‘No, she doesn’t. That’s what I’m trying to say.’
He released Taz onto the bed, put a hand on each of my shoulders and met my eye, steadying me.
‘Lizzie, she’s your older sister.’
‘What?’ I snorted. That was the last thing I’d expected him to say. ‘Wouldn’t I know if I had a sibling? I spent most of my childhood wishing I had one. Why would you say that? I don’t understand.’
‘Lizzie, I’m sorry but it’s true. I remember her and my mum will too. My best friend came from a family of four.’
‘But how could I forget something like that, someone like that?’ I shook his hands off my shoulders and shuffled away from him.
‘The Lilibet I played with had blonde hair,’ he continued, gently, ‘so did her sister, they looked so much like one another and—’
‘My parents may have kept secrets from me but that’s one not even they would have hidden.’
‘Perhaps they had good reason.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘I know it’s a lot to take in – I’m still reeling from finding out who you are, but honestly, Lizzie, listen to me—’
‘No. No, I’m not listening to this anymore.’ I gagged and the room span for a second. I just wanted to be alone.
‘But—’
‘How could it be true? My parents lying to me all these years about something that big? They might keep something made out of bricks and mortar hidden, but a real flesh and blood person?’
‘Okay,’ he said, calmly. ‘We can talk about it again tomorrow. But… what was her name… Oh, I remember… of course. It was Rose.’
‘Get out!’ I shouted. ‘You’ve said enough.’
34
22 years ago
In 1932 many parents got their babies tattooed after the baby of famous aviator Charles Lindbergh was kidnapped
‘Jimmy Jammy! Wait for me!’
I hurried out of the big glass kitchen doors. Trish made me wipe my mouth clean after eating an orange. The juice was all sticky and ran down my chin. Me and Jimmy Jammy were going to see who could count the most fish.
I skipped to the stream. Poor Will, Trish’s little boy, wasn’t allowed outside without his mummy because he was only three. Me and Jimmy Jammy were five and had just finished our first year at school. We had weeks and weeks of sunny holiday before we went back into Year One. Out of breath I stopped at the edge. I took Jimmy Jammy’s hand and prised it open.
‘Shhh!’ I put a finger to my lips. Mummy didn’t think I knew where the biscuit tin was. She joked that she counted them but she couldn’t have because I always took a sneaky one after meals. ‘They are chocolate this week,’ I said and delved into my pocket. There was one for him and one for me. I pushed it into his hand.
We took big bites. I went nearer to the water and wobbled.
‘Elizabeth! Step away from the edge this minute!’ shouted out Trish.
She always worried because there wasn’t a fence like there was at the bottom of Jimmy Jammy’s garden. I did as I was told. I liked Trish. We could say silly things about bums and farts and she didn’t tell us off like the teachers at school. I liked her curly red hair and the way she wiggled her hips if the radio was on. I heard Mummy and Daddy talking one night and they said she was really strong to leave her husband because he was a complete joke.
I didn’t understand the way adults talked sometimes. Mr Trish sounded like good fun to me.
‘Do you think the fish are hungry?’
‘Don’t know, don’t care,’ said Jimmy Jammy. He grinned before eating the rest of his biscuit.
I broke a bit off mine and threw it into the water.
‘I need a pee,’ he said and grabbed his trousers.
Jimmy Jammy was bonkers like that. He never seemed to have a warning and had to hurry off to the toilet at top speed.
‘Don’t be long. Remember we’re going to build a bird’s nest out of long grass.’
He jumped up and down. ‘Maybe we’ll get eggs in there by the end of the summer. Blackbird ones.’
I swallowed my biscuit and ran right, to the curved part of the stream.
‘Watcha doing, Rose?’ She was holding a long stick and playing with it in the water. She wore her pink dress. At the moment it was her favourite colour. I wore colours more like Ben’s and today I was in brown shorts.
‘Looking for gold. We heard about it in class last term, cowboys used to do it, it’s called panning. Mum will go mad if I use one of her silver pans so I’m trying to dig out lumps of gold with a stick.’
