(Perhaps my mother and I were more alike than we realized.)
“Of course you haven’t, Mum,” said Auntie Pat.
But my grandmother just sighed and fiddled irritably with the button on the blue brunch coat I’d bought her for her last birthday. She would really have preferred a paler blue but she supposed it would do.
Grandma never said another word. She died ten days later.
You never know what your last words are going to be, so try to choose them all wisely.
Chapter 68
Dom has bought handcuffs.
Naturally Eve thinks the handcuffs are for sex even though the tie from her dressing gown works perfectly well, and she’s not unhappy about the purchase, although they are on a super-strict budget right now, but Dom says they’re not for sex, as if sex is the last thing on his mind. The handcuffs are to protect Eve from the possibility of “sleep-related violence.”
Dom’s ludicrous plan is to handcuff himself to the headboard each night so he can’t hurt her in his sleep.
“That’s stupid,” says Eve. “You won’t sleep, you’ll get stressed and then—oh, forget it.”
She was an idiot to have shown him the video of Kayla Halfpenny’s car accident.
That was enough for him.
One correct prediction and he’s converted. He denies it but she knows.
Even if he isn’t one hundred percent convinced the stupid lady has stupid magic powers, the thought of him hurting Eve in his sleep is now lodged in his stupid head.
In fact, everything he is doing is going to make sleep-related violence more likely. She’s done the research too! He’s meant to avoid alcohol and stress. He’s meant to have a good sleep routine. He’s drinking more than usual, working his way through a bottle of whiskey some stupid client gave him, and he is so, so stressed: mostly about money but maybe about everything. His eyelids look heavy and his skin has turned a strange kind of mushroom color, as if he is sick beneath his sunburn. He doesn’t have a sleep routine because she thinks he might be trying to stay awake.
She hasn’t told him this but when he does fall asleep, late, he is sleepwalking more than ever. Mostly he walks around the apartment, looking for an important unnamed object. “Where is it?” he mumbles as he opens cupboard doors and looks behind the curtains. “Got to find it, babe, it’s really important.” Eventually she gets him back to bed by telling him not to worry, she will find the really important thing. He tells her he loves her and gets back into bed. He is never violent, just agitated.
She knows what he’s trying so hopelessly to find: a solution.
This is not how she imagined their first year of marriage. They have both taken on extra work and now they hardly see each other. Eve works at the medical center during the day and waitresses three nights a week. Dom still does his personal training wherever possible—it’s hard without a car—but he’s also picked up some laboring work as well as a part-time job as a night road worker.
They can’t afford to make the car roadworthy. If they’d paid the car insurance they would have only had the excess to pay, but they did not pay it, and it’s not clear who is to blame for this, because they never actually specified who was in charge of paying bills. Now it’s Eve’s job and she has a good system. She is an idiot for not having set one up in the first place. She would never have made this sort of mistake at work.
They still owe Dom’s dad money for the car they can no longer drive until they can afford to fix it and they are chipping away at the astonishing credit card bill. They managed to pay last month’s rent, but you have to keep paying rent, over and over, every single month. Maybe Eve subconsciously believed landlords were like parents and would let you off now and then.
She has taken to yelling at herself: THIS IS NOT HOW THE REAL WORLD WORKS, EVE.
Just in her head. But it’s still giving her a headache.
They don’t go out for drinks or dinner or anything. They make excuses when friends suggest any activity that costs money. All activities cost money.
When Eve was doing grocery shopping last week and saw the total, the dismay she felt must have shown on her face because the girl at the checkout said, “I’m sorry.” Not sarcastically, sympathetically!
The supermarket had a special on two-minute noodles so that’s what they’ve been eating for dinner. They say yes whenever their parents ask them over for dinner and eat all the vegetables so their teeth don’t fall out from scurvy. Who knew healthy food was so expensive? They have canceled all their streaming services. Supposedly one day they will look back on this time and say, “Oh! Remember when we were so young and poor! But we had each other!”
