Chapter 6

6

2.17 A.M.

Pearl

Wow, you’re awake! Sorry, hope I didn’t disturb you.

Michael

Not at all. Bit of a night owl these days. How are you? How’s Brandon?

Pearl

We’re good thanks.

Michael

It’s terrible but I’ve lost track of his age. I’m guessing he’s outgrown those Lego robots now? What were they called again?

Pearl tries to close her ears to the muffled sex noises now coming from Brandon’s room.

Pearl

Bionicles. Yes he has but the one you sent was his favourite! He’s twenty-one would you believe?

Michael

Wow. So you’d like to come up and stay?

Pearl

That’d be great if you have any space?

Now Abi is panting loudly like an enthusiastic golden retriever. Pearl tries to shut off her ears as she stares at the screen. Michael is typing.

The sounds intensify. Pearl wonders if in fact the girl is having an asthma attack. Should she call 111? Bang! Crash! ‘Hold it. Hold it right there!’ Abi commands. Perhaps they’re building the Sm?stad?

Michael

…you’re really welcome anytime I have rooms free.

Pearl

We’d pay of course. We wouldn’t expect to stay for nothing.

Michael

Don’t be crazy. You’re family! In fact, my family room’s free this coming weekend right up until Christmas. And the double. Can’t imagine anyone’ll book now. But you’re probably mad busy at this time of year…

As Pearl blinks at the message, figuring out how to respond, Elias mumbles something under his breath. Then, just about audibly: ‘What’s that noise?’

‘Just something outside,’ she replies, relaxing only when his snores resume.

Pearl

Wow thanks! Yes it’s probably impossible but sometime soon, definitely. Can’t believe I’ve never seen your place. Can I talk to the others and get back to you?

Michael

Of course. Night then.

Pearl

Good to be in touch again and let’s chat soon. Goodnight x.

11.15 a.m.

Pearl

Girls I bring good tidings!

Lena

????

Pearl

Michael’s up for us going to stay!

Shelley

Brilliant! Shall we book a date? When are we thinking?

Pearl

He won’t take any money from us as long as he has rooms free. He’s adamant about that. Says he actually has space this coming weekend right up until Christmas! Could we possibly do this?

Lena

You mean go BEFORE Christmas? Like this week?

Pearl

I’d be up for it if we could pull it together. Shell when d’you finish work?

Shelley

Thursday’s my last day. Then off till 27th. How about you Leen?

Lena

Yeah I could get all my work done. We could do this.

Shelley

We actually could!

Pearl

Was hoping you’d say that girls. REALLY need to get away.

Shelley

All OK? Something up?

Pearl

Weird thing with Elias. Think it’s all over.

Lena

Oh no what’s happened?

Pearl

He seems to think I’d like a Twixmas deal at a spanking club in Weston-super-Mare.

Shelley

WHAT???

Lena

OMG.

Pearl

But it’s not just that. It’s this place too. Feels like it’s closing in on me. So how about we head to the Highlands this weekend? Say four nights, Friday through till Christmas Eve?

Lena

And miss the whole pre-Christmas thing? You mean duck right out of it?!

Pearl

Exactly. How would that go down with Joel and the kids Shelley?

Shelley

Like a cup of cold sick.

Lena

Can we talk later? Got work call in a min.

Shelley

At work too but free later. Exciting!!!

6.09 p.m.

Abi is hogging the bathroom. It’s probably only been half an hour but it feels like weeks. With Brandon out at work, Pearl jiggles in the hallway, trying to hold in her pee as his girlfriend’s shower goes on and on and on.

‘Abi?’ She knocks on the door. ‘I really need the loo.’

‘Won’t be long,’ she bellows. ‘Sorry, think I used up all your conditioner!’

Pearl doesn’t care about the conditioner because her bladder might possibly explode very soon like a water balloon.

She knocks again – politely, as Pearl hates being impolite. If it were Brandon in there, she’d have no problem hammering on the door. But she still regards Abi as a guest. ‘Abi?’ she calls out sweetly. No response. Abi is singing loudly – Amy Winehouse’s ‘Tears Dry on Their Own’ – and apparently enjoying herself hugely in there.

In actual pain now, Pearl hurries to the living room and looks around wildly for something to pee in. Anything will do. Any kind of receptacle that won’t leak. The wastepaper basket? No, that’s wicker – it’d drip out everywhere – and she can’t bring herself to use a kitchen item like a saucepan or the salad bowl. She’d run out to the library at the end of the road but it’ll be closed, she realises. And she’s not sure she’d make it that far anyway.

A large, round red plastic object catches her eye beneath the sparkling Christmas tree. It’s the tub of Celebrations that Nadira, their kind upstairs neighbour, brought down for them last night. ‘Don’t eat them all at once, guys!’ she instructed with a grin. Pearl is in too much pain now to acknowledge the small stab of guilt as she tugs off the lid and tips out the few remaining chocolates onto the floor.

She tears down her jeans and knickers and almost weeps in relief as she squats over the tub. This is me, she reflects: fifty-three years old and peeing in a Celebrations tub because I can’t gain access to my own bathroom. Once she’s finished, she holds the position for a few moments longer, drip-drying. It’s good for the thighs, she supposes, squatting so close to the ground. People go to classes for this stuff.

Pearl tries to see the positive in the direst of situations. When she had counselling after Dean died, her therapist encouraged her to acknowledge her achievements; to take a pause and notice how far she’d come. She tries to do that now, recognising that if it weren’t for her enviable pelvic floor, she might have wet herself there in the hallway. And that there’s something almost festive about peeing in a Celebrations tub.

Finally, Pearl stands up and pulls up her knickers and jeans and picks up the tub.

‘Oh, Pearl. I’m really sorry!’ Abi has appeared, swathed in a turquoise bath towel and with Pearl’s spotty shower cap on her head.

‘Oh, it’s okay—’ Pearl reddens, assuming Abi is apologising for hogging the bathroom until she follows her gaze to the floor. Now she sees that, out of all the Celebrations, only the mini Bounties are left. ‘I love Bounties,’ she fibs.

‘No, no, it’s the loo. Don’t know what happened. It just kind of pinged off to one side…’

‘What did?’ Pearl is still clutching the tub of warm, steaming pee. Quickly, she jams the lid on it.

‘The toilet. The seat, I mean. It broke.’

‘Oh! I’ll just take a look at it.’ Pearl glides past Abi, transporting the tub with the care and reverence that she’d bestowed upon the platter of fairy cakes she’d carried to the front table at her school’s Harvest Festival.

In the steam-filled bathroom, she locks the door and regards the loo seat. It has indeed come away from its fittings, as if sat upon roughly by a very large, drunk cage fighter. Perhaps Brandon can fix it. Perhaps she can. She could look it up on YouTube: ‘How to fix a broken toilet seat.’ Also: ‘How to remain perky and pleasant when under duress.’ Because now Pearl fears that, after Elias, and now this, her perky pleasantness has all but dwindled to nothing.

And there it goes – the final trace of it, along with her pee, as she tips away the tub’s contents and flushes the loo.