My Perfect Sister

by Penny Batchelor

  She thinks this is some kind of game, like the murder mystery dinner party I once went along to, playing the character of a Russian down-at-heel princess called Svetlana. She didn’t do the deed; the whole scenario was so complicated that none of us really cared who did after the second course. This was a bloodless fantasy crime where we all got to safely go home and sleep guilt-free in our own beds.

  That said, I drunkenly play along with Priti, joining in for the ride.

  Priti continues. ‘Possibility number one – Gemma is still alive. The police ruled out Gemma running away but could she have done? She only had her school bag with her and nothing else had gone from her room here. No change of clothes, money… but surely if she did run off you’d have heard about her by now? To be hiding all this time and not let your family know. That’s just cruel…’

  I nod. The room seems to be slightly spinning. The floor definitely isn’t horizontal.

  ‘Unless she was running from something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Was she scared of someone and didn’t want them to know where she’d gone? Your dad, erm, he didn’t did he, he wasn’t too fond of Gemma?’

  ‘You mean was he a kiddy fiddler? No!’ That suggestion sobers me up a bit. Father may have been a bit useless as a parent but he never, ever, would do anything like that.

  ‘Sorry, had to ask, the police would have done. It could have been a possibility.’ Priti takes another glug from the wine bottle, narrowly missing spilling a bit on the precious carpet as she waves her arm around again. I know that Prime Suspect is one of her favourite vintage police TV shows and think that she fancies herself as the Asian Helen Mirren. Not the Asian Miss Marple, of course, because she wouldn’t want the grey, curly perm and twinset.

  ‘So, your dad’s ruled out. Now you’ve never got on with your mum. Could she be the reason why Gemma might have left?’

  I think of how I stayed away from the parental home all those years. She certainly was the reason why I didn’t come back for so long.

  ‘I don’t think so. Gemma was in the middle of her GCSEs when she went missing. Passing would have been her ticket out of here. She could have gone to sixth form college somewhere else.’ I pause in thought. ‘I suppose she could have found the pressure too much, but that still leaves the question of how could she have disappeared off the grid for so long.’

  ‘OK. On to possibility number two.’ Priti scribbles again on the piece of paper. ‘Accidental death. Run over by a bus? Drug overdose?’ Now Priti has moved her televisual crime influences on to Breaking Bad.

  ‘If she’d been run over by a bus or topped herself her body would have been found, wouldn’t it?’

  ‘Good point. We’ll rule out suicide and a fatal accident. So on to possibility number three.’

  Priti lowered her voice conspiratorially. ‘Murder. She was either murdered the day she disappeared or snatched and killed later.’ We take it in turns to swig out of the bottle, which is now sorely depleted.

  ‘You missed one out,’ I said. ‘Abducted by aliens.’

  We burst into laughter. My stomach turns over and there’s a sickly taste in my mouth. I don’t know if it’s caused by the wine or the thought, the real, raw, visceral thought of a person being murdered. Would she have suffered? What would it be like to be terrified for your life? It suddenly hits me that Gemma was a living, breathing human being, not just a face in a photograph or a name constantly deified on a never-ending loop.

  I crawl to the desk and pull myself up until my eyes are level with the photo-clad pinboard that riled me so much less than a week ago. Gemma’s face is still there, hogging the attention, frozen in its sixteen-year-old prettiness. I pull a picture away, the savage motion creating a tear from where the pin was to the side of the photograph. There’s now a gash from her earlobe.

  ‘That’s her?’ Priti asks, taking the photo from me.

  ‘Yes. That’s her. Saint Gemma.’

  ‘She was just a kid, Annie. Why are you so angry with her? It’s as if you blame her for dying.’

  I turn on her. ‘What’s it got to do with you, Priti? You grew up with all your family. I had a shit childhood. This house was a morgue with everything revolving around Gemma, Gemma, Gemma. Mother banged on all the time about how wonderful Gemma was but did she come to my school plays or assemblies? No! She slept through them. I didn’t exist. Can you blame me for resenting Gemma – she can never do anything wrong, can she, she’s dead. She’ll always be unliveable up to and what am I? A failure. A thirty-year-old failure.’

