The Good Sister

by Gillian McAllister

  I could tell him, I think strangely. I could say it, right here, and unravel my marriage: I married you because I thought I should. I never liked the fruit and vegetables you brought back for me. I don’t want any more children with you. I don’t know you.

  “Never mind,” I say instead.

  I try to think of the good times, the good memories, but they are only things. The excellent champagne we had at our wedding. The venue with its sandstone walls that I snuck off to run my hand over. The bike with a basket he bought me for my thirtieth birthday. The £17.99 pregnancy test I took—digital—which told me I was between one and two weeks pregnant. The damned raspberries and strawberries he brings back. They are all so material. What is the substance beneath it? I look out to sea, but it’s shifting, the bed of the sea churning itself up and spreading itself out over the beach. What is underneath that—the core of the earth? I want to press myself against it, to feel its heartbeat, to feel its stability underneath my chest and hands as I lie there.

  “We’ve got to go,” Scott says. “We’ll be late. I know it’s . . . I know you’d rather be anywhere else,” he says tentatively.

  See? I tell my mind. See? He is always thinking of me. My stoic, gentle, thoughtful Scott. Why can’t I reach him?

  He looks at me, in the mirror, his eyes on mine as he flattens his shirt collar down. There’s a question in those eyes, I am sure of it. I want to ask him what it is, to put it out there, but I don’t. I rack my brains for a nice memory, trying to find one among all the things, like a hoarder with a room full of useless stuff. Eventually, I find it, while still gazing at him.

  We were lazing by the river, in Cambridge. It was in the early part of summer, or late spring maybe, when days like that still felt like such a treat. Winter had gone! We had a picnic blanket out but Scott was lying with his feet in the grass.

  “I keep getting ants on my legs,” he said.

  “Move your feet, then,” I said.

  “I can’t. I like to—” He stopped.

  “What?”

  “I really like to dig my toes into the mud. Look.”

  He waved a foot upward, swinging it toward me. His toenails were encrusted with mud. A lone ant made its way across the arch of his foot.

  “That’s gross,” I said.

  “I know. I must stop. But I like the feel of it. The squashy feel. I’ll wash later.”

  “You’ll get threadworms,” I said.

  “Maybe so.”

  Yes: that, I think now. I cling to it. We are all the other has. And we were happier. We never laughed, exactly—not like Marc and Becky—but perhaps there’s something here, underneath the earth.

  That solid mud. That earth between our toes. I am sure we can find it again, somewhere.

  53

  Becky

  7:50 p.m., Thursday, October 26

  As soon as I walk up the drive, I hear the screaming. I almost go out again, but it’s been too long. She must be terrified, I think guiltily. The double-edged sword of motherhood. I had forgotten. Every uncomfortable emotion comes with an unpleasant side order of it: guilt. Feelings were one-dimensional, when life was lived just for me. But when Xander was born, and now, while looking after Layla, feelings are experienced twice: the initial emotion, and then the guilt. The bitter aftertaste.

  The crying gets louder and my jaw locks into place. The glint of empathy I felt has disappeared behind a smoke screen, and all I feel is steeliness. There is something hard in the center of my gut, unyielding. It’s taken root, and I can’t stop it growing.

  What is it?

  It is anger. I am angry.

  When I reach the front door, something is different.

  The key won’t turn left.

  The door is already unlocked. I open it, my heart pounding. There is Marc, right on my sofa, holding Layla, staring up at me, an unreadable expression on his face.

  54

  Martha

  The curly-haired journalist says nothing today. A new tactic. I appraise her silently as we ascend the steps to the courtroom. She looks back at me, impassive. I wonder if I can see a hint of something in her eyes. An apology, maybe. Perhaps she has a mortgage, is a single parent. We all have our jobs to do. The microphone drops to her side and she makes a funny kind of gesture, her hands just twitching by her sides, the palms turning to me, slightly.

  Surrender. It is surrender.

  The defense proceeds in a more shambolic way than the prosecution, it is less carefully meted out. A medical expert was due today, but she got her days muddled up. And so the defense skips to a social worker who is available, having answered her phone at 9:45 A.M. and saying she would be in as soon as possible.

  Between nine and half past ten, we do nothing. The jury are sent back to their holding room, but we aren’t. Instead, Scott and I watch the barristers milling around, offering each other water, talking about colleagues in common. Becky, too, is taken away again—who knows where?—and for fifteen minutes Mum, Dad, and Ethan leave the courtroom. I guess they are with her, though they won’t tell me; they never do.

  I visit the tea machine and stand in the foyer, delaying the moment before I go back into the stuffy courtroom, then decide to use the toilet to put it off for a few minutes more. I’ve not been to the toilet here yet, going only in cafés at lunchtime. I must be dehydrated, not looking after myself in the wake of it all. Perhaps my cheeks are sunken, dark circles beneath my eyes. I wouldn’t know. I am buried in the cemetery just over there, with Layla.

  The dark wood door swings shut behind me and I enter a cubicle. There are tufts of wet tissue paper lining the edges of it. One of them sticks to my black shoe. I hear someone else come in. I listen carefully, but it is not Becky’s walk, her stomping. It must be somebody else.

