Second Life

by S. J. Watson

  – I remember.

  – Tell me what you want, right now.

  – You.

  – I’m kissing you. All over. Your lips, your face. I’m going down. Your breasts, your stomach.

  Again something within me tells me this is wrong. He thinks he’s talking to Kate. He’s imagining having sex with my dead sister.

  – You like that?

  My hands hover over the keyboard. I wish I knew what to say.

  – You like feeling my tongue on your body? You taste so good . . .

  What would Kate have said?

  – You want me to go lower?

  What can I say? Yes? Yes, I do? I can tell him I want him to go lower, I don’t want him to stop, or I can ask him what he’s told the police, where he was in February on the night of Kate’s death, whether he murdered my sister. Even as I say it in my head it sounds ridiculous.

  I grab my machine and stand up. I don’t know what to do.

  – Are you ready for me?

  The ground beneath me opens. I begin to sink. My heart is beating too hard, and I can’t breathe. I want to stop my mind from spinning, but I keep thinking about what Kate might’ve said, what she might’ve done.

  I look at the machine in my hand. For a moment I hate it; it’s as if it contains all the answers and I want to shake them loose, to demand the truth.

  Yet it won’t. It can’t. It’s just a tool, it can tell me nothing.

  I slam it closed.

  Hugh comes home from work and we eat dinner, the three of us, at the table. Afterwards he packs his suitcase, occasionally asking me where a shirt is, or if I’ve seen his aftershave, then goes upstairs to finish off his speech while Connor and I sit in the living room with a DVD. The Bourne Identity. I can’t really concentrate; I’m thinking about this afternoon, wondering whether the guy Anna messaged – Harenglish – had got back to her. I’m thinking about cybersex, too, which I guess is really no different to phone sex. It makes me think of Marcus; there were no texts back then, no emails, no instant messaging services, unless you include pagers, which almost no one had. Just the voice.

  Connor leans forward and grabs a handful of the popcorn I’ve made for him. My mind drifts.

  I remember the first time Marcus and I had sex. We’d known each other a few weeks, we spoke on the phone, we hung around after the meetings drinking coffee. He’d started to tell me his story. He came from a good family, his parents were alive, he had a sister who was nice, normal, stable. Yet there was always alcohol in the house, forbidden to him, and he was drawn to it. The first time he got drunk was on whisky; he didn’t remember anything about it, other than the fact that he felt some part of himself open up, then, and that one day he would want to do it again.

  ‘How old were you?’ I’d asked.

  He’d shrugged. ‘Dunno. Ten?’

  I’d thought he was exaggerating, but he told me he wasn’t. He started drinking. He’d always been good at art, he said, but the drink made him feel he was better. His painting improved. The two became intertwined. He painted, he drank, he painted. He dropped out of college, his parents kicked him out of their home. Only his sister stood by him, but she was much younger, she didn’t understand.

  ‘And after that I was on my own. I tried to cope, but . . .’

  ‘What happened?’

  He made light of it. ‘One too many times waking up with no idea where I was or how I got there. One too many times wondering why I was bleeding. I rang my mother. I said I needed help. She got a friend to take me to my first meeting in the fellowship.’

  ‘And here we are.’

  ‘Yes. Here we are.’ He paused. ‘I’m glad I met you.’

  It was a couple of weeks later that he called me. Kate was watching television with a friend and I took the call on the extension in the kitchen. He sounded upset.

  ‘What’s wrong?’ I said.

  ‘I’ve had a drink.’

  I sighed, closed my eyes. ‘Have you called Keith?’

  ‘I don’t want to speak to Keith. I don’t want to see him. I want to see you.’

  I felt both awful and thrilled at the same time. He’d had a drink, but it was me he’d turned to. He asked me round to his flat, and I said of course I’d go. When I arrived he was sitting on his threadbare sofa, a bottle at his feet. I sat next to him and took his hand. Had I known we were going to kiss? Probably. Did I know it was almost certainly a mistake?

  Probably not.

  The film ends and Connor goes upstairs, then a little while later so do I. I listen at his door on the way up, but I hear nothing except the rhythmic tap of his fingers on the keyboard. I run myself a bath and lie in the water for a long time, my eyes closed, drifting in and out of an exhausted sleep, occasionally topping up with hot water. When I get out Hugh’s in bed already.

  ‘Come,’ he says. He pats the bed next to him, and I smile. ‘In a minute.’ I’ve wrapped a towel round my chest and I tuck it tighter, then sit at the dressing table and apply my moisturizer. By the time I’ve finished Hugh is snoring and I turn off the light. It’s hot, but there’s a light breeze and I go over to the window to adjust the curtains. Outside, there’s a figure, barely visible in the shadows, an image as thin as smoke. It looks like a man, and I turn to wake Hugh, to ask him if he can see it, or whether he thinks it’s my imagination. But he’s fast asleep, and when I look back the man has gone, and I wonder whether he’d ever been there at all.

