Page 39 of Little Wing
Out on the street, Nell walked along the terrace trying to locate herself, cursing herself all the while for breaking her phone, for drinking too much, for going home with a bloke she didn’t know who lived on a road she didn’t recognize. She’d just walk. She’d just have to put one foot in front of the other and maybe soon there’d be a garage and she could find out where she was and also buy a bottle of water. And so Nell walked, cold and unsteady but her head clearing with every step. Then, like a friend not seen for years, her old primary school greeted her. She was on the other side of town from where she lived but just streets away from Debbie and her car. Ten minutes, perhaps fifteen on account of her throbbing skull.
On her car a piece of paper on the windscreen.
Just knock. Whatever the time. Don’t go home. Just knock. Dxx
I can’t knock at almost four in the morning.
Nell opened her car and crawled into the back, curled into a ball and hid her face from the coming dawn. It was freezing cold. She clambered into the front and turned on the engine, chanting at the heating to hurry up and there she sat until, at last, everything slipped and blurred and she wasn’t here and she wasn’t there as she slid into sleep.
It wasn’t Debbie who woke her, it was an elderly neighbour walking an ancient dog who tapped on the window and lessened the shock of it with a kind if gnarly smile.
‘All right in there? Lose your key? Want a cuppa?’
A cup of tea. A cup of strong builder’s, two sugars and a slice of hot buttered toast. Hands around the mug, blowing soft concentric circles on the surface. Guaranteed to make everything better. Nell gazed at the stranger who repeated himself but she was acutely aware that her car was fumed with boozy breath and regrets and she couldn’t bring herself to roll down the window, much less open the door. She thumbs-upped, instead. Both thumbs and forced a grin and nodded her aching head and the pensioner went away happy. Moments later she left the car and headed for Debbie’s front door.
Debbie opened it in a blear of sleep and bewilderment and an oversized T-shirt of two cuddling teddy bears that needed to be kept private from the world. But she took in the sight of Nell and, in one glance, instinctively knew not to register shock or judgement.
‘Oh dear,’ said Debbie. ‘Hello, you.’ And she ushered Nell into the warmth of her sweet-smelling house.
‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t look fine.’
‘Well – I am.’
‘Well, you don’t smell fine – it’s seeping out of your pores. You shouldn’t come in to work today.’
‘I’m your boss. I’m coming in to work.’
‘You’re not my boss – we’re a cooperative.’
Nell looked at Debbie and Debbie looked at Nell.
‘Shit,’ said Nell. ‘I forgot that bit. You’re right.’
‘Anyway, you look like crap and you’ll scare small children,’ Debbie said and just then Nell really loved her.
Debbie provided steaming mugs of tea and pints of water and the time and the space for Nell to warm up and speak.
‘Any paracetamol?’
Taking birdlike sips at the hot sweet tea, Nell watched Debbie rummaging in a drawer for painkillers and listened to her sing-song muttering. Just then, she felt she was in the safest and most comforting place in the world. That’s why, when Debbie popped out two tablets into Nell’s hand and whispered, drink, Nell, there’s a good girl, Nell finally cried. In a tumble of emotion and with words in a tangle, somehow it all came out.
‘And last night I had sex with someone called Jake who keeps his clothes on the floor. And Jimi Hendrix watched us smoke fags in bed.’
Debbie nodded. What else could she do?
‘And I can’t actually even remember the sex bit.’
‘Perhaps you didn’t do it?’
‘There was a used condom in my shoe,’ Nell said.
‘Ah well then,’ said Debbie, taking a measured sip of tea. ‘Perhaps you did.’
They sat and drank and looked at each other.
‘In your shoe?’
