The Minute I Saw You

by Paige Toon

  No, I want a better hug.

  I nod. ‘I’m good. You? How was today?’

  He waggles his head from side to side. ‘Derek was fidgety. Tricky when you’re working with a macro lens, but I think we got there in the end.’

  ‘The photos are crazy,’ Archie interrupts, getting a couple of cans of beer out of the fridge. ‘They’re extreme close-ups. The detail is unbelievable. It’s actually quite uncomfortable to look at some of them, but at the same time, you can’t look away.’

  ‘That’s the point,’ Sonny says as he takes one of the beers from Archie and cracks it open.

  Archie slaps Sonny’s stomach. ‘Mate, you should’ve brought some over. They’re so freaky,’ he tells us. ‘You don’t think of the human eye as being like that. They look like alien planets or something. Mad.’

  ‘It’s probably no different to what you see through a biomicroscope,’ Sonny says to me, taking a sip of his beer.

  ‘That’s more Umeko’s bag than mine,’ I point out. ‘I’ve seen eyes up close, but I’ve never taken the time to properly appreciate what they look like. I’d love to see your shots.’

  He shrugs. ‘I still have a few more photo shoots to do.’

  ‘Are you blowing me off?’ I ask, mock-affronted.

  ‘I’ll show you when you next come over,’ he promises with a small smile that sends a shiver rippling down my spine.

  I tear my eyes away and turn to Archie and Matilda, smiling brightly. ‘How was your holiday?’

  After an hour of chit-chat, we crack on with our reason for coming.

  Archie hangs back in the kitchen to call and place our takeaway Thai order, but Sonny barges past Matilda on her way to the living room and crashes over the side of the snuggler seat.

  ‘What the—’ she starts to say.

  ‘Our turn!’ he cuts her off gleefully, swinging his legs into a sitting position.

  I laugh at the sight of him – his two beers have loosened him up. I also feel more relaxed than an hour ago.

  Matilda is disbelieving. ‘You say it like you want to squeeze onto that thing,’ she says.

  ‘I do,’ Sonny replies with a shrug, his grin sparking a flame inside me as he pats the space beside him.

  Matilda laughs and goes back into the kitchen.

  I waste no time sliding into place, the left-hand side of my body pressing firmly against his right.

  Sonny turns to look at me, a smile still playing about his lips.

  ‘I told Matilda,’ I whisper. I’ve been dying to let him know all evening. ‘About Anna.’

  His eyes widen. ‘When?’

  ‘Before you guys arrived.’

  ‘You’re okay?’

  I nod. ‘Surprisingly.’

  ‘Wow, well done.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘You coming in?’ he asks, making to extend his arm behind my shoulders.

  ‘Absolutely.’ I snuggle against his chest, soaking up the feeling of tiny bubbles going off in my stomach.

  ‘Are you guys okay there?’ Archie asks with a frown as he walks into the room.

  ‘They wanted to sit there,’ Matilda tells him significantly.

  Archie looks bemused and flops onto the sofa, stretching his long legs out.

  ‘For two people who don’t do relationships, you guys are sure looking cosy,’ Matilda adds cheekily, settling on the sofa beside her fiancé.

  Sonny flips her off and the three of them laugh, but his smile falters when he sees my face.

  I’m afraid my happy bubbles have fizzled out.

  Chapter 37

  Sonny walks me home afterwards. I don’t argue. I want to spend more time with him, even though I sense another heart-to-heart is coming.

  ‘Sooo . . .’ he says, speaking in quiet tones as we walk past dark houses with possibly sleeping inhabitants inside.

  Here it comes . . .

  ‘Relationships.’

  There we go.

  ‘What about them?’ I ask.

  ‘Your expression when Matilda cracked that comment earlier.’

  ‘Mmmhmm.’

  ‘You know where I stand, right?’ He casts me a sidelong look in the light from the street lamps. ‘Do you remember what I said to you that day at the river?’

  ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘This is the closest I’ve ever come to being in a relationship too.’

  ‘Okay.’ He sounds uncertain, as though that hasn’t exactly answered his question, but we walk on in silence, leaving the city behind as we reach the green space of Grantchester Meadows.

