The Double Life of Cassiel Roadnight

by Jenny Valentine

  “Number three,” he said. “You just take the money. Take the money and go and be Chap Nothing, somewhere else. You’ve got the pin number.”

  “So have you. How come you haven’t taken it already?”

  “I don’t want Cassiel’s blood money,” Floyd said. “I’d rather have nothing.”

  “And the fourth?” I said.

  “Oh, the fourth,” Floyd grinned. “That’s my favourite. The fourth is we get Frank.”

  He picked up a rock and smashed it down on the bank, splitting other smaller stones apart, showing the glittering wounds inside.

  “How?” I said.

  “I know how. But I don’t think I can do it without you. You just have to decide.”

  The warren wasn’t empty any more. The man with the dog had gone, but a gang of eight or nine kids was coming, and a woman with her baby, and a couple holding hands.

  “You should go,” he said.

  “Go where?”

  “Go back to the house.”

  “And do what?”

  “See how the land lies. Make up your mind.”

  I couldn’t believe he was leaving it up to me to decide. Did I save myself and stay as Cassiel Roadnight, balanced precariously with Frank, but balancing still? Did I leave a millionaire? Or did I throw it all away and Frank with it?

  Did I punish Cassiel’s killer or did I use his death to my advantage?

  Floyd had shown me everything and now he was letting me choose. I think it was the most generous, reckless thing anyone ever did for me. Anyone since Grandad.

  “I’ve made up my mind,” I said. “I’ve done that already.”

  “No,” Floyd said. “You can’t do it like that. You can’t do it so fast.”

  “Yes I can.”

  “Please. Don’t. Go home and think about it. Go home and call me tomorrow.”

  “Go home and risk another night with Frank?”

  “Pretend you’re on his side,” Floyd said. “Pretend you’re going for option number one.”

  “Where did it happen?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Cassiel. Where did Frank kill him?”

  “Right here,” Floyd said. “Somewhere here on this common, at Hay on Fire, when it was crowded with people.”

  “Is he buried here somewhere?”

  Floyd nodded. “I think he is.”

  “How did Frank do that?”

  “I’ve no idea,” he said. “I wish I knew.”

  That’s what I was thinking about when I got back to the house. I opened the door and walked into the kitchen and they were all there, making breakfast, clearing away, and I couldn’t see them almost, because all I could think of was where Cassiel was. How Frank had killed him. What he had done with his body.

  Frank was perfectly, alarmingly, chillingly normal. He looked up from the table, smiled and put a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. He didn’t blink. He didn’t miss a beat. “Hey, little brother,” he said with his mouth full, and he winked at me.

  He winked.

  I smiled at him. “Hey.”

  Frank had already made up his mind about the choice I would make. Let him think that. Let him think.

  Helen kissed me on the cheek and slipped her arm around my waist. She rested her head on my shoulder. Edie was busy at the sink. She didn’t look up.

  I would miss them. I found myself looking at the room like it might be the last time I’d see it. I found myself watching them like I knew I’d never see them again.

  “You’re still wearing those clothes,” Helen said.

  “I know.”

  “You look like you slept in them.”

  “I did.”

  “There’s plenty of hot water,” Edie said. “Have a bath, Cass, for our sake as well as yours.”

  I laughed. “OK. I’m going, I’m going.”

  “Going off,” Edie said. “That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.”

  “Look,” I said, going out into the corridor, opening the door to the stairs. “I’m going. I’m gone.”

  “Good,” she called after me, and Helen said, “Edie!”

  Yes, that was it. Tomorrow or the next day, whenever it was done, I was gone for good.

  I ran the bath and I got in it this time. I lay in the hot, still, stolen water and I thought.

  Frank came up and knocked on the door. I was lying back with my head half underwater. I was listening to the loud drip of the tap, and the swoosh and plip of my moving body in the bath. I didn’t hear him at first.

