Andrew learns, too late, that he's made a mistake in leaving Thomas, and that the past is something that travels with you.
The sun sparkles on the water, I repeated the words to myself like a charm, over and over again, trying to block out other sounds, other words. The sun sparkles on the water, it's a fact, the sun is sparkling on the water, little beams of light dancing to the tune of the tide. Closing my eyes, I wrap my arms tighter around my body. There's no warmth in the sun, only a hard shining brightness, a knife edge of coldness that slices into my bones. I hear the cry of the gulls, desperately picturing them in my minds eye, plummeting from a colourless sky, predatory. Black tipped arrows spearing life beneath the waves.
The sun sparkles on the water...the sun...the sun...the sun...it doesn't work, it doesn't work, it doesn't _f_u_c_k_ing work!
A lilting tune, carried on the sea breeze, the tune of My Bonnie Lies Over The Ocean, forces itself past the barrage of other meaningless words in my head...No sparkles, no gulls, only two children playing at the water's edge..... I was laughing as she sang alternative words to the song, learnt from a boy at school, she loved silly rhymes and songs... "Issy, don't let mum hear you sing that, it's rude," but mum was otherwise engaged that day.
I opened my eyes, dispelling the vision, watching it disintegrate before me- motes of dust in a shaft of sunlight. Getting wearily to my feet, I began walking, as I did every day along the shore line. The sea was the last place I actually wanted to be, this was where it all began, by the sea, right here on this beach. I'd felt drawn, compelled, as if she was pulling me back to torment me, to punish me. I'd given up the thing that meant most to me in all the world, but it wasn't enough. She'd never let me go.
I kept walking, scrambling mindlessly among the natural boulders that littered this part of the coast, stopping occasionally to rest, a huddled Neried, sitting among the rocks, listening to the whisper of the wind as it skimmed the breakers.
Usually, once I'd moved on, the dreams ceased for a while, not this time though. If anything the images were increasing, crawling out of my dreams, disjointed, insistent, all too vivid.
I picked up a pebble, savagely flinging it into the sea, watching it bounce and skip the surface of the waves, interrupting the whispering incantation of the wind. We used to play ducks and drakes. She was better at it than I was, it still rankled that a girl could beat me at this particular game. I could see her standing at the outer reaches of my vision, watching me, always watching.
I'd given up the secret hope that Thomas would come for me, it had been almost a month now. I missed him so much, more than I even thought I would. I saw his shadow on the Galloway hills, heard his voice in the rush and swell of the sea. Felt the kiss of his breath in the mists that wreathed the lowland valleys. The truth of how completely I loved him had come to me too late. One of his maddening adages sprung to mind: It's never too late to mend. I smiled, picturing his face; his barely contained pleasure at finding a proverb for every situation. Thing is, it wasn't true, it was too late, for Issy, and for me.
It was for me to live with what I'd done, me alone. I couldn't bear for Thomas to know how unworthy I was, couldn't bear the idea of reading a message of disgust in his still green eyes. I saw enough disgust reflected back in my own eyes when I looked in a mirror.
It began to rain, a spiteful drizzle that sent me heading back in the direction of the caravan I was renting. I felt wretched, ill, aware of a growing discomfort in my throat and chest. I didn't much care, I was sick of dreams and sick of life.
As usual the key was stiff to turn in the lock, I heaved and twisted, but this time it refused to yield. I was cold, wet and thoroughly pissed off. In a fit of temper I let fly with my foot and booted at the door. The lock snapped and I lurched inside, turning to close the door against the rain.
_f_u_c_k_ing great! Now the bastard door wouldn't shut, _f_u_c_k_ing _s_h_i_t_ hole was costing me a fortune to rent, and now the door wouldn't shut! I conveniently forgot the reason why it wouldn't shut, kicking at it again and again, catching it on the rebound until I was too exhausted to do it anymore. _f_u_c_k_ it! I left it open, I had nothing worth nicking anyway, even the television didn't work properly. Sea to the fore and hills to the rear played havoc with reception, it was like viewing through a constant blizzard. Still, on the bright side, the cast of East Enders had never looked lovelier.