  I’ve worn myself out with my rant.

  Priti doesn’t take this personally. She puts her arm around me and gently pulls me to sit next to her on the bed then passes me the bottle, telling me to swig. I have the last mouthful, the one that old wives’ tales say is fifty per cent spit.

  ‘You’re not a failure. You are a beautiful, intelligent woman who has been through a very hard time. I can’t imagine coping with everything you’ve been through.’ She gives me a cuddle. I nestle my forehead in her shoulder. Just for a moment I want to soak into her confident skin and believe her. I’m not used to talking about my past.

  ‘Your mum must have been pretty ill if she stayed in bed all that time. And having to grow up not knowing what happened to your sister, that’s awful. You were far too young to experience such a loss and its effects on your family. Maybe you should talk to your mother about it, find out how she felt and why she neglected you so much.’ Priti looks me in the eye with a hint of sadness to dispense some tough love. ‘You’re not a child now, though, Annie. You can make your own future… you said earlier about doing some bank healthcare assistant work.’ I’d filled in the online application form this morning. ‘Maybe that could lead to a career, not just rubbish, mindless telesales work like I still do. I’d love a proper job, one where I actually enjoy going there every day. And you’ve got a date! A night out with gorgeous Gareth!’

  ‘He might not call.’

  ‘His loss if he doesn’t, but I bet he will. He seems keen. Don’t compare yourself to Gemma. You’re two different people and you can’t even remember what she was really like. Look at this photo.’ Priti waves Gemma’s torn picture in front of my face. ‘She was just a teenager. A hormonal teenager who will have had the same feelings and made the same mistakes that we all did at that age. There’s no reason to think she disappeared on purpose. She didn’t do it to spite you. What happened wasn’t her fault, the poor girl. She was just a kid. It’s her abductor you should be angry with, not her.’

  She rocks me from side to side for a minute then I break apart. I look at Gemma’s photo again. Where previously I saw pride and arrogance I now see a youthful vulnerability in her unlined face, her slight frame and the brown ponytail it would be so easy to pull to yank her head back and lay bare her white throat.

  ‘If you can find out the truth then you can lay her to rest, but maybe you’ll never know. You’ve got to move on. You need to move on.’

  ‘Easier said than done. I wish I were someone else, Priti, and had a fresh start.’

  ‘This is your fresh start, sweetheart.’ Priti takes my hand and squeezes it. ‘You’ve lived with your mum for nearly a week now and she’s not so bad, is she? Talk to her. Find out more about Gemma. I’ll help you.’

  ‘Back to the possibilities then. But if the police haven’t found out what happened then I don’t know how we can.’ An urge to go to the loo hits me. Even after all that has happened, life’s basics still carry on regardless.

  ‘We can but try.’ I let go of Priti’s hand and give her a thankful smile that I hope conveys that she’s the oasis in my loneliness.

  ‘I have to say, though, I wouldn’t put any money on the abducted by aliens theory.’ I try to lighten the mood, which has become dark enough to hit too close to home. A car alarm goes off outside – five piercing loud beeps until it stops abruptly, breaking the tension.

  ‘The aliens were your idea!’ Priti carries on.
‘If Gemma was murdered, who could it be? What about this Toby guy? If he’s capable of attempting to murder his wife, could he have hurt Gemma when he was a teenager? Did they know each other well? Perhaps they were seeing each other on the sly? Maybe you can track down her friend Mike that Gareth mentioned. He might know. Are the police still investigating Gemma’s case? I wonder if anyone has told them about the Toby link?’

  ‘I don’t know. Sorry, I’ve got to dash to the loo.’

  ‘OK, I’ll go downstairs, drink some water then call a cab. We can talk more tomorrow.’

  On my return from the bathroom I see the wine bottle is on its side on the floor dripping the last of its sugary contents onto the carpet. It’s white wine, so it won’t stain, but I’ll still know the drops were there.

