The image of you, p.37
The Image of You, page 37
She was grief-stricken and guilt-stricken. Always extreme and sensitive, she just couldn’t get on with it or get over it. She believed she could have changed things, if only she’d picked up the phone. She insisted that Zoe’s death was her fault. It wasn’t. Zoe was way down her path of self-destruction by then; if it hadn’t been that night, it would have been another. Anna could never have dragged her back. Anna couldn’t have saved her.
But Anna couldn’t let her die either.
And she was the only one who could keep her alive.
Fifty-One
Nick
His mind was bleached. He didn’t know what or how to think.
‘It started with her wanting to sleep at Zoe’s apartment, crawl into her bed. She’d just left her husband, she needed to stay somewhere, we didn’t think it was odd. Then, when she didn’t appear bothered about colleting her own clothes for ever such a long time, she wore Zoe’s. We still thought that it was a reasonable response to grief. It was a way to be closer to her sister and a way to avoid further confrontation with Larry. It was a very painful time. Next, she started wearing make-up in much the way Zoe had, which is—’
‘Very different to the way Anna does,’ Nick interrupted Alexia.
‘Exactly,’ she confirmed.
David coughed and continued with the explanation; it was like a finely choreographed relay race. The husband and wife knew how much the other could bear before they took up the baton.
‘It’s actually quite a common occurrence amongst twins. When one dies the other takes on some of their habits or characteristics. It’s a way of holding on. I once read about a twin who completed his dead brother’s bucket list. People called it a tribute. They were proud of him.’
When does tribute slip into a disorder? A mental health problem? Nick wasn’t sure. He thought that it was possibly when you and your dead twin were both sleeping with your fiancé.
‘Three or four months after Zoe had died, Anna signed up to a modelling agency. Something Zoe had always talked about doing but had never had the discipline or drive to get around to. We didn’t think it was a problem until we discovered she was working under Zoe’s name. That was the beginning of the blurring.’
‘She started going to the bars Zoe had visited, hanging out with the sort of people Zoe would have befriended. Not Zoe’s actual friends, you understand—they knew she was dead—but those sorts.’
‘Did she drink like Zoe? Do drugs?’ Nick asked.
‘No, that was the only thing that gave us any comfort. She was sort of living Zoe’s life but a better version of it. No drugs, drink at a manageable level, and a job.’ Alexia sounded almost hopeful, as though she too wanted to buy into the fantasy. ‘It was almost as though she was trying to show what could have been. She was more confident, more sassy. At first, we told ourselves there was no real harm, maybe it would even be good for her.’
David sighed. ‘But then she started talking to Zoe.’
‘Many grieving people do that,’ Nick pointed out. ‘I imagine it’s comforting.’
‘And then she started talking about Zoe, in the present tense. “Zoe wants a salad for supper, she needs to lose a few pounds for her next job,” or, “Zoe told me to paint the flat grey, she hates the blue I’ve picked out.” That sort of thing.’
‘Oh.’
‘It was complete denial. That’s when we took her to see some experts.’
Nick stared at these two earnest middle-aged people who were greying, sober, seemingly genuine and intelligent. However, he didn’t know how to believe them. He’d met Zoe. He’d had sex with Zoe. She was a completely different woman from Anna. He knew, because he’d been engaged to Anna. And all that went with that statement. He’d know if they were the same woman. He would.
But.
He was struggling with understanding that he’d never met Zoe, just an imitation. He was baffled by the fact that he’d an affair with the woman he was cheating on. He wondered, how was Anna capable of such enormous duplicity? Then he squirmed with shame as he admitted to himself that he was the last one to talk about duplicity. He let his head fall into his hands. He fought an urge to give up completely, just slide on to the floor, through the cracks in the floorboards, let the earth below the house swallow him up. This seemed preferable to pushing through the consequences of what they’d just told him. How could she have fooled him? He thought of the yelps of delight he’d elicited from Zoe as she crashed through orgasm, and the shy blushes Anna used to bestow when she felt comfortable in bed. How?
