Contrition

by Sheldon, Deborah;

  “Don’t you understand,” he said at last, “what you’ve become?”

  She glanced up, puzzled. “What I’ve become?”

  “Back in the day, you were a gorgeous woman. Sophisticated, upper class. You could have been a model.”

  “A model? Pfft. Those girls eat nothing but cocaine and cigarettes.”

  “You should have lived your life in a…in a grand way.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about?”

  “You had beauty, brains…everything going for you.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Oh, get over yourself. We’re both down here in the gutter. Or were you destined for yachts as well?”

  He flushed. “I was never in your league.”

  “League? You’ve lost your mind. You know what I think? You’re rambling. You blew an artery in your head with all that running last night.” She sniggered. “My God, you’re unfit. Join a gym already.”

  Embarrassed, he turned his face.

  “We had you scared shitless, didn’t we?” she said.

  “One of you is enough. Four is too much.”

  “They’re a nice enough crew. You should have stopped to say hello.”

  “I don’t want to talk to monsters.”

  “Monsters?” she said, and her back stiffened, her smile falling away. “You think I’m a monster?”

  He held her gaze for a long time. “Yes, I do.”

  “Fuck you,” she whispered.

  “No, fuck you. Tiger is dead. What about Cassie and Donna?”

  “What about them?” She threw the carcass into the pot and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smearing blood across her cheeks. “I couldn’t care less.”

  “Too bad. Now you’ve dropped us both in the shit. Donna wants to call the police because of those notes you shoved under her door.”

  Meredith pouted, sulky as a toddler.

  He added, “We’re moving again because of you.”

  “Good.”

  “I’m looking at units tomorrow.”

  She gave him three, slow claps. His temper flared.

  “You’re making me break the lease. You know what that means? I have to keep paying rent until the landlord finds another tenant. And what happens if he doesn’t find another tenant? I’ll be paying rent on two places, that’s what, and I’m already living from pay-cheque to pay-cheque. I’ll have to take out a loan or something, get a few credit cards, I don’t know. For Christ’s sake, Merry, are you even listening?”

  Her face was sullen, her arms crossed. “The money doesn’t matter.”

  “That’s easy for you to say. You’re not the one fronting the goddamned cash.”

  “It’s worth any amount of money to get you away from that dirty whore.”

  John gritted his teeth and rubbed at his temples. “Oh, why are you doing this to me? Can’t I have one friend?”

  “A friend?” Her eyes flashed. “Give me a break. For years, I had to compete with Lyle for your attention. I’m not competing with that dirty whore as well.”

  For a moment, John’s heart stopped beating. “Lyle? That’s the second time you’ve remembered him.”

  “Yes, Lyle, my brother, my twin fucking brother. How could you forget that arrogant little prick?”

  “Not me. You.”

  “What?”

  “Hang on a second.” John ducked into her bedroom, reached under the bed and hauled out the box of memorabilia she kept from high school. Pushing aside the paperback copy of Oliver Twist with its picture of Luke Skywalker taped to the cover, he grabbed the first pack of photographs. Wheels within wheels…

  “Hey,” Meredith called. “Get out of my room.”

  He hurried back to her, crouched down, and pulled the photographs from their paper jacket. “Our school trip to Central Australia, 1984, Year Eleven,” he said, thumbing through each snap. “Uluru, or Ayers Rock as it was called back then; kangaroos, the tents, our bus driver and cook. Here’s you sitting on the back of a camel screaming your head off. Remember this?” He flapped the photograph under her nose. “Remember?”

  Quiet and pale, thoughtful, she frowned and nodded.

  “Look here,” he ordered, holding up the picture of himself, Meredith and Lyle linking arms in the desert twilight. “Who’s that bloke?”

  After a moment, she reached out a bloodied finger and murmured, “Lyle.”

  “Exactly.”

  John slapped the photograph against her chest. Scrabbling, she took hold of it with both hands and stared at it, mouth open, as if at a ghost. John stood up.

