Chapter Twenty-One
I stare at her, the smile frozen on my lips. ‘Wh-what?’
Louise starts to reply, but Bianca reappears at that moment with our lunches and we both fall silent. She hands us our plates, checks we have cutlery and, finally, clears away the now-empty olive bowl.
‘Have a good meal, ladies,’ she says with a smile, and then breezes back towards the kitchen.
‘Sorry, I shouldn’t have said that,’ Louise says quietly once Bianca has disappeared. ‘What I meant to say was, you think you killed her.’
I don’t know how to respond to that.
‘Look, I know this is none of my business.’ Louise gives her knife and fork a quick, fastidious rub with her napkin. ‘But Dom told me how your sister died. That it was a skiing accident, and you can’t remember much about the circumstances. Only that your parents refused to talk about it afterwards, and now they get edgy whenever her name comes up.’
I look away, uncomfortable.
A woman about my own age at a nearby table is staring at us. Spiky red hair, an aggressive expression. I meet her eyes, then glare. Nosy, much?
She glances hurriedly away.
My pulse is racing. I’m beginning to regret asking Louise to meet me for lunch. This is too much, on top of the shock of seeing Rachel’s name all over that paperwork. My nerves are still too raw, too painfully scraped, to deal with what Louise is saying.
‘That’s about right,’ I say huskily.
I pour us both some more wine from the bottle, deliberately generous. Though I notice she’s been easing off since I arrived. Only a third of her glass was gone. Unlike mine. This has not been the comfortable, easy conversation I had envisaged. Quite the opposite, in fact. But the wine is helping.
‘So in some part of your brain,’ Louise says, ‘deep in your subconscious, you may think you were involved in her death, based simply on the way your parents behaved at the time.’
‘Pure psychobabble,’ I say, irritated by her tone.
‘Maybe, maybe not.’ She looks at me steadily. ‘How old were you when she died?’
‘Twelve. I’d only just had my birthday.’
‘And Rachel?’
‘Thirteen and three-quarters,’ I say promptly.
Rachel used to say that a lot, as a silly joke. Then she died and got stuck at that age forever. Thirteen and three-quarters.
The joke was on her in the end.
‘There you are, you see.’ Louise shrugs, as though this explains everything. ‘You were an adolescent.’
‘So?’
‘Adolescence is one of the most sensitive ages for trauma, barring infancy. All those shifting hormone levels, all that identity crisis shit that gets thrown at you during puberty, it makes mental trauma of the kind you suffered all the more dangerous.’
‘Dangerous?’
Louise smiles drily. ‘Don’t look so worried. All I mean is, trauma at that age can have a long-lasting effect. It can turn inwards and eat away at you for the rest of your life.’
‘So,’ I say, putting down my baguette, ‘you think losing my sister at that age may be affecting me now.’
Her gaze flickers across my face, but Louise merely says, ‘Perhaps’, and continues to eat, mopping up some of her thick sauce with a slice of garlic bread.
A suspicion strikes me.
‘You think I did it myself, don’t you? You think I was the one who signed Rachel’s name on those sheets.’
Louise stops eating, and meets my eyes. ‘Did you?’
‘Of course I bloody didn’t.’
‘Have you considered it to be a possibility?’
‘No.’
‘You might have done it without realising what you were doing.’
I stare. ‘Without . . . what?’
‘In a kind of fugue state,’ she says. ‘It’s like a trance where you forget who you are and what you’re doing.’ When my eyes widen, she makes a face. ‘Please don’t bite my head off. It can happen, especially when someone’s under a lot of unusual stress.’
‘How am I under stress?’
‘Getting married is one of the most stressful events in a person’s life. Don’t you know that? It’s only beaten by getting divorced and moving house.’
‘I was not stressed out by marrying Dominic,’ I say, though part of me acknowledges that to be a lie. ‘I love him.’
‘No one says you don’t. And I know you’re upset, but this is hard for me too. Believe me, we all have your best interests at heart.’ She pauses, biting her lip delicately. ‘Have you considered, for instance, that you might have cut up your wedding dress yourself and simply have no memory of doing it?’
I blink in horror. ‘No, absolutely not.’
‘Or maybe taken your sister’s snow globe and posted it to yourself with . . . with the eyeball inside?’
‘Why would I do something like that? Now you’re being ridiculous.’ My heart is thudding. I stand up, pushing my chair back. ‘I’ve had enough of this. I’m going back to work.’
‘Wait, please. Sit down.’
My chest is heaving and I feel like screaming. But something in her tone makes me stop and sink slowly back into my chair.
‘There is a particular phenomenon, Catherine,’ she says slowly. ‘A condition. And it’s not your fault. I’ve seen people with this condition brought into casualty, often after an episode of self-harming, and it’s much more common than people realise.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Survivor’s guilt.’
I shake my head, looking away. I don’t want to hear this.
‘People who’ve survived a traumatic event where others died,’ she continues gently, ‘even when they don’t remember it properly, can experience an overwhelming sense of guilt. It’s so strong sometimes, it can change the way they behave. In extreme cases, it can even make them take on certain facets or behavioural traits of loved ones who didn’t survive, like a kind of penance to the dead person.’ She hesitates, then adds, ‘Openly, or on a subconscious level.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘It’s a well-recognised condition.’
‘Has D-Dominic been talking to you about this?’ Hearing the slight stutter in my voice only annoys me further. My heart races when she says nothing, merely watching me. But there’s a flicker in her eyes again, a touch of guilt. ‘Oh God.’
‘Catherine . . .’
I feel the telltale blush of anger fill my cheeks and can’t control it. ‘This is Dominic’s theory, isn’t it? Not yours at all. He’s the one who thinks I’m going mental.’
‘That’s such an unhelpful word.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry.’ My voice is a hiss, and she stares at me, clearly startled. ‘How would you describe my condition, then? In your expert opinion?’
‘I’m not a doctor, it’s true,’ she says slowly, ‘but I am an experienced mental health specialist, and I don’t think we should—’
‘Has “survivor’s guilt” made me hysterical, would you say? Hysterical and hormonal? Or does Dominic think it’s worse? What did he tell you?’ My voice starts to rise, even though I know people are looking our way. The woman with spiky red hair is staring again, but I ignore her. ‘Am I a bit on the flaky side, perhaps? Unhinged? Disturbed?’
I pause, barely able to hear myself through the thunder of blood. Yet the final word forces itself out anyway.
‘Mad?’