Ellipsis

by Nikki Dudley

  “Alice, I’m so sorry”, he whispers, bowing his head. “We’ve really hurt you by keeping this secret. I mean… just look how your body reacted”. Michael’s eyes are glistening in the semi-darkness of the room. “You just flopped on the floor and…” he breathes in shakily, “and I was so scared. I feel so responsible”. He grabs hold of my hands and squeezes them between his. “I threw Doctor Rosey out by the way”, he adds and I can’t help smiling slightly. Michael lifts his lips to one side, knowing I would appreciate this.

  “I understand why you lied”, I confess; pushing myself upwards so I can sit against the headboard. Michael waits for me to continue. “It’s just that I think he influenced me and it’s affecting me… now”. Michael brings his eyebrows together in a slanted V at my words.

  “How has he influenced you now?” Michael asks. This is my cue, the moment I could reveal my nasty deed to him; the moment I tell him I am a murderer. Yet, I can’t bear to have him let go of my hands in shock, or have him look at me with the same confusion as he did a few days ago.

  “I saw an article in the paper, saying he had died”, I venture, not sure where I am leading myself.

  “I saw that too”. Michael nods. “I hoped you wouldn’t or if you did, you wouldn’t remember”.

  “I didn’t remember that I knew him”, I say, my chest seemingly filling up with air that is blocking movement and function. Yet, here it is: another lie. “But I felt curious for some reason. So I ended up going to his house”.

  “What?” Michael jolts in his chair.

  “I know, it’s crazy but I just felt some unconscious need to go there”, I pause, “and now I know why I found myself drawn there”. Drawn to him, I add to myself. Finding out about me and Daniel being together at the hospital probably did explain my fascination with him, the decision to follow him, perhaps even the decision to kill him. He’d been leading me for months before the push and he wanted me to know with those horrible words: right on time.

  “I just needed to look at the house, for reasons I couldn’t place. But as I stood there looking at it, one of his family came out and started talking to me…”

  “You left, didn’t you?” Michael interjects hopefully.

  “No Michael, I stayed. We talked and he invited me in”.

  “It was that Thom guy, wasn’t it?” Michael asks, running his fingers over his still swollen nose. I nod faintly, anticipating his anger or disappointment. Yet, Michael lowers his head and shows me his bald patch, mumbling, “If I’d been there for you, maybe you wouldn’t have gone to him”.

  “I don’t know. I clearly felt some link to Daniel”.

  “Does he know you knew Daniel? And how are they related?”

  “They’re cousins. And no”, I emphasise with my eyes, “he doesn’t know I knew Daniel”. I grimace appropriately.

  “You’re not going to tell him?” Michael places his hand on my arm.

  “I don’t want to and I’m not sure it matters”.

  “Is he a decent person, Ali?” Michael continues, calling me by a name he hasn’t used since before you died. I relish its familiarity for a few seconds and give my brother a warm smile.

  “He’s not a bad person, Michael. I know he hurt you but he just thought he was protecting me”. I lift my hand up and brush his cheek, trying to dull the red-grey stain that has blossomed there.

  “And you two… are an item?” He winces.

  “No”, I say, convinced this is what he wants to hear, “we’re just friends”. As I use one of the clichés people always use, just friends, I wonder what Thom and I actually are. Yes, we kissed the other day, but does it mean anything? I’ve supported him for a few weeks, he’d invited me to stay when he thought I had nowhere to sleep, but isn’t that merely friendship? Only that one violent kiss hints at anything more and now after all the lies, what does he think of me now?

  “I think you should be careful with him, Alice”. Michael grapples with my eye contact in order to stress his point. “I’ve only met him twice but he seems unsteady… I think he’s capable of something…” Michael scrunches his mouth up and looks aside, imagining what Thom is ‘capable’ of while staring at the wallpaper. I sit up and take his hand.

