Perfectly Preventable Deaths

44 Tansy

We wake up in the dark. There’s nothing. I cannot see the walls. I hear her breath.

‘So, Mad, are you awake?’ Her voice a whisper. Huskier than normal.

‘You sound …’

‘I know,’ she says. ‘I might give up the smokes. It’s from the … throat stuff.’

I nod.

‘I can’t hear you when you nod.’ She tugs the duvet.

‘Sorry,’ I say. ‘Sorry.’

‘Madeline, what happened in the cave?’ Her voice is scared. ‘Mam says you’re moving downstairs in a week. When we’re better.’

Oh. Right.

I nod and then she kicks me. I kick her back. And then we both go quiet. I’m the first to speak.

‘You tell me your bit, then I’ll tell you mine. Sound fair?’

I do not hear her, but I know she nods.

And she starts talking.

‘Me and …’ she says, and her voice takes a while to shape his name, ‘… Lon decided to run away. We decided it inside a dream I had. I wasn’t sure. If it was really real until it was. I mean, the doors and caves. And magic. He could do things with his eyes and with his hands. Before, I mean. I didn’t know. You knew,’ she asks, ‘that it was something?’

‘Some of it,’ I say. ‘He showed up in my dreams once, by mistake, and weird stuff happened. But, even before – that night with the fox, the things that Mamó did, and I did too. Like, she thinks I have an instinct for it, or a talent – collecting things is part of it as well.’

‘There’s so much you didn’t say to me. I wonder …’

I wait for her to finish, but her eyes glaze and she dry-swallows. I hear her move her tongue around her mouth. She sits up, takes a drink of water. Drains the glass and pours another one and drains it too.

‘I get so thirsty now, Mad,’ she says. ‘Remember before, when I tried to make myself drink eight glasses for my skin? Now it’s more like twenty. My mouth is always just so dry.’

‘You came back,’ I tell her. ‘That can’t have been easy on your body.’

‘No,’ she says. ‘I suppose it can’t. So. Me and Lon.’

The way she says his name. My eyes fill up.

‘It wasn’t your fault,’ I tell her. ‘You didn’t know. And even if you had …’

She doesn’t move, just keeps on speaking, speaking.

‘We went to the cave and it was nice at first. He’d brought a picnic. Then I saw names carved in the wall. One of them was Helen. And I asked him, if he’d brought a girl here before, and he went quiet, but said that yes, he had. But it didn’t mean as much as now with me. And he took a chisel. What, in retrospect, was he doing with chisels in his cave? Anyway. Hindsight.’

She takes a breath. I touch her foot with mine.

‘So we started kissing and things and I’d decided this was going to be when I would lose it. Because I love … loved. Because I loved him so much. And also, when you run away with a boy to a sex-cave, what else is going to happen? I mean, it makes for a great story. Even if it doesn’t work out well, you have the story. I remember thinking that. Which, ugh.’

She sighs. I say, ‘You don’t have to keep telling me this. If you don’t want to …’

‘No,’ she says. ‘You gave up stuff for me. And you should know. How stupid I was. God, I was so stupid. He wore an ankh, for God’s sake. And that smell. You told me he was gross.’

‘Well, I am a lesbian,’ I say. ‘So he wouldn’t have been my type, even if he weren’t a monster or whatever …’

And there it is. Unspoken things all out. The weight of words, not put down, but shared.

‘What?’ she rasps. ‘You turned lesbian without me?’ She sounds incredibly taken aback, as though there were a form I should have filled in or something.

‘Catlin, this isn’t about you,’ I say. ‘A lot of things are at the moment, but my sexuality is kind of … mine. It’s not an adventure, or a bit of gossip. It’s part of me.’

She nods almost imperceptibly.

‘I get it. Fair enough. I didn’t mean that you had to, like, OK it with me first or anything, but this is huge. How did you know … or did you … Oh, with Oona?’ Her eyebrows widen. There are things she didn’t miss, even when she was missing things.

