by L. V. Hay
In the car, Matthew’s brow furrowed, but he did not press me for details. He turned the key in the ignition. We set off again across Brighton, through the deserted back streets. I felt safe again as the orange streetlamps coursed over the car; the mesmerising flashes of lights soothed me, lulling me back to sleep.
I perked up when Matthew parked outside his flat. My mood soared from one end of the scale to the other: despair to jubilation. I made it into the flat with Matthew and proceeded to take off my clothes in a ridiculous striptease. Then I looped my arms around his neck, trying to kiss him.
But Matthew smiled, determined not to take advantage. He peeled my hands away, laying me down on the sheets, drawing the duvet up under my chin like I was a child. I was petulant then, telling him there was no way I could go to sleep.
Then I blinked and sunk under once more.
Pulling myself up from the plump pillows, I can hear Matthew’s muted tones. Thinking someone else might be in the next room with him, I wind the duvet around myself and venture towards the door. He’s framed as a dark shadow in the window, the light in front of him. He’s bare-chested, his back to me, the phone to his ear.
‘I just think…’ He stops as the person on the other end of the line interrupts. I can see the tension emanating from Matthew’s whole body as he grips the handset. ‘Yes, I get that. But—’
The caller cuts in again. I can hear the high pitch; it’s a woman. Matthew seems to sag, give up whatever protest was trying to make.
‘Fine, fine. Whatever. Bye.’
He cuts off the call and stares out of the window a moment. Outside, it’s an unseasonably sunny day. There’s no breeze or bad weather; I can’t hear any muffled movement in the rest of the apartments below. The silence feels oppressive. I feel like my words could burst it, like a pin in a balloon, but they seem to dry up on my tongue.
Then, with the curious sixth sense we all have when someone is behind us, Matthew turns and flashes me a wide smile. ‘You’re awake.’
‘Was that Ana?’ I join him at the window.
He loops one of his big arms around me and the duvet, as we stare down into the car park below.
Matthew seems distracted. ‘No: Lou. Pain in my arse.’
I recognise the name, but a face doesn’t come to me. Then I see her: the redhead at Elemental, shooting me suspicious daggers as she fills glasses from the optics at the bar.
I lean my head against Matthew’s broad shoulder. He smells of sleep, warm and fusty. I want to ask him about Ana, how she’d been at home the night India died. Matthew knows his twin better than anyone; he can put my mind at rest.
Instead, I lean forward, to place a kiss on Matthew’s lips. Matthew’s mouth opens as our lips touch. He pulls me to him, holding me by the elbows, as if I might run away. But as my eyes close, the dream of Tim flashes through my mind. I want to believe the worst Tim is guilty of is a terrible accident, but even that is too much. Matthew must sense my hesitation, because he turns his face away.
‘It’s OK.’ My fingertips find his waist.
His dark-brown eyes search my face, like he’s looking for something. Permission? I smile, letting the duvet drop. I stand naked in front of him.
‘I got myself into this,’ I remind him.
But Matthew’s expression is still earnest. ‘I’m not playing.’
‘Nor am I.’
He stares at me, his gaze flitting to my lips, my chin, the curve of my neck. The moment passes and he smiles at last. He pulls me into his embrace, his chin resting on the top of my skull.
‘You need to brush your teeth.’
I laugh. We lie down together on the sofa instead, our bodies pressed close. My back to him, he puts his big hands around my waist. I can feel the rise of his chest; I feel safe. I close my eyes.
‘I love you.’
He doesn’t say it back. He doesn’t need to. I can feel his usual inscrutable expression shift into a smile behind me.
Fifty-two
The Wolf
You always missed a spot. That day I could see the usual tiny patch of hair. I told you I would get rid of it for you.
‘Do you trust me?’ A razor, shining in the light.
You shrugged, prone in the chair. ‘Sure.’
I stood over you. I massaged your temples, placed the warm cloth over your scalp. As I applied the foam, I saw you close your eyes, stretch out your legs, feline.
