Helen was forty-three and a lawyer. She and her husband worked in the same firm in the City. She worked more than full time hours and got paid a lot, but it was no more than what she was due. She had three sons, a house in Wimbledon and a holiday flat in Lymington where they were well-known at the sailing club. Her friends were lawyers or worked in finance, and were rich enough not to begrudge her second home and happy life. Jessica, two years younger than Helen, was still single. She lived on her own, wrote short lifestyle pieces for magazines and flitted between minimum wage jobs, getting deeper into debt to Helen as time went on.
No one would have thought they were sisters. Helen was lithe and cheerful and at ease with her successes, whereas Jessica has a tendency to look as if she’d slept terribly or just received bad news. Since she went travelling in India at 18, Jessica had been devoted to spiritual adventure. In her early twenties she became a follower of Sadu Magujoshi and, aged 22, flew to India to commit herself to a life of devotion. She had to come back to the UK after three months after she developed an enormous infected abyss in her groin. By the time she had fully recovered, having spent three weeks in a hospital in Margao, Goa, and a further month lying on her front at her parents’ house in Birmingham, she was a devotee of Eckhart Tolle and broadly committed to veganism and saving the planet. From then on, she drifted in and out of various mediation groups, latterly online, and spent months at a time dedicated to specific methods of mediation and green living. She never had any money.
Helen didn’t understand any of it. Their parents never believed in anything, apart from perhaps, their jobs. They managed to be decent people without having to be told what to do by spiritual hippies or men in orange robes, or any robes. They managed to live their lives without humiliating themselves by, what Helen saw, as an unacceptable state of indecision. Helen recycled and upcycled everything she could, she had all but removed plastics from her house, and had led a committee which had founded a Green Audit at her law firm. Her husband had recently cut himself on an organic soap she had bought from a farm in Kent that was made of wax and twigs. She viewed her sister’s dedication to various alternative living gurus as no more than a way of justifying a painful lack of direction and an inability to see anything through.
Jess didn’t just worry about the fate of her own soul, she also worried about everyone else’s, and especially Helen’s. She made her judgements felt though careful silences, gentle raises of the eyes, or appearing ‘not to mind’ when a significant decision was to be made about her birthday, or whether or not she would be included on a family trip which Helen had offered to pay for. Jess seemed to look at Helen with despair, which Helen could never fathom, because what Helen had was a comfortable, happy life, and what Jess had, was misery.
At the age of forty-two, Helen took up ultra-running. She ran her first double marathon with some friends from the Wimbledon Windmillers, who had only started ultra-running a year earlier, and had already placed 3rd and 4th in Race To The Kings in Surrey. They had found a great fat burning caffeine tablet they could add to water, which really helped their performance, but Helen wasn’t interested in it. She wanted to feel the thing for herself. And she was glad she did. She wouldn’t use the phrase ‘out of body experience’ but that was what had happened as she had hit mile 40. Later she made the mistake of trying to describe the feeling to Jess, who only wanted to talk about why Helen felt the need to pay a company £85 to permit her to put her body under ‘bizarre levels of stress’ and feel something ‘that was readily available in normal life’.
‘At least I am finding new ways to stimulate myself,’ Helen said. ‘At least I am not just trudging along in the same old way – doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
Not long after this conversation, Jess also broke the mould by going to live on a farm in North Wales with a group of people she had met on an Alternative Living Group on Facebook. The farm was owned by a couple who wanted to create a new lifestyle movement. That was how Jess described it in her first email to Helen in early spring, which then became a weekly bulletin. Every week Helen would hear how happy Jess was and how ‘connected’ she felt.
By November the emails stopped. Helen didn’t worry about it at first, but when she called Jess on her birthday at the beginning of December, she could tell something had changed.
‘Jess, you know you don’t have to stay out there,’ she said.
‘I know, I’m fine, I want to make it work, life just has its tough moments,’ Jess said.
‘If shit is weird, just leave,’ Helen said.
‘I’m fine.’
But Jess called Helen a week later to say she was quitting the Alternative Living Group. When Helen asked her where she was heading to, Jess had to admit that she had no idea. She had sold her car just before she left London, and now she was penniless.
