I Know Who You Are

by Alice Feeney

  I knock. Twice.

  There’s no answer, so I move to the door at the side of the shop, the one that leads to the flat. The paint has peeled and someone has sprayed the word LIAR on it in red. It always seemed so big when I was a little girl, but now I can see that it’s just a regular door. I knock again, but nobody answers.

  I bend down and push the rusted letter box open. “Hello?” I peer through the tiny rectangle, but am unable to see anything more than a huge pile of unopened mail and takeaway flyers. I bend my neck a little lower and can see the bottom of the stairs, covered in the old red carpet and new dark stains.

  “Hello?”

  There’s still no reply.

  Then I hear music start to play up in the flat.

  I take out my phone.

  I should call the police.

  I should call someone.

  But I don’t. Instead I put my mobile back in my bag, check that I still have the gun, and walk down the road and up the alley to the back of the shop.

  The back gate has gone, and a lot of the fencing has fallen down. Once again, everything seems so much smaller than I remembered. A battered old white van is parked outside on the tarmac, nothing of note visible through its grimy windows. The door to the little back room is slightly ajar, but I’m too scared of what might be behind it to go in.

  I knock on the peeling, splintered wood, but the chances of anyone hearing me seem fairly minimal, given the volume of the music now blaring inside. I recognize the song—“Fairytale of New York.” It seems strange to hear it when it isn’t Christmas. I take a step forward, the lyrics about stolen dreams already a little too loud inside my head.

  The little room where I used to sit and read my Story Teller magazines and listen to tapes is still here, but everything about it is different. There is no desk, it’s just a room full of clutter. I walk through to what was once the shop, but it is more of a dusty storage space now. I press the sticky light switch and see that the place still has fluorescent lighting. It flickers to life, so that some squares in the ceiling are faintly illuminated. They give off an eerie glow, revealing pieces of antique furniture leaning against each other for support, all of it covered in dust and dirt. I make my way through the wardrobes, dressers, and stacks of chairs and eventually navigate a path to the side door, leading through to the flat. It’s open, but the light switch here doesn’t work at all.

  “Hello, is anyone home?” I shout over the music, which sounds even louder than before. There’s no answer, but I can definitely see light at the top of the stairs. I start going up in the darkness, feeling my way, surprised to discover that after all this time the walls are still covered in cork tiles. Each step seems to creak and groan, and although the voice in my head is screaming at me to turn back, I can’t.

  I need to know the truth.

  When I’m halfway up the stairs, the music stops.

  I hear a door open, some footsteps, then nothing.

  The renewed silence swallows me, but I force my feet to keep going.

  Then I hear a door up above slam closed.

  When I reach the top, I see tealight candles flickering on the floor of the landing. They are the only source of light. I try a switch on the wall, but nothing happens, and I see the fixture on the ceiling has no lightbulb. The doors to the rooms are all closed, but everything looks the same. I follow the line of candles to what used to be the lounge, and my hand rests on the doorknob a little longer than necessary while I build up the courage to turn it.

  The room looks nothing like it used to, and I feel nothing but relief. The old electric fireplace has been ripped out, and the original open fire haphazardly restored, with exposed bricks and a slightly wonky mantelpiece. The sight of the flames and the smell of the logs burning brings a peculiar sense of comfort. Everything is a little dated and dirty, but it’s just a normal-looking room. Somebody’s lounge with chairs and a table. No skeletons so far. No closet. The candles continue their path along the floor, stopping at an ornate-looking coffee table in front of the roaring open fire. There are candles on the table, too, surrounding a large red book. It’s a photo album.

  I pick it up. It feels heavier than it looks, and when I open it, I see my own face staring out at me from an old newspaper interview. I turn the page and see another picture of me, another article. I keep turning the pages, and it appears as if every interview, profile piece, or review of my work that ever existed has been collected inside. A part of me knows that I should leave now, that this isn’t right or normal, but I just keep turning the pages, as though I’m in some kind of trance and can’t stop.

