by Holly Seddon
SARAH|1998
Robin finished her exams last week. I didn’t call to ask how they went—why should I?—but I know because Dad told me. He called on Sunday. Mum lifted the handset and passed it quickly to me, then walked off into the kitchen like someone had done wrong by her.
“So,” Dad had said after the initial routine of how-are-yous, “graduation next week.”
Words like “graduation” or “subway” or “soda” sound wrong in Dad’s mouth. He uses them only to mirror me, and the effort irritates me unfairly.
“Yeah,” I said, like it was nothing. “The gown’s upstairs.”
It’s navy crushed velvet with a dark blue cap and a mortar with gold tassels. It’s hanging in my wardrobe in its dust sheet. I don’t like seeing it there, its big heavy shape looming like a monster every time I open the door. But knowing it’s there, knowing I actually made it and I’m nearly on to my next chapter, that feels good. That’s worth opening the door. I don’t want to stand there on a stage surrounded by a sea of faces who never really liked me and will barely remember me. But I’ll do it for Drew, who paid for it. Who likes to see me dressed up, likes to take pictures for his desk.
“And what’s the name of the university you’re going to?” Dad had asked. I groaned a bit, because I bet he wouldn’t forget which uni Robin was going to if she’d been going. “Georgia State. It’s only half an hour on the train, so I can stay living at home.”
Home. I know that still hurts him.
“Robin and Callum finished their exams last week,” Dad said after a pause.
“Oh right,” I said, trying to somehow get across both deep disinterest and blind fury.
“Did you want to talk to her? I could call her down—” he started to say.
“Nope, I have to go now. Love you.”
—
Graduation is tomorrow, and I’m coming home after choosing a new lipstick from the drugstore a few blocks over. It’s not easy, choosing a color to complement navy crushed velvet and gold tassels, and I’ve been gone awhile, but I’m still surprised to see Drew’s car is on the front drive already when I approach the house.
As I step into the hall, I hear my mum’s voice.
“Everything gone to shit,” she’s saying, “…dragging us down with you!”
I run up to get changed in my room and when I come back down it’s quiet.
“Hey,” I say, as I step into the kitchen. My mum has her back to me, her hands gripping the side of the big sink, dangerously near the waste disposal. Her hair is held back with a headband and she’s wearing gym clothes. She’d normally have been and come back by now and would be washed, dressed and fully made up. She doesn’t turn around. “Hi, Sarah,” she says.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
“No, Sarah. No, it’s really fucking not,” my mum says, swearing like the old days. Before she held dinner parties.
I notice Drew is sitting nearby, his elbows on the table. His collar button is undone, and his tie is in a little heap in front of him. He’s perfectly silent, just raises his eyebrows to acknowledge me and then looks back down at the table. It’s only five o’clock and he has a thick band of whiskey in a cut-glass tumbler. From the redness of his eyes, I think it’s not his first.
“What’s going on?” I start to ask, but my mother cuts me off with “Drew’s lost his job.”
“Oh no,” I say, and I look back at my stepdad. “Why?”
“Yes, ask him,” my mother snaps. I say nothing so she adds, “Ask him about his ‘indiscretions.’ ” She uses her fingers as quote marks.
I look at Drew again; he shrugs and one elbow slips off the table. “It’s a misunderstanding,” he sighs.
My mum puffs out her breath as if his words have just punched the air from her.
“I’m going to the gym,” she says, to neither of us in particular.
I sit down next to him. “Do you want a coffee?” I ask.
“Thank you anyway, angel,” he says, turning to me and patting my hand. “But it’s definitely a Scotch day.”
“What will happen now?” I ask. “Where will you work?”
He looks up at me slowly, pulls his hand back onto his lap. “I don’t know,” he says, his eyes sad and droopy. “My card’s marked here now. Total misunderstanding, but I’m done in this town.”
I don’t know what to say, but he likes it when I just listen, so I try to look attentive.
“You know what though? My angel? My beautiful angel?”
