The wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long.
‘Did you tell anyone?’ I asked.
She didn’t ask what about, just shook her head and looked down. ‘Good,’ I told her. ‘Bad things happen when you tell tales on people.’ She looked at me then, her face was sort of blank, not happy but not sad either. I tapped the patch of grass next to where I was sitting and eventually she came and sat down next to me. She wasn’t wearing a coat and I knew she must be cold so I reached out to hold her hand and she let me. I squeezed it three times and she squeezed it three times back. I knew then that we were going to be all right, that nothing had changed, not really. She’d got herself a bit lost, but I’d found her again. We might be sisters now, but we’ll always be peas in a pod.
Then
Christmas Day, 2016 – Night
Claire puts her head under my arm, taking most of my weight, then leads me back out to the car. I let her, I’m not sure I can stand on my own anyway. I’m still bare foot as we stumble down the driveway, wet gravel slicing at my toes. She lowers me into the passenger seat and I notice she’s wearing red leather gloves I’ve never seen before. I’m sitting sideways and I can hear someone crying inside the car, it takes a few seconds to realise that it’s me. She gets in behind the wheel, fastens her seat belt and closes the door.
‘Where are the diaries, Amber?’
‘I told you, I burned them.’
‘You’re lying.’
‘For God’s sake, just get me to the hospital.’
She’s never driven Paul’s MG before but reverses out of the driveway as though it’s her own car. One red glove on the steering wheel, the other resting on the gearstick at all times, like a racing driver; someone in control. I close my eyes and place my own hands over my belly, as though I’m trying to hold her inside of me. I’m sure it’s a girl.
Claire and I don’t speak as she steers us out of her road. The only voices I can hear are on the radio, but even they’re not real, it’s all pre-recorded. Occasionally, I open my eyes to look out of the windows, to make sure she’s going the right way, but all I can see is black. I have to press one hand against the dashboard to hold myself steady as we turn a corner.
‘I thought you couldn’t get pregnant,’ she says, changing into second gear. I think we’re on the main road now, it won’t be long.
‘Neither did I.’
Third gear.
‘Does Paul know?’
‘No.’
Fourth gear.
‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You always said we didn’t need anyone else.’
Fifth.
I open my eyes and realise that the cramping has stopped. I don’t know what that means.
‘The pain has gone,’ I say and try to sit up a little. ‘I think I might be OK.’ A trickle of relief floods through me. I look over at Claire but her face hasn’t changed, as though she didn’t hear me. ‘You bled once when you were pregnant with the twins, didn’t you?’ I ask.
‘You should still get yourself checked out at the hospital, better safe than sorry.’
‘You’re right. But you can slow down a bit now.’ She doesn’t respond, just stares straight ahead. ‘Claire, I said you should slow down, I think I’m OK.’ My hands move instinctively back to my stomach.
‘You should have told me,’ she says, so quietly I’m not sure I would have heard the words at all if I hadn’t seen her lips move. Her face has twisted into something ugly. ‘We used to tell each other everything. If you just did what I told you and stopped telling lies none of this would be happening. You’ve only yourself to blame if it’s dead.’
‘It’s not dead,’ I say. Tears burst the banks of my eyelids and roll down my cheeks. I’m sure of it too, I swear I can feel my unborn child’s heartbeat as well as my own. Claire nods. She believes me that the baby is still alive. I close my eyes and grip the side of my chair a little harder. I just need to hold on, it can’t be much further. We’re going so fast now, we must nearly be there.
‘Amber.’
Claire puts her gloved hand on mine. It’s cold and I open my eyes to see her staring at me instead of at the road. She smiles and the instant terror numbs me.
‘I love you,’ she says, before turning back to the road with both hands on the steering wheel.
I hear the brakes screech, and then everything slows down. My body lifts from the chair and I’m flying. I crash through the windscreen, hands first, as though diving through a pool of glass. A thousand tiny pieces rip through every part of my body. It doesn’t hurt, all the pain is gone. I fly high into the night sky. I can see the stars, so close I can almost touch them, but then my head smashes into the tarmac followed by a shoulder, then my chest, tearing pieces of my skin as I skid to an abrupt halt. Everything is still. I’m not flying any more.
The pain returns except now it’s everywhere and so much worse than before. I’m broken inside and out and I’m afraid. I don’t cry, I can’t, but I feel the blood run down my face like red tears. I hear a car door slam and the faint sound of the radio, a Christmas song is still playing. The agony increases until it turns everything black. And then I can’t feel the pain any more, I can’t feel anything, I can only sleep.
Now
Tuesday, 3rd January 2017
‘You left me there.’
‘I’d been drinking, I shouldn’t have been behind the wheel. I was scared.’
‘You were scared? Did you even call for help?’
She looks away. ‘I thought you were dead.’
‘You hoped I was dead.’
‘That’s not true, don’t ever say that, I love you.’
‘You need me, you don’t love me. The two things are different.’
‘Do you know what would have happened if they found out I was driving? I have two young children who need me.’
‘I was pregnant. And now I’m not.’
‘I know. I’m so sorry. I would never deliberately do anything to hurt you, you know that.’
