Barely Friends

Ashleigh Illingworth offers a sneak peek into her developing novel, Barely Friends, with this excerpt.

Chapter 8

I am woken up with a loud scream from across the street. I sit up and see the lights on in Florence’s house and a shadowy figure running through the upstairs hallway.

Another scream sends me out of bed. I run to the top of the stairs to see Mum putting on a dressing gown and bolting out the front door, down our one-step veranda. Dad must still be asleep. That man can tune out anything. I follow not far behind after I put on the closest pair of shoes. The screaming only grows more violent.

‘Get out of my house!’ I hear as we approach the house. There is a clatter as if someone threw a table to the ground.

The front door slams open, knocking the side table in the entryway, and Lydia comes bolting out still in her pyjama pants and oversized sky-blue hoodie. Lydia sprints down the pathway, only slowing down to look behind her once the raging footsteps behind her slow down.

‘Cossie!’ She screams as Mum runs up to the front door just in time. Florence appears in the doorway with a kitchen knife shaking in her timid old hand. Lydia makes a beeline straight for me as my arms outstretch, ready for her.

Mum blocks Florence’s path. Florence’s shoulders were rising and falling rapidly.

‘Flo, it’s Cossie. Your best friend. We’ve been best friends since we were 6,’ Mum says, while trying to fill Florence’s line of vision.

Florence’s defence seems to come down around Mum, but when she looks our way, it just gets redirected at Lydia.

‘She tried to break in. She was upstairs while I was asleep.’ Florence yells loud enough to wake the whole block. Lydia is trembling under my arm as Florence points directly at her.

‘It’s okay, Flo, it’s just your daughter. How about you give me the knife?’ Mum says, keeping a calm voice. 

‘I don’t have a daughter, I’m too young to have a daughter.’ Lydia covers her ears with her trembling hands. My hand comes up to help hold her steady, catching some of her flyaway hairs between my fingers.

‘Oh, I see, it’s okay Flo, we’ll take care of her. You can go back to bed,’ Mum says, keeping her voice steady.

Flo tries to take a step forward, the knife almost falling out of her hand. ‘We have to turn her in.’

Florence’s voice booms across the front garden. Mum takes the opportunity to get the knife out of Flo’s hand and walk her inside, while I walk Lydia across the street to Mum’s house. I sit Lydia down at the kitchen island and grab a jacket from the rack next to the front door.

Mum comes back about 20 minutes later, dropping Lydia’s floral suitcase and matching backpack to the floor.

‘It might be best for you to stay with us, sweetheart. Madden, would you take Lydia’s bag to the guest room upstairs?’ Mum says as she puts the kettle on and takes a seat at the bench next to Lydia.

I do as I’m told and take her suitcase upstairs, but when I come back down, Mum and Lydia seem to be in the middle of an inevitable discussion. As the guy who just randomly came back into her life not long ago, I don’t think I could have much of a say in this, so I stand on the sidelines behind the wall. I have no idea what is going through Lydia’s mind right now. I barely even know what to say to her. What I could say that wouldn’t trigger her or just make things worse. 

‘It’s time, sweetie. They can calm her down and make her comfortable. That house is much too big for just her.’ Mum says.

‘Yeah, I just wanted some more time.’ Lydia says through her sniffles.

‘I know, sweetheart, but we just don’t have it.’ Mum says.

‘Has it really been that long since I last visited?’ Lydia asks.

‘No, it just feels much longer for her. The distance between her now and her then is just growing so rapidly.’

‘How many times has something like this happened?’ Lydia asks.

‘It just started a few weeks ago. It might be best for you to take a breather for a day, so she can cool off. Her carer thinks it’s time for memory care, and I agree.’ Mum answers.

‘Did you find a place?’ Lydia asks, sounding like she’s mid-sip of something. 

Mum probably put on some of her calming herbal tea; she won’t say it, but she’s a hoarder.

‘Yeah, it looks pretty nice. We went and visited a few days ago, and all the people seem nice but not so nice that they’re stupid.’ Mum says.

‘Yeah, I guess I should think about what to do with the house.’ Lydia sniffles as she lets out a big calming breath, letting her herbal tea take its effect.

‘We can take some time with that sweetie.’ Mum says, trying to give Lydia some time to process everything.

‘Yeah, I know. I just don’t want to drag it out.’ Lydia persists.

‘Okay. Do you think you could drag it out till tomorrow? I need to get some sleep.’ Mum says as I hear her leave a cup in the sink.

‘Yeah, okay. Thank you, Cossie.’ Lydia says.

‘Of course, sweetie.’ Mum replies with a smack of a kiss on Lydia’s forehead before walking back to her room. 

I hear Lydia’s light footsteps make their way to the living room, and I can hear the faint zip of her backpack. The sound of tapping keys becomes more rapid, so I turn the corner to enter the living room. 

‘Hey, you okay after all that?’ I ask, my hands staying stiff in my pockets. 

‘Yeah, I will be.’ She says, eyes fixated on her laptop's glow.

‘Mum’s asleep, you don’t have to pretend everything is okay, remember?’

‘Your mum was just saying, um, it’s time for memory care. She thinks they’ll be able to help her.’ The words tumble out of Lydia’s mouth like she’s programmed to say them, but if the program was in the middle of burning out. 

‘What do you think?’ I ask as I take a step closer. 

‘I know she’s right. I just didn’t even get to say goodbye. I didn’t know she was this close to stage 6.’ The tapping starts to slow a little bit. 

‘You’re doing all you can.’ I say as I take another step, so I’m hovering over her. 

‘I should’ve been around more. Maybe she would’ve remembered me if I had.’ She says as little raindrops of tears start to fall on her cheek. 

‘Hey, don’t say that.’ I take a seat next to her. 

‘I just don’t know what to do.’ She says as her eyes become an ocean of tears. 

‘You don’t have to know right this minute. You can think about it.’ I don’t know what else to do but to pull her closer, let her know that I’m here. 

‘But the longer I think about it, the further she slips away. Like she’s my Mum but she doesn’t even know it anymore.’

I don’t know what else I can say to comfort her. The laptop light is infecting her eyes, making them even more red than they already are. I move my arm around her waist to hold her closer and use my other hand to steady her hands. When the tremor in her hand starts to feel steadier, I move to close her laptop.

‘Tell you what, if you can get some sleep tonight, we can look at what to do tomorrow and maybe go into town for a nice lunch.’

She brings her hand to her cheek to wipe away what remains of her tears and sniffles what is left from her nose. She grips my arm as we get up from the couch.

‘Okay, I can try.’ She says. 

‘That’s all I’m expecting.’ I tell her as we make our way to the stairs.

Mum’s room is at the front of the house next to the front door. I whisper to Lydia to be quiet as I walk her up the stairs. We make it to the top of the staircase and make our way down the hall. The guest bedroom Mum set Lydia up in used to be an upstairs living room, but Mum remodelled it when I moved out. It’s across from my room, only a few meters away. She turns to face her door, and her hand moves towards the handle. I turn to my door, releasing my hand from her shoulder.

‘Madden?’ I hear her soft voice from behind me. She’s already in the doorway when I turn back.

‘Would you mind staying with me? I don’t really want to be alone right now.’ Her hand is still holding the door handle.

I close my door, take a couple of strides in her direction and take her hand and feel the shaking subside. ‘Yeah, of course.’ I say as I close the door behind us.

We just lay there all night, hand in hand, staring at the ceiling until I notice Lydia tilts her head down her pillow and onto my shoulder, and I know she’s drifted off to sleep. If I've learned anything from last night, she can be a kicker when she only has a blanket to keep her warm. 

Our fingers stay intertwined until morning.