  He knocked again, a bit louder. “Cassiel,” he said. “Can I come in?”

  “No,” I said. No way.

  He spoke quietly, close up, through the wood of the door. I remembered the first time I spoke to him on the phone, how his lips brushed against it, how loud he was in my ear. I wondered why I hadn’t found it menacing then, his cool, calm self-assurance, his utter lack of surprise. I remembered him holding my face when he saw me, examining me because he knew I was a replica, because he knew I was a fake. I hadn’t seen it. I’d been so vigilant and on my guard, and still I hadn’t seen it.

  People see what they want to see, that’s what Floyd had told me. They see what they expect and want and need. I was no exception. Floyd was right. I’d seen a big brother. I’d seen what I wanted.

  Frank’s voice was smooth and low and predatory. He said, “I’m sorry about yesterday, about walking out.”

  “It’s OK.”

  “I understand now,” he said, “what you meant. I understand you perfectly. I think we understand each other.”

  “Yes, Frank,” I said.

  “Because we’re the same, aren’t we, you and me,” he said. “And we need each other.”

  I put my head under again. I turned the hot tap on with my foot. I listened to the thunder of water landing on itself in the bath before I came back up for air.

  “Yes,” I called to him. “You’re right, Frank. We are exactly the same.”

  I lay there and I thought about this sweet and ordinary and affectionate family, this perfect life I’d longed for, this slice of normal I’d taken without asking. I thought about my own family, wherever they might be, and if they remembered me at all, if they even knew I existed. I thought about Cassiel who was murdered by his own brother and then robbed by me while he lay in his grave.

  I knew what I would do from the moment Floyd sat with me at the river and laid out my choices, from the moment he told me the truth. It wasn’t a question of deciding.

  I was going to get Frank. I was going to find Cassiel Roadnight and bring him home. It didn’t matter what happened to me. I was past caring about what I deserved. It was time to make amends.

  You can’t just steal a life. You can’t be somebody else and get away with it. In the end, you have to give it all back.

  It was a strange, gentle, tense afternoon. After lunch Helen and Frank went shopping. Edie and I played cards. Nobody had any work to do. Nobody did anything. It was like a Sunday. I said so.

  I said, “It’s like the weekend every day here.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Nothing happens.”

  “We just sit about, you mean,” she said. “Spending Frank’s money.”

  The thought of it made me cold. If they knew about Frank’s money. If they knew who’d died for it.

  “I know,” Edie said. “I think I might die of boredom.”

  “So do something.”

  “Like what?”

  “Get away,” I said. “Get a job. Go to college.”

  “What can I do?” she said. “What am I any good at?”

  “Lots of things. You can do whatever you want.”

  “What a load of crap,” she said. “What have you been reading?”

  “OK,” I said. “You can try and do whatever you want.”

  “Better.”

  “Go to art college,” I said. “Do something cool. Don’t be bored and spend Frank’s money any more. It’s not worth it.”


  She looked at me funny. “OK, Uncle Cass. I will. Thanks for the advice.”

  “Don’t mention it.”

  She looked at her cards. “I’ve won,” she said. “I’m out. I beat you.”

  I went to bed early. I was shattered from not sleeping the night before. I didn’t know how I would sleep that night either, how it was even possible with Frank in a room across the hall. I knew he could come in and kill me at any given moment, at any time he liked. I had to hope Frank believed me. That I was just like him. That I was in it for the money. If he thought that, then I might survive the night.

  I phoned Floyd. I stole Edie’s phone again and I called him from my room. I told him I’d decided. I told him there was no decision to make.

  “Move the money,” I said.

  Floyd’s voice on the other end of the phone was hushed like mine, and just as urgent.

  “What?”

  “Hit him where it hurts,” I told him. “Do it now, before he does, if it’s not too late.”

  “I thought about that,” he said. “I thought maybe he’s moved it already.”