  The air is filled with the scent of wet grass and cowpats. I hope we don’t stumble into a herd at this time of night. Above our heads, a full moon is shining brightly, lighting our way, so we should be okay. We don’t even need the torchlight from our phones.

  ‘Right,’ Sonny says a few minutes later. ‘Why don’t you do relationships?’ he asks directly.

  ‘I never have,’ I reply, but I’m holding back. I’m not there yet. ‘I love nights like this,’ I muse, looking up. ‘The stars are so bright. It reminds me of being out in the fens, the wide-open fields and star-gazing.’

  He sighs quietly, then: ‘I got the all-clear from an STD clinic today.’

  ‘Oh? I didn’t know you’d gone for a test.’

  ‘I went a few weeks ago. Thought it was something I should do. I’ve always been safe, but you know, accidents happen.’

  ‘That’s . . . great.’ My reply comes out sounding awkward, even though it shouldn’t.

  ‘Yeah, I was pleased.’ He chuckles at our polite to-and-fros. ‘Have you ever been?’

  ‘I went in April, actually. All fine,’ I feel compelled to add. ‘I haven’t had sex since.’

  Luckily you can’t see blushes by moonlight.

  Hang on. I turn to look at him. ‘Are you doing your usual thing of telling me something personal so I open up to you in turn?’

  ‘Does that work?’ he asks hopefully.

  ‘Kind of,’ I reply with a smirk.

  ‘So, back to relationships,’ he prompts.

  I groan.

  ‘Quid pro quo, Clarice,’ he says in his best Anthony Hopkins Silence of the Lambs impression.

  I burst out laughing, the sound carrying across the Meadows.

  ‘Tell me about your first boyfriend,’ he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice. ‘The one you had when you were sixteen.’

  ‘You remember me mentioning Joshua?’ I ask with surprise. That was ages ago.

  He nods. ‘You didn’t tell me his name, but you said you broke up with him after it got physical.’

  ‘That’s right.’ I exhale on a rush of air. ‘I liked him, but I didn’t trust him enough to tell him about Anna.’

  I explain about Danielle and the closeness I used to crave. It’s not a comfortable conversation because it’s not something I like to remember. I hate how I made her feel squeamish and how it got awkward. I tell him how she put distance between us after she got together with Brett.

  ‘Josh was Brett’s friend,’ I explain. ‘Perhaps if Nina hadn’t been in hospital so much that year, I wouldn’t have gone out with him, but at the time I just wanted to be normal, like Danielle. I didn’t love him, though. I didn’t feel close enough to confide in him. There was no way I was ever going to let him see me naked. No one ever has. You won’t even get me in a swimming costume.’

  ‘Jesus, Hannah!’ Sonny interrupts, shocked. ‘You really go through life without getting your clothes off?’

  I laugh gloomily. ‘It’s surprisingly easy, if you don’t do long-term relationships.’

  ‘But—’ He sounds exasperated. ‘Surely that’s not your reason for avoiding relationships. Is it?’ He’s incredulous. ‘It’s that simple?’

  ‘I don’t want anyone looking at my scars or treating me like I’m something out of a freak show,’ I mutter.

  ‘Anyone who loved you wouldn’t make you feel like that. I wouldn’t make you feel like that,’ he adds.

 
‘There’s no way you’re ever seeing me naked!’ I squawk, horrified at the thought. ‘You photograph models, for Christ’s sake. I can’t think of anything worse than showing you my imperfections.’

  Turns out he has nothing to say about that.

  There’s a tension radiating from him as we walk on. I replay our conversation over in my head until I come to, ‘Anyone who loved you wouldn’t make you feel like that. I wouldn’t make you feel like that.’

  Did he just imply that he . . .? Surely not.

  ‘You coming in?’ I ask nervily as we approach the cottage.

  ‘You want me to?’

  I nod. Despite the inquisition, I do.

  ‘Drink?’ I ask as we walk into the kitchen.

  ‘Just water, thanks,’ he replies as Bertie goes straight to her bed and conks out.

