His & Hers(39)

“When I said you could move in with us for a while after the divorce, I meant for a couple of weeks, not a couple of years…” she says, without looking up.

“And then how would you have paid the mortgage?”

I moved in with my sister when I moved out of the London apartment I shared with Anna. This used to be our parents’ house before they died, and I feel like I have as much right to be here as Zoe. Firstly, she didn’t have a clue about inheritance tax, which meant re-mortgaging the house in order to keep it. Secondly, our parents died rather unexpectedly. To my dismay, and Zoe’s surprise, there was no will. Although our parents were highly organized in life, their death was not planned for at all. At least not by them.

The only reason I went along with my sister treating the house as though it were hers was because she had a daughter. They needed a place to call home more than I did, and besides, I never had any real desire to come back to this town then. Like my ex, I would rather leave the past where it belongs.

Zoe barges by me and storms out of the room. She doesn’t look, or smell, like she washed or dressed today. Again. My sister doesn’t have a real job. She says she can’t find one, but that might be because she hasn’t bothered looking for ten years. She relies on cushion covers, benefits, and selling our dead parents’ belongings on eBay—which she thinks I don’t know about—and insists that being a parent is a full-time job, even though she acts like a part-time mother.

I follow her into the kitchen. Then I watch while she takes longer than could ever be necessary to wash up a single cup in the sink. I notice that everything is spotlessly clean—something Zoe rarely does whether she is upset or not—and put away in its proper place, except for one knife from the stainless-steel block on the counter. I noticed it was missing this morning too.

“How did you know about Rachel?” I ask.

Zoe still has her back to me, rinsing her wineglass now, as though her life depended on it. I take a clean one from the cupboard, and pour myself a drink from the open bottle of red on the counter. Sadly, my sister has the same taste in wine as she does in men; too cheap, too young, and headache-inducing.

“How did I know that she was dead? Or how did I know that you were sleeping with her?” she asks, finally turning to face me.

I can’t look her in the eye, but I manage to nod as I take a sip.

“I’m your sister. I know you. You kept saying you were working late, but Blackdown isn’t exactly crime central. Or at least, it wasn’t. Then I saw her in the supermarket one day last week, and she started a conversation. Like you said, she hasn’t said hello to me for almost twenty years so…”

“So, you automatically thought she must be screwing your brother?”

She raises a penciled-in eyebrow. Zoe always wears full makeup, regardless of whether she gets washed or dressed or leaves the house.

“Not at first, but she wore a very distinctive perfume, and you came home smelling of it that night, after ‘working late,’ so…”

She makes air quotes with her hands, something she has been doing since we were children. It has only grown more irritating over time.

“Why didn’t you say something?” I ask.

“Because it was none of my business. I don’t tell you who I’m sleeping with.”

She doesn’t need to; this house has thin walls.

“You’re sleeping with someone?” I say, but she ignores me.

The question was meant to be ironic. Zoe is always sleeping with someone, and has a rather casual attitude to sex. She’s never told me who her daughter’s father is, I suspect because she doesn’t know.

“I thought you’d probably tell me yourself when you were ready. Besides, I wasn’t sure until last night,” she says.

“Why last night?”

“Because she called here.”

The wineglass almost slips through my fingers.

“What did you just say?”

“Rachel Hopkins called here last night.”

It suddenly gets very loud inside my head, even louder than before. I didn’t know that Rachel even had this number, but then I guess it has never changed. It’s the same one she used to call my sister on when they were school friends. I’m terrified of the answer, but I have to ask the question.

“Did you speak to her?”

“No. I didn’t even hear the phone. She left a message around midnight; I only listened to it this morning when I saw the machine flashing.”

She walks to the other side of the kitchen, to the ancient answering machine that used to belong to our mum and dad. So many of their things are still here—the things that Zoe hasn’t sold, yet—that I honestly sometimes forget that they’re dead. Then I remember, and the grief hits me all over again. I wonder if that is normal.

Time became a bit nonlinear inside my head after they died. Bad things just kept on happening. Not just the death of my daughter and the divorce; it was as though any future I had once imagined for myself had decided to unravel. Now it’s happening again.

Zoe seems to move in slow motion. I want to tell her to stop, to not press Play on the machine. I don’t know if I want to hear Rachel’s voice again anymore. Maybe it would be better to remember her the way she was rather than …

Zoe presses Play.

“Jack, it’s me. Sorry to call the landline, but you’re not answering your mobile. Are you on your way? It’s getting late and I’m so tired. I know I should be able to change a tire myself; I don’t know how it happened, it’s almost as though someone slashed it. Hang on, I think I see your headlights coming into the parking lot now. My knight in shining armor!”