The Two Lives of Lydia Bird - Josie Silver Page 0,2
placed on a clinical trial for the recently bereaved. The doctor recommended joining the drug trial, probably because my mother was demanding maximum-strength Valium and these new pills are being touted as a milder, more holistic option. To be perfectly honest, I don’t really care what they are; I’m officially the world’s saddest, most tired guinea pig.
Freddie and I have this fabulous bed, you see. It sounds unlikely, but the Savoy were auctioning off hotel beds to make way for new ones for hardly anything and, sweet heaven, this bed is a fantasy island of epic proportions. People raised eyebrows at first: You’re buying a second-hand bed? ‘Why on earth would you do that?’ my mother said, as aghast as if we were buying a camp bed discarded by the local homeless shelter. Clearly those doubters had never stayed at the Savoy. I hadn’t either, in truth, but I’d seen something on TV about their handmade beds and I knew exactly what I was getting. And that’s how we came to be in possession of the most comfortable bed in a hundred-mile radius, in which Freddie and I have demolished countless Sunday-morning breakfasts, laughed and cried and made heart-achingly sweet love.
When my mother told me she’d changed the sheets for me a few days after the accident, she unintentionally sent me into a sudden, screeching meltdown. I watched myself as if from a distance, clawing at the door of the washing machine, sobbing as the sheets tumbled through the suds, swilling any last lingering traces of Freddie’s skin and scent down the drain.
My mother was beside herself, trying to lift me from the floor, calling out for my sister to come and help. We ended up huddled together on the stripped kitchen floorboards, watching the sheets, all of us in tears because it is just so bloody unfair that Freddie isn’t here any more.
I haven’t been to bed since. In fact, I don’t think I’ve properly been to sleep since. I just nap sometimes: my head on the table beside my uneaten breakfast; on the sofa huddled underneath Freddie’s winter coat; standing up leaning against the fridge, even.
‘Come on, Lyds,’ my sister says now, shaking my shoulder softly. ‘I’ll come up with you.’
I glance at the clock, disorientated because it was broad daylight when I closed my eyes, but now it’s shadowy enough for someone, Elle I presume, to have flicked the lamps on. It’s typical of her to be so thoughtful. I’ve always thought of her as a better version of me. We’re physically similar in height and bone structure, but she’s dark to my light; her hair, her eyes. She’s kinder than I am too, too kind for her own good a lot of the time. She’s been here most of the afternoon – I think my mum must have drawn up a rota to make sure I’m never on my own for more than an hour or two. It’s probably pinned to the side of her fridge, right next to the shopping list she adds to all week and the food diary she fills in for her slimming class. She likes a list, my mum.
‘Up where?’ I say, sitting up straighter, clocking the glass of water and bottle of pills in Elle’s hand.
‘Bed,’ she says, an edge of steel to her voice.
‘I’m fine here,’ I mutter, even though our sofa isn’t actually all that comfortable to sleep on. ‘It’s not even bedtime. We can watch …’ I bat my hand towards the TV in the corner, trying to remember any of the soaps. I sigh, annoyed that my tired brain can’t muster it. ‘You know, that one with the pub and the bald men and the shouting.’
She smiles and rolls her eyes. ‘You mean EastEnders.’
‘That’s the one,’ I say, distracted as I scan the room for the remote to turn the TV on.
‘It’ll have finished by now. Besides, you haven’t watched EastEnders for the last five years or more,’ she says, having none of it.
I screw my face up. ‘I have. There’s … there’s that woman with the dangly earrings and … and the one played by Barbara Windsor,’ I say, lifting my chin.
Elle shakes her head. ‘Both dead,’ she says.
Poor them, I think, and their poor families.
Elle holds her hand out. ‘It’s time to go to bed, Lydia,’ she says, gentle and firm, more nurse than sister.
Hot tears prick the back of my retinas. ‘I don’t think I can.’