Making of Us

by Lisa Jewell

  ‘Oh,’ said Maggie. ‘What were you expecting? Or shouldn’t I ask?’

  ‘No, you should not ask.’ He smiled again, that big, dimpled smile that his brother rarely allowed himself to expend. Then he picked up his small suitcase and glanced at the building in front of him. ‘So, this is where my brother has been hiding all these years?’

  Maggie smiled back. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘this is where he lives. Come in. Let’s get you settled in.’

  He followed her through the communal hallway and up the stairs to the front door of the flat. ‘I still can’t believe that Daniel didn’t tell me you were his twin,’ she said, as she turned her key in the lock.

  ‘Well,’ said Marc, ‘it has been a long time. Maybe he forgot?’

  Maggie smiled. ‘Maybe,’ she said. She pushed open the door and let Marc into the flat first.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is a very nice apartment that Daniel has. I did not know. I was always maybe a little worried that he might not be living comfortably, that maybe he had found himself a little poor. But it seems not.’ He walked slowly around the two rooms on the first level, wandered to the window in the living room and looked down into the leafy communal garden from Daniel’s roof terrace. ‘This is nice, very nice. And you, do you live near here?’ he asked, turning to look at her and throwing her once more into disarray with his facsimile resemblance to his brother.

  Maggie averted her face so that he would not see her expression. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I live in town, near the station, that way.’ She gestured vaguely to the east. ‘Shall I show you the upstairs?’

  He beamed at her. ‘Of course,’ he said.

  He followed her up the softly carpeted stairs and she showed him Daniel’s small eaved bedroom and the eaved bathroom off the landing. He left his suitcase on top of Daniel’s bed and then turned to Maggie and smiled again. ‘Thank you,’ he said, ‘thank you for your help, Maggie. I wonder if it would be possible for me to take a quick shower before we leave for the hospital?’

  She started. ‘Oh, yes, of course. Sorry. I should have thought. Have you got everything? I mean, I’ve put in fresh towels and a new bar of soap, is there anything else you’ll need?’

  ‘No, thank you, Maggie. That will be enough, I’m sure.’

  She backed out of the room and tiptoed down the stairs again. She sat on the terrace while she waited for Marc to get ready and stared across the gardens and into the distant landscape. Yet again, Daniel’s reticence to share anything of himself with her had tripped her up. An identical twin. An English-speaking identical twin. A twin who appeared not to have suffered any of the existential damage that his brother must have sustained to have evolved into such a closed box of a person.

  She picked at the dry skin around her French-manicured fingernails and she waited. She felt suddenly engorged with questions she wanted to ask. But this was not a day for asking questions. Today was a day for reunions. Questions could wait.

  Marc emerged a few moments later, with damp hair and wearing a very smart windowpane-check shirt in shades of blue and a pair of dark indigo jeans. He smelled of soap and cologne, and he looked, as his brother had once done, terrifically handsome. ‘There,’ he said, patting his freshly shaved cheeks, ‘I am now clean. And, I think, nearly ready for the next bit.’

  Maggie smiled and got to her feet. ‘How old were you both,’ she began, ‘the last time you saw each other?’

  ‘We were twenty-four,’ he said. And with the words came a vague tone of regret. ‘Yes,’ he said, dropping his gaze to the floor. ‘It is crazy. Twins. Divided. My mother, well …’ he looked up at her with watery eyes ‘… she has a broken heart. But still,’ he smiled again and clapped his hands together, ‘there is time to talk, no doubt, as we drive. And now, after thirty years, I am more than ready to see him again. So, let us go.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Maggie. ‘Let’s go.’

  In the car, Marc stared quietly through the window for a few minutes. Eventually he turned to Maggie and said: ‘How bad is he? Really?’

  She sighed, and peered into her wing mirror as she pulled into the next lane. ‘I don’t know, Marc. Honestly, it’s very strange. It’s so hard to tell. But I would say, well, he’s very bad. I would say, let’s put it like this, I think you came just in time.’ She turned and looked at him, her mouth forced into a tight smile.

  He turned away from her and returned his gaze to the view from the window.

