Her (v)

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Discombobulated in the extreme, I come to in the taxi outside my front door. The driver is a bit cross, and I get the impression it's taken him a while to wake me. I fumble with the door handle.

"'Ere, love, I don't work for free you know," he says.

Panicking as much as the langurous residue of pharmaceuticals allows, I fumble pointlessly through my handbag, knowing full well I have no cash on me. Truthfully, I'm only trying to buy myself some time to talk (or mumble) my way out of embarassment.

Snapping open my purse, I goggle at the thick wodge of twenty pound notes inside it. Where did I get that from? I don't remember making any large cash withdrawals recently. Or ever.

I shove a couple of twenties at the driver, all embarassment having mysteriously fled (ah, the magic of money), and tackle the door again.

"Hey, love," the driver says, his voice much warmer now, "Don't forget your letter!" I turn, scoop the envelope up off the seat, shove it into my bag and stumble to my front door.

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Smoothing Marios fur calms me, stops my hands trembling. I stare at the letter, skull squeaking with the effort of decoding the words. Words like Vestigial. Growing mass. Own vascular supply.

My recently wrung-out brain is struggling to wrap around those words, so it latches on to simpler one. Bone. Cartilage. Hair. Teeth.

Vestigial twin.

All my life I believed I was an only child. I'm a twin. My sister (and I have no doubt, for some reason, that she is a sister) is the devil on my shoulder. The monkey on my back.

There's a person back there.

"died in utero."

A bold claim, I feel.

Horror and revulsion almost consume me, and if I hadn't still felt so languid, I'd have run to the kitchen screaming and stabbed the thing over and over with a pair of scissors until I passed out again.

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I am afraid to sleep. The suffocating nightmares are awful, but even worse the idea that she might take over. I'm tempted to ask someone to stay over, as if that will protect me from what might happen. Remembering Marcus' glassy stare stops me. It's a relief each morning to wake in my own bed. To see Mario, hale and hearty, waiting for his breakfast. If I were selfless, I would rehome him. But I'm not. I am pitifully dependant on the comfort he offers.

Of course, we all have to sleep eventually. I take too many sleeping pills, in the hope that my deeply slumbering body will be a solid and immovable prison, and this allows me to function somewhat.

I make the appointment for the removal of it as soon as possible.

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Birds twitter outside my kitchen window, and early morning sunshine spills across the breakfast table. I spread butter across my toast.

I feel so much better. I can relax at last. And it's my day off, so I fully intend to treat myself.

I stretch. Again. It feels good. The movement makes me conscious of the stitches on the back of my shoulder, but really, they hardly pull at all.

In my mind's eye, I can see them, neat and black, holding me together. The skin cells beavering away, knitting themselves to each other. Soon, all that will be left will be a beautiful silver scar.

I sit as if I am being watched, one long leg crossed elegantly over the other. Of course, I know there's no one here to see. Not now. Not anymore. Still.

Opening my mouth wide (wiiiiide) I take a large bite. The marmalade is delicious and bitter on my tongue, the butter thick and unctious. I sprinkle crumbs from my fingertips like fairydust, my eyes scanning the newspaper pages in front of me.

At last, decision made, I clear away my breakfast things and head to my bedroom. I open my wardrobe, and, kneeling daintily, pull the carved wooden box towards me. My fingers peck through the treasure inside, and run over glossy, well-known faces.

Each one sparks a memory, sharp and clean.

They aren't good memories, or bad ones. They just are. They play out like little movies in my head. As if it was all happening to someone else. As if it was her doing those things, and I am watching from a vantage point.

Not my knee digging into Marcus' back, my hand on his chin. Not me panting with the effort of it. Rolling off him, pulling him onto his side (ah, my little spoon) and falling asleep against his cooling back.

Not my chubby legs swinging from that ornate metal chair outside the tiny cafe. Not me slurping a blue raspberry ice cream cone, the ocean glimpsed through someone else's plastic pink shades.

Not me smiling at Aunty Val through blue-stained lips because she lets me paint my lips red like a grown-up, and wear her broad hat so it casts a slice of shadow across my face.

Not me holding the baby, while Mother pointed a camera at me. Not me baring my teeth and then, after the click and flash, pushing the nasty thing off my lap on to the hard kitchen floor. Not me admiring the red bloom on the tiles.

Not me listening to them yelling-

-it was an accident Roddy!-

-you stupid bitch do you really belie-

I push the box back into its shadowy spot, and shut the door gently.

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While the shower warms up, I slough off my clothes, and pluck a razor from the drawer that is overflowing with them. Humming, I wash myself carefully, keeping my wounded shoulder away from the spray. The stitches pull again, pull me back to the photographs. In my head, I shut the door again, more firmly this time.

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Fresh and clean, I seat myself at my dresser, in command of the army of lotions and cosmetics arrayed there. I choose my weapons with care, and set my face and hair as methodically as a soldier ever fastened his helmet or greaves. I slip into the black dress and my tallest heels, and then, just as slinkily, into the back of a cab.

Driver paid in exact change, and reflection checked, I glide into the church, almost like a ghost, and choose a pew at the back. I've swapped the sunglasses for a delightful hat with a veil that partially obscures my face.

Posed rather than seated, poised as if for flight, smooth legs tucked just so, I wait for the movie to begin.

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