Teenage Rose continued her family news report. ‘I’m now joined by Nancy Darker, a.k.a. my mother, but she doesn’t like to be called that because it makes her feel old. Nobody knows how old my mother really is, but scientists say she was probably born in the Dark Ages. Any words of wisdom for the next generation, Mrs Darker?’
‘Yes. Make sure you film Lily or I’ll never hear the end of it. You’ve caused quite enough trouble for one day,’ said Nancy, before smiling for the camera. She was sitting next to Conor’s dad, and the shot zooms in on them holding hands, then returns to the front of the room.
My dad appeared then, walking out through the door that connects the music room to the kitchen. He sat down at the piano as though he had just stepped onto a stage. My father seemed to make more of an effort to attend family birthdays, and come home for the holidays, after my mother started dating other men. Lily walked through the door next. Then Nana followed her, which was a complete surprise for most of us, because Nana was actually painfully shy when it came to performing. Even around her own family. Just like me.
Dad started to play the piano, and I recognized the song immediately, it was another of Lily’s favourites. ‘I Know Him So Well’ was always blaring from her bedroom, behind the permanently closed door. She was in love with the performance by Elaine Paige and Barbara Dickson, so much so she had twisted Dad’s arm to play it and Nana to sing it with her as a surprise for the rest of us on her birthday. And it was a surprise. Because it was really very good. I didn’t even know Nana could sing. They hit every note and every harmony, and when the song was over, we all clapped in genuine admiration.
I remember how Lily sang the lyrics staring at Conor the whole time, and now that I’ve seen the video evidence, I know I didn’t imagine it. Lily got goggle-eyed whenever Conor walked into a room back then, and she had started blushing whenever he spoke to her. Which was one of the many reasons why I was pleased to see her looking so ugly with her short hair.
The night before this scene from our family past was filmed, Lily’s hair had been down to her waist. She had gone to bed in the room she shared with Rose, with two long plaits just like always, so that she wouldn’t wake up with a head full of tangles. But when she sat up the following morning, on her fourteenth birthday, she screamed. Her two plaits were on her pillow. Someone had cut them clean off her head in the night. Nana’s kitchen scissors were on Rose’s bedside table. But Rose didn’t cut off Lily’s hair. I did.
The people who love us the most hurt us the hardest, because they can.
When I found Nana and Lily secretly rehearsing together the day before, something inside me snapped.
Lily was always my mother’s favourite daughter.
Rose was my dad’s favourite because she was beautiful and clever.
But Nana was supposed to love me the most. She said I was her favourite.
Seeing Nana and Lily together felt like some kind of betrayal.
Lily and I had had a squabble a week earlier, and Nana said something I’ve never forgotten.
‘You should always fight, especially if you think you are going to lose. That’s when you should fight the hardest.’
So I did. Fight. But I did it quietly and carefully, and planned the whole thing so that I wouldn’t get caught. I stole some of my mother’s sleeping pills, I put them in my sisters’ hot chocolate before they went to bed that night, then I crept into their room and cut off Lily’s hair. Everyone thought that Rose had done it in her sleep – she was studying for exams, had been exhausted for weeks, and had already sleepwalked once before. I could tell that Rose – the clever daughter – didn’t believe she had done it. But she didn’t have an alternative explanation either. I’m not sure Lily ever really forgave her or trusted her again. Nobody suspected me. Nobody. As though a good person is incapable of doing something bad.
No one ever noticed me in my family except for Nana. Lily couldn’t have her too; Nana was mine. I hated her for trying to steal the affection of the only person who really loved me. And people can make a hobby out of hate. The more they practise, the better they get.
The rage I felt when Lily and Nana sang together was all-consuming. And it wasn’t just jealousy. I wanted revenge for all the horrible and unkind things that Lily had said and done to me over the years. I decided that cutting off my sister’s hair was just the start.
Thirty
31 October 3 a.m.
three hours until low tide
The tape comes to an abrupt end and ejects itself. Then the eighty clocks out in the hall inform us that it is three a.m. We all wait for the noise to stop.