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‘What about it?’

‘Why did you have the gun? You brought it home from the gun club? Why?’

He wouldn’t look at her. His hands were shaking. ‘I was going to . . .’ Then words failed, cracking under the weight, and he looked up, pleading. ‘I didn’t want to go on any longer. I didn’t want to live.’

Imogen ran her hands now across the smooth walls of Mara’s house, seemingly glued to the spot. And Amy? Her brain bucked and fought against the thought. It was not possible that a mother could hurt her child. Was not possible that her sister, her twin, could hurt Amy. It wasn’t.

But then, why was she here? Why had she come to her sister’s house, used the key that she kept on the key chain, beside her own?

Imogen had told herself that she was looking for vindication, something that would prove the doctors wrong. But now she was here, and the world was reshaping itself around her, and now it seemed that all bets were off.

Imogen hurried up the stairs, pushed open Mara’s bathroom door. They had a jacuzzi tub, a shower with a dizzying array of functions, an expensively tiled floor. She stood there, sensing her sister everywhere. Then the phone, ringing in her bag, and she didn’t need to look to know who it was, could sense it, call it the twin-thing. That somehow maybe her sister knew where she was, what she was doing.

The ringing stopped, leaving a denser silence in its wake.

Imogen pulled open the bathroom cabinet. Scanned the bottles and jars.

It shouldn’t be possible. It couldn’t be possible. But her brain was raging against itself, thinking of the little girl Mara, so small and slight, backwards and forwards into hospital so much that their entire childhood had been sheathed in a white coat. Then, in the end, it seemed this was the only place that she felt at home. And that was understandable, surely? That she had spent so much time at the hospital that it felt natural to her. The day the doctors had told their parents that Mara was fine, that she could go home and be happy and healthy and normal, Mara had cried and cried, as if her heart would break.

Imogen thought of the missed schooling that followed; all those days, all those illnesses that the doctors just never seemed to be able to figure out; the fact that it was always something with Mara, some reason why she was sick. And then, as naturally as night would follow day, the MRIs, the CTs, the ultrasounds – anything to find out what was wrong with Mara, why she was so sick. Until in the end all that was left was investigative surgery. Everyone around her had baulked, saying didn’t that seem like an awfully long way to go? But Mara had put a brave face on it, saying that she’d rather, because she wanted to get to the bottom of this, that it was the only way. And afterwards the doctors with their guarded expression, the sense that something had changed, the forced joviality: we found nothing, you’re fine. Go home.

Mara crying, saying that it was because she thought they were going to fix her.

Imogen ran her fingers across the bottles, turning them so that the labels faced outwards. Looking for amitriptyline. Nothing.

Then had come university and Jack and, it had seemed, a miraculous recovery, one that came from nowhere. No one had questioned it, the world just breathing a sigh of relief that finally, finally, it was over. But then had come marriage and the long, slow establishment of routine that comes with setting up a life. And then Amy. Amy had brought along with her a new fear. Mara had scurried the baby back and forth to the GPs, again and again, everyone saying that it was because she was a first-time mum, she worried – it was natural. Then the raging, Mara’s face hard with fury. We’re changing surgeries. Those GPs couldn’t find their arse with a map.

Imogen closed the cabinet, crossed the landing with quick steps, into Mara’s bedroom. The bed was unmade, the quilt pooling onto the floor. Into the en suite, snapped on the light.

Now time had flip-flopped again. And they were in their parents’ garden, Amy in her pink-striped swimsuit, as healthy a child as you could ever hope to see. Imogen ducking into the house to get a glass of water, because her mother had been serving home-made lemonade that was sticky and bitter and so, so sweet. Hearing a voice in the living room, knowing it was her sister, and Imogen thinking that she should go out again, that she shouldn’t be here listening, because from the tone of it – the climb at the edges – Mara was angry.

‘Why can’t you come home, Jack? No. No. I know what you said. I don’t care. It’s not all about you. There’s me too. And you can’t just . . . No. I need you home. I want you home. Amy. She needs you.’

Imogen had taken a step closer to the door, not meaning to listen, not really, but not being able to help herself, pulled by the hysteria in her sister’s voice.

