Identical, page 3
Weekdays: get up at about 8 a.m. Have a shower once the others are done with the bathroom. Put some make-up on. Go downstairs to say goodbye before they leave. Bea gets herself up and sorts her own breakfast (Coco Pops or Sugar Puffs). Gabriel makes a pot of coffee. I have a cup, but I never eat anything until lunch.
She says I don’t have to get dressed, but I’m aware of my tattoo, a hummingbird hovering in the dip between the sacral and lumbar bones of my spine. It seems to burn through my flimsy, silky pyjamas. Cecily’s pyjamas. I decide to skip the shower. The idea of being naked in the same house as a man I don’t know makes me feel weird, even if there is a lock on the door. I run my fingers through my strange, short hair, biting my lip in concentration as I apply a wobbly line of black around my eyes, and then stick some mascara on my top lashes. My new longer fake nails make this a dangerous operation. Being my sister is so much more time-consuming than being myself.
I look through her drawers to find something to wear. Nothing appeals. I delve deeper, rejecting anything that looks too formal, too tight, too uncomfortable. My fingers find soft fabric and pull it free. A voluminous white cotton shirt appears. I hold it up. But it’s stained on the back with reddish brown caught in the weave. Puzzled, I lift it closer to my face, smelling a faint tang of metal. I drop the shirt, and push onto my feet, limbs tensed for flight. Blood. But who does it belong to? And why has she hidden the shirt in her drawer instead of putting it in the wash? Fear flickers briefly, muddling my thoughts. I pick it up again and touch the stains. The obvious answer is that she cut herself accidentally, mopped up the mess and then forgot about it. I bundle the shirt back and shut the drawer, trying not to think about the amount of blood, and the kind of wound it would take to produce it. In the next drawer up, I find exercise leggings and a sweatshirt – much more my kind of thing. As I go downstairs, I hear the deep voice from last night again and my heart flips. I remind myself of Cecily’s bravery. Divorce. In our family nobody would even say the word out loud. To us, it wasn’t a solution to an emotional impasse, it wasn’t a legal process, it was sacrilegious, forbidden, something that would bring down the wrath of our father as surely as burning a crucifix or saying the Lord’s Prayer backwards. Knowing she wants to divorce Gabriel is like a neon sign announcing her intention to stop being Daddy’s puppet. She’s been his ‘yes girl’ forever, striving to be the perfect Catholic daughter. If this is her bid for freedom from all that, I have no choice but to answer the call. This is a rescue mission.
They are both there, at the kitchen table, Gabriel and Bea. I’m doing this for her, I tell myself, as I fumble for her gold cross around my neck. I walk in, trying to look nonchalant. I hold my breath, waiting for them to denounce me, at the very least to stare at me in consternation. Bea ignores me, continuing to eat her cereal. The radio is on and a newsreader is talking about Chechnya. Gabriel switches it off and his eyes meet mine, skimming the surface and darting away. ‘Hi,’ he says, finishing his mouthful of toast. ‘How are you feeling today? Better?’
I mutter an affirmative, finding it impossible to form actual words.
He nods to a percolator on the surface. ‘Just made. Thought you might need it.’
I go across and pour some coffee, thankful that I scoped out the cupboards yesterday and can recall where the cups live. My stomach rumbles. The smell of toast and butter is torture, but Cecily skips breakfast. I lean against the surface in what I hope is a natural pose, and sip hot liquid, not sure what to say or do.
Bea pushes back her chair and clatters her bowl into the sink. ‘I’m off,’ she says to the room in general. ‘Don’t want to miss the bus.’
‘Bye, sweet pea,’ Gabriel says, as she drops a kiss onto the top of his head. It’s a normal scene between father and daughter, tender and every day. I think of the bloodied shirt, and my mouth is dry.
Bea gives me a stony look. ‘Bye,’ she mutters, brushing past and out of the door.
‘Bye,’ I say. ‘Have… have a good day.’
The front door slams. Gabriel glances at me sympathetically. ‘She’ll come round,’ he says. ‘You know she loves you really. Even if you are drinking from her favourite mug.’
I stare at him, then look at the cup in my hand. It was the one my fingers grasped first. It’s got a big pink flower on the front and seventies lettering declaring Flower Power. I wonder what other little peculiarities and family habits my sister has neglected to mention.
