Her Fearful Symmetry (40 page)

In the morning he crawled out of bed with a hangover and a feeling of having forgotten something. Jessica made him drink a foul-tasting concoction that included bananas, tomatoes, vodka, milk and Tabasco sauce. Then she fried some eggs and sat with him while he ate. James had already gone to the cemetery.

Jessica said, “James and I talked it over last night and we think you need looking after. Would you like to come and stay with us? We have loads of room.” She smiled.

Robert’s heart leapt. Here was the escape hatch he had been searching for; the words of acceptance were nearly on his tongue when he thought,
Wait. If I’m staying here I won’t be able to go to the cemetery at night.
He said, “May I think about it?”

“Of course,” Jessica said. “We’ll be here.”

He thanked her and left the house in the mood of a shipwrecked man who has allowed the rescue ship to pass him by.

Robert finally remembered his resolution to read the diaries the following morning. With trepidation he heaved the boxes onto the bed and began to go through them.

Just pretend it’s research,
he told himself.
It won’t bite.
The diaries began in 1971: Elspeth and Edie were twelve. He was relieved to see that they ended, abruptly, in 1983, long before he himself entered the picture; Robert had not been looking forward to reading about himself. The diaries were a hodgepodge of school gossip, comments on books she was reading, musings about boys; some of the writing seemed to be in code. The author carried out long conversations and arguments with herself; suddenly Robert realised that Elspeth and her twin had written the diaries together. The effect was strangely seamless. It made Robert uneasy. There were symbols in the margins that appeared only during holidays and seemed to mean something about Elspeth and Edie’s parents; there was a plan to run away that came to nothing. But Robert knew her home life had been unhappy: there were no real surprises, only an ominous sadness that mixed with ordinary girl things, netball and the school play and such. The later volumes detailed university life, parties, the twins’ first apartment. Jack appeared on the scene, at first as one of many handsome, eligible young men, then as someone around whom everything suddenly revolved. As an only child, Robert had a certain curiosity about other people’s siblings. Elspeth and Edie seldom wrote in the first person singular; it was almost always “we” who went to the movies or sat an exam. Robert ploughed on, wondering what he was searching for in Elspeth’s juvenilia.

The bomb came in the last diary; Elspeth had tucked an envelope inside the cover. The envelope was labelled “Big, dark, horrible secrets.” It had a skull and crossbones inexpertly drawn under this inscription. The skull was smiling.
Oh, Elspeth. I don’t want to know.
Robert held the envelope and considered burning it. Then he slit it open.

The letter had been written a week before her death. Robert sat on the bed, holding it, trying to grasp what it meant.
Everything was a lie, then?
No, surely not. But he had not even known her name.
Who was it that I loved?

He put everything back in the boxes and brought it all to the tiny servant’s bedroom at the back of the flat; then he shut the door and tried to put the letter out of his mind, but it intruded on him constantly, no matter what he was doing. Over the next few days Robert took to drinking more often, and stayed in his flat alone.

V
ALENTINA AND ELSPETH spent long hours conferring over the details of their plan. Everything had to be natural, casual. Elspeth worked out a way for Valentina to take some money from the account she shared with Julia; it would be enough for a year or two, if Valentina was frugal, and the money would not be missed until after the funeral. Valentina found a few anatomy books in the flat and spread them on the floor of the guest room for Elspeth. It was almost a game for them, to anticipate all the potential difficulties, to circumvent Robert’s objections, to avoid alarming Julia.
What if…?
one of them would begin, and they would converge on the problem like detectives until they had cracked it. They had private jokes, a secret language. It was all immensely satisfying, or would have been, if they had been planning a picnic, or a surprise party, anything other than Valentina’s death. Elspeth was amazed at Valentina’s relish for the details of the plan, and her ability to inflict grief thoughtlessly.
But I’m no better. I’m helping her to do it. She wouldn’t do it if she knew…And what if it doesn’t work? What if it does?
Elspeth watched Valentina and debated with herself. She thought,
We mustn’t; it’s terribly wrong.
But each night Robert would come and take Valentina away for dinner, for a walk. They always came back late, and whispered together in the hallway. Elspeth hardened her heart.

R
OBERT DREAMT that it was Resurrection Day at Highgate Cemetery.

