She swallowed, glanced at the jug of water and glass on the cabinet beside her.
‘Are you thirsty?’ he asked, reaching for the jug. He poured a little water and handed the glass to her. She took it and sipped. ‘My name is Gareth Davies,’ he said.
‘Thank you, Gareth Davies,’ she said huskily. He waited but she remained silent.
‘I was wondering if you felt better,’ he said. He could have done with a drink too — he felt like he was drying up like a slug caught out in the sun. He pointed to the bandage. ‘It could have been worse, you know; I could easily have killed you.’
‘But you didn’t,’ she said quietly.
‘No, not quite. What’s your name?’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t remember,’ she returned shortly. ‘Like I told the police.’
‘Look, I don’t care what you were doing last night…’
‘I might not have been doing anything,’ she said.
‘How do you know? You can’t remember.’
She narrowed her eyes. Placed the glass on the unit and they both watched the water inside it tremble for a second. ‘True enough,’ she conceded.
‘The police interviewed me too,’ he said. ‘Routine when there’s been a traffic accident in which someone’s been hurt.’ She gave him a vacant look. ‘Knock to the head, does strange things, eh?’ he said. ‘Look, I came because of two reasons: the first, to see how you are — you came running from the hedge like the devil was at your back, I nearly killed you, you had no ID, you weren’t even dressed for winter and I was concerned for you. The second…’ He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the coin on its leather cord. He saw her eyes widen and she turned away. ‘I could mention the box full of gold, which in itself looks a trifle dodgy to say the least, but it’s this I’m more interested in. Where did you get it? Is it yours? Is it stolen?’ He found his voice was getting more animated and he had to stem the flow of words. He let the coin dangle there.
‘Put it away,’ she said.
‘Tell me where you got it.’
‘Not here,’ she said. ‘Put it away.’
He sighed and stuffed it back into his pocket. ‘I have one just like it. Mine though is the other half. I’ve had it since I was a baby. My mother left it with me. Weird, don’t you think, that you turn up with this? All I want to know is where you found it.’ He bowed his head, his hands working together on his lap. ‘I never knew my mother. The coin is the only link to her. I’d like to find her.’ He found it strange to be uttering the words as he had always professed the opposite.
‘You can’t,’ she said pointedly.
‘That’s for me to decide.’
‘She’s dead, Gareth,’ she said, turning to him.
He found it cut straight into him. Even though he’d hated the woman for what she did to him, he did not want to hear this. ‘How do you know? How can you be certain? Did you know her?’
‘I’m your sister, Gareth,’ she said. ‘I’m your sister, Erica. That’s how I know.’
For a moment he received it as if she were joking, and even smiled a little. Then the smile collapsed into a frown. ‘Erica, huh? What are you trying to pull here?’
‘We’re twins.’
‘OK, when’s my birthday?’ he asked sceptically.
‘April 28th, 1976.’
‘Wrong. It’s May 10th.’
‘That’s the date they put on the birth certificate, yes. But it’s not the right one. You’re older than me, by nearly half an hour. You were born at 7.30pm, and I followed at 7.55pm. You cried your lungs out; I didn’t, they had to make me.’
He sat there, stunned by what he was hearing. ‘This is some kind of sick joke…’
‘Look at me,’ she said. ‘Don’t you see a resemblance?’
Of course he did. He hadn’t realised it at first but that’s probably why she looked so familiar when he first saw her.
‘What was her name?’ he asked, delivered coldly, still refusing to believe what he was hearing.
‘Elizabeth.’
That single word made him crumple, in spite of everything he was feeling, in spite of the defences he was rapidly throwing up. ‘Elizabeth,’ he echoed quietly. He looked down at the coin resting in his hand.
‘It’s a Charles the Second silver crown, 1662,’ she explained. Your half was left to you wrapped in a sheet of paper torn from an encyclopaedia.’
‘So how did she die? Why did she dump me at Cardiff railway station? How come you and I never met till now?’
She glanced quickly and furtively around the ward. Everyone was involved in their own little world. ‘I can’t tell you at this moment. This is not the right place,’ she said, her voice deliberately hushed. ‘But you have to believe me.’
A man wandered onto the ward. He was draped in a heavy winter coat. Gareth saw her freeze and she watched him closely. He glanced in their direction. Then saw who he was searching for and made his way across the ward to the bed. She sighed.
‘Look, are you in some kind of trouble?’
Her attention snapped back to him. She looked like she wanted to say something, but her lips slowly came together and the words remained unsaid. She held out her hand for the coin necklace. He gave it to her and she concealed it in her fist.
‘What were you doing last night, running out in front of me like that? You could have killed yourself. Who were you running from? Has the box of gold jewellery got anything to do with this?’
‘Keep your voice down, Gareth,’ she said. ‘Please.’
‘You steal it?’
‘Absolutely not. Do you have the box safe?’
‘I have it, yes.’
‘It’s all there? Everything?’
‘Of course it is! What do you take me for? Tell me straight, what’s going on? Are you on the run from the police?’
She shook her head. ‘I came to help you. To warn you, Gareth.’
‘To warn me of what?’
She let out a deep breath. ‘Of them…I can’t speak about that here,’ she said quietly.
He threw his hands up in frustration. ‘OK, OK. Not here. You’re a strange one, lady.’ Her eyes were heavy, as if she were desperately tired. She was fighting to keep them open.
‘Shall I come back later?’ In part he knew he wanted to get out because he couldn’t handle what he was hearing. Couldn’t handle the fact this woman could be his sister. It threw his entire life up in the air.
She reached out, grabbed his hand. He didn’t know what he should do. Till a few minutes ago this woman was a stranger he had almost killed. Now she was a potential sister he never knew he had. Struck dumb, he just let her hang onto his hand. It felt warm. Reassuring. A contact he never dreamed of ever making. Emotions bubbled up within him, competed with each other for a piece of his troubled mind. The peace he’d found since coming to Deller’s End was in danger of being crushed like tinfoil. When he looked into her eyes he saw only truth, and that scared him. Terrified him. He tried to pull his hand away but she wouldn’t let it go.
‘You have to believe me, Gareth.’
‘I dunno…’ he said. ‘It’s all too weird. I’ve got to go. Maybe I’ll see you this evening, huh? I need time to think about this.’
He wrenched his hand free and she tried to sit upright, but pain forced her back onto her pillow. She grimaced. ‘Be careful, Gareth,’ she said.
‘I’ll see you later,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring you your box.’ And with that he turned and left her, hurrying from the ward and out of the hospital.
The cold, fresh air did little to revive him. His mind was spinning. This wasn’t happening, he thought. It was all too sudden, all too unreal to grasp.
He wandered the snowy streets of St Davids in a half-daze, finally clearing snow from a metal bench overlooking the cathedral and he sat there in the freezing cold. The grounds were deserted and sheathed in an undulating skin of snow broken only by the many dark headstones rising from it. The sky was a pristine white. Fresh snowflakes circled his lonely frame like excited children as he thought deeply on the implications of the visit. But there were no answers to be found, so he bought a bottle of Johnnie Walkers and went back to the hotel to find a few answers inside that. Did he really want his life turning inside out just as he’d got it back on track? He drank deeply of the whiskey and decided maybe he didn’t. Then drank again and decided that maybe he did. What if she was a fraud? But where did she get the other half of the coin if so, how did she know the details of how it was left to him, and what the hell was there in it for her to pretend to be his sister anyhow? None of it made sense. Unless she really was his sister. He took a stiff swig and gasped on the hot liquid. He ought to get something to eat or he’d suffer for it, he thought.