  But then I do.

  Stop.

  The music starts again. The same song as before. I know I need to get out of here, but the final page of the album doesn’t contain a newspaper clipping. It’s a letter.

  One that I remember writing almost twenty years ago.

  Dear Eamonn,

  You might not remember me, but I remember you.

  A long time ago, I was your sister, but I ran away and a woman called Maggie kidnapped me and took me to England, though I did not understand that at the time, or for several years afterwards.

  I lived with Maggie and a man called John in their flat above a betting shop in a place called Essex, very close to London.

  They told me that our daddy didn’t want me anymore and, later, they told me he had died, though I know now that that was not the case.

  I want you to know that I was not unhappy, living with them, but then they died too.

  The police believed that I was their child.

  There was a passport in the flat that belonged to a little girl called Aimee Sinclair. The police also found her birth certificate, which said she was the daughter of Maggie O’Neil and John Sinclair.

  The police thought that little girl was me, everybody did, and I let them.

  I’ve stayed with a lot of foster families, some good, some not so good, but I’m doing well now. I have a scholarship to a place called RADA and I’m going to be an actress.

  I’d really like it if you felt able to get in touch, meet up sometime. You looked after me when our Daddy couldn’t, and I remember that. I remember who you were then and I’d like to know who you are now.

  I’m sorry I waited so long to get in touch. I was scared to tell anyone the truth until I was eighteen, scared of getting in trouble. Even now, I’m only telling you. I remember you well enough to know you would never hurt me. I’m happy as Aimee. Nobody knows about my past and I’d prefer it to stay that way. I hope you understand.

  The girl you knew as Ciara no longer exists, but I’m still your sister. A name is just a name.

  Lots of love,

  Aimee

  xx

  The fire spits and burns, its shadows wildly dancing to the loud music. When I look up from reading the letter, I can see that the door has been closed, and I am no longer alone.

  “Hello, Ciara,” says the woman with the long dark hair and red lips.

  Seventy-one

  At first I see Maggie, my Maggie from the 1980s.

  It’s dark in the room, with only the light from the fire and the candles struggling to illuminate the face in front of me. She sings along to the song, a girlie Irish voice escaping her red lips, completely out of tune with the melody. As my eyes adjust to the light, I realize my tired mind is playing tricks on me again. It might look like Maggie, but it isn’t her.

  “Who are you?” I ask, struggling to make my voice heard above the music.

  She laughs, and it’s the smile that I recognize first. The person opposite me comes a step closer, then starts to remove what it now seems is a wig, before throwing it onto the flames. I hear it hiss and burn. The woman in front of me vanishes into the bewildered confusion that has taken control of my body and mind.

  “Does that help?” the man left standing in her shoes asks, in a deeper voice this time. “What kind of woman doesn’t recognize her own husband?”

  His face loo
ks different, but his eyes, although heavily made up, are still the same.

  “Ben?” I whisper.

  “Do try and keep up, my love. My name is not Ben Bailey. Just like your name isn’t Aimee. Do you need to read the letter again?”

  I stare down at the crinkled piece of paper in my hands.

  “Eamonn?”

  He smiles and claps his gloved hands. “Finally.”

  I try to process what is happening.

  My husband has been dressing up as a woman and stalking me.

  That same man, my husband, has just told me that he is my brother.

  I shiver, despite the heat of the fire. I feel physically sick at what I’m seeing and hearing, and automatically back away when he walks towards me. It looks like him, but at the same time, it doesn’t.

  “Did you like all those vintage postcards I sent you?” he asks.

  I don’t answer. Can’t speak.

  “‘I know who you are’ in my very best handwriting, over and over again. But you still didn’t know who I was! It’s funny when you think about it.”

  “Your face,” I say, unable to articulate anything more.

