by L. V. Hay
Something snaps deep within me.
Raw grief hits me in the solar plexus, folding me over. Matthew tries to keep me upright, then gives up. He lets me squat down on my heels as I attempt to pour the grief out of myself with a low, animalistic moan, my whole body shaking. As light glints on the sparkling grass, a thought surfaces in my brain: How can the sun be shining when my only sister is dead?
Reality returns with the sound of the organ in the church. Muffled voices sing a hymn for India. I sit on a bench under a willow arch, next to an angel with no head, my own resting on Matthew’s shoulder.
I look down and see my tights are laddered. Absent-mindedly, I pick at the hole, making it larger, drawing his attention. Matthew gives me a wan smile. He removes his arm from around my shoulders. I miss his touch, his warm body against mine.
‘So, who was she?’
Jenny, I want Matthew to say: Your mother is wrong. Jenny exists.
But he doesn’t. ‘JoJo.’
I am incredulous, but as I say the words, my brain makes the connection. JoJo – India’s best friend from school: bestie, BFF, fat friend.
‘Jabba JoJo?’
Matthew shrugs. ‘People change.’
I realise why I didn’t recognise her. JoJo Musgrave was five or six stone heavier the last time I saw her. What’s more, it was her hair that was purple, rather than her clothes. But one thing still puzzles me: If JoJo is not Jenny, then why did she flinch when she saw me?
Could JoJo Musgrave be hiding something?
I lean forward, trying to re-establish the connection we had earlier. I brush my lips against his. Matthew stays where he is on the bench. His body faces outwards, away from me.
But he doesn’t dodge me. He lets me push my body up against his side, to press my mouth against his. His lips part. I kiss him properly.
But as I move a hand onto his right thigh, he jerks away. He raises the back of his hand to his mouth, like he’s wiping away a bad taste.
Me.
‘I’m sorry.’ My apology blurts out of me now, four (nearly five) years too late. It is as sudden as my visceral grief, minutes earlier.
Matthew’s face is impassive. ‘Just words.’
Over his shoulder, I see the priest emerge out of the church. The pallbearers shuffle behind him, shouldering India’s casket. The procession moves towards the open grave. In my peripheral vision, I see two men in cheap black suits waiting just beyond a large stone memorial in the shape of a Canterbury cross. They both wear sunglasses, like the Blues Brothers. Later they will replace them with dirty overalls and shovel earth onto my sister.
As I look away, I catch sight of another man, this time standing some way back from the church. He’s a white guy with broad shoulders, in a dark suit and tie. He has an unruly mop of curly hair, though he’s far enough away that I can’t make out his features in much detail. He’s not carrying any flowers; nor does he appear to be visiting any particular grave. He sucks on the filter of a cigarette, his body language ragged, anxious. Each exhalation forms a smoky cloud around his head.
Even so, I sense him looking straight at me.
More people file out of the church. Maggie and Alan take their place at the graveside, opposite my parents. Only Ana hangs back, glaring at me sitting next to her brother. I look for the man who’d been standing towards the back of the cemetery. I can no longer see him.
‘She really hates me.’ Though she cannot possibly have seen the kiss from inside the church – none of them could have – I feel that somehow Ana knows.
Matthew turns his head towards me at last. I want him to say she doesn’t hate me; that he doesn’t either. But instead he regards me with a single raised eyebrow. As if to say, Can you blame her?
The ceremony draws to a close and people begin to drift away, the Temples included. Mum and Tim move back towards the cars, waylaid every few steps by this or that person offering their condolences.
Now everyone has moved away, I take the opportunity to look into the grave. My sister’s coffin nestles within the cold earth, the fuzzy, fake-green grass lining its top. India is inside that pine box, her pale skin mottled, veins black with dead blood.
They say your hair and nails grow for a year after a death. Can that be true? I wonder if someone in the future might dig my sister up again, pore over her bones. Or perhaps the graveyard will be assimilated back into municipal city ground. It might be fought over and sold, bought by businessmen like Alan Temple. Maybe luxury flats will be built on top of her, interring my poor sister’s remains under concrete forever.
