The Nature of Cruelty Read online

  Kara Wallace 19:14: Ugh, I hate you.

  Robert Phillips 19:18: Okay, where are these pictures? I’m waiting. I think they might be a figment of your imagination.

  Kara Wallace 19:20: Just take it down, Robert.

  Robert Phillips 19:21: Why? Afraid Gary Fitzsimmons is going to see it?

  Oh, my God, he’s devious. He’s linked Gary into the conversation so that the next time he logs on, he’ll get a notification about it.

  Kara Wallace 19.22: Fine, leave it up. I’ll get you back for this.

  Robert “likes” her comment but doesn’t write anything back. He can be so odd sometimes. After this there are couple of pictures of Victor and Jacob making funny faces into the camera and another few of Sasha and Alistair playing Frisbee. Then I get to the ones with me in them. There are three of me alone from different angles, one where I’m sitting on the towel, my eyelashes shading my eyes, another where I’m smiling at something behind the camera, and a final one where I’m lying down, but the focus is more on my body than my face. I feel hot and embarrassed just looking at it.

  The last picture in the whole album is the one he took of the two of us together. His arm is around me, and he’s got a big, inviting smile on his face. I’m looking away from the camera, slightly uncomfortable, my pale cheeks tinged with red. I spend more time than would be considered healthy studying this shot, mesmerised by how happy Robert appears in it. Then I notice a new notification, bringing me back to the comment he made on my profile picture about making it his screensaver.

  Robert Phillips 20:31: It’s already done. x.

  I don’t write anything back to him, because I can tell he’d only enjoy it. He clearly relished goading Kara about taking down the unflattering picture of her. Sometimes it’s best to do nothing at all where social networking is concerned. People play a lot of games on these sites – and I’m not talking about Farmville.

  It did seem like Robert and I broke new ground during the little moment we shared in the back seat of his car, but I still don’t entirely trust him. As they say, old habits die hard. It’s difficult to reconcile the boy he was with the man he is today. There are still some aspects of his personality that have remained intact, but then there are other more mature characteristics in him that I haven’t seen before.

  The next day he and Sasha are up early to go visit their dad and have dinner at his place. Sasha asks me along, but I decline, wanting the house to myself for a while. I’m still in my PJs, eating some chopped-up pineapple from a bowl in the living room, when they’re getting ready to leave. Robert comes in and sits on the arm of the sofa while Sasha’s upstairs trying to find her car keys.

  “You saw the photos I put up?” he asks, running a hand through his still-damp hair.

  “Yeah,” I reply. “I also saw the one Kara wanted you to take down. I think you should do it, Rob. If she’s got body-image issues, then having that picture up could be bad for her. She’s not even fat, of course, but I know what girls are like. The tiniest scrap of flab, and they think they’re a monster.”

  “Fine. I’ll take it down later,” he accedes, his eyes piercing me. A moment of silence elapses.

  “You can take down the ones of me, too,” I add, breaking the quiet.

  “Why?” he asks, his mouth tilting in curiosity.

  “They’re just so…so, I don’t know. I don’t like them.”

  “I think ‘intimate’ is the word you’re looking for. They make it look like I’m into you.”

  “Exactly. So take them down.”

  “But I am into you.”

  I want to kill the blush that colours my cheeks. “You’re into toying with me. You’re not into me as a person.”

  His amusement dies, and his expression turns hard.

  “I’m so into you as a person, Lana, I might as well be living under your skin.”

  I stare at him and there’s nothing but absolute seriousness on his face.

  At this Sasha comes running down the stairs, jangling her car keys and announcing, “Found them! Come on, Rob, you know Dad will pull a strop if we’re late.”

  “Yeah,” he says, his voice low. “I’m right behind you.”

  And with that he’s gone.

  Oh, my God. Did he really just say that? It’s a good thing I’ll have the place to myself for a few hours, because I’m in serious need of some alone time. I feel like practicing my singing to let off some steam, release my bottled-up emotions. There’s something about pouring your guts out through a song that can be quite freeing.

