Wonderland

by Joanna Nadin

  I know now it was me and that Stella is just someone I’ve created, conjured up. My Frankenstein’s monster. I go back over conversation after conversation, taking Stella out of the picture, making her words come out of my mouth. And she’s right. It’s me asking Emily what’s her damage. Telling her she’s got a fat girl’s name. Lines from films. Ones I watched with Mum when she was too tired to take me to the beach. To school. That’s where they all come from, Stella’s put-downs. Mum’s old videos. Heathers, The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink. American high-school stuff. The kind Dad hated. Because the teenagers were smart-mouthed.

  Me telling Ed he’s a lucky guy, touching him under the table. Him blushing, saying, “Not now.” To me. Not to her. I feel relief for a brief second. That he didn’t betray me. Then the horror seeps back in.

  It all works. She was never there. It’s like I’ve solved a Rubik’s Cube. Or a Chinese puzzle from a Christmas cracker. Something has clicked into place, and now that it’s there, it’s so obvious. I can’t believe I didn’t see it before.

  I think back to when Mum died. When Stella first came to me. Or I invented her. Whatever. It doesn’t matter now. She showed up at school, in uniform. Yet she never took classes. Her name was never on the register.

  And she waltzed into that game — Handstand Wonderland — the way I had wanted to for months, the way Mum had told me to, showing them that I was as good as they were. Better than them, because I practiced every afternoon after school against the barn. Every night against the bedroom wall. It was me the boys were watching, doing scissors and splits. No wonder Emily hated me. I took her place. Until Stella left and Emily was Queen Bee again.

  Stella left. She left. But I don’t know how. Or why. Maybe I had pills. Like Dad. Prozac or something. But I guess that’s not the point. Because she came back. Because whatever drugs I take, she’ll still be there, somewhere. Buried inside me. Forever.

  Sometime around five I must have fallen asleep. It was getting light. I remember birds. Seagulls outside screeching their presence. I dreamed of horrible things. Babies with two heads. Siamese twins. A girl being sawn in two, each half a living thing on its own. B-movie schlock horror. Victorian freak-show stuff. I run to the bathroom. Morning sickness.

  It’s nine now. I can hear Dad and Alfie downstairs, Mrs. Hickman asking who used up the tea bags and telling Alfie to get some off the shelf. The sound of normal life. The sound of people who don’t know there’s a monster in the attic. Who think I’ve just had a row with my boyfriend, and it will all be all right in the morning. Well, it isn’t.

  I flush the toilet and look at myself in the mirror. Looking for signs of her. That she’s in there somewhere. And there’s nothing weird. No horns. No rolling eyes. But I can see what she’s done to me, what I’ve done to myself, trying to be her. I touch my stomach again. And I know she hasn’t gone. She is hiding, waiting.

  I wash my face. I have work to do.

  I sit at the computer, the door shut so I can flick to Facebook if someone comes in.

  I don’t know what I’m looking for. Anything, really. Anything to tell me what I am. What to do. How to get rid of this feeling, this creature that is lurking in me, destroying me. I type in “imaginary friend,” but I know she’s not that. Imaginary friends are nice, aren’t they? They come to tea. They play princesses, pirates, cowboys and Indians. And they don’t come back when you’re sixteen and sleep with your boyfriend.

  I plow through studies, speculation. But nothing fits. How does it work? How does she do the bad stuff? How does she do things without me knowing? Then I remember. And I type in that line: “All the ways you wish you could be . . .”

  There it is. The truth. She’s not my fairy godmother. She’s my wicked witch. My Tyler Durden. My alter ego.

  There are pages and pages about it. Dissociative identity disorder, it’s called. My ego, whatever that is, has disintegrated. Shocked by some event, some trauma, it has split in two.

  And then it all clicks into place.

  I see Mum that day. Mrs. Hickman picks me up from school, Dad still out in the fields checking the fences. And I run in, shouting her name, waving a picture I painted. But I trip over something in the living room. An arm. Her arm. At first I think it’s a game. Sleeping lions. I laugh and tickle her. But she doesn’t move. Then I see that her eyes are open, but glassy, lifeless. Blood trickles down from her mouth onto the rug. And then Mrs. Hickman is shouting at Ed to get out and pulling me away from the body. And I’m crying and clutching at her nightdress. Then I black out.

