The Life of Death

by Lucy Booth

  And I tell Him how I went into the bathroom on that day and vomited self-loathing and disgust until my shoulders heaved with empty retches and I struggled to raise my head from the cushion of a black plastic toilet seat. How the memory of the crunch and crack of a crushed windpipe still makes the bile rise in my throat. My voice is a monotone. Devoid of emotion. Distanced from my acts.

  All the while He sits, eyes closed, head leaning back, a small smile playing on thin lips. Sits in silence but for the occasional murmur of encouragement when words fail and tears threaten. The occasional prompt when my mind sweeps me back to that council flat living room and my mouth hangs dry and speechless in the memory.

  ‘Well done, I must say. Well done, Little D. You’re going to have to toughen up, though. If you’re going to make it through all five unscathed. You’re terribly … emotional … Reckon you can do it?’

  I don’t know if I can. Every time I close my eyes I see the bulging eyes and desperation of a dying man. Hear the strained and whispered scream of a constrained throat. It can only get worse. Not one dying man looming behind closed lids, but five. Five of who knows what shape and size.

  He senses the reluctance in my silence. The reticence evident in the lack of a reply.

  ‘You don’t have to, you know. We can call it all off now. It’s much easier for me if we just stay as we are – you carry on doing what you do, and we abandon this rigmarole in aid of your soul. Silly idea anyway. Should’ve known you wouldn’t have the strength for it. Ah well …’ He sighs, presses bony hands against metal frame to push himself up and out of the chair.

  ‘No. Wait.’

  Bulging eyes have been replaced with a broken figure next to a hospital bed. A forehead resting on strong forearm, fingers entwined in soft, dark curls. The musky smell of sandalwood aftershave and the memory of navy eyes rimmed red with grief. If I stop now, there’s no hope of ever getting what I want, and the thought of eking out a miserable existence for an eternity with his memory vivid in my mind’s eye is unbearable.

  He settles back into the chair. Turns to watch me struggle with what I want to say. In the end the arguments, the reasoning, the justifications fail me and I shrug my shoulders in defeat.

  ‘Who’s next?’

  ‘Well, Little D. I’m glad you asked.’ Rubs His hands together and grins that wolfish grin. Reaches underneath His chair to pull out a thick leather-bound photo album, scuffed at the edges, snapshots spilling from between well-thumbed pages. The early pages crammed with the faded, rounded edge photographs of a Truprint era, twin girls squinting up at the camera from a pebble beach, ice creams smeared across tanned little faces.

  ‘She’s one of the lucky ones, this one. Lived a life too easy. Let’s put a stop to that shall we, Little D?’

  Rose Charlotte Harrison.

  Number 2.

  9

  NOW ROSE, ROSE IS A TRICKY ONE … SHE’S ONE of those girls. Comes from one of those families. To say she’s lived a charmed life is nothing short of understatement. I’ve never had much reason to see her over the past thirty-two years – never had to wait patiently for the breathing to slow, for limbs to stiffen and eyes to glaze. Never had to avoid her eye for fear of being seen too soon.

  My friend the Devil finds these people as infuriating as the ones who get away – the Hywels of the world. Because these people have the audacity to go blithely through life unharmed. Without even chucking Him a cursory glance, let alone considering the harm and hatred that He might inflict. And so, revenge must be taken.

  I am sorry, Rose, for what I am about to do.

  I look back over the years – a scrapbook of snapshots that, seen from a distance, blend into one huge picture of the woman as she is now.

  Life was blessed from the off. Even her birth was an easy passage. Slipping into the world with barely a murmur, fist sleepily rubbing her eye as with a yawn and a stretch she butted her tiny head against her mother and nestled in. Twin sister Hannah followed closely behind – irascible and hot-tempered, headstrong from the word go. Healthy bouncing bairns the two of them – identical twins adorable in matching dresses. Rose is the older by ten minutes and from the very start she’s the reliable one, the responsible one. Even in the cot she’d throw one arm over Hannah to calm fractious cries, curled up together against the outside world.

