Читать книгу The Grip Lit Collection: The Sisters, Mother, Mother and Dark Rooms - Koren Zailckas, Claire Douglas - Страница 49

Chapter Twenty-Five

Beatrice swears under her breath as the garnet she’s trying to set into a silver ring clatters on to the oak desk. Her fingers are too thick, ungainly. She flexes them, clicking her knuckles and causing Cass, who is lying on the leather sofa with her legs draped over the arm, to look up from her book. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I keep dropping this bloody stone,’ she snaps, picking it up and trying again. Her stomach aches with the beginnings of PMT. She’s got more work than she can handle now that her website has gone live, and it is overwhelming her.

‘Do you want me to help?’ asks Cass. Beatrice shakes her head, wishing she would go away. Cass has become very clingy of late, and she suspects it has something to do with her new relationship with Niall. Not that she can actually call it a relationship. Even though he’s ludicrously good looking she’s beginning to find him boring; they haven’t got much of a connection. She knows he’s dead wood, that she’s going to have to cast him adrift.

The sky turns grey, darkening the room. Without taking her eyes from her book, Cass automatically reaches behind her to switch on the lamp. She is beautiful, Beatrice thinks as she surveys her friend, with her small button nose, her elongated, intense dark eyes, her platinum blonde crop. And she would do anything for me.

She places the ring on to her desk with the stone next to it where it glints red and orange in the lamplight. She’s not in the right frame of mind to concentrate on this today. Ben is back. She hasn’t seen him for nearly two weeks and she was out with Niall when he returned last night. She had rushed home but was surprised to hear from Pam that he was in bed. She had gone to his bedroom, pushing his door ajar gently to see if he was still awake, and had been shocked to see Abi sleeping next to him, her head on his chest.

He might tell her otherwise, but she can sense it. Her grip on him is loosening.

She’s really missed Ben. It’s the longest they have spent apart in years. She understands why he had to rush off and why he had to stay there as long as he did, but it irks her that he hasn’t come to see her yet, that he went straight to Abi first. This is all her fault. She was distracted by Niall, had allowed herself to believe that she might have actually found someone worth losing Ben for. But she has now seen past Niall’s pretty insubstantial face to the nothingness beneath it. How can she ever begin to connect with someone else when she’s always comparing every relationship she has to the one with her twin? How can she ever better their bond?

‘Hi.’

She turns to see Ben standing in the doorway, his hair stuck up in peaks, a tired smile on his face.

She rushes over to him and throws her arms around him. ‘I’ve missed you. Are you okay?’

‘I’m exhausted, it’s been an emotional ten days,’ he says. Then he notices Cass on the sofa. She’s sitting up now, book on her lap, eyeing them inquisitively. He doesn’t have to say it, she knows what he’s thinking, that they can’t talk here in front of Cass. She gently pushes him out the door, calling to Cass that they will see her later.

‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she mouths once they are in the hallway. He nods. They pull on raincoats and Beatrice grabs an umbrella as they hurry out the door and head towards Alexandra Park.

‘Where’s Abi?’ she asks, linking her arm through his. A weak sun filters through the clouds and she wishes she was wearing trousers instead of a dress. Her feet are cold in her leopard-print pumps.

He shrugs. ‘I haven’t seen her yet this morning.’

Beatrice is tempted to tell him she knows Abi is sharing his bed, but she doesn’t want it to escalate into an argument. He’s a man who has needs. Could she prevent him from having sex, from getting close to someone else? It was naïve of her to think she could. Since Abi’s birthday, Beatrice has tried to make an effort to keep things on an even keel, for Ben’s sake.

Instead she listens as he tells her about London, how strange it was for him, being there after all these years. That tiny house, so dark and dingy, smelling of boiled cabbage and Paul’s dirty socks. The life he was so desperate to escape from. She squeezes his hand in sympathy when he describes all that went on there.

‘So Paul still lives there?’ she asks when he’s finished.

He nods. ‘Yep, and he still hates me. But he’s jealous. I’ve got the life he wants.’

