by L. V. Hay
‘Oh, God. India…’ The voice is whispery, hoarse. I can’t tell if it’s a woman or a man. I can hear the raw grief choking in his or her throat. My own tears well up inside me in sympathetic response, but I force them down again. ‘…You shouldn’t have waited for me.’
Then the caller hangs up.
I press the LED screen to display caller ID, but am dismayed to see the caller has withheld his or her number. When the voicemail asks if I want to listen again, I press the button for YES. I listen to the short message over and over, my certainty growing with every successive listening.
I’m sure the voice belongs to a woman. It was left on 22nd December. The night India died.
It has to be the mysterious Jenny.
Thirteen
@Wolfman404: WTAF was that all about today?? Don’t pull that shit on me again. My life’s complicated enough as it is. Don’t wanna hear it.
@1NDIAsummer: OK, I’ll stay away. But I’m not the one pressurising you. You know it’s true. You CAN stop this
@Wolfman404: U think it’s as easy as that??
@1NDIAsummer: Never said it was easy
@Wolfman404: Wot is it U want?? Attention? Ur like a kid
@1NDIAsummer: No. Just think about what I’m saying
@Wolfman404: Go fuck urself India
@1NDIAsummer: Look, I get it. I know it’s hard. But if not now, when? This can’t go on forever.
@Wolfman404: U don’t get it. AT ALL
@1NDIAsummer: You can stop all of this.
@Wolfman404: U actually readin what U typin?? Look, if you don’t back off this is gonna get bad for you
@1NDIAsummer: It’s in your hands
@Wolfman404: OK u’ve swallowed some self-help book or some shit. Done
@1NDIAsummer: PLEASE! Look, I’ll beg if you want me to. Just do the right thing. You OWE her.
@Wolfman404 leaves the conversation.
@1NDIAsummer leaves the conversation.
PART TWO
Present Continuous
/ing/
Fourteen
Tossing and turning, he dreams of her: the feel of her skin, the curves of her body. Darkness surrounds them, he can only see her up close; only she exists. He doesn’t know where they are. It doesn’t matter.
‘I love you so much,’ he mutters.
She says nothing, but she kisses him like she used to. The pull towards her is magnetic, as if he’s powerless to stop himself. Waking, his naked skin is sheened in sweat, his muscles twisted in frustrated desire.
Body and spirit aching, he drags himself into the shower, letting the hot water sluice away his sins. Skin tingling, he wraps a towel around his waist and pads through to his bedroom. He jumps in surprise as a shadowed figure passes in front of the window, dark against the open Venetian blind.
She Who Must Be Obeyed.
‘That key was for emergencies, only.’
She gives no indication she has heard, nor does she turn in his direction. She stands at the window, her back to him. She’s dressed in black. She has her hands on her hips, one heeled foot out in front of her as she regards the view of Brighton stretching beyond the glass. She stifles a yawn behind her hand. He opens the wardrobe, grabbing clothes off the hanger.
He waits. She doesn’t take the hint.
‘I need to get dressed?’
She tuts, irritated, as if he’s being ridiculous, or falsely modest. In the small room, he towers over her. In two or three steps, he could grab and choke her if he wanted to. But he knows her unannounced appearance is a test. It’s one he can’t afford to fail.
Not today.
He goes into the small bathroom. His bulk barely fits in the narrow space as he shrugs on his clothes, but at least the door has a lock. He fastens the buttons on his shirt haphazardly, taking a quick look in the small shaving mirror as he does so. Haunted eyes stare back.
She is waiting on the threshold as he pulls open the bathroom door. He stops himself from flinching at her proximity. He won’t betray his weakness. Not again.
She gives him a tight-lipped smile and straightens his tie for him. ‘That’s better.’
He doesn’t thank her. It didn’t need straightening. It’s a tiny act of defiance, but one he savours. She doesn’t seem to notice.
Without warning, she grabs his tie. Yanks his face closer to hers.
‘Don’t think I don’t know.’ Her gaze is icy, furious.
