by Simone Vlugt
‘Thomas!’ I call out.
No reply. He’s probably still at the car. I wait a while, but he doesn’t come back in. I sink down onto the top step, hold the case by its handle and wait for him to reappear. I think I hear him walking around in the kitchen and I lean forwards. ‘Thomas!’
He comes into the hall, sees the problem and runs up the stairs to take the suitcase from me. ‘That’s much too heavy for you. You could have fallen down the stairs,’ he says. ‘I’ve made coffee. Shall we have a quick cup before I drop you off?’
I don’t feel like coffee and certainly not the disgusting stuff he makes, but I can hardly say no now that he’s gone to the trouble of helping me pack and is giving me a lift to Raoul’s. Not something he’s pleased about. I would never have asked him if Raoul hadn’t been in meetings all afternoon.
‘Okay,’ I say, following him downstairs. Thomas sets the case down in the hall, goes into the kitchen and pours out two large mugs of coffee.
It’s hot inside the house, so we go and sit in the garden under the pear tree. The sunlight plays through the foliage. Thomas sits there staring at me with sad eyes.
I avoid his gaze and sip my undrinkable coffee. It’s hard to relax around him.
‘Is the coffee nice?’ Thomas asks.
‘Lovely.’ I take a sip.
‘Not too strong?’
‘A little,’ I admit.
‘I’ll get some sugar.’ Thomas gets up and returns with the sugar pot. He scoops a couple of spoonfuls into my mug. I smile at him and stir my coffee.
‘Elisa,’ Thomas says as he sits down. ‘I want to talk to you.’
‘You say that so seriously.’
‘I am serious. I’ve been trying to talk to you for ages, but you keep avoiding me.’
I stare at the dark contents of my mug. ‘If I’m avoiding you, it might be that I have a reason to.’
‘Maybe, but it seems better to talk about it than to keep silent.’
‘Let’s not do this. It just makes everything more…difficult.’
‘It’s difficult already,’ Thomas says. ‘At least for me it is. I know that there can never be anything between us, that you only consider me a good friend, but I want to tell you how I feel, just once.’
I look at him helplessly, incapable of diverting the course of this conversation. I’m on the point of losing a very good friend.
‘Say it then.’
Thomas is sitting on the edge of his chair. He bends forwards so that his long dark hair falls in front of his face. I allow him to take my hand and give it a kiss.
‘Ever since we got to know each other when we were students, you’ve been my best friend,’ he says. ‘While everyone else ridiculed me and laughed behind my back, you offered me friendship, you gave me confidence. Without you, art college would have been hell. That’s why you have the right to be happy too, even if that’s not with me. But if it’s not with me, I don’t want to stick around.’
I look at him in alarm. ‘What do you mean? Where are you going?’
‘I’m going away.’ Thomas lets go of my hand and stares at the ground.
‘Where? Oh no, Thomas, don’t go away! First I lose Lydia, then Sylvie and now you as well! You can’t do this to me!’ As I’m saying it, I realise how selfish it sounds.
‘You’ve got Raoul,’ Thomas reminds me. ‘And as far as Sylvie is concerned, you haven’t lost her. Really, you haven’t lost her,’ Thomas says. ‘I’ve sent a letter to the police saying that she’s innocent. They won’t believe it straight away, but eventually they’ll realise that I’m telling the truth.’
Goose bumps spread over my arms and legs.
‘What do you mean? How do you know that?’
The expression on Thomas’s face changes. A hard glint appears in his eyes.
‘Your sister wasn’t a nice person,’ he says. ‘She got in your way, she didn’t let you make any decisions of your own, live your own life. She decided what was good for you, who your friends should be.’
‘Why on earth do you think that? Lydia didn’t do that at all. She interfered with my life a bit too much, but it wasn’t as bad as that.’
‘She didn’t like me.’ Thomas’s eyes sparkle strangely. ‘She thought I was a loser, not fit to be your friend.’
‘Did she say that?’ I cry out.
‘She didn’t have to. You must have felt it too – as soon as Lydia got to know me, you started being distant,’ Thomas accuses. ‘Maybe you didn’t realise it, but Lydia had enormous influence over you. You took her into account in every decision you ever made in your life. We might have had a relationship if she hadn’t stood in the way. Really, Elisa, you’re so much better off without her.’
It’s as if I’m sitting next to a stranger.
