Page 127 of High Season
Blake had heard a thousand times how lucky he was to be a twin.
For all his life, people found it fascinating. The idea of being bound to someone, like he was to Tamara. The fact of your entire existence being so inexorably tied to another being that the very concept of you barely made sense without the other. The thought that you had never, from the moment of your conception, truly been alone.
Blake always nodded when people said this. He always smiled politely; always said, truthfully, that he could not imagine a world without his sister.
But the truth of the matter was that Blake had always hated being a twin.
He and Tamara were close when they were younger, of course. How could they not be? They had never known anything different. Back then, Blake didn’t quite understand that other people didn’t know what it was like to have every sentence finished for you, every thought understood, every formative experience shared. Tamara always said that there was a connection between them, something that fizzed in the air, just short of mind reading. Whenever she said that, Blake would think how ridiculous the entire idea was. How could Tamara know that therewas something different between them, when neither of them had ever been anyone else? How could she possibly discern the kind of twin-magic she believed in from plain familiarity?
To Blake, the twin-speak that they created was a symptom of boredom, a language that formed naturally from the patterns of their lives, in-jokes and linguistic tricks that anyone could learn. The psychic connection that Tamara claimed was just simple cognition. It was easy to know what someone was thinking when you had been present for almost every thought that they had ever had, every word they had ever said.
But the older they got, the more Blake felt his own personality, his own desires twisting out of him, the more that the intimate knowledge that his sister held over him felt cursed. He would see the way that she looked at him. The way that she judged him. The way that she would adopt a slightly pained expression when he talked about girls, and about parties, about the things he and Barnaby would do when they were away at school once he and Tamara had separated for single-sex sixth forms.
Not that he was doing anything wrong. They were young, weren’t they? They weresupposedto be doing things that they would one day regret. Things they wouldn’t tell their mother about (although, of course, having a mother like Evelyn Drayton shifted the dial of acceptability somewhat). And it wasn’t as if Tamara didn’t have secrets. It wasn’t as if Tamara was perfect herself.
Sometimes, he felt like Tamara saw things in black-and-white. Sometimes he felt that she saw them as not the same, but opposite sides of the same battered coin. That only one of them could be good. That her role in their relationship was to always, always be the one watching over him. Looking out for him. Judging him. That somehow this made herbetterthan him. The thought angered him; made something seethe and twist inside, a resentment that had been boiling for what felt like a very long time.
When Tamara glanced up at him from her position on the terrace she looked tired.
He held the drink out toward her.
“Peace offering,” he said.
She hesitated before shifting over on the deckchair. She took the drink out of his hand. For a while, neither of them spoke. Blake tried, for a moment, to feel that connection that Tamara always swore was between them. Instead, he found only space. Only air. Only heat.
“I don’t understand,” Tamara said at last. “What happened to us. We used to be close, didn’t we? We used to be more than just siblings. More than twins, even.”
She turned to face him then. Her face was raw with sadness.
“What happened?” she said. “What happened toyou,Blake? I don’t feel like I know you anymore.”
Because you don’t,Blake wanted to say.Because maybe you never did.
“The Blake I know would never do this,” Tamara said quietly. She lifted the phone.
“Tam, please.”
“Pleasewhat,Blake? I have to say it. Someone has to say it to you, or I’m scared you won’t stop.”
Her voice trembled in a way that Blake knew preceded tears. This, he supposed, is what Tamara meant by their connection—knowing someone so well that you knew exactly what they would do next.
But this was Tamara’s mistake. Because Tamara did not know what Blake would do to her next. She still trusted him. That was why she was still holding her drink; still taking small, desperate gulps to hide the threat of her tears.
“Sometimes I think,” she said, once she’d composed herself. “That there’s something wrong with you.”
He snorted then, in spite of himself.
“Something wrong with me?”
“You hurt people, Blake. And you don’t seem to care. It scares me.”
“Because I took some pictures? Jesus, Tamara—”
“It’s not just the pictures, Blake. It’s all of it.”
“All ofwhat?”
She shook her head.
