Trust No Bitch: Part 2

Clara Wright

She didn't know why she did it, but she did. No sooner than had she pulled up outside her own house, the King's place was calling her from across the road, its magnificent stained glass windows for eyes, the splendid arched doorway for a mouth. And then she was there, slipping through the unlocked front door, padding through the King house like a cat burglar, running her hands along the walls. It was very odd; the only thing illuminating the place were the profusion of coruscating fairy lights which lined the walls and depended like vines from the ceiling, an electric jungle. They had to be out, Eleanor, Austin, Matilda and Dylan, or maybe in bed already because the house was pitch black apart from the fairy lights, silent. So much so that in her head, Clara's own breathing sounded thunderous, like the waves that bashed against the Ellisbury cliff. She didn't know, or care very much, where everyone was, anyway. She was in a strange state of sober intoxication. Cleo's bedroom was her sole destination, and then, once she reached there, not without first gazing at the photos of them together that sat on top of the chest of drawers, she headed straight to Cleo's wardrobe, where she bunched up fur coats and t-shirts in her fists and held them close to her. For the first time in months, she could smell Cleo's familiar scent, a strangely captivating synthesis of tobacco and old perfume, sickeningly sweet, still there and gliding up through Clara's nostrils. And she was snorting it up as if it were cocaine, and she were an addict in withdrawal.

It was glorious.

Like Cleo was close enough to touch again. The real Cleo, not the corpse Cleo pieced together like Frankenstein by her unpleasantly vivid imagination. And Clara was embracing this Cleo, nose resting in her dusty blonde hair. She knew it had to look strange, her clambering into the wardrobe and sitting there cross legged, resting back on the clothes, but she didn't give a fuck, didn't give a single fuck until the "Who's there?". The voice rang out from the tenebrosity of the corridor and all the logic and pragmatism that should've stopped Clara from entering the house in the first place came back to her.

Bugger!

It couldn't be. But in the darkness and in her confusion, the person who entered the room and stopped in front of the wardrobe, peering into it, looked just like her.

"Cleo?" Clara blurted out stupidly, almost leaping from the wardrobe to her feet, but stood face to face with the person, the small differences between Cleo and her younger sister, Matilda, became visible. In particular, her blue-grey eyes in place of Cleo's narrowed green ones. "Oh, God, Tilly!" She exclaimed, Matilda just staring back at her blankly. "I'm so, so, so sorry, I...I-"

"It's fine." Matilda interrupted, voice a monotone. "Do you want a beer?"

"A...A what?" Clara spluttered. She'd been expecting a thwack around the head, not an offer of drinks. Was this really happening? Had she got in some car accident on the drive back and been knocked out, dreamt the whole thing?

"A beer. We've got loads. Austin and Dylan are out and mum's knocked herself out with Ambien, as per. Chill. You're all good." Matilda said with a bored sigh, waltzing out into the hallway. "You coming?" She called over her shoulder, Clara nodding, mouth hanging open, incapable of forming words. "Do you like my Christmas lights?" She asked as they reached the landing, winding the fairy lights that dangled from the ceiling round her hands.

"Your what?" Said Clara, still silently attempting to understand Matilda's enormous underreaction at finding someone sat in her dead sister's wardrobe. Maybe it was the medication she was on, Clara thought, watching Matilda almost glide down the stairs in front of her like some kind of spectre, the kind that seems to always gets caught on a camera of conveniently low quality and published all over the internet. One of those blurry, white figures against a grainy, black background.

"My Christmas lights." Matilda repeated, hopping from the bottom step onto the marble floor.

"How come they're not, uh, outside?" Clara asked, the reflection of them in her eyes as she looked up like gently scintillating, low hanging stars.

"Because. They're for me to enjoy. I put them up outside and every soulless motherfucker cruising round the area in their stupid, flashy cars gets a free show." Reaching the kitchen, she went straight to the fridge and tossed Clara a beer before opening up the French doors and taking a seat on the patio.

"Are you not...cold?" Clara said, standing in the doorway but Matilda shook her head and gestured for Clara to join her. Timorously doing so, sitting down next to Matilda, Clara stole a clandestine glance in her direction. Cleo's little sister looked a lot less dishevelled than the last time Clara had seen her; hair sticking up at opposite angles as if each strand was repelled by its neighbour, face haggard like a model of the heroin chic era, every garment on her body creased. Next to Clara, in that moment, she wore a dainty white dress, hair long and luxuriant, not unlike her sisters, and gracile, she was, not gaunt, as she had been. "You seem to be doing better, Tilly." Clara said tentatively, closely inspecting Matilda for a reaction. Matilda apparently unfazed, she carried on. "I'm glad...I think it's what Cleo would've wanted." This, however, caused Tilly to scoff and reach into her pocket, producing a packet of cigarettes and a lighter. Without taking her eyes off Clara, she pulled a cigarette from the packet, lit it and stuck it in her mouth.

"I found these in her room, unused." She murmured ruminatively. "Didn't want them to go to waste." Clara nodded vaguely as Tilly held the packet out to her, taking a cigarette for herself. "But you should know," Tilly continued, "Cleo didn't care about me. She refused to accept that she was capable of such a thing." She pried Clara's cigarette from between her fingers and lit it before passing it back, watching as Clara took her first draw. "I know you knew her well, Clara. But I knew her better. She once set my room on fire trying to prove that she didn't give a fuck about anything." Clara felt her eyebrows travel a little further up her face, but didn't inquire. "Anyway...Merry Christmas." Tilly finished, smoke undulating from her mouth like a peculiarly shaped cloud on a blusterous day.

"Merry Christmas." Clara replied desolately, merry being the last word on earth she would use to describe how she felt.