‘You can come and stay with us,’ Helen said.
Jess said no. Then she gave in.
‘Cool.’ Helen said. ‘Just get a plan in place and execute it.’ She told Jess that she would transfer money to her account to get the train back down to London. ‘Can you get to the station?’
‘I’ll work something out,’ Jess said.
Helen was just about to hang up when she changed her mind. She knew if Jess was relying on one of the group to drop her to the station or even having to hitch, she was somehow at risk of being influenced, persuaded to stay or change her mind.
‘Look, just hold tight tonight and I will come and get you tomorrow.’
‘Helen, you don’t have to do that, I don’t expect you to do that,’ Jess said. ‘It’s a massive drive.’
‘Just send me a Pin for Google Maps,’ Helen said.
Jess told Helen to head for the BP garage in Betws-y-Coed.
‘I’ll meet you there. I don’t want you to come to the farm. It’s just weird. The vibe, you know.’
That evening Helen received an email from a man who described himself as ‘ALG Organiser’ at the farm Jess was living on. From the email Helen learnt that Jess had not quit the farm but had been asked to leave. The bottom of the email included the signature ‘ALG: being is believing.’
Helen tried to disregard the email, but she couldn’t. Each time she thought of it she felt hot and anxious, a feeling that came over her again when she drove into the service station and saw Jess sitting on a curb hugging her rucksack. It was late in the afternoon, and the sun was already very low behind the clouds. A Twix wrapper skittered past Jess’s feet.
Helen beeped the horn and Jess raised her head. She smiled at Helen. She was wearing a pair of blue jeans and a blue hoodie with something written on it and a black puffa jacket.
‘You need to get yourself one of these again,’ Helen shouted out the window, banging the side of her car.
Jess came to the window. She bent down and Helen read the words on her hoodie: ‘The best spirit is the holy spirit,’ beside the picture of a candle in a shot glass.
‘Thanks for coming all this way,’ Jess said, ‘You must be knackered.’ She looked behind her at the shop. ‘Helen could I borrow a fiver? I just need to pay the guy in the shop for a sandwich and a coffee. I was starving when I got here.’
Helen opened her wallet to look for notes and only had two fifties. She handed one over to Jess, who pulled back as if she had seen something disgusting.
‘I don’t need that much.’
‘Jess, I don’t want to be keeping track of tenners and twenties. Here’s a few quid, pay them and spend the rest on coffees or whatever over the next few weeks, but just pay me back when your house is in order.’ She waved the note at Jess. ‘Go on, take it.’
Jess took the money and went into the service station. She came out holding two cans of Dr Pepper, one of which she gave to Helen.
‘No bags?’ Helen nodded on the grey holdall and large Lidl bag still sitting on the curb.
‘Opps,’ Jess said, and made a face. She balanced her can on the dashboard. As she got out her jacket knocked the can over spilling Dr Pepper all over the matt and shiny carpet before Helen could snatch it up. Jess looked on as Helen sprawled across the two seats holding the can outside the car.
‘Take this, and wipe it up,’ she said sharply.
‘With what?’
‘Whatever, your hoodie, whatever ever the fuck.’
Jess made a confused face, then pulled her jacket and hoodie off and soaked up the Dr Pepper.
‘I can’t believe we haven’t even left the petrol station yet. Go and get your bags.’
They were silent until they were moving fast along the A5. Helen turned her lights on.
‘This is a new car, right?’ Jess said.
‘Yep. This is a new car.’
‘Is that why you were so upset about the Dr Pepper?’
‘Let’s just drop it.’
‘I’m really sorry.’
‘Just be more careful,’ Helen said. ‘It’s really hard to get the stickiness and smell of that stuff out of the carpet. I just, I’m sorry, I just don’t want a new car that smells of that shit.’
‘What was wrong with the other car?’
Helen glanced over at Jess. Jess had raised the hood of her jacket over her head. The peaked hood gave her nose and chin the look of the Grim Reaper.
