First Born(60)

The Suburban dropped me off in Manhattan that day, five or six blocks from KT’s apartment, in the northernmost part of the Upper West Side. It was my first time in New York City. My first time outside of the UK.

A family boards the train and sits opposite, the eldest child trying, and failing, to master her yo-yo.

KT’s building was a sculpted brownstone with heavy, ornate steps. There were shrubs growing outside her windows, and her blinds were finished at the hem with a line of small fabric spheres on pieces of string, like a line of soft ping pong balls.

I checked that nobody was watching. And then I buzzed her.

A message pings on the phone of the woman opposite and she stops staring at me. She’s not a cop, there’s no way, I’ve been too careful. She’s just inquisitive. Some people are not good at hiding their stares, that’s all. It’ll be OK. I believe wholeheartedly in this role, in this disguise, and so will she. Maybe it’s weird to see someone, anyone, on a train these days who isn’t looking at their smartphone. Perhaps that’s why she’s staring.

KT opened her door. I expected a look of horror on her face for some reason, an expression of mortal fear, but she burst into tears and smiled and led me inside.

‘What the fuck, Moll? How are you even here? Oh, my God, this is amazing. Did Mum and Dad organise it?’ She looked behind me. ‘Are they here? Did you come by cruise ship? Is this a surprise?’

‘They don’t know I’m here,’ I said. ‘It is a surprise. I’ve been saving up.’

We didn’t hug. We didn’t even shake hands. We never really touched each other. No affectionate punching of shoulders or brushing each other’s hair. None of that. Never. We’re too similar. It’d seem weird.

‘I cannot believe you are here – you’re such a bitch not letting me know, God, I would’ve tidied up or something. Fuck. You’re staying here with me, right? How long are you in New York? Oh, my God, you’re really here, Molly!’

And then we made a pot of tea and sat down and got to talking. No phones or distractions. We talked and we covered so much. How she was coping in New York. Her new boyfriend and the awkward affair with her tutor that he ended despite all the promises that he loved KT and that he was going to separate from his wife and buy his own duplex apartment by Morningside Park. I told her about my job, how my mid-year assessment went, the movies I’d seen on Netflix, the new fire safe I’d invested in. She told me about Violet Roseberry. How they had drifted apart a little after Violet started acting strange, but they still hung out after class or in the library. I asked about how Mum and Dad were enjoying New York. She told me Dad loved it and Mum was worried about the family business, how they were probably going bankrupt and this was Dad’s last splurge; one of many, and how she didn’t know how they would manage after the court had dealt with them.

The train slows for a stop and the kid with the family does a half-decent yo-yo and her mum gives her a big cheerful hug to congratulate her.

KT started talking about the dinner we’d have with Mum and Dad that night at her favourite Italian place close to her apartment, and it was then that I told her exactly how I’d got here, how I had found out about the foundation that was sponsoring her and that I met James Kandee and persuaded him to fly me here secretly in his Gulfstream. I told her that I was going back in a few hours, I didn’t even have a passport with me so I couldn’t be here officially, but I’d just wanted so badly to see her, to make things right between us. And then we opened up about how we both felt. Finally. How we really felt. We worked our way through two full pots of tea and a packet of digestive biscuits. I tried to explain the betrayal I felt, her leaving me alone in London. She opened up about how suffocated she was and how she needed two years just to be herself. How Mum and Dad were so focused on me they pretty much ignored her. We didn’t cry but we talked and talked. We were exhausted. So I suggested we do what we did as children, as young teens even. I suggested we take a power nap before dinner with our parents.

The woman opposite gets off at Harlem 125th Street and the train trundles on towards Grand Central.

As kids we’d sleep in single beds in the same room. But at five or six years old we started to take naps at the same time. They’d often be just twenty minutes long, that’s all. We got tired at the same time every day, so the synchronised naps worked well. We both fell asleep quickly if we were in the same room and we both woke up together. So, at age twenty-two, we took another power nap. The talking, the honesty, it had all been so tiring. KT told me to take the bed and she’d take the sofa. I insisted she take the bed and I take the sofa. She made it up for me with a tartan blanket and a pillow. She closed the window shutters and got into bed. We both fell asleep in minutes.

Only I didn’t fall asleep.

Because sleep wasn’t part of my plan.

I waited another ten minutes so she’d be in deep sleep. I know her patterns off by heart because they are also my patterns. Her breathing slows the way mine does. She sleeps on her back the same way I do. Her face is turned to the left side to start with, just as mine is. She sleeps with her arms down by her sides under the covers the way I do. So when I crept over to the bed and straddled her holding the pillow she’d lent me, she was pinned down by her own sheet. Her arms were underneath my weight. She tried to move them as she woke and saw me, felt me. But my knees dug into her armpits just as Martinez described. She fought me and I didn’t want that, I wanted a peaceful sleep for her. She’s strong and she tried to wrestle me off but by the time the pillow had been tight against her mouth and nose for a minute or so the fight was leaving her exactly as I had researched. The carbon dioxide poisoning starts to kick in. Consciousness weakens. She went limp. And then she fought back one last time, thrashing with her feet and hands but she couldn’t move. We’re equal weight and almost equal strength and I was on top of her and she was under the sheet. Weakened. I couldn’t hear her words through the pillow, just a dull, distant scream. And then she went quiet.