Any feedback is more than welcome.
Davis was at home, hunched over a cold newspaper and a plate of crumbs, when the phone rang. It was a number and voice he did not recognize. The conversation did not last more than two minutes and when it was over, Davis rotely thanked the man -who sheepishly apologized one last time- looked out the window at the overcast sky, and reached for his keys.
Cainhurst was two hours away, nestled in the middle of the black country. There were no towns near it, no sleepy little markets or cottages. It sat alone atop a small hill, completely surrounded by dark pine trees whose barbed tips swayed back and forth across the clouds like lances. As Davis pulled into the gravel parking lot and made his way towards the entrance, a man in a trim, brown suit quickly slid out from behind the front entrance and gently closed the large, bronze door behind him. He called to Davis through the wind as he scurried down the steps.
‘You must be Mr. Summer’s counsel.’
‘Yes.’
The man’s face was old but taught and as he walked across the greens, he squinted into the breeze and quickly buttoned his jacket.
‘I’m Simon. You talked with one of my associates on the phone earlier. Glad you could make it promptly on such short notice.’
For a moment, the man thought about offering his hand but chose the better of it; there would be no pleasantries on this trip, not for Simon nor Davis nor anyone involved, and pretending otherwise would take away from what severity it merited. As Simon led him in, Davis did not look up at the great wall of grey stone and glass or the statues of Greek gods and water bearers. He looked only at the door and who, from memory, he might see behind it.
Simon led Davis down a long, chequered corridor to the central foyer. At the base of a grand set of stairs which bowed up and around the room with a smooth and quickening curve was a large desk with two uniformed men staring at computer screens. As Simon and Davis approached, one of the guards reached out and tapped something out of view next to him. Davis heard the muted hum of gears as the glass door next to the guards opened and as he followed the warden through, he could feel the air change. It was warmer, used, laced with sweat and iron.
As they walked farther and farther into the mansion, past old mineral baths and servants’ quarters, Simon tried to make small talk about the history of Cainhurst.
It was never intended to be an asylum. The ailing Lord who commissioned it had done so with the intention of Cainhurst being a place of rejuvenation for mind, body, and soul not for the wealthy or noble, but for the common man. At least, that was what he had said. His detractors claimed otherwise. They said it was an attempt to wash his hands of all the death and injury he had instigated while gathering his wealth. Cainhurst was too isolated to draw any lower class workers except the Lord’s own miners, who slaved and killed themselves day after day and faster and faster, far beneath their Lord’s green hills. He told them that the mineral waters and salts would stop the hurt in their lungs, the slow decay of their jaws and minds. And when they arrived to be waited on and served and pampered like the royalty they mindlessly loved and hated and envied, they did not read what they signed. When the old Lord died, his daughters tried to rebrand Cainhurst and steer it back towards the new wealth. But they underestimated the breadth of its reputation and, instead of letting it go derelict, sold the title to the state, who found it a perfect place to keep undesirables out of mind.
It wasn’t until the two men had reached their destination that Simon realized he had been talking to himself. The guard, a police officer, and the only armed one Davis had seen, shot up from his seat and readjusted his cap before pushing the door open. Simon stood off to the side to let him through.
‘If you need anything, just let us know.’
‘I will. Thank you.’
As Davis walked into the room and the thick metal door whispered shut behind him, Simon stood quietly in the corridor, buttoning then unbuttoning the top of his jacket, before making his way with pace back down the chequered corridor with his hands clasped firmly behind the small of his back.
***
‘I’m very glad you came.’
Davis took a seat at the near end of the table without looking at his brother. Beyond the frame of his glasses he could see his figure; hair short, brown on the verge of black, shoulders thin and grey and hunched behind him like a tombstone. Davis took out a small pad of yellow paper and a pen and tapped on the page twice before closing the book and setting it and the pen on the edge of the table.
‘Now before you say anything, I need to do something first.’
‘Did you do it?’
‘I need to do something first.’
‘This isn’t a goddamn game, Paul.’
Davis looked over at his brother. He was still slim, still scar-less. But he wasn’t the younger Summer brother. He wasn’t Paul the Rat, Paul the Leaf. His eyes weren’t pulled down by the gravity of it all. They were full and dark and still.
‘I know it’s not a game.’ His voice felt like it was on the verge of reprimanding. ‘But I need to do something first, so listen to me.’
‘What?’
‘I need to convince you that I’m not mad. I need to see you recognize that madness has played no role in this. I need you to test me.’
As Paul leaned forward, Davis could hear his brother’s handcuffs clink against the legs of the table. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. It was too much like a dream that grew more and more absurd and he could see the absurdity, could see the fractured logic and tell himself that none of this made any sense, but was swept along by the speed of it regardless. He looked up at the light until it blurred.
‘Tell me how you got the scar beneath your left eyebrow?’
Paul coughed.
‘Jesus, Davis. This isn’t whether I’m me or some robot.’ He raised both hands as high as he could above the table and patted his chest. ‘It’s whether you’ll believe me. If you won’t believe me, then nothing will come of this. So ask me. I’ll show you my mind. I’ll show you the clearest damned mind you’ve ever seen. Just ask me.’
Davis sat there quietly, staring at the toe of his shoe as it bounced up and down. He tried to think, not just for his brother, but of anything. But his thoughts and emotions slid by so fast, instantly rising and sputtering and replaced so quickly, that they were not words. The only thing he could recognize was the growing warmth of an old frustration.
When the words finally came out, he heard them the same time as Paul.
‘What did you think of Saoirse?’
