Sisters and Lies Page 3

  ‘Stuff?’

  Janet coughed. ‘Okay, I’m just going to say it. She was getting out of control, Rachel. Drugs, mood swings, sex with strange men.’ She made the sign of the cross. ‘May God forgive me for saying all this because Evie won’t. She’ll fucking kill me.’

  I sat back in my chair, allowing myself to take in this new information. Well, new-ish information. I knew Evie had a wild side. It hadn’t been evident during her teenage years – back then, I’d been the wild one – but since we’d lost Mammy, since she’d moved to London, I knew she’d changed.

  I’d thought for the most part, though, it was under control. I mean, who in their right mind would move to the world’s greatest capital and not take drugs and sleep around? Within reason. I don’t mean injecting heroin into yourself in a squat in Stratford. I said as much to Janet.

  ‘I thought that too for a long time. I’m not exactly a stranger to class-As myself. I’m from Glasgow, after all …’

  We smiled grimly. Black humour. Always Janet’s strong point.

  ‘But she was changing as a person, Rachel. Becoming, I don’t know …’ She flung out her hands as if trying to grasp the right word. ‘Self-destructive, I suppose you’d call it. Sometimes she seemed okay – exercising and eating well, going to her evening classes in art. But every so often there’d be these massive blow-outs, snorting a load of coke, picking up random men. And then there were the other times.’

  ‘Other times?’

  ‘When she wouldn’t come out of her bedroom. When she’d just sleep all weekend …’

  I shuddered. It sounded so depressing.

  Janet drew a breath. ‘When I got together with Patrick, things went from bad to worse.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘She accused me of turning into, I quote, “a right boring cow”. Mainly because I’d reined in my drinking a bit.’

  ‘And she didn’t like it?’

  ‘To put it mildly. But I was nearly thirty and, for the first time in my life, in a good relationship that seemed to be headed somewhere. I wasn’t going to risk all that by getting off my face with Evie every night.’

  ‘And then she tried to sleep with your boyfriend.’

  Janet nodded, her eyes suddenly teary. ‘I was so angry with her, Rachel. I knew what she was trying to do. Destroy me and Patrick so she could have me back as her partner in crime. She didn’t like the new clean-living me with a life, a future.’

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Well, first I tried to reason with her, tried to get her to seek help. But when she refused, I just lost it. I told her she was a lying two-faced bitch for even suggesting Patrick had come on to her, and that if she ever attempted to mess with me or him again that perfectly formed nose would be bashed into the back of her skull.’ Janet sat back in her chair and took a deep breath.

  ‘So did you move out or did she kick you out?’

  ‘I moved out, bag and baggage, to Patrick’s, and that was the last I heard of her until today. Until you …’

  We sat in silence, looking at our half-eaten sandwiches.

  ‘Janet, please don’t think I don’t believe you, but no one has mentioned anything about drink or drugs in connection with the crash. Not yet, at any rate.’

  She nodded. ‘Doesn’t surprise me. The whole thing came in cycles. Sometimes Evie could be clean as a whistle. But when she went for it, I mean really went for it …’ Janet slapped her palms together.

  ‘Bang,’ I whispered.

  ‘Exactly.’

  She stood up. ‘I’m really sorry, Rach, but I’ve got to head off. I’m going on a bloody school tour to Belgium in the morning and haven’t packed yet. But please text me if there are any developments. Otherwise I’ll call you when I get home.’

  I stood up and we hugged.

  ‘The truth will come out, Rachel. It always does.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I said half-heartedly, as she headed for the door. To be perfectly honest, I’d never found that to be the case.

  5.

  As I made my way back to the hospital, mulling over what Janet had said, my phone rang. It was Detective Inspector Ainsworth, checking to see if I had arrived.

  ‘I had to go to Evie’s apartment briefly but I’m on my way back to the hospital.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there,’ he said. ‘Give you a run-down of the situation as we see it.’

  The situation as we see it? What the hell did that mean? As I saw it, my sister was lying in a coma with no guarantee that she would ever come out of it. How many other ways were there to see it, exactly?

  He was there when I arrived, a stocky man in plain clothes, sporting a paunch and a distinct air of superiority.

