After The Fall

I remember walking barefoot through the trees, with you and the others laughing and chattering a couple of steps behind me. It's a long barely-worn trail and I keep having to brush the leaves out of my face, swiping away the midges. I remember watching the dusty ground pass beneath my feet as though I'm walking just above it, leading you and your trendy friends to the clearing. You're with James and I feel my stomach twist with every overblown laugh you make at every joke he throws you. I remember the noises that bully my ears: the drumming beat of the birds' wings, the whispering Autumn leaves, the rush of the water.

          We reach the clearing and my feet seem to stop. Ahead of me the ground opens up and the waterfall appears. 'No pressure,' you whisper in my ear, so I squirm out of my dress and let it drop at my side. I hope James is ignoring you for me. I go to pinch my nose closed before realising how childish that must look and pretend I'm wiping it, boyishly, the way that you do.

          I perch on the edge and look down to the waters tumbling endlessly over themselves to the pool below. 'It's not that far', you hiss in my ear. 'You'll be fine'. My toes grip the edge and I wish that they were longer – more simian – to hold on tighter. I think of the squirrel monkeys at the zoo, hurling themselves from branch to branch without fear of falling. I want to be like that, sis. I want to be like you.

          And now I'm falling feet first into the waterfall. I hit the surface like a car smashing into a wall and the breath is sucked from my lungs. I know I should be swimming, but the waters tug me down and my head starts to spin. I try not to swallow and force myself upwards but my hands are pinned to my side and every direction I look the darkness surrounds me. I can't escape the water. My lips open and I breathe it in.

          I remember it so clearly, I remember it every time I close my eyes, every time I sleep; I remember it as clearly as if it were happening to me now.

Except that it didn't happen to me, Mandy, it happened to you.

I've come to see you again. Come to sit at your bedside and read you the news. Come to listen to the monitors that tell the doctors you're still in there, to watch my sleeping twin's face paling in the artificial light. I know you're not interested in the same news as me – who's dating who, who’s wearing what – but I read it to you anyway. I pause from time to time to ask if you want me to read something else, but you lay there and say nothing, so I take that as a no. I tell you that I saw a bottle of cloudy lemonade in the cupboard this morning – it's obviously yours because Mum only buys them for you – and I thought about bringing it in for you.  I know you must be missing them, but you can only drink what comes out of the drip, so I'll put it away in the fridge to be ready for when you get out of here.

          Visiting time's over. I just spent the last hour with you talking crap that you'll never care about. I could have told you how much I miss you or how I care about you – that's fine, I'm not scared of saying how I feel. But there is one thing that I am scared of, so I'll stay well away from that. Let me talk about gossip so I don't have to talk about the dreams.

When I get home, Mum's sitting with Kara. I think it must be easier to get over the loss of you when there's a baby to attend to, but I don't have that comfort. I ask her if she's eaten and she tells me she has – she ate an hour ago, while Kara was sleeping and she had a moment to herself. 'Did you make me anything?' I ask, walking away before she can tell me no.

I try to put off sleep, even though I'm in work at seven tomorrow. I watch a crappy film on the TV, message James and the others until I'm bored of their pussyfooted consolations. I listen to the radio, read a book, stare at the ceiling. The hours crawl by until I can't keep my eyes from closing.

          It starts like the other times. I'm dreaming about something else, I don't remember what, then that dream's gone. It's like a hand reaching out and tugging me out of bed. It leads me through the trees until I'm stood at the top of the waterfall, in the place where you fell. Then I jump and hit the water, feel the air escaping my lungs, the water crushing me and pinning me down until my senses leave me. All that's left is the sound of my breath, heavy and constant.

          I wake up in tears, in a shivering sweat, cold and isolated. I look around and find that I've moved in my sleep, from my room to yours.

It's 6:30 when I reach the zoo. The boss seems genuinely surprised to see me this early. Normally she'd make a bitchy comment and I'd return it with relish, but since the accident she's been much nicer – I should thank you for that Mandy, I guess. I get on with feeding the capybaras and tapirs before hosing down the floors of the monkey house. I stop for a while to watch the emperor tamarins scuttling up the ropes and greeting each other with their eager gestures, imagining little smiles behind the huge white moustaches. James is prepping the feed today. I repress the flush that's trying to fill my cheeks and say hi. He smiles back and starts talking about lemurs. You'll be pleased to know that nothing has happened between us since the fall.

