Being Arcadia

by Simon Chesterman

  It is only seconds since the smash of the bottle, but the fire has made no sound. When the scream escapes Moira’s lips it is more animal than human. More than pain, it is a cry of rage and frustration. This, surely, is not how Moira’s final act was to play out: destroyed by her own weapon, dropped at her own feet. The other her cannot outrun the flames that trail her, yet now she races to the end of the elevated walkway. Stairs lead down to the ground beyond the mock hotel room but she cannot see. She stumbles. Hands still covering her face, she falls, disappearing behind the wall to land with a thud on the grass outside, wisps of smoke curling towards the marquee above.

  “My God…” Henry begins, perhaps shocked at what he has done. But there will be time enough to deal with Moira’s return and departure. For now, the fire from the walkway has engulfed the wall of the hotel room farthest from the door. And, true to her word, the carpet that would normally be fire-resistant has also ignited and a sheet of flame moves towards the three of them.

  Smoke fills the room; even without a ceiling, soon there will not be enough oxygen to remain conscious. If it were possible to remove oxygen from the room completely, that would extinguish the fire—but also the lives of anyone inside. Nor is there any means of taking away the fuel or reducing the temperature. Flee, then.

  Beside her, Dr. Bell is coughing but knows enough to back away from the flame and move towards the door. Henry is motionless. It is a waste of oxygen, but she needs him to listen: “Henry,” she calls. “Time to go.”

  He shakes his head as if to clear it and moves to the door also. On the walkway above them, his phone smoulders.

  The door is locked and Moira said they only had one chance to open it. To do so, she has left them what is now her final problem. Dr. Bell is guilty and looking at Arky; Arky is looking at Henry, who is innocent.

  “Oh crap,” Henry says after a futile attempt to push the door open. “Moira and her bleeding puzzles. What did she want us to work out? Is a guilty person looking at an innocent one? You can’t tell—we don’t know whether this ‘Arky’ is guilty or innocent. So it’s got to be number three.”

  He reaches for the button but this time she grabs his wrist. “Wait,” she says firmly. There is more to this problem. “We don’t know if she is guilty or innocent. But we do know that she is either guilty or innocent.”

  The heat is becoming as oppressive as the smoke and they now crouch near the door, Dr. Bell continuing to cough uncontrollably. Explanation can wait until later. But if the Arky in the problem must be either guilty or innocent, then even though it is impossible to know which she is, either she is innocent and being looked at by Dr. Bell, or she is guilty and she is looking at Henry.

  Reaching up, she presses the mirrored symbol for “1” and there is a click as the magnetic lock releases. The door opens and they stumble outside, flames beginning to climb from the walls of the stage to the marquee above. Dr. Bell is struggling to stand, so she and Henry take one arm each and pull him out onto the lawn. Fresh air fills their lungs and they collapse onto the grass, noticing for the first time the cries of a gathering crowd and the peal of a fire alarm.

  She turns to watch as the marquee burns, an acrid smell filling the air. The plastic of the tent must have been treated also, accelerating the conflagration. Then the aluminium frame begins to buckle and the marquee collapses in on itself like a marshmallow left to roast too long, a funeral pyre for the twin sister she never got to know.

  2

  LOST

  It is late afternoon when she reaches Mother, just before dinner is served at the small hospital near the Priory School. Nurses and orderlies give her a familiar smile, but there is pity in their eyes as they carry on their business or simply look away.

  After passing the one-year mark, the chances of Mother waking from her coma have moved from slim to all but non-existent. In their gentle way Aunt Jean and Uncle Arthur, her guardians since the attack on her parents, have begun suggesting that Louisa—Mother—might not have wanted to live like this for months, for years.

  Rationally, she knows this. Rationally, there is no basis for expecting any change, any improvement. Though there are stories of miraculous awakenings after a decade or more, these fairy tales tend not to dwell on the quality of life after recovery. Rationally, Mother is already dead.

