Perhaps I should just say no. No, I will not be your fucking witness. No, I will not play your game. No, no, no, never again. Perhaps I should simply stay away from the wedding altogether. They'd be better off without me there anyway. But of course I had to be there because not being there would just be read as yet another hysterical gesture on my part: mad, obsessed, lovesick, hate-filled Miranda; the ghost at the feast. I had to be there because I was Kerry's only sibling.
I sighed and stood up, tightening the belt of my dressing gown, crossed the room to the phone, dialled.
'Hello?'
'Mum. It's me.'
'Miranda.' The flat tone I'd become used to since Troy 's death.
'Hi. Sorry to ring so early. I really just wanted to speak to Kerry. About being a witness.'
'She said she was asking you.' There was a pause, then, 'I think it is a very generous gesture on her part.'
'Yes,' I said. 'Can I talk to her?'
'I'll go and call her. Before I do, though… We thought, Derek and I, that we should have a small gathering for them before Friday. There'll be no party on the day. It doesn't seem right. Anyway, they'll be leaving almost at once for their week away. This would be just family, really, to wish them well. We think it's important for them. Bill and Judy are definitely coming. Are you free tomorrow?'
It wasn't really a question.
'Yes.'
'About seven. I'll get Kerry for you.'
I said to Kerry that I'd be a witness and Kerry said she was glad, in a cool, polite voice. I said I'd see her tomorrow and she said 'Good', like a verbal shrug. I had a sudden memory, like a bright shaft of sunlight shining through the dreariness, of Kerry and me swimming in the waves off the Cornish coast, both of us sitting in large rubber rings and letting ourselves be tossed on to the shore, over and over again until we were breathless with tiredness and cold; our skin tingling with the rub of the sand. We must have been about ten and eight. I remembered us laughing together, laughing at each other, squealing with gleeful fear. She used to wear her hair in neat plaits. She used to have a shy, close-lipped smile that made one small dimple appear in her cheek. She still did, I thought.
'I'm thinking of you,' I said in a rush, wanting to fall to my knees and howl.
There was a silence.
'Kerry?'
'Thanks,' she replied. Then, 'Miranda?'
'Yes?'
'Oh, nothing. See you tomorrow.'
She put the phone down.
I drove to work through the fog. Houses and cars loomed up at me. People passed by like shadows. The trees were dismal spectres lining the roads. It was one of those days that never get properly light and when dampness clings like an icy second skin.
The house in Tottenham was quiet and cold. My footsteps echoed on the boards and the sound of hammers echoed round the room. I made too many cups of acrid instant coffee, just to be able to fold my hands around the warmth of one of the stained, chipped mugs the owners had left behind for us. It was better to be at work because what else would I be doing? Not Christmas shopping. Not sitting in the kitchen with my mother, watching as she pressed circles of pastry into moulds and filled them with mincemeat. Not gossiping with Laura. Not giggling at one of Troy 's surreal remarks. I worked until my hands were raw and then I drove home and sat in the living room under the beam. That beam. I wished the ceiling would be dragged down in an explosion of plaster under the weight of it, all on top of me.
I sat there for about an hour, just sitting and listening to the rain dripping outside from the branches of bare trees. Then I picked up the phone because I needed to talk to someone. I pressed the first few digits of Laura's number, but stopped. I couldn't speak to her. What would I say? Help? Please help me because I think I'm going to go completely insane? I had always turned to Laura, but now she was a closed door to me. I thought about what had happened and felt sick. I thought about the future and felt a sense of vertigo – like looking into a dark pit at my feet, not being able to see the bottom.
So at eight o'clock I went to bed because I didn't know what else to do with myself. I lay there holding an old shirt of Troy 's against my face and waited for it to be morning. I must have slept at last because I woke to a grey dawn, sleet stripping through the circles of light from the street lamps.
At exactly seven the next day I was knocking at the door of my parents' house. Kerry answered. She was wearing a gauzy pink shirt with beads round the neck that made her face look peaky. I kissed her on her cold cheek and stepped inside.
Work had stopped on the house. The gaping hole in the kitchen wall had been crudely boarded up and there was thick polythene billowing over the side window. Pots and pans that had been emptied out of the old units were piled on the lino. The microwave was on the kitchen table. In the living room, the carpet had been taken up, and a trestle table cluttered with tools stood where the bookshelf used to be. Everything had stopped at the moment when Troy had been discovered strung up on my beam.
Bill and Judy were already there, sitting in a cluster with my parents round the fire Dad had made. But Brendan wasn't there yet.
'He's seeing somebody about an idea,' said Kerry vaguely.
Looking at my depleted family together, I realized they had all become thinner. But not Brendan. When he arrived, a few minutes later, I saw he had put on weight. His cheeks were pudgier, his paunch strained at his lilac-coloured shirt. His hair seemed blacker and his lips redder than ever. He met my eyes and inclined his head, with a half-smile that looked like… what? Victory, perhaps, graciously acknowledged.
He was less ingratiating now. His manner was slightly aloof. There was a touch of the bully in his tone when he told Kerry he needed a stiff drink. When he mocked my father about the rather feeble fire, there was an edge of contempt in his voice. Bill glanced up at him and wrinkled his brow. He didn't say anything, though.
In other circumstances, we would have been drinking champagne, but Dad brought out red wine instead, and whisky for Brendan.
'What are you going to wear tomorrow, Kerry?' I asked after a moment.
'Oh.' She flushed and looked up at Brendan. 'I'd planned to wear this red dress I bought.'
'Sounds lovely,' I said.
'I'm not sure it suits me, though.' Again, that anxious glance at Brendan, who'd refilled his tumbler. 'I don't know if I can carry it off.'
'You can carry off anything you want to,' I said. 'It's your wedding day. Show me.'
I put my wine glass down. The two of us filed up the stairs together, into their room. The last time I'd been in here was when I'd found that rope stuffed under the chest; I pushed the thought away and turned to Kerry. She reached into a large shopping bag, unwrapped tissue. My face ached. I wanted to cry. It all felt so wrong.
'It looks gorgeous. Try it on for me,' I said. All my anger at Kerry had gone. I only felt helpless love for her now.
She wriggled out of her trousers, pulled her pink top over her head, unclasped her bra. She was so thin and white. Her ribs and her collarbone jutted out sharply.
'Here.' I passed the dress across to her and as she reached out for it we both became aware of Brendan standing in the doorway. No one said anything. Kerry started struggling into the dress, and for a moment her head was obscured by the red folds, only her skinny naked body was visible, shining in its whiteness like a sacrifice. It felt perverse that Brendan and I should be watching her together. I turned sharply away and stared out of the window, into the night.
'There,' she said. 'Of course it needs high heels and I'd pin my hair up and put make-up on.'
'You look lovely,' I said, although she didn't; she looked washed-out, obliterated by the bold red colour.
'You really think so?'
'Yes.'