‘Dad, tell me.’ Lucy chases Jonny down in the kitchen because it’s Jonny who’s saying what she wants to hear. He disappears around the corner of the L-shaped open-plan living and kitchen space. She disappears too.
I hear a cupboard open and close. I walk towards the sofa not the kitchen.
‘Is she really evil?’ Conspiratorial excitement lowers Lucy’s voice. ‘People say there’s always one evil twin.’
When I reach the middle of the living room I can see around the corner into the kitchen. Jonny has a wine glass in his fingers and he is heading for the bottle of wine I had opened.
‘Come on,’ he says to Lucy. ‘Let’s sit down and discuss this.’ His eyes reach to me as he puts the glass on the black breakfast bar. ‘I don’t think you should worry.’ He unscrews the cap on the bottle as he talks. ‘And I don’t think you should make her go away.’ The wine makes a glugging sound as he pours it.
After he’s filled his glass, Lucy holds out her glass for a top up, then he refills the glass with my red lipstick on the rim.
‘If she’s moved here,’ he continues as he puts the bottle down and picks up his and my glass, ‘I assume she really wants a reunion. It may be time to forgive and forget.’ He looks at me as he brings my glass over, holding it out like a peace offering.
The glass Susan used is left on the black slate. It hits me in the face like a punch. She’s been here, in my house. Talking to Lucy and drinking wine as if nothing happened in the past. But it did. There is a period I really don’t remember but the rest I have fought hard to forget.
‘No.’ I accept the glass but not his desire for peace. The room sways, reeling around like a Waltzer carriage at the fair.
Jonny’s hand catches my elbow. ‘Are you okay?’
‘No. I need to sit down; my legs are hollow. But I will be fine if she never comes here again.’ Yesterday she could have been anywhere. She could have been dead …
Jonny keeps hold of my elbow as I turn to the sofa. My arm slips out of his hold when I sit down, cupping the bowl of the wine glass in both hands.
Jonny stays on his feet, looking down at me. Referee, judge, or jury? ‘I know this is strange, Sarah, but it isn’t necessarily bad. I don’t think you should shut her out. Getting to know her again might help you to get over the past.’
I feel as if I’m being lectured to. But he saw the shipwreck I was then. He picked that young woman up and stood her back on her feet. He hears my nightmares, when the memories leak and creep out from the broken part of my mind.
‘What happened in the past?’ Lucy sits down on the sofa, twisting sideward, her thigh, knee and calf sliding up onto the leather, so she can watch me. She drinks a mouthful of wine.
Memories escape. I need thick metal safety-deposit boxes with complex locks that can’t be broken to hide all the memories in. I need a panic room. I don’t want to remember.
Jonny sits on the arm of the sofa next to me and his hand pulls one of my hands away from the glass. His hazel eyes look right into mine with a look that has always hypnotized me. ‘It’s okay. Breathe slowly. Whatever happens, I am here. It’s okay. But I think this could be good for you. I think letting go of the past would be good for you.’
A glass clinks down onto the glass top of the coffee table. ‘You keep talking about it but you won’t tell me what it is,’ Lucy complains, her confusion disfiguring her forehead, defacing her beauty with cruel lines that will become wrinkles when she is older. ‘What happened in the past?’ she presses again.
‘I can’t.’ I drink some of the wine, wanting the alcohol content in my blood to go all the way up to 14% to match the wine so it will calm my nerves.
‘Just accept that Mum doesn’t want to talk about the past,’ Jonny says, his fingers tightening around my hand. ‘What we need to do is think about the future.’ He taps the back of my hand on his thigh, then rubs my hand back and forth slowly, twice, stroking my hand on the denim of his jeans. ‘Are you going to give her a chance to be forgiven? Or not?’
The rim of the glass presses against my lower lip for a moment, before I move it away. ‘I don’t think I can.’ I don’t want to. My head shakes back and forth. ‘No.’
‘She’s never done anything to me,’ Lucy rules, with eyes that are as assertive as Jonny’s. ‘If I want to talk to her I don’t need your permission. And if you won’t tell me why you won’t talk to her, I don’t have any reason not to talk to her. Do I?’
‘The fact that you’re my daughter should be reason enough. You should be loyal to me whether you know why or not.’