  I finish off my pineapple, still shaky after Robert’s declaration, and go upstairs to throw on some clothes. My heart is a confused muddle. Opening up the wardrobe I’d unpacked all of my stuff into, I rummage around at the bottom where I stashed my wooden box and drumstick.

  I have this weird little thing I do where I drum out the beat of a song on my box while I’m singing. It’s mostly so I have something to do with my hands, because I hate just standing still, and I’m not much of a dancer. Even though there’s nobody there to see me, I feel self-conscious.

  My latest music obsession is Adam Ant, probably because his songs are so percussion-y, which gives me plenty to do with my drumstick and box combo. Plus, his songs are just plain fun to sing. See, I’m not really a music sexist like Robert said I was. Sticking my iPod into the dock, I scroll down to my set play list. “Stand and Deliver” is the first song, so I turn the volume up and press “play.” Then I pick up my drumstick and box, and lose myself in the music and the beat.

  For the next few hours the whole house becomes my stage. I march up and down the stairs, singing “Don’t Stop Me Now” by Queen at the top of my lungs. I climb up onto the kitchen counter, belting out “Running up That Hill” by Kate Bush. I jump from sofa to armchair and from armchair back to sofa while rapping along to Warren G’s “Regulate.”

  Yeah, I like a bit of G-Funk as much as the next person.

  “This Ain’t a Scene” by Fall Out Boy comes up next, followed by the grand finale, “Paper Planes” by MIA, which is perhaps the most fun song in the world to try beating out on a wooden box.

  These times, where I’m alone with nothing to amuse myself but my own voice and a makeshift percussion instrument, are when I feel the most free. In life, it’s other people’s opinions that imprison us, so eager to fit in as we are. In an empty house I have no one to impress but the four walls around me.

  By the time I’m done I’m too exhausted to think about Robert at all. I run a bath and relax for the rest of the evening, wrapping up in a soft fleece robe afterwards. It’s late when Robert and Sasha get back from their dad’s. I hear them come into the house, chattering softly down in the kitchen.

  A few minutes later Sasha pops her head in by my door. “Hey, kid, how was your day?”

  “Great. I just chilled out and did nothing,” I tell her, only half a lie.

  She comes into the room now, slipping off her boots and flopping down onto my bed.

  “I’m wine sleepy,” she says past a yawn.

  “Did you have fun at your dad’s?”

  “Not really. He had his new girlfriend around, who, might I add, is only twenty-seven years of age. I had to drink half a bottle of wine just to tolerate her skinny gold-digging arse. Oh, and get this, her eyes practically burst from their sockets when she saw Rob for the first time. Then she was flirting with him all though dinner. Dad didn’t even notice because he was too busy criticising me for giving that story about Molly Willis to another writer.”

  “Oh,” I say, my heart stuttering just from hearing about someone flirting with Robert. “Well, your dad’s never been very understanding about stuff like that. But I wouldn’t worry on it. I mean, it’s not like it was going to make a huge difference if you wrote it or someone else did.”

  “Dad doesn’t accept me giving up opportunities, no matter how small.” She sighs and props a pillow under her head.

  “Seriously, Sasha, you have an amazing career for s
omeone so young, even if I do happen to think you work for the newspaper equivalent of the devil.”

  She laughs at that, and we’re quiet for a minute.

  “So,” I begin, “what did Rob do about the girlfriend?”

  “Well, he had the decency not to flirt back, which was something. But still, the whole situation was depressing as fuck.”

  “What was depressing as fuck?” asks Robert as he casually enters the room. He sees me in my bathrobe and grins before coming to sit with us on the bed, slipping off his shoes just like Sasha did. In certain ways they’re so alike it’s scary.

  “Melanie’s nonstop attempts to flirt with you. Please don’t pretend you didn’t notice.”

  “Oh, I noticed. It’s a pity Dad didn’t.”

  “What on earth is he doing with that bimbo anyway? I just don’t get it.” Sasha sighs.

  “I could think of a few things,” Robert answers, waggling his brow.