I stormed into the tiny kitchen, grabbing a bottle of wine; toying with and abandoning the idea of making myself a sandwich. The bread bore a lush fur coat that a Cat Walk Queen would have been proud of. If I was any use to the world, I'd take the opportunity to develop a range of antibiotics from the mould, but I wasn't any use, not to anyone, never had been, that was why.....I killed the thought in it's infancy.
It was freezing in the caravan, even by British standards it was a cold Spring and the heating system was totally inadequate. The broken door, swinging back and forth in the wind, added to the Siberian ambience. I got myself a blanket from the bedroom, and picking up the teddy I had found in the caravan when I took up residence, I huddled up on the couch and drank myself into a slow stupor. First wine, then brandy. "Drink?" I offered the bottle to the bear, having long since dispensed with the niceties of glassware. Its glazed eyes gave a negative response. "Good, all the more for me then." I swigged from the bottle again, staring dully out of the salt grimed window.
Sky met sea in a sullen grey sulk that made it hard to distinguish one from the other. I heard a faint echo, a soft mocking note hanging suspended on the misty air...... the words of the childish song popped uninvited into my head...my brother lies over the ocean, my sister lies over the sea, my daddy lies over my mommy and that's how they got me..... I shivered and turned away. A guilty conscience needs no accuser. Jesus, now I was quoting maxims to myself.
I stared down at the bear, it's crumpled features and steady gaze suddenly reminding me of Thomas. I cuddled it, but it didn't feel right. I wanted it to cuddle me and say things like; you need a hair cut, and wouldn't it be a good idea if you shaved before you went to work...what did you have for lunch and have you paid this months instalment off your credit card debt? Then the stomach turning... show me proof. Inevitably, I'd end up with a soundly spanked bottom for having accumulated yet more interest on the debt by not paying the instalment at the appointed time, and then for lying about it.
He refused to accept my excuses, just as he refused to take over the paying of it. "How can you learn self responsibility if I do everything for you. I remind you when it's due and still you manage not to pay it on time. We'd all prefer to feed the ducks in our lunch hour Andrew, but most of us manage to get our priorities in the right order."
A bad excuse is better than none, I said to him once, in an effort to forestall a painful trip across his knee, hoping to disarm and charm him. Never put off till tomorrow what can be done today, he said, especially when it comes to paying your debts. Bastard, he always had to have the last word. I spoke aloud to the teddy, "and he still whacked me, what do you think of that?" The bear said nothing. "Stupid toy!" I flung it across the room and concentrated on reaching the bottom of the brandy bottle.
The rain grew heavier, pattering metallically against the roof of the caravan. I leaned my head back and closed my eyes. It had been raining the first time I met Thomas. I let myself drift on the memory.
"Thanks," gratefully opening the door, flinging my bag into the back of his car, flopping back on the seat. I'd walked for hours with no offer of a lift and was exhausted. The rain drummed rhythmically against the roof of the car.
"Where are you headed?" He peered questioningly at me over the top of his glasses in the endearing way I was to come to know so well.
"Anywhere." I managed to gasp through a bout of painful coughing.
"East, West, home's best."
"Not always," I smiled without humour, at this first introduction to his obsession with proverbs, "just drop me where it's most convenient for you."
Neither of us spoke much and I drifted to sleep, just grateful to be out of the rain for a while. I woke up two days later in his spare room.
I shifted uneasily, as the dream I wanted to have trickled away like sand through an hour glass, and a host of other kaleidoscopic images and sounds paraded before me.
"You made it, wow?" I was impressed, so was Issy. "It's fantastic..." Not that I was in to Doll's houses or anything, but the craftsmanship was superb. She loved it, and the family of dolls. One to represent each of us he said, smiling. A new family, in a new home.