‘Nothing,’ Helen said. ‘I just felt like I wanted to treat myself to a new one.’
Jess nodded.
There was a long silence as Helen drove and the day darkened towards evening. On one side of them the black of the Irish Sea and on the other, fields interspersed with clusters of sulphuric yellow light.
‘So?’ Helen said. ‘Alternative living not your thing?’ Jess said nothing. Then she sighed. ‘Well?’ Helen said.
‘It was my fault.’
‘What was your fault?’
‘The whole thing. Don’t play dumb Helen, I know they wrote to you last night, I gave them your email.’ Jess looked at Helen, and then stared out of her window.
‘I’m not playing dumb.’ Jess nodded. ‘All he said, Mr ALG, was that they had asked you to leave, and that they were glad I was coming to get you but I don’t know any of the particulars.’
‘I fucked up,’ Jess said. ‘That’s the long and short of it. But I couldn’t help it. Do you need the details?’
‘Yes,’ Helen said, trying to make it OK for Jess. ‘What is life without the gory details?’
‘What you mean is that everyone likes to hear how someone else fucked up,’ Jess said.
‘Fine,’ Helen said. ‘That is the weird and wonderful way it works on this little rock in the Milky Way.’
Jess turned to rest her back against the car door and put her left foot on her right knee, so she was positioned facing Helen. Helen was aware of Jess’s eyes on her. She waited. It was dark, they were on the M50 and in all directions the horizon seemed splintered with carnivals. Jess’s eyes had dark circles beneath them. Her forehead was luminescent. ‘Do you ever dream about me?’ Jess asked.
‘Do I ever dream about you? Well, no, Jess, I don’t,’ Helen said, lying.
‘What do you dream about?’
‘I don’t know. My children. I have nightmares about something happening to them.’
‘Makes sense, but I know you dream about me,’ Jess said. Helen didn’t move. ‘Sometimes I wake up at night,’ Jess went on, ‘and I can tell you are dreaming about me.’
‘We were talking about the farm,’ Helen said. ‘Let’s finish that conversation and then we can talk about our various out-of-body experiences and the interesting things we get up to when we are dreaming.’
Jess raised her eyebrows and fixed her gaze on Helen. Then she turned quickly to face the windscreen.
‘There’s not that much to say,’ she said. ‘I just didn’t do anything right.’
‘That’s hardly gory details,’ Helen said.
‘Well, doing the shopping for example,’ Jess said. ‘Every time it was my turn to do the shopping I’d mess it up somehow. Things would be missing or I would buy something with packaging, or something with palm oil in it, or I would forget to buy the gluten free options. Then one time I gave it all away. That did not go down well. It’s not funny Helen.’
‘Who on earth needed the groceries more than the penniless Alternative Living nuts?’
‘It was back in August, I was in the van on the way back to the farm and I picked up this group of people who were randomly walking along one of the tiny back roads. There were four women and two men. They were from Hungary, and were in Wales fruit-picking. They said they did it every year. This was their day off. So they had gone for a walk and got lost. They hardly spoke English, but I just started chatting to them as best I could. They said they lived in big dorms and they ate the same meals very day, soups, pasta, that Angel Delight shit. One of them had a daughter with Leukaemia and he was over to make money because he wife had stopped working to look after the kid, and he needed to make more, he wanted to buy her this bed that moved up and down.
‘I just dropped them off at the gates of this farm and, I don’t know why, I told them to take the shopping. They didn’t really need it. I shouldn’t have given it all away. Like, not all of it. I really learnt my lesson with that one. You have to be fair on the people who are relying on you and you have to be practical.’ Jess leaned forward, and Helen could sense her excitement. ‘There is nothing actually wrong about being in business, or in the game, part of the system, so long as you’re fair to other people, you can still be fair to yourself. I’m actually thinking of starting up a business, Helen.’
‘Right. Well we can talk about that later,’ Helen said. ‘So, is that the story? You gave the shopping to some Hungarian fruit pickers and you got chucked out?’
‘What did they tell you?’ Jess said.
‘Nothing.’
‘They must have said something.’
