Me and You (7 page)

She looked liked she’d been chewed up and spat out by a monster who had found her too bitter to eat. It took her half an hour to sit up. She had cushion marks on her cheek and forehead.
She kept rubbing her eyes and moving her tongue around inside her mouth. Finally she let out one word: ‘Water.’

I brought some to her. She put the bottle to her mouth and drank deeply. Then, wincing, she began touching her arms and her legs. ‘Everything hurts. It’s like I’ve got barbed
wire inside my muscles.’

I put my hands up. ‘You must have got the flu. I don’t have any medicine here. You should go to the chemist. If you go to the square . . .’

‘I haven’t got the strength to leave.’

‘What? You promised you’d leave this morning.’

Olivia rubbed her hand across her forehead. ‘Is this how they brought you up? They’ve taught you to be a complete wanker. Although it’s not just about upbringing – there
must be something twisted and wrong inside of you.’

I didn’t speak. I kept my head down, unable to answer. What the hell did she want from me? She wasn’t even my sister. I didn’t know her. I didn’t annoy anyone, so why did
she have to annoy me? She had come into my den under false pretences and now she didn’t want to leave.

She struggled to stand up, then she got down on her knees with a grimace of pain and looked straight at me. Her pupils were so wide and black that the grey of her irises was hardly noticeable.
‘Look, if you stay hidden away in here, minding your own business, it doesn’t mean that you’re a good person. It’s just a cop-out.’

It was as if she had read my mind.

‘I’m sorry . . . There’s not enough food for both of us. That’s the only reason. And you have to be quiet here. And then . . . No. No way. I have to stay here by
myself,’ I stammered, squeezing my hands into fists.

She put her hands up as if she surrendered. ‘Fine, I’ll leave. You’re a real wanker.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you’re out of your mind.’

‘Exactly.’

‘And you stink.’

I sniffed under my arm. ‘What do I care? I can stink as much as I want. And look who’s talking. You stink too . . .’

Right then the phone rang.

It was my mother.

I pretended I couldn’t hear it, hoping it would stop, but it didn’t.

Olivia looked at me. ‘What? Are you not going to answer it?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because.’

It didn’t stop. Mum must be really angry. I could see her, sitting on her bed, huffing and puffing. I snapped into action, jumping over the furniture to reach the phone. I answered.
‘Mum.’

‘Lorenzo. Is everything okay?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ve called you a hundred times.’

‘Did you not get my text?’

‘Did you think that was enough? You should have called me before you went up to the mountain.’

‘I know . . . I’m sorry, but we decided at the very last minute. I was just about to call you.’

‘You had me worried. How are you?’

‘Fine. Just fine.’

‘I have to talk to Alessia’s mother.’

‘She can’t talk now. Call back later.’

She was silent for a second, then she blew up. ‘That’s it, Lorenzo. You either let me speak to Alessia’s mother or I’ll call the other kids’ parents.’ Her
voice was hard and she was holding back from yelling. ‘I’ve had enough of this story. What are you hiding from me?’

She had me cornered. I couldn’t get away with it any more. I looked at Olivia. ‘Here she is . . . Hang on while I go and get her. I’ll see if she can come to the phone.’
I put the phone down and I got off the window sill. I sat down next to Olivia and whispered in her ear, ‘Please, you have to help me . . . I’m begging you. You have to pretend to be
Alessia’s mother. Mum thinks I’m skiing in Cortina with this girl called Alessia Roncato who invited me there for ski week. You have to pretend to be Alessia’s mother. Tell her
I’m fine and that everything’s going fine. Oh, and it’s really important you tell her that I’m nice.’

A wicked smile curved my half-sister’s mouth. ‘No chance . . .’

‘Please.’

‘I’d rather die.’

I took her by the wrist. ‘If she finds out I haven’t gone skiing I’m dead. They’ll send me to the psychologist again.’

She shook herself free of my grip. ‘No way . . . No way am I helping out a selfish little shit who’s kicking me out of his flea-ridden cellar.’

What a bitch. She’d fucked me over again.

‘Okay, fine. If you talk to her, you can stay.’

She picked up her boots. ‘Who says I want to stay here?’

‘I swear I’ll do anything you want.’

‘On your knees.’ And she pointed to the floor.

‘On my knees?’

‘On your knees.’

I obeyed.

‘Repeat. I swear on my parents’ lives that I will be Olivia Cuni’s slave . . .’