  Flick through the pages – past summers on French beaches, winters clad in woolly scarves and bright red wellies. Past the early eighties perm of Mum and the bushy sideburns of Dad. Aged three, a brother appears – sealing the Harrison family unit. Christopher. Chubby frame propped up against the proudest of older sisters. He’s a screeching bundle who the girls adore – they coddle and mother him, clucking around, watching his tiny chest breathe in and out, holding their ears close to a tiny, snuffling nose. They hold books upside down and recite favourite stories. Puréed carrots are messily shovelled into a gaping mouth, the yellow lino of the kitchen floor flecked in orange goo. He becomes their third wheel, their life-sized doll – as soon as he can walk he follows them wherever they go, toddling after them, desperate to keep up. Patiently sitting with eyes closed while Hannah paints his lids with crumbling green eyeshadow and his cheeks with stubs of old lipstick and Rose drapes him with bracelets and necklaces from a successful raid on Mum’s bottom drawer. He’s a willing and adoring accomplice.

  The girls’ first day at school. They stand in front of a red-brick semi on the outskirts of Manchester – paintwork freshly touched up, garden well tended. Rose’s left fist clutches Hannah’s right while free hands grip brand-new stiff leather satchels. Blue eyes squint into the sun, gappy smiles proclaiming a recent visit from the tooth fairy. Blonde bunches curl into ringlets – Rose’s tied with a pink ribbon, Hannah’s blue. It’s the only discernible difference to those who don’t know them. But look a little closer and the peas in a pod are as different as night and day. Rose is neat, impeccably dressed, brilliant white socks pulled up to the knee. By contrast, one of Hannah’s socks is already gathering around her ankle and the burgundy and gold striped tie is askew. Day one of school and already a white smear on her grey polyester V-neck where milk has splashed out of her cereal bowl and dribbled down her front to be wiped away by a grubby hand.

  These things never happen to Rose.

  It’s these little things, these tiny markers that people will eventually use to distinguish between them in the absence of any obvious physical differences. But for now, with a new career at school lying ahead, a whole new world of mischief opens up to two girls whom no one can tell apart.

  There’s a roll of cinetape tucked into a curling envelope between the pages. A flickering square of light projected onto the wall of a darkened room takes us to a kids’ party. Two home-made birthday cakes sit in pride of place in the middle of a table crammed with sweet treats and paper plates stacked with egg sandwiches and miniature Swiss rolls. A princess castle smothered in pink buttercream icing and jelly sweets for Rose sits next to Hannah’s lopsided, smiling Mr Bump. A small arm stretches across the table to scoop a glob of sugary confection onto a finger and the camera moves left to show two giggling girls in their party dresses being shooed from the dining room by their mother.

  Guests start to arrive and the games begin. Newspaper flies around the room and Opal Fruits are shovelled into small mouths as the parcel is passed. When the music stops a room full of dancing, prancing party-goers freeze into wobbly statues, casting surreptitious sideways glances at the all-seeing eye of Mr Harrison in his capacity as judge. With the last guest to leave the tape runs out and we are left with the jumping and juddering of a pure white square of light against the shadows.

  The school years whip by – punctuated by parties, tinselled with trips to the zoo and summer weekends spent with cousins. Rolling down hills of freshly mown grass and playing in pub gardens fortified by a glass of Coke and a packet of crisps as the grown-ups finish warm pints of bitter and flat gin and tonics in the bar, shafts of late afternoon sun cutting thro
ugh the smoke-hazed air. There are sprinklers to run through, dens to build and ransack. Rabbits, hamsters and guinea pigs to feed and a grouchy old tomcat who’s best left alone if you know what’s good for you. In the summer holidays that stretch for an eternity they camp out in the back garden, stocking up on supplies for midnight feasts that will be eaten, without fail, before the sun sets.

  Late teens and it becomes easier to tell who’s who. Rose’s hair falls thick and straight, the cornfield blonde of her childhood has petered into a mousy brown that shines red in the right light. Her make-up, if she ever wears any, is clean and fresh. Her clothes simple, tailored, classic. By contrast, Hannah’s hair changes with every photo – blue streaks here, back-combed and wild there. Six months of deepest gothic black sliced into an asymmetric bob. Eyes ringed in thick, black kohl and a tiny silver stud glinting in her nose.

