My sisters downfall, p.2
My Sister's Downfall, page 2
Social media is full of keyboard warriors, and all it takes is one individual to take things to an extreme and a tragedy happens. I didn’t want Isabella to become a statistic so I had no choice but to take matters into my own hands. I had to give her a controlled scare so she realises she needs to be more cautious. She still hosts open meetings with members of the public without a full team of security for Christ’s sake.
I can tell from the words she's choosing as she explains the situation to me, that she simply isn’t worried about the threat or what it could lead to. Or maybe it's because she knows that she doesn't have any secrets someone could spill. My little sister has always been honest to a fault. It's why the voters like her so much, it’s why she'll win the leadership contest, and it's why she'll end up being Prime Minister one day.
And I want all of that for her. I genuinely, hand-on-heart do. There's nothing I want more in life than to see Isabella achieve her dreams. I just want her to learn to be a little more careful in her pursuit of them. One day she could have a real lunatic on her tail and she won't be able to simply brush it aside as the actions of a disgruntled employee.
I’ve been sat at my desk all day waiting for her to call, expecting her worried breathy tones down the line from the moment the clock ticked to 9 a.m. But her call never came in the morning. At first, I told myself she was too shocked to reach out to me but as I picked apart my ham and pickle sandwich at lunchtime I realised that I wasn’t her first port of call anymore. She had other people to fill that role. More specifically she had Andrew to fill that role.
Andrew, the man who has managed her campaigns since she first won the student union elections in her final year at university. He’s been by her side ever since. An irritating tumour that grows in power every year that passes. Once upon a time, she would have asked me to proofread her press releases, but now it was Andrew’s sign-off that mattered. Andrew’s approval that held weight.
I’d never gotten on with the man and wasn’t intending to start anytime soon. The memory of the date she set us up on still makes me laugh. She truly believed we’d been a match made in heaven, when the only thing we had in common was our fixation with her. We both wanted what was best for her, to support her on the path to party leadership but there was something about Andrew that just didn’t sit right with me.
Maybe it was the uneven, oblong shape of his eyebrows, or maybe it was the information I’d managed to find on the Internet about him - a few unfavourable reviews from previous clients of his that I briefly investigated. They all ended up leading to a dead end, literally in one case, and I eventually ran out of threads to follow. For one reason or another though, I trusted the man about as much as I trusted the net zero policies of global corporations. I truly didn’t want to remove the man from Isabella’s life, she relied on him heavily and he did good work, but if he wasn’t the man he said he was, then I would have no choice. One day the skeletons will spill from his closet, I’m sure of it.
It stung knowing that he was the person she obviously called when she found the note. But by the time I was sipping on my 3 p.m. coffee, I’d gotten over it - after all she was a professional and calling her campaign manager had been the logical thing to do. I knew that eventually I would get her call and that when I did it meant she finally felt vulnerable enough to reach out to me. That she truly needed me. It would mean I wasn’t just a cog in the political machine designed to protect her reputation. Yes, I was more important than Andrew, I was someone she truly cared about, which meant I would be her last call of the day. The one to settle her nerves so she could go home and sleep peacefully.
Remembering this I soften my tone, she is after all my younger sister. It's my job to support her.
“I’m sorry I raised my voice,” I apologise, cradling the phone between my neck and my shoulder. “I’m just shocked.”
“That’s okay, I know you’re just worried. It unnerved me as well.”
“Do you want me to come out and meet you? I could cook us dinner?” I ask, subconsciously crossing my fingers that she’ll say yes. We haven’t had a home-cooked meal together in so long. We might talk every night but we only manage to meet up in person once a week. And it’s usually a snatched sandwich in some back lane pub where my sister won’t be spotted by any of the locals. Hardly the place for sisterly bonding.
“No, I’m okay. I think Andrew has organised a car to take me home tonight - save me getting a taxi. And I’ve got a ton of emails to catch up on. Today really played havoc with my schedule.”
I give the impression of listening and sympathising but inside I’m beginning to seethe. Of course Andrew is taking care of everything. He always does. Doesn’t he know that’s my role in life? That it’s been that way since our parents died? It’s always been me and Isabella, with the occasional guest spot for other halves when we have them. Even when we’d both had partners we still centred our lives around each other, still called the other first with good news or bad. Well, it had been that way for most of the time anyway.
There had been Chris who’d managed to upgrade himself to a series regular in our lives the day he put a ring on my finger - but obviously that hadn’t lasted. Even he couldn’t put up with the bond between me and my sister. He always felt sidelined and in one heated argument, I told him that he always would be. That had been the week before he left without so much as a note.
I called him repeatedly but his phone had gone straight to voicemail each time, until eventually it didn’t even connect. He must have changed his name on social media because I’ve not been able to find a trace of him since that day. If only I’d had the chance to meet his parents when we were together, but the three of them were estranged and I never had the opportunity to mend the wounds between them.
