Girl Unknown(40)

She appeared pale and slight, the long sleeves of her nightdress pulled down over her wrists. I hesitated a moment, my eye caught by the coverlet over the bed. It took me a moment to recognize it – a patchwork bedspread, triangles of blue and grey cotton stitched together into geometrical patterns. I had bought it in Thailand years before when I was not long out of college. Zo? must have found it among the storage boxes up there, which meant she had been snooping through our things. It wasn’t as if there was anything secret or valuable hidden away, but I still felt angry and disheartened. It was another incursion by her into our lives, another presumption on her part that she was entitled to take possession of whatever she found. I considered saying something, but instinct told me it wasn’t worth it.

‘How’re you feeling?’ I asked.

She didn’t answer, just shrugged, her attention on the book again.

‘You know, if ever you want to talk,’ I began, ‘about what happened … about what led you to …’

She looked up sharply.

‘… I’d be happy to listen,’ I finished.

‘Right,’ she said, bemused, before she returned to her novel and lazily turned a page.

I backed out, stung by her dismissal of me. It wasn’t that I expected her to accept my offer, but a small show of appreciation would have been nice. It occurred to me that, by attempting suicide, she had got exactly what she wanted – her foot in the door – which made me doubt whether she had ever intended killing herself at all. By the time I got downstairs, David was already gone, so I left a key on the hall table, took one last look back up the stairs, and closed the door behind me.

The rain started that morning and continued all week – heavy, blistering downpours, monsoon-like in their unrelenting ferocity. The air in the hallway was heavy with the odour of damp clothes. Condensation on windows, heavy traffic, leaves clogged in drains pooling with water.

Every day, when we left the house, she was up there in her room. When I came home in the evening, I’d find her curled up on the sofa with her book, eating a carrot, or watching TV with the others. She’d look up briefly when I came through the door, greet me with a wan smile, then return her attention to whatever she was absorbed in at the time. She wasn’t hostile, or even cold, but there was a mildness to her, a lack of engagement, that I found maddening. From what I could tell, she had reasonably recovered from her blip at Christmas. There was no evidence of lingering depression, no black moods. She seemed so docile, so willing to fade into the background, that it made me wonder had she any desire or intention to find an alternative place to live. Not that I mentioned it. Even after she had returned to college, David made it clear that she remained too fragile to live alone.

The month passed in a flurry of storms interspersed with unseasonably warm weather. It was as if the meteorological elements were somehow mirroring the uncertain climate within our home. As the weeks progressed, I felt Zo?’s position solidifying in the house, growing unquestionable. She was making more of an effort to help out and was, I suppose, largely unobtrusive. Tidy, hers was a quiet presence, but a presence nonetheless. And when the others were not around – when it was just me and her – she allowed the mask to slip, her polite charm vanishing, replaced by cool remoteness.

The precariousness of our situation was made clear to me one weekday evening – the occasion of our first serious argument about her. We were clearing away the dishes after dinner, David scraping plates into the bin and handing them to Holly, when Zo? stood up and, without a word to any of us, left the room. In her wake, I heard the dull thud of the salad bowl being brought down hard on the counter. ‘Why is she allowed to get out of the dishes?’ Holly demanded.

‘Until she’s well –’ David began, but Holly cut him off.

‘There’s nothing wrong with her! Why do you keep tiptoeing around her?’

David put down the plate he was holding.

From upstairs came the jagged strains of Robbie’s cello. He, too, had been excused household chores but Holly wasn’t interested in that. ‘How much longer is she going to be here?’ she asked, her whole body stiff with tension. I could see how frustrated she was.

‘Sweetheart –’ I began, trying to calm her.

‘I’m sick of her!’ she declared, her voice rising to a screech.

‘Holly!’ David said sharply, but she was already turning from him. Seconds later we heard feet thundering up the stairs, the slam of her bedroom door. We looked at each other.

‘Well?’ I said.

‘What?’

‘She has a point.’

He turned from me, picked up another plate and continued scraping, but with a more committed air.

‘Can’t we talk about this?’ I asked. ‘Holly’s not happy.’

‘Holly’s behaving like a spoilt brat.’

‘I think you’re being unfair, David. This is her home and she’s feeling marginalized.’

‘I’m not saying Zo? should stay here indefinitely,’ he said, putting the plate and knife down, ‘but it’s only a few weeks since she tried to kill herself. I’m not comfortable at the thought of her taking care of herself yet.’

‘Have you talked to Zo? about it? About how she’s feeling now, within herself?’

‘A little. I mean, she’s doing better but she’s still vulnerable. I think she needs our support.’