Oh God, he’s so much drunker than I realized. I humor him. “What?”
“I’m so proud of you.” He jabs at my chest. “And you know what else? We’ve had a good run at it here, but now you’ve finished school and I’m out of that hellhole of a company, I think it’s time we went back home. Don’t you? Back to England, where you can get a decent drink and a good roast dinner. Wouldn’t that be nice? Eh?” He squeezes my knee when I don’t agree quickly enough. “Wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah,” I say, and flash him a smile. I guess it would be good. I’d love to see my dad more at least, though I push thoughts of Robin away. I’m still hurt by how easily she could take out her frustrations on me.
“Where will we live though? There are people renting our house.”
“We’ll sling ’em out. We’ll be able to buy a better house when we sell this place anyway.”
I try to look happy. “Yes,” he says, growing more emphatic, “this is a good thing. Couldn’t have come at a better time.”
I make us grilled cheese sandwiches and we eat them in silence. I try to imagine myself at an English university instead, maybe the one in Reading. I’d spent so long visualizing my new start at Georgia State that the idea of a different new start makes me feel incredibly tired.
“Can I try some?” I say, gesturing to the whiskey. I’ve drunk alcohol a little before, some wine at home, warm beer in red cups at the few parties I’ve been to. But I’ve never tried hard liquor. It’s what people have for shock though, and the longer I sit here, the more shocked I feel.
He grabs another tumbler from the set and pours a generous sloop out of the decanter. I sip it and a burning sensation spreads from between my eyes and through my head.
“It suits you, sipping that,” Drew says. “Very Wild West. Very cowgirl-esque. ‘Cool,’ as you young women say.”
Pretty sure I don’t say that anything much is cool, but I don’t burst his bubble. I don’t really want any more sips but I don’t want to waste it, so I try to swallow while bits of sandwich are still in my mouth to soak up the whiskey and mask the taste. When we were little, Mum used to hide medicine in a teaspoon of jam so we wouldn’t taste it. Robin would always gag on it anyway, but I tried to find the pleasure in the sharpness, knowing I’d done the right thing. Been the grown-up.
We’ve drunk a little more. I’ve taken over the decanter for portion control, but I still feel heady and a bit sweaty. A bit stumbly on my feet.
“Let’s go into the den,” Drew says. “I need to lie down.”
We flop onto the couch, and I tuck my feet under me and try to stare at something so I can practice looking in a straight line. The room tilts like a ship.
“You remind me so much of your mother,” he says, as he often does. “Would you do something for me? Something she used to do?”
“What?” I ask nervously.
“Would you just rub my shoulders a bit? I’m so tensed up after today and I just want to shake it off, try to rest.”
I don’t want to, not really. I’ve never done this before, but I think, Okay.
After a bit of clumsy rubbing and kneading, he lets out a long sigh. “Your touch is wonderful, Sarah,” he says. I freeze, his shoulders in my hands. The whirl of the room, tilting like it could slide into the sea.
I’m not sure how long I’ve been frozen. Long enough to think, I’ve frozen, he knows I’ve frozen, what do I do? or thoughts to that effect. Eventually I start to say, “Thank you,” but the words
are lost somewhere and he’s reached behind to where I’m leaning on the sofa and is rubbing my arms.
“Come round here,” he says. “It’s your turn.”
“No, it’s fine,” I say. “Thank you anyway.” But he pats the cushion next to him, so I comply.
I sit stiffly on the couch. I don’t think he should do this, but he’s in charge so it must be okay. He rubs my head, but it’s the way you’d pat a dog. Heavy-handed, open-palmed. Eventually he moves down to my back. It’s been so long since anyone touched me that my body betrays me. It starts to tingle a little bit, just at the base of my spine. I realize that I don’t entirely want him to stop. Well, I don’t want the touch to stop, but I wish it wasn’t coming from him.
