When Oscar heard me scream on the phone, he called the police. They found me racing down the street. They searched the house and found no sign that the masked man had ever been there. No forced entry, no fingerprints, nothing. Both the front and back doors were locked and when I made my escape out the window, I had to unlock it first.
‘He must have a key,’ I tell Oscar and the police because this is the only explanation.
I am met with puzzled, disbelieving silence.
‘And how would he have gotten that?’ asks one of the police officers in a voice I imagine she doesn’t think is patronising.
Olivia, I think, ‘I don’t know,’ I say.
‘That theory doesn’t stand,’ interjects Oscar. ‘Not unless you’ve been handing our keys out to strangers?’
‘Of course not.’
‘You say he locked you in the office so you went out the window?’ asks the officer, ignoring the rising tension between me and my fiancé.
I nod.
She exchanges a look with her colleague. ‘The thing is, Miss Arden, the door to the office isn’t locked.’
I stare at her, dumbfounded. I know he locked me in. I heard the unmistakable click of the key turning.
Oscar sighs.
I start picking at the skin around my nails, wishing they’d all stop looking at me as though I’m a circus freak. Still, I can’t blame them for not believing me. Nothing has been taken from the house. Our laptops and TV, my jewellery and any cash we had, were left untouched. On the phone, Oscar heard my petrified scream, but the masked man was silent throughout the assault. The only evidence that he was ever in the house is the ruffled state of Oscar’s office, my broken phone and the bruises up my arms, like smudges of ink. But these are things I could’ve done myself. The police humour me, at least, taking my statement. Oscar holds my hand throughout, but it’s weak and feels perfunctory. There’s no warmth in his touch, no reassurance or safety. The police tell me I’d likely interrupted a thief mid-ransack, though neither of them can explain the locked doors and lack of forced entry.
After they leave, Oscar sits down on the sofa with his head in his hands.
Tentatively, I take a seat beside him. I want to touch him, to lay a hand on his shoulder, but there’s an awkwardness between us. I can sense he doesn’t want to be touched. At least, not by me.
‘Caitie,’ he says into his hands. ‘Are you sure you saw someone?’
‘I didn’t just see someone, Oscar, I was attacked,’ I say, struggling to hide my irritation.
He groans into his palms. Finally, he looks up and regards me with the same weariness as a parent with a misbehaving child. ‘He attacked you, but you’re largely unharmed, don’t you think that’s odd? Why break in, stand in my office, then lock you inside and leave?’
He has a point. I know he does, but it did happen. It did. I can still feel his gloved hand covering my mouth, can still smell the leather and feel the hardness of his body pinning me against the wall. Oscar should’ve been here. Why wasn’t he home? ‘Where were you tonight?’
‘Drinks with friends.’
‘What friends?’
He stands up. ‘You don’t think it was me, do you?’
‘No, of course not. I just … What friends?’
‘Why does it matter?’
I don’t like that while I am sitting, he is standing, so I get up, too. At this, Oscar scowls. Then he walks past me, out into the hallway. I follow him into the kitchen. Given what I’ve been through, I don’t know why I care so much about who he was with and where, but I do. I ask him again.
He angrily boils the kettle and yanks two mugs from the cupboard. I stare at his back. I long for the man who set up an easel on a cliff in St Ives, who had sex with me in a rainbow bath, who whispered into my naked back that I am beautiful, that I am his entire world. But that Oscar is gone. The one who yanks open the fridge and slams the milk onto the side feels like a stranger.
‘Who?’ I press.
‘Steven and Tim,’ he snaps.
‘I thought Steven was on holiday?’
He wheels on me. ‘What’re you suggesting?’
The kettle is bubbling but we ignore it. We look at one another. It clicks itself off.
‘Nothing. I’m …’ What am I suggesting? That he’s working with the masked man? That he handed out our key? That he picked up my voicemail sooner than he admitted and he told the masked man I’d be home alone? Maybe. What I know for sure is that Oscar has been hiding something from me for a while now. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
He looks at me as though I am his greatest, smacking disappointment. ‘Why are you sidestepping into another fight?’