God what was wrong with you Mandy? I gave you six months to make a move on him and there was nothing. I knew you liked him – I knew from the moment we met him that you would, all you needed to do was change your mousy little squeak into a grown up voice and ask him out. But it was me he kept looking at, so I gave you one last chance to prove yourself to him – to show that you were just as bold as me, just as adventurous, just as beautiful once you stepped out of those baggy clothes. I told you you'd be fine.

          While I'm picking up the feed and checking it off, animal by animal, I catch a strange look on James' face. It's not a look of desire or affection or interest, it's something I don't think I've seen before.

          'What is it?' I ask him, and he tries pathetically to change his expression.  

          'It's just,' he replies with a stammer, 'it's really weird seeing you without her'. His stare lingers on me and I feel like it's me in the cage. 

          'Watch this space,' I tell him with a punch to the shoulder, before dancing nonchalantly away. I hide away most of the morning, in any quiet corner of the zoo I can find.

          At lunchtime the boss finds me out behind the sheds, squatting like a rat, gnawing on a Twix. I offer her a smile and she asks me kind of nervously if I'm going to see you tonight. 'Of course,' I respond. That's about as far as that conversation goes, but at the end of the day she presents me with a bouquet of chrysanthemums to give to you. She tells me to tell you that everyone's missing you and they can't wait for you to come back, and for a second I think to tell her that I'll have to wait and see if you want to say thank you because you're more of a peony girl. I bite my tongue and realise how dumb I'm being. 'It's a lovely gesture, thank you. I'll put them by her bedside'. That's the sort of response you would've given, no matter how bitchy she was being, but not me. Not before.

Hello, it's me again, thought I'd swing by, see how you're getting on.

Heart monitor constantly beating: check.

Artificial lung still pumping: check.

Unnatural bright overhead lights: check.

Comatose twin: check.

I've plugged my earphones into your ears so that you can hear my favourite songs. You used to like the same things as me until college, then I don't know what went wrong. Now you don't seem to listen to music at all, don't come to gigs with me, don't come to clubs, not that there's any near us. Mum said it's because I'm too mean to you, 'don't be so critical'. It's not my fault that you can't stand up for yourself. I snicker at the thought – you really can't stand up for yourself now – but then Mum's voice in my head tells me off and I feel awash with shame. I stroke your hair to say sorry, it's dry under my fingers. When the nurse comes to check on you, her tender gaze is so infuriating I have to leave.

The cold hand pulls me in. I can't tear my arms from my sides. I want to scream but I have no voice. The waters hold me down, the colours swarm before my eyes – reds and yellows, blinding white, fading to black.

When I wake up sobbing, Mum comes to the door. I think she's going to shout at me for waking Kara but she sits on my bed and rubs my arm; when she feels how wet it is she takes my dressing gown and wraps it round my shoulders. She shushes me and through my tears I tell her about the dreams. She strokes my hair and tells me it's okay, hiding her frown at the first time she's seen me cry since I was a child.

'It’s just that you're feeling guilty about the accident,' she tells me. 'You feel like you failed to save her'. Then she pauses. 'But it's not your fault Carrie. It's not your fault'.

I feel like the pressure has been taken from my chest. I breathe deeper and the tears stop. I hug her and tell her I love her and she stays for a while. When she leaves I fall back into a happier sleep, and my heart feels stronger.

But it doesn't last. The next night I'm dreaming that same dream again. But this time when I wake up I just can't cry.

It's started to strike me how little you look like me now. We've never been hard to tell apart – spend thirty seconds in a room with us and that's pretty obvious: I'll be the one chatting with strangers, flirting with boys, and drinking myself blind; you'll be hiding in the corner with a book in your lap and a cup of tea. But now you look so thin and pale. I hold my hand against your face and it looks like I've just come from the sunbed. Your lips are dry, so I pick a chapstick from my jacket and carefully brush it across them, then rub it in lightly with my fingers. You look like you're sleeping – if we were at home right now I'd be drawing chapstick patterns all over your face. When you woke up sticky-headed, you'd be mad at me but you'd never have the courage to do it back to me, or tell Mum, or take revenge. I don't know why you're such a soft touch. You should fight for your dignity Mandy, stick up for yourself. Then I won't have to.

I lay my head on your arm and close my eyes, forgetting what a mistake that is. I feel myself being tugged by my hand to the waterfall, and forced from the top.

When the dream ends and I come to my senses I find myself sprawled across the floor, halfway to the window, gasping for air. You're still lain on the bed, breathing artificial breaths, and through blinking eyes I see your hand and imagine for a moment that it twitches. But when I reach out and hold it, it's limp and still and as soft as it ever was. I stroke it, place it in my own hand and lift it to my face. The hand I have held, the hand I have squeezed, the hand I have pulled behind me all these years, and I realise. It's cold.