  “Two weeks ago,” he said, “when we were getting ready to move from the unit to this joint, you saw that photo and didn’t recognise him.”

  Her wide, haunted eyes showed the whites all the way round. “I didn’t?”

  “No, you didn’t. And every time we’ve moved house—about half a dozen times so far, maybe more—you’ve dragged out this box of crap and got me to go through these same goddamned pictures, and every time you haven’t recognised your own brother. Now you do.” He flung the remaining photographs to the floor. “What’s going on, Merry? You’ve changed. It’s like you’re waking up. Why? What the fuck is going on here?”

  Carefully, she studied the photograph. “Lyle…”

  “Yeah, Lyle. Now tell me. Are you waking up? What’s happened to end this…coma…you’ve been in since I found you in the park? Is it Donna? Are you jealous of her, is that it? Answer me. You’ve killed her cat, what’s your next move? Tell me.”

  The memory of Cassie’s words lodged like a fish bone inside his throat. The witch is coming for us, one by one. The surge of anger and panic felt suffocating. He had to struggle to breathe.

  “Merry,” he said. “Answer me, or so help me…”

  Freezing, she seemed to slip into her catatonic state, but only for a moment. With a gasp, she pressed the photograph to her bloodied cheek and closed her eyes.

  She moaned, “Oh, he’s dead.”

  John’s teeth shut with a click. “No. Lyle is a missing person.”

  “He’s dead.”

  What would make her say something like that? Maybe she knew. Did John talk in his sleep? Oh, Christ. Now, wait a minute, were those tears squeezing out from between her lashless eyelids? Yes. Tears for Lyle. Exhausted, John slumped against the wall, slid down it, and sat on the floor.

  “Don’t cry, Merry,” he said after a time.

  “Why not? My big brother’s dead. He’s older than me by nine minutes, did you know that? Lyle’s dead. My brother is dead.”

  “You don’t know for sure. Nate Rossi thinks he’s in Bali.”

  “Bali?” Her faint laugh was cryptic. “He’s not in Bali. You know it. I know it.”

  “We know only what the police reckon, that Lyle is a missing person. End of story. If you think any different, you’re fooling yourself.”

  She held out the photograph and gazed upon it. A hint of a smile curled her lips. John struggled to read her expression. Nostalgic? Sad? No, it was something else, something…unsettling. She took the photo in both hands and, to his surprise, tore it in half. Putting the pieces together, she tore them again, then again, and let the shreds fall into the silver pot. She laughed and dusted her hands together with a theatrical flourish. Now he could read her expression. Triumphant. Mocking. He felt uneasy.

  “Let’s have a smoke,” she said, and got up.

  He leapt to his feet and backed into the hallway. She moved past him to the bathroom. The raft of disturbed air in her wake smelled ripe and coppery. The bile rose to his tongue. Jesus, poor Tiger. Meredith must have speared him with her nails, torn open his jugular and drank his blood, drained the animal empty.

  John approached the door of the bathroom. Meredith was washing her face and hands in the sink. She caught his eye in the mirr
or and winked.

  John said, “Did you suck Tiger’s blood while he was still alive?”

  “Well, it’s no good once the heart stops pumping.”

  “You’re a vampire, aren’t you?”

  She snorted and turned off the tap. “You’ve got a tiny little mind. According to pin-heads like you, there are just so many things that exist in this world and no more. You couldn’t be more wrong. What’s the old saying? There are creatures in heaven and earth, Horatio…oh, I forget the rest.”

  “If you’re not a vampire,” he said, “what are you?”

  “Who knows?”

  She ran her fingers through her hair as if preening, and studied her reflection in profile, first one side and then the other. She looked ghastly—pale as wax, sunken cheeked, with heavy dark rings carved beneath her hollowed eye sockets—but she seemed pleased with what she saw in the mirror.

  “Tell me the truth for once,” he said.

  “The truth? That’s rich, coming from you.” She laughed. “You think I’m a monster. Isn’t that a good enough definition?”