You were in my power then. I could have done anything. I could have drawn that blade across your throat. Maybe I should have.
Then she would have been free.
But instead I scraped away that small cluster of hairs. I didn’t even nick the skin. You laughed and said I had missed my vocation. Maybe I should open a barber’s, you said. Maybe, I replied.
Who are you?
You are the key. You could stop all of this.
What are you?
Protector. Jailer. You know which.
Time for the delusion to stop. Actions speak louder than words.
Time to stop falling into line.
India
POSTED BY @1NDIAsummer, 6 December 2016 11,543 insights SHARE THIS
Milliecat_456 likes this
blithefancy comments: RU OK? IM ME xxxx
lilybelle9 likes this
markotron likes this
Alfie98 likes this and comments: creepy
writerchic88 comments: YIKES ®
Fifty-three
I wake again to the sound of the shower running in the tiny bathroom. I sit up and grab one of Matthew’s t-shirts from the floor, pulling it on. The hot, musty smell of him envelops me. I smile.
My body tingles, feels heavy, as if Matthew has sucked all my strength from me. Maybe he has, like some kind of emotional vampire? Perhaps that’s why I can’t seem to help myself around him now. I didn’t return to the Coach House; I stayed with Matthew for the rest of the day and night. We watched movies and moved from the living room back to the bedroom, exploring each other’s bodies.
My mobile sits on top of a neat pile of my clothes on the floor. Matthew’s been tidying again. I check the LCD of the digital clock on the nightstand and see it’s coming up for ten o’clock in the morning. The beautiful, sunny skies of the day before are gone. Rain lashes down onto the skylight above us.
I want to check on Mum, so I lean down to the floor and grab my phone to call the hospital. But the battery is gone again. I clamber out of bed and pick up a charger from on top of the chest of drawers. But the connector doesn’t fit. Damn it.
I search for Matthew’s phone. He won’t mind if I use his. His clothes lie on the floor next to mine. His jeans pockets bulge. I pull out his keys; a flyer folded over in his efficient, pedantic way; some chewing gum; a pebble from the beach, its surface smoothed and rounded by the tide. One of back pockets of his jeans holds his wallet. I put it all back.
Finally, I find his phone in the breast pocket of his shirt. It’s the latest model – obviously – but locked. I cast my mind back. I remember the old PIN he used for everything, back when we were together. I would tell him it was too easy to guess, but he would reply I was paranoid.
Sure enough, the screen opens, allowing me access to his apps and user history. With clumsy fingers I try to press the phone icon, but instead tap the email one next to it. The app expands.
I take in the words in front of me, disbelief unfurling in my brain as I fail to fully comprehend the word in front of me.
I drop the phone and lurch backwards as if I’ve been punched. More bright spots spring up in my eyes.
A million thoughts, denials, questions all clamour in my brain, but I can’t focus on any of them. The impact is total: I gulp for air in shallow gasps, which makes my head reel even more.
Matthew’s username is Wolfman404.
PART THREE
The Perfective Aspect
/has/, /have/ or /had/
Fifty-four
‘You OK?’
Matthew’s arms re
ach out behind me and pull me to him. He’s wet, smelling of tea-tree shower gel. His skin feels cold against my neck. At any other time, I would welcome his attentions, but now I stiffen with alarm, fighting the urge to scream as he cups my breasts with his big hands.
‘I … have to go.’
I untangle myself from his embrace. He gives me a lazy smile. Droplets of water cling to his dark skin; a towel is around his waist. He looks just like he always does, no hint of any potential danger. But I can still feel the grip of his fingers around my throat. Had the same hands closed around my sister’s?
I give Matthew the fakest smile I can muster. He watches me pull my clothes on, thoughtful. Despite the passage of four (nearly five) years, Matthew knows me too well.
‘What’s wrong?’
I bite back the accusation that threatens to shoot from my mouth: Did you kill my sister? I think back to Ana and her odd proclamations. Perhaps this had nothing to do with Jayden, or her. Maybe Ana has been covering for her twin all along. I feel sick.