          It was your hand pulling me in Mandy, wasn't it?

It's you putting me in your place, in your dreams, in your body.

It's you taking mine.

It's 10 o'clock on Saturday morning, the zoo will be filling up with tourists from all over the place, and the regulars who can't find anything better to do than ogle at the lemurs or the tigers again. I'm not there. I felt compelled to visit the place where you fell, now I'm walking slowly to the waterfall. I take care to walk where I walked that day, not to follow your footsteps. The leaves look less vivid than in the dream, the sounds are less intense. For a moment I pause and almost find myself sinking to the ground to rest, but I can't risk falling asleep now, not here.

The waterfall seems quiet when I reach it. The steady flow's not as exciting as it seemed before, I don't feel the thrill of looking down into the deep sheltered pool below. No one else is here today, probably for the best. I take the long way down and find myself staring into the cold morning waters. Even in the mirk I can still see how heavy and black my eyes are, how dull my skin is, how matted my hair. My dark green uniform shirt drapes off me, hiding my pointed ribs. You did this to me.

I remember the look on your face when you saw me flirt with James, the hopelessness when you saw that he liked it. I didn't even know if I was interested in him, he was just there, good looking, tall, available. You looked as empty as I do now. And now you're getting your revenge.

          I can't figure out how you got in my head. It's not the fact that it's possible, it's how you of all people could do something like this. You don't have the guts, or the gall, the strength of will. If either of us could do it, it'd be me. All our lives I've carried you, helped you make new friends, stood up against Dad for you, held you crying when he left. When Mum's new boyfriend hit her, I was the one who shielded you and called the police. You can't look after yourself, you never could. Especially now, lying there helpless in a cold bright room with only those tubes to feed you.

          I touch the waters, just a stone's throw from where you crashed into them that day, where they pulled you out and pumped the water from your lungs. The pool I forced you into for the sake of a boy. The pool I jumped into to save you that day. Do you even know that? Doesn't that mean anything to you?

          The morning bleeds away until it's visiting hours and I'm standing at your bedside. I watch the machine that makes you breathe rising and falling; I listen to the electric pulse of the ECG that guards your heart. I blink in the artificial glare of the striplights that even you can see through closed eyelids. They buzz like wasps. This is no life for you, Mandy. My heavy head is spinning, so I sit beside you and stroke the IV that feeds you, trace it all the way from the drip to your arm. There's something cold and hard in my pocket and I pull it out to see what it is. Your cloudy lemonade. 'For you, Mandy', I say, and I place it by your bedside. Your favourite drink.

          Do you remember when you told Mum that you like it? You must've been about seven or eight. She wouldn't buy it for you because it was fizzy so I told you I knew where they made it. I told you to wait for me and snuck off to the cornershop. I stole half a dozen cans and gave you one a day for the rest of the week. You thought I was amazing, I swear you would've done anything to thank me. I never told you where they really came from, and you were too naïve to think the worst, just trusted and depended on me. Your life has always been in my hands.

          Your hand is so cold, still. You could already be dead as far as anyone would know from looking at you. Your lips are so pale, your arm is useless at your side. I place my head on it and just stay like that for a long time. And then I close my eyes. 
          My arms are pinned to my side, my eyes pressed shut, and the waters surround me, just like before. I see the light just above me, I hear the machines; but I can't break through the waters to reach you. I fight so hard Mandy, but I can't do it. I'm failing again, but it's okay; I can hear my voice, my own voice, telling you that it's okay. I can feel my head on your arm and I fight my way through, dragging this weakened body with me: through the trees, through the water, through the light.

          Now I'm lying in your place: on the bed with the drip in my arm and the tube up my nose, looking up at my own face – pale, thin, unmistakably mine – looking down at me. You stroke my arms and my hair and suddenly there's a buzz of doctors around us. You whisper in my ear,

'It's okay Carrie, it's me. You did it, you were so strong. I couldn't pull myself through, but I knew if you were in my place then you could.'

          Everything fades to white and I find myself nauseous and dizzy. When I come to my senses I'm in my own body again, standing beside you, holding your hand, stroking your hair. The doctor sees me stagger and asks me if I'm okay: 'I think so', I say.

I look down at the bed and see you looking up at me, blinking out tears through your beautiful open eyes, your soft hand holding tightly on to mine.