The Likeness: A Novel (64 page)

“What else,” Abby asked, “what else do you remember?”
My heart felt like it was about to slam straight out of my chest. If I had this wrong, then I was going down in flames, and every second of this month had been for nothing at all—crashing through these four lives, hurting Sam, staking my job: all for nothing. I was throwing every chip I had onto the table, without the slimmest clue how good my hand was. In that instant I thought of Lexie: how she had lived her whole life like this, all in on the blind; what it had cost her, in the end.
“The jacket,” I said. “The note, in the jacket pocket.”
For a second I thought I had lost. Their faces, upturned to me, were so utterly blank, as if what I had said meant nothing at all. I was already whipping through ways to backpedal (coma dream? morphine hallucination?) when Justin whispered, a tiny devastated breath, “Oh God.”
You didn’t usually bring your cigarettes on your walk,
Daniel had said. I had been so focused on covering the slipup, it had taken me days to realize: I had burned Ned’s note. If Lexie didn’t have a lighter on her, then—short of eating the notes, which was a little extreme even for her—she had no quick way of getting rid of them. Maybe she had ripped them to tiny pieces on her way home, thrown the bits into hedges as she passed, like a dark Hansel-and-Gretel trail; or maybe she hadn’t wanted to leave even that much trace, maybe she had shoved them into her pocket to flush or burn later, at home.
She had been so fiercely careful, standing guard over her secrets. There was only one mistake I could imagine her making. Just once, hurrying home in the dark and the lashing rain—because it had to have been raining—with the baby already turning the edges of her mind to cotton wool and escape hammering through every vein, she had pushed the note into her pocket without remembering that the jacket she was wearing wasn’t all hers. She had been betrayed by the same thing she was betraying: the closeness of them, how much they had shared.
“Well,” Rafe said, reaching for his glass, one eyebrow arching up. He was trying for his best world-weary look, but his nostrils flared, just slightly, with each breath. “Nicely done, Justin my friend. This should be interesting.”
“What? What are you talking about, nicely done? She already
knew
—”
“Shut up,” said Abby. She had gone white, freckles standing out like face paint.
Rafe ignored her. “Well, if she didn’t, she does now.”
“It’s
not my fault.
Why do you always, always blame me for everything?”
Justin was very close to losing it. Rafe raised his eyes to the ceiling. “Do you hear me complaining? As far as I’m concerned, it’s about bloody time we got this over with.”
“We are not discussing this,” Abby said, “until Daniel gets home.”
Rafe started to laugh. “Oh, Abby,” he said. “I do love you, but sometimes I wonder about you. You have to know that, once Daniel gets home, we won’t be discussing this at all.”
“This is about all five of us. We don’t talk about it till we’re all here.”
“That’s crap,” I said. My voice was rising and I let it. “It’s such crap I can’t even listen to it. If this is about all five of us, then why didn’t you tell me weeks ago? If you can talk about it behind my back, then surely to God we can talk about it without Daniel.”
“Oh God,” Justin whispered again. His mouth was open, one hand trembling inches from it.
Abby’s mobile started to ring, in her bag. I had been listening for that sound all the way home, all the time in my room. Frank had let Daniel go.
“Leave it!” I yelled, loud enough to stop her hand midreach. “It’s Daniel, and I know exactly what he’s going to say anyway. He’ll just order you not to tell me anything, and I am so fucking
sick
of him treating me like I’m six! If anyone has a right to know exactly what happened here, it’s me. If you try to answer that bloody phone I swear I’m going to
stamp
on it!” I meant it, too. Sunday afternoon, all the traffic was headed into Dublin, not out; if Daniel floored it—and he would—and managed not to get pulled over, he could be home in maybe half an hour. I needed every second of that.
Rafe laughed, a small rough sound. “Attagirl,” he said, raising his glass to me.
Abby stared at me, her hand still halfway to her bag.
“If you guys don’t tell me what’s going on,” I said, “I’m phoning the cops right now and I’m telling them everything I remember. I am.”
“Jesus,” Justin whispered. “Abby . . .”
The phone stopped ringing.
“Abby,” I said, taking a deep breath. I could feel my nails digging into my hands. “I can’t do this if you guys keep leaving me out. This is
important.
I can’t . . . we can’t work this way. Either we’re all in this together or we’re not.”
Justin’s phone rang.