  And yet. Standing beside Mother; holding her hand, warm but limp. She cannot simply look at this through actuarial tables of survival and recovery. Mother was reduced to this state by her former Headmaster. Milton killed Father on the same night, part of a crazed plan to move Arcadia from their care to his, the better to develop her intellectual powers. None of this would have happened had she not tugged at the web of lies enveloping her school. At the time, she thought she was at the centre of an experiment—a laboratory rat being observed and prodded. Milton admitted that much, before he was killed by Miss Alderman. The substitute teacher had inveigled herself into the Priory School to observe her, but ended up saving her life. Later, Miss Alderman had asked Arcadia to forgive her, but could not bring herself to say for what.

  All that changed when she met Moira. A twin but more than a twin, Moira’s genes were manipulated to enhance her intelligence. Arcadia might be bright, but Moira is—was incandescent. Before Lysander Starr was killed in the explosion, Arcadia learned that she was not at the centre of an experiment but merely the control—an expendable placebo. Moira was the true test subject, the rat that escaped its lab. And now she is gone.

  Normally, Arcadia introduces herself to Mother when she visits. She might talk about the weather, about school. Today she simply takes out her violin and plays.

  After the fire, as the flames of the burning marquee died down, police came to take their statements. She watched two paramedics carry a stretcher from the smouldering remains, a blanket covering the body from head to toe. As they stepped from the lawn onto the paving stones, a black sleeve flopped over the edge of the stretcher, a charred hand dangling as if it were waving. She looked away.

  There was no point dissembling now, so she told the local police officer all. Or most of it. That she had an estranged, unstable, twin sister who had tried to kill her. Although even that wasn’t quite true—once again, Moira had given her a test and she had passed. The consequences of failing would have been severe, but what were to be the consequences of succeeding? She explained to the officer that she had been adopted and did not know the full circumstances of her sister’s upbringing, that they met only once before. Why had she not reported that at the time, the officer asked.

  Why indeed? At the time she thought she might be able to find out more without interference. But a year ago Moira and Miss Alderman both vanished, even as Starr’s death removed her closest connection to the experiment. Magnus tried to help track down more information but the trail went cold. And, she has to admit, learning that she was the control in an experiment—rather than its focus—diminished the urgency of her search. Milton’s attack on her parents was not part of a grand conspiracy, as neither he nor Miss Alderman knew of Moira’s existence. It was a tragedy, but a meaningless one.

  To the police officer, all she said was that it had been a shock to discover she had a sister and that no harm had actually been done beyond the fire. She did not link Moira to the death of Lysander Starr—or mention the unfortunate Mr. Pratt, another teacher whose death had been classified as a suicide. The officer noted all this down, took her contact details, promised to be in touch. As the attacker in this incident had died, there would be inquiries into her identity and the circumstances of her death—but further action by the police was unlikely.

  Dr. Bell was profuse in his apologies as she and Henry walked back to the Porter’s Lodge to collect their luggage for their return journey to the Priory School. “I’m so relieved that no harm came to you,” he said, still shaken by the episode. “Indeed, it is I who owe you a debt of gratitude for saving my life on a second occasion.”

  “It’s hard to believe that Moira is g
one,” Arcadia replied.

  On reflection, it is almost impossible to believe. Moira’s capacity to plan, to take contingencies into account—how could she die in such a banal way: by dropping the weapon that consumed her?

  “What did Moira mean when she said ‘It’s always apples’?” she asked as they arrived at the Lodge.

  “I haven’t the foggiest idea,” Dr. Bell mused. “I never met the girl before. I’m discounting, of course, the occasion when she drugged me and I woke up with a bomb strapped to my chest. Perhaps on that occasion there happened to be an apple on my desk?”

  Perhaps. It was hardly the strangest thing Moira had said or done. Dr. Bell bade them farewell and she and Henry departed the college walls to wait for the bus.

  The music leaves her bow, vibrating strings of the violin coming to rest with the final note. In the small room there is a slight echo, molecules of air carrying the memory of the tune until they, too, return to an equilibrium of random motion and silence.

