A Dark Dividing (25 page)

She waited until Simone had spread honey on a slice of toast, and then said, ‘There’s something I’ve got to tell you. I was going to tell you when you were older, but because of what’s happened—what you’ve just been telling me—I think you’d better know now.’ A pause. ‘When you were a baby you had a sister. A twin sister. But she died when she was very tiny.’

Simone felt as if an icy fist had slammed itself into her stomach. She felt as if something had been jerked out of its place, and then forced back the wrong way round. At last she managed to say, ‘Her name was Sonia. That’s what you’re going to say, isn’t it?’

‘Yes. But Sonia didn’t live to grow up. She’s been dead for years.’

The bright cheerful kitchen with the friendly cooking scents seemed to have grown darker as if it was becoming tangled up with the darkness inside Mortmain. Sonia. Sonia. Out of the unreality of this, Simone said carefully, ‘If she’s dead—’

‘Yes, she is dead.’

‘Then,’ said Simone, fighting down panic, ‘who is it who’s been talking to me all these years? And what took my hand inside Mortmain this afternoon?’

‘I don’t know. I can’t explain. There are some peculiar things in the world, though. There are a few very special, very unusual people who can—’

‘Talk to ghosts?’ Simone wished she had not said this, because Mum’s face twisted with such pain. So she said, ‘Her name really was Sonia?’

‘Yes. I named her Sonia for my grandmother, just as I named you for my father—Simon,’ said Mother, and Simone thought how really weird it was to hear Mother say the name and talk about Sonia with such complete familiarity. But she listened carefully to the story of how Sonia had died when she was tiny, and to Mother’s few small memories of her.

Sonia had been small and pretty, she said, in fact she and Simone had looked exactly alike. They had shared a cot—Simone looked up at this because there had been something peculiar in Mother’s voice then—but even though they had been identical in looks, they had had different personalities. Even in those days Simone had liked watching lights and shadows and contrasts, but Sonia had responded more to sounds, to music.

‘I used to think you would go for something in the art line, Sim—well, I still think you will—and that Sonia would be musical. I used to make plans about it, and imagine how you would both grow up.’

Mother’s voice was so sad and so wistful when she said this that Simone wanted to cry, because Mother had had this dream about Sonia and she did not know that Sonia would not have grown up in the least like that; that she would have been sly and secretive and not really a very nice person. She had gloated over the poor mad people shut away in Mortmain’s underground rooms; she had wanted Simone to make a secret with her, and the secret was to be opening up the old well and waiting for someone to fall down into it. But Sonia died, said Simone’s mind. She died years and years ago. She couldn’t have done any of those things.

‘What happened to her? I mean—why did she die?’

Mother hesitated, and then said, ‘You were joined, Sim, darling. The two of you were born joined together—’

Joined. Simone stared at her blankly. ‘I don’t understand what you—Oh. You mean—like Siamese twins?’

‘Yes, but they call it conjoining now. You were joined at one side—your left side, Sonia’s right side.’ One hand came out to close briefly around Simone’s. ‘But it’s nothing horrid or ugly, Sim, there was never anything in the least ugly about it, I promise you. You were two very beautiful babies, lying side by side, with your arms around one another. The doctor who looked after us all thought you were so lovely—and the nurses all adored you both.’

Horror was pouring into Simone’s mind. I was joined to another human being and that human being was Sonia—Sonia who had those sly eyes and that gloating mouth. I was joined to her—bones and skin and things. And they had to cut us in two so we’d be two separate people but then half of us died—that’s what must have happened only Mum might not want to tell me that part—

And maybe I’m not a whole person now, she thought in panic. Maybe I’m really only half of something. Half of a freak. This was unbearable, it was repulsive. But deep inside the horror was the memory of how she had felt when Sonia had taken her hand, and how there had been the tremendous feeling of something locking into its rightful place after a long time of being lost. And even deeper inside that was the memory of how Sonia had looked a bit hunched over, as if her right side was not quite in line with the left.

‘It happens sometimes that twins are joined when they’re born,’ Mother was saying. ‘Not very often, but it isn’t as rare as all that. There had to be an operation to separate you—’

‘That’s what the birthmarks are, aren’t they?’ said Simone, staring at her. ‘You always said they were birth-marks, but they aren’t, are they?’

