I take the steps two by two and stumble into the foyer. Paramedics surround a gurney that’s being pushed past me. On it is a body—I can’t see the face since everything is covered by a white sheet, one of the hotel sheets, a shroud. He, since the body looks too long and bulky to be a she, must have died in his sleep. I must have been right about the heart attack. As I walk on I think of Ma, of finding her dead and cold in her bed.
Then I see the girl beside him: short, slight, with nut-brown hair and skin. She’s beautiful, in a striking way that’s normally seen only onstage or on-screen, not in real life. I wonder if that’s where I’ve seen her before, on television. Is she some sort of celebrity? She must be, because I’m sure I know her, I just can’t remember her name. Oddly, though, she doesn’t feel like a stranger. I feel drawn to her. I want to say something, although I imagine that famous people don’t take kindly to being bothered by chambermaids. But it’s not for that reason that I don’t stop her; it’s that she looks so shaken, so scared. And then I see why: she loves the man under the white sheet and she’s lost him.
11:57 p.m.—Bea
At some point, after she’d pulled herself from the floor, Bea must have called the ambulance, for it came, sirens wailing and lights flashing, intruding on her silence with Vali. Paramedics trying and failing to resuscitate him. The hospital. The police. The questions, respectful but unrelenting. The images, awful and insistent. And the memory of it all isn’t a merciful blur. It’s stark and sharp, every moment—the sheet pulled over Vali’s face, the harping voices over his quiet, the strangers leading her away—seared on Bea’s mind as vividly as the scar on her hand. And every thought gone from her head except the insistent refrain:
What have I done? What have I done? What have I done?
20th October
Twelve days . . .
9:45 a.m.—Liyana
The train will arrive at Cambridge station in forty-five minutes. Forty-five minutes. Liyana is sitting on a wobbly seat, contemplating whether to move to another, when her phone rings.
Her aunt. Liyana picks up. “Hey, Dagã. How are things?”
“Where the hell are you?”
“Good morning to you too,” Liyana says, fighting the urge to hang up, lest their conversation—shaping up to be an ugly one—be broadcast in stereo to the gentleman sitting beside her.
“Good morning?” her aunt squeals. “Good morning? It might be if you were here as you promised.”
Liyana coughs. Twice. “I’m”—she drops her voice to a hoarse, nasal whisper—“I’ve meant to call, but”—another cough—“I’ve been feeling too . . . weak to pick up the phone.”
Silence. Liyana feels vibrations of suspicion hum across the airwaves.
“You didn’t sound remotely ill,” Aunt Nya says, “until five seconds ago.”
“But I am. So, so ill . . .” Liyana explodes into another coughing fit.
Her train companions shift self-consciously, distancing themselves from both the spray of germs and any whiff of racism. It’s then that the train announcer decides to inform everyone that they’ll soon be pulling into Finsbury Park.
“Are you on a train?”
“Of course not,” Liyana says, attempting a tenuous tone between near death and vehement denial. “No, no. Kumiko left the radio on”—Liyana hacks up another cough—“I’m, er, too weak to get up and switch it off.”
“Oh, really?” her aunt snaps. “Well, you tell that to Mazmo, who’s sitting at the kitchen table right now, expecting you to join us for breakfast.”
Liyana curses to herself. “Shit, I’m sorry, Dagã, I totally forgot. And I . . . Kumiko and I decided to take a quick, spontaneous trip to Cambridge.”
“Cambridge?” Her aunt’s incredulous. “What on earth for?”
“To, um, see King’s College.”
“King’s College?”
“Well, Kumiko’s never seen it so—”
“All right, all right,” her aunt says with a weary sigh. “Enough excuses. Just call Mazmo and apologize, will you?”
“Yeah, of course,” Liyana says. “As soon as I’m back.”
“Now.”
Liyana sighs. “Okay, sure. I’ll call him right now.”
“Good,” Aunt Nya says, and hangs up.
