When we pulled up at Jim’s parents’ home, Jim’s car was on the drive. Had he booked the day off work in advance or called in that morning? The logistical questions made my head swim. I asked the driver to wait this time, knocked on the door more sharply than I’d intended. When Jim’s mother answered the door, I could hear my girl’s laughter bursting out of another room. I handed Jim’s mother the flowers and asked to come in. She’d stared at me, this woman who had once told me how grateful she was for my care of Jim. Of Violet. Now she stared like I’d asked to see her kidneys.
“Please?” I said again, my voice cracking.
Violet’s laughter had stopped. She called for me and came running to the door. She was wearing a new pink dress, her wavy golden hair bouncing as she ran toward me, her eyes ablaze. I’d managed to grab at her to hug her just as Jim skidded into the hall behind her and whipped her away into another room. “No!” I’d called after them. “Please!”
“You need to leave, Sarah,” his mum had said, looking down at both our feet and moving the door closer to the frame so I couldn’t look around it.
“But you said you wouldn’t keep her from me.”
“We said you needed to get help and then perhaps—” she’d started, raising her face to look at mine just briefly. Tears rolled hot down my cheeks. I didn’t have the words so I balled up my fists.
“You need to go, Sarah. If you don’t,” she took a deep breath and whispered, “we’ll need to get the police involved, and I’m sure you don’t want that.”
“I just want Violet! I’ve not done anything wrong,” I cried, louder than I’d hoped.
“If you think you’ve done nothing wrong,” Jim’s mother had said, suddenly matching my volume, “you’re madder than we thought.”
The taxi driver dropped the chitchat and drove me back to the B&B in silence. I leaned my head against the car window so my jaw vibrated with the engine and the tears traced zigzags on my face.
I tried again yesterday. Jim and his parents watched from the window as I hammered on the door until it bounced in the lock. When I tried again today, Jim came outside, grabbed my arm and marched me back to the taxi as if I were an unruly drunk.
I went to the bank before I could talk myself out of it, drained his account with the card he’d given me for shopping, took out the small sum that I’d saved in my own account, packed all the money into my holdall and caught the bus to Guildford.
I stepped down from the bus at the train station, went inside with my holdall. Jim was dead to me, Violet was held from me, there was only one person left. Being turned away by Robin wasn’t an option. I needed my twin.
The man behind the counter smiled at me, and it was the first smile I’d received in a while. Through streaming eyes and a breaking voice I said, “I need a one-way ticket to Manchester.”
ROBIN|PRESENT DAY
Robin was four thousand steps into her pacing when she stopped by the curtain in the top bedroom. She’s still standing there, on pause. There have been no knocks today, and somehow the anticipation is worse than the reality. Will it be more aggressive today? Will the knocks rain down for longer? Will whoever is knocking appear at the back door instead? Will they wait until after dark and climb onto the roof of the kitchen, tease the window of the spare bedroom open with gloved fingers, drop silently to the floor like a cat and stalk around her house while she sleeps?
She couldn’t sleep last night. Lay awake until the early hours, battling to keep the thoughts of the past out, failing to keep the fears of the present in check. In the end, she pulled herself off the bed and, rather than climbing under it, headed to the gym to tire herself out with kettlebell squats and miles on the static bike.
It had worked, of sorts. After cycling nowhere for fifteen miles, she’d made it to two hundred and eighty squats, pausing briefly every twenty, closing her eyes for the last three sets. It was an equal number at least, round and smooth. She’d shuffled back out of the spare-room-cum-gym, into a hot shower and then up the second set of stairs and into the top bedroom. There she’d given up any pretense of a normal night, wrapped the duvet around herself and crawled under the bed.
Now it’s afternoon. Her knees are still aching and her sore leg muscles feel hard and inflexible. Robin leans toward the window, resting one hand on the sill to stare out the back of her house. She sees that the Magpies are both at home but no sign of their little boy. It’s unusual for both the Magpies to be home before teatime. Just the briefest of glances at their body language, the way they’re circling each other, shows that everything is wrong.
She looks away, scans up to the student woman but her flat is abandoned, an empty cereal bowl still on the table from the night before. No sign of the old people, Mr. and Mrs. Peacock, but the young guy Robin had watched moving in is leaning against the garden wall, smoking. He stubs the cigarette out on the wall, drops the butt and walks slowly back inside.
Robin flicks her eyes back to the dead center and watches the Magpies. They’re still circling each other just behind the window, pieces of paper and small items being tossed about. Mrs. Peacock has now been shaken loose, perhaps from the shouting that doesn’t reach the distance to Robin. She’s standing outside her flat, the broom in her hand motionless, her head craned.
It’s nothing new. But it’s probably entertaining enough for a bored pensioner. Robin’s in no position to judge. She tells herself that she’s acting as a kind of custodian, watching over the lives opposite. But if she examines that claim for long, it falls apart. If she were really just a caring witness, she’d spend more time worrying about the young mum looking after the baby by herself, pacing at night with it red-faced and screaming. She’d worry about the old people, the old woman caring for herself and her husband, who is looking increasingly frail and keeps wandering out of the flats, only for Mrs. Peacock to round him up at the last minute and coax him back inside.
No, Robin’s interest is not solely benevolent. Mr. and Mrs. Magpie were an important part of her coping strategy. They were true north. They were good and wholesome, a reminder of what normal families look like. She doesn’t want to see them as Henry and Karen Watkins, another screwed-up couple. It’s knocked Robin’s whole system out of whack, confronting the idea that maybe there are no good families. She’d thought her family was pretty perfect, once upon a time. Believed that her parents were good and her siblings were forever. But like all good fairy tales, the story was far, far darker than that.
TWELVE
SARAH|1991
Ever since I saw Mum and Drew on the sofa, I’ve been seeing the ghost of that image everywhere I look. The new clothes Mum is wearing, the looks Drew gives those clothes, the way Hilary is wearing less makeup, the miles-away look on Dad’s face. A look that says maybe he knows. Our families still meet up but there’s a strange feeling, like we’re on the edge of a cloud but the rain never falls. One mean word and everyone might start barking like dogs.