by Джоан Харрис
I’d thought him quite an old man. Older by far than Catherine, with her long, loose hair and girlish ways. Now I saw that I’d been wrong. I’d simply never heard him laugh. It was a young and summery sound, and Emily’s voice against it was like a seagull crossing a cloudless sky. I realized that the scandal, far from driving them apart, had strengthened the bond between these two, all alone against the world and glad to be together.
It’s snowing outside. Wild, yellow-grey flakes caught in the cone of the corner streetlight. Later, if it settles, then maybe there will be peace over Malbry; all sins past and present reprieved for the day beneath that merciful dusting of white.
It was snowing the night that Emily died. Perhaps if it hadn’t been snowing then, Emily wouldn’t have died at all. Who knows? Nothing ends. Everybody’s story starts in the middle of someone else’s tale, with messy skeins of narrative just waiting to be unravelled. And whose story is this anyway? Is it mine, or Emily’s?
13
You are viewing the webjournal of blueeyedboy.
Posted at: 23.14 on Thursday, February 21
Status: restrictedMood: wakeful
Listening to: Phil Collins: ‘In The Air Tonight’
They should have seen it coming, of course. Catherine White was unstable. Ready to lash out at the cause of her pain — rather like me, if you think about it. And when Patrick White brought Emily home after her performance —
Well, there was an argument.
I suppose they should have expected it. Tension had been building for months. Emotions ran high in the household. In her husband’s absence, Mrs White had been joined by Feather, who, with her alternative therapies, her conspiracy theories, her walk-ins and ghosts and Tomorrow Children, had pushed Catherine White from her volatile state into a full-blown neurosis.
Not that I knew that then, of course. It was late September when Emily left home. Now it was mid-January, with the snowdrops just beginning to push their little green heads through the frozen ground. In all those months of observing the house, I’d barely seen Mrs White. Just once or twice, through the window — a window still hung with Christmas lights, although Twelfth Night was long gone, and the Christmas tree with the tinsel on it was turning brown on the back lawn — I’d seen her standing, looking out, a cigarette trembling at her lips, gazing at nothing but snow and a sky that hissed like white noise.
Feather, on the other hand, was always hanging around the place. I saw her almost every day: fetching the groceries; bringing the mail; dealing with the reporters that still turned up from time to time, hoping for an interview, a word, a picture of Emily —
In actual fact, Emily had barely been seen by anyone. Released by the Social Services when the Peacock case collapsed, she had since moved in with her father, who, every alternate weekend, took her to see her mother in the presence of a social worker, who made careful notes and wrote a report, the gist of which was always that Mrs White was, as yet, unfit to be left alone with Emily.
That night, however, was different. Mr White wasn’t thinking clearly. It wasn’t the first time that Catherine had threatened to kill herself, but it was her first realistic attempt; averted by Feather’s intervention, and by the swift action of the paramedics who had hauled her out of the cooling bath and performed first aid on her slashed wrists.
It could have been worse, the doctor said. It takes a lot of aspirin to actually kill someone outright, and the cuts on her wrists, though fairly deep, had not touched the artery. But it had been a serious attempt, grave enough to cause concern — and by the next morning, which happened to be the day of Emily’s final performance — the story had reached such giant proportions that it could no longer be contained.
How small are the building-blocks of our fate! How intricate their workings! Remove just one component, and the whole machine ceases to function. If Catherine had not chosen that particular day to make her suicidal gesture — and who knows what sequence of events led to that final decision — bringing Bodies A, B and C into malign conjunction; if Emily’s performance that day had not been quite so compelling; if Patrick White had been stronger, and had not given in to his daughter’s pleas; if he hadn’t defied the court ruling and taken Emily to see her without a social worker being present; if Mrs White had been in a brighter mood; if Feather had not left them alone; if I had worn a warmer coat; if Bethan had not come outside to look at the newly fallen snow —
If. If. If. A sweetly deceptive word, as light as a snowflake on the tongue. A word that seems too small to contain such a universe of regret. In French, if is the yew tree, symbol of mourning and the grave. If a yew tree falls in the woods —
I suppose Mr White meant well. He still loved Catherine, you see. He knew what she meant to Emily. And even though they were living apart, he’d always hoped to move back in, that Feather’s influence would fade and that Emily, once the scandal had died, could go back to being a real child instead of a phenomenon.
