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For a long time, the only sound in the room had been the flip of the pages as Basira made her steady progress through the latest book she had picked up. Daisy had no idea if there was any rhyme or reason to the titles that Basira chose; mostly she thought that her partner was probably just grabbing whatever she could to pass the time. She had always been that way, even when they had been back on the force – some nights could be so damn slow, and it was then that Basira would scroll through her phone and find some random Wikipedia article to read through. Daisy had given up trying to work out just what she was going to come out with next, learning to expect the random and unrelated facts that Basira would suddenly come out with. Now that there was even more time to kill, it seemed Basira was favouring whole books rather than articles: just the other day, Daisy had watched as Basira made unflinching progress through what looked to be a wildflower guide for the English countryside, circa 1979.
Still, there was a certain comfort to be had in it. Not if Daisy thought about it too much, of course – then it became abundantly clear that Basira was cracking up in her own way, the same as everyone else in this place. Daisy allowed herself brief moments to forget this painful fact, though, and times like this it almost felt like how it had once been. The two of them, killing time, Basira lost in her facts and Daisy lost in her thoughts. Only now they weren’t parked up in some deserted car park or layby, and there was no way that they could clock off and head to a place where they didn’t have to think about it anymore. Again the claustrophobia began to tug at her, and not for the first time Daisy wished that the archives were anywhere else – so long as it wasn’t the basement. Only a single flight of stairs below the street, yes, but Daisy couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that that was still a floor down, that everywhere she looked the walls would press on to dirt and concrete, and there were no windows.
Her breath began to quicken. She remained as still as she could, feeling the coolness of the fridge’s door against her back. She was sat on the floor of the breakroom’s little kitchenette, enjoying the firmness of the laminate floor, the feel of the fridge or the cupboards against her. They were solid, real – the fridge occasionally clicked into a low hum as it regulated its temperature, and Daisy liked the vibrations against her, reminding her that she was in a room with furniture and a door, with other people nearby and room to stand and stretch if she liked. Basira was sitting on the nearby sofa, her shoes off and her feet tucked underneath her, the book resting on the sofa’s arm – but still it wasn’t quite enough. Daisy let out a slow breath, not wishing for Basira to hear any change to her breathing, and then she slipped a hand inside her pocket and gently touched the item in there.
It wasn’t much at all – a small packet of Cadbury’s chocolate buttons. Small, round pieces of milk chocolate in a tiny purple package, meant for young children. Daisy had loved them as a child and she still did now – she was of the opinion that with the amount of buttons crammed into each pack, you really got your money’s worth. She had elaborated on this subject with Basira, at length – “you definitely get the same amount of chocolate as you would a Cadbury’s Dairy Milk bar, but for less than half the price!” – and she still stood by it now, but what she liked the most about them was the fact that she had a lot of good, solid memories around them. They had always been the Friday treat slipped into her lunchbox; they had always been the thing she picked when she had been allowed to go to the shop for sweets. On one momentous occasion she had been out trick-or-treating with a group of friends, the last year they had done such a thing before parties and discos became the preferred Halloween entertainment, and they had been running a little late. Most houses were closing up for the night, and one of them – a little way from the main streets and realising that no more trick-or-treaters would be likely to head that way – had simply upended the entire tray of sweets into Daisy’s bag. She had been delighted to realise that this house had not been skimpy with its Halloween treats. Inside her bag were more than a dozen full-size bags of Cadbury Buttons.