They fall silent. The only sounds to be heard are the squeak of their footsteps on wet tarmac and the faraway yap of a dog. It begins to rain again and Beatrice stops to put up her blue spotty umbrella. Ben takes it from her as he usually does, just as she knew he would, and holds it up over the both of them.

‘Have you told Abi about London?’ she asks.

‘She thinks I went to Scotland for work. I can’t tell her, Bea, you know that.’

She chews the inside of her mouth as they reach the top of the street, turning left into the park. So many lies, she thinks.

Due to the cold, wet day, it’s deserted; it’s how Beatrice prefers it. She shivers in her thin scarlet mackintosh and Ben stops to put his arm around her.

‘Are you cold? Do you want to go home?’

She shakes her head, she wants to keep him talking, she wants to hear about Abi, because it’s obvious to her that their relationship can never work, not when he’s keeping so much from her. I know all your secrets Ben. I know them all yet I still love you, am still here for you. Always.

She searches her mind for the right words to bring Abi back into the conversation. ‘I think Abi has missed you a lot.’ Ben steers them toward a large oak tree as the rain gets heavier.

‘I missed her too. I missed you both.’ He still has his arm slung over her shoulder and she snuggles her head into the crook of his armpit. They stand and watch the rain running off the leaves and plopping on to the grass that is turning muddy. Neither is inclined to move on. ‘She says the two of you are getting on better,’ he says. He’s still holding the umbrella over the both of them.

‘I’m doing it for you, Ben. I know she means a lot to you, but I still think she’s cuckoo.’

His body tenses up. Eventually, ‘What makes you say that?’

‘The flowers. The bracelet. The letters. I think she’s lying about all of it. You know,’ she turns to look up at him, trying to keep her face expressionless although she’s brimming over with excitement at her findings. ‘I read this study on the internet about twins, mainly identical twins. And this professor who’s done all this research said that sometimes the surviving twin takes on the personality of the dead twin.’

He fidgets, closes the umbrella, drops his arm from around her shoulders. ‘What are you trying to tell me?’

She pauses, unsure if she should continue. But she needs to protect him. She knows Abi is bad news, that Ben’s going to end up getting hurt. ‘You said the florist described the woman who bought the flowers for Abi’s birthday, right? They described Abi, or Lucy. Was Abi doing it thinking she was Lucy? Did she, for that moment, forget her own identity?’

Ben stares at her for a couple of seconds and then bursts out laughing. ‘You are joking? You’re saying Abi thinks she’s Lucy? That’s fucked up.’

‘Abi’s fucked up.’

‘Not this again, Bea. I don’t want to hear it.’

‘And the other stuff. The bracelet, the letters that she says I’ve taken. I think it’s all for attention, to drive a wedge between the two of us.’

‘You’ve said this before. I don’t believe it.’

She folds her arms, suddenly furious. ‘So you think I stole her letters?’

He runs a hand over his face, exasperated. His hair is wet from the rain and water drips from the end of his nose. ‘I don’t know. You think she stole your bracelet, so maybe you did it to get back at her?’

Angry tears spring in her eyes. ‘You think I’m a thief? That I would be that petty?’

He doesn’t look at her; instead he bows his head, kicking a pile of wet leaves with the toe of his boot.

‘We found that earring in her bedroom. She stole it from me and we’ve never confronted her. I never confronted her. Because you told me not to. So do you think she stole my bracelet?’

His head shoots up so that he’s staring right at her, his eyes unusually hard, his jaw set tight. ‘I don’t fucking need this right now,’ he snaps, his face turning red. ‘It’s been a hellish few weeks and all you can do is bleat on about Abi.’ Spittle flies from his mouth and she takes a step back from him, so unused to seeing him angry but she knows he has a temper, she’s seen it once before. ‘This is all doing my head in.’ He roughly shoves the umbrella at her so that one of the prongs pokes her in the chest and she gasps. Then he turns the collar of his jacket up, thrusts his hands into his pockets and, with his head bent, stalks off into the downpour, away from her.

She doesn’t try to stop him, or catch up with him. A sob escapes her throat as she watches his retreating back and she sinks on to the sodden grass, not caring about the wet mud that smears on to the back of her bare legs. Her worst fear has come true … Abi has won.