‘Okay, fine. Fine. You know what? Fuck you! Let’s just hope that you don’t live to regret putting us second.’

Imogen tugged at the bathroom cabinet, now swamped with the feeling that she was no longer looking for an absence, that the search had mutated somehow between the front door and here, that now she was looking for a presence. She scanned the cupboard. Half-empty: cotton buds, some shampoo and tampons. A sinking feeling in her stomach.

She stepped back into the bedroom, not bothering to turn off the light. She stood, staring at the unmade bed, the pile of clothes that staggered against the wardrobe door. Wanting to stop, wanting to stop more than she wanted to breathe, because if she stopped now, then they were wrong and she could have her sister back, and she’d already lost her fiancé and surely losing both a sister and a fiancé was more than anyone should be expected to bear.

But she couldn’t stop.

Imogen spun on her heel, stalked towards the bedside cabinet on her sister’s side of the bed. A hardback book waiting. Unread. A slender Tiffany lamp. She pulled open the drawer, running her hands through the contents. Paracetamol. A solid case for her reading glasses. A packet of condoms. And there, right at the back, a small, round plastic bottle.

She knew what it was before she read the label: Amitriptyline, 75 mg.

Imogen sat down hard on the bed. Now another memory, one that she had fought so hard to redraft. Their childhood home, the not-a-castle castle, just visible on the crest of the hill. The smell of smoke, the crackle of fire from their father’s bonfire. Their mother’s voice: ‘Be careful there.’ Imogen standing on the edge, because she wanted to see what the ants were doing, the way they lined up, a black parade of them, a series of ellipses. Looking, but still being careful, because she was the good girl. Then soft footsteps behind her and knowing it was Mara, because she was her twin and didn’t she know everything about her? A low giggle, the kind she did when she was about to do something bad. Then Imogen feeling small hands being placed flat against the centre of her back, and a flood of knowledge about what was about to happen, but being powerless to stop it. Then falling and falling.

Imogen cradled the bottle of drugs and remembered the hospital. How they said she was lucky. Remembered her sister at her bedside, her eyes bright, and then the low whisper, just out of their mother’s reach. ‘You won’t tell anyone, will you? Mammy says you’re supposed to look after me. You won’t tell, Im, will you?’

Imogen sat on the bed, a feeling like all of the energy had leached out of her, seeping into the mattress. She could sleep now. She could lie on this king-sized bed and she could sleep. That was all she wanted to do. Close her eyes. Forget. But she couldn’t, because this wasn’t about her, wasn’t hers to forgive or to hide, not this time. This time it was Amy.

She pushed herself up, ran down the stairs. She pulled open the front door, out onto the path, tugging the door closed behind her. Wasn’t looking where she was going, was studying the bottle.

It wasn’t a sound that she should have heard. Not in the normal run of things. But perhaps her senses had been wired, thrust into overdrive by the barrelling adrenaline, because she did hear it, a sound like the soles of shoes shifting on tarmac.

Imogen looked up.

He was in amongst the leaves, a figure obscured by the green of the trees. He saw her seeing him. Stepped out into the path.

It took her a moment to place him. Another moment to wonder why it was that he was here.

It was only then that she saw the gun.

He was staring at her, his face puckered into something like hatred, the gun hanging at his side. Then he pulled it up, a movement that seemed to consume his whole body. Levelled it at her.

Time stopped.

There were surely things that she should be doing, actions that she should take. But all that came to Imogen was an unravelling feeling of inevitability, that of course it should end this way. She stared at him, at the barrel of the gun, the two of them merged into one now. Wanted to ask him why.

Then there was a sound. A crack.

It was less of a sound than one would expect, and the insignificance of it took her by surprise. She looked down, a distant curiosity more than anything else. Could see the dark-red flower of blood blossoming through her white blouse. Strange, she thought. Surely there should be pain.

Then another crack.

Imogen’s legs gave way beneath her, as if the bones had simply gone, and she buckled, sliding down to the cobblestone path. Her cheek was cold, pressed against the stones. She was surrounded by redness, darkness. Could dimly hear a dull clicking sound, a curse, the sound of footsteps running. Then the pain came, a burning, searing, punching pain. Then, mercifully, the darkness.

