Steeplechase by Krissy Kneen Page B

my neck where it thumps gently against my right breast.
    You will have to work to win my heart instead.
    That’s fair enough. It’s okay anyway I am a really hard worker.
    The next Emily Reich I paint will have his face and perhaps the body of a bear. I can see it now, an image forming somewhere deep in my subconscious. John as a big warm friendly bear, only I will become Emily in the painting of it and therefore when the bear opens his mouth to take my nipple between his lips we will see the glint of teeth sharp enough to tear flesh and crunch up bones. With my own work the expressions are uncertain. So this, then, is where Bec ends and Emily begins. When I become Emily, my intentions are never ambiguous; they are awfully sharp and horribly clear.

Best Friends
    I put down the telephone and Emily opens her wings like a dark angel. I am cradled in the gorgeous threat of her attention once more.
    â€˜Did you hear him?’
    I nod.
    â€˜Did you hear his voice?’
    â€˜He was whispering.’
    She nods sagely. ‘He has to whisper. He is a secret.’ She is holding my elbow and her fingers clamp down on the sensitive skin there, pinching it. ‘You understand that don’t you?’
    I nod, but her grip tightens till my eyes start to tear up.
    â€˜He is a secret from Oma and everyone. You can’t tell Oma. You can’t tell anyone about him. Do you understand?’
    I nod and she releases me suddenly. There are white marks on my elbow. The blood rushes into them and throbs. I wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.
    â€˜I understand,’ I say and she nods again.
    â€˜He visits me.’
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜Sometimes. At night.’
    I feel the sharp prick of jealousy. My sister, who is all I have in the world, off with her secret friend in the middle of the night.
    I want more than anything for him to visit me too. There is a sudden emptiness in the centre of my chest. It must have been there all along but it feels like it has only just opened up.
    My sister reaches out and I cinch my elbows close in to my body. She puts her arms around me in a hug. Such a rare gift, I settle into the brief comfort of it.
    â€˜You can hear Raphael too.’ She hugs me tighter. It is uncomfortable but I cling to her arms and breathe in the lavender of her skin, savouring the brief sweetness of it before she withdraws the warmth of her body.
    It is easy to hear his voice now that I know what I am searching for among the hissing. His voice is just a tiny crackle of static turned into words through a huge amount of concentration. I wonder, as I listen, if the furrow that I feel creasing my brow makes me look more like Emily. I certainly hope it does. She looks enigmatic whenever she talks to Raphael, mysterious, a creature from another world. Raphael’s world. I feel like an intruder. It takes me minutes sometimes to conjure his voice from the flat beeping of the phone but it gets easier with practice, and every time our Oma locks herself in her study to restore the paintings I pick up the phone. I practise hearing him.
    â€˜Emily?’ he says.
    I smile because just this once he has mistaken me for her, and I hesitate. I do not want to correct him. I want him to say to me whatever he would be planning to say to Emily herself.
    â€˜Yes,’ I say. ‘It’s me.’
    â€˜Emily.’
    I smile when he says her name. Her skin on my shoulders allows me to be confident.
    â€˜Yes, Raphael, it’s me.’
    What would he say to Emily, I wonder. I strain to hear his voice through the dead flat tone of the telephone. What would he tell her?
    â€˜Shall I come for you tonight?’ That is what he says.
    And I say, ‘Yes.’
    My heart is racing. There is a sheen of sweat on the palms of my hands.
    â€˜See you tonight.’
    â€˜Okay.’ My hand is shaking when I replace the handset.
    Emily sees Raphael. She has told me this. An apparition of flesh and blood and