by L. V. Hay
‘Too late.’ James’s gaze returns to the track. His knuckles are white from clinging on. He surely can’t hold on much longer. But I know why James – Jenny – came to me.
‘Ana’s your mother,’ I say to James.
Still seated perilously on the railing, James nods, his face a picture of relief.
I see it all now. There was no ‘last baby’ for Maggie and Alan. James was Ana’s child, taken in and raised by the twins’ parents.
I turn to face Matthew, and see he’s barely reacted. He already knows this, I realise. He’s always known.
He advances towards me, but I’m too fast. I turn on one foot, forcing him to jump back, away from the arc of the blade. I won’t let him take me, suppress me, like he has Jenny all this time.
‘Pops, are you OK? Who did that?’ he indicates the marks around my throat, trying to deflect my attention.
‘It was Alan!’ James yells from the bridge. ‘Maggie had him do it!’
‘They killed India,’ I say through gritted teeth.
Matthew is incredulous as he looks towards us.
‘C’mon, they’re being ridiculous!’ Alan protests.
Disbelief spreads across Matthew’s face. ‘But you said…?’
He regards his father. His face is like a little boy’s. I see horror, anger, resentment cross the features I know so well … and how he arrests it all, pulling the shutters down. His expression becomes impassive again, like marble.
He parrots his father. ‘That’s ridiculous, Poppy.’
‘That’s right,’ says Alan carefully. ‘We told you Poppy’s not been well, Matt. Not since India died. She’s gone crazy, with all these accusations … she’s deluded.’
I twist around quickly, so I’m now pointing the knife at Alan.
‘She’s not crazy!’
We all jump – it’s James who’s said this. But the teenager is not looking at us, he’s staring at the track.
‘You’re the ones who are deluded!’ he screams. ‘Saying it was just a phase I was going through…!’
‘I thought you were gay.’ Matthew mutters.
‘I’ve never been gay!’ James regards Matthew, his chest rising and falling with anxious gasps. ‘Maggie said I was disgusting. A joke. Not a real woman! And you helped them both keep me a prisoner!’
I think I see a crack of recognition in Matthew’s demeanour. The knife still pointed at Alan, I make my appeal.
‘All of this … was your mum, Matthew. She took James off Ana. She had you keep Jenny a secret and your dad kill India, to stop her helping her leave! Maggie has had you all under her control!’
‘I won’t go back.’ James’s cheeks are streaked with tears. ‘I’d sooner die!’
‘No … no.’ Matthew’s face is taut. I can see tears in his eyes. I’ve never seen Matthew cry. ‘I just wanted to keep you all safe. I was just trying to do the right thing!’ The words fall from his lips like a mantra.
But James is unimpressed. ‘Ana let me be myself!’ he says. ‘Those two would never have been able to control me if it hadn’t been for you.’
James’s jerky movements draw my attention back to him. He is hanging over the drop now, but I’m not convinced James would die by merely falling. He’d probably break his legs. My stomach lurches as a train appears in the distance, with sickening clarity.
‘They’re done!’ Matthew hollers, ‘We’ll make them pay for what they did. All of it! James, you don’t have to go back. I promise! I won’t stop you going out anymore. Ever … just come down!’ He takes a stride forwards, his arms outstretched towards his nephew.
I wonder if the train driver can see James on the bridge and if he can, whether he can apply the brakes in time. The train nears the bridge. In less than a minute, it will be upon us. I fancy I can hear a shriek of the train’s brakes – wishful thinking…?
James fixes Matthew with a sad stare. ‘I can’t trust you.’
In my head, I can already see the teen do it. I visualise James leaping into the air, free for mere seconds, for the first time in his short life. Then his body connects with the punishing metal bodywork of the train. Air is ripped from his lungs, his flesh pulverised as the train’s shockwaves rocket through his bones. The same as my sister.
Matthew sees it, too. ‘We don’t have to do this! Come down, please James!’
The teenager twists his body to face Matthew now. But James does not come back over the right side of the bridge. I understand, perhaps too late, how pain makes people desperate.
The teen is defiant. ‘My name is not James.’
His fingertips let go of the railing.
Sixty-seven
‘No!’
I hear Matthew yell, helpless.
