fic: Lie In The Sound (rps: Cheryl / Kimberley)
“Cheryl!”
She’d practically flown down to Oxshott - the motorways thankfully barren at this late hour, her sat nav usefully warning her of any speed cameras ready to lunge at her with their punishing flashes.
Not that she didn’t have grounds for her recklessness, she reasoned. Not that she hesitated for a second in classing this as anything but an unadulterated emergency.
This meant that speeding was a given. This meant that jamming her finger on the redial button repeatedly - so much so that her fingernail had left its indentation - while her foot floored the accelerator, was entirely permissible.
And this meant that every crackly ring that echoed in her ear, receiver pressed tightly to her cheek - no time to plug in the Bluetooth, no time to do anything other than grab her keys and drive - every pause, every second that she wasn’t rewarded with some acknowledgement, every time the answer machine clicked on and the automated stock “please leave a message” taunted her jangling nerves, every time control slipped further and further from her grasp, taking with it the shard of hope she was desperately clinging too, every time - gave further cause to grit her teeth, clench her jaw, blink back the tears and continue to tear down the road.
She’d been debating for the last four or five miles whether Cheryl had genuinely done something exceedingly bad, something... to herself. Kimberley finally grimaced at the admission. She’d been internally analysing the wording of the message, turning it over and over, urgently searching for confirmation that this was just another of Cheryl’s hysterical, attention-seeking outbursts.
But the reality was beginning to gnaw at her insides - even in her logic-shunning darkest moments, Cheryl wasn’t prone to this. She was more respectful of Kimberley, of her feelings, than to needlessly inject this sort of unbridled terror into proceedings. Even when she was bemoaning her life, begging her to do something, even in those tear-streaked moments of helplessness, Cheryl was still present.
And yet, there was none of that in evidence in that message, those horrifying ten seconds of cold, detached confusion, with the agonisingly long pause in the middle.
Her words had been begging for help, she’d done something stupid, and yet there wasn’t any real desperation in her voice, there wasn’t the now-familiar nervous sniffling, barely-holding-back hiccupping breathlessness to her plea. It was almost otherworldly, her speech drifting, her tongue sliding around each word languorously, as if she was discovering them each syllable at a time. She’d said Kimberley’s name and it had sounded like she was almost saying it to herself, wondering aloud.
And the I need you part. That too, there had been a tiny hint of surprise, like it was a declaration, like some sort of self-revelation, that she needed her, if not necessarily at that moment, then... and the pause right before the end. Kimberley had listened to this part in particular several times over, squeezing her phone as close as possible, adjusting the volume to its maximum setting, straining until the static rattled down her ear. Could she hear something else? Was there a rustling in the background? Was it someone else in the room? Or was it more of a tinkling, like glass, or a pill bottle or maybe... a knife?
I’ve done something really stupid...
Because, if you had lost a lot of blood, you would sound tired, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t be altogether there? Or if you’d taken an overdose…
Kimberley?... Please...
But why would Cheryl phone her for help? If she’d done it, and really Kimberley was on the verge of accepting this, her worst nightmare, as a concrete possibility, why would she call someone miles away? If you’d made a mistake and had the wherewithal to see that, then surely you’d be alert enough to call for an ambulance, surely you’d...
“SHIT!” She violently swung her car onto the hard shoulder, her heartbeat drumming against her chest, the saltwater stinging her eyes.
She hadn’t made the call, refused to seriously believe this is what it could be, anticipated the media circus of a leaked recording, trial by tabloid, nation’s sweetheart in desperate suicide bid, Girls Aloud pal dials 999.
There was no time anymore- if she was wrong than they’d weather that storm later.
She placed the call.
* * * * *
She’d made it there in record time, but with every second she neared the property her heart dipped, nerves twisting and plunging. The uncertainty of what she might find terrified her.
The narrow village lanes were inky black, given the absence of city streetlights and the late hour. She felt ridiculously conspicuous, driving around on lonely country roads, her xenon headlights casting a ghostly blue illumination over all in her path.
You’re here to help, you’re not doing anything wrong, she admonished herself.
And as she reached the drive and every security light zeroed in on her entrance she winced at the loudness of the gravel, certain she might be waking up someone, yet hoping there was still life to wake up.
But no sooner had she switched off the engine she became enveloped in the silence. There were no police cars, no ambulances, no baying photographers. This was a good sign wasn’t it?
