My Sister

by Michelle Adams

  ‘This morning you told me that I was free of you. That you would never look for me again. That you knew how our father felt, and that he would still choose you, like everything was better without me.’ I can feel the tears coming on too. ‘What’s changed?’

  ‘Just one drink. A last goodbye. One good final memory.’ She looks pathetically broken as she clings to me. ‘Together.’ The limited past we share tells me that nothing good can come from this. But how can I say no? Today of all days, how can I run from her again?

  ‘Just one drink. And from an unopened bottle,’ I warn her. ‘Don’t think I can’t remember what you did to that poor girl at my school.’ She looks hurt when I bring up Margot Wolfe, and shakes her head.

  ‘I wasn’t even there. I was somewhere else.’

  ‘It was your plan. You knew what would happen. I was too young to understand.’

  ‘You were old enough to know the consequences of what you were doing, and more than pleased with the result.’ She enjoys watching as I squirm, remembering what we did. ‘It was one of the best things that happened to you at school. But as if I would do the same to you. You’re my sister.’

  18

  We leave the house at 5 p.m. and head into town, me back in my FEEL jumper, Elle in a snazzy pair of leggings and a T-shirt that might or might not be designed for exercise. I am ready and braced for any possible erratic responses as we set off, gripping the door handle before we even leave the driveway. Yet she is calm and mild-mannered. In fact, she is nothing like Elle.

  By the time we park up at the pub in the nearby border town of Hawick, it is approaching 5.20, the wind blowing, a summer storm brewing. She has parked and changed her mind three times, but eventually she settles on the Bourtree. She is quiet and reserved, almost to the point of unresponsive, like she knows something is over too. I encourage her along, pointing out a table just inside, and she follows. I suggest bottled beer and she agrees. I tell her that I thought it was a nice service at the church, and she smiles and says the reverend is a kind person. Throughout she burns matches from a box bearing the name of the pub. She strikes one, watches the flame, waits until it is burnt all the way to the end before dropping it in an empty glass. She tests her tolerance of the fire, drawing patterns with the flame across her hand, occasionally catching the down on her arm, filling the air with the scent of burnt hair. I have no idea who the impostor in the chair opposite me is, but it makes me nervous.

  The silence between us is difficult, and I can’t think of anything mundane to fill it. So I plump for something real. ‘Will you be all right with our father once I leave?’ It’s a dangerous question, because if she tells me no, I’m not sure what I will say. It’s not like I would ask her to come to London with me. It’s not like I’m planning to come back and check in on her.

  ‘I think so,’ she says, and I breathe a sigh of relief. She spots it, pretends not to. ‘It will be better now, anyway. I think once he gets over it, he too will find it easier.’

  ‘What will he find easier?’

  ‘Her not being around. It was always strained between them. Mainly because it was strained between me and her.’ She looks up at me and sees that I am waiting for clarification. She drops a lit match on to a beer mat and watches as it starts to smoke. I bash it out with the edge of my fist, but it’s like she doesn’t even notice. ‘She blamed me, you see. She always knew there was something wrong with me. It’s not like it’s a secret.’ She lights another match and we both watch it burn down as she holds it steady between us.

  I maintain a silence. I pity her beaten resolve, quashed by her own insight into the nature of who she is. ‘You said something earlier that I didn’t know about,’ I say. She shrugs, inviting me to elaborate. ‘That you went into a clinic. Why did they send you away?’

  She looks surprised, like I am the one with the problem. ‘Why did they send me to the nut house? Because they didn’t know what to do. They thought the doctors would help. So they put me in there as a show of action, to make them feel better about things. Anyway, whatever. It’s a long time ago, not that long after you were born. But let’s not sit here all night talking about that like somebody died.’

  She jumps from her seat and heads to the bar. I see her making a phone call before she comes back with two more drinks. Just like she always did, trying to lure me in. Hardly a surprise.

  ‘I said only one, and from a bottle. I’m not drinking that. Plus, you’re driving.’

