Fine Lines, Chapter Five

Fine Lines is a fictional series charting the implosion of 45-year old Tara Hewson’s world, and the curious bird that flaps up from the ashes…

Chapter One // Chapter Two // Chapter Three // Chapter Four

When I was a child, everyone used to comment on my preternatural ability to sleep anywhere, any time. I’d sleep on demand – when I was laid in a cot or escorted to bed – until I was woken the following morning. Sometimes, if we were at a relative’s or friend’s house past bedtime, I’d find a secret snug and conk, triggering a drunken, late-night search party.

I was a sleeper. And, lucky for me, the girls were too.

As I got older, securing my eight hours per night required a level of self-discipline that didn’t extend to any other facet of my being. Vanity was a driving force – the crepe-y, dehydrated skin and black sack eye-bags that lingered long after a couple of nights out – but an inability to function on less sleep was my main impetus.

That time, when I fiercely protected sleep, when I expected to be welcomed into a deep, uncomplicated slumber at will, was a precious time of ignorance. I scoffed at that simple, cloddish woman.

Nytol, Magnesium, illegally procured Melatonin, were by then useless in the fight against my visceral unravelling. I knew I would have to turn to prescription relaxants eventually but was wary of accelerating my immunity to all sleeping aids to the point that I would never rest again. And so I took to the streets.

I’d role-play a traditional bed-time routine – cleansing, pyjamas, Netflix – turn off the light and wait for sleep not to come. I looked forward to getting up again, sneaking out to the car and just taking off. I stuck to urban areas with wide roads, places where humans might still be awake – garages, hotels, late-night chippers.

Volume maxed, I listened to songs on repeat. Basic Instinct by The Acid was a favourite, and not just because it was one of the only songs I had ever managed to commit to memory and shout along with. It was the soundtrack to my dazed and chaotic mind.

Tender we fall
Quiet and alone
Tired and gone, just speechless
Speechless
Tired and gone
Coming up for air
Coming up for air air
Coming up for air
Coming up for air air

Night-cruising was the beginnings of a new me. It was breakout freedom and aloneness that always delivered a little bit of clarity.

Apart from that one night, where random events blurred into the next day and beyond.

If I wasn’t such a middle-class wanker I wouldn’t have had a craving for my favourite Kombucha. Who even knew what Kombucha was three years ago? And I wouldn’t have driven to the only 24-hour Centra guaranteed to stock it.

As I was pulling into the car park, off a quiet suburban road, three young guys in balaclavas ran out of the shop. There was a Fiat Punto, headlights on full, waiting for them. The getaway car.

Without thinking, I reversed to park lengthways across the narrow entrance, so that they would be trapped.

‘Get out of the fucking way.’ The driver, who looked about 17, shouted, revving the engine. He was parked on an incline, facing down-hill and the side of my car.

I didn’t move.

They were arguing. The guy in the passenger seat was furious, telling the driver to fucking go. Instead, he slammed the horn and beeped at me. A hand shot from the back seat to clip him across the head. It was too late for beeping.

And so he drove, slowly and deliberately towards me, a shaky game of Chicken, waiting for me to push off.

I don’t know why I didn’t. It was a low-fi death-wish, a total lack of reason.

He must have gathered momentum on the small hill because the impact shunted me into the middle of the road, his face, a vivid freeze-frame, apologised for the necessary force. Airbags popped and they were gone.

***

The Gardaí breathalysed me at the scene, before extracting me from the car. My door had been compacted into the mainframe and in the commotion that followed, I forgot that I could bypass the airbag and crawl out the passenger side.

For no known mechanical reason, my carefully selected, emotionally charged – some might say morose – playlist continued to blare. Even when I disabled Bluetooth on my phone. This seemed to arouse suspicion, among emerging neighbours and Guards, that I was somehow responsible for my own situation.

Having to shout over a soundscape to my personal meltdown, at the scene of a heist, was not the cathartic moment I had been seeking.

An ambulance arrived and I was bailed into it. I tried to convince them that I was fine, that they could just drop me home but I couldn’t move my left arm so they insisted. The good thing about arriving to A&E by ambulance is that they fast-track you straight to the curtained cubicles, where actual doctors roam.

Between having my vitals checked and waiting for an X-Ray, I was visited by two Gardaí, a man and a woman.

‘Did you have anything to drink this evening, Ms Hewson?’ He started.

‘I was breathalysed, don’t you have the results?’ I said.

‘I have to ask you.’ He said. ‘It’s part of the process.’

‘No, I didn’t have anything to drink.’ I said. ‘I suppose you think that what I was wearing might have provoked the driver into ramming the side of my car?’

Okay, I’ll start again.’ He said. ‘You are the only eye-witness to this crime. A shop employee was handcuffed to the staff toilet and feared for his life. He is being treated for shock now and cannot remember any identifying features of the perpetrators.’

‘What did they get?’ I asked.

‘€350 and some alcohol.

‘They were kids.’ I said.

‘Age?’

’17, 18 maybe.’

‘Can you describe any of them?’ He pressed.

thought of the panic in the eyes of the driver, his confusion and horror; sandy brown hair, sharp features, thin, wide lips; how he had tried to ignore the rage spewing out of his accomplices to carefully manage their exit. I sensed that maybe he wasn’t supposed to be there.

‘I can’t.’ I said. ‘It all happened too fast.’

***

M knocked on my bedroom door just after 2 pm.

‘Flavia called me.’ He said. ‘Are you okay?’

Flavia had picked me up from the hospital at 5 am. I had a rotator cuff tear in my shoulder and a busted lip from the airbag.

‘I’m fine, thanks.’ I said. ‘Best sleep I’ve had in months.’

He laughed.

‘I’m not going to ask you what you were doing driving around in the middle of the night.’ He said.