And yet she could virtually feel her veins expanding under the pressure of her hammering pulse, breath quickening, fingers fumbling for the spare set of keys Cheryl had given her long ago.
The logical side of her brain fought against the disconcerting quiet, but the dread lingered on.
She let herself in, hesitating over whether to signal her arrival loudly or creep about like the intruder she felt. So she shut the door behind her with a quiet click and listened.
Silence.
She could hear her own ragged breathing, her own heartbeat, her trainers as they squeaked against the polished floor.
But then, something else, a dim distant repetitive sort of crunching.
At first she thought she imagined it, but as she inched her way forward, eyes adjusting to the darkness, she heard it again, faint but very real.
Her breath hitched, her steps slowed.
“Cheryl?” and her voice cracked, any trace of sleep now well and truly obliterated by the maddening rush of anxiety.
There was no response but she could hear it getting louder as she continued down the hallway. And the sound, what had been a sort of tapping, now seemed less uniform, more… uncontrolled? Maybe… frenzied? Like a scraping or rubbing or…
“Cheryl?” She called out louder this time, wincing at the unmistakable fear in her voice.
If this were an intruder she was about to walk in on, she would probably die.
She was probably walking into her own doom.
She should probably phone the police again or…
“I’m in here.”
And that was definitely Cheryl, coming from the dinning room, and her heart near leapt for joy at the acknowledgement.
“Cheryl?”
And no sooner had she stepped forward, opened the door to the muted glow of a single lamp, her eyes fell upon the huge red stain.
And Cheryl, on her hands and knees, scrubbing at it furiously.
“You came,” she paused, raised her head, not quite focusing on Kimberley’s face, not quite registering.
“Cheryl… What have you done?”
She stood paralysed in the doorway, unable to approach, unable to look away.
The red was like a scar against the cream carpet, pooling around the wall, glass splinters gleaming wherever they caught the light.
And Cheryl, with a jay cloth dyed crimson, uselessly dabbing, feebly digging into the stain further, her knuckles white, blood smeared around her fingers.
“It’s okay,” she offered distractedly as Kimberley finally exhaled and approached tentatively, kneeling down beside her.
“Stop that,” she said gently, with far more control than she felt, curling her fingers around Cheryl’s wrist, drawing her hand away from the frayed material and its futile activity.
Cheryl finally seemed to acknowledge her, lips parting, toying with words that seemed on the verge of spilling out, but unable to make a sound.
“What happened?” Kimberley kept her voice as low and steady as humanly possible, her natural level-headedness fighting for supremacy. Now that she was with Cheryl, now that she knew she was safe.
“I…I… It’s wine,” she gestured to the stain, the centre of which had taken on a pinkish tinge against the darker underlay.
“This isn’t,” Kimberley said, holding onto Cheryl’s bloodied hand.
And as she knotted their fingers together Cheryl flinched, as if she’d collided with a reality she’d been slowly floating away from.
Her eyes began to flit urgently between their clasped hands and Kimberley’s face, the sight of her oversized wedding ring, the red mark just below it triggering a succession of shuddering sobs.
Her lips fell into a tremble as her shoulders began to shake.
“The police have been. I told them it was nothing. An accident. Told ‘em he was asleep… But - it-it wasn’t an acci-accident.”
And though the situation was as foreign to her as any fictional crime scene, Kimberley’s resolve was strengthened by this altogether more familiar panic. Her will became iron, her jumping nerves pulled taught underneath her composed exterior.
“Where’s Ashley?”
“Gone.”
“Gone? Where?”
She shrugged helplessly.
“Cheryl?”
“I dunno. I don’t, I don’t fuckin’ care!”
And here the huge, juddering sobs became fully formed, fat tears threatening behind watery eyes, tiny jagged shoulders convulsing from the weight of it all.
And Kimberley waited, made her get up and move away from the shattered mess, sat her down in a dinning room chair while she knelt at her feet, palms pressed reassuringly against her knees.
“Tell me.”
And in between the crying and the constant furious ticks, wiping her nose, biting her lip, balled fists sweeping violently into her eyes, the story unfolded.
