by Fiona Neill
I turn on the computer and log into my emails and am both surprised and delighted to see that Lisa has finally sent me a message with an attachment, just half an hour ago. I have the brief hit of self-satisfaction that comes with managing to convince someone to do the right thing. I open the attachment to check she has filled in everything correctly but it doesn’t contain a scanned copy of the consent form. Instead there’s a picture of a poster that she used to have hanging in her bedroom in Norfolk. I recognize it immediately. Lisa was obsessed with the Pre-Raphaelites because their messy lives resonated with her own, but I was always disturbed by this picture of Ophelia being swallowed up beneath the murky waters because it was like watching someone drown. There are two words written across the bottom of it. Thank you. Followed by a flurry of overblown Lisa-style kisses.
At least it gives me an excuse to write back to ask when she is going to send the consent forms. But as I type her name into the email I realize that the letters Daisy has covered up spell LISA.
I understand what this means right away: Daisy’s having a relapse. After Nick left me and we spent months exchanging angry emails about why Daisy and Max wouldn’t stay with him, Daisy finally revealed that the real reason she couldn’t go was that if she touched something Lisa had touched, it made her so anxious about me that it would prompt round after round of compulsions. Lisa was a trigger for her OCD. It was obviously utterly illogical, and Nick really struggled to grasp that I wasn’t trying to poison the already shaky relationship between him and Daisy. It marked the moment that I truly knew Daisy was possessed by the illness.
I look at the picture on the screen and the hidden letters and am gripped by a fear that starts in my stomach and spreads through the rest of my body until it feels as though I’m on fire. For a moment I can’t move. I can’t hear myself think and I furiously rub my temples to try to work out the connections between the hidden letters on the keyboard and the picture that Lisa has sent.
I head back into the sitting room to frantically search for my phone and eventually find it stuffed down the side of one of the sofa cushions. Barney doesn’t stir. When I turn it on I see that there are three missed calls from Daisy at around three o’clock in the morning and a text message asking me to get in touch because she’s worried about Max. I think of the notebook I found in Max’s bedroom revealing how involved he was in Daisy’s illness and realize he is the missing link.
The past has never seemed more present.
20
Max
I wake up in the morning and stretch my arm across the bed to reach for Connie, wondering which part of her I will touch first. The only other body I know as intimately as hers is that of my cadaver, Jean. The thought makes me smile. Sometimes, when I can’t sleep at night because I’m missing her too much and the dark thoughts that she might be with someone else gather overhead, I soothe myself by doing an imaginary inventory of her body as if I’m in an anatomy class: I visualize the shadowy dimples above each buttock, the dainty map of wrinkles on her elbow bone, the soft downy hair in the nape of her neck, and her bony right ankle with the tiny scar from a childhood ice-skating accident. Somehow, the knowledge that I know her best calms me down and makes her mine again.
As soon as my fingers touch the warm tangle of sheets beside me I realize that she has gone. And almost immediately I understand that unless I find her right away we will most likely never see each other again. I sit up, get out of bed and throw on yesterday’s clothes in a single motion, managing a quick glance through the bedroom window to see that it’s getting light outside, which means it must be around six thirty. The curtains are wide open. Did I mention I have never slept with them closed since the summer Daisy first got ill?
I stub my toe on the edge of the chest of drawers as I stumble through the door and head down the stairs, two at a time, still fumbling with my T-shirt. If I’m fast enough I might just catch her. The front door is ajar, giving me confidence that I’m on the right track. I pull on the first pair of shoes that I find in the porch, which happen to be leather sandals belonging to that mad hippy friend of Lisa’s. I feel the imprint of his foot in the sole and it repulses me.
It’s still half-dark, so that the shrubs either side of the driveway are shadowy, monstrous shapes whispering taunts in the breeze as I edge down towards the front gate. When I reach the road I turn left, simply on the basis that this was the route Barney chose on his reckless road trip with me all those years ago. But luck is with me this time. I hear the low rumble of a car engine and in the far distance I see a neon sign flashing on the roof of what must be a taxi come to collect Connie. It’s parked beside the field where Barney saw the judgemental cows. Country music plays in the background.
