Tangerine

by Christine Mangan

  A smile now—a real, genuine one that could not be hidden. “About Sabine.”

  I placed my arms around my waist. I did not want to be there any longer. Not in that room, not in Tangier, not anywhere on the continent of Africa. It was not my home. It had never been my home. All I had done was create an enclosure that I had trapped myself within. I had created the lock and I had given Lucy the key. My stomach lurched and I thought for a moment that I would be sick, there, in the living room, surrounded by John’s things and Lucy’s Cheshire grin.

  “Sabine?” I repeated.

  “Yes.” She turned. “The police will want to know about what happened that day, at Café Hafa.”

  I could feel it then, could feel myself contracting, could feel myself stalling in terror—no, not terror, horror. I remembered that day, the woman, the shattered glass—the blood on the stairs glistening underneath the afternoon sun. The conviction that she was somehow familiar, though I could not place her, but then, of course, I could—the image of her face from that first night, those seconds before I had fainted, the truth of John, of our relationship, laid bare. I could not move, could not speak. I stood there, frozen.

  “What are you talking about, Lucy?”

  She let out a small laugh. “Alice. I know you pushed her.”

  I could feel my blood rushing, could hear the noise whooshing through my ears, pulsing against my eardrums. “I didn’t, Lucy. I didn’t push that woman.”

  “You mean Sabine?” she asked.

  My stomach dropped at the mention of her name, but I forced the panic down.

  I had puzzled over that day already, wondering at what had happened a dozen or so times, never arriving at any explanation. I had seen it play out in my mind, over and over, sometimes imagining that I saw her face in the moments before she fell, the look of terror that shrouded her features, knowing what was happening and unable to stop it. Had I relished it? I wondered, trying to conjure up that feeling again, knowing somehow that I had realized who she was, even then. I looked at Lucy and I fought for words that would not come.

  “I don’t blame you, Alice,” she said, moving away from the window. “I would have done the same. After all, when someone betrays you like that . . .” she said, letting her words trail off, her eyes glowing in the darkness.

  I felt my pulse quicken, felt the shadows in the corners begin to grow.

  “I’m headed to bed now,” I said, feeling my voice as it reverberated throughout my body. “I’m afraid I have a terrible headache.”

  That night I locked the door to my bedroom. I pushed and pulled the heavy wooden dresser from its regular place beside the door, listening with satisfaction as its wooden legs scraped and scratched at the floorboards beneath, thinking about the absurdity of the situation, of the circularity of the whole wretched thing. It took me the better part of an hour—pushing and pulling—but I did not stop, not until at last it formed a barrier, a divide between my room and the hallway, between Lucy and me. I looked down—deep rivulets were now carved into the floorboards beneath. I was glad for the marks, for the permanency of my actions, a record of my resistance. I would show them to Aunt Maude when she arrived, so that she could see everything I had done in order to free myself from Lucy’s grasp.

  She would understand then—and together, we would find a way out.

  Fourteen

  Lucy

  I WAITED SEVERAL DAYS BEFORE RETURNING TO THE PLACE where I had hidden his body.

  I made the journey as much to reassure myself that it was real—that it had happened, that John was well and truly dead and would not somehow reappear, a specter sent to haunt me—as to ensure that Youssef had not meddled with it in the meantime. I waited until Alice was asleep, until the city at last began to doze, before moving quickly through the darkness. My head full, my ears ringing, the humidity seemed to rise with each and every step, ones that brought me, inevitably, closer to him.

  And yet, despite knowing that I would find him where I had last left him—his body wedged beneath a boulder so near the cliff’s edge that not even the locals dared to stray there—it was still a shock to see him, the visceral evidence of my anger. I tilted my head. Under the fractured moonlight, he could almost be mistaken for a tourist sleeping peacefully under the Tangier moon. After it had happened, time had swept by curiously fast, so that I had found myself unusually unsettled, panicked as I strove to move him, his body, toward my intended hiding place—a spot that had once seemed perfect but in that moment felt too far away, too exposed.