‘Come on, she’s still on the phone . . . Go on,’ I whimpered in distress.

She was calm. ‘Say it.’

She was killing me. ‘I swear on my parents’ lives that I will be Olivia Cuni’s slave . . .’

‘For the rest of my life . . .’

‘For the rest of my life?! Are you crazy?’ I looked up at the ceiling and snorted. ‘For the rest of my life.’

‘And I will always be kind and generous to her.’

‘And I will always be kind and generous to her. Now, please . . .’

She got up, wincing with pain. ‘Does your mother know this woman?’

‘No.’

‘What’s the daughter’s name?’

‘Alessia. Alessia Roncato.’

She walked like an old arthritic woman and it was a struggle for her to reach the window. She must really not have been well. But when she spoke her voice was bright. ‘Hello, Mrs Cuni!
Good morning. How is everything?’

I began biting my hand in anxiety.

She sounded so happy to be speaking to my mother.

‘Of course . . . of course . . . Yes, of course. Lorenzo told me. Please forgive me for not having called you myself . . . No, it’s my fault, but we’ve just been so busy. You
know how things are up in the mountains . . . My pleasure . . . My pleasure . . . Thank you, it’s been a pleasure to have him with us. He’s such a well-behaved boy . . . Of course.
Anyhow, everything is fine. Snow? Is there much snow?’ She looked at me unsure of what to say.

‘A bit,’ I suggested in a whisper.

‘A bit,’ she said calmly. ‘Alessia is so happy.’ She looked at me and shook her head. ‘Your son, if I may say so, is very funny. He makes us all laugh. It’s a
real pleasure to have him with us. He’s such a generous young man.’

‘Fantastic. You’re a star,’ I said, without even realising I was talking out loud.

‘I’m happy to leave you my mobile phone number. Anyhow, we’ll call you again. Take care . . . You have a nice day too. Bye . . . Of course . . . Thank you. Thanks.’ And
she hung up.

I jumped with my arms up in the air. ‘Hooray! You’re a star. You were exactly like Alessia’s mother. Do you know her?’

‘I know her sort,’ she said and slumped against the wall, squeezed her eyes shut, opened them again, and then she looked at me and vomited into her hands.

She kept on vomiting in the bathroom. Or rather, she tried to, but wasn’t able. Then she flopped down on the settee exhausted and took her trousers off. Her white legs
trembled and kicked the air like they were trying to free themselves of the trembling. ‘Here it comes. Fuck, it’s here . . .’ she panted with her eyes closed.

What sort of illness did she have? What if it were contagious?

‘What’s up?’

‘Nothing . . . It’s nothing.’

‘What’s the matter with you? Is this illness catching?’

‘No. You don’t need to worry. Leave me alone. Just mind your own business like I’m not here. All right?’

I swallowed. ‘All right.’

She had malaria. Like Caravaggio.

She’d told me to mind my own business. Perfect. No problem. I was a master at doing that. I settled down to play Soul Reaver. I was still struggling to beat that same old
mutant. Every now and then I couldn’t help stealing a look at her.

She couldn’t keep still for more than a minute. She was distressed, constantly changing position like she was lying on a carpet of broken bottles. She wrapped herself in the blanket then
threw it off and fidgeted and flinched like somebody was torturing her.

It was driving me crazy the way she was doing these over-the-top groans. It sounded like she was faking it just to annoy me.

I put my headphones on and turned the volume all the way up, rolled over and faced the wall and stuck my head so deeply inside my book that I went cross-eyed. I read a couple of lines and then I
closed my eyes.

I opened them two hours later. Olivia was sitting on the edge of the settee, all sweaty, jiggling her legs anxiously and staring at the floor. She had taken her cardigan off.
She was wearing a saggy, dark blue vest and you could see her boobs hanging down. She was so thin, all bones, with long narrow feet, a thin neck like a greyhound and wide shoulders, and her arms .
. .

What did she have in the middle of her arms?

Purple spots studded with little red dots.

She lifted her head up. ‘You slept, didn’t you?’

That place in Sicily where Dad wanted to send her . . .

‘What?’

The money . . .

‘Did you sleep?’

The way my parents stopped talking about Olivia as soon as they saw me . . .

‘Yes . . .’

The illness that wasn’t catching.

‘I have to eat something . . .’

She was like those people in Villa Borghese. Those people who sit on the benches. Those people who ask you if you have any change. Those people with beers. I kept away from them. They’d
always scared me.