I set off on a very slow jog down the road, hobbled by the dark and the straps of Gregorio’s child-sized sandals cutting into my feet. Mustn’t shout out. Mustn’t shout out. Mustn’t shout out, I tell myself. Because Connie will hear the desperation in my voice and it will push her even further away from me. I have been mad with jealousy since I discovered the truth about her and Carlo. I decided right away not to confront him because he would have questioned my indignation. Last term he watched a couple having sex in the flat opposite through half-drawn curtains and when I suggested this demonstrated a certain moral ambivalence he argued that, on the contrary, he had managed to resist the urge to film them and post it on YouPorn.
But last night, when it was my turn to pose a question to Connie, I made the mistake of asking her if she was being distant with me because she had slept with Carlo. She said she was fed up with my insecurity and my stupid games and suggested I should try to find a girlfriend closer to me in age because: ‘Frankly, it’s getting boring.’ She lay down with her back to me and refused to let any part of my body touch hers.
I couldn’t sleep and ended up going into the kitchen at around three a.m., where I sat on Lisa’s wicker recliner drinking beer and watching episodes of True Detective on my iPhone, finding comfort in its nihilistic prophesying about everybody being a nobody. My phone died six minutes before the end of episode seven. So I ransacked the kitchen drawers searching for a charger and, hidden beneath a bunch of clean tea towels, I found a plastic file containing paperwork with Mum’s neat handwriting across the top and Lisa’s original letter to her. I sat down on the recliner, heart racing, as I tried in my drunken, exhausted state to work out what all this meant. But it didn’t require True Detective powers of deduction to conclude that Mum had been to see Lisa and offered her a place on her clinical trial. I couldn’t believe it. This would completely tip Daisy over the edge. I felt furious with Mum, but of course she had no idea what was going on with Daisy, so I turned my sights on to Dad and Lisa and sculpted my hatred until it had turned into something cold and hard.
At some point I heard a sound in the kitchen and looked over the edge of the recliner to see Daisy open the drawer where the knives used to be and then head upstairs again. I remembered how Dad had recited Daisy’s special words yesterday in a pathetic effort to get close to her. The noose around my neck tightened. I went up to bed and tried to wrap myself around Connie but she shook me off, like Barney shook me off when I tried to explain to him about the ladybirds eating the aphids all those years ago. I had tried to talk to her about Daisy’s illness yesterday afternoon but she explained in an apologetic tone that she wasn’t invested enough in my family to want the backstory. It’s not that she has fallen out of love with me. She was never in love with me.
The early-morning damp and cold wrap themselves around me. I pick up pace and soon I’m close enough to hear someone speak. But now I’m here I panic about what to do. I curse my decision to invite Connie to the wedding. Far from cementing our relationship, it has exposed all the cracks. I thought with her by my side I would feel invincible. Instead I feel as out of control as I did in the car with Barney. I’m paranoid the real reason she wants to leave is because she’s aware Carlo will be home alone.
The taxi driver sit
s patiently with his window wound down, singing along tunelessly to ‘Jolene’. I hear raised voices. To my complete surprise Dad is standing at the rear of the car, fully dressed, his back to me. His arms windmill in the air as if he’s remonstrating with Connie. It’s something he does when he’s not getting his own way. In my sleep-deprived state I guess that he caught her leaving and is trying to persuade her to stay. My mood lifts slightly. It’s a stroke of luck that he found her, because otherwise she would have been long gone. Although his gesture is futile – no one can will a relationship into being – I’m touched by his attempt to help: after years of Mum picking up the pieces, he’s finally there for me.
