Guilt

by Amanda Robson

  Mother and surviving daughter are standing opposite one another, eyes locked. Her mother sees a bedraggled young woman standing in front of her, panda-eyed from lack of sleep, hair tangled, hands trembling. She smells her other daughter’s blood. Her daughter sees the earthy fragility of her mother’s grief. The damage it has done. Grief more virulent than disease.

  Her mother steps towards her. They clamp together. At first, touch replaces words. For a while neither can speak. The more her mother holds her, the more the screaming in her head begins to decrease. Then, slowly, slowly, pushing back the tears, she tells her mother what happened. What her sister did.

  The day of the bail application arrives. She is escorted from her cell by a police officer with friendly eyes and a sympathetic smile. The sympathy cuts into her. She shrugs it away, too emotionally closed down to cope with it. She pulls her eyes away from the officer as they step out into the yard and he hands her to the guard.

  For the first time in days, fresh air assaults her face. She inhales greedily, drinking it like champagne, but before she is satiated, she is shunted into the van – a cattle van. Or at least that is what it looks like. The sort that takes sheep and bullocks to be slaughtered. The sort she has seen so many times rattling up and down the motorway, making her think how awful it must be to be inside.

  Inside such a thing now, in her own pen, which has a seat and a high window. All she can see through the window is sky. She looks up intently. A mackerel sky. Pale blue. White feathers. Beautiful white feathers. She would like to be up there with them, flying and floating, inhaling fresh air. The van sets off, jostling her from side to side. Making her feel sick. Look at the horizon, look at the distance, she tells herself. Her mind rotates towards the feathers in the sky, but still she feels sick. She feels sick as she remembers.

  The van finally judders to a halt in a car park at the back of the crown court. Now her experience becomes surreal. She cannot believe it is happening to her. She feels as if it is happening to someone else and she is looking down upon it from above. Someone else being cuffed to a middle-aged guard with grey hair and dandruff. Being taken in a small lift to a holding cell beneath the court. Sitting on a wooden slatted bench, head in her hands, waiting to be called into court. Someone else turning her mind in on itself to close it down and allow time to pass in a mist.

  After a while, the grey middle-aged guard is standing in front of her again. ‘You’ve got a legal visit. Your brief.’

  She is ushered along a winding corridor, through two metal gates, and escorted into a legal visit room. A man is sitting waiting for her. A man who looks about her age. He stands up when she enters the room. He has golden amber eyes and auburn hair with a wave in it that caresses the top of his shoulders. The shoulders of a rugby player. Smiling at her with a wide dimpled smile. He moves around the plastic table he was sitting at to stand in front of her.

  ‘Hi, I’m Theo Gregson, your brief.’ His voice is strong and deep.

  He takes her hand in his and squeezes it lightly. Her eyes are caught in his. He doesn’t look like a barrister. He looks like the front man in a sexually pumped-up rock band. Springy and virile. About to go on stage to play a riff.

  He removes his hand from hers.‘Let’s sit down and talk about the bail application.’

  He sits back down at the other side of the table; she sits opposite him. He pushes his hair back from his eyes.

  ‘I’ve read the papers so far. Bail isn’t normally granted for the defendant in a murder trial, but you have made it quite clear from the moment the police arrived that you acted in self-defence so I am going to give it a go.’

  She looks into his amber eyes.

  ‘Thanks.’

  Time has melted away. She is sitting in the dock, behind a wall of glass, next to a rotund guard with a red face. She looks across at her mother in the front row of the public gallery, head turned anxiously towards her. She smiles at her across the courtroom. A whisper of a smile, tangled by grief. Her mother is wearing her best black trouser suit and a baggy frilly blouse, which disguises her love handles. Her heart shreds as she looks at her, eyes stinging with tears.

  She searches the courtroom for Sebastian. He is not here.

  The lawyers are sitting at the rows of wooden workbenches in the middle of the court. Richard Mimms and the rock star brief, heads together in deep discussion. Her heart leaps for a second. Are they really going to get her out? Then the heavy leaden feeling in her stomach expands and takes over. Wherever she goes from now on her sister won’t be there. Will going home help? Will her memories of her sister assuage the guilt or make it worse?

