seen Zelda lying on her deathbed, I’m in some kind of peculiar parallel universe. Today nothing feels sacred, not even my most precious relationship.
‘Oh, Lulu, do you care?’ she asks, a horrible sarcastic smirk twisting her features. ‘Do you really? How very touching. Because the only person you seem to have been remotely interested in these last few weeks is yourself. I don’t know who you are any more, you certainly don’t feel like my twin.’
I feel cut to the quick, completely floored. We’ve never said that to each other, never ever. ‘How can you say that to me?’ I wail. ‘If you knew, if you knew what today’s been like…’
‘What, did Charles cut you dead in the coffee queue?’ she sneers. Alice gets this hardness sometimes, this need to put me in my place by pretending to be invincible. It cuts me off at the knees, turns me to mush.
‘No, no. Zelda’s dying, she might even have gone by now.’ Great racking sobs consume me as I think of her in that room. ‘She’s in hospital, all hooked up to machines…’
She edges towards me, puts a tentative hand on my arm.
‘Are you sure it’s as bad as you think?’
And it’s that statement which makes me completely lose the plot.
‘Yes, Alice, it is as bad as I think. Death is pretty much final – I’m not sure even you could manage to whitewash that away. But, oh no, hang on, you’ve managed to team up with Dad and sweep Mum under the carpet like she never existed, so maybe you could.’
‘Fucking hell, Lulu, Zelda’s not our mum! She’s not even related to you. The amount of times she’s made your life hell…’
And with a brilliant piece of sleight of hand, she manages to totally belittle my relationship with Zelda and completely sidestep how I feel about her colluding with Dad. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so betrayed, so despairing. Maybe it’s not just her who feels like she’s lost a twin. Before I know it, I’m throwing as much as I can into a holdall and running out on to the street to hail a cab. Alice screams after me, holds on to my arm, but I won’t so much as look at her. As far as I’m concerned, I’m on my own.
Chapter Nineteen
Every morning I wake up eyeball to eyeball with Robert Redford. Zelda’s downstairs film den is dominated by a huge poster for The Way We Were: Robert strides down the beach intensely, arm tightly wrapped around Barbra Streisand’s shoulders. I don’t know if it’s the togetherness that she responded to, or how achingly handsome he is – it’s yet another question that I long to ask her, but will never have the chance to. She slipped away around the time that my and Alice’s argument hit a crescendo, after which I threw myself into a cab and landed on Gareth’s doorstep. He and I got the news around four a.m. and spent the next day in a state of disbelief. We told Michael that we would tell all the work people who needed to know, but every time we tried to get the words out the shock hit us anew. Perhaps it’s a blessing that the strictures of production mean the show must go on, but I’m balancing the nightmarish costume famine with helping Michael and the boys organize the funeral. I was so glad that he took my offer of help at face value, and the easiest thing seemed to be to come and stay with them. It might sound ridiculous and sexist, but they barely seem able to boil an egg between the three of them. Making sure they eat makes me feel vaguely useful, and the boys seem able to share a little bit of what they’re going through with me. The funeral’s tomorrow, and the arrangements seem endless. I’ve promised Michael I’ll read a poem, but the idea fills me with dread. I’d much rather retreat behind organizing ham sandwiches than face the idea of keeping a lid on my emotions in front of over a hundred people. Not on my own.
Alice and I haven’t spoken since that terrible night. I miss her horribly, but something’s hardened in me. The things she said cut so deep that I’m almost frightened to put my trust back in her. I always imagined we’d part because someone too wonderful to walk past would come into one of our lives: I never imagined it would happen