  When I woke up, there were two of us. Jude, quiet, obliging. Who never fit in. Who never wore the right clothes or said the right thing. Who stayed on the edge of it all, hoping no one would notice her. Jude the Obscure.

  And Stella, who wanted the world to look at her. Who spoke in practiced, scripted sound bites. Who wore clothes that said, “Look at me. Bright, shining Stella.”

  In a weird way, it makes sense, why that could happen. And I’m relieved there’s a reason. But that’s not enough, just knowing why. I need to know what to do now. How to go back, to before, when it was just me.

  I keep reading, about time lapse now, a sort of memory loss. When specific blocks of time seem to have dropped out of your life. Or sometimes, you can feel like you’ve watched a film, when you’ve actually been part of it. The audition. Mr. Hughes. Blair.

  I read that sometimes we’re both there. We can talk to each other. And sometimes the stronger one — Stella — takes over. And I am just her.

  Then I look for other people like me. But I just find lists of characters from books, films, TV shows. Jekyll and Hyde. That girl in Heroes. Some guy in an old American series called Taxi.

  I click on Jekyll and Hyde, knowing it’s fiction, but hoping there’s an answer there somewhere. That Jekyll killed Hyde off somehow. But it turns out that Jekyll is weak. That his alter ego takes over, then kills them both. And I think of Stella taking over. Of me being swallowed by my bigger, brighter self.

  I return to the list. Sméagol and Gollum. Stephen King’s Odetta. That film Identity, where a guy on death row gets one of his alter egos to kill the others at a flood-bound motel. Nothing useful. Not unless I can get ahold of a knife or a secret potion. But I have nothing else to go on.

  That afternoon I watch Fight Club again. Watch Jack’s sneering revenge create mischief and mayhem. See him with a gun in his mouth. Urging Jack to kill them both. “We’ll be legend,” he says. “We won’t grow old.”

  But I don’t want to be legend. I want to live. I want to go to the Lab. It was me, me who passed the audition, me who is “touched.” And I want Ed. And he wants me. I realize now why he hated Stella. Not because she was a bad influence, but because I was ill. He had to watch me suffer, be torn apart. So I can’t tell him about this. Can’t tell Dad either. Because if they know Stella is back, then they won’t let me leave this place, this nonexistent life. And I will suffocate.

  But I can’t live with this creature, these creatures, inside me. Not just the baby. Her. My Gollum. My Hyde.

  I have created a monster.

  And now I have to destroy it.

  I CLOSE one eye. Pull eyeliner across the rim. Sweeping it up. Like she does. “Live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse,” Stella always says. And I need to look the part. Need to look like I mean it. My hand is shaking, the line blurred. But I don’t have time to wash it off. To start again.

  I’m wearing the dress. The one I bought that first day in Dixie’s. The one I wore that night at the Point. Converse on my feet now. Like Stella.

  I choose a lipstick. Red. The reddest I can find. Mascara. And perfume. Chanel No. 5.

  Done, I stare at my reflection for one last time. Remembering what I look like, in case I never see it again. At least like this. I am tired, bruised circles under my eyes, but beautiful still. In my own way. I see that now. I see her in me. Mum. Her eyes, her smile. And it’s nice to know that part of me is a bit like her.


  I don’t write a note. Because I’m not killing myself. What would I say, anyway? The usual teen blah about darkness and tormented souls and half-lives? Or that I’m too fat, or ugly? Or that Marilyn Manson made me do it? I don’t feel that. I want to live. I do. But if I’m going to live, I need to do it without her.

  I go downstairs. Alfie is watching some wildlife program on TV. A polar bear killing a seal, its blood staining the snow.

  He looks up. “Jude, did you know that polar bear liver is poisonous? It’s because of vitamin A. If you ate one, you’d die.”

  It is seven o’clock. Dad has gone out. Some post office thing. I am supposed to be babysitting.

  I switch the telly off.

  “I was watching that.”

  “We’re going out.”

  “Where?” Alfie is suspicious. Knows I have been told to stay in.

  “Mrs. Hickman’s,” I say. “Get a toothbrush. And pajamas or something.”