  She allowed him another moment of silence before speaking again. ‘Listen, Marc,’ she began, tentatively, ‘there’s something else I have to tell you. And this will probably come as a surprise to you, but a few weeks ago Daniel told me something, something quite remarkable. He told me that when he first arrived in this country he was so hard up for cash that he, well, he became a donor. Do you know what I mean by that, a donor?’

  ‘No, I am not sure …’

  ‘Well, you know, ladies who can’t have babies, or rather they have husbands who can’t have babies, they can go to a clinic and be artificially, well …’

  ‘Ah.’ Marc’s head nodded in understanding. ‘Yes. A donneur. I do know what you mean.’

  ‘Good. Well, your brother did that. And he was told by the clinic where he was a donor that his … he … there are four children. Who are his.’

  Marc’s full brows rose higher. ‘Yes?’ he asked in a tone of surprise.

  ‘Yes,’ said Maggie. ‘And he asked me, and I’m still not sure how much this was to do with the drugs or with the disease spreading to his brain, but he asked me to see if I can find them. And I haven’t found them yet. But I’m hoping that I will. And if I do, I’ll be asking them to come … to come and see Daniel.’

  She glanced at Marc to see how he had taken this revelation. He nodded his head slowly up and down and stroked his chin. ‘Wow,’ he said eventually. And then he laughed, a soft bubble of laughter at first, followed by a few more bursts. His smile grew wider and then he turned to Maggie and beamed. ‘Wow!’ he said again. ‘That is amazing! You mean, I have nieces and nephews?’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose you do.’

  ‘Oh, this is incredible news! I thought … well, indeed, I thought there would never be any such thing. I have no children, and as far as I was aware my brother had no children. And now, suddenly, there are children! This is wonderful! Just wonderful! Thank you, Maggie. I can see that you are a true friend to my brother. I can see that he is lucky to have met you.’ He smiled gratefully at her and Maggie felt something peculiar happen to her heart. She ignored the sensation and smiled and said, ‘Oh, honestly. It’s no big deal. Nothing anyone else wouldn’t have done.’

  At the hospice, they walked the corridors together, side-by-side. It felt otherworldly, to be walking into this place with the before version of her dying boyfriend, and Maggie caught her breath against the oncoming moments.

  Daniel was as he’d been the previous day; slack, semi-conscious, grey. Marc caught his breath as he saw him and for a moment almost seemed to be about to turn and leave the room. Maggie heard his breath catch in his throat and laid her hand against his arm. ‘Are you OK?’ she asked. Marc had his fist at his mouth and his other hand thrust in his pocket. He inhaled deeply through his nostrils and then smiled tightly. ‘Yes,’ he said quietly, ‘I think I am. I will be.’ He approached the bed and Maggie followed him.

  ‘Daniel,’ she said in a loud whisper, touching his shoulder gently, ‘Daniel. It’s me, Maggie. Can you hear me?’

  Daniel stirred slightly and his dry mouth opened a crack. A noise exited his lips but Maggie could not make out a word. ‘There’s someone here with me, someone special.’ Daniel groaned again. ‘It’s your brother, Daniel, it’s Marc. He’s here. Can you open your eyes? Can you see?’

  Daniel’s eyelids twitched and then his lips turned up into a smile. He opened his mouth and slowly he uttered the word, ‘Marc.’

  Marc moved closer to his brother and laid his hand against his shoulder. ‘Yes!’ he said. ‘Oui, D
aniel, c’est moi!’

  ‘Marc,’ said Daniel again. He pulled his arm from under the sheets and let his hand drop heavily on top of Marc’s. And then, very suddenly and quite unexpectedly, Marc kicked off his shoes and he climbed atop the bed and he rested himself, in what little space there was, against the side of his brother’s poor wasted body and he draped his arm across his brother’s waist and he held his hand tight within his and then he kissed him on the cheek, just above his ear, hard and passionate.

  Maggie was about to say, Oh, be careful, he has an intubation in his stomach, and a catheter, don’t hold him too much. But she caught the words in the base of her throat and left them there. And then she turned and walked out of the room.

