Nemesister: The gripping women's psychological thriller from Sophie Jonas-Hill

by Sophie Jonas-Hill

  I’m going to ask him to send you the airfare and you can come and be my bridesmaid. Yes, for real, like we used to pretend, with white lace and flowers and everything!

  White lace and flowers, an old lace tablecloth yellowed with age and smelling of damp and mothballs. A negligee, white satin, condemned to the dressing-up box because of the stain on the front.

  ‘Where’d you get them flowers? Mom’ll kill you!’

  ‘I don’t care, I’m the bride and you gotta be my bridesmaid. Go on, you gotta pick up my train.’

  I was angry with her. I wanted to scream at her – get away from him; nothing you could have done would be so bad that you couldn’t come back. It was just your pride wasn’t it, because you were sure that Mom hated you, or didn’t love you enough? Or was it Dad, was that it, was it him you hated, or both of them, or me? Was it me, was that why you ran away and left me all alone with them and Franny …? Yes, that was it, our brother, Frances, who hated that name, and became too busy and too grown up to speak to me, the baby. What happened to us, what was so bad, that she went with Red when he asked her?

  In the shivering house in the swamp, something stirred deep inside me, but did not wake. Our brother, Franny and, and … didn’t we have a sister? One only I could see?

  ‘Tell me who ya love, Cherie, an’ I’ll tell ya who ya’ are.’

  The air of his hometown was wet and pulsed with spice and gasoline. When Lisa stood in the shop and tried on her dress, she was a thousand miles from me.

  ‘Is it unlucky?’ she asked him, stood on a stool in the middle of the shop, with the boxes and drawers spilling pearls and lace at her feet. ‘Is it unlucky?’

  He took her to his house, his father’s house where they were to live. It was big and white and like something from a dream, ringed in sad trees that were draped in vines and seemed to weep and, at the rear, a large and splendid lake. He drove her there in his big black car, and wound down the window and showed her his world; told her his stories of when he was a boy, made her laugh. And his father laughed too; his father in his crisp, white suit, sitting in the big black car as they took Lisa to their house. He laughed too. His name was Jean, but everyone called him Papa Levine. He gritted his teeth and he smiled at Lisa, the little scrap of a thing his son had brought back from Las Vegas.

  It took hours to drive to his house, I wish I could send you a picture of it, I will when I get a new phone – it looks like a palace, it’s all white and has three levels, with pillars and huge windows and stairs.

  A big old house, renowned in the parish, sitting high and dry above it all.

  I could understand why Papa Levine might have his doubts, because you could fit even our house into his three times over, and I have no luggage to speak of. I remembered one of my acting classes, and pretended I was a duchess in a play.

  The first night she stayed in the house, Red told her it was called Carillon, which means, he said, a peal of bells. He held her hand as they walked together through its echoing rooms, watching as she stared, seeing it as she saw it. Lisa made it into a palace for him again, and he was transfixed by her. That’s what she gave him: the gift of his world again; water on the dry ground of his soul. He had been so long away from this world, so long without company.

  He called my room the ‘blue room.’ They’ve got so many they all have names. I thought, here I am, standing in this beautiful room with the windows open, everything outside green and growing. My clothes looked so mean and sad in the wardrobe, but Red said as how he’s going to take me shopping and buy a dress.

  The night she first slept in the blue room in the white house, she woke after only an hour. She was jet-lagged, and she slipped down the stairs to fetch a drink, little bare feet silent and secretive. She saw the light under the door and heard voices, and she listened, just like Daddy told me not to.

  ‘You gotta remember, I ain’t getting any younger,’ she heard Red say. ‘There comes a time in a man’s life when he needs to remember what he’s fighting for, Daddy. A flag just ain’t enough.’ The light in the room flickered as he moved, as he paced up and down.

  ‘Son, I see she’s a pretty little thing, right enough. I see she appeals to your … your senses boy, but when it comes to it … where’s she gonna stay when you go back? You ain’t got that long.’

  ‘Here, I won’t have no wife of mine in army quarters, she’ll live like a lady.’ Lisa put her hand to her mouth, laughing and terrified. ‘I got one more tour, Papa, then I’m done. A year from now, just over a year and I’ll be a man of leisure. I don’t wanna come home to an empty bed. Daddy, when I look in her eyes, I see the same beauty and gentleness that Mama had, and I ain’t never seen that in no other grown woman. You think I’d bring some slut into your house?’

  Listening at the keyhole, Lisa bit her hand to stop from making a sound.

  In the house in the swamp, I bit my hand to stop from making a sound.

  In the little shop where he was known, where his name was enough for them to flip the sign over to closed and bring out their best, she stood on the stool in front of the mirror, turning and turning, like the doll on a music box. The dress she chose had pearls on the sleeves, and little buttons on the back; and she wished her sister could be there to fasten them for her.

  He brought her his mother’s veil that night, and told her how she died. Lisa stood in the blue room and looked at her face in the mirror, her face through his mother’s veil.

  ‘You saw her, didn’t you? You found her, in the water?’ As he told her, he held her in his arms.

