Mad Read online

  I’ve read way more than Beth has with all her fancy degrees (not that it’s a competition). My brain is full. I graduated from the University of Life cum laude. It’s called being an “autodidact,” if you want to be a smart-ass, but there’s no need to be sesquipedalian.

  I get up and make my way to the kitchen/bomb site. Tea—builder’s, none of that fancy stuff my sister orders: Darjeeling or Earl Grey or organic Rainforest Alliance fucking Arabica. I don’t care about getting fired; I’m still thinking about Beth, going over it and over it again in my head: “I would like to invite you, yet again, to come and stay with us at our villa in Taormina. . . . I need you. I’m begging you. Come.”

  Fuck off!

  I wonder what she wants though. Probably some bone marrow or one of my kidneys. She’s not getting it from me, she’ll have to ask Mum.

  “Tea?” I ask. The slobs look up at me funny and shake their heads. I fill the kettle, then flick the switch. Urgh, why is it sticky? Eventually, I find my mug—I HAVE NOTHING TO DECLARE EXCEPT MY GENIUS—under the bacteria-breeding facility and wash it. It looks just as stained when I’ve finished as it did when I started. There’s one teabag left. I plop it into the bottom of my cup and glance at the slobs. They’re staring up at me, but snap their heads back toward Jeremy Kyle as soon as they catch my eye. Freaks. The bottle of skim milk has less than a centimeter left. I pour in the water, then finish the milk.

  “Erm,” says Gary as I head back to my room. “Can we have a word?”

  I flinch and spill hot tea down my leg, enough to sting and stain my skirt, but not enough to bother with a towel.

  “Sure. What’s up?” I ask, sinking down opposite. This had better be quick. Is that the guy or the girl?

  “We’ve been thinking,” says Gary. Thinking? I doubt it.

  “And we don’t think it’s working out,” says Patty. Or Pam.

  They wait with expressionless faces for me to respond. I don’t.

  “We think you should move out,” suggests Geoff. Or is it Graham?

  That’s it. There’s no further explanation. Either they’ve found another emo slob who wants to move in or they just don’t like me. Why don’t they like me? Did they find the dead squirrel? Perhaps it’s because I haven’t paid the rent. Unbelievable. I should be kicking them out, although, I suppose they were here first.

  “Tomorrow,” says Patty with a practiced scowl.

  I wish I had a samurai sword; it’s at times like these that they come in useful. “Of course,” I say, “no problem. Actually, I was going to leave soon. I’ve got to go on holiday to Sicily so . . .” Time to find that cardboard box. I knew today was my lucky day.

  I scuttle back into my room and hurl myself on the bed. An old photograph eyeballs me. It’s a picture of me and my twin. Beth looks like a supermodel. I look like a tramp having a bad-hair day. That photo was taken on Beth’s last day at school. She was all blow-dried and lip-glossed and Cheshire-cat smug. I had a hangover from drinking a whole bottle of Malibu on my own in a tree by our house. I honestly can’t see any resemblance; as far as I can tell, we don’t look alike.

  I glare at the photo.

  “What do you want?”

  I can hear what she’s thinking from the other side of Europe: Come to Sicily, Alvina, come, come, come! We’re like two quantum particles forever entangled. She is a gluon and I am a quark. I am dark matter and she is . . . well, just matter, I guess. It’s spooky action at a distance. She hits her head and I get a headache. I break my leg and her knee hurts. She marries a hot, rich Italian guy and moves to Taormina, I get dumped on Tinder and move in with some slobs. I suppose it doesn’t always work.

  My twin is ever-present in my head like an amputated limb—not a nice one you’ve lost in a road accident, a gangrenous one that has started to smell and you’re glad to chop off. Alvie ’n’ Beth, Beth ’n’ Alvie, it used to be, but not anymore, not since Oxford, not since Ambrogio. Although Beth and I are identical, Beth has always been the attractive one. Beth was the pretty one. Beth was the skinny one. Beth was the first to walk and talk and potty train and fuck. I force my face into the pillow.

  “Raaaagh!”

  Facebook.

  I have one new “Like” for my status update from Elizabeth Caruso: that’s my sister.

