Chapter 17

Chapter Seventeen

A year earlier

Kiera walked past her old house most days, and noticed pink and purple silks had been hung at the windows. As the days went on, it increasingly resembled a hippy commune. One morning, as she was walking past, a woman came out in bare feet. She caught Kiera’s eye and flushed a deep red. She was wearing a long flowery dress and her billowing curly blonde hair was unbrushed. She stared at Kiera for a second or two more than was necessary.

“Can I help you?” asked Kiera in a sour voice she’d never heard come out of her mouth before. She regretted it the moment she said it, wishing instead she had reserved her resentment for her internal monologue, which was currently telling her to run away like a naughty child who’d been caught out.

“Um, no, I don’t think so,” said the woman. “You’re Kiera.”

“Correct.” Kiera had no idea where to take this next.

“I’m Athena.” Of course she was .

“Yes.” Kiera looked away, begging for a stray car to mow her down and remove her from the situation.

“I wanted to say how gracious you’ve been towards me,” said Athena, her hand reaching up to her unkempt hair.

“I’ve never met you.”

“No, but I know you only want the best for our Chrissie,” she said, her hand now moving back down, to her heart.

“She’s not ‘ours’. She’s definitely not mine,” said Kiera, feeling so brittle now that she thought at any moment she might shatter.

“You’re so progressive. You’re right, she’s her own person. Thank you,” said Athena, smiling warmly.

“You’re welcome,” said Kiera, the English reflex making her want to gag a moment later. As she turned to walk away the words ‘you’re welcome’ echoed round and round in her head. She wasn’t welcome, definitely not in her house or with her wife.

That evening she recounted her experience with Lou over a bottle of wine in the Vine.

“You actually said that?” said Lou.

“Yes, I know, it’s ridiculous, but I did.”

“She’s a total cuckoo, invading your life and taking it over. Not, I might add, that you’d be better off if you’d stayed with Chrissie. Totally away with the bloody fairies,” said Lou.

“Depressingly, that is how it would seem.”

“I mean, how dare they, carrying on as if you haven’t been pushed out of your own home.” After half a bottle of wine, Lou was on a roll, and launched into a tirade which included virtually every insult Kiera had ever heard. “Well, sod her,” she said, as her diatribe drew to a close. “You’re better off out of it. ”

“I really am. But somehow I feel like I’ve walked away with nothing. I feel empty.” Lou pursed her lips and poured Kiera some more wine.

“You’ve walked away with your dignity and your freedom. Don’t allow her to make you feel small. You’re a superstar.”

Kiera allowed herself a smile. “Maybe a little one.”

“A huge one! You’ve managed to walk past that wretched house on your way to work for weeks now, and you’ve not yet chucked anything at the front window.”

“The thought hadn’t even occurred to me,” said Kiera, although now she was trying it on for size.

“You need to get in touch with your inner rage, hun. It will do you the power of good.” Lou drained her glass. “Come on.” She stood up.

“Where are we going?”

“I need a wee, and a kebab, in that order.”

“Deal,” said Kiera, laughing. Twenty minutes later they were walking along the High Street with their kebabs, leaving a trail of iceberg lettuce and sauce in their wake.

“Come on then, inner rage. I haven’t forgotten,” Lou reminded her.

“Well,” said Kiera, through a mouth full of meat and tomato, “I feel very cross.”

“Nope, not good enough. Come on, what would you say to her if she was right here, right now?”

“I’d tell her to fuck off out of my life.”

“And? Come on,” said Lou, ushering Kiera towards a bench in the small square by All Saints Church. “Look at that pigeon over there.” It was pecking at the droppings from their kebabs. “That’s Chrissie. Tell her what you really think.”

Kiera took a deep breath .

“Ok, ok. You are not good enough for me. You never were. You were on your best behaviour until you weren’t, and you don’t know how to love me. Or anyone. I gave you my whole life and you just discarded it as if it was worthless. Well, it’s not. I am better and braver and stronger than you and I will rebuild my life; you just watch me. One day you’ll see what you did and you will be ashamed. Once we’ve sorted the house and the paperwork and the divorce, you will never see or hear from me ever again. I won’t be your friend, I won’t condone the way you have treated me. I hate you and I deserve so much better than you, and I will get it.”

“Wow,” said Lou, ketchup dripping from the corner of her mouth. “That was amazing. You should totally say that to her when you next see her.”

“Ha. I don’t think so. Remember, she thinks I’m a toxic part of her life. She doesn’t care what I think.” Kiera looked down at her kebab. “I’m not sure I can eat the rest of this.”

“Yeah, they always smell better than they taste. Come on.”

“Where now?” said Kiera, incredulous.

“You’ll see.”

After ten minutes of the drunken forced march Lou had instigated, they stopped outside Kiera’s old house.

“What are we...” Keira began, but before she could complete the question, Lou’s kebab was flying through the air and landing, splat, on the bay window.

“Come on, you know you want to,” said Lou, a glint in her eye.

“I, um, fuck it, yes I want to,” said Kiera, pulling back her hand and throwing the remainder of her own kebab overhand to land to the right of Lou’s, before slowly sliding down the window, leaving a snail trail of grease and sauce behind it.

Her surprise at managing a direct hit given the amount of alcohol she’d consumed was quickly forgotten when the downstairs lights came on. Lou and Kiera squealed, before joining hands and running as fast as their inebriated legs could take them. They were soon back on the High Street, where they collapsed, hysterical with laughter, into the doorway of a shop. It was the kind of laughter that takes over and persists. Periodically there would be a pause, and then one of them would dissolve into giggles again, setting the other off.

“My God, Kiera, that was epic. I haven’t done anything like that since I was at uni.”

Kiera laughed. “I don’t think I’ve done anything like that, ever. God, she’s going to be so pissed off, and imagine Athena’s face!”

Lou snorted. “Why is she named after a nineties poster shop, anyway?”

“Ooh, yes, I remember that, the magic eye posters. The hours me and my friends spent in there trying to make the hidden image appear. I remember standing with my nose pressed up against the image for about ten minutes once. Eventually a shop assistant came and asked if I was ok, and if I needed any help. I got embarrassed, so I picked up the nearest poster and bought it.”

“Ha! That’s brilliant. You were such a dork! What was the poster of?” asked Lou. “Was it that tennis girl with her bum out?”

“No!” said Kiera, with a chortle. “I was still ‘confused’ at that point. No, it was a muscle-bound man holding a kitten.”

“Oh my God, that’s hilarious! I could murder a fag,” said Lou, rummaging about in her pockets as if she might find a cigarette there.

“You don’t smoke!” shouted Kiera.

“I used to. Fifteen a day when I was a student. I stopped when I started dating Dan. He hated the smell of smoke, and I gave it up for him.”

“Oh, how romantic,” said Kiera.

“I was thinking less with my brain and more with another part of me, as I recall. But I haven’t smoked in years. Talking about being a teenager reminded me how brilliant a cigarette is after a skin-full and a kebab.” Lou sighed. “It’s so unfair that we have to grow up into responsible adults.”

“Too true. I can’t believe I’m in the process of sorting out a house post-divorce. What the hell happened to my life?” Kiera began to get to her feet.

“Steady on, mate. Where are you off to?”

“Come on, we can’t sit in the street all night. Let’s go to my flat, you can sleep on the sofa.”

“Bugger that,” said Lou, “I’m sleeping in your bed with you.”

“Deal,” said Kiera. She reached out her hand to pull Lou up, although at one point it felt like she would end up being pulled back down instead. Finally, they brushed themselves down and walked to Kiera’s flat arm in arm.