A Life Between Us

by Louise Walters

  But Meg ran on towards her. And Tina – caught in the grip of one of those strange, glittering moments in life where impending events are revealed; where you know beforehand with the clarity of a bright-running stream what will happen – cried helpless tears and closed her eyes, but could only see the future more clearly.

  Tina looked down aghast at Meg as she stood below her, panting.

  ‘What are you doing up there?’ said Meg.

  ‘I wanted to climb it to be like you,’ said Tina and cried some more, adjusting herself so she could cling ever tighter to the trunk. ‘To show you!’

  ‘You’re such an idiot,’ said Meg. She closed her eyes, and smacked her forehead with the palm of her hand.

  ‘I can’t move. I’m trying not to be sick.’

  ‘Shall I get Uncle Edward?’

  ‘Yes, please. But nobody else. Don’t bring Au— Lucia.’

  ‘What if she comes anyway? She’ll want to. You know what she’s like.’

  ‘You can’t bring her. Promise me.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just because. Bring Uncle Edward.’

  ‘Will you be all right while I run back? Shan’t I just climb up and help you down?’

  ‘No! Don’t come up here, Meg, please. You mustn’t. Promise me.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Just trust me for once in your life. I know better than you this time.’

  ‘All right. If you say so. I’ll run as fast as I can.’

  ‘I’ll wait for you,’ said Tina.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘What do you mean, she’s stuck up the oak tree?’ said Lucia, cross and hot, picking plums on the wobbly stepladder, half stung by a sleepy wasp just moments before.

  ‘She climbed it to show me she could do it and now she can’t get down.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, you ridiculous girls will be the death of me,’ said Lucia, wiping her face with her sleeve.

  ‘Where’s Uncle Edward?’ said Meg.

  ‘He just left to go into town to see about a job. Somebody telephoned him.’

  ‘Tina wants Uncle Edward to help her down.’

  ‘Well, she’ll have to make do with me.’

  ‘You’re not to come,’ said Meg. With a weary sigh, Lucia climbed down from the stepladder.

  ‘Come along!’ she said.

  And there they came. Just as she had foreseen and she knew now, yes, she knew, her vision was not as she’d hoped, wild and meaningless; it was real and it would happen. It was already happening, the two figures hurrying towards her across the field and neither of them Uncle Edward because Uncle Edward was not at home, as she had known he would not be. And how small Meg looked and Tina shuddered and slowly forced herself to look down at her feet, beneath her feet, to search for the way down, but she couldn’t see the way down, she could only see the brook, shallow and clear, almost unflowing, dried out and desiccated by the never-ending summer.

  Lucia and Meg reached the tree. Tina was snivelling. Lucia was not in the mood for this. She’d had just about enough of these nieces of hers and it was high time their damned silly mother lived up to her responsibilities. Why wasn’t she here? Why didn’t she rescue her own damned daughter from this stupid damned tree?

  Tina was a long way up. Higher than Lucia was prepared to go. She had never climbed a tree in her life and she wasn’t going to start now. There was little she could do, as she’d thought. Meg would just have to go up and help Tina down. Lucia would be sick. The stepladder had been bad enough.

  ‘No!’ cried Tina. ‘No, Meg, you’re not to!’

  ‘I reckon I can. You’re not as high as you think you are. If I climb up to meet you I can guide you down.’

  ‘It won’t work…’ said Tina, but her voice was lost. She realised the sky was turning much darker. It was going to rain. It hadn’t rained for a long time. Meg was climbing the tree. She was shimmying up, effortless, a sprite. Lucia stood below, looking up, frowning.

  ‘Go on up, Meg. Take no notice of your silly sister. It’s not that bad.’

  Meg was in reaching distance within a minute. ‘See!’ she said.

  Everything that happened next felt as though it had been rehearsed, over and over, the lines well learned, the props in position, the business attended to. Meg was almost level with Tina, standing on the branch below, the gnarled one that curled around the trunk.

  ‘If you lean down,’ she said, ‘I can hold your hands and you can step down and I’ll be here.’