  An hour later they sat together by the Koi pond. The earlier warm weather had dissipated, leaving behind a disappointingly nondescript afternoon of grey skies. With the chill breeze, Maggie had returned to her car to fetch a cardigan. Marc sat and peered at the gravelled ground between his feet.

  ‘I must have known,’ he said. ‘It is so strange. But I must have known. To have written that letter when I did, after so many years without any contact. I must have felt it. Because, you know, they say, don’t they, that identical twins have this, how you say … see-kick …?’

  ‘Psychic?’

  ‘Yes, this psychic connection.’ He tapped his temple with his finger. ‘And I remember, I was sitting at work, in my office, and I saw a bird through the window. It was up high and it was flying like this …’ he drew a circle in the air ‘… round and round he goes. Round and round. And I find myself thinking that I would like this bird to stop flying round and round and to fly straight, straight across the Channel, straight up here, and then come to my brother’s window and tell him that I am missing him. And as I think this, I decide to write him a letter. I see it as a sign, yes? And then, well, here I am and my brother is leaving us.’ He let his head drop between his knees and then he brought it up again and Maggie saw that there were tears glistening on either side of his beautiful nose. ‘And I am here only just in time.’ He smiled a brave smile and before she could censor her own actions Maggie had taken both his hands in hers and squeezed them.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said in a croaky whisper. ‘Thank you.’

  They sat in silence for a while, their hands still entwined. A shiver ran down her spine and she shuddered.

  ‘Oh,’ said Marc, misreading the involuntary movement, ‘you are cold? We should go inside? Get some coffee?’

  Maggie nodded. She’d had no lunch. She’d quite like a sandwich. They walked slowly back into the building and towards the cafe. ‘Why did you and Daniel fall out with each other?’ she asked, tentatively.

  ‘Fall out?’ he said.

  ‘Yes, you know, have an argument, become estranged?’

  ‘Ah, yes, I see. But no, there was no argument. We did not have a fight.’

  ‘Oh. I thought …’

  ‘No, no, no. It was because of what happened. When he was at university. He told you about the child?’

  Maggie looked at him questioningly.

  ‘He did not tell you?’ Marc sighed. ‘Oh, dear. Well, it is not a surprise maybe. It is a hard thing to talk about. And that is why he went away. That is why he could not talk to me any more. Why he could not be the man he used to be. Because of this terrible, terrible thing.’

  They turned a corner and Marc held open a door for Maggie to pass through. As she did so her body brushed against his and she felt a startling sense of longing, so strong that she had to hold back a low groan. She ignored the feeling, dismissing it as the result of too many conflicting emotions jostling for space inside her head.

  ‘What terrible thing?’ she asked, probably more forcefully than she’d intended.

  ‘Oh, well. It is hard for me. He has not told you this thing and now he is so ill, and maybe he has not told you for a reason. Maybe he did not want you to know?’

  ‘No, he didn’t want me to know. I was always trying to get him to talk to me about his past, about how he ended up in this country, but he had … has this clever way of answering a question without actually telling you anything. But I must say, he’s shown me more of himself in the past few weeks than he ever showed me before. It’s almost as though, well, as though he can’t see the point of keeping his secrets any more. As though they’ve lost their meaning.’

  ‘Well,’ said Marc, ‘in that case, maybe we should talk. Maybe I should tell you, because it makes me sad to say this but I feel like my brother will not be telling anyone any more secrets now. I think his time for telling them is over.’

  They bought mugs of tea and sandwiches at the cafe and took them to the guests’ lounge. They sat opposite each other at a black ash table adorned with brightly coloured dried flowers in a black vase. Maggie nibbled at the edges of her sandwich and waited for Marc to talk.

  ‘Well,’ he began, ‘my brother was in his final year at medical school. He was a student doctor, hoping to become a paediatrician. He was placed in a children’s cancer ward in a hospital just outside Dieppe and one night he was asked to administer some, how you say, morphine?’

  Maggie nodded.

  ‘And, well, he misread the dosage. It was late. He was tired. He killed the child with an overdose.’

  Maggie gasped and brought her hands to her mouth.

