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Chapter Seven

~

Oxford, September 2014

Amanda’s face turns red. ‘He told you he’d had an affair? The bastard!’

Emily is touched by her sister’s reaction. Even now, Amanda is protective towards her. Always the big sister. Pippa looks suitably impressed at Amanda’s term of abuse.

They’re sitting around the table in the window of The Grapes. The pub is conveniently situated a stone’s throw away from both The New Theatre and the hall where Amanda and Pippa have been rehearsing that evening with their Amateur Dramatic Society. They are both regulars here.

‘Hi, am I interrupting?’ A tall, smartly dressed man in his thirties with a rotund face beams at the group. It takes Emily a few seconds to place him.

‘No, not at all,’ says Pippa, in a tone that implies the exact opposite. ‘Have a seat. Matt, this is Richard. Emily, you’ve met Richard, haven’t you? He’s performing as Tim in this year’s play.’

‘Oh, I forgot to ask what the play was this year,’ says Emily, as Richard sets his pint down on the table, wriggles out of his waterproof coat and then sits on a stool next to Pippa. He fixes his eyes on Amanda. Emily smiles tightly at Richard, remembering the day he turned up on her doorstep. It was a long time ago now, she tells herself, and that incident is best forgotten. Best to move on.

‘It’s The Sugar Syndrome by Lucy Prebble,’ Pippa says.

‘I don’t know why the director chose that one. It’s not very recent, and there are only really four parts,’ Amanda says. Emily hears the whine in her sister’s voice.

Emily examines Richard. He hasn't stopped staring at Amanda. He is clearly still besotted with her although their brief relationship ended – badly – seven or eight years ago now. He meets Emily’s eyes and she turns away and looks out of the window. It is dismal and grey outside, and the rain is running down the panes. Emily is distracted by this and tunes out of the conversation a little.

‘What part are you playing, Mandy?’ asks Matt.

‘I’m Pippa’s understudy,’ Amanda replies huffily.

Matt splutters into his lager. ‘You’re only satisfied if you get to play the role of a murderess anyway,’ he teases. ‘What was the name of the villain you played last year? Gonorrhoea?’

Everyone laughs except Emily. She’s starting to feel disconnected, as though she is removed from the scene. She’s thinking about Greg’s Facebook messages, of course. She can’t get them out of her mind.

‘Goneril, you philistine! I did enjoy portraying that character,’ Amanda admits, ‘even though I had to kill Regan.’ She touches Pippa’s arm and looks at her apologetically.

‘Your own sister,’ Pippa jokes. ‘Yes, indeed, no sororicide for you this year.’ Seeing Matt knit his eyebrows, she explains: ‘It’s from the Latin. It means killing your own sister.’ Matt shrugs. Emily remembers he had dozed off during the performance before Amanda poisoned Pippa.

‘That was a good play,’ says Amanda. ‘How did we go from a Shakespearean tragedy to a debut play that was written over ten years ago?’

‘There were far fewer actors available this year,’ Pippa says. ‘But it’s a good script. It raises important issues. Anyway, you may well get to do it if the baby’s late.’ She rubs her round tummy.

Emily forces herself to turn away from the window and participate in the conversation. ‘What’s the play about?’ she asks. She thinks Amanda looks a little uncomfortable at her question.

‘I’m not sure you’d like it,’ Amanda says dismissively. She picks up her glass to sip the wine, but there’s none left. Frowning, she puts the glass back down on the table.

It’s Pippa who outlines the plot. ‘It’s about a seventeen-year-old girl who pretends to be a young boy in an Internet chat room. She ends up befriending a thirty-year-old who is struggling against his paedophiliac tendencies.’

‘That’s me,’ Richard says proudly.

‘You’re not supposed to be the seventeen-year-old girl, are you?’ Matt asks Pippa. Richard chuckles at this.

‘No, of course not! I’m her mother, Jan.’

‘So they become friends because the paedophile thinks he’s talking to a young boy?’ Matt asks Richard.

‘Well, initially, perhaps, but they can relate to each other. You see, Dani, the teenage girl, has spent some time in a clinic because of her eating disorders and Tim has done time in prison. Tim knows his urges are wrong, but he’s taken in by Dani’s lies, so he becomes a victim, too.’

Emily fights to hide her growing unease. Amanda’s right, she thinks. I wouldn’t like the play.

‘It’s a dangerous world, the Internet,’ Matt says. ‘Lots of people pretend to be someone they aren’t.’ He drinks the dregs of his beer.

Emily can feel Matt’s eyes on her, but she’s looking at Richard. She notices that he repeatedly scratches the back of his neck when he talks. She wonders if his shirt collar is irritating his skin. Or maybe being around Amanda makes him tense.