Jonny’s hand lets mine slip free. ‘I’m not going to question your decision. This has taken me by surprise too. But I keep thinking about how many years have passed, and Lucy is right, she doesn’t need to be caught up in what’s become history. Let her do what she wants to do.’
‘And if your dad showed up here and apologised for beating the life out of you when you were a child, would you let her talk to him?’ My words charge at him, an angry bull storming through a china shop.
His glass lifts and he drinks a large mouthful; he swallows and it pulls on his Adam’s apple.
His expression curls the corners of his lips down when the glass moves away, as if he’s eaten sour lemons. ‘I don’t know what I’d do. But I don’t think I would ignore him straight away,’ his voice hisses at me like a snake. ‘I would want an apology. I would want to see regret, and then I would want him to plead for forgiveness.’ He stands up and turns, taking his phone out of his back pocket.
Chapter 8
‘Thanks.’ I lean over and place the cash, the fare rounded up to the nearest pound, into the taxi driver’s open palm that reaches between the front seats. ‘Keep the change.’ My phone vibrates in my coat pocket as I sit back and turn to get out of the car.
I push the door shut and take my phone out of my pocket as I walk along the pavement to reach the path to the flats.
‘Hello, love,’ a man’s voice calls. ‘Have you settled yourself in?’
It’s the white van man who lives in Flat 24. Alan. He had seen me carrying in my one box of belongings and offered to help as if I had half a dozen boxes to move. I declined his help, but it had taken ten minutes to persuade him to leave me alone.
He slides the side door of his white van shut with a metallic sounding slam then walks towards me, filling up the pavement and blocking my way into the flats unless I walk around him and cross the grass. But he’ll think it’s strange if I try to avoid him so determinedly and I don’t want to seem odd. As he comes closer my hackles rise, even though I know his interest is innocent. At six foot and a few inches more, with shoulders and biceps I imagine have been worked hard in a gym, he is intimidating.
‘Hello, yes, all settled in,’ I answer, walking towards him with an intent that says I want to get home, hoping he will move. I have my phone in my hand; I could pretend someone has rung me.
‘Well, if you need someone to show you around town, I’m your man.’
‘Thanks, but I have family here.’
‘Oh. Who?’ He turns, moving out of my way, and then walks beside me as I carry on towards the door into the flats.
‘My sister.’
‘Nice. She a local? Did you grow up around here? I don’t remember you from school. Will I know her?’
‘No.’ I turn onto the path that leads up to the front door of the flats. He stays with me, matching me step for step. ‘We didn’t grow up here. And if you know her, you’d know it because we’re identical twins.’
‘Then I haven’t seen her around. I’d remember her.’
‘She doesn’t live in Keswick.’
‘Oh.’
‘They live near Hawkshead.’
‘Not far then.’
‘No.’
‘Did you come up here to move closer to her?’
‘Yes.’
‘That’s nice. All my family live here. I’m a born and bred Cumbrian.’
As we reach the door into the flats, his hand lifts and his forefinger presses keys on the number pad to let us in. The lock clicks as it releases, and he pushes the door wide, holding it open for me in a gesture of kindness that I am unused to.
‘Thanks,’ I say as I walk in ahead of him.
‘You’re welcome, love.’ He passes me, moving ahead of me a little to open the door into the stairwell too.
‘Thanks,’ I say it again.
‘If she lives out of town,’ he says, returning the conversation to Sarah as we climb the stairs side by side. ‘She might not know about the best places to find some nightlife in Keswick, away from the tourists. So there’s still a good reason for you to take me up on the offer of a drink.’
I glance sideways at him.
‘It can be on me, my treat,’ he adds.
‘Thank you, but no.’ I am never going to take him up on the offer of a drink.
We reach the short landing of the first floor where the stairs turn back on themselves to progress up again. ‘Goodnight,’ I say. My flat is on this floor. His flat is on the floor above.
I put my hand on the door handle to push the heavy fire-door open before he can take command of it.
‘You can’t knock a man for trying, love,’ he says as I open the door.
It depends how forcefully they try. But he hasn’t been rude or pushy. I smile in answer, then slip through the door to escape.
I look back to double check he isn’t following as the door slowly shuts, controlled by the mechanism above it that prevents it from slamming. He is not there.
I glance down at my phone as I take my keys out of my pocket and walk to my front door.
