A Life Between Us

by Louise Walters

  William returned to work after the honeymoon. The couple, as Pamela had planned, set up home in her bedroom and put their names down on the housing list. Despite all of this, or perhaps because of it, they were happy together, laughing often and enjoying the process of choosing a name for their forthcoming baby. Pamela was particular about names, William less so. She wondered about Marghuerite for a girl?

  Sunday 1st August 1976

  Dear Elizabeth

  I haven’t heard from you so I’m just checking if you received the book I sent you? I hope it has’nt got lost in the post. I was careful to wrap it properley in enough paper and string. I sent it by airmail which cost most of my pocket money I had been saving but I wanted you to get it quickly. Please let me know if you have or have not received it because I am worried. I am probably being inpatient though. I excpect you are enjoying reading it and have’nt had time to write to thank me. That will be it. I bought these new notelets with my pocket money, the kitten is the cutest picture so that’s the one I have chosen for you. I do’nt like the shiny pink background much and Meg says it makes her feel a bit sick it is so horrible but the kitten is sweet. My mum is still at her job. Aunty Lucia said she thought she would give it up. It would be too much for her she said but she has’nt given it up and she told me and Meg that she loves going out to work. One day she will take us to work with her so we can see what she does. This is going to be a long letter because I’m a bit bored. I took a blankit and a pillow into our den and I read all morning. I read a book called A Stitch in Time by Penelope Lively that I got from the book club at school. Do you have a book club? We get a magazine to take home and we get our mums and dads or our aunts to fill in the order once we dicided what book we want and we take it back into school and the school orders all the books and they get sent a few weeks later. It is so exciting and one of the small ammount of things I like at school. The book is handed to you with the order form your aunt filled in stuck to it with a lastic band so Miss Tyson knows who ordered which book. Anyway I started to read mine today and its very good a ghost story set at the seaside and a girl called Maria hears a dog barking although there is no dog and a swing swinging although there is no swing and I want to finish it soon but I had to stop reading for our lunch. Lunch was marmite sandwichs and an apple and a plum from the garden. Aunty Lucia let us eat in our den. The den is nice and cool. I think you said once you have orange trees in your garden? I wondered about that and before school broke up I asked my teacher why we have’nt got orange trees and she said that we can’t grow oranges in England because it is too cold. But it is hot here, hot and dry and we are running out of water. I cant believe we could’nt grow oranges. But Granny told me its not this hot every summer. The plums are nice, very sweet, but the apples are a bit sour. Meg wants me to go down to the brook with her now with our jam jars we like to catch sticklebacks and minnows and the water is see through and theres not much of it left because its drying up. She is going to climb the big oak tree but I do’nt climb trees because I did it once and even though I did’nt get very far up it I allmost fell down and I felt sick and dizzy and my knees felt like they would colapse.

  Must go lots of love from Tina in England xxxxx

  Twenty-three

  January 2014

  I killed her.’ Had she really said it? Tina swayed in her seat and thought she was going to be sick. But she recovered and forced herself to look at Kath. She clung onto Kath’s hands; they were strong and warm, and Tina knew she was going to cry. She let go of Kath then, and rummaged in her handbag for a tissue. Before she could find one, Kath silently handed over a box, and Tina took three, loosely scrunching them up and using them to cover her face, to hide her tears. But it was hopeless. There was no hiding. The tears would come.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Kath. She showed no signs of shock or disgust.

  ‘Sorry?’ muttered Tina, and she blew her nose. She made an effort to stop crying. It was time to talk. It was time to face up to the truth.

  ‘Are you OK to carry on? Let me know when you’re ready or if you’d rather not talk at all.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ said Tina and she wondered, what was she ready for?

  ‘So…?’ Kath’s face was open and friendly; she was clearly the sort of person you could say anything to. Kath was Kate the counsellor, after all, and it was a comfort. Kath was a professional. If only Tina could begin to listen to voices, actual real voices belonging to actual real people.

  Tina took a deep breath, and another one. This was it. She had to open up, and here was her chance to do that, to tell it like it was. What was said in these four walls stayed in these four walls, Kath/Kate had said. Nobody would ever know. Nobody else was here. She could say what she liked, and that was the point, wasn’t it?

  ‘My sister, my twin sister Meg… who I loved so much… she died… she died?… she left me on… so long ago… the twenty-fifth of August in 1976. It was a Wednesday and there was a big thunderstorm in the afternoon. Meg’s death was my fault… all my fault… but our Aunt Lucia was… she… I think… Oh! Why did you have to go? Meg says… I don’t know… Oh, I don’t know! I feel funny…’

  Tina swirled, the world swirled with her, and she was only vaguely aware of Kath reaching out to try to catch her. Tina felt herself slip from her chair and her bottom thud onto the floor. Somewhere, from a long way away, she heard once again that mocking laugh that followed her everywhere.

  Tina came out of her faint after a few moments and Kath helped her to sit in the chair. Tina cried some more, and found she couldn’t stop for a long time. But she stopped in the end. She had to: as Kath said, there were only so many tears to be shed. And sometimes the crying had to stop in order to let the talking begin, and it was her belief that it was the talking that healed. She seemed sure about this.

