Sunflowers in February

by Phyllida Shrimpton

  ‘Er … I … it’s not you, it’s me.’ Lame, I know, but it is all I can think of to explain why Ben won’t kiss her. ‘Can we keep it like this for now?’ I ask. ‘Just friends?’ Equally as lame! After searching my eyes for a minute, looking for reasons why she should be rejected, but seeing the genuine love I have for my best friend, she thankfully links my brother’s arm and we make our way to get another drink.

  *

  It’s already past one in the morning and some people are beginning to leave; some have crawled into sleeping bags on the lounge carpet and a few are clinging to the seats in the garden around the still-glowing fire pit. Nathan is staggering his way to a garden chair but when he tries to sit down, he catches the edge of it, falling off and pushing the girl next to him into her friend, spilling both their drinks. He sprawls on the grass dangerously close to the fire pit, and all I can hear is a combination of people swearing at him or laughing at him until I haul him off the damp grass, with my brother’s strength, into a semi-standing position. I’ve had quite a few ciders myself, and as a result the world is tilting sidewards and he almost yanks me back down with him. We both end up unsteadily weaving our way up the garden until I somehow manage to get him onto a sturdier chair in the house.

  ‘I mish Lily,’ he slurs at me with a forlorn expression.

  ‘You and me both,’ I say. In the cool light of the kitchen I can see that he looks like shit.

  ‘I can’t believe that she has gone … in the blink of an eye,’ he says, pronouncing the word ‘gone’ in a high theatrical tone while flicking his hand into the air like an explosion.

  ‘Oh, I’m absolutely positive she’s still around,’ I tell him, stooping to look him in the eye. ‘You’ve just got to believe.’

  ‘Believe,’ he repeats slowly, then waves a finger at me. ‘I’m waiting for a sign from her. I loved her you know.’

  ‘Yes, Nathan,’ I say, ‘I loved her as well. I still do.’

  ‘I still do too,’ he echoes, and I’m so glad he said it.

  ‘I love you too,’ I whisper.

  ‘And there’s something wrong with my mum … really, really, really wrong.’ He repeats each word in a sing-song way.

  ‘Oh,’ I say, thinking, What could possibly be wrong with your secret-keeping, child-murdering, police-dodging mother? But my heart goes out to him, as he looks so totally awful and not like the Nathan I know.

  He grips my hand and looks into my face. ‘I’m losing her too,’ he says and his eyes are glassy with unshed tears, and I now understand how shattered and lonely Nathan’s life has become.

  *

  When Dad turns up to take me and Matt home, he finds me shoving Nathan in the car as well.

  ‘Good party?’ he asks, getting several slurred grunts as his answer. I fix the seat belt round Nathan, and as we drive away from Milly’s house, I’m trying to talk extremely carefully to convince Dad that I’m sober, compared to the other two, but he turns to where I am sitting in the rear passenger seat, looking pretty fed up. ‘You’re drunk,’ he accuses me.

  ‘Yep.’ I grin stupidly, just as Matthew starts singing a string of rugby songs out of tune. He won’t let up, even when a stink fills the car, like a cross between vinegar and cheese, and Nathan has been sick. Dad groans and hands me a cloth from the glove compartment, saying, ‘He’s only gone and bloody vomited,’ and I lean over Nathan to wipe it from his seat belt and his clothes. But there’s just too much for Dad’s cloth to cope with as it slops all over my hand and Nathan’s clothes. Dad indicates to pull over, panicking. ‘Is he going to do it again?’ And he does do it again, only this time some of it lands in my lap. Whatever Nathan ate at the party is now all over both us and the back of Dad’s car in multicoloured lumps. It makes me gag and for a minute I think I’m going to join him, but Dad has stopped the car and he’s pulling Nathan out.

  Liquid and lumps withdraw inside the roller of the inertia mechanism from the seat belt and Dad swears, ‘Jeeesus Christ, Nathan! Get out of my bloody car!’ Nathan heaves more of the beery contents of his stomach over the pavement, while Dad holds a fistful of his T-shirt to stop him falling forward. ‘There’s a big bottle of water in the boot, wash what you can off my car,’ he orders.

