‘I like you being crazy for me,’ she said. ‘I want you always to be crazy for me.’
He smiled again. He wasn’t actually feeling that great, but he didn’t want to spoil her big day. He finished his glass of champagne, called the waiter over and ordered a pint of lager, hoping that alcohol would make him feel better. Hell, he’d splashed out on a taxi here, so they could have a proper celebration, so might as well get his money’s worth, he figured.
He’d woken that morning to find a small swelling on his ankle. But nothing that bothered him too much. It didn’t seem to have grown any bigger during the day. But he definitely wasn’t feeling right tonight, not one hundred per cent, not firing on all cylinders. He was a little giddy and a bit clammy, as if he had a touch of flu.
Of course, that was probably thanks to the horrible ride Angi had insisted he take her on, the Booster, before going to the restaurant. It had soared them up in the air, flipped them over and then over again. And then, when he thought he couldn’t take any more, they’d gone over yet again. And again. His brain still felt as if it was revolving.
Angi looked at him and frowned. She took a tissue out of her handbag, leaned forward and dabbed his chin. ‘It’s still bleeding.’
Shelby touched his chin where he’d nicked himself shaving earlier. He’d put a styptic pencil on the cut, which normally did the trick. But as he removed his hand he saw fresh blood on his finger. He pressed the tissue to his chin, called a waitress over and asked if she could find a small plaster for him.
Then he downed the lager fast and ordered a second pint. Angi’s plate was clean, he realized, as she picked up her last chip, mopped up the blob of ketchup on her plate and popped it in her mouth.
‘Was it the ride?’ she asked, chewing, looking at his huge, barely touched portion of cod.
He nodded, forlornly. ‘’Fraid so. Never been very good with them.’
‘Feeling queasy, are you?’
‘A little,’ he admitted.
‘I know a good cure for that!’
He felt her foot pressed into his crutch, stroking from side to side.
‘Hmmmmn,’ she said. ‘I’m sensing some improvement.’
He gave her a weak grin. ‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m sensing that too.’
‘I think I need to take you home to bed,’ she said.
‘The night is young,’ he said, evasively, unsure he could manage anything right now.
‘My point exactly.’
She wiggled her foot.
He downed his second pint, hoping that might do the trick. It didn’t. It sent him running to the toilets where he threw up violently.
32
Friday 27 February
Tooth sat in the back of the limo taking him to JFK Airport. Whenever possible he took limousines in New York. He hated yellow cabs. He hated the often erratic nature of the drivers and the cramped rear quarters of many of the vehicles, sitting with his face pressed up against a scratched Perspex screen, having to endure an endless loop of advertising videos. He only took a yellow cab when he needed to.
Like last Saturday.
He wasn’t looking forward to his shitty Continental night flight to London, in coach. He always flew coach, because no one took any notice of coach-class passengers. None of the cabin crew remembered them. And he had always survived by being a chameleon, by not being noticed or remembered. Just as he had in his days as a sniper in the military. He was good at being patient, waiting. He had nothing else to do with his time. No one to care for or worry about. Except Yossarian. And Yossarian was fine right now. Mama Missick would be spoiling the dumb mutt rotten. Just like himself, just like the dog, big old ugly Mama Missick didn’t have anyone else in the world. They were three of a kind. Stuck together. Riding the carousel that was spinning at 1,040 mph. This meaningless Planet Earth. Riding and waiting for oblivion. Well, Mama Missick was different. She was waiting to go to Heaven.
Luckily for her, Tooth figured, one day oblivion would take care of her disappointment.
Tooth didn’t do Heaven.
33
The past
It happened eighteen years ago, but Jodie could remember it vividly. It was funny. Whatever her parents thought, Jodie found it funny. Almost hysterically funny. It still brought a big smile to her face. A smile of glee, a smile of satisfaction, a smile at the whole ridiculousness of it all.
But of course she hadn’t dared to smile at that actual moment. She’d managed to look every bit as shocked as her parents.
It was the first anniversary of Cassie’s death. Her sister was receding into the past in both her memory and in the photographs around the house. She was pleased to see that the really big portrait photograph of her, the one that sat in its frame on the windowsill in the lounge, the one in which she looked so truly beautiful, was starting to fade significantly.
There were so many photos of Cassie that the house had the feeling of a shrine. A shrine to Cassie. Beautiful Cassie. Daddy’s pet, Mummy’s pet, teacher’s pet. Perfect Cassie. Jodie often wondered whether, if it had been her instead of her sister, would there have been this same outpouring of grief? This same kind of shrine?
She didn’t think so.
Neither of her parents noticed that she had discreetly moved the big photo from its original shaded position into the bay window that got direct sunlight for hours. Already the colour was starting to leach out of her skin. In a while, Jodie thought, she’ll just look like a ghost. And that will be one less picture of her to haunt me!
The family went to visit Cassie’s grave that afternoon. Her father took the day off work. Her mother hadn’t been back to work since Cassie died, she was still too distraught, still recovering after her breakdown from the shock.
Come on, woman, get over it! Jodie thought, silently. You believe in God — you go to church every Sunday, so what’s your problem? Cassie’s in Heaven. She’s probably the Angel Gabriel’s pet. Jesus’ pet. God’s pet!
Not that Jodie believed in any of that stuff. She didn’t think her sister was any of those things. In her view, Cassie was just a bunch of rotting, desiccated skin, bone and hair in a fancy coffin that was rotting too, six feet under, in the huge cemetery off the Old Shoreham Road, where her grandparents were also buried.
Best place for her. Good riddance, she thought privately as she stood, sobbing and sniffing and pretending to be all sad that her sister was gone, cruelly snatched away — just as the wording said on her neat white headstone with the fancy carved script.
‘Cruelly snatched’ — well that bit wasn’t strictly accurate, she thought. Fell to her death whilst walking along a coastal cliff path on a family holiday in Cornwall during the October half-term. Pushed actually. But that was another story — best not to go there.
Later that evening, home in bed, Jodie wrote in her diary:
We went for a pub supper after visiting the grave. Mum was too upset to want to go home right away and the poor thing was in no fit state to cook. So we drove out into the country to a gastro pub that mum and dad like, which serves the most horrid prawn cocktail I’ve ever eaten. Tiny little things, not much bigger than the maggots that are eating Cassie, and a lot of them still half frozen — and all smothered in a Marie Rose sauce that’s had a flavour bypass. Mum has it every time and insists I should have it too. ‘It’s a very generous portion,’ she always says.