  Sasha kicks him softly with her foot. “Ugh, that’s disgusting.”

  “Disgusting, but true. I hate to break it to you, sis, but our father is a horndog, always has been.”

  “Ah! I don’t want to hear it,” Sasha exclaims, grabbing the pillow from under her head and holding it over her ears.

  “Fine, fine, I’ll say no more,” Robert tells her, his hands in the air.

  I chuckle, mainly because it’s true. Alan Phillips is very much the ladies’ man. I guess that’s where Robert gets it from.

  “Right, I’m going to drag myself to bed before I fall asleep in here,” says Sasha, standing up and making her way out of the room. Once she’s gone, Robert’s attention turns to me, and there’s an air of anticipation about him.

  “I think I’ll hit the hay, too,” I say with a big, over-emphasised yawn, crawling under my blankets. “Get the lights on your way out, would you?”

  He reaches forward and grabs my foot before I have the chance to get fully under, his hand caressing my bare shin.

  He moves up to the top of the bed, tugging on the tie of my robe. “So, what have you got on underneath this?” he asks, eyes roaming my fleece-clad body. “Please say nothing.”

  “I have a nightie on,” I reply, pushing his hands away and tightening the robe around my waist.

  “Oh, even better,” he goes on, and the next thing I know his hard body is on top of mine and his mouth is on my neck.

  “Uuurgh,” is the surprised sound that escapes my mouth.

  He laughs softly into my skin, and I get all hot and blushy.

  “I couldn’t wait to get back to you today,” he whispers. “Here, take this off.” He pulls on the corners of my robe, but I gather enough strength to stop him.

  “We’re not doing this.”

  “I think you’ll find that we are,” he happily disagrees, framing my face in his hands now. “God, you’re beautiful.”

  I practically choke as a hundred emotions rush through me. I can’t help it — I have to confront him on this. “That’s a big contradiction to all the times you called me ugly,” I say quietly.

  “You’ve never been ugly. Don’t tell me you believed that crap? You are and always have been the prettiest creature I know.”

  “What?!” I exclaim, shifting backwards now. “So you lied just to hurt my feelings?”

  “I might have.”

  “How on earth can you tell me that with a straight face?”

  He sits up, studying my appalled expression. “I can because I just did. I thought we were going to leave the past in the past, Lana.”

  “The past wasn’t that long ago, Robert. And now you’re telling me that all the pain and insecurity I went through was for nothing?”

  “Well, now, it wasn’t for nothing. At first I hated you. Don’t get me wrong — I fancied you something terrible, but I still hated you.”

  “Why? I was only twelve. I never did anything to hurt you.”

  “Ah, but you did. You stole Sasha. I needed her to be on my side, but then you came along and I was on my own. So I did what any immature fourteen-year-old boy would do, and I called you names.”

  “You were jealous of me because I stole Sasha? Um, okay.”

  I take a minute to get my head around that. I always thought Robert’s animosity was a simple case of me just not being his kind of person. I know that twins are supposed to be very possessive of one another, but I didn’t think it would run that deeply…that the one left behind would hate the person who took the other away.

  He lifts up my hand now and runs his fingers along my palm. “After a while it was just a case of habit. I didn’t know any other way to be with you, so I kept it up.”

  Gently, I pull my hand from his. “It hurt my heart every time you called me names, every time you did something to ruin my day.”

  His hair gets messy as he tugs on it, staring at me with a pained expression. “But you always seemed so impervious. You’d give me a hateful look and then just walk away.”

  “I walked away because I didn’t want you to see me crying,” I whisper.

  His mouth forms a round “O” shape as his eyes look back and forth between mine. “Would you believe me if I told you it was actually a form of affection?”

  “What?” I ask, with a quiet, melancholy laugh.

  “I lived for taunting you, for getting a reaction out of you, no matter how minuscule. Maybe it’s just my personality, maybe I’m just fucked up, but I loved our fights. I found them exhilarating.”

  I laugh again quietly. “There’s no ‘maybe’ about it. You are fucked up.”