‘No. You were so tiny when the operation was done, you won’t remember.’

‘I remember being in hospital once, though. I mean having to stay there in a room by myself, and there were lots of doctors around.’

‘They did a skin graft when you were two so you probably remember that. It was so that there wouldn’t be too much scarring from the—from the earlier surgery. In another couple of years they can do another graft if it bothers you.’

Simone did not know whether it bothered her or not. She had not thought much about it; it was just part of how she looked. Unless she wanted to wear a bikini or sunbathe nude nobody would know the scars were there. She said, very carefully, ‘So she died in the—um—the separation thing?’

It seemed a long time before Mother replied. Then she said, ‘She didn’t die during the operation itself, but she died very soon afterwards.’ Again the pause. ‘There was quite a lot of publicity at the time. Newspapers wanting to do articles on you, TV people wanting to make documentaries. I managed to dodge most of it, but it was still a bit intrusive so after a while I altered my name by deed-poll—’

‘You did? So what’s my real name?’

‘Anderson.’

‘Oh.’

‘And it’s mostly why we’ve moved around so much.’

‘Shaking off the journalists?’

‘That’s quite sharp of you. But yes, that was the reason. When you were smaller they used to turn up from time to time—or,’ said Mother rather dryly, ‘I used to imagine they did. Maybe I got a bit neurotic, but I don’t really think so. It was quite a—a newsworthy thing. There probably isn’t much likelihood of anyone trying to make a story out of it any more, although I suppose there’s a possibility that some reporter might pick the thing up somewhere in the future. Say, when you’re eighteen, or twenty-one, or if you get married. We’ll worry about that at the time. And also—’

Mother stopped and Simone looked up from the toast and honey because there had been something in Mother’s voice that seemed to suggest there was something else or someone else they might have to worry about. But Mother did not say anything, and so Simone said, as offhandedly as she could manage, ‘I suppose that she’s—um—buried somewhere, isn’t she?’ It was irritating to discover that she could not say Sonia’s name out loud.

‘You mean Sonia?’ Mother could say the name, of course, and she said it with the ease of one who has known it for a very long time. It gave Simone a cold shut-out feeling to know that there had been this other child whom Mother had known and loved, and who had as much claim on Mother as Simone.

‘Yes, she’s buried somewhere, but it’s a long way away,’ Mother said, and her voice was so dreadfully bleak that Simone knew that Mother had just, only just, managed to tell her all this without flooding over with sadness, and that remembering this mysterious other twin who had died was almost more than Mother could bear. She wondered if Sonia had died at the same time as her father; Mum never mentioned him except to once say he had died in an accident when Simone was a few months old, and she had looked so upset about it that Simone had never liked to ask for details. She had been going to ask about Sonia’s grave, and whether they might go to see it sometime, but seeing the look on Mother’s face thought she had better not.

Then Mother said briskly, ‘So now, Sim, what we’ve got to do is make absolutely sure that there really wasn’t anyone in Mortmain House with you today.’ Her hands came out to hold Simone’s; they were warm and reassuring. ‘I believe everything you’ve told me,’ she said. ‘I promise you I do. About the—the little girl who talked to you, I mean. I haven’t got an explanation for it, but I don’t think it’s anything to be frightened of. Odd things happen in the world at times, and there isn’t always a logical explanation for them. And twins do frequently have a mental link—a kind of telepathy. That’s very well known.’

Even after one of them’s dead? thought Simone, but she did not say it.

‘If I were particularly religious I’d probably start talking about life after death and about the essence or the spirit of someone living on in other spheres,’ said Mother. ‘But listen, if we do find that there was a girl in Mortmain with you this afternoon, and if she was killed, then it won’t have been your fault. It’s very important to remember that.’

Simone thought about this, and then said, ‘But you don’t think there was anyone, do you?’

‘I think what we’ll do is to make absolutely sure.’

‘Um—both of us, you mean?’

Mother had been turning off the heat under the simmering pan of chili, but at this she turned to regard Simone very thoughtfully. Then she said, ‘Yes, I think both of us. It won’t take long, and we’ll take a couple of strong torches with us.’