  Alfie is full of questions. “Is it a sleepover? Are we going to watch films? Will Ed be there? Can I sleep in the same room as you?”

  “Yes. No. I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “What about Dad?”

  “I’ll leave him a note.”

  And I do. While Alfie packs for his adventure, I scrawl a message on the back of a receipt. My last words, after all. “Gone out. Alfie at Ed’s.” I add an x. Just in case.

  Alfie and I walk up the hill. I can feel him looking at me. At my dress. The makeup.

  “Are you going to a party?” he asks. “With Ed?”

  “No,” I say. “Not a party. Not with Ed.”

  He thinks for a moment. “With Stella?”

  It is strange to hear the name out loud. I nod.

  “Will you come back?”

  He means tonight. But in my head I hear “ever.”

  I cross my fingers behind my back. “Yes.”

  As we reach the church, I can see the Land Rover parked on the curb. Ed is back.

  I knock at the door. See the light of the telly flicker behind the curtains. EastEnders. Her not-so-secret addiction.

  Mrs. Hickman answers.

  “Hi,” I say, smiling. Like the Jehovahs. Selling happiness in the form of a nine-year-old.

  She is not buying it. “Aren’t you s’posed to be babysitting?”

  “Well, I am. But I need to do something. And I wouldn’t normally ask, but he’s been dying to come over.”

  Alfie is peering inside. “Can I watch telly?”

  Mrs. Hickman is won over. “’Course. Go on in, love. There’s biscuits on the table.”

  But I don’t get away so easily.

  “Where are you going, Jude?”

  I don’t have an answer. But then Ed is at her shoulder, saying it’s all right, he’ll sort it out.

  She looks at me. At my breasts half showing, at the lipstick, my hair. Worried. For me, for Ed. But she goes in. To give Alfie milk and cookies. Mum things. And we are left there, inches apart, a gulf between us.

  My stomach fills with butterflies again. Not because of what I’m about to do, but because it means we will never be the same. Everything will be different from now on.

  I am the first to speak.

  “You’re back.” It’s obvious. Facile. I cringe.

  He nods.

  “Was it good?”

  “I guess.”

  I asked for this. I know. The short answers. The shrugs. But it hurts.

  “Ed —”

  “So, where are you going?”

  “I can’t . . .” I trail off. There is so much I want to tell him. About me. About her. That I love him. That I always have, and I always will. But I don’t have time. Just enough for two words.

  “I’m sorry.” And then I kiss him. Hard. With all the love I felt that first time, all the love I feel now that has built up over the years.

  He pulls away. “Jude —”

  “Don’t say anything.” I don’t want to hear it. I know he is scared now. So I kiss him again. And as his eyes close and his lips touch mine, I reach out to a hook behind the door and slip the Land Rover keys into my pocket.

  He watches me from the doorstep walking slowly up the road. I don’t look back. Just listen for the familiar thud of the door closing.

  When it does, I stop. Wait. Sit in the bus shelter, amid the candy wrappers and smell of pee, watching the thunder clouds gather and the rain start to fall.

  Ten minutes later, I run back down the road, keys damp in my palm. Rain soaking me in seconds, slicking my hair to my face like seaweed. I turn the key and the door opens with a clunk, like the volume has been turned up. I don’t move. Worried he will have heard it and come running. Stop me.

  But he doesn’t. The rain drowns out the sound. Like it’s been turned on for me. For this night.

  I climb in, pull the door in gently. Will slam it later when I’m out of earshot. I look at the dashboard. It is years since I drove. Since Dad taught me to steer the tractors, letting me change gear. Then Ed showing me how to drive the Land Rover. Us bouncing up and down the dirt roads, shrieking with laughter, stalling it, nearly backing into the barn.

  I slot the key into the ignition. Pray that it will start the first time instead of its usual coughing diesel splutter. And I am stunned when it does, just slips into life. Without looking up at the house, I slam it into first and let the brake off. Right foot on the accelerator, left foot hard down on the clutch, raising it to find the biting point. But my foot, wet with rain, slips. It revs, metal screeching, and stalls.

  I can see Mrs. Penleaze coming down the road. Frowning at the stranger behind the wheel.