  Tina and Kath each had another coffee with cream, with a generous spoonful of sugar in Tina’s, and they ate a couple of biscuits, and Tina heard herself say things she’d never spoken of before.

  ‘Meg’s death was inconceivable. I couldn’t get my head around it. I saw her there, on the ground, dead. She looked so small and pale. She looked like one of my dolls. Yet she’d always seemed so big, to me. I thought she was invincible. But I knew she was dead, right there and then. Something just went out in her. I knew it. She was gone. And I was terrified. I froze, I think, something in me froze over and it still hasn’t thawed. Does that make sense?’

  ‘It makes perfect sense,’ said Kath, reassuringly matter of fact. She listened to Tina speak about the death of her sister.

  ‘I couldn’t accept she was dead. I was so guilty and ashamed and I couldn’t let her go. I refused to attend the funeral. I stayed at Lane’s End House by myself – that was Lucia’s house, the family home really, and I… well, I think I read my book. Or something. Anyway I didn’t go and I would never visit her grave or anything like that.’

  ‘Have you ever been to her grave?’

  ‘Oh yes, I started going a few years back. Well, many years back I suppose, in my early twenties. I go all the time. Practically every week, apart from… apart from… if we argue. Then I stay away for a while. She’s in the cemetery in town. I take her flowers and, it sounds silly, but I tell her things. We talk.’

  ‘Ah, yes. That’s quite common. I think it helps. I like to talk with my brother.’

  ‘Yes, but…’

  ‘But?’

  ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter. I feel so tired.’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Can we do this again? There’s still so much to talk about.’

  ‘You bet we can. But not here. How about the diner again? Or we can meet for coffee? Or I could come and visit you in your exquisite home.’

  ‘How do you know it’s exquisite?’ said Tina.

  ‘Because you don’t have kids. And your clothes smell nice.’

  Tin
a rose from the chair and put on her coat. But she was sweating, filmy all over her body. She would have a long shower as soon as she got home. Crying made her extra hot and bothered these days. Perhaps it was her age. Forty-six. Really? Forty-six? Inside, in her thoughts, she still felt like her eight-year-old self, helpless and scared and grieving, but refusing to grieve – fighting it, refusing to believe. She slung her handbag over her shoulder. She turned to Kath. It was time to grow up now.

  ‘I’ll always feel guilty,’ said Tina.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Kath.

  Keaton was as surprised as Tina that Kath was Kate. Or Kate was Kath. She sounded like an excellent therapist.

  ‘Counsellor,’ said Tina, firmly. ‘I’m not nuts. She said so. My counsellor.’

  ‘Not in fact your counsellor,’ corrected Keaton. ‘Thank goodness for that. It’s going to save us a small fortune.’

  ‘Keaton!’

  ‘I’m only kidding. You know I’d pay whatever was needed if it meant you getting better. We’d re-mortgage this house, anything.’

  ‘Do you think I should get a counsellor? Kath’s my friend and she said she’d help. That’s all.’

  ‘Just see how it goes. She’ll recommend somebody if she thinks you need it, won’t she?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘There you are then.’

  But later, after Keaton had gone to sleep and Tina was alone in the dark of the bedroom, Meg came to her and said, ‘You are you know, you are nuts, and I told you this would happen, I told you they would get to you, persuade you, make you change your mind and turn away from me. You’re all I have, Tina, you are all I have. Please don’t leave me. I’m cold and lonely and you are my only friend.’

  That much was true, Tina conceded.

  ‘But please go away now,’ Tina said. ‘It happened. It’s over. We can’t change these things.’

  ‘I don’t agree,’ said Meg with a toss of her hair; then Tina thought, No, she hasn’t just tossed her hair because she doesn’t exist. I didn’t see that, I can’t hear her or smell her. I can’t touch her. She died in 1976. A long time ago. Meg is dead. And I should know because I killed her. And today I made progress; I made the progress I’ve needed to make for thirty-eight years… and Meg, you just have to accept that you are dead and I am a new woman and I’m not nuts. Not any more. Starting now.

  ‘Bollocks to your new woman bullshit,’ said Meg. ‘You’re a chicken, cluck cluck. A scaredy-cat. And stop quoting that Kath/Kate woman. I hate her.’

  Tina could tell where this was going so she crept from the bed and slowly made her way downstairs. She felt Meg follow her. Yet there were no footsteps, no sounds of her quick breathing. There was nothing, nothing at all and Tina knew that truly she was alone in the house save for the sleeping Keaton.

  ‘Meg,’ said Tina as she entered the kitchen and closed the door quietly, ‘you have to go now. I’m exorcising you.’

  ‘Ha! You’re what?’

  ‘I mean it!’

  ‘There’s only one way you can “exorcise” me, I promise you.’

  ‘What is the way?’