There had been blood. It had smelt like blood. He’d cleaned it up. It had made him vomit. That was all real.
David and Alexia wanted to understand everything they could about Anna’s recent state of mind and so they insisted Nick tell them all that had happened in the past six months. He owed them the truth, but the words choked him. He slowly ploughed through the story; he didn’t come out of it well. They hung on his every word. Alexia bit her bottom lip, and David commented that, ‘Things seem worse than ever.’ Neither of them said so but Nick felt it; it was obviously his fault that Anna had been pushed to this extreme. No one needed to tell him. So many thoughts were charging through his head, fighting to find order. He recalled particular evenings when Zoe pretended to be talking to Anna on the phone and teased him by offering to put her on speaker phone. He’d always recoiled, his brashness never quite spilling over into that level of cruelty. What might have happened if he’d said yes? How would she have played that? The fact they had never met up as a threesome made sense now, as did the fact that Anna was always occupied with something else when Nick was sneaking about with Zoe. He imagined the lengths Anna must have gone to, changing her clothes, her shoes, the colour of her nails. The logistics of this deceit were interesting, fascinating. Almost admirable, he thought. When he said as much to David and Alexia, David looked furious.
‘Don’t you understand? This isn’t about her deceiving you, she’s deceiving herself. She thinks she is two people, and now she thinks she’s killed her other self and become Zoe. She’s seriously ill.’
Maybe, or maybe she was brilliant. Nick wasn’t sure.
One thought banged against his temples repeatedly, drowning out everything else. Anna is not dead. Not dead, after all. Although Zoe was, but not the Zoe he loved. Both his Anna and his Zoe were alive. That was something. He had to cling on to that.
They were good people, these people who would have been Nick’s in-laws, he could see that. He didn’t know what they were to him now but, considering all he had told them, he thought that they’d be within their rights to throw him out of their house, to hurl abuse if not actual stones at his head. But they had been through a lot, seen a lot. Alexia, in particular, didn’t want to judge him. She knew everyone was weak.
Eventually, David and Alexia left Nick to his thoughts. They busied themselves in the kitchen, hiding behind the excuse of making a cup of coffee. They just wanted to talk about him. Naturally.
Nick listened to them hiss-whispering. Words tore between them.
David said, ‘He’s an opportunistic bastard. He was engaged to Anna and thought he was screwing Zoe.’
‘I know, I know. It’s complicated,’ replied Alexia. ‘But what isn’t, when it comes to Anna and Zoe? And look at him.’
Nick didn’t know what they saw, but he didn’t imagine it was good. Eventually, to his relief, they asked him to stay for something to eat. He wasn’t hungry, but nor was he ready to leave them. Where would he go now? He was unclear whether he was being offered late lunch or early dinner. He’d lost track of time. He checked his watch. It was 4 p.m. locally, 9 p.m. at home. They’d been AWOL for a day. He should call someone. Work, or maybe Rachel. He couldn’t. He didn’t know what to say.
Nick ate their soup and accepted their hospitality as his mind slowly processed what they’d told him. He found it difficult to swallow. No one had much of an appetite.
He said, ‘I need to find Anna. Do you have any idea where she might be? She’s not answering either her number or the number she gave me for Zoe’s phone. I have to see her.’
David tutted with impatience. ‘You’d better get a plane home. Get on with your life. We’ll sort this out. We can call you a cab to take you to the airport.’
‘I’m so relieved that she’s not dead.’
‘Yes, you won’t be going to prison,’ pointed out David. He put down his soup spoon, stared out of the window. Nick knew he’d like to leave the table but was staying put for his wife.
Nick turn to Alexia and appealed, ‘I need to find her. Will you help me?’
Fifty-Two
Anna/Zoe
‘Anna?’
I swing around on my bar stool to face him. ‘I’m sorry, you have me confused with my twin, it happens all the time. I’m Zoe.’ I look him up and down, cool and blank.
He seems shocked at my rebuttal.