Daisy slipped her finger into the small hole torn into the packet and expertly hooked a chocolate button out. Years of practise had made her very adept at this move. She had done the same thing countless times in school, dipping a finger unseen into her blazer pocket and sneaking the chocolate to her mouth sometimes in full view of the teacher. The movement was so practised and so fluid that Basira didn’t even glance at her. Daisy pressed the chocolate between her tongue and the roof of the mouth and let it melt, concentrating on the sharp sweetness, the way the sugar rushed almost immediately to her head. She knew it was unhealthy; she knew that if Basira was aware she was still doing it, she would be angry with her. The doctors had been very strict about the kinds of things that Daisy should be eating, explaining that her body had to essentially learn how to eat normally again. She hadn’t felt hunger when she had been in the coffin – there had been no room for it alongside the fear – but the moment she emerged the months without food had hit her with full consequences. She had spent several weeks in the hospital, trying to persuade sceptical doctors and psychiatrists that she wasn’t anorexic. In the end she gave up – as Basira had rightfully pointed out, there was no other way she was going to be able to explain herself. Daisy had reluctantly “admitted” it, and endured countless sessions about body positivity and cognitive techniques, but at the very least she had gotten a lot of information about the effects her ordeal had had on her body and what she could expect going forward. Top of the endless lists of rules was that she had to adhere strictly to a specialised diet, designed to introduce her body gently to the idea of eating regularly again. As Daisy had learned, in excruciating detail, a starving body first ate through its reserves of fat, and once that was exhausted, it began to break down and eat the muscle. Daisy had never had much reserves of fat – she had always been petite, lacking in the boobs and butt department, as the boys at school had been only too glad to point out until she had started making noses bleed – but she had always been possessed of a great amount of muscle. She had been an active child and remained so as an adult; once she went into the police force she had kept up with a strict regime of exercise, both cardio and muscle-building. Her short height had made it very necessary. A lot of criminals took one look at a pair of women cops and decided to try their luck. Basira and Daisy had always been very glad to teach them a few lessons about how far assumptions could get a person.
Now there was nothing left of that. What little fat she had once had was history; her muscles were wasted away to rope. She still had to stand slowly, in shifts, raising her head gradually and ensuring she was always near something she could use to steady herself or break her fall. She could fit her fingers around her thighs and she was sure her arm never reached a wider width that her wrists. It was thoroughly depressing, the kind of thing that could make her panic if she thought too much about it – this useless scrap of flesh she was now trapped in – but at the very least she had been assured that with discipline and patience, she could make a full recovery. Remarkably, the doctors had said, her body hadn’t quite starved in the usual way. It had gone through the same processes, but it also seemed to be recovering more quickly than anticipated. The doctors had of course not put this down to any paranormal means, instead pointing to Daisy’s previous level of health and fitness as the answer, but they had been firm with her diet all the same. Her body, she had been told, had simply forgotten how to digest food. It hadn’t had to do so in so long that it had become incapable of it. Eating too much, or eating the wrong food, would only succeed in making her violently ill. In fact, at the beginning, eating too much too quickly could have killed her. Daisy supposed she had Basira to thank for avoiding that. She had been quite happy to hit up the nearest all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet; it had been Basira who had put her foot down and driven her to the hospital.
So Daisy found herself stuck on a diet of clear soups and plain foods – not even any meat, yet. She took about a million different vitamins in pill form and was advised to stick only to water for the time being. Cadbury’s chocolate was absolutely forbidden, but Daisy compromised by being sure she was good about being bad. She only let herself have one when the panic got to be too much, and then only one. She took her time with it, melting it slowly against the roof of her mouth and only licking small bits away at a time, all the while monitoring how nauseous she felt. If she felt sick, she told herself, she would immediately rinse her mouth out and have no more. That hadn’t happened yet, so Daisy supposed she was doing something right. So long as she didn’t push her luck and have more than one. That was her rule. If she still felt anxious after one, she promised herself, she would tell Basira.
Most of the time, it was enough to just touch the packaging – to know that they were there.
She certainly felt more alert now, her blood sugar taking an immediate rise. Her anxiety threatened to rise with her energy levels, but with the taste of chocolate in her mouth it was easy to remember the here and now – the complete impossibility that this could be some terror-induced dream. Now she found herself agitated for a different reason – the stillness, the uniform flip of the pages of Basira’s book, a clock ticking somewhere. She wondered how long it would be until she was allowed to eat something. The chocolate had reminded her that she was hungry – a fact she often forgot these days. The doctors said that would come back eventually, but she might always struggle a little. Her days of relying on her body to tell her she was hungry at regular intervals may have gone for good. The clockwork had all been messed up – her sleep, too. Her entire body was in revolt, thoroughly confused by the situation it had found itself in, and it would have been funny if it hadn’t been so awful. Daisy remembered being a teenager, how terrible her sleeping and eating schedule had been then. She had simply eaten when she was hungry and slept when she was tired, no routine to it at all. She had been fine then, but she supposed it had been the same blessings of youth that had allowed her to drink an entire bottle of vodka on Thursday night, finishing it at perhaps two in the morning, and then be up at seven on Friday feeling fresh as a – well, as a daisy.
