Little Sister

by Isabel Ashdown

  “She’s difficult to read,” I say, simply. I don’t want to say any more, don’t want to put her down or muddy the way James sees her. And, at any rate, I wouldn’t be telling him anything new; he knows. He’s lived with her for over a decade now, good and bad, and he knows what she’s like.

  “She’s more than difficult.” James reaches out for his glass, our knees bumping as he does so, and he drinks deeply before settling back against his corner of the sofa. He looks at me squarely, seriously, and says, “She’s bloody ruthless, Jess.”

  * * *

  The day I left home was a bright, uncommonly warm day in March. It was a Sunday, and Mum and Dad were at Mass, Emily and I having feigned illness in order to stay behind and get me to the train station. On the platform, the sun streamed down through the corrugated awning, creating strips of bright white across the chewing gum-marked concrete. Emily stood at my side, a foot apart from me, her mouth fixed in the polite, social smile she had adopted from Mum, to be called upon in moments of public stress or discomfort. And I, desperate for Emily’s approval as always, chattered inanely, making small talk that skimmed over my terror, that ignored the momentous ripples we were about to cast off into the future.

  I didn’t want to go; I was just seventeen—too young, too inexperienced, and too naïve to simply head out into the world alone with nothing more than a rucksack and a little money. But Emily was right: I had no choice. I’d made my bed, as she put it, and life could never return to the way it was before. Not now. I had screwed it all up, ruined everything, thrown it all away.

  After the party, after Emily had caught me with Simon—in bed with her boyfriend Simon—she’d separated herself from me, any remaining affection reduced to nothing. He had been her boyfriend, not mine. How could I have let that happen? I tried so hard to tell her, to convince her that I didn’t remember a thing about it, nothing—that the last memories I had of the evening were of sitting on the top step of the stairs in Sammie’s house with my head in my hands, feeling the cold, dread drop of my blood pressure as one of my episodes threatened to take me down. Sammie had passed me on the stairs, on her way down from using the loo, and she’d asked me if I was all right because I looked so pale, and then she had helped me to my feet as Simon pushed by, laughing and reeking of lager and cigarette smoke, and I remember thinking, Emily won’t like that. Emily hates it when he smokes. And as Sammie helped me up, I could feel my breath stalling, and I saw how Simon wrinkled his puggy nose at me and said, “Shit, Jess. Overdone it a bit?” And then Sammie told him to piss off, and she took me into her bedroom, where I sat on the edge of the bed and tried not to close my eyes as Sammie smoothed my skirt straight over my knees and felt my forehead with the back of her hand. “I’ll go and find Emily,” she said, and I was grateful. I was scared, but it was OK, because Emily was coming. My big sister was coming, and she’d make everything all right. As Sammie left, the edges of the candy-striped room closed in around me, and my consciousness dropped away.

  All these years later, and still my body remembers what took place that night, even when my mind cannot. When Emily had pressed me, wanting to know if I was certain it was that night that I’d fallen pregnant, I was able to say, yes, of course it was that night, because there wasn’t any other night. That had been my first and only time. But how could she ever understand that, while it had happened there, and had happened with Simon, it wasn’t an act of betrayal. How could it be—when I had no recollection of it in the moment, no memory of it at all? No proof that it ever happened, except for the bits that Emily told me afterward, and so many times since. No proof, except for the bruising, and the bleeding that only I knew about, both long since vanished, long since washed and scrubbed away. No proof but for the rotten sense of shame and dread that now inhabited my every waking hour and crept beneath the covers with me at nighttime, never leaving me. How could I even contemplate telling her the truth of what I really feared? I had lost so much, but I knew—because Emily told me day after day—she had lost so much more. She had lost Simon.

  She’d finished with him there and then, and for that, at least, I was thankful.

  My reason for leaving home was simple: my parents had found out. A few days earlier, Emily had slipped into my bedroom late at night, to speak to me for the first time in the fortnight since we had returned from the clinic. I felt so glad to see her in my doorway, hope rising in me like a breath.

  “They know,” she had whispered. “I don’t know the details, but they know—about you and, and about the—” She couldn’t find the words and indicated toward my belly with a flick of her hand. “I didn’t tell them,” she went on. “But the clinic phoned; I’m pretty sure I overheard Mum speaking to them.”