  “What might he be capable of?” I ask, all the time thinking of what Michael is unaware of. He doesn’t know his own sister is capable of murder. He doesn’t know his sister is also a liar, a manipulator, still fascinated with the colour red. The whole time the two of us have been talking, I have been imagining his nose gushing with blood again and thinking of the scarf soaking it all into its body, a parasite sucking on my brother’s lifeblood.

  “I wish I could tell you. I mean; we’ve already seen he can hurt people. I just don’t know…” Michael stares at the wallpaper again and finishes, “just how far he could go”. Michael is unconsciously running his fingers over his bruises again. I think whenever he sees Thom, even weeks from now; he will stroke the areas on his face where Thom struck him.

  “He’s a good person”, I say, shaking my head.

  “Good people can still do bad things”. He frowns and suddenly pulls me towards him. He hugs me tight and continues to hold me for several minutes, his uneven breath humidifying my neck.

  As I am in my brother’s arms, I think about good people and bad people, good actions and bad actions. I consider how they are all interchangeable and question which way the scales tip for me: am I a bad person who commits bad actions? Or am I a good person who commits bad actions?

  40 Alice

  Thom doesn’t remember what happens for a certain amount of time after he hears that name again. It seems to crack against his head and make him lose consciousness, although he somehow manages to still walk and breathe. He next finds himself back at the bedsit, standing in the doorway. The clock above the kitchen sink says 1:27pm.

  He doesn’t remember how he’d slumped against the wall at the hospital, or how the receptionist shook him, or how he’d sworn and muttered incoherently about things even he couldn’t have made sense of, how he’d pushed the woman off him and sped out of the door into the street, into the city, into more unknown things and more unknown people. Even the people he thought he knew have become false.

  Standing in the doorway of the bedsit, the room seems to pulsate and all the objects in it begin to contort. Thom rubs his eyes and shakes his head. Yet the phenomenon continues and he slowly lowers himself onto the bed, pressing against the mattress to steady himself. Thom fears he is about to vomit when a voice distracts him.

  “Thom”. A happy tone but tight. A familiar voice but distant.

  “It’s you”, he says, not using either of her names. He doesn’t know which one fits her anymore. Like the objects, the names warp at the thought of attaching to her.

  She smiles and takes a seat beside him. She doesn’t move to touch him. Instead, she stares at his still purple and grey knuckles. He wonders how long this will be the case and, at the same time, wonders how much he cares. He is in the middle of a field with space stretching in every direction with nothing else in even the farthest sight. Which direction should he choose? Which might lead him to somewhere familiar that won’t implode?

  “How are you, Thom?” She takes a strained breath, clutching onto her left arm with her other hand.

  “I don’t know what to call you anymore”, Thom says, not answering on purpose. She meets his gaze, trying to remind him of the exact colour of her metallic blue eyes.

  “Call me Sarah…” she says and adds hopefully, “if you can”.

  “If Sarah’s what you want”. Thom shrugs. She nods happily, reaching across and clutching his fist in her hand. “How is Michael?”

  “He’s okay, still a bit bruised”.

  “You shouldn’t have lied to me”. Thom’s face crumples. He snatches his hand out of hers and massages it. He doesn’t want her poison seeping through his skin. All he can think about, as he looks at her, is her kissing Daniel. Had she enjoyed it? Which one did she prefer? How
can she have kissed them both?

  “I’m so sorry”, she says quietly. As Thom listens to her words, he realises how human she sounds. When he first met her outside Aunty Val’s house, she spoke in a methodical way, every word considered. Now, she seems to speak more impulsively; perhaps more honestly. After all, what is there to consider when you’re telling the truth?

  “You understand why I did it, don’t you? I’m ill Thom, and felt completely ashamed and afraid that you would push me away if you knew”. Sarah bows her head knowingly. “I didn’t realise my lies were hurting people…”

  “You told me you had a different name, a different history, you told me your brother raped you. You didn’t think that would hurt anyone?” Thom enunciates each word, his saliva thick with distaste.

  “I didn’t think you would hurt him”. She kneads her forehead.

  “I was just trying to defend you”, Thom snarls.

  “Let’s not go over all this again. It’s not helping either of us”, Sarah says, turning to face him and lifting her head up with effort. “I came to tell you about everything”.

