The image of you, p.38
The Image of You, page 38
‘So you’re admitting you’re Anna, we’re agreed on that now?’
I shrug. ‘I’m not sure.’ I have been Anna and Zoe. I have been Anna being Zoe and then Zoe playing Anna. I’m in a unique position, I can be either, and I find I’m not ready to pick.
He sighs.
I would feel sorry for him but, hey, I don’t owe him any favours. I rather admire his next comment, though, it’s a careful way around what is, let’s face it, an awkward situation.
‘Why didn’t you just tell me you had a twin who had died?’
A million reasons.
Because I didn’t want her to be dead. Even three years after she had gone the words ripped at my heart and lodged like splinters in my throat. Because admitting she was dead would inevitably have led to a conversation about how I handled my grieving. I’m not sure at which stage mental health is OK to discuss when dating. Second date? Third? Before or after sex? Tricky, huh? I glance around the bar; it’s awash with embryonic flirtations, exciting first dates, miserable break-ups and tentative reconciliations. They’re all brewing here, right now. People will be talking about the number of sexual partners they’ve had, their first fling with drugs, the last time they got paralytic drunk; I don’t imagine many are sharing details about when they were committed to a mental hospital. The last taboo.
‘And how were you going to explain the absence of a sister to me after telling me she was alive and in London?’
I meet his challenging tone. ‘Well, if you’d passed the test, I would have revealed myself, told you about the whole set-up. It could have just been a sexy joke. We could have just laughed about the entire thing. But you didn’t pass the test. You had an affair, Nick.’
‘With you,’ he argues defensively.
‘No, with her,’ I insist.
‘What’s the difference?’
I don’t know, so I just glare at him.
His face collapses into a look of regret. ‘I’m sorry, Anna, I really am.’
I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking about the sex. Oh yes, Zoe and Nick’s sex. Mind-blowing. Literally.
‘And then I began to enjoy it.’ I shrug. I mostly mean the sex here too, but the other bits—being careless and carefree, being challenging and cheeky—these are not things that sit easily with my personality. ‘I’m able to be someone I’m not when I’m her. Look, it’s complicated. I guess you think I’m insane.’ I say it before he has to.
‘No. I don’t.’
‘No?’
‘You’re imaginative. Everyone likes a little variety now and then, we like to escape ourselves, that’s why we buy new clothes or go on holiday.’
I was not expecting that, a level of understanding, empathy. I’m so shocked, all I can do is refute his tolerance and perception. ‘It’s not the same,’ I insist.
‘In many ways it is,’ he replies soothingly.
‘She’s not variety. Zoe. She’s dead. She’s my dead sister.’
He looks pleased with himself. I suppose he sees the fact I’ve admitted Zoe is my dead sister as progress.
‘People talk to the dead people they miss. It’s very normal.’
‘Will you stop calling me normal!’ I bang my hand down on the little wooden table between us. Our drinks quiver. ‘I didn’t just talk to Zoe. I became Zoe.’
‘Well, maybe you’re extraordinarily normal.’ He grins winningly.
I almost believe he gets me. That he understands that I’m not insane. Not exactly. I’m fluid. It’s beguiling, believing I’m understood—by him, especially. But it’s too good to be true.
I remind him how extreme I am. ‘I told you I’d murdered her.’
‘Ah, technically, you told me she’d murdered you,’ he grins.
Can he think this is amusing?
‘How did you do that trick with the blood anyway? I’ve been wondering.’
I suppose it’s quite fun being able to reveal it all. I mean I have been brilliant, and what’s the point of brilliance, if no one else sees it?
‘I got it on the internet. It’s not real blood. They use it on TV.’
‘But it smelt like blood.’
‘I added liquid iron. You can buy that in Boots. I thinned it down a bit, but I was depending on you not having that much experience with real blood.’
‘Nice,’ he nods admiringly.
I can’t help but grin. ‘Thanks.’
‘I guess I was served, well and truly.’
‘I guess you were.’
I don’t quite know what is happening here. We’re almost flirting, let’s be honest, we are flirting. It’s a little bit like that first night when we met in Villandry and it’s a little bit like that other first night when we met in the boutique hotel restaurant. But better. Better than either of those dates. This feels more truthful. Messy, embarrassing but real.
‘I’m sorry, Anna, that I betrayed you. I’m sorry that I wasn’t a better man. I know there’s no reason why you should believe me, or even care, but I’d never, ever do anything like that again. Never.’
I search his face and it is oozing sincerity. The sort neither Zoe nor I have seen from him since he met her. I guess I cured him of that at least; cleaning up after your fiancée’s murder probably makes you doubt your right to fool around.
He plays with his glass, drawing his finger through the condensation that is bubbling there. Quietly, he says, ‘Perhaps you can let her go now.’
‘Please don’t say anything crass like she had a good life, or she burned bright, or whilst she was only on this planet for a few years she lived a bigger life than some people who get to a ripe old age.’
‘Why can’t I say those things, aren’t they true?’
‘No, I don’t think so. Her adult life wasn’t very happy. I mean it couldn’t have been, could it? If she needed all those drugs and men and the drink. I think my version of her life was better than the reality. That’s what kills me, Nick—the futility.’