“…And I’d been waitin’ up ‘cos he said he wouldn’t be late, was only goin’ out for a few… And I’d been callin’ and he wasn’t answerin’ and… I mean… I knew… I knew Kimberley, but, I dunno, I started thinking maybe, they’d been in an accident or…”
Of course Kimberley guided the conversation as best she could, the words as good as written in stone, the inevitability of where this scenario was heading, a drunken husband, a wife fraught with worry, a history of indiscretions presiding over all of it, prompting accusations and slurred denials, flung wine glasses, hands lashing out in fury and bitterness…
“I could smell her on him… I mean he actually reeked of it. How he could even bother to deny it… And then all his mates were there, dropping him off, and they were trying to get him to leave with them, ‘cos they were all like, ‘Oh she’s bein’ hysterical Ash,’ like I didn’t have a right to fuckin’ be havin’ a go at him for turning up like that!
“But he wouldn’t leave and he wouldn’t admit it, even though he wasn’t exactly denyin’ it either. But I could tell… They were all rubbish liars anyway, ‘cos one minute sayin’ they’d been in a club’ and the next it was a party at someone’s house... and the next she’d come onto him when like, seconds ago they’d just been a bunch of blokes havin’ a drink together…
“So we’re havin’ this fight, and he’s just callin’ me stupid, sayin’ I’m imaginin’ it and getting’ me back right up and they’re all standin’ out in the hall right now, ‘cos they must be embarrassed or somethin’ but don’t want to jus’ leave us to it.
“And - and… I’d poured meself a glass of wine to calm meself down and then he makes some crack about how I’m always bloody drinkin’ - which is just fuckin ridiculous, comin’ from him there in that state!
“And that’s when I fling it at the wall and… well… a bit of it might have hit him then, but I don’t think so… I’m not sure… And he’s comin’ at me, right in me face, shoutin’ and callin’ me a crazy bitch and…”
“Did he hit you?”
“Nah… Never. Doesn’t have the bottle. No, he’s jus’ really drunk and shoutin’ back at me, right, like that close to me…”
She held up her hand a fraction from her face, “And I can feel his spit on me, and like, still smell all this booze, and her… her fuckin’ perfume… And that’s when I’m like pushin’ him off me and slap him one, y’know, like backhand him really hard in the face, but with this hand, so’s I think my ring caught him… ‘Cos the next thing I know he’s got this big scratch across his cheek…”
She trailed off, tracing her finger down the side of her own face. Kimberley swallowed hard, tempering the knot of anger pulling against her ribcage.
Cheryl sighed finally as her tears began to subside and her jerky, staccato recollections became more controlled.
“Obviously he wasn’t gonna stay after that. I mean, he was bleedin’ and everythin’… Couldn’t let the boys think he’d stand for that, could he? So he took off with them. I don’t know where.
“I couldn’t believe it though. Guess I was in shock, y’know. And I didn’t know what to do, it was all such a mess. So I called you. And then I waited. Shut meself away and cried. Wasn’t expectin’ to have the police turn up on me doorstep though.”
Cheryl bit her lip and fell silent at the conclusion to her story, eyes narrowing over Kimberley’s shoulder and towards the wine stain on her carpet.
Kimberley exhaled pointedly, the weariness from her evening’s excursions well and truly catching up with every aching muscle within her, the nervous energy that had propelled her onwards now rapidly disintegrating.
She rocked back onto her heels and shook her head slowly before closing her eyes, tipping her head toward the ceiling.
“Cheryl,” she dragged out the word in a pronounced sigh, “What did you expect me to do? You leave this cryptic message on my voicemail, I mean, seriously, what was I to do? And then you didn’t even pick up after that. What the hell…”
And at this Cheryl surveyed her friend with a humbling unease, the situation and its consequences only now beginning to dawn on her.
“I’m sorry,” she said plainly, not knowing what other words to offer.
Kimberley rose and scraped her hair back with both hands before daring to look at Cheryl again, not entirely trusting herself, unsure of what she might unwittingly confess given the sheer visceral adventure she’d been on.
“Oh Cheryl,” she grimaced at the scene before her, Cheryl’s tiny, uncertain figure hunched in her dining room chair, a massive pink stain at their feet, the dawn beckoning behind the floor length curtains.
“Just, seriously, you have no idea what you just put me through. I mean, what the hell was I to think?” She felt the fury beginning to well up and stopped herself. There’d been enough arguments for one night.
And Cheryl’s body bent into its appeasing form of shame, arms encircling her, offering apology but also seeking the reassurance that this too wasn’t another rebuttal.
“I’m so sorry, babe,” she sniffed into Kimberley’s shoulder, another round of tears threatening behind her wavering tone. “I didn’t know me own head. I just…It was so horrible… I just needed you…”
And as exasperated as she was, Kimberley could only cling tightly and smooth down the curly brunette wisps, the relief slowly washing over her as the anger faded, offering gentle reassuring breaths against Cheryl’s cheek, shushing her, telling her it was alright, telling her it would all be fine.
