فصل 13

13

LENA

It should have been me. I am her next of kin, her family. The person who loved her. It should have been me, but they wouldn’t allow me to go. I was left alone, with nothing to do but sit in an empty house and smoke until I ran out of cigarettes. I went to the village shop to get some—the fat woman in there sometimes asks for ID, but I knew she wouldn’t today. I was just leaving when I saw those bitches from school—Tanya and Ellie and all that lot—coming down the road towards me.

I felt like I was going to be sick. I just put my head down and turned away and started walking as fast as I could, but they saw me, they called out and they all started running to catch up with me. I didn’t know what they were going to do. Actually when they caught up, they all started hugging me and saying how sorry they were and Ellie actually had the gall to cry some fucking fake tears. I let them hang all over me, let them put their arms around me and smooth back my hair. It actually felt good to be touched.

We walked over the bridge. They were talking about going up to the Wards’ cottage to take some pills and go swimming—“It would be like a wake, kind of a celebration,” Tanya said. Fucking idiot. Did she honestly think I felt like getting monged and swimming in that water today? I was trying to think of what to say, but then I saw Louise and it was like serendipity and I could just walk away from them without saying anything and there was nothing they could do.

At first I thought she hadn’t heard me, but when I caught up with her I could see she was crying and she didn’t want to be near me. I grabbed hold of her. I don’t know why, but I just wanted her to not walk away, to not leave me there with those vulture bitches watching and pretending to be sad and all the while enjoying the fucking drama. She was trying to pull away, prising my fingers away one at a time, and she was saying, “I’m sorry, Lena, I can’t talk to you now. I can’t talk to you.”

I wanted to say something to her like: You lost your daughter and I lost my mother. Doesn’t that make us even? Can’t you just forgive me now?

I didn’t, though, and then that clueless policewoman came along and tried to make out we were arguing, so I told her where to go and walked home alone.

I thought Julia would be back by the time I came home. How long would it take, really, to go to the morgue and watch them pull the sheet back and say yes, that’s her? It’s not as though Julia would have wanted to sit with her, to hold her hand, to comfort her, like I would have done.

It should have been me, but they wouldn’t let me go.

I lay on my bed in silence. I can’t even listen to music because I feel everything has this other meaning that I didn’t see before and it hurts too fucking much to face it now. I don’t want to cry all the time, it makes my chest hurt and my throat hurt, and the worst thing is that no one comes to help me. There’s no one left to help me. So I lay on the bed and chain-smoked until I heard the front door go.

She didn’t call out to me or anything like that, but I heard her in the kitchen, opening and closing cupboards, rattling pots and pans. I waited for her to come to me, but eventually I just got bored and I was feeling sick from smoking so much and was really, really hungry, so I went downstairs.

She was standing at the stove stirring something, and when she turned round and saw me there, she jumped. But it wasn’t like how usually someone gives you a fright and then you laugh; the fear stayed in her face.

“Lena,” she said. “Are you all right?”

“Did you see her?” I asked.

She nodded and looked at the floor. “She looked . . . like herself.”

“That’s good,” I said. “I’m glad. I don’t like to think of her . . .”

“No. No. And she wasn’t. Broken.” She turned back to the hob. “Do you like spaghetti Bolognese?” she asked. “I’m making . . . that’s what I’m making.”

I do like it, but I didn’t want to tell her that, so I didn’t reply. Instead I asked her, “Why did you lie to the police?”

She turned round sharply, the wooden spoon in her hand spraying red sauce on the floor.

“What do you mean, Lena? I didn’t lie—”

“Yes, you did. You told them that you never speak to my mother, that you haven’t had any contact in years.”

“We haven’t.” Her face and neck were bright red, her mouth turned down like a clown’s, and I saw it, the ugliness that Mum talked about. “I haven’t had any meaningful contact with Nel since—”

“She phoned you all the time.”

“Not all the time. Occasionally. And in any case, we didn’t talk.”

“Yes, she told me that you refused to speak to her, no matter how hard she tried.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, Lena.”

“How is it complicated?” I snapped. “How?” She looked away from me. “This is your fault, you know.”

She put the spoon down and took a couple of steps towards me, her hands on her hips, her expression all concerned, like a teacher who’s about to tell you how disappointed they are with your attitude in class.

“What do you mean?” she asked. “What’s my fault?”

“She tried to contact you, she wanted to talk to you, she needed—”

“She didn’t need me. Nel never needed me.”

“She was unhappy!” I said. “Don’t you even fucking care?”

She took a step back. She wiped her face as though I’d spat at her. “Why was she unhappy? I don’t . . . She never said she was unhappy. She never told me she was unhappy.”

“And what would you have done if she had? Nothing! You’d have done nothing, just like you always have done. Just like when your mother died and you were horrible to her, or when she invited you to come here when we moved, or when she asked you to come that time for my birthday and you didn’t even reply! You just ignored her, like she didn’t exist. Even though you knew she didn’t have anyone else, even though—”

“She had you,” Julia said. “And I never suspected she was unhappy, I—”

“Well, she was. She didn’t even swim anymore.”

Julia stood very still, turning her head towards the window as though she were listening for something. “What?” she asked, but she wasn’t looking at me. It was like she was looking at someone else, or at her reflection. “What did you say?”

“She stopped swimming. All my life I can remember her going to a pool or to the river, every single day, it was her thing, she was a swimmer. Every single day, even in winter here when it’s fucking freezing and you have to break the ice on the surface. And then she stopped. Just like that. That’s how unhappy she was.”

She didn’t say anything for a bit. She just stood there, staring out of the window, as if she were looking for someone. “Do you know . . . Lena, do you think she had upset someone? Or that someone was bothering her, or . . . ?”

I shook my head. “No. She would’ve told me.” She would have warned me.

“Would she?” Julia asked. “Because, you know, Nel . . . your mum . . . she had a way about her, didn’t she? I mean, she knew how to get under people’s skin, how to piss them off—”

“No, she didn’t!” I snapped, although it was true that sometimes she did, but only stupid people, only people who didn’t understand her. “You didn’t know her at all, you didn’t understand her. You’re just a jealous bitch—you were back when you were young and you are now. Jesus. There’s no point even talking to you.”

I left the house even though I was starving. Better to starve than to sit and eat with her; it would feel like a betrayal. I kept thinking about Mum sitting there, talking into the phone, and the silence on the other end. Cold bitch. I got annoyed with her about it once, said, “Why don’t you just give it a rest? Forget about her? She obviously wants nothing to do with us.” Mum said, “She’s my sister, she’s my only family.” I said, “What about me? I’m family.” She laughed then and said, “You’re not family. You’re more than family. You’re part of me.”

Part of me is gone, and I wasn’t even allowed to see her. I wasn’t allowed to squeeze her hand or kiss her goodbye or tell her how sorry I am.