  ‘Ms Darcy,’ he said, extending his hand. ‘Pleased to meet you.’ Then he turned towards the nurse on Reception. ‘Nurse, have you that spare room free?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said, coming out from behind the desk and padding towards us. ‘Follow me.’

  A few seconds later we were outside a door, with a sign, ‘Family Room’, on it. We went in, a sense of panic rising in me. I couldn’t help feeling this was the place where doctors broke bad news: Your father has died … Your son will never walk again. Dr Bartlett hadn’t brought me here when she’d explained Evie’s condition, possibly with good reason. Rooms like this did not signal hope.

  ‘I just wanted to go through a few things with you, Ms Darcy. The legal side …’

  ‘Sure,’ I said, as a wave of exhaustion washed over me. It was nearly four in the afternoon now. Almost twelve hours since I’d got the phone call. Thirty-six hours since I’d returned home from Australia. In the meantime I felt like I’d been through some sort of mangle.

  ‘First, can I just clarify your sister’s full name?’

  ‘Eveline Darcy-Durant.’

  ‘But she goes by Eve Durant generally?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. As children we had made a pact to abandon the French part of our name, just as our father had abandoned us and fled back to France. But when Evie had moved to London she’d started using it again. All part of her self-reinvention.

  DI Ainsworth nodded and wrote something in his notepad. Then he cleared his throat. ‘Ms Durant was driving without a valid licence at the time of the accident, meaning she’ll be formally charged when she wakes up.’

  ‘She’s in a fucking coma,’ I spat, unable to help myself.

  ‘I fully appreciate how difficult this is for you, but I need to clarify all aspects,’ he replied, his jaw twitching. He seemed annoyed with me, which was fine because I was annoyed with him. Insensitive prat.

  ‘Furthermore, the car she was driving was not her own. It belonged to one …’ he glanced down at his notes ‘… one Donnagh Flood. We have spoken to Mr Flood and he says he doesn’t want to press charges or recoup damages incurred. However, since Ms Durant does not appear to have any insurance, she will be required to foot all other bills, most especially those in relation to the wall.’

  ‘The wall?’

  ‘Ms Durant crashed into a wall, the property of Lewisham Borough Council, and will be billed accordingly.’

  I stared at him, wondering if I’d been somehow transposed into a Kafka story: woman fights for her life as weird bureaucrat analyses how much she owes to the state. Was this some kind of joke?

  ‘So have you people figured out what happened to my sister?’ I said, trying to turn the tables a little. ‘Evie can’t have crashed for no reason. Somebody must have driven her off the road.’

  Ainsworth eyed me coolly. ‘Ms Darcy, I don’t think you understand. There was no other driver. Ms Durant was alone on the road – well, save a few parked cars, which, luckily, she managed to avoid.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘It was quarter to midnight in a quiet suburb. She was the only one driving at the time, and there were no mitigating circumstances – no frost, no brake problems or otherwise with the car. Our mechanics have checked.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘
I’m saying that the accident seems to have been the fault of the driver herself. She wasn’t intoxicated but there are indications she was speeding. It could have been inexperience – as I said, she didn’t have a valid driver’s licence.’

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Or maybe …’

  ‘Maybe what, Inspector?’

  ‘Single-vehicle collision, dead of night.’

  I didn’t like what he was implying. ‘Are you trying to say it was attempted suicide?’

  He had the good grace to blush. ‘We can’t rule it out,’ he said, retrieving his coat from where he’d left it on a nearby seat. ‘The hospital will let me know if there’s any change in your sister’s condition. I sincerely hope there is.’

  ‘So you can formally charge her?’ I muttered.

  The policeman drew himself up to his full height. ‘Ms Darcy, I accept that this situation is hard to come to terms with, but please bear in mind that I have a job to do. If your sister goes to court, she will most likely get a rap on the knuckles and a community-service order rather than a custodial sentence. But she has broken the law and this must be recognized.’ He put on his coat, bade me good day and walked out of the room, leaving me alone.

  ‘Wanker,’ I whispered, at the still-swooshing door, not caring if he heard me.

