(Lena said there’s no mystery here, but what does she know?)
I took your hand and it felt alien in mine, not just because it was so cold, but because I didn’t recognize the shape of it, the feel. When did I last hold your hand? Perhaps you reached for mine at Mum’s funeral? I remember turning away from you, turning to Dad. I remember the look on your face. (What did you expect?) My heart turned wooden in my chest, its beat slowed to a mournful drum.
Someone spoke. “Sorry, but you’re not supposed to touch her.”
The light buzzed above my head, illuminating your skin, pale and grey against the steel beneath you. I placed my thumb upon your forehead, ran my finger along the side of your face.
“Please don’t touch her.” DS Morgan was standing just behind me. I could hear her breathing, slowly and evenly, above the sound of the buzzing lights.
“Where are her things?” I asked. “The clothes she was wearing, her jewellery?”
“They’ll be returned to you,” DS Morgan said, “after Forensics have checked them over.”
“Was there a bracelet?” I asked her.
She shook her head. “I don’t know, but whatever she was wearing, it’ll be returned to you.”
“There should be a bracelet,” I said quietly, looking down at Nel. “A silver bracelet with a clasp made of onyx. It belonged to Mum, it was engraved with her initials: SJA. Sarah Jane. She wore it all the time. Mum did. And then you did.” The detective was staring at me. “I mean, she did. I mean Nel did.”
I returned my gaze to you, to your slender wrist, to the place where the onyx clasp would have rested on blue veins. I wanted to touch you again, to feel your skin. I felt sure I could wake you up. I whispered your name and waited for you to quiver, for your eyes to flick open and follow me around the room. I thought perhaps that I should kiss you, if like Sleeping Beauty that might do the trick, and that made me smile because you’d hate that idea. You were never the princess, you were never the passive beauty waiting for a prince, you were something else. You sided with darkness, with the wicked stepmother, the bad fairy, the witch.
I felt the detective’s eyes on me and I pursed my lips to suppress the smile. My eyes were dry and my throat empty, and when I whispered to you, there seemed to be no sound at all.
“What did you want to tell me?”
LENA
It should have been me. I am her next of kin, her family. The person who loved her. It should have been me, but they wouldn’t allow me to go. I was left alone, with nothing to do but sit in an empty house and smoke until I ran out of cigarettes. I went to the village shop to get some—the fat woman in there sometimes asks for ID, but I knew she wouldn’t today. I was just leaving when I saw those bitches from school—Tanya and Ellie and all that lot—coming down the road towards me.
I felt like I was going to be sick. I just put my head down and turned away and started walking as fast as I could, but they saw me, they called out and they all started running to catch up with me. I didn’t know what they were going to do. Actually when they caught up, they all started hugging me and saying how sorry they were and Ellie actually had the gall to cry some fucking fake tears. I let them hang all over me, let them put their arms around me and smooth back my hair. It actually felt good to be touched.
We walked over the bridge. They were talking about going up to the Wards’ cottage to take some pills and go swimming—“It would be like a wake, kind of a celebration,” Tanya said. Fucking idiot. Did she honestly think I felt like getting monged and swimming in that water today? I was trying to think of what to say, but then I saw Louise and it was like serendipity and I could just walk away from them without saying anything and there was nothing they could do.
At first I thought she hadn’t heard me, but when I caught up with her I could see she was crying and she didn’t want to be near me. I grabbed hold of her. I don’t know why, but I just wanted her to not walk away, to not leave me there with those vulture bitches watching and pretending to be sad and all the while enjoying the fucking drama. She was trying to pull away, prising my fingers away one at a time, and she was saying, “I’m sorry, Lena, I can’t talk to you now. I can’t talk to you.”
I wanted to say something to her like: You lost your daughter and I lost my mother. Doesn’t that make us even? Can’t you just forgive me now?
I didn’t, though, and then that clueless policewoman came along and tried to make out we were arguing, so I told her where to go and walked home alone.
I thought Julia would be back by the time I came home. How long would it take, really, to go to the morgue and watch them pull the sheet back and say yes, that’s her? It’s not as though Julia would have wanted to sit with her, to hold her hand, to comfort her, like I would have done.
It should have been me, but they wouldn’t let me go.
I lay on my bed in silence. I can’t even listen to music because I feel everything has this other meaning that I didn’t see before and it hurts too fucking much to face it now. I don’t want to cry all the time, it makes my chest hurt and my throat hurt, and the worst thing is that no one comes to help me. There’s no one left to help me. So I lay on the bed and chain-smoked until I heard the front door go.
She didn’t call out to me or anything like that, but I heard her in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, rattling pots and pans. I waited for her to come to me, but eventually I just got bored and I was feeling sick from smoking so much and was really, really hungry, so I went downstairs.
She was standing at the stove stirring something, and when she turned round and saw me there, she jumped. But it wasn’t like how usually someone gives you a fright and then you laugh; the fear stayed in her face.
“Lena,” she said. “Are you all right?”
“Did you see her?” I asked.
She nodded and looked at the floor. “She looked . . . like herself.”
“That’s good,” I said. “I’m glad. I don’t like to think of her . . .”