  She rolls her eyes at me in the classic Elle way, as if I am just a miserly fun-spoiler. A party-pooper. I’ve seen this look many times before. She takes a sip from both drinks as if to prove they haven’t been spiked. I take the one closest to her, give it a sniff. I don’t know what I am looking for, but it just smells like whisky.

  ‘Come on. We’re drinking to your Elle-free future,’ she says without a hint of irony, her unblinking eyes fixed upon mine. If her comment was designed to make me feel bad, or her stare to make me uncomfortable, it’s worked. She is holding up her glass so that we might raise a toast. I strike her glass with mine. I sip cautiously and see that it tastes fine. As if I would do the same to you. You’re my sister. ‘It’s a good one,’ I say, hoping the compliment on her whisky choice can sweeten her mood.

  ‘I know it is. This is Scotland, and I know a good whisky when I see one, just like I know a person who likes a good drink. You and he are not so different. Go on, knock it back.’ I humour her and swallow the drink. ‘That’s better,’ she says.

  We pass the next half an hour talking about our shared experiences, of which there are few. Of course we discuss the dead dog, the fact that it happened, and that indeed the white cross at the end of the lawn represents not only where it was buried, but also where it died. She raises some of the more questionable things she got me to do. She tries to bring up the last time we saw each other before I left for university, but I dodge the subject by mentioning the time she jumped from the aqueduct. For some reason I find it amusing, and instead of reprimanding her for it, I finally see the funny side. I laugh as I remember the horror on the face of the man who pulled her out, jabbing at her naked body with a fallen tree branch. The leaf that clung to her eyelid like a pirate’s patch. Haha! I’m actually giggling out loud, and amidst my humour I realise the trick. I look down; her whisky remains untouched.

  ‘You spiked my drink,’ I say as I try to stand. ‘You said you wouldn’t, but you did.’ I don’t manage it, slip back into my chair. She steadies me and I lean on the table for support.

  ‘Don’t be pissy with me. They’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Who’ll be here?’ I ask, trying to fight the drug in order to remain angry.

  ‘Greg and Matt.’

  This revelation forces me back up and out of my seat, but my legs are less than stable. I wobble a bit before gripping the edge of the table, and reach to cup my hip protectively. Then I slump back down, defeated. ‘You bitch,’ I say, laughing. ‘You fucking drugged me.’ The thought is, in the moment of realisation, hilarious.

  I see Greg walking towards me. As he approaches the table, Matt slips out from his shadow. He smiles at me, and I smile back, and my first thought is that he looks good. Before Matt sits down, he picks up the glass of burnt-down matches. He motions for Elle to give him the half-empty box; once she relinquishes it, he drops it into the glass, which he sets on another table.

  ‘Well, well, well. What are two beautiful ladies doing drinking on their own?’ says Greg. Elle cracks the biggest smile as he pulls up a chair. It makes me laugh too, and I don’t find him quite so repulsive tonight. Not quite. ‘We will have to rectify that,’ he says as he slides up next to her. I wonder where his fiancée is, and I almost ask him, but I am distracted by my foot in a wet patch of carpet. I try to remain sensible.

  Matt sits down and leans in towards me. ‘Everything OK?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say as his hand brushes against mine. It feels amazing. I have never been touched that way before. I slide up close, press
my body against his.

  ‘Hey, easy there,’ he says as I rub my face against his neck. His stubble is as sharp as needles, and I am purring like a cat. I reach up and stroke his face, and my skin shivers, tingles from head to toe. Somewhere inside of me the real Irini is screaming, What are you doing? but the fact that it is so much like a distant echo makes it easy to ignore.

  ‘Rini, are you OK?’ I hear Elle ask. She stretches across the table and I take her hand in mine.

  ‘You are my sister,’ I say. ‘We are family. How can I leave you?’ I lean in to her as I finally manage to stand up. I brush my fingers through her hair, find it smooth as silk. She reaches up and touches my face, and it sparks a memory, drunk or high I’m not sure, of us sitting together on a kerb. That night was the beginning of the end. Back then, to leave her was the only thing I could do. I try harder to listen, to concentrate. She is talking but I can’t differentiate the words.