He affects a blank stare back. ‘Know what?’
‘That she’s back!’ She lets him go, placing her hands on her hips again.
His stomach lurches; his mouth fills up with sour saliva. ‘It won’t make any difference.’
‘It better not.’ She pokes him in the chest with another one of her meticulously painted nails. ‘Remember what she did, OK?’
‘Fine.’ He murmurs. He forces anger to the surface, an antidote to the fear of her that swells in his chest. Always: women telling him what to do.
But this time, she is unconcerned; it’s as if she can feel the anxiety radiating from him in waves. She sighs and shakes her head slightly, as if he were a child. She turns on her heel and disappears through the bedroom door into the hallway, without looking back.
For a microsecond, he thinks about closing the door after her. Pulling the deadbolt across, staying in his flat as she beats on the door, impotent, demanding he come out again. A smile twitches his lip as he considers this pointless, yet badly needed, act of rebellion.
‘Hurry up, then!’ Her voice, thin and demanding, travels back down the corridor towards him.
His treacherous feet follow her.
Fifteen
Finally, it is time.
The cars arrive. The hearse waits outside the house, a man in a long black overcoat and stick in front of it, ready to walk in front of the procession. In the back, the casket. It is all but obscured by a massive flower tribute, spelling out my sister’s name. It’s the kind of pale yellow you buy a pregnant woman when you’re not sure if she’s having a boy or a girl.
Another flash enters my head now: running up the hospital corridor with Tim to see my new baby sister, carrying a present wrapped carelessly in Christmas paper. I peered into the crib, expecting to see a baby like I’d seen on television: rosy-cheeked and smiling, much bigger. Instead I saw this wizened, tiny thing, her features crumpled up, her tiny hands thrown back either side of her head.
‘What do you think, Poppy?’ My mother looked exhausted, her face white, dark circles under her eyes. She and Tim waited for my verdict, eyes wide.
I shrugged. ‘She’s alright.’
They laughed.
The long-lost relatives are directed to one car. I’m directed to the other, with Mum and Tim. Mum gets in and slides right across to the window opposite, as if her plan is to open the door and get straight out the other side, and only Tim’s hand, clasping hers, prevents her. Mum does not look at him, her sights fixed ahead. He stares at her ear, the side of her head, his chin almost resting on her shoulder.
I lean forward and place a hand on Mum’s knee. Her gaze alights on my face. I’m shocked by how lost she seems. I try and say something, but nothing comes out. Mum’s focus swims away again. I sit back in my seat, looking out the back window as the cars set off, the hearse in front of us.
We arrive at the church. It’s the one where Tim and Mum got married, before India was born. I was a flower girl then, carrying a wicker basket full of rose petals, but now my hands are empty. Should I have brought something? I don’t know what the protocol is. I realise that at nearly thirty, this is the first funeral I have been to. I guess I have been lucky, but that word sticks in my craw now.
More guilt presses down on me as I see the wreaths and flower sprays, propped up next to the open plot meant for my sister. I am surprised to see so many people waiting outside the church, chatting in reverent tones about everyday things: their kids’ schooling; troubles at work. Proof that life does indeed go on.
The idle chit-chat
ceases as people see my mother. Tim’s arm is clamped around her, holding her up. A ripple of sympathy works its way through the small crowd. Tim nods in acknowledgement, then gestures to me to take Mum’s elbow. I do so, expecting her weight to transfer to me, but she does not lean on me like she did Tim. I feel oddly rejected, though I don’t know why.
My stepfather makes his way to the hearse with three other men. One is a Canadian relative of my mother’s, a man with a face almost as circular as his rotund belly. Another is the adult son of our family doctor, whose name I don’t recall. He is about India’s age and tall, ruddy-cheeked, with slightly buck teeth. He’s handsome in a horsey kind of way. I speculate about whether he could have been my sister’s boyfriend. But wouldn’t Mum have mentioned that India was seeing someone?