“You don’t even have to tell me who actually did it, if you don’t want to.” I was pretty sure that if I listened hard enough I’d hear Frank banging his head off a wall, somewhere, but I didn’t care: one step at a time. “I just want to know what happened. I’m so sick of everyone knowing but me. I’m so sick of it. Please.”
“She’s got every right to know,” Rafe said. “And personally, I’m also pretty sick of living my life on the basis of ‘Because Daniel said so.’ How well has that been working out for us, so far?”
The ringing stopped. “We should call him back,” Justin said, half out of his chair. “Shouldn’t we? What if he’s been arrested and he needs bail money, or something?”
“He hasn’t been arrested,” Abby said automatically. She dropped back into the chair and ran her hands over her face, blew out a long breath. “I keep telling you, they need evidence to arrest someone. He’s fine. Lexie, sit down.”
I stayed where I was. “Oh, God, sit
down,
” Rafe said, on a long-suffering sigh. “I’m going to tell you this whole pathetic saga anyway, whether anyone else likes it or not, and you’re getting on my nerves, fidgeting there. And Abby, chill out. We should have done this weeks ago.”
After a moment I went to my chair, by the fireplace. “Much better,” Rafe said, grinning at me. There was a reckless, risky gaiety in his face; he looked happier than he had in weeks. “Have a drink.”
“I don’t want one.”
He swung his legs off the sofa, poured a big sloppy vodka and orange and passed it to me. “Actually, I think we should all have another drink. We’re going to need it.” He topped up glasses with a flourish—Abby and Justin didn’t seem to notice—and raised his to the room. “Here’s to full disclosure.”
“OK,” Abby said, on a deep breath. “OK. If you really want to do this, and it’s coming back to you anyway, then I guess . . . what the hell.”
Justin opened his mouth, then shut it again and bit his lips.
Abby ran her hands through her hair, smoothing it hard. “Where do you want us to . . . ? I mean, I don’t know how much you remember, or . . .”
“Bits,” I said. “They don’t fit together or anything. Just go from the beginning. ” All the adrenaline had dissolved out of my blood and I felt so calm, all of a sudden. This was the last thing I would ever do in Whitethorn House. I could feel it all around me, every inch of it singing with sun and dust motes and memory, waiting to hear what came next. I felt like we had all the time in the world.
“You were heading out for your walk,” Rafe said helpfully, flopping back onto the sofa, “around, what, just after eleven? And Abby and I discovered we were both out of smokes. Funny, isn’t it, what little things make all the difference? If we’d been nonsmokers, this might never have happened. When they talk about the evils of tobacco, they never mention this.”
“You said you’d pick some up on your way,” Abby said. She was watching me carefully, hands clasped tight in her lap. “But you’re always gone for at least an hour, so I figured I might as well run out and get them at the petrol station. It looked like it was going to rain, so I threw on the jacket—I mean, it didn’t seem like you wanted it, you were already putting your coat on. I stuck my wallet in the pocket, and . . .”
Her voice trailed off and she made a small, tense gesture that could have meant anything. I kept my mouth shut. No more leading, if I could help it. The rest of this story had to come from them.
“And she pulled out this piece of paper,” Rafe said, through a cigarette, “and went, ‘What’s this?’ Nobody paid much attention, at first. We were all in the kitchen; we were doing the washing up, me and Justin and Daniel, and arguing about something or other—”
“Stevenson,” Justin said, softly and very sadly. “Remember? Jekyll and Hyde. Daniel was going on about them; something to do with reason and instinct. You were in a silly mood, Lexie, you said you’d had enough shop talk for the night and anyway Jekyll and Hyde would both have been crap in bed, and Rafe said, ‘A one-track mind, and it’s a dirt track . . .’ We were all laughing.”
“And then Abby said, ‘Lexie, what the hell?’ ” said Rafe. “A whole lot louder. We all stopped messing about and turned around, and she was holding out this ratty bit of paper and looking like someone had slapped her across the face—I’ve never seen her look like that, ever.”
“That’s the part I remember,” I said. My hands felt like they’d been melted onto the arms of the chair by some blast of heat. “Then it goes fuzzy again.”
“Luckily for you,” Rafe said, “we can help you with that. I think the rest of us will remember every second for the rest of our lives. You said, ‘Give me that,’ and grabbed for the piece of paper, but Abby jumped back, fast, and passed it to Daniel.”