A door opening. The creak of the stairs as someone descended, and then the whispering. Standing in the doorway to her room watching as she crouched in front of the dolls house... her voice singing softly through its interior as she arranged the dolls.
Sunshine through trees, golden ripples of light illuminating the fast fading flowers. We were late that year; the year mum died, we'd missed the full blooming. Issy, scraping back the soil from beneath a tree, laying something in the ground. "I'm returning mum to the bluebells and the trees, she's home now." Wind rustling the leaves, imparting secrets.
East West, home's best...I wanted to go home...home...home...a mocking laugh and the dolls house was there before me, it's front swinging open...she'd done it again... I darted forward, snatching at the dolls. "You're so weird Issy, sometimes I hate you!"
The dream fast-forwarded again. No...not this... I didn't want this. I tried to wake up. Turning into the street I saw her, called her... A flash of light!
His face grinning mockingly into mine. "Maybe you were jealous, is that it, you wanted it to be you?"
I woke up screaming, heart pounding, drenched in sweat, lurching to my feet as nausea swept over me. The empty bottle fell from my lap, striking the edge of the coffee table, shattering. Her eyes were staring at me accusingly, her wide blue eyes. "I DIDN'T KNOW!" I shouted the words, not believing them, why should she?
Snatching up a fragment of green glass from the pool of vomit, I scored its jagged edge down my forearm, watching the skin split and beads of blood bubble to the surface, feeling the sting of residual alcohol from the glass in the open wound. Scored it again, harder, slashing viciously...trying to use physical pain to blot out guilt. Her face, along with the room circled around me, her whispers filling my mind.
"WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?"
I got a shock as a firm hand took hold of my wrist and removed the shard of glass. "I want you to stop doing what you're doing. Do you hear me Andrew?"
It was as good a time as any to pass out.
Black gave way to a sickly, artificial light. I opened my eyes. I was lying on the narrow bed, he was cleaning and dressing the cuts on my arm, his glasses perched perilously on the end of his nose, as he concentrated on the task in hand. If this was an hallucination it was a good one; visual, auditory and tactile. I could see, hear, I reached out a tentative hand, touch him. "Lie still," he said quietly, "let me get done here."
There was so much I wanted to say, to ask; how had he found me, why had it taken him so long? I opened my mouth, "how's Bob?" I couldn't believe I'd said that.
"Slimmer, fitter since you deserted us and stopped feeding him forbidden titbits. However," he secured the bandage and turned his eyes on me, "there are more ways to kill a cat than by choking it with cream. He's pined for you."
The thought of Bob pining upset me. I glared at him, "you just made that up. I don't believe that's a real proverb."
"As you like," he got up.
"Where are you going?" I panicked, trying to sit up, as he moved away from me.
"To wedge that door closed and get a fresh basin of water to wash you with. You smell none too fragrant Andrew. Stay where you are, you're in no state to be moving around."
He stripped my soiled clothing off, then washed me, wiping away sick and sweat. "That beard is coming off," he said as he wiped my face, "and you need a hair cut."
I leaned heavily against him as he helped me into a pair of his boxers and a t-shirt. They were too big, but at least they were clean, which is more than could be said for my stuff. Hygiene had not been high on my list of priorities lately. I wanted to ask if he'd missed me, but I didn't dare, in case he said no. "Has Bob really pined for me?"
"Yes," Thomas lowered me back onto the bed and covered me up, "though he settled better after I put an old shirt of yours in his basket." His brows knitted together in a frown of consternation, "why did you leave like that Andrew? It was most unkind."
His face wavered and blurred. I saw her face in front of me again, the wide blue eyes and clutched at him. He knelt beside the bed, holding my hand and making soothing noises as I cried like a child. "Go to sleep, we'll talk tomorrow when you're rested."