She thinks I’ve imagined it, thought Simone as Mother went upstairs to get a jacket and find the car keys. She wants to show me that there’s nothing inside Mortmain.

A
S MOTHER STEERED the car off the tiny drive in front of the house, Simone said, ‘It’ll be pretty spooky in Mortmain now, I ’spect. Being dark and everything.’

‘It’s only six o’clock, it’s not pitch dark yet. And it’s not as if we’re going on a midnight prowl. In any case we’ve got two large torches, one each, and all we’re going to do is walk through the rooms and take a look at the well, and then we’ll be back home and eating the chili well before seven.’ She slowed down at a junction, and peered in both directions before driving out. Then she said, off-handedly, ‘You know, Sim, I think that whatever happened in Mortmain—and all those years with the mind-talking thing—I do think it’s probably over now. I hope you don’t mind that.’

Simone thought it was over as well although she did not know if she minded. She did not say that for the last two hours she had felt as if something extremely important had gone—something that could never be replaced. She asked, instead, if they ought not to have phoned the police. ‘That’s what I thought you’d do.’

‘Well, we might still have to. But I want to take a look by ourselves first. It would be quite difficult to explain all this if there isn’t—if there’s no trace of a child anywhere in Mortmain. If we’d brought out the fifth cavalry, I mean.’

‘Oh yes, I see.’

‘We’re going the right way, aren’t we?’

‘Yes, but you have to turn off along here—just there by that tree.’

It felt odd and a bit confusing to be going back to Mortmain. They rattled up the steep, narrow track, bouncing in and out of the deep ruts and potholes. ‘Couldn’t you have chosen an easier place to have your peculiar experience?’ demanded Mother. ‘We shan’t have any suspension left on the car—Still, we’ll get as near as we can all the same; I’m blowed if I’m going to trek up muddy hillsides in the dark.’

They did not get quite to the top of the track, but they got more than halfway up. They locked the car and set off, Simone holding Mother’s hand tightly. A cold wind blew into their faces and the night clouds scudded across the sky, rustling the trees. Simone tried not to think that the trees were sounding a bit like the sly hissing voices inside Mortmain.

Mother did not seem in the least spooked by Mortmain, in fact Simone thought she was quite interested in it. ‘It’s perfect gothic, isn’t it? I’m not surprised you wanted to photograph it. We must get the shots you took developed tomorrow. I wonder when it was built?’

‘Don’t know. But Mortmain means dead hands.’

‘Does it? Yes, I suppose it does. How did you know that? I thought you didn’t start French until next term?’

‘Um, well, I looked it up,’ said Simone awkwardly, but Mother only said, ‘Oh, I see. I expect it’s got quite an interesting history, in fact—Oh lord, is this the way you went in? Well, all I can say is that you go for the macabre in a big way, you dreadful child. Still, I’d like to know about the people who lived here before it was a workhouse, though, wouldn’t you? I expect it was one of those seventeenth- or eighteenth-century families with dozens of children and dogs and horses, and servants and things. It must have looked quite different then. Let’s go inside. You take this torch and I’ll have the big one.’

The torches cut two sharp triangles of white light through the darkness, and although Simone had actually been a bit worried that she might not be able to find the room with the well—she had even been half-fearful that she might find it was no longer even there—once they had gone through the door near the half-rotting stairs, she recognized the corridor with the Women’s Workshop.

Now that Mother was here it was very nearly an adventure to be walking through Mortmain. Mother liked old buildings: she liked finding out about their pasts and what kind of people had lived in them and how they had looked when they were young. Simone had never heard anyone else refer to houses and buildings as being ‘young’ quite in the way that Mother did. It made them seem different.

But nothing could make Mortmain different. Nothing could blot out the feeling of being spied on or the horrid waddly-footed iron stoves in unexpected corners, or the feeling that this was a place where ghosts might whisper greedily in the darkness and make plots to snatch you up because they hated you for being a modern person with a good, modern life…

As they came up to the door to the Women’s Workshop Simone hesitated, because she had thought, just for a moment, that the soft spiteful voices had whispered from the shadows.