James pushes himself away from the edge of the bridge.
I drop the knife. I lunge forwards, thrusting my arms through the railings. My mind’s rehearsals of James’s fall allow me to pre-empt the teen’s launch into the air by a sliver of a second. I manage to grab him as he lets himself drop, my hands catching him around the waist.
‘Help me!’ I scream.
James is lighter than I thought he would be, but still his dead weight crashes against my forearms. White-hot pain sears through as a bone in my wrist snaps, bringing nausea to the back of my throat. But my grip has already closed around James’s chest. My elbows prop him up, holding him to the bridge as stars burst behind my eyes. I struggle not to loosen my grip.
‘I’m gonna drop him!’
Matthew leans over the balustrade, grabbing for James’s shoulders. It’s a precarious position: only Matthew’s weight keeps him in place; his feet don’t touch the ground. Alan stands to the side, eyes wide, hand clamped over his mouth in shock.
‘Take my hand!’ Matthew hollers.
Below, the train is slowing. The shriek of brakes I’d heard was not fantasy. But momentum still pushes the vehicle forward. James hangs in our grip, shocked by the sudden arrest of his fall. He looks up, at Matthew’s hand. I see a shimmer of something in the teenager’s eye. I realise, with a jolt, what he’s thinking:
If James grabs Matthew’s hand and yanks, he could send him over the bridge, onto the train below.
‘You’re better than that, James!’ I scream, my grip beginning to slacken.
James’s sights move from his brother, then to me. I see his lips move, the words form. Though the wind snatches them away I still feel the words; nearly two decades of humiliation, abuse, invalidation courtesy of Maggie:
‘I’m disgusting.’
Matthew hollers. ‘Please, take my hand!’
But James just dangles. I can feel my hurt arm beginning to numb. I know I can’t hold on much longer. Matthew won’t be able to continue his purchase on the teen’s shoulders with just his fingertips. James will drop.
I yell through the struts of the bridge. ‘Jenny, don’t let Maggie kill you. Take Matthew’s hand!’
James’s attention flickers away from the approaching train, back up at us for a microsecond. Matthew follows my lead.
‘Jenny. Take my hand. Pull yourself up. Please, Jenny!’
Hearing Matthew’s words, the teen reaches up at last. Matthew is able to grab him and haul him over the balustrade, back onto the bridge with us.
We collapse in a huddle together, our bodies unable to support our weight.
Below, I hear the hiss of the train engine coming to a standstill below.
A siren blares through the air; the police are here already. I can hear voices on the embankment; more footsteps on the steps will sound next. My mind reels, shock makes everything seems brighter.
‘Oh, thank Christ.’ Alan runs across the bridge. He leans down and attempts to hug both his son and grandson, but Matthew pushes his father away.
‘That’s it; you’re done. It’s over.’
Hurt, Alan backs off, but he does not try to run. He is resigned; there is no point. He almost seems relieved.
I hear a burst of static and then there are men a
nd women in black uniforms milling about on the bridge, making demands and barking orders. There’s a rustle of foil blankets, the sound of an ambulance backing up near the level crossing below.
Matthew pulls both of us to him, his arms around us. Though his voice is calm, I can feel his heart beat erratically in his chest. I slump, hardly able to hold my own head up. I place an arm around Jenny’s shoulders, though she simply stares ahead, almost catatonic.
‘We’ll get through this,’ Matthew murmurs.
But I know we can’t.
Sixty-eight
‘There you go.’
The nurse stands back to admire his handiwork. He’s a tall, large guy with chiselled features, who’d look more at home in his uniform if he was stripping out of it, than actually performing medical procedures.
I raise my wrist and inspect the quick-drying cast. ‘Thanks.’
The nurse takes a squirt of antibacterial hand gel and rubs it over his large palms. ‘It was a clean break. You were lucky.’
I give him a wan smile, matching his cliché with one of my own. ‘I don’t feel very lucky.’
The nurse notes something down. I sign something and then I’m on my way.
I know exactly where I want to go now. I drag my knackered body down the corridor and into the lift. Exhausted, I get out near a locked ward. There’s a deathly hush here, the weight of the silence is oppressive. I stalk towards the intercom and press the button.