Sometimes, when I’ve had a few too many glasses of wine, I get stuck in a dream I can’t quite place when I wake up. A broken conversation between two voices, growing more and more heated with each passing moment. Until the argument is interrupted by Isabella as she holds me in her arms and Chris fades away to nothing.
I’m sure there’s some subconscious meaning behind that dream but I don’t want to risk looking too deeply into it. Something tells me I’ll uncover a memory best left forgotten. It’s why I try not to think too hard about why my hand chose those five words to write on the note I left her.
I know what you did.
My sister is an open book, always has been, so why did my brain think that was the right turn of phrase to get a reaction from her? She’s never done anything she’s ashamed of, that much I’m sure of. “Life is for living” she used to tell me as we blossomed into young women. This was a way to entice me to join her for a night out, and she didn’t care about how many eyes were upon her as she danced to the Macarena on a nearly empty dance floor. No, my sister has never done anything she’s ashamed of, nothing she’d want to keep hidden.
After I lost Chris, Isabella had been beside herself when I stumbled bleary-eyed into her flat. I tried to hold myself together, I really had. But after two days of living alone in the flat we once shared, I had reached my mental breaking point. I spent the hour-and-a-half train journey between our locations openly bawling as I stared at the landscapes shooting past. The ticket Inspector had been kind when he noticed the engagement ring on my hand.
Cups of tea were sent my way with his compliments and when we finally reached my stop he held my hand as I stepped down onto the platform. He was obviously a father and had seen that kind of heartache before. I stayed with my sister for three days after my shock arrival. She dropped everything to be with me. It’s one of the few times in our lives I’ve let her take care of me. Eventually though, after another short stay in the Sanctuary, I pulled myself together and used the open return option on my ticket - after all the tax returns at work weren’t going to file themselves.
“May, are you still there?” she asks and I take a breath. I’d let myself get lost down memory lane and had forgotten she was speaking to me.
“Sorry, sorry, yes I’m still here.”
“You sound busy, I should go.”
“No, no. I’m never too busy for you. Did you want to call me from the car just in case you’re nervous?”
“Why would I be nervous? I mean, yes the fact somebody has been in my office was a little shocking, but the note itself was innocuous. I’m sure once I get home, I’ll feel completely like myself again.”
She was giving herself a pep talk and using me as a sounding board. It’s what she always did when the world seemed a little out of her control. I didn’t mind, at least it means I still have my uses.
This would be the perfect chance to tell her that actually I’m currently in her hometown. That I’ve rented a hot desk in an office opposite hers. That I’m staying in a small hotel just down the road from her house. That I can be with her within twenty minutes. But I don’t tell her any of that and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because she hasn’t asked me to help her. Maybe it’s because I’m nervous about her rejection should I offer it. Whatever the reason, I find myself keeping a secret from my sister for the second time in twenty-four hours. I don’t like the feeling.
“Of course, absolutely. You get yourself home, maybe have a bubble bath and unwind. I’m sure you’re right and this is nothing to worry about,” I say.
“Exactly. Like I said to Andrew, it’s probably just one of the pencil pushers we let go last week for speaking to the press.”
I wince at the term pencil pushers. My sister might mean no harm by it but she’s always made it clear that there are some careers she values above others. And office workers such as myself are on a lower rung to others. Such as her.
“Absolutely. Absolutely.” I’m repeating my words, something I used to do when I found myself lost for the right ones.
Please Isabella, please just tell me you need me. My life is so empty without Chris. It has been for years. I’ve sat here festering whilst watching her shine. All I want is to support her, to feel needed by her, to have a purpose in her life.
“Right, well I’ll speak to you later?” she asks.
“Of course. 7 p.m.?”
“What are you cooking tonight?”
I move to the carrier bag by my legs and pick up a pack of instant noodles and turn them over in my hand.
“Oh, I was thinking maybe a lasagne, that way I can freeze the leftovers for lunch,” I lie, making a mental note to make an online order tonight at my local supermarket. I’m going to go home in the morning and get my shit together. I need to get my life back in order. For too long I’ve tied my mental well-being to my little sister when it’s clear she no longer needs me. Starting tomorrow it’s a new me.
“You’re so organised! I’ll probably just have some kind of omelette.” She laughs gently at me, believing me to be the same Type-A sister she’s always known.
If only she knew the truth about what was happening to me, about the impending mental breakdown and burnout that’s causing me to act so out of character. If she knew I was the one who’d left the note then she wouldn’t hesitate to send me back to the Sanctuary.
I shudder at the memory. True it had been the very best mental healthcare money could buy. Isabella had spared no expense, but still, to this day, I’m not sure my second three-month stay with them had been warranted.
Yes, I had been broken when Chris left me.
Yes, there are still sizable gaps in my memory from that time.
But hand-on-heart I don’t believe I’d required those endless hours of psychiatric care and medication, no matter what outlandish claims I’d been vocalising.
I can’t let it get that far again. I can’t start making unfounded accusations and wind up back in care. From now on there will be no more notes. No more games. I’m just going to get back to my life and back to being regular old May.