  At seventeen, the first boyfriends appear for both girls. It’s a cliché – for Rose, the captain of the school cricket team. They’re the golden couple of the sixth form and each thinks they’ve found ‘The One’, with the whole-hearted undiluted certainty of first love. Straight As for Rose as Jamie hits six after six over the boundary of the school playing fields and the school ooh and ahh, whoop and cheer.

  For Hannah, needless to say, the local bad lad. Sleepless nights for Mum and Dad waiting for the guttural roar of his motorbike to pull up outside the house and Doc Martens to scuff and clump down the drive and into the hall. Whispered nights sitting together at the end of Rose’s bed to dissect and discuss the furtive fumblings of the evening. Hannah’s the first of the two to have sex and for the first time Rose feels alone, left behind. She giggles when Hannah laughs, and winces in all the right places, but for the first time in her life she feels awkward and shy around her little sister. For the first time in their life they’ve not done the same thing and for a few weeks it confuses her. In the photos, Hannah’s eyes adopt a knowing look, the hint of a smile playing on full lips. In response, Rose’s are wider, unsure. Naive and unnerved.

  At eighteen the inseparable twins go in different directions. For two such diverse characters, they’ve never clashed and have certainly never spent more than two nights apart. Rose ventures north, to an English and journalism degree at the University of Newcastle. Hannah couldn’t be further away – an Art Foundation at Brighton. The two are poles apart, Rose feels like a single entity. She misses her sister every day – glimpsing her from the corner of her eye and turning to point something out only to find she’s talking to a complete stranger. But every day apart is easier and gradually, imperceptibly, she begins to feel lighter. For years she’s been the responsible one ‘Rose’ll know what to do …’ they say. ‘Rose’ll make sure Hannah gets there on time …’. The weight of expectancy and duty is no longer hanging heavy and God, is she going to have fun.

  By the second year of university, the cricketer has disappeared, the weight of a long-distance relationship throwing the two off balance. He’s replaced in picture after picture by groups of friends huddled in scruffy student living rooms, film posters on the wall and half-drunk cups of tea and dirty plates scattered across every surface. It’s her first taste of freedom and she loves it. Three years pass in a blur of parties and lectures. Nights drinking vodka and Red Bull in a sticky-carpeted club, before stumbling to seminars in cold studies, last night’s make-up smudged under tired eyes, mouth glued with the residue of the morning after. Six of them cram into what should be a three-bedroomed terraced house – the attic has been converted into two bedrooms and the lounge and dining room a further two. They squash themselves into the kitchen-cum-lounge-cum-dining-room every night, worn furniture and carpets disguised under patterned throws and rugs.

  It’s a happy, dysfunctional, kids-playing-at-adults home away from their homes. From what I can see, it hasn’t seen a Hoover since they moved in.

  After three years, graduation photos of the twins standing straight-backed and proud against the ubiquitous mottled blue-brown background of official photography. Mortar boards firmly in place to be later thrown into the air in homage to the US college movies they have grown up with. Though their ceremonies are at either end of the country, the formula is the same. In both photographs, fingers are tightly wrapped around fake scrolls and shoulders shrouded in black gowns. The only difference the brightly coloured university colours draped around their necks. Rose has done it: secured a 2:1 and a highly sought-after job on the lower rungs of a busy weekly magazine in London.

  She throws herself into work with glee, revelling in the bright lights of the big city, the morning commute, jostling for space on the Tube with coffee cup in hand and headphone buds plugged into her ears. She works her way up through the ranks, long hours and tight deadlines made bearable by the knowledge that she’s doing a job she loves and that she has a natural talent for.

  The pictures through her twenties are filled with old friends and new. The same faces from cramped university digs take on a certain maturity as they move into white-walled modern apartments in East London. New faces from the office crowd around city centre bars to chew over the gossip on the pages of their beloved mag. Boyfriends come and go through these years – work and friends the focal point. And throughout, flitting between family and friendship groups, there’s Hannah.

  We thumb through to her late twenties, and finally, we meet Dom. Tall, shy, reliable Dom. City breaks and skiing holidays begin to dot themselves among the festivals and theatre trips. Eyes lock together as bodies mould to each other in laughing embraces. The love between them is palpable, bathing everyone who bears witness in its warm glow.

