Twin Truths

by Shelan Rodger

  I let the early morning sunlight kiss me dry and I walk, past the houses, past dogs and chickens, up and up to the ridge that overlooks the bay. My heart pounds gently with the ascent and I feel an adrenaline rush of optimism, the power of exercise in open space. How many dreams are born at the top of a mountain?

  Mountains were Jenny’s peace, or the nearest she ever found. Just as I tried to hold onto the feeling of the sea, I try now to fix this modest view in my mind, its smell, its colours, its sound. I think of that other dramatic view, water falling as far as the eye can see, and I think – that one was for Jenny, this one is mine.

  I have decided not to add the date of my father’s visit to my address book. The day I found him still outweighs the day I lost him, because I haven’t lost him, have I? You see, Jenny, it was still worth it. I have lost a concept, that’s all, and I have answered a question we grew up with. I know now why he left us.

  Yes, there is a new question now but this one has no history, nothing to feed on. Who, then, is our real father? We know nothing about who he could be. He has no story. Does Mother even know that her husband was not the father of her children? Does it matter? I think of the world we live in. How many children die every day of malnutrition or disease? How many refugees can we turn away in the West without feeling guilty? How many times will mankind wage war on itself? When will torture stop? Those are things that matter. My family tree is an irrelevant detail. I acknowledge Ana quietly, bringing up the child of her sister as if she were her own.

  I take one long, last, lingering look over the bay and then head down the rocky path towards the action of packing and saying my goodbyes, towards the next unknown hand in the cards that life has dealt me.

  Chapter 67

  But there is a wild card waiting for me.

  I have been back in the UK only two weeks when it happens. I have even emailed my mother, trying to be gentle, trying not to throw the truth that I have learnt at her, telling her only that I am grateful for her email, that I will contact her again and would like to see her when I am ready. I always need time to prepare myself, I think, still envious of Jenny: time to lose my virginity, time to make the trip to Iguazu Falls, time to find my father.

  I have been staying with Nick. Football! I had forgotten how important it is in England, a currency which guarantees an endless, easy source of conversation, as useful between close friends as it is between perfect strangers. Nick is not immune, and I watch in amazement as he devours the scorelines in the endless Sunday sports pages. I tell him Jenny used to say football was just men’s way of talking about their feelings.

  ‘That’s where you’re wrong, though,’ he says, ‘ever since Princess Di died, feelings are all the rage. You can see men everywhere crying and talking about their feelings now.’

  ‘Are you really good at your job or are you just blackmailing the boss?’

  ‘There you are, you see. I, more than anyone, owe a personal debt to our late princess. People just pour out their feelings now. It makes my job so much easier.’

  ‘Nick, do you know what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m so glad you’re not my brother.’

  ‘Christ, me too!’

  ‘OK, you don’t need to sound that relieved!’

  ‘You know what’s so great about having you around?’

  ‘Go on,’ I say, preparing myself.

  ‘The fact that you’re not a sister or a partner.’

  ‘You mean no ties, you can just be yourself, unfettered,’ I mock him.

  ‘Yes, actually, I suppose I do.’ For a moment he is serious, and then he laughs. ‘So, do you want to know the result of the match?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m off to do my emails.’

  * * *

  And there it is, another rule broken. Ignacio has written to me. I pause long and hard before I open the email, anger battling with curiosity and an involuntary tenderness. In the end it is the plea in the subject line – I know, I know, I know – that opens the drawer.

  Dear Jenny,

  I know I agreed not to write, but you always said rules are only rules when they are broken. Bear with me, please. This is important. Perhaps there is no way back for the two of us, I accept that, but I still care about you and want the best for you and that is the only reason I have broken the rule.

  Before Iguazu, did you trust me? Please, stop and think about the answer to this question. If you did, then send me an email with just the answer yes and I will send you another email. If you didn’t, then say no and I will not bother you again. Please just focus on that question and that question only for now. Can you do this for me?

