The Other Half Lives aka The Dead Lie Down

repercussions, you see, if you attack a strong person. Want to know how I ended up so weak?’

‘No, I… no.’ I picked up Abberton, afraid she’d change her mind and take it back. ‘I’ve got to go.’

Mary grabbed my hand. ‘Tell me your story and I’ll tell you mine.’

I tried not to panic, said again that I needed to leave. I’d opened the front door and was almost out, with Abberton under my arm. ‘You’ll tell me one day,’ she said as she released her grip.

I ran to my car, gulping in fresh air as if I’d been trapped underwater. I didn’t look back at the house. I knew I would see Mary in the doorway, watching, waiting. As I drove away, uncertain as I was about everything else, I became convinced of one thing: Aidan’s insane belief centred around a woman who was every bit as insane as the things he’d said about her.

I didn’t know what that meant, but it had to mean something.

10

4/3/08

‘It isn’t a relationship,’ Olivia said indignantly. ‘I’m not sure you’ve noticed, but I don’t have those. That suits you fine, doesn’t it? Me having no one, being on tap whenever you want me.’

‘Don’t twist this! I don’t want you to be lonely, or…’

‘Terrified of telling any man I fall for that I lost my womb and ovaries to cancer and can’t have children?’

‘You always fucking do this! You throw the c-word at me for the sympathy vote and expect me to back down!’ Charlie wished her sister would stand up to argue. Olivia sat curled on the sofa in her tiny, designer-fabric-swathed Fulham flat, still in her cream satin pyjamas and dressing-gown though it was getting on for early evening. She wasn’t fond of physical exertion. Apart from sex with Dominic Lund, as it turned out.

Charlie felt like a bully shouting down at her. She also knew she had no plans to stop shouting any time soon. ‘How do you think I felt? After I’ve poured my heart out to him, begged him for help, and had to sit there like an idiot with him telling me what a loser I am. Enjoying trashing my confidence, revelling in his wisdom and my helplessness. Do you know what he called me? A psychopath’s ex-girlfriend. Quite a gentleman you’ve got there. When I told him to fuck off, he dropped his bombshell: “By the way, not only am I not going to lift a finger for you, but I’m fucking your sister and we’re both laughing at you behind your back.” It didn’t occur to you that I might have appreciated having that information in advance?’

‘Your self-absorption knows no bounds,’ said Olivia, her face pink with outrage. ‘I’ll throw another c-word at you in a minute. Will you listen to yourself?’

Charlie was in no state to listen. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I don’t see what the problem is. You needed legal advice, I recommended Dommie. It wasn’t as if-’

‘Dommie? This is a bad dream,’ Charlie muttered. ‘I’ll wake up in a minute.’

‘I didn’t tell you because you’ve got a long history of thinking every decision I make is-’

‘Is he the best you can do? A semi-autistic cheapskate who can’t even look at people when he speaks to them and forgets his wallet on purpose when he goes out to lunch, who plays with his BlackBerry compulsively the way teenage boys play with their dicks, who looks like a buzzard…’

‘A buzzard?’

‘He looks like a big bird of prey-don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed! Acts like one too.’

‘All right!’ Olivia held up her hands. ‘Yes, he’s the best I can do. Is that what you want me to say? Somehow he’s managed to upset you, so you decided to come here and upset me, and you’ve succeeded. Job done. Happy now?’

‘Go on,’ Charlie taunted her. ‘Use that word you threatened me with.’

‘It’s only a casual thing, Char. It hasn’t been going on for very long. I wanted to-’

‘How long’s not very long?’

‘I don’t know, about six months.’

‘Six months! I told you Simon and I were engaged three fucking seconds after I knew myself! Since when you’ve been prancing around sanctimoniously, exuding disapproval, loudly dooming us to failure at every opportunity…’

‘Prance? I don’t prance.’

‘All I’m doing’s trying to be happy for a change. You keep saying you’ve said your piece and from now on you’ll keep your mouth shut, but it never works, does it? You can’t restrain yourself from pointing out that Simon’s weird and frigid and socially inept, and he’s never said he loves me…’ Charlie had to pause as a tide of rage swept through her, pushing all coherent thought aside.

In its wake, she found her voice again. ‘Socially inept,’ she repeated quietly. ‘And all the time, you’re bedding Dominic Lund? Coward-that’s another word that begins with “c”. Fucking hypocrite-that begins with “f”. You sneak around in secret to protect yourself, at the same time as showering me with condemnation. All those times you’ve laid into Simon…’

‘I’ve got nothing against Simon! I like him. All right, I think you’re mad to-’

‘And I think you’re mad. Insane. Off your trolley!’

‘Dominic’s got a brilliant mind. He’s a brilliant-’

‘Please, call him Dommie if that’s your special name for him. Don’t let me stop you.’ Charlie was starting to enjoy herself. Sometimes the only way to get rid of your own pain was to cause someone else’s. ‘Now you know how it feels when someone rips the man you love to shreds,’ she said.

‘I’m not sure if I love him. It’s a complicated…’

‘You know what else he said to me? That I never listen to anyone. This is a man who’s met me all of once.’

‘Perceptive of him,’ said Olivia.

‘He was quoting you!’

‘He’s got an amazing memory. He’s cleverer than Simon.’

‘Oh, grow up!’

‘I didn’t mean it like that. I only meant… you of all people should understand the appeal of a clever man.’

The part of Charlie that was capable of feeling normal human emotions had shut down. At moments like this, she usually tried to make things worse because that was something she knew she could do and do well. ‘Let’s make a pact, okay? You don’t come to my wedding and I won’t come to yours. As for Mum and Dad, they can choose. One or the other, whichever of us they think has made the least shit choice of partner. They’ll pick you, of course, because you put in the hours pandering to them and I don’t. Come to think of it, I can’t see Dad missing a day’s golf to come to either of our weddings.’

‘Say it to his face if you’ve got a problem! You’d never dare, would you? You try to turn me against them hoping I’ll start trouble with them so that, if and when I do, you can stand back and look all innocent- you’re the coward, not me! And I don’t pander to them, I consider their feelings-it’s not the same thing.’ Olivia wiped her eyes with one hand and sighed. With the flat of her other hand, she slammed shut the lid of the laptop that was sitting beside her on the sofa. ‘I guess that’s my working day over,’ she said, each syllable dripping with sacrifice.

‘Work? You mean writing airhead shit for the bits of the papers that everyone chucks in the bin? Still in your pyjamas at nearly six o’clock-you call that work?’

Olivia didn’t stand up, but she swung her legs round and straightened her back. ‘I’m a journalist,’ she said in a jagged voice. ‘I write about books. Books are not airhead shit. My work is worth as much as yours.’

Like hell it is.

‘Once or twice, it’s true, I’ve written articles about fashion or shopping, and you’ve stored that up to use against me in your campaign to prove that everything I do is a load of frivolous crap.’ Olivia wiped her eyes.

‘Diversionary tactics,’ Charlie said flatly. ‘Don’t think I don’t know them when I see them. I see them a lot.’ She’d always thought Liv was proud to be frivolous, believed frivolity to be a good worth striving for.