‘Can you give me a biscuit? A bit of bread?’

And now one of them was here.

I got up and took the bag of sliced bread over to her.

They were next to me. Inside my den.

She threw the bread down on the settee. ‘I want to wash . . . I disgust myself.’

‘There’s only cold water.’ I was surprised that I’d managed to answer.

‘Doesn’t matter. I have to do something, take control,’ she said to herself. She struggled to stand and went into the bathroom.

I waited to hear the water running and then I leapt to her backpack. Inside was a worn-out purse, a diary full of scraps of paper, her mobile phone – and some syringes wrapped in
plastic.

7

I lay on the bed, staring at the ceiling. It was quiet, but if I stopped breathing I could hear Olivia in the bathroom, the cars passing on the street, the sweeping of the
Silver Monkey’s broom in the courtyard, a phone ringing off in the distance, the pilot light in the boiler. And the smell of all that stuff piled up, the sharp, pungent smell of wooden
furniture and damp rugs.

A thud.

I lifted my head up off the pillow.

The bathroom door was ajar.

I got up and went to see.

Olivia was on the floor, naked, white, bent over between the toilet and the basin, trying to get up but unable to do so. Her legs kept slipping on the wet tiles like a horse on ice. She had only
a few hairs on her pussy.

I stood there staring at her.

She looked like a zombie. A zombie who has just been shot.

She saw me, standing there next to the door jamb and ground her teeth. ‘Get out! Get out of here! Shut that fucking door!’

I went over to get Countess Nunziante’s dressing gown and hung it on the doorknob for her. When she came out, wrapped in a filthy towel, she grabbed it, stared at it, slipped it on and
then lay down on the settee. Without saying a word she turned her back to me.

I put my headphones on. One of Dad’s CDs was on. It was a piece for piano which lasted forever, so calm and repetitive that it made me feel far away, on the other side of a screen, like I
was watching a documentary. Olivia and I weren’t in the same room.

My sister got worse and worse. She trembled like she had a temperature. She was a jetty against which waves of pain washed up. She kept her eyes closed, but she wasn’t sleeping. I could
hear her whining to herself. ‘Fuck off. What a fucking pain. I can’t take this anymore . . . I just can’t take any more.’

The unchanging music kept beating away in my ears while my sister got up from the settee then lay back down again. She scratched her legs till they bled. She got up again, she fretted, she
rested her head against the cupboard door, her face pulled tight in pain. She began inhaling and exhaling with her hands on her hips. ‘Come on, Oli, you can do it . . . Come on, come on, for
fuck’s sake.’ Then she curled up on her side with her hands pressed up against her face. She stayed like that for ages.

I breathed a sigh of relief. It looked like she had fallen asleep in that uncomfortable position. But she hadn’t. She got up and began kicking anything within reach.

I pulled off the headphones, got up and grabbed her by the wrist. ‘You have to shut up! If you keep this up everyone will hear us! Please . . .’

She looked at me with eyes shot through with blood and hate and pushed me away. ‘Please, my ass. Fuck off! Put your shitty little headphones back on. You idiot.’ She kicked the
porcelain dog, which fell over and smashed.

I begged. ‘Please . . . please . . . Don’t be like this . . . We’ll both be in trouble if you carry on like this. Don’t you get it?’

‘Get away. I swear to God I’m going to kill you.’ She shoved me against a glass lampshade, which shattered.

A blind rage engulfed me. My muscles tensed, and as though I were about to explode I screamed, ‘No, I’m going to kill you!’ And lowering my head I ran into her. ‘You have
to leave me alone! Don’t you get it?’ I stretched out my arms and pushed her roughly.

Olivia flew backwards, tripped and banged her shoulder into the cupboard. She didn’t move, her mouth open, unbelieving.

‘What do you want from me? Get out!’ I growled.

Olivia moved closer and slapped me. ‘Bastard . . . You have no right.’

I’m going to kill her now, I thought, touching my flaming hot cheek. I felt a burning lump in my throat. I held back my tears, made two fists and jumped on her. ‘Get out, you fucking
junkie.’

We ended up on the settee. I was on top, she was underneath. Olivia kicked her legs and slammed her fists in the air trying to get free of me but I was stronger than her. I grabbed her wrists
and screamed at her, centimetres from her face, ‘What the fuck do you want from me? Tell me!’