  I stood, looking down at him—my former opponent, now defeated, now vanquished. He posed a threat no longer. The ringing in my ears began to ease and the feeling of fullness began to dissipate, as if with my previous thought went all the worry, the anxiety, that had plagued me since my arrival in Tangier.

  I moved closer and, averting my face, began to pull—trying now to unwedge what I had so determinedly wedged only a few days before. I gave him a hard shove, his body already rigid, putrid. My eyes resisted gazing at his skull, at the hollow I imagined there, from the rock that I had hidden behind my back that night, its edges sharp, filled with intention.

  It had made a dull thud when it landed on the crown of his head, the movement itself forcing me to reach up—up and up and up, it seemed, beyond my natural height—so that I had wrenched my shoulder in the process, so that afterward I had reared back, unsteady, worried I had just given him the upper hand. But no, he had already fallen to his knees—in surprise, in hurt, I didn’t know, couldn’t recall, that insistent buzzing had, by then, grown to deafening heights, so that even if he had said something, anything, I most likely wouldn’t have heard it at all. His last words, if there were any, were lost. Only Tangier knew, and I suspected she would keep her secrets.

  Afterward, I had looked at the rock in my hand, at the cold mass smeared in blood, and wondered whether it was a rock at all, or a piece of a tomb that had once housed the dead. I had been forced to suppress a laugh.

  John had stirred then, his face contorting with rage at the realization of what was happening, the ferocity of his emotions somehow managing to knock us both to the ground, so that the rock slipped from my hand. Perhaps he did speak then, my memory suggested. A couple of short declarative sentences, nothing worth remembering—his speech had been slurred, as if he had had too much to drink.

  He had taken the rock, holding it high above his head so that he looked like some grotesque version of a dancer, trying to execute a pirouette. He had started to move toward me, unsteady, the gash on his forehead bleeding heavily, streaming down the side of his face, cloaking him in a slick darkness.

  It happened quickly then. I was up, prying the rock from his fingers—he offered little resistance, as if realizing the futility of it. I brought the rock down, hard this time, and he did not stir again.

  Pushing his body now, my arms shaking with the effort, I wondered at what it had all been for. I stopped at the cliff’s edge.

  We had come to the end.

  Leaning down I gave one final push, the strain, the effort running through each and every part of my body, every sinewy muscle, as if it were required, necessary in absolution of my crime. I stood still, covered in dirt and grime, listening for the splash below, waiting to hear the heralding of the end.

  There was nothing.

  Afterward I stood on the edge of the cliff, looking out at the ocean below, trying to read my future. Alice would not be coming with me, I knew. We would not be traveling to Spain, would not be eating tapas or drinking wine under the setting sun. Paris, I realized dully, would never happen. I saw clearly, for perhaps the first time, that the life that I had envisioned for us would never come to pass. And what was more, I saw why—it was Alice. She was the one who had run away to Tangier, who had left me, alone and broken, in the cold streets of New York. It had been her choices, her decisions that had led us here. The only thing I had done, that I had ever done, was try to do what was best for us, to create the life that
she had claimed to want. Only she hadn’t wanted it, not really. I thought back to her words the other night at the bar and the realization hit, full and hard, so that I heard the ringing, tasted the coppery, metallic tang of it—the truth—in my mouth. She had never wanted me.

  I turned away from the ocean, from what I had done.

  I was not one for last rites and I knew there was nothing to say that would be honest and good. The most I could muster, as I walked away from the breaking light of morning, was that he was with a woman he had loved, for better or for worse, and whatever that love had meant to him, he would be with her, Tangier, for the rest of time.

  In that, John was the luckiest one among us.