But I can’t just blurt all this out. If he didn’t kill India, that would be bad. But if he did? Even worse. We’re alone. No one knows where I am.
Anything could happen.
‘Nothing.’ My voice is bright and breezy, false. ‘I’ve just got to get back, get some clothes…’
‘Why don’t we buy you some new stuff? Come into work with me, get some lunch at the club. Then we can go shopping. Let me treat you.’
That lazy, almost arrogant smirk is back on Matthew’s face. He reaches out and grabs me as I’m pulling on my jeans, wrapping his arms around my waist as I struggle in his grasp, like I’m a little girl.
Panic surges through my veins, but I tamp it down.
This is Matthew; he wouldn’t hurt me.
Would he?
‘Come into work with me,’ Matthew murmurs, placing his lips on mine.
The kiss is momentary, but it seems to last much longer, the betrayal of my sister made flesh. I laugh as I disentangle myself.
‘Matthew! I’ve got stuff to do.’
Matthew pulls away. Shrugs in a You missed your chance kind of way. He swats me on the backside as he grabs his own clothes.
‘Whatever, I’ll call you.’ He grins.
Relief floods through me. ‘Right. See you.’
I walk out, trying to look calmer than I feel. The door closed, I break away and rush down the stairs, out of the building, across its car park and down the leafy street beyond. I only stop, gasping, about two streets away, adrenaline making me feel light-headed. This only serves to remind me of sleeping with Matthew just hours earlier. I’d lain down with him so willingly. I feel sick all over again.
Matthew is a liar.
Fifty-five
I return to the Coach House and sit under the shower for a full half-hour, staring at the water swirling down the plughole until it goes cold. Forced to get out, I curse; I’ve forgotten to bring a towel into the bathroom.
I skip naked across the landing to my room, leaving a trail of water behind me. I already checked for Tim on my return, but my stepfather was nowhere to be seen. I looked to see whether any of his things were missing, but in my parents’ wrecked room, it was too hard to tell, so I gave up.
I towel myself dry roughly: across my chest, under my arms, between my legs. I pull on a t-shirt and some leggings, lace up my boots over bare feet. I drag a brush through my wet hair, pulling it into an unruly knot, then yank India’s red hoody over my head as I amble down the stairs to the kitchen.
The house is deathly quiet. The winter light is fading, evening just half an hour away. Perhaps I notice something in my peripheral vision; a shadow moving idly across the wall. Or maybe I hear a sharp intake of breath.
Someone is in the house with me, in the living room.
Perhaps it’s paranoia after discovering Matthew’s lies, but something stops me calling out. Still looking ahead, I grasp for something, anything. The kitchen is in disarray, dirt masked by cheap floral air freshener. In the sink, dirty dishes; cigarette stubs float in the stagnant water. My nose wrinkles in distaste.
My fingers find a bread knife. It’s on the chopping block where Tim left it the day before. I clench my fist around the knife’s plastic handle. I hold it to my side, slightly in front of me like my self-defence instructor showed me years ago.
‘Don’t slash in a straight line,’ he said, ‘but an arc.’
But had he said that arc should be inwards or outwards? Or both? Butterflies of panic beat their wings in my chest and stomach. I don’t remember. I push on. I’m at the living-room door; it’s ajar.
I reach out and push it inwards, the knife still at my side.
‘Jesus, you nearly gave me a heart attack!’ I present the knife in my hand as evidence.
‘Oh, darling…’
Adrenaline surges through me at the near miss; I burst into tears.
Mum.
I let her throw her thin arms around me, folding me into her bony embrace. India is with me again, momentarily: ‘Hugging Mum is like hugging an ironing board!’ she would cackle. We’d all laugh, even Mum, because it was true.
Mum soothes me as I cry with abandon, my sobs reduced to awkward hiccups. Mum rubs me between my shoulder blades like she always has done, rocking me like a little girl. She smooths my wet hair back from my face.
‘When did you get back?’
As these words leave my lips, I’m suddenly aware of my mother’s distracted air. I realise she hasn’t been waiting for me. I sniff, wiping my running nose on my sleeve.