I begin to wash Bea’s bowl for something to do, running the tap to rinse it, turning it over in my hands – how long can I spend cleaning one bowl? I snatch glances at him from the corners of my eyes. He has smooth, olive skin, thick russet hair, and his eyes are an unusual, brilliant shade of green. I can see why Cecily found him attractive. Although not conventionally handsome, he has a good, strong face with broad bones, a wide mouth and a large, slightly squashed-looking nose. He’s wearing worn looking cords and a checked shirt, giving him an academic vibe. Not my type.
He gets up and puts his plate and cup in the dishwasher next to me. I freeze, not knowing whether to say anything. Cecily said they hardly speak. He hesitates, scratching his neck, and then takes a step closer. He’s stocky, not tall, about my height. My fingers tighten on the washing up brush and I stare at the taps, my body rigid.
‘It suits you, I think, to have short hair,’ he says. I flinch. A compliment was the last thing I was expecting. I slide my gaze towards him and away. ‘Cecily,’ his voice lowers. ‘We need to find a time to talk, don’t we?’
Panic crashes through me. She promised this wouldn’t happen. They sleep in separate rooms, live separate lives. I swallow and place the washing up brush in the rack next to the sink. There’s a residue of white bubbles on my hands. I wipe them on my jeans and turn slowly to face him.
We stare into each other’s eyes. I see his pupils expand and then retract into pinpoints of light. I look down at my feet in Cecily’s fuzzy slippers. He sighs. ‘We can’t go on like this.’
I lift my shoulders slightly and let them fall. ‘No,’ I agree, as it seems the only thing I can say. I keep my gaze on the furry slippers.
‘This evening then?’ he suggests. ‘Bea has her guitar lesson after school.’ He shuffles from one foot to the other. ‘I can get home by five.’
‘Right.’ I’m aware that I’m leaning away from him, twisting my torso, my hip jammed against the edge of the kitchen surface. I dart a glance at him and notice fine lines webbing his eyes; there’s grey around his temples and a deep furrow between his eyebrows.
‘Okay.’ He sighs again. ‘See you later.’
I grip the edge of the sink and wait for his footsteps to echo through the hall, for the front door to open and close, quietly this time. Blood rushes through my veins in a tidal wave of confusion. I cut two thick slices of bread and spread them with butter and honey and eat them quickly, not tasting anything. I drink the rest of my cold coffee, my heart surging as if it wants to escape my chest.
‘What am I supposed to do?’ I ask the empty kitchen. ‘Dammit!’ The cat gives me an inscrutable gaze as if considering my question, and then turns abruptly to wash her back leg. ‘You’re no help,’ I tell her.
I have six more days to get through.
Bea and Gabriel think I’m Cecily. It almost seemed too easy. But I won’t be able to keep up the pretence, particularly if he insists on talking. I mean, how is that going to work? I see disaster looming; I’m going to be outed. I know it. And I feel something else I didn’t expect – shame. It creeps inside me, cold and withering.
I need to tell Cecily what’s happened. I look for her contact details again. I must have missed the envelope. I search the whole house, reaching into drawers, kneeling to peer under the oven and sofa in case it fell and got kicked out of sight. I even look under my mattress. I find three bottles of vodka hidden in strange places, but no envelope. Why hasn’t Cecily let me know how to reach her? And I begin to worry: has something happened to her?
6
CECILY
The morning Mummy was due to drive Henry back to boarding school, I was busy dissecting my kipper. I’d pulled out as many bones as I could, arranging them like needles on the side of my plate. The yellow flesh made me want to retch, but it was a sin to be ungrateful. Chewing a small mouthful, my gaze roved around the breakfast table. Mummy was glancing anxiously at the clock on the wall. Henry still hadn’t made an appearance. Daddy snapped his newspaper flat with a sigh and took out his pocket watch. ‘Half past.’
Mummy stood up. ‘I’ll go and fetch him.’ Dilly uncurled herself from the floor expectantly, ears cocked, little snout pointing up.
‘Sit down, Emmeline, one of the girls can go.’
Mummy sat back on the edge of her seat. I placed my fork on my plate and jumped up. ‘I’ll go, Daddy.’