I can’t stop any of that happening, but I can still do one thing for India.
‘I will find out what happened to you,’ I tell her.
Seventeen
The wake takes place at the Coach House; the Temples do not come. The long-lost relatives gather in the kitchen, muttering in hushed voices around plates of untouched food, rapidly going stale. I stay as long as is considered proper, then retreat to my room.
I look again at that final blog post of India’s on the iPad. Suddenly, it seems important that I read it on India’s own laptop. Perhaps I could even access the blog itself, see if she’d written any more drafts? I realise the police will have looked already, but I have to see it with my own eyes.
I boot up my sister’s machine for the first time since its return from the police station. Guilt prickles through me. For a meddler (or perhaps because of it?), India was fiercely protective of her privacy.
But I don’t get far. Straight away I’m asked for a password. I make various attempts to guess it, to no avail. After five tries, some kind of security measure kicks in. I discover I can no longer type on the laptop at all; the keyboard is disabled. Locked out! I am beaten at the first hurdle. Damn it.
I’ve never taken much interest in the online world. I can use Microsoft Office, email and Internet Explorer, but that’s about it. Blogs have always seemed utterly pointless to me. Who’d want to read someone’s online diary? Nosy people, I guess: blackmailers or angsty teens.
Regarding the locked screen, I feel the same surge of panic as when I saw Jenny/JoJo leave the cemetery. I choke it down. I may be clueless, but there are others who aren’t. Time to call in the cavalry.
I call up an online business directory on the iPad, searching for computer-repair shops. I call all the chain stores first. But they’re all fully occupied with giving demos and troubleshooting for people who’ve received shiny new systems for Christmas. I then work my way through a list of indie shops, but get only answerphone messages telling me they’re still closed, to re-open after New Year’s Day the following week.
Something occurs to me. I reach inside my bag for India’s phone. I don’t have Matthew’s phone number anymore, but my sister must have it, so Matthew could notify her of any bar shifts he had for her.
Sure enough, I find it filed, not under ‘T’ for Temple, but ‘M’ for ‘Matt’. I smirk when I see it. Matthew has never been a Matt! He answers within two rings.
‘Calling me from India’s phone – seriously?’ Matthew’s already guessed it must be me.
I sigh. ‘Sorry. It was the only way.’
I imagine him on the other end: the muscles in his jaw taut, gripping the handset to his ear, his eyes closed. In my mind’s eye, he is in the Hove flat, standing next to that old bay window we couldn’t open. I know he can’t live there anymore. I realise with a pang I don’t know where Matthew lives. Above Elemental, perhaps? Or worse, he might live with another woman by now. My stomach lurches at the thought.
‘What do you want?’ Matthew’s voice is still curt, but there’s something else there too. It takes me a second to place it: uncertainty. He’s conflicted.
I seize my chance. ‘You know how computers work?’
We both know he does.
‘I have to get inside India’s blog. I need your help. Please?’
There’s a pause as Matthew seems to think this over. I can hear music in the background. There
’s the unmistakable low roar of voices out on the lash. He must be in Elemental. Just as I feel certain he’s about to ask me to come round with the laptop, his mental shutters come down.
‘I’m busy.’
He hangs up. I gape at the handset, unable to believe it, my anger boiling up. Twat.
I cast my eye down the lists of indie computer shops on the iPad again. There are another two or three listed over the page. Going through the motions, with no other option, I stab another number into my phone. It rings … and rings.
Just as I’m about to hang up, a bored voice answers. ‘Mike’s Repairs.’
I stand outside Mike’s manky shop, my arms weighed down by India’s laptop. There’s a grill on the dusty window, a variety of electronics arranged artlessly behind it. The lights are off and there’s a CLOSED sign on the door. I attempt to open it, but it’s locked.