I take her in: my mother looks frail, old. She’s always taken pride in her appearance, but now she’s in a shapeless t-shirt and jeans and a long cardigan that she’s wrapped around herself, as if she’s cold, but the central heating is on. She’s not wearing make-up, and her dyed hair is greying at the roots.
‘Where’s Tim?’ My voice cracks.
Her eyes are red from crying, tracks of tears on her cheeks. She sighs, closes her eyes. ‘I don’t know.’
My mind is running fast – too fast almost. After the revelation that Matthew is Wolfman404, aka ‘The Wolf ’ from India’s blog posts, I feel I must have jumped to ridiculous conclusions about Tim. He loved India. He can’t have been the one at the station, or if he was, there is a rational explanation. I realise I’ve not been thinking straight at all.
Yet there’s something else, I can sense it in Mum’s manner.
‘Mum, you’re scaring me.’
She sits down on the sofa, patting the seat beside her. Obedient, I sink onto the overstuffed cushion next to her. I don’t want to hear whatever she has to say. Yet I can’t not hear what she wants to tell me, either.
Mum draws a shaky breath and looks back to the window. ‘I’m so sorry. I never meant for it to be like this…’
‘Like what?’ I wait, willing her silently to hurry up.
Mum picks at a sofa cushion with her spindly fingers. ‘In therapy. They made me realise I have to come clean. I came back … to try and make amends.’
Confusion clouds my mind. Every time I think I have the thread of a revelation, it unravels on me again and pulls me even deeper into its tangled web.
I choose my words carefully. ‘OK. What does that mean?’
Mum sighs. ‘Tim knows … India wasn’t his daughter.’
I’m not sure what I expected, but it definitely wasn’t this. I gape at her. ‘What?’
So I was not the only cuckoo in the nest. But there is a key difference. Tim knew I wasn’t his from the very start. I’d pre-dated Mum and Tim by some five years. India was born nearly fifteen months after they wed. So Mum must have become pregnant with my sister roughly six months after she and Tim had married.
More infidelity. The words lodge in my throat.
‘You told him, today?’ I managed to say.
‘No.’ Fresh tears spring from Mum’s eyes. She wipes them away with the heel of her hand, an unnecessarily savage gesture. ‘A couple of days
ago.’
Another piece clicks into place: Tim’s fury, the day before yesterday. His destruction of their bedroom, his packed suitcase that came flying down the stairs at me. His anguished yell, ‘Bitch!’ So it was directed at Mum, just not for her abandonment, as I supposed.
But as I see this replay in my mind, something else flickers into being. Jenny, in the booth at the Prince Albert. She told me that India had needed to say something to her. Could this be it? But what would that have to do with Jenny?
‘It’s been a nightmare,’ Mum’s focus is on the window now. She can’t look me in the eye. ‘It was just a stupid mistake, one I’ve spent years trying to cover up. I just wanted my family together. And now…’
‘How did India find out?’
I wonder if Mum knows about the blog – about Ana, Jayden and JoJo. Had my sister become some sort of moral vigilante? But this doesn’t sit well with my vision of her. I recall her on the beach again, wheeling round and round, laughing. India had been a meddler, sure, but she’d been a free spirit, deep down. Live and let live.
Mum pinches the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb. ‘Apparently, she did some school project, found out everyone’s blood type. Worked out she couldn’t be related to Tim.’
I blink in confusion. This doesn’t fit. ‘But … India left school ages ago?’
Mum just shrugs, helpless. She doesn’t know the answer.
‘Who is India’s father?’ I’m amazed there is no tremor in my voice.
But Mum sighs. ‘I need to speak to Tim again, first. I have to make it right.’
‘Tell me who India’s father is!’
Mum seems to shrink under the weight of my raised voice. I don’t want to judge my mother. I know I could easily be in her place, having made so many poor choices about relationships in the past – and even now (Matthew). Back then, she’d have been younger than I am now, too. I am a hypocrite.