The text is from a number I don’t know.
Hi Susan, it was good to see you.
It begins. I touch my phone, using my thumbprint to unlock it and read on.
We need to talk. I have to tell you something. It’s important. Can I meet you tomorrow some time? Don’t say anything to Sarah or Lucy. It would only upset things. I can pick you up if you like. We can go for a drink or a walk. Whatever suits you. Let me know. Jonny.
A smile parts my lips as I slip the key into the door’s lock.
When I’m inside and the door is closed, I reply, the phone’s screen glowing in the dark room.
Okay. Meet me at 10.30 in the lakeside area? I’ll wait outside the theatre.
I touch the arrow to send the message to him.
I lean back against the door, staring at the phone’s screen, hoping he’ll reply immediately.
Nothing.
The phone’s screen turns black as the phone shuts itself off.
Oh well, he’s messaged. That’s something to hold on to, and tomorrow I will see him alone. I throw the phone on my bed, turn the light on, and take off my coat.
The phone vibrates. My heartbeat leaps into a quicker pace as I pick it up, looking at the screen.
Okay.
That’s all his reply says. I picture him in her company, answering quickly and shoving his phone back into a pocket or putting it down, acting as if no text was sent. It makes me smile again, because I walked back into their lives today and I already have a secret to keep with Jonny. I don’t know what he’ll say tomorrow, but sorry would be a good start.
***
The day is warmer than I expected it to be. So warm that I had to take off my coat, but actually it is handy to have it in front of me to hold in my arms like a defensive shield. I don’t have any more reason to trust Jonny than I have to trust Sarah, but I want to see him. I came all this way to see him, not her.
Tourists pass me, walking past the theatre towards the lake. A lot of them have dogs with them, and a lot of them are like me, over-dressed in raincoats, and some are in their waterproof trousers too. It was meant to rain but the black clouds have blown over and gorgeous spring sunshine reaches through the vivid green leaves of the trees that line the street, forming a picturesque avenue. The scene is so beautiful it’s inspired someone on the other side of the street to stop and sketch it. The man’s pad is leaning on the fence as he works with quick pencil strokes, glancing up and down.
I look towards the carpark. I expect Jonny to park there and walk to the theatre. I look at my phone again; he is now ten minutes late and he hasn’t messaged. At what point do I decide he is not going to make me wait any longer and walk away?
‘Hello.’ The call comes from a way away and it could be directed at anyone, but even from a distance I remember his voice.
I lift my hand and wave at the tall figure striding towards me, a figure that pulls at my heart with memories I should have forgotten a long time ago. I walk towards him slowly. My heart and head want me to run. They expect a welcoming hug when I reach him. But he is my sister’s husband now. My hands stay firmly pressed into my coat pockets.
His speedy walk suddenly halts into an awkward standstill when we meet in the paved area beside the theatre. There is an awkward period of silence too that is probably only a second but feels longer. ‘Thank you for agreeing to meet.’ After he has spoken, his hands lift and hold my shoulders as he leans in, his lips pursing. I turn my head. He was angling for my cheek, but I make sure his kiss lands firmly on my lips.
‘Shall we walk down to the lake?’ I say, stepping back. I need to be in motion, to use up the adrenalin sprinting in my blood.
‘Yes.’ His hands slide into the front pockets of his jeans as we start walking. He is just wearing black jeans and a burgundy jumper; he had come in the car and had known what the weather was like. ‘Sorry to be so cloak and dagger.’
I glance at him. In profile he is exactly the same; the wrinkles of fifty years of life don’t show. ‘What is it you want to tell me, and why can’t I tell Sarah and Lucy?’ There’s no point in letting him dress this up. I would much rather whatever he wants to say is straight out in the open.
‘I’m sorry,’ he begins as he walks with a slow pace, looking at me. ‘We didn’t just leave you, if you think that. We looked for you.’
Really? My heart jumps into a stronger pulse. But even if that’s true, they had not come back.
‘I’m glad you look well. I’ve worried about you—’
‘It’s been thirty years. You can’t have worried that much. You would have found me.’
He looks ahead and releases a long breath. ‘I admit I stopped looking a while after we moved here. I was busy with the café.’
Excuses. Excuses. ‘Is that what you brought me here to tell me? That you’re sorry you left me behind. Does Sarah not know that, or would she hate you to say it?’
