Free The Wicked Girls by Alex Marwood Page B

car this afternoon.
    Kirsty uses the cover of being in the kitchen to down a pint of water and slam three ibuprofen down with it. She feels like
     she’s been turned inside out, and her guilty conscience makes it worse. It’s like a frenzy, she thinks. Not the drink in itself,
     but the company of journalists. You can’t have a dozen hacks spend an evening together without everyone getting so blotto
     they can barely stand up; it’s never happened.
    She drains the glass and refills it. Opens the fridge and gets out the gravadlax, the bags of salad. The sort of food they’ve
     not been allowing themselves for months. But exigency has driven her through the aisles of Waitrose like a WAG with a Man
     U pay cheque. The whole family will be living on beans and rice for the rest of the week to pay for this dinner, but none
     of the people in the dining room is going to know that. Nothing breeds success like success, and if Jim’s going to get a job,
     they must persuade these money people that he doesn’t need one. The good side plates are laid out on the countertop, checked
     for chips, and all she needs to do is fill them, decoratively, while their guests drink Sophie’s shoe fund in Sémillon-Chardonnay.
    She feels an urge to vomit and swallows it down. Flamingshooters. At your age. At
any
age. What on earth possessed you?
    Because it was fun. Because I love the company of journalists. Because I love their casual, competitive intelligence, their
     ranty partisan opinions, the way they compete to reduce everything on earth to a five-word headline, their cynical search
     for the perfect pejorative. Because I’m tired of being good, and I’m tired of being patient, because I’ve been living it small
     for months now and I just needed to kick over the traces, and because I got caught early for my round in the White Horse and
     wanted to get my money’s worth back. Because you can’t describe what a town where people come to go on benders is like unless
     you’ve gone on one there yourself. Because, despite the heartless carapace we all carry around with us, spending a day digging
     up the detail on the deaths of five young girls is depressing enough to drive anyone to the bottle. And because I just bloody
     forgot about this dinner party.
    The door bangs back and Jim enters, the sociable-host smile dropping from his face as he crosses the threshold. He lets the
     door swing to before he speaks. ‘Fuck’s sake, Kirsty,’ he mutters. ‘What’ve you been doing?’
    Her skin feels raw under the thick layer of make-up she’s slathered on to hide her pallor. ‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘Had to take
     a painkiller.’
    Jim’s jaw is set like concrete as he snatches up the salad bags. ‘Christ,’ he says. ‘I’ll do it. You open the salmon.’
    He turns his back and rips open the packets. Pea-shoots, watercress and rocket, the TV-chef dream combo. A small earthenware
     jug of dressing he made this afternoon waits by the salad bowl. He dumps the leaves in, sloshes on the dressing and starts
     tossing. Miserably, Kirsty finds the kitchen scissors and begins cutting open the salmon. Her hands are shaking, visibly.
    ‘Sorry, Jim,’ she says for the eighteenth time, laying the slices of fish as neatly as she can on to the plates. ‘I’m really
     sorry. I didn’t mean to.’
    He’s so angry he can’t even look at her as he dishes the salad out next to the fish. ‘I really don’t think sorry’s good enough
     right now. You
knew
how important tonight was. You’re just …
selfish
. I can’t think of another word for it. Just bloody
selfish
.’
    ‘Yes,’ she says, penitently. ‘I know. It was. I am. And I’m really, really sorry.’
    Miserably, she cuts open a sachet of the mustard sauce that came in the packet. Squeezes it over a portion of fish.
    ‘
NO!
’ He grabs her wrist and his cry is loud enough to be heard through the door. The murmur of voices dies down for a moment.
     Someone