Identical, p.27
Identical,
p.27
‘Yes,’ I say, smiling. ‘He did.’
She goes into my arms. The softness of her, her morning breath. But I’m numb with exhaustion. I want to pull away, climb the stairs and fall into bed. ‘Shall I get some breakfast ready?’ she asks. ‘I want you to meet Lily. She’s still asleep.’
‘Let your mother rest,’ Gabriel says. ‘We’ve had a long journey.’
‘It’s OK,’ I say. ‘We can have a cup of tea.’
But Alice is at the back of my eyes. Pushing, pushing to get through. She’s insistent. She wants this moment as her own. I lean my face into the coats hanging from the rack and summon all my strength to resist her. I don’t want the swap any more, I tell her. It’s time to go, Alice.
Do you think you can get rid of me, she says, when I’m the best part of you?
Her sentence slides across my tongue, but I refuse her words. I have my own voice. You don’t belong here, I tell her. This is my family.
Bea has gone ahead into the kitchen, still chatting about her friend. I hear the click of the kettle, Sukie meowing for food. Gabriel is there at my elbow. He puts his arm around my shoulder, looking at me with concern. ‘Are you sure you’re alright?’
I nod, and we walk into the kitchen together. There’s a rucksack on the floor. I frown. ‘What’s that doing here?’
‘I found it in your wardrobe.’ Bea glances at my face anxiously. ‘Sorry. I just wanted to show Lily your clothes, and then I saw it in the corner. It’s full of old things.’
‘It belonged to my brother,’ I say.
Bea frowns. ‘Your brother?’
Gabriel has his arm around her. ‘Mummy’s brother is dead, darling. That’s why she’s never talked about him.’
I’m staring at the rucksack, packed with Alice’s things. She was going to take it to the kibbutz. Seeing it in the kitchen tears something open inside me, and I shiver, my fingertips aching with cold, my toes frozen. Spinning ice crystals blur my vision, crusting my eyelashes with silver. The room is filled with snow. White flakes whip around me, a blizzard of nothingness. Stalagmites fall from the ceiling. The floor tilts under my feet, and I stumble, my hand grabbing the back of a chair.
I can make them happy, she whispers.
‘No!’ I cry.
‘Cecily?’ Gabriel is beside me.
He wants me, Cecily. Not you.
My teeth are chattering. She is pressing through me, slipping into the spaces inside my head and body, smothering me, erasing me. She’s stronger than me, she’s always been stronger than me.
‘She’s here,’ I gasp, as I slide into a chair. But I’m lost inside swirling brilliance, my words erased by the sharp crack of breaking ice.
Don’t resent me. I’m just better at your life.
In the distance, she laughs with the others, talking about toast and cherry jam. She’s got through, she’s with them now. It’s like falling through water, as if I’m watching Bea and Gabriel from a long way down, our little kitchen getting further and further away, their faces fading, distorted by ripples and wave wash, a fan of bubbles. And then, blackness.
Together forever, she says. Remember?
EPILOGUE
1996
Psychiatrist’s Report:
Notes on Cecily Greenwood.
The patient has been diagnosed with Dissociative Identity Disorder as the result of long-term trauma. It was her way of coping with her father’s physical and emotional abuse. From a young age, she made up alters to let them experience the pain instead of her. She says at first the alters were three of her Catholic ancestors: a cavalier killed in the battle at Hawksmoor, a persecuted monk who’d died in a priest hole, and a Victorian child, the victim of diphtheria. But after her twin, Alice, died at the age of fifteen, she became the main alter.
It seems that the patient’s symptoms worsened after she discovered that her abusive father had an undisclosed first marriage and committed his first wife to a mental asylum. The patient has admitted to feeling extreme homicidal feelings towards her father after this revelation. However, the patient convinced herself that if she murdered him, her father would ‘win’ because she would be unredeemable. She says she needed Alice, ‘to keep us safe. If I could get her to take control of our identity, I’d disappear.’ When I asked her what she meant by disappearing, she replied, ‘locked away in the darkness of my mind.’
During my initial conversations with ‘Alice,’ she appeared to be completely unaware of her host, maintaining her twin existed in the world as a separate entity. But I am not convinced – I think she is more aware than she would like me to believe. Certainly, ‘Alice’ is the personality and voice that’s presenting more in the patient/host than the patient herself, which is unusual. The patient’s schisms of understanding seem to allow some command over swapping identity, but never enough to fully control it. There are, as with most DID patients, hallucinations and memory blanks that further confuse the patient’s understanding of reality.
I have explained to the patient and her husband that she will have to co-exist with her alter. There is no cure for DID. No drug to make it go away. Talking is the recommended therapy. She has been encouraged to keep a diary as part of her therapy. Both the patient and her alter are continuing to write each other letters.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thank you to the Boldwood team. And a huge thank you to my editor, Isobel Akenhead, for your passion and commitment to this novel, not to mention all your astute editing.
Thank you to Eve White, my wonderful agent. I am so lucky to have you.
Thank you to those who played a crucial part in the shaping of this book, from my scruffy first draft to the finished manuscript: Sara Sarre, who read several drafts with her usual heart and intelligence, and gave me brilliant editing ideas; my husband, Alex Marengo, who listens to my plot conundrums in the middle of the night and on dog walks and never fails to come up with excellent advice; fellow writers, Mary Chamberlain and Viv Graveson, for generously reading the whole novel and their thoughtful editing suggestions; Sam Hayward, Hannah Hayward and Ana Sarginson for reading drafts and providing encouraging feedback.
Mary Chamberlain for being my in-house expert on the Catholic faith. Any mistakes are my own.
Love and thanks to my family and friends who put up with me being in a different world at times.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Saskia Sarginson is a bestselling author whose debut novel, The Twins, was a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. Saskia started her career as a Health and Beauty editor on women’s magazines, and then became a freelance journalist. Saskia grew up in a Suffolk pine forest but now lives in London with her husband.
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First published in Great Britain in 2024 by Boldwood Books Ltd.
Copyright © Saskia Sarginson, 2024
Cover Design by Head Design Ltd
Cover Photography: iStock
The moral right of Saskia Sarginson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Paperback ISBN 978-1-83603-007-2
Large Print ISBN 978-1-83603-008-9
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Saskia Sarginson, Identical
