‘I’m going to be a Grand Dame woman, the way I ought to be.’ She had gotten this idea from being in Europe.
‘Grand Dames don’t go around declaring childish wishes. Why can’t you just be yourself?’
Lizzie wistful. ‘I’m waiting for the best moment to be my true self. Everything will be different then, you’ll see.’ She stood from the bed and studied herself in the mirror. ‘Emma, what do you think we look like on the inside?’
The morbidity of curiosity. I watched her, followed the trace of her fingers as they smoothed over her chest above the heart. Lizzie touched her skin like it was night.
‘We could reinvent each other, Emma.’
‘Stop it! I’m sick of this ridiculous talk. Go daydream to yourself.’
Lizzie looked at me in the mirror, became serious. ‘You should consider the possibilities.’
And I had thought about it: an artist in Europe, speaker of ten languages, a monk on a vow of silence, a scientist aboard the Beagle. These things I would never become. These things Lizzie had more chance of being, simply because Father let her do anything she wanted. I knew deep down that I ought to abandon the fanciful and take what was real, that I lived with my father and stepmother, lived with a sibling who would never give me up. My time to be anything, anyone, had slipped. I had to live with that disappointment and I wished Lizzie would do the same.
I continued to clean, made my way to a second set of windows, pulled the curtains apart. There, small cracks in the windowpane, a dead fly on its back. I scooped the fly in my palm and put it in my skirt pocket. I got tired, sat on Lizzie’s bed and wiped my hands along the linen, thought about the speed of sound, how fast a call for help would take to be heard. How loud is death? Had Lizzie heard any of it, that sickening shock? I looked towards the guestroom, thought of Abby, the way her heavy body must have slumped to the floor. There were questions I wanted to ask her:
Were you here when Father was killed?
How far was escape?
Was Lizzie in any danger?
Did you see this coming?
What happened? Who did you anger?
How much pain did you feel?
I stood and rested my hands in my skirt pocket, felt the fly.
Everything was ready. I made my way through Father and Abby’s room, walked down the stairs and noticed for the first time just how steep they were, how angular and aged they had become, the way they made the body thick and dull. I looked out the window, noticed neighbours form parallel lines along the fence, their hands pawing at wood. What would they possibly want to see inside this house? My face soured and I hoped they saw me.
I was at the dining room door. ‘I’ll take you away now,’ I said.
Lizzie stared at the sitting room door, her eyes like weighted lead, her tongue flicking along lips. She might have even smiled.
I walked closer to my sister, tried to settle my heartbeat, feet whispers along floorboards, and held out my hand.
‘What do you think he looks like, Emma?’ Lizzie, matter-of-fact.
‘Lizzie . . .’
‘He’s all cut and red.’ She touched the side of her face, frightened me.
‘She’s in tremendous shock,’ Dr Bowen told me.
‘Come now, Lizzie. Don’t talk like that,’ I said.
‘But it’s true. That’s what I found.’
‘I’ve given her more sedative. She’ll sleep soon.’ Dr Bowen suddenly seemed old too.
‘Thank you.’ I wrapped my arm around Lizzie’s shoulders and pulled her onto her feet. She was heat and electricity.
‘I’ve made your bed,’ I told her. ‘Come with me.’
Lizzie sighed. Noise came from the sitting room: the sounds of men shifting dead weight. ‘Careful, the head.’
We lumbered up the back stairs to Lizzie’s room. In my right ear she hummed ‘The Song of Birds’, a song we composed years ago. The melody popped with each step, danced over Lizzie’s teeth.
‘Lizzie, enough,’ I whispered and she smiled. What was wrong with her? I thought of Helen, her offer to let me stay longer. How would I tell Lizzie that I was moving on without her?
In bed Lizzie asked, ‘Did you miss me while you were gone?’
‘Try to relax.’ I didn’t want to play games with her.
‘You never replied to my letters.’ Lizzie pouted.
‘I was busy.’
Lizzie poked my chest. ‘You should apologise.’
Spikes grew along the back of my ribcage, made me cough, and I took her hand. It was soft like mine. There we were, me and my sister, our bodies inseparable. There is nothing that escapes blood.
I looked into Lizzie’s rounded eyes: a pupil dilated, the corner of her right eye twitched.
‘What happened today, Lizzie?’ I needed to hear it all, did not want to hear it all.
‘Nobody would understand.’ Lizzie looked past my shoulder towards the guestroom.
I leaned closer. ‘What happened?’
‘I can’t be too sure.’ Lizzie’s breath was fire in my ear.
‘What did you see today?’
‘They asked me that too. Why are you treating me like this?’ Her voice on the edge of a song and scream. I did not want to be the one to push her over.
‘I’m sorry. The police haven’t told me anything. I just wanted to hear it from you.’
‘I found him on the sofa. Resting.’ She said it like she was solving a jigsaw.
‘And?’
‘I wasn’t really sure then.’
Lizzie’s hand grew heavier in mine. The room was silent. Outside, a bird warbled sunny times. I let go of Lizzie and thought about what was left unsaid. I wished to be inside her mind, see everything from underneath her bones, eyes, skin.
When Lizzie was younger, I prayed to be carried into her mind. I would whisper memories of Mother and life before all the changes, before Abby came. I wanted to explain how lonely it had been before Lizzie’s arrival, about the small ache that never seemed to disappear after baby Alice went to sleep with God. Nobody wanted to know how much a seven-year-old could cry. I learned to keep so many things to myself. Inside our house, the constant beat of adult rhythm, ageing breath, talk of melancholy and business, of Mother and Father not touching each other like they used to, Mother telling Grandmother that the pain of baby Alice was too much to bear. Sometimes Father and Mother forgot that I was in the room, forgot that I was still alive. I started wishing myself a twin, wanted to be able to stand in front of myself and hold hands, to communicate telepathically, to no longer be lonely.
Then, one day, Mother touched Father’s hand, then touched his arms. I took to listening to my parents make love. I held my breath every night. For months I prayed, please, please, a new baby from Mama. Please, please, and I became the family anatomist, taking stock of any possible changes in Mother’s body:
Some weeks her stomach and hips looked wider.
Her hair seemed thicker.
She used the word ‘ravenous’.
She began to smell of musk and salt, an animal.
Her cheeks became flushed.