Of course I recognize him. Of course I know who he is, I’m not totally mad; I’m just giving him the old-fashioned cold shoulder. The way he dumped me at the airport. Shocking. After all I’ve done for him.
Frankly, I didn’t really expect to see him again. I thought he’d be on the first plane back to England. I’m staggered by this show of balls. I didn’t expect him to pursue me; he hasn’t shown an ability to be single-minded thus far. People say better late than never, but I don’t know, some things are just too late.
He throws a nervous look around the dark, heaving bar. Other than myself, I don’t know why people are hiding in here. It’s a beautiful evening outside; it deserves to be enjoyed.
‘Anna, there are some things I need to say to you.’
I stare coldly.
‘I know you’re Anna. Not Zoe playing Anna.’
How irritating.
‘Do you know it?’
I can hear the hesitancy and confusion in his question. ‘Don’t be so bloody prosaic, Nick,’ I snap.
He runs his hand through his hair. ‘I’ve talked to your parents.’
Oh, great. I feel a ball of fury swirl around in my gut. My parents have never done anything other than nag and interfere, although Anna would say that they are only doing their best and they mean well, that they must be worried sick. I try to push that thought aside; I haven’t got room in my head to think about what Anna would say.
I look at Nick and take him in properly. He looks dreadful. It’s not just the shaving shadow, the blue bags under his eyes, the sweat above his lips; he’s grey, he’s aged. There’s nothing boyish about him any more. We’ve bashed that out of him. If he’d looked like this when Anna initially met him, I doubt he’d have pulled either of us. What am I saying? More likely, Anna would still have been interested, what with her desperate desire to fix everything and everyone the entire time. She’d have wanted to fold her arms around him, pull him into a big hug and promise him everything was going to be OK. She can’t help herself. She’s just so nice.
‘What are you drinking?’ he asks.
I let him buy me a vodka and tonic. He picks up our drinks and nods towards a quiet table in the corner. Part of me wants to make him squirm, say what he has to say here within earshot of the bar tender, but I follow him, weave my way through the crowds, to the quieter spot.
‘How did you find me?’ I ask.
‘Your parents gave me the addresses of some of Zoe’s old haunts. This is the ninth bar I’ve looked in.
I raise my eyebrows sceptically. ‘Nine, you say?’
‘Yes.’
‘How many might you have visited before you gave up?’
‘As many as it took to find you.’
I doubt that, I know this man has limits, and so I push for specifics. ‘Twenty, thirty?’
‘I’d have just kept looking,’ he says smoothly.
‘Careful, Nick, you’re in danger of sounding a little mad.’
He doesn’t comment on that but asks, ‘Have you been in here all afternoon?’
‘I went to my apartment first but the asshole landlord has rented it out to a new tenant. I walked in on this middle-aged woman doing Pilates with her personal trainer. It was quite the confusion. I’ve only been away a couple of months. I’m still paying rent.’
‘You mean your place in the West Village?’
I nod. Good old Ma and Pa really have been spilling the beans.
‘You know you haven’t rented that apartment for over two years, right, Anna? And Zoe hasn’t been there for three years,’ he says carefully.
To refute this, I hold up the keys and dangle them so they clink together like bells.
‘You should have handed those over, Anna,’ he says primly.
‘Anna is dead.’
‘No, Zoe is dead.’
I turn away from him. This is not useful. We’re going backwards now.
‘I’m sorry,’ he adds gently. ‘It must have been horrific, losing her like that. Your parents explained how brutal it was for you. How much you missed her.’
‘You’ve got it wrong.’
‘No, I haven’t.’
‘Zoe was dead,’ I admit with a sigh. ‘But now Anna is.’
He stares at me, concern bleeding all over the table. This is not new for me. Doctors, counsellors, my parents have all worn similar expressions that show varying degrees of unease, alarm, distress. It’s not as helpful as they’d like to think; it’s pretty boring, actually. But then Nick surprises me and I get a tiny hint of the mind I fell in love with months ago, when he asks something unexpected.
‘Why does Anna have to go?’
