My Second Life (20 page)

I stood up.

The roof. I wanted to be on the roof. All I could think about, in that moment, was the roof, and being up high, and the space in my head, and the roof
—

“Hello, Ana,” Mum said, and she smiled, but she looked so unsure of me as she said it, and it hurt.

“I got your message,” I said.

“Good,” she said.

I looked at Dad.

He nodded at me, his eyes to the floor. It was as much of a “Hello” as I was going to get, and he stood behind Mum, his tallness framing her perfectly.

“Please, sit down,” said Frances. “Ana, come and help me with the tea things. And you'll need a cloth for that spillage.”

I nodded, and followed her through to the kitchen.

“I can't believe they came,” I said. “I mean
—
both of them. Dad too.”

“They were both invited, Ana,” Frances said.

“Yes, I know, but
—
”

“We are here so we can make things right,” she said. “All of us. Now take this through. And don't cause a fuss.” And she placed a tray of things in my hands. There was a pot of tea, a milk jug, sugar bowl, and the china
—
plates, cups, and saucers.

As I walked into the room with the tray, Mum sat down. She neatly tucked her bag on the floor behind her feet and crossed her legs. She was upright, concentrating, looking at me all the time. Dad stood at the mantelpiece. His mug was still there. I remembered how the milk had turned, ready to fester. And I remembered my fall. And as I did my wound ached, and I looked down at the grate and saw my blood, dark and sticky around the edges, in the place where I'd hit my head. She'd left it there too. Like the mug. A spoil. I looked away.

And I caught a glimpse of the photograph again.

I'd killed her.

My friend.

The only sister I'd ever had.

And I'd killed her.

And we were back here, in this house, again.

And suddenly I wanted to stop this meeting from happening.

I wanted to make it all go away.

All that I knew and all that I'd done.

Because I regretted it.

I regretted it all.

“I need to go,” I whispered urgently to Mum and Dad. “I don't think I can do this.” As I said it I looked over my shoulder, to see if Frances was already on her way through from the kitchen. I knew what I had to do now. I had to get to the roof. I had to lie flat, feel the space, and let myself go.

“What do you mean?” said Mum, her whole face taking on the wrinkled shape of her frown, a mass of lines and concern.

And then Frances came into the room with another tray
—
an old-fashioned sponge cake, spoons, forks, and a knife laid out on it. She set it down awkwardly on the coffee table in front of us all.

We watched.

No one spoke.

Until Mum.

“It's been a long time,” she said.

“Thirty-four years,” Frances said.

There was more silence while Frances painstakingly poured the tea. The tension in the room was unbearable. I wanted to break the silence. I just wanted to scream, “I need to go! I need to leave!” but Frances's presence in the room was so strong I couldn't speak. I was too frightened even to move.

I could see that Dad was impatient, nervous. He was doing the thing he always did when he was waiting for something, shaking his leg slightly back and forth where he stood. It was like a rhythmic tic.

Everyone held their teacups and took a sip of tea. I couldn't bear the silence any longer.

“I need to go,” I said. “This doesn't feel … right.”

“I agree,” said Dad.

“Why did you come, Richard?” Frances asked.

“For Amanda. Only for Amanda,” Dad said, and I saw hurt
—
just for a moment
—
crisscross Frances's face. “She wanted to come. But not on her own. I owed her,” he said. “I owed her that.”

“Owed her?” Frances said, and she scowled as she said it. “You stayed with her! You owe her nothing!”

“Yes, he did stay,” Mum said. “In the end. But … it wasn't easy. And coming here today
—
” Her voice broke off.

I felt sick.

Sick panic rising up inside me.

I didn't want to be here, listening to them talk like this.

“So, Frances,” said Mum, composing herself, “is there something specific you wanted to say to us all today
—
with Ana here? Is that why you invited us?”

“We are here to talk,” Frances said. “We seem to be in a rather extraordinary situation and I thought it would be good for us to meet
—
together. It's been a long time. And Ana
—
she needs to know
—
she wants to know what happened
—
”

“I actually don't think I can do this,” Dad said, putting down his cup and saucer.

“Me neither,” I said. “I have to go.”

“No, Ana!” said Frances.

I turned and faced my dad.

“I want to go,” I said. “Please, let me go.”

I wasn't sure why I felt I had to appeal to him, but I did.

He didn't look at me.

And I could see that he was caught. Mum and Frances both needed him to stay, and he was trapped, and he was hurting, just by being here, in the room.

“Why would you want to go now, Ana?” said Frances. “Why, when you have all of us here? Everyone who was here the night Catherine died? You do realize we're only here, now, thirty-four years later, because of you. We're here because you're asking for the truth, and now you have the gall to say that you don't want to hear it. I will not let you leave, Ana. Not until we've done what we came here to do.”

I shook my head. She was wrong. I did want the truth, but I was frightened. I was so frightened. And the room was so quiet …

Frances turned toward me. “I would like you to tell us what happened to our child before she died, Ana. It's a perfectly reasonable request of someone who stands here and tells us she is Emma. Don't you agree, Richard?”

And then she turned to look at Dad before looking back again at me.

“You see, Catherine knew not to go near the river. She knew that. She always did what she was told, and I'd told her never to go near the river. So I want to know what happened. I want to know what made her go in.”

“We're going to the river, Catherine. We'll play hide-and-seek by the river.”

“If you don't play I'll tell on you. You have to come or that's what I'll do.”

“Our daughter died too,” said Mum, her words breaking through the ones in my head. “If Catherine hadn't been left in her care then maybe she would still be here today, Frances. Maybe they both would.”

I looked up at Mum.