‘Have you told Paul?’
‘Told him what?’
‘That you were driving?’
‘No. Have you?’
‘Do you think he would have let you in here if I had?’
The anger hisses out of her then. ‘It was an accident, Amber. I was trying to help you. I was trying to get you to the hospital. Don’t you remember?’
‘I remember you fastening your own seat belt, driving really fast, then slamming the brakes. I remember me flying through the air.’
‘I had to stop.’
‘No, you didn’t.’
‘We were driving along, you were crying in pain and then you said something about a little girl in a pink dressing gown. I thought there was a child in the street. You screamed at me to stop.’
She empties her words into my ears and eventually they find me. I don’t know what’s real any more. I don’t know which version of events to believe. My sister’s or my own. The room attempts to nurse my wounds in the suspended quiet, but Claire tears out the stitches.
‘There was no child when I got out of the car, I never saw her. Either you imagined her or she ran away,’ she says.
Both.
I turn away, I can’t look at her any more. It took a lot of love to hate her the way I do.
‘I shouldn’t have left you there. But you should have told me about the baby. And you should have told me about him. This is what happens when we lie to each other.’
‘I didn’t lie.’
‘You didn’t tell me the truth either. I’ve looked him up, Edward Clarke. He was thrown out of medical school not long after you broke up with him.’
‘Because of the letters you wrote.’
‘Maybe. Either way, I was right, I knew there was something wrong with him. He took odd jobs at different hospitals until he got this one. I think he chose this hospital to be close to you. Do you understand? I think he’s been following you for years and I don’t think this is over. Tel
l me where he lives.’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Yes, you do. Tell me. I won’t let him hurt you again. I won’t let anyone hurt you again.’
‘I’d like to sleep now,’ I say and close my eyes.
‘I brought this for you,’ she says, and I hear her put something down on the bedside table. I open my eyes long enough to look at it, but I don’t look at her. ‘I thought it might remind you who we were, who we could be again,’ she says. I don’t answer. The gold bracelet looks so much smaller than I remember, I’m amazed it ever fitted around my wrist. It’s the one she stole from me when we were children. My date of birth carved into the gold. Her date of birth too. Terrible twins. It still has the safety pin I used to mend it when she broke it. So fragile. I’m amazed she still has it, I want to touch it, but I don’t. I close my eyes and turn my back on her. I long for the silence to return and swallow me down into the darkness, I don’t want to hear any more. I get my wish. The door closes and I am left alone. The bracelet is gone and so is my sister.
After
Six Weeks Later 15th February 2017
I stand at the end of our bed, watching his face as he sleeps. Paul’s eyes move beneath his closed eyelids, and his mouth has fallen slightly open. He’s aged over the last couple of months, the lines have carved themselves deeper, the circles beneath his eyes a shade darker than before. I’m watching over a fully grown man and yet all I can see is a picture of vulnerability. I stand in the glorious silence that only the night can deliver and carefully consider whether I have made the right choice. I decide that I have. I won’t let my past dictate our future.
I’ve been home for just over a month now. After so long in the quiet darkness, it felt like sensory overload when I first left the hospital. The world seemed so fast, so loud and so real. Perhaps it was always that way and I just never really noticed before. It took a while to adjust, to process it all. I’ve been to the site of the accident, a trauma counsellor at the hospital thought it would be a good idea. There was a bunch of dead flowers by the tree. Someone kind must have thought that I died that night. I think a version of me did.
I am trying to move on. I have forgiven Claire now too, so much so that we offered to look after the twins while David and Claire had a romantic Valentine’s celebration yesterday. I thought they deserved some quality time alone together, I even prepared a special meal for them.
It was nice having the twins here. They had an afternoon nap in our spare bedroom, it was the first time they slept here and I kept checking on them to make sure they were OK. I stood in the doorway and stared at their pink cheeks, wild tufts of hair, both dreaming away like two peas in a pod. I’d stuck some luminous stars on the ceiling, which they seemed to love. I kept turning the light on and off to show them that stars can’t shine without darkness. They cried less than normal today, Paul was so good at knowing how to keep them happy. Speaking to them in the right tone, always making everything better. The house is silent again now. I check the time: 03.02.
Even a few weeks later, there are still some side effects from the coma. I experience horribly disturbing nightmares and I have trouble sleeping since I woke up. I creep downstairs and Digby comes to meet me. We have a puppy now, a black Labrador. It was Paul’s idea. I walk through to the kitchen, glancing at the clock before beginning my routine: 03.07.
I start with the back door and repeatedly turn the handle until I’m sure it is locked.
Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.
Next, I stand in front of the large range oven with my arms bent at the elbows. My fingers form the familiar shape: the index and middle finger finding the thumb on each hand. I whisper quietly to myself, whilst visually checking that everything is switched off, my fingernails clicking together. I do it again. I do it a third time.
Digby is watching me from the kitchen doorway, his head tilted to one side. I go to leave, lingering briefly, wondering if I should check everything one last time before I do. I look at the clock: 03.15. There isn’t time. I put on my coat, grab my bag and check the contents: Phone. Purse. Keys. As well as a few other bits and pieces. I check twice more before attaching Digby’s lead to his collar, then make myself leave the house, checking the front door is locked three times before marching down the moonlit garden path.
