I was getting back later and later from school because home was so depressing to deal with. Sometimes I went to friends’ houses for the night, but I didn’t want their parents to start asking too many questions because it got embarrassing. When I was younger I used to ask Anna and the various psychotherapists she used to send me to why Mama was the way she was. All they ever said was variations on the fact that it wasn’t my fault or her fault, that it was just the way her brain was wired that sometimes made it difficult for her to cope. Which was no answer at all really, and certainly no help to anyone, least of all me.
As kids go, I was pretty good and not hard to deal with, I thought. I did OK at school, I didn’t smoke or drink, I didn’t bunk off school. Not that half the time Mama would have noticed if I did do any of those things. Sometimes when Mama had had a particularly bad episode and gone missing or done things like slashed her arms with the kitchen knife and I’d ended up at Rhonda’s yet again, I would ask Anna why they kept sending me back to Mama if she couldn’t cope. She’d say that it was natural that Mama wanted me home, but they only sent me back when they were sure she could manage and it was Mama’s right to have me with her where possible but that they always acted in my best interests.
It was difficult to see how.
By the time I got back from school via Callie’s and the park that night it was almost dark outside and there were no lights on in the house. I guessed Mama must still be in bed – I silently prayed that she’d be asleep rather than wailing and crying as sometimes she was when I got home. I was tired and not in the mood for her drama. Asleep, she was easier to deal with.
I went into the kitchen; I was starving. There had been barely any food in the house that week. Mama hadn’t been turning up to her cleaning job and had likely been sacked, I thought, though she hadn’t told me so. There was only so far a free school meal could last you during the day, so I hoped there’d be something ancient in the freezer I could fish out and bung in the microwave. I flicked the light switch and nearly jumped out of my skin when I saw that Mama was sitting at the table in the dark. There was a glass and a half-empty bottle of vodka in front of her.
‘Bloody hell, Mama!’ I yelped. ‘You terrified me! What are you doing there?’
She looked at me, bleary-eyed and patted the chair beside her. ‘Siddown,’ she said.
In spite of her failings, Mama was not usually a drinker and so I was wary. I sat down next to her, holding my breath against the waft of staleness emanating from her. She couldn’t have had a shower all week.
‘You know how you’re always asking about your Dad?’ she slurred.
‘Um …’ I’d never seen her in this state before and didn’t know what to do. I didn’t want to provoke her. I didn’t ask about my dad that much any more because it always seemed to set her off, but it seemed like now she had decided she wanted to talk about him after all. I figured the best solution would be simply to say as little as possible.
‘He’s dead,’ she said, her voice low and serious. ‘DEAD!’ she shouted suddenly, banging the table and making me jump.
‘Oh.’ Tears pricked at my eyes unexpectedly for a man I’d never known. Why was she telling me this now after all these years? Should I even believe her? ‘What … what happened to him?’
‘That BASTARD,’ she shouted. ‘He … he …’
‘Dad, you mean?’
She banged the table again. ‘NO! His CUNT of a brother.’
I flinched. I’d barely ever heard her swear, and certainly never use that word.
‘His brother? Whose brother?’ For a moment I wondered if she was just drunk and rambling, talking total nonsense. When she’d been in the hospital, some of the stuff she’d said made no sense at all. Anna always said it was the drugs they gave her that made her that way, but this time it didn’t seem like that. In spite of her drunkenness, she seemed strangely lucid. My skin prickled.
‘Will,’ she continued. ‘Your dad was called Will. His brother … his brother made him go out that day. On the mountain. And then he died. His fault. His brother’s fault. Adam’s fault.’
‘What mountain? You said he lived on a mountain before … where? I thought you made it up.’
She grabbed my wrist and tried to look at me, but her eyes were all over the place and I could tell she couldn’t focus properly. She laughed demonically. ‘He DIED on the mountain! DIED! Not lived! We were on holiday. Skiing. He was skiing. His fault. All Adam’s fault. And before that … before … before they went out … do you know? Do you know what he did to me?’ she hisses. Suddenly she is more lucid. ‘I was bright. Clever. At Oxford. Whole life ahead of me. And then Adam ruined it all because he killed Will. And before that, he—’
‘He killed my dad?’ I interrupted hoarsely.
She slumped in her chair. ‘They didn’t say that. They said it was an accident. But I KNOW!’ She was shouting again. ‘I KNOW! They both went out and Adam came back and Will didn’t. He died. It’s all his fault. Adam’s. THAT’S WHY I’M THE WAY I AM NOW! THAT’S WHY I’M LIKE THIS! And before that he, he, he …’
‘What?’
She waved her hand. ‘I can’t tell you. ’S too awful. You shouldn’t know.’ She stood up and immediately fell down. I put my hands under her armpits and hauled her upright again.
‘C’mon. Let’s get you to bed.’
‘Will Cassiobury,’ she was muttering. ‘Will Cassiobury. Only man I ever loved. All the others have been utter bastards. Stay single, my darlin’ baby girl,’ she slurred, twisting round and waving her finger in my face. ‘Stay single. Don’t let any men into your life. Waste of time. They ruin everything.’
I hauled her into bed and pulled the covers over her. ‘Will Cassiobury? That’s my dad’s name?’
But she was already asleep.
37
January 2020, Haute Savoie, France
Adam
I’m ashamed to admit that, when I hear the road to La Madière is closed, my first reaction is one of relief. Maybe I won’t have to go to the resort after all. Maybe I won’t have to go through the gruesome task of identifying my brother’s body which has been lying in the snow for more than twenty years.
The world is small now. It never takes long to get anywhere, does it? So even though I was on the other side of the world when they contacted me, one day later, here I am in France. I don’t know how the police got hold of me so quickly – I guess it’s easy to trace anyone these days. And with only my rudimentary French, I didn’t entirely understand what they were saying. Other than that I am Will’s only family, so I should come.
After the accident, I took the coward’s way out – I left. Couldn’t bear the pain in my parents’ eyes as they desperately tried not to blame me. Couldn’t bear to be inside my own head. I’d like to say I spent my time trying to live the good life Will no doubt would have lived, but I didn’t. I’ve bummed around, taken casual jobs here and there and, for the last five years, since my parents died, lived off my inheritance, as well as what should have been Will’s. Which is the only reason I had the money to fly back so quickly when the police asked me to.