‘It will match your pretty hair,’ I said.
She stopped for a moment, dropped the stick and gave me a hug. We held hands and span around and around until we couldn’t stop laughing. Sisters were special. They always knew exactly what would make you feel all light and giggly.
‘Will you share your gold with me?’ I asked.
‘Of course, and with Mummy and Daddy. I’ll buy us a big palace and they won’t have to work. We can eat all the chocolate we want and I’ll only wear clothes covered in glitter.’
‘I’ll own a hundred dogs and cats. Perhaps we’ll be friends with the queen.’ I leant near the edge.
‘Come back, Lilibet,’ said Rose in a grown-up voice and folded her arms. ‘You’re too young to go close, it’s dangerous. Trish said the current is fast today.’
I’ve always wondered why the stream has currants and not my favourite squishy sultanas. I tasted the water once and was sad that it didn’t taste like fruit cake.
Rose went back to playing with her stick. Will started crying. Trish said he’d had a poorly ear – perhaps it had come back. Jimmy Jammy waved to me from the kitchen doors and I ran over. He’d changed his mind about making birds’ nests and wanted to play upstairs. Our favourite game at the moment was making up stories starring my plastic dogs. I bet he peeked in my bedroom and saw my new black one. I collected them by getting a special comic every week and had nine now. We’d pretend one was a teacher and the others classmates, or sometimes they were wizards or just mummies and daddies. The time always went too quickly. Best was when we were allowed sleepovers and could continue the dogs’ stories by whispering in the dark.
We had a really long game. Our dogs met, fell in love – that bit was yucky – they got married and had a big family, they owned pets and ate out together as well as going on holiday. My stomach rumbled loudly and Jimmy Jammy giggled. Trish called up that it was dinner time and he had to go home. We pulled faces as our game had only just got to the good bit. Slowly we went downstairs. The front door slammed shut – Mummy and Daddy appeared, both laughing. She kicked off her high heels and Daddy took off his tie. Trish wasn’t in the kitchen. She and Will must have gone to fetch Rose from panning gold.
Daddy kissed me on the cheek and started to chat to Ben. Mummy gave me the tightest hug and asked me about my day when a horrible, high wail floated in from the garden.
I clutched Jimmy Jammy’s arm. Daddy rushed through to the kitchen whilst Mummy told us to go back upstairs and play for a while longer. They hurried outside and I shrugged before grinning at Ben. We rushed upstairs, excited to carry on our game.
35
Now
Teardrop tattoos are symbolic of time spent in prison
Ben left and I heard footsteps go downstairs but they sounded very, very far away, as my mind zoomed in on one word he’d said.
Rose? The tattoo on my leg… all the Mother’s Day cards to Mum that produced a faraway look in her eye… the cut-glass ornament I’d bought her…
Was this why the word Rose had always meant so much?
I shivered as a memory shifted in my brain.
That Saturday morning, when I was younger, I’d gone into the kitchen to find Mum and Dad talking about someone called Rose. They’d stopped as soon as I appeared. Her face was blotchy. She’d muttered something about having problems with a staff member at work.
But what if…?
The peltin
g rain sounded louder and louder in my ears and I could hardly breathe. I stood up and then bent straight over, feeling dizzy. And suddenly feeling very, very alone.
‘Drink this.’
I looked up. He was back. Ben hadn’t left. I took the glass of water with shaking hands. I gulped it down before handing it back and I straightened up, again, body still swaying as I focused. I pushed myself into the corner of the room and lightning flashed as I slid to the floor. However, the corner supported me, its two walls reaching out like a pair of strong arms.
Ben crouched down and took my hands, helping me back onto the mattress. Blindly I stroked Taz.
‘Sorry for shooting the messenger,’ I said in a strangulated voice.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said, softly.
‘It doesn’t make sense,’ I whispered, eventually. ‘But then in some ways it does. The dreams I’ve been having… I always had a sense that the girl in the reflection was looking out for me… perhaps this is why.’
He nodded. ‘Deep down you never forgot her, Lizzie.’