God, I moved my head then wished I hadn't as pain pulsated through it. I was alone in bed. Disappointment flowed through me, it had been a dream. I moaned softly, putting a hand to my chest, which felt hot, heavy...and furry. Alarmed by this sudden explosion of chest hair where there had been none, I tilted my head up, and opened my eyes, staring straight into a pair of cloudy orange ones.
"Bob?" I gasped hoarsely. He _c_o_c_k_ed his head to one side as if to say who the _f_u_c_k_ else were you expecting? His tongue rasped my chin and he shuddered as if the sparse beard was not to his taste. Christ, I closed my eyes again and lowered my head, the hallucinations were expanding to take in Thomas and now Bob. I stiffened as a cool hand pressed itself against my forehead.
"Hello," the hand spoke, "how are you feeling? Rough I expect, which is no more than you deserve. Problems are not solved by drinking. I thought we'd sorted that out at least."
I lay still, heart thudding, not believing it for a second. It was a continuation of the dream I'd had. If I opened my eyes there'd be no one there sweetly nagging me. So I didn't open my eyes. A hand and a voice were better than nothing at all. I pictured the hand with its strong, blunt nailed fingers, the scar from a boyhood accident that curved across his left palm. I knew so much about him, his past. Thomas was an open book, unlike me.
"Look at me Andrew." The hand regretfully removed its comforting touch, but at least the voice was still there. " I know you're not asleep. I want answers young man, do you hear me?"
Fear and a confused, unreasonable anger surged through me. Fear that if I opened my eyes he really would disappear. Anger that he'd come for me at all, even though I'd wanted him too and anger that it had taken him so long. "Just leave me alone Thomas. Go away!"
"Can't do that Andrew," his voice was as irritatingly calm as ever. I wanted him to yell at me, so I could yell back.
I opened my eyes and looked at him, snapping belligerently. "I need a drink."
His restful eyes met mine. "I'll get you a glass of water."
"Not water, a proper _f_u_c_k_ing drink," I mumbled thickly, struggling to sit up and dislodging Bob in the process. Undeterred and all forgiving, he heaved himself back on to the bed and lay down, his happy rattling purr at odds with the tense atmosphere in the small room.
"Water and tea are the only things on offer. Make your choice."
"I tried to moisten my dry lips with the foul object that had replaced my tongue. My throat felt as if it was lined with road chippings. "Water," I croaked, "I'll have water."
"What's the magic word?"
It was surreal. I hadn't seen this man for a month and he was admonishing me for my lack of manners, as if we'd just breakfasted together and I'd rudely asked him to pass the sugar. "Please," I managed to force the word out through a bout of coughing that made my head thump more painfully than ever and sent a hot pain shafting through my chest. A rotten chest cold on top of the hangover from hell, that's all I needed.
He nodded and disappeared, returning a few moments later with the water and some paracetamol, as if my liver wasn't under enough stress. "Take these, then we'll see about getting home. Bob doesn't like being away for too long. From the sound of that cough your cold has settled on your chest, we'll get the doctor to have a look at you as soon as we get back. Though it doesn't take an expert to see that you haven't been looking after yourself. You're a disgrace."
I swallowed the pills and the water, handing the empty glass back to him with shaking hands, "who says I'm going home?"
"I do Andrew, I do."
"What if I refuse?"
"You're not being given a choice Andy love. I think it's true to say that at this moment in time, you are neither thinking, or behaving rationally and are in no fit state to decide anything. I'm acting in your best interests. You're coming home, no arguments, and then we're going to talk about just what is going on in that head of yours."
"I don't need you managing my life, I can manage perfectly well on my own."
"No Andrew, I'm afraid you can't. This place bears testimony to just how incapable you are of managing your life at this moment in time. It's filthy, and so are you, filthy and emaciated." He shook his head slightly, his green eyes sad, "how could you do this to yourself?"
"Sheer _f_u_c_k_ing talent I suppose." I stared at him challengingly, wanting to ruffle the air of habitual calm that marked him as a man at peace with himself.