  Of course.

  I stare at my phone, pick at the bits of crap stuck in the keypad, wipe raspberry jam off the screen. I reread the email I sent to Beth: “Let me know when you’re next visiting London; it would be good to catch up”—the kind of thing you’d say to an annoying business associate, not to someone with whom you’d once shared a womb. Looking back over her email again now, it sounds like she genuinely wants to see me. “I need you. I’m begging you. Come.” OK, Beth, bra-fucking-vo, you win. I suppose I could buy some SPF 50. Hopefully Mount Etna is dormant. I start to type.

  From: Alvina Knightly

  [email protected]

  To: Elizabeth Caruso

  [email protected]

  Date: 24 Aug 2015 11.31

  Subject: RE: VISIT

  Hi, Beth,

  Sorry about before. I was having a really bollocks time at work. Now that I’m not working, I have time to come and visit you. You’re right; two years is far too long. I am, of course, dying to meet Ernie and your villa sounds gorgeous. I am free indefinitely (and could do with a holiday), so let me know when it might be convenient and I’ll check online for some cheap flights.

  Alvie

  Send.

  I’ll stick it on one of my credit cards. It’s not real money, just numbers. I’ll worry about it later. It’s only a molehill in comparison to my mountain of debt, a fraction; I’ll barely notice it. (I did try writing to the bank manager to let him know they’d made a mistake with my statement but he didn’t believe me. Apparently they hadn’t mis-sold me any PPI or overcharged me on any service fees either. Bloody typical. Banker wankers. Bash the lot of them, that’s what I say.)

  Chapter Three

  Unidentifiable meat—cat? rat? fox? pigeon?—gyrates in the kebab-shop window. Something yellow drip, drip, drips onto a metal grill below. It sizzles and spits, hisses and singes: pink, then brown, then gray. The air inside is heavy with fat. An attractive man in a smeared white apron and a cardboard hat approaches the counter. He has floppy hair and designer stubble. I imagine what he might look like under his clothes: all thirteen glorious inches of Mark Wahlberg’s penis in the final scene of Boogie Nights?

  “The usual?”

  I nod.

  “Actually, I’m hungry. Make that two.”

  He takes a long silver knife and flicks a switch. It glints in the neon light. The serrated blade buzzes, vibrates, whirrs, rotates. He saws off pieces—thick slices of meat—and catches them all in a bap. Lettuce, tomatoes, hold the onions, extra sauce.

  “Eight pounds, ninety-eight.”

  How much? That’s daylight robbery. I pay him anyway, leave the two-pence piece as a generous tip. I grab my doners and a can of fat Coke and devour both kebabs on the way to the flat, picking out the onions (bastard . . .) and flicking them onto the ground and licking the ketchup that’s dripping down my fingers: a splodge on my shirt, a splodge on my shoe, a splodge on the pavement, splat, splat, splat.

  There’s a secondhand bookshop with a copy of Beth’s novel for sale in the window: 50p. I stop dead in my tracks. That’s cheaper than toilet paper. I’m still not going to buy it; I wouldn’t read it if you paid me. Well, maybe if you paid me a lot. I look over my shoulder; it’s almost like Beth’s following me. I can’t believe her book’s in that shop. A glance at my phone tells me she has replied:

  From: Elizabeth Caruso

  [email protected]

  To: Alvina Knightly

  [email protected]

  Date: 24 Aug 2015 13.10

&nbs
p; Subject: RE: VISIT

  Darling Alvie,

  Of course you are forgiven and of course you must come! I have booked you onto tomorrow morning’s British Airways flight to Catania (see attached itinerary). It’s Club Class, darling, so make sure you take advantage of the complimentary champagne. If you aren’t gazeboed by the time you get here, I shall be disappointed. I hope that’s not too soon, but you did say you weren’t doing anything and, well, I simply couldn’t wait to see you! Ambrogio will collect you. Be warned: he drives like Lewis Hamilton, but you’ll do the 40 minute journey in 15 in the Lambo.

