Girl Unknown(92)

Eventually he found out. And even though he had suspected there was a boyfriend, he felt a wave of revulsion and an almost overwhelming urge to grab her by the neck and shake her when he discovered it was Chris and that she was moving in with him.

When Zo? left, Robbie had stood at the door watching her go, not speaking to his mum. Afterwards, back in his room, he had felt the house around him plunge into sudden quiet, and the anger roiled inside him. It wasn’t just that it was Chris – although the idea of them naked together made him want to retch – it was the deceit. That she had kept it from him all along. Fed him titbits of information without ever revealing much at all. He felt toyed with, used, as if he was something she could amuse herself with and discard when she’d grown bored. He imagined her telling Chris about him, about the things she’d told him, the two of them lolling around in bed, laughing at Robbie’s innocence, his foolishness. All those weeks when he’d thought there was something between him and Zo? – a closeness – and all the time she had been making a mockery of him. He thought of this and felt the rage inside him, filling his brain, like a swell of music he couldn’t contain. His cello case was lying open on the bed and he slammed it shut, then slammed it again with the flat of his hand. Over and over, he hit it, drawing his hand up over his head then bringing it down with as much force as he could muster. The pain shot up through his wrist and into his arm, yet still he kept at it, feeling past the pain, making himself numb to it.

His rage came and went over the next few weeks. Sometimes it erupted in spurts of indignation and boiling fury. At others it was like a slow, seeping pool of acid in the pit of his stomach. It was exhausting being angry all the time. It left him mentally and physically drained. He could hardly stay awake at school. His cello seemed heavier than ever and he began to dread having to lug it up the stairs and into the hall for rehearsals. At home, when he was supposed to be studying for his exams, he would instead crawl into bed and try to sleep.

Something had happened to him – he knew that. Something cataclysmic. She had come into their family as if wielding a gorilla bar, wrenching it open, changing its shape to accommodate her. But the shape that it became was skewed – sharp and angular. There were no curved surfaces. He no longer recognized it. He felt that when she had shoved the bar in, looking to gain purchase, it had anchored deep inside him, changing something within.

Chance is everything. A set of circumstances coming together, merging at a particular time. Sometimes, when he is lying awake in his cell at night, Robbie plays the What If? game in his mind. What if they had never gone to France? What if Zo? and Chris had not got engaged? He could go further back. What if he’d never known Zo? existed? But that’s not interesting to him. She’s so deeply embedded in him now, even though she’s dead – especially because she’s dead – that he cannot imagine his life without her in it.

Months have passed, but still he can summon an image of her that day in her bikini standing by the pool, the way the water skimmed down her body in rivulets, the outline of her nipples beneath the wet fabric, another triangular outline of hair between her legs. He believes that was the moment when it had started to build inside him. Agitation like a drone in his brain. It kept building and growing and it didn’t stop, even after the debacle in the restaurant when Chris left and Zo? stayed. The thing inside him was like a stone that gave off an electronic hum, like a generator, or an electricity pylon. It just wouldn’t stop. It frightened him. He didn’t understand it, didn’t want it, couldn’t remember the last time he’d slept through the night. He slipped away from the others, back to the room he shared with Holly. Exhaustion was clawing at him and he nearly cried for want of sleep.

When he had crawled into bed that night, the whir was loud in his brain, only this time he recognized the trills and sweeps within it, the swaying movement of waves, the pitter-patter from droplets of sea-spray. How many times had he heard that music? How many hours had he spent rehearsing it? Debussy’s La Mer – a piece of music he had loved but now he felt infected by it, the score trickling out to occupy every pocket of his brain, soaking it. And yet it was not quite right, the sound slightly skewed, as if one of the instruments was out of tune, or one of the musicians fractionally out of rhythm. There was no pleasure to the music now, only annoyance and irritation. It scratched around the rim of his thoughts, and he turned over in bed, tried to find a cool spot on the pillow, but the music clung to his brain, the strains of the cello in the third movement like bows scratching across razor-wire.

‘She’s not even our real sister.’

Holly’s voice had skimmed above the pool of his thoughts. He turned and saw her lying on her side, her bed tucked under the window. How long had she been lying there? The jittery third movement was in his head and he tried to silence it as he pulled himself up to a sitting position. ‘What?’

‘I found out yesterday, before the dinner. Dad had a DNA test done.’

‘Shut up.’

‘It’s true. I saw the letter myself. She’s not our sister.’

‘You’re lying. He would have told us.’

‘He wanted to keep it to himself.’

‘Why?’

What she said next was too outrageous to believe. Disgusted, he pulled back the covers and left the room.

The house was quiet, empty, no sign of either of his parents. He felt the heat of the previous day continue to linger within the stillness of the rooms, a smell of burning in the air. The doors to the garden were open and he could see Zo? on the sun-lounger next to the pool, perched on one edge, her head balanced on one hand. Crazy, the hope that bloomed in his heart. If Holly was right about the DNA test, then that changed everything. On the other hand, could it be true what Holly had said about what she had witnessed? It was too repulsive to think about.