  “Oh, the nose? Do you like it? I asked for one just like Jack’s, showed them his picture, had my bags removed too … the things I do for you. Did the police show you what I looked like? I went straight there after the surgery, let them take a picture of my broken nose, black eyes, and swollen face as evidence of your abuse. Almost all healed now. Looks good, don’t you think? Just. Like. Jack.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you’re in love with him and I wanted you to love me! Just like I loved you!” he shouts.

  I take another step back.

  “Come on, dance with me.” He grabs my hands, as though wanting to embark on some demented waltz to the climax of the song. The music stops, but it’s as though it is still playing inside his head.

  I try to pull free from his grip and start to cry as he holds me closer, humming the tune. “Please, stop.”

  “Stop? Baby Girl, you and I are just getting started. Till death do us part, remember? Do the pictures make you feel at home?”

  I follow his stare and see the framed image of us on our wedding day, next to the black-and-white photo of a little boy.

  “Why do you have pictures of John as a child?”

  He looks down at me, fake surprise drawn on his clownlike face. “Finders keepers.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  His surprise ignites into anger. “I took all of his things because he helped her take you from me. Maggie O’Neil was already dead when you wrote me that letter, but he wasn’t, so I tracked him down. To be fair, he was dead not long after that.” He laughs and forces me into another embrace, as though we are ballroom dancers in some twisted horror film. “All those years I didn’t know where you went, I thought you were dead too. Did you ever wonder what happened to the real Aimee Sinclair? The girl you replaced?”

  He takes my head in his hands, forces me to look up at him.

  “I made John tell me everything before he died. It was an accident, apparently. I said I’d spare him if he told me the truth, but I couldn’t do that. An eye for a lie, and what’s mine is mine.” He twists my head and whispers in my ear, “They killed her, then buried her in Epping Forest. I made him show me where. The sick bastard had carved her initial into the tree they hid her under. They’re together now.”

  I push him away and run for the door.

  “I bought this humble abode for you shortly after I met John. Do you like what I’ve done with the place? Business has been booming, but times are tough, so I had to borrow ten grand from the joint account before I left. You didn’t mind, did you?”

  The door is locked.

  “I’ve even dressed up like her, the woman you left me for. Does it bring back happy memories? I thought you’d figured it out when you found my lipstick under our bed…”

  I bang on the door and call for help, already knowing it’s pointless; all the other shops are boarded up and empty.

  “You’re not going to run away again before I give you your belated birthday present, are you?” He picks up an elaborately decorated box.

  “Please, we can get you some help. Please let me go, please,” I say.

  “Don’t you want to open it?”

  “Please, Ben.”

  “I’m not Ben, I’m Eamonn! And you’re not Aimee. You always were so ungrateful, Ciara. So spoilt. Don’t worry, I’ll do it for you. After all, I used to do everything for you, but that still wasn’t enough. That’s why I had to teach you a lesson.”

  He starts to untie the ribbon on the box.

  “I like your hair better like that, by the way, natural. It suits you curly, you look more like…”

  I’m trapped in the corner of the room, my back pushed right up against the locked door as he leans forward and kisses me on the lips.

  “… more like you.”

  His lipstick has smudged all over his mouth, and I can taste it on my own. I want to wipe my face, but I’m too scared to move, too scared to say or do anything. He strokes my hair, tucking a strand behind my ear, then kneels down in front of me and starts to remove the wrapping paper from the box.

  “There was a girl, who had a curl”—he lifts the box out of the paper—“right in the middle of her forehead.”

  He opens the lid and I see a pair of red children’s shoes. The exact ones I had wanted for my sixth birthday, before I ran away. They were missing from the shop window that day when I first met Maggie. Now I understand why—he had bought them for me.

  “When she was good, she was very, very good.”

  He puts a hand inside each shoe and thrusts them in my face.

  “But when she was bad … she was a bitch.” He caresses my face with the red leather. “When our daddy found these shoes, he beat me so hard, I couldn’t walk for three days. We couldn’t afford to eat, but I got you these bloody shoes because I knew how badly you wanted them, and I loved you.”

