‘Thanks, they look delicious.’ She selects a fat green olive. ‘Sorry, you were saying Rachel saw angels?’
‘Not literally. Looking for angels in the ceiling means she never looked directly at Mum’s face, like normal babies do when they’re nursing. That she found it hard to make an emotional connection with other people.’ I shrug. ‘That’s what Mum told me anyway.’
‘Interesting.’ Louise plays with the stem of her wine glass, frowning. ‘Did Rachel have a Statement of Special Educational Needs?’
‘Neither of us went to school. Mum taught us at home, mostly. Though we had a nanny who looked after us for a time, while Mum was busy doing other stuff. She often sent us away.’ I shrug. ‘I suppose we got underfoot in London, you know.’
The weather outside looks grim. I watch a crowded bus lumber past outside the bistro, people behind the steamed-up windows staring vacantly ahead or looking down, presumably at their phones. It’s still early afternoon, yet already the sky is darkening.
It’s not long until Christmas, I realise with a start. I’ve been so busy with work this year, and the wedding, I’ve barely noticed the festive season creeping up.
Louise steals another olive with an apologetic smile. ‘These are gorgeous. I could eat them all day.’
‘Help yourself,’ I say. ‘I’m not sure if being homeschooled helped or hindered Rachel’s development, to be honest. Rachel was always in trouble. Perhaps she would have done better at school.’
‘Sounds like she needed proper help, not condemnation,’ Louise says, a little tartly.
I look at her, and realise that she doesn’t understand. But how could she?
‘Rachel was troubled, yes. But more than that. She was evil.’
‘Evil?’
I choose my words carefully. ‘Rachel didn’t care about other people. She was only interested in getting her own way. So she would say anything to get what she wanted. Do anything, however appalling.’ I draw a deep breath. ‘Then, afterwards, she’d walk away as if nothing had happened, leaving someone else to pick up the pieces.’ I make a face. ‘Sometimes literally.’
‘Sounds like a right bundle of laughs, your sister.’
I smile, though it’s not funny really. Not deep down, not with what I’m going through. But Louise will think I’m strange if I don’t smile.
‘Yeah, absolutely,’ I say. ‘Rachel was a real party person.’
‘And you killed her.’
Chapter Twenty-One
I stare at her, the smile frozen on my lips. ‘Wh-what?’
Louise starts to reply, but Bianca reappears at that moment with our lunches and we both fall silent. She hands us our plates, checks we have cutlery and, finally, clears away the now-empty olive bowl.
‘Have a good meal, ladies,’ she says with a smile, and then breezes back towards the kitchen.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,’ Louise says quietly once Bianca has disappeared. ‘What I meant to say was, you think you killed her.’
I don’t know how to respond to that.
‘Look, I know this is none of my business.’ Louise gives her knife and fork a quick, fastidious rub with her napkin. ‘But Dom told me how your sister died. That it was a skiing accident, and you can’t remember much about the circumstances. Only that your parents refused to talk about it afterwards, and now they get edgy whenever her name comes up.’
I look away, uncomfortable.
A woman about my own age at a nearby table is staring at us. Spiky red hair, an aggressive expression. I meet her eyes, then glare. Nosy, much?
She glances hurriedly away.
My pulse is racing. I’m beginning to regret asking Louise to meet me for lunch. This is too much, on top of the shock of seeing Rachel’s name all over that paperwork. My nerves are still too raw, too painfully scraped, to deal with what Louise is saying.
‘That’s about right,’ I say huskily.
I pour us both some more wine from the bottle, deliberately generous. Though I notice she’s been easing off since I arrived. Only a third of her glass was gone. Unlike mine. This has not been the comfortable, easy conversation I had envisaged. Quite the opposite, in fact. But the wine is helping.
‘So in some part of your brain,’ Louise says, ‘deep in your subconscious, you may think you were involved in her death, based simply on the way your parents behaved at the time.’
‘Pure psychobabble,’ I say, irritated by her tone.
‘Maybe, maybe not.’ She looks at me steadily. ‘How old were you when she died?’
‘Twelve. I’d only just had my birthday.’
‘And Rachel?’
‘Thirteen and three-quarters,’ I say promptly.
Rachel used to say that a lot, as a silly joke. Then she died and got stuck at that age forever. Thirteen and three-quarters.
The joke was on her in the end.
‘There you are, you see.’ Louise shrugs, as though this explains everything. ‘You were an adolescent.’
‘So?’
‘Adolescence is one of the most sensitive ages for trauma, barring infancy. All those shifting hormone levels, all that identity crisis shit that gets thrown at you during puberty, it makes mental trauma of the kind you suffered all the more dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’
Louise smiles drily. ‘Don’t look so worried. All I mean is, trauma at that age can have a long-lasting effect. It can turn inwards and eat away at you for the rest of your life.’
‘So,’ I say, putting down my baguette, ‘you think losing my sister at that age may be affecting me now.’
Her gaze flickers across my face, but Louise merely says, ‘Perhaps’, and continues to eat, mopping up some of her thick sauce with a slice of garlic bread.
A suspicion strikes me.
‘You think I did it myself, don’t you? You think I was the one who signed Rachel’s name on those sheets.’
Louise stops eating, and meets my eyes. ‘Did you?’
‘Of course I bloody didn’t.’
‘Have you considered it to be a possibility?’
‘No.’
‘You might have done it without realising what you were doing.’
I stare. ‘Without . . . what?’
‘In a kind of fugue state,’ she says. ‘It’s like a trance where you forget who you are and what you’re doing.’ When my eyes widen, she makes a face. ‘Please don’t bite my head off. It can happen, especially when someone’s under a lot of unusual stress.’
‘How am I under stress?’
‘Getting married is one of the most stressful events in a person’s life. Don’t you know that? It’s only beaten by getting divorced and moving house.’
‘I was not stressed out by marrying Dominic,’ I say, though part of me acknowledges that to be a lie. ‘I love him.’
‘No one says you don’t. And I know you’re upset, but this is hard for me too. Believe me, we all have your best interests at heart.’ She pauses, biting her lip delicately. ‘Have you considered, for instance, that you might have cut up your wedding dress yourself and simply have no memory of doing it?’
I blink in horror. ‘No, absolutely not.’
‘Or maybe taken your sister’s snow globe and posted it to yourself with . . . with the eyeball inside?’
‘Why would I do something like that? Now you’re being ridiculous.’ My heart is thudding. I stand up, pushing my chair back. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I’m going back to work.’
‘Wait, please. Sit down.’
My chest is heaving and I feel like screaming. But something in her tone makes me stop and sink slowly back into my chair.
‘There is a particular phenomenon, Catherine,’ she says slowly. ‘A condition. And it’s not your fault. I’ve seen people with this condition brought into casualty, often after an episode of self-harming, and it’s much more common than people realise.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Survivor’s guilt.’
I shake my head, looking away. I don’t want to hear this.