by Lizzy Barber
And then I realise the package has no stamp. It must have been delivered by hand.
I scan the landscape around me, as if whoever sent it might be waiting, watching. In the distance, I spy a lone figure on the path, marked out against the moonlight by the white suit he’s wearing.
‘Hey!’ I call to him, but he doesn’t slow, or turn around. ‘Excuse me?’ I try, louder, even as the figure disappears around the bend in the road. I hesitate, consider running after him, but fear drives inertia into my veins and I hang back. What if he’s dangerous? What does he want with me? I glance back at the house, feel Mamma’s presence, even along the long stretch of drive and beyond the walls of the building. I should go to her; open it together.
And yet. There is something about the strangeness of this letter that makes me pause. Something dangerously alluring about being singled out. It’s my daily task to fetch the mail for Mamma; every day the same: bills; the packages of clothes Mamma receives, to mend and return to her small but steady stream of clients; junk mail advertising car dealerships or warehouse sales. No letters from relatives, no postcards from friends abroad. Nothing, ever, for me. Until now.
I hook a finger underneath the edge of the envelope’s flap, freeing the triangle of paper from its glue.
Inside, a small card; a watercolour spray of white lilies, their petals stretching to the top of the paper like they’re trying to escape. My fingers find its edge. I open it up, read: Happy birthday, Emily.
That name.
I hear a voice calling now: Emily? Emily? Where are you?
I lose my grip on the envelope and it falls to the ground, spilling something that hits the gravel path with a metallic clink.
Forcing my shallow breaths to slow, I crouch down and take the object in my palm. A necklace. The thin chain drips over my fingers as I hold it out. A silver cross sits at its centre, its delicate points bowing slightly outwards. A flower is set around it – a single bloom whose petals curve around the cross, its stem twirling around the base, two silver leaves keeping it in place. A lily.
I look back at the card. No signature. No return address. No friendly clue to help me uncover its sender. A whisper of something stirs in me, its voice as soft as wind chimes in the soporific summer heat. That endless whirling, whirling. The pendant – something about it agitates my mind – where have I seen it before?
The carousel. I see it, spinning on its axis. The pendant glints in response.
Something happened in that park. Someone wants me to remember.
I should tell Mamma, but I fold the card back into the envelope and carefully slip it into my skirt pocket. Tuck the pendant in beside it.
With a final glance at the empty road, I head into the house.
ROSIE
6
We will be forced to close the trust.
There is no money left.
The words of the email whisper at me as I try to sleep off the fug of the early start. I shrug Mum away when she knocks on my door, offers me lunch. I can’t sit there, with them, like nothing’s happened. Why didn’t they say anything in the interview? And what are they going to do to stop the trust closing before it’s too late?
I feel sure nothing will come of the TV appearance now. Nothing but another chance for journalists to rake up old stories, for people to gawp at us on the streets, for someone to spray-paint ‘The Parents Done It’ on the wall by our house.
And then the other thought, the one I try to keep buried deep, deep down, because it makes me think of the last time this happened, and what it did to us then: what will happen to Mum, if it really does shut down?
In the afternoon, Keira messages me, asks me to go to a party. I rouse myself, agree, hoping that surrounding myself with people will drown all the other noise in my head, distract me from the urge to play with the soft skin on my abdomen, running the tips of my tweezers over it in fine cuts that’ll heal by the time anyone would have reason to notice. I tell Mum we’re going to the cinema, that I’m staying at Keira’s. Better than having to answer twenty million questions.
She stops me anyway, as I’m on my way out of the door. ‘You’ll be all right, darling. After this morning? You’re sure this is a good idea?’
I tighten my limbs. ‘I just want to see my friends, Mum.’
She sighs. ‘OK. You have your phone?’
‘Yes, Mum.’ I wave it in the air, training my eyes on her, searching for the hairline fractures in her perfect facade.
‘And a charger?’
I nod.
‘And you’ll check in when you’re done with the movie? And if there are any problems you’ll call? I can always come and collect you – it doesn’t matter what time it is.’
‘I’ll be fine, Mum.’
