‘That’s not the threat you think it is, Cat. Because I hate you. Do you understand? I hate you. So, go. All I want is for you to be gone.’ The snarl did nothing to mask the hurt in her eyes, the fury. ‘To never have to think about you again.’
And then she let me go. Walked away without once looking back.
There are many downsides to being an identical twin. Always knowing – seeing – what you look like when you smile, when you frown, when wrinkles start appearing around your eyes, like a mirror you always carry, sharp and heavy under your arm. Always being mistaken for someone else, just waiting for the moment you can interrupt, put them right, see the warm familiarity in their eyes disappear. Always being crammed into half a box, traits divvied up so that one must be outgoing, the other shy; one adventurous, one timid. Believing it yourself. Believing that when you’re the one not picked, when you’re the one kicked aside, it’s never because of what you look like. It’s because you’re you. And not her.
But this is worse. This leaden, savage knowing that you aren’t whole without each other. That you can never survive alone in the world. That you were never meant to. Thinking of her on that day hurts more than anything else ever has. Cheeks pink, eyes blinking tears that I hoped were for me, but knew were for the vicious wind. The squeeze of her fingers against mine, just like when we’d fight sleep under the ironwoods and banyans of the Kakadu Jungle, neither of us wanting to be the first to let go. How that was the last day, the last moment – even when she was being cruel – that I felt she might still love me. How she had been the first one to let go.
‘I’d know.’ When I start to cry, it feels as frightening as watching the face in the mirror fall apart. I watch her cover her mouth with her hand. I watch her tears spill over white, blue-veined skin like twin waterfalls. I watch her shake her head as if that’s enough, that’s all that needs to be done. And then it will all stop.
I’d know.
*
15 April 2018 at 21:15
Inbox
Re: HE KNOWS
To: Me
CLUE 9. LOOK UNDER YOUR MATTRESS
Sent from my iPhone
*
July 3rd, 1998
He’s not real. Dad’s not real.
I think I knew really but how could Mum LIE???
She was making me and Cat pack away our old costumes and games and books into boxes to take downstairs to Mirrorland and I found one of Grandpa’s big encyclopeedias in her cupboard. So I took it out and I opened it and on a page with the corner turned down there was CAPTAIN HENRY MORGAN!!!!!!!
I was excited at first – coz the picture of him was exactly how Mum had said – exactly like my painting in Mirrorland and there was all this great stuff about him being a privateer (which I think is just a posh disguise for a Pirate that works for the government. LIKE MUM SAID TOO) He was even the LEUTENANT GOVERNOR OF JAMAICA!!!
But then Cat saw when he was born. 1635!!!!!!
We couldn’t beleive it. How could Mum lie to us? She always told us he loved us and if we waited for him in Mirrorland he’d come back. He’d take us to The Island. To Santa Catalina. And even tho that sounds stupid now Mirrorland is magic. It’s better than Narnia or Oz or Neverland or Middle Earth. We can make things happen there that never happen anywhere else. It’s REAL. But it doesn’t matter. Because she lied. He’s not our dad. And when we told her we knew she cried – Mum NEVER cries!! She said she did it to make us happy. And then started going on and on about how she loves us so much blah blah BLAH
And Grandpa was so mean! Like we were stupid to beleive it anyway. Like it was our fault or something. He said she should have told us that our dad was a TOTAL FUCKING WASTER who left her as soon as she was pregnant. And when Cat asked Mum if our dad was a TOTAL FUCKING WASTER Mum just cried some more and left us with mean Grandpa.
I HATE them. I HATE THEM BOTH.
Look at the state ae them! They’re allus tired. They never bloody sleep. Ye said yersel their school work’s sufferin’. Ye’ve filled up their heids wi’ so much bloody nonsense they spend aw their time in a dreamworld. And now ye’ve got em believin’ their fuckin’ father is a seventeenth-century pirate, for Christ’s sake! They’ll grow up slower than a week in the fuckin’ jail, wumman!
I remember recoiling from that voice, from his lips flecked with spittle. So unlike the Grandpa I knew. As alien as a tear-streaked Mum telling us, I’m sorry, I love you, I lied because I wanted you both to be happy. Or a faceless father who was a total fucking waster.
The wind rattles the Clown Café window. It’s grown so dark now all I can see is my own reflection. My phone vibrates. Vik again. When I don’t answer, a text immediately appears on the screen. I need to speak to you. I shove my phone in a drawer, open my laptop, hit reply to that last message from john.smith120594. My fingers tremble, but not so much that I can’t type.
They found a body. Tell me who it is. Please.
I close my stinging, salt-dry eyes. I am so, so tired. My heart is a slow, dull thud that I can feel in my chest and stomach.
No one answers me.
CHAPTER 18
They come back twenty-seven and a half hours after they left. All of them. I stand at the Princess Tower window and watch Rafiq’s
