you say it?"
I don't give a crying fuck about Martha Costello, the words replay in her head. If we have to throw her under the bus, then so be it. She doesn't have – It didn't sound too bad, yesterday, because her mind was focused on Billy, but now - "Marth –" Clive sighs.
"Oh, don't fucking Marth me," she fires back at him, quick, has always been a hot-blooded creature, Martha Costello, going from tame to fiery in a matter of seconds. "It's a yes or no question, Clive."
He stares at her, then, honest, seems to brace for impact. "Yes."
The blow isn't what he expects, though, by the looks of it. She doesn't shout, or cry. She laughs. Not loud or chilling, not on the edge of tears either, like she did when he told about the jacket. It's a quiet puff, almost like a sigh, sad, crushed. She knew it was the truth, from the way Harriet said it, and she knows why it hurt as well.
Clive sighs, glances up at her. "It's not –" he tries to defend; she kills it in the egg.
"We almost had one, Clive," she tells him. He doesn't seem to get it before she speaks. "A child to feed."
She doesn't know why it hurts so bad, looking at him like this, looking like he didn't even realise. She doesn't know if it would have hurt more, had he used the words deliberately, or if negligence, ignorance, was enough to break her heart. Clive sighs, quickly, shakes his head and: "God, Marth, I didn't mean –" he starts, but she's not listening to him.
In an attempt to explain, convey whatever he's trying to tell her, keep her here with him, he touches her arm, over the table. His hand is quick, light, barely even there, familiar and almost automatic, like the hundreds of times he's touched her before. Yet, when she feels his skin against hers for the briefest moment, it's like an electric shock in her body. She can't explain why it happens now (she was fine when he held her, last night), but she retreats away from him at a speed she didn't even think was possible. She takes her hand back and pushes her chair from the table; it almost falls in her rush to get up, stepping away until her back hits the wall behind her. The whole room goes quiet; if she could, she thinks she'd run even further away. The look of shock and alarm on his face stop her, though. His startled stare reminds her of where she is, and where she isn't (in a pub, in the dark). Her limbs shake and her heart races in her chest; she brings her hand to her mouth – there are tears, at the back of her eyes, she finds it hard not to choke.
A moment passes. She stops anxiously scrutinising her surroundings from left to right like a ewe waiting for the wolves, slightly relaxes. You're safe, a voice reaffirms, over and over in her head, and she realises Clive is the one who looks terrified, now, at the idea of having done something wrong, having broken her, somehow. It's not you, she thinks. It's not that, but the words are stuck in her throat, like glue, preventing her from breathing. He stands up, walks around the table, cautious, one step at a time, closer to her; Martha feels like a kid in the ICU, being diagnosed from afar. She looks up; it stops him, a couple metres out. She can't say, yet, can't tell him what the hell possessed her to freak out like this, but it occurs to her that she can show him. Slowly, she reaches for the zipper of her jumper, pulls it down and lets it slide off her shoulders, drop to the floor. Clive stills, then, sits on the table in front of her and runs a hand over his face.
She's a mess of black and blue. Saw it this morning when she got up and looked in the mirror - sure, her skin has always bruised easily (he's dropped enough kisses on her neck in the past to know that), but it looks like she's fallen off a horse and been dragged about for a hundred metres before someone came to save her. Except, well, no. On her stomach, there's a punch, a round mark the size of a fist. On her arm, there are the tips of fingers, five imprints against her skin. It's not just the gash on her forehead, it's a film of last night storyboarded across her body.
Clive doesn't move. Simply looks as she stands there, in her bra, little sound coming from his mouth. "Marth," he just manages to say, low, barely above a whisper. The windows are open, in her kitchen; she hears a bird in the tree outside sing. "You didn't fall, did you?"
The ghost of a smile forms across her lips. She shakes her head: "No."
Clive sits back on the table, quiet for a while, looking at her as she bends down to pick up her jumper from the floor. "Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," she says, again.