  Make sure you bring your bikini and a sun-hat; it’s murder out here. Actually, don’t worry if you haven’t got any of that, you can buy Prada and Gucci in Taormina up the road.

  See you tomorrow!

  Love,

  Beth xxx

  P.S. Great news about quitting. You hated that job, didn’t you?

  P.P.S. How much did you say you weighed again?

  I keep my eyes open for a long time without blinking. When I do finally blink, the email from Beth is still up on the screen. She’s efficient: tomorrow morning? She bought me tickets? What a control freak.

  And what is her obsession with my weight all of a sudden?

  From: Alvina Knightly

  [email protected]

  To: Elizabeth Caruso

  [email protected]

  Date: 24 Aug 2015 13.20

  Subject: RE: VISIT

  9 stone 5. See you tomorrow.

  Send.

  Beth replies almost immediately.

  From: Elizabeth Caruso

  [email protected]

  To: Alvina Knightly

  [email protected]

  Date: 24 Aug 2015 13.23

  Subject: RE: VISIT

  Great! Me too! XXX

  What? How is that even possible? She’s just given birth.

  “I can’t lose the baby-weight and it’s driving me insane.”

  See what I mean? Class-A bitch.

  I’m going to Sicily tomorrow morning, flying Club Class (what is that?), and getting picked up in a Lamborghini. It all sounds pretty dreamy. I can’t wait to see Ambrogio, eye candy extraordinaire. He’s like Brad Pitt times Ashton Kutcher to the power of David Gandy. Maybe Beth isn’t such a cow after all?

  I fling the empty kebab wrappers on the doorstep with the others and sprint up the stairs two at a time.

  ◆

  I have the apartment all to myself, just how I like it. If only it were like this all the time. I’ve already chain-smoked six cigarettes and drunk most of a bottle of Pinot Grigio I found in the fridge. It’s not mine, but I’m leaving tomorrow so I couldn’t give a toss.

  I empty out my wardrobe and drawers and yank my suitcase from under my bed. Blow off the dust and the cigarette butts and socks. I can’t believe I’m going to see Beth again. From birth until college we were practically inseparable (not out of choice: think tapeworm or guinea worm or bloodsucking parasite). That’s twenty-six years, ten months, and twelve days ago now. Elbowing each other in that salty, amniotic sea, we couldn’t wait to get out and become separate beings; nine months is a long time to spend with your face up inside someone’s asshole. Beth escaped first, whooshing down the birth canal like a Canadian bobsled star going for gold at the winter Olympics. I got stuck heading out feet first. The midwife had to yank me, up to her elbows like a farmer birthing a calf; I was doing the splits with one foot behind each ear. Needless to say, Mum had had quite enough of pushing after the first one came out. What did she need me for? She already had Beth. I was surplus to requirements, like a “buy one get one free” offer that you didn’t really want. The unopened cheddar that festers in the bottom of the fridge. The second pack of Jaffa Cakes that you really shouldn’t eat. Easy to forget about. Easy to ignore.

  Mum was always “forgetting” about me, like she “forgot” to mention she was emigrating to Australia. She “forgot” to get my vaccinations and I caught the measles. She “forgot” to bring me home from the supermarket or get me off the train to Penzance. She “forgot” to invite me to our grandmother’s funeral. (It wasn’t my fault she died; I just happened to be visiting when she finally croaked.) You get the picture.

  Because I got stuck, I had to go in a fish tank, aka an incubator. Something to do with being starved of oxygen. The first time anyone saw me, I was a violent blue. Because I was in the fish tank, I had to stay in the hospital. I didn’t get breastfed, unlike Beth. The nurses gave me bottles. I only ever got formula. Mum left with Beth, her precious firstborn, and the pair of them had a grand old time. When they finally let me out, a few weeks later, they had to leave three voicemails for Mum to come and get me. Of course, by then, she’d really bonded with Beth. And everyone knows three’s a crowd. It was a pattern that’s lasted for twenty-six years: Mum was lazy, Beth was easy to love: obedient, well behaved, immaculately presented. She never embarrassed us in front of the neighbors, ran away, or got into trouble with the police. She didn’t set fire to things or swear. She was never a disappointment.

