But I’m already out of there. Clutching my stomach, I run behind the pizza shop and throw up violently. Afterwards I put my hand on to the wall to steady myself and stand there for a few moments just trying to breathe. Then, wiping my mouth, I head back to the parade. I have to get home. I have to get away from the man and the newspapers and the Beatles song that is going round and round my head. I have to get home and pour myself a small drink and then it will all be better. I’ll be able to think straight.
Two hours later I’m drunk. Lying on the sofa, I close my eyes while Paul McCartney’s voice flutters through the room.
Just one glass, I’d told myself, but the first glass barely registered so I had a second. That warmed me up and blunted the edges a bit but it still wasn’t enough and as I poured myself a third I remembered I had Kate’s records. It’s got to be here somewhere, I thought, as I rummaged through the tattered sleeves. And then I found it. A twelve-inch copy of the Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ and there on the back of it in black felt tip was her name: Kate Martha Rafter. I took the record out and gave it a wipe with the back of my sleeve, then, taking a big sip of wine, I put it on my ancient turntable and suddenly she was back. We were two little girls dancing around the living room.
And now, as I lie here on the sofa with the song still playing in my head, I try to picture her but all I can see is a damn body bag.
‘Hey you,’ I sing to the ghosts in the room. ‘Dum, dum de dum.’
Slowly, my eyelids grow heavier than the words and everything goes dark.
I wake to a loud bang. I sit up and listen. The thud of heavy feet and a voice, low and muffled, calling my name. I go to stand up but I can’t move. My heart pounds and I can’t get my breath.
The footsteps grow closer.
‘Kate?’ I whisper. ‘Is that you?’
I try to get up from the sofa but my legs are so heavy I can barely move.
‘Oh, for God’s sake!’
I look up and see him. He’s standing at the door, his face like thunder.
‘Sally, why did you do it?’ he says as he steps inside. ‘You know this isn’t the answer.’
‘It’s nothing,’ I say, flopping back on to the sofa. ‘Just leave it.’
‘Jesus,’ he says, picking up the bottle from the floor. ‘Three bottles of wine in one morning? You’re going to kill yourself.’
He puts them on the table then comes and sits on the arm of the sofa.
‘Drinking’s not going to bring her back,’ he says, taking the empty glass from my hands.
‘I know that,’ I say.
‘In fact, it’s just going to make things worse,’ he says.
I bury my head in the cushion so I don’t have to listen to him, but I can still hear his voice droning on.
‘You’re going to need a clear head to deal with this, Sally,’ he says. ‘To fully come to terms with her death.’
And as I lie here I remember something. One of the headlines from this morning.
‘You’re wrong anyway,’ I say, sitting up. ‘About Kate. She’s not dead.’
‘Oh, Sally, what are you talking about?’ he sighs.
‘I saw the papers in the shop,’ I tell him, pointing my finger in the air. ‘They said “missing” – she’s missing, not dead. I tell you, she’ll turn up right as rain in a couple of days.’ I laugh loudly.
He shakes his head and his face looks so smug I want to punch him.
‘What? What you shaking your head for?’
‘Sally, listen to me,’ he says. ‘We got a call just now from the MoD. They told me that Kate had us down as her next of kin. Sally, they’ve confirmed it. Your sister’s not missing, love, she’s dead. They’re sending her belongings to us.’
I stand up from the sofa, grabbing for something, anything, to hold on to.
‘But the papers,’ I begin. ‘They said missing. Why would they say that if it isn’t true?’
‘I’m so sorry, Sally.’
Her face fills the room and my head starts to spin with that bloody song. Hey you. I hold out my arm to stop myself from falling but it’s too late and I go crashing into the edge of the coffee table.
30
‘I shouldn’t be here,’ I think to myself as I sit on a sterile white bed. Through a gap in the thin green curtain I see disembodied feet passing by, all in such a hurry but none of them stopping at my cubicle. Why won’t anyone come?
The nurses cleaned me up when I arrived; stitched my head and put a monitor on my heart. Paul stayed in the waiting room while they wheeled me into Accident and Emergency. I was relieved. He kept asking me if I was all right. What did he want me to say? Yes, I’m great. I’m deliriously happy. My sister is dead and everything’s fine and dandy.
As more feet pass below the curtain, not stopping, my loneliness intensifies. Everyone I love is gone: my daughter, my sister. I even miss my mother, the cantankerous old cow.
I should be dead too, I think as I place my hand on the jagged stitches that ripple along my forehead like a railway track. There is nothing left for me to live for.
Nothing.
The curtain is pulled back and Paul steps into the cubicle with a concerned smile. I start to cough. Just his presence seems to suck the oxygen out of a room. Is this what happens when a relationship dies? You drain each other to the point of collapse. I know I drain Paul. I can see the exhaustion on his face as he closes the curtain and walks towards the bed.