  I use some of the water to wash the sick off the lap of my jeans first, then do what I can on Nathan’s side of the car and the seat belt while Matt continues to sing.

  When we eventually reach Nathan’s house, Dad and I get out of the car and knock on the big wooden door of his beautiful house. His mum opens the door and visibly twitches at the sight of Dad and me in front of her, clamps her hand over her mouth and says absolutely nothing. Despite the fact that she looks worse than I have ever seen her, the fact that I’m drunk is making this whole scene look pretty funny as far as I’m concerned.

  Dad is trying to apologise profusely while also trying to prop up Nathan, who is swaying all over the place, with sick on his chin and all down his front. My own jeans are damp all round my crotch as if I’ve wet myself, and Matthew can be heard singing tunelessly from the car.

  ‘… never let your bollocks dangle in the dust …’

  And I laugh. I laugh so hard that I’m bent double and tears are running down my face. Nathan’s mum isn’t laughing, she simply reaches for him, pulling him roughly into the house, and without looking at the rest of us she shuts the door, leaving Dad and me on the step.

  Nathan’s mum was having a panic attack.

  Her heart had swelled like the airbag in a car, and was threatening to explode through her chest cavity and land in her lap.

  The sight of that poor girl’s father on her doorstep, unaware that he was staring the killer of his daughter in the face was almost more than she could handle. She had virtually disintegrated on the spot and the effort it took to keep her own legs propping her up while Nathan staggered inside was monumental.

  She could still hear Ben laughing. Was he laughing at her? Did he really know? If he knew it was her, why had he still not told the police? Was he playing with her? Stretching her to her limit until she literally broke into a million pieces as revenge?

  Well, it was working!

  Each day was even more difficult than the last, like climbing a mountain and never succeeding. She kept forgetting things. Meals would have a fundamental ingredient missing; wet clothes were left in the washing machine or not washed at all; milk would run out; bread would run out; and people at the care home were beginning to notice that her ‘illness’ was affecting her work.

  Her overwhelming tiredness was becoming too hard to fight and the person she used to be had ebbed into nothing but a distant memory. She ached to be left alone to sleep, or evaporate into nothingness.

  She woke Alex up, partly so he could drag her son up the stairs and get him out of his stinking clothes, but mainly because she couldn’t stand to listen to Nathan’s drunken slurrings. ‘I love you, Mummm, and I love Daaaad, and I love Lileeey,’ he’d said over and over as he sat on the hall floor before he moaned loudly and added, ‘Oh yeah … I forgot … my Lily’s not alive any more … She’s dead … dead, dead, dead.’

  For some reason, the day after the party is the most difficult one so far.

  I’ve had a whole week without any contact from Ben. Even when I was in limbo I had more contact than this. The guilt over what I’ve done to him feels like a heavier burden now and the wonderful feeling that took me over at the party last night has changed shape. With the music and the cider and all my friends around me I’d felt vibrant and happy and a part of it all. Yet, today, I know that all of it was just an illusion. That really I’m an ugly imposter who doesn’t belong anywhere. Even heaven doesn’t want me.

  After a long, tiring day just trying to be Ben, when I really don’t want to have to be a boy any more, I creep, like last Sunday, into my own room to be with everything that is mine: my clothes, my ornaments and all the familiar treasures I’ve gathered over the years. The blue urn that contains my ashes continues to mock me fr
om the dressing table. The carrier bag containing the things I bought on the day I died catches my eye; the earrings, still in their box, have never been worn and never will be. I take them out and study them.

  ‘Well, they are nice,’ I say, trying to justify them to myself and holding them up to my ears, but suddenly, without knowing I’m going to do it, I find I’m squeezing them in my fingers before throwing them against the mirror. ‘Silly bitch,’ I say out loud in the words of my brother. Ben stares back at me from the mirror, wrenching at my conscience, reminding me of the parasite that I am.