  With warmth,

  Ignacio

  The wheels of my mind move slowly. ‘With warmth’ – how formal. He cares . . . it filters through the strangeness. Twice I have punished him. I see the look of pain on his face as I try to push him away before he comes inside me on our first night together. I see the look of weary resignation when I tell him it is over at Iguazu. Both times my need to punish felt bigger than me, bigger than the situation. Both times Ignacio was the innocent victim. In a dusty corner of the drawer I have just allowed myself to open, I admire his ability to move beyond resentment. Will I ever be able to do that with my own mother? Will I ever forgive the world for taking Jenny away? Why is she still so silent in my head?

  The loneliness burns and, in it, I focus on the question that Ignacio has set me. Did I trust you, Ignacio? I remember how I struggled to explain why it had to be over between us after Iguazu. I remember in the end that he looked so shattered by it all he just withdrew and said, ‘Do what you feel you have to do.’ At the time it felt impossible to do anything else, but he was there, he was there beside me, he bore witness to my journey. Did I trust him?

  Yes. I click ‘send’.

  Chapter 68

  Autumn is giving way to winter. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if human beings had the same cycle as nature? I think of Mrs Forster and how she would have relished another spring in her life, the folds in her face filled with flesh again and the languor of lengthening days to live differently. And me? What would I do differently if I had my life to live again? My sister’s laughter plays in my head but it is just an echo. Her voice – the body of it, the flesh of it – is no longer there.

  In Argentina spring is giving way to summer. Ignacio has asked me to go back. He has done it cleverly, ambushed me, much as I did to him the first time I persuaded him to let me meet his children, but this is not an afternoon outing to a city park. He is asking me to cross the world again. He is asking me to travel back into the past again. He is asking me to take a leap of faith greater than the height of Iguazu Falls, to jump into clouds of cotton wool. He will not tell me why. He says I just need to trust him: trust him and book a ticket.

  The failing light, as I wander aimlessly through the streets, makes me feel like an outsider, eavesdropping on other people’s lives through half-drawn curtains, which frame the onset of TV suppers and children’s bedtime stories. I imagine myself as the orphan in a Dickens novel. I come across a scene that would sit quite comfortably in this novel: four people in long, tattered coats warming their hands around a makeshift fire under a bridge and passing around a half-empty bottle of whisky. ‘Fancy a drink, love?’ shouts one of them, raising the bottle in my direction. I smile and quicken my step.

  The world is made of clubs, I think. There are the big ones: nation, religion, race, class, gender, sexual orientation, wealth (or poverty), politics, education. But there are other less obvious ones too, like disease or childlessness. And then there is the world of taste: what clothes you wear, what music you like, what food you eat, where you go on holiday. Every penny spent or saved defines us as part of this or that club. We are branded by our postcodes.

  I shiver. What do I believe in? What are my truths? When I wrote those goals at the age of seventeen I wanted to do something worthwhile with my life. Now here I am, nearly thirty and I have not yet discovered wha
t worthwhile means. I think of Ana, what she has done bringing up the child of her disappeared sister, and I think that is something real.

  I remember one occasion in Buenos Aires, walking past a group of homeless people. A little girl with cold sores was begging, holding out her hand to fur-coated passers-by on this chic downtown avenue. I dipped into my pocket for some loose change. A few steps away was the cinema I was going to, and as I approached the box office I was suddenly consumed by the most enormous sense of sorrow. The coins I had handed over were futile, their only purpose to assuage my guilt. I wouldn’t even notice they were gone, so I turned and dug deeper in my pockets, pulling out a note that would make a difference to me, a note that the little girl had probably never seen. I fought against the sense of virtue that now lined my empty pockets. What did a random act of charity solve? This was no answer either.

  Jenny never worried about these things. In a bad mood she would have walked right past, not even noticing the little girl with the cold sores. In another mood she would have crouched down and talked to the little girl, handing out money without even questioning how much she was giving.