  She places the instrument back in its case and takes out one of Mother’s diaries. She has read all three journals now, each begun at a turning point in Mother’s life. The first recounts her courtship and marriage to Father. The second covers Magnus’s birth and early years. The final volume, the one that Moira sent her after stealing all three, focuses on her own birth and development. The entries are not daily; sometimes months go by with only a word. But it is a window into Mother’s past, and the only way in which her voice reaches the present.

  Occasionally she reads aloud from the diaries, choosing a page randomly. Though she and Mother share no genetic bond, years of conversation mean that she hears echoes of Mother even as the words leave her own mouth. Nature and nurture once again. Today she flips to the last pages that Mother wrote in the third diary, the volume that tracks her own life from birth to this final vignette:

  3 January 2007—I can’t believe Arky turns seven on Saturday. Magnus says it feels more like seventy years, but he’s just grouchy because Arky chose carrot cake over chocolate.

  She finally told me today what she wanted for her birthday: a diamond! How simply delightful, I thought. My baby girl is starting to get interested in princesses and jewellery at last. Then Ignatius told me it was for something called a Mohs scale. Apparently it measures how hard things are on a scale of one to ten by seeing if one of them can scratch the others. She’s got her hands on nine stones from talc to topaz and this will complete the set. Ignatius thinks he can get an industrial diamond that won’t break the bank. And there I was about to go shopping for earrings.

  She pauses and takes Mother’s hand. “I’m sorry I was never a very ‘girly’ girl,” she says. “But I did love the diamond you and Father got me. And I still have the Mohs scale—though topaz is only number eight.”

  She keeps reading:

  For the umpteenth time, I told Arky the story about the blind old woman and the bird. I think she understands it now, but I’m not entirely sure if that means that she gets it in her heart as well as in her head. I hope she does.

  Come Saturday we’ll draw another line on the doorframe. I’m resigned to Arky never being tall—it’s like her body puts all of her energy into that brain of hers. But she’s strong, stronger than Magnus even. (I’ve long given up trying to persuade that boy to stop treating his body like an amusement park, as Mrs Costanza might say.)

  Each morning Arky and I now do sit-ups and push-ups together, along with a bit of yoga. It’s our mother-daughter time while the menfolk doze. And three times a week we go swimming. All part of giving her a healthy mind in a healthy body—“mens sana in corpore sano”—just like the professor told me to.

  And the diary ends. She tries not to let it show in her voice, but the final words shock her, as they always do. How much of Mother’s relationship with her was genuine, and how much was scripted? This is the only mention the diary makes of a professor; elsewhere it is “he” or “they”.

  She flicks through the remaining blank pages. The only markings are a doodle on the inside back cover of the journal. Even Mother’s doodles are precise, however, and the stylised drawing of a tree has carefully positioned dots to show its ripe fruit.

  No explanation is given for ending the diary at that point, but after recording seven years of Magnus’s life, Mother’s sense of fairness might have compelled her to document at least the same amount of her own. Then perhaps she put the journal aside and simply failed to pick it up again. Or maybe she was told to stop?

  Her reverie is interrupted by a presence at the doorway behind her. Its actual effect on the air pressure in the room must be so small as to be unmeasurable, yet she can sense the mass of her brother. “Well look what we have here,” she says to Mother. “If it isn’t my mother’s son. How nice to see you, Magnus.” She turns as he enters the room, gravitating towards the sturdier of two chairs on the other side of the bed. His tailored shirt, expensive and expansive, has been hastily brushed for crumbs, though a streak of red is visible. “Still treating dessert as an appetiser, I see. Jam doughnut?”

  “Raspberry tart,” he corrects her testily, removing his coat and sitting down. “Everything in moderation, Arcadia—including moderation. It’s nice to see you too. Your interviews at Oxford appear to have gone well.” He sniffs. “Did you visit a plastics factory on the way back? Oh, and hello, Mother,” he adds, patting her hand.