  In the distance of her mind, she sees lawyers on the other side of the court. A tall thin brief, talking to a small pretty Asian woman with a neat face. Lawyers from the Crown Prosecution Service. Must be. She can’t bear to look at them. She looks at the floor. At her feet, clad in the sensible flat pumps her mother brought into the custody suite for her to wear. Then she raises her head to check for Sebastian again. He still isn’t there.

  The guard nudges her. The court is rising for the judge’s entrance. A judge with a leonine face, wearing blood-red robes. He enters slowly, gracefully, like a swan or a king. He bows to the court and they sit. He asks her barrister to present his case.

  Theo Gregson stands. Bull-like shoulders. Strong hair escaping beneath his wig, making his wig balance awkwardly on his head, like a small hat. He coughs a little before he speaks. The judge is watching him like a hawk.

  ‘I request bail for my client, the defendant, a responsible citizen. No previous brush with the law of any kind. She has stabbed and killed her sister in self-defence. She made that point quite clear from the initial point of contact with the emergency services. She presents no flight risk or danger to the public.’ He pauses. ‘I request bail in these circumstances as my client’s emotional vulnerability after losing her sister means she should be at home, not in prison.’

  ‘Thank you, Mr Gregson,’ the judge says. His voice is long-vowelled. Almost ecclesiastical.

  Mr Gregson sits down.

  ‘Have the Crown Prosecution Service any comments on this?’ the judge asks.

  A barrister from the other side of the benches stands up. The one she noticed earlier with a long thin back.

  ‘We oppose bail. She is so emotionally vulnerable that she has stabbed and killed her sister. We believe it is safer for all concerned, including the defendant herself, if she remains in custody.’

  The judge frowns for a second.

  ‘Bail denied.’

  THE PAST

  6

  Miranda

  The doorbell rings. I open the door. You step into our box of a hallway holding his hand, eyes stuck to his like plaster. Reluctantly your eyes separate and you introduce him to me. Sebastian.

  ‘Hi,’ he says and fixes his eyes into mine for a second too long.

  ‘Hi.’

  I think he needs a shave. He is wearing designer jeans: pale blue, with carefully placed rips. Well-worn brown suede boots. Black cashmere round-neck sweater. He has a black stud in his left ear – subtle but quirky. I feel his almost-designer stubble as he leans forward to kiss me. He smells of mint. He must have just cleaned his teeth. We move two steps into our sitting room-cum-kitchen.

  ‘Good to meet you, Sis,’ he says.

  ‘Please call me Miranda,’ I reply with a smile.

  ‘Of course, Miranda. Far more glamorous than Sis.’

  ‘Not as glamorous as Sebastian.’

  He grins. His grin is a major weapon in the artillery of his attractiveness.

  ‘I suppose my name is a little flowery.’ He pauses. ‘Not as compact as Jude.’

  ‘What’s Jude got to do with it?’ I ask.

  ‘Nothing.’ He grins again. ‘Just the name of someone I once knew.’

  Zara, you and your lover follow me towards the sofa, wrapped together like a pair of climbing plants. I pour you a glass of wine each, which you untangle yoursel
ves to accept, and then we all sit in a row: Sebastian in the middle on our large brown sofa, my left thigh pressed against his right. I shift away a little. He turns to me and gives me another shot of his grin. I hold steady, lowering my eyes. I don’t grin back.

  He takes a sip of wine and asks, ‘How’s your job going?’

  ‘Hard work. Heavy hours but it’s rewarding all the same.’

  ‘Did Zara tell you I had an interview with Harrison Goddard?’

  I try to suppress a grin. ‘She might have mentioned it; she does sometimes talk about you,’ I say.

  ‘They’ve just offered. Today.’ There is a pause. ‘I’ve already accepted.’

  My stomach tightens. So. My sister’s boyfriend is coming to work in my office. A man with dangerous eyes and an over-exuberant grin.

  ‘When do you start?’ I ask.

  ‘Next week.’

  ‘Be prepared. They like to take their pound of flesh.’

  ‘That’s why I love photography,’ you chip in. ‘It gives me freedom and range.’

  My stomach curdles as you say that. It sounds so pseudy. But it’s true, you have always loved photography, ever since you were a young girl.