  I take the T-shirt out of the bag and suddenly I want to try it on. I want to be me. I want to dress up in my own things and feel like Lily one more time. I search in the drawer and put on one of my bras, a pretty one with pink hearts all over it, clipping it on the widest setting and stuffing it with tissue from the box by my bed. I quickly put the T-shirt on and try not to notice that it is tight on Ben’s shoulders or the fact that it’s cropped, which exposes the hair round his belly button. I then rummage in my make-up for foundation and eyeliner, and some fabulous purple and lilac shimmering eye shadow that picks out colours in the T-shirt. Ben and I look so much like each other that this is going to be quite easy. I take a big breath and look in the mirror, painting my own face back on as carefully as I can. My eyes transform into my own again, and I finish by tying a spotted ribbon round my head to hide the short sides of Ben’s hair.

  My reflection has become Lily and I touch the mirror with my hand.

  ‘Hello … I’ve missed you,’ I say to myself.

  ‘Ben?’ Dad is standing in the doorway with a puzzled expression, ‘I-I … thought I could hear someone in here,’ he says, stuttering slightly, while his eyes travel all over me, questioning what he’s seeing. A deep frown is wedged between his eyebrows.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he asks eventually … and predictably.

  I can only stare back at him, wondering if there is any possible way to bluff this one out. My poor father can’t work out whether to be very angry, or very sad or just plain freaked out, and I can’t blame him.

  ‘Are you … um … all right?’ He waits for my answer, but I continue to gape at him for a few moments, until I decide that humour tactics are the only way to go. I try to laugh it off, not really sure how that’s going to help, or how it’s going to convince my dad that Ben dressed in my clothes could, in any way, be amusing. But instead of forming the shape of a smile, my mouth starts moving all on its own, I can feel it coming. My lips are kind of dancing from side to side, my throat tightens until it really hurts, and finally I cry. My head is bowed, and my shoulders shake, and suddenly I feel him next to me, his arms round me holding me so tightly.

  I know he thinks I am Ben missing Lily, but I am not; I am Lily missing Lily, and I really can’t keep it to myself any longer.

  I drop the lip gloss I’m holding, and I put my arms round my dad and shut my eyes. I am a little girl again in my daddy’s arms and he’s going to make it all right, because that is what they do. For these few precious minutes, I know what it is to be hugged and held and loved again. And I hug and hold and love him right back.

  I don’t know how long we stand here like this, but I think it’s long enough for Dad to feel better prepared for what I might tell him. I think he believes I’ll talk to him man to man and then he can provide the answer. We drop our arms and look at each other. I can see his gaze travel along my lashes, taking in the heavy mascara and the eye shadow and there is such deep sadness in his eyes that I feel my own eyes fill with tears again, making me squeeze my lids together before looking up at the ceiling in a bid to try to stop it from happening again, but I can’t.

  When Ben cries, which is hardly ever, he always pretends he isn’t, brushing the tears roughly away from his face and maintaining his cool as much as possible, getting a little bit angry with himself for letting go. When I cry, I have to run a folded tissue, the tip of a finger or the side of my thumb along the lower edge of my eyes to carefully wipe at any wet make-up that’s threatening to trickle darkly down my foundation, and I also bite my bottom lip to stop it wobbling.

  I realise I’m doing that now.

  Dad is staring intently at me with a range of emotions travelling over his face, and his eyes hover over my mouth, where my teeth are still pinning my lip down, then they move to my fingers that are carefully folding a tissue to dab under my mascaraed lashes. Having carefully observed the display in front of him, his focus rests on my eyes and delves deep inside them.

  He can see me.

  The seconds tick past.

  Suddenly Dad exhales sharply. ‘You know, you really have to get out of this gear, Ben. If your mother sees you like that, it will destroy her. You look too much like your sister … and it’s ridiculous.’ He turns to leave the room, no longer able to cope with this strange image in front of him, which is neither son, nor daughter.

  ‘What if I told you I am Lily?’ I call out. Those three words, I am Lily, sound so wrong in Ben’s deep voice. He stops with his back to me, his shoulders visibly slumped, before he turns slowly back round to face me, making me feel so sorry for him.

  ‘Then I would think that you aren’t very well,’ he says, sitting down on the edge of the bed, deflating before my very eyes, despair coming through the pores in his skin.