  Tina was breathless, her breathing shallow and laboured, her heart thumping. Wasn’t she supposed to be over all this now? Hadn’t she made a significant breakthrough only this morning? Wasn’t all this stuff in her mind? Wasn’t she simply psychotic? Wasn’t Meg dead?

  ‘Don’t you listen to anything I tell you?’ said Meg. ‘I want revenge.’

  Meg seemed to swoop – she lunged, her anger roaring around the kitchen, a swirling vortex with Tina at its centre. Tina panicked, looked wildly around her, she was going to be swallowed, swallowed up in her sister’s vicious fury.

  ‘Revenge?’ whispered Tina. ‘On me?’

  ‘Revenge on you?’ said Meg. The room was still again; Meg was quiet, invisible.

  ‘I’ve tried, Meg, I’ve tried to put things right. I visit you. I’m the only one who didn’t give up.’

  ‘I know that, you cretin.’

  ‘So why do you want revenge? Do you want me to die too, is that it? To join you properly?’ Tina sobbed, and looked around for Meg who was all around but not seen: hiding, hiding everywhere and nowhere. ‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. But I can’t go on like this any more. Meg, do you hear me? I can’t!’

  ‘I don’t want you to die,’ said Meg, there at the table, sitting down, her long, light brown hair waving around her gently freckled face. She smiled, not unkindly. She was so pretty. ‘Why on earth would I want that?’

  ‘What do you want then?’ said Tina. ‘Tell me!’

  ‘We discussed this before, don’t you recall? On my birthday? Just get on with it, please, would you?’ She looked serene, patient, not at all Meg-like. ‘I’m tired of waiting.’

  ‘What is it you want me to do? For God’s sake just tell me!’

  ‘I’d rather hoped I wouldn’t ever need to spell it out. I was hoping you would know already or at least work it out for yourself. You are a little twit, Tina. You always were.’

  ‘Please don’t call me names.’

  ‘Fine. I’m sorry. Let’s start again. Are you going to get a grip?’

  ‘Yes. I am. This time, I am.’ But get a grip on what? She didn’t know. She just wanted to keep Meg calm, quiet. She just wanted to go back to bed.

  ‘Good. So when are you going to do it?’

  ‘Do what, Meg?!’

  ‘You know what!’ Meg seemed to gather herself. She finally hissed, ‘Lucia.’

  ‘What about her?’

  ‘Stop being thick. I really do have to spell this out don’t I? Listen carefully. When are you going to pull yourself together and kill that bitch?’

  Twenty-four

  August 1976

  Edward had not once forgotten his wedding anniversary, and this year was no exception. He and Simone had been wed for twelve years, and for most of that time, things had been good. Edward had his translation work and Simone, once it became apparent there would be no children, asked for her old job back, and got it. Their “trying for a baby” had been carried out without a great deal of conviction on either side, and when after a year of “trying” there was still no pregnancy, the “trying” part ceased and still no baby came. Simone was contented enough with her adorables jumelles, she always claimed. But in recent years Edward had become less convinced of this. They didn’t see too much of Meg and Tina, but when they did visit, Simone spoiled the girls, giving sweets and dolls and colouring-in books and brand new packs of felt-tipped pens. Also, books. Simone took great pleasure in choosing those for the little girls, although Edward suspected Meg didn’t read her books as enthusiastically as Tina read hers. The twins loved their Tante Simone as much as she loved them. Simone would have made a wonderful mother and perhaps they should have looked into the medical side of things. It was clear that at least one of them was not able to conceive a child. Often, he suspected it wasn’t him. It was a vague feeling, nothing more. But it was too late now; they had long ago ceased to discuss the possibility of having their own child. So, the nieces it was, and there were four of them now. They always remembered Robert’s girls at Christmas and on their birthdays.

  Edward and Simone enjoyed Robert’s annual Christmas card and letter and photographs. In the correspondence, on both sides, there was always talk of a visit. One day, they both hoped, Edward and Robert would meet again. Lucia didn’t know Edward was in regular, if infrequent, touch with Robert. She would be jealous, just as she was jealous of Simone. Lucia was always uncomfortable in Simone’s presence. She was uncomfortable around Edward too, which was understandable. Of course, he had not forgotten what had happened between them. He wished he could forget. He wished Lucia could forget too. Sometimes he caught her staring at him with such longing, such a haunted look about her. It always reminded him of that dreadful New Year’s
Eve, those dire moments when he and Lucia had abandoned themselves to the unspeakable, the unrepeatable. So many years had passed, surely now it could be regarded as water under the bridge? They had been so young, so innocent; Lucia had been, at any rate. What on earth had he been thinking? He’d been drunk. Dad and Edward (and even William) had put a few away in the earlier part of the evening, after Ambrose and Lucia had left for the dance at the hall. But surely there had to be more to it than being drunk? Had he loved Lucia then? Loved her in the wrong way? Was he a pervert? He’d asked himself those questions constantly over the years. He thought he wasn’t a pervert, but he didn’t know what he was. The brief, shameful episode was, he knew, his life’s one great mistake – his life’s dark irremovable shadow – and it was all too awful to contemplate, so he tried hard not to.