* * * * *
She fought with the sheets sticking against her feet, kicking and turning repeatedly, desperately seeking to exhume some peace of mind in the arms of sleep.
But in spite of the relentless voyage she’d squeezed her emotions through, in spite of her bones crying out for respite, in spite of the softness of the mattress and the quietness of the room and the dull, faint tinge just brokering behind the blinds, she could not relax to the point of release.
And when she heard the faint knock at her door it was almost a relief, an excuse that finally something was happening, other than left side, right side, left side, right side, over and over again.
And even though she ignored it, the hushed uncertain voice from beyond it, still she came, as she knew she would, invited herself in, under the covers, sliding delicately into place, a narrow, trembling hand reaching for her waist.
“You’re really not going to let me sleep at all tonight are you?” she murmured up to the ceiling.
“Not until you forgive me,” she replied, eyes alert, fingers twitching.
Kimberley released a deep rasping breath, keeping her eyes firmly closed, idly playing with the hair that had spilled onto her pillow.
“It’s not about me forgiving you, Cheryl.”
“Then what’s it about? Tell me.”
And it wasn’t the sort of conversation Kimberley wanted to start under these circumstances, with both of them so drained, so tainted and raw from all that had unfolded. She couldn’t bring herself to begin to articulate how exhausted she had grown from it all. How utterly mystifying their situation had become to her, when once it had seemed so simple and pure and downright enjoyable.
And she knew that it wasn’t about attributing blame or wringing her hands or accusing or defending or any other sort of recrimination that this threatened to dissolve into given even the slightest misstep.
So she held her tongue and offered simply, “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Why?”
“Your husband,” she turned slightly, repositioning her arm as Cheryl squirmed. “He might come back.”
“He won’t,” she pronounced it very quietly and assuredly, noting Kimberley’s fluttering eyelids in the gloom. “Kimba, he won’t.”
She remained silent, unwilling to continue the exchange, her body on the verge of disconnecting from her ceaseless worrying. This is what Cheryl had done to her.
Cheryl kept her eyes trained on her, their cat-like intensity more alert and attentive than she’d seen them in a long time. She felt her finger along her stomach, tracing down and around her navel, delicately exploring every minute inch of the warm flatness to her belly.
“I know I can be difficult,” she began at last, “I know everyone’s getting sick of me. Seeing me face everywhere they go. God, even I get sick of seeing me face everywhere.”
And here she let out a tiny rueful chuckle. Kimberley shifted, a slight shake of her head indicating she was still listening.
Cheryl licked her lips, hesitating, “I know… you must all think I’m losing me mind sometimes,” she splayed out all five fingers against Kimberley’s stomach, before lightly curling them up again, the nails tickling against the fine hairs.
“You just don’t seem happy anymore,” Kimberley murmured.
It was enough to quieten Cheryl for several minutes, as her hand stilled, hovering in indecision while her pupils dilated into the darkness, pushing her brown irises into glowing slivers, the depth of her stare seeming infinite.
Finally she resumed with her gentle stroking, her voice weaving into the shadowy fabric of the air.
“I used to think, used to dream that this was all I ever wanted. Singin’. Bein’ famous. Bein’ rich. Gettin’ married to the man I loved. Couldn’t have asked for more, really.”
And again she paused, Kimberley heard her turn her head, felt her repositioning herself, leaning up onto her elbow.
The weight of her stare, those flashing eyes, were too much. So she pretended to be asleep. Concentrated on keeping her breathing shallow and consistent, willed her subconscious to take the hint and follow suit.
But still she felt the insistency of Cheryl’s gaze upon her, pictured her hoping, quaking lips, nervously licking, waiting for some sort of response, some sort of answer.
“Why isn’t it enough Kimberley?” she asked softly.
A pause.
“Why can’t I be enough?”
But she couldn’t begin to answer that question, right now or at any other more socially acceptable hour of the day.
And at last she felt the mattress dip and Cheryl slide back down onto her pillow, heard her thickly swallowing, pictured her throat expanding and contracting.
And just when sleep had nearly claimed her, when her thoughts had begun to swirl and merge into a dreamy haze she heard the sound, a ghost of a whisper, but distinct nonetheless.
“I’ll never be good enough for you, will I? I’m not even good enough for him.”
Part Six