‘No.’ His eyes are back on me. ‘Sarah doesn’t remember anything about that time, Susan. That’s what I need to talk to you about. She had a breakdown. She was badly beaten and when she came off the drugs she just emotionally collapsed. Her mind couldn’t cope.’
And you think mine did?
‘She wiped the years you spent in London out of her mind and she’s never mentioned them since. She doesn’t remember things, Susan, and I don’t want her to. That’s why we couldn’t find you, because she didn’t remember where you were living.’
We reach the area of the path that turns at the edge of the lake, where the wooden piers reach out into the water for the ferries to dock alongside. There are old fashioned rowing boats drawn up on the gravel beach at the bottom of a tall wall and huts cluster around the space above the lakeside, selling postcards, gifts, tickets for the ferry, grain for the ducks, and ice creams.
‘Didn’t want to remember, you mean.’
‘No. Honestly, Susan, she remembers nothing about that time, and I want it to remain erased. She’s seen a few different psychiatrists – when we first moved up, and more when we had Lucy. She’s learned to cope with what happened in your childhood, but she’s never recalled what happened in London, and she was upset yesterday because you became a part of the monsters in her head.’
He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know what happened in London. If she’s never told him then he can’t know. The anger I have been dealing with for years, the anger the psychiatrists have been working on with me for years, flares up in a red mist that hovers. But I have learned to control how I react. ‘So you dragged me out here to meet you to tell me you’re sorry you left me there, but that I should deal with my own memories because you want to protect Sarah? I’m not a monster, Jonny. I’m her sister.’ My voice is measured, the words slow and precise, not shouted, spoken.
‘How bad was it? When did you get away? How did you get away? I called the police at the time, but I had hardly any details from Susan. You were in Vauxhall, that’s all I knew.’
‘Thanks for caring.’
‘We did care, Susan. But we couldn’t do anything more than we did. Do you want a cup of coffee or tea? We can get a takeaway and sit down on one of the seats along there?’
‘Why?’ I don’t stop walking. I lead us on past the hut selling drinks and snacks.
‘Because I thought having told you that, you might want to tell your story to me. I do want to know. Perhaps I can help Sarah see things from your si—’
‘No.’ I stop walking, turn to him, and look into his hazel eyes. They are a gold colour in the sunlight reaching through the trees. When his eyes catch the light, it’s just the light-brown, straw-like colours I see. ‘No thank you, Jonny. I don’t talk about it either.’ I turn my back on him and walk away.
I know now that their life is all fake. It’s a farce that they have created here. Built on lies and pretence.
I glance back. He isn’t following. He’s turned to queue at the café hut. I don’t turn back; I carry on and break into a run. I will run for now. But in reality, he has given me stones to throw. I am not going to run for long. I will regroup, think about what it means, and then I will plan.
Chapter 9
1982
They won’t let me see Sarah.
A black female police officer called Julie has herded me out of the house and into the backseat of her police car, as if I’m a lost lamb not a wolf cub. She’s sitting with me so I can’t escape.
I’m cold. Even though the rain has stopped and it’s not that cold outside she has wrapped me up like a human parcel in a crinkling silver sheet.
‘I want to see Sarah.’ I keep telling her.
‘Let’s let the doctors and nurses do their job first, sweetheart.’
Three black-clad policemen push Uncle Harry along the path from the house. All he’s wearing are his faded jeans. He doesn’t even have shoes on. His hands are trapped in handcuffs behind his back and they push his head down as they reach the police car in front of us, then shove him into the back of the car so hard I see him fall.
One of the policemen sits in the back with him. The other two go to the front of the car, open the doors, and get in.
Sarah isn’t out of the house yet. The ambulance is parked in front of that police car.
I look back at the open door of our house. It’s just the ambulance people, Mum, and Sarah in there now. The police had chased all our neighbours out.
The police car in front flashes an indicator light, then pulls out and drives off, taking Uncle Harry away.
A man knocks on the window beside Julie. He holds up a bright-red mug as if he’s toasting the policewoman.
Julie winds down the window a little. ‘Yes?’
‘I brought her some hot chocolate. I saw her shaking. Poor kid.’ He lifts the cup in a toast again.
