The Grip Lit Collection: The Sisters, Mother, Mother and Dark Rooms. Koren Zailckas
shakes his head as if struggling to process what his sister is telling him. He ignores his bag and Beatrice bites back the stirrings of irritation. ‘Jodie’s gone? Gone where?’
‘Back to her parents’ house.’ Beatrice makes an effort to keep her voice even; she knows it unnerves Ben when she becomes too animated, and she can’t reveal to him how excited she is. ‘Her dad came to pick her up this morning. Thankfully, she’s taken those sculptures with her. They took up too much room. And now I can have this as my studio instead of using my bedroom.’
Ben glances around the room as if he is expecting Jodie to be hiding behind the long drapes that frame the French windows. He runs a hand over the prickly stubble that’s beginning to show on his chin. ‘I don’t understand. Why has she left so suddenly? She’s said nothing to me.’
Beatrice gives him a long, scrutinizing gaze, then says cuttingly, ‘You know why she left.’ It gives her pleasure to note the way his hand moves to loosen his striped tie, as if it’s choking him, the beads of sweat that bubble around his hairline. He pales, causing his freckles to look more prominent.
‘Because of what she overheard?’
She nods. ‘It was careless of you, Ben. And you’re never normally so careless.’
He paces the room and groans. ‘I know. I’m so fucking angry with myself.’
She winces at his display of frustration. ‘Anyway,’ she says, in an effort to placate him. ‘Luckily, no harm done. Although she says you told her to leave.’
He stops pacing and stares at her, his hazel eyes wide. ‘Of course I didn’t,’ he bursts out. ‘Why would she say that? And why hasn’t she spoken to me about it?’
Beatrice shrugs. She’s enervated by the whole experience. She’s past caring about Jodie.
‘And where has this come from?’ he says, walking across the oiled wooden floorboards to stand next to the sofa. He runs his hand along its curved back. ‘This must have cost a bomb.’
‘That’s what the Trust is for,’ she says. ‘I ordered it last week. I was always going to ask Jodie to move out of this room anyway. It wasn’t fair that she’d taken this over as well as the bedroom upstairs. She wasn’t paying any rent.’
‘You never asked her for any rent,’ he says.
‘It’s not about that,’ she snaps. ‘We don’t need the money.’
Ben takes a seat next to her on the sofa and places a soothing hand on her bare arm. Even though his fingers are warm, the gesture makes her come out in goosebumps. ‘Bea, what you’re doing is great.’
She turns to him, suspecting sarcasm but his hazel eyes are full of admiration and she’s overcome with love for him. Oh, Ben, I’m doing all this for you, she wants to tell him, but knows she can’t. He won’t understand, not yet.
She takes his hand. ‘What we’re doing, Ben. We’re in this together, remember?’
They sit in companionable silence and Beatrice thinks that maybe she won’t tell him about Abi yet, that it will only spoil this precious, rare moment when it’s the two of them, alone. He moves his hand from her arm and snakes it around her shoulder, pulling her to him, and she sighs contentedly as she leans against him. He’s still my Ben, she thinks. My twin.
And then he has to go and ruin it all by asking the inevitable question.
‘What are you going to do with Jodie’s room?’
Beatrice detaches herself from his embrace and moves over to the fireplace. She kneels down in front of it, the draught from the chimney blowing against her bare legs and methodically, and for no reason other than to stall Ben, she places a log from the nearby bucket on to the cold grate, trying to remember the last time they lit a fire in this room.
She hasn’t mentioned to Ben about Abi turning up unannounced two days ago, clutching those pathetic daisies, a sad, haunted expression in her big green eyes. She had stood by the gate, soaking wet and tiny in her oversized parka, looking so frangible that Beatrice’s heart had gone out to her. What she felt for Abi, in that moment, was almost maternal. She wanted to fold her in her arms and tell her that everything was going to be okay, that she, Beatrice, was here to help her.
Ben won’t understand, she thinks as she carefully lays another log in the grate, playing for time before answering her brother’s question. Because she knows that any burgeoning feelings Ben might have for Abi will have to be quashed and she’s not sure how he will react. They have an unwritten rule, no romances between housemates. He plays it down, of course, but she saw the look he gave Abi at the open studio, the way he made a beeline for her at the party afterwards. She understands exactly why he’s attracted to her. Vulnerable, a little shy, slim and fair-haired. Abi’s completely his type.
‘Shall we get someone else to move in?’ he says, cutting into the silence impatiently.
She stands up, rubbing her knees, and faces Ben, wanting, needing, to see his expression, but before she even opens her mouth his face falls as what she’s planned finally dawns on him. Oh, Ben, you know me so well, she thinks.
‘You’ve already asked Abi to move in, haven’t you?’ His eyes are hard, sharp. A hunted animal.
I’m sorry, Ben.
‘You didn’t even bother to ask me. It’s my house too.’
She can’t help but feel a flicker of remorse as he gets up wordlessly from the sofa and leaves the room, the door banging closed behind him.
Monty’s house, or rather, his mansion with its gabled roof and turrets, sits grandly at the top of a steep hill overlooking Bath. A crescent moon floats above the chimney and I think how eerie the house looks in the fading light, how gothic. I’m almost expecting to see bats swarming around one of the towers. It gives me an unwelcome flashback to Halloween, to that night over eighteen months ago, to that fateful party we attended, the argument that resulted in us all leaving earlier than planned.
Beatrice sidles out of the taxi, elegant in her black shorts and opaque tights that show off her long, shapely legs. I follow her as we pick our way over the gravelled driveway. The cacophony of voices, clinking of glasses and the beat of some dance tune floats through the open windows, alerting us that the party is already in full swing.
‘Are you okay, Abi?’ asks Beatrice as she stops to extricate her stiletto heel from the gravel, leaning on me for support. ‘I imagine these things are hard for you.’
Beatrice hasn’t asked me any more about Lucy, which I’m relieved about. That way I don’t have to lie to her. Would she still want to hang around with me if she knew about Alicia and how I ended up in a psychiatric hospital after Lucy’s death? I pull the sleeves of my blouse further over my wrists to hide the evidence of my downward spiral.
‘I’m fine,’ I lie. I’d been so flattered when Beatrice rang me up and asked me to Monty’s party. Not only does she want me to be a housemate, but she’s invited me to be part of her group of friends too, to be part of her life. All the same, my anxiety levels are high this evening, despite the antidepressants.
‘Isn’t this place amazing?’ she says, in an effort to lighten the mood, linking her arm through mine. ‘Monty is minted. Ha, Minted Monty, that’s what we should call him.’ She laughs at her own, rather feeble joke while my heart pounds uncomfortably in my chest.
Beatrice told me she’d met Paul Montgomery, or Monty