  ‘I was the one who discovered her. And that is not what a young man needs to see, when he’s at an impressionable age.’

  The bridal suite was white, a big white bed with drapes around it, covers spread with pink and cream rose petals. As Lisa ran them through her fingers, her mouth was dry. Red came to the door. He looked so smart in his suit, but his eyes were distant.

  ‘Do you love me, really?’ She wanted him to hold her, came towards him, but he kept her at arm’s length, hands gripping her shoulders. ‘Do you love me?’ His smile lingered behind his teeth. ‘Really?’

  I didn’t want to watch, to have this in my head but the carousel kept turning. The ghost of his hands haunted my skin as he laid her down, as he raised his mother’s veil over her face. I could taste the tulle, the dry, mothball smell of memory and worn-out promises; taste the legacy of his mother’s skin and her perfume from forty summers before. Red kissed Lisa through it, and the white, gritty feel of it was forced into her mouth as if she drowned in lace and sand.

  ‘Do you love me, really?’ he asked and she nodded, blinded and consumed, unable to speak as she clutched the counterpane. Her body was treacherous; it preened under his touch. One hand on her throat, Red pulled the little pearl buttons from the dress. ‘I think you’s about wetter than a rain cloud in August, darlin’.’

  As she heard them scatter on the floor, she turned her head and pretended it was raining.

  I wanna ask you something. Can you keep all these emails? One day, when we’re both older, I’m gonna take all this and make something of it. I don’t know what yet – but if you keep all this, then you can give it to me one day and then all of this can be real.

  I love you.

  Did she love me, really? The floor of the shack seemed to tilt and roll as if I were not in a flyblown bedroom of tired ghosts, but in a ship, turned and tossed on the sea. I tasted sand and lace as my fingers traced her words. Red took her hand and he took her round his world, and everywhere he took her she tasted it too, lace and sand.

  And she was so busy after the wedding, with all the people she had to meet, all the hands she had to shake: old hands, fat hands, rich hands, gloved hands, and hers naked without their pink nails.

  There are lots of people here I have to meet, from the army and all the friends they have. They are all so fine and refined, I never know what to say but they’re sweet and nice to me, like they understand.

  He’s g
oing away again. Neither of them speak about it, but it’s there, the cloud gathering against the fire of the horizon, until all their days are rung out dry.

  He’s got to go back soon. It doesn’t feel like a real war because it’s so far away.

  Papa Levine spoke to me. I was on the veranda with a juice, and he came and put his hand on my elbow. He said that he had his doubts about me because it was all so quick and all, but that he can see I am a sweet girl and I will do right. He kept his hand on my arm for a while.

  I told Red I didn’t know what I would do all day when he was away. He said he was just worried about going, not because he’s scared of the war or nothing, but because he doesn’t want to leave me. He lay down with his head in my lap and he begged me to tell him that I loved him.

  Maybe when Red has gone you could come and stay, I’ll ask him. I write to you when I drive into town, I like writing to you from the cafe instead. I’ve remembered to attach a picture though, so you can see how beautiful the house is. They are expecting hurricanes soon, I haven’t been in one before and I am quite scared about it. It rains nearly every other day, and when it does, Red comes home and his shirt sticks to his skin.

  But he tastes of lace and sand.

  ‘I did you a favour – you might not remember squat, but you sure as hell don’t want to remember messin’ about with me,’ Red had said, but I did, I did remember.

  He bought her a car, a white one. He bought her clothes and he bought her pearls, then he left. She watched him at the base when it came time for him to go; his pearls at her neck, wearing the clothes he bought her. All the soldiers looked so fine as they marched, so strong and she strained against the sun to see him, the one among the many.

  The house had grown vast when she got back. She lay on the bed in the blue room and she knew that she missed him, but she was frightened that she missed him only because now she was alone. The room was neat and clean and the garden outside whispered, and she was alone. Some nights she walked through the house and listened to the rain and the wind as it rattled on the window. Sometimes she walked wearing nothing but the veil, tasting lace and sand.

  There are groups I can go to for support while he is away, but I don’t think I will. I haven’t really got to know anyone and I don’t really want to hear about their husbands anyway. Because he’s an officer, the other wives who have husbands who are officers are a lot older than I am, so I don’t know what to say to them.

  After it was all over, I just came home and lay on our bed and wished he were back. I spent the day in bed and didn’t eat anything to show how upset I was. Then I had to sneak down to the kitchen later because I was so hungry and ate cookies like a kid.

  If I sent you the money, if I could buy you a ticket on my credit card, would you come, come and see me?

  I never went to see her. I built her face from the words she wrote. I saw her ghost shadowed against the hot, blue sky over Red’s big white house but I could not see her face. She was wearing her wedding veil for me also.

  Do you think I have made all of this up as some sort of sick joke? Yes, I am married to a man you have never met. Yes, I live in the big old white house in the picture—yes—yes—yes!

  ‘Hell, maybe this is the only thing that is real. Maybe we’s the two last livin’ souls on the planet, you and me Margarita?’

  I am so lonely here without Red. I miss him, and right now he can’t write or anything. Papa Levine is still real sweet to me, but what the hell do I say to him? He must be nearly seventy or something, and sometimes he looks at me and I don’t much like the way he looks.