  ‘I’m sorry we argued,’ said Tina.

  ‘Did we? I can’t remember.’

  ‘I can’t move.’

  ‘You can. You have to trust me. Lean forward a bit, reach out your hands.’

  Then, Lucia spoke: ‘The branch, Marghuerite. Reach up, you can reach…’

  And Meg, for a second, looked strong and invincible and she reached out and grasped the branch and held out her other hand for Tina, and Tina thought, I’m being silly. Meg is right. I can do this. She leaned forward. Her stomach lurched. She looked into her sister’s hazel eyes – she couldn’t look away – and yes, said Meg, yes, and she reached up, up, up, and at that moment Meg proffered both her hands, and they touched for one moment. ‘Come on, you idiot!’ said Meg and then Tina recalled her vision, the certainty of it, and she gasped, screamed, startling Meg, who was tiptoeing on the gnarled branch, reaching up to grasp the chubby hands that couldn’t quite reach hers; and Meg lost her balance and with a small sharp cry she fell, fell, fell to earth and landed at her aunt’s feet with a thud; a thud so final and – crack! – the sky split open and at last the thunder came, the rain spattering onto the leaves that shook and whispered in the gathering breeze.

  Lucia fell to her knees. She shook Meg, crying out, ‘Marghuerite! Marghuerite?!’ And the brook was suddenly alive and rushing with raindrops and the leaves shaking harder in the grey breeze. And there was no movement from Meg – no noise, nothing – and Lucia looked up into the trees, and Tina clung once again to the ancient trunk, and they looked at each other – a beat, another – then Lucia seemed decided and delivered the most rehearsed line of them all: ‘Tina? What have you done?’

  Monday 13th September 1976

  Dear Elizabeth

  I don’t know how to write this letter to you. So much has happened and so much will happen and I don’t know how to begin to tell you about things. On the day I wrote my last letter my sister Meg had an accident. It was my fault. She hurt herself badly. She can’t do anything now. She can only talk to me so she does that all the time. Nobody else knows and it’s a secret and I’m only telling you because I know you will keep it. Everybody says Meg died but I know she didn’t because she can’t die because she’s my sister and I love her and she won’t leave me she promised. There was a funerel but everybody was fooled. I didn’t go I refused only dead people have funerals. Meg and me stayed at Granny’s house and we played in the garden and after that I took my book into our den and I read for a while. I might of gone to sleep, I’m not sure, but when I woke up Meg was lying next to me, looking at me. Lots of people cried at the funeral, my Uncle Edward told me. We felt bad for Uncle Edward because he is so sad but Meg and me laugh about it because we don’t believe in it and we know it isn’t real but everybody else thinks it is. If only they could see what I see. I haven’t gone back to school yet because I am still too upset but I’m not upset really I let them think I am so I don’t have to go to school which as you know I hate more than anything. I will have to go back to school soon though. Our headmaster was at the funeral and Lucia said even he cried. I cant imagine that. Our mum colapsed and my Dad and Uncle Edward had to carry her home. I’ll write again soon. Have you finished Ballet Shoes yet? I hope you love it as much as I do then we can talk about it. You know we have had a long hot summer over here? It’s over now. I
t rained a lot the day Meg had her accident and it thundered, and lightning lit up the tree it felt like I was in the negative of a photograph and it was scary. It has rained quite a lot since, which is good everybody says, thank goodness the weather broke, they say, but I miss the summer and the long days that me and Meg spent together and it’s all over now because things will never be quite the same again. Meg isn’t alive but she isn’t dead either. Its difficult to explain.