  Marc shook his head sadly, just once, and sighed. ‘So, after this, there was an inquest, he was acquitted of manslaughter, but he could not go back to medicine. He could not go back to anything. He sat in his student room for a month, he saw nobody. And then, our mother … well, she is a very unwell woman herself, you know. She has always had the problems with her mind.’ He tapped his head. ‘Not a stable woman. And she took this accident very badly. She disowned my brother. Said she could not live with a child-killer as a son. And I think he found it very difficult to see me, his other half, so close we were, knowing that I could not feel what he was feeling. And knowing that our mother, she still loved me but she no longer loved him. And then, one day, he just disappeared,’ Marc clicked his fingers together, ‘like this. Gone. No words, no explanation.

  ‘It felt as if my heart had broken. He did not tell us where he was for another five years. And then he said he was here, in England. He sent me these letters on this paper, with the English address printed at the top, yes? So I know where he is living. But he does not invite me. And I do not ask to come. And I do not know why this is. I do not know why there is this bridge that neither of us can walk across. It is almost as if, being a twin, it is all or it is nothing. You are either together or you are not. There is no halfway point between the two. So we chose nothing. And now, well, he is going away and I will never see him again. Not as he was.’

  ‘Poor, poor Daniel!’ said Maggie, one hand still at her throat. ‘And poor, poor you. That is such a terrible story.’

  ‘I know. It is a tragedy. A clever, caring, good man and one tiny mistake – and pouf! Everything turns to dust.’

  ‘No wonder he never told me that. I mean, imagine how he’s been feeling all these years, imagine the guilt and the lack of confidence. How would you ever trust yourself to do anything important again?’

  ‘Well, yes, exactly. And see how he has made his children? See how he has let other people take all the responsibility for them?’

  ‘Yes, but also he’s given children to people who couldn’t have them themselves. It’s almost like he was paying the world back for taking the life of one.’

  ‘Yes, that is true also. But I think it is mainly to avoid the risk, you see? His whole life since this accident has been lived to avoid taking the risk.’

  ‘Yes …’ said Maggie, and then she drifted away, as she realised that this was why their fledgling relationship had never headed down the road they’d both wanted it to. This was why he had never taken her in his arms and kissed her. This was why he had never told her he loved her. This was why they were still just friends. Because he did not want to take responsib
ility for her or her feelings. Because he did not want to damage her. ‘Yes,’ she continued, trying to keep her voice steady, ‘yes. I can see that. I really can. How sad,’ she said, ‘how very, very sad.’

  LYDIA

  Her brother didn’t have a middle name, but then neither did she. Her parents had not believed in middle names, for some unknown reason. She stood and faced his small stone tablet, carved from dove-grey stone, and stared at the lettering: Thomas Pike. Her brother. He would have been twenty-eight in August.

  She’d been here before. She could remember it now, vividly. Her mother was buried here, too, on the other side of the chapel, between Lydia’s father and Glenys’ own mother. Lydia had been here to visit her mother’s grave as a child, and later as an adult to bury her father.

  Rodney stood at her side with his hands in the pockets of his blue jeans. ‘You OK, love?’ he asked.

  She turned partially towards him and smiled sadly. ‘I think so,’ she said.

  Her brother’s ashes lay beneath her feet. A tiny box of dust. She wasn’t really all right. She was bereft.

  ‘Why is he buried over here?’ she asked. ‘Why is he all by himself?’

  Rodney took a step closer to her and shook his head.

  ‘I don’t know what your dad was going through back then. I wasn’t there to know. But I suppose, your dad, he just couldn’t deal with it. The little tiny grave. And he didn’t want you to know about it either. Out of sight, out of mind, you know …’

  Lydia turned back to the grave and felt cold dread run through her. Her father, again, doing the wrong thing. Always doing the wrong thing. Every single time. How could he have left Thomas here, a small boy, alone and away from his mother? How could anyone ever have thought that was the right thing to do?

  ‘I want to move him,’ she said, turning again to face Rodney, her face set with sudden resolve. ‘I want to move Thomas, close to our mum.’

  Rodney puffed out his cheeks. ‘Well,’ he began, ‘I’m not sure you’d be able to do that. They’re all pre-reserved, you know, pre-booked decades in advance by the sort of people who don’t want to leave anything to chance. There’s no spare plots up there by your mother. All gone.’