“Congratulations.”
“So, yes, I was here. She seemed like a nice girl. A bit intense and moody maybe, and quiet. But basically nice.”
I think that nice is the worst possible word for her. “So what happened exactly? I mean, I only know that she died in the pool. Tilda emailed me, about the fuss in the press and so on; but I don’t know any details.”
“Oh—okay. Well, she pitched up here wanting to stay, and I don’t think that Tilda had been expecting her; after all, they didn’t know each other well. They’d been students at drama school, as I understand it, but that was a long time ago. Charlotte seemed to think that she and Tilda had some special bond, and that Tilda would be delighted to have her as a houseguest; Tilda didn’t have the heart to turn her away—and Charlotte just settled in. She made herself useful, I guess, going down to the supermarket each morning, buying food, making our meals. And she’d work out which movies we’d watch in the evenings. She reckoned she could make it here as an actress—like thousands of young women before her, of course—but she didn’t seem to realize that she and Tilda are leagues apart. Tilda has something special about her. Charlotte didn’t.”
I’m noticing the differences between Lucas and Felix. He’s put his feet up on the coffee table and is drinking his wine too fast. And there’s something about the way in which he talks about Tilda, an element of admiration in his voice, and of supplication, that makes me realize that she has him under her control, and I pity him.
“So, that night . . . ,” he says, “Charlotte and Tilda were down at the pool. Charlotte, I remember, was wearing a long dress of Tilda’s, a gold-colored silky thing—it had a split seam, and Tilda said she didn’t want it anymore, that Charlotte could keep it. They’d been drinking, Charlotte had taken some coke, and they were swimming. It’s a famously lethal combination, of course. And they’d swum in their clothes, which, at the time, they’d thought was an amusing thing to do. Kinda crazy, in a good way. I was here, up at the house, making dinner for once. Anyways, Tilda came up from the pool, drenched, dripping wet skirt, making footprints on the tiles; she went upstairs for a shower, came down again, and was surprised that Charlotte hadn’t appeared. We called her from the terrace, but she didn’t come; so we walked down to the pool together, Tilda and I, and there she was, floating facedown, her black hair radiating outwards, the dress tangled up around her legs. I kinda went into emergency mode, jumping into the pool, and together we pulled her out.”
We sit silently, and I put my feet up on the coffee table, next to Lucas’s. I can hear my sister upstairs, the snap of a closing door, the scrape of a chair, and I say, “Do you blame Tilda?”
It’s a while before he answers, “No, not at all. Why would I?”
Then she calls out, “Come up, Callie!” in a voice that is too light, too fresh. So I leave Lucas on the sofa and ascend the stairs, to find Tilda waiting for me, standing at the door of a bedroom, bathed in a pinkish glow that is coming from an open door behind her, a door to a balcony. She’s wearing a thin white cotton robe over her naked body, and her feet are bare. Her long fair hair is freshly dried and glimmers at its edges, as do tiny specks of dust in the air. Her expression is sweet, a sort of tender bemusement.
“I told you not to come, little one. There’s far too much going on, and it would have been better to wait. It’s been difficult . . .”
She pulls me to her and kisses my cheek, not barely brushing it in her usual way, but pressured and long, like she’s missed me, and I’m not sure whether to feel cherished or used.
In any case, I don’t want to pull away. She smells of geranium and of orange, which I suppose is her shower gel or her shampoo, and I bury my face in her neck, to get more of it, as I hug her and say “I’ve hardly slept. . . . It’s making me feel strange, like you’re not real, like this house isn’t real.”
“LA is a little like that—it deals in fantasy.”
“I don’t mean that . . . I think it’s more that you are your fabricated self here, in an unnatural habitat.” Something I could never have said before Liam brought it into the open and made it true.
I look around her dark-wood bedroom, at the table with her makeup on the top, lipsticks and mascaras and foundations untidily scattered, the tops left off; at the bed, which is oddly low, the covers thrown back, the sheets and pillows dented, and at the open glass doors, the balcony beyond, with a view of nothing other than deep, waxy foliage, and the tiniest glimpse of the pool.
“You’re funny, Callie,” she says. “If you’re so tired, why don’t you lie on the bed? Actually, I might join you—I have time before the hair and makeup people arrive, I may as well rest.”
She unbelts her robe, lets it drop to the floor, so that I’m gazing at her naked body; finding myself filled with embarrassment, but unable to look away. Apart from a quick glance that day on the Thames, I haven’t seen her without her clothes since we were children, since we were prepubescent and shared an evening bath, and I’m unable to speak as she crosses the room towards the bed; I’m noticing everything about her as if for the first time, jutting little hips, the soft cupping curve of her breasts, the waxed skin down between her legs. It’s too much to take in, but I want to touch her white, white skin—no little ink spots now, just a few freckles clustered here and there, and the mole on her shoulder.
She gets in, pulling up the sheet, and I take off my shoes and my jeans, and I join her.
“Can I hug you?”
“Of course.” She opens her arms, and I move in, resting my head low on her shoulder, practically on her breast, and for a few blissful seconds I close my eyes and imagine what life would be like if my sister was an innocent person. I wriggle to get comfortable, moving my arm under her back, the other across her stomach, entwining my legs with hers, until we are one amorphous being, and Tilda says, “We’re like the babes in the wood.”
“I know everything.” I stroke her stomach with my finger, and then her bony hip.
“Really?” It’s that tender attitude again. “That’s good. You’re me and I’m you—so I guess it’s important that you know.”
“You didn’t always think that. . . .”
“No—but then I didn’t realize how well my plans would work out.”
“You were lucky.”
“I’m a lucky person, Callie.”
“This is how I understand it . . .” I move my hand up her body, caressing the side of her breast, then stroking her face and her hair. “You got the idea from the Strangers on a Train movie . . . the idea of swapping murders. If you could get someone to kill Felix for you, you’d kill in return.”