I hurried out into the corridor, through the long gallery to the main hall, taking the stairs two at a time; but Henry wasn’t in his room. His school uniform was still laid out on his chair. The battered trunk fastened with a padlock waiting on the floor. I padded down the cold corridor to the nearest bathroom and knocked. ‘Henry?’
Hesitantly, I pushed the door. He wasn’t standing, legs straddled over the loo, glaring over his shoulder, shouting ‘get out!’ The claw foot bath was empty, apart from a fat-bodied spider attempting to climb the chipped enamel sides. I glanced at the sink with its brown rust stain. Henry’s toothbrush was lying on its side, bristles bent and crushed.
I got back to the dining room, panting, filled with the importance of my task as messenger. ‘He’s not there,’ I told Daddy. ‘He’s not anywhere. Just his trunk.’
Daddy let out an exclamation of annoyance as he threw his paper onto the table. ‘What is the wretched boy playing at?’
My stomach contracted. All of us stumbled to our feet, waiting to be told what to do. We spread out like a proper search party, calling up and down staircases, opening rooms that had been shut up for years, peering across furniture draped with dusty sheets, ghostly shapes stranded in the gloom. A bat flew out of the old nursery, whirring wildly from the curtains. Dilly paced at the bottom of the stairs, adding to the panic with hysterical yapping.
I prayed for Henry to come back. Every second he stayed hidden would make things worse for him.
We congregated in the hall to report back to Daddy. There was no sign of Henry. Daddy’s face was as hard as one of the gargoyles peering from St. Mary’s roof. ‘Right,’ he barked. ‘Search the grounds.’
We tumbled out of the front door, uncertain where to look. There was so much land – and beyond the walls, the fells. How would we find him? The Labradors, sensing a game, and hardly more than puppies, loped after Mummy as she ran across the front lawn towards the tarn, their barks joyful. I stared after her, thinking my brother couldn’t possibly be drowned. Not Henry, the best swimmer I knew. Mummy’s hair came loose from her bun, brown strands caught in the wind, wispy and fly-away. Her foot slid, as one of the dogs got tangled in her stride, and a shoe came off. She hopped unsteadily as she came back for it, and stood blinking in the light, as if she had something in her eye. The two big dogs gathered around, confused by the hold-up, sniffing her shins. She fished a hanky out from her sleeve, blew her nose. ‘It’s all a misunderstanding,’ she said to no one in particular. ‘He’s such a good boy.’
I ran to the yew, certain I’d find him crouched at its dark centre, his back tucked against the warm bark, concealed by swagged branches. Henry loved the tree, and so did God. It was holy. People used to carry yew branches to church on Palm Sunday. But he wasn’t behind the screen of green fronds or hiding inside the split trunk. There was just a mistle thrush, pecking at fallen red fruit, the air sickly with the smell of boiled sweets.
He turned up in the end, a little while later, not floating face down in the black mirror of the tarn but on his two feet and only a bit damp. We were congregated on the front steps to receive the next instructions from Daddy, when the dogs started to bark in greeting. And there he was, coming slowly across the lawn, covered in scratches, jeans muddy at the knees, bits of leaf in his hair. He’d forgotten the time, he said. His lie was half-hearted, his eyes red-rimmed. The dogs panted at his heels, tails wagging, overjoyed, Dilly licking his ankles in ecstasy.
Daddy called the animals to him sharply, the two Labs slinking low to crouch at his feet. ‘I won’t have a wet for a son,’ he said.
At the entrance to Daddy’s study, Henry started to untuck his shirt ready for the strap. But Daddy shook his head, turned on his heels and marched upstairs. Henry stared after him, and then followed as if in a trance.
Mummy, Alice and I waited at the bottom with the dogs. My heart lunged into my mouth. I felt sick, the taste of kippers repeating in my throat.
‘No. Please!’ We heard Henry in the distance. And then nothing.
Mummy raised her hands to her mouth. She called after them, ‘Darling? Edmund? Henry’s already late for school… Don’t you think…’ her voice too weak to carry to the top of the house.