I SIT BEHIND
the wheel. The car had steered itself back towards Mara’s house, seemed like I barely needed to touch the wheel. I have texted her. I have asked her to meet me there. I don’t know why, but I know that she will come. Maybe because it is destiny.

Mara will be the first. This is the way it should always have been.

I sit, watching the house, am about to reach for the door handle, step out into the morning light, when something catches my eye, a fleck of gold in the darkened footwell. My stomach lurches, but it is a dim and distant feeling, one that seems unreal somehow. Without my guidance or my consent, my fingers reach down, pluck at the fine gold thread. I lift it up, hold it in the sunlight. It is a fine gold chain, narrow and delicate. That is probably why it snapped. Dangling from the end of it is a word in cursive writing:
Emily
.

On the night that I met her I was looking to get drunk, roaringly, obliteratingly drunk. It was after Mara. After the betrayal, after the news that she was going to murder my child, that she was done with me. But, I think, it was before my final decision had been made, before the final tipping over that plunging edge. I had wanted to get drunk, to tip a magic liquid down my throat, obliterate the memories. It was all I could think of, until I thought of the final thing.

Delizioso was loud when I got there. A hen party with their sashes, their blow-up penises, and I almost turned around, walked back out.

I wonder now how differently things would have played out, had I done that. Would I just have gone home, put a gun in my mouth and pulled the trigger? A quiet, violent end.

I had paused in my step, my mind – or what was left of it – weighing up my options, checking the competing pulls of temporary and permanent oblivion. Then I saw her. She was talking on the phone, voice lost amongst the rest of the sound. Watching me. She looked down when she saw that I had seen her. But it was like magic, that sense of being seen. I stood there for long moments. I stared at her. She wasn’t in all honesty a pretty girl, with too-round cheeks, hair that was neither blonde nor brown, a little too much weight. But she had seen me. Under her eyes, I had become visible again. And that, at that moment, meant more than anything else.

I crossed the crowded bar to her table.

She set down her mobile, looked up, looked nervous, shifting in her seat. Gave me an uneasy half-smile. I did my best to respond. I don’t know what I was hoping for, now when I look back on it. I wasn’t looking for love. I don’t think at that point I was capable of it. But as I vanished into nothing, there, on that night, I just wanted to be seen.

I asked her if I could sit.

She said yes, a shake in her voice.

She looked nothing like Mara, not in the downturn of her eyes, the wide splay of her breasts. She wasn’t wearing make-up. Or if she was, it was only the merest suggestion of it. But there, on that night, that was a good thing. Because all I wanted to do was forget.

We talked for a little while, about this and that. All the while her head ducked, her fingers moving awkwardly on the cardboard coaster, plucking at a torn edge of it, pluck, pluck. The movement began to grate on me, after a while.

I drank a little. A beer or two.

Not enough. But then, I wondered, how much would ever be enough?

Her eyes. It was her eyes that did it. The way they kept flicking upwards, looking at me, then not looking at me. But it was like this constant reminder. I see you. I see you. I drained my glass. I wanted to fuck her. Not her. Her eyes. I wanted to fuck someone who saw me, someone for whom I wasn’t an inconvenience, someone who would wash clean the taste of Mara.

I opened my mouth. Didn’t know how I was going to say it, how it would play out. But then a roar of laughter burst from the hen party, stuffing the air with sound, and I lost my nerve. Because if I asked, then she would say no, and then I would be worse off than when I began.

I volunteered to go up to the bar, get us some more drinks. She was drinking white wine, a small glass that she had cradled all evening. I nodded towards it. ‘Another?’ A pause, then a nod, a too-grateful smile.

‘Please. But just a small one.’

I ordered her a small white wine. A beer for myself. And vodka shots. I waited, while the bartender took my money, his attention entirely focused on the big-breasted woman beside me, then tipped the shots into the wine. I remember my heart thumping. Because you would taste it, right? I carried the glasses back to the table, the whole while walking on a tightrope, knowing that she would take one sip, that she would know. Would she throw the drinks in my face? Would she scream? I could feel the adrenaline coursing, and felt something like alive for the first time in days. I set the glasses down on the table, tried not to watch her as she reached for it, as her thin lips closed across the rim.