  Maybe that is what I like in Nick: his transparency. He couldn’t care less whether someone is black or gay. He either likes them or he doesn’t. I remember the games I played in my head about our relation- ship, I have a fleeting memory of a failed erection and I am grateful for the resolution of friendship. There had been a moment, perhaps. Just after I got here, before Ignacio had opened the forbidden drawer again, Nick had broken a date to spray me with champagne and take me out for dinner.

  ‘Here’s to a new beginning for someone who deserves it!’ The Nick toast. I was touched. ‘You’re welcome to stay for as long as you like, you know that.’

  ‘As long as I can stand the sound of other women’s orgasms, you mean,’ I laughed.

  The owner of the knickers I had found in the wash had lasted only one night in Nick’s world. Jenny – the real Jenny, not the Jenny I was trying to be – would have eaten Nick alive. I thought, with a familiar flash of horror mixed with envy, of the symphony they would have created in the room next door.

  Nick was looking at me, and I interrupted his gaze with another question. ‘Nick, do you think you will ever settle down?’

  ‘Settle down? I hate that expression. I sincerely hope I shall never settle down, but what do you mean anyway? In most people’s life handbooks I have done just that. I have a mortgage, I have a “good job”, I have a decent collection of CDs.’

  ‘Aha,’ I interrupted him. ’There you are, you’ve given yourself away! The next thing on the list was supposed to be a stable relationship, not a bachelor’s toy!’

  ‘And what, oh self-satisfied one, is this if not a stable relationship?’

  ‘Fuck off, Nick, friends don’t count. You know that!’

  ‘I see. You’re talking partner, you’re talking pre-nuptial monogamy, the beginning of the end of independent discovery, the big bad ugly C word.’

  ‘What C word? Ah,’ I realised, laughing again, ’you mean commitment.’

  ‘Sshh.’ He put a finger on my mouth.

  ‘Nick, promise me something. Promise me you will never be anything but a friend to me.’

  ‘Ah, you see you women can’t help yourselves. You’re all the same underneath.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You’re asking me to make you a promise. Promises mean the C word. I don’t do promises.’ He was laughing, but his eyes were serious. Rules are dangerous, I remembered suddenly. When there are rules, they get broken.

  ‘That suits me just fine,’ I said, looking straight at him.

  * * *

  But I can feel the value of Nick’s friendship now, I can measure it by just how much I want to talk to him about the dilemma that Ignacio has thrown at me. Patience; he will be back in two days and Ignacio has told me not to reply before seven days have passed. I feel as submissive as a cat.

  Chapter 69

  If it had been me pregnant with Johnny’s child would I have had it? Yes, I think so. I would have had the child no matter who the father was. I don’t think I could go through what Jenny went through.

  I look away from the window of my reverie and pull myself back to the job vacancies in the paper in front of me. Whatever I decide to do about the Argentina challenge – and yes, there is a challenge in the gaps between Ignacio’s words – my Greek money is not going to last forever, and the need to find work is pressing.

  A shuffling, spluttering sound announces the arrival of Nick into his Sunday morning kitchen. I cooked a meal for him last night, which seemed to shock him slightly, but he ate well. I told him about Ignacio’s email. I was clumsy about it, felt awkward and unable to really fathom why. I expected a tirade of some sort, a heavy dose of taking the piss before Nick settled into a meaningful conversation, but he was surprisingly thoughtful from the outset and wouldn’t commit to an opinion.

  ‘You said you trust him,’ Nick said, pouring tea. His tone verged on accusatory, and I put the paper to one side.

  ‘Yes,’ I say slowly.

  ‘Well, that’s irrelevant, in my book.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I say, again slowly.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about it. It’s the wrong question. Maybe it’s a given that there needs to be this layer of trust,’ – he almost spits the word – ‘but that shouldn’t be the reason to make you go.’

  I wonder if Nick will ever trust himself enough to try and form a lasting relationship. ‘So, what’s the right question?’ I ask, trying to keep the defensiveness out of my voice.

  ‘Do you want to know why?’

