The house is eerily silent as I head upstairs, one step at a time. Even they don’t creak. I find Trixie in her bedroom, but she isn’t crying or curled up in the corner as I thought she might be. Instead my niece is searching for something in her little pink suitcase.
‘Hello, Aunty Daisy,’ she says, looking up as I enter the room.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
‘Getting dressed,’ she replies, as though it was a ridiculous question. ‘Can’t stay in my PJs all day long when we have so much to do.’
She’s still crying. I wonder whether she is suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress. Maybe she shot Rose by accident, we were all so scared. Then I remember the sleeping pills, and wonder whether this might be a terrible reaction to the drugs Lily gave her.
‘Your mum . . . she put some pills in your drink earlier. Trying to help you sleep . . .’
‘I know, it’s not the first time my own mother tried to drug me. I didn’t drink the tea. I tipped it into a potted plant in the lounge when none of you were looking,’ Trixie replies, unfolding some clothes and laying an outfit on the bed. Right next to the gun she shot Rose with.
‘Do you remember what you just did?’ I ask very slowly.
‘You are funny, Aunty Daisy. I’m not the one who has trouble remembering things,’ she says. Her tears have stopped.
One Mississippi . . .
‘What does that mean?’ I ask.
‘You always do this . . . forget what really happened,’ she replies, with a strange look of pity on her face. I don’t understand anything she is saying.
Two Mississippi . . .
‘Are you telling me that you didn’t kill Rose and the rest of the family?’ I ask, desperate for there to be some other explanation.
‘Of course I didn’t . . .’ Trixie starts to say, and I feel a brief moment of relief. Maybe this is just a bad dream and I’ll wake up soon. But it isn’t. ‘I couldn’t possibly have killed them all by myself. I had help.’
I feel dizzy and strange.
‘What are you talking about?’ I ask, losing my temper. ‘What have you done? Why would you murder the whole family? And why didn’t you kill me too?’
Three Mississippi . . .
‘Stop being silly, Aunty Daisy. I couldn’t kill you because you’re already dead.’
Forty-seven
31 October 6:30 a.m.
low tide
It feels like I’m falling.
‘What did you say?’ I ask Trixie, but she turns her back on me and starts to get changed. She takes off the pink pyjamas, neatly folding the cotton fabric before placing them beneath her pillow. I watch as she calmly dresses in a pink cotton shirt and pink dungarees instead.
‘Why don’t you sit down on the bed?’ she suggests. ‘You sometimes faint when you remember that you’re dead. I’ve seen you do it a few times now.’
I am dreaming. That’s what this must be . . . a nightmare. Nothing else makes sense. Which means I just have to wake up.
Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.
‘You’re not dreaming, Daisy. You’ve been dead for years,’ Trixie says, as though she can read my mind. I do sit down on the bed, but only because it feels like I’m falling again.
‘I can’t be dead. I have a job. The old people’s home . . .’ I whisper.
‘So you always tell me. But how much do they pay you these days?’ Trixie asks.
‘They don’t pay me . . . I volunteer there. I—’
‘You visit the care home. You don’t volunteer. None of the staff have ever heard of you. And most of the residents have never seen you. You go there because it’s one of the few places you do occasionally feel seen. People seem to see you just before they die – like Rose did a few minutes ago – and you like comforting the residents when they’re scared and alone at the end. It’s sweet really, but it’s not a job. It’s just something you do to convince yourself you’re still alive.’ She sighs and looks genuinely sad. ‘I do love you, Aunty Daisy, and I hate seeing you so upset. Try to remember that night, after the Halloween beach party in 1988.’
My train of thought has derailed. The child has lost her mind.
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Please try to remember. Concentrate,’ she says, sounding impatient. ‘You were on the rocks, you saw my mum and Conor doing something they shouldn’t have been doing – although if they hadn’t, I guess I wouldn’t exist. Then what happened?’