Water Pressure

Sorcha stared into the sink. She needed a second before she faced herself. She took a steadying breath and tenderly massaged a gentle rice scrub into her poreless skin. When she reached for a face cloth, her eyes danced on his cast-off wedding band in a small dish. Her body tensed when she lifted her vitamin spray. The few drops left knelled a death rattle when she shook it. When would she ever be able to afford something like that again?

She tip-toed downstairs, tied the laces of her feather-light sneakers and rubbed the worn sole solemnly. Bracing herself, she picked up the door key from the mid-century hall table and sunnily skipped out the door and ran.

She ran and ran and ran. Always the same route. But so different now. The facade of her tenuously perfect life had been skinned to the bone. Don had already moved out to the penthouse, their own house, where they had been living together, was for sale and Sorcha was a few weeks away from having to cancel the payments to the egg clinic.

He was “giving” her the rural apartment like a parent gives a nuisance child a lollipop, and they were splitting the sale of their home. She just needed to sell the house without the entire city finding out about it.

She gazed at the swans on the pond of Herbert Park as she trotted past them. Elegant, adored, and, ultimately helpless without the stodgy crumbs of others.

Turning her head back from the swans, she was suddenly body-slammed to the ground. Winded and on her bum, she stared up at the powerhouse who’d ploughed into her.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” the stylish stranger standing over her said.

“Oh my God, you knocked me over. You stu…,” she demurred.

“I’m so sorry, you crossed into my path. I…wait, Sorcha? Sorcha Bailey?”

“Yes, have we met?” she replied cautiously. As she dusted herself off and got back to her feather-light feet.

“We went to high school together,” the stranger cooed. “Jane Quilp, remember?”

“Jane Quilp?” Sorcha tried to fit the word on her lips but couldn’t familiarise them.

“It’s been, what, ten years? So you moved to the city too?”

“Yes, seven years since graduation. I live around the corner.”

“No, ten years this September. An absolute age.”

“Jane Quilp? I think I remember.”

“What a coincidence. How have you been?”

“Very well, thanks. I’m an art curator for a gorgeous little gallery,” Sorcha said, recycling her well-worn script. “Sean Montley’s place,” she added conspiratorially.

“Oh, I acquired the most darling Montley at an auction last year. I adore it, although I’d love one of his larger pieces,” Jane replied, sipping from her water bottle.

“Oh, you must. Truly, waking up to his Lady Blue works is life-changing,” Sorcha lied.

“Are you okay? I hope you’re not hurt. Do you live nearby?”

“Oh, I’m fine. I live just around the corner,” Sorcha replied, hoping there was an understanding of the significance of her postcode.

“How lovely. I’ve been looking for somewhere nearby for an age. Impossible right now.”

“Actually, I’m selling, as it happens. We’re selling. We’re looking for something more….” Sorcha hadn’t rehearsed this part and wished she hadn’t started the sentence.

“Well, how lucky,” Jane drawled, stretching her lithe torso. “Who’s your realtor? You’d never know, maybe this was destiny.”

“Actually, we’re working on a private sale. Cut out the middlewomen, so to speak. Much less mess.”

The conversation continued with Sorcha attempting to gently assert her status while Jane effortlessly succeeded in the same. Sorcha admired with envy Jane’s fresh blow-dry, moss green manicure, and her loud sense of calm. The two ladies swapped their details, lied some pleasantries, and returned to their choreographic jogs.

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For the rest of the afternoon, Sorcha repeated the name Jane Quilp in her head, hoping to dislodge a stubborn memory. Eventually, an image appeared—Jane’s mother in a wheelchair. Well, that explained why they hadn’t been friends. She tried to unearth another memory but found herself as a 14 year old sitting on the end of her childhood bed while her mother tried on dreamy dresses from the bags she’d hidden in her pink wardrobe.

It was a flash of a memory that made her body freeze for a second, but in that second every last smell, taste, colour and sound from came fully into her mind. The sounds of the nanny’s car door closing, the sense that her little brother is downstairs playing, the light from the afternoon sun bleaching her still-bright Barbie curtains, the smell of her mother’s ginny breath, the feelings, and her very frame of mind in that moment. And a second later, it was gone, but some of those memories hungover to be slowly unpacked.

“Any pretty idiot can snag a man,” her mother was purring. “It’s keeping him that takes brains. Do you have the brains Sorcha?”

She looked at her wedding finger. She did not. Her phone’s shudder snapped her out of the memory. A text from Jane’s assistant hoping to set up a viewing of the house. That did it.

Sorcha Googled her. A few names showed up, but the links led to LinkedIn, and she knew people could see who had viewed their profile there. She searched on Instagram and found her. Jane’s life unfurled before Sorcha like a tongue blowing a raspberry. Jane Quilp: sunsets in Dubai, Turkish eggs in Mauritius, manicured nails holding horse reins.