The guy on the phone –Mike, presumably – wasn’t keen on me coming today. He attempted to talk me through a basic jailbreak procedure, but everything he said made no sense to me. However, he soon changed his tune when I offered him an extra one hundred quid – in cash – for his trouble.
I ball up a fist and bash on the glass, making the rickety door shake. A light comes on inside. The door wrenches open. A tall, spindly man stands there, a look of unbridled irritation on his face. His age is impossible to tell: he could be as young as twenty-five, or as old as forty. He’s wearing a checked lumberjack shirt that does not suit him at all. He’d look more at home in a neatly pressed jacket and tie, shined shoes.
‘Mike?’ I enquire.
‘If you like.’ He looks me up and down, then at the laptop in my hands. Something appears to click. ‘Oh, it’s you. From the phone.’
I smile, uncertain. ‘That’s me.’
He steps aside and waves me into his workshop. There’s a large digital clock over the till; it reads 19:16 pm. I put the laptop on a workbench that’s littered with circuit boards, wires and screwdrivers. Mike does not speak or even look at me. He sniffs loudly and gathers a selection of gadgets and gizmos. He plugs one of them into the USB socket of my sister’s laptop.
I’m uncharacteristically nervous. ‘What’s that?’
Mike stares at the screen. A light comes on. His fingers fly across the keys. ‘You wouldn’t understand.’
I let his condescension go. ‘It’s important this laptop doesn’t get fried…’
Mike gives me a look that could wither an oak tree to dust. He continues to tap on the keys for what feels like an age. The silence is a chasm between us. I crane my neck and look sideways to sneak a peak, but can glimpse only countless reams of code. It’s not green and moving, like in The Matrix film, but it might as well be.
Then, the tell-tale, bell-like tone of the Intel processor; the machine starts up. I breathe a sigh of relief. So I haven’t completely broken the laptop, after all.
Mike sniffs again. ‘Do you need anything specific off this machine? Photos, music…?’
‘A blog.’
‘URL?’
I stand there, caught out.
He sighs at my ignorance. ‘The website address?’
Why didn’t you just say that in the first place?? I scream inside, but I keep my cool. ‘1NDIAsummer – one word – then, dot com. Oh yeah: The first ‘i’ is a number one and N, D, I, A in capitals.’
Mike goes back to tapping the keys. ‘You want the email address and all the social-media profiles associated with the blog?’
‘Yes please, everything you can.’
I look around the workshop as I wait. There is a bucket of broken games consoles; another full of old computer towers. Old-style analogue radios line a shelf near the window, even some old clock radios. I haven’t seen one of those in years. I stop myself from reaching out and touching it, for fear of Mike throwing me out. All these things are probably his friends, his babies. I suddenly have an odd vision of him plugging in at night with all of them, his eyes black pools of streaming data, his mouth open in a perpetual hiss of white noise.
‘OK … done.’ Mike turns the laptop around, so I can see. If he’s triumphant, it’s on the inside only: his face is deadpan. ‘So that’s a hundred for the work, a hundred for me to open up; so two hundred, plus VAT. As agreed on the phone.’
I dig in my purse, pulling out the selection of notes I promised. As I do so, I look up at the clock over the till. It now reads 19:27 pm. Just eleven minutes’ work.
I hand the wad of cash over without comment. He takes it and smooths out the notes, placing them in the cash register with an almost reverent air. Then he looks back at me, the intruder. His eyes narrow.
‘Click the Yale back, on your way out, yeah?’ He wanders out the back again, leaving me standing, alone, in the workshop.
Eighteen
Sleeping Beauty
Remember the dolls’ house?
Homemade, like all the best things. Cardboard and wood. Two up, two down. Upstairs, a bathroom and a bedroom. A bath, a toilet with a lifting lid, harvested from an old Barbie set. A matchbox bed, with a carefully stitched duvet. A lamp and bedside cabinet made from lolly sticks. No stairs, the dolls jump from storey to storey. Like magic.
