My Best Friend Has Issues (22 page)

Sanj, with a wide-eyed stare, didn’t take his eyes off her.

‘But you crossed the line, buddy. You see what you did to her?’

Chloe turned to look at me and Sanj followed her stare. I took the cloth away from my face. It was Sanj’s T-shirt. I could smell him off it. I retched and threw it on the floor.

‘You hurt her, and you’re gonna have to pay,’ said Chloe. She jabbed Sanj under the chin with the handle end of the whip. He choked and when she did it a second time, Sanj started screaming again.

I didn’t want him to scream.

‘Shut up!’ I hissed in his face, spraying blood.

Up this close I felt his breath on my skin and smelled the piss.

‘He’s making me sick,’ I told Chloe.

‘Yeah, I can’t look at his perverted face any more,’ she said.

She pulled the pillowcase off the pillow and put it over his head. With the bag over his head it was easier. Blood soaked through the pillowcase from the inside. He wriggled, the sack head moving from side to side like a scarecrow in a fairground House of Horrors.

‘Go on,’ said Chloe, ‘hit him.’

The screaming was quieter now, muffled by the pillowcase but still he wouldn’t stop making noise. I had my hand balled into a fist, I didn’t even know I did until his head connected with it and sent a painful shock up my arm.

‘Uuh,’ I groaned, and cradled my throbbing hand. Now he’d hurt my face and my hand.

He pulled his head as far away from me as he could. He arched his back, thrusting his pathetic pants at us with his fat cock straining through the plastic.

‘Oh yeah, you like that, don’t you? You sick fuck!’ said Chloe delivering an uppercut to the punch bag.

I punched once more, with the heel of my other hand, into the pillow case. He sighed and expelled a moan.

‘Look, he’s come!’ Chloe said, her voice a disbelieving squeak. ‘Eeuuw!’

It was true, oozing out of the spaces in his pants and dripping on to the piss wet bed was the slimy evidence. The cock went limp, closely followed by the body which slid, satisfied, down the bed.

I’m not sure what happened after that. We hit him. I remember punching into the punch bag, punching and punching, my arms feeling heavy and tired, my face and hands throbbing, my heart pounding. I remember the still body on the bed, Chloe and me breathing hard in the quiet, the bloody pillowcase, the spurt of dark red across the vanilla wall. I remember us both hurrying and running down the stairs and Chloe saying, ‘don’t stop, don’t stop’.

We ran through Raval. In a narrow street we passed two Asian guys, beer vendors with four-pack bracelets on their wrists.

‘
Hola, guapas
!’ one of them said, laughing.

Chloe ran straight past them, too fast for them but they spread their arms wide as if they were going to scoop me up.

‘
Dejala! dejala cabrones
!’ Chloe screamed.

Their smiles faded, they parted and let me pass.

When we got home Chloe pulled my clothes off. I let her tug my arms out my sleeves and shove me under the shower. The water was hot but I felt cold. She scrubbed me. After the shower she gave me pills and held brandy to my lips and poured it into me. She put me to bed and pulled blankets out of the wardrobe and threw them over me. She tugged the blankets tight round me and cuddled into me.

‘I hate him,’ I sobbed, ‘I hate my dad, I fucking hate him.’

‘I know,’ said Chloe, holding me, ‘so do I.’

A strong smell of burning woke me. I hauled myself out of bed, groggy from the pills, and dragged myself as fast as I could towards the smell. It was raining outside and there was black smoke. Out on the terrace Chloe was burning something in the bin, poking it with a stick.

‘What are you burning?’ I asked.

‘Clothes,’ she said without looking at me.

I went back inside and sat on the couch, crouching forward with my arms folded, my legs crossed.

‘Where are the dogs?’ I asked her.

‘With Josep, don’t you remember? I told you last night. Jeez Alison, you have to try to hold it together.’

‘What happened?’ I sobbed.

‘You know what happened.’

‘We hit him, didn’t we?’

‘Yes we did.’

‘We hit him too much. We…’

I wept quietly but she didn’t shout at me again. Chloe sat with her mosaic box, fiddling with the small bits of tile, arranging a design for her chimney. After a while, I went to the bathroom and washed my face.