There’s no point arguing, he’s too convinced that he’s right. I begin to feel scared. Thomas has always been different, but I liked that, it was artistic. But now he’s frightening me. He must see that I don’t quite understand.
‘I did it for you,’ he says. ‘You understand that, don’t you? You weren’t getting any space to develop, to form your own opinions, to live a life like Lydia had. You were being suffocated. I had to intervene.’
He is begging for understanding, but the meaning of his words barely sinks in. I sit on the edge of my chair, straight-backed and cold, while my brain disassembles everything I thought I knew.
‘I know that deep in your heart, you can’t live without me,’ Thomas continues, emotionlessly. ‘Raoul is just a whim of yours. Sooner or later he’ll meet another Sylvie and he’ll cheat on you. Why would you put yourself through that when you know that I’d never, ever hurt you? Don’t look so frightened! I love you!’
‘Sylvie,’ I say with difficulty. ‘Where’s Sylvie?’
‘How should I know? She’s on the run, but they’ll find her. And then they’ll let her go again. Sylvie’s a good girl. I’ve got nothing against her and she’s always been kind to me. She has no idea that I found the gun in her drawer. I put it back again. I’ve sent a letter to the police so they’ll have to let her go. I don’t want her to pay for something she hasn’t done.’
‘You…’ I whisper. ‘You murdered my sister? And that letter? Did you send that to her?’ I don’t have to ask the question. I bury my face in my hands and mutter, ‘Oh my god, so Noorda was right. He said that it was quite possible that someone else was taking advantage of the situation with Bilal. But you. Why? Why, Thomas?’
Thomas takes my hands away from my face. ‘I did it for you, Elisa. I’ve explained that, haven’t I? Lydia had to die so that you could live. That happens sometimes with embryos, one survives at the other’s cost. It’s as a kind of law of nature.’
I try to speak, but my throat produces only a few unintelligible sounds. I feel dizzy. My head has suddenly become too heavy to hold upright.
When I look up, Thomas touches my cheek tenderly.
‘It doesn’t take long,’ he says. ‘And it doesn’t hurt either. It’s awful that I have to do this to you, but there’s no other way. We simply had to talk this through.’
I look at him, confused, and watch his eyes travel down to the mug on the ground. There’s a layer of sediment in it. Oh my god, what was in the coffee? And I drank all of it, every last drop.
He sits there, with a concerned look on his face, his hands ready to catch me as I fall.
I shake my head slowly. The garden spins around me. If I stood up now, I wouldn’t get far. A leaden feeling spreads over me and stops me from thinking clearly. I rub my forehead and eyes with my fingertips. Don’t fall asleep, keep your eyes open! What did he put in the coffee?
I get up to keep moving, intending to splash cold water on my face but I’m completely disorientated. I bump into the garden table, of which there are suddenly two, fall to the ground and have trouble getting up again. And then I see four legs and four black boots standing in front of me. Two Thomases peer down.
‘Let me help you up,’ he s
ays. ‘You’ll hurt yourself.’
Strong arms pull me up and guide me into the house. What is he going to do now? No, I beg silently. Please not.
I fight to keep hold of my senses, but I feel myself losing the battle. I’m being sucked into a whirlpool, deeper and deeper. I gravitate towards passiveness. There’s no way to fight this. I feel like I haven’t slept for days. Lie down, I want to lie down. I don’t want to be dragged upstairs to my bedroom, that’s too far. Thomas picks me up and carries me upstairs, but I’m gone before we reach the landing. Halfway up the stairs I feel a long, damp kiss on my mouth before my vision fades and I surrender.
63.
It feels like I’m floating and my body tingles all over, as if I’ve been wired to an invisible energy source. It’s blue around me and very bright. I move around, at the speed of my thoughts. My senses have never been this sharp and I’m aware of being on my way to a larger entity.
I’m dead. No, I’m not dead, I’m alive in the next stage. Death is not the end, it’s just another natural process. I’m the same person as before.
It is getting colder. A voice reaches me and I look ahead at the trembling apparition. It gets closer all the time.
‘Lydia,’ I whisper.
A cautious happiness bubbles up inside. I’m crying. She approaches slowly, until she’s standing right in front of me. She’s not pale or transparent, but just like she always was.
‘Elisa,’ she says with a smile.