  Finally, moving day and a new flat. Just the two of them. The two of them and an old ginger tom rescued from the local cats’ home. Boxes piled high as Rose fills shelf after shelf with books. A toast to their first night together – grinning faces over plastic glasses brimming with wine. Where the wineglasses are is anybody’s guess. But they are happy here. It is a home together. A home for the heart.

  And there, the pictures run out. We have reached the present day. Empty buff pages lie waiting for a future life not yet lived. A future life that won’t be lived. Not if I’m to succeed. And here we join Rose for her last night with her nearest and very dearest.

  10

  I LEFT HIM FOR A WHILE. WALKED AWAY FROM that pantry in Surrey to leave him to get on with his life. But I couldn’t shake him. He was always with me. Loitering in the back of my mind, bottomless eyes staring back at me every time I closed my own. And whoever I was, whoever’s life I was living, I took him with me. The brightest pinprick of light in the corner of my mind as those around me faded into their darkness. I tried to forget him, tried to get on with business, get on with death. But that light, floating, shimmering, it couldn’t be doused.

  When I saw him next, he’d made it back to work. Going through the motions at his desk in a windowless office in Farringdon. I found him sitting at his desk, staring blankly at the screensaver on his computer screen as it bounced and flipped and morphed. Tapping the hard plastic of a biro against his teeth. Eyes drawn, again and again, to the digital clock stuck to the fabric partition separating his world from the others.

  I meandered around the office. Took my time getting to him. Peered over shoulders at screenfuls of incomprehensible numbers. Trailed my fingers along desks scattered with papers and smudged with ink. Hooked a fallen bauble back onto the drooping arms of the fake Christmas tree forcing false jollity into air thick with apathy. In the corner, a man in his fifties choked back a hacking cough, swallowing thick mucus metallic with blood. His body doubled over with the force. I’d be seeing him again within weeks.

  As I approach Tom’s desk, the girl at the desk next to him pops her head up over the partition. Emma. Flips long blonde hair from side to side and starts the nervous chit-chat of the unsure. Fiddles with her nails and begins to chatter in an unnaturally bright voice. He can’t hear the words. Can only see the hair. The perfectly polished nails. The curve of her bre
ast as she leans forward against their shared wall. Her cheeks are flushed – so many times in the past few weeks she’s wanted to open up a conversation, and so many times courage has failed her and she’s found herself crouched over her seat – not standing, not sitting. The no-man’s-land between launching into a chat and losing her nerve. They used to flirt, back in the day. Harmless banter between colleagues. Nothing that ever meant anything, nothing that would ever give Kate any reason to worry. But flirting nevertheless. A not unpleasant way to pass the monotony of a working day. And she’s missed it. Missed him. So today, she ploughs ahead. Leans forward, encroaching on his space. Leans in close. So close he can smell the fruit cocktail perfume of her shampoo. Can see a smudge of ink on bitten lips. Pre-vomit saliva floods his mouth. Breath comes in short, sharp bursts, catching in his chest. Blood rushes to flush his face and a bead of sweat traces a long course down his spine. Hot. So hot. He has to get away. He stands abruptly. Trips over his words and tips over his chair in his bid to get away.

  She stares after him. Her cheeks redden and she brings a hand to cover her open mouth. Looks desperately across the office to her best friend Rachel, who’s been watching events unfold from across the room. Rachel shrugs. Mouths ‘You OK?’ Emma shakes her head. Sits back at her desk and rests her forehead in her hands, allowing long blonde hair to draw curtains between her and staring faces as tears prick eyelids screwed tight in mortification. Three weeks. It’s only been three weeks. Too soon, Emma.

  I find him in the bathroom. Breathing heavily. Panting. Loosening the tie that binds. Patting sweat from his forehead before sluicing a clammy face with cold water. He stops. Stands still. Chokes back yet another retch. Stares himself out in the cracked mirror above the chipped sink. I move behind him. Thread my arm around his waist and prop my chin on his shoulder to watch his face in the glass. Drop a feather-light kiss on to the back of his neck. Soft lips held to hot skin. He calms. Breathing slows. Shoulders drop back to where they belong. Deep breath in. Long breath out. Deep breath in. Long breath out.