  “Have a look,” I said. “If he has, then fine. He won’t be around much longer to spend it. If he hasn’t, open a new account and put the money in it. Rob him.”

  “What name shall I do it under?”

  “Do it under yours. I don’t care.”

  “I can’t do that. It can’t be a real name. It’s a million pounds, for God’s sake.”

  “Chap Hathaway,” I said. “Call it that.”

  “Is that you?” he said. “So are you going to disappear with all the cash?”

  “I don’t want Frank’s money,” I said. “I don’t want a penny of it.”

  “OK.”

  “And it’s not my name,” I said. “I don’t know what my name is, I told you. I don’t have one.”

  “Chap Hathaway,” Floyd said.

  “No, hold on,” I said. “I have a better idea. Put it in Cassiel’s name.”

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s his. Because he died for it.”

  “And you’re not going to…?”

  “I told you,” I said. “I don’t want it. I’m not him any more. After this I’m not sticking around.”

  “It’s good of you,” Floyd said.

  “What is?”

  “You could have it all now, if you wanted,” he said. “It’s good of you to give it all away.”

  “It’s not mine to give,” I said.

  “But still.”

  “It’s the right thing to do,” I said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did anything else.”

  We said goodbye. “How’s it going to happen?’ I said. “What are we going to do?”

  “It’s got to happen at Hay on Fire,” he said. “It’s got to happen exactly like before.”

  Hay on Fire. The 5th of November.

  “Don’t sleep,” he said. “Lock your door.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll try to stay alive.”

  I put Edie’s phone back and I put the chair under the door handle again. I lay in bed, too scared to sleep and too tired not to. Even when I slept, I dreamed I was lying awake in that room, listening out for Frank, waiting for my own death.

  It was Helen that woke me up in the middle of the night, not Frank. She begged me in a whisper to let her in.

  I opened the door to stop her talking, more than anything else. I opened it and got back into bed again, because I wanted her to be quiet. She sat down next to me. We listened to the quiet in the house. We listened together to nothing. I wanted to put the chair back against the door. I wanted it all to be over.

  “Is it because of what I told you?” she said.

  “Is what?”

  “Did you run away because of what I said?”

  I didn’t understand her. I wasn’t Cassiel so I didn’t know.

  “I need you to tell me if that was the reason,” she said. She took my hand and pulled it to her lap and held it.

  I didn’t speak. I tried to see her face in the dark, but I didn’t want her to see mine so I kept the light off.

  “I told you because I thought you should know,” she said. “I didn’t mean for it to hurt you.”

  “It didn’t,” I said.

  “I know that’s not true, Cassiel,” she said. “He’s a part of you and always will be. When you’re a twin, that’s how it works.”

  I didn’t understand what she was saying. My brain felt thick and slow with fog.

  “What? What did you say?”

  I put the light on. Helen picked up my muddied shirt and folded it, without knowing I think, just for something to do.

  “You came into this world together,” she said, while the quiet house seethed and whispered around us. “You and Damiel. I didn’t want you to live your whole life not knowing about him. Was that wrong? Was I wrong to tell you? Or did I wait too long. Was that it?”

  Damiel.

  You couldn’t forget a name like that. That was what the girl had called me. That’s what Grandad said.

  “Where is he?” I said, staring at her, trying to keep my voice down. “No one told me. Nobody spoke about Damiel before.”

  Helen shook her head. “He’s gone,” she said. “And nobody knows. I told you that. It was a terrible time. Frank and Edie were in care when you were born, when they took you both from me. I never told them about him.”

  The room was spinning. I got out of bed and I leaned on the windowsill and retched, but I couldn’t throw up.

  “Are you OK?” Helen said. “What’s wrong?”

  “Took us both?” I said.

  I thought about the first time I saw Cassiel’s picture, how it had felt like looking at a picture of me. I remember the wonder, the thought that out there somewhere was a person I’d never met, and had nothing to do with, who looked exactly like me. I thought it was a miracle, a parallel universe, a double life. It never crossed my mind that I might be looking at my own twin.