She was right. I did have to hold it together but I had to shrug off this wooziness first. I threw cold water on my face and took deep breaths. I looked in the bathroom mirror. My nose was twice its normal size. I had black swollen bags under my eyes.

‘We have to go back,’ I said when I returned to the living room.

‘What?’

‘We have to go back to Sanj’s, he’s tied up. He could choke or anything. We have to help him.’

‘Alison, stop. Stop right there. You know we…’

I didn’t want to hear what she was going to say. I ran out to the terrace and pulled the door closed behind me. I ran to the edge and tried to draw oxygen out of the heavy humid air. She followed me out.

‘Alison, come away from the edge.’

She said this is a calm soothing voice, like she was talking me down off the ledge.

‘Are you scared I’ll jump?’

‘No. But it’s slippy and the rain has gotten into the crack on the wall. It might not be safe.’

‘We have to go back, help him, make things right. I just want everything to be right again, please Chloe, we have to.’

‘We can’t help him now.’

I clamped my hand over my mouth.

‘We can’t go back there,’ she said simply. ‘They’ll be looking for us.’

‘I told you we shouldn’t go to Raval!’ I cried, ‘Every time I go there something bad happens. Didn’t I tell you we shouldn’t go to Raval?’

‘Yes,’ said Chloe, ‘you told me.’

‘Well, what are we going to do, Chloe?’

‘We’re gonna to stay here, lie low. Unless you still wanna move out?’

‘No!’

‘Well then, we’re gonna hold it together.’

‘Hold it together,’ I repeated.

‘That’s all we can do.’

‘I’ll make coffee,’ I whispered.

‘Good idea,’ said Chloe.

It rained on and off all day as Chloe continued working on her chimney. I brought out coffee and watched her work but she ignored me. After sunset she ran an extension cable out and plugged in a lamp and carried on working from the top rung of the ladders.

The chimney looked misshapen. Before she began it had been a normal, straight-sided chimney, but she had cemented a pregnant bulge on to one side giving it a lop-sided look. It didn’t look right to me but she’d started grouting the tiles now so this must be what she wanted it to look like.

Even though she wouldn’t talk to me, I stayed near her. Being out on the terrace in the rain with Chloe ignoring me was better than being inside on my own.

‘We should eat,’ she said finally, hands on hips, her face smeared with grout.

‘I’m not hungry.’

‘Well maybe not, but we have to eat. I’ll go down and get kebabs.’

‘No! Chloe, no, please don’t go out.’

‘You have to stop this. I’m only going down to the kebab shop. I’ll be gone five minutes.’

She went out and slammed the door.

I went back out to the terrace and looked over. I heard shouting on the street. Chloe was gone a long time. I was in the bedroom when I heard the front door bang open.

‘Alison?’ Chloe came into the bedroom, ‘I got you a kebab, come and eat.’

I followed her out to the living room. I’d thought I wasn’t hungry but when I opened the kebab I realised I was starving and gobbled it down like a dog. The brandy bottle was still on the table and I took a huge swig.

‘Feel better?’ said Chloe, smiling.

‘Yeah a bit. Want coffee?’

‘Not right now, thanks.

The brandy gave me courage to talk about it.

‘Those two guys.’

‘What two guys?’ Chloe snapped.

‘They saw me. They could identify me.’

‘They saw nothing! They saw two girls in the street going home after a night out, so what?’

‘They saw my face, how beat up I am. They saw my green eyes.’

‘Honey, your eyes are bruised black and blue.’

‘No, but I’m telling you, Chloe, it’s the green eyes. Esmeralda, that’s what Sanj called me. He noticed. They all do, I see it in their faces, they’re surprised I have green eyes.’

‘So you have green eyes, so they noticed! Big deal.’

‘Yeah, but those other men noticed them too, the men who were there when I found Bashed Head Boy. They got a good look at me. Now they’ll be looking for the same person for both.’

‘Esmeralda.’

‘Exactly.’

‘Think I’ll get back to the chimney,’ said Chloe, getting to her feet. ‘I wanna finish it before my dad gets into town.’