"It takes two to make a quarrel Andrew and I'm not prepared to quarrel with you."
"No, you never are. You just lay down the law and expect to be obeyed. You're a _f_u_c_k_ing dictator! I haven't seen you in almost a month and.."
"And whose fault is that?" A spasm of pain crossed his face and I suddenly knew with distressing certainty that I had hurt him. He had lost weight and the dark shadows under his eyes were second only to the ones under mine.
I substituted fury and childish spite for the guilt that surged through me, I was sick of guilt. "Yours, all yours, you're so _d_a_m_n_ controlling. You wouldn't even let me have one stinking little drink!"
"Are you seriously telling me that this whole fiasco came about because I stopped you having a drink?" He tapped the air with his index finger, "I don't believe that for a second and neither do you. This isn't about drinks, or lack of, nor is it about me giving you a much needed spanking. You know the rules as well as I do, you helped set them in place, and you also know the consequences of breaking them, particularly when it involves danger to yourself and others. I'm not prepared to see you doing things that are destructive."
I shook my head miserably, "I'm not going home with you Thomas. I... I hate you! That's why I left."
"No it isn't." He gave a small smile, jabbing his finger smugly at a photograph on the tiny bedside table. "You left with hardly enough clothes to get you through a long weekend, and yet you packed a silly memento of our holiday last summer. I don't know why you left, not yet, but you're going to tell me, and soon. Besides Andrew, as a dictator, I can't take no for an answer. It would break all the conventions and traditions of despotism. I suggest that you start making ready, before I decide that you're in dire need of a spanking right now. I'm sure you don't want to sit on a sore backside all the way home?"
"Am I speaking Dutch, or what?" I snarled, allowing my inner demon to keep pushing to provoke him. "I told you, I'm not going with you, so sod off!"
"Forget the spanking," he said calmly. "I've just upgraded you to a paddling."
"You're all _f_u_c_k_ing heart aren't you?" I sat up straighter in bed, folding my arms confidently. Anyway, you can't paddle me without a paddle and since I'm not..."
Thomas turned sharply on his heel and left the bedroom, reappearing a few moments later with something horribly familiar in his hand. He proceeded to wave it under my nose with an Errol Flynn type flourish. "Have paddle, will travel, will use it, unless you start listening to reason. You're coming home with me and that's that, now get up and get dressed. I'll drive, I don't trust you, besides, you're probably still over the limit. We'll arrange for your car to be collected later."
I stared at the nasty little implement in disbelief. "I can't believe you actually packed the _f_u_c_k_ing paddle Thomas. I know you were a keen boy scout in your youth, but this is just taking the piss out of being prepared!"
"You're giving me more and more reason to use this Andrew."
"You haven't seen me in a month and..." I knew immediately I'd made a mistake in mentioning that fact yet again, as his calm eyes suddenly flashed fire.
Bob gave me a sympathetic look. For a nonagenarian moggy he moved fast, speedily vacating the room.
In a single fluid movement Thomas sat down on the bed and pulled me forward across his lap. The overly large boxers, unable to maintain a hold on my thin body, obligingly disposed of themselves as he hauled me forwards. He pushed the t-shirt up my back, well away from the intended target area. "How dare you disappear like that without a word, without a note, nothing! Have you any idea of the HELL I've been through these past weeks? Do you even care?"
"Oww!" I let out an agonised howl as the paddle landed with a shuddering splat in the very centre of my rump. He then introduced it to the rest of my bottom in a repetitive circuit that left it blazing from hip to thigh. By the time he placed the last two swats on the lowest curves of my buttocks I was screeching hysterically, convinced that I would never sit again as long as I lived. Flinging the paddle aside, he lay back on the bed pulling me on top of him where I clung tightly to his neck, tears and snot pouring down my face in a steady stream and collecting on his collar.
