‘I miss us,’ I whisper.
‘Cat. What—’
I reach through the space between us, put my palms flat against his chest. ‘I miss us in Mirrorland the most.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I don’t want to talk any more,’ I say. When I stroke my fingers along his neck and jawline, they don’t hesitate, don’t shake.
He freezes, takes hold of them, backs away. ‘No. We can’t do this.’
There’s a darkness around us, and I can feel it close in. The fire crackles. I can hear the grandfather clock tick, tick, ticking in the shadow of the hallway. And all around us the house groans and breathes and laughs.
I push myself hard against him, and even though I don’t say it, I know it’s in my eyes. She isn’t dead. She just left you. Like she left me. I kiss his cheek, his jaw, his lips, run my tongue against the salt skin of his throat. I want him to give in. I want him to beg. I’ve always wanted him to beg.
But instead, he pushes me away again. Closes his eyes. Steps back.
I think of that look of horror, how quickly he scrambled to get away from me in this very room three nights ago. I hear the heavy turn and clunk of a deadlock. The thunderous stamp of boots. Something’s coming. Something’s nearly here. And then I do start to shake. I put my hands on his face, his chest, smooth my palms over his shoulder blades, run my fingers through his hair.
‘Cat, you have to stop,’ he says. But whether he knows it or not, he’s already touching me; his fingers are gripping hold of my arms, keeping me where I already want to be. Already am. ‘Please.’
I move my fingers down, down. Feel his hot fast breath, the glancing edge of his teeth against my neck as I press the heel of my palm against his crotch. His voice muffled against my skin. ‘God. Please. Please, Cat.’
And as soon as I kiss him again, he gives in. The kiss is too wet, too hot, too clumsy, but it’s what I need. Everything feels so raw, it almost hurts. We grab handfuls of each other, and it’s just the same as it ever was. The same wonderful. The same rush. The same madness. He makes a sound, loud and almost distressed, and I think, Yes. Yes.
I suppose what we’re doing is punishing El again, the only way we know how. But God, it doesn’t feel that way. We stagger backwards. He kisses me like he doesn’t need to breathe, and I kiss him back, and all of it – the noises we’re making, the frenzied near panic of what we’re doing: scratching, pinching, squeezing, biting – all of it feels good and clean and right in a way that nothing – and no one – else ever has. I lost my virginity to him in much the same way: pressed up against a chest of drawers in his bedroom; too fast, too desperate, the pain needy and raw, a spur to do more, feel more, take more. It was never ever enough.
He lifts me up onto the mahogany lowboy; its French polish is cold against my skin. We fumble with each other’s clothes, making frustratingly little headway. He pulls me closer, presses himself harder against me, bites the space between my left shoulder and neck hard enough to make me cry out, to grab him back even harder. Every bit of me wants him, there is not an ounce of doubt or guilt in me. I think of El’s Sometimes I wish she would just disappear. And how right now, right here, I’m not just glad that she has, I’m certain that all along she was the one that was supposed to.
When we finally manage to get rid of enough clothes that he can push against me, inside me, skin to skin, we both cry out, we both hold on, we both whisper ‘Fuck’ into each other’s mouth. And I stop thinking about El at all.
There was never a time when Mirrorland didn’t feel real; when we couldn’t feel the wind and rain and wonder of it, or smell the sea and smoke and sweat and blood of it. But sometimes, Mirrorland felt very real, and those were the times when we were clever or cruel or afraid.
One long hot Saturday afternoon, when the Satisfaction was between ports, El and I devised a game to pass the time. Ross would be put overboard into the open sea, and handfuls of sharp tacks would be thrown in with him. He’d have ten minutes to find and return every single one before we hauled anchor and left. He was reluctant, of course, but all Mirrorland rules set by either El or me had to be obeyed. And so he stood in the Caribbean Sea, some three hundred miles off the coast of Haiti, shoulders hunched and pretending not to flinch as we threw the tacks in after him.
He had to have known he couldn’t do it. That the game was supposed to be impossible. But still, he tried. He got down on his hands and knees and searched every corner of the sea for those scattered tacks, collecting them in one hand, picking them up with the other – and only when there was one minute remaining did he start to panic.
‘I can’t do it! I don’t have them all!’
‘There are fifty,’ El said mildly. ‘How many do you have?’
‘We’ll stop the clock,’ I said. ‘While you count.’
He had thirty-two.
‘You better hurry up,’ El said.
When his time was up, and we got ready to sail away without him, he started to cry. ‘Don’t! Please!’
I’d never seen Ross cry before, and seeing it didn’t make me feel remorse, it made me feel powerful. It made me think of hiding in a box and sobbing into a tartan blanket.
‘You can catch us up, stupid,’ El said, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
‘NO! You can’t leave me!’
That image is one of my most enduring of Mirrorland. El and I sailing away from a sobbing and inconsolable Ross on his knees in the Caribbean Sea, hands bloody and full of tacks. Calling out to us though we pretended not to hear him. ‘How will I know where you’ve gone?’
The alarm clock says 11:35. When I stretch, everything aches in a warm, lethargic way. Ross is still in bed with me. I can hear his slow breathing, feel the heat of him at my back. When I’m sure that he’s still asleep, I turn around to look at him. He’s lying half on his front, legs splayed under the covers. I’ve never gone to sleep with him before, and it feels strange, intimate, more of a transgression than fucking him did. At least we’re in the Clown Café instead of their bedroom, our bedroom. I look at his thick hair, sticking up in all directions. His broad shoulders and back, his narrow hips, the curve and flat of his flank. And I still want to touch him, I still feel that itchy need to do more. I think the word arsehole, but it’s lost much of its previous power. I do have guilt, and a sizeable chunk of it, but when I poke around it, like the swollen gum around a bad tooth, it gets no bigger, no more painful.
She left him. She doesn’t want him.
‘Hey.’ His voice is muffled, still thick with sleep.
I snatch my hand back from his skin, but otherwise freeze, holding my breath.
He doesn’t turn around, but gropes behind him for my hand. And for a horrible, punishing moment, I wonder if he thinks I’m El.
‘I know it’s you, Cat.’
I sit up. Find myself looking at that framed photo on the bedside table. A young El and Ross grin back at me.
‘Do you regret it?’ I hate that my voice sounds so small. ‘Do you regret what we did?’
He sighs, and then sits up too, turns his head to look at me. ‘No.’
But I realise that he’s looking at that framed photo too. And I can see in his eyes that part of him does. Part of him has to. A big part.
‘I don’t want you to think that I don’t love her,’ he says.
‘I’m her sister’ is just about the only thing I can think of to say. As far as culpability goes, genes probably trump vows.