He doesn’t even wait for my answer, just goes back to making tea. He is only making the one cup. I slink off to bed alone.
I spend the few days holed up in my room. I don’t shower or dress and everything I eat tastes like plastic buttons. Oscar has been sleeping in our spare room down the hall. I don’t ask why and he doesn’t offer an explanation.
I think he must’ve called my parents and told them about the break-in that he isn’t even sure happened, because they’re at my house, treating me as though I am a mirror to be handled with care. First one to cause a crack gets seven years bad luck.
Dad comes to my room. He stands in the doorway, looking at me with pity and concern which I’m not sure is any better than simmering hatred and disappointment. We lock eyes. He wants to say something. I see him shuffling through his words like cards in a deck, looking for the perfect hand. Before he finds it though, Mum calls him downstairs. He lingers for just a moment and then he’s gone, taking whatever he wanted to tell me with him.
Mum is cleaning, doing all the chores I’ve failed to do. I lie in bed and stare up at the ceiling, listening to the spray of polish and a few minutes later, the continuous drone of the hoover. I yearn for those easy Sunday mornings with Oscar, when the two of us would put on music and tidy the house. We’d sing along, loudly and badly. Then, between the chorus and the verse, he’d pull me to him, a duster still in hand, and tell me he loved me.
The irony is not lost on me that the life I am missing now is the same life that, just days ago, I was complaining about to Gideon. Now, though, alone in my room and wondering if I’m losing my mind, I fall in love with Oscar, with our life together, all over again, as though it is a forgotten dress, rediscovered at the back of my wardrobe, fashionable once more.
Since the break-in, I’ve been stuck in a loop of fear and uncertainty. I fear the masked man and the memories that come to me in searing flashes. I fear that I have lost my fiancé and pushed away my family and friends. I fear that I am slowly going insane. My mind like one of those timelapses of a rotting apple left out in the sun to decay. Maybe everyone is right and I’m delusional? Maybe the masked man was never here – not outside the kitchen window at Blossom Hill House and not in Oscar’s study? Maybe that woman is my sister and, on some subconscious level, just as my father suggested, I am struggling with her rejoining our family, and so I’m finding reasons to reject her. That sounds more plausible than being stalked by a man in a Venetian mask who no one else can see.
Loneliness spreads inside me like a swell of ink. I examine the backs of my hands and swear my veins are darker. I feel desperately alone. The kind of loneliness that is a physical ache, as real to me as the masked man’s hand squeezing my throat. There was a brief reprieve from the loneliness when I believed my sister had returned, but now that I’m doubting it’s her, I am lonelier than ever.
I sit up. The covers are damp with sweat and my hair sticks to my head in greasy clumps. I can’t stay in bed forever, questioning my sanity. How can I expect anyone to believe I am a stable, functioning adult if I hide away in a bed-nest?
Because it is my only option, I finally shower.
I close my eyes beneath the hot spray of water and imagine the last few weeks of my life, the fear and the uncertainty, the suspicion and the loneliness, washing off me like dirt and disappearing down the drain along with the shampoo suds.
It feels good to wear real clothes. I smooth my hands over my lilac summer dress and pull my freshly washed hair into a high ponytail. It’s too hot to wear it down. My stained, sweaty pyjamas lie at my feet like a costume for a tragic, mentally disturbed hermit. Out of them, I convince myself I am free of that role. I gather them up, strip the bed and bundle it all into the washing basket on the landing.
Then I hear voices down the hall, behind the closed door of the spare bedroom. I hear Olivia laugh. Hear the low, flirtatious burr of Oscar’s voice. One I’ve felt whispered against my own naked back. I pad quietly towards them. My heart becomes a hummingbird in my chest as I reach the door handle. I can’t make out what they’re saying but the tone is clear. Affectionate. Teasing. Their laughter comes again. Part of me wants to turn and walk away, pretend I don’t know that my sister and fiancé are squirrelled away together in a bedroom, but another part of me, the part that stares at road-traffic accidents or picks at a scab, wants to know. So I open the door.