‘If this is true, where is she now? What happened to her?’ I thought of the terrible thing my father mentioned.
‘Unless… look, let’s have a cup of tea and—’
‘Unless what?’
‘I’m only guessing, Lizzie but… if… if the worst happened perhaps your mind blocked out the upset. That could explain why your parents managed to keep it from you and why you created this doppelganger in the mirror.’
The worst? Trish… the tragedy twenty years ago…
The timing fitted perfectly.
I ran to the bathroom and pulled up the toilet seat. I knelt down and my body convulsed. A hand rubbed my back as I retched. Eyes watering, I finally stopped. I washed my face with cold water and Taz in his arms, Ben led me down to the kitchen. He put the kettle on. We drank tea in silence, the battered plants outside looking as fragile as I felt.
I flicked through the scrapbook again before putting it to one side.
‘Right from the off my parents never trusted me,’ I croaked. ‘Not even with the information that I had a sister. Why not? Did they really consider me so weak?’ I looked at Ben and couldn’t help giving a small smile. ‘I remember you and me climbing trees… stealing apples… carrying spiders in our hands… both of us so adventurous and confident…’
‘The Lilibet I recall was all of that and much more. Do you remember Luke from our class?’
I thought hard. ‘Curly brown hair and a big attitude, was that him? I can’t picture his face clearly but he was a right bossy boots in the playground.’
‘He went through a phase of picking on me and would easily push me over and steal my packed lunch. So one day before lessons, you put soil inside my marmite sandwiches. It stuck brilliantly.’
‘Did he eat it?’
‘Let’s just say the bullying stopped.’
‘A sister, Ben, I had a sister and no one ever told me.’ Tears rolled down my face. Year in year out Mum and Dad had strived to manage my life and make choices for me, right down to deciding that I had no right to know about Rose.
How dare they? She was as much a part of my life as theirs. Indignation burnt in my chest. I wiped my eyes on my arm. We were blood-related. We loved each other.
‘Let’s call Mum over, she can tell us more.’ Ben consulted his watch. ‘It’s six. She finished at five and should be home now.’
I looked into the garden and still couldn’t quite believe that once I’d walked on that grass with my family and that I’d sat in this kitchen and played with Ben. Jill hurried over. She stood at the kitchen doorway.
‘Lilibet, oh sweetheart, I can see it now, the bow on your top lip and those gorgeous green eyes – I should have seen it before.’ Ben passed her the scrapbook and she sat down.
‘Jill… did I have a sister called Rose?’ I asked, voice wavering. ‘Is it really true?’
‘Yes, my darling, yes. These photos bring it all back – the family of four who suddenly disappeared that summer. You lived here for your first year of school and Rose was one year older. You looked very much alike although she was the quieter one, a sensible little girl who enjoyed reading, whereas you and Ben preferred running around outside or playing with toys.’
One year older, that made sense of Mum visiting here nine years ago to throw a rose into the stream – it would have been her eighteenth birthday. Perhaps Mum came on her exact birth date.
Then all those summers… Mum going to bed for a few days… it must have been because she was missing my sister, a significant date marking something.
‘Did you know my parents well?’
‘Not as much as you might think, considering you and Ben were best friends but they were always so busy. They both worked full time, you see, and paid Trish to babysit. She was glad for the money after her marriage broke down. Sometimes that stretched into the evening. They had business dinners to attend – quite a social life I remember. You’d be dropped off early to breakfast club.’
The parents I remembered always made sure one of them was around to take me to school and pick me up.
‘And then at weekends they’d focus on you two girls. However, I remember their faces and their laughter. Both were always smiling and had a kind word for everyone. I’d often see them chatting to locals in the village at the weekend. Despite their executive jobs they were free spirits, your mum’s long hair loose around her shoulders, your dad wearing flip-flops everywhere in the summer, even when it was raining. And they were so affectionate. I remember looking at them and wishing I had a relationship like that. More than once I saw them kissing in their drive and when you were out as a family the four of you held hands. It was lovely to see. They must have been pushing forty but acted as if they were the same age as twenty-year-old me.
