Siobhan’s mind begins to wander as she scrubs, inhaling the scent of burnt butter and salty corn. She thinks about clawed feet and outstretched wings. She thinks that some people are able to take and take without ever stopping to think about what they’re taking. She thinks about the kind of hunger that never goes away.
***
Edinburgh Waverley is busy and freezing when she arrives the next morning to catch a train to Glasgow. She sends Theo a message.I’m on my way. He doesn’t reply.
On the train she sits at a table, hemmed in on all sides by three young boys. Two are playing music loudly from their phones, chatting and chewing Starburst, while the other is readingThe Catcher in the Rye. Every few minutes, the talkers throw a sweet wrapper at the reader. Half of the colourful little balls land in Siobhan’s lap. The boys don’t seem to realise she’s even there.
The train arrives at Queen Street and the passengers all filter out of the barriers and into the city, into their separate lives. The last time Siobhan was in Glasgow was when she had tried to see Theo, only to be turned away and driven back to the station by his flatmate. The fact that she’ll seehim this time, and more than that, that he’saskedto see her, makes her feel buoyant as she heads down St Vincent Street. He was working from home today, he’d said, but was pretty back-to-back with meetings. It would be easier just to come to his flat, rather than go out for coffee. Siobhan had been secretly glad – she’s keen to soak up the details of his new life. She wants to know the kind of teabags he keeps in the cupboard, the brand of deodorant he buys, all the idiosyncrasies that might help her to know him again.
There’s a long wait after Siobhan rings the buzzer. It’s so long that Siobhan thinks he’s changed his mind and isn’t going to let her in at all, but finally, he lets her inside.
He’s wearing headphones and talking rapidly about subscriber numbers and follower counts when he opens the door.I’m on a call, he mouths.Five minutes.
She follows him into the flat. Theo sits down in front of his laptop at a table also covered by empty mugs and an open diary. He says something like,Sorry, sorry, where was I, and Siobhan feels like life has skipped forward too fast, that one moment Theo was the scrawny teenager who collected comic books and was too shy to speak to strangers, and now he’s this capable, working man, someone who attends conference calls in his living room.He is an adult now, she thinks,he is a real adult, while I am an overgrown child who can’t seem to find a way to exist in the world.
His flat is bright and open plan, the living room, kitchen and dining room all in one large room. She takes a seat on his sofa – soft, tan leather – and looks for signs of the Theo she knows. The flat is very tidy. That’s unlike him – unless he cared enough about her visiting to have cleaned beforehand? There are no posters on the walls, only onetastefully framed print of some graphic art, and there’s a recipe card for sticky ginger noodles stuck to the front of the fridge by a magnet reading ‘Meltwater Summit’. The person who lives here actually thinks about what they might eat. Attends events dedicated to professional development. Often, Siobhan feels as though Hex House’s claws have ripped through the thin skin of her life. They barely seem to have touched Theo’s.
“Coffee?” Theo asks, and Siobhan realises he’s taken his headphones off and is now talking to her. He isn’t smiling. She feels, suddenly, like an intruder.
“No thanks.” Then, “Got anything stronger?”
Theo shakes his head.
“What, you don’t drink now?”
“Not at 1 p.m.”
“Suit yourself. Coffee’s fine.”
Theo busies himself with the kettle and the mugs and the milk and Siobhan stands behind him, leaning against the granite countertop.
“Nice place,” she says.
“Thanks.”
From where she’s standing, she has a view down a narrow hall and into a bedroom at the other end. There is a dressing gown laid over the end of the bed – plum-coloured, made of silk, undoubtedly a woman’s.
“I thought you were still living with Joe.”
Theo doesn’t answer. He carries their mugs through to the living room and places them on the coffee table, each one on top of a coaster. When they’re both seated, he says, “I meant it, Shiv. I’m not really interested in catching up.”
“It’s just a question.”
“Yeah, well. I’ve got plenty of those for you.”
“Okay. Ask me anything.”
Already, she can feel it: a tightening of those old wires between them, straining and twisting.
“I need to know who you’re working with, on this documentary.”
“Some woman called Zara Doherty. She’s at SunWolf.”
“And you’re just going to hand over our story, everything we went through, so they can make a decent chunk of change from it?”
“No.” Siobhan chews at the inside of her lip. Although, isn’t that partly what she is doing? Zara seems to have some moral motive for making the film, some journalistic integrity and commitment to telling the story right. But does it really matter? SunWolf stand to make a profit either way. Rich people getting richer from the stories of broken women, same old story, and Siobhan is making it happen. She thinks about Zara’s face when she saw the footage – footage Theo doesn’t even know made it out of Hex House. She’d crossed a line, showing that to Zara. There’s no going back now. “I’ll make sure you’re paid,” is all she can think to say.
Theo scoffs. “I don’t care about the money.”
