by Nikki Dudley
Thom thinks about confronting her then but his resolve is broken. He is torn between the curiosity he has inexplicably felt for her since he first saw her in the front garden and the desire to avenge Daniel. Yet as Sarah eases his trousers off and her own, and continues to move against him, the moment overtakes. All Thom wants then is to get inside her.
Sarah is afraid but thinks taking control will help her. She reasons she also trusts Thom, that she loves him, and therefore he is the right person to open up to once again. Feeling certain of this, she eases herself onto him and presses her body down until he is fully inside her. She winces half in pleasure and half in pain, adjusting to the feeling again. Thom feels her getting wetter, his eyes closed as he moves her up and down by guiding her hips.
Thom lifts his hands up to her breasts, rubbing them over her erect nipples, making her squirm for a moment but then relax, pushing her body down on him harder. He is watching her, the display of her pleasure, still asking her in an unspoken way if this is all okay.
She presses down on his chest, his heartbeat thudding under her hands, sweat gathering on their skin. Time seems to have slowed down but only a minute or two has passed.
When Thom sees Sarah close her eyes, leaning backwards and her chest reddening, Thom allows himself to come. He thrusts hard several times and finally feels release. Sarah moans softly.
As Sarah falls on top of him, her breaths rapid against his cheek, Thom finds he can’t do the same. He tries a few deep intakes of air but his chest feels constricted. Sarah unknowingly nuzzles into his neck but he pushes her off. Looking hurt, she begins to speak but stops as Thom jumps to his feet.
He presses against his chest, trying to force an opening for air. Yet, he still can’t breathe. Sarah gets up and tries to comfort him but he shakes his head, his vision beginning to recede. A huge circle of darkness begins to burn at the corner of his eyes and slowly spreads. He thinks that this must be how it happens – this must be how he dies.
The darkness is nearly complete and Thom is being surrounded by a tunnel, closing its mouth around him. In the last flash of light, he sees Sarah. Staring out of the darkness, Thom knows she is waiting for him, as she waited for the train to emerge from that tunnel, in order to kill his brother. Falling now, Thom realises he can’t escape the truth, the video, the tunnel. For one last moment, his body tries to keep him from all these things.
50 Blood and Truth
Thom screams and claws himself out of the dark. He can’t help thinking this is a familiar feeling since the moment he answered the phone and had been told about Daniel’s death. The ink on the note only dragged him further into the darkness, the unknown, the unrelenting pull into a set of jaws that keep chewing him apart inch by inch.
He realises Sarah’s arms are around him. He smells the dampness of the room before his eyes slowly adjust to the light. As he rolls onto his side, he notices a few dead insects on the floor under the window and a layer of dust coating the floor. His body is aching as though he has been running for miles. Part of him thinks that this is apt, as he has been running from his old life and the truth for far too long.
“I know”, Thom grunts as he heaves himself to a sitting position. Sarah is still only a fuzzy shape to Thom. Despite this, Thom feels a definite alteration at his words. It is as though a sudden beam of light has appeared or the room has slowly begun to slant.
“What do you mean, Thom?” she asks quietly. She is pulling on clothes as she talks, as though planning to flee. Thom refocuses on her face. He realises then that he is still naked and grabs at his t-shirt that has been deserted on the floor. Then he struggles to pull on his jeans, nearly toppling as he tries to zip them up.
“I think you know exactly what I mean”, Thom sneers and adds for emphasis, “I mean that what you’ve been running from is exactly the thing I’ve been chasing”.
Sarah narrows her eyes at his words, trying to decide whether he is hinting at what she thinks he is. He wonders what questions are going through her mind like a whirlwind: what does he know? How does he know? What should she do now?
“Thom…” she starts but he cuts in.
“No”. He stamps his foot. “I’ve had enough lies from you”.
“I don’t want to lie to you anymore…” she whines, holding her hands out to him. He takes them without thinking. When he looks at them, he can’t see Daniel’s blood covering them but at the same time, he can’t ignore the fact that they are the reason he is dead.
“I saw the video of the day he died”, Thom tells her. When he had imagined this moment as he’d run away from the station, there was shouting and crying and perhaps even blood. Yet looking into her face now, seeing her struggling to meet his eyes and her shoulders weighed down with guilt, he feels calmer. He loves her, despite everything.
...
I shudder inside as he says the words. Why did I never think of a video? I should’ve got there first, to stop him ever finding out. Surely he will lash out now? I have killed someone, and this someone was his cousin.
Lots of pointless words come into my head at once. I filter each one, deciding they will be even more useless to Thom. Although, one feeling overwhelms everything: relief. No more hiding, no more running – I can stand before him and he can see every dark crevice and glaring scar.
Mum, I’m coming clean about everything. You would be proud of me for that at least.
“You haven’t said anything”, Thom notes, looking for something to fill the heavy silence. I inhale deeply, my head beginning to swell out like there has been a tumour hiding behind my eyes for some time, waiting to pounce.
“What can I say, Thom?” I swallow heavily. “That I killed him? That I knew who you were when you chased me out of your garden? That I have no idea why I pushed him and I still don’t?” As I speak, Thom bites his lip so hard it nearly disappears underneath his teeth.