11:16 a.m.—Liyana
Liyana stands outside the entrance to the Fitzwilliam Hotel, practising her lines. Miniature trees flank the flight of stone steps. Grand oak doors, with golden lion heads hanging in their centres, remain closed. Above Liyana’s head, a deep green velvet awning with the fitzwilliam hotel emblazoned in elaborate gold lettering flaps in the breeze.
Each time she reaches the end of the first sentence, the words are wiped clean again. She’d been practising on the train, mouthing them to perfection until the gentleman beside her had shifted surreptitiously to the other side of the carriage. And now she can’t remember anything after that single line.
Finally, Liyana takes a deep breath and summons the spirit of BlackBird. Be brave, be bold. She strides up the stone steps and through the heavy oak doors. In the glittering foyer, Liyana ruffles her feathers, tucks in her wings, and marches towards the front desk.
Standing behind the front desk is a striking woman, with shining blond hair and a bright red pout, humming to herself. It takes a moment for Liyana to recognize the tune. The Beatles. “Blackbird.” And, all at once, it returns to her. This was the song her mother used to sing.
Liyana stands for a few moments, singing the lyrics silently to herself, thinking of her mother. She exhales. It will be okay. It will all be okay.
“Good morning,” the woman chirrups, as Liyana steps into her sightline. “Welcome to the Fitzwilliam Hotel.”
Liyana hesitates.
“How may I help you?”
“I, um, I’m looking for . . .” Liyana struggles with her script. “. . . My sister. She works here.”
The woman—Cassie, according to her lapel—regards Liyana with a sceptical eye. “And what’s your sister’s name?”
“I, um, well, we’ve not seen each other for a long time and . . .”
Cassie waits for Liyana to complete her sentence. Liyana attempts a confident smile. What happened to brave and bold? Where has her courage gone? Suspicion starts to tweak Cassie’s smile. “So, what’s your sister’s name?”
“Right, yes, I . . .”
Cassie’s fingers hover over a computer keyboard. “What’s your name?”
Lie, lie, lie. “Um—Ana, Liyana.”
She starts to tap. “Li-ya-na what?”
“Oh, yes, sorry, I—Chiweshe.”
“I’m afraid you must be mistaken,” Cassie says, after consulting the computer. “We don’t have any members of staff by the name of Chi-we-she.”
“Ah, okay, but she . . .” Liyana trails off until, finally, inspiration strikes. “She doesn’t have my surname. We’re half-sisters. Different mother, different name . . . She’s very pretty, blond curls, blue eyes . . .”
At this description, recognition lights the receptionist’s eyes and Liyana knows she’s found the right place.
“And yet you don’t even know her first name?” Cassie’s smile thins, lips tighten. She has a parched look, Liyana thinks, as if she needs a long drink of water. “Which tells me that I shouldn’t be giving you her details, but I should be inviting you to leave.”
“No.” Liyana frowns. She wonders if—no, she doesn’t wonder—she knows that if she were white and her sister black, this conversation would be developing very differently. “Please,” she says, hating herself for begging. “Please, it’s just—we’ve never met.”
Cassie narrows her eyes. “You’ve never met? Then why are you so sure she works here?” She shifts in the direction of the telephone. “Have you been follow—”
“No!” Liyana interrupts. “No, of course not. I—I . . . I saw her in my . . .”
Cassie reaches for the phone. “I’m sorry, Ms. Chi-we-she, but either you’re going to leave
right now, or I’m going to call the police.”
Liyana shakes her head, eyes filling with tears, and backs away from the desk. She pushes open the ancient oak doors, her sight so blurred by now that she trips and falls down the stone steps.
5:15 p.m.—Liyana
Having spent the afternoon wandering hopelessly around town, past Saint Catherine’s College, then King’s and Gonville & Caius, feeling that the latticed windows were watching her, glittering, winking, jeering that she won’t find her sister in this city if she looks for a thousand years, Liyana climbed the staircase of Great Saint Mary’s medieval tower, puffing and heaving up the 123 steps before stumbling out into the slanting rain, the weather having shifted from sunshine to cloud while she was trudging up the stairs. Which made it worth the trip, for the city was resplendent in the rain.