“You’re grinding your teeth,” Basira said, glancing at her.
“Oh,” Daisy said. Sure enough, her jaw ached. “Sorry.”
“What’s wrong?” Basira put her book down but didn’t close it – universal Basira language for I’m not done with this yet, so please make it quick. Daisy hated the shame that crept through her, but it didn’t stop it from coming.
“Nothing,” she said, in as close an approximation to casual as she could get. She didn’t know why she bothered. The two of them had been cops, for Christ’s sake. They could spot a bullshitter at fifty paces. Perhaps that was why it stung so much when Basira just nodded.
“Alright. Just be careful. You can crack teeth doing that, when you’re as malnourished as you are.”
“Noted,” Daisy said. She pressed her tongue against the roof of her mouth, searching for remnants of the chocolate. There was a lingering sweetness there, but not enough. Seeing Basira reach for her book again made her want to grab the packet and cram every last piece down her throat, but she couldn’t do that. Then she would have none, and that would be far too much to deal with. How many did she have left, anyway? She slipped her hand back into her pocket to check, estimating from touch.
Somewhere between seven and twelve, apparently. That was not good, especially not with Basira around. Basira was adamant that Daisy should adhere strictly to her diet, and for the most part Daisy agreed with her. After all, she wanted to get back into shape; she wanted her healthy body back. The only problem was that Basira was a sticker for doing things by the book, and Daisy had always been better at analysing what a situation required, while using the rules as a guideline. Of course, she had sometimes been a bit generous with her interpretation of this, but she didn’t think she was overstepping the mark now. The chocolate was forbidden, yes, but it served a greater purpose – it saved her from far more damage through stress and panic, and she was sensible with it. It was frustrating that Basira would never be able to understand this enough to make an allowance, but that was just one of those things Daisy knew about her partner. Therefore, it was fairer to them both to sidestep Basira completely with this situation, and find her dealer elsewhere.
Of course, Daisy would ideally prefer to go herself, but she wasn’t strong enough to walk all the way to the nearest shop yet. She could get there, she reckoned, but getting back would be a problem – and she couldn’t go alone. She wouldn’t be able to cope with going alone. It was much more sensible to get somebody to fetch them for her, and much more discreet, too – even if her illicit chocolate dealer insisted on acting as though they were exchanging something much more nefarious. Basira tended to have that effect on people, Daisy thought. One look from her, and she’d have you backtracking through the last twenty years of your life and panicking about all the songs you illegally downloaded.
As much as it stung to see Basira so eager to believe her obvious lie, it allowed Daisy time to make her move. Basira clearly did not want to be disturbed, and Daisy didn’t need to stretch her analytical skills to know that she was somewhat of a burden these days. She began the painstaking process of getting to her feet, first going to her knees and pausing as the room stopped swaying, and then bit by bit pulling herself up against the counter. She remained there for a moment, gripping the edge, swaying slightly from side to side, until the dark static faded from her vision and the room stilled again. She wanted Basira to say something as much as she wanted to be left alone; she couldn’t stand the thought of making an excuse, but she also couldn’t stand the thought of Basira letting her leave without any response at all. In the end she supposed she got the best possible scenario: Basira glanced up as Daisy left, but asked for no explanation; Daisy didn’t have to speak, but she could at least tell herself that Basira had been watching to make sure she got on OK, that she wasn’t in imminent danger of collapse.
Thankfully there was never too far to go in the archives. She walked as quickly as she could, her hand trailing the wall both for balance and assurance – they weren’t closing in on her, nothing was pressing tighter, forcing her into a gap that grew smaller and smaller with every desperate breath. The light was on in Jon’s office, and she paused for a moment outside to make sure he wasn’t recording. When she heard only silence, she tapped the door and pushed it open a crack, finding that despite everything, she was still timid. Timid! She had never been timid in her life, but apparently that was another thing that had changed.