I’d been watching the house since lunchtime from the coffee shop across the road. I caught it all on camera; the shop had closed at five o’clock, and I was hiding in the garden, where an overgrown clump of leylandii right up by the living-room window offered suitable cover. The trees had a sour and vegetable smell, and where the branches touched my skin they left red marks that itched like nettlerash. But I was nicely shielded from view — on one side by trees — whilst at the window the curtains were drawn, leaving just a tiny gap through which I was able to watch the scene.
That was how it happened. I swear. I never meant to hurt anyone. But standing outside, I heard it all: the recriminations; Mr White’s attempt to calm Mrs White down; Feather’s interjections; Mrs White’s hysterical tears; Emily’s hesitant protests. Or maybe I just thought I did — in retrospect, Mrs White’s voice in my memory now sounds a lot like Ma’s voice, and the other voices resonate like something heard from inside a fish tank; creating booming bubbles of sound that burst in nonsense syllables against the whitened glass.
Clickclick. That was the camera. A long lens resting on the sill; the fastest exposure the shot can take. Even so, the pictures, I knew, would be blurry, nebulous, unclear; the colours blooming around the scene like phosphorescence around a shoal of tropical fish.
Clickclick. ‘I want her back! You can’t keep her away — not now!’
That was Mrs White, pacing the room, cigarette in one hand, hair like a dirty flag down her back. The bandages on her cut wrists stood out a ghostly, unnatural white.
Clickclick. And the sound tastes like Christmas, with the sappy blue scent of the leylandii, and the numbing cold of the falling snow. Snow Queen weather, I thought to myself, and remembered Mrs Electric Blue and the cabbagey reek of the market that day, and the sound her heels had made on the path — click-click-click, like my mother’s.
‘Cathy, please,’ said Mr White. ‘I had to think of Emily. None of this is good for her. Besides, you needed to rest, and—’
‘Don’t you fucking dare patronize me!’ Her voice was rising steadily. ‘I know what you’re trying to do. You want to get some distance from me. You want to ride the scandal. And when you’ve pinned the blame on me, then you’ll cash in, like all the rest—’
‘No one’s trying to blame you.’ He tried to touch her; she flinched away. Underneath the window, I too flinched; and Emily, her hand at her mouth, stood helplessly to one side, flying her distress like a red flag that only I could see.
Clickclick. I felt the touch on my mouth. I could feel her fingers there. They felt like little butterflies. The intimacy of the gesture made me shiver with tenderness.
Emily. Em-il-y. The scent of roses everywhere. Flecks of light shone through the curtains and scattered the fallen snow with stars.
Em-il-y.A million lei.
Clickclick — and now I could almost feel my soul rising out of my body. A million tiny points of light, racing towards oblivion —
And now Feather was joining in, her strident voice drilling through the
glass. Somehow, once more, it reminds me of Ma, and the scent that always accompanies her. Cigarette smoke and the lurking scent of L’Heure Bleue and the vitamin drink.
Clickclick, and Feather was in the can.
I imagined her trapped and drowning inside.
‘No one asked you to come here,’ she said. ‘Don’t you think you’ve done enough?’
For a moment I thought she was talking to me. You little shit, I expected her to say. Don’t you know it’s all your fault? And maybe this time it is, I thought. Maybe this time she knows it, too.
‘Don’t you think you’ve humiliated Cathy enough, with your bastard living right next door?’
A pause, as cold as snow on snow.
‘What?’ said Mr White at last.
‘That’s right,’ said Feather triumphantly. ‘She knows — we know — everything. Did you think you could get away with it?’
