Christmas at Tiffany's by Karen Swan Page B

contraindicated for survival. She just hoped, scared though she was by the fierceness and frequency of the tears, that if she let them come, it would wring out of her heart that heavy, rotting, sodden feeling, like a towel that had missed the spin cycle. ‘Better out than in,’ her mother had always said, and she supposed she was right – but not at any old time. Not randomly. After the first few days of uncontrollable tears, she had tried extra hard to let them out only when Kelly wasn’t around, not because she didn’t trust or couldn’t confide in her friend, but because she knew Kelly was scrutinizing her every move. Was she off her food? Lethargic? Pining? She’d overheard her several times on the phone to Suzy and Anouk, reporting back on her ‘progress’: ‘. . . pretty good day today, although she was crying in the shower for fifteen minutes this morning. Thought I couldn’t hear, of course . . .’
    She didn’t want to let anyone down – they were all so worried about her, trying so hard to make it okay for her, that she felt she ought to keep her tears private and self-contained. But she was always astonished, when the tears did fall, at how very hot they were, as if they’d been simmering for hours; as though she was at boiling point inside, burning up with rage.
    She made her tea and sent a text to Kelly: ‘Got headache. See you at home after. Cx’
    A reply came back almost immediately. ‘ Don’t believe you. Hot date? ’
    ‘Ha ha,’ she typed back, before sighing and throwing her BlackBerry on the cushions. She sank down into the sofa just as her mobile suddenly rang, making her jump. Kelly had changed her ringtone for her from Four Seasons: Spring to a demented frog chorus, and it still took her a moment or two to realize that it was her phone ringing and not an apocalyptic invasion of toads.
    ‘Hello?’
    ‘ Chérie! C’est moi! ’
    ‘Nooks,’ she said, trying to brighten her voice.
    There was a pause. ‘’Ow are you?’
    ‘Me? Oh, I’m fine – working hard, meeting loads of new people, wearing lipstick every day. You wouldn’t recognize me.’ She exhaled deeply. ‘I’m great.’
    There was a long pause as Cassie put a hand to her temple. She could feel the tears swelling behind her skin.
    ‘Okay, now let’s try that again. ’Ow are you?’
    Cassie gave a sigh that said everything. ‘Truthfully? Well, I want . . . I want to be able to sleep through the night. And when I am awake, not to have a heart rate that’s constantly in high revs. I feel like a car doing a hundred and forty miles an hour in first gear.’ She stared at the back of her hands and was shocked to see that the skin looked thin and grey. ‘I want to be able to breathe without feeling like someone’s kneeling on my chest. I want to be able to think about the past decade of my life without feeling winded.’ She steadied her voice, aiming for truth without emotion. ‘Honestly and truly, Nooks, if a doctor offered to put me in a medicated sleep for the next six months, I’d gladly take it. Or a cryogenic coma, maybe. They could deep-freeze me for a year.’ She tried to laugh, to shake off her gloom, but it didn’t work.
    ‘Oh, chérie ,’ Anouk whispered. ‘It is early days. So early still. Nobody expects you to move forwards without looking back. It is all to be expected, this.’
    ‘I guess,’ Cassie said, letting a hot, fat tear slide silently down her cheek.
    ‘I know it is a cliché to say so, but it is true that time makes it better. It will hurt for a very long time, but then one day you will realize that . . . maybe you did not think about him today, or you forgot it was his birthday, or . . .’
    ‘Or I won’t read his horoscope, or stop off at Saks to smell his aftershave, or ring up to hear his voice on the answer phone . . .’ Her voice cracked as the sobs broke though. So much for keeping everything under wraps.
    ‘Sorry, sorry. Sorry, Nooks,’ she sniffed finally. ‘You’ve