The Daughter's Promise (ARC)

by Sarah Clutton

  She turned up the heat on the shower, rubbed the delicious fragrance into a lather and soaped off the stress of the morning, letting the hot water pour over her head. Since Sylvia had returned to Tasmania, things hadn’t been as Annabelle had hoped. There seemed to be a gulf between them that she couldn’t bridge. They didn’t share any interests. And Sylvia was so self-sufficient. She wouldn’t let Dan or Annabelle come and help her clean up that messy, bush-covered house block she’d bought. Annabelle wanted to reach out to her sister. She wanted things to be right between them. But they were just a little bit skew-whiff, and she didn’t know what to do about it.

  She let her soapy fingers slide down by her armpit. She stopped, lifted her hand, then placed her fingers back down on the spot where her breast started. It felt like there was a hard little pea under her skin. No, larger; a marble. She pressed it. It was unmoving under her skin.

  She dropped her hand to her side and washed off all the soap, then ran her finger firmly over the side of her breast. It slid up and over the round bump and then off again, like a perfectly formed little ski jump on a mound of soft snow. She got out of the shower, ignoring the urge to check the lump again. She felt a flame of fear as she looked in the fogged-up mirror.

  ‘Stop it. Just stop it.’

  The harsh sound of her words bounced around the bathroom tiles. She had found a cyst. Plenty of women had cysts. Abigail Beddingham had two breasts full of them! Fibrocystic breasts, or something like that. Abigail adored telling stories after garden club about her cysty breasts and how every new doctor she visited always wanted to send her off to have them squashed flat as a pancake in the toasted-sandwich-maker thingy at the breast clinic. Apparently a mammogram was performed using a cold version of a sandwich press. Very, very painful. Although Annabelle had never seen the need to have one, so she didn’t usually comment during these conversations. The idea of medical people fondling her breasts made her feel icky. She shuddered.

  The cysts went away after a while. So Abigail had told them, at least. Besides, she couldn’t think about it now. She had too much else going on.

  She pulled out the bathroom scales and stepped on them. The digital counter flicked over to 90.2 kilograms. She smiled. See. She had lost nearly a whole kilogram. And if she was counting in pounds, she was now under the two-hundred mark, which was a very satisfying thought. She was healthier now than she had been last week. And the cyst probably accounted for some of that weight anyway. It was just a little bit of extra water retention. That was all it was.

  She pulled on her best tummy-controlling underpants and some black trousers. Then she chose a fuchsia silk top to wear to the meeting later. It was her best colour. And she would wear lots of lipstick. As soon as she lost a few more kilograms – twenty would be ideal – she would be fit and gorgeous and everything would be fabulous.

  She would email the lawyer, Ian Enderby, right now and get him to bring this Wilhelmena Fairbanks in for a cup of tea on Thursday. And she’d bake her orange poppy-seed cake. That was sure to put the woman in a good mood. A negotiating mood. If Dan wanted to buy The Old Chapel, it was her job to help make that happen.

  She got her nicest black bra out of the top drawer and deliberately avoided touching the area near the cyst as she put it on. Then she threw on her top, added a contrasting floral cardigan, slid on her dark pink leather loafers and without looking in the mirror went down to her computer to send the email to Ian. Nice fellow, Ian. A bit boring, but kind eyes. These days he had an interest in succulents, she recalled from her discussion with him at last year’s legal practice dinner. So all in all, it might be a very nice little gathering on Thursday. And she would only eat the very smallest sliver of her cake.

  Six

  Sylvia

  The arched window of the entry porch to The Old Chapel was so grimy it was impossible to see through it. Over the years, several of the stained-glass panels had been replaced with ordinary glass, and now they were thick with dirt and sea salt. A fine covering of spider webs was draped across the top.

  Sylvia knew she should have cleaned the window months ago, when Lillian was still alive. But instead they had used their time for other things. Meditation. Yoga. Drinking herbal tea, or Lillian’s favourite whisky, depending on their mood. Talking about Indigo, and about the past. Or at least the bits of it they had wanted to remember.

