by Jane Corry
A ‘safety expert’ was being called now. Yes, she insisted. Those girls had done nothing wrong in crossing at that point. If Crispin Martin Wright hadn’t been exceeding the speed limit – 50 mph in a 30 mph area – he might have stopped sooner. Wouldn’t have run into poor little Kitty and her friend Vanessa.
More moaning. From Mum and David too. Bile flooded my mouth. Bitter. Sickly.
And then Crispin took the stand. Hollow-eyed. Dark suit. Avoiding my face. ‘The girls were scuffling in the road, right in front of me.’
‘But the tyre marks show you were too close to the kerb.’
Still nothing.
‘Could you have stopped if you were going at the proper speed?’
He said nothing.
The lawyer had made his point.
When I had been cross-examined earlier by Crispin’s lawyer, he had pressed me on the same issue.
‘Were you scuffling in the road when the car came round the corner?’
‘No. Like I said before, we lost our balance for a bit, but that was well before the car appeared. We were just waiting to cross the road.’ A sob broke out of my mouth. ‘The car was coming so fast. When she pulled away from me, Kitty … she didn’t have a chance.’
Killer schoolboy driver sent to prison, the local paper had screamed when Crispin was convicted.
Was that what I had done to him? (Mind you, the paper had also declared that long sentences could be reduced for good behaviour.) Too late now to say something. If I did, they might put me behind bars as well.
‘At least I still have you,’ wept Mum as she held me in her arms.
‘You have Kitty too,’ I sobbed.
But we both knew it wasn’t true. Kitty, as we knew her, had gone.
Now I had to avenge her memory. Because that’s what a good sister would do.
52
May 2017
Alison
My mother is disturbingly quiet when I tell her what happened. Not all of it, obviously. But enough.
‘I still can’t believe you didn’t recognize Crispin,’ she says.
I think of the scars. His bald head. The glasses. The extra weight. ‘People change after fifteen years,’ I say. ‘Look at us.’
It’s true. Neither of us looks the same. My hair is short. My nose is different. The unflattering ‘Roman’ shape is no more. Lines surround my eyes. I look older than a woman approaching her mid-thirties. That’s what stress can do for you, I suppose.
Mum, meanwhile, went wafer-thin after the crash. She’s one of those people who can’t eat when they’re upset. She still barely touches her food. Her hair went grey prematurely. (Recently, she finally gave in to my entreaties and dyed it.) ‘It seems wrong to bother about my appearance when Kitty is like this,’ she’s always saying. ‘Thank goodness I still have you.’
But not if Crispin’s lawyers have their way. I have to use his real name now: too many others are doing so around me. But it makes me feel sick. It unplugs all those memories of the summer house. The tree tapping. The smell of his skin on mine. My inability to move. That feeling of shame and self-loathing afterwards. The need to wash Crispin away in the sea.
‘Was my father English?’
She gives a little start. ‘Why do you think otherwise?’
I notice that she’s not denying it. Merely side-stepping the question like a lawyer might. ‘Mum, this man genuinely seemed to think I was his daughter.’
She makes a so what noise. ‘Just because you work with disturbed gangsters, darling, doesn’t mean you have to believe them.’
Then she puts her arms around me. Just as I had held her when I was little – when there were only the two of us – and she used to cry because she didn’t know what would happen to us. I had held her too, after the accident, but she’d also had David to comfort her. I was no longer needed.
‘This world that you took yourself into,’ she continues gently. ‘It’s not nice. You’ve been brave to work there. And I admire it. But I don’t want you going back. We’ll find another way of paying your sister’s bills.’
I want to tell her that it’s too late. That the damage has been done. That the police might call me back any day if they find my written confession. And when it all comes out, I won’t just have lost my sister as I once knew her. I will lose the sister I have been left with. And probably my mother too.
‘By the way,’ adds Mum. ‘Johnny’s parents have a friend who knows an American specialist in brain injuries. Apparently there’s been an exciting development in what they call brain–computer interface research. There’s a new machine that can help people share the thoughts in their head – even if they don’t know they are having them – called an assistive communication device. Wouldn’t it be incredible if it worked for Kitty?’
It’s getting worse and worse.
That night, I toss and turn as I go over everything again and again. I don’t even bother cutting myself. The desire has completely left me since Stefan’s death: if it hadn’t been for my spare sliver which I’d had on me, he wouldn’t have died. Something else to add to my guilt box.
I must have drifted off because when I wake – in the early hours of the morning – I have an idea which seems so obvious that I can’t think why it didn’t occur to me before.
‘Alison!’ says the college receptionist when I call in on my way back. ‘You don’t have a class today, do you?’
‘No. Just popping in to collect some of my students’ paintings. I promised to mount them before the next class.’
‘You’re so conscientious!’
I wince. ‘Just one other thing,’ I say casually. ‘Remember that job advert about the prison last September?’
‘Yes! You took the details, didn’t you?’
‘That’s right. I just wondered if it was emailed to you or posted. I know that sounds a silly question …’
‘No.’ She cuts in. ‘I nearly mentioned it to you at the time. This man dropped it off. At first I thought he was one of those homeless people. Looked a bit rough, if you know what I mean. But that arty lot can, can’t they? Sorry – not you, of course.’ Her face tightens with anxiety. ‘Was it a scam?’