  “Come on,” I say out loud. I turn it off and on again. Into gear. Raise the clutch, depress the accelerator. And it moves.

  I put my foot down, flooding the engine with petrol, putting it into second. Find the windshield wipers. I’m gone.

  I drive up past the houses, then turn left onto the coast road. To where I know she will find me. To where she will leave me at last.

  I am in front of the fence. Facing the sea. Roaring. Tide swelling in the storm. Rain hammering the windshield. And into the noise I scream.

  “Stella . . . come on . . . I’m here . . . There’s no me without you.”

  And I keep on screaming until she comes.

  SHE SITS in the passenger seat, smoking.

  She looks stunning. Wearing one of Mum’s dresses, all corset and black satin. Heels to match. Hair up. Eighties coke whore.

  “Bloody rain. My hair’s a mess.” She fiddles with a strand in the mirror. Then drops it.

  “You look beautiful,” I say.

  She turns toward me. “You too.”

  I smile and look at my reflection in the rearview mirror. My hair bottle-bleached and salt-dirty, my eyes ringed in black, lips stained red. My hands on the steering wheel, knuckles white, the nail varnish chipped, weeks old. Then I look at the Point, falling away in front of us. The wooden fence, broken from where we’ve climbed over it so many times. The ledge below, cigarette-strewn and soaked in lager. And the sea below that. A swirling, monstrous, beautiful thing. Alive.

  Nausea rises in me again, bubbling up, insistent. I breathe in, pushing it, willing it back down again. I don’t know how we got here. How I got here. I don’t mean how I got to this place, the Point, but how I became the girl in the mirror. I don’t recognize myself. What I look like. What I’m doing.

  I used to know who I was. Jude. Named after a song in the hope that I’d stand out and shine. But I didn’t. Jude the Invisible. Jude the Obscure. Everything about me unremarkable. Nothing beautiful or striking, to make people say, “You know, the girl with that hair,” or those eyes. I was just the girl from the farm. The one with no mum. I knew what would happen when I woke up, when I went to school, when I came home. Who would talk to me. Who wouldn’t.

  Until Stella. Now when I look in the mirror, I see someone else staring back. I can’t see where I stop and Stella begins.

  “W
e’ll be legend,” I say.

  I watch Stella as she lights up a cigarette and drops the Zippo on the dash.

  “Like Thelma and Louise,” she drawls. She takes a drag then passes it to me. “But without the head scarves or Brad Pitt or the heart-of-gold cop watching us die.”

  And then I know she knows. And I know she won’t stop me. Because this is the only way.

  “It’ll be very,” she says.

  I take a long drag on the cigarette and, still watching myself in the mirror, exhale slowly. Shouldn’t be smoking, I think. But what difference does it make now? I pass it back to Stella. Then I let the hand brake off and the car rolls forward. I feel it hit the fence, hear the wood cracking beneath us. The car jerks down over the rock. We are at the top ledge now.

  Stella shrieks. Fear? No, delight. Even in death she wants to stand out, shine. She takes my hand. And I am holding part of me. A part that I had longed for. Had begged to return. Like some boy who is beautiful under the strobes and half light of a club, when you’re drowned in vodka or Pernod. But then you see him in the harsh unforgiving light of day, and you realize that you never wanted it at all.

  And so I do it. My one hope of losing her and keeping me. I snatch my hand from her grasp and click open my seat belt. “I’m sorry,” I cry as the car pitches forward. And then it’s like some disaster movie. Fast and slow at the same time. I pull the door handle, desperately pushing against its weight with my shoulder. Stella reaches out and tries to hold me back. My arm flails out and hits her full on the cheek. I feel the pain sear through me. But she doesn’t flinch, just grasps my arm. And I think, I have lost. This is it. It’s over. But suddenly I feel other hands, stronger hands, gripping me hard. Pulling me out. Away from her. I jump.

  For a brief moment, I am in two places.

  I feel my body smack the ground, the crack of my leg breaking beneath me, my skull hitting a rock.

  And I feel Stella flung forward into the windshield. Hear the suck as the sea floods in through the cracked glass. The muffled echoey sound of her pulse as her head goes under. The gurgle as she opens her mouth to breathe and water rushes into her throat and lungs.