“No. No. And she wasn’t. Broken.” She turned back to the hob. “Do you like spaghetti Bolognese?” she asked. “I’m making . . . that’s what I’m making.”
I do like it, but I didn’t want to tell her that, so I didn’t reply. Instead I asked her, “Why did you lie to the police?”
She turned round sharply, the wooden spoon in her hand spraying red sauce on the floor.
“What do you mean, Lena? I didn’t lie—”
“Yes, you did. You told them that you never speak to my mother, that you haven’t had any contact in years.”
“We haven’t.” Her face and neck were bright red, her mouth turned down like a clown’s, and I saw it, the ugliness that Mum talked about. “I haven’t had any meaningful contact with Nel since—”
“She phoned you all the time.”
“Not all the time. Occasionally. And in any case, we didn’t talk.”
“Yes, she told me that you refused to speak to her, no matter how hard she tried.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that, Lena.”
“How is it complicated?” I snapped. “How?” She looked away from me. “This is your fault, you know.”
She put the spoon down and took a couple of steps towards me, her hands on her hips, her expression all concerned, like a teacher who’s about to tell you how disappointed they are with your attitude in class.
“What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s my fault?”
“She tried to contact you, she wanted to talk to you, she needed—”
“She didn’t need me. Nel never needed me.”
“She was unhappy!” I said. “Don’t you even fucking care?”
She took a step back. She wiped her face as though I’d spat at her. “Why was she unhappy? I don’t . . . She never said she was unhappy. She never told me she was unhappy.”
“And what would you
have done if she had? Nothing! You’d have done nothing, just like you always have done. Just like when your mother died and you were horrible to her, or when she invited you to come here when we moved, or when she asked you to come that time for my birthday and you didn’t even reply! You just ignored her, like she didn’t exist. Even though you knew she didn’t have anyone else, even though—”
“She had you,” Julia said. “And I never suspected she was unhappy, I—”
“Well, she was. She didn’t even swim anymore.”
Julia stood very still, turning her head towards the window as though she were listening for something. “What?” she asked, but she wasn’t looking at me. It was like she was looking at someone else, or at her reflection. “What did you say?”
“She stopped swimming. All my life I can remember her going to a pool or to the river, every single day, it was her thing, she was a swimmer. Every single day, even in winter here when it’s fucking freezing and you have to break the ice on the surface. And then she stopped. Just like that. That’s how unhappy she was.”
She didn’t say anything for a bit. She just stood there, staring out of the window, as if she were looking for someone. “Do you know . . . Lena, do you think she had upset someone? Or that someone was bothering her, or . . . ?”
I shook my head. “No. She would’ve told me.” She would have warned me.
“Would she?” Julia asked. “Because, you know, Nel . . . your mum . . . she had a way about her, didn’t she? I mean, she knew how to get under people’s skin, how to piss them off—”
“No, she didn’t!” I snapped, although it was true that sometimes she did, but only stupid people, only people who didn’t understand her. “You didn’t know her at all, you didn’t understand her. You’re just a jealous bitch—you were back when you were young and you are now. Jesus. There’s no point even talking to you.”
I left the house even though I was starving. Better to starve than to sit and eat with her; it would feel like a betrayal. I kept thinking about Mum sitting there, talking into the phone, and the silence on the other end. Cold bitch. I got annoyed with her about it once, said, “Why don’t you just give it a rest? Forget about her? She obviously wants nothing to do with us.” Mum said, “She’s my sister, she’s my only family.” I said, “What about me? I’m family.” She laughed then and said, “You’re not family. You’re more than family. You’re part of me.”
Part of me is gone, and I wasn’t even allowed to see her. I wasn’t allowed to squeeze her hand or kiss her goodbye or tell her how sorry I am.
JULES
I didn’t follow. I didn’t actually want to catch up with Lena. I didn’t know what I wanted. So I just stood there on the front steps, my hands rubbing against my upper arms, my eyes gradually growing accustomed to the gathering dusk.
I knew what I didn’t want: I didn’t want to confront her, didn’t want to hear any more. My fault? How could this be my fault? If you were unhappy, you never told me. If you had told me that, I would have listened. In my head, you laughed. OK, but if you’d told me you’d stopped swimming, Nel, then I would have known something was wrong. Swimming was essential to your sanity, that’s what you told me; without it, you fell apart. Nothing kept you out of the water, just like nothing could draw me into it.
Except that something did. Something must have done.
I felt suddenly ravenous, had a violent urge to be sated somehow. I went back inside and served myself a bowl of Bolognese, and then another, and a third. I ate and ate and then, disgusted with myself, I went upstairs.
On my knees in the bathroom, I left the light off. Indulging in a habit long abandoned but so old it felt almost like comfort, I hunched over in the dark, the blood vessels in my face strained to a bursting point, my eyes streaming as I purged. When I felt there was nothing left, I stood and flushed, then splashed water on my face, avoiding my own gaze in the mirror only to have it fall on the reflection of the bathtub behind me.
I have not sat immersed in water for more than twenty years. For weeks after my near drowning, I found it difficult to wash properly at all. When I began to smell, my mother had to force me under the showerhead and hold me there.