‘No,’ I falter. ‘It was real. I was just curious, that was all. Do you know where he came from?’
‘He didn’t say anything, sorry.’
This doesn’t prove anything, I tell myself. Maybe the arts trust that employed me got one of their people to drop off a poster.
Now for the next step.
It doesn’t take long on the Tube. Robin’s offices – near Chalk Farm – are smarter than I’d thought. Finding a good lawyer is essential. I know that from my old students in prison. Many claim that theirs was ‘rubbish’. There’s only one lawyer I know personally. Mum always kept me up to date with his progress. And it was easy to find him through the Law Society website. I haven’t seen him since I was eighteen but something tells me that if I have any chance of getting through this, I need someone who understands me. Not a complete stranger.
Of course, I could have made the appointment under another name, and then surprised him. But I’d felt it only right to explain to the receptionist when making an appointment that Mr Wood used to know me years ago as Ali James. Right now, my heart is thumping – not just with the fear of being prosecuted for my part in the accident but also at the prospect of seeing an old friend after all these years. Someone who, understandably, had dropped me after I’d abandoned him at the Wrights’ party. Is this a big mistake?
I hover outside the building with his nameplate on it and then push open the heavy glass doors. A man is waiting. He looks at me. Does a double take. I do the same. It’s Robin. Yet it isn’t. He is more grown up. Obviously. But there’s a certain smoothness about his suit. The way his tie is knotted. So different from that red and blue jacket he used to wear. His hair is … well, tidy. There’s no other way of putting it. His face is lined but it suits him. I’m not sure why. But it does. His body is no longer ‘gangly’.
It’s substantial. Robin has grown into a man.
‘Good to see you again, Ali.’
With a jolt, I note that his voice is exactly the same. I remember suddenly how it had always been deep for his age at school – something else that he got ribbed about as well as the name and the jacket.
‘It’s Alison, now,’ I say nervously.
His hand shakes mine. As he does so, I realize that, despite our closeness all those years ago, our skin had never touched apart from the odd accidental brush. ‘We don’t have that kind of relationship,’ I used to snap at my sister when she teased me about my ‘weirdo, geeky boyfriend’.
Kitty wouldn’t think Robin was weird or geeky now. I can almost imagine her speaking. Wow, Ali! He looks a bit like an older version of that actor who played the lead in Fifty Shades.
As he takes me into his office and invites me to sit down, there is a stiff formality between us. I remind myself that this is the boy I used to swim across the bay with, early in the morning. Who shared my love of Leonard Cohen. Yet that lovely comforting ease, which had always been there between us, has gone. I’d been right earlier. This is a mistake.
‘How is your sister?’ he asks.
My stomach sinks. I hadn’t prepared myself for this question so fast. I’d selfishly been thinking about my own predicament. But then again, an old friend like Robin would talk about family before business. It was only polite.
‘There’s been very little change since the accident. Apart from her getting pregnant and married.’
His eyebrows raise. ‘Really?’
‘It’s a long story.’ I hesitate. ‘And there is some hope for her recovery. At least, there’s the possibility of a new machine that might help her voice her thoughts.’
‘That’s encouraging.’
No it’s not, I want to say. The implications are terrifying. Just think what she might come out with.
But instead I repeat one of Mum’s platitudes. ‘Any small step is encouraging. But you also learn not to have false hopes.’
‘Sure.’
It’s then that he fiddles with a ring on his finger. A gold one. On his left hand. There’s a ping inside my chest. Then I reproach myself. Naturally, a man like Robin is married. Maybe, if things had turned out differently, it could have been me. I might have had a safe life. Why don’t we understand when we make rash decisions in our early youth – while praising ourselves for being spontaneous – that these choices can affect our lives for ever?
‘My secretary said you have a matter you wish to discuss.’
So stiff. So formal. Where is the boy I used to know who was so different from everyone else? I look around his office to buy time. There are no family pictures on his desk. Just smart wooden filing cabinets. Certificates on the wall. A drinks cupboard.
‘I’ve been working as an artist in residence at a prison,’ I start to say.
His eyes widen. ‘That’s very enterprising.’
If only he knew.
‘Something happened recently. A man was killed.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. It’s a sort of distant apology. The type you might make if a friend of a friend of a friend had died.
I sit forward. ‘There’s something else. Crispin Wright was one of my students there. He’s the one who killed the other man.’
That’s better. I can see real shock in his face now.
‘He’s changed. I didn’t recognize him.’ I’m rabbiting on in my nervousness. ‘Now I’m suspended until, well, until the authorities have investigated the situation. Staff aren’t allowed to work with inmates they know.’ I stop and lean closer. ‘Are you allowed to represent me? Given that we know each other?’
‘Yes. Provided there isn’t a conflict of interest.’
‘There isn’t. As far as I can see.’
Robin’s eyes take on a cool intensity. It’s as though he knows there’s more to come. My mouth is so dry that I can barely speak. But I must. ‘Crispin – or Martin, as he has been calling himself – accused me of causing the crash …’
I stop. Preparing myself for the lie I have to tell him.