  Priti’s taxi soon arrives. I walk her to the car and promise to meet her for brunch in about eight hours’ time. We hug and she tells me to believe in myself before nearly tripping into the car in her red three-inch heels.

  There are no streetlights on, thanks to council cutbacks, and, when the headlights of the cab have disappeared around the corner, the only illumination of the street is the low glow emanating through the curtains of Gemma’s room. It lures me back in the house. With Priti gone, my solitariness hits me. There’s no warm body of Shaun to climb in next to and hold, or housemates to watch late-night TV with. I’m on my own in the house, as I am in life. With this unsettling thought, I’m unwilling to go to bed straightaway, so I go back upstairs to Gemma’s room, straighten the duvet cover, put the wine bottle in the hall to take out for recycling and pin the photo back on the board. The tear is barely noticeable.

  I run my fingertip over the photo of Gemma and her friends in the park. Next to Gemma, looking away from the camera, is a shaggy-haired blond boy with a strong chin and heightened cheekbones. Peering closer, although the colours on the photograph have faded, I think that he has black eyeliner on. He’s wearing a baggy black T-shirt with the band The Cure’s logo on it, a pair of stonewashed jeans and white trainers. It seems that something just out of frame has caught his eye. I think how these days what with digital photography and the ability to instantly take multiple shots that this image would never have passed the first cut, never mind have been printed out.

  On the right of Gemma is a tall boy with the skinniness of a youth who has yet to fill out his fast-growing frame. He has shortly-cropped light brown curls and is lounging on the bench with his jean-clad legs spread widely and a hand resting on each of his knees. Although he is faced towards the camera, his eyes point towards Gemma in a shy fashion, smiling like he’s responding to something funny she has just said. His clothes, brown trousers and a long-sleeved checked shirt that are dated to modern eyes, mark him out as being less fashion conscious or tribal than the other boy. They’re the sort of thing I imagine his mum may have bought him from M&S.

  Standing to the right of the bench is a plump girl wearing Dr. Martens lace-up ankle boots, a long black billowing skirt and a white top with what looks like cartoon Dalmatians on the front that she has styled by pulling some of the material over a thick turquoise belt loosely belted around her waist. Her frizzy, permed hair reaches just below shoulder-length and she’s blowing a kiss to the camera with her frosty-pink-painted lips.

  Who are these people? Could any of the boys be Mike or Toby? Or did either of them have the job of being behind the camera that day?

  Priti and I had not disturbed any of the room’s contents nor, despite what we’d hastily planned, rummaged around for hidden clues. The dressing table the pinboard leans on has three drawers. I take a chance and quickly open them but they’re empty. Nothing’s there, no telltale letters, personal diaries or secret confessions waiting to be discovered, only a smattering of dust accompanied by the smell of stale air. There’s nothing for me here and there won’t be anything to learn in the pile of presents mother left there because she did so after Gemma’s disappearance. Time for bed.

  I shut Gemma’s door, straightening the pottery name sign whose right-hand corner had skewed slightly upwards. There’s no reason for Mother to know I’ve been in if I don’t want her to. Right now the idea of talking to her about it seems a step too far if I want to avoid confrontation, which I do. We’re tolerating each other well enough so far and seeing as I’m stuck here for the time being I don’t want to, and can’t face yet, opening old wounds. She’s too sick for that, even I can see it. Part of me remembers my father softly stepping around her in case something happened that would drive her to her bed and her tablets even more. He never explained to me, though, why she took medication. It was always a subject left unspoken.

  Back in the spare room, now my room again although it feels more like a cheap one-star hotel room, I undress, throwing my clothes on the floor and not bothering to put on any pyjamas. The moment where sleep intercepts consciousness drifts quickly towards me but then the car alarm outside starts shrieking again and I sit bolt upright with a jolt. In front of me, although I can barely see it in the night’s gloom, is the chest of drawers that holds my smallish stash of clothes, underwear, make-up and other paraphernalia. A thought hits me. My drawers are messy, as is the top of Gemma’s dressing table, which is strewn with lipsticks, mascara, eyeliner and other teenage detritus. Yet if the top of her dressing table is so cluttered then how come there’s nothing in the three drawers below? Or rather, what was in there and has since been removed instead of being left to bide its time in the bedroom museum with the rest of Gemma’s belongings?

