Switchback. Ch7

At around forty after midnight, Alex’s cab pulled up outside her stucco-walled detached and she climbed out to see every light in the house had been switched on. Looks like Samantha had remembered where the spare key was hidden. She paid the driver and took a holdall and a small suitcase from the trunk and ascended the five steps up to the house and let herself in. She closed the front door and opened the inner door to step into the space that joined her front room on the right to her kitchen on the left, and the stairs leading to the four bedrooms and the one bathroom of the house stood right before her.

          She dropped her luggage, kicked off her shoes, and rolled her shoulders in a bid to shake off the knots of the day, and boy did it feel good to be back home and back in familiar surroundings. Her blue and burgundy mottled shag pile felt soft underfoot and made her feel like a wanderer returned. Two and a half days on the road wasn’t that long, but it was long enough, she thought. She caught the scent of Samantha’s cinnamon joss sticks as they smouldered on the coffee table. The smell of which prompted thoughts of her parents’ home, the home she decided to leave two years ago once she discovered the truth of how her mother’s infidelity had been the root-cause of her sister’s illness.

          She switched off the porch light, the hall light, the kitchen light, and the overhead living room light, which left two small lamps on in opposite corners of her front room. After that she shrugged from her jacket and hung it over the stair rail to hear Samantha upstairs using a hair-dryer. She turned to check her appearance in the full-length mirror that was hung on the back of the inner door and remembered something Foley had said to her during the interview. She looked into it, three dimensionally, like she would a view from a window. She reached out, jabbed a finger at it and half expected the polished surface to ripple like a pond.

          Was every reflective surface what he said it was?

          Still at the mirror she heard the whirr of the hair-dryer die-off and Samantha’s foot-falls as they trailed across the ceiling and down the stairs.

          ‘Hi, Sis,’ Samantha said.

          Alex turned to see her in a pair of pink socks with a pink bathrobe tied tight around her waist and her strawberry-blonde hair tussled to a fuzz-ball by the dryer. She looked withdrawn and pale, which had made the faint-blue crescents under each of her eyes more prominent.

          She followed Alex into the kitchen. ‘I saw your report today, you were great. And that guy … what a weirdo, huh?’

          ‘All guys are weirdoes, Samantha.’ She switched on the kettle. ‘Just some of them are weirder than others, that much you’ll learn.’

          ‘Do you have to call me Samantha? All my friends call me Sammi, now.’

          Alex shrugged. ‘Okay, Sammi it is. So you liked my report, then?’

          ‘Yep, and I recorded it just in case you wanted to watch it when you got back.’

          ‘You got here that early?’

          ‘About nine, Mom and Dad wanted to get over to Aunt Alice’s as soon as they could. The doctor told Dad she could check-out any time now.’

          Alex took two cups from a cupboard. ‘Check-out?’ she said. ‘I hardly think Aunt Alice’s doctor would use a term as cold as that.’

          ‘No, but Dad did, and he said thanks for letting me stay over.’

          ‘There’s no need for anyone to thank me, you know that. Nor does it take a death in the family for you to have an excuse to come visit me.’ She tipped a spoonful of pale-brown powder into each cup. ‘You know you’re welcome to come down here any time you want.’

          Sammi nodded. ‘Hmmm.’

          And there it was; the silence that Alex knew would descend upon them sooner or later. The kettle’s whistle managed to interrupt the silence but it didn’t end it. She knew she’d have to ask the question, if only to get it out of the way. She filled the cups and turned to her sister.

          ‘So,’ she said. ‘How’s mom?’

          Sammi didn’t answer, instead she chose to stare at her feet and pluck at her bottom lip.

          ‘Sammi?’

          ‘She’s scared,’ she finally said. ‘Did you know she insisted on me having an unscheduled check-up last week?’

          ‘No I didn’t, is everything okay?’

          Sammi nodded. ‘Doctor Lewis reckons so, but you know mom, she worries too much, and she really…’ She looked at her feet again.

          ‘She really what?’

          ‘She really misses you.’

          This was one road Alex had no intention of venturing down, not right now, not after the day she just had. ‘Yes, I know she does,’ she said, and in a way that left no doubt that that particular conversation was over. She forced a smile, held out one of the cups. ‘Here,’ she said. ‘We can drink our cocoa while we watch the report.’

          Sammi sighed, took the cup, and followed Alex into the living room and sat beside her on the sofa. Alex took control of the remote and pressed the appropriate buttons to start the playback.

          The first item was how six US soldiers had been killed and five others injured in the Middle East; their troop carrier had taken the full brunt of an improvised road-side bomb. All relatives of the men involved had been informed and the bodies were to be flown home tomorrow. Second up was an attempted hijacking of a French passenger plane at Charles De Gaulle airport by four “so-called” Islamic State terrorists, three of whom chose not to surrender. Then a piece about senators in session vetoing a vote on test-drilling for oil in an area of the Arctic known as “The Refuge” a wildlife reserve where there’s thought to be vast deposits of oil. Finally, and after a short introduction from the anchor, Alex appeared on screen with the brand new and highly polished CNN logoed van behind her, which had been Otis’ idea for a backdrop.