‘I didn’t get away with it,’ said Mr White to Catherine. ‘I told you all about it. I told you straight away, a mistake I’ve been paying for these past twelve years—’
‘You told me it was over!’ she cried. ‘You told me it was a woman at work, a supply teacher who moved away—’
For a moment he looked at her, and I was struck by his air of calm. ‘Yes, that was a lie,’ he said. ‘But all the rest of it was true.’
I took a step back. My heart gave a lurch. My breath bloomed huge and monstrous. I knew that I shouldn’t be there, that by now Ma would be wondering where I was. But the scene was too much for Yours Truly. Your bastard. What a fool I’d been.
‘How many other people knew?’ That was Mrs White again. ‘How many people were laughing at me, while that Irish bitch and her fucking brat—’
Once more I approached the glass, feeling Emily’s hand on my cheek. It was cold, but I could feel her heart beating like a landed fish.
Mum, please. Daddy, please —
No one but I could hear her. No one but I could know how she felt. I stretched out my hand like a starfish, pressing the fingers against the glass.
‘Who told you, Cathy?’ said Mr White.
Catherine blew smoke into the air. ‘You really want to know, Pat?’ Her hands were fluttering like birds. ‘You want to know who gave you away?’
Behind the window, I shook my head. I already knew who had told her. I knew why I’d seen Mr White giving money to Ma that day; I understood his pity when I’d asked him if he were my father —
‘You hypocrite,’ she hissed at him. ‘Pretending you cared about Emily. You never really wanted her. You never really understood how special, how gifted Emily was—’
‘Oh yes, I did,’ said Mr White. His voice was as calm as ever. ‘But because of what happened twelve years ago, I’ve allowed you far too much control. You’ve made our daughter into a freak. Well, after today’s performance, I’m going to stop all that once and for all. No more interviews. No more TV. It’s time she had a normal life, and time you learnt to face the facts. She’s just a little blind girl who wants to please her mother—’
‘She isn’t normal,’ said Mrs White, her voice beginning to tremble. ‘She’s special! She’s gifted! I know she is! I’d rather see her dead than be just another handicapped child—’
And at that, the subject under discussion stood up and began to scream: a desperate, penetrating cry that sharpened into a bright point of sound, a laser that sliced through reality with a taste like copper and rotting fruit —
I dropped the camera.
Muuuuuu-uuuuuuu-uuuuuuuum!
For a moment, she and I are one. Twins, two hearts that beat as one; a single oscillation. For a moment I know her perfectly; just as Emily knows me. And then, as suddenly, silence. The volume falls. I’m suddenly aware of the vicious cold; I’ve been standing here for an hour or more. My feet are numb; my hands are sore. Tears are running down my face, but I can barely feel them.
I’m having trouble breathing. I try to move, but it’s too late. My body has turned to concrete. The illness I suffered after Ben’s death has left me wasted and vulnerable. I have lost too much weight over too short a time; my body’s resources are used up.
A wave of terror engulfs me. I could die here, I tell myself. No one knows where I am. I try to call out, but no sound escapes; my mouth is starchy with fear. I can hardly breathe; my vision is blurred —
Should have listened to Ma, Bren. Ma always knows when you’re up to no good. Ma knows you deserve to die —
Please, Ma, I whisper through lips that are papery with cold.
Snow had fallen, snow on snow
Snow on snow —
Silence has enveloped me. Snow deadens everything: sound; light; sensation —
All right, then let me die, I think. Let me die right here, by her door. At least I’d be free then. Free of her —
The thought is weirdly exhilarating. To be free of Ma — of everything — seems like the culmination of every desire. Forget Hawaii; all I need is a moment longer in the snow. Just a moment, and then, sleep. Sleep, without hope, without memory —
And then from behind me comes a voice.
‘Brendan?’
I open my eyes and turn my head. And it’s little Bethan Brannigan, in her red coat and her bobble hat, looking at me from over the wall like something out of a fairy tale. Little Bethan, otherwise known as Patrick’s brat from next door, and whose parentage — kept secret for years — Ma must have threatened to reveal —
She scrambles over the garden wall. She says: ‘Bren, you look awful.’