It’s getting lighter. I expect them to turn round and see me at any moment. I still hold out hope that Connie will relent when she sees me. I am fleetingly distracted by the sound of a flock of geese flying overhead, which is why I don’t remember the exact choreography of what happens next. But when I look at Dad and Connie again the night has lifted enough for me to see clearly that they are embracing like a drunken couple holding each other up for support. Connie whispers something like, ‘Lisa knows,’ but my attention is more taken up by their body language. Neither wants to let the other go. Her sleek head nestles in his shoulder and his lips are pressed to the top of her head like he’s giving her a blessing. His eyes are closed. Eventually, she untangles herself and gets in the taxi. Connie has never shown this kind of emotion towards me. It is a simple statement of fact.
I turn back before they can see me and throw Gregorio’s sandals into the side of the road so I can move faster. Instead of going back to the house I follow the track down to the beach. There is no plan beyond the need to keep moving.
The dawn sky over the sea has started to bleed different shades of red and pink, but behind me it’s still dark. I remember Mum telling me that one of the best things about Norfolk is that, because it faces north-east, you can watch the sunrise and sunset from the same vantage point. I wish she were here now because I’m overtaken with the feeling of being both too young and too old to understand the world around me. Mum has an amazing ability to make sense of the incomprehensible. She always knows the right thing to do.
Overhead the geese continue to honk their way across the sky, looking out for each other like family should. I walk without purpose. When I reach the beach I head for the bunker in the dunes. The circle of shells from yesterday’s wedding is still there. I kick each one over the edge of the roof, even though it hurts my bare feet, and I’m denied any destructive pleasure because they lump soundlessly on to the sand below.
I sit down facing the sea, with my legs dangling over the edge, like I used to as a child. Its slate-coloured surface is calm and beguiling as it emerges in the early-morning light. When I scan the beach I realize I’m no longer alone. A small figure appears in the right-hand corner of my sight line. The offshore wind blowing from the sea stings my eyes and blurs my vision but after a few blinks I realize that it is The Second Mrs Rankin, as Ava refers to her mum. Everything Ava says is pickled in self-defensive irony. But I envy the freedom she won by turning her back on all of us.
I have endlessly replayed this image of Lisa walking across the sand but, contrary to what Dad maintains, the detail remains stubbornly the same. She’s stooped over, head bowed against the wind, walking slowly but decisively towards the sea, her hands deep in the large pockets of Dad’s coat. She pauses roughly halfway between the dunes and the water to get down on one knee and examine something in the sand. She pulls off her gloves. I put my hand against my cheek and realize how cold it is.
The full moon overnight means all sorts of crap belched on to the shore in the high tide. Lisa picks something up and puts it in her pocket. I later discover that it’s a piece of sea glass and wonder if she planned to give it to someone. When she pulls herself up again she walks with renewed purpose towards the water’s edge, leaving the gloves lying on the sand. She stops and stares a while.
She shrugs off Dad’s coat from her shoulders on to the damp sand. She’s wearing the same dress from yesterday and stands as still as a mast while the floaty satin billows in the breeze, then, almost as an afterthought, removes her shoes and walks towards the sea. Hardy types, these Norfolk folks, I think, as she steps in and lets the waves break around her calves. Mum is the same. She would swim if she were here. But The First Mrs Rankin has been usurped by The Second Mrs Rankin and can no longer come back to her childhood home.
I’m puzzled why Lisa lets the sea lap at the hem of her dress because Dad is fanatical about the corrosive properties of saltwater. The waves are breaking so close that the dress is quickly soaked by the spray. She half pirouettes, turns her back to the water and stretches her arms in the air. At first I think it is some weird ritual Gregorio has taught her. He’s always banging on about how the sea cleanses your soul. But then I realize that she is pulling off her dress until she stands in her bra and knickers. I feel embarrassed to be watching her, like some dirty Carlo-style voyeur. She unhooks the bra and throws it with the dress on to the sand and I see her breasts swinging slowly with the effort. I noticed how weak she was yesterday when she tried to climb up the dunes.
