Free Drowning Rose by Marika Cobbold

with a wall and we need to fly over right away.” ’
    ‘I never collided with a wall.’
    ‘Actually, preposterous as it may sound, you did.’
    ‘My car did hit a wall. You’re right. I’d forgotten about that.’
    Ruth looked back at me as if she were issuing a challenge. ‘Then there was the time you gave all your savings to the Lifeboats? I’m not saying the Lifeboats aren’t a worthy cause and I’m sure it made you feel a whole lot better but the result was actually that Daddy and Olivia had to bail you out for months afterwards. We were struggling ourselves at the time, with a young family and Robert’s situation. We could have done with some help from my father and stepmother but no one thought of that. Oh no. Even when you were trying to sort yourself out, when you were at the clinic, even then everything somehow revolved around you.’ She sat back abruptly, arms folded across her chest, causing the old chair to creak in pain. ‘. . . so when you asked if your affairs bore me, well . . .’
    I didn’t know what to say to her. I had had no idea that my behaviour during those years of misery and turmoil had affected my stepsister in this way. Or maybe I just hadn’t cared enough to wonder about it. Now, what I heard appalled me. I looked up at her, helplessly, not sure what I might say or do to make it better. Ruth looked back at me. She was waiting. A pound of flesh might do, but I never had had much stomach for blood. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said finally and uselessly. ‘I didn’t mean for it to be that way. Please believe me.’
    She gave a little shrug. ‘Maybe, but whether you meant for it or not that’s still the way it was.’ Her eyes narrowed. ‘ “I’m afraid we can’t have Lottie this weekend. We’re visiting Eliza in the clinic.” And “We don’t really feel like a big family Christmas with Eliza having had a setback, you do understand, don’t you?”
    ‘No. No, I didn’t. And I should have said so. I should have said, “No, I don’t understand why my stepsister going off the rails instead of being grateful for the opportunities afforded to her by a first-rate education at a leading UK university should impact in such a negative way on me and my family.” ’
    I gave a regretful shrug. ‘At least you’re saying it now.’ I waited. I was pretty sure there was more to come. I really didn’t want to hear it. I thought of sticking my fingers in my ears and singing very loudly, but apart from being unfitting behaviour for anyone over five it would also be no more effective at shutting out painful memories than had been the years of rude drinking and gentile drug taking and night-before-the-morning-after sex.
    ‘You all right?’ Ruth asked.
    I nodded. She was still looking at me but her expression had changed and now her eyes were shiny with excitement, like those of a child who, having dropped a slug in an anthill, was sitting back to watch what would unfold.
    ‘I’m fine,’ I said.
    ‘Good. And I’m sorry to go on but . . .’
    So don’t , I wanted to cry. Really, we can just leave it at this .
    ‘. . . but I think it’s important that I tell you, finally, how I feel. I mean, I still don’t think you fully understand. Take my fortieth birthday. I don’t suppose you even remembered it was my fortieth? You managed to get yourself arrested. I assume you remember that. So of course your mother spent the whole evening in tears fretting about whether they should jump on the first available flight and Daddy spent the whole evening trying to comfort her. Quite the celebration that ended up being.’
    It felt like being savaged by an old teddy bear, strangely painful and ultimately shocking. I tried to make excuses, at least for this last transgression. ‘I really did believe I was witnessing a mugging. I couldn’t just stand by and do nothing. The police could have been a bit more understanding. It wasn’t at all obvious that there was filming going on. There was