Then I notice the last pallbearer. He is a slight man, balding now, though his pallid face is puckered with old, red acne scars. His suit, though undoubtedly carefully pressed that morning by his wife – I know she is fastidious – already looks crumpled, like he’s been wearing it for days. The man takes a few puffs of his cigarette, then grinds it under his £2000 shoes and scuttles after the others. I watch him go, unable to compute.
It is Alan Temple, Matthew’s father.
My mind reels. When did Mum and Tim start speaking to the Temples again? But I don’t have time to puzzle this now, as the rest of the Temple family arrives.
Maggie, Alan’s wife is the first to reach us. She looks pristine, as if she’s walked straight out of a Laura Ashley catalogue (if the models in it were ever black). Though Maggie’s face is a little more lined, she looks more or less the same as when I saw her last. She clutches her bag to her stomach and wears her tightly coiled hair smoothed up into the same bun style I remember. She has an expression of studied sorrow, but surely she can’t have known India well? She plucks at my sleeve, so I offer her a thin-lipped smile.
‘Kirsten, darling, I just don’t know what to say.’ Maggie laments. Her gaze flickers, steely, towards mine. She acknowledges me with a slight curl of her upper lip. ‘…Poppy.’
Ana, the Temples’ eldest child by just three minutes, hovers behind her mother. I see her take a deep breath, bracing herself to speak with me. Ana is as stylish as her mother, though in a vintage way, all tassels and scarves.
‘Kirsten, Poppy. So sorry.’ Ana regards me with pursed lips, like she’s trying not to let accusations spill out. Tension rolls off her in waves. It’s clear she is only here under sufferance. I perceive rather than see there’s something different about Ana. It rankles. I’m not sure what it is.
‘Thank you,’ I say, automatic. Mum nods.
‘Poppy.’ Matthew meanders up behind his sister, giving me a cursory acknowledgement. The familial resemblance between him and his sister is unmistakable: the long faces, high cheekbones, heart-shaped chins. He’s clean-shaven, the beard he was sporting at Elemental the other day gone, his face as smooth as his cue-ball head. That’s when I realise what is different about Ana.
‘I like your hair like that.’
The words are out before I can figure out whether they’re appropriate or not. Ana reaches a hand to her halo of mid-length corkscrews as I say this. Standing next to Matthew, I note they look like opposites; his yin to her yang. I’ve never seen Ana’s natural hair; she always relaxed it, like Maggie. Her mother insisted on it when we were younger, saying Ana looked ‘even prettier’ with straightened hair. Ana confessed to me she hated the acrid smell of the chemicals; the way they could burn her scalp if left on too long. There was a time when she was off school for weeks, and I didn’t see her. Afterwards she told me it was a hair thing – she was allergic to a new product, and Maggie and let her stay at home rather than be seen in public with ‘bad hair’. To this day that story has never rung true.
What is true is that Ana always acquiesced to Maggie. Well, no more it seems. And I even think I see a flash of irritation pass across Maggie’s face, obviously judging it the wrong thing to talk about at a funeral. But India was my family, not theirs.
The five of us make more small talk to stop another silence from swallowing us whole. Our families were close once; the three of us children inseparable. Now, Ana’s hand clasps her twin’s elbow in a proprietorial gesture, a warning in her eyes telling me to stay away. Matthew doesn’t appear to notice.
A thought occurs. ‘Where’s James?’
Maggie appears to start, as if she hasn’t expected me to remember her third child. But why wouldn’t I? Maggie called her youngest a ‘happy accident’, pleased that what she’d thought was an early menopause turned out to be a final baby. Matthew and Ana were fifteen when Maggie and Alan brought the placid little infant home. I was about thirteen. India was six or seven, bringing James one of her old teddies. I recall the twins’ slight disgust at the thought of their parents still ‘doing it’, but both doted on their baby brother, treating him like he was made of china. At least, Matthew did.
‘He’s away at school,’ Maggie cuts in before either of the twins can answer. I don’t think I’m imagining the slightly smug, or at least proud tone, especially when she continues, ‘He’s very gifted.’
