Sometimes I Lie

‘Can you taste that? That’s you and me, that’s what we taste like. It wasn’t as good as I hoped, but then looking back it always was a bit like fucking a corpse.’

I hear him fasten his belt. He pulls the sheet back over my body.

‘Goodbye, Amber. Sleep well.’

He turns off the light, then leaves.

It feels like I’ve reached a full stop and there is nothing after it. I’m scared I won’t be able to open my eyes again, I’m scared of what I’ll see if I do. I can’t feel anything any more, so I start to count. After one thousand, two hundred seconds I try to believe that I am safe. Twenty minutes have stuck together to form a wall between me and him. It isn’t enough, but when I open my eyes I can at least see that his physical presence has gone. It’s only now I realise that my fingers have been moving, I have been using them to count. I can move my hands. It’s still dark and my eyes are adjusting. For now, all I can see beyond the edges of my bed is cloudy grey pain. If I can move my hands, I wonder what else I can do. Slowly, as though I might break it, I lift my right arm. It feels heavy, hard to balance, like an overloaded tray. I see a thin tube attached to the back of my hand and pull it out, crying in pain. I need to get help and I need to hurry, but everything seems to be very slow, very difficult.

I still can’t move the rest of my body. I look around at what I can see from my position on the bed until my eyes find a red cord. It looks like the sort of thing you should pull if you need help, and I do need help. I launch my right arm and it shakily manoeuvres itself into position banging the drip on the way. I stop and stare at the half-empty bag of clear liquid gently swaying on the stand. I’m sure it contains the drugs he’s been pumping inside me. I yank it free and manage to throw it in the side cabinet, hoping someone will find it and know what to do. Something is definitely wrong, my eyes want to close and they’re becoming quite insistent. I reach up again for the red cord, this time my fingers wrap around it and I pull. I see a red light come on above the bed and I let my arm fall. My hands grip on to the sheets so tight that my nails dig into my palms. Sleep is pulling me under. I let my eyes close and feel myself fold into black.

I think I might be dying but I’m so tired of living that maybe it’s OK. I allow my mind to power down. Far above me, beyond the cold, black waves, I hear voices, but the words won’t unravel themselves. Two of them swim down from the surface to find me.

‘She’s crashing.’

I crashed.

Then

Christmas Day, 2016

Christmas is a time for tolerating the family you didn’t choose.

‘That’s a lovely scarf,’ says Claire, as she ushers us through the hallway. Paul and I follow her inside. There’s not a hint of tension after our row at the market yesterday, but this is what my sister and I do best. Acting is something we’ve always had in common. Still, I doubt she’d be able to remain this calm if she knew that Paul had found her childhood diaries. She doesn’t even know that I’ve seen them. It’s a strange sensation, reading your own history through another person’s eyes. Your version of the truth is a little bent out of shape because it’s no longer your own.

We step into the new open plan kitchen and dining room. There are toys everywhere, but apart from that, the place is spotless. They’ve had a lot of work done since Mum and Dad died, the house is hardly recognisable; impressive since I lived here from the day I was born. Claire has redecorated the whole place, papering over the cracks in our family. I still tell myself that it made sense for my parents to leave the house to Claire and David. They needed it more than we did and his garage is right next door, it’s how they met.

‘David is just upstairs changing the twins, he’ll be down soon. Drink?’ Claire’s long blonde hair is pulled back off her flawless face and she looks radiant. It wasn’t always blonde, of course, but the peroxide has been expertly applied for so many years now, that you’d never know. Her black dress looks new and hugs her body. I feel a frump in comparison, I hadn’t realised we were dressing up. I’m the eldest but she looks considerably younger than me given we were born on the same day just a few hours apart.

‘Not for me, thank you,’ I say.

‘Don’t be daft, it’s Christmas!’ says Claire. ‘I was going to open some bubbles to get us started . . .’

‘That sounds nice,’ says Paul.

‘OK, then, just the one,’ I reply looking over at the larder. My height every year of my life until I was a teenager used to be marked on the back of the wooden door. Claire had it painted over.

We sit down on the corner sofas and I feel like an accessory in a photo from one of Claire’s home decorating magazines. The kitchen looks like it’s never been cooked in, and yet something smells amazing. My sister, the undomestic goddess. David comes marching in with a child beneath each arm. He’s too tall and always walks a little bent over, as though permanently worried he might bump his head. His hairline is rapidly retreating and the ten-year age gap between him and Claire is really starting to show.

When we were sixteen, he fixed Dad’s car, and took Claire’s virginity as well as his payment. I was shocked and a little disgusted at the time. She thought I was jealous, but I wasn’t. The idea of him doing things to her repulsed me. I remember when she first started sneaking out to see him. I often went with her, then I’d wait on my own and try not to listen, while they did whatever they were doing. One night like that, Claire and I stayed drinking in the park, just the two of us. It was long after David had gone off to the pub we were too young to get into. When the bottles of cider he had given us were empty, we staggered out from the shelter of the trees. It was so late that the iron gates at the park entrance were already closed, with a padlock and thick chain.