  I’ll never forget the rush of adrenaline that I felt when she told me that my parents knew. I felt sick, in part because I was so relieved that it had been taken out of my hands—that the truth, as awful as it was, could be spoken aloud. But that sensation was short-lived when Emily said, “They want you to move out. They don’t even want to talk about it—but you have to go, Jess. I mean, Jesus, this goes against everything they believe in. Unmarried sex? Abortion?” Her eyes were wide, persuasive. “I think it’s for the best. And it would probably do you some good, wouldn’t it? A bit of time to think things over?”

  I recalled the look my mother had given me that morning as she left for church, a mixture of unspoken sadness and profound disappointment. She’d been spending more and more time alone in her room in recent weeks, emerging only to prepare our meals and clear up after us, and even then, it seemed she struggled to meet my gaze. She’d been the same with Dad and Emily, but I realized now that the source of her distress was, of course, me. Of course they knew. How could they not?

  As the train pulled in, I clung to my sister, not wanting to let her go, not wanting to go. “How will I live without you, Emi?” I asked, my tear-streaked face buried in her hair.

  She pulled back and opened the carriage door, handing me my rucksack as I stepped aboard the train. Her last words to me were spoken coolly before she turned and walked away.

  “You’ll be fine, Jess. Life has a way of working itself out.”

  18

  Emily

  Emily is drained; emptied out. Finally, she told DCI Jacobs everything about that night. She told her how she didn’t drive straight home on New Year’s Eve, but instead went with Marcus, her husband’s best friend, down to the sheltered beach at the foot of Shanklin Chine, where they had cold, hurried sex against the salt-corroded wood of the farthest beach hut. Emily skirted over the details, sticking to the raw facts—the time, the location, the duration—as if communicating the events with speed and brevity would somehow reduce the severity of her betrayal. What she didn’t tell the inspector was just how alive she felt in those few fervent, moonlit minutes, how Marcus devoured her with such intoxicating appetite that she wishes she could return there now, if only to obliterate the horror of her reality, to give herself up again to that fleeting deathlike rapture.

  Just as DCI Jacobs is wrapping up the interview, there’s a knock on the window, and a young woman enters the room. “We’ve had a phone call I think you should know about,” she says, and her eyes dart toward Emily briefly, causing the inspector to push back her chair and follow the officer from the room.

  Once again Emily is left alone with the silent officer, and try as she might, she can’t get the image of Daisy out of her head, a picture of her lying in her cot on New Year’s Eve, her fists balled, her face scrunched up in wet frustration—crying to be picked up by her mummy, when all her mummy wanted to do was strap on her kitten heels and get out of the house. It was the first time in months she had actually been looking forward to a night out, and Emily had hated Daisy for slowing her down. She’d hated her.

  Had she? Is that possible? Is that the way she is? Is that the person she has become? Or the person she’s always been? Emily stares toward the glass panel in the interview room door, focusing ha
rd, trying to see herself as better. She sees herself with James, a family, walking across the wooden slats of Yarmouth pier with Daisy in her pram when she is just days old, smiling at the passersby who cast admiring glances at the beautiful new baby. She sees herself bending over the changing mat, to kiss Daisy’s rabbit-soft forehead as she smooths down the Velcro of a fresh nappy, meeting pools of adoration in her daughter’s eyes. Emily recalls the way in which, whatever they were doing, Daisy’s head would turn to follow the sound of her voice, and how she loved that, that simple thing. I’m not all bad, she allows herself to think now, I’m not all bad. What on earth will James do when he hears about this—about Marcus? God, this nightmare just rolls on and on.

  DCI Jacobs returns to the room and to her seat. “Right, Emily, we’ll be getting you off home in a moment. But first, I’ve got a couple more questions I want to ask you, and then one of our officers will drive you back. Your husband, James—has he ever given you reason to mistrust him?”

  Emily is stunned by the question. She’s been here all night, and this hasn’t come up. It seems so ill placed at the very end of her interview, so weighted with suggestion that she’s uncertain what it is the inspector is asking of her.

  She thinks of the letter, that letter, the one she found on James’s desk all those weeks back, but she doesn’t say a thing. An affectionate letter of few words, written on floral notepaper and signed with a kiss. No, she won’t tell them about that; she doesn’t want to open up an entirely different can of worms. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “It’s a standard question,” DCI Jacobs replies, her expression giving away nothing. “And when you first met, what was James’s situation then? He already had Chloe, didn’t he?”

  “We’ve been over this,” Emily says, curtly. How many times do they have to do this? “He’d lost his wife—”

  “Avril?”