  “Off work early, today?” she inquires. “This new job of yours doesn’t seem to be particularly taxing.”

  “As it happens,” Magnus begins, “I am here on business. I knew you were likely to come down this evening and thought I might catch up with you and see Mother at the same time.”

  “What sort of ‘business’?”

  Magnus looks to the ground and then at her. “As astonishing as this may seem,” he says, “I am in need of your help. A certain matter has come across my desk and you have a unique connection to the problem and, we hope, the solution.”

  “Who, exactly, is ‘we’?”

  He ignores the question. “It seems that your little friend has been stealing.”

  “My little friend—do you mean Moira?” Prior to the confrontation with her twin sister a year earlier, Moira had tricked Magnus into revealing information about her. It was a rare occurrence and still clearly smarted.

  “Yes,” he replies curtly. “Your doppelgänger has engaged in an act of burglary that, while impressive as a matter of craft, has the potential to be embarrassing to some individuals of the highest—”

  “She died today, Magnus,” Arcadia says quietly.

  He pauses, forehead creasing into a frown. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Moira died today,” she repeats.

  “Yes, well that’s rather unlikely, don’t you think?” he replies. “As I was saying, the theft—”

  “I saw it myself. She was on fire.” There is some evidence that the memory of an event stimulates the same parts of the brain activated during the event itself. As the image of Moira on fire comes back to her, she almost smells the acrid smoke once more.

  Magnus sighs. “What, exactly, did you see?”

  She describes the escape room and the tests, Moira’s appearance holding a bottle with petrol or some other flammable liquid. Henry hitting her with his phone.

  “His phone?” Magnus shakes his head. “I would have thought a shoe would do the trick. Carry on.”

  The bottle smashing at her feet. Her standing in the flames.

  “And then?”

  “And then her entire body was on fire,” Arcadia says, closing her eyes.

  “Really?” Magnus presses. “That seems somewhat hard to believe. Skin is almost two-thirds water and quite difficult to ignite. There is much less water in hair, so it will burn at a significantly lower temperature.”

  The beret. “Her hair—” Arcadia begins. “Her hair was covered by a beret. But her clothes, her clothes were burning. There’s no way she could have survived.”

  “So what you’
re saying is that her pants were on fire?” Magnus is enjoying this a little too much.

  “It was a dress. But she screamed. And fell. I heard the sound of her body hitting the ground.” Even as she recounts it to Magnus, she begins to see the holes. “The paramedics carried her out on a stretcher,” she murmurs, almost to herself. “Or two people dressed as paramedics carried someone out on a stretcher. The face was covered.”

  “I see,” Magnus says. “Come, Arcadia, put yourself in the position of the person you are trying to understand. Climb into her skin and walk around in it, just like Mother taught us.”

  Mother? Vague memories of childhood games surface, role-playing characters but also reliving moments. Mother pressing her to see a grievance through the other person’s eyes. And Moira saying something similar—quoting, of course—at their first meeting.

  If memory is, to the brain, indistinguishable from the event itself, then why should imagining an event be any different? She closes her eyes and experiences it as Moira might have. Past events once lay in the future, and can be recreated in the present.

  I hold the bottle of fire above me as a provocation, as a target. I have prepared for this: black clothes covering my body, hair tucked into a beret, face shiny not with sweat but with—fire-retardant gel.

  Predictably, it is Henry who takes the bait; sacrificing his phone even as Arky tries to stop him. Pain shoots through my shoulder but it makes the acting easier. I release the bottle and allow it to drop onto the metal walkway, bottom first. The thin glass smashes upon impact, spreading its hydrocarbon contents across the metal walkway even as the wick follows, bringing flame to the fuel.

  Now time for my conflagration, it begins as a flicker.

  Light dances with the shadows, moving as I move. There is no sound, no crackling. No smoke.

  I turn in slow motion, a duet with the orange tongues that now lap at my dress. Stop, drop, and roll? I am—I appear disoriented. Wandering this way and that, I only fan the tendrils that now climb up my back.