  ‘You can’t leave me. Now close your eyes,’ she says. I feel the wind on my skin, brushing over me like the feathers of a bird. I open my eyes to find Elle blowing gently on my face, running her fingers up my arms like butterflies. I know in that moment that it will be the happiest memory I ever have of her.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, reaching for Matt’s hand. ‘Let’s go outside.’ I can’t stay here with her. I don’t want to give her the chance to spoil what she has just done.

  I pull Matt along behind me until we leave the pub. I swirl around in circles, dancing in the wind with my arms outstretched. Passers-by stare at me as they wander the Victorian streets of this little town, their eyes bulging out on stalks at my stupidity, my freedom, but I don’t care. We skirt past the sand-coloured buildings and gaudily fronted bars offering cheap beer and Sky Sports. In the distance I can see the tower of the town hall, which looks more like a French chateau. We run like maniacs up the high street, Matt trying to catch me as I hide behind a statue of a horse. Before he reaches me, I jump out from behind it, scare a person who happens to be passing by. But then I feel Matt’s arms around me, hear his laughter. I lean in to brush against his stubble, but instead my lips catch his. I kiss him, his lips so wet, so hot, and it drives me crazy. He spins me around, pushes me against the monument, the weight of his body bearing down on me. Grounded.

  ‘You know what this horse represents?’ he asks me as he runs his hands through my hair. When I don’t answer, he tells me. ‘Victory over the English invaders. That’s what you are, you know that? You’ve invaded me, taken over.’

  ‘I leave tonight,’ I say, only half listening. I hear a rumble of thunder shudder through the sky. ‘I told her I’m never coming back. But I love her. I love Elle. How could I leave her for ever?’ Or do I just need her, crave her, desire her in some sick way that means I can’t let her go, like an addiction? He brushes his hands across my cold cheeks and I let out a moan.

  ‘You can’t; she’s your sister,’ he whispers. He tightens his grip, pulls me in close. ‘It wouldn’t be fair on her.’

  ‘My family,’ I say, as I kiss him again. ‘I’m not myself. This isn’t—’ He interrupts me with another kiss, and any resistance that I still had begins to melt away.

  We walk, stopping every few steps to kiss and caress each other, because I am addicted to his touch. I break free at times when something catches my eye. Once a coin on the floor, the next a bush flickering in the breeze. Somehow I always end up back in his arms, being whisked along, carried forward. At some point we end up in an alley, me against the wall with his hands fumbling under my clothes like an eager teenage boy. I don’t want it to stop, but somebody chases us away. Somewhere inside of me I feel that something is different, warmer, like a buzzing in my belly. In this moment I totally belong. With him. With me. There is no other place I should be. No Elle. No Antonio. I can feel my teeth chattering, but I might just be talking. I can’t be sure.

  ‘Putting people to sleep is weird, like you see them one minute and they are wide awake, and then the next.’ I smack my hands together in a giant clap and the shock wave shudders through my body. ‘Bang, they are under. So quick. So easy. Easiest thing in the world.’ I feel spots of water hitting my face, and I look up at the sky, watch as the buildings darken in giant streaks as the rain begins to pour.

  ‘Then they wake up and they’ve been somewhere else entirely.’ I roll around his body, complete a full loop like I too have been away and now I am back, facing him.

  ‘I wish somebody would put me to sleep for a change. Find that same kind of peace.’ I jump up on a wall, walk along the edge like a gymnast, spring off the end with my arms up in a theatrical ta-da! He takes me in his arms and I look up into his wide eyes. ‘But I would never want to wake up again.’