Not a single photo included a selfie, the only human faces were of elderly Afghani men and Cambodian street kids. Jane Quilp, jet-setting, girl-bossing, magazine-editing taste-maker. Jane bloody Quilp. 

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That weekend, three full hours after the agreed-upon time, Jane rat-a-tatted on Sorcha’s door. Sorcha found herself taking a deep breath before opening it.

“Traffic was just awful,” Jane cooed breezily.

“Oh, don’t worry. Come in, come in. Coffee?”

“Oh, I’m caffeine-free. Tea?”

“Of course, green?”

“I’m sure that’s fine. Maybe after?”

Jane traced the hall with her eyes as she shook off her coat in Sorcha’s direction. Sorcha quickly checked the label before hanging it, congratulating herself for guessing correctly. Jane danced her fingers on her phone and Sorcha breathlessly waited for a break in the tapping.

“Let me show you around. Where would you like me to start?” Sorcha asked finally, an anxious stranger pirouetting in her stomach.

“That would be great.” Jane replied absently.

The tour started in the vast and vastly unused kitchen. Clean lines and tasteful greys, then the muted dining room, elegant living room, and tonal bathroom. Jane politely oohed and aahed, but by the time Sorcha was finished showing her the bedrooms and bathrooms upstairs, they had weakened to faint hmms.

Sorcha started questioning her home’s lifeless palette. Shade names like Elephant’s Breath and Foggy Mist that she had been so enamoured with suddenly felt claustrophobic. She felt like shouting, “I’m happy. We’re happy. We just really like grey.” But none of those things were true.

“You have a beautiful home,” Jane stated somewhat apologetically. “This is going to sound so odd but, I have a thing about bathrooms. Water pressure, really. Long story. Would you mind if I turned your shower on?”

“Of course not. Go ahead,” Sorcha replied. In the back of her mind an unnamed feeling begged to be christened.

Jane turned the shower on full blast and stood there, baptizing her hand.

“It’s good, right? The water pressure?” Sorcha quizzed.

“Would you mind flushing the toilet?”, Jane asked.

Intimidated. That was the unfamiliar feeling. Sorcha felt intimidated.

“Of course,” she replied, and for some reason blushed when she pushed the toilet’s brass handle.

“Hmm…” Jane hummed.

With the water off and the toilet bashfully refilling, the pair went downstairs for tea. Sorcha dug out colorful mugs from the back of the cupboard.

“You have a beautiful home. And you’ve done a wonderful job restoring a lot of the features. The location is ideal. But I have to ask, it’s going for a steal. Is there something I should know?” Jane asked before sipping from her garish mug.

“Oh, no. We’re just looking for a quick sale to be honest. And we’re saving so much in realtors’ fees…”

“I’m sorry, Sorcha,” Jane broke in brusquely. “I just find that hard to believe.”

Shame flushed through Sorcha’s body. Standing at the precipice of restraint, resilience, and stoicism, she lunged instead into hysteria.

“He’s divorcing me Jane. He’s obsessed with some Tipples waitress. He’s throwing me away like a broken toy. He’s just erasing me from his life. From my life. He’s erasing my life, and I’m going to be broke and ugly, living in a shitty hole in the sticks. I can’t face putting it up publicly. Everyone will know. The humiliation of it when I’m at my lowest,” Sorcha exploded wetly.

“Oh, I’m so sorry, Sorcha. That’s so awful,” Jane said, but by the end of her sentence her phone was dancing with a call. “I’m so sorry, I have to get this.”

After a few stern words down the phone, Jane returned her attention to Sorcha.

“I love the house. Give me 24 hours, okay?”

Sorcha tapped tears away with her sleeve and breathed herself into a calm veneer. She walked Jane to the door and wondered what her life would have been like if she had aligned with her. As if reading her mind, Jane paused and looked directly at her. 

“I don’t think you remember me from college. That’s fine, I was mousey, and we ran in different circles. But I remember you. I never imagined a day where you, of all people, would ever call yourself ugly. You are as beautiful now as you were ten years ago,” Jane said firmly.

“Seven. Thank you. I needed to be reminded of that.”

Sorcha was embarrassed by the “humiliation of it” line that had escaped her mouth, but hoped her patheticness might have at least sold the house. 

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By Wednesday, Sorcha still hadn’t heard from Jane, so she fished out the contact details they had swapped on the running track and texted her directly. Jane was a busy woman, that wasn’t anything to resent. Her reply almost broke Sorcha: full of apologetic excuses about the September issue and a wayward photographer. She’d call over at the weekend.