‘OK.’ She releases her hold on me, picks up her handbag from the hall table. Her hand emerges with a wad of notes. ‘Take a cab back from the cinema. I don’t want you getting the bus back in the dark.’
‘Mum, it’s not even that …’ I take the money, stuff it into my wallet. ‘Thank you. I’ll message you when it’s finished.’ Why bother arguing?
I meet Keira at the bus stop, and once we’re settled at the back of the top deck, we begin a well-rehearsed choreography, swapping trainers for wedges, loosening shirt buttons and rimming our eyes in thick black liner.
Keira digs into her bag to reveal the neck of a bottle. She pulls it fully out, unscrews the top and hands it to me. The familiar red label shines up at me as I lift it to my lips and drink, and I inhale before the liquid reaches my throat, thinking past the acid burning my nostrils as I take a long swig. The vodka powers through me, hot, numbing.
When we get to the house the front door is open, and a group of people are clustered on the front lawn, smoking, and drinking from those thin plastic cups that always break if they’re squeezed too hard. I brace myself for the whispers, the is-that-the-one’s that usually follow me. Maybe this was a bad idea. Maybe I shouldn’t have come.
I take the vodka from Keira’s hand, take another gulp. Don’t think about who I am. Don’t think about the trust, or the increasingly dark circles under my mother’s eyes, as each day brings us closer to the end of the month.
In the kitchen, every surface is lined with bottles and cardboard cartons of mixers. It’s ultra-modern, all black granite surfaces and wide, chequerboard-pattern floor tiles. Apart from the debris on the surfaces, nothing else looks used.
‘Hey, Jamie,’ Keira calls out to a guy in a blue tartan shirt whose face I vaguely recognise. Jamie: I remember him now – he played Mercutio in Romeo and Juliet. Keira was the Nurse, bobbing around the stage in a pair of comedy boobs the drama teacher kept telling her were in no way necessary for the part.
‘Hey, Keira. Great you could make it.’ He kisses her on the cheek and then looks over to me.
‘You remember Rosie?’ she asks.
‘Sure.’ I can tell he’s trying not to stare. The name. If he didn’t recognise my face, the name would have done it. I wonder if he saw the interview. ‘This is Adam, my cousin.’ He jerks his head at the boy next to him, who’s currently draining a bottle of beer. He salutes us with the bottle, then throws it into a well-filled black bin bag tied to the handle of the kitchen door. It lands with a clear clink.
Keira bustles past the boys, pours us each a glass of vodka and tops them up from a carton of cranberry juice.
‘Here you go.’ She hands me the glass of vivid liquid. Some of it splashes over the side and runs down her hand. She lifts it to her mouth and sucks up the juice, her lips puckering around the hilt of her thumb.
Jamie blinks, and I see him adjusting his stance. I know her moves have been intentional; she loves seeing what she can get away with. What would it be like to garner attention like that? Attention you’ve asked for.
‘Catch you around, Jamie.’ She grabs hold of my arm and propels me to the living room, where Rihanna is blasting out so loudly that the sound system has a deep, low fuzz to it. People are drap
ed over the grey leather sofas or sitting cross-legged in little clusters. The room is a long rectangle, covered in edgy black-and-white photography in thick black frames: a huge eye, zoomed in so just the pupil and the hint of lashes are visible; an empty street scene, dominated by a Victorian street lamp which casts an elongated shadow on the pavement. ‘Art’, apparently.
A couple of wooden bowls of tortilla chips sit on the glass coffee table in the centre of the room, which I can see is already sticky from spilled drinks. Multicoloured pools of alcohol dot the surface, like melted Skittles. We each grab a handful of crisps as we spot a couple of girls from school sitting on the arm of a sofa; we head across the room to greet them.
A boy I don’t recognise nudges a mate and jerks his head in my direction as we walk past.
I feel my face going hot, and stare intently into the pink liquid slopping in my glass. When we sit, I drain the cup.
Keira raises her eyebrows, but says nothing.
I enjoy the dull fug as the alcohol slips into my system. Keira was right: this is just what I need. Not to feel, not to think. The girls are talking about going on a trip, after exams are over. I don’t know where to. It doesn’t matter, I won’t be allowed to go anyway.