  Chapter Nine

  I drive Hugh to the airport then return home. It’s Monday, the traffic is bad, the air thick with heat. I’ve been determined to keep busy during his absence – to get on with jobs, sort out Connor’s room, go through the files on the computer, make sure everything is charged and ready for the shoot on Wednesday – but by the time I get home it’s early afternoon and far too hot to do anything much at all.

  I’m restless, unsettled. I change into a summer dress and decide I’ll sit in the garden. I go to the fridge to get a lemonade, but when I open the door I see the bottle of wine Hugh opened last night. Desire swells again, just as it had after the dinner party. I get the lemonade, then close the door, but there’s no point in pretending I’m not feeling it.

  Rachel used to tell me that. ‘Take a step back and hold it up to the light,’ she said. ‘Consider it.’

  I do just that. First, I’d like a glass. Second, I’m alone, Hugh’s away, Connor at school. There’s no logical reason I shouldn’t.

  Except there is. There’s every reason.

  This time the desire builds. I acknowledge it, feel it, yet it doesn’t go away. It’s growing, it starts to feel more powerful than me, it’s an animal, a ruthless predator, something with teeth, something that wants to destroy.

  I won’t let it win. Not this time. I tell myself I’m strong, I’m bigger than this thing that wants to claim me. I ride it out, stare it down and eventually it begins to retreat. I put ice in my drink and find the novel I’m reading, pick up my laptop and go outside. I sit at the table on the patio. My heart beats hard, as if the fight had been physical, but once again I’m pleased with my vigilance.

 
I sip my lemonade, listening to the sounds of summer, the traffic, the planes overhead, a conversation in a distant garden. My book is in front of me but I ignore it. I know I won’t be able to concentrate; I’ll read the same page, over and over. It’s futile.

  I open my laptop. I wonder whether the guy from yesterday – Harenglish – replied to Anna, or whether Eastdude, the one I’d been chatting to, has messaged me again.

  I navigate to the messages page. He has. I open it. ‘What happened? I hope you’re all right.’

  Anxiety courses through me. It’s electric. Anxiety, and also excitement; even though he thinks he’s talking to Kate, part of me is flattered at his disappointment.

  I try to focus on what’s important. I have to be more methodical. I tell myself it’s unlikely he had anything to do with Kate’s death: assuming what he told me is true, the police have interviewed him as a suspect and eliminated him from their investigation. Plus, he lives in New York.

  There’s no point in answering his message. I click delete. Part of me feels bad, but he’s a stranger, someone I’ll never meet. I don’t care what he thinks. I have more important things to do.

  I navigate to Kate’s Friends and Favourites page and go down the list. I’m careful this time, I check each one, finding out where they live. They’re scattered all over. Not counting Eastdude, there are eleven people she used to chat with. Of those, only three live in France, and only one, the guy from yesterday – Harenglish, the one Anna messaged – is in Paris.

  I hesitate. I open Skype but Anna isn’t online. I send her a note asking if she’s had a reply, yet at the same time know that she’d have told me if she had.

  I remind myself that his silence doesn’t mean that Harenglish is the guy who killed Kate. Not at all. Maybe they hardly chatted, barely knew each other. Maybe he rarely logs on to his messages, or doesn’t respond to things straight away. There are a million reasons for his silence. It doesn’t have to be because he knows exactly where she ended up.

  But I need to be sure. I sit, for a moment. I sip my drink. I think about my sister, and what I can do to help her. As I do, the idea that’s been forming all night is finally birthed.

  I call Anna. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she says.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘About your suggestion. You know, chatting to that guy. It might not be such a bad idea.’

  I tell her.

  ‘I’m thinking of setting up a profile of my own. I thought, if I can chat to people . . . if they think I’m someone new . . . they’re more likely to tell me things.’

  She talks me through it. I work quickly, and it doesn’t take long. I hesitate when it asks me to select a username, but then settle on JayneB. It’s close enough to my own name, but not too close. The photo I choose is one that Hugh took a few years ago on holiday. In it, bright sun behind my head is throwing my face into partial shadow. I haven’t chosen randomly; Kate and I don’t look that similar generally, but in this photo we do. If someone had known Kate, they might mention a resemblance; it might give me a way in. I enter my details – date of birth, height, weight. Finally I press save.

  ‘I’m done,’ I say.

  She tells me to be careful. I go back online. I’m excited, at last I’m doing something. The guy from yesterday – Harenglish – might talk to me, thinking I’m someone new. Maybe then I can find out who he is and how well he might’ve known my sister.