  “Everything as in...?” Thom leans towards her expectantly.

  “Why I was in the hospital”, she tells him solemnly. He wonders if she will include the part where she met Daniel and then somehow ended up living with his family after his death. Doubtful, he decides.

  “Okay. I’m listening”. Thom pushes himself back and leans against the wall. Sarah copies him, smiling at him gently as she settles. It feels like they are two children sharing secrets. Thom is tempted then to reach towards her and press his hand over hers that is squashed against the bed.

  “Right, well… I guess I should start… I guess… the start is…” Sarah trails off. Thom is mesmerised by her fumbling. When he’d found out she had been lying to him and he’d found out about her knowing Daniel, he felt sure he would only hate her. Yet as he watches her lips struggling to form words, he feels an explosion of warmth rising inside. This unexplained warmth is what troubles him, not the hate.

  “I was raped”, she finally begins, holding her breath, as though she is the one who has been told something difficult by him. He merely waits for her to continue. “I didn’t lie about that, Thom; I promise you on my life”. She meets his eyes, water flooding them, as she pulls desperately at his sleeve. He nods gently and she lets go of his clothes. “It ruined everything. I dropped out of uni, I couldn’t go out, I was afraid of men… I couldn’t trust people”. She shakes her head, still unable to comprehend all these facts even now.

  “Is that when you ended up in the hospital?” Thom asks, trying to rescue her. She seems to be sinking into the mattress, her past suspended over her like a noose.

  “No”, she sighs. “I wish”. She chuckles sadly. “My Mum… she really helped me get through it, or she did until…” Sarah rolls her eyes upwards, wishing she could shoot through the ceiling, away from him, away from the truth, “she died”, she exhales quietly.

  “She died”, Thom repeats. He can’t tell if he is unconvinced. If someone can lie about rape, can they lie about death? Yet Thom can’t imagine she would lie to him about this. It seems too large a lie to slide out of her small delicate mouth.

  “I came home one day and she was lying there, her slippers were… she was cold, and there was blood and she didn’t move…” Sarah looks like she is lost in the middle of a supermarket, beginning to cry loudly and crush her curls until Thom thinks they will flatten permanently. Perhaps to stop her from losing her curls, he gathers her up and presses her against him.

  Thom cradles her but, at the same time, has an urge to crack her neck. Just one sharp pull like the snap of a Christmas cracker…

  Her words are now tiny injections stabbing at him through a waterfall of tears. “Her skin... so pale... a line of blood... twisted legs and bruises and... she didn’t move...” Thom feels her words have physically penetrated him and he checks his arms for puncture wounds. He worries that when she moves away from him again; she will uncover holes she has made in his chest and allow the blood to ooze out like uncontrollable foam blistering from a champagne bottle.

  She pushes back from him. Her eyes are swollen and bloodshot, her eyelashes clumped together in a moist huddle, her hair glued to the sides of her face as though she has dipped her face in a sink full of water. Thom feels nauseated by the display of raw emotion. Much like Aunty Val, he feels like he is being forced to hold Sarah up.

  “So that’s when you ended up in the hospital?” Thom asks again but is greeted by Sarah’s shaking head.

  “I didn’t understand, Thom”. She squashes her lips together, trying to stop them from trembling further. “I think I’ve only just fully accepted it”.

  “What do you mean?” Thom snaps, slightly impatiently.

  “I stayed in the house with her, for weeks… I still didn’t know when they took me to the hospital and even months after… I don’t think I knew properly until recently”.

  “That your mum had died?” Thom clarifies. Sarah closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths. Her eye twitches gently, her muscles stubborn and wavering at the same time.

  “Yes, she’s dead”, she nods weakly.

  “Wait, you kept her in the house… when she was dead?”

  “Yes”, Sarah admits tight-lipped. “I told you… I was ill”.

  “That’s terrible. That’s so sad”, Thom spurts breathlessly.

