Dark Lullaby Polly Ho-Yen (drm ebook reader .txt) 📖

I grip hold of Mimi and linger there, just on the other side of the hole in the glass.

I catch the scent of Evie. The particular perfume she wears, the smell of her deodorant mingled with the brand of her shampoo. She has passed by this spot not long before us. She brushed against the bulbous coats that stick out on the rack, she slammed the door shut behind her, sure of its solidity and permanence.

But the smell of her dissipates and when I search for it, it’s no longer there.

I feel a twinge of longing for a time gone, of being with her, of her home being as familiar as my own. The days we spent together that were so innocuous that now I see as something precious.

I miss my sister. I miss being with her, the very essence of her, but I can only recognise this fact as being more important than anything else that came between us, here, alone in her home. In a place where Evie should be, and being without her.

I take a step forwards as the film continues to play. I cradle Mimi to me, and walk through the wide-open spaces of the rooms.

There is something revealing about seeing the pieces of someone’s life through their home. Their true home. Not one that has been tidied for guests, with piles of old post forced into drawers and plates stacked away neatly into the dishwasher.

What do you leave behind when you believe that no one will see it? What pieces of yourself do you leave bare, exposed?

There’s the crumpled skin of a banana left on the counter, brown and sweetly rotting. Three cups that still have lumpen teabags at their bottom and the dark brown remainder of over-brewed tea. There’s a small saucepan left on the hob with what looks like cheese stuck to its side. I imagine Evie eating her dinner straight from the pan, standing in the kitchen, a fork in her hand. Every small trace stands out against the industrial chic of the kitchen.

The living room is untouched and tidy, so much so that I wonder if she’s spent any time in this room recently. The sofa cushions are plumped and straight, the tables clear of detritus, toys piled carefully in storage boxes. Everything is tucked away, set neatly in lines and right angles.

Mimi feels quieter still in this immaculate place. I check her breathing and yearn for her sounds to break the silence but she is still sunk in sleep.

‘Why don’t you get comfy on here?’ I prattle to her. I pat the sofa cushion, which is more firm than squidgy. I nestle her there, placing cushions and blankets around her, and pull my coat back over me; the house is cold. ‘Now I just need to find something for a nappy.’

Jakob will be too old for nappies now but I should be able to make something better for her than the paper towels from the restaurant toilets.

There’s a jumper of Jakob’s hung over the sofa that will keep her warm. I grab it. I take tea towels from the kitchen and quickly fashion a make-shift nappy.

‘I’m going to be right back,’ I tell her when I’ve finished. ‘Just a moment. I’m going to find something for you to wear. I’ll be right back, OK?’

She buries her head into Jakob’s jumper a little. How long before the drugs they gave her leave her system? I try to calculate how long she has slept already. After a few moments of stroking the silk of her hair, I reluctantly leave her.

Along one side of the room is a wall of books. From the dust lining the bookshelves I can see that Evie has not touched the books for a long time. I ease one out carefully – Of Mice and Men – it looks like the same copy that Evie stuffed into her school bag years ago.

I hold my breath but inside the front cover I find two twenty-pound notes, flattened sharply like daisies preserved in a press.

She always used to do this. Hide money in her books. She started when she was a teenager and carried on through her twenties, but I’d started to doubt in this sterile place whether she would be the same person. This little habit makes me again yearn for Evie. It makes me think: I do know her after all.

The next book holds no money. But in Pride and Prejudice I find eighty pounds and soon I am able to guess the books that Evie has chosen to stash the notes in. She prefers to use the classics, although I find thirty in between the pages of a poetry anthology by a name I do not recognise.

I stuff some notes into the pocket of my pyjamas and then, following Evie’s lead, I start to place more notes in between the pages of a trashy crime novel that was poked into one of the bottom shelves, stuffed into the space at the top of the books, almost like an afterthought.

I glance back at Mimi. She is still asleep, her breathing deep and even.

I quickly reroute to the kitchen. I place the book into a sturdy bag with fabric handles and then I start to hunt for food.

I take a tall glass water jug that sits by the side of the sink, fill it from the tap and then drain it. I fill it again, drink some more and then carry it with me to the fridge.

There are leftovers of something in a bowl – some kind of lentil stew. I don’t heat it but devour it in seconds, in just a few spoonfuls. Then I cram a piece of bread into my mouth, I have to tell myself to chew before swallowing, as Thomas would remind me in those first days of breastfeeding when I couldn’t eat enough, fast enough; I have the same thirst and hunger now. I find a pack of biscuits in one