‘Your Saoirse?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think she was too good for you but it took her a year to accept it. She was older and kinder and too willing to excuse your selfishness for naïveté. She was the first woman I’d seen you with who was cleverer than you and we all hoped it would open you up but it just made you smaller. She was successful and driven and it was like grade school how you fawned and danced and doted over each other but you’d never heard someone say ‘I love you’ before and, when she did, you thought you’d earned it. She made all the big decisions, she introduced you to all of her friends, planned every trip and when she asked for your opinion, you’d smile and say ‘whatever you want’ and not realize how much that dependence wore her down. When she broke it off, you soured and moped and said it came out of the blue but if you’d, just for a day, put the words and the looks that I saw together maybe you could have done something about it. You’d come miles before you met her –Jesus, we were all so proud of you- but you stumbled onto something too good and didn’t know what to do with it.
After, when you told me how happy she was when you came to pick up your stuff, I was glad. She didn’t deserve the weight of who you were. You’ve changed a lot since then, all for the better, and it took some tragedy you couldn’t blame on someone else to do it.’
It was not just the words, but the flow of them; they came too effortlessly, as if they had been beaten and folded and refined countless times in his brother’s mind. And as Davis thought about what would have happened if their positions were reversed, if he sat again on the far side of the table, his numbness turned to anger.
‘Do you want me to go on?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think I’m mad?’
Davis stared at the wall and took a deep breath.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Davis.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If you don’t know then get out.’
As much as the words dismissed him, it was his brother’s tone that drew him in. He had been scolded by Paul countless times; for drink and money, for needles and squalor. Davis knew the fingerprint of his brother’s anger and frustration. But there was none of that here. The words were steeped in regret and disappointment, as if it were somehow Davis who was throwing his life away.
As Paul slumped back into his chair, a junkie’s blindness filled his eyes. Davis knew he couldn’t leave. Right now, everything his brother had said about Saoirse was a lie, a fiction of built on jealousy and misinformation. But with every mile home it would become more and more true until he could think of no other truth and how his loneliness would always be his own making.
His brother was likely mad. No matter how succinct and perceptive Paul’s words were, they could not overshadow where he was, that he did not cry his innocence the moment Davis stepped through the door, nor his strange nonchalance to the walls crumbling around him.
But every time Davis told himself to leave, he knew it was wrong. It didn’t come from a twist in his gut or a stirring in his chest; it was an unease that subtly enveloped him, that somehow both pained and numbed him. He had felt it all his life. Countless times he had gone against it and every time he did it grew stronger and stronger and made him nauseous. And even though he could sense the distant repercussions, and even though he knew that he could still change his mind, and that, inevitably, he would come to hate himself, there was some immediate pleasure to err, some terrible release he never understood. But he would not go against it this time. He would stay and listen to whatever his brother had to say. If he were mad, would that not mean he needed Davis even more? What was one evening to all that Paul had sacrificed because of him?
‘You’re not mad.’
His ability to lie had atrophied over the years and as his words hung in the air Davis was both ashamed and proud of how stilted they were.
Suddenly, Paul stirred in his seat and the terrible focus in his eyes once again settled on Davis. He did not smile or laugh, but there was an eagerness about him. So much so that when he tried to speak, something caught in his throat and he began to cough uncontrollably. As his face turned red and his eyes began to tear, he gestured for a glass of water. Davis got up and asked the guard who, unable to leave his post, pointed Davis down the hall then left to the break room.
A minute later Davis returned with two cups of water and a half-filled tin of biscuits. Paul coughed into his shoulder as he reached for the glass and quickly took a gulp.
‘Thank you.’
His face was still pink and the veins in his neck strained hard against his skin, but the fit was over.
‘And just in case you were wondering, I got this scar from you.’ He rubbed the small hairless line that cut through his eyebrow. ‘It was Halloween and after I caught you sneaking candy from my pillow case, you dashed my head against the edge of the coffee table. Mum swore all the way to the A&E. It took two hours to get me fixed up and the first thing you said after the stitches were knotted was ‘’Can we get some ice cream?’’.’
Paul took another sip of his water and laughed to himself.
‘Jesus, you were an insufferable little ****. Did you know that after your second lock up, Mum told me she wished the prosecution had pinned it all on you? That they’d throw the book at you and lock you up forever in some dark room and she could forget she ever had another son?’
He paused and looked at his Davis.
‘I’m sorry; the old feelings came back too strong. That was, as you’d say, a ‘’different person’’. And I love you. Truly, I do. More than anyone in the world’
‘Paul.’
‘Yes, Davis?’
‘Did you kill her?’
From the moment Davis had opened the door, Paul had been nothing but calm and reserved. But as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, Davis could see an excitement boiling within him that turned the corners of his mouth.
‘Brother, I will tell you everything.’
***
‘I met Kay at the Oceanhead Festival. While my mates were getting pissed beyond comprehension, I took a little walk into town and met her while perusing the used books in a charity shop. The moment I laid eyes on her I knew there was something about her. It wasn’t love; it was something stronger, but less profound.
I invited her out to lunch and I found myself completely enthralled with her. She was supremely beautiful, but in a way far different from a model or athlete. You can see a picture of a model and know that she was beautiful. But Kay’s beauty transcended that. If you saw a photo of her, you would say she was attractive, perhaps nothing more. But if you watched her walk, watched the harmony of her movements, the weight within her shoulders and the precision of her fingertips, you would know just how extraordinarily beautiful she was.
We sat there on the patio, with the deep trembling of the festival numbing the air. I tried to keep the conversation on her and she was more than willing to oblige. She was a Hemwick alumnus, three years before me. Eastern Studies. Spent a few years backpacking through Asia before joining Amnesty to help with the refugees. For the last few weeks she had been walking down the coast to raise funds for a new primary school in their camp. When she told me this, I knew instantly that she did it not because ‘’it was a good thing to do’’. There was no pride in it, no societal expectation. She did it the same way the mountains echo or an apple falls; there simply isn’t another way.
By the end of the night, I had decided to join her on her walk. I stopped by the beach house to give James and Nick the keys to the car and headed south the next morning with Kay. If they were decent friends, maybe they would have tried to stop me but they only had a few things on their mind that weekend and I wasn’t one of them.