  I emerge, and it is Becky’s lawyer. She’s only come in to wash her hands, fix her hair, it would seem. Our eyes meet in the mirror for a moment. A few days ago, I would’ve spoken to her about Marc, but not now: He is telling the truth.

  We both look away.

  She looks back as she leaves, just once. Our eyes meet.

  She looks sorry. She looks sorry for me.

  * * *

  —

  The social worker is finally called to the stand, though we are almost stopping for lunch. She smiles at Harriet, a quick smile, eyes crinkling, but in a way that is too practiced, as though she has perfected it in the mirror. She has attractively pointy canines. She doesn’t look much more than twenty-five.

  “Can you please confirm your name?”

  “Lynne,” she says, and I’m surprised by such a sixties name. “Lynne Oliver.”

  “Isn’t it right that you are the social worker who investigated the incident involving Xander and the defendant in Accident and Emergency?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you tell us what happened after the incident with Bryony Riles, the safeguarding nurse in A&E? When Xander and his mother gave a conflicting account as to the cause of his shoulder injury?”

  I look across at the judge. He has pulled a handkerchief from his robes, somewhere, and I can just see the edge of it, pale blue, peeking over the top of his bench before he wipes his glasses with it.

  “I received a report from A&E. Xander’s explanation of his injury was that his mother had pulled his arm in their kitchen. His mother’s account was that she pulled him out of traffic. It’s reasonably common but, nevertheless, I wanted to speak to Xander.”

  “And so you arranged for a home visit, with him, on his own?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And what was the date of that home visit?”

  “The twenty-first of September.”

  “And what happened?”

  “The defendant let us in, and then went into another room while we spoke.”

  Harriet fumbles with the papers. “Yes. An
d what did you discuss?”

  “We discussed the events that led to Xander’s admission to A&E,” Lynne says. “He told me that his father had become frustrated with him walking into traffic and—”

  “Hearsay,” Ellen says. “That’s Xander’s account. We want yours and yours alone.”

  “All right,” Harriet says, through gritted teeth.

  “Did you have any concerns following your talk with Xander?”

  “No.”

  “And during your visit at the defendant’s home, did you assess their home life more generally?”

  “Yes. The defendant lives—lived—alone with her son. She and her ex-husband are on good terms.”

  “Go on.”

  “Becky’s home was completely normal. Clean. Bright. Plenty of food in the cupboards. Xander’s artwork on the fridge.”

  “And Xander?”

  “Perfectly well adjusted,” she says.

  I think of Xander with his quiet, people-pleasing personality. I think of the surprisingly good poem he wrote for me a year ago, and the computer games he loves to play.

  I think of Marc’s expression outside his house and feel deflated all over again. What was I thinking? I had no reason to suspect him. What was it based on? His lack of alibi, and flashes of temper here and there? That doesn’t mean he’s capable of murder.

  God, I have been a fool.

  “And what was the house like? Did you see the bedrooms?”

  “Perfectly unremarkable. The house is over three floors, and Xander’s room is up in the eaves. Xander had his things everywhere but it wasn’t untidy. There were no signs of substance abuse or violence. Xander’s behavior toward his mother was completely normal.”

  “And how did the defendant herself seem?”

  “Normal. Funny, actually,” Lynne says.

  I like that she noticed it. You cannot help but notice how funny Becky is; it is her defining characteristic.

  “Very jolly. A bit nervous, which I would expect, and hope for. It was important to her, what I thought of her during that visit. Which is a good, and normal, sign.”

  “Yes. Did you notice anything else?”

  “No. Nothing at all. It was a completely normal setup. A normal family home.”

  “Thank you,” Harriet says, giving Lynne a warm, broad smile.

  Ellen stands up immediately. “Lynne.”

  “Yes.”

  “Why were you instructed to review the defendant’s family life?”

  “Because there was suspicion about whether she had been violent to her child.”

  “How long elapsed between Xander’s version of events in A&E, and you seeing him alone, without his mother, to discuss what he had said?”

  “Nine days.”

  “During which time he was living alone with . . .”

  “His mother.”

  “Who could easily have asked him to lie for her.”

  “No.”

  “No? How do you know?”

  “I . . . I don’t.”

  “Thank you. Nothing further.”

  * * *

  —

  We are dismissed early. The judge has to hear another case, or something, and so we leave just after lunch. The summer heat continues relentlessly, and Scott takes my hand outside the courtroom. “Home?” he says gently, but it irritates me.

  “Okay,” I say.

  We stand on the steps for a moment in the sun. Becky’s already left, and Mum and Dad, too, with the air of people leaving a wake. It’s almost over. The verdict is almost upon us. No matter how hard I try—and I do try—I just cannot imagine that verdict happening, or the things it will bring with it.

  A new image springs to mind. Becky in prison, her cheeks gaunt and chiseled, her humor stamped out by prison’s relentless, unvarying ways.

  And then, when she’s released . . . How will we continue? There is no way out for us. Something has to happen.

  Something will happen, I tell myself. I’m just not sure what.