“I think,” Justin said, in a low voice, “that was when we started to realize there was something serious happening. I’d been about to say something silly about a love letter—just teasing you, Lexie—but you were so . . . You
lunged
at Daniel, trying to get it away from him. He shot out his other hand to hold you off, sort of reflexively, but you were fighting him, really fighting—punching at his arm, trying to kick him, grabbing for that thing. You didn’t make a single sound. That’s what frightened me most, I think: the silence. It seemed like people should be shouting or screaming or
something,
like then I might be able to
do
something, but it was so quiet—just you and Daniel breathing hard, and the tap still running . . .”
“Abby caught hold of your arm,” Rafe said, “but you whipped round, with your fists up; I honestly thought you were about to go for her. Justin and I were standing there gawping like a pair of morons, trying to figure out what the fuck—I mean, two seconds ago we’d been on Jekyll sex, for God’s sake. As soon as you let go of Daniel, he shoved the paper at me, caught your wrists from behind and told me, ‘Read that.’ ”
“I didn’t like it,” Justin said softly. “You were
flinging
yourself back and forth, trying to pull away from Daniel, but he wouldn’t let go. It was . . . You tried to bite him, his arm. I thought he shouldn’t be doing that, if it was your paper then he should let you have it, but I just couldn’t catch up enough to say anything.”
I wasn’t surprised. These were not men of action here; their currencies were thoughts and words, and they had been catapulted into something that blew both of those right out of the water. What did surprise me, what set warning lights flashing at the back of my mind, was the speed and ease with which Daniel had snapped into action.
“So,” Rafe said, “I read the thing out loud. It said, ‘Dear Lexie, have thought it over and OK we can talk about 200K. Please get in touch ’cause I know we both want to get this deal wrapped up. Best regards, Ned.’ ”
“Surely to God,” Justin said softly and bitterly, into the airless silence, “you remember that.”
“The spelling was shit,” said Rafe, through his cigarette. “He actually had a number two for ‘to,’ like a fucking
fourteen
-year-old. What an utter moron. Apart from anything else, I would’ve expected you to have better taste than to mess about making shoddy little deals with someone like that.”
“Would you have?” Abby asked. Her eyes were very steady on mine, searching, and her hands had gone still in her lap. “If none of this had happened, would you really have sold out to Ned?”
When I think about how breathtakingly cruel I was to those four, this is one of the few things that make me feel any better: I could have said yes, then. I could have told them exactly what Lexie was planning to do to them, to everything they had put their hearts and minds and bodies into building. Maybe that would have hurt them less, in the end, than thinking it had all been over nothing; I don’t know. All I know is that the last time I had a choice, and much too late to make any difference, I lied for the right reasons.
“No,” I said. “I just . . . God. I just needed to know I could. I freaked out, Abby. I started feeling trapped and I panicked. It was never about actually leaving. I just had to know I could leave, if I wanted to.”
“Trapped,” Justin said, and his head moved in a quick, hurt jerk. “With us,” but I saw Abby’s fast blink as she realized: the baby.
“You were going to stay.”
“Oh God, I wanted to stay,” I said, and I still don’t know and never will whether this one was a lie at all. “So much, Abby. I really did.”
After a long moment she nodded, almost imperceptibly.
“I told you,” Rafe said, tipping his head back and blowing smoke at the ceiling. “Fucking Daniel. Up until last
week
he was still practically hysterical with paranoia about that. I told him I’d talked to you and you had no intention of going anywhere, but God forbid he should listen to anyone.”
Abby didn’t react to that, didn’t move; it looked like she wasn’t even breathing. “And now?” she asked me. “Now what?”
For a light-headed second I lost the thread, thought she had made me and was asking if I wanted to stay anyway. “What do you mean?”
“She means,” Rafe said, his voice cool and clipped and very level, “when this conversation is over, are you going to phone Mackey or O’Neill or the village idiots and turn us in. Shop us. Rat us out. Whatever the appropriate expression is, in these circumstances.”
You’d think this would have sent guilt shooting through me like pins and needles, spreading from that mike red-hot against my skin, but the only thing I felt was sad: a huge, final, dragging sadness, like an ebb tide down in my bones. “I’m not going to say anything to anyone,” I said, and felt Frank, off in his little humming circle of electronics, approve. “I don’t want you guys going to jail. No matter what happened.”
“Well,” Abby said softly, almost to herself. She sat back in her chair and smoothed her skirt, absently, with both hands. “Well, then . . .”