It took us two weeks to reach London. Throughout it all we didn’t talk much. I’d try, here and again, to spur conversation, and as satisfying as it was, it never seemed to last. Walking beside her was enough for me. When we reached London, I asked her what she was going to do next and she said she was going to Malta to help build her refugee school. I said I’d like to come with her and she said yes without a second of hesitation. I’d never been so obsessed with someone in my life. And she knew it. How could she not? But it didn’t change her at all. She wouldn’t dote on me or flirt with me or bite her lip when I whispered in her ear. She would just walk with me and hold my hand and press her lips lightly to mine and I couldn’t ask for anything more.
This was about six months ago. I told Mum I quit my job, maybe the word got round to you. She knew I hated it and probably just assumed I did it for my own sanity which, to be honest, isn’t too far away from the truth. Soon I was in Malta with Kay setting the foundation for her school houses.
There was a little mountain ridge near the house we were staying at that we used to hike up and down during sunset. It wasn’t too far or too steep; just far enough to feel different.
Well, one evening we were hiking up the ridge and as Kay walked over a thin little ridge, the rocks shifted beneath her. I watched, as powerless as I have ever been, as she fell thirty feet down into the dirt and boulders and gnarled roots of a ravine. I scurried down as fast as I could after her. When I reached the bottom of the cliff and the dust cleared, I found her on her back with her arms stiff and stretched up in front of her. She was covered in dust and earth and I could hear her moan beneath the clatter of rocks still sliding down around us. I didn’t know what to do and over and over again I asked if she was okay as deep red spots welled up on her chest and abdomen. Her eyes were half open, but they weren’t moving. I cradled the back of her head with my hand. It was damp and light and I knew that it wouldn’t be long.
But as I held her head and turned her face up towards mine one last time, I saw something strange. Above her left eye, right around her temple, was a giant hole. The edges were a jagged mess of blood and dirt and black, matted hair. But inside the hole it was pitch black; no bone, no flesh. Just darkness.
As I turned her head to see the wound, I saw a light flicker inside. It was not a flash, but a gentle wave, like a fish’s tail. I leaned in over Kay, pressed my eye against her brow, and looked into the hole.’
Paul stopped and motioned pressing her skull against his own. He closed his eyes and Davis could see his brother’s face unfold in tears.
‘I know you don’t want to believe me, Davis, but it’s true. I swear on all that I am that this is true.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It was everything, Davis. It was all that there is and can be, all within a speckled band of light twisting and fading within her head. I have never felt such joy, cannot fathom any greater contentment or purpose than looking at the light inside of her.
And right then it all made sense; her wisdom, her serenity, her gravity. She was a universe unto herself. All this time I could feel the waves of it slowly lapping at my senses. And I watched as that light flickered and darkened and slowly faded into nothing. I could have died with her then, Davis. I could have died then and been as complete a man as there ever was.
It took me half an hour to get back to the village. By morning I had taken a red eye back to London. I read in the papers that a family on holiday found what was left of her. For a while they assumed that I must have fallen as well and gotten lost in the waves. It was a mistake to run, I see that now, but I couldn’t explain all of this to them. Who in their right mind would ever believe me?
I was a broken man after that, Davis. Terrible thoughts overwhelmed me. But they weren’t thoughts of her face or her walk or her scent; they were thoughts of that light, of that little galaxy, winding its way through the nothingness. That was her more than anything else. That was everything. Even when I saw Mum had passed in the papers, all I could think about was that flickering light.
But now I’m here with you, big brother.’
Those two words lingered in the air.
‘You’re the only person in the world who I know I can absolutely trust, who owes me that trust. And because of that, I know everything is going to be fine. Everything will be just fine.’
As Davis excused himself from the room, Paul closed his eyes again and took a deep, contented breath.
***
Davis stood in front of the window at the end of the hallway and looked out at the trees. The wind had picked up and he could hear the faint whistle of air racing through the gaps in the roof. The tips of the trees shook violently, then calmed then shook again. Davis took a sip of his coffee and gently rested his forehead against the cold glass.
Every path he went down fell apart under its own weight.
If Paul had killed this woman and every word and look and tear of his was a masterclass lie, why would he not just say she fell on her own? What would embellishing a perfectly reasonable story with a sliver of madness do to benefit him?
Perhaps he had hallucinated what he saw. Maybe he’d taken a hit of something beforehand and truly believed that was what he saw. But this from the man who watched his brother flat line in the bed of an ambulance, who nearly threw his brother’s junkie girlfriend out the 2nd story window when she left a needle on his nightstand after visiting him in hospital? He’d known early on what roots addiction had had in their family and Davis would bet everything he owned that Paul had been sober every second of his entire, perfect life. Even as a teen, when Davis had busted his eyebrow on the coffee table, he screamed more refusing the local anaesthetic than the stitches themselves.
The only option left was that he was mad. But if he were, it seemed to be a such a small, particular madness that Davis had never heard of before. He was no doctor, but he had seen the deranged and delusional before. Their insanity was never contained in such a small and airtight pocket. It would always slip through whatever thin membrane tried to hold it back and bleed into every minute facet of their life, given time. Madness, paranoia, hallucinations; they were all parasites of the mind and there was nothing that the mind didn’t touch.
But Paul showed none of that. His hair had grown darker and thinner and his eyes more tired, but otherwise it was undoubtedly the same brother Davis had known all his life. His wit was still sharp, his inflections and mannerisms all a perfect fingerprint of what Davis had known. But more so, Davis could feel that it was his brother. The last time he’d spoken with his mother, he knew it wasn’t her. Her liver had gone and as she grew thin and pale the woman that he knew and loved disappeared and all that was left was a bitter husk that cursed him and his name. But the moment he had walked through that door and sat in that chair, Davis could feel his brother sitting across from him. The only one in the world willing to carry him when he had nothing to offer in return.