  Before long, and with little memory of how I got there I find myself on a bed. The sheets are white. They look smooth, but the weave ripples against me as I spread and glide my hands over them. They brush against my legs too, and I look down and see that I am not wearing my jeans. My bare feet dangle over the edge. Then I see Matt. I should tell him this is a bad idea, that’s what I think. But he straddles me, kisses my neck, and it feels so damn good that I can’t tell him no. He slides my jumper up and over my head, and as I turn to pull my head out of it I see an alarm clock on the nightstand. Where are we? 8.41 p.m. flashes back at me and I remember that I am supposed to be getting on a plane. I should get up, but the voice telling me to stay is too loud to ignore. The sheets feel so good. His lips, his stubble, his hand and the way he pushes it against me and pulls at my breasts. In this moment I don’t even care if they are lopsided. I lie helplessly as he unfastens the last of my clothes, peeling away my layers until I am just me, exposed, unhidden and free. He rubs his hand across my stomach, trailing down to my scars. But he doesn’t linger over them like Antonio does.

  ‘I want you,’ he says as his wet lips slide over my thighs. The shadows rise and fall as his body moves in the soft light of the moonlit bedroom. Rain strikes the window.

  ‘I want me too,’ I say, and when he doesn’t question it, I know I am in the exact place that I should be, for the first time ever in my life. Here with a stranger, I have found peace. And in that moment I tell myself something greater than anything that has gone before: that I deserve to feel this good. That just like my father told me, I too am worthwhile.

  19

  The sound of running water wakes me. At first I think it is rain beating down outside, but the first thing I see as I open my eyes is Matt’s face. He is standing in a towel, his skin glistening and wet, with steam billowing out of the bathroom in soft, fluffy clusters behind him. That’s when I realise I’m in a hotel. I realise too that I am naked, the only thing covering me a creased white sheet.

  I lie still, trying to remember how I got here. I remember flashes of the previous night, his smiles, Elle’s laughter, us kissing, but cannot place any of these events in a timeline that leads to this room and this moment. Matt smiles as he sits down on the edge of the bed and brushes his hand against my foot. I pull it away, snap it back to me like tight elastic.

  ‘Sorry,’ he says, appearing hurt. He holds up his hands in surrender, and I feel an instant hit of regret. Partly for him, but mainly for Antonio.

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ I say as I let my foot slip back towards him across the sheets, which disappointingly just feel like sheets in the light of a new day. Regular old sheets that don’t ripple underneath my skin like I thought they did. ‘You didn’t do anything wrong.’

  He lets out an audible sigh of relief. ‘I thought for a second there . . .’ He doesn’t finish his sentence. ‘You were pretty drunk, I think, but I asked you plenty of times if you were sure. You just kept telling me that it felt so good. Not to stop.’ He smiles at the memory, but then finds it inappropriate and straightens himself up. He looks down at his body, his chest covered in hairs, surprised, like he only just realised he was naked.

  ‘I wasn’t drunk,’ I say. ‘I’ve been drunk plenty of times to know how that feels. I
was high. Somebody slipped me a roofie.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  I don’t let him finish. ‘Don’t worry. I know it wasn’t you.’ My head is throbbing, my mouth dry and sandy. I reach for a glass of water at the side of the bed, all the while keeping a firm hand over the sheet that covers me. It matters now, the scars and the lopsidedness of my body. I guzzle down the water and then slam the glass back down on the bedside table. ‘It was Elle.’

  ‘Your sister? Why would she do that?’ He looks genuinely scared. I can see him thinking about all the times he thought she was a bit nuts, when he warned his buddy to stay away from the crazy girl without any real or substantiated concerns. Even when she attacked the girlfriend of one of her victims.

  ‘You think this is the first time she’s done something like this?’ I say, covering my mouth with a fist, remembering Margot Wolfe. ‘Elle’s a fucking nut job. Always has been, and I just keep getting sucked in by her. God, I’m so stupid.’

  ‘Even if that’s true,’ he says, doubtful of my accusation, ‘you’re her sister. I would have expected some kind of familial immunity.’

  I shake my head, realising that I did too. I believed her. Trusted her. ‘We are nothing to each other,’ I spit, finally understanding the sad truth of it. ‘We have never been sisters, not as such. Yesterday I told her that I wanted nothing more to do with her, and she did the same. And we both meant it. I was planning to leave and—’ I suddenly remember. ‘Oh my God, my flight. I missed my flight home.’ All I can do is shake my head, cover my eyes with shame. ‘She’s a bitch. She did this on purpose so I would have to stay. Where are we?’