In the kitchen, a French dresser, curved and dainty, found at a tabletop sale for 25p. It was too big for the room, but we didn’t care. A plastic sink, curtains, just scraps of material; a kitchen table made of another matchbox. Little plates, tiny knives and forks. A small sofa and matching armchair, real upholstery. A magazine rack, painted periodicals on display.
Everything was perfect. How we loved it! You said you were too old and only played with it for my sake. But I saw you, playing with it when you thought you were alone. I never said anything.
All kinds of things lived in that dolls’ house, not just dolls. A pink dog with a small blue jumper. A green bird that had a little microphone and would sing back anything you told it. Then one year, a plastic frog from a Halloween party bag. Do you remember it? Red eyes, a squeaker in its belly. A rubber tube led to a bulb we’d hold in our hands: make froggy jump.
It’s still here. In our perfect house. It’s been here all along.
Can you see it?
India xxx
POSTED BY @1NDIAsummer, 15 December 2016
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Nineteen
‘Wake up, Sleeping Beauty!’
It comes to me as I boil water for some microwave noodles. I want to try and tempt Mum to eat. She’s been sitting in front of the television for hours – since coming down from the bedroom this morning. She didn’t even react when I switched it off from across the room with the remote. She stared at her own reflection in the shine of the screen, her gaze directed at something only she can see.
As steam erupts from the kettle spout, like magic, India’s with me again. She’s about twelve and I’m a grumpy eighteen. My little sister, in those stripy green-and-black leggings she loved, jumping up and down on my bed. I’m still in it, groaning; my stomach lurches like the deck of a ship in choppy seas. I’m hungover; my head pounds and my mouth tastes sour and fuzzy – moisture has leached from my tongue as I slept, snoring open-mouthed.
‘Go away!’
I throw the pillow at her. The night before, I was so drunk I fell into bed with my clothes and even my shoes still on. Eyeliner makes black smudges around my eyes and my hair is a bird’s nest. I’m an utter sight. India cackles with glee as she torments me.
Ugly Sister is not about me!
Relief courses through my body. I snatch up the iPad from the kitchen table and re-read the Sleeping Beauty entry, remindi
ng myself of its contents. I recognise the homemade dolls’ house instantly. As children, we spent hours constructing it; collecting pieces for it from charity shops; making other bits ourselves from matchboxes and strips of corrugated cardboard. We saved scraps of material from Mum’s sewing projects, shiny bits of foil from sweet wrappers and sandwiches. It was a work in progress for at least two years. What could have happened to it?
I take the stairs two at a time and appear on the landing. Up above, a hatch for the small crawl space that leads into the roof. I reach up for it, placing hooked fingers into the sides. It’s difficult to get a purchase, especially as it has not been opened in ages. It gives with a sudden puff of dust and stale air. I shriek involuntarily as something long, skinny and black falls onto my shoulders – giant spider’s legs. Then my brain catches up and I realise it’s only a trail of tangled Christmas lights.
There’s no ladder. Feeling reckless and impatient, I climb up on the banister. It’s a precarious position. If I slip, I could windmill backwards and end up landing on my head. At best I could break a leg. But I don’t let myself rake over the possibilities. I reach forward for the hatch, and, with an ungainly leap, I clamber up, into the small roofspace.
My legs still dangling down from the hatch, I allow my eyes to adjust to the gloom inside the tiny loft. I would not be able to stand in here. It’s not big enough, plus there is no real floor. Boxes and bric-a-brac are balanced on the roof joists, yellow rolls of fibreglass cladding between each one. It smells damp, and the scent of old paper permeates everything. A box to the side of me is filled with old receipts and ring binders. Tim and Mum’s accounts for the arcade.
Would Mum and Tim have kept the old dolls’ house? I can see a box to the right of me, two joists away. Unlike the others, it is not marked BUSINESS. I can see some toys sticking out the top: an old rag doll, her face eaten by moths, slumbers on top of a bear with a fading red love-heart on its belly. As good a place to start as any.
