Sometimes I Lie(78)

Even a few weeks later, there are still some side effects from the coma. I experience horribly disturbing nightmares and I have trouble sleeping since I woke up. I creep downstairs and Digby comes to meet me. We have a puppy now, a black Labrador. It was Paul’s idea. I walk through to the kitchen, glancing at the clock before beginning my routine: 03.07.

I start with the back door and repeatedly turn the handle until I’m sure it is locked.

Up, down. Up, down. Up, down.

Next, I stand in front of the large range oven with my arms bent at the elbows. My fingers form the familiar shape: the index and middle finger finding the thumb on each hand. I whisper quietly to myself, whilst visually checking that everything is switched off, my fingernails clicking together. I do it again. I do it a third time.

Digby is watching me from the kitchen doorway, his head tilted to one side. I go to leave, lingering briefly, wondering if I should check everything one last time before I do. I look at the clock: 03.15. There isn’t time. I put on my coat, grab my bag and check the contents: Phone. Purse. Keys. As well as a few other bits and pieces. I check twice more before attaching Digby’s lead to his collar, then make myself leave the house, checking the front door is locked three times before marching down the moonlit garden path.

I find walking helps and the puppy appreciates it whether it’s night or day. Just a couple of blocks and some fresh air and I can normally get back to sleep. Nothing else seems to work. I walk along the main road, not a single light shines from any of the houses, as though everyone else has gone and I’m the only person left in the world.

I carry on through the sleeping streets under a black blanket of night sky covered in stars, like sequins. They’re the same stars I looked up at over twenty years ago, but I am forever changed. There’s no moon, so I am completely cloaked in darkness as I turn into Claire’s road. I stare up at the house, taking it in as though looking at it properly for the first time. It should have been mine, I was born here. I tie Digby’s lead to a lamppost, take out my key and head inside.

I check on Claire and David first. They look so peaceful, lying completely still, facing away from each other.

The wheels on the bus go round and round.

I think that’s supposed to mean something, them lying like that. Something about their relationship, but I can’t remember and it doesn’t matter now anyway.

Round and round.

I check David’s pulse. There isn’t one, he’s already cold. I move around to the other side of the bed to check on Claire. Her pulse is weak but she has one. I guess he ate more of the meal I made them. The bag of drugs from the hospital seems to have worked. I had my doubts, but then if a hospital porter can figure this stuff out, with the help of the internet it really shouldn’t be beyond someone like me.

Round and round.

I walk to the children’s bedroom, before coming back to Claire.

The wheels on the bus go round and round.

The sound of the twins crying shatters the silence. I lean down closer to the bed, hoping she can hear them.

All day long.

I whisper in her ear, ‘Two peas in a pod.’

Her eyes open and I jump back from the bed. She looks towards the sound of her children screaming down the hall. I relax when I realise she can’t move anything other than her eyes. They’re wide and wild as she stares in my direction with a look I’ve never seen in them before. Fear. I hold the petrol can up so that it’s within Claire’s field of vision. She looks at it, then back to me. I study my sister’s face one last time, then take her hand in mine, squeezing it three times before letting her go.

‘I never was fond of gas,’ I say, before leaving the room.





After

Wednesday, 15th February 2017 – 04.00


I take a different route home, a slight detour with Digby in tow. It’s cold and I walk a little faster when I hear the fire engines. I think about Edward, perhaps because of the sound of sirens; the police never did catch him. I remember the afternoon when Detective Handley came to the house to tell me what they had found. He sat down on our sofa, with such gentle consideration, as though not wishing to disturb the air in the room or dent the cushions. He refused my offer of tea with a polite shake of his head, then paused for a long time, visibly searching for the right words and deliberating the order in which they should be spoken. His skin turned a whiter shade of pale as he began to describe the traces of blood and burned skin that had been found inside the sunbed at Edward’s flat. Claire didn’t have an alibi for the night the neighbours said they heard a man screaming. Neither did I, but it didn’t matter, nobody ever asked where either of us were. A possible accident, the detective thought, and suggested that something might have short-circuited. I remember nodding as he spoke. Something or someone most likely did. There was no body. No neat conclusion. Sometimes things have to get messy in order to be cleaned up.

My thoughts shift to Madeline as I turn a corner onto the main road. I think of her often since I woke up. I pass the petrol station where I bought the petrol over two months ago. The CCTV of that day will have been deleted now, but their records will show that it was paid for with a credit card belonging to Madeline Frost. She was always giving me her credit card to buy her lunches or pay for her dry-cleaning, but I used it for a lot of other things too, including an extra set of her house keys when she asked me to get a spare cut for her new cleaner. Taking a job that was clearly beneath me was useful for things like that, but the best part about it was knowing Madeline’s diary, because as her PA, I created it. I knew where she was every minute of the day, weeks in advance and I knew when she didn’t have an alibi.