“You’re admitting it, just like that?” Thom asks, shifting on his feet. He hasn’t expected it to be this easy but I am tired, ready to let the stone, I have been holding in place, roll out of me and disappear into the distance.
“I’ve tried to hide this from you for too long”.
It seems like we are discussing a tea party or what we watched on TV last night, not a murder. Where is the shouting? Where is the heart-wrenching emotion? Perhaps we are both too exhausted. I can see the bags under Thom’s eyes; they are parachutes that have deflated before they have left the ground.
“You know what I don’t understand?” Thom exclaims suddenly, raising the sound level, throwing my hands down. “How you could lie to me all this time, how you could sit there and listen to me going on about what he did and how I don’t understand it all… Didn’t you feel bad? Didn’t you at least feel sorry for me?” His hands are in fists; his teeth clenched as he stares at me, like a dog I have kicked for no reason. I instantly feel the ceiling sagging above my head, threatening to collapse.
“It’s the worst I’ve ever felt in my life”, I answer honestly.
“Worse than you felt after you pushed my brother onto those tracks?”
...
“Your brother?” She asks dismissively, thinking he has made a simple error and will correct himself. Yet Thom gives her a twisted smile, almost mocking her for being so stupid all this time, as he has been for most of his life.
“Of course. Didn’t I tell you that Daniel and I were actually brothers?”
“What are you talking about?” Sarah grabs him by the arms and squeezes gently, trying to bring him back to sense. Thom doesn’t push her away now. He thinks that her gesture is born out of affection for him and part of him enjoys it, despite everything.
“Aunty Val had a secret all these years. Apparently Daniel found out and he wanted me to know too”.
“Are you saying Val isn’t your aunt? She’s your… mum?” Sarah pronounces each word carefully, except the word ‘mum’. That word falters on her tongue, partly held back as if she doesn’t want to let it go.
<
br /> “Yes. Apparently she’s my real mum. She and my dad put their genes together and ended up with twins. So they flipped a coin and decided which one she should keep and which she should give to my parents”.
“I’m sure it wasn’t as easy a decision as that”, Sarah says quietly. Thom laughs and reverses the hold, so he is now holding onto her, and pulls her close to his face.
“You really think so, do you?” he spits.
“Thom, I’m sorry”. She stares into his face, determined not to be frightened by him. Thom shoves her away roughly but she manages to catch herself and doesn’t fall.
“You’re sorry, she’s sorry, we’re all sorry”. Thom counts on his fingers. “All it means is that my whole life has been a big fucking lie. And Daniel’s too”. He closes his fist around his own fingers, cutting himself down.
“You must feel completely betrayed”, Sarah hazards. Thom raises his head, one side of his lip hooking into a smile. His cheeks are reddening and even from here, Sarah can see his eyes flashing with water.
“You know…” he begins, twisting his hands as he talks, “I wanted to believe you so much”. His words have a twang of tears. “I guess that’s why it was so easy for you to fool me”.
...
“I didn’t try to fool you Thom”, I insist. I am desperate to close the space between us, have him against me again, skin on skin. Yet I can’t move, knowing I will be rejected.
“Oh so what do you call it, Sarah?” Thom can’t stop a few tears escaping from his eyes and running down his face. “I mean, that’s not even your real name. I’m a fucking joke”. Thom digs his nails into his arms. His body is shaped like an arch weighed down by tonnes of stone. As he coughs out his words, his tears fly towards me in the air and land on the floorboards.
“Please Thom. I never meant to make a fool of you”. I falter, knowing that my intentions and my actions are completely separate. He is right.
“But you did Sarah. I believed in you, despite everyone telling me I shouldn’t. Richard didn’t trust you, Emma didn’t believe you, and even I wasn’t convinced”. He chokes on a suppressed sob. “But I am so broken that it was easy for you”.
“I’m broken too”, I tell him. He jolts as though his body is offended by this comment but after a moment, he nods gently.
“Did you know what you’d done at the station that day?” Thom asks cautiously, seemingly jabbing a lion in the eye with a stick.
“My body and my mind weren’t connected properly. I remembered I’d done it but my mind wasn’t connected to reality. I can’t even tell you what I was thinking”, I pause heavily, “even now, my mind isn’t right…”
It feels like I am talking to a therapist again, but this time, I am making some progress at least. However, looking at Thom, each word I say seems to punch him down. His body is swaying slightly, his eyes squinting at the world he can’t escape.
“So when you met me, you already knew. And you didn’t feel shame or remorse?” He is pacing the room now, trying to look like an excellent sleuth but his wobbly steps defy him.
“I didn’t really feel remorse then. You helped me with that”.
“Me?” He stops.
“Yes. Spending time with you taught me how to feel again. You really saved me, Thom”, I tell him earnestly, grabbing at his hand. He glances down at my touch, as though he has forgotten he has hands.
“But you’re still a murderer”. He shakes me off roughly.
...