  ‘You mean why Ignacio has asked me to go?’ I’m not sure that I’m following Nick.

  ‘Exactly. It might all just be a ruse to get back into your knickers.

  It might just be a form of revenge, the only way he can move on –’

  ‘No, I don’t think that’s it.’ I interrupt, but Nick waves at me impatiently.

  ‘The point is, whatever the answer is – maybe he’s made some earth-shattering psychological discovery about the grieving process for a twin –’ he waves away my expression again. ‘The point is that the answer itself is not what you need to judge the value of right now. What you need to judge is the question. How badly do you want to know why?’

  I am thoughtful, understanding him at last. ‘You know, I have this image sometimes of a rat nibbling at my feet and the only place I can escape is in the water. I think that’s why I’ve always loved swimming so much.’ I pause, aware of how strange this must sound, but Nick is listening. ‘God knows what that is about,’ I try to laugh it away, ‘my dark side or something . . .’

  ‘So,’ Nick says slowly, without laughing, ‘why don’t you go to Argentina?’

  ‘I don’t know. Of course I want to know what the hell this is all about, but I suppose I’m also afraid of what I’ll feel. I mean about Ignacio.’ My words flounder, but Nick doesn’t rescue me and I force myself to fill the silence. ‘It wasn’t really me that Ignacio had a relationship with. He knows nothing about the real me.’

  ‘So?’

  I delve into unknown territory and imagine Jenny laughing at the fact that I am having this conversation with Nick, of all people. ‘Well I suppose I’m scared of finding out that I still care. About him, I mean, about Ignacio.’ I wanted the first orgasm to be perfect, but it happened while I was pushing him away against a backdrop of red velvet walls.

  ‘Funny that.’ Nick touches me momentarily on the cheek and I recognise the gesture from a night in Greece before I knew any of this was coming. Again there is the shadow of something that could have been. Perhaps I am imagining it, perhaps this is the territory of true friendship, but it is the gentlest of shadows.

  ‘What’s funny?’ I say quietly.

  ‘Well, I used to know this girl called Jenny. She was vivacious, unpredictable, mysterious, slightly off the wall. In some ways she was quite like you, but harder –
harder and sadder.’ He checks my face to see if he should go on. I nod. ‘Well, there was this huge rat at her feet – not invisible at all! But she would never acknowledge its presence, always refused to introduce it. She carried it around with her, like a dog at heel. I think in a way she even grew quite fond of it, and Ignacio. . .’ He pauses and I look hard at him. ‘Ignacio, perhaps unknowingly, nurtured this rat. Perhaps he wants to do something about that now, but, as I said, that’s irrelevant. The point is that this girl called Jenny eventually did what she had to do, what she knew all along she was going to do, and when she did –’ another pause and he puts a finger over my mouth – ‘when she did, the rat left her.’

  ‘Nick, that’s a lovely story,’ I say, ruffling his hair, ‘but –’

  ‘Do you want to know why?’ He breaks in again.

  ‘Yes.’ The word is so easy to say.

  ‘Then go, go before your money runs out, and if you need more I’ll help you.’

  ‘Thank you.’ This is a word that Jenny struggled with, but it slips easily from me to meet Nick’s eyes, through the tears in my own.

  Chapter 70

  My stomach has a biological memory of the Sunday I went to meet my sister at Gatwick. It responds, now, in exactly the same way, as if there is only one way it knows how to deal with extreme emotion. My insides seem to shrink and I am left with a hollow space, which somehow still needs emptying. I want to retch, but I know there is nothing there. At least there is no vomiting this time, but the butterflies are rampant question marks. What is this journey about? How badly do I want to know why? The wings in my stomach collide in a vacuum.

  When I arrive at Buenos Aires airport it is Ana who is waiting for me. This is not a surprise. Ignacio has arranged for her to meet me and take me back to her place for the first night. A part of me is impatient – to see him, to get answers – but another part is relieved and grateful to Ignacio for guessing that I will need time to adapt.