How many people here watched me in their living room this morning, marvelling at my family’s plight over the crunch of their morning cereal?
If they close down the trust, is that it? Are we just supposed to give everything up for good?
Some boys come over and ask if we want to have a joint outside. I shake my head: I don’t like the smell, or the dizzy feeling it gives me. But the others pull themselves to their feet.
‘Do you mind?’ Keira looks down at me. Her voice is sincere but her eyes are hopeful, wide.
‘Course not.’
On my own, I wander into the kitchen and mix myself another drink. Our vodka is already empty, but I find another one – heavy, two litres. It sloshes out too fast as I tip it over to pour. The ice is all melted by now, and there’s no cranberry juice left, so I top the glass up to the rim from an open can of Coke, slurping it from the countertop until it’s empty enough to lift. The thud of the party fills my ears, turning my thoughts to white noise.
‘Nice tekkers.’
I turn to see Adam, one of the guys in the kitchen earlier, popping open a family-sized bag of crisps. He empties them into a bowl and they make a satisfying rustle as the smell of salt and fat sharpens the air.
‘Thanks.’ I raise my glass in cheers. ‘Call me the gold medallist of cup diving.’
He laughs, and I take him in more carefully. I wouldn’t call him good-looking, but his face is pleasant enough. He’s tallish – not that it matters when I’m so short – and he has tousled, curly hair that’s so dark it’s almost black. He’s wearing an ‘I Heart NYC’ T-shirt, which he notices me reading.
‘It’s meant to be ironic.’ He pulls at the bottom, reading it upside down. ‘I went with my parents at Easter. It was either that or “Make America Great Again”.’
I laugh.
‘Hey, I don’t think we were properly introduced before.’ He sticks his hand out. ‘I’m Adam, Jamie’s cousin.’
‘Rosie.’ I take his hand, which has residual crisp crumbs on it.
‘I know who you are.’
‘Right.’
He sizes me up, and I wait for it: the inevitable comment or question. In the silence I take a large gulp from my glass. Instead he reaches over for the vodka and a bottle of flat-looking lemonade, and pours himself a glass. ‘So, cheers then.’
He raises his glass out to me and we both down our drinks. The alcohol hits me in the pit of my stomach. There wasn’t that much Coke left in the can.
‘Another?’
I shrug. Why not? It’s not like Keira to leave me alone for so long, but she’s not my babysitter. I lean against the counter, vaguely feeling a steel cupboard handle butting at the base of my spine. The vodka seems to have softened my edges but thickened my skin.
He hands me back my glass. I wait for him to speak, bracing myself again for the predictable question, but instead he says, ‘So, you go to school with Keira?’
‘Yes, that’s right. Year Eleven. You?
‘Lower Sixth.’
My phone vibrates against my hip. ‘Sorry,’ I mumble, pulling it out. Mum’s face flashes on the screen: Mum wants to FaceTime.
I mash my thumb onto the screen, hitting decline, but then swiftly text her back, knowing she’ll just try again if I don’t. In the cinema.
Sorry, comes the immediate reply. How is it? I roll my eyes. She’s one step away from checking in when I go to the loo.
Good thanks.
I start to put the phone back, but she’s already sent a reply. Everything OK?
Yes, Mum, fine. Have to go now. Love you. I press send and stick the phone back in my jeans. ‘Sorry—’
A guy with braces and a red zip-up hoodie bursts into the room and starts riffling through the fridge. ‘Tequila shots!’ He jiggles a yellow net bag of limes and clears a space on the counter to cut them into wedges, knocking empty beer cans and bottles aside as a group of people spill into the kitchen and crowd around him.
‘What do you think?’ Adam jerks his head towards them.
‘Yeah, sure.’ Why not?
The energy of the party seeps into me. I can do this. For tonight, I’m just one of these people: clasping a sticky lime between my thumb and forefinger, running my tongue over the patch of skin between them, pouring salt onto it and feeling the tickle of crystals as they escape down my arm. I hold the neon-green shot glass in my right hand and a wave of petrol flies up my nose.