He’s still touching my back, moving up and down from the top of my knickers to the clasp on my bra, when he asks me about boyfriends. When I tell Drew that I don’t have a boyfriend, he’s pleased. “Good,” he says. “You save yourself for someone who appreciates you. Knows how special you are.”
He moves his hand back into his own lap. I hear him swallow. My skin feels the absence of his fingers. “You really are special,” he says as I turn back to face him. He strokes my cheek, so I close my eyes. When I open them, he’s looking at me with sad eyes. I feel foggy, a little dizzy, but I appreciate the intensity of the gaze—when, really, he should have better things to think about than me, after today’s news.
Right now he’s looking at me like I’m the only thing in the world. When he holds my chin in his right hand and moves my face toward his, I don’t stop him.
I know his smell so well. Sandalwood aftershave and whiskey rush at me.
The room sways and swoops, the ceiling seems to ripple as I look up at it and I feel Drew’s big hand teasing my ponytail loose and fanning my hair out under me. I wait for him to ask, “Are you okay?” or “Do you want me to stop?” I wait for permission to say, “I’m not okay” and “I do want to stop,” but it doesn’t come. The sofa sags under us as he climbs onto me, and I feel an increased sense of panic. Not only do I not want to be lying under him like this, I’m petrified that I have to go through with something I absolutely do not want to do. And I’m terrified that I won’t know what to do in the moment. I’ve done things like this with only one boy before, and our mutual inexperience had set the pace. Will Drew laugh at my efforts? Will he stop, disappointed, shake his head and walk out of the den? Will I get in trouble?
I feel him grappling with the button on my jeans. So far there’s very little expected of me except to just be here, this body, loose-limbed with liquor. I feel him tug my jeans down over my legs. Moving seems like a hell of an effort now. I haven’t had a sip of drink for a while but somehow I feel drunker.
He hoists himself up again, frees one hand to run it along my side, over my hip. He parts my legs, burrows into me with his heavy hips. I gasp. Maybe he mistakes my panic for excitement, because he shoves into me roughly and his whole body lands on me, the weight making it hard to breathe beyond shallow gasps. He licks my ear, something I thought was an urban myth. I don’t know what response is expected so I say nothing, do nothing. Grimace. I can hear how slimy it is. I focus on that. I’m too pinned down to do anything, and in a way I’m glad to be anchored in this spinning room. His mouth is still close to my ear, his hot breath running through my hair. It’s like he’s in a horrible trance. “Oh God,” he murmurs, and he thrusts harder still until he stops, goes rigid, shakes a moment and then flops down again.
I lay in the spinning dark. Hot tears curl out from the corners of my eyes and fall heavily onto the sofa cushions under me. The blackness of the room makes my skin cold, like I’m lying outside on the soil. I feel heavier than I’ve ever felt.
I lay on the sofa long after Drew has eased himself off my body and staggered up the stairs, falling half clothed onto the empty bed that he shares with my mum.
THIRTY-ONE
SARAH|PRESENT DAY
When I get back to my room I look again at the map of Chorlton with its streets marked. Each pen scratch showing the places I’ve peered up at windows, imagining my sister looking back at me. The proverbial needle in a haystack.
And then before I realize what I’m doing I’m crying and ripping, ripping and crying, until my hands are riddled with paper cuts and Chorlton lies in pieces on the floor.
Just then, the phone rings. Only one person has the number, but I still answer cautiously.
“Hello?” I can’t believe it’s actually ringing.
“All right?” the voice says.
“Who is this?” I answer, although I know.
“It’s Ryan,” he says, “from the Spice Lounge. Listen, I think I know where your sister is.”
Apparently Ryan had mentioned me and my visit to everyone who worked for the curry house and all the regular customers. “I just felt bad for you,” he said, and I could picture him shrugging his shoulders when he said it.
“Well, I told Dev, one of our drivers. I showed him the picture you left. He reckons he recognized her.”
“Really?” I ask, breathless.