  He drags his palm along my neck now. “Let’s be fucked up together, Lana.”

  “Not tonight,” I breathe, shooing him from the bed. He gives my lips a mournful look and then stands up.

  “Hey, what’s this?” he asks, picking up the folded piece of paper from my nightstand, the one I wrote the open-mic night details down on. Shit.

  He starts reading the venues out loud, looking from me and back to the paper several times.

  “You’re so nosy. Give it back,” I say, grabbing for the paper. He holds it high out of my reach.

  “Are you planning on taking part in one of these?” he asks, intrigued.

  “That’s none of your business,” I tell him sternly as he finally places the paper back down on the nightstand.

  “So you sing? Sasha never mentioned it.”

  “Sasha doesn’t know. It’s just a little hobby. And it’s not like I want to do it for a living or anything. It’s more of a bucket-list sort of thing.”

  “You have a bucket list? Is this because of your diabetes?”

  I laugh out loud at that. “No, you idiot. How many times do I have to tell you? Having diabetes isn’t a death sentence.”

  “It’s not not a death sentence, either,” Robert counters.

  “Now you’re being melodramatic.”

  “Let me go with you when you do this.”

  “Eh…no. The whole point is not to have anyone who knows me there. Strangers are safer. That way, if I mess up I’ll never have to see the people in the audience ever again.”

  “But I’m so curious,” he whines. “Sing something for me now, then.”

  “No way. I’m not ready.”

  “I bet you’re sexy when you sing,” he whispers, a faraway look in his eyes, like he’s imagining it.

  I can’t think of anything to say to that. I expect him to try to get back into bed with me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he walks to the door. “I’m coming with you to the open-mic night, so don’t you dare even think about going without me.”

  “You’re not coming.”

  “Yes, I am,” he states, before blowing me a kiss goodnight and slipping out the door.

  At work the next day my nerves are on tenterhooks. I haven’t seen Robert since he came to my room last night, and I keep expecting him to show up. But he doesn’t. When my shift ends at three, I feel a brief moment of relief before I realise that I have to go home, and Robert could be there. Av
oiding going back, I eat dinner out and then go for a walk over to Speaker’s Corner.

  Fareed is there again, and we talk for a while. He has a newspaper with him, and we look through it together, discussing the stories that catch our interest. There’s one about how all of the construction works for the Olympics are ruining people’s homes.

  I don’t know why I stay and talk to this guy. I know nothing about him, not even what he does for a living, but sometimes I find talking to strangers an easy experience. There are no preconceived perceptions, so you can tell them whatever you want. It’s kind of the same as my theory that singing for strangers will be easier than singing for people who know me.

  I get home at around six, and thankfully Robert isn’t back yet. It’s still pretty sunny and bright out, so I grab a blanket and my copy of The Oresteia, which is a book of three plays by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus, and go to lie on the grass in the back garden. The first play, Agamemnon, is one of my favourites. It shows Agamemnon returning home from the Trojan War, where his wife is planning on murdering him as revenge for his adultery and for killing their daughter as a sacrifice to the gods. Exciting stuff.

  Whenever I tell people I study the ancient Greeks, they always get this glazed look on their faces, expecting it to be boring. I mean, some of the history is boring, but the literature and the myths are amazing. They portray the human condition in all its dysfunctional glory. I’ve learned a lot about people just from studying this stuff.

  I fall into the pages, and the gentle evening sun warms the skin of my arms and legs. I’m almost halfway through the play when I hear a soft clicking noise. Allowing the book to fall to my chest, I shade my eyes and look up. Robert is standing above me, his camera held in one hand, snapping shots of me lying on the grass.

  “Hey! Stop doing that!” I exclaim, feeling unusually uncomfortable. Naked, even, despite having all my clothes on.

  He fiddles around with the lens, holding the camera at an odd, slanted angle as he continues to photograph me. He’s got a weird look on his face, like he’s so consumed with taking the pictures that he hasn’t even heard me. He kneels down now and leans close, as though taking a picture of my neck.