It’s not romantic being poor, it’s dreadful.
They haven’t told anyone because it’s too embarrassing. Their parents would make such a big deal about them forgetting to pay their car insurance. It would be unbearable.
Now Dom is in the bedroom practicing handcuffing himself to the headboard, and Eve is in the kitchen boiling water for two-minute noodles.
She can see her reflection in the kitchen window. It looks as black as outer space out there. It gets dark so early this time of year. She hates winter. She remembers how her mother admired the disco ball effect of the sunlight coming through the tree outside the window and then she told Eve some bizarre story about an apartment she and Eve’s dad had rented when they were first married, and how they were “so happy” at that time. What the…! Eve has never heard any mention before of “happiness”! She prefers to think her parents were always doomed to fail. Otherwise it means any couple who love each other can turn into bitter exes who can’t stand to say each other’s names.
She thinks of her dad bribing the tarot card reader to say he was the man of her mother’s dreams. Paying for a lie.
She should do the same. Follow that fine family tradition. Except it wouldn’t be a lie, it would be the truth this time.
Yes. That’s the answer. She will pay the lady to tell Dom she got it wrong, and now here is the right prediction, and of course you’re not going to kill your wife, for fuck’s sake (she probably won’t say “for fuck’s sake,” Eve can’t imagine her swearing), you’re going to live happily ever after and you won’t die until you’re as wrinkly and ancient as the adorable Dr. Baileys.
She just has to find her.
Chapter 69
Ethan wakes abruptly at three a.m. When he sees the time, he closes his eyes and tries to fool himself into falling back to sleep, but it’s no good, he’s as wide awake and buzzing as if it were ten a.m. and he’d just had his second coffee.
He sits up and chucks his pillow on the floor like it’s to blame. He listens to the sounds of the apartment—the whir of the refrigerator, the agonizing drip of a tap. He should get up and turn it off, but he doesn’t want to risk running into a shirtless Carter. The guy never wears a fucking shirt. This will be his fifth night in a row staying over, which most people agree is excessive for a housemate’s new boyfriend.
Carter doesn’t behave like a guest or even a grown-up. He behaves like a giant, spoiled preschooler. A permanent trail of Carter-related detritus snakes throughout the apartment: his half-eaten protein bar on the dining room table, his sopping-wet towel on the bathroom floor, his uncapped deodorant in the bathroom cabinet, his T-shirts draped over the backs of chairs. His booming voice is the first thing Ethan hears when he comes home. If Jasmine’s bedroom door is closed Ethan puts on headphones fast, but once he wasn’t quick enough to miss overhearing Carter moan, “Oh baby!”
Ethan has been avoiding coming home so he won’t have to interact with him. He’s been working late, going to the gym, making dinner plans with whichever friends are available, turning up uninvited at his parents’ place. They’re always happy to see him, but one time they were rushing out the door to meet friends for dinner, which made him feel pathetic, especially when they invited him along and he said Yes, please and had a good time. If this continues he’ll have to move out. It’s affecting his mental health. Maybe his physical health. He feels mildly sick all the time because the whole place reeks of Carter’s aftershave. It’s getting into his clothes. His mother sniffed his shirt and said he was imagining it, but he’s not. This morning he literally retched when he caught sight of Carter’s underarm hair on his deodorant stick while he cleaned his teeth.
Jasmine never stays at Carter’s place and Ethan doesn’t know why. Perhaps Carter is one of those man-children who still live at home. He probably has his own wing in his parents’ cliff-side Eastern Suburbs mansion, where the housekeeping staff discreetly picks up his shit. It’s not clear what, if anything, Carter does for a living. He tosses meaningless words about like “consulting” and “investment.” Jasmine’s lack of a job is cute, but Carter’s lack of a job is offensive.
Ethan is suddenly irritable. Angry. He needs to sleep. Unlike Jasmine and Carter, Ethan is a regular person, with a regular job requiring him to be up early, and tomorrow he’s doing a boring in-house training course that will require concentration.