‘There was a lot of blood, wasn’t there?’

Chloe didn’t answer me.

‘Chloe, this is important, we need to talk about this. There was a lot of blood, wasn’t there?’

‘Yes,’ she sighed. ‘Yes, there was a lot of blood. Mostly yours.’

‘But was there any on the floor? Did I get any on my shoe?’

‘What the hell are you talking about?’

‘Did I leave a footprint?’

‘I don’t fucking know!’

‘I left a footprint the first time.’

‘Okay, enough. Stop talking crazy, what the fuck is this? What first time? A minute ago it was Esmeralda, now it’s a footprint?’

‘But Chloe…’

‘Yeah, I remember,’ she interrupted me, ‘your shoe left a print outside the guy’s flat, you told me.’

‘You know I had nothing to do with Bashed Head Boy. I didn’t even know him, I swear to you. I only walked up the stairs, that’s all!’

You’re not Esmeralda, and you’re not Cinderella, okay? You’re Alison, and you’re sooo losing the plot.’

I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t sleep. When I closed my eyes I saw the body on the bed, the blood-stained hood. So I didn’t close them. I sat on the sofa watching Chloe out on the terrace. Hours would go by and I wouldn’t remember them passing, there would just be more mosaic on the chimney. At night Chloe insisted I get into bed but I didn’t sleep.

We were dealing with it in different ways, I recognised that. Chloe became obsessed with her chimney. The rain never let up for more than about an hour but it didn’t put her off. She set up a tent of clear thick plastic around the ladders to protect the tiling and worked under it.

‘It has to be finished by the time Aged P gets here,’ she said. ‘He says I never finish anything.’

‘But why d’you even care what your dad thinks of it?’

Chloe laughed, ‘I don’t know.’

For the next three days she did nothing but work on the chimney, stopping only to slurp from the coffee and biscuits I brought her or, after it got dark, to run down to the street to buy kebabs. I stayed in the bedroom while she was gone.

It was September now, winter was coming. I had never seen rain like this in Barcelona. I should be working by now but I couldn’t leave the flat. I missed my mum and brothers. I missed Scotland, I even missed Lisa and Lauren but how could I tell them what had happened? I missed them and yet I dreaded having to explain. It was just as well my phone was lost. I didn’t want to have to tell them, I just needed someone to understand.

Juegita. I missed her the most. She forgave me when poor Fanny got drowned, she wouldn’t judge me. I asked Chloe three times a day, I begged her to pick Juegita and the pups up from Josep but she refused.

‘I miss ‘em too but I need to get the chimney finished. I can’t have the pups running around under my feet.’

‘But if I keep them inside, Chloe, please. I’ll make sure they don’t come near the chimney.’

‘No. Anyhow, there’s something else. There are vendors everywhere. Walking around with eight dogs, that’s gonna attract attention.’

‘Mahmood!’ I groaned, ‘I told you Sanj was connected. Mahmood is his uncle. He’ll have every vendor in Barcelona looking for us. Looking for me.’

‘Don’t start with that again. I told you, we just have to hold it together until my dad gets here tomorrow. He’ll fix it. He knows people. Everything is gonna be fine. You just need to get some sleep.’

I wanted to believe her. She was right, I had to hold it together, it was all I could do.

‘D’you promise?’

‘I promise. Can you hand me the trowel, please?’

I sat on the terrace and watched her work; watching the rain drip between the cracks in the walls.

Chloe’s dad called the next morning from the airport asking for directions.

‘Fuck! I didn’t know he was getting here so early!’ Chloe wailed. ‘The grout isn’t even dry on this section yet!’

She made me take a bath and get dressed. She wouldn’t take a bath or even shower, she threw a blanket over the maria and kept on with the chimney, placing the fancy crowns on top even though she hadn’t finished tiling all the way round.

‘I haven’t got the right cement for the crowns but they’re secure enough there for now. If he sees it from this angle he won’t know it’s not finished.’

‘It looks amazing, Chloe.’