‘One, two, THREE!’ someone shouts, and we raise our glasses to the ceiling, then simultaneously lick the salt off our hands and shoot. Adam gives me a lime-wedge smile, and I do the same, pulling my lips apart to expose the green skin.
I think I see him making eyes at someone over my head, then cock his head in my direction, but I brush it off.
‘It’s really noisy in here,’ he shouts to make his point. ‘Want to go somewhere quieter?’ He reaches out his hand. I take it.
I feel a little unsteady as we head up the stairs. The cream stair carpet is marked with splashes of liquid, and ground-in crisp crumbs, and shoeprints. We pass a boy who fists-bumps Adam, and whispers to him, ‘Is that …?’
‘Yu-huh.’
I wince, even through the fog of alcohol, waiting for the conversation to contine, but the boy just raises his eyebrow and carries on down the stairs.
Still holding my hand, Adam edges along the landing past staged family photographs that get younger the further along we go, towards a white panelled door at the end. He raps softly, and when no one answers he pushes it open and switches on the light.
We’re in a guest bedroom. Identical side tables with identical lamps flank the bed, made up to perfection with a turquoise towel folded neatly on the end. As Adam shuts the door, I flick on a bedside light, running my finger over the spines of the books set very deliberately next to it: Anna Karenina, Infinite Jest, Crime and Punishment. The spines are new, uncracked.
‘This is where I normally crash when I stay here.’ Adam comes up behind me and looks over my shoulder. ‘And now I think you’ve officially had more interaction with those books than I have.’ I feel his arms slip around my waist.
In some dim, forgotten corner of my mind I feel a vague sense of unease. I try to ignore it. He brushes the hair away from my neck and plants a kiss on the soft skin where my neck and shoulder meet.
‘Hey.’ I spin around to face him, and sit very cautiously on the bed. ‘Didn’t you want to talk?’
It comes out wrong, like I’m flirting; like I’m a tease. I start to feel out of my depth. But at the same time, there’s something dangerously thrilling about being here with him. Somehow this is what I need to do, to block out my family, and the interviews, and the anniversary, and the email, and the thought that somehow – somehow – there is something
I have to do to stop it all. Even though it seems impossible. Even though I’ve never tried; even though I’ve spent my whole life trying not to be a part of it, to just be like everybody else.
‘Talk. Sure.’ Adam’s voice has an edge of huskiness in it as he parks himself down on the bed. The mattress springs give a dull squeak as they bounce to accommodate the change in weight. He strokes the skin on my forearm; leans in and pulls a strand of hair away from my face. His pupils are dilated, but I can’t tell if it’s because of the alcohol or because of me. He smells of tequila and crisps and too much aftershave: sharp and somehow vegetal. His lips smash against mine and instantly I feel the smooth, wet tip of his tongue nudging into my mouth. His body presses mine back onto the bed and I feel a hardness pressing against his jeans as he reaches over to click off the bedside light.
I lift my face towards him and he doesn’t wait for an answer. I wonder distantly, Is this what I want? but I already feel his hands searching for the hem of my top, and then the tips of his fingers warm against my rib cage.
With his mouth still on mine, he guides his hands upwards and around my back. He tugs in frustration at the clasp of my bra and then laughs into me. ‘Sorry, would you?’
I reach back, search for the two metal teeth, and feel the spring of release against my chest as it comes undone. He’s instantly there, pushing the bra aside, kneading my flesh under his palms. I wonder if he’ll notice the scratches on my stomach, if he’ll say anything, but his hands have moved down now, to the silver button on my jeans, which he works open with his thumb and forefinger. I try to give in, to forget everything but this moment, but it’s all there – Emily, the email, Mum, Emily, the email, Mum – and panic begins to rise inside me. Nothing I can do will make it go away.
‘Wait.’ I try to push his hand away, but he either doesn’t want to know or doesn’t hear me. His fingers are on my zip now, and I hear the metallic tear of it opening. ‘Wait,’ I say, louder, more insistent.
‘Come on,’ he murmurs, pushing harder against me. ‘I want to see what it’s like to fuck Emily Archer’s sister.’