“I’m not interrupting anything, am I?” she asked quietly.
Jon was sitting at his desk, but it didn’t look as though he had been doing much. He looked exhausted, as always, though it was bad even for Jon’s standards. His face was pale, the usually warm tone to his skin now cold. He looked sick, his cheeks too gaunt and the shadows under his eyes so swollen and deep that they looked like bad bruises. Despite this, she saw a flicker of concern in his eyes when he looked at her, and to her horror it kind of made her want to cry.
“No, no,” Jon said quickly, sitting up a little straighter and making a futile attempt to tidy the chaos of paper on his desk. “Um, come in. I was just… well. I wasn’t just doing anything, actually.”
“I know what you mean,” Daisy said, coming inside and leaving the door open a crack. “I was just sitting on the floor in front of the fridge. I thought I’d come for a change of scenery.”
“Well,” Jon said, sweeping his hand over the office. “There’s even a chair.”
“Thanks, but I prefer the floor.”
“Oh, because it’s still strange to sit on something soft?” Jon asked, before blinking. “Ah. Sorry.”
“It’s fine.” Daisy gave a tired smile. “It’s not exactly a big secret.”
“Still, it’s rude.”
“It’s quite common, actually,” Daisy said, sliding down the wall until she was low enough to let herself drop to the floor with a gentle thud. “Obviously there aren’t any handbooks about this particular thing, but I have been reading a bit about people who have been in other long-term traumatic situations. Prisoners of war, labour camp survivors, that kind of thing. A fair few people returned home and found they couldn’t stand sleeping in a bed anymore – it had to be the floor. The bed was too soft. It felt alien to them.”
“I see,” Jon said. “And you count yourself among that camp.”
“I hope it’s not forever,” Daisy said. “You should see the bruises where all my bones jut out. Which is to say everywhere.” She shifted slightly, the comment making her aware of the ache in her leg. She stretched them both out in front of her, trying to even out her weight. “What about you, though? You don’t look so good yourself, if you don’t mind my observations.”
“I’m doing alright,” Jon said. “No more exhausted than I was before all this, if I’m honest.”
“You don’t look so good.”
“Yes, well.” Jon waved a hand. “That isn’t just… this. That’s more…”
“Our other diet?” Daisy asked, smiling. “Yeah, I get you.”
“It’s better than—well, than the alternative,” Jon said firmly. “But I won’t pretend it’s fun.”
“It sucks worse than starving did,” Daisy said, before laughing at Jon’s surprised expression. “I wasn’t even aware I was starving,” she explained. “You must remember. It didn’t really… matter in there. Not until we got out.”
“I suppose it didn’t.”
“This, though? This is tough. Impossible to forget.” She sighed. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t come in here and just start laying it all on. It’s just…”
“You can’t talk about this with anyone else,” Jon said.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
Daisy sighed. “It’s fine. I… can’t ask Basira to shoulder it all on her own. She’s great, but she’s very practical. Kind of, dust yourself off and get on with it kind of girl, you know? I used to be that way, back when I was dealing with things that I could dust myself off from. This is different. I can’t expect her to understand.”
“No,” Jon said sympathetically. “You can’t. It frustrates her.”
Daisy looked at him.
“Not you,” he said hurriedly. “The situation. She’s aware she doesn’t understand, and she’s smart enough to know she can’t. But she wishes she could, and when she continues to be incapable of it, that’s when her frustration gets difficult to disguise.”
“That’s when she can’t bear to look at me,” Daisy said, with a humourless laugh.
“Only because it reminds her of what she can’t do.”
“It still stings,” Daisy said, before shrugging. “Oh well. It’ll work itself out, or it won’t.”
She slipped her hand into her pocket again, touching the wrapper. She was desperate for another one, but she couldn’t break the rule she had made for herself – or the promise she had made Jon. She noticed he had seen her move, that he was watching her hand even though it was hidden inside her pocket. She stilled it, but of course it was useless with Jon. He glanced at the door, and to Daisy’s amusement, he dropped his voice when he spoke.