  He throws the shoes on the floor and grabs me by the throat, then bangs my head against the wall in time with his words.

  “I. Loved. You.”

  He lets me go and I fall to the floor. I sit on my knees and can’t stop myself from sobbing.

  “I did so much to protect you from him. I took the verbal abuse, I took the beatings, I made sure it was me he came to visit in the night and kept him away from you. Everything was fine before you were born. We were happy. But you killed our mother and it changed him. You may as well have killed me too.” He starts to pace around the room, his large high heels clicking on the wooden floorboards. When his back is briefly turned, I try to reach inside my bag for the gun. “And what did you do to thank me? You ran away, left me with him and never looked back. Do you know what he did to me after you were gone?” He sees my hand inside the bag and comes storming over. He grabs the bag from me, reaches inside, and takes out the gun, shaking his head and smiling.

  “Just like I was saying … when she was bad—”

  He hits me hard across the face with the pistol and I’m knocked flat onto the floor, the taste of blood filling my mouth.

  “I should really shoot you with this, it’s what you deserve.” He throws the gun onto the sofa, picking up something else I can’t quite see. “But, seeing as we are family, I’m going to shoot you with something else instead. I got this little beauty at a house clearance in Notting Hill a few months ago. It’s amazing how useful it is to know the dead. Now, this is going to hurt, Baby Girl. That’s what you said she used to call you, isn’t it? The woman you called mother after killing your own? I think that’s the only true thing you told me about her.”

  I see a purple electric light, then feel incredible pain dance through my body. It’s unlike anything I have ever before experienced, as though I am being repeatedly stabbed with a thousand tiny knives. I’m gasping for air, I can’t seem to gulp enough down into my lungs. Before I close my eyes, all I see is Ma
ggie’s face, all I hear is her voice.

  “I love you, Baby Girl.”

  Seventy-two

  In my dream, I am flying.

  I am a bird with outstretched wings, soaring and swooping above the waves of a turquoise sea. I am dancing in a cloud-free sky, looking down at the world below and thinking how very small we all are.

  Consciousness stirs me a little, enough to permit the sound of a van door sliding closed to invade my dreams. The confusion it creates smashes the sky. Huge, jagged shards of it start to fall down all around me, as though the world were raining blue glass. I don’t fly fast enough, and some of the fragments tear into my wings, red blood staining my white feathers. I start to feel heavy, as though I can’t hold myself up. I decide to dive down into the sea, seeking safety beneath the waves, but they have grown rough, crashing onto the rocks below. The churning water has turned black, and as I continue to dive, getting closer and closer, white spray spits up in my face, blinding me from what lies beneath. I hit the surface hard, feeling the bones in my nose and cheeks shatter first. My body is bent and broken, and the impact has left me folded in on myself, so that I’m even smaller and more insignificant than I used to be.

  I open one eye, just enough to make out that the sea has turned into green carpet liner, and that I have been rolled inside. I stay awake long enough to know that I am broken.

  When I stir again, I can hear someone coming. I try to lift my birdlike self off the floor, but I can no longer move. I can’t even lift my head and it feels like I’ll never be able to fly again. I black out before I can see or feel any more.

  Consciousness revisits and is a little less patient with me this time. My head is throbbing, and it takes a while to remember what happened, and then to wonder where and when I am now.

  It’s dark. Completely pitch-black.

  My hands are tied behind my back and something is stuffed inside my mouth, so that I can’t close it or speak.

  My legs are bent at the knee, tucked up behind me, and when I try to move I realize that I am inside some kind of box. At first I think I am in a coffin, and the idea that I have been buried alive makes it hard to breathe. I start to cry. Tears and snot and drool from the sides of my open mouth stain my face in the darkness. I try to calm myself with logic; the box is too small to be a coffin, and for a brief moment I feel a tiny bit better, but the voice of fear is too loud inside my ears.