Helen pouted her lips and shook her head.
‘They didn’t tell you about gas leak?’ When Helen shook her head again Jess looked at her for a long time, and then said, ‘I don’t know. It was ridiculous, I just lost it at them after that. I didn’t purposefully leave the gas on. I was punished as if I had wanted to actually kill everyone.’ Jess dropped her foot to the floor and turned to face the road. ‘Basically everyone had to take it in turns to cook dinner. I usually did a stir fry or pasta with a bit of salt and basil. But this one night I thought I’d push the boat out.’ Jess looked at Helen who was shaking her head and smiling. ‘This is all just a joke to you, isn’t it?’
‘Sorry,’ Helen said said, pulling her mouth back into a pout.
‘You don’t know how to be present for me.’
‘Tell me about the dinner, Jess.’
Jess kept watching her.
‘You just love it when I look stupid. You need me to look confused and weak.’
‘Shut up Jess. Don’t make a big thing out of this.’
‘I know why you do it, it’s because you are worried about the hollow little rattle in your own life. You are afraid to connect to people who try and name it in themselves and work out what it is, so you make fun of them.’
‘Connect,’ said Helen, gently.
‘You’re basically terrified,’ Jess said. ‘Life is a continual threat. You have always been like that. Do you remember when you would hit the back of my head as you walked passed in the morning, as I was eating my cereal. You didn’t like it that I was up before you.’
‘I don’t want you to look stupid Jess – you do it yourself. You are doing it now, bringing up what I did thirty years ago.’
‘You can’t tell me you don’t remember,’ Jess said.
‘OK, yes,’ Helen said, ‘sort of, but it wasn’t that big a deal.’
‘Helen, you used to try and kill me,’ Jess said, infuriated. ‘Do you remember what you did after I got my appendix out?’
‘Oh for fuck’s sake. I remember hitting your head in the morning, it was more of a bump. I never did anything truly malicious.’
‘It was all the time,’ Jess said. ‘Like when mum and dad went out and you were left babysitting. I’d hear them say goodnight and I would hear the car starting and the crunch of the wheels on the drive and then I would suddenly become extremely alert. After a while I would hear you coming up the stairs and I would close my eyes and pretend to be asleep. There were some nights when you would come up and just stand outside the door. Sometimes I could see your shadow in the little slip of light. But other nights, you would come in and I would hear your little held breath steps, your breathing. You would come over and sit on the end of the bed, do you remember Helen? Helen, I will make you remember this, and you would pull the sheets back. You would lift up my pyjamas and start pushing down on my appendix stiches. You would touch them as if you were pulling them apart and then you would hit them. But it was as if you wanted to do this while I was asleep and I didn’t want to upset you by waking up. Is that fucked up or what? I was afraid you would get angry or upset if I let on that I knew you were trying to kill me.’ Jess laughed. ‘Jesus, Helen, do you remember that shit?’
‘Christ Jess, I don’t know, I might have done that, it was like thirty years ago, you want me to atone for this now?’
‘Not might Helen. I am telling you, that when now was another now, that was what your now.
That was your best shot at that moment.’
‘I can’t take this. We have another four hours ahead of us, and if you don’t back the fuck off with all these weird memories I am gonna pull into the next service station and leave you there.’
Jess turned to look out of her window.
‘I’m doing my best, Jess,’ Helen said. The self-absorption in her voice made it sound like a lie. But it wasn’t a fucking lie, she was doing her best.
The car had slowed in a traffic jam. Brake lights blinked on and off all around them. The sky above was starless.
‘Actually, Jessica, I had a dream about you the other night.’ Then she added, impatiently as if Jess had been badgering her for more examples, ‘A couple of other nights too. Yeh, so. Anyway, I’m hungry.’
‘Was it the same dream?’
‘Different. I only remember one of them. There was something wrong with me and you were helping me. You were minding me. There was just the two of us. I don’t know where everyone else was. There was no one else there.’
Helen left it there, she didn’t tell Jess that in this dream she couldn’t speak.