The snow has stolen my voice. Once more I try to move, but my feet are frozen to the ground.
‘Wait here. You’ll be all right.’ Bethan, even at twelve years old, knows how to cope in a crisis. I hear her run to the front door. She rings the bell. Someone comes out. Snow falls from the burdened porch with a dull ch-thump on to the step.
Mr White’s voice cuts through the night. ‘What’s happened, Bethan? Is something wrong?’
Bethan’s voice: ‘It’s my friend. He needs help.’
Mrs White, shrill with hysteria: ‘Patrick! Don’t you dare let her in!’
‘Cathy. Someone’s in trouble—’
‘I’m warning you, Patrick!’
‘Cathy, please—’
And now, at last, my legs give way. I fall on to my hands and knees. I lift my head and see Emily, at an angle by the door. Syrupy light spills languidly on to the unblemished snow. She is wearing a blue dress, sky-blue, Virgin-blue, and at that moment I love her so much that I would be happy to die in her place —
‘Emily,’ I manage to say.
And then the world shrinks to a speck; the cold rushes in to engulf me, footsteps come running towards me and —
Nothing.
Nothing at all.
14
You are viewing the webjournal of Albertine.
Posted at: 00.23 on Friday, February 22
Status: restricted
Mood: drained
The Press has a poor vocabulary. It works according to certain rules. A house fire is always described as a blaze; a blonde is always bubbly. Murders are always brutal, as if to distinguish from the more compassionate kind. And the death of a child (better still, a tot) is invariably a tragedy.
In this case it was almost true: a mother’s love tested beyond endurance; friends who failed to notice the signs; a husband too willing to rally round; a freak combination of circumstances.
They blamed the media, of course, as they would for the death of Diana. The ultimate tabloid accolade of being known by one’s first name alone is reserved for Jesus, royalty, rock stars, supermodels and little girls who have been kidnapped or killed. Headlines love those dismembered names — those Hayleys and Maddies and Jessicas — implying some kind of shared intimacy, inviting the nation’s collective grief. Wreaths and angels and teddy bears; flowers piled knee-high on the street. Emily’s legend was reinstated, of course, in the wake of that terrible tragedy.
Tragedy? Well, may
be it was. She had so much to live for. Her talent. Her beauty. Her money. Her fame. So many legends had already grown about her little person. Afterwards, those legends grew into something almost approaching a cult. And the surge of grief that surrounded her death was like a group ululation that mourned and repeated: Why Emily? Why not some other little girl?
Well, I, for one, never mourned for her. As blueeyedboy might say, shit happens. And she was nothing special, you know; nothing out of the ordinary. He told me himself that she was a fake — a rumour that was buried with her under that white headstone — but death made her untouchable, just one step removed from the holy choir. No one doubts an angel. Emily’s status was assured.
Everyone knows the official tale. It needed little embellishment. After her TV performance that night, Emily went home with her father. A quarrel — the cause of which remains unknown — flared up between the estranged couple. Then came one of those incidents that no one could have predicted. A young man — a boy, a neighbour of theirs — collapsed outside the Whites’ house. It had been a cold night; snow lay thickly on the ground. The boy — who might have died, they said, if his young friend hadn’t asked them for help — was suffering from exposure. Patrick White took both children inside and made them cups of hot tea, and while Feather tried to determine why they’d been there in the garden at all, Catherine White was left alone — for the first time in months — with Emily.
At this point, the time-scale becomes unclear. The sequence of events that night may never be fully understood. Feather Dunne always claimed that she last saw Emily at six o’clock, though forensic evidence suggests that the child was still alive up to an hour later. And Brendan Winter, who saw it all, claims not to remember anything —
In any case, the facts are these. At six or maybe six thirty, while the others were dealing with Brendan, Catherine White ran a bath, in which she drowned nine-year-old Emily before getting in herself and taking a bottle of sleeping pills. And when Patrick went to look for them later, he found them curled up together in the bath, stellated with fragments of glitterbomb —