Who created whom? That’s what it comes down to, I suppose. And, I suppose, we could say that we at first attempted to create each other, each in the image of the other. Naturally it couldn’t work, but it got us together. It worked in as much as it got us sleeping together.
I could never believe how easy it was. I never thought, at first, that you were being natural. I thought you were putting it on, to please me, to come up to my level, that you were submitting to some glorious image of ourselves. But you seemed keen enough. I was, despite our wanting to be twins, the elder brother in that respect. I brought you on by hand, you might say. You had no idea what I’d already been up to. For me, there had never been a first time. I seduced you, Mark; the innocence was all yours. There was no mutual ground-breaking or discovered; nothing natural about it. And perhaps this was the first betrayal: Mine.
But yours was the bigger. Oh, yes. You grew to fill up the mythological space I had cleared for you. We both outgrew the twins thing. Sticking together, walking abreast, or sleeping squashed together with secretions gluing our flesh, we matured enough to realise we still had separate agendas to fulfil. You started your tattoo thing when you were sixteen. A rose across one nipple, huge and garish. You had been reading Genet. I watched. But I had seen you naked. And as the weeks stretched by, taut as your stomach, the artist’s head poised above it, scrawling away, I thanked my lucky stars that I had been there first. Now, I thought to myself, whoever came after me, because I knew they would, would never know you as wholly as I did.
Samantha lives with you. Samantha has given birth to your child. You and Samantha have a home and she sees you every day. She has the luxury of growing bored with you. She can afford indifference to Mark Kelly, and from what your letters say, indifference is the word for it. I oscillate between extreme emotions, but maybe that’s just me. But she will never know you whole. I imagine you sleeping together. You are in armour and, in the end, impervious to her.
SEVEN
TRACEY CAME OFF HER MID-MORNING TEA BREAK FEELING STUNNED. She had been allowed ten extra minutes. Sam’s voice crackled through the intercom into the breezeblocked corridor where they were allowed to smoke and informed her that she could have a bit longer; Sam was enjoying herself on the floor. Tracey lit another fag in celebration as the music in the shop—a Madonna compilation—doubled its volume and could be felt vibrating in the brick at her back. The extra fag made her feel sickly, but she went back to work smiling and surprised.
“You’re cheerful today,” she told Sam, whom she found rearranging a display, jogging lightly on her toes to ‘Vogue’.
“All you need is your own imagination…” sang the supervisor. When Tracey looked carefully, however, Sam’s eyes were hard and she was singing through gritted teeth. Her handiwork with the display, too, was inaccurate and seemed to be more for the sake of something to do. She wielded a staple gun ferociously and said nothing when a woman, right in front of them, knocked a number of slips off their hangers and left them lying there on the mustard-coloured carpet.
“Are you all right?”
“I’m on my break now,” Sam grinned, slinging down the tools of her trade. “You’ll manage if I take a little longer than usual, won’t you?”
Tracey nodded dumbly, gazing at the wreckage of the display. It was of winter scarves and shawls, all of them pinned to the walls. Sam had wanted a Bedouin-tent effect and had ended up with a jumble sale.
“Yes, I might take a little longer, because I’m going to take those boxes down to the crusher. It’ll save you a job.
Samantha waltzed off, singing again. Tracey sorted out the fallen slips and went to the till. Almost immediately a queue started to form and, as she served, she phoned Letitia, the supervisor in the Bishop Auckland branch. Letitia had trained here, under Sam, and occasionally had helpful hints for Tracey.
It sounded as if they had Prince on in Bishop Auckland. “It’s bad news, I’m afraid,” Letitia warned. “That’s exactly what she’s like when something really bad is about to happen. You watch yourself, Tracey.”
At least, Tracey thought, fiddling with the Access machine, and her customer watched anxiously as it ground across her precious card, they don’t have intrigues like this going on in McDonald’s. They’re rushed off their feet at Christmastime, but they don’t get time for anything personal. Her boyfriend Hugh worked across the road in McDonald’s. Usually she thought she was one up on him, working here. He had a big boil coming on the back of his neck, from the grease.
AS SAM STOMPED HER WAY DOWN THE BACK CORRIDOR, FOOTSTEPS RE-
sounding ahead and behind, she felt herself growing lighter on her feet. She felt superpowered; it took the merest effort to open the steel concertina doors to the lift to the basement. With a deft flick of the wrist she wrenched them open, and set about slinging the useless cardboard into the dusty alcove. This should have been done weeks ago, but it was fitting to her present mood. A good pile built up inside the lift of partly collapsed boxes spilling cellophane and tissue paper. Even, she noticed as she climbed in with this detritus (having to stand on the pile, there was so little room), a number