“Yeah,” he says. “He thinks so. I mean, it’s not definite or anything, but—”
“Where did he recognize her from, did he know where she was? Where she lives?” I’m panting and I don’t mean to and I’m scared that I’m scaring him, but when he speaks, he sounds excited more than anything.
“He’d had a run-in with her. I mean, y’know, a full-on row, by his account. Dev does exaggerate though—but, nah, don’t get the wrong idea. He’s not lying, he does think he’s seen her, but his idea of a big fight is probably more like snapping at each other.”
“Where did he see her?”
“Apparently he’d taken her order around for delivery, a while back, months and months ago. It’s all one-way around there, ’cos she lives near the green…”
He drops it in so casually that I almost miss it. She lives near the green. I can find my sister near the green.
“…and ’cos it’s all one-way around there, he couldn’t stop right outside, so he says he called the number he had from the order and told her he was round the corner and could someone come and grab it, as there was a copper watching so he couldn’t park up properly.”
“She lives by the green?” I ask, scared I’d misheard.
“Yeah,” Ryan says, like this is a really small point getting in the way of the story, “and she flipped her lid apparently. Wouldn’t come and get it, wanted her money back if he wouldn’t bring it to the door, all this.”
“Really? So what happened, did he see her?”
“Well, he didn’t have a choice. He parked a few more streets away and walked it around. Said he thought maybe she was in a wheelchair or something and couldn’t leave the house, but when he got there, she opened the door and looked fine. Had another go at him and sent him on his way.”
“That does sound like my sister,” I say.
“I dunno, this is just what Dev says, but he recognized her from the picture and said she was a right mouthy…well, whatever, but I think we might have found her for you anyway.”
“Thank you so much,” I say, still not fully believing it could be true. “I’m so grateful,” I add. Robin or not, I really am touched that he’d bothered.
I’m about to put the phone down and head to the green, start knocking on doors, when he says, “Do you not want her address, then?”
ROBIN|PRESENT DAY
The woman at the security company had spoken with such patience that Robin had to take a moment to compose herself.
She’d ordered a new alarm system, locks on the windows and bolts for the front door, back door and garden gate. The appointment time would be, she was assured, pinpoint accurate. In five days’ time.
“I know I sound like a nut,” Robin had said, “but it’s really very important that he’s exactly on time.”
“You don’t sound like a nut at all, duck,” the woman had said, her voice giving away a history of receiving s
uch calls.
Robin wished her dad were still alive. That she could just call on him to come and sort everything out. He’d have put new locks on for her, checked the gate was secure. Maybe even taken her home.
With one or two links missing from a family chain, the whole thing can fall to pieces. How long had it been since Robin saw Sarah? Was their father’s funeral really the last time? Robin felt at once guilty for that, and defensive. It took two to stay in touch, right? It wasn’t just her job. But the truth was, she knew she’d pulled away. Let it happen.
The night of the funeral, she’d slept in her old room. Wide awake from jet lag, dried out from tears. She’d given up at five in the morning, gone to walk around the house, trying not to wake anyone. Eventually she decided to take a stroll to the pavilion, Callum’s and her old spot. She pulled her coat on over her pajamas, stuffed her bare feet into her trainers and went to the front door. An envelope was jutting through the letter box, another card from well-wishers, except this one was addressed to her. Hand-delivered, just the name.
She leaned on the old telephone table and opened the card.
A picture of flowers on the front. “In sympathy,” it said. Inside, in carefully inked letters, it said: “Who will you blame this time?”
She’d stared and then read it again as if her imagination had misfired.
She folded it in two and went to throw it in the kitchen bin, shoving it in deep among the cold tea bags. She’d padded upstairs, shoved the rest of her things back into her suitcases and called for a taxi. She left a note of goodbye.
Afterward, Robin used to check in with Hilary. Occasional phone calls and texts, postcards from abroad. The calls grew shorter and further apart. Each one stilted and sad.
One of the last calls with Hilary—what was it, three, four years ago? That’s when Robin learned that Sarah had moved away. Good for you, she’d thought, though it had made her feel more alone.