‘That’s good I was helping you,’ Jess looked out of the window. ‘Sorry to get into the thing about my appendix, but the scar never healed properly. I try and forget it, but I guess I never will. Not fully. It was intense, back then, having someone around who was trying to, well, kill you.’
‘We were kids,’ Helen said. ‘I don’t remember what the hell I was at. It’s in the past. Gone.’
They stopped for dinner at Beaconsfield Services just before they hit the M25. As Helen was paying for two bottles of water to take out to the car she heard a woman behind her say, ‘Sorry are you heading for the M25 southbound?’ and Jess said, ‘Yep.’
‘Great,’ the woman said.
Helen looked up at the slanted mirror above the line of razors and batteries on the wall behind the cashier. The woman was small and round with short dyed red hair. She had a smoker’s gravelly voice. Nope, Helen thought. No way.
Helen got her change and turned around, ‘You ready!’ she said chirpily to Jess.
The woman looked at Jess. She was wearing all black and had a small pink travel bag behind her.
‘Oh, are you two together, sorry,’ said the woman wrapping her long cardigan across one side of her chest.
‘Yes, sorry, why?’ Helen said.
‘No I was just asking your friend if you were heading southbound because I missed the final call back on my Magic Bus and now I am stranded here. I called my sister, but she’s not going to be able to get out, and I dunno, I was waiting in the car park for another coach to pass through, but, it’s just…’
She had a thick Birmingham accent.
‘What made you miss the coach?’ Helen said.
‘I dunno. I went to the loo, did some shopping and smoked a ciggy and then I couldn’t see it no more. I’m on my own. I dunno.’
Helen shook her head. Classic. Fags. She didn’t look like she had the money to be spending £12.50 on a packet every few days. Every day probably, looking at her. So she’s missed her bus and she’s stuck on the M25, no one’s fault but her own. But before she could say anything, Jess started playing Mother Teresa again. ‘Look, it is no problem, where do you need to get to?’
‘Croydon.’
‘We can drop you at Wimbledon? You’ll be able to get across to Croydon no bother from there.’
‘Jess, the car is already full of your stuff.’
‘I’ll whack it in the boot.’
‘The boot is actually full Jess, but OK, whatever.’
‘We’ll work it out,’ Jess said. She walked outside and the woman went with her. Helen followed at a distance watching the material on the woman’s loose black leggings rubbing against itself all the way down to her knees. When they reached the car Jess said something and the woman laughed, then they both leant against the car like children.
Helen still hoped the woman would suggest something else, or that the car itself might reveal the perfect reason to brush her off. But nothing came. She beeped the car open, and as she heard the reassuring shifting click of the locks she decided this was an experiment, a safe enough one, in a controlled environment. They would just see what happened with this woman in the car. She might ask to smoke a cigarette, but she wasn’t going to start ripping off the leather panelling. In fact, if anyone was going to threaten Helen’s life right now, she had been travelling with her for the last three hours.
As soon as they got onto the motorway the woman asked if she could smoke.
‘No, I’m a non-smoker,’ Helen said.
‘Oh God, sorry,’ the woman said. Helen looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the woman raising her eyes as she looked out of the window, then frown and say, ‘I’m Gemma by the way, I don’t think I introduced myself.’
Jess turned to look back at her.
‘Jees, yeh, sorry, I’m Jess, Jess O’Malloy.’
‘O’Malloy? Really? One of my best mates is Sharon O’Malloy. Her family is from Ireland. There is a gang of them O’Malloy’s in Birmingham. Do you know them?’
Helen mouthed, ‘yeh’, sarcastically at the windscreen.
‘Well,’ Jess said, ‘It was actually our dad’s dad who came over from Dublin in the forties, he married a French girl he met in London, then our dad married our mum whose parent’s are Italian. We haven’t actually been to Ireland yet. I always feel like a bit of a let down when people ask me about my Irish heritage. The name is like a weird stamp, on my forehead that I don’t actually know anything about.’
‘Ohh, so you’re sisters,’ Gemma said.
‘Did you say before that you’re going to visit your sister?’ Helen butted in.