  Love from Tina (and Meg) xx

  Thirty-one

  February 2014

  Keaton went to work as he had done for the last three days. He had tried hard to appear normal, both at home and in the office. The sad story of Meg’s death was dreadful, of course, and he was glad Tina had told him about it at last. He wasn’t sure if he believed all of it, but all weekend he had tried to be kind and understanding. However, Tina was distant; he couldn’t get through to her in the way he wanted. And he was so tired with it, with her stark refusal to fully accept her sister’s death. And Keaton was a man. His desktop encounter with Sharanne on that Friday morning had awakened something in him, a recklessness he hadn’t realised was his. And all weekend he had not been able to stop thinking about Sharanne, despite his guilt and best efforts. It wasn’t love; with Tina he had love, of the most complicated kind – Sharanne was his relief. She was lust, nothing more. And so Keaton gave in to temptation again and again, and yet again. He took part in secret, sordid, satisfying sex in his office on Monday, Tuesday (twice) and Wednesday. They had locked the door, unlike that first, unexpected time. It was as though in the dark quietness of his office Tina no longer existed. Tina didn’t matter. Nothing in the entire world existed or mattered. He gave himself up to his deepest, wildest temptations and Tina was entirely absent. In frightening moments, he even thought of leaving her. It was energising to turn to another who didn’t live in a dream world, who was – that hateful word – normal.

  But today, Thursday, was a sensible day and he was going to be sensible. He’d awoken this morning with the certain knowledge that the “affair”, if their sordid encounters could be dignified by the term, must come to an end. He contemplated the nature of guilt: Tina’s, so misplaced and wrong, and his, real and justified. Tina had been a blameless child. Keaton was anything but.

  He handed in his notice. He had not discussed it with Tina. She would want to know the reason, naturally. He could not tell her the reason. He would bide his time and think one up, a good one. He would use his office computer to search the internet for a new job. Tina would be bemused to begin with, then she would be anxious, then she would grow suspicious, Keaton was sure. There was no reason for him to suddenly give up and walk out on a job he enjoyed. He was going to work four weeks’ notice; time aplenty, he thought, to find something new, and to ply his wife with his false reasons. He would have to lie this time, there was no other course for him. He’d rarely lied.

  Sharanne did not take his resignation well. He told her their liaison had been a ghastly mistake. She said she knew and she agreed. It was wrong. It was madness. It could never happen again, he said. He could never see her again, once he had gone. It would be better if she never tried to contact him once he had left. He would never try to contact her. Sharanne cried, apologising repeatedly, begging him not to leave because actually she felt bad about it – it was wrong, and she saw that, she agreed, and couldn’t they just forget it had ever happened and carry on as before? Or shouldn’t she be the one to leave? No, Keaton said, I’m going, not you. It wouldn’t be fair otherwise.

  ‘I’m senior so I must take responsibility for my actions,’ said Keaton, and he knew he sounded pompous but it couldn’t be helped. He fiddled with his favourite stapler. He decided he would take it when he left. If the firm could spare him, and apparently they could, they could spare a stapler.

  ‘But you don’t need to take responsibility for my actions,’ said Sharanne, and she burst into tears once again. Keaton fought the urge to comfort her. What a mess. But he had nobody to blame but himself.

  Thirty-two

  September 1976

  Tina had not yet returned to school and Pamela had missed four weeks of work. It was high time they both went back, Tina heard her mum say one Monday morning towards the end of September. It was a bright day, the mellow autumnal sunshine slanting through Tina’s window.

  ‘Get her out of bed, could you, Bill? Make her some breakfast?’ It was hard, Pamela continued, but they all had to try. Things had to be as normal as possible for Tina. It was she that mattered now. Dad must have been surprised, like Tina, but he did as he was told, and he poked his head into Tina’s bedroom and told her to get ready for school. Pamela got up and dressed for work. She didn’t eat any breakfast. She was thin and pale. She didn’t look like Mum at all. She had fear in her eyes. Tina slowly ate a burned slice of toast. She reluctantly drank her milk, which was not quite as fresh as she liked.

  ‘Chop, chop, madam!’ said Mum. Her tone of voice was pretend, but it was all right. She ordered Tina to brush her teeth and have a wash. Dad went off to work. When it was time for Tina to leave, Mum gave her a squeeze, then stood at the front door and waved to her. ‘I’ll be here when you get home!’ she called. ‘I’m only going to work for a couple of hours.’