  Thursday 4th May 1989. 8.00 a.m.

  Diana woke to the sound of the bird singing on the branches of the large oak tree spreading its wings to the heavens in her front garden. Where Frank had slept was now just a cold dent in the mattress. She stretched her arms over it and caressed the sheet, relishing in not having to sleep curtailed, curled to one side, but able to enjoy the freedom of the whole of the cool space to lie in. It was still early – only eight o’clock – she could sleep on, maybe until the girls had gone to school, and slumber in peace without the sound of the kitchen radio, slamming doors and raised voices. Her medication rarely gave her a good night’s rest and she longed for the rare morning when she woke refreshed and renewed with a clear head. Today was not one of those days.

  From her bedside cabinet, she opened a plastic prescribed bottle and swallowed one of the pills down with a few sips of stale water left over from two nights before. Sweet dreams, she prayed, please come.

  Downstairs, Frank, a middle-aged man of a rather unimpressive yet solid height and build, washed up his cereal bowl and processed in his mind the jobs he had to do today at the garage. He felt lucky to work in an industry relatively unaffected by a recession that had pushed so many other businesses to the brink. People might not be buying many new cars any more but the old ones would always need servicing and repairing. His manual work gave him solace in his labour and thoughts, whilst lunchtime banter with his two colleagues and, occasionally a pint in the local, were all he felt he needed for a social life.

  Into the kitchen stomped Gemma. Frank’s first thought was that she had taken much more care over her hair, swept back in one of those fat orange headband things, and loud make-up than on her school uniform. Her skirt seemed to inch higher by the day and she wore her blue and green striped school tie high and fat over a crumpled blouse. Gemma was responsible for her own washing and ironing and lately she’d decided not to bother. Still, it was exam time around now and Frank thought not to pick her up on it. Doubtless she needed as much time as she could spare to revise, for she was an intelligent girl set to study A levels in the sixth form and then be the first in the family to go to university. Frank puffed with pride at the thought, although he personally didn’t see the point of reading books for three years when you could be working with your hands and earning good money. Gemma was better than that, though, she would one day go further than he himself had ever dreamed was possible at her age.

  ‘Dad, Annie’s not getting
up. She’s mucking around to get on my nerves. I can’t hang around and wait to take her to school if she doesn’t hurry up because I’ve arranged to meet Mike before classes to revise.’ She grabbed a slice of bread from the bread bin on the kitchen work surface and shoved it straight into her mouth, chewing and swallowing quickly before she’d even tasted it. Frank sighed. His boss was usually understanding but there were limits on how many times he could be late because of walking Annie to school. Gemma usually did it, dropping her off early before hot-footing it to her own, occasionally sneaking in at the back door via the playing fields so as not to be marked down late by the beady-eyed prefects. Today, however, Frank knew he had a big job on, a repair that had to be finished for the customer to pick the car up at lunchtime, and he dare not risk taking time out.

  There was only one thing for it. Usually Frank shied away from his wife, having decided it was better to organise things himself rather than placing any expectations on her that could be dashed or, even worse, set her off down the road he didn’t know if he could cope with her going down again. Truth be told he had become slightly frightened of her illness following its recurrence some months after Annie’s birth, and the days when he soothingly reassured his wife that he loved her regardless had long passed. They had settled into a routine where she did whatever it was she did all day in the house – God knows it rarely involved cooking or cleaning – and he did the rest, or rather he and Gemma did the rest. He knew it was a lot to ask a teenager but Frank himself had shouldered the burdens of life early having left school at fifteen to work as an apprentice and provide money for his widowed mother. He certainly wouldn’t ask Gemma to give up on her education. Yet Annie did need looking after. Today her mother would have to step up and do her fair share, for there was no other alternative. After taking a deep breath, he called her name up the stairs then braced himself for a reply.