‘Yeh. It’s a bit mental, I suppose that’s why I’m all over the place. Her youngest got into a bit of trouble at school yesterday. He’s only 13, and he’s a very quiet kid. But he was having a tough time. My sister’s partner isn’t there. It’s just, I think it is a lot for her.’
‘What happened?’ Jess said quietly.
‘It’s totally fucked up.’
Helen looked at Gemma in the mirror again. She didn’t really want to hear the story.
‘The kid, Dylan, basically attacked another kid with a bike chain at school. Held it around his neck. He is so quiet that kid, Dylan. Too quiet maybe. Like I get it. But I don’t. I get it, because his dad’s not around and he get’s a lot of stick at school. He’s small, and he has glasses.’ She waited for a moment. ‘His dad’s in the slammer.’
‘What did he do?’ Helen asked.
‘Assault.’
‘Oh,’ Jess said.
‘Yesterday my sister was called to the school, with the parents of the kid Dylan attacked and the police were there. I don’t know what happened exactly but the kid who Dylan attacked wouldn’t make a statement about what happened, all the kids stayed quiet, like. But the parents are saying they are going to make sure the police are involved. It’s all up the air. Like basically everyone now thinks Dylan one of those kids like them ones in America. My sister says he hasn’t cried or whatever.’
Gemma was pressing her lips together, trying not to cry.
‘Smoke if you need to,’ Helen said.
‘Thank you, sorry, it is totally mental,’ Gemma rummaged for her cigarettes and pulled out a packet of Benson and Hedges.
‘It’s totally fine,’ Jess said.
‘It gets even weirder,’ Gemma dragged deep on her cigarette, ‘if you want the full story.’
Helen and Jess were quiet. ‘She only went and won ten grand on the post-code lottery this morning.’
‘What?’ Jess said.
‘Yeh, my sister, this morning, we do this postcode lottery, the winnings are less than the real one, but she has been playing for like 15 years, and then this morning she won. So I said, right, I coming down and we are going to organise something amazing to do with Dylan, like tomorrow, because god knows what that kid is going to go through. I said, look, we’ll head out tomorrow to Westfield, and then in the evening have a fucking bottle of champagne and look at flights to Spain and try and enjoy life for a moment.’
Jess nodded. ‘Yeh, absolutely,’ she said.
‘I mean it is just too much to handle sometimes, worrying about how it is all going to pan out. Like when I missed the fucking bus. My heart hurt. That is how I’d put it. I can’t think of another way. I just thought of her waiting there for me. I didn’t even ring her actually, that’s the truth, I didn’t want to ring and tell her that I couldn’t get myself down on a Magic Bus without something going to shit. I actually think she doesn’t believe the postcode lottery thing has happened. But she has sent me a picture of the ticket and I can see she has won it.’
‘Well you are going to get to Croydon,’ Helen said.
‘God, that is mental,’ Jess said shaking her head.
‘I know,’ Gemma said. ‘Don’t I fucking know it.’
They drove most of the rest of the way in silence.
As they neared the exit of the M25 to head towards Wimbledon, Jess turned around to
Gemma and said, ‘Can we take you to Croydon?’
Helen made a pained expression at the windscreen and shook her head.
‘Oh don’t worry,’ Gemma said. ‘I wouldn’t want to put you out like that.’
‘Yeh Jess, we are really low on fuel right now, and I have got to get back for the boys.’
‘But Dave’s at home isn’t he?’
‘Jess, Gemma can get the overground from Wimbledon no problem.’
‘Yeh,’ said Gemma, nodding. ‘It isn’t a problem at all, thanks so much.’
‘OK,’ Jess said, turning back to face the road.
At the station Jess got out of the car to say goodbye to Gemma. Helen watched them hug in the side mirror. Jess got back in the car.
‘You don’t have to save everyone, you know,’ Helen said. ‘I don’t know why you made it so awkward there, and offered that I drive her to Croydon, it was completely unnecessary.’
‘Did you hear what her sister has just been through? Did you hear her say that her heart hurt today? What exactly were you going home to do Helen?’