Davis looked down at his notepad and flipped through the few lines he’d jotted down. He’d specialized in civil rights not defence counsel, but knew he could find someone to handle it all well before it reached trial. Everything but the hike itself could be double checked easily. If there were traces of Paul on her body, it could just be when he scurried down to help her. The only thing Davis couldn’t immediately brush away was how suspicious Paul’s disappearance was. But perhaps, in time, that too could be pushed to the side.
Davis picked up his coffee from the window sill and looked out at the trees again. They swayed and bent horribly for something so strong. But they did not break.
***
When he came back into the room, a faint smile came across Paul’s face. Davis took a seat and flipped through his notepad one last time as if the words he’d written meant anything.
‘Do you believe me?’
‘I don’t do defence, but we can work around that.’
‘Do you believe me?’
‘I’m here, it doesn’t matter if I believe you.’
Davis knew the words were wrong the moment they left his mouth. That hint of a smile that hung to Paul’s face slowly faded. His face turned red and wrinkled with anguish. A deep, numb pain turned in Davis’ gut.
‘Jesus Christ, Davis. I’m your goddamned brother. Do you know just how much I sacrificed for you? How much pain and anxiety you brought me simply because we have the same blood? Do you think that when I sent you letters at the lock up I ever expected you to write back? Do you think that when I got a call at three in the morning that some couple found you bleeding to death in the gutter and dragged you to hospital that I wanted to gamble more of my life on someone who only wanted to fail? I didn’t believe you’d be anything but a burden, but I did it anyways. Why? Cause you’re my goddamned brother. Life isn’t fair and I was dealt you. Do you know how proud I was when I heard from others you’d gone sober? How you’d been working to become a solicitor? Jesus, Davis, I’ve never cried harder in my life. And through that whole time, did I ever ask for anything from you? Did I ask for one goddamn thing as compensation for the years you’d drained from my life? No, I didn’t. I never did it because I was fine, and you needed all the help you could get. I’ve always looked after you, brother. I’ve always had your well-being at heart.’
Paul’s head fell back. His lips moved but never touched and no words came out. Tears poured down his cheeks.
‘I know this all sounds mad, I do. I know there’s no reason for you to believe me. But it happened, Davis. For the love of god it happened and I need you to trust me. Even if it flies in the face of everything you know, just once, Davis, please just once believe me. The pieces don’t make sense, I can’t explain them, but it’s me, Davis. It’s me.’
Davis never showed his emotions. It wasn’t a choice; they just never came. To most, this made him a sociopath, a stone faced façade of a man. But emotion boiled within him like anyone else and now, seeing his brother tearing himself to pieces in front of his eyes, knowing that if the tables were reversed –when the tables were reversed- that his brother would have been there for him, and this made Davis feel a greater shame than he could truly fathom. How selfish could he be? Even if it was a lie, what harm would belief be? It felt both horribly right and wrong and behind it all Davis saw his younger brother slowly disintegrating.
Davis looked up at the light above him and then back down at the table.
‘I believe you, Paul.’
He could hear the small moans of his brother turn to whimpers and then nothing at all.
‘I believe you. You need me and I believe you.’
Paul’s face was red and twisted and pained, but beneath it all was a smile, a glimpse of personal salvation. His handcuffs clinked as he dabbed his eyes with his wrists.
‘I love you, Davis. Jesus Christ, I love you so much. You don’t know just what this means but it means everything.’
Davis picked up his pen, tapped it twice on the table, then flipped to a new page in his notepad.
‘Now, as I said before Paul, I’m tax law, not defence. But I know enough people at the firm who have crossed over to get you good counsel. If everything is as you say, I don’t see how they can realistically pin anything on you. Don’t speak to anyone, not any visitors, not even the warden until I…’
‘Davis.’
Paul’s face was still red and his lips a darker violet. His eyes were still filled with tears, but there was a joy on his face. A contentment. A wild sympathy.
‘That’s not why I wanted you here. I didn’t murder Kay. She fell, that’s the truth. But I killed one of her sisters in Chelsea, last night. The moment I saw her I knew. She’d figured it out but she didn’t try to stop me. I needed to, Davis; it had faded too quickly before. Kay’d just given me a glimpse of it all and I didn’t have time to understand it. I saw it, Davis.’
He reached his hands as far as they could go across the table.
‘I touched it. I held her light in my hands, felt it sift and twirl through my fingers. I am a part of it. I am complete. I called you here Davis because I love you and I want you to feel what I have felt. Take my hand.’
Paul turned his palms up and waited for the sacrament of his brother’s hand. Davis looked down and could see the many dull red dots that had gathered in the creases and at the base of his calloused pads. In ten seconds, that new love –pristine and unconditional- sloughed into disgust and regret and pity.
‘Touch my hand. I’ll tell you where the third sister is, Davis. You can see it yourself. But touch my hand. Please, touch my hand.’
Davis’ eyes grew low and heavy. He could not look at Paul. But still his brother called to him again and again, more desperate, more and more betrayed. A bleating sheep, deserted, awaiting hunger and the wolf.
But he’d sworn. His oath had turned rancid and festered in his mouth, but it was his oath. He closed his eyes and touched his four fingers to his brother’s palm.
He felt his brother on the tips of his fingers. Not his skin, not the give of his flesh. But all of him: his breath, his thoughts, every infinite fractal of the world that made him. He felt a pureness that dwarfed everything he had ever known. He felt heat and cold and space and time and something beyond understanding and bliss. He felt too much. He felt too much and he was too small and yet it was not enough. Nothing else existed: there was no other cause, no other pleasure. It was too much but it was just a taste, just the remnants of something far, far greater.
Where?
Tears flooded his eyes.
Oh god, little brother; where?