A crisp, starchy voice crackles on the speaker. ‘Hello. Are you a carer or relative?’
‘Relative,’ I am not lying. Technically, I am.
The door buzzes and I push my way in. The ward is all but deserted. A sister sits at the nurses’ station. She sorts through paperwork as a receptionist with a headset taps at the keys of his computer. I can smell the sharp tang of disinfectant more than usual. The floor is just-been-mopped shiny, yellow triangles propped up in warning. A woman with lank grey hair, dressed in a pink dressing gown, shuffles towards me, her thoughts elsewhere.
I’m about to enquire at reception when someone I recognise appears from a side room, her shoulders hunched, her expression twisted in agony.
Ana.
She looks up at me. Black tears from her mascara streak down her otherwise perfectly made-up face, though her cheeks are dry now. I wait for the inevitable sneer of Ana’s top lip. I brace myself, in case she comes for me with those talons of hers.
But she doesn’t. My old friend looks small, lost. She regards me with a resigned expression. ‘So, your mum and my dad?’
‘That’s not the strangest revelation today.’ My voice is soft. ‘Can I say congratulations … on the baby?’
‘You’d be the first.’ Ana smiles, rueful. ‘She said I was a disgusting, common little chav.’
She sits down on a padded bench in the corridor, her body unable to hold her.
‘Maggie, you mean?’ I sit down as well, my hands folded on my lap.
Disgusting. The same word Maggie used to describe Jenny. I’m lost. Teenagers get pregnant every day, up and down the country. It doesn’t have to be a big deal, especially in a family with unlimited resources like the Temples. Ana could have been a mother and still been anything she wanted, with the right support from her family.
‘Why did she make you hide it?’
Ana sighs. ‘A fifteen-year-old daughter up the duff didn’t fit her vision of her supposedly perfect family.’
I recall hearing the ugly truth of Maggie and Alan’s marriage, back at Coy Ponds. I’ve already seen what the secrets and lies have done to this family, how all of them would rather oppress James’s true self than let the truth get out.
‘How did you hide it – the pregnancy?’
‘Wasn’t difficult. He was a neat little bump.’ Ana’s wan smile becomes genuine as she remembers. ‘When Mum found out, she took over, like I knew she would. I got bigger, so I stayed with relatives for a bit. Remember when I said I’d had a bad reaction to some hair-relaxing product and couldn’t come to school? That was my third trimester. I was away from Brighton that whole time. Mum’s idea, of course. She drilled us constantly. She even told people she was pregnant, had Dad pretend to drive her to the hospital and everything. She didn’t leave anything to chance. Mum had it all worked out.’
‘Who was the father?’
Ana snorts. ‘A guy at school. Remember Tom Fox, from Art? The one with braces who was always ragging on me, dipping my ponytail in the blue poster paint? Turns out he fancied me. And me, him. For about two minutes.’
I do remember. I chuckle as the ridiculous, paradoxical nature of teenage dating comes back to me. He’s being horrible to you? Then he must like you. Then I think of Matthew, how he’s been punishing me since I came back. Maybe I haven’t grown up quite as much since those days as I would like.
My thoughts return to James. ‘Didn’t you want to keep him?’
‘Of course I did.’ Ana’s tone is harsher now.
‘So why didn’t you?’
Ana closes her eyes. ‘You don’t understand what it’s like, being in a family like mine. If you step out of line, there is only drama. And it never ends. The only thing you can do is what you are told, or life isn’t worth living. Everything is controlled; you’re trapped. You hate it, but you hate being out of favour, more. She saw to that.’
With Matthew as her enforcer, I want to add.
I’ve always known Matthew is a little staid, unquestioning. But this? I can’t believe Matthew ensured they all stayed in line for so long, or that I could have missed this dysfunctional dynamic in the Temple family so spectacularly. Moments of our lives ricochet back to me, with new meaning attached: the moments I’d seen the twins in a corner at family meals, their heads together like co-conspirators. I’d thought it was just them being close. But had Matthew been threatening Ana? And all those times Matthew had ‘popped out’ of our flat and been habitually late back – had he been keeping Ana and then Jenny in line? He must have been.
But there’s one more thing I do have to know.