  As she turned the key in the front door, she noticed lines of dirty red paint cracking along the wood grain. Inside the tiny foyer it was dingy and cramped, and although she had left the back window open a crack last time, Sylvia was assaulted by the familiar mix of smells. Linseed oil, turpentine, antique furniture. Tempered with old cigarette smoke, it combined into a sickly-sweet fragrance that was distinctly Lillian’s.

  She turned on the light and stood at the entrance to the living room. It had once been the nave in the days when Merrivale’s original family had attended church services here, a hundred years ago or more. It was so small that Lillian’s sparse furniture barely fitted. A faded and squashed couch with colourful throws across its back was pushed close to a sideboard, an armchair and a small television cabinet. At the end of the space, on the left-hand wall, a set of narrow stairs led to a loft platform, where Lillian had slept as a girl, and then as a young woman until her father passed away. Now it held dozens of canvases and boxes that were yet to be dealt with. Underneath the platform, the open lower area was divided through the centre. On the right there was a kitchen bench and a table for two with a pot-bellied fire in the back corner. On the left, a proper bedroom had been partitioned off with a bathroom hidden behind it. Nothing had been renovated for decades, and the place made Sylvia feel trapped in time.

  ‘Hello, old girl,’ whispered Sylvia.

  She picked up the framed photograph on the dresser. It was from the early 1970s – her and Lillian arm in arm, holding their hockey sticks aloft and grinning. She put it down and felt a heavy loneliness descend, as if the last good part of her had died with Lillian. Except, of course, that wasn’t true. She still had Indigo. And Annabelle, sort of. A picture of Dan floated through her head and she strode across to the kitchen and yanked open the blind above the sink. The window let in a grimy ray of light.

  Wrinkling her nose at the bad smell coming from the sink, she turned on the hot water and scrubbed the basin with an old cloth. After wiping down the dusty kitchen bench, she climbed up to the loft. The cathedral-style timber-lined ceiling sloped down sharply, and she had to duck her head as she wandered around looking at the labels on the boxes.

  She’d already taken Lillian’s clothes to the charity shop and cleaned out the cupboards as she’d promised she would do. The boxes were filled with more substantial bric-a-brac – the bits that Lillian hadn’t already given to her friends. The solicitor would know what to do with them. She picked up a small box of books and lifted it on top of a larger one, shunting and tidying to make the space easier to walk around. A large canvas portrait of a woman emerged from behind one of the boxes. It was painted in muted colours and the woman’s upper body was naked. Her face and figure were elongated and distorted as she leaned back on the grass. The thick, bold strokes of paint forming her face made her look anguished somehow. She was staring off to the side. Sylvia regarded the painting for a few moments, then descended the narrow timber stairs.

  She picked up the cloth from the kitchen bench and wiped along the railings of the stairs and down the dark lining boards of the walls, where spiders had begun spinning webs. She’d done this once already, before Christmas, a few weeks after Lillian’s funeral. But she was happy to do it again. She wanted the new owner to find the place habitable, or at least bearable for an hour or two. Of course she hoped the woman wouldn’t fall in love with it, and would instead want to sell it to Indigo, but there was no need to make her first experience of The Old Chapel an unpleasant one. Lillian wouldn’t have wanted that.

  A church pew with a high back and box seat sat along the bedroom wall on the lower level
, facing the entry. Large art books and other volumes on philosophy and gardens had been lined up along the seat, as if it were a bookcase. Their colourful fading spines were arranged with artistic flair. Sylvia supposed she should box them up, although they gave a lovely insight into Lillian’s personality and interests. But she didn’t want to create more work for the new owner, so she fetched some flat-pack boxes from the top level and assembled them before pushing the filled cartons into the corner, below the staircase. Behind the books, dead insects and dust had collected, and she ran the cloth along the pew.

  A sudden intrusion of a voice into the silence of the little church startled her.

  ‘Hello, beautiful.’

  Dan stood in the open door at the entrance to the living room. She was so accustomed to noticing sensations in her body that she felt her stomach clench and her shoulders tense. She took a deep breath and loosened them.

  ‘Hello. I’m just cleaning.’

  He smiled. ‘I can see that.’

  ‘Are you wanting something?’

  ‘Just to see you. I saw you arrive from my office.’