‘Oh yeah, he’s special alright,’ Matthew mutters.
Maggie’s nostrils flare at her son’s sarcasm, but she doesn’t allow herself to turn towards Matthew.
‘How old is James now, he must be, what, fifteen?’
‘Nearly eighteen.’ Maggie flashes me a pearly-white smile as she sees the shock on my face. Time really does fly.
I’m distracted as Mum breaks away from our little huddle and wanders off towards the threshold of the church. Maggie smiles, gestures for me to go after her. I throw the Temples an apologetic glance and follow my mother into the building.
Stopping at the back of the pews, I glance towards the altar: Mum sits down there now, alone, head bowed as if praying. I look around the church, not taking anything in. As I make my way down the aisle, I can see the priest waiting in his robes near the lectern, hands clasped behind his back. It all seems surreal.
Then I find myself drawn to another figure, sitting perhaps two pews ahead of me. Her body language is apologetic, turned a few inches away, so she’s facing the wall rather than the altar. I can see the bumps of her spine in her neck, through her sheer blouse. She is wearing purple, like Ana Temple. In her straight, dyed-auburn hair, there is a large, purple, satin flower. She does not look up as we all file in past her, but I don’t need her to. I am sure I know who it is.
Jenny.
Sixteen
I take my place on the pew at the front, next to my mother and Tim. Everyone present, the priest launches into a low-key and informal remembrance. He’s about Tim’s age, though he has an incongruous amount of hair and small, round John Lennon-type spectacles. I look around and see other people dab their eyes with handkerchiefs, though no one appears to sobbing openly.
During the service, I am distracted. I find myself glancing behind me, at the young woman in purple with clashing red hair, sitting at the back. I’d wanted to pay close attention, listen to what others would say about my beloved sister, say goodbye. Though I’d never been to a funeral, as India’s approached, I began to realise their significance for those left behind, how they help with the healing process. But now, faced with the prospect that Jenny is here, in the same room, endless questions are burning on my tongue; I’m desperate to voice them.
My impatience alerts the young woman. When she catches my glance for the third time, she hoists her handbag over her shoulder, in readiness to stand. Feeling a surge of panic at the thought of losing her, I wheel round to watch her shift out of her seat, walking, slow and purposeful, towards the church’s exit.
‘Tim,’ I murmur, seeking his permission to leave.
My stepfather looks up, away from his hand clasped in my mother’s. Her head is dipped, her eyes closed, lost inside herself. He gives me that nod again.
Grateful, I stand and hurry down the aisle, holding a tissue to
my face as if overcome. A few guests look up in my direction, but with sympathy, not accusation.
I move from the dimness of the church back into the bright sunshine of the graveyard beyond, frost still sparkling on the ground. I struggle to focus on where the young woman could have gone.
I see her up ahead, cutting across the cemetery. I know where she is going: the bus stop on the road opposite. I race across the grass after her, dodging tombstones as I go, a macabre slalom race.
‘Wait!’ I call.
She does not turn around. I catch her up with ease and put my hand on Jenny’s bony shoulder. She stiffens under my touch. Her head swings around.
She is neither of the two Jennys from Facebook. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t the one India’s suicide ‘note’ was addressed to.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have come.’ Jenny averts her eyes from mine.
I try and catch my breath, adrenaline coursing through me. ‘I just want to talk to you.’
‘There’s nothing to say!’ The girl’s voice is desperate.
‘Please, I just want to ask you some questions…’
‘Stay away from me!’ She jabs a finger at me, it connects with my sternum. The sudden, sharp touch shocks me. I let go of her.
Rooted to the spot, I just stand and watch her go, my chest rising and falling with my small gasps. What now?
‘Poppy?’
I wheel around. Matthew stands behind me, his face a picture a concern. The distance between us the last time we met seems to evaporate. I choke back a sob and lean against him, like my mother had against Tim; he lets me, folding his big arms around me.