God, despite the blistering pain, it felt so good to be close to him. He hugged me tightly for a few moments, then his hand began rubbing my back and sore, sore bottom. Once I'd calmed down properly he wiped my eyes and nose on the hem of the t-shirt, saying quietly, "Andrew if you ever put me through anything like this again, if you ever endanger yourself, in any way, I swear I'll...I'll...I'll be really very annoyed!"
"You're a bullying beast," I sniffed, "and I detest you. You've no idea how much I abhor and detest you." I tucked my head more securely under his chin, revelling in his comforting proximity, his clean fresh smell. "I've missed you, even though you're a horrible man." I paused, then added. "I'm sorry Thomas, I didn't think about how my leaving like that would affect you or Bob." I dragged in the cat just to prove that Thomas didn't have my sole allegiance; didn't want him getting big headed, he exerted enough control over me as it was.
"No man is wise at all times," he said solemnly. I suspiciously raised my head so I could see his face. Little glimmers of light stirred the green depths of his eyes. His mouth twitched slightly as he gently patted my hot rump and said, "no gains without pains. You're a wiser man now."
I gave him a cold look, "Thomas if you quote one more bloody proverb at me I'll run screaming for the hills."
"Darling, if you run anywhere, ever again, without my written permission, in triplicate I might add, I'll spank you again while quoting an A-Z of my collected proverbial sayings."
We lay quietly for a while, him stroking my hair. I was just beginning to feel that the pain in my backside had faded enough to allow lustful stirrings, and was considering making a start on the buttons on his shirt, when he said seriously. "I've always known you were running from something. However, when you stayed with me, I made myself believe that whatever had driven you on had finally been dealt with, but that isn't the case is it? The fact is Andy, you can't escape the past by moving on, it just moves with you; it's in your head love, you carry it around with you, recent past, distant past, all of it intermingling. There comes a time when you have to confront the things that scare you."
Lust faded, I changed the subject, or attempted to. "How did you find me?"
"The doll's house gave me a clue."
A chill swept through me, I pulled myself away from him, my heart pattering. "What do you mean, what do you know about the dolls house?"
"When you left, I racked my brains to understand why? I searched through all the things you'd left behind looking for hints, for clues, and, amongst other things, I discovered that little doll. It suddenly dawned on me that you started to behave oddly after the visit we made to that wretched car boot sale, in fact the moment you set eyes on that doll's house."
I got up and silently began to dress, easing jeans carefully over my backside as he continued to talk.
"You kept going back to it again and again, staring at it. I thought you harboured some childhood fantasy about owning a dolls house. I went back, the first Sunday after you'd left. It was still for sale. I asked the woman how she had acquired it. Seems she bought it last summer, while she and her family were on holiday, from a second hand goods shop, not far from here. She bought it for her daughter's birthday, but the child had never taken to it. It gave me a starting point, confirmed when the bank returned several cheques you bounced in stores around this area."
"You opened my mail from the bank?"
"Of course I did, and we'll be talking about the appalling state of your finances later. It didn't take me long to find you after that. Now stop side tracking and tell me why seeing that house disturbed you so much. It's just a toy."
A toy? A toy for a little girl to play with. I felt sick at the thought of it. I stared at Thomas, at his rumpled, uncomplicated features. If only he knew the secrets that lay within the walls of that dolls house. I knew, I heard them echoing through my mind, reverberating down the corridors of time, the past reaching chilly fingers into the present. He had made it for her, his new daughter. We had been fooled, mum and I. He didn't want us, he only wanted her.
Thomas watched me from the bed. "Talk to me Andy. I can't help you unless you talk to me."
I felt as if I was suffocating, I needed air, I needed to get away. I headed for the caravan door, wrenching it open, clearing the steps in a single leap.
She hated me. I hated me. I didn't want Thomas to hate me too. I headed for the sea where it all began, by the sea one innocent summer, the last innocent summer.