  Do you remember how like when it was Christmas, you’d be all excited and then the day would come and it would go past so quick, then the holiday season would drag on and on …? That’s how I feel now.

  I made it to the cafe anyway, so I can write to you. There’s a guy on the corner, he plays a guitar and he’s pretty good. I think he’s a student or something. He smiled at me when I came in.

  A smile that tickled all the way to her toes. In the clothes that Red bought her, driving the car he bought her, of course he smiled at her. The lonely burned off her like a flame.

  I stood at my window last night, and I listened to the night. It throbs with noise here, like it’s all the thoughts of everyone sleeping around me. I don’t know how much longer I can take it. It’s like Red just took me up and left me here, like the tide, washed up and alone. When I stood at the window, I wanted to take my clothes off so that the air could touch my skin. I almost thought I could hear the girl from the motel crying again; I almost wanted to hear her.

  I saw the man again the other day. He had no shoes on and he was playing his guitar. I was wearing big shades and a new dress, and I put a fifty-dollar bill in his hat. I asked the girl behind the counter, but she said she hadn’t seen him for a few days. I hope he’s all right, I don’t know why I keep thinking of him; he’s just some sort of drifter I guess.

  It was a hot day on a lonely road. She was driving in her big white car and she saw him, the man with the guitar. What harm would it do to stop and offer him a ride? Or did he wait for her at the cafe until she’d finished her sad little letter to me? Did he nudge her, trip and catch her as she stumbled? He was sorry, he made her laugh, his hand on her back. It was a long, hot day.

  I was just drifting about the house, not doing anything much, and I went out the back through the kitchen. It was so hot I thought I’d get some air there. Then I got into my car and I drove for a long time, until I wasn’t sure where I was, and then I saw him. We were back in town in no time, I talked and talked, and I pulled over because I was laughing. We started kissing and I know it’s wrong but it felt so real and so normal, and like we were just two kids. Then he said we should stop and I said I couldn’t, and he said that there would be trouble, and I said I didn’t care.

  For the first time in weeks, months, she laughed like it was nothing she had to think about first. Whichever day it was, he had her from when he made her laugh. She kissed him in the back of her car, once she’d driven far enough away to think she was safe. When she went back to Red’s white house, it looked smaller, diminished somehow. As she lay on the bed in the blue room, she fell asleep before she’d noticed, and dreamed of Paris.

  I’m sorry, really I am. I won’t see Paris again. I won’t.

  If only she’d meant it. There was a storm coming. She stood at her window and felt the warning in the air, followed by a hard rain.

  Chapter 11

  A SOUND CRACKED and shattered my memory. The shock brought me back to the room in the swamp with such force that I expected it to knock the breath from my lungs. Before I’d time even to think or listen, I scrabbled for the lantern and forced down the flame as far as I dared, shrouding it with the papers. The room slunk into blackness, the trace of the light dancing across my eyes. I held my breath.

  Sweat prickled across my body, the sensation of it almost painful where it broke out under my arms and down my sides. There was the sound of paws and claws running between the walls, the see-saw rasp of insects, the whisper of trees at the window. When I was almost sure it had been my imagination, when I was about to release the breath I was holding, it came again. The sound of a footfall on the landing. It was so slight, I think I was only aware of it because the floorboards under my feet transmitted an infinitesimal movement. I felt rather than heard that Red was there. Red was outside the door.

  My heartbeat seemed to pulse behind my eyes. He didn’t move, as if he were listening too. He could be waiting for his eyes to adjust to the gloom, needing the bathroom again, I told myself. He doesn’t know you’re in here; he’s not going to try the door.

  A line of light flashed through the darkness. I’d been staring into inky nothingness for long enough for it to seem startlingly bright and confused, almost a lightning strike. I couldn’t help it: I shuffled back towards the bed, desperate not to make a sound and just as desperate to reach its sanctuary. The instinct to crawl under it was
so strong that I didn’t stop to think about what else might be lurking there, waiting for me. I slithered under, catching the edge of the frame with my hand to save cracking the back of my skull on it.

  Almost at once my feet impacted against the wall and I coiled myself out of sight. Everything felt wrong, awkward, I was too big for the space – as if the world I was expecting had shrunk in my absence.

  The light did not come again. It had been Red’s flashlight, momentarily lighting up the landing outside. What the fuck was he doing? But I knew what he was doing… He was checking on me, just like I’d thought he would, and had risked the flashlight to see if I was still on the couch, without chancing the stairs’ creak.

  Another step, another half-felt, half-heard sensation of movement outside the room, his weight transferring from one foot to the other. He was still there.

  Being under the bed, however awkwardly I fit, gave me a sense of security, until I remembered the gun. In my panic, I’d completely forgotten about it, and it was now somewhere out in the dark. I reached forward, aware of the lantern by the glow-worm wriggle of light that escaped the papers, feeling against the floor for the weapon. I found it, but with the back of my hand; and instead of grabbing it, knocked it away. It skittered across the floor, its metallic sound buzzsaw-loud.