  Fifteen

  Alice

  I ARRIVED AT THE DOOR, OUT OF BREATH. THAT MORNING HAD been spent at the bank, trying to withdraw what money was left in the account that I had shared with John, before it was time to leave Tangier for good. I had been dismayed, at first, to find out just how much John had run through, the number causing me to start in confusion as I puzzled over what he had done with the allowance that Aunt Maude had wired each month. At first I had thought of Sabine, had wondered whether she had been another beneficiary who had profited from my parents’ trust. The idea had made me ill, but then I remembered the sight of her face—about what Lucy had claimed—before she had fallen, so young, so frightened, and I no longer worried about how much she may or may not have received.

  I turned the key into the lock, moving quickly, wanting to make sure the flat was tidy before Aunt Maude arrived. I had received a telegram from her only the day before, and though I had planned to meet her at the dock, I had been met with a firm refusal, Maude insisting that I needn’t trouble myself, that a taxi would be suitable and she would meet me at the flat.

  I only hoped that Lucy would be out.

  We had fallen into a pattern, over the last several days. Lucy rose early, disappearing for most of the afternoon, returning only after I had already secured myself behind my locked bedroom door each night. I had worried, at first, wondering whether I should be wary, whether I should be concerned that she did not seek my company as she once had but rather seemed to run from it, anxious to pass the day away from me. It was strange and so unlike her, but I had decided, in the end, that my time would be better spent cleaning, packing, preparing myself for my aunt’s arrival and my ensuing exodus from Tangier. For the moment when I would no longer have to concern myself with Lucy Mason, ever again.

  I stepped into the hallway and stopped. There were voices coming from the living room. A bit of laughter and then a rushed word or two, spoken in a tenor that I recognized as belonging to Aunt Maude. My stomach lurched as I moved quickly, wondering how on earth Lucy had known, wondering too what she had done, what she had said to make Aunt Maude laugh like that—a sound I could not remember hearing in all the years I had known her.

  They sat together on the sofa, the two of them, as if it were the most natural thing in the world, a tray of tea and biscuits before them.

  “What’s going on?” I demanded.

  Aunt Maude looked up, startled. “Alice, there you are.” She stood, crossed the distance between us, and gave me a brief, perfunctory hug. “I was early, but Sophie was here to let me in.” She frowned at my expression, which was, I knew, frozen in fear, in terror—at finding Maude here, with her, and all the implications that hung around that one simple fact. “Alice, what’s happened? You’ve gone pale.” She began to step toward me, saying, “The police have told you, then?”

  I looked at Lucy, sitting there, perched on the edge of the sofa. She was, I noticed, wearing that same black, belted dress she had first arrived in. Her disguise, I realized now. “That’s not Sophie Turner,” I replied, ignoring my aunt’s question.

  Maude frowned. “What on earth are you talking about?” She turned around, toward Lucy. “Do you have any idea?”

  Lucy’s face collapsed with concern. “I think perhaps it’s the stress of the situation. As I said on the telephone, she hasn’t been herself since John’s disappearance.”

  “She’s lying,” I snapped, so that Maude turned to me in surprise. “Everything Lucy says is a lie, it always has been.”

  “Alice,” Maude began, quietly, “I think you’re confused, dear. I think you’re mixing up what happened with John with what happened before, with Tom.”

  “No, no, I’m not,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Yes, dear,” she replied, her hands clutching at her throat, that same gesture of worry, the one trait that we shared, the one visible proof that the same blood ran through our veins. “You told me yourself about Sophie staying with you, only a few days ago. Don’t you remember?”

  I shook my head, unable, in that moment, to find a way out of my own lies. And then I remembered her earlier words. “Have the police told me what?” I asked.

  She stopped, confusion sweeping her features. “I assumed that was why you looked so upset. That you had just come from the police.”

  “What’s happened?” I demanded.

  Lucy stood. “Alice, the police were here earlier. I’ve told your aunt what they came to see you about—a group of fishermen found him, down by the port. John, I mean.” She paused, her face a picture of concern. “They’ve been looking for you.”

  “For me?” I asked.

  “Yes, Alice,” Maude replied. “They need you to identify him.”

  I had been right, then. John was dead, just as Tom was dead.

