‘But why couldn’t you just tell me? Why didn’t you ever trust me?’ It’s what has hurt the most.
‘God, it wasn’t you I didn’t trust, it was him!’ She takes hold of my hands. ‘I wanted to tell you, of course I did. I wanted to tell you everything. But I had to save your life like you saved mine. And I knew you wouldn’t believe me. Couldn’t believe me.’
Because believing hurts. No one has ever lied or hidden the truth from me better than I have.
‘After the trial,’ I say, ‘why didn’t you get in touch then? Let me know you were alive? What did you think I would do? Tell the police? Choose him over you?’
‘I thought you would forgive him. That’s what you do.’ She looks out to sea, blinks to hide the tears I’ve already seen in her eyes. ‘I’m counting on it.’
But I can’t. ‘You wasted years of your life in an abusive relationship. You wasted years of our lives – our lives, El – because our crazy father chose to choke you first instead of me? You made me think that you were dead!’
‘I’m the eldest, Cat,’ she says, as if it’s the most logical explanation in the world. ‘I’m the poison taster. I’m supposed to look after you.’
‘Jesus Christ.’ I get a sudden flash of Mum: the meanness of her frown, the pinch of her fingers; cold eyes and a sharp, hard voice. And I’m as close as I’ve ever been to admitting that a part of me has always hated her – even now, even knowing what she did for us.
‘I need to know why. I need to know how.’
Her smile is pure Eclass="underline" half-defiant, half-sorrowful. ‘Then ask me.’
‘How did you get here?’
It’s a question with a thousand answers, I realise, but she only nods. ‘After I … scuttled The Redemption, I kayaked to Fisherrow. It’s an old harbour in Musselburgh, mostly disused now. No one saw me.’
‘You were the person in the parka, weren’t you? Seen hanging around the house that day? Coming out of the alleyway?’
She nods again. ‘I dumped the kayak in the shed. And I’d hidden a Survival Pack under the bed in the Clown Café. Just like we used to. It had been there for months. Money, clothes. There was a neighbour, a friend. We both once volunteered at a charity for immigrant families. I told her about Ross, and she gave me a false passport and papers. Before I decided that I couldn’t run.’
Because of me.
‘Marie,’ I say.
El’s surprise makes her look better, lighter. ‘You know her?’
‘Ross didn’t send you those cards,’ I say. ‘It was her. She sent them to me too.’
‘God.’ El’s shoulders slump. ‘Poor Marie.’
I feel angry again, and I don’t know why. El sees it, visibly squares her shoulders.
‘I got the express to Heathrow. I was so scared. I didn’t know what to do, where to go – I just needed to get away. I ended up buying a ticket to Mexico because it was the next flight leaving for another continent. But I was so afraid that Ross was going to find me. I kept thinking, any minute, he’s going to appear, he’s going to walk right through those airport doors. And find me.’ She half laughs, half sobs. ‘And the only thing that kept me sane was wondering if Andy Dufresne had been just as scared. When he was crawling through that tunnel, that pipe, those five hundred yards of shit; when he was so close to being out, to being free, after all those weeks and months and years of being so far.’
Instantly, my anger dilutes, mixed with all that new relief and happiness; the sheer joy of knowing that she’s here. The luxury of being angry with her.
‘I came here maybe a month after Mexico. I’d gone south to Costa Rica because I was still too scared to stop running, and then there it was on a map in a bar. Santa Catalina.’ Her smile is fleeting. ‘And I thought, is that why I bought that ticket to Mexico? So that I could come here? So that I could stop running?’
I close my eyes. I’m aware that I’m doing what I always do – circling around the pain so that I don’t have to feel it. So that I can pretend it doesn’t even exist. And El is doing what she always did – she’s letting me. I think of that pink cardboard box at the hotel, and my heart picks up in a hard and heavy drumbeat that even I can’t ignore. I breathe in, out. Look at that red-and-blue boat. ‘Tell me what happened, El.’
She says nothing until I turn back towards her, meet her gaze.
‘What I told you about my life with Ross was true. I couldn’t leave him. I couldn’t kill him. I mean, I thought about it …’ She pauses. ‘But if there was even the slightest chance I’d hesitate or fuck it up, what would he do? What would he do to me? What would he do to you?’ She shrugs. ‘I’d given up, I suppose. I just didn’t care any more.’
‘What changed?’
El takes in a long breath. ‘Mouse.’
‘Mouse?’
‘You remember how she always was? Needy.’ She closes her eyes. ‘Vulnerable.’
‘Because of the Witch,’ I say, thinking of her standing in front of the gate onto Westeryk Road, tall and cold like a waxwork. ‘Mum’s twin.’
El looks at me, surprised again. Nods. ‘When Mouse came back into my life, when she just turned up to the house about six months before the Plan, I didn’t recognise her at first. She said the Witch had just died. And so now she was free. Free to come back. I don’t know if she tracked me down to the house, or just expected me to be there. You think our childhoods were bad – the Witch beat Mouse, starved her, hid her away. Her whole life, she made Mouse small until that’s all she was. I used to think I knew what that felt like. But until Ross, I had no idea. Because you and I – through all of it, all of the abuse and the isolation – we had each other. We had Mum. We felt love. We were never alone. So I felt guilty. We were pretty shitty to her too, remember?’
I think of the Witch dragging Mouse along the hallway. No, no! I don’t want to go! The hard, echoless clap of those slaps against her face. The Witch’s smile as we let Mouse go. The way she stood inside that flood of light from the open door: head bowed and trembling like a dog.
‘Ross hated her,’ El says. ‘Hated anyone who might take any part of me away from him. So I let him think that I wanted her gone too – I let him think that she was gone – but I’d still phone her on that second phone. I’d still manage to sneak the odd hour away to meet her while he was at work. And we’d tell each other all about our horrible lives. It didn’t help. In the end, nothing helped. In the end, nothing mattered.’ She closes her eyes. ‘Because I’d just had enough.’
‘You never planned to escape, did you?’ I reach for my anger again, but it’s gone. ‘That last letter wasn’t a lie. You were going to kill yourself. Just like Mum did. That really was the Plan.’
‘I was just so tired, Cat,’ she says with an almost wistful smile. ‘So … sad.’
‘Tell me.’ I look back out at the boat, the pier, the sea.
‘April the third was a beautiful morning.’ Her voice softens, goes faraway. ‘The Forth has its own microclimate, you know. That day, it was like a bright gold corridor between all the dark clouds over the land. Seals followed me out to the shipping lane, gannets were wheeling around the sails and mast like they thought I was a fishing boat. I could see the flat nothing of the North Sea. I was ready.’ She stops. A tear runs into the corner of her lips. ‘But then it all went wrong.’
‘How?’
She swallows. Her smile is anguished. ‘Mouse.’
A familiar dread stirs in my stomach. ‘How—’