‘Do you remember their names?’ I said, part of me hoping this was all a mistake; that my parents’ deception hadn’t been at this level. It was possible Jill and Ben had got it all wrong. This couple didn’t sound much like my mum and dad.
‘Anne. Anne and Lawrence. A friend of mine owned a cat that had kittens. Your parents were going to buy one as a surprise for you and Rose, but then you all left.’
‘My parents were going to get a pet?’
‘Anne thought it was really sweet that you stole our ginger cat Pumpkin, once, and had him in your room all night. Anne found you both curled up together in the morning.’
The Mum from the childhood I remember would have been furious and scared of the imagined health risk.
Scared.
If something bad had happened to Rose… is that why they never trusted me to look after myself? Because they were terrified they’d lose me as well?
Jill carried on talking but noticed my wet cheeks, however I insisted she continued. She told of how Mum and Dad would give me and Rose piggy-backs into town. How they’d take us to Blossom’s Bakes and often buy a slice of gateau for me to bring home for Ben.
‘They were the most laid-back parents and often let you stay up late.’
Laid-back? Surely not? But as I scrolled back through time, I recalled the occasional carefree glimpses I’d seen of them, dancing wildly after guests left a party they’d hosted or getting back late from a night out and laughing loudly with the babysitter…
In the space of one afternoon I’d gained a sister and lost the parents I thought I knew.
‘What happened on their last day in Leafton?’
‘Ben came home after you’d been playing, a bit later than usual – and really excited because a policeman accompanied him. The officer just said there’d been an incident. An ambulance was outside the cottage. Ben didn’t know anything and just kept talking about the game you two had been playing with your little plastic dogs. I went around later that night. My aunt and I were worried. No one answered the door and the next day you’d all gone.
‘Ben cried for two days straight. He didn’t understand why you’d left.’
I reached acros
s the table and briefly my fingers touched his. He looked at our hands and then at me, his eyes shining.
‘But what about Trish?’ I said. ‘Didn’t you ask her?’
‘I went straight around the next morning,’ said Jill. ‘But she’d closed the shop for two weeks – told Tim next door that she was going to stay with relatives. When she came back, I asked but she said she didn’t know and I’d seen nothing in the papers. There were no arrests or court cases that I knew of. Trish wasn’t the same and had gone into some sort of depression like she recently has. I think her marriage break-up was just starting to hit home and didn’t like to push her for information. When the professional packers arrived to clear the cottage out, we knew you all definitely weren’t coming back.’
We drank more tea and eventually Jill headed off leaving behind an order to go around to hers tomorrow for lunch on her day off. Ben wasn’t working either. The two of them said we could talk things through as much and for as long as I wanted.
He sat with me and Taz in the lounge for a while. We didn’t talk. With so much to say I couldn’t say one word.
He gave a wide yawn.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘You’ve been up early. Go home.’ First thing tomorrow I’d be visiting Trish in the hope of finding out what she knew.
‘I’m not leaving tonight, Lizzie. I’m here for you. We’re friends, right?’
‘Even though I snapped?’ I said, a lump in my throat. Please don’t go, then. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather be with, right now.
‘Of course.’
He squeezed my shoulder and tingles ran down my arm. ‘I’ll sleep on the sofa. In case you wake up in the dark and… I’d just feel happier staying here, if you don’t mind.’
‘Is this some sort of nostalgia trip?’ I forced a smile. ‘You’re hoping for a sleepover?’
We stared at each other.
Getting ready for bed, I didn’t brush my teeth or rinse my face. I pulled on pyjamas, inside out. Taz snuggled down next to me. The only noise was his purring. But I couldn’t sleep and eventually picked up Taz and went back downstairs. I put the kitten in his bed, in the kitchen, and sleepily he settled. I shut the kitchen door and went to the sofa. Ben was still awake too and I curled up next to him, resting my head on his chest. He stroked my hair and told me everything would be okay, that I had him and his mum, my new friends, Taz, the cottage, Leafton.
Summer Secrets at Streamside Cottage Page 21