  I thought about all he had said. Jesus Christ, what had Evie got herself into? And why had she stolen her boyfriend’s car?

  And then I thought about the attempted-suicide comment, and his apologetic stance as he’d made it. What I’d failed to mention was that, if Evie had tried to kill herself, it wouldn’t have been for the first time.

  6.

  Evie

  So, to clear up that conundrum once and for all, can people in a coma hear? The answer is yes. Loud and clear, Captain.

  Well, I can anyway. Maybe other people in this situation haven’t a clue what’s going on, and I’m the one-in-a-million freak show, but I doubt it. Human science really is a dark art, isn’t it? No wonder I dropped out of medical school all those years ago. Might as well have been reading tea leaves.

  I’m being facetious. Which shouldn’t come as a surprise, seeing as I’m IN A COMA and my life has boiled down to this terrible nothingness. I’m exaggerating a bit when I say I hear ‘everything’ loud and clear. I hear fragments. I recognize voices. I already have my favourite nurse, whose name is Heather and who hums when she’s alone with me. So far, I’ve recognized Beyoncé’s ‘Crazy In Love’ and Snoop Dogg’s ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’, although the latter needs a bit more work. Fair play to her for trying to hum hip-hop, though.

  I’m pretty sure I’ve heard Rachel’s voice. But only very briefly. Mostly I think I’ve just heard her crying. I don’t know how to feel about Rachel being here. Relieved, I guess. But also mortified. She’s going to bloody kill me.

  I wish I could tell her I’m actually conscious in here, try to calm her down a bit, but unfortunately I’m incapable of movement, let alone speech, and I don’t even have the luxury of Locked-in Syndrome, where at least I’d be able to do the blinky-eyelid thing.

  It’s ironic, really, because Locked-in Syndrome was always number one on my fantasy illness list. As in, when you’re out at a party with friends and go, ‘What’s the worst illness you could imagine contracting? The absolute most disgusting, torturous thing?’ And people start talking about flesh-eating tapeworms and the like. Well, mine was always that one: where you’re totally functioning mentally, but completely paralysed, save maybe an eyelid, which you flap around wildly, trying to blink the alphabet.

  What I wouldn’t give to be able to blink the alphabet now. (My right tit, frankly.) Be careful what you (don’t) wish for is the motto there, I guess …

  But, Jesus, how did I get onto that? So much has happened that I don’t know where to start.

  I suppose most people would suggest the beginning – try to retrace my tracks a bit.

  If only I could remember my tracks.

  That’s the problem, see.

  Chronic amnesia.

  Well, okay, maybe not chronic. I do remember certain things: memories from my childhood, going to secondary school, my twenty-eighth birthday party earlier this year. But recent events, as in what happened to me over the past forty-eight hours, for example …

  Not a sausage.

  The doctors say I crashed into a wall in Lewisham. Lost control of the car. But even if that’s true, there’s got to be more to it. I don’t own a car and I haven’t driven in ages. Why would I have suddenly decided to take to the open road late on a Sunday evening? To bloody Lewisham! None of it makes any sense.

  I can’t help feeling somebody might have set me up – tried to make it look like I crashed. I wouldn’t have thought I had many enemies, but then again, who knows? It’s not like I’ve been a paragon of virtue since coming to live in London. Not by a long chalk.

  So, now that I’ve got all this time on my hands, I’ve decided I’m going to go through my memories systematically, try to cobble together what happened out there. I’ve decided to start with two months ago, mainly because that’s the point I can currently remember from, but also because it coincides with when I met Donnagh, and where I believe this story starts.

  Donnagh Flood.

  My boyfriend, I suppose you’d call him.

  Did he hurt me? Did he put me in this coma? That’s what I need to figure out.

  I’m going to kick off my investigation with memory number one: my heinous boss Nigel sidling up to me eight weeks ago, in the middle of a sweltering heatwave, mouthing something I couldn’t quite make out.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that, Nigel?’ I said, taking out my earphones.