Laughter, I could hear it, childish laughter rising and falling on a sea wind. Bare feet on sand, a giggle as he swept her up and swung her round against the sky...a mackerel sky he said, that was the name for the scale like formation of small white clouds against a canopy of blue. A mackerel sky meant good luck, new beginnings. We laughed at the name-mackerel sky-we were happy, all of us.
The laughter faded to an ugly whisper. "You little queer, you knew all along. It was your fault, you should have stopped me...you did nothing...you were jealous...you just didn't care?"
"NO!" I yelled denial into the wind.
"Andy!" I heard Thomas' voice behind me as I ran blindly towards the waters edge. He grabbed the back of my sweater, pulling me back, wrestling me to the sand. "You can't keep running. Dam it-talk to me."
"I let her die! I let her die!" I was sobbing, "I ignored all the signs, all the clues, because I was happy and I didn't want things to change for me. I thought the world of him, he made me trust him, drew me away from her. That's why she hates me, why she haunts me, because I let her die. All those years she suffered in silence, while I was happy."
"Let who die Andrew?" He gave me a shake, "who are you talking about?"
"Isabelle, Issy, my twin sister."
"Sit up Andy." He pulled me into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around me as I wept, holding me. "Talk, tell me about your sister, how did she die, how old was she?"
"She was just sixteen. I was returning from a friend's house when I saw her, standing by the side of the road. She hardly ever left the house, and there was something about the way she was standing, arms wrapped tight around herself. Witnesses said later that she'd been standing for hours in the same spot. I saw the car coming, it was coming fast, really fast, this was the one she'd been waiting for. I knew what she was going to do. I started to run, I shouted her name, she looked back once. The sun glanced off the chrome bumper, dazzling me."
I covered my face with my hands as the sounds and sights replayed in my mind. "She was all broken Thomas, sprawled on the road, like a rag doll, arms flung wide, eyes open, staring at me, blood trickling from her mouth. I knew she was dead. The doll was in her hand, that _f_u_c_k_ing cursed doll that she took everywhere, whispering her secrets to it, because she had no one else to tell."
He cuddled me tighter. "Andy she committed suicide, that's terrible, and what's even more terrible is that you witnessed it. You didn't kill her."
"You don't understand Thomas." I wiped away the tears, only for more to fall. "The inquest revealed that she was pregnant when she died. That was when it all fell into place, she never went out, rarely spoke to anyone, it had to be him. I should have known what he was doing to her. I did, only I shut it out, he said so."
"What who was doing to her? Andy you're not making sense."
"She was my twin, I should have protected her, helped her. The clues were there. I ignored them, because I wanted to. The thing with the dolls, the way she laid them together, it drove me mad, scared me. I couldn't stand it!
"Andy, look at me," Thomas cupped my face in his hands, making his voice very firm. "Tell me who HE is."
I gazed at him, trying to pull him into focus, it was as if I was viewing him from the end of a long tunnel. "Our stepfather, the man my mother met on this beach when Issy and I were ten. They married the following spring."
"Come on sweetheart," he drew me to my feet, "let's get you back indoors, you're freezing."
I stood by the window, listening to the muted mew of the gulls as they dipped and weaved in the sky outside, linking past and present.
"It was wonderful having a mum and a dad. We never knew our real father, to be honest, I don't think mum knew him that well, it was just one of those accidental things. I noticed the change in Issy soon after we moved here, just before mum and him married. She was quieter. I thought it was because she was homesick for bluebell woods. I used to tease her about it, call her a baby."
"Bluebell woods?"
"A nature reserve, close to our grandmother's house in Yorkshire. That's where we lived before we came here. Issy loved the woods, especially in May when the bluebells were in full flower. We stayed there, me and Issy, with gran, while they went on honeymoon. Issy didn't want to go back to Scotland, it had already begun, she knew what was waiting. I should have known, I should have stopped him!"
"Stop blaming yourself Andy. You were a child, just as she was a child, innocent, both of you." He drew me away from the window, sitting down, pulling me onto his lap.