I can’t get a single word out. We step forward and embrace. When I finally let my sister go, she seems to fade. I try to grab hold of her arm, but my hand goes through it.
‘Don’t go away!’ I cry. ‘Please!’
Lydia gives me a loving look and nods towards something below. ‘You don’t belong here, Elisa. Go back. It’s better that way.’
When I open my eyes again, my eyelids are heavy and my lips parched. My eyes fill up with tears. For an instant, a short instant, I was with my sister again and now I have to go on without her.
I look around. It hurts to move my head. Everything is white. I’m lying in bed in a small room. There’s a drip set up next to my bed. The tube runs into my hand and is attached with a large plaster. I look at it, stupefied. Where am I?
I’m in hospital. I’m not dead.
I slowly recall how I ended up here and fear strikes my heart. Thomas!
Where is he?
I try to sit up, but fall back onto my pillow groaning. What did he make me take, and why am I still alive? I feel around for the buzzer. It’s not long before a nurse comes in. She hurries towards me with a big smile.
‘You’re back! Thank god! We were terribly worried about you.’ She grasps my wrist and takes my pulse, her eyes focused on the window.
‘That all seems to be fine.’ She smiles again. ‘How do you feel?’
‘What happened?’ I ask in a strange, croaky voice. ‘Where’s Thomas?’
Her smile is replaced with a frown. ‘Did he give you that rubbish?’
‘What rubbish?’ My voice sounds strange to my ears, as if I’m under water and every noise is distorted when it reaches me.
‘GHB,’ the nurse says, or perhaps she’s a doctor, because a stethoscope hangs around her neck.
‘GHB? That’s some kind of drug, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, but luckily it wasn’t that much,’ she says, ‘but we did have to give you something to neutralise it. All in all, you’ve been unconscious for quite a while.’
‘How…how did you know?’ I say.
‘Someone called to say that you were on your own at home and that you’d taken GHB,’ the doctor says.
‘Thomas,’ I mutter. Why did he give me drugs only to tell the hospital afterwards? He wasn’t planning on murdering me. So why did he confess about Lydia and then knock me out?
I’m suddenly very worried and I grab the doctor’s arm. ‘Thomas,’ I repeat. ‘Where is he?’
She looks down at me, full of compassion. ‘He was a good friend of yours, wasn’t he?’
‘Was?’ My voice sounds husky. Deep down inside I know they are using the past tense because our friendship is now over.
The doctor hesitates. ‘Shall we talk about it later?’ she suggests.
‘No, I want to know. Tell me, please,’ I insist.
She continues to hesitate.
‘He’s dead then?’ I say in a strangled voice.
She realises that I won’t be able to rest until I know the truth.
‘Did he commit suicide?’ I ask.
She nods. ‘He took GHB too, but in a larger dose. He was lying next to you in the bed. We couldn’t save him.’
In spite of everything, I begin to cry for Thomas, for the lonely, hung-up soul he was, who didn’t know how to get any more out of life than this. I cry until the tears run dry. From my bed I can see the hospital entrance and a stream of visitors coming in through the revolving doors, their arms full of presents and flowers.
It’s a lovely day. Outside the window, the heavy foliage of the trees sways in the breeze. The sky is blue and shimmers with warmth and promise.
I’m alive. Slowly a feeling of gratitude rises up in me, I’d thought that everything was over, but I’m still alive. I’ll have to manage without my sister, but not forever. I’m sure of that.
I gaze at the cloudless blue sky for a long time and I can’t stop a hesitant smile from spreading over my face.
About the Author
SIMONE VAN DER VLUGT was born in the Netherlands in 1966, and has been internationally acclaimed for her psychological thrillers. She is the author of The Reunion which has sold over 200,000 copies in Holland. She lives with her husband and two children in Alkmaar.
Michele Hutchison has worked in the publishing industry for ten years. She was born in the United Kingdom, and now lives in Amsterdam with her Dutch husband and two children.
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Copyright
HarperPress
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First published in Great Britain by HarperPress in 2010
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Original text © Simone van der Vlugt 2005
English language translation © Michele Hutchison 2009/10
First published in Dutch as Schaduwzuster by Anthos, Amsterdam
First published in English by Text Publishing Co Melbourne
Simone van der Vlugt asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-00-730138-6
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
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EPub Edition © NOVEMBER 2010 ISBN: 978-0-007-30139-3
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