  I crossed the distance between us in only a few short steps, ignoring the shock on my aunt’s face, the amused surprise on Lucy’s own.

  I grabbed at her handbag, tearing it away from her.

  “Alice,” Maude cried, “what are you doing?”

  I ignored her, rummaging through the bag, searching for what had to be there, knowing that not even she could have foreseen this. “Her passport,” I said, my hand grasping onto the small booklet at last. I tossed the handbag aside, watching Lucy flinch as it clattered onto the ground, a silver compact landing facedown, its powder crumbling, covering the tiled floor. “Here,” I said, thrusting the booklet toward my aunt. My hand faltered, though only for a moment, remembering as I did so the incidents at Bennington with the bracelet, with the photographs. I brushed away a stray piece of hair that clung, stubbornly, to the sweat on my forehead. It did not matter, I reminded myself. That was a different time, a different circumstance. Back then Lucy had planned it, plotted each and every step, so that there was nothing I could do but fall into the trap she had set for me. Now, she was acting only on instinct. She was reacting to my refusal to yield, the denial of which had caught her off guard, unaware. I could see it, written plainly across her face.

  “Open it,” I commanded my aunt. “Open it and you’ll see she’s lying. You’ll see that she’s not Sophie Turner. That she’s someone else entirely.”

  “And who is that?” Maude demanded.

  “I’ve already told you,” I said, my voice pleading. “Lucy Mason.”

  She let out a noise of frustration. “Oh, Alice.” She shook her head. “How are we back here again?”

  “No,” I said, refusing to listen. “You’ll see, this time you’ll see that I’m right. Just open it.”

  Aunt Maude sighed, holding the bundle between her fingers, as though she dreaded to open them, dreaded even to touch them. But why, I wanted to shout, why when they would prove her niece right, when they would cast suspicion and doubt onto the woman, the stranger sitting beside her, instead of on her flesh and blood?

  “Auntie, please,” I whispered, hating her in that moment for forcing me to ask her to choose her own niece.

  “Very well.” She sighed, opening the pages.

  I waited—for the frown of confusion, the inevitable anger once Maude realized she too had been taken in by the seemingly innocuous girl sitting on the sofa before us.

  And yes, there it was. I smiled in relief—watching as a frown stole over her features, the lines between
her eyes folding, deepening. I watched as she handed Lucy the papers—wanting, I knew, an explanation. My body arched toward them, eager to hear the excuses that Lucy would produce, knowing that there was nothing she could say, nothing that would save her this time.

  But then Lucy was placing the papers into the pocket of her dress, and Maude was settling back onto the sofa.

  “What’s happened?” I demanded. “What has she done?”

  Maude shook her head, as though disappointed. “Sophie hasn’t done anything, Alice.”

  I struggled to breathe. “Why are you still calling her that?” I shook my head, trying to understand. “You saw her passport, you just looked at it.”

  Maude nodded. “Yes, Alice, I did.”

  I looked from Maude to Lucy and back again. The two of them, the pair of them, sat gazing up at me, their faces steely and hard. It struck me then just how similar they were—strong and sometimes distant, hard and oftentimes unyielding. I wondered how I had never seen it before. And then, the thought flickered across my mind, even though I knew it was nonsense, that it was a thought of desperation, of madness, and yet still, looking at them, together, I wondered whether it was possible—whether they were in on it together. If this, all of this, wasn’t for the sole purpose of driving me mad, of putting me away forever. It would make Lucy glad to know that I would never belong to another, that locked away, no one would ever touch me. And Maude? I thought of the trust that would be mine within a short time, of her role as my guardian. It was insane, it was madness, and yet I could not help but think that it all made sense.

  “Why are you doing this?” I whispered, my voice cold and still.

  “Doing what?” Aunt Maude asked.

  “This,” I said, willing my voice to remain steady, calm. “What was on that passport?” I demanded, realizing that I had not seen it myself, had not seen the words written beside the photograph.

  Maude watched me, coolly. “What do you think was on it, Alice?”