Davis was at home, hunched over a cold newspaper and a plate of crumbs, when the phone rang. It was a number and voice he did not recognize. The conversation did not last more than two minutes and when it was over, Davis rotely thanked the man -who sheepishly apologized one last time- looked out the window at the overcast sky, and reached for his keys.
Cainhurst was two hours away, nestled in the middle of the black country. There were no towns near it, no sleepy little markets or cottages. It sat alone atop a small hill, completely surrounded by dark pine trees whose barbed tips swayed back and forth across the clouds like lances. As Davis pulled into the gravel parking lot and made his way towards the entrance, a man in a trim, brown suit quickly slid out from behind the front entrance and gently closed the large, bronze door behind him. He called to Davis through the wind as he scurried down the steps.
‘You must be Mr. Summer’s counsel.’
‘Yes.’
The man’s face was old but taught and as he walked across the greens, he squinted into the breeze and quickly buttoned his jacket.
‘I’m Simon. You talked with one of my associates on the phone earlier. Glad you could make it promptly on such short notice.’
For a moment, the man thought about offering his hand but chose the better of it; there would be no pleasantries on this trip, not for Simon nor Davis nor anyone involved, and pretending otherwise would take away from what severity it merited. As Simon led him in, Davis did not look up at the great wall of grey stone and glass or the statues of Greek gods and water bearers. He looked only at the door and who, from memory, he might see behind it.
Simon led Davis down a long, chequered corridor to the central foyer. At the base of a grand set of stairs which bowed up and around the room with a smooth and quickening curve was a large desk with two uniformed men staring at computer screens. As Simon and Davis approached, one of the guards reached out and tapped something out of view next to him. Davis heard the muted hum of gears as the glass door next to the guards opened and as he followed the warden through, he could feel the air change. It was warmer, used, laced with sweat and iron.
As they walked farther and farther into the mansion, past old mineral baths and servants’ quarters, Simon tried to make small talk about the history of Cainhurst.
It was never intended to be an asylum. The ailing Lord who commissioned it had done so with the intention of Cainhurst being a place of rejuvenation for mind, body, and soul not for the wealthy or noble, but for the common man. At least, that was what he had said. His detractors claimed otherwise. They said it was an attempt to wash his hands of all the death and injury he had instigated while gathering his wealth. Cainhurst was too isolated to draw any lower class workers except the Lord’s own miners, who slaved and killed themselves day after day and faster and faster, far beneath their Lord’s green hills. He told them that the mineral waters and salts would stop the hurt in their lungs, the slow decay of their jaws and minds. And when they arrived to be waited on and served and pampered like the royalty they mindlessly loved and hated and envied, they did not read what they signed. When the old Lord died, his daughters tried to rebrand Cainhurst and steer it back towards the new wealth. But they underestimated the breadth of its reputation and, instead of letting it go derelict, sold the title to the state, who found it a perfect place to keep undesirables out of mind.
It wasn’t until the two men had reached their destination that Simon realized he had been talking to himself. The guard, a police officer, and the only armed one Davis had seen, shot up from his seat and readjusted his cap before pushing the door open. Simon stood off to the side to let him through.
‘If you need anything, just let us know.’
‘I will. Thank you.’
As Davis walked into the room and the thick metal door whispered shut behind him, Simon stood quietly in the corridor, buttoning then unbuttoning the top of his jacket, before making his way with pace back down the chequered corridor with his hands clasped firmly behind the small of his back.
***
‘I’m very glad you came.’
Davis took a seat at the near end of the table without looking at his brother. Beyond the frame of his glasses he could see his figure; hair short, brown on the verge of black, shoulders thin and grey and hunched behind him like a tombstone. Davis took out a small pad of yellow paper and a pen and tapped on the page twice before closing the book and setting it and the pen on the edge of the table.
‘Now before you say anything, I need to do something first.’
‘Did you do it?’
‘I need to do something first.’
‘This isn’t a goddamn game, Paul.’
Davis looked over at his brother. He was still slim, still scar-less. But he wasn’t the younger Summer brother. He wasn’t Paul the Rat, Paul the Leaf. His eyes weren’t pulled down by the gravity of it all. They were full and dark and still.
‘I know it’s not a game.’ His voice felt like it was on the verge of reprimanding. ‘But I need to do something first, so listen to me.’
‘What?’
‘I need to convince you that I’m not mad. I need to see you recognize that madness has played no role in this. I need you to test me.’
As Paul leaned forward, Davis could hear his brother’s handcuffs clink against the legs of the table. He pinched the bridge of his nose and closed his eyes. It was too much like a dream that grew more and more absurd and he could see the absurdity, could see the fractured logic and tell himself that none of this made any sense, but was swept along by the speed of it regardless. He looked up at the light until it blurred.
‘Tell me how you got the scar beneath your left eyebrow?’
Paul coughed.
‘Jesus, Davis. This isn’t whether I’m me or some robot.’ He raised both hands as high as he could above the table and patted his chest. ‘It’s whether you’ll believe me. If you won’t believe me, then nothing will come of this. So ask me. I’ll show you my mind. I’ll show you the clearest damned mind you’ve ever seen. Just ask me.’
Davis sat there quietly, staring at the toe of his shoe as it bounced up and down. He tried to think, not just for his brother, but of anything. But his thoughts and emotions slid by so fast, instantly rising and sputtering and replaced so quickly, that they were not words. The only thing he could recognize was the growing warmth of an old frustration.
When the words finally came out, he heard them the same time as Paul.
‘What did you think of Saoirse?’
‘Your Saoirse?’
‘Yes.’