  So Tina found herself walking around to the village school clutching her brown satchel and wearing her dark blue dress with the white puffed sleeves. She wore a pair of white socks that were not as white as they once had been. Her shoes were her brown ones she hadn’t worn all summer. They were tight, but she didn’t want to say anything. Her mum had forgotten to polish them so they looked scruffy. Her dad had tried to plait her hair but he wasn’t good at doing it. Meg walked to school with her, saying nothing. But Tina felt herself abandoned at the gates. Children stared at her as she entered the playground. She headed for her classroom. She wasn’t going to play outside with all the other kids. She wanted to find her drawer and her place at the table and sit down and wait. One or two of the nicer girls smiled at her as she walked past them. She tried to smile back.

  Tina entered the classroom alone to find her teacher preparing for her day. She was putting pots of pencils and crayons and exercise books out on the tables, and she looked surprised to see Tina. She introduced herself as Miss Christianson. Tina thought her very nice – pretty and young – prettier and younger even than Miss Tyson.

  ‘I’m so glad,’ Miss Christianson said, ‘that you will be in my class this year. We’re going to have a lot of fun and do some interesting topics.’

  Miss Christianson didn’t mention Meg, and Tina wondered if she even knew what had happened to her. She must know, Tina decided. The head teacher had gone to the funeral and surely he would have told all the other teachers?

  When the other children came in, it was noisy and Tina cringed. It had been such a long time since she’d been in a classroom. A girl she had never liked sat next to her. The register was called and Tina forgot to say, ‘Yes, Miss Christianson,’ who didn’t mind; but some of the children laughed.

  Soon the class were put to work on their Monday morning “news”. Miss Christianson said she was hoping to see some good work, and wanted to hear what everybody had been up to over the weekend. She was looking forward to seeing some nice, colourful pictures.

  ‘But, Tina, you can write about your summer holiday if you’d like, seeing as you… weren’t here at the start of term. If… if you want to.’ Miss Christianson’s face burned red. So, she did know. If anybody was stuck, she said to the whole class, they were to put up their hand and she would call them up to her desk one at a time. Quiet talking was allowed. Tina sat and thought for a long while. She wasn’t “stuck” but she needed time to think. Miss Christianson didn’t know, not really. Nobody did. So Tina would tell her. She began work on her news.

  It was Thursday afternoon and time to go home; just one more day to be endured at school. It had been a strange week,
and a lonely one. Miss Christianson had tried to talk to her about Meg. She had taken a long, hard look at Tina’s “news” every morning: each day Tina had drawn a picture of herself and her sister – playing in the garden, playing with Meg’s clackers, reading books together. Underneath she had written, “Meg played with her clackers” or, “I read Ballet Shoes to Meg”. Miss Christianson was kind and concerned, Tina could tell, but Tina didn’t want to talk to her about Meg or anything else.

  Tina ran from her classroom at a quarter past three and walked home with her sister. Meg didn’t have to go to school any more so naturally she kept away. Tina was cross about this – it wasn’t fair! – but Tina knew she would have done the same, so it was all right, really. It was “one of those things”, as grown-ups liked to say. Yet it was strange being so alone. The twins had always gone to school together, apart from those rare occasions when one or the other had been ill. Meg had been too ill for school once with mumps and Tina hadn’t caught it despite her and her mum’s best efforts, and Tina had gone to school alone every day for a week and a half. She had endured loneliness and questions, endless queries about the whereabouts and well-being of her loud, confident sister. Meg was not exactly popular, but everybody knew who she was and she was more than capable of taking care of herself. Tina was the exact opposite – a weakling, unnoticed.

  Tina also remembered the long summer days when she and Meg had skived off school and hidden themselves down by the brook, spending the days paddling, trying to catch the shimmery minnows in their bare hands, eventually giving up and lying in the grass and watching the clouds drift by; light and burdenless days, those had been the best times they had ever shared. Sometimes Meg had climbed the oak tree, leaving Tina on the ground, and they had talked about all sorts of things and the things they’d talked about had made sense. Tina couldn’t grasp that those days were over and it was a relief to hear the familiar voice reassuring her as she walked home.