‘Okay.’ I said, making no attempt to explain.

‘Listen.’ He said after a long pause. ‘I know this might be weird but my folks are having a BBQ to celebrate their 45th anniversary and Paul’s new baby. I haven’t told them about us and they’d love to see you. The girls are getting ready now.’

‘I don’t think so...’ I said reflexively.

Even before all of this I hated going to his parent’s gatherings. Too many times I’d left feeling less than worthy of their number one son. They dealt only in perfection, in re-pointed brickwork, mature olive trees and terracotta vats of hydrangeas. The conversation centred on money, looks and their grandchildren’s sporting or academic wins. We gave them nothing to brag about.

‘I think the girls need us to do something as a family.’ He said.

And my car-battered heart caved.

‘Oh my god, you look Ah-Mazing!’ M’s sister, Amelia, opened the door.

It took me a moment to realise that she was talking to me, my strapped up shoulder and fat lip.

‘Really?’ I said.

‘Yes, Jesus. Have you lost like a tonne of weight?’

‘Oh, maybe, I don’t know?’ I said.

I’d had to remind myself to chew and swallow at mealtimes as my appetite had vanished.

‘Lucky bitch! I’m like a fucking walrus, look at this.’ She pinched the waist of her white broderie anglaise dress.

‘Hi girlies, come to your fatty aunty.’

I logged that as the first topic to unpick with the girls at home. These events were always a lesson in negative conditioning, a master class in how not to be a healthy, well-adjusted human.

‘Hello, Tara darling. You look very pale.’ M’s mother air-kissed us into the garden, impossibly composed in floaty layers of cream and biscuit silk.

M went to join the men of the family and I was steered towards the women.

‘I see Myrna’s starting to get those spots around her mouth again, Tara. I have the name of a great dermatologist. I’ll give it to M.J..’ His mother said.

‘Thanks.’ I said. ‘I think she’s just using too much lip balm.’

The conversation hugged its usual course: the pros and cons of spending the final term of Transition Year in a French boarding school; the almost unanimous consensus that Range Rovers were on the cusp of being tacky, that Porsche Cayenne’s were the new Range Rover but like ten years ago; the forty-year-old friend who couldn’t find a man because she was too successful and too intimidating, yet still evoked the pity of the assembled circle; the glee of an actually very plain child that was the product of unusually beautiful parents.

I said very little but smiled when smiling was required.

‘M told us about the accident, Tara.’ Amelia said.

‘Yeah, I’m still a bit out of it to be honest. Just tired.’

‘Absolute knackers.’ She said, curling her lip, spitting the word.

‘I don’t think people use that word anymore.’ I said, limit reached.

‘What, knacker?’ She laughed. ‘Everyone uses it!’

‘It’s just pretty offensive.’ I said. ‘It puts you in one group, way up here, and them, whoever they are, way down there.’ I said, using my good arm to gesture.

‘So what should I say, Tara? Scumbags, lowlifes, criminals?’

‘Criminals is a good one.’ I said. ‘It’s factual, not infected by class.’

‘Do you know what, Tara? You can be so self-righteous sometimes, so down with the people. Who are you to judge me? I do the right thing. You’ve benefitted from our class system as much as I have.’

Amelia was a few Proseccos in and ready for a scrap. She was also right in lots of ways but it wasn’t the time for either of us to attempt a rational exchange. I excused myself, probably very abruptly, and told M I was going to sit in the car.

The girls quickly joined me, relieved to be back on their phones, free of the pantomime.

When M opened the door, he looked at all three of us. ‘What’s going on? Why are you all in the car?’

‘Because your family are Lizard People and cannot be trusted.’ Suzy said simply.

And he laughed. I’d always been so reservedly polite about his horrible family. That was the first time that all four of us agreed that something was off, even if M wasn’t entirely on board with the reptilian conspiracy theory or fully conscious of the depths of our aversion.

It was a moment of togetherness, moments that were rare even when we were a proper family.

Later that night, M knocked on my bedroom door. I was exhausted at last, trying to undress with one arm and a burning shoulder.

‘Can I come in?’ He said.

‘Sure.’ I said.

‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there for you last night.’ He said.

‘That’s okay.’ I said. ‘I guess it’s just something we have to get used to.’

‘Can I help you with that?’ He said, offering to pull my top up over my head.

‘I’m good thanks.’ I said, feeling uneasy.

‘Can I tell you something?’ He said nervously.

‘Sure.’ I said.

‘Seeing you with that guy in the bar was really difficult for me. I can’t shake it out of my head.’ He put his hand on my thigh and I pushed my good arm back into the sleeve of my top.

‘It will be weird for a while but…’ I started.

‘It really turned me on Tara. I think it might work for us, keeping things open but still being together. I’ve been reading up about it and as long as we tell each other who we’ve been with and we remain the trusted, primary relationship, it can work really well.’ He was excited.

‘I don’t think that’s what I want.’ I said finally.

‘How do you see it working then?’ He said.

‘I think we should talk about this tomorrow.’ I said.

‘Just tell me, what do you want?’

‘I think we’re better apart.’ I said.

He stood up, curling his lip in disgust, just like his sister.

‘You’re pathetic, Tara.’ He hissed. ‘You’re going to be like one of those sad old women on This Morning, picking up random men on your Moroccan holidays, talking about the tube of KY you had to rip through just so he could get it up. Waking up one day to find that everything you own has been fleeced by the scammer you were fucking.’

‘Well, good on ME for having the energy.’ I shouted above the slamming door. ‘And thank you for making everything so much easier.’

It was the night and day I needed to finally chase down Alex the Barman.

How much fun can you have with one bad arm? I texted.

Felt sexy, read creepy, tried to delete it but he was already typing.

Rhona McAuliffe, June 2020.