‘I think she was too good for you but it took her a year to accept it. She was older and kinder and too willing to excuse your selfishness for naïveté. She was the first woman I’d seen you with who was cleverer than you and we all hoped it would open you up but it just made you smaller. She was successful and driven and it was like grade school how you fawned and danced and doted over each other but you’d never heard someone say ‘I love you’ before and, when she did, you thought you’d earned it. She made all the big decisions, she introduced you to all of her friends, planned every trip and when she asked for your opinion, you’d smile and say ‘whatever you want’ and not realize how much that dependence wore her down. When she broke it off, you soured and moped and said it came out of the blue but if you’d, just for a day, put the words and the looks that I saw together maybe you could have done something about it. You’d come miles before you met her –Jesus, we were all so proud of you- but you stumbled onto something too good and didn’t know what to do with it.
After, when you told me how happy she was when you came to pick up your stuff, I was glad. She didn’t deserve the weight of who you were. You’ve changed a lot since then, all for the better, and it took some tragedy you couldn’t blame on someone else to do it.’
It was not just the words, but the flow of them; they came too effortlessly, as if they had been beaten and folded and refined countless times in his brother’s mind. And as Davis thought about what would have happened if their positions were reversed, if he sat again on the far side of the table, his numbness turned to anger.
‘Do you want me to go on?’
‘No.’
‘Do you think I’m mad?’
Davis stared at the wall and took a deep breath.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Davis.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘If you don’t know then get out.’
As much as the words dismissed him, it was his brother’s tone that drew him in. He had been scolded by Paul countless times; for drink and money, for needles and squalor. Davis knew the fingerprint of his brother’s anger and frustration. But there was none of that here. The words were steeped in regret and disappointment, as if it were somehow Davis who was throwing his life away.
As Paul slumped back into his chair, a junkie’s blindness filled his eyes. Davis knew he couldn’t leave. Right now, everything his brother had said about Saoirse was a lie, a fiction of built on jealousy and misinformation. But with every mile home it would become more and more true until he could think of no other truth and how his loneliness would always be his own making.
His brother was likely mad. No matter how succinct and perceptive Paul’s words were, they could not overshadow where he was, that he did not cry his innocence the moment Davis stepped through the door, nor his strange nonchalance to the walls crumbling around him.
But every time Davis told himself to leave, he knew it was wrong. It didn’t come from a twist in his gut or a stirring in his chest; it was an unease that subtly enveloped him, that somehow both pained and numbed him. He had felt it all his life. Countless times he had gone against it and every time he did it grew stronger and stronger and made him nauseous. And even though he could sense the distant repercussions, and even though he knew that he could still change his mind, and that, inevitably, he would come to hate himself, there was some immediate pleasure to err, some terrible release he never understood. But he would not go against it this time. He would stay and listen to whatever his brother had to say. If he were mad, would that not mean he needed Davis even more? What was one evening to all that Paul had sacrificed because of him?
‘You’re not mad.’
His ability to lie had atrophied over the years and as his words hung in the air Davis was both ashamed and proud of how stilted they were.
Suddenly, Paul stirred in his seat and the terrible focus in his eyes once again settled on Davis. He did not smile or laugh, but there was an eagerness about him. So much so that when he tried to speak, something caught in his throat and he began to cough uncontrollably. As his face turned red and his eyes began to tear, he gestured for a glass of water. Davis got up and asked the guard who, unable to leave his post, pointed Davis down the hall then left to the break room.
A minute later Davis returned with two cups of water and a half-filled tin of biscuits. Paul coughed into his shoulder as he reached for the glass and quickly took a gulp.
‘Thank you.’
His face was still pink and the veins in his neck strained hard against his skin, but the fit was over.
‘And just in case you were wondering, I got this scar from you.’ He rubbed the small hairless line that cut through his eyebrow. ‘It was Halloween and after I caught you sneaking candy from my pillow case, you dashed my head against the edge of the coffee table. Mum swore all the way to the A&E. It took two hours to get me fixed up and the first thing you said after the stitches were knotted was ‘’Can we get some ice cream?’’.’
Paul took another sip of his water and laughed to himself.
‘Jesus, you were an insufferable little ****. Did you know that after your second lock up, Mum told me she wished the prosecution had pinned it all on you? That they’d throw the book at you and lock you up forever in some dark room and she could forget she ever had another son?’
He paused and looked at his Davis.
‘I’m sorry; the old feelings came back too strong. That was, as you’d say, a ‘’different person’’. And I love you. Truly, I do. More than anyone in the world’
‘Paul.’
‘Yes, Davis?’
‘Did you kill her?’
From the moment Davis had opened the door, Paul had been nothing but calm and reserved. But as he closed his eyes and took a deep breath, Davis could see an excitement boiling within him that turned the corners of his mouth.
‘Brother, I will tell you everything.’
***
‘I met Kay at the Oceanhead Festival. While my mates were getting pissed beyond comprehension, I took a little walk into town and met her while perusing the used books in a charity shop. The moment I laid eyes on her I knew there was something about her. It wasn’t love; it was something stronger, but less profound.
I invited her out to lunch and I found myself completely enthralled with her. She was supremely beautiful, but in a way far different from a model or athlete. You can see a picture of a model and know that she was beautiful. But Kay’s beauty transcended that. If you saw a photo of her, you would say she was attractive, perhaps nothing more. But if you watched her walk, watched the harmony of her movements, the weight within her shoulders and the precision of her fingertips, you would know just how extraordinarily beautiful she was.
We sat there on the patio, with the deep trembling of the festival numbing the air. I tried to keep the conversation on her and she was more than willing to oblige. She was a Hemwick alumnus, three years before me. Eastern Studies. Spent a few years backpacking through Asia before joining Amnesty to help with the refugees. For the last few weeks she had been walking down the coast to raise funds for a new primary school in their camp. When she told me this, I knew instantly that she did it not because ‘’it was a good thing to do’’. There was no pride in it, no societal expectation. She did it the same way the mountains echo or an apple falls; there simply isn’t another way.
By the end of the night, I had decided to join her on her walk. I stopped by the beach house to give James and Nick the keys to the car and headed south the next morning with Kay. If they were decent friends, maybe they would have tried to stop me but they only had a few things on their mind that weekend and I wasn’t one of them.