  “She got a lawyer right away,” Scott says to me. He is squinting up at the sun.

  “Huh?”

  “She didn’t answer questions with an open mind, like somebody who’s innocent. She got a lawyer before she would speak to anybody.” He runs a hand over his chin.

  “Yeah. But Becky is—you know. Pretty savvy. She’s . . . you know how she is. Streetwise. A cynic.”

  “Streetwise about what?” asks Scott. “Because I sure as hell don’t know.”

  “I don’t know, either,” I say. “Sorry. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  I suddenly feel flat. There’s no solution. It wasn’t Marc.

  Oh God, so it was Becky. Of course it was.

  “I wouldn’t know how to get a lawyer so fast, anyway,” Scott concludes.

  Ethan appears behind us. “Don’t worry about that,” he says quietly. “They all get lawyers right away. I’m telling you, she didn’t do it.”

  “Hmm,” Scott says.

  Privately, today, in this moment, I agree with Scott.

  I’ll go there, one night, I decide. Before the trial ends. Stay at Becky’s house. Not to investigate it, but to accept it. To accept what has happened to me.

  To all of us.

  55

  Martha

  I go for a walk alone, and microwave a pizza when I get back to the flat. It cost 89p from Sainsbury’s Local. It is one of those cheap children’s ones. Plastic cheese and tomato. No sun-dried tomatoes here; no fresh baby spinach; no buffalo mozzarella like we would usually have. Just an 89p pizza, obliterated in the microwave, tipped whole onto a small plate and cut with scissors.

  Scott is in bed when I walk into the bedroom, carrying my dinner on its plate. His chest is tanned. I hardly recognize it.

  I set the pizza down on the end of the bed. It’ll stain the Egyptian cotton sheets, but I don’t care.

  “What’re you eating?” he says as I sit down and look at him.

  “Nothing,” I say. “Pizza.”

  “I had a cold quiche.”

  “Nice.”

  He ignores me and goes back to his iPad. He is reading the Telegraph on it, something that Becky always found hilarious. “Just educating myself,” she would mimic him, when Scott perused articles even on Christmas Day. I wince as I think of her. I think of her often in this way, in this normal, benign, friendly way. Oh, Becky would love this spotty mug, I will think in a shop, and then remember, suddenly.

  I take a deep breath. Perhaps it is time to follow my husband’s advice. No sleuthing. No investigating. Just a quiet acceptance of the tragedy that has befallen us.

  “Scott?” I say.

  His head snaps up. “Yep?”

  “Do you think she did it? Really and truly?”

  He puts his iPad down. “Yes,” he says.

  “Because of the evidence?”

  “Yes.” He stares at me.

  His eyes look navy blue in the dim bedroom light. The posh carpet curls around my toes—it’s so deep—and it smells artificial in here, of the Glade plug-in our cleaner changes every other Thursday.

  “Marth,” he says softly. He removes the iPad and puts it on the bedside table.

  “Mmm,” I say. I cross my legs in front of me, balancing the plate. The stringy cheese feels molten in my mouth. I proffer him a triangular piece and he takes it. “Surprisingly nice for 89p,” I say.

  “Martha.” He looks at me now, and his shoulders slump. “I’m sorry. I just . . . I think the easiest explanation is the correct one.”

  My back is turned away from what is in the corner of the room, but I can feel its beam, like a lighthouse sweeping back and forth over the sea: the Moses basket. It’s still there. Still has her hair and skin in it, no doubt, her smell. The police returned it to us, after th
ey were finished with it. She breathed her dreamy, milky breath into that basket, with us, for eight weeks of her life, before it was snuffed out.

  I can see Scott’s eyes keep darting to it.

  “Do you really think that?” I say.

  “I do,” he says.

  We say nothing more for a few minutes. It’s time. It’s time to accept it. And it’s time—however painful that is—to move on from it.

  I meet his eyes and he blinks, and I see the Scott I met, all those years ago, at the dinner party. The man who then became my husband.

  We were happy. I feel it with a sudden certainty in my gut. He is the man who knows me best in the entire world. I can say anything to him.

  He reaches over and takes another piece of pizza.

  “Watch it,” I say, “it’s mine.” The banter, the casual interaction, feels nostalgic to me. It’s been so long since we have done it. I had forgotten we ever did.

  “Got a taste for it,” he says with a quick grin.

  I remove my tights and stretch my legs up the bed to him, enjoying the feeling of the cool sheets on my bare skin. He rests a warm hand on one of my feet.

  “Anyway. We weren’t there,” he says. “We’re to blame. Really. We should be to blame. I should.”

  “I know.” I hold his gaze again. “We weren’t there enough. We were . . . we were inept. In that way.”

  “Yes. We were. So really . . . I don’t know. It was more than one person. It was us, too.”

  “Yes,” I say. “I think that’s the part I find hardest. We’re not on trial.”

  Scott holds his hands out, half a tiny pizza slice still held in one. A string of cheese and tomato smears across the bed and he wipes it up with his finger, which only makes it worse.

  “Leave it,” I say. “I hate these fucking sheets.”