She said, “I’m coming to get you, Cass. Please stay where you are. Please don’t disappear again before I get there.”
“OK.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Oh God. Mum’s not here. I can’t get hold of her. I’m just going to come. I’ll be there. Don’t move!”
“I won’t move,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”
She took a long time to say goodbye. I put the phone down and I forced myself to smile at Ginny.
“Well?” she said, “How was that?”
I didn’t know why she was asking. She’d heard all she needed, hanging around by the photocopier, pretending to be busy, holding herself still so she could listen.
“Good,” I said.
“You didn’t say much,” she said.
“I never do.”
I went to my room and I sat on my bed. The dinner bell sounded and the football on TV started and the showers were free, but I just stayed there.
I should have run away. I should have got out of it while I still could. But I didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t get off my bed even. I didn’t leave the room. I didn’t move. Because suddenly I had a sister, and she’d told me not to.
Four hours later, I heard Edie before I saw her. I heard her walking towards my room and my stomach opened up like a canyon. Her shoes clapped gently next to Gordon and Ginny’s wheezy, squeaking steps.
When they came in, she stopped and put her hands up over her mouth. She stood there with Ginny beaming behind her.
I didn’t know what to do with my face.
I could feel a big flashing sign above my head that said THIS IS NOT HIM. I waited for her to notice it. I waited for her to say, “You’re not my brother,” and I thought about what would happen next. Would sirens start wailing? Would I melt like candle wax into a puddle on the floor? How many people would hit me? Where would they put me, once they knew?
And if she thought I was Cassiel? If she fitted me into his place like the wrong piece in a puzzle, what would happen then? I was more scared of that than anything. And I wanted it more than anything too.
I stood there and I waited for her to decide.
She kept her hands over her mouth. Her make-up bled from her eyes on to her skin. I thought about her putting mascara on that morning, before she knew she was going to see her missing brother.
“Say something, Cassiel,” whispered Ginny.
She said it like I was an idiot, like I was four years old. I wanted to hit her.
“Hello, Edie,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine.
Edie took a deep breath and she got Ginny and Gordon to leave us on our own. She didn’t speak, she just asked them with her eyes and her hands, and they said yes.
And then I was alone with her. And suddenly I knew that anything I did, just one tiny thing, a word, a look, a gesture, could blow this open, could scream the house down that I wasn’t him. I was a cell under the microscope. She was the all-seeing eye. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t move. I stood dead still and I watched her.
She wasn’t what I’d been expecting. She was a lot smaller than me and her hair was long and dark. Long dark hair and blue eyes overflowing with water and light, a smile so full of sadness it made me feel grateful to have seen it, like a rare flower.
“Talk to me,” she said.
I had to clear my throat. My voice was shrunken, hiding. “What about?”
She shrugged and her eyes ran and she didn’t say anything, not for a bit. She just looked at me. The asking and relief on her face made me flinch. It was like staring at the sun.
After a while she looked at the floor and said, “I don’t believe it. I can’t take this in.”
I breathed out. I just watched her. I didn’t know what else to do.
“It’s really you?” she said.
I nodded. My tongue felt swollen and dry in my mouth. I needed a drink of water.
“Say something,” she said. “Why aren’t you saying anything?”
Because I’m scared to. Because you don’t know me. Because I’ll say the wrong thing.
“It’s good to see you,” I said.
“Good?” she said. “Good? Two years, Cass. You have to do better than good.”
“Sorry.”
“I drove so fast,” she said. “I kept thinking I was going to crash. I thought I was going to turn the car over, but I couldn’t slow down.”
“Where have you been?” she said. “Why didn’t you call? What the hell happened to you?”
My lips were stuck together. Somebody had sewn my mouth shut.
“You’ve changed so much,” she said.
I felt the dusting of stubble over my chin. I rubbed my fingers across my cheeks, through my overgrown hair. I ran my tongue over my bad teeth.
“You too,” I said. Could I say that? Was that wrong?
“You are so tall.”
“Am I?”
“Why did you leave?” she said suddenly, and the skin of her voice broke, the anguish welling up underneath. “Why did you do that?”
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“I thought you were dead,” she said. “People said you were dead.”
“I’m not dead.”
She nodded again and her face caved in, and she cried, proper crying, all water and snot. She couldn’t catch her breath. She stood on the other side of the room and she looked at me like she wanted me to make it better. I didn’t know what to do. I waited for her to stop, but she crossed the room and walked right into me. She cried all over my shirt.
While she did it I shut my eyes and breathed slowly.
I had a sister and she was perfect and she cared that I was there.
I think it was the closest to happy I’d ever been. And I knew I was going to Hell for it.
I know it still. If there’s a Hell, that’s where I’ll go.
Now and again I persuaded Grandad that we needed to go out – to the city farm maybe, or the market, or along the canal. He never saw the point. I think after years of hiding in the dust-yellow insides of his books, real life was like roping lead weights to his feet and jumping into cold water; just not something he felt like doing.
He didn’t mind me going out on my own. He said it was a good idea.
He said, “The namby-pamby children of today have no knowledge of danger and no sense of direction.”
He said, “When I was your age I was out for days at a time with nothing but a compass and a piece of string.”
He said he very much doubted I’d get lost or stolen, or fall down a manhole.
He was right. I didn’t.
Still, sometimes I persuaded him to get dressed and come with me, just because I liked him being there, just because he needed the fresh air. His skin was lightless, and thin like paper. His hair was like a burnt cloud. I told