  I get myself a glass too, all the time wondering what’s next. He nods towards the living room.

  Seems we’re not done talking for the night. Awesome.

  He sits at one end of the sofa; I take the other, facing him.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ Do I want to know?

  He’s looking at me strangely. ‘Sorry, but I’m calling bullshit.’

  Goddammit!

  ‘I don’t believe that’s it,’ he continues. ‘You’re not that superficial. I’m sorry, but you’re not,’ he insists, putting his hand up to stop me from denying it. ‘I’m sure it’s part of it, and I get that you’d feel uncomfortable and wouldn’t bother with the hassle of explaining to one-night stands, but there’s something else you’re not telling me.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ I mutter.

  ‘Come on, Culshaw, hit me with it.’

  ‘I’m not a Culshaw.’ He’s unwittingly provided me with a way to derail the conversation. ‘I mean, I am, but I changed my name by deed poll. I was actually born a Cooper. I took Charles and June’s name when I came to live here. Charles’s idea of how to stay under the radar.’

  I explain about the press attention surrounding us, particularly after Anna died. It would have been very easy for any of my new classmates to type my real name into an internet search and read all about Anna and me.

  ‘Charles wanted to protect me, and my parents went along with it – although my mum still can’t bring herself to write Culshaw on my address. To her, I’ll always be a Cooper.’

  ‘That’s why she wrote Hannah C on your letter?’ He remembers the envelope that came for me.

  ‘Exactly.’ I nod.

  He opens up his arms to me. As we hug, my conscience pricks me. I didn’t mean to be manipulative, but I feel as if I’ve dodged a bullet.

  ‘Will you stay with me again?’ I lift my head from his shoulder to look into his eyes.

  He stares back at me, his expression thoughtful. ‘If that’s what you’d like?’

  ‘It is.’

  When we go upstairs, the bathroom is straight ahead, the door open to reveal the mirrored cabinets on the wall. Sonny comes to a stop and stares at them, then he steps forward and studies what he sees while I hang back, my pulse suddenly racing ten to the dozen. The angle of the mirrors means that there are two faces staring back at him.

  He turns to look at me, one more question in his eyes.

  ‘You still talk to her,’ he says, already reaching for and grasping the answer. ‘Anna. You still talk to her.’

  I crumble. ‘All the time.’

  Chapter 38

  I was always the talker and Anna was the listener. It was the same when she was alive and it continued after she died. I talked and she listened.

  I never wanted to be separated from Anna – that was her choice. But we were both happy until the outside world intervened.

  Colleen, our psychiatrist, had already started to sow the seed, the idea that we should be separated. But Anna and I had resolved that we would face the future together and never be parted.

  Then one day we wandered too far across the fields and came across a gang of teenage boys. The way they looked at us . . . The shock and disgust and incredulity on their faces . . . They told us we were different, not just in their words but through their expressions and actions. They made us feel dirty.

  We ran all the way home, stumbling and falling.

  Afterwards, Anna was in bits. She retreated into herself, somewhere where I couldn’t reach her. She wouldn’t hear reason. She couldn’t put it to one side and forget. It plagued her, the reaction from those boys. They made her feel like a freak. And she hated it.

  The next time we saw Colleen, Anna talked. She talked more than I’d ever heard her talk to any of the specialists who came to see us. She asked questions. I wanted to shut her up, to silence her. I was so scared. I didn’t want what she wanted, what she was considering. I begged her to stop.

  But she wouldn’t.

  Our parents, who had always said that Mother Nature had made us the way we were and that we were a miracle, started to listen to the specialists. They started to listen to Anna.

  I fought it. I argued. I begged Anna to stop talking about it. But instead, she stopped talking to me. She didn’t want to be joined to me. She wanted to be her own person, free to do whatever she wanted.

  Our parents made the decision to separate us. I was devastated. Anna was optimistic. I cried the whole way to the hospital. I wanted to turn away from her, but our pelvises were fused in a way that leant us towards each other instead of away. I had always loved that, loved how I could look into my sister’s eyes when we spoke, loved how I could see her face and know what she was thinking. Our eye contact used to mean the world to me.

