Читать книгу Lies Between Us: a tense psychological thriller with a twist you won’t see coming - Ronnie Turner - Страница 15

They tell me she is special. They stare in wide-eyed wonder at her face and coo and giggle when she mumbles. They look at me, then instantly, with a rising of the shoulders and a small, almost imperceptible shake of the head, look away, wishing they hadn’t looked in the first place. They wonder why I’m with her, wonder how someone like me could be the brother of someone like her. And if they are in the mood, they lean forward and whisper, as if whispering to someone who won’t understand, ‘You have a very special sister. Aren’t you lucky?’

If she cries, a hundred hands fall to comfort her. If she laughs, they stop and turn, row upon row of strangers, expressions flickering from surprise, to joy, to envy. If she smiles at someone, that someone will look as if they have just been gifted with a miracle.

If someone is sad, she will waddle up to them on her chubby legs and pat their hand like a friend, not the toddler she is. And they will look at her in wonder, touched, mesmerised, wanting nothing more than to take her in their arms, to be as close as close can be. If someone laughs, she laughs with them and they stand a little taller, smile a little wider.

She possesses something nobody truly understands but everybody wants to share. A kindness, a gentleness, a lightness they’re all fighting and tumbling and burning for in what is a bleak world. I think they sense it, you know. I think they feel how good she is. How pure. The honeyed, sweet, tempting child they all wish was theirs. Mother and Father lap it up, sucking in the attention and love for their daughter, revelling in the atmosphere she creates.

You’re like her. You snatch people’s attention, their ability to walk away, their minds, their love. There aren’t many people like the two of you. I wonder if a part of you knows this? No, you probably don’t. You are not arrogant. You are honest. I remember the time you used your mother’s expensive hand lotion, sneaking into her room and quietly depositing a glob of the mango-scented stuff on your hand. I saw you. I watched from the window. You rubbed it into your skin, a smile turning up the corners of your mouth, nose grazing your hands. Later, when your mother asked if she could smell it, your face blazed with embarrassment and you scuffed your feet on the floor and stared down as you nodded and offered her your hands. But how could she be irritated? How could anyone ever be angry with you?

So honest. So sweet. So perfect.

They took her to the hairdresser yesterday, you know, probably so I can’t pull her curls anymore. They stood back and watched as a gaggle of middle-aged women with rolled hair poked her stomach and squeezed her cheeks, eliciting moans of agony. Mother held her hands to her chin, proud of her sweet, rosy-cheeked daughter. Father stood by her side, nodding when a goose exercised her beak and asked if she liked mints. Yes, yes, she does, he said. The goose chuckled and popped one into her mouth. Because she couldn’t do it herself, could she?

Mother saw me glaring and glared back. While Mary was having her hair cut, the women dispersed to their own chairs. I watched the snap of the scissors, wishing they would inch just a little further to the left. Snag the skin of her earlobe. Mary would cry and scream, and the geese would see how troublesome she could be.

I brushed away Mother’s warning hand and shuffled to the chair. The hairdresser smiled at me, but I saw it was a false one, unlike the smile she sent Mary through the mirror every few seconds. I bent down and pushed my hand through the curls of blonde hair, smearing them across the floor. Then I stood back up, making sure I jolted the hairdresser’s arm as I went.

‘Oh!’

I turned and went back to my seat as Mary began to scream and the hairdresser cried, ‘OH MY GOD! SOMEBODY GET THE FIRST-AID KIT! GET THE FIRST-AID KIT! GET IT!’

Mother and Father jumped up and rushed to her side, words soothing, fingers mollifying. I watched the scene play out, letting rip a torrent of apologies and false tears.

‘I’m sorreeeee! I… I didn’t mean it! It… it was an accident! I’m really sorry! Is… is she OK? Mummy, Daddy?’

I expected the geese to turn and throw dirty looks, angered by the disruption, but they didn’t. They flocked to Mary like geese to a family throwing pieces of bread. They told her she ‘must be brave’ and ‘oh, it’s just a little cut’. They fondled her cheeks and kissed her forehead. And I thought, if those stupid women were geese, I would throw them shards of glass inside balled-up bread.

Mother said I meant to do it. I meant to jostle Christine, the hairdresser. I told her I didn’t, of course, but nevertheless she made me clean the dirty dishes and sweep the floor. Then, when she ran out of ideas for punishment, she sent me away to my room.

Mary had a plaster on her ear. Mother said she could spend the rest of the day watching cartoons because she was such a brave girl. She sat on the sofa, calling my name, asking me to join her. I didn’t, though. It was only when Mother ordered me to help her hang a frame that I went down. She was holding a nail to the wall, hammer in the other hand. I stood by her side, awaiting instructions, but she was utterly focused on what Mary was saying over her shoulder.