  I was named after our father, Alvin (what an imagination), and Elizabeth was named for Her Majesty, the queen (a story that Mum never tires of telling . . . ). Mum wasn’t that keen on our dad, as it happened. They divorced soon after we were born, and he went to live in San Francisco. I never saw him again. No great loss; he was probably a twat. Mum would never have lived in America or Greenland or Afghanistan, or anywhere like that; she loved the queen too much. Devoted, like a bee. The only reason she agreed to move to Australia with her second husband (a complete cad called Rupert Vaughan Willoughby) was because in Sydney, the queen is still sovereign. A devoted subject, a true patriot, she always preferred Elizabeth to me. If only there had been a Queen Alvina! I checked Wikipedia, but no, there wasn’t. Just some dumb lost girl in a novel by D. H. Lawrence that I haven’t read.

  My earliest memory? Sticking pins in Beth’s doll. Don’t ask me why. I have no idea. I was only about three or four at the time. I didn’t know shit about voodoo back then. I just found her doll one day and decided it would be fun to stick pins in it. And it was. I can still see it now, lying there on that dressing table: long blond hair and big blue eyes, eyelids that opened and shut on their own when you moved its head back and forth. Sit up: they open. Lie down: they shut. Open. Shut. Open. Shut. Hours of fun.

  I found Mum’s sewing pins tucked away in a drawer. They were the long, thin, silver kind with different colored balls all stuck on the ends. There must have been about fifty of them in a little square case. I pulled them out, one by one, and stuck them in. Easy as pie. I expected the doll to cry, but she didn’t make a sound, just lay there and took it. I started with the feet; four in each foot between each little pink toe, then another one and another one in two long lines up her legs. They slid into the plastic nice and deep. Stuck good and firm like the spines on a hedgehog.

  I kept on going, pin after pin, all the way up her body, her stomach, her chest, her neck, her cheeks, her forehead, her temples. I stabbed at her eyes, but they wouldn’t go in; the eyeballs were made of shiny, hard glass. When I finished her front, I flipped her right over, stuck pins in her back. Her buttocks. The back of her head. It was all going well until the very last pin, a red one, I think. I don’t know what happened. I pulled it out of the packet and then—I pricked my thumb. The shock was colossal. At that age? An earthquake. A bead of blood sprung up on my finger: perfect, round, red to match the pin. I was just like Sleeping Beauty, spinning her wheel. Without even thinking, I licked it. Animal. Instinctive. That was my very first taste of blood. It was like nothing else I’d ever tasted, before or since: salty, metallic. Illicit, like wine. I was speechless. Changed.

  But that was then and this is now. I haven’t seen my sister for two whole years, not since her wedding in Milan, in the fucking cath
edral. And what a disaster that was. I do not want to think about it. I light another cigarette and suck up a lungful of cancer, sit on my windowsill and stare at the pigeons. They stare back. Menacing. Murderous. Little black eyeballs glinting with malice. Did one of you jokers crap on my shoulder? They’ve been watching Alfred Hitchcock; any minute, they’ll attack.

  Scenes of Beth’s wedding flood my mind, uninvited. . . .

  I glug some more wine.

  For months before Beth’s “big day” my mother used to call me and ask, “Who’s your plus one, Alvina? I need to know for the seating plan/invitations/just to get on your tits.”

  “But why do I need to bring anyone, Mum? Why do I even need a boyfriend?”

  “I’m not getting into this now, Alvina. The sprouts will overcook and your father won’t eat them.”

  “He’s not my father.”

  Silence.

  “Why can’t you find a nice young man like Ambrosia?” she said.

  Oh God, please help me. Here we go again.

  “Ambrogio, Mum. He’s not a rice pudding.” Although, it’s true, I would like to eat him.

  “Your sister’s settling down and you’re not getting any younger.”

  “No. I know.” I was twenty-four.

  “Or any more attractive.”

  Oh, for fuck’s sake. She really knew how to get under my skin. I blinked back tears and sniffed too loudly. It’s not like I wanted to die alone.

  “I’m perfectly happy without a boyfriend, and the last guy I shagged turned out to be a mollusk.”