"But I..."
"The crime is his, not yours."
"But the clues Thomas, she was leaving me clues and I ignored them."
"She was a child trying to make sense of something she didn't understand herself."
"I confronted him, after the inquest. I wanted him to deny it, to give me some other explanation, but he didn't. He threatened me, made me believe I'd been complicit in it all. I couldn't bear being near him. I walked out and just kept walking. I took the doll, because I couldn't stand the thought of her being left in that house with him. I should have helped her. I should have seen the truth when it mattered." I couldn't stop crying.
"Andy, please, don't punish yourself for a crime that isn't yours."
"She must have hated me so much, seeing me laughing, talking to him while all the time she was suffering. I don't deserve to be happy Thomas, I don't deserve you. How can I be happy as long as she's out there, despising me."
"You're the one holding her, can't you see that?" He held me close, comforting me, "let her go Andy. By giving her peace, you'll give yourself peace. It's time to lay her to rest and to place guilt where it belongs, with the guilty. Don't let his wickedness destroy you as well as your poor sister."
The sickness grew on me as we neared home. Bob, sitting on my lap, sensed my unease, his purring switched off and he glanced up at me quizzically. I stroked his head with a hand that shook, trying to calm myself, as well as him. Even before I stepped into the hall I knew it was there. I recoiled as I set eyes on it. It exuded evil- his evil and cunning, and the desperate, sick despair of a child who had no one to turn to. I lurched back outside, crouching on the path.
"I'm so sorry Andrew." Thomas held my head as I wretched and vomited. "I bought it before I knew what it meant. It was my link to you, so at least a tiny bit of good came out of it."
I watched from the kitchen window as a ray of late spring sunshine caught the edge of the axe as it arched through the air, splintering the wood. Tears poured down my face as Thomas destroyed the dolls house. He burnt the pieces, laying the male doll that had been inside the house, on top of the pyre where it warped and twisted in the flames. I wondered what had happened to my doll, had he disposed of it when I left, discarding me, casting me off as no further use. I suspected he had used us, me and my mother, as a way of keeping Issy compliant, making her responsible, just as he tried to make me responsible. I tortured myself with the knowledge that her silence was the price for our happiness.
Next day we travelled to Yorkshire, to the nature reserve. The childhood vision had withstood the test of time, it stretched before me undiminished in beauty. The glorious spread of blue, the outstretched limbs of the trees against a clear sky.
Something, some instinct led me to a certain spot, I scraped back the damp earth beneath a tree. "Bye Issy, forgive me," I whispered to the doll, then laid it in the ground, alongside the one that she had buried all those years ago. Then I covered them over and pressed down the soil. I knelt there, smelling the cool scent of bluebells on a late May breeze. For the first time I allowed myself to mourn for Isabelle, for all she'd suffered, without it being poisoned by guilt and fear.
"Come on baby," Thomas gripped my hand, drawing me to my feet. "It's time to be moving on." He suddenly stooped to pick something up from among a clump of bluebells. "Look at this," he held out his hand.
It was me! I picked the doll out of his hand and stared at it in amazement. Thinking I heard a small laugh, I turned in the direction it came from, imagining I saw a young girl and a woman watching us. The girl smiled and raised a hand. I blinked and they were gone, a trick of the light. All the same, a sense of peace swept over me. She was home where she wanted to be. Home and safe at last. I dropped the doll back into Thomas' hand, and so was I.
"Let's go home Thomas."
He slipped the doll in his pocket, put an arm around my shoulder, kissed me, then said, "a hungry man is an angry man, but not as angry as the cook whose offering is rejected."
I sighed and gazed at him resignedly; life was back to normal. "Meaning?"
"Don't put pasta in your bedside drawer, not unless you want a paddle on your backside when it's discovered!"
"It does not mean that, you fibber." I put my arm around his waist.
"It does now."
"God, I really hate you Thomas, if it wasn't for Bob..."
End.