It took us two weeks to reach London. Throughout it all we didn’t talk much. I’d try, here and again, to spur conversation, and as satisfying as it was, it never seemed to last. Walking beside her was enough for me. When we reached London, I asked her what she was going to do next and she said she was going to Malta to help build her refugee school. I said I’d like to come with her and she said yes without a second of hesitation. I’d never been so obsessed with someone in my life. And she knew it. How could she not? But it didn’t change her at all. She wouldn’t dote on me or flirt with me or bite her lip when I whispered in her ear. She would just walk with me and hold my hand and press her lips lightly to mine and I couldn’t ask for anything more.
This was about six months ago. I told Mum I quit my job, maybe the word got round to you. She knew I hated it and probably just assumed I did it for my own sanity which, to be honest, isn’t too far away from the truth. Soon I was in Malta with Kay setting the foundation for her school houses.
There was a little mountain ridge near the house we were staying at that we used to hike up and down during sunset. It wasn’t too far or too steep; just far enough to feel different.
Well, one evening we were hiking up the ridge and as Kay walked over a thin little ridge, the rocks shifted beneath her. I watched, as powerless as I have ever been, as she fell thirty feet down into the dirt and boulders and gnarled roots of a ravine. I scurried down as fast as I could after her. When I reached the bottom of the cliff and the dust cleared, I found her on her back with her arms stiff and stretched up in front of her. She was covered in dust and earth and I could hear her moan beneath the clatter of rocks still sliding down around us. I didn’t know what to do and over and over again I asked if she was okay as deep red spots welled up on her chest and abdomen. Her eyes were half open, but they weren’t moving. I cradled the back of her head with my hand. It was damp and light and I knew that it wouldn’t be long.
But as I held her head and turned her face up towards mine one last time, I saw something strange. Above her left eye, right around her temple, was a giant hole. The edges were a jagged mess of blood and dirt and black, matted hair. But inside the hole it was pitch black; no bone, no flesh. Just darkness.
As I turned her head to see the wound, I saw a light flicker inside. It was not a flash, but a gentle wave, like a fish’s tail. I leaned in over Kay, pressed my eye against her brow, and looked into the hole.’
Paul stopped and motioned pressing her skull against his own. He closed his eyes and Davis could see his brother’s face unfold in tears.
‘I know you don’t want to believe me, Davis, but it’s true. I swear on all that I am that this is true.
It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. It was everything, Davis. It was all that there is and can be, all within a speckled band of light twisting and fading within her head. I have never felt such joy, cannot fathom any greater contentment or purpose than looking at the light inside of her.
And right then it all made sense; her wisdom, her serenity, her gravity. She was a universe unto herself. All this time I could feel the waves of it slowly lapping at my senses. And I watched as that light flickered and darkened and slowly faded into nothing. I could have died with her then, Davis. I could have died then and been as complete a man as there ever was.
It took me half an hour to get back to the village. By morning I had taken a red eye back to London. I read in the papers that a family on holiday found what was left of her. For a while they assumed that I must have fallen as well and gotten lost in the waves. It was a mistake to run, I see that now, but I couldn’t explain all of this to them. Who in their right mind would ever believe me?
I was a broken man after that, Davis. Terrible thoughts overwhelmed me. But they weren’t thoughts of her face or her walk or her scent; they were thoughts of that light, of that little galaxy, winding its way through the nothingness. That was her more than anything else. That was everything. Even when I saw Mum had passed in the papers, all I could think about was that flickering light.
But now I’m here with you, big brother.’
Those two words lingered in the air.
‘You’re the only person in the world who I know I can absolutely trust, who owes me that trust. And because of that, I know everything is going to be fine. Everything will be just fine.’
As Davis excused himself from the room, Paul closed his eyes again and took a deep, contented breath.
***
Davis stood in front of the window at the end of the hallway and looked out at the trees. The wind had picked up and he could hear the faint whistle of air racing through the gaps in the roof. The tips of the trees shook violently, then calmed then shook again. Davis took a sip of his coffee and gently rested his forehead against the cold glass.
Every path he went down fell apart under its own weight.
If Paul had killed this woman and every word and look and tear of his was a masterclass lie, why would he not just say she fell on her own? What would embellishing a perfectly reasonable story with a sliver of madness do to benefit him?
Perhaps he had hallucinated what he saw. Maybe he’d taken a hit of something beforehand and truly believed that was what he saw. But this from the man who watched his brother flat line in the bed of an ambulance, who nearly threw his brother’s junkie girlfriend out the 2nd story window when she left a needle on his nightstand after visiting him in hospital? He’d known early on what roots addiction had had in their family and Davis would bet everything he owned that Paul had been sober every second of his entire, perfect life. Even as a teen, when Davis had busted his eyebrow on the coffee table, he screamed more refusing the local anaesthetic than the stitches themselves.
The only option left was that he was mad. But if he were, it seemed to be a such a small, particular madness that Davis had never heard of before. He was no doctor, but he had seen the deranged and delusional before. Their insanity was never contained in such a small and airtight pocket. It would always slip through whatever thin membrane tried to hold it back and bleed into every minute facet of their life, given time. Madness, paranoia, hallucinations; they were all parasites of the mind and there was nothing that the mind didn’t touch.
But Paul showed none of that. His hair had grown darker and thinner and his eyes more tired, but otherwise it was undoubtedly the same brother Davis had known all his life. His wit was still sharp, his inflections and mannerisms all a perfect fingerprint of what Davis had known. But more so, Davis could feel that it was his brother. The last time he’d spoken with his mother, he knew it wasn’t her. Her liver had gone and as she grew thin and pale the woman that he knew and loved disappeared and all that was left was a bitter husk that cursed him and his name. But the moment he had walked through that door and sat in that chair, Davis could feel his brother sitting across from him. The only one in the world willing to carry him when he had nothing to offer in return.