Despite having other things on my mind I had to acknowledge that Chloe had done a fantastic job on the chimney, it was totally transformed. Until now I had always seen chimneys as warm, welcoming symbols of home, gently puffing on the skyline. Chloe’s chimney, with its undulating shape and iridescent greens, yellows and blues, was more of a shimmering reptile. Like a giant snake whose head had burst through the roof of the building, a beautiful toxic serpent.

Even though we were expecting him we were both freaked out when we heard Aged P’s loud knock at the door. The knocking continued for a few minutes before Chloe plucked up the courage to go to the hallway.

‘Daddy?’

‘Hey honey, are you going to let me in?’

Chloe ran at the door and pulled it open. I couldn’t see him at first. Chloe had barely let him over the threshold before she threw her arms around him and buried her head in his chest.

‘Oh Daddy,’ she sobbed, ‘I’m so glad to see you!’

‘Hey, hey, hey! It’s okay, Daddy’s here.’

Chloe dragged him into the living room and on to the sofa where she pinned him with a fierce cuddle. I followed, shouldering the bag he had dropped, and sat down. Philip was just as I had imagined him: tall, tanned, urbane, white teeth, greying temples. He shot me an embarrassed nod by way of introduction. He looked momentarily shocked by my battered face but he was polite enough to try to hide it and turned back to Chloe, who was howling without restraint. I’d never seen her lose it like this. Things had obviously got to her much more than I’d imagined.

‘Hey now. What’s happened to my little girl?’

Chloe continued clinging to her dad and howling. Philip now switched to a sterner tone, as though he was speaking to a naughty child.

‘Chloe. What is it? What have you done?’

This got an immediate reaction. Chloe pulled away from him and wiped her face.

‘Why do you always assume I’m in trouble, Daddy? Can’t I just be pleased to see you?’

‘Sure you can,’ Philip laughed. ‘It’s just that you’re not usually this pleased to see me.’

Philip wasn’t stupid. I could see he was humouring her. He thought she was unhinged; her behaviour certainly was. She’d gone from sobbing infant to snarling teenager in seconds.

‘Come on, I want to show you something.’

She grabbed his arm and dragged him to the terrace door. I moved to follow but this time it was me that Chloe snarled at.

‘D’you think I could have a minute alone with my dad, please?’

‘Sure,’ I said politely, keeping up appearances in front of Philip, but I was taken aback.

It had always been just me and Chloe: me and Chloe against the world, against the dads. Now she was siding with him against me. She wanted to show him her chimney, I understood that, but she also wanted to get him alone, to tell him the Sanj thing was my fault. What could I do? Now with her dad here to ‘fix’ things they could call the police or turf me out on the street to face Mahmood’s informers. Chloe opened the patio door on to the terrace, led her dad out and closed it firmly against me. I waited in the living room trying to hear what they were saying but it was impossible, they kept their voices to a low murmur. After five minutes they came back inside smiling.

‘My dad is taking me out for lunch,’ Chloe announced. She walked to the bedroom; I followed her and closed the door.

‘You told him, didn’t you?’

She was pulling clothes out of the wardrobe and wouldn’t answer me.

‘Chloe, what’s going on?’

‘Will you chill the fuck out!’ she whispered viciously, buttoning a smart blouse. ‘You’re going to ruin everything. I have to go out with him. It’s the only way he’s gonna help us. I’m doing this for both of us.’

‘Tell him it was self-defence. He can see the state my face is in, we can use that.

‘Okay, self-defence.’

‘And Bashed Head Boy…’

‘Yeah yeah,’ Chloe said, ‘that was an accident. He fell over the banister.’

‘It was nothing to do with me. I got there after he was dead.’

‘Okay, I’ll tell him.’

She was rummaging in her make-up bag. She produced a lipstick and the mirror she usually chopped the coke lines on. The lipstick was a soft pearly pink shade I’d never seen her wear before. It made her look very young, very innocent. ‘Chloe, you don’t have to go out. Please, don’t leave me here on my own!’

‘Look, the man has come a long way, okay? He wants quality time with his daughter. I’ll be back in a few hours, we’ll tell him then, okay? I have to work on him a little more first.’

There was nothing I could do about it, nothing I could say.