          ‘There’s you.’

          ‘God, look at my hair, it’s all over the place.’

          ‘Oh shut up, you look great.’

          ‘I’ve looked a damn-sight greater.’

          They watched the rest of the report in relative silence, both slurping cocoa froth.

 

          “And that was how the scene played out behind these walls within the last hour, as Evans, once more protesting his innocence, claimed to me in an interview that he arranged through the prison Governor, that he was the missing man, David Foley.”

 

Alex looked on as the camera followed her arm and focussed on the prison gates and then zoomed in on the building’s name-plate. A shot that lasted no more than two seconds before the camera panned back as she brought her news report to its end.

 

          ‘This is Alexandra Lord for CNN, reporting from outside the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville.’

         

          ‘See … you were fantastic.’

          Alex smiled. ‘I was, wasn’t I?’

          ‘And modest too,’ Sammi said.

          Alex again took up the remote and pressed rewind.

          ‘We’re watching it again?’ Sammi asked.

          ‘No, there’s something I…’ she trailed off and hit pause when she found what she wanted. ‘There.’ She pointed.

          Sammi leaned forward, elbows on knees. ‘There what? I don’t see anything.’

          ‘There, in the window of the van.’

          Sammi looked again. ‘You mean the cameraman’s reflection?’

          ‘Yeah, no, I mean yes the reflection, but it’s not Otis, if it was him you’d see the camera.’

          The image reflected in the van’s side window looked like the silhouette of a torso with head.

          ‘Perhaps it’s a mark on the glass,’ offered Sammi.

          ‘Perhaps you’re right, but Otis spent half the morning cleaning that van, he wanted it pristine for the report.’

          Sammi shrugged. ‘A cloud then?’

          Alex remembered a cloudless sky, and then remembered what Foley had said to her during that break in transmission. ‘Yeah, you’re probably right,’ she said, and switched off the TV. ‘It must have been a cloud. Come on, time we called it a night.’ She rose and made for the kitchen. ‘It’s late and I need to shower first, my hair feels as stiff as grass in a sand dune.’

          Sammi stood and followed. ‘So what are we doing tomorrow?’

          ‘You and I are going on a trip.’

          ‘Really?’

          ‘Uh-huh.’

          ‘Where to?

          ‘Leyton Falls.’

          ‘Leyton Falls? Isn’t that−?’

          ‘Yes it is,’ Alex said, rinsing the cups. ‘It’s my boss, he wants me to do a follow-up, you know, re-interview a few locals to see if they’ve remembered anything else; reckons he’ll be able to sell their story on.’

          ‘But you said you won’t be in work for the next two weeks, and I spent four hours yesterday packing .’

          ‘I know I did, but this is more of a working vacation. Two or three days tops, then we’ll have the rest of the time to ourselves, promise.’

          ‘Okay, two or three days I can last for,’ she said, then leaned in to kiss her sister’s cheek and turned for the stairs.

          ‘My alarm’s set for seven,’ Alex said. ‘I’ll wake you when the bathroom’s free.’

          ‘Okay,’ Sammi called back. ‘See you in the morning.’

          Alex couldn’t believe her sister had actually fallen for all that bullshit about the re-interviews, she hated to have to lie to her, but it was a necessary evil. She listened to the thumps as Sammi jogged up the stairs and across to her room, then felt a pang of concern for her excessive use of energy. ‘Just make sure you pack your Meds,’ she shouted up after her. ‘Okay?’

          ‘They’re already packed,’ Sammi said, her voice just audible. ‘And will you please stop worrying about me?’

          Otis was indeed right, Sammi is a big girl now, and perhaps she doesn’t need to be guarded day and night, but that won’t stop her worrying; after all, isn’t that what big sisters are for?

 

After Alex cleaned and dried the cups, she put them back into the cupboard above the sink and started her ritual of switching off the remaining lights and checking windows and doors. The area she lived in had never been known for its high crime-rate, but no matter where you live these days, or how high-class you think the neighbourhood might be, it never hurts to be vigilant.

          Once the locks had been checked and the lights were out, the only source of illumination came from the bulb at the top of the stairs. Alex was about to climb them when she turned to look at the luggage she unceremoniously dumped in front of the mirror when she came in, she considered unpacking it ready for the washing machine, then decided it could wait until morning; all she wanted right now was a hot shower and her own bed.

          She reached the landing and couldn’t help herself from going to Sammi’s room to check on her. She walked in to see the bedside lamp with its mauve-coloured shade cast a warming sleepy glow over the room and its occupant. Sammi had been in bed for less than ten minutes and already she’d fallen fast asleep. Burned out, and no doubt been up since six that morning just to make sure she didn’t miss her train. Alex leaned over and placed the back of her fingers on Sammi’s cheek to find her skin cool but with a sheen of perspiration.

          ‘Don’t you worry, Sammi,’ she whispered. ‘It’s all going to work out just fine for you, you’ll see.’