Thom watches her body droop. For a few seconds, he thinks she might faint, but she slumps onto the bed instead. A strange stab of guilt pricks Thom in the side. How can he still care about her? Shouldn’t he be getting his revenge for Daniel? Or did he feel she is just as much a victim as Daniel? Even after all these weeks, he is just as torn as he was when it first began. It seems like since the note, he has been torn in two – the grieving relative and the detective. Although his detective work leaves a lot to be desired; the culprit has been right in front of him for weeks and he has been blind to suspect her.
“I sometimes thought you were alike”, she says, playing with her hands in her lap and peering up to see his response. Thom allows her to speak this time.
“Every time I saw you, your hair or your voice, would remind me”, she pauses, “and every time I saw your grief, I felt like I was killing you too. But I realised that although what I have done is completely wrong and unforgivable, I wasn’t aware of what pushing him really meant”.
“You’re defending yourself?” Thom scoffs, kicking the floorboards. A haze of dust floats up between them.
“Not defending, Thom, explaining”.
“Should I really care about your explanation, your reason or whatever you want to call it?” Thom says, his limbs flailing as though independent of himself.
“You’re right”, Sarah admits, shrugging, “but there is something I want to tell you”. She lets the silence fill the room for a moment until Thom can stand it no more.
“What then?”
“He said something to me, Thom”.
“Well you knew him before, didn’t you? At the hospital? It’s hardly surprising he spoke to you!” Thom turns away, laughing to the side of him, as though he has an invisible friend standing there.
“No, I don’t remember all that”, she corrects him. “I meant when he fell”.
Thom’s head jerks back towards her. She instantly feels as though a stark light is shining into her eyes and she lifts her hand to shield it.
“Don’t people always say something when they get pushed in front of a train?”
“Not like this”, she insists, “I thought at first I imagined it, as you might expect a crazy person could. I thought I’d seen it wrong… but I’m so sure that I’m right…”
“Are you ever going to tell me?” Thom cries, bouncing on his feet like a man standing on hot coals.
“Yes”, she reassures him. “As he fell, he said right on time”. She stares into the distance. She expects Thom to react to this, yet he seems almost unflustered.
“Right…” He agrees, as though they have been comparing notes.
“You don’t seem that surprised’.
“I’m not really”. He nods, a small smile growing on his lips.
Sarah isn’t sure what to make of this so she continues talking: “I thought about it for days and days afterwards. And I decided I had to know what he meant”.
“So you came to our house?”
“I followed you first. I tried to find out more about him by watching you”.
“You were following us?” Thom says; looking more disgusted than when she admitted she is a murderer.
...
Looking at myself through Thom’s eyes is now an altered and disturbing experience. From his unrelenting faith in me, he is now losing his adoration word by word.
“I told you I was very sick”.
“You love telling me that, don’t you?” he says roughly.
“People find it hard to see. Even I did before this happened to me…”
“Talking isn’t helping. It doesn’t change all this, does it?” Thom looks so tired that all I want is to lie him down and let him sleep for days, forgetting everything.
“We should’ve talked more before”, I tell him, unsure of what else to say.
“You’re right”, he says quietly, pained by the fact he agrees with a murderer and a crazy person. “The thing I’m most sad about – how all this started – is the lack of talking”. He leans against the wall. For a moment, he looks like a tramp hitching a ride to another town. His hair is unwashed, his brow dirty with sweat and dust, his eyes darkened by lack of sleep.
“If she’d just told us in the first place, if she’d been honest enough, Daniel wouldn’t have been so angry. I could’ve saved him, and you wouldn’t have pushed him. He must’ve made you do it, I don’t know how… But all this could’ve been avoided”. Thom gestures to the room around them as though it holds their lives. He walks towards
me, his gaze so focussed that I believe it is compensating for his broken mind. He takes my hand.
“But the person I’m most upset about is you”, he tells me, his lips trembling uncontrollably. Yet he doesn’t cry. He is too shattered and drained to actually cry again. “I loved you. I really loved you”. He squeezes my hand until it feels numb but I say nothing. “If after everything, I could’ve trusted you, maybe I wouldn’t feel like there isn’t anything left”.
“Please Thom…” I say sadly but can’t think of how to end the sentence. Please Thom, change your mind? Please Thom, let me love you? Please Thom, let’s forget everything and start again? None of them seem right so I say nothing.
“I wish you knew what to say to help me now”. Thom’s words transform into a moan. “But you’ve all let me down”. He snatches his hand back, although he is the one who initiated it. “And I let Daniel down because I am so stupid that I never saw the truth… I let everyone lie to me because I can’t handle things”.
“Thom, don’t say these things about yourself”.
“Well it’s true”, he spits. “I’ve never been able to deal with anything. I’ve sat in a cosy office talking to people on the phone, never really dealing with anything. And do you know why Sarah?”
“Why?” I ask reluctantly.
“Because I don’t really know who I am”. Thom shrugs, not even sure his words are true. “I thought I was a son but then my parents died. I thought I was a cousin but it turns out I’m a brother. I thought I was a nephew but I’m a son. I thought I was an insurance officer but I can’t even remember where I work. I thought I was a detective but I’ve been fooled all along. I thought I was a boyfriend but I’m a cheat. And I thought I was a man in love but… I don’t know anymore”. Thom stares at his palms as though they are morphing before him.