“Do you need me to get more?” he asked. “When I next come in?”
Daisy laughed. “Calm down, Jon. It’s not like I’m asking you to bring me a bag of cocaine. Despite how Basira might act.”
“Yes, well,” Jon said, flustered.
“I’ll be honest,” Daisy said. “I have between seven and twelve left. Do you think I need more?”
“No,” Jon said. “If I’m honest as well, I think that’s more than adequate for one more day. But you won’t feel better, will you? You’ll be stressed that you’ll run out.”
“I know I won’t eat that many in a day,” Daisy said. “I can’t, and I promised you I wouldn’t make myself sick. But yes, I would be stressed about it regardless.”
“Then I’ll buy some more,” Jon said, “and I’ll keep them in my desk drawer, and then you can know they’re there but you won’t have the temptation.”
“Will you show me?” Daisy asked. “I won’t touch, but… just so I know for sure they’re there?”
“Any time you need,” Jon said.
Daisy nodded. “OK. I think that’ll work.”
“Good.”
“Jon?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you. Sincerely.” Once again, Daisy felt dangerously on the verge of tears. “I don’t deserve your kindness.”
“Daisy—”
“No,” Daisy said, running her finger along the packet’s serrated edge. The reassuring scrape against her skin steadied her somewhat. “I don’t. You know I don’t. You don’t need to try and reassure me, or lie to yourself. I know you must wonder why you do it, after everything. I just want you to know that you don’t have to make excuses, or reassure me. You’re doing it because you’re—you’re just a really nice person, Jon. That seems inadequate, considering, but you are, and I want you to know I appreciate it. All of it. This is so silly, and anyone else would tell me that I was stupid, or that it was unhealthy or ridiculous – or they just wouldn’t get it. But you do, and you never—you’ve never made me feel stupid.”
Jon squirmed slightly, his cheeks flushed, but he managed to stammer a reasonably decent response.
“I—well. Thank you. I hope—I mean, I suppose I’ve never been one to do things conventionally myself. If something will help somebody, and it’s as small as this, then why shouldn’t I help?”
“That would be good, if you stopped at the small things,” Daisy said.
“Well—yes, I suppose you’re right,” Jon said.
“Speaking of coping, managing, all of that,” Daisy began, before returning the wary look Jon gave her with a thin smile. “You know what I’m going to ask.”
“If I’ve eaten yet?”
“Bingo. Ironic coming from me, I know.”
“Well, no. I haven’t. I’ve been meaning to, but—”
“Meaning to isn’t doing so.”
“No. I suppose it isn’t.”
“Just have something small,” Daisy said. “You’re starting to look as bad as I did, and you weren’t in there for half as long.”
“I don’t look that bad,” Jon said.
“You’re on your way.”
“Hardly. It would take—”
“Jon,” Daisy said. “We’re still in this together, right?”
Jon gave a tired sigh. “Right.”
“So have something small to eat. Go on. I know you keep about a million of those cereal bars in one of those drawers.”
“Alright, alright,” Jon grumbled. He pushed his chair back and opened one of the desk’s lower drawers. Daisy was unsurprised to hear an impressive amount of rustling packaging before he reappeared, silver foil in hand. Daisy’s stomach growled audibly, and Jon looked at her. “Are you allowed these?”
“So long as they’re not too overloaded with sugar and artificial nonsense,” Daisy said. “Clean, healthy living, me.” She thought for a moment. “I probably shouldn’t have a whole one, though.”
“Me neither,” Jon said. “I don’t think I could stomach it. I suppose there’s an easy solution to this.”
Daisy smiled. “Guess there is.”
In another one of those gestures that made guilt twist like a knife in Daisy’s stomach, Jon got up and came around the desk to hand her her half of the biscuits. He knew it was too much of a struggle for her to get up just to walk a couple of steps; he knew that she would be too alarmed if he threw it to her, too slow to catch it. Instead he went to her, and then he sat cross-legged on the floor in front of her, snapping his first biscuit into the same small chunks as Daisy was doing with her own.
To make them last longer. It was another thing the both of them understood without words.