Free Fragile Cord by Emma Salisbury

while.
    ‘So, I go into her room,’ Lewisham
continued, ‘after all, it’s my fucking house, and if I want to go
in there I will. And for a while the world is alright again. Her
makeup and jewellery is still scattered across the dressing table,
her school uniform hangs over the back of a chair. It’s all as she
left it……she had no reason to tidy it away did she?’ his voice
cracked, ‘…….she thought she was coming back.’
    How could either of them have
known that everything she did that day would be for the last
time?
    Coupland looked away, not
because he was embarrassed by his friend’s emotion, but fearful
that his own, unchecked, would get the better of him and discourage
Lewisham from opening up any further.
    ‘There are so many memories in
that room. It’s like………..it’s like she’s still in there. Can you
imagine how that feels?’
    Coupland was not a
superstitious man, but he pushed any thought of Amy from his mind.
To place his living breathing whirlwind in the same freeze frame as
Roddy’s daughter might tempt fate, and the thought of anything
happening to her made his throat constrict.
    He could feel Lewisham watching
him, searching his face for understanding - acceptance, rather than
rejection - of what he’d just said.
    He gave the tiniest nod.
    ‘And then I leave her room to go
downstairs,’ Roddy continued, ‘but the house is so quiet……so I turn
on the T.V. and the remote control is exactly where I left it the
night before, not halfway down the back of the chair or kicked
under the table and it hits me like a fist that she’s gone.’
    He paused, as
though mulling over what he was going to say next, deciding to say
it anyway. ‘I want to see her again so badly, Kevin, but the only
way I can be with her is if I leave this world behind.’
    In the days following Siobhan’s murder
Roddy had overdosed on the medication he’d been prescribed to help
him cope. On release from hospital he was transferred to a
psychiatric unit in Cheadle. At first he’d been kept on suicide
watch, but after a while, either because the doctors felt they
could trust him or that they couldn’t protect him forever, they let
him go.
    ‘Does it not get any easier?’ Coupland
ventured, guessing the answer.
    ‘During the day I’ll
be doing something completely inconsequential and I’ll be reminded
of her…….only now I find myself forgetting how she looked or how
her voice sounded, as though my mind is somehow relegating her to
the past before I’m ready…… and I feel guilty and frightened that
one day I’ll forget her altogether. I mean…….I know I should let
her go, that she isn’t in this world any more, but she’s in my world, and that
should count for something, right?’
    Coupland faltered. He was out of his
depth and conscious that for the last twenty minutes he’d done
nothing other than imitate a nodding dog. He knew about pain but
none of the antidotes – apart from the alcoholic kind, and in the
long run that brought a completely different kind of pain. At least
Lewisham had taken a leave of absence, returning to the legal
practice on a part-time basis.
    The theft charge at the wine bar in
Swinton was the first case Lewisham had handled at Salford Precinct
since he’d come back to work. Returning to the scene where his
daughter had met her killer had been an unconscionable milestone,
but he’d done it, and Coupland took this as a sign that he was on
the road to surviving Siobhan’s death, that her killer hadn’t
claimed Roddy as a victim too.
    If he’d been a demonstrative man he’d
have reached out to comfort him, place a well-meaning hand on his
arm or shoulder, but he’d grown up a regular recipient of his
father’s belt leaving him unsure how to interact physically with
another man. He cleared his throat and pulled back his chair,
calling out for the bill in a voice so abrupt the waitress and
Lewisham looked at him strangely.

7
    The first thing that struck Alex