  She pushed past him. He followed her to the kitchen and grabbed himself a beer. You’re an alky if you drink before 10.45 a.m.—but surely, this occasion didn’t count, this was an emergency. Cigarettes and a lighter sat on the bench. Meredith put two smokes in her mouth and lit them both. When she held one out, he hesitated.

  She arched an eyebrow. “Relax. I don’t have cooties.”

  “I don’t know what you’ve got. You won’t tell me.”

  “Nothing you can catch from a ciggy.”

  He took the smoke and accidentally touched her fingers. They felt ice cold. A shiver of revulsion ran along his spine.

  “A zombie, then,” he said. “Something undead.”

  She rolled her eyes. “We’ve already had this conversation.”

  “You never gave me an answer.”

  “Fine. I’m a combination vampire-zombie-witch. Satisfied?”

  “No. I don’t understand.”

  “And you never will.” She sat at the table. “Stop acting so weird. We’ve been living together for years. Years! Don’t look at me like you don’t know me.”

  “But I don’t know you. All this time, I thought you were…mentally ill.”

  “Hah. Not even close.”

  “Then why did your parents send you to a nuthouse?”

  “Because I kept telling them I’d killed Lyle.”

  The strength drained from him, fast, like water from a tipped bucket. Slowly, carefully, he grasped the back of a chair and lowered himself into it. He put down the stubby, jittering it against the table top.

  Meredith tutted. “There you go again, looking like you want to puke.”

  When he didn’t answer, she picked up the stubby and twisted off the top. She held it out. After a while, he took the beer and drank most of it down in a couple of long and thirsty swallows.

  “Are you going to puke?” she said.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  “Put your head between your knees.”

  “I told you, I’m fine.”

  She pointed at his cigarette. “Are you going to smoke that or let it burn out?”

  With trembling fingers, he laid the cigarette in the ashtray. “Stop, Merry.”

  “Stop what?”

  “Tormenting me,” he said, his voice cracking. “I’ve done everything for you. Paid the bills. Taken care of you—”

  “Yes, yes,” she interrupted. “Washed my clothes, and all that shit. I know, I know. You want me in your debt, and why not? You buried my brother for me.”

  He jolted. She must mean that metaphorically. Nobody knew what had happened down at the river. Nobody but himself and Lyle. Nevertheless, he couldn’t meet her gaze. Instead, he stared at the table top. Waves of shame, regret and self-loathing broke over him in a cold sweat. The sounds of the river came back. He winced at the memory of Lyle’s broken head, bouncing and bumping over the rocky ground as John had dragged him by the ankles deeper into the forest…

  But no, wait, Lyle was to blame for what happened. John had approached with his hand out, ready to shake, ready to put the argument behind them.

  “Hey,” Meredith said. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing.”

  But now it was John’s turn to close his eyes against a sudden onset of tears. One punch. One single, solitary punch. How many lives had John destroyed with that moment of anger? How many days, countless days, had he spent wishing it had never happened? Oh, but he knew how many. All the long and empty days of his life ever since Sunday October 19th, 1985.

  Something cold touched the back of his wrist.

  John’s eyes flew open. Meredith had laid her hand on him. He jerked away and rubbed at his skin as if it burned. Her eyes narrowed.

  “You know, for a minute there,” she said, “I actually felt sorry for you.”

  Tired and heartsick, he pushed away from the table. Now what? A shower. He needed to freshen up, change into clean clothes, shave, get a different perspective, get a grip. Then breakfast. Eggs and bacon, toast, orange juice, black coffee. After that, start figuring out some kind of plan.

  “Where are you going?” she said.

  “To have a shower. Is that okay with you?”

  From the ashtray, she took his discarded cigarette and relit it, dragging hard. As he reached the hallway, she said, “Hey, Sampson, don’t forget to bolt the door behind you.”

  He continued into his room and bolted the door.