Any other, no, every other day, these people who have come out to stare close their curtains so they don’t have to see us sitting on the kerb until it’s dark, or so we can’t see into their houses and interrupt their lives.
Julie winds the window down further. ‘Thank you. That’s kind of you.’ She holds out a hand to take the mug by its handle then passes the mug to me.
My hands squeeze around the warm china as I take it. It smells sweet not just chocolatey.
Julie winds the window up.
The man in the green uniform comes out of the house, the ambulance man. He has a bag. He puts it down on the grass then turns back and lifts a set of wheels over the doorstep. It’s the wheels of the wheelchair that the woman had taken inside about ten minutes ago. The ambulance woman in a green uniform is holding the wheelchair’s handles.
‘Is that Sarah?’ I ask Julie. There is a wrapped mummy-like figure in the chair in a bundle of white blankets. It must be Sarah but I can’t see her face.
The man picks up his bag and walks on ahead to the ambulance.
‘Sarah!’ I shout, trying to make her hear me through the closed windows. She isn’t moving. ‘Is she dead?’ I ask Julie. I don’t wait for a reply, I discard the mug of chocolate on the floor, knocking it over and filling the car with the sweet, sickly smell of hot chocolate and reach for the door handle, pulling the latch to let myself out. It won’t open. ‘Sarah! Sarah! Mum!’
Mum is there. She is locking the front door.
‘I want to get out.’ I turn and look at Julie.
‘Jus—’
‘Sarah!’ Julie isn’t going to let me out. I tug at the door handle. It bruises my hand.
If Sarah is dead, I would know it. Wouldn’t I? ‘Sarah!’ She can’t hear me.
‘She’ll be all right.’ Julie’s hand is on mine, squeezing my fingers and trying to stop me pulling the door latch. Her voice is gentle but insistent. ‘Sarah needs to go to hospital and I’m going to find somewhere for you to stay until she’s well. It won’t be for long.’ Julie’s voice is like the one people use when they pet a puppy. There, there. Pat, pat.
I’m not a puppy. ‘I want to see Sarah.’ I keep pulling at the handle as if it will work with more effort. They steer Sarah’s wheelchair up a ramp into the ambulance a few metres in front.
Mum climbs the steps beside the ramp and sits in the ambulance.
‘I want to go too.’ I look at Julie. ‘Why can’t I go?’
‘Sarah needs some special care in hospital. She’ll be fine, but she needs to see the doctors and you need to go somewhere where you can change into some dry clothes and be warm and safe.’
‘But I want to stay with Sarah!’ I lash out, knocking Julie’s hand away. ‘I want to see Sarah!’ I don’t want to be separated. ‘She’ll want me.’
The driver’s door of the police car opens. ‘What’s going on in here?’
I stretch a leg out to climb through the gap between the seats. But the policeman’s hand comes out like the lollypop lady’s and he stops me like she stops the traffic.
‘Calm down, Susan. Your mother told me to tell you that she’ll be in touch with you as soon as she can, and she’ll let you know when your sister is on the mend. But for now the best thing you can do for your sister and your mother is behave and do as you’re told so you’re not a worry to them.’ He nods at me at the end of his sentence as the ambulance’s doors are closed.
They’ve left me. Mum has left me.
The ambulance people walk around to their cab.
The spilt chocolate is sticky and hot on my feet.
The policeman drops into the front seat. He pulls his seatbelt across and clicks it into place. Julie reaches across me to pull a seatbelt around me as the ambulance drives away. My eyes follow it.
There’s no point fighting anymore. I can’t get to Sarah. I have to wait. To wait and hope they will take me to her.
Chapter 10
The room is strange and dark but the duvet is warm and the mattress and pillow are soft. The bed smells clean, of sweet fruit and flowers. It smells a little like the tinned peaches that the school dinner ladies serve for dessert sometimes.
I like the smell.
I want to share the smell with Sarah. I try to share it through my thoughts, but I don’t know if my thoughts reach her. I can’t hear her thoughts. I hope it’s because she’s asleep.
I want to be at the hospital. I told the police I would behave and sit quietly with her. I’d escape from the house and go by myself if I knew where the hospital is. If I knew where I am too. I’m in foster care in someone else’s home but I have no idea where this house is. I have my own room; no one would see me escape but I don’t know where to go. I’m lying here instead, trying to make my thoughts reach her.