“I’ll speak to you in a few hours,” I say, desperately trying to end the
call. Tears are choking my throat that I won’t be able to explain away to her. Tears that she’ll want answers for.
It happens more often than not these days. Sometimes it feels like my eyes have a mind of their own as I’ll be merrily typing away on my laptop and find that my face is damp. Nothing sad will have entered my mind and yet my tears are flowing.
Thankfully the company I work for allows me to work remotely as it’s a rather embarrassing infliction.
“Okay, love you,” she says.
“I love you too.”
I hang up as quickly as I can and send a thanks to the heavens that I’m the only one currently in this unfamiliar open-plan office. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone as I let the tears fall.
Chapter Three: Isabella
I'm sitting in the hairdresser’s chair when the first text comes through. A number I don't recognise with a message I'm now familiar with.
I know what you did.
My shoulders must have tensed because my stylist Lynsey noticed.
"You okay Bella?" She asks.
I don't let many people call me Bella. It’s not necessarily a name I'm comfortable with. It doesn't hold as much authority as Isabella, it doesn't feel as serious and I've always been desperate to be taken seriously. May finally stopped calling me it last year but it took a lot of convincing and a lot of unanswered texts until she finally listened. I trained her in the way one might train a dog - I ignored her whenever she called me Bella. Eventually, she realised the only way to get a response was to use the name I preferred. It did feel a little mean at the time but in the end, it achieved the desired result.
"Yeah, sorry - I've just got to take care of this,” I reply, not wanting to worry her.
Lynsey is different though. She's been doing my hair since I was eleven. She used to do my mum’s hair and it was from my mum she learnt to shorten my name. Plus she isn't in my life every day like my sister so it's more of a sporadic pull on my heartstrings when I hear it rather than a daily one.
My relationship with my mother, well my parents, is more complicated than I care to delve into, but I think in some ways most children miss their parents when they’re gone. Ever since they passed though, my life has been on an upward trajectory so I can’t say it disrupted things too much. May, on the other hand. Oh, poor May was completely broken by their deaths. Full of guilt and regrets. It was the first time she experienced memory blackouts, which led to all kinds of paranoid thought trains she was unable to depart from. I was the one who pushed her to see a doctor at the time, her words were becoming too spiteful to bear and sooner or later would lead to gossip I couldn’t come back from. And I knew that she would never want that for me. Not really. My sister has always wanted me to succeed.
My first instinct on receiving the text is to screenshot it and send it to Andrew. Let him deal with it. Then I remember Inspector Coulson. Perhaps this is an update I should pass on personally. Luckily I saved James' contact details already so it was simply a case of composing a text of the right tone and forwarding him the screenshot.
Hi James,
You said to get in touch if I received any more notes, as you can see, whoever it is has moved to texts now. Perhaps we should meet up so you can view it in person?
Isabella
Perfect. There was no suggestion of worry in my words, and therefore, nothing that could be misconstrued as me being a damsel in distress, an idea I loathe. I have never been in distress and I don’t intend to start now. I don't want him, or anyone, to see me as a victim. I can still feel the sting of people’s sympathy at my parents’ funeral - their empty apologies and worried glances across the church as May and I sat strong in the front pew. I don't need anyone to feel sorry for me. Not when my parents died and not now. There was nothing in life that I couldn't handle. I'd proved that time and time again.
My phone pings back almost instantly.
Isabella,
I would definitely appreciate the chance to view the message in person. Shall I come to your office around 5? In the meantime please block the number.
James
I smile to myself as I think of all the times in my life when an evening meeting rolled into an early dinner - I hope tonight is no different. If I can just keep the Inspector occupied for an hour then it would be polite to invite him to join me for dinner, not presumptuous. I would just be behaving like a considerate person. Maybe I’d take him to the Italian restaurant just round the corner from my office. It was cosy, with chairs placed close together. I could accidentally brush against him all night.
The idea of doing so gives me a chill up my spine. Plus the owner usually gave me a table in the back away from prying eyes. Discretion was built into the service fee, but I didn’t mind. It was a small price to pay when you conducted the kind of business I usually did.
"Who's making you smile?" Lynsey asks me as she begins the long and arduous process of adding what feels like three hundred bleach foils to my hair.
"A new friend," I reply, catching her eye in the mirror as she gives me a mischievous wink.
Four hours later and I'm in my office, waiting for the front desk to let me know that James has arrived. I nipped home after my trip to the hairdresser’s to put on one of my favourite outfits. It's nothing particularly special or spectacular - a simple black dress as far as anyone else would know. But it always makes me feel like I could take on the world and I fancied a bit of a confidence boost right now.
I inadvertently let Andrew know about the text message and the fact that I informed the Inspector.
He has unrestricted access to my personal calendar and, therefore, gets a notification whenever I block out any time, which I had done immediately after James confirmed he would visit.
It's not that Andrew is controlling. It means I'm able to take care of any personal matters and he organises my work commitments around them without me having to tell him about my every move. It's a time saver honestly, but an annoying one today.