  ‘I’m used to it. The firm I came from in London were just the same,’ Sebastian continues.

  ‘What made you leave London?’ I ask for the sake of something to say. ‘Isn’t London the Metropolis? The place to be?’

  ‘I was brought up here in Bristol. My parents still live here. I just wanted to move back to where I grew up. It’s so much smaller, so much more charming than London.’

  Sebastian suddenly loses interest in conversation with me. He leans across and kisses you. You melt together on the sofa like an octopus. When you have finished exploring each other’s mouths, Sebastian retrieves his wine glass from the floor. He looks straight at me, wanting to talk to me once again.

  ‘Any chance of coming to mine for a drink some time, to give me a run-down on the organisation before I start?’ he asks with a smile and a flash of his eyes.

  A few days later, walking to work, pulling my way up Park Street with a heavy file in my bag, I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket. I pick up.

  ‘Miranda.’ His voice is in my ear.

  ‘Sebastian.’

  I hear him breathing down the phone.

  ‘Can you come to mine tonight, like you promised? I really could do with a Harrison Goddard run-down.’

  Promised? Did I? I don’t remember saying that exactly. But he must have got my mobile number from you, Zara, so how can I refuse?

  ‘Tonight OK?’

  ‘I suppose so, yes.’

  ‘No need to sound so enthusiastic.’

  ‘No, I mean it’s fine. I’ll look forward to seeing you.’

  So, after a long day at work, I am visiting his Edwardian house in Clifton. He answers the door, treating me to a swashbuckling grin. There is something maverick about him. Modern-day pirate. Modern-day Errol Flynn.

  ‘Come in,’ he says, welcoming me into a bland magnolia entrance hall, containing nothing but an umbrella stand and a mirror.

  ‘Follow me,’ he commands.

  Out of the entrance hall, into the sitting room of this fine house. A room with patio doors onto the perfectly kept garden. But the room is spiky and cold. No photographs of people. No clutter. No trinkets.

  ‘How long have your family lived here?’

  ‘My mother grew up in this house.’

  Silence for a while. Then: ‘Can I get you a drink? A glass of wine? Whisky? G&T?’

  Leaning towards me, a smile in his eyes. The corner of his mouth curling, as though he is about to laugh.

  ‘A cup of tea please.’

  The laugh. Overegged and resonant.

  ‘Zara said you were a cup of tea kind of girl.’

  I bristle. ‘What’s that meant to mean?’

  ‘Nothing. It was just a joke.’ There is a pause. ‘OK, OK, what would you like? Orange pekoe? Lapsang souchong?’

  ‘Builder’s please.’

  Another laugh. Head back. Raucous. ‘I didn’t have you down as a builder’s girl.’

  ‘I don’t want you to have me down as anything.’

  ‘Make yourself at home. I’ll go and get the tea.’

  He leaves the room. I sink into one of the creamy leather sofas. Pale and elegant. Colourless. I occupy myself by looking around the room. The painting above the fireplace looks like an imitation Rothko – pale rectangles, no subject. There is an unnervingly tidy bookcase: authors filed alphabetically as in a bookshop or library. Bret Easton Ellis, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, Vladimir Nabokov, John Updike.

  Sebastian pads back into the room, carrying a cup of tea for me and a glass of whisky for himself. He hands me the tea and sits next to me on the sofa. I edge away.

  ‘I hear that Zara tells you everything, so you know I’ve been away at university and working in London?’

  ‘I know you have a first-class CV.’

  ‘I understand you do too. Do you think we’re two of a kind?’

  He pushes his eyes into mine. I edge a little further away, and sip my tea.

  ‘What would you like to know about Harrison Goddard?’ I ask.

  ‘Who to avoid. Who to network with.’

  ‘I work in Tax; you’re going to be in Acquisitions. Our departments only overlap sometimes.’

  ‘Pity.’

  He moves closer to me and takes a gulp of his whisky. A greedy gulp. More like a slug. He pats my knee. ‘Come on. You must have dirt on someone?’

  I bristle. ‘Dirt? Is that what this is about?’

  ‘Yes please.’