If I were Carlo I might go down to the water’s edge and try to seduce Lisa as a way out of all this. But my entire life I have always done everything right. I have never lied about being ill when I wasn’t. I have never cheated at school. I have never got any grade below A in a public exam. I have never been unfaithful to a girlfriend. Or logged on to a friend’s Facebook and sent porn to all their contacts. I have not done any of these things and yet where has it got me?
I watch Lisa, wondering if she is attempting to dig her feet into the sand beneath the waves so that she can stand steady. I used to do this as a child. The currents beneath the surface are strong enough to take down a heavy man, let alone a frail woman. But instead she keeps walking, legs apart, cowboy-style, taking small toddler steps further into the water, arms out to the side to maintain equilibrium. I watch and wince. Her ankles will be numb. The air temperature can’t be any more than four degrees, which means the sea must be about eight. The water laps at her waist. Suddenly she cartwheels beneath the surface like a synchronized swimmer doing a sideways dive. It’s difficult to tell whether it’s by accident or design. I wasn’t expecting that. I stand up on the roof of the pillbox to get a better view.
She comes up and shakes her head like a dog. A wave crashes over her and for a second she disappears again. I blink a couple of times and see her break to the surface a few metres further out. I’m pretty sure she’s doing front crawl but it’s difficult to tell because she slips in and out of view as the waves rise and fall. The current is strong and for a while it looks as though she’s swimming on the spot. She stops for a moment and tries to stand. But it’s too deep so she flips on to her back, arms flapping beside her. I swear she’s staring straight at me. She disappears and when I see something in the water again I wonder if it could be the bobbing head of a seal. When I was little, Daisy used to terrify me with tales of women who turned into seals called Selkies and how they used to swim as far as they could and cry seven tears into the ocean to attract a Selkie male.
I look up at the huge sky. It’s burnished red and orange. I remember how I used to be able to comfort Daisy by demonstrating her insignificance in the world. It’s incredible how she thinks she has the power to control events with her thoughts whereas I feel so utterly impotent. Life is something that just happens to me: Dad going off with Mum’s best friend; Daisy’s illness; Carlo’s treachery; and the scene I just witnessed in the road. Whatever was happening there, the intimacy and intensity of that moment between Dad and Connie had nothing to do with me.
My chest tightens until it feels as if someone is slowly squeezing my neck. I am back in class with Carlo sitting beside me, the scent of Connie still on his body as the lecturer talks. ‘Anxiety comes from the Latin angere, to choke.’
I am nineteen years old. I know too much and too lit
tle. I don’t have a belief system beyond a desire to mend broken people and take care of my mum and sister. When I look out to sea again Lisa is swimming in open water, arms moving as methodically as a metronome further and further away from the shore. Should I go in after her? I weigh it up in my mind as if I’m in an ethics class.
It’s a simple equation: if Lisa survives, Daisy doesn’t. And she will take me down with her, because I can no longer tell where she starts and I end. This is our chance to cut free from each other.
I stare at Lisa in the same shocked way that Daisy stared at her from this same location that afternoon eight years earlier. We’re back at the beginning. But this time I’m writing my own story. I see a hand waving but I can’t tell which way she is facing any more.
She slips under the water.
Acknowledgements
Heartfelt thanks to my editor Maxine Hitchcock and my agent Jonny Geller, and all the good folks at Penguin and Curtis Brown. I’m truly fortunate to work with such wise and dedicated people. Big thanks to Phil Robertson for keeping the faith and digging me out of the troughs. I’m indebted, as always, to my first readers Helen Bairamian, Helen Townshend and Henry Tricks for their honesty and encouragement. Thanks to my daughter Maia for allowing me to exploit her proofreading skills, and my husband Ed for putting up with it all. For feedback on early drafts and encouragement when I needed it most, thanks to Charlotte Simpson-Orlebar, Annabel Mullion, Lisa Goldstein and Annie Woolf.
Finally, thank you to the wonderful medics who helped me with my research: Professor Ian Smith at the Royal Marsden, and Sarah Halford from Cancer Research UK. And to all those OCD sufferers out there, I hope this shines some light on a much misunderstood illness.