  I message him. ‘Hi,’ I say. ‘How you doing?’ I know he won’t reply straight away, if he replies at all, and so I go inside to refill my glass. I grab myself an apple from the bowl. I wonder what this guy might do when he sees my message. Whether he gets lots, or just a few. Whether he answers them all, or just the ones that take his fancy. I wonder what normally happens, if there’s such a thing as normally.

  I go back outside. There’s a breeze, it’s getting cooler now. I have another sip of my drink then sit back down. I bite into my apple; it’s crisp but slightly sour. I put it on the table and, as I do, my computer pings.

  I have another message, but it’s not from him. This one is from someone new. As I open it I get the strangest feeling. A plunging, a descent. A door has been nudged open. Something is coming.

  PART TWO

  Chapter Ten

  I sat in the garden for hours that day, my laptop humming in front of me. I was exploring the site, clicking on profiles, opening photographs. It was as if I believed I could stumble on Kate’s killer accidentally, that somehow I’d just be drawn to him. The ice in my glass melted, the dregs of my lemonade began to attract flies. I was still there when Connor came home from school, though by now the battery on my computer had run down and I was just sitting, in silence, thinking about Kate, and who she might have been talking to, and what they might’ve said.

  ‘Hi, Mum,’ he said, and I closed my machine. I said hello and patted the chair next to me. ‘Just doing some editing,’ I said as he sat down. The lie slid off my tongue so easily I barely noticed it.

  The following night, he’s due to go to Dylan’s party. His best friend, a nice enough lad, if a bit quiet. They spend a fair bit of time together, here mostly, playing on the computer or on Connor’s Xbox. I tend to stay out of their way, listening in from time to time. There’s usually a lot of laughter, or there certainly used to be, before Kate. Dylan will come in occasionally and ask me for more juice or a biscuit, terribly polite. Last Christmas I took them sledging on the Heath with another couple of boys from school I didn’t know. We had a good time; it was nice to see Connor with people his own age, to get a glimpse of what kind of man he’ll turn into. Still, I can’t think that he and Dylan discuss feelings. I can’t picture him as someone Connor goes to for support.

  It’s Dylan’s birthday and he’s celebrating at his house; just pizzas and bottles of cola, some music, maybe karaoke. A few of them are staying over in a tent in his garden and I imagine late-night DVDs and a final snack before torches and sleeping bags are handed out. They’ll go out on to the lawn, spend the night laughing, chatting, playing video games on their phones, and the next day, when their parents pick them up, they’ll tell us nothing except that it’d been all right.

  I drive him there. We pull up outside the house and I see the balloons tied to the gateposts, the cards in the lounge windows. Connor opens the car door and at the same time Dylan’s mother, Sally, comes out into the porch. She’s someone I know quite well, we’ve gone for coffee after school, though always with other people, and I haven’t seen her for a while. I wave, and she waves back. Behind her I can see streamers, the flash of children running upstairs. She raises her eyebrows and I smile in sympathy.

  ‘Have fun,’ I say to Connor.

  ‘I will.’

  He lets me kiss him on the cheek then picks up his bag and races into the house.

  When I get back home the place seems cavernously empty. Hugh is still in Geneva and has sent me a text message – the flight was okay, the hotel is nice, he’s heading for dinner soon and wonders how I’m feeling – and I tap out a reply. ‘I’m fine, thanks. Missing you.’

  I press send. I make some dinner, then sit in front of the television. I ought to call my friends, I know that. But it’s difficult, I don’t want to inflict myself upon them, and I can sense t
hat when they hear my voice the energy drops as the shadow of Kate’s death falls on all of us.

  I’m not me, any more, I realize. I carry something else now. The stigma of pain. And I don’t want it.

  I think of Marcus. We’d been seeing each other for less than a year when he said he wanted to move. ‘Where?’ I asked, and he said, ‘Berlin.’

  He seemed so certain, and so desperate. I thought he was trying to get away from me, even though until that moment we’d been happy. He could see it in my eyes. The flash of disappointment, suppressed a moment too late.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You don’t understand. I want you to come with me.’

  ‘But—’

  He shook his head. He was determined.

  ‘You have to. I want to go with you. I don’t want to go by myself.’

  But you will, I thought. If I don’t come. You’ve already decided.

  ‘Please come. What’s keeping you here?’ I shook my head. ‘Is it the meetings? We’ve been clean for ages now. We don’t need to go any more.’

  ‘I know, but . . .’

  ‘Is it Kate?’

  I nodded. ‘She’s only twelve.’

  He stroked my arm, kissed me. ‘She’s in school now. You can’t look after her for ever.’

  I thought of all the fun we’d had, Kate and I, despite how hard it’d been at times. We used to make popcorn and sit watching videos, or we’d play in the long grass at the bottom of our garden, pretending to be chased by dinosaurs. Dressing up in our mother’s clothes, wearing her shoes, spraying ourselves with her perfume.

  ‘How long have you been looking after her?’

  ‘Eight years.’