Below her, Cambridge seemed to rise out of the water like Atlantis: eddying streets shimmering like rivers, rippling flags snagged like seaweed on the tops of towers, gleaming turrets and filigree spires, burnished gargoyles and glistening wrought-iron gates, lustrous lawns spreading like algae on the seabed. Liyana imagined her sister as a mermaid, flitting unseen between the submerged buildings, and stood on the tower hoping to catch a glimpse of her, until she was thoroughly soaked through.
After exhausting every effort, Liyana returned to the streets to slump onto a bench overlooking the pillared entrance of the Fitzwilliam Museum, just past the hotel. An hour later, when Liyana’s trying to decide whether to go straight home to London or find somewhere to eat first, she sees Cassie walking towards her. Liyana stands, ready to scuttle off in the opposite direction in case the police are following behind. But, seeing Cassie’s expression, she stays herself.
“I’m glad you didn’t get far,” Cassie says. “It’s too cold out to be searching the streets.”
Liyana sits.
“I’m sorry,” Cassie says, “about before. I didn’t know who you were. You might have been some sort of stalker.”
“So, why don’t you think I am now?”
“My boss was ranting about Goldie earlier—long blond hair, big blue eyes . . . Beautiful, right?”
Liyana nods, knowing, though she can’t explain how, that this Goldie is her sister. “Right.”
“So, I know she’s in trouble. She left two weeks ago without a word. None of us know what happened and I thought that maybe you could . . .” Cassie gives Liyana an appraising look. “But . . . I don’t . . . how come you’re . . .”
“Black?”
“Well, yeah,” Cassie says, uneasy. “I mean, I don’t mean to be—Before, I wasn’t being . . .”
Yes, you were, Liyana thinks. But she needs to keep this girl on her side until she gets the all-important address.
“It’s all right.” Liyana gives Cassie a wry smile. “Different mother, different colour.”
“Oh, right. Well, anyway, I don’t know what happened, why she left so suddenly, but . . . I was thinking about you and I’ve got a feeling maybe you’ll be able to help her.”
Liyana frowns. “You do?”
“Sometimes I get these feelings . . .” She shrugs. “Intuition, I suppose.”
Liyana smiles. “Me too.”
“Well, that’s great.” Cassie rummages in her handbag, picking out a piece of folded paper and handing it to Liyana. “Her address. She gave my boss a fake one—he’s furious. I don’t know why she gave it to me, since she never invited me over anytime, but”—Cassie gives Liyana the once-over again—“I guess maybe now I do. Anyway . . . send her my love when you see her. Tell her we all miss her, especially Jake. I know she can’t visit, but tell her to take care, okay?”
Liyana nods.
8:35 p.m.—Liyana & Goldie
If Liyana procrastinated outside the Fitzwilliam Hotel, it’s nothing compared with how long she waits outside Goldie’s flat, after gaining access to the building by sneaking in behind another visitor. Now she paces the corridor, up and down, up and down, occasionally pressing her ear to Goldie’s door. It’s only when Liyana realizes how late it’s getting that she stops pacing.
Imagining how BlackBird might address the situation—by kicking down the door with steel-capped boots—Liyana gives a tentative knock. When Goldie opens the door, it’s with the chain.
“What do you want?”
“I—I . . .” Liyana extends her hand. “I’m Liyana Miriro Chiweshe. But, um, call me Ana. I—”
“I didn’t ask for your birth certificate,” Goldie snaps. “I asked why you’re here.”
Liyana swallows. “I’m, um, well . . . Cassie, the receptionist at the Fitzwilliam Hotel—you know?—she gave me your address. She told me to send her love. She told me to tell you to take care. She says she misses you, Jake too.”
A guilty look passes over Goldie’s face. “How do you know Cassie?”
Liyana wishes she had a better story than the truth, but she hasn’t. “I met her today. I told her . . . I told her I was your sister.”
The chain slides across the lock and the door opens an inch. Goldie pokes her nose out. Liyana’s spirits lift. Then, catching the glint of the large kitchen knife in Goldie’s hands, they fall again.