  ‘Dan…’ She paused, looked down at the worn sisal rug under her feet, then back up at him. ‘Please don’t. We can’t…’

  ‘Syl, I need you.’

  ‘No, you don’t.’ She dropped her head and began cleaning again. She could feel him watching her. ‘You’ve survived perfectly well without me for forty years. Don’t be daft.’

  ‘I was thinking, maybe we can go away. Move to the mainland.’

  ‘Dan, don’t. Not here. If you talk about this any more, I’ll…’ The words caught in her throat. It would break Annabelle to hear him talking like this. To know what they’d been doing behind her back. Sylvia needed to be away from here; away from Dan and the strange persuasive hold he had over her. ‘Just… don’t say another word, please. You are married to Annabelle. She loves you. There is nothing else to say.’ She turned back to the pew and pretended to be cleaning. She heard him sigh, then he was silent for a minute.

  ‘This place could use a coat of paint,’ he said.

  She turned back around. ‘Yes. Well, whoever ends up here will make it their own.’

  He was looking at her strangely when she caught his eye again. He turned, embarrassed perhaps, and fixed his gaze on something through the window. ‘I’m sorry that Andrew sold this part of the estate to Lillian. Back in the seventies, we didn’t think about views, beach access and so on. You’d never do it these days. Lil paid half a pittance for this place.’

  Sylvia said, ‘It was the least Andrew could do after Len’s accident, don’t you think? Anyway, that’s ancient history. I don’t want to talk about it.’

  Dan huffed a little laugh. ‘Don’t worry, Syl. I’m all for living in the present. I’ve had to. Constance has kept me in my place, waiting for Merrivale. She’s as fit as a fiddle. The bane of my bloody life.’

  Sylvia pondered the conversation she’d had with Annabelle the other day about Dan’s aunt. It was true. Constance was ridiculously energetic for a woman who must be nearly ninety. ‘Well, Annabelle seems to adore her. And anyway, she’s let you live in Merrivale for years, so what’s the difference if you don’t get the deeds until she dies?’

  Dan shrugged and avoided her eyes.

  ‘You’re lucky, you know, that Annabelle’s so good to Constance. You’re the one who should be checking in on her. She’s your kin,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘Coo-ee!’

  At the sound of the shrill voice, they both turned towards the door. Dan stepped back as Annabelle came into the cramped, shadowy porch in a ghastly bright-pink top that did nothing to flatter her.

  ‘What are you two up to?’ Annabelle smiled from one to the other.

  Sylvia lifted her cloth. ‘I’m cleaning. I’m not sure what Dan’s doing here.’ She turned sideways to the staircase and began wiping down each of the railings with swift strokes.

  ‘Oh good. Well it’s Dan I’m after, actually. Pete needs the hedge trimmer, darling. He can’t find it. Didn’t you use it along the orchard boundary at the weekend?’

  Dan walked out the door without answering. Annabelle raised her eyebrows in Sylvia’s direction, then turned back to watch him go. Sylvia saw him through the window, striding across the grass.

  ‘He’s been a real grumpy bear lately. I don’t know what’s gotten into him,’ said Annabelle.

  Sylvia made a murmuring sound in her throat, and kept cleaning.

  ‘He’s been so angry. I don’t know if it’s just about Lillian leaving this place to a stranger when he wanted it.’ She paused. ‘I think there must be something else.’ Annabelle was looking at Sylvia as if she might have some answers.

  Sylvia walked across to the sink and rinsed out the cleaning cloth. ‘Men,’ she mumbled.

  ‘Do you think men go through the menopause too?’ asked Annabelle.

  Sylvia noticed the uncertain smile, the forced little laugh, and she wanted to curl up and die. She didn’t want this burden. This knowledge, that she was responsible for causing such angst in her kind, sweet sister.

  ‘I mean, if that’s what it is,’ continued Annabelle, ‘maybe there’s a hormone treatment for men. He might just need some of my excellent little pills!’ She laughed again, more loudly this time.

  ‘Are you on hormone replacement therapy?’ asked Sylvia, frowning.

  ‘Absolutely!’ said Annabelle. ‘Best thing I ever did.’

  ‘Really?’ said Sylvia. ‘There are some good herbal remedies if you’re interested. Much better for you.’