Nick looks at his fingers—the neat, clean fingernails that I loved—and asks, ‘How much of her life did you take on?’
‘A lot. She’s slept with about twenty men since she died.’
‘Fuck.’
‘Don’t you dare judge. You’re in no position to judge.’
‘No. No, I won’t,’ he says quickly.
‘She didn’t sleep with anyone since I met you, if that’s what you were wondering.’
‘No, I wasn’t.’
I can see he was. For a moment I feel it again. The grief washes through me. ‘I can’t explain how much I missed her. There was a hole in my soul; a great big gaping nothingness. I was so lonely. Those men she was with, after she died I mean, they were me trying to plug the gap. I know everyone else thought she was a pain in the ass. I thought she was spectacular.’
‘I see that,’ he says gently.
‘Do you?’
‘Yes. You made her spectacular for me. You showed me that.’ He reaches forward and touches my face.
I’m stunned to realize that it’s wet with tears.
He blots one with his fingertip and then puts it to his lips. ‘But you also showed me she was a pain in the ass.’
‘I did, didn’t I?’ I try to smile.
A hush settles on our table. He leans close to me, his forehead almost touching mine. As he speaks I feel the warmth of his breath on my face.
‘I understand. I wanted to split myself in half too. It was dreadful. Frightening. I didn’t feel in control of myself.’
I stare into his eyes. Is it possible? Does he understand?
He pulls back. Sits at a distance from me.
I imagine that is it now. He’s got the answers he needs so that he can sleep easily at night. He’s been pretty graceful about it, and now he can slink back to the UK and carry on with his life of meaningless shags and shallow relationships. Nick will be fine. No damage done, after all.
‘I love you,’ he says.
‘You’re in love with a dead girl,’ I say sadly.
‘I’m in love with you.’
‘Me, playing a dead girl.’
‘Yes, and you being yourself. Aren’t you perhaps both?’
‘I don’t know. I suppose I am.’
‘You were really good at being bad,’ he smiles. ‘Maybe, just hear me out, maybe you don’t have to be quite as sweet and good as you always thought you had to be. Maybe, that was something you did as a reaction to Zoe’s personality and you did it from such an early age you never got the chance to explore an alternative. Perhaps you can relax a little, breathe out now. Be your sweet self but with a bit of an edge too.’
I want it to be so. Me, but looser, freer. Me, having learned from Zoe but not having to be Zoe. ‘Do you think that could be true?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. Why not?’
‘And is that what you want?’
He stretches across the table and tentatively puts his hand on mine. ‘I want you, whoever you are.’
‘And you’d cope with that?’
‘I don’t know, but I’d like to have the chance to try. I want you to be healthy and happy. You’ll have a greater chance of being those things if you let me support you.’
‘No one knows me better,’ I concede. ‘I want to be healthy and happy too, Nick. I hid a lot from you. I didn’t dare show you who I was because I thought it would scare you off, but you know me now and you’re still here.’
‘Sure am, sitting opposite you, nursing a glass of lemonade,’ he says goofily.
I feel the loneliness that has perpetually surrounded me since Zoe’s death slip slightly, like a slow thaw. The huge well of solitude does not seem so wide or deep. I want to fold my arms around him, this faulty, sorry man who loves me and has hurt me, who I loved and hurt, who says he loves me still. Who, in a way, I love still. I think of the beautiful wedding I have planned and all the people who are expecting to attend on Saturday. They will have bought new clothes and gifts, booked hotels and taxis. I would never want to inconvenience them. I want to waltz down the aisle in a cloud of bliss, I want a happily ever after.
That, more than anything.
So, I have no choice.
I scrape back my chair and I stand up tall. ‘Thank you, Nick, for everything. But it would never work out with us. It’s time I stopped looking back. I need to move forward.’
He looks stunned, shocked. ‘But I thought we were getting somewhere,’ he stutters.
‘When Zoe died I didn’t want to accept the reality. That was a damaging mistake. I should have just found a way to grieve for her and then to let her go. It would be a mistake now to kid myself and think of you as anything other than a man who betrayed me within a month of proposing. I deserve better. I deserve more.’
The word ‘more’ must echo through his head. I was not enough. He needed both of us. John, Larry and Kelvin had wanted more too. I was not enough for them. But this isn’t my fault. This is theirs. I am enough and someone, somewhere will see that. Some day.
‘Anna—’ He grabs my hand.
I’m not going to lie, his touch sends sparks all over my body. I close my eyes to stop the tears coming.
‘You’ve just said, people make mistakes. I made one. Can’t you forgive me?’
‘No, Nick. I’m sorry. I can’t. I wish you well. I hope you find someone lovely, and I hope the next time you’ll value her.’ I shake my hand loose and walk away.
Leaving behind a man I know I will grieve for but a man I will let go.
Epilogue
‘I don’t want to go,’ Anna groaned.