  “I was already distraught and I guess her dying just shoved me over the edge”. Sarah holds her hands out in front of her and stares at them intently. Thom stares at them too, watching the veins swell and throb, watching the skin swirling as if he is looking at them through a kaleidoscope.

  “Do you feel better now?” Thom inquires hopefully. Sarah faces him, her eyebrows creasing together in the middle of her head, thinking.

  “I’m sorry Thom but I don’t know yet”, she smiles meekly. Thom’s posture drops in response.

  “You still feel like you’re ill?”

  “I’ve only just realised properly so yes, I’m still ill, whatever that means…” she trails off, still considering this. Thom puts his hand on her knee, his hand that continues to ache; his hand that looks like someone has drawn lines on it with a red biro.

  “So that’s everything? Everything you lied about?” Thom verifies, pressing down on her knee, staring into her eyes. She doesn’t twitch, blink or look away.

  “That’s everything”, she says. All Thom’s ribs seem to crumble apart in one rapid moment. All the air in his chest sucks downwards, to where he can’t tell, but all he is concerned with is the fact that he can’t feel his own heart.

  “Everything, huh?” Thom echoes, taking his hand off her knee and burying it in the duvet. He crushes the duvet with both his hands to stop himself from crushing her neck between his fingers.

  “Thom I think I should go now. We’ve said enough for today”. Sarah stands up. Thom jumps up after her and feels his muscles locking, except for his facial muscles that keep rolling into different expressions.

  “There’s nothing else Sarah?” Thom persists, almost desperately. His tone is strained. He is a man asking for the truth, for the piece of information that is the hook to pluck him from the angry sea he has been battling in for weeks.

  “No Thom”, Sarah says firmly. She bends her head sideways, with an expression of confusion, a trace of anxiety? She pushes her shoulders back as he stares at her, a hard stare that hammers into her.

  “You’re really sure?” Thom offers her a last chance.

  “Nothing else”, she reiterates hollowly. She is insistent but unconsciously falls back slightly, hiding in daylight. Thom can’t help the chuckle that vibrates feebly in his throat. Sarah’s mouth quivers momentarily.

  “So you don’t want to tell me about the hospital?” Thom moves closer. Sarah has to force herself not to move back, Thom sees it in her shaky legs that are set apart like someone about to burst into a sprint.

  “What do you me
an, Thom?”

  “What do I mean, Sarah?” Thom’s words are clouded by the thunder of his heartbeat. “What-do-I-mean?” he shouts. Sarah gives a distasteful glance at the spit that jumps from his mouth onto her body. She doesn’t say anything. What can she say except to tell the truth? And apparently she doesn’t know how to do that, despite her attempts to prove otherwise.

  “Were you ever going to tell me you met Daniel at the hospital?” Thom snarls, the blood thrashing at his cheeks and tears assembling in the corners of his eyes, preparing for an assault.

  Sarah doesn’t react initially. She watches him, his arched back and his teeth sharpening, her expression unchanged. For a moment, she reverts to the woman he met in the front garden of Aunty Val’s house with mechanical movements, thoughts and functions.

  Then a full minute later, the signs of shock set in. Her eyes widen as though he has jumped out on them, her body stiffens like an exclamation mark and she suddenly spins towards the door. Taking a few desperate leaps, she reaches the door and scrambles with the handle. Before she can manage to make her fingers function properly, Thom pounces on her and slams her against the door. She groans as though he has punched her in the stomach and sags in his hold.

  “You’d better tell me, Sarah. I’m tired of your fucking lies”, Thom spits as they both fall back onto the floor. She looks exhausted, as though he has clubbed her with a blunt object. He feels a moist patch on the back of her head and worries it might be blood but gratefully realises it is only sweat. Thom wrenches her up to a sitting position and pushes her against the door.

  “If you lie to me again, I think I’ll go insane”, Thom whimpers. Sarah nods and tucking her curls behind her ears, she opens her mouth.

  41 The Red Secret

  “I promise you, I only found out a few days ago”, I tell him, grabbing onto his arms.

  He is on his knees before me, a man pleading for honesty.