  ‘No fear!’ said Annabelle. ‘I adore my little pills. The doctor keeps trying to make me stop taking them, but I say, no, thank you very much! They changed my life.’

  ‘Menopause can be brutal,’ said Sylvia.

  ‘Exactly,’ said Annabelle. ‘I was just so depressed there for a while. Flat and exhausted. And, you know, all the other symptoms too. Hot flushes, dry eyes, drying up of… you know…’ She nodded downwards and Sylvia felt her chest constricting. ‘Those pills gave me back my sex life,’ continued Annabelle earnestly. ‘Well, not that I have a huge sex life or anything, but after menopause I really hated all that moochy stuff. The lack of hormones made it, you know… really awful. Now at least it’s bearable.’

  ‘Good,’ said Sylvia mildly, trying to convey her disinterest without sounding rude.

  ‘I think three-weekly is a good compromise,’ said Annabelle thoughtfully after a moment. ‘I mean, Dan probably wants it every third day, and I’m about every third month, absolute tops, so I think every third week is a perfectly good middle ground. He gets the better end of it, obviously. But you have to feel sorry for men, don’t you? Such slaves to their testosterone.’

  Sylvia could feel her gut churning. It was her own fault. Her penance. She knew she deserved to suffer through this conversation. She tried to tune out, but it didn’t work. Images of her lovemaking with Dan the other night kept spinning through her head.

  Annabelle was still talking. ‘I mean, not that I chat about it much with my friends, but after the garden club meeting one night, Gail Beecroft was telling us she was going home to have a nice bit of sex with her partner. We all nearly fell off our chairs! I mean, we were looking at each other as if to say: you’re looking forward to sex! Really? Ugh!’ She made an exaggerated grimace, then laughed. ‘Mind you, she’s a lot younger than most of us. Doesn’t know what’s coming.’

  ‘Probably not,’ said Sylvia. She crossed the room and began dusting the television cabinet.

  ‘Did you have lots of lovers when you were travelling?’ asked Annabelle. Her eyes were wide with interest.

  ‘A few.’

  ‘What about Indigo’s dad. How long did that last in the end?’

  ‘About two years, I suppose. Lovely guy, very spiritual. Just a bit… aimless. Couldn’t seem to hold down a job.’

  ‘Mmm.’ Annabelle made a noise of agreement. ‘Well, everyone likes a breadwinner.’

  ‘I
was okay on my own. I managed.’

  ‘Sorry. Of course! Of course you were.’ Annabelle looked chastened, and Sylvia felt an unwelcome rush of guilt.

  ‘I’d better see if Dan found the hedge trimmer. I’ll see you later,’ said Annabelle. She waved and walked out.

  Sylvia collapsed onto the pew seat and looked back towards the entrance door. The walls at that end were painted a deep moss green and the colour felt calming. She closed her eyes and did some meditative breathing, placing her middle fingers on her third eye, in the centre of her forehead, then alternating her thumb and pinkie finger to each side of her nose, closing off one nostril at a time. In, out. In, out. She focused on the flow of the breath, letting the jumble inside her head loosen and float away.

  After a moment, she opened her eyes and dropped her hands to the seat, curling her fingers under the front lip. The wood felt cool and the old divots along the edge were smooth under her fingertips. As she stood up, her fingers lifted the seat a little. It made a clunking sound as it dropped. She turned around and squatted, pushing it up again a fraction. It was a storage seat. She lifted the lid and rested it against the back of the pew. Inside were stacks of old leather notebooks. She picked up the top one. On the inside page, in gold cursive font, was the word Diary. Underneath, Lillian had written the year: 2018.

  Sylvia stared. There must be fifty books in there. Fifty years of diaries. Her chest tightened as a searing flush of grief overcame her. She leaned down and picked up another one, at random, from towards the back: 1999. She flicked through it. Some pages had barely anything written on them. Others were full of Lillian’s curly, almost illegible scrawl. She let the pages flutter through her fingers and landed on 2 September 1999.

  Kant says inaction is an action. Both action and inaction can be evil or good, it just depends on the circumstance. Neither is inherently better. It is the reason behind the action or inaction that is important.