‘It sounds very harrowing,’ Emily says.

‘Oi, Richard, it’s your round, mate.’ Emily looks over her shoulder and sees a man standing at the bar waving his empty pint glass.

‘Excuse me, please. That’s my cue.’ Laughing at his own joke, Richard gets up and goes to join his friends.

Once Richard has left the table, Pippa loses no time in getting back to the original topic of conversation. ‘So, start at the beginning,’ she says to Emily. ‘What did the second message say?’

‘It said: “It’s me, Em. I’m so sorry.” I got it just after you left last Saturday.’

‘And you think Greg’s apologising for cheating on you?’

‘I thought that might explain it. The message jogged my memory. I remember now that’s what we were arguing about in the car. He told me he’d had an affair and swore it was over.’ Emily takes a sip of her mineral water. ‘Why else would he say he was sorry?’ She sees Amanda’s expression. Her sister obviously still thinks there’s no way these messages could have been written by Greg.

‘For dying?’ Emily sees Amanda shoot a warning look at Matt. ‘Maybe it’s a conspiracy,’ he goes on. ‘What if someone’s trying to push you over the edge, Em? Perhaps you have something that someone needs.’

‘Like what?’ Emily asks.

‘I don’t know. Information?’

‘Oh, Matt, shut the fuck up,’ Pippa says. ‘Go and order us some more drinks. An orange juice for me, a Perrier for Emily and a glass of Chardonnay for Amanda.’

Emily suddenly feels like a gin and tonic, even though she has only ever had one before, but she says nothing. She slips Matt a twenty-pound note and he saunters off towards the bar.

‘How long is he staying?’ Amanda nods towards Matt.

‘Just overnight. He’s taking Mum back down to Devon tomorrow morning.’

‘Had enough of her?’ Amanda grins knowingly.

‘She means well, but I need to be alone for a while.’

‘I still can’t believe Greg told you he’d had an affair. Did he say anything else about it? Did he talk about his mistress?’ Amanda’s smirk has disappeared and her face is serious.

‘I don’t think so. I don’t remember him saying any more than that.’

‘Greg’s Facebook account may have been hacked,’ Pippa says.

‘What on earth for?’ Amanda argues. ‘No one has attempted to extort money from Emily or anything like that.’

‘Well, what other explanation can you come up with for her harassment?’

‘Harassment? It’s only two Facebook messages.’

‘Purportedly sent by her late husband.’

‘I’m starting to wonder…’ Amanda turns to her sister. ‘No, perhaps we should talk about it later.’ She nods, almost imperceptibly towards Pippa.

‘No, it all right,’ Emily says. ‘You can say it now.’

‘Well, you mentioned you were having trouble sleeping. When you were a teenager, you developed a dissociated personality.’

Oh no, here we go, Emily thinks.

‘Dissociative disorders can be triggered by trauma, you know,’ Amanda continues, placing her hand on Emily’s knee. ‘And you’ve just suffered another distressing event with Greg’s death. Do you think it could be happening again?’

‘You mean, have I been writing these messages to myself?’ Emily tries to keep the indignation out of her voice.

‘Well, is it possible? It could be a perfectly normal part of the grieving process. You obviously don’t want to let Greg go, and so you’re acting subconsciously to keep him alive.’

‘That doesn’t sound very normal to me,’ Pippa says.

Amanda adds, ‘The message said: “It’s me, Em.” Think about it. “Me” is “Em” spelt backwards.’

No one speaks for a moment while this sinks in. Matt arrives with the drinks and distributes them around the table. Emily looks out of the window at the rain again. She thinks the weather reflects her mood. She feels like crying.

‘That’s called a reverse palindrome,’ Pippa says eventually. ‘A word that spells a different word in reverse.’ Matt sighs and rolls his eyes at Emily. She manages to give him a tiny smile.

‘You said yourself that you were the only person who knew Greg’s password,’ Amanda says.

Emily feels the colour slowly drain from her face. Greg’s password is ‘ecilA0891’. Her middle name followed by her year of birth. Backwards.

Emily chews one of her nails. Is she dissociating? Could there be any truth in what Amanda has said? Or is this the sort of conclusion her sister would naturally make as a psychiatrist? Not for the first time, Emily is frustrated that her sister seems to think this is all the product of her imagination.

A thought suddenly occurs to Emily. A memory from the past. She shivers as if an icy draught has blown over her. She has buried all that. It isn’t meant to resurface. It can’t be her. She tries to push the suspicion out of her head. But it would make sense. It would explain the sleeping problems and the memory gaps. It might even explain the unexpected desire for an alcoholic drink. All this is so unlike Emily. She hasn’t been feeling herself, but surely that’s normal given the circumstances? No, it’s not her. She doesn’t exist.