He nods: "Okay," and doesn't add anything else. Closes the case then and there until maybe at some point, she'll want to reopen it. For now, he stays with her the whole day and they talk, talk about anything but that. He watches TV as she showers and changes out of her pyjamas, makes her food that she finally dares to eat. They play cards with the one deck she owns where all the tens are missing. She's always thought they were good at pretending, at separating different sections of their lives, but maybe it's something else. Maybe it's just about being, together, every once in a while. If she had to list in her head all the grudges she could hold against him, she wouldn't be able to look at his face anymore. It would probably be the same for him. But they need each other like she needs water in her system, and so when she opens her eyes, she prefers to see that he's there. She knows this isn't permanent, she knows that tomorrow, she'll probably go back to hating his guts and wanting to run but right now, in the quiet of her apartment, she likes acting normal, with him.
In the evening, she hands him a beer and sits with her legs folded on her couch, watching. The cards are still scattered messily across her coffee table; Clive folds them into a neat pile, wraps a rubber band around them. "Why did you call Billy?" he asks.
She drinks a sip of her water, thinks about it. Last night, on the banks of the Thames, she called Billy because she wanted to tell him she loved him. She wanted to hear to hear his voice, she wanted – "I wanted to talk to a friend."
Quiet, Clive nods, drinks. She expected hurt, or anger, but it looks like he just understands. Doesn't look at her, though.
"I miss him," she adds and sees the man next to her smile, bittersweet, and remembers his boyish grin when she met him, standing outside of Chambers with a cigarette between her fingers.
'Hello?' he said, eyeing her up and down like he wanted to know who the fuck she was, hadn't yet figured out she was the other one. She breathed out, smoke filling the air between them.
'Hi.'
She smiles at the memory as his beer lands on her table again; he looks at her, a quizzical look on his face. Martha misses Billy, a gaping hole in her heart that's never being filled. "I should have told them to stop the treatment right away," she speaks, glancing at her lap. "It's what he wanted."
"You need to stop blaming yourself for every little thing –"
She's quick, glancing up at him. "So, do you," she tells him, smiles. "I blame you enough for the both of us."
That makes him laugh and: "Ah, yeah, I guess," he says, shakes his head at her with a grin on his face. His beer bottle clinks against the side of her glass. "Marth, what I told Harriet –"
"Forget it –" She doesn't want an explanation, doesn't want -
"She said I'd been in love with you since the day I met you," he forces her to hear, anyway. Martha's breath catches in her throat; she looks away, didn't want to know that, doesn't want to know that. She likes putting her head in the sand, likes the days like the one they just had, talking about everything, and most importantly nothing. "I didn't want her to be right. That's all it was. I never thought of –" he trails off, catches her gaze. The baby, she reads in his.
A part of her wonders if he still thinks that, if a part of him still loves her, as he said, or if he ever really knew what that even meant. If Harriet accused him of the same sin, today, would he tell the same lie? "I was angry, and Sean was in jail, and Billy gone, and I -" she admits, watching their argument from yesterday and the rest of the evening stream before her eyes. "I lost it."
"You scared me," Clive says, staring right at her. Through her, it feels.
She nods, glances down, smiles. "I scared me."
They're silent, for a short while, until he catches her gaze again and smiles. "Marth?"
"Yeah?"
The night has fallen over London, finally, and the light of her living room reflects in his eyes, something discreet but reliable; she can see him, if she wants to. After her dad passed away, he'd gotten into the habit of telling her the lamest jokes he could think of, just to make her smile. She sets her glass down on her table, elbows in her lap. "Why can't a bike stand on its own?" he asks.
She raises a confused eyebrow as the possibilities run through her head. Well, if it's got a kickstand –
He waits until she looks up at him, shrugs her ignorance. "Because it's two tired."
Martha Costello bursts out a laugh, the first real one since Billy died.
.
.
[1] Smells Like Teen Spirit by Nirvana
[2] Toxic by Britney Spears
[3] Pompeii by Bastille