‘Ana, where were you really, the night India died?’
Sixty-nine
‘Jenny, where are you? Jenny!’
Ana pulled her long cardigan around herself, against the bitter December air. She knew it was pointless; the teenager wasn’t lurking in the garden, yet Ana couldn’t just sit in the house, waiting. As soon as she’d seen the television news, the BBC red ticker tape on the bottom: ‘YOUNG WOMAN FALLS ON BRIGHTON RAIL TRACKS’, a cold stone of dread had settled inside her belly. Please be OK, she thought.
The night was clear, no cloud protection. The pale eye of a full moon illuminated her breath as it plumed out of her in short, anxious gasps. Ana became aware she was holding her folded arms tight to her chest, like she was holding a baby. This was worse than the day when James had been born; when her family had united to steal the tiny child from her, her mother taking his crib into her room. ‘He’s mine now,’ Maggie had said. ‘It’s for the best.’ Ana had never known pain like it, but at least she’d known her child was alive. Not like now…
A black car took shape in the shadows, its headlights momentarily blinding her as she stumbled out onto the concrete drive in her haste to meet it. Her twin slammed on the brakes, just as she knew he would.
‘Matt! You got her?’
She moved towards the driver’s door as Matthew clambered out. He shook his head, staring at his shoes. She could see he wasn’t able to bring himself to meet her gaze. It was easier to circle his burly arms around her, pulling her into his rough embrace. She made no move to return it, her arms still clenched by her sides.
‘I saw him, down by the marina. I’m sure it’s not him … on the…’ He couldn’t finish the sentence. She knew that, for him, as much as her, the thought of the boy taking his own life, pulverised by tons of steel as the train hit him, was just too much.
But then a fire lit under Ana – a sudden realisation. ‘If it’s her, it’s your fault!’ She wrenche
d herself away from her brother’s grasp and turned her back on him. She heard the gravel crunch as he followed her towards the house.
The door on the latch, she stalked into the hallway of Coy Ponds, keeping an ear out for Ivy as she did. Silence. The little girl was still asleep. Behind her, she heard Matthew close the big oak door. The lock snapped back like a miniature gunshot, and they made their way into the living room.
His voice was low, barely audible. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Not sorry enough.’ Ana felt her lip curling up. ‘What would it take, Matt? To stand up to Mummy dearest?’
This time, Matthew did meet her gaze. Defiance shone in his eyes. ‘The boy needs help. We’re just trying to do the right thing for him. For all of us.’
Those same old words. They made Ana stand to attention, no longer sagging with fear. Her anger like a steel rod through her body.
‘Her. Name. Is. Jenny!’ She flew across the room at him, raining a handful of blows on his chest as she spat out each word, saliva flicking on his cheek.
Matthew grabbed her wrists to stop her. Ana could still feel rage pulse through her veins. She yanked her arms from his and he ducked away, out of her range. Thwarted again, she turned and kicked the armchair instead. It rocked back on its castors, taking out a floor lamp. There was a satisfying tinkle as its glass shade broke. Neither of them made any attempt to pick it up.
‘None of this would be happening if it weren’t for you – helping keep her a prisoner!’ Ana grabbed a crystal decanter off the bar and poured a large slug of their father’s best Scotch. She’d feel it in the morning, but at this precise moment she didn’t care. She just wanted some escape – from the anxiety, from this living nightmare.
Matthew dug his hands in his pockets. ‘He’s not a prisoner. James can go out whenever he wants.’
‘But Jenny can’t!’ Ana knocked back the Scotch with determination. ‘You just don’t get it, do you? Jenny needs to get the fuck away from here. We all do.’
Matthew’s face was infuriatingly impassive. He sat in the armchair opposite, legs spread, elbows rested on his knees. Taking up as much space as possible. Manly. No crossed legs for him, like a sissy or a poofter. It was what their mother had drilled into him since he was a child. Ana had watched her do it. She’d even felt sorry for her twin … until Maggie’s indoctrination had finally worked, and she had brought him permanently onto her side: first to take James from Ana; then to ensure Jenny was kept in line. Now all her brother was, was their mother’s secret weapon. The one that kept them all under Maggie’s cruel thumb.