He stood at the top of the steps next to the grave of James Selby, the coachman. Selby sat on his grave, oblivious to the heavy chain running through his chest from grave post to grave post. He was smoking a pipe and tapping one booted foot nervously against the ground.

Trumpets brayed in the distance. Robert turned and saw that the path into the cemetery was covered with a long canopy of red fabric, and the dirt and gravel and mud of the path itself were draped in white silk. It was winter again, and the silk was almost the same white as the snow that lay over the graves. He saw through the trees that all the paths were swathed in red and white. Robert found himself walking. He looked down anxiously, afraid that his muddy boots would stain the silk, but he wasn’t leaving any tracks.

He came to Comfort’s Corners and found tables set out for a banquet. There was no food, only places laid with china and cutlery, empty wine glasses and empty chairs. The trumpets stopped, and Robert heard trees rattling in the wind. There were voices, but he couldn’t gauge where they were.

Sit down,
someone said, but it wasn’t a voice, really, it was more like a thought that came from outside his head. He sat at a place near the edge of the cluster of tables and waited.

The ghosts arrived slowly, picking their way along the silk paths with unsure steps. They crowded around the tables, translucent, dressed in their grave clothes, winding sheets, their Sunday best. The air became dense with ghosts.
More than one hundred and sixty-nine thousand people were buried in this cemetery.
Robert wondered if all of them could fit around the tables. The ghosts shivered in the morning light.
They look like jellyfish.
There was a ripple of dissatisfaction: the ghosts were hungry; there was no food. He thought he saw Elizabeth Siddal and began to stand up with a thought of going to speak to her, but a hand on his shoulder kept him in his chair.

There were immense numbers of ghosts now. The tables had multiplied as well. A voice, well-known, long wished-for, spoke just behind him. “Robert,” said Elspeth, “what are you doing here?”

“I’m not sure. Looking for you?” He tried to turn, but again he was restrained.

“No-don’t. I don’t want-not here.” She was pressed close to him. He felt uneasy, confined. Suddenly he had the sense that something horrible, monstrous, was standing behind him, pressing its disgusting hands on him.

He shouted out her name, so loudly that he woke the twins in their bedroom; so loudly that Elspeth herself lay on the floor above his bed for hours in the slowly increasing grey light, waiting to hear him call her again.

T
HE PHONE rang. Edie stretched out her hand and brought it to her ear, but did not immediately say anything. She was curled on her side, in bed; it was almost nine in the morning. Jack was at work.

“Mom?”

Edie sat up. She smoothed back her hair with her fingers as though Valentina could see her. “Hello?” She sounded as though she had been awake for hours. “Valentina?”

“Hi.”

“Are you all right? Where’s Julia?”

“She’s upstairs. Hanging out with Martin.”

Edie felt the adrenaline subside.
She’s fine. They’re both fine.
“We missed talking to you on Sunday. Where were you?”

“Oh…I’m sorry. We just…lost track of the days, you know?”

“Oh,” said Edie. She felt a pang of neglect. “So, what’s up?”

“Nothing…I just felt like calling you.”

“Mmm, you’re sweet. So what’s going on?”

“Not much. It’s kind of rainy and chilly here.”

“You sound a little down,” Edie said.

“Oh…I dunno. I’m fine.” Valentina was sitting in the back garden, shivering in the drizzle. She hadn’t wanted Elspeth listening in on this conversation, but it was suddenly awfully cold for June and she had to make an effort to keep her teeth from chattering. “What’s up with you and Dad?”

“The usual. Dad just got a promotion, so we were out last night celebrating.” Edie could hear birds through the phone. “Where are you?”

“In the backyard.”

“Oh. Have you and Julia been anywhere fun lately?”

“Julia’s got almost the whole city memorised now. She can walk around without the map.”

“That’s impressive…” Edie thought,
There’s stuff she’s not telling me.
But then she thought that was inevitable:
They move away and soon you have no idea. They make their own world and you don’t belong any more.
Valentina was asking a question about a dress she was trying to make; Edie told her to email the sketch and then remembered that the twins had no scanner.

“Yeah, oh well. Never mind,” said Valentina. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Edie said.
She just sounds strange.

“Yeah. I’ve got to go now, Mom. I love you.”
If I stay on the phone I’ll cry.

“Okay, sweetie. I love you too.”