  ‘Well, I’m afraid I haven’t got any. And even if I had, do you think I’d spill the beans to someone who hasn’t even joined the firm yet?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘You don’t know me very well then.’

  ‘For heaven’s sake, Miranda, you’re so defensive. I’m only being friendly, trying to get to know you better.’

  I smile at him and raise my shoulders. ‘So, dirt, or friendship?’

  ‘Both.’ He pauses. His eyes are trying to play with mine. ‘Or perhaps you could just tell me how come you’re an accountant, and Zara’s an artist?’

  ‘I’m interested in numbers; she’s interested in photography. What’s odd about that?’

  ‘Twins usually like the same things.’ He puts his hand on my arm. ‘Don’t you find?’

  I remove his hand. ‘Not necessarily.’

  His eyes darken. ‘You’re in denial.’

  ‘What am I in denial about?’ I snap.

  ‘I don’t know yet. I’d like to find out. You’re a very pretty girl, Miranda. You and your sister cut quite a swathe. But which one of you is the more passionate?’ There is a pause. ‘You are the first-born twin. Tell me, is it you, do you think?’

  I put my cup of tea on the glass table in front of me and stand up. ‘I don’t want to get involved in a conversation like this.’

  ‘What do you want to get involved in?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  A Machiavellian grin. ‘Adventurous, aren’t you?’

  How has Zara managed to find this man? I suppose good character judgement was never her strong point. So many boyfriends. Never the right one. I’ve never met the right one either, but I’ve not tried so many in the process. At least the men I have had relationships with have been reliable. And polite.

  I leave without saying goodbye. He doesn’t try to stop me. He doesn’t come after me.

  Out through the icing-sugar hallway. Out onto a street, once architecturally pretty, now invaded by multi-coloured recycle bins. Pushing my way through light drizzle. Was he hitting on me? Or just being friendly? Like most women, I have a special gift that helps me to look after myself. A gift that deciphers friendly. I’ll be careful with this man from now on.

  Back at the flat, Zara, I find you rummaging through your portfolio.

  ‘How’d you get on?’ you ask, face lighting up as s
oon as you see me. Golden-brown eyes toasty and warm. ‘His house is nice, isn’t it?’ You pause. ‘Although his parents drive him mad apparently.’

  ‘I’m going to send him a brochure about the firm,’ I say as pleasantly as possible.

  ‘I’m just finishing something off for college then I’m off to see him later.’

  ‘And are you eating with him or with me?’ I ask.

  ‘What’s on offer?’

  ‘Superfood salad. There’s enough for you if you want.’

  You wrinkle your nose. ‘No thanks.’

  The way you disparage my cooking annoys me. But tonight I do not want to eat with you anyway. I want to be alone. I am not in the mood for small talk. I don’t want to let slip my concern that your boyfriend was flirting with me. I leave you sorting out your portfolio, help myself to a portion of superfood, and retire to my bedroom for some peace.

  7

  Sebastian

  Jude, do you remember the time we went walking in the Brecon Beacons, after we’d finished our A levels? Three days walking and camping in the Welsh mountains; not seeing another soul. No shops. No music. Sharp morning light on purple heather. Watching the sun melt across the horizon at the end of the day, leaving us cloaked in the intimate privacy of darkness. Dark, eerie peace.

  Do you remember the night we camped at Pen-y-Fan? Singeing fingers and faces as we hugged the campfire, circled by its light. That night, that moment, the world stopped moving around us. Jude and Sebastian. Nothing and no one else. A complete life. A complete universe.

  I feel like that when I hold my body against Zara’s. Just for a moment, the whole world stops.

  8

  Miranda

  Sebastian started at Harrison Goddard this morning, already there when I arrived, sitting at the opposite corner to me in our open-plan office. At eleven o’clock I watched him weaving between workstations on the way to the coffee machine. His suit tightly cut. Italian. His shirt made of silk. Highly polished, pointy shoes.

  He looked up when I was staring across at him and winked. I didn’t wink back. I just lowered my head and carried on reading the balance sheet I was checking. Later on in the day he came up behind my desk and put his hands on my shoulders. People don’t usually touch me at work. I jumped a mile. I turned around and he was standing looking down at me, brandishing his smile.