  ‘I said, if you’re not already hot and sticky, Durant, you’re going to be. I’ve just put the wheels in motion for an interview with Donnagh Flood, rising star of Hibernian Constructions and better in the sack than Colin Farrell, so the rumour goes.’ Then, just in case I hadn’t quite got the message, he looked at me and said, ‘Major Irish shagger.’

  I stared at Nigel and, not for the first time, wondered how my life had whittled down to this: poorly paid lackey for the world’s most boring business magazine, not to mention the world’s first human toad.

  ‘We’ll call the piece “Donnagh Deal”,’ Nigel continued, beaming at his own cleverness. ‘Talk about how his uncle mentored him in America. How he feels about eventually taking over as worldwide CEO …’

  ‘Where’s he from?’ I asked, trying to sound casual. The name had rung an alarming bell but it couldn’t be … It just couldn’t be!

  ‘Ireland,’ Nigel snapped. ‘Or haven’t you been listening to a word I’ve said?’

  ‘I mean what part of Ireland?’

  ‘Oh, right,’ he said, pulling a face. ‘Haven’t a clue. I do have a photo, though.’

  ‘Can I see it?’

  He riffled through his desk and found the newspaper cutting that had obviously inspired the feature idea. He thrust it in my direction. ‘You don’t know him, do you?’

  I stared at the piece of paper, my eyes riveted to it. No, it couldn’t be. But when I looked down again, I knew it was him. It was definitely him.

  ‘No, of c-course not,’ I stammered. ‘But, Nigel, um, would you mind if someone else did this one? I’m up to my tonsils and …’

  My boss stared at me. ‘Eve, I wasn’t asking you, I was telling you. I want you to do it. Good-looking woman like you – bound to coax some secrets out of him that those two heffalumps wouldn’t manage.’ He pointed in the direction of my closest colleagues, George and Tom.

  ‘Nigel, really, I’d prefer not to,’ I said, trying to think of an excuse. ‘I have to go to the dentist that day.’

  ‘You don’t even know what day you’re interviewing him yet.’ Nigel was staring at me, his bald head turning red with annoyance. It was not a good sign, that bald red head.

  ‘But –’

  ‘Eve. There are no buts. Set up the interview this week, and
tell his people we’ll use him for the front cover too – good-looking bastard that he is. You okay with that?’

  Well, obviously not, I wanted to scream back. But I didn’t. Mainly because my mortgage was due at the end of the week.

  ‘Fine. I’m off for a fag,’ he said, grinning at me.

  Twat.

  When he was gone I stared at the newspaper cutting once more. Donnagh Flood had lost the childish roundness of youth but it was still recognizably him: the same almond-shaped brown eyes, the strong jaw, the slightly plump lips. Your average Mills Œ Boon hero, basically.

  He and I had attended the same secondary school a decade and a half earlier after he’d joined my class in the second year. The teacher had introduced him as ‘our new pupil from Dublin’ – leaving out the fact that he was teen-dream gorgeous, all lips and shoulders and chocolate-brown eyes – then sat him with me at my desk. When he’d asked me my name, I could barely speak.

  ‘Eveline Darcy,’ I’d croaked, trying to smile.

  ‘Evelyn?’

  ‘No, Eve-leen,’ I’d repeated, emphasizing the last syllable. ‘After a short story by James Joyce, which my father loved. He’s French, by the way.’

  ‘Who, James Joyce?’

  ‘No, my father. From a place called Calais.’

  Donnagh looked at me as if I was an alien, then twisted his mouth into a smirk. ‘Oh, Eve-leeeen, is it? Calais? Did he give you that humongous nose too? Is that also French?’

  I could feel my smile falter as my hands rose towards my face. As a matter of fact, my father had given me my nose. I barely remembered him, but from the few pictures I’d seen, I could tell that his was the same as mine: Roman, with a hump at the bridge.

  If Rachel had been there she’d have known what to say – something about Donnagh’s stupid accent or the whiff of BO off him or his bacon breath – but Rachel was not there. She wasn’t in the same school, even.

  Back in the classroom, Donnagh Flood had garnered an audience. ‘Big nose,’ he whispered, as soon as the teacher’s back was turned. He continued whispering it throughout the class, and then to my assembled classmates outside. And for the next five years.