scrawled across her naked body. And a year later, card number seven arrived. The left side of her head was caved in, the mousy blonde hair matted with blood. The next card was worse, but at least by then Amber couldn’t feel it any more. Now it was her parents’ turn to suffer.
I unzipped my wheelie suitcase and pulled out the cigar box, opened the lid and took Rebecca out. Five cards and she was still alive, still struggling and screaming and bleeding …
The sound of a toilet flushing, then a couple of groans, then the shower running. Washing off the chunks.
I was staring at Rebecca’s last birthday card when the toilet door clunked open and Dr McDonald lurched out, wrapped in a towel, clutching her clothes to her chest. Wet hair hung in straggly curls around her face – one eye scrunched shut, the other all bloodshot. She opened and closed her mouth, making sticky clicking noises.
‘Urgh …’
I pulled one of Amber O’Neil’s cards on top of Rebecca’s. ‘Well, what did you expect?’
Her voice was still slurred. ‘I’m dead. I’ve died, and this is hell …’ She slumped down on the other bunk, rocking back and forwards with her knees clamped together. ‘Do we have any water? The stuff in the tap tastes like dog pee.’
Not so rambly now, was she?
‘Bottle beside your bed, got it from the little shop while you were spewing your ring.’
‘I’m never – drinking – again.’ She dumped her clothes on the floor and helped herself to the two-litre bottle, drinking deep. Then surfaced with a burp. ‘Urgh … Tastes of sick.’
‘Stop whinging and drink it. You’ll feel better tomorrow.’
‘Why did you let me drink all that wine?’
‘You’re supposed to be a grown-up, remember?’
‘Urgh …’ She collapsed back, lying half on, half off the bed, one arm thrown across her face. ‘You’re doing it wrong.’
I frowned at her. ‘I’m looking for—’
‘That’s Amber, right? You have to … you have to look at them all at once, or it’s … All her birthday cards, all at once …’
‘What difference does that—’
‘See, for us they arrive a year apart, it’s like … it’s like paintings on a cave wall, something that happened long time ago. Slow motion, but for … for him it’s quick, it’s visceral, it’s … it’s happening all in a whooooooosh …’ Another belch. ‘Urgh …’ More sticky clicking noises. ‘It’s all now and bright and bloody and sharp. You’ve got … you’ve got to appreciate it like he does, you’ve got … got to be in the moment like him. Got to beeeee. A busy, busy little bee …’ Getting quieter all the time. Then silence.
‘Dr McDonald?’ Nothing. ‘Alice? Hello, Alice?’ Silence.
She’d conked out.
I slipped Rebecca’s birthday cards back into the cigar box, stuck everything else on the little table bolted to the bulkhead, and clambered off the bunk. Rolled Dr McDonald onto her side, pulled out the duvet, then rolled her back again so she was covered up. Might be an idea to put her in the recovery position so she didn’t choke on her own vomit. Assuming she had any chunks left to choke on.
After that, I got the cabin’s bin out from under the tea-and-coffee bit and placed it next to her head. Then stood and looked down at her, lying there with her mouth open a crack, dribble slowly glistening its way down her cheek.
Just like Katie after her first proper party. First week in secondary school and there she was: white sweatshirt stained the colour of clay, flecked with little chunks of sausage roll, reeking of sick and sticky cider-and-blackcurrant. Eleven years old, and she didn’t want to be daddy’s little girl any more.
Ah, the good old days.
I tucked the duvet under Dr McDonald’s chin. ‘Sleep tight, you complete and utter rambling lunatic …’
Something rumbled under the covers, followed by a waft of mouldering cauliflower.
‘Oh, Jesus! Ack …’ It was followed by three aftershocks, sounding like someone was kicking a duck down a length of metal pipe. And the smell! I opened the toilet door and flicked on the light, setting the extractor fan going.
There were lopsided letters scrawled across the mirror above the sink in plum-coloured lipstick: ‘WHOSE HE REELY TORCHERING?’
She’d come top of her class? What the hell were the rest of them like?
‘There you are, I’ve been looking all over for you, you want breakfast, I want breakfast, I mean I’m ravenous this morning, no idea why: had a huge dinner, actually are you OK, because you look a bit rough …’
I twisted my head to the side. Pops and cracks rippled down my spine; someone jabbed a rusty compass right between my shoulder blades.
The forward bar was full of bleary-eyed people and the smell of stale breath and stale beer. The metal grille was still down, locking away the row of taps and glinting optics, but the place was alive with stretching and yawning. A collection of booths and horseshoe-shaped sofa-style benches surrounded little round tables heaped with personal possessions. Like a refugee camp the morning after a booze-up.
Dr McDonald fiddled with her glasses. ‘Thanks for not … you know, thanks for letting me have the cabin, I know it probably seems silly, but I really get uncomfortable if—’
‘I didn’t.’ I swung my feet onto the blue-and-green carpet and sat there, blinking, rubbing the grit out of my eyes. A cough ripped through me, making my ribs ache. ‘You snore.’
She pulled her head back, giving herself a double chin. ‘I do not snore, it’s—’
‘Thought the farting was bad, but Jesus – you’re like someone hacking up a metal dustbin with a chainsaw.’ One. Two. Three … I pulled myself upright, then slowly straightened. Twinges, aches, and pains.
‘You were there? In the room while I was sleeping?’ Her eyes widened, then pink rushed up her cheeks. She wrapped both arms around herself. ‘I was naked, I woke up and I was naked, and I’d been drinking, and I was naked in bed when I woke up! What did … did you … it wasn’t … oh no, no, no, tell me we didn’t actually—’
‘Like rabbits. All night. Couldn’t keep your hands off me.’ Why wouldn’t my shoes fit properly? Like trying to squeeze a Labrador into a letterbox.
‘Oh God …’ The pink got a shade darker. ‘I didn’t … it was a mistake and I really don’t think …’
And