Davis looked down at his notepad and flipped through the few lines he’d jotted down. He’d specialized in civil rights not defence counsel, but knew he could find someone to handle it all well before it reached trial. Everything but the hike itself could be double checked easily. If there were traces of Paul on her body, it could just be when he scurried down to help her. The only thing Davis couldn’t immediately brush away was how suspicious Paul’s disappearance was. But perhaps, in time, that too could be pushed to the side.
Davis picked up his coffee from the window sill and looked out at the trees again. They swayed and bent horribly for something so strong. But they did not break.
***
When he came back into the room, a faint smile came across Paul’s face. Davis took a seat and flipped through his notepad one last time as if the words he’d written meant anything.
‘Do you believe me?’
‘I don’t do defence, but we can work around that.’
‘Do you believe me?’
‘I’m here, it doesn’t matter if I believe you.’
Davis knew the words were wrong the moment they left his mouth. That hint of a smile that hung to Paul’s face slowly faded. His face turned red and wrinkled with anguish. A deep, numb pain turned in Davis’ gut.
‘Jesus Christ, Davis. I’m your goddamned brother. Do you know just how much I sacrificed for you? How much pain and anxiety you brought me simply because we have the same blood? Do you think that when I sent you letters at the lock up I ever expected you to write back? Do you think that when I got a call at three in the morning that some couple found you bleeding to death in the gutter and dragged you to hospital that I wanted to gamble more of my life on someone who only wanted to fail? I didn’t believe you’d be anything but a burden, but I did it anyways. Why? Cause you’re my goddamned brother. Life isn’t fair and I was dealt you. Do you know how proud I was when I heard from others you’d gone sober? How you’d been working to become a solicitor? Jesus, Davis, I’ve never cried harder in my life. And through that whole time, did I ever ask for anything from you? Did I ask for one goddamn thing as compensation for the years you’d drained from my life? No, I didn’t. I never did it because I was fine, and you needed all the help you could get. I’ve always looked after you, brother. I’ve always had your well-being at heart.’
Paul’s head fell back. His lips moved but never touched and no words came out. Tears poured down his cheeks.
‘I know this all sounds mad, I do. I know there’s no reason for you to believe me. But it happened, Davis. For the love of god it happened and I need you to trust me. Even if it flies in the face of everything you know, just once, Davis, please just once believe me. The pieces don’t make sense, I can’t explain them, but it’s me, Davis. It’s me.’
Davis never showed his emotions. It wasn’t a choice; they just never came. To most, this made him a sociopath, a stone faced façade of a man. But emotion boiled within him like anyone else and now, seeing his brother tearing himself to pieces in front of his eyes, knowing that if the tables were reversed –when the tables were reversed- that his brother would have been there for him, and this made Davis feel a greater shame than he could truly fathom. How selfish could he be? Even if it was a lie, what harm would belief be? It felt both horribly right and wrong and behind it all Davis saw his younger brother slowly disintegrating.
Davis looked up at the light above him and then back down at the table.
‘I believe you, Paul.’
He could hear the small moans of his brother turn to whimpers and then nothing at all.
‘I believe you. You need me and I believe you.’
Paul’s face was red and twisted and pained, but beneath it all was a smile, a glimpse of personal salvation. His handcuffs clinked as he dabbed his eyes with his wrists.
‘I love you, Davis. Jesus Christ, I love you so much. You don’t know just what this means but it means everything.’
Davis picked up his pen, tapped it twice on the table, then flipped to a new page in his notepad.
‘Now, as I said before Paul, I’m tax law, not defence. But I know enough people at the firm who have crossed over to get you good counsel. If everything is as you say, I don’t see how they can realistically pin anything on you. Don’t speak to anyone, not any visitors, not even the warden until I…’
‘Davis.’
Paul’s face was still red and his lips a darker violet. His eyes were still filled with tears, but there was a joy on his face. A contentment. A wild sympathy.
‘That’s not why I wanted you here. I didn’t murder Kay. She fell, that’s the truth. But I killed one of her sisters in Chelsea, last night. The moment I saw her I knew. She’d figured it out but she didn’t try to stop me. I needed to, Davis; it had faded too quickly before. Kay’d just given me a glimpse of it all and I didn’t have time to understand it. I saw it, Davis.’
He reached his hands as far as they could go across the table.
‘I touched it. I held her light in my hands, felt it sift and twirl through my fingers. I am a part of it. I am complete. I called you here Davis because I love you and I want you to feel what I have felt. Take my hand.’
Paul turned his palms up and waited for the sacrament of his brother’s hand. Davis looked down and could see the many dull red dots that had gathered in the creases and at the base of his calloused pads. In ten seconds, that new love –pristine and unconditional- sloughed into disgust and regret and pity.
‘Touch my hand. I’ll tell you where the third sister is, Davis. You can see it yourself. But touch my hand. Please, touch my hand.’
Davis’ eyes grew low and heavy. He could not look at Paul. But still his brother called to him again and again, more desperate, more and more betrayed. A bleating sheep, deserted, awaiting hunger and the wolf.
But he’d sworn. His oath had turned rancid and festered in his mouth, but it was his oath. He closed his eyes and touched his four fingers to his brother’s palm.
He felt his brother on the tips of his fingers. Not his skin, not the give of his flesh. But all of him: his breath, his thoughts, every infinite fractal of the world that made him. He felt a pureness that dwarfed everything he had ever known. He felt heat and cold and space and time and something beyond understanding and bliss. He felt too much. He felt too much and he was too small and yet it was not enough. Nothing else existed: there was no other cause, no other pleasure. It was too much but it was just a taste, just the remnants of something far, far greater.
Where?
Tears flooded his eyes.
Oh god, little brother; where?