“Well,” said Dad, as if he were hosting a chat show, “apparently she is! Apparently Emma's sitting right here with us today, just in someone else's body. How about that?”

Dad had moved from trapped to angry.

He was never going to believe me. I knew that now.

“Stop being so facetious, Richard,” said Mum, and her mouth went tight with hurt and rage. I couldn't tell if they still loved each other anymore, but they had stayed together. Had they done that for me?

“If you can prove to me
—
if someone here, anyone, can prove to me
—
that this is Emma, then I'll have this conversation. I'll do it, Amanda,” Dad said. “But I am not sitting here, dredging up the hell and guts of that night, on the basis that this girl, here, has turned up into our lives, telling us she is our Emma!”

“Perhaps not everything in life adheres to your logic, Richard,” said Frances. “I agree it would be easier if it did.”

There was silence.

I wished I'd never come. I knew I should never have come. Not the first time, not the time after that, not now, not ever.

There was no place for me here.

“Ana?” said Frances. “Do you not have anything to say?”

I shook my head.

There was no place for me anywhere.

“You mean you have nothing to say? Nothing at all?”

“I told you. I don't know how I know the things I know,” I said. “I can't show you or prove to you what I know. I can't explain the things that I know. I just know them.” And as I spoke I thought only about the roof and the space and the run of the sky.

There.

On the roof.

There was a place for me there.

“I'm not sure I want to know what you know,” said Mum. “What you know frightens me. Because if you're here, and you are Emma, then what? Can I take you home with me? Can I cook your favorite meal? Do all the things I've wanted to do for you and with you since you died … Do we become a family again? It's impossible … It's all beyond … anything…,” she said, and she took a deep breath before she continued. “The thing is, I can't lose you again. I couldn't go through that again,” she said, and she started to cry.

I wanted to go to her. Instinctively. I wanted to go to her.

“You're Emma and you're not Emma!” Mum said through her tears. “I'm not sure I can cope with that.”

There was a moment of quiet. They looked at me
—
all of them. They were waiting to hear what I would say.

I looked back at them.

Mum was right. I was Emma and not Emma. I was Ana but not Ana. I was two people, and yet, I was no one. And they
—
they were what? What were they to me, when I was no one?

Panic rose in my chest and closed my throat.

I couldn't breathe.

I wanted to leave.

I had to leave.

“I can't bring Catherine back,” Frances said to me. “Can I? Even though I would do anything to have her back again with me.”

There was a loud persistent thrumming in my head.

“If I were you, Amanda,” said Frances, turning to face Mum, “I'd grab this girl with both my arms and I wouldn't let her go.”

Let me go. Let me go. Let me go.

“Stop talking like this!” shouted Dad.

“Don't shout, Richard,” Frances said.

“I will shout!” he said. “I will! Because I don't know what the hell we are all doing here! Just being here, in this house, it's…”

“… difficult?” said Frances, finishing his sentence. “I know. I live here. It's with me every day.”

“It's just
—
it's just…” And he fumbled and ran his fingers through his hair. “For God's sake
—
Ana!” he said, spinning back around toward me. “Do you honestly believe what you are saying, yourself? Can you honestly say that you believe that you are Emma?”

I was nothing to him. I was no one. I knew that.

I didn't answer.

“I mean, we all know what happened, that night, with Catherine,” he went on. “We were there.” And he motioned to Mum and to Frances.

Not to me.

Because I was nothing. I was no one. And I knew that.

“What good does it do to go over it all again, to look to
—
I don't know
—
apportion blame now, for something that happened years ago
—
”

“Because I don't know! Maybe you all know but I don't!”
I screamed. “And I was there that night, and I'm here now, and
—
you don't have to believe me
—
but I'm walking around with this feeling, with this pain and this guilt. It overshadows everything. Can't you see that?
Can't
—
you
—
see
—
that?
If you would just look at me, properly, you would see that!”

“Look at her, Richard, and look at me!” Frances said quickly. “Because my grief, it still hangs over me like that. Exactly like that.”

“Isn't that just how it is?” said Mum, looking at Frances. “We carry on living, but it's only ever half the life it was. Someone's cut the power supply, and you limp on, in dimmer light.”

“I wasn't prepared to carry on living like that. Not then, and not now. I can't,” I said.

Mum and Dad looked up at me, their eyes searching my face. The atmosphere in the room had changed. I could feel it.

“No,” Mum said. “Don't say that!”

“What do you mean?” said Dad. “What do you mean, when you say that?”

“You didn't do anything wrong,” Mum said. “I always told her that, didn't I, Richard?” She appealed to Dad now, just as I had done before. “I told you that. I know I did!”

Dad nodded.

“But it was wrong that Catherine died, Amanda,” said Frances. “It was wrong! And now Ana is here, and there must be a reason why she is here. Catherine would never have gone near the river. Never. Emma killed her. And that's why Emma's here
—
why she's come back.”

“We're going to the river, Catherine. We'll play hide-and-seek by the river.”

“If you don't play I'll tell on you. You have to come or that's what I'll do.”

“The inquest dealt with it at the time, Frances,” said Dad. “You know that. It was an accidental death. You have to accept it. Don't make this any harder than it already is. Please, Frances, don't do that.” And his face creased with the pain as he pleaded, but still he wouldn't look at me.

Mum was looking at me, all the time.

“You were only twenty-two when you died,” she said. “You had so much more life to live.”

“But I killed her!” I said. “I killed Catherine! I don't know how I could have done something so wrong, but I did. I killed her!”

“No! Ana! No! You didn't!” Mum said.

I drew in a breath, I sobbed, and my whole body heaved with the force of it.