There was no reply. We stood looking at each other. The muffled-up silence of the house caught at us, made us glance away, nobody wanting to say it out loud. I was relieved it wasn’t me locked in the dark, then immediately worried I was being selfish. Tears dripped down Alice’s blotchy cheeks. She dragged a hand across her nose and wiped it over her navy school skirt.
Mummy didn’t remind us that we should set off for the bus stop. She scooped up Dilly, struggling to speak. ‘Your… your father knows… what’s best…’ her voice trailed away, and she went off in the direction of the kitchen, shoulders slumped, limping on her left side; she must have hurt herself when she’d slipped. It occurred to me that she looked lonely. We three had each other – but who did Mummy have? No friends or relatives. Her only sister was divorced, so of course, we couldn’t acknowledge her. As a result, we’d only met her before she left her husband, and I couldn’t really remember because we’d been babies. She still sent us money, which was useful.
I followed Alice to her bedroom. We sat on the floor, backs against the hard metal bar of Alice’s bed. I sucked a rope of hair until it caught in my throat. Then I applied my attention to gnawing at what was left of my nails, teeth worrying fraying cuticles, the taste of knives on my tongue. Alice got up and paced the room, kicking the skirting board, pushing her hands through her hair, mussing it into tangles. ‘How long is he going to keep him in there?’ she asked with a violent pounding of her fist into her palm.
Alice’s emotions spilled out in a messy spurts like lemonade from a shaken bottle. It was up to me to be the calm one. ‘It’s for his own good,’ I said in the pious voice grown-ups used.
She spun around, and I shrank from her glare. ‘You’re an idiot,’ she told me. ‘You believe everything Daddy says. One day,’ her voice was fierce, ‘we’ll all leave this place. And we’ll never come back. Serve him right.’
I knew she’d thump me if I disagreed. But of course, we weren’t going to leave Hawksmoor. It was our home. Daddy was doing what was best – he needed Henry to be brave and strong, because Henry was the heir, the last hope – I’d heard him tell Mummy when I lingered outside the door, ‘It’s all on Henry now. We’ve reached the end of the line.’
I knew there couldn’t be any more sons because Mummy nearly died having me and Alice. She never talked about it, but once, Jane had explained that Alice and I had both been in the wrong position in her tummy, and I had got stuck in Mummy’s pelvis. It was lucky we hadn’t all died. After that, Mummy couldn’t have any more children.
Henry reappeared hours later in his school uniform, limping, smudged with dust. He walked with deliberate care, lugging his trunk after him, the trailing end bumping against each step. There was a cobweb caught in his hair. I wanted to pick it out but didn’t dare.
Daddy came stomping after him, eagle-eyed. ‘We’ll have no more nonsense?’ He held out his hand to shake at the front door.
Henry took it. ‘No, sir,’ his voice hardly more than a whisper.
Daddy grabbed the other end of the trunk and together they wedged it into the open boot, cramming it in next to the empty petrol can, wellington boots and musty blankets. After a moment of hesitation, I lunged forward and hugged Henry. He smelt of damp and mouse droppings. His shoulders were rigid.
Mummy was waiting by the driver’s door. ‘I called ahead. Explained we’d been delayed.’ She went to touch Henry, her hand hovering, and then seemed to lose confidence. Instead, she called out, ‘Jump in, darling,’ in her best cheerful voice.
Daddy stood with legs apart and arms crossed, the Labradors at his feet. Mummy started the engine and the car rolled away. Daddy’s gaze was on the Volvo, the curl of its exhaust, sunlight glinting on the back window as it disappeared around the corner. I thought he looked like the oil paintings in the drawing room come to life, the noble bump at the bridge of his nose, the firm mouth under his moustache, eyes that blazed fire at the world, burning with conviction. In Daddy, I saw all the other brave Deveraux men who’d given their lives for their faith, sacrificed themselves to save their tradition. But today he looked disappointed, and I wished I dared to try and find the right thing to say, whatever it was that would make him feel better. He turned and stomped into the house.
‘Bastard,’ Alice whispered under her breath, glaring at his retreating shadow. ‘I hate him.’
I lunged forwards, clamping a hand over my sister’s mouth to stop her blaspheming. Ignoring her furious glare, I kept my fingers fixed in place. It would be bad if God heard, but worse if Daddy did.