‘Yes and no. It’s complicated – go on, I want to hear your story first.’ I nudge her.

‘But your one’s got no murder and some lesbians,’ she complains. ‘It’s probably loads better. OK, so …’

My sister loves to talk. She’s still my sister. She takes another drink.

‘You’d think I’d pee way more,’ she says. ‘With all that I’ve been drinking. Being back from the dead is honestly not great.’

‘I know, right?’ I say. ‘I know you’re more of a half ghost than me. I am only, like, ten per cent resurrected or something, but still. I get these headaches.’

‘With the colours? God, they’re awful. Anyway, I’ll finish about Lon. There isn’t very much left of the story. Basically, I cleaned up after the picnic and he kept telling me how to tidy up and I just kept doing it, like I didn’t mind being given orders. Which is not like me. I mean, I really wanted to please him. I just am not sure why. And there was the wall. The wall with all the names. I asked him about it and he said it was tradition in the village, for boys to take the girls they loved to the cave. And to carve their name into the wall. That it meant that it would be forever. I asked him if he’d carve my name as well. I even said please.’ Her voice is bitter.

‘I didn’t think to notice if the writing was the same. Like, that could have been a useful handy clue. You would have noticed that, I think.’ Her hands rat at the sleeve of her pyjamas. I hear the thumb on fabric, swishswishswish. My hearing might be sharper now, or something. Prey animals do have that. Clever ears.

They know what happens while you aren’t listening.

To you.

Or those you love.

Inside the gaps.

‘It wasn’t your fault, Catlin,’ I tell her again.

‘Mmm,’ she says. And then there is a pause. When she starts talking again, her voice is quieter. Gravel whispers, trailing through the night.

‘We started kissing, doing stuff. I really wanted him. I mean, he was my soulmate. And forbidden.’

She meets my eyes and smiles a rueful smile. Her hands are trembling.

‘So … Lon and I did various things to each other. And then, I got a cramp in my leg. And I tried to push him off, but he wouldn’t move and I looked over, saw the list of names with different eyes. Like I was another on a list. A thing to do. A thing you can cross out. I didn’t like it and I tried to push him off again. And then …’ She swallows.

‘I don’t think I can talk about the rest. I mean. My face and body. You can …’ She gets out of bed, switches the bedside lamp on. Lifts up her nightdress.

Her body’s more port wine than it is skin.

‘The pieces that grew back,’ she says, ‘are the red. The bits he didn’t eat are the way they always were. I’m basically a piebald. Only human.’

I hear her legs twitching against the bed-sheets. ‘He comes back sometimes. Sometimes in my dreams, he’s coming back.’

What can I say to that? I don’t know where he is. He could be anywhere.

‘I mean,’ she says, ‘this happened in my house. And I remember thinking, I’m at home. At home and this is happening. I mean, it’s weird that our home has a secret murder cave.’

‘The murder palace,’ I say.

‘I know,’ she says. ‘I called it. Mam should have listened. Should have stayed in Cork.’

I put my arms around her and I hug her.

‘I love you,’ I tell her.

She snuggles in.

‘Me too, Mad. So much. But now you have to tell me about Oona,’ she says, her voice sounds calmer now, more gossipy. ‘Are you a couple now?’

And I tell her stuff. I tell her about the girl I love, and how she doesn’t really feel the same, so that I don’t have to tell her about the bargain I made to save her life. I don’t yet know what it means, not fully. I mean, I know it’s seven years. But there’s the soul as well. What will that mean?

My brain is racing, full of fears and thoughts.

Catlin sleeps. I think about the feeling of the sheets and of the warmth and of the breeze that drifts inside the room. I get up, feel with my hands around the walls, looking for the place the breeze could come from. The window’s raised a little. I relax. I wonder is that what we’ll do here now? Always look for secret murder caves? Can we relax somewhere where it happened? Will we go back to Cork?

Oh God.

I can’t.

I can’t go anywhere.

For seven years.

The sooner it begins, the sooner it can finish.

A deal’s a deal. It’s time to settle up.