‘Mamma, sheep, sheep!’

‘Well done, Mary, sweetheart. That’s right. It’s a sheep.’

I glanced from Mary to Mother, my fingers prickling. Then I snatched the hammer from her hand and slammed it against the nail of her finger.

She screamed and spluttered. And when she looked up at my face, her mouth cracked open, just wide enough for a letter to slot through, and her eyes turned to angry blue discs.

‘I’m sorry. I was just trying to help. I’m really, really, really sorry, Mummy.’

She gave me a tight nod. ‘It’s… OK. It’s OK. Now, off you go, son.’ No darling, no sweetheart, no honey. Nothing.

I went back upstairs then and laid my head back on the pillow and smiled.

*

I swing my legs back and forth under the dining table, pencil lolling between my fingers as I ponder my homework. Mother sat me down here and told me to ‘be good’ while she ‘weeds the garden’ with Father. I scratch the pencil across the paper as I listen to them outside. Through the window, they look up in unison when Mrs Taylor across the street hails them and wags her finger, the wart on her face jigging as she talks. How is Mary? How is that delicious daughter of yours? Oh my, I could just eat her up. She’s just so scrummy! Her flow of words shoots across the street to the elated expressions of Mother and Father. They brush down their clothes and walk over, lured by the promise of conversation.

I drop the pencil onto the paper, an itch in the tips of my fingers inching its way up my palms. I look out of the window, then make my way to the stairs, hearing the bubbly sound of her laughter. It beckons me, as it beckons everyone. I take the stairs one at a time, wondering if Mother’s long, lacquered fingernails will scratch me for what I am about to do. Or if Father will look at me with fury in his face. I wonder if the eyes that seek out Mary will turn to me and know. If Mrs Taylor will bolt her door and close her curtains should I walk past. If Mr Terry next door will turn the wheels on his wheelchair a little faster when he sees me. I wonder all of this as I go to her room, thoughts marking off the moments like the hands of a clock ticking by. Tick. Will they know? Tock. Will they smell what I have done on my skin like a dog? Tick. Will they be able to see it written into my hands? Tock. Will they feel it? Tick. I bet they will. Tock.

The sound of her laughter fills my ears, consuming my mind like the music Mother always turns off when it comes on the radio. When she does this I turn it back on, brushing her arm with my hand as I go by. It always makes her jump and always makes me smile. She’ll watch me switch the dial back, my eyes glued to hers, unblinking as the song fills the room. She’ll stare at me, biting her lip, then shrug and carry on. But I see the looks Mother and Father share afterwards. Looks of anger and denial. Then I will go back to my game with Mary and they’ll study us, feet tapping the floor, eyes shooting from Mary to me. Mary to me. Back again, fingers fiddling with the sofa, legs prepped to pounce. I think they know I only play with her to worry them. I’m such a naughty little boy. How could they possibly have had such a naughty little boy?

I can hear the music now, the squeaky tone of the band she hates – what is it? The Bugs? The Flies? The Beetles?

Mary sits on the floor, braids pushed back, legs kicking, arms flying about the air. In her hands are the prince and princess dolls she lavishes with love. Her laughter penetrates the room and I wonder if the whole street can hear it.

‘Mary?’ I say, kneeling down and picking up the plastic carrier bag she keeps her toys in.

She turns and smiles, the biggest smile I have ever seen stretching across her lips. ‘Hummy!’ she squeals, dropping her dolls and grabbing me. I shake my head and put my finger to my lips. She nods and giggles, copying me, her sweet, trusting eyes peering up. Then, as that itch buries itself into my arms, I think that surely Mother and Father must hear me breathing. It comes out hard and hurried, as if I have been running. Surely they must know. Surely they will come flying up the stairs, feet hammering the floor in a frantic drum, and grab me by the hair and pull me away from her. Surely. But do you want to know something, Blue-Eyes?

They don’t.

With a gentleness that could almost be love, I slip the bag over her head and squeeze it to a close. Her hands find my chest and her legs jump up and down like they are puppets dancing to their master’s strings. But she doesn’t fight. Her loyalty and love and trust in brother Hummy do not falter.

They don’t falter as I pull her close and squeeze tighter. They don’t falter as the last morsels of strength, which were only ever feeble to begin with, drift from her limbs. She trusts me as her lungs cry for air, as her fingers search for my face, as her eyes blink and blink behind the bag. She trusts me even as her body withers and slips to the floor, among the scattered shrapnel of a life suddenly departed.