  It was a relief to peel off the crusty, sweaty clothes, soiled from the mad chase the night before. The shower belted down in needles, a painful ablution. John lifted his face into the hot sting and wished he could wipe his mind clean.

  So, Merry had told her parents that she had killed Lyle.

  Why? It didn’t make sense.

  Unless she had felt responsible somehow for her brother’s disappearance. Perhaps Lyle had threatened suicide, and Merry had believed him. But why would Lyle have reacted so badly to her loss of virginity in the first place? That didn’t make sense either. A ghastly suspicion flickered through John’s mind, but he dismissed it out of hand. Perhaps Lyle’s jealousy made sense if you had grown up with a sibling. John had never discovered the details of the twins’ argument beyond what Lyle had mentioned at the river. Well, that was going to change. Today. After he was dressed, John would quiz Merry, find out everything once and for all, and maybe get a little goddamned peace after thirty-one years.

  He turned off the shower and scrubbed himself dry with a towel. When he went to the bathroom cabinet to get the deodorant, he saw Meredith in the mirror. Shit. Heart thumping, he spun around, holding the towel in front of him.

  She was sitting on his bed, shoulders slumped, face tear-streaked.

  Calm down, he thought, she doesn’t appear threatening. Then he noticed the black animal pelt. She was holding it, squeezing and worrying at it with both hands. A flash of alarm raced through him. But no, a moment later he recognised the object for what it was: his balaclava. When he had ripped it off his head last night during the pursuit, he had flung it to the footpath and kept on running.

  “What are you doing in here?” he said.

  She lifted the balaclava. “I brought this home for you.”

  When he didn’t react, she smiled sadly and laid the balaclava on his pillow.

  “Thanks,” he said, wrapping the towel about his waist. He took a t-shirt and tracksuit pants from his wardrobe. “How did you get in? I had the door bolted.”

  “Oh, I come in here all the time.”

  He paused. “All the time?”

  “When you’re at work. Sometimes when you’re asleep.”

  “You watch me when I’m asleep?”

  “Like a mother over her baby. Can’t you understand?�
�

  “No.”

  Meredith shook her head and bit at her chapped lips.

  Hurriedly, he dressed in the bathroom. He felt scared, yes, but exhilarated too. Meredith was ready to talk. He would find out everything, he could feel it. Her secrets would be laid bare. When he came out from behind the dividing wall, she was holding two lit cigarettes. She proffered one to him. He took it, careful not to touch her. He leaned against the window, which was as far away from her as he could get.

  “I’m going crazy,” she whispered.

  “How come?”

  She wiped at tears with the heels of both hands. “I’m remembering things, John. Terrible things.”

  “Like what?”

  “Things about Lyle. Stuff I haven’t remembered in years.” She dragged on the smoke. It shook between her trembling lips. “I always hated him. Did you know that?”

  “You always gave that impression, yeah. But if you hated him so much, why are you crying?”

  “God, he was such a smartarse.”

  John shrugged. “Actually, that was one of the things I liked about him.”

  “He could be cruel too. Selfish. Everything had to be his way.” She closed her eyes, spilling fresh tears down her cheeks. “You weren’t my first.”

  “Your first…?”

  “Do you remember the time we made love?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  She smiled, tears shimmering. “You were nervous. You kept apologising, and that made me laugh, and then you would laugh too. Remember? It was fun. It was innocent. While we made love, we looked at each other. You kept giving me little kisses on my nose, on my forehead. Such tender little kisses. You told me you loved me.” She drew on the cigarette. “It’s one of my best memories.”

  “One of mine too.”

  She brightened and laughed, pressing a hand to her chest. “Is it?”

  “Definitely.”

  “You thought we were both virgins.” Her smile crumpled.

  “Hey, that doesn’t matter to me, all right? So, you had a lover or two before we got together. No big deal.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” She bit her lips together, blinking hard, seeming to brace herself. “Lyle and I were young when it started. Eight or nine. I didn’t know it was wrong. Maybe he did.”