  ‘But I am … Lily,’ I whisper deeply.

  ‘Don’t do this, Ben,’ he begs me, and he wraps his arms round his own body, as if to hold himself in.

  I sit on the bed next to him, disturbing the air with the scent of peach and vanilla that I’d sprayed on my body, and I hold my arms round him too, trying to help him keep himself together.

  ‘I don’t know how to make you believe it, Dad,’ I say into his shoulder, my voice choked and too whiny for Ben, as I try to explain. ‘The conscious part of me didn’t die with my body. I’ve been here all the time. Not in Ben’s body … that didn’t happen until recently, but I’ve been around … I never left.’ I can hear myself rambling but my dad just keeps hugging himself, unable to bring himself to look at me.

  He eventually sucks in a huge shaky breath while staring ahead at the urn on the dressing table. ‘I think you just want to kind of … recreate Lily.’ He says. I can hardly bear the way his face seems to have lost its shape, and now hangs in loose folds around his skull and jaw. ‘Remember, Ben, I know you –’ his hand moves until his outstretched fingers are held over his heart – ‘in here. I know you both in here. I met you when you were seconds old, studied you, breathed you in and watched you grow day by day. I know more about you both than you even know about yourselves. I am so proud of who you have become. You don’t have to be Lily as well; you are just fine being Ben.’

  I feel the tightness in my throat again. He is such a good dad, and I was so lucky to have him, but how do you make someone believe that what they see in front of them isn’t everything? I search around in my mind for a while, but I realise that I’ve just given myself the answer. I sit forward and look right into his eyes. ‘Dad? If you know your children so well, look past what you see and remember what you know.’

  He frowns and sighs as if he has given up understanding me, but I carry on, ‘I know you could see me just now. Look at me, Dad. I am your sleeping beauty. I have woken up … please!’ We sit like this, motionless, almost nose to nose, staring right inside each other until suddenly I know that he can see the green forest floor of my eyes beneath the hazel of Ben’s.

  He has found me.

  ‘… Lily?’

  The tears, greasy and grey from make-up, drop off the end of my jaw, and this time, I let them go. I nod my head slowly. ‘Lily?’ he repeats again. Then in a whisper: ‘Oh my God … it is you … but it can’t be!’ He twists and turns between acceptance and denial. ‘Oh no, this is mad … I’m mad. This isn’t real, Ben. It can’t be real.’

  I simply sit and let him continue to work it out for himself. I know that I look a ridiculous sight, a boy in a tissue-paper
-stuffed bra with make-up running all down my face.

  Gently cupping my chin in his big hands, he holds my face before him again, and breathes, ‘I … can … see you,’ and I nod my head with relief beneath his gaze.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whisper. ‘I’m so tired … so tired of trying to be Ben, and I … I’ve been so scared …’

  ‘But where is Ben?’ he asks. The question that I am dreading hangs suspiciously in the air between us.

  ‘I … don’t exactly know,’ I answer honestly, noticing a look of shock come into his expression. ‘I think he is in the same place I was,’ I add, hardly daring to think about the fact that Ben disappeared from the side of his bed in the middle of the night and hasn’t been seen since.

  ‘Was it you or Ben at the party?’ he asks.

  ‘It was me,’ I answer simply.

  ‘And the trip to the beach?’ he asks.

  ‘Yes,’ I confirm.

  ‘So how long?’ he asks, trying to compute what has been going on under his very nose. My guilt and my shame burns inside me and I try to make it better. ‘No further back than that … really. He’s sharing himself with me … being a good twin … and … stuff …’ My voice trails off, as I realise how insufficient that reasoning really is.

  After what seems like hours sitting side by side, simply being confused, he eventually yawns deeply, then stands up. ‘I don’t understand anything right now, and my brain can’t take any more, but I know one thing … you’d better not let Mum see you like this. It will kill her.’ He gives me an extra hug, squeezing me for a long time, before taking his poor tired face out of my bedroom and into his. ‘We’ll sleep on it and work out what to do tomorrow.’ Then he closes the door quietly behind him.

  I know it is unfair but part of me feels a massive sense of relief. I’ve shared my burden.