I closed my eyes and splashed my face again. I heard a car slowing in the lane outside, my heart rate rising as it did, and then falling once more as the car sped off. “No one is coming,” I said out loud. “There’s nothing to be afraid of.”
Lena hadn’t returned, yet I had no idea where to look for her in this town, at once familiar and foreign. I went to bed but didn’t sleep. Each time I closed my eyes I saw your face, blue and pale, your lips lavender, and in my imagination they drew back over your gums and even though your mouth was full of blood, you smiled.
“Stop it, Nel.” I was speaking out loud again, like a madwoman. “Just stop it.”
I listened for your reply and all I got was silence; silence broken by the sound of the water, the noise of the house moving, shifting and creaking as the river pushed past. In the dark, I fumbled for my phone on the bedside table and dialled into my voice mail. You have no new messages, the electronic voice told me, and seven saved messages.
The most recent one came last Tuesday, less than a week before you died, at one-thirty in the morning.
Julia, it’s me. I need you to call me back. Please, Julia. It’s important. I need you to call me, as soon as you can, all right? I . . . uh . . . it’s important. OK. Bye.
I pressed 1 to repeat the message, again and again. I listened to your voice, not just the huskiness, the faint but irritating mid-Atlanticism of the pronunciation, I listened to you. What were you trying to tell me?
You left the message in the middle of the night and I picked it up in the early hours of the morning, rolling over in bed to see the telltale white flash on my phone. I listened to your first three words—Julia, it’s me—and hung up. I was tired and I was feeling low and I didn’t want to hear your voice. I listened to the rest of it later. I didn’t find it strange and I didn’t find it particularly intriguing. It’s the sort of thing you do: leave cryptic messages in order to pique my interest. You’ve been doing it for years, and then when you call again, a month or two later, I realize that there was no crisis, no mystery, no big event. You were just trying to get my attention. It was a game.
Wasn’t it?
I listened to the message, over and over, and now that I was hearing it properly, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t noticed before the slight breathlessness of your delivery, the uncharacteristic softness of your speech, hesitant, faltering.
You were afraid.
What were you afraid of? Who were you afraid of? The people in this village, the ones who stop and stare but offer no condolences, the ones who bring no food, send no flowers? It doesn’t seem, Nel, that you are much missed. Or maybe you were afraid of your strange, cold, angry daughter, who doesn’t weep for you, who insists that you killed yourself, without evidence, without reason?
I got out of bed and crept next door to your bedroom. I felt suddenly childlike. I used to do this—creep next door—when my parents slept here, when I was afraid at night, when I’d had nightmares after listening to one of your stories. I pushed the door open and slipped inside.
The room felt stuffy, warm, and the sight of your unmade bed brought me suddenly to tears.
I perched on the edge of it, picked up your pillow, crisp slate-grey linen with blood-red edging, and held it against me. I had the clearest memory of the two of us coming in here on Mum’s birthday. We’d made breakfast for her; she was ill then and we were making an effort, trying to get along. Those truces never lasted long: you tired of having me around, I never failed to lose your attention. I’d drift back to Mum’s side and you would watch through narrowed eyes, contemptuous and hurt at the same time.
I didn’t understand you, but if you were strange to me then, you are utterly alien now. Now I’m sitt
ing here in your home, amongst your things, and it is the house that is familiar, not you. I haven’t known you since we were teenagers, since you were seventeen and I thirteen. Since that night when, like an axe swung down onto a piece of wood, circumstance cleaved us, leaving a fissure wide and deep.
But it wasn’t until six years later that you lowered that axe again and split us for good. It was at the wake. Our mother just buried, you and me smoking in the garden on a freezing November night. I was struck dumb with grief, but you’d been self-medicating since breakfast and you wanted to talk. You were telling me about a trip you were going to take, to Norway, to the Pulpit Rock, a six-hundred-metre cliff above a fjord. I was trying not to listen, because I knew what it was and I didn’t want to hear about it. Someone—a friend of our father’s—called out to us, “You girls all right out there?” His words were slightly slurred. “Drowning your sorrows?”
“Drowning, drowning, drowning . . .” you repeated. You were drunk, too. You looked at me from under hooded eyelids, a strange light in your eyes. “Ju-ulia,” you said, slowly dragging out my name, “do you ever think about it?”
You put your hand on my arm and I pulled it away. “Think about what?” I was getting to my feet, I didn’t want to be with you any longer, I wanted to be alone.
“That night. Do you . . . have you ever talked to anyone about it?”
I took a step away from you, but you grabbed my hand and squeezed it hard. “Come on, Julia . . . Tell me honestly. Wasn’t there some part of you that liked it?”
After that, I stopped speaking to you. That, according to your daughter, was me being horrible to you. We tell our stories differently, don’t we, you and I?
I stopped talking to you, but that didn’t stop you from calling. You left strange little messages, telling me about your work or your daughter, an award you had won, an accolade received. You never said where you were or who you were with, although sometimes I heard noises in the background, music or traffic, sometimes voices. Sometimes I deleted the messages and sometimes I saved them. Sometimes I listened to them over and over, so many times that even years later I could remember your exact words.