  But that day, at the hospital, I wanted to look away.

  Anna was excited, but when I refused to meet her gaze, she grew upset. She wanted me to be happy with the decision she’d helped our parents to make, but I believed it was a huge mistake.

  One day she was there and the next she was gone.

  When I woke up without her beside me, I cried and cried. She was on a twin bed in the same hospital room, but I couldn’t reach her. She felt so far away.

  I still remember those first few days after the surgery, how buoyant and positive she seemed. We were in so much pain, but she giggled with the doctors and nurses and was in high spirits.

  I just wanted to sob. I felt so alone. But that was nothing compared to how I felt when Anna fell unconscious.

  They brought me closer so that I could hold her hand and talk to her as she lay there, unmoving. My parents had a constant stream of tears coursing down their faces.

  Colleen was there too. Colleen, who had been so jubilant and who, only days earlier, had tried to gee me up with excitement about my future and the possibilities it held, was stunned into silence. I still remember how pale her face was when Anna slipped away from us.

  No one could believe it.

  But I could.

  I hated everyone for taking her away from me. I resented my sister for wanting to leave me. I was broken.

  I lost the capacity to formulate sentences. I refused to see Colleen or any of the specialists who I had been so fond of. My parents respected that and kept them away.

  But Charles, I would tolerate. He spent a lot of time with me.

  ‘Do you talk to her?’ he asked me months after Anna’s passing.

  I shook my head. I didn’t talk to anyone.

  ‘She’s still with you.’

  I knew he wanted to believe that. He wanted me to believe it. He wanted me to have faith, to feel that she was with me somewhere, somehow.

  His words sparked something. I did start to speak aloud to her. I remember the first time: I was at home in the garden. The chicks had hatched and, despite my grief, I found happiness with them. They were so small and soft. I liked the way they’d hop onto my hands with their scratchy feet and hop off again, cheeping and flapping their little wings.

  ‘What do you think, Anna?’ I whispered. ‘What shall we call them?’

  We named them. I named them, but I felt as though she was ther
e with me.

  In the ensuing months, she was with me as I picked the cherry tomatoes from the vines. She was there when I fed the ducks. She was there when I read stories aloud. She was there when I lay on my back in bed, staring at the ceiling.

  It was a long time before I lay on my side to sleep.

  I know Anna is not with me now. In my heart I believe that when she died, she went for good. When I talk to her, it’s not because I think she’s still beside me. It’s because it brings me comfort to imagine her listening.

  I’m aware it makes me seem crazy. That was what actually freaked out my university flatmates: they heard me chatting and, when I was drunk one night, I blurted the truth.

  Charles worries – Evelyn too. They fear that while I have Anna, I will never let anyone else in. They’re right. I can’t have a relationship because no one would tolerate me talking to my dead sister. And I can’t imagine ever stopping. Anna is a part of me. She will always be a part of me.

  ‘When I thought you were talking to Bertie . . .’ Sonny whispers.

  ‘Anna,’ I say. ‘Sometimes it was Bertie, but it was most likely Anna.’

  ‘You talk to her . . .’

  ‘Every day.’

  ‘Only in the mirror?’

  ‘No, anywhere. Morning and night, and I know you think I’m insane and I don’t blame you—’

  ‘No, I don’t,’ he interrupts. ‘I understand it makes you feel better.’

  I exhale heavily. ‘Charles stresses about it. That’s why I can’t stay here once he returns.’

  ‘He wants you to stop talking to her?’

  I nod. ‘He overheard me a few times in the weeks before he went away. He wouldn’t let it go.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’s crazy.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s crazy.’

  I stare at Sonny, lying there on the pillow beside me, and I don’t know what to say.

  ‘I don’t think you should stop if it brings you comfort,’ he says.

  ‘You . . . don’t?’

  ‘Of course not. Why should you? What harm is it doing anyone?’

  ‘You don’t think I’m psychotic?’

  ‘I know you’re not. Is this why you’ve never allowed yourself to have a relationship? Because you’ve thought boyfriends wouldn’t be able to handle that you still talk to her?’