There’s no point in pretending. ‘You like Zoe better.’
‘No, I—It wasn’t—’
We stare at one another. What can he say?
‘You wanted her more, so Anna had to go. But Anna had paperwork, a national insurance number, a passport and a driver’s licence. All Zoe had was a death certificate.’
‘Wow.’ He swallows back his drink.
I do too.
‘Do you want another?’
I say yes because my legs suddenly feel too heavy to move. And besides, he looks like he needs company. It’s a warm summer evening, couples all over the word are enjoying a glass together. Why shouldn’t we? ‘I’ll have a lemonade.’ Vodka is Zoe’s poison. I’m not sure either of us has ever ordered a lemonade since we were about ten, it just seems a sensible choice. I need the sugar and I don’t need to be any drunker.
He comes back from the bar with two lemonades; very wise, quite the adult.
As he puts them on the table he asks, ‘Why did you do it this time? I understand about how it came about in the first place—the profound grief, the shock, the response to Zoe’s death—but why did you bring Zoe to London to meet me? We were so happy.’
‘Were we?’
‘Yes!’
I glare at him. ‘I heard you.’
‘Heard me when?’
‘With Cai and Darragh, in the pub, just two weeks after we got engaged.’
He lurches, ever so slightly. Any residue of colour he carried now drains away. I see that he’s in pain. He’s mopping up the fault and blame, absorbing it. If I’m being fair, I’d say he is sixty per cent to blame for Zoe’s reappearance. There are other contributing factors. I was lonely in London, friends are hard to come by—that had an effect of, say, ten per cent. I’d stopped taking my tablets regularly—maybe another ten per cent. I was still pretty bashed up emotionally—the vulnerability I felt following my relationships with John, Larry and Kelvin accounted for the remaining twenty per cent of blame.
Zoe would say the whole thing was one hundred per cent mine.
It was one of her most admirable qualities, that she believed people ought to own their own mess. That was actually the thing she first came back to tell me. When I was blaming myself for her passing, she wanted me to know that she didn’t blame me, she took responsibility. She kept saying, ‘I made my own choices, Anna.’
I wish I could have believed her.
Nick is gasping air like a fish that’s just jumped out of its bowl. ‘I was only joking,’ he says.
I must look sceptical.
‘Sort of joking. Certainly not serious. I just said that stuff to the lads to shut them up.’
‘Yet, you did sleep with Zoe. Repeatedly.’
He looks irritated to have that pointed out. Annoyed with himself or me? I’m not sure.
‘But you presented Zoe to me. And she was you but more than you.’
‘More?’ I ask sharply.
‘Well, different. No one else could have tempted me.’
‘You see, you do like Zoe the best.’
‘No, if I’d met Zoe first and then you, I’d’ve—’
‘What? You’d have had an affair with me?’
‘No, that’s not what I mean.’
It sort of is.
He admits as much when he says, ‘I was in love with you both.’
I tut at him. Zoe would have thrown a drink. Neither of us were enough.
We sit in the centre of this mess and don’t know how to plough our way out.
Eventually, Nick says, ‘You could have just said something. Tackled me. Called me to account. That would have been the ordinary, normal thing to do.’
‘I never claimed to be normal.’
He blanches, responding to the sliver of anger that I could not keep in check.
Men have called me a lot of things in my time. Zoe has had all the usual ones thrown at her: slut, whore, bitch. She’s also been labelled a troublemaker, a freeloader, a junkie, and many other things. Anna has been called frigid, cold and a prick-tease, as well as a starry-eyed, overly romantic pushover. And then, finally, clinically insane. None of it is nice but, right now, I think calling me ordinary is the worst thing he could ever call me. I’m a twin, I’ve never been normal. I’ve always been special; we’ve always been special. He must understand that much. Being a twin is like being a celebrity. It gives you an inflated sense of your own importance. It’s like everything we did as a twin was more than twice as important and so, maths being complex and tricky to understand, when she died I was less than half a being. It was devastating. I missed her so much. I miss her, still.