  “Cassiel, what’s the matter?” she said. “I told you all of this. I told you this before.”

  “I must have forgotten,” I said. My voice sounded odd. Helen thought I was being sarcastic.

  “Don’t,” she said. “Don’t do that.”

  “You think I left because you told me?” I said.

  She nodded, searching my face for the answer she needed, finding nothing but nausea and shock and the closing of a terrible circle. “Or because I hadn’t told you before.”

  “Tell me again,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Please,” I said. “Don’t ask. Start at the beginning. Just tell me again.”

  “Your father died,” she said, looking ahead of her, not at me, looking into the dark room. “Your father died before you were born. Before we knew you were twins. He never knew.”

  “How did he die?” I said.

  “You know that,” she said. “Why are you doing this?”

  “Pretend I don’t,” I said. “Keep going.”

  “It was an accident,” she said. “At work.”

  “Oh.”

  “He fell and hit his head and—” She stopped talking. She gestured for me to come back and sit with her on the bed.

  “I’m sorry he died,” I said.

  “I know you are.” She took my hand in hers. “Your father died and I had two small children and no family to speak of and a baby on the way.”

  “Two babies,” I corrected her.

  “Yes. Two babies. And I wasn’t coping. I let you all down. Those poor kids,” she said, a crack in her voice, sniffing back tears.

  “Go on,” I said. “Please don’t stop.”

  “Frank was nearly eight,” she said, “and trying to run the family. It was hard on him. He bore the brunt of it. Edie was only two. I fell apart.”

  “What happened?” I said.

  “I lost my children. For their own good. I lost my mind.”

  Frank and Edie were taken into care, that’s what Helen
told me, and then when the twins were born, Cassiel and Damiel, they were taken too.

  “Just until I got myself together,” she said. “Just so I could get back on my feet.”

  It took almost three years.

  She said, “When I got you back you’d never met each other. You and Edie and Frank. Frank didn’t like you being there. He thought you didn’t belong. I couldn’t tell him.”

  “Couldn’t tell him what?”

  She fought and she won and she got her children back. All except one.

  “I couldn’t tell him about Damiel,” she said. “Your twin brother died in a fire when he was two years old.”

  There was this clamour in my head, this constant, blinding, white noise. I looked at my hands on the bed. I couldn’t see them right.

  “I thought I’d never get you back when they told me,” she said. “I thought I’d die from it. I didn’t want to put Frank and Edie through that. They didn’t even know him.”

  I couldn’t see or breathe or swallow.

  “You were there,” she said. “They rescued you. But they never found him.”

  I couldn’t say it. I didn’t speak.

  “They thought he burned up with the house,” she said, rubbing my hand, as if to keep herself warm. “Damiel and another child, a teenager.”

  “A girl,” I said.

  “Yes, I told you, didn’t I. A girl.”

  No you didn’t, I wanted to tell her. I just knew.

  “Did you ever feel it?” she asked me.

  “What?” I said, but I knew what she was talking about.

  The hunger that wouldn’t be satisfied with food. The longing that wouldn’t be softened by love or drugs or sleep. The unfillable space between me and the rest of the world.

  “What?” I said, and then I said, “Yes. All the time.”

  And when I spoke, I sank down in the bed and rested my head on her. It was all I could do not to curl up in her lap and get her to rock me to sleep, all six foot one of me.

  It was all I could do not to turn myself inside out with sorrow, with the too-lateness of it all. Because this was my mother. Not stolen, not borrowed, but mine.

  I wasn’t Chap. I wasn’t nobody.

  My name was Damiel.

  But how could I ever tell her?

  The twin I never knew I had, the twin I’d just found, the boy whose face I saw on a missing poster, whose face I recognised as my own, was dead, his body buried on the common, his killer alive in the next room. And I was pretending to be him.