By the following Tuesday, she finally arrived at Sorcha’s desperate door, vaguely apologetic.

“Oh, don’t worry, really. I’d just love it if you bought it, to be honest. I’d love to see it going to a friend,” Sorcha gushed frantically, her tight bun leaking hair.

“I’m so sorry to do this but the water pressure. I know, I’m neurotic. Would you mind if I gave it another test?”

“No, of course, it has to be right,” Sorcha replied, trying to remove the fizzing emotion from her voice.

“Thanks. I’m going to go back up to the master bathroom. Can you do me a favour and turn the dishwasher on and flush the toilet downstairs?” Jane asked less sheepishly than was appropriate.

And off they went, one in the master bathroom, imagining herself luxuriating in the shower, the other downstairs, doing chores.

When Jane returned, she was downbeat.

“I’m sorry. There is a pressure issue. Nothing major I’m sure, but I’m going to have someone look at it before I make an offer. I swear, I think I have PTSD from my last place. But, between the water, and the wood panelling I’d need to remove and the cornicing that needs to be restored properly, I just want to make sure this a manageable project,” Sorcha explained with firm remorse, gesturing at the entire house.

“Oh, what’s wrong with the wood…oh.” Jane didn’t cry. She just melted onto the kitchen chair.

“I’ll be in touch, I need to find a decent plumber to look it over,” Jane eased, and left with her face in her phone.

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Another week passed. The eggs were gone. Little hatchlings of what-could-have-beens just tipped into a biohazard bin. She didn’t even care about having children really. Don had wanted them. It felt like a wise move to go along, that was all. Sorcha decided she’d dodged a bullet, but it had grazed her. 

A plumber had left a note through her door saying he had tried to call, but she had been home the whole day.

Two weeks. Texts were met with apologetic postponements as Sorcha’s bank account dripped down, down, down. Her desperation for a private sale to avoid public humiliation, familial humiliation, was still greater than her need for money, but the disparity was decreasing. Her roots and eyes grew dark.

She took to rage-cleaning the house. It was her sole duty these days anyway. One morning, earlier than she should have been awake, she found herself inspecting a green press-on nail in her rubber-gloved hand. Moss green. She wondered why Jane would have deigned to wear press-ons. Hours after binning the tiny prosthetic, her mind still prodded at the thought. 

A few days later, Sorcha’s assistant messaged to reschedule that weekend’s firm viewing appointment. She had to fly to Portugal to salvage a disastrous photoshoot. She’d be home by the following Tuesday.

After three whole weeks, Sorcha had all but lost hope. She returned to Jane’s Instagram and began to find the total lack of photos, of selfies, of any inclusion of Jane jarring. She thought of the false nail.

Sorcha messaged Diarmuid, one of the few highschool friends she remained in touch with, to see if he remembered a Jane Quilp. His response emptied her of her last semblance of hope. 

“Juggly? Oh yeah, she was the absolute worst. Remember we spent the week leading up to the finals party pretty much obsessed with her not finding out. She was a drip before her mother died, but after, she was just unbearable.” Diarmuid said. As Sorcha dropped the phone the last words she made out were; “God that wheelchair thing at graduation…”

A flood of memories breached Sorcha’s finely curated hippocampus.

Juggly. Jane Ugly. Juggly walking across the yard, trying to make herself invisible. Juggly leaving the principal’s office, tears in her eyes. Juggly trying to ingretiate herself with them by editing the school newspaper and doing a cringey poetry reading at the christmas show. Juggly, pushing her mother’s empty wheelchair across the stage at graduation. Juggly, shouting “I know you’re in there, I can hear you laughing you fucking idiots” while she walked away from Sorcha’s family home, filled with tittering friends Jane never made.

She texted Jane, “I’m sorry. I’m really sorry”. Within an hour, she’d received her response. Her own words quoted back to her: “A humiliation when I was at my lowest.”

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Jane had walked out Sorcha’s door to the sound of her monster crying in her tedious grey mansion. And she laughed. She walked to the bus stop two streets away, boarded the sticky bus, and disembarked at her shitty neighbourhood.

She pushed open her heavy door and unpinned the map print-off of Sorcha’s running route from the wall of her tiny apartment. She tore down the pages of the interiors magazine in which Sorcha had proudly showed off her grey house and grey husband and grey life.

She retagged her coat and wrapped it in tissue paper with the receipt. She snapped her moss green press-on nails off and replaced them with long red ones.

She ripped the byline picture of the other Jane Quilp, the real magazine editor, that hung on her fridge door. And she put her Tipples uniform on, fixed her makeup, rubbed some body oil onto her bare legs, put the heart necklace Don had bought her, straightened the old photo of her teenage self with her dying mother, and left for the late shift. And she just kept laughing.