I find walking helps and the puppy appreciates it whether it’s night or day. Just a couple of blocks and some fresh air and I can normally get back to sleep. Nothing else seems to work. I walk along the main road, not a single light shines from any of the houses, as though everyone else has gone and I’m the only person left in the world.
I carry on through the sleeping streets under a black blanket of night sky covered in stars, like sequins. They’re the same stars I looked up at over twenty years ago, but I am forever changed. There’s no moon, so I am completely cloaked in darkness as I turn into Claire’s road. I stare up at the house, taking it in as though looking at it properly for the first time. It should have been mine, I was born here. I tie Digby’s lead to a lamppost, take out my key and head inside.
I check on Claire and David first. They look so peaceful, lying completely still, facing away from each other.
The wheels on the bus go round and round.
I think that’s supposed to mean something, them lying like that. Something about their relationship, but I can’t remember and it doesn’t matter now anyway.
Round and round.
I check David’s pulse. There isn’t one, he’s already cold. I move around to the other side of the bed to check on Claire. Her pulse is weak but she has one. I guess he ate more of the meal I made them. The bag of drugs from the hospital seems to have worked. I had my doubts, but then if a hospital porter can figure this stuff out, with the help of the internet it really shouldn’t be beyond someone like me.
Round and round.
I walk to the children’s bedroom, before coming back to Claire.
The wheels on the bus go round and round.
The sound of the twins crying shatters the silence. I lean down closer to the bed, hoping she can hear them.
All day long.
I whisper in her ear, ‘Two peas in a pod.’
Her eyes open and I jump back from the bed. She looks towards the sound of her children screaming down the hall. I relax when I realise she can’t move anything other than her eyes. They’re wide and wild as she stares in my direction with a look I’ve never seen in them before. Fear. I hold the petrol can up so that it’s within Claire’s field of vision. She looks at it, then back to me. I study my sister’s face one last time, then take her hand in mine, squeezing it three times before letting her go.
‘I never was fond of gas,’ I say, before leaving the room.
After
Wednesday, 15th February 2017 – 04.00
I take a different route home, a slight detour with Digby in tow. It’s cold and I walk a little faster when I hear the fire engines. I think about Edward, perhaps because of the sound of sirens; the police never did catch him. I remember the afternoon when Detective Handley came to the house to tell me what they had found. He sat down on our sofa, with such gentle consideration, as though not wishing to disturb the air in the room or dent the cushions. He refused my offer of tea with a polite shake of his head, then paused for a long time, visibly searching for the right words and deliberating the order in which they should be spoken. His skin turned a whiter shade of pale as he began to describe the traces of blood and burned skin that had been found inside the sunbed at Edward’s flat. Claire didn’t have an alibi for the night the neighbours said they heard a man screaming. Neither did I, but it didn’t matter, nobody ever asked where either of us were. A possible accident, the detective thought, and suggested that something might have short-circuited. I remember nodding as he spoke. Something or someone most likely did. There was no body. No neat conclusion. Sometimes things have to get messy in order to be cleaned up.
My thoughts shift to Madeline as I turn a corner onto th
e main road. I think of her often since I woke up. I pass the petrol station where I bought the petrol over two months ago. The CCTV of that day will have been deleted now, but their records will show that it was paid for with a credit card belonging to Madeline Frost. She was always giving me her credit card to buy her lunches or pay for her dry-cleaning, but I used it for a lot of other things too, including an extra set of her house keys when she asked me to get a spare cut for her new cleaner. Taking a job that was clearly beneath me was useful for things like that, but the best part about it was knowing Madeline’s diary, because as her PA, I created it. I knew where she was every minute of the day, weeks in advance and I knew when she didn’t have an alibi.
The final blackmail note I delivered before the Christmas party had Claire’s name on it, so there could be no misunderstandings about who was responsible. Madeline was toast after her epic fail on the lunchtime news, which went far better than planned and exceeded my expectations. The face of Crisis Child said so many awful things live on television, that the small matter of her abandoning her orphaned goddaughter and stealing her inheritance seemed trivial in comparison. But I hadn’t finished with Madeline yet. I’d always thought of blackmail as something ugly, but this was something else, this was beautiful. This was justice. People think that good and bad are opposites but they’re wrong, they’re just a mirror image of one another in broken glass.
I’ve rehearsed my lines for the police. I’ve written a letter from Madeline to Claire where she threatens to deal with her in the same way she dealt with her parents. I’m well practised at writing letters from Madeline as her PA, so I’m confident the handwriting will be a perfect match. Claire never read it, of course, but, when the time comes, I’ll explain how she gave it to me for safe keeping, just in case the unthinkable ever happened. Everyone thought Madeline would lose the plot if she stopped working, that job was all she had. They’ll all think they were right when the police find the empty petrol cans securely locked inside her shed. They’ll find the pen used to write the letter to Claire on the oak desk in her front room. They’ll find everything they need to.
Sometimes I Lie: The gripping debut psychological thriller you can’t miss in 2017 Page 24