‘My life, Jess. I have been in a car for nearly ten hours because of you. And you wanted to make that 11. Are you insane? And I am the one that is supposed to feel bad? What the hell are you on? You have my money in your pocket, you are in my car because you got chucked out of your life again, and now I am the one that feels bad? For fuck’s sake!’
The car was crawling up the hill to Wimbledon Village. The trees on either side of the road pulsed in black shadows. A cyclist went by, his bike tilting left and right as he pumped himself up the hill. Red brake lights seemed to blink everywhere.
‘Why? Why did you have to offer that lift?’ Helen said. When Jess didn’t answer, Helen said. ‘Like, it is my Saturday, too. It wasn’t your place to do that.’
‘I know, I’m sorry, I’m sorry Helen, you’re right,’ Jess said.
‘Like, just. Think it though.’
‘It is my Saturday too.’
‘Your Saturday too. Yah. You’d be stuck at a service station in Betws-y-Coed in the middle of winter if it wasn’t for me.’ Jess turned to say something, but Helen cut her off.
‘What are you going to do when everyone stops bailing you out?’
‘Helen, I will pay you back.’
‘Bollocks. And that lift, just because you thought that we hadn’t been good enough to her, that we are responsible for her sister’s shit in some way!’
‘That isn’t the reason why I offered,’ Jess said. ‘And it wasn’t to get back at you or a disrespect to you or anything. It wasn’t about you.’
‘Sure, so what was it?’
‘It was for us and her.’
‘Right.’
‘Sorry,’ Jess said, and turned to look out of the window as they drove along the side of the common.
Helen drove slowly along the road she knew so well. She kept to 27mph now because she had been done for speeding last year, for going 35mph as she brought one of the boys to football practice. They had been late, because she had been late home from work. That would be it, Helen thought, Jess will come right in the end, with one of these hare-brained offerings to strangers, one of these mad moves will bring her little sister all the success she could dream of, and she would be stuck, trudging along the conveyor belt, mopping up after everyone, handing out money, on ten hour roadtrips for other people as if the whole think had been one big selfish act of her own will. As if she was the one who hadn’t been trying. She felt a shadow creep through her body.
‘I know full well what is going to happen,’ she said suddenly as if she had indeed seen the future.
‘I’ll pay you back, I will give back,’ Jess said.
‘You won’t mate. All you have ever really done is take, Jess.’ Jess turned to look out of her window. ‘Basically, I am stuck with you. I’m stuck with this whole situation. You on your spiritual flights of fancy and I will keep mopping up. Turning up. Making the choice that keeps everyone on their feet and you can keep seeing me as some selfish bitch or whatever.’
Jess bit her lip and looked upwards.
‘Let me out,’ she said.
Helen kept going.
‘Stop the car Helen,’ Jess said. ‘I said let me out. I’m not messing.’
‘You’re not? You want me to stop?’
‘Yap.’
‘So that’s it? Where are you going to go?’
‘I would like to get out of this car Helen.’
‘If I fucking stop and let you out, that is it Jess. I swear. That is it.’
‘Stop.’
Helen pulled up to the curb and Jess got out. She opened the back door and got her bags, then opened the front door again to speak to Helen.
‘You need this,’ Helen said. ‘I don’t, I am still here. You did this.’
‘I’m not blaming anyone, Helen.’
‘What the fuck? This is all you Jess. What can you blame me for? Are you insane?’
‘Helen. Bye. Thank you. Thank you for everything, sincerely, I wish you all the best.’
Helen put her hands in front of her mouth in prayer. She was trying to still a screaming panic inside her. ‘Go, Helen.’ Jess said, and closed the door.
Helen watched Jess walking back down in the direction of the station. She was suddenly free, she reached to turn on the radio, as if she was finally permitted to get on with what she wanted. She rolled down all the windows to try and rid the car of the smell of smoke. David would ask her where Jess was.
‘She’s staying somewhere else!’ Helen said out loud, in the car, traffic passing her, she still hadn’t moved. ‘She’s gone somewhere else,’ she tried again. She swallowed.
Where? David said in her head. Where is your sister, Helen?