“I don’t have a sister. Besides,” Goldie says, a raised eyebrow pointedly taking in the colour of Liyana’s skin and the bounce of her hair, “you look nothing like me.”
And yet, despite Goldie’s words, Liyana sees reflected in those blue eyes her own flash of recognition, her own tug of memory, a reminder of something lost and long ago. Her sister knows her, though she doesn’t know how.
“Please, give me a chance to explain. If you don’t believe me, you can kick me out and I’ll never bother you again, I promise. Please.”
Goldie scrutinizes Liyana more deeply. Then, perhaps considering that she’s the one wielding an enormous kitchen knife, opens the door.
9:59 p.m.—Goldie & Liyana
“How did you find me?”
Liyana looks confused. “I went to the hotel, Cassie—”
I shake my head. “No, I mean, how did you know to look for me?”
“Oh, right. Okay, yeah . . .” Liyana stalls. “Well, um, first I . . . Well, I sort of heard your voice in my head. Of course, I didn’t know it was you at the time.”
“What did I say?”
Liyana smiles. “That you were going to kill Cassie.”
I smile. “That sounds about right.”
“And you asked your grandma what to do. Then you called her a constipated hamster and—”
I frown. “A what? But I don’t have a grandma.”
Liyana mirrors my frown. “I did think it was strange. Do you know anyone called Ezekiel?”
“No.”
“Then it must have been someone else, I guess.” Liyana looks thoughtful. “Anyway, I dreamed about you, in the hotel, and—”
“You dreamed about me?” I say, though, strangely, I’m not shocked.
Liyana relaxes. “Do you think I’m delusional?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “You might be. But I know you’re not lying.”
“Thanks,” Liyana says, as if she’s entirely used to people thinking her delusional. “Anyway, I had that strange sense of knowing that you have in dreams, right? When nothing needs explaining, you just believe it. And, in the dream, I knew you were my sister. I still knew it when I woke up, which was the weird bit, I guess . . .”
“This whole thing is weird,” I say.
“Yeah, I suppose it is,” Liyana concedes. She glances about the flat, then back to me. “So, why do you believe me?”
“I don’t know. I’m pretty sure we’ve never met, but I feel like I know you.”
Liyana nods. “Me too.”
Just then, Teddy’s snores float across the living room.
Liyana starts. “What’s that?”
“It’s okay, it’s my brother.”
“Where?”
I nod towards the blue silk shoji screen concealing his bed in the corner o
f the room. “He sleeps there. He’s . . .” Suddenly I want to show my possible sister my sleeping brother. I stand. “Come and see his pictures.”
I cross the floor, beckoning Liyana to follow. I pull one of the screen panels aside to reveal Teddy and all the pictures—his gorgeous haute couture designs—stuck to the walls around his bed.
She stares, clearly struck by Teddy’s undeniable splendidness. I feel an unbidden and deep rush of affection for them both.
“They’re . . . incredible,” she whispers. “But—how old is he?”
“Nine,” I say, not without pride. “Nearly ten.”
“And he draws better than I do,” Liyana says. “How depressing.”
“You draw?”
“Only comic books. And . . . well, I only do them to amuse myself. I was going to the . . .” She leans forward to a drawing of a 1950s tea dress. Teddy shifts in his sleep, mumbling. I step back, so Liyana must do the same, and pull the shoji screen shut. I cross the carpet, avoiding that spot, and return to the sofa. Liyana follows, stepping on that spot, and sits next to me.
“So, you live alone, just you and your brother?”
I nod. “Ma died when I was fourteen.”
She frowns. Even with her brow furrowed, my God she’s beautiful. I try to think how I’d describe her, in my notebook. Her skin is so smooth and dark, like . . . the sheen on a blackbird’s wing. Her bright black eyes like . . . But no, right now she seems to me unparalleled in nature. I feel a sudden longing to shed my anaemic pallor and unremarkable features to look like her.
“How old are you?” she says.
“Seventeen,” I say. “Eighteen in two weeks.”
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