53
September 2001
Ali
Kitty was out of rehab. Not much more could be done for her, apparently. She was being moved to a residential home. She still hadn’t managed to say any words. Slowly, I began to relax. Maybe my secret would be safe after all.
There was something else too. David had left Mum and gone to London. I should be pleased, I told myself. How often had I wished it was just me and Mum together? But my mother was sad and lonely without him.
‘Tragedies can bring couples closer,’ she sniffed. ‘Or drive them apart.’
Meanwhile, we had to steel ourselves to sort out Kitty’s room. ‘She used to hate it when I tidied up,’ said Mum wistfully. ‘Said I put it all back in the wrong order.’
That’s when I spied it. My history file which had gone missing. It was sitting in a pile of books on the floor. ‘I knew she’d taken it!’ Of course, it was too late now but it still mattered. At least to me.
Mum rubbed her eyes. She hadn’t slept properly since the accident. (Often I found her wandering around the house when I couldn’t sleep either.) ‘No, love. That was me. I put a whole load of your books on Kitty’s floor so I could go over yours with the vacuum cleaner. Thought I’d moved them back again but I must have missed this. I’m so sorry.’
I swallowed the bile in my throat. ‘When was this?’
‘A while ago. Around the time of your exams. David had been going on about how untidy your room was.’ She made a little whimper. ‘To think I thought that was important.’
I could barely speak. ‘I asked you if you’d seen it!’ I wanted to yell. But what was the point? It couldn’t bring back the past.
Yet if I’d known that my sister hadn’t stolen my history file, I wouldn’t have been so angry at her. Kitty might be Kitty as she used to be. And Vanessa might still be alive …
I was so stunned that I could barely take in what Mum was saying. ‘Here – take this.’
‘Take what?’
‘Kitty’s locket.’ She held it out to me. ‘I want you to have something to remind you of your sister.’
The locket that Kitty refused to lend me for the party. The cool metal was strangely soothing against my neck. It made me feel like my sister was close. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t help feeling a touch of satisfaction. Kitty would be furious if she knew I was wearing her locket.
That was when I found Kitty’s paints. And later on that day I opened a tube of turquoise and started painting. The last hand to touch this brush had been my sister’s. Now my hand was slipping into its place, moving across the page almost as if my sister was guiding it. See, she was saying. You can paint too. You were just concentrating too hard on your silly books to notice.
At first my splashes looked like rubbish. Yet the very act of doing something that didn’t tax the mind with facts and dates was therapeutic after the agony since the accident.
Keep going, said Kitty in my head. See the way the light falls through the tree outside? Shade in the shadow. That’s right. Now put some darker green round the outside of the leaf. They’re not all one colour, you know. They’re like you and me. A mixture of contrasts. Let the colours bleed into each other. That’s the joy of watercolour. You never know what’s going to happen.
It was almost as if my sister had willingly transferred her talent into my body by telepathy.
A few days later I decided to tell Mum. I didn’t want to upset her any more than she was already. But I knew this was the right thing to do. ‘I’ve made a decision about uni,’ I told her. ‘I’m not going. Not ever.’
‘But York agreed to defer for a year!’
‘I know. But I don’t want to read history any more. It’s too … too factual. I can’t think straight now. Let’s face it, Mum. None of us can. I want to do art instead.’
‘But you can’t paint. You can’t draw. That w
as Kitty’s thing …’
Not any more.
‘I went to see one of the teachers at school,’ I continued, my hands shaking. ‘I took my portfolio – well, some drawings I’d done. She said it might be enough to apply for a foundation course.’
‘You’re sure of this?’
‘Certain.’
‘Then maybe you’re right.’ Mum sat down heavily at the kitchen table. ‘Perhaps we all need something different.’
That’s when the idea came. ‘And while we’re at it, I’m not Ali any more. I want to be known as Alison Baker from now on.’
For a minute, Mum seemed as though she was about to say something. Then she closed her eyes briefly. ‘I understand that,’ she said, with a steely note to her voice. ‘You need to start again. Like all of us.’
After our conversation, I went up into my room and opened the locket. It was just as I’d feared. A picture of Crispin – taken from the school newsletter – grinned back at me.
I ripped it up into tiny bits and flushed them down the loo.
The following day I took Mum’s kitchen scissors to the bathroom and chopped off all my hair.
To make up for the new bald Kitty.
With the help of Kitty’s old art teacher at school, I got a foundation place through clearing at a London art school. I chose not to go into a hall. Already, I could envisage the questions from other students. (Where do you live? Do you have family?) Far better to use my grant to rent a small bedsit in Holloway. On my own.
London was a breath of fresh air. Away from everyone who had known me. Away from my mother’s constantly tragic face. Away from the road where we had walked to school. Away from the sympathetic faces who had known Kitty and me in an earlier life. The only things I missed were my mother and the sea. And, of course, my sister.
How she would have loved this!
Don’t be silly, the old Kitty seemed to say in my head when someone asked if I was going to the Freshers disco. Of course you’ve got to go. We would! Wouldn’t we, Vanessa?