It’s a little more sarcastic than I’d hoped for. I try again.
Nice pictures. You look great.
Don’t say that or I’ll find you boring.
Sorry
And don’t apologise. I hate that even more.
Can we start again?
What would you like to know?
Dogs or cats?
Dogs.
Your thoughts on pineapple on pizza.
A travesty.
Coffee or tea?
Neither.
So, I can’t invite you for a coffee?
We could have bubble tea
Sassy. Promising. I’m running out of questions.
What frightens you more – spinach or spiders?
Spiders. I’m a vegan.
Isn’t that a cult?
I’m trying to save the planet.
Or to be extra annoying at restaurants.
TBH this isn’t going to work out.
Have a nice life.
Another aborted romance. Maybe I’m too picky, but who knew that Nottingham would be such a shallow pool? I’m not looking for perfect, but I have some standards. No hats. No emo haircuts. No oversized sunglasses. No pouting. And keep your clothes on. A smile goes a long way.
My friend Morty is busking on the steps of the Council House. He’s looking after Poppy, my Labrador. When she hears me calling her name, she stands to attention, pricking up her ears. Her entire body wags and she presses her head into my hands. I feel a surge of happiness.
‘Has she behaved?’
‘Totally,’ says Morty. ‘She earned more than I did.’
An upturned fisherman’s cap is resting between his feet. Only a handful of coins are inside.
‘This cashless economy is killing me,’ he says.
Morty, whose real name is Mortimer, plays the harmonica and only knows four songs, all of them sea shanties. He likes making out that he’s homeless even though he’s couch-surfing at his sister’s place. And he’s always telling stories about people who were ‘discovered’ busking, like Ed Sheeran and Passenger.
I put a five-quid note into his hat.
‘What’s that for?’
‘Looking after Poppy.’
‘You don’t have to pay me.’
‘I know.’
He slips the money into his pocket. ‘Did you get the job?’
‘I’m officially a cocktail waitress.’
‘Is that a euphemism?’
‘Fuck off!’
I feel a drop of rain on my forehead and glance up into an ugly grey sky. I’d better hurry. Cyrus took the car today so I’m catching buses.
Morty tips the coins into his pocket and pulls the cap onto his head. The rain is getting heavier.
‘You want a ride?’ he asks.
‘You’re not going my way.’
‘I can make a detour.’
His car is parked nearby, an ageing Mini with blue doors and a brown bonnet. A hand-painted ‘for sale’ sign is resting on the dashboard.
‘You’re selling it.’
‘My sister is giving me her old car. She thinks this one is a death trap.’
‘Is it?’
‘No.’
‘How much do you want?’
‘Three hundred quid, but I’d knock off fifty for you.’
‘I have ninety-two pounds.’
‘I’m not a charity.’
‘Shame.’
Morty drops me outside the National Ice Centre, and I run through the rain, late for my therapy session. Poppy leads the way. We dodge pedestrians, who are huddled under awnings and in shop doorways, or dashing between cover. A hatted man with a briefcase, head down against the rain, almost runs into me.
Pausing at a crossing, I wait for the signal to turn green. I step off the kerb. Brakes screech. Metal meets metal. The nearest car is bumped from behind and shunted forward. I jump out of the way and the woman driver looks horrified.
Out of her car. ‘Are you all right? Did I hit you?’
She’s in her fifties, maybe older, well preserved, dressed in black except for a brightly coloured scarf knotted around her neck.
‘I can take you to hospital.’
‘I’m fine.’
Poppy puts her body between us, either introducing herself or protecting me.
A second driver emerges from his van. A big guy. Fit once. Muscled once. Gone to seed. He looks at the front of his van and starts yelling at the woman, calling her ‘a stupid cow’。
‘You just stopped. No warning. No indication.’
‘That’s not true,’ she says indignantly. ‘I signalled.’
He looks at the damage to the front of his van and swears under his breath.
‘Are you going to pay for this?’
‘It wasn’t my fault. You ran into the back of me.’
He mimics her accent and repeats the line, bouncing on his feet, crowding her space. I see her backing away.
Pedestrians have stopped to watch, and traffic is building up. Horns sound impatiently.
‘He’s lying,’ I say, stepping closer to the woman. ‘Don’t let him bully you.’
The man glares at me, but I see the flicker of doubt on his face. The lie. I cannot explain how I know these things. I wish I could point to a twitch, or a facial tic, or a vein pulsing in his forehead; or say that he double blinked, or his voice changed, or his eyes looked up to the left. I just know he’s lying. I always do.
‘Are you calling me a liar?’ he says, focusing his anger on me.
Poppy growls.
‘Yes. Maybe your phone rang, or you changed the song on the radio, or you were checking out some woman who was walking across the road. It’s your fault.’
The van driver isn’t used to being challenged. He wants to bully me, or hit me, or shove a sock down my throat. He could, I suppose, but I’d hit him back twice as hard. I’d bite and scratch and gouge. I’d fight like a girl.
I take a photograph of his van and the hatchback.
‘You should call the police,’ I say to the woman. ‘I’ll give a statement.’
In reality, I don’t want to get involved. I hate being the centre of attention. The van driver starts making excuses, saying that we don’t need to get the cops involved and we can sort this out ourselves.
‘How about we pull around the corner and swap details,’ he says.
The woman looks relieved.
‘Can you come with me?’ she asks.
‘I’ll go with him,’ I say, nodding towards the van.
I follow the driver.
‘Were you going to drive off?’
‘No.’
He’s telling the truth. He cocks his head to one side. ‘Who are you?’
‘I’m an eyewitness.’
3
Cyrus
Take away the twin steel fences, the razor wire and CCTV cameras, and Rampton could be mistaken for a health and wellness retreat, or an adventure sports centre with landscaped gardens and outdoor areas, a swimming pool, a shop, recreation rooms and a gym.
In all my visits, I have seen very few patients. They are kept apart, separated by gender and the acuteness of their illnesses. When Elias first arrived, he was in The Peaks, a unit for men with severe personality disorders, and spent eleven months in solitary because of his violent behaviour. For years, when moved around the hospital, he had to be chaperoned by four people. A lot has changed since then. He is medicated. Lucid. Placid as a winter pond.
Admittedly, he is not the brother I remember, the one I idolised and whose hand-me-down clothes I willingly wore because it made me feel closer to him. I didn’t mind being mistakenly called by his name by teachers, or by relatives, who remembered him more readily than me. The firstborn child is always the most fussed over and photographed. I came second. And the twins had a genetic advantage because who isn’t fascinated by an embryo splitting to form two perfect yet different halves?