Vera nodded sympathetically. ‘I understand, honey, of course you don’t. But you sort of have to,’ she added with her usual punch of good sense. ‘It’s such a big deal for the centre. Our first ever corporate donation and such a huge one. I’ve rung the organizers, and they’ve assured me that there is no Nick Hudson on the guest list. It’s an enormous bank, they didn’t even seem to know his name.’
It could not be a coincidence. From the moment Anna had picked up the phone to the polite, efficient woman who told her Herrill Tanley was looking for small charities to support, through their local and global corporate responsibilities investment programme, Anna had suspected Nick was behind the call. He must have joined the charitable committee and suggested Drop In as a worthy cause, otherwise how would such a huge bank ever have heard of their existence? It was probably a strategy to atone, possibly a way to make contact with her again. The woman with the crisp voice had said that there would be some paperwork and then her colleagues would need to assess the centre itself. On the day of the assessment Anna had barely been able to eat with stress. She’d wanted to take the day off but her counsellor had advised her not too. Rather, she had to face her fears. Anna had been seeing her counsellor regularly and knew the value of her advice. In the end, it was two women who did the assessment. Throughout the process there had been no sign of Nick.
One hundred thousand pounds.
It was a massive amount of money. Life changing. For so many. A miracle. The things that they could do with that. Still, Anna did not want to see Nick. Ever again. You can’t go backwards. Time blunders on. However, she could hardly pull out of the event now. They were going to be presented with one of those enormous photo-worthy cheques. Vera and Anna were taking along six of the centre’s visitors. Names had been drawn from a hat because pretty much everyone fancied eating canapés and drinking champagne in the City at someone else’s expense. Vera couldn’t be expected to keep an eye out for everyone as well as take receipt of the cheque.
It had been a long, hard six months since she’d walked out of that bar in New York. Since she had left part of her heart behind. There’d been times when she was riddled with familiar, dreadful feelings of sadness or loneliness. Sometimes it felt even worse than before; now she missed Zoe and Nick. She had, from time to time, questioned whether she’d made the right decision by walking away from him. Should she have clung to him? Maybe they could have managed to forgive one another. To bear it. Her counsellor talked a lot about healthy, honest relationships and, somewhat confusingly, she talked about realistic expectations too. Anna was still wading her way through it all. Her counsellor wasn’t as much fun to talk to as Zoe, but she had the advantage of being alive.
Anna had been tempted to exclusively throw herself into her work. She was safe and secure at the centre; vital, valued. However, she had forced herself to recognize that she needed more in her life than work. She’d joined a support network for bereaved twins, she’d signed up for the evening class in advanced Spanish and had persuaded some of the other students to do the same. Now, instead of scuttling home after the class, they usual went to get tapas. Once they went to a salsa club; there was even talk of a weekend break to Barcelona this coming spring. She’d also somehow found the nerve to knock on the door across her corridor and invite her neighbours around for supper. It was embarrassing, explaining that it wasn’t exactly a dinner party she was inviting them to, because there were no other guests. However, they’d been incredibly nice about it and, in the end, they’d just eaten a takeaway in front of the TV; in fact, it had become their thing on a Thursday evening. Relaxed, casual, friendly. They’d watched the entire series of The Apprentice together. Serena and Kit had asked her to one of their proper dinner parties, where she met five more new people. One of them had asked her for a coffee, and another had persuaded her to join their local gym; she was enjoying the Zumba and kick-boxing classes and she’d met more people there too. Making new friends felt like a slow, laborious process—except when it didn’t. Sometimes it felt fun and free and possible. Besides, she found she had plenty of extra time to invest in these embryonic friendships because she hadn’t bothered to re-subscribe to any online dating sites. That wasn’t where she was going to find the happily ever after she craved.
She finally understood the wisdom you so frequently found splattered across greetings cards, sewn on cushions in craft shops and popping up on Facebook feeds. You had to learn to love yourself before you could expect anyone else to do so.
‘He has to be behind this,’ muttered Anna for about the fiftieth time. ‘The donation and Ivan’s new job.’
Whilst doing their assessment of the centre the women at Herrill Tanley had also explained to Vera and Anna that there was an outreach programme where the bank tried to employ a quota of people associated with the charities they supported. As a result, Ivan was now employed as a cleaner at Herrill Tanley. He mostly worked the night shift so didn’t run into too many people and even when he did, a few more expletives were barely noticed in a bank. Anna was almost as delighted as Ivan that he’d finally found regular, paid employment; she couldn’t resent it—in fact, she was grateful for it—but she wished it had come about independently of Nick.
‘Well, maybe he is involved,’ admitted Vera. ‘But so what? He seems to want to keep his involvement quiet. You haven’t heard from him directly, have you?’
‘No.’ That was part of the reason for Anna’s infuriation.
If he’d done something traditional like call her, she’d have had the satisfaction of hanging up on him. If he’d sent flowers, she could have watched them wither and dry to a crisp. His good deeds were anonymous but weighty and heavily stamped. He knew her well enough to guess that the way to her heart was through those she cared for. It was hard to refuse what others needed. He was making her beholden, and she didn’t want that at all. She almost hated him for it.
‘I hope he knows he can’t buy his way into my good books.’
