‘Nel?’ I said your name softly, as if to conjure you up, like a devil. Silence answered me.
Further down the hall was ‘my room’ – the one I used to sleep in: the smallest in the house, as befits the youngest. It looked even smaller than I remembered, darker, sadder. It was empty save for a single, unmade bed and it smelled of damp, like the earth. I never slept well in this room, I was never at ease. Not all that surprising, given how you liked to terrify me. Sitting on the other side of the wall, scratching at the plaster with your fingernails, painting symbols on the back of the door in blood-red nail polish, writing the names of dead women in the condensation on the window. And then there were all those stories you told, of witches dragged to the water, or desperate women flinging themselves from the cliffs to the rocks below, of a terrified little boy who hid in the wood and watched his mother jump to her death.
I don’t remember that. Of course I don’t. When I examine my memory of watching the little boy, it makes no sense: it is as disjointed as a dream. You whispering in my ear – that didn’t happen on some freezing night at the water. We were never here in winter anyway, there were no freezing nights at the water. I never saw a frightened child on the bridge in the middle of the night – what would I, a tiny child myself, have been doing there? No, it was a story you told, how the boy crouched amongst the trees and looked up and saw her, her face as pale as her nightdress in the moonlight, how he looked up and saw her flinging herself, arms spread like wings, into the silent air, how the cry on her lips died as she hit the black water.
I don’t even know whether there really was a boy who saw his mother die, or whether you made the whole thing up.
I left my old room and turned to yours, the place which used to be yours, the place which, by the look of it, is now your daughter’s. A chaotic mess of clothes and books, a damp towel lying on the floor, dirty mugs on the bedside table, a fug of stale smoke in the air and the cloying smell of rotting lilies, wilting in a vase next to the window.
Without thinking, I began to tidy up. I straightened the bedding and hung the towel on the rail in the en suite. I was on my knees, retrieving a dirty plate from under the bed, when I heard your voice, a dagger in my chest.
‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’
Jules
I SCRABBLED TO my feet, a triumphant smile on my lips, because I knew it – I knew they were wrong, I knew you weren’t really gone. And there you stood in the doorway, telling me to get the FUCK out of your room. Sixteen, seventeen years old, hand around my wrist, painted nails digging into my flesh. I said get OUT, Julia. Fat cow.
The smile died, because of course it wasn’t you at all, it was your daughter, who looks almost exactly like you did when you were a teenager. She stood in the doorway, hand on hip. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked again.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m Jules. We haven’t met, but I’m your aunt.’
‘I didn’t ask who you were,’ she said, looking at me as though I were stupid, ‘I asked what you were doing. What are you looking for?’ Her eyes slid away from my face and she glanced over towards the bathroom door. Before I could answer she said, ‘The police are downstairs,’ and she stalked off down the corridor, long legs, lazy gait, flip-flops slapping on the tiled floor.
I hurried after her.
‘Lena,’ I said, putting my hand on her arm. She yanked it away as though scalded, spinning round to glare at me. ‘I’m sorry.’
She dipped her eyes, her fingers massaging the place where I’d touched her. Her nails bore traces of old blue polish, her fingertips looked as though they belonged to a corpse. She nodded, not meeting my eye. ‘The police need to talk to you,’ she said.
She’s not what I expected. I suppose I imagined a child, distraught, desperate for comfort. But she isn’t, of course, she’s not a child, she’s fifteen and almost grown, and as for seeking comfort – she didn’t seem to need it at all, or at least, not from me. She is your daughter, after all.
The detectives were waiting in the kitchen, standing by the table, looking out towards the bridge. A tall man with a dusting of salt-and-pepper stubble on his face and a woman at his side, about a foot shorter than him.
The man stepped forward, his hand outstretched, pale-grey eyes intent on my face. ‘Detective Inspector Sean Townsend,’ he said. As he reached out, I noticed he had a slight tremor. His skin felt cold and papery against mine, as though it belonged to a much older man. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss.’
So strange, hearing those words. They said them yesterday, when they came to tell me. I’d almost said them myself to Lena, but now it felt different. Your loss. I wanted to tell them, she isn’t lost. She can’t be. You don’t know Nel, you don’t know what she’s like.
Detective Townsend was watching my face, waiting for me to say something. He towered over me, thin and sharp-looking, as though if you got too close to him you might cut yourself. I was still looking at him when I realized that the woman was watching me, her face a study in sympathy.
‘Detective Sergeant Erin Morgan,’ she said. ‘I’m very sorry.’ She had olive skin, dark eyes, blue-black hair the colour of a crow’s wing. She wore it scraped back from her face, but curls had escaped at her temple and behind her ears, giving her a look of dishevelment.
‘DS Morgan will be your liaison with the police,’ Detective Townsend said. ‘She’ll keep you informed about where we are in the investigation.’
‘There’s an investigation?’ I asked dumbly.
The woman nodded and smiled and motioned for me to sit down at the kitchen table, which I did. The detectives sat opposite me. DI Townsend cast his eyes down and rubbed his right palm across his left wrist in quick, jerky motions: one, two, three.
DS Morgan was speaking to me, her calm and reassuring tone at odds with the words coming out of her mouth. ‘Your sister’s body was seen in the river by a man who was out walking his dogs early yesterday morning,’ she said. A London accent, her voice soft as smoke. ‘Preliminary evidence suggests she’d been in the water just a few hours.’ She glanced at the DI and back at me. ‘She was fully clothed, and her injuries were consistent with a fall from the cliff above the pool.’
‘You think she fell?’ I asked. I looked from the police detectives to Lena, who had followed me downstairs and was on the other side of the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Barefoot in black leggings, a grey vest stretched over sharp clavicles and tiny buds of breasts, she was ignoring us, as if this were normal, banal. As though it were an everyday occurrence. She clutched her phone in her right hand, scrolling down with her thumb, her left arm wrapped around her narrow body, her upper arm roughly the width of my wrist. A wide, sullen mouth, dark brows, dirty blonde hair falling into her face.
She must have felt me watching, because she raised her eyes to me and widened them for just a moment, so that I looked away. She spoke. ‘You don’t think she fell, do you?’ she said, her lip curling. ‘You know better than that.’
Lena
THEY WERE ALL just staring at me and I wanted to yell at them, to tell them to get out of our house. My house. It is my house, it’s ours, it’ll never be hers. Aunt Julia. I found her in my room, going through my things before she’s even met me. Then she tried to be nice and told me she was sorry, like I’m supposed to believe she even gives a shit.