  “Yes. She’d died a year and a half earlier, and he’d moved to Fleet with Chloe soon afterward. We met at work.”

  “OK. And exactly where did he and Avril live before he moved to Fleet? Do you know?”

  Emily’s patience is exhausted. “Somewhere in London. I’m not sure exactly where. I didn’t know him back then. If you want details, you’ll have to ask James.”

  DCI Jacobs scribbles a note and nods at the other officer. “Interview terminated at 7:55 a.m.”

  * * *

  As Marcus walked Emily back up the steep beachfront steps and winding pathways toward his own front drive, it seemed strange to her to be chatting so very casually, when something so intimate had just passed between them. He asked her how Chloe was doing at school, how Daisy was getting along, even going so far as to suggest they must all go out for lunch again soon at the Crab and Lobster—her and James, him and Jan. If anyone overheard us now, she thought, they’d never suspect in a million years that we’d just been shagging like seals on the beach. She laughed aloud at this last thought, and Marcus stopped her with a light hand, a look of alarm entering his wine-soaked features. They were concealed, standing just beyond the high perimeter of his garden wall. “I know I don’t need to say it, Em, but—this is just between us, yes?”

  She had raised a wry eyebrow and shaken her head slowly. “You think I don’t have just as much to lose as you, Marcus? What happens at the Chine stays at the Chine.”

  Now it was his turn to laugh, and he pulled her forward to kiss her on the cheek like old friends. And shoving his hands deep into his pockets, he turned away from her and sauntered back toward the party. As if it had never even happened.

  * * *

  When the police car returning Emily pulls up outside her house, she sees Marcus is driving away. He appears to look toward the car as he passes, grave-faced, but gives no sign that he has seen her. It’s just past nine, and already a few early photographers mill around the vehicles in the street, jumping into action when they see the police car arrive. James and Jess are standing on the doorstep, looking bewildered, and Emily can only guess at what has just taken place, at what they now know to be true.

  “All right?” DC Piper asks her, because she’s been sitting there motionless for too long now. “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  “No,” she replies. She’s had enough police company to last her a lifetime. She thanks him and steps gingerly onto the pavement, feeling the burden of her husband’s eyes on her as she treads across the gravel drive, the crunching sound of it loud in the early-morning hush. Her gaze is lowered as she reaches them, and she’s aware that over the past fortnight she has come to view them as a united front, as a pair, because they’re so very alike in many ways, both good and gentle and honest. They say women often end up marrying versions of their father. Not me, thinks Emily as she raises her eyes to meet theirs. I married my sister.

  “Marcus?” James asks. That’s all. Just that one word.

  And she wants to spit back, And what about you and my sister, meeting for secretive lunches? What about that, Mr. Squeaky Clean? But there’s no time to answer him, because then DCI Jacobs is pulling up in the entrance to the driveway, her tires spitting up small stones, and she’s out of the car even before the engine cuts out, her legs moving across the wide driveway with such purpose that Emily thinks she’s back for her again, that they’ve let her go too soon.

  “Mr. King,” Jacobs shouts over to James, the urgency pouring off her. She comes to a halt facing the three of them and places her hands on her hips in a mildly aggressive pose, inhaling deeply as though she’s run all the way here, not driven. She’s fired up; there’s something new.

  James hasn’t answered. He just stands there, gaping, like a man teetering on the edge of the abyss.

  “Mr. King,” DCI Jacobs repeats, “I think we’d better go inside. It’s about your first wife, Avril. Your deceased wife.”

  James nods dumbly.

  The inspector gestures toward the house, and they step over the threshold, one after the other, until they’re inside the hallway, the door sealed safely shut behind them. Nobody speaks—not James, not Jess, not Emily. They stand and wait, their inner fight collectively draining away.

  At last DCI Jacobs speaks. “Mr. King, we’re going to need to talk with you in more detail about your first wife, Avril King. We have good reason to believe that you’ve lied about the circumstances of her death.”

  Part Two

  1

  Avril

  You were perfect, unblemished. Innocent of ill thought, with a light that radiated from you like sunlight. You brought meaning to everything, and with you in it, my world had become a warmer place. Until I went and ruined it all.

  * * *

  The house was silent, and for a while it was just you and me, alone, without the distractions and noise of others to unsettle our peace. You were special, Chloe, and from the first time I held you, I knew we had a connection that could never be put into plain words or easily broken. Everyone said I was spoiling you, that I should stop with all the little presents—spend my money on myself instead—but they didn’t understand that all I ever wanted to do was make you happy. And to protect you. That evening I sat in the living room for an age, staring beyond the muted movements of the television screen, willing you to wake for a while, so I could fill my eyes with your love, feel the reassuring thump of your heartbeat against mine.