I see them a second before they spring apart, her hand on his arm, their heads bent close together as they sit knee-pressed-against-knee on the edge of the bed. I stand in the doorway, feeling I have interrupted something intimate. Oscar leaps up, eyes wide and guilty. Olivia rises slowly, a small, private smile on her lips.
‘Caitie, you’re up,’ he says with too much cheer. ‘We were just going to come in and see you. Thought I’d give Olivia a tour. Do you want something to eat or drink? I think your mum is making lunch, or I could run down to the deli? Shall I do that? Get your favourite?’
I am barely listening, my focus fixed on Olivia. Who are you? I think. What do you want? Why are you trying to take away my sanity, my best friend, my family and now my fiancé, too? Oscar steps into my line of sight, eclipsing her from view. He puts an arm around me and starts guiding me out of the room, rubbing circles on my back as though he’s escorting his dementia-addled grandmother. I shrug him off, finally finding my voice. ‘Great idea, go to the deli, save Mum making lunch for everyone.’
‘Do you want to lie down and I can bring it to your room when I’m back?’ he offers. Usually, this would be a trademark thoughtful gesture from Oscar. Right now, it feels like he’s trying to get me as far away from Olivia and what I saw as possible.
‘Do I look like I need to lie down?’ I ask sweetly.
He takes in my clean, brushed hair and my clean, ironed dress. I am together. I am composed. ‘No, you seem …’ He trails off, struggling for the word.
Past his shoulder, I see Olivia watching with a small smirk as though this is a mildly entertaining drama she’s stumbled across whilst flicking through the channels. I will ask Oscar why he was alone in a bedroom with my sister, the door shut, later. In private.
‘I’ll be fine. You can go,’ I tell Oscar in the same voice I use to dismiss misbehaving children in my classroom.
He glances at Olivia who, bored now I’ve put an end to the tension-fuelled interaction with my fiancé, has moved over to the chest of drawers where she picks up a stray red lipstick.
He places an awkward, chaste kiss on my cheek before he leaves.
Olivia applies my lipstick, painting her rosebud lips a deep scarlet. ‘You know,’ she says, admiring her reflection in the mirror above the drawers. ‘I finally understand what you see in Oscar. He’s adorable.’ She looks at me over her shoulder, that infuriating, private smile still in place. ‘So … attentive.’
‘Stay away from him.’
She pouts. ‘But aren’t sisters supposed to share?’
‘What’re you doing in my house?’
‘That’s not very kind, Caitie.’
‘Kitty-Cate,’ I correct her.
She cocks her head. ‘I’m sorry?’
‘Kitty-Cate.’
‘In English please.’
‘That’s the nickname you gave me, don’t you remember?’
She shrugs and slides me another sly smile. ‘Sure.’
I close the distance between us, so close I’m breathing in her blackberry-and-night-jasmine perfume. I take the lipstick from her and place it back on the drawer. ‘Didn’t you read about it in her diaries?’
She raises an eyebrow. This is the first time I have been brave enough, bold enough, to land an arrow of suspicion so close to the mark. ‘Say it,’ she dares me. She’s enjoying this, the thrill of the chase, as though we are predator and prey. ‘Go on, little sister.’
I lift my chin. My heart quickens. The adrenaline that hits my bloodstream, as potent as a shot of tequila, emboldens me and finally, I say it. ‘I’m not your little sister.’
She looks surprised, then impressed. She didn’t really think I’d say it out loud. She doesn’t rush to defend or deny. And I feel a kick of victory as I realise I have fired my first arrow, straight and true. She isn’t flustered or concerned. From the way her face has lit up, it’s as though she’s been waiting for this – eagerly waiting for this the way a child waits for Christmas. I don’t understand what game she is playing and why she has chosen to play it only with me. ‘Who are you?’
She moves past me, grinning. ‘What’s that old cliché? That’s for me to know and for you to etcetera, etcetera …’