  “Try not to wake her,” James had said as they headed off for their party earlier that evening, dressed up in their black-tie best, looking quite the glamorous pair. “Just pop your head in every now and then—but don’t pick her up straightaway if she wakes! She’ll drop off again if you leave her for a few minutes.” At the front door, I saw her button up her neat fawn coat and whisper something to him—and he’d rushed back in with a box of chocolates, sliding them across the coffee table toward me. “Babysitter’s perks!” he’d said, and, checking his reflection in the mantle mirror one last time, he’d dashed from the room and out into the night.

  At some point, it felt as though hours had passe
d, but I’d started to feel strange by then, and it was hard to know if my sense of time was out, as so often happens. The clock said it was after one in the morning, but that couldn’t be right, could it? Surely I hadn’t been sitting here alone for that long? I was certain I had heard you cry out, and although I remembered James’s words and knew I mustn’t go to you yet, I couldn’t help myself, and I rushed up to fetch you down. You were so pleased to see me, waving your soft arms and grabbing at the air, and why shouldn’t I pick you up whenever I wanted? Why shouldn’t I hold you and kiss you and never want to let you go? A mother should be allowed to do these things. A mother shouldn’t be told when and how much to love her child, should she? His mother said I was overdoing things. His mother, constantly hinting that I couldn’t cope. I scooped you up and brought you into the kitchen, strapping you into your high chair so you could watch me make up your warm milk. I dropped a couple of breadsticks onto your tray, and you babbled and waved them in the air, and I felt light-headed with the joy of you. I was hungry too, and as your milk warmed in the bowl I made myself a sandwich, carving the last of the breast from the Christmas turkey, and laying it out in a slow, careful pattern on a slice of the crumbly organic loaf that James always insisted on. I often wondered if he’d be so popular with women if they knew what a fusspot he really was—and, in an instant, I lost my appetite and I tossed the sandwich at the dog bowl, where it flopped open and spilled messily over the polished floor. Toddy heard the noise and stirred in his basket, sniffing the air and padding across the room to claim his treat. That was another thing she hated me doing—giving Toddy too many tidbits—and I felt jubilant at my trifling rebellion as I watched him pick up the sandwich in his softly drooping jaws and carry it back to the comfort of his bed. Good boy, I whispered, and he looked at me out of the side of his eyes, his expression a confused mixture of uncertainty and gratitude. The kitchen lights overhead felt suddenly too brash, and I flinched, swallowing my anger as I snatched up your bottle and slopped milk across the counter. I was so cross, I reached over to the switch for the lights, flicking them off so I didn’t need to squint anymore, and as I did so, my arm swept across the worktop, sending the breadboard and meat knife hurtling into the sink with a clatter. When I heard you gasp in the dimness, I was sorry again, so sorry, and I reached out to put my hand on your shoulder, to soothe you and let you know I was there. I paused, my pulse racing, as I listened for any signs of them coming home, as by now I had no grasp of time, and it seemed possible they could be back at any moment, ticking me off for getting you up, for waking you unnecessarily. But the silence remained, broken by nothing more than the gentle whistle of wind passing the windows that looked out across the drive. They wouldn’t understand: all I wanted to do was hold you. They think I’m taking my medication, but I’m not. They don’t know how it feels, how it takes something of me away, robs me of my ability to love you as profoundly as I can when I’m myself. When I’m myself, the connections all link up; the world is excruciatingly sharp but at the same time breathtakingly clear—and my bond to you, Chloe, is tangible, as real in the world as the cord that fastened us together in my womb. How could I give that up? How could I suppress my sense of you, of myself, of us? I felt shaky as I stood beside your high chair in the half-light, watching the whites of your eyes blinking up at me, marveling at the porcelain perfection of your dimpled fingers and rounded cheeks. And then, as I went to lift you up, I heard the sound of tires on the gravel outside, and the room grew instantly brighter, briefly bathing you in light, and in the seconds before the lights dipped, I saw your closed eyes and the blood on your sleep suit—fresh blood, bright and wet. I cried out—screamed—seeing the rich crimson line that flowed from my wrist, and I staggered in my panic to get to you, to save you. But I couldn’t save you, could I?