‘If I cook something she feels obliged to try to eat at least a little of it. Hey, how did your date with your boyfriend go?’ Una flushes a little then gives a wicked smile. ‘Very well, if you know what I mean,’ she tells me. I don’t push her for more details, just nod and reciprocate with an understanding smirk.
‘I met a man on Saturday. He’s texted asking me to go to dinner with him.’
‘Ooh get you!’ she laughs, flashing a perfect set of white teeth. ‘You’ve only been in town a week and the lads come flocking!’
‘Ah – we’ll see.’
‘Do tell me how it goes. I’m a romantic at heart,’ she replies before adding: ‘Got to dash. Call me if your mum needs anything.’
A couple of hours later we’re back home and Mother is in bed resting. I take the time to check my email and there it is, the message Priti said she’d send me. Slumped on the sofa, I open it quickly. It contains two links to web pages. I open the first, which goes to a news story about a Mike Braithwaite, who’d be the same age as Gemma if she was still alive. The story is about him organising a charity concert in South Yorkshire to raise funds for a three-year-old girl suffering from a rare blood disorder in order for her to travel to the US for pioneering treatment. His face is easily recognisable as the curly-haired boy in Gemma’s photo. Indeed, the years have been kind to him, for, despite a few crinkles around his eyes and a spot of grey around the temples, he hardly looks much older.
The second link leads to his business website, Mike Braithwaite Accountancy Services. Scrolling down the page I spot another photo of him, this time wearing a shirt and tie, smiling at the camera to reassure clients that he’s kosher. Right at the bottom of the page there’s a contact telephone number. On a whim I dial it without thinking first about what to say.
A receptionist answers. Looking at the clock on the wall I see it’s 5.15 p.m. – not quite early enough for the office to close. ‘Good afternoon, Mike Braithwaite Accountancy Services, Nazreen speaking, how may I help?’
I fiddle with my cuticles as I do when I’m nervous. ‘Hello, I’d like to speak to Mr Braithwaite please, is he available?’
‘Whom may I say is calling?’
‘It’s Annie Towcester. He doesn’t know me.’
‘Hold on please, I’ll put you through.’ There’s a pause then a click on the line.
‘Mike Braithwaite speaking.’ His voice has an affable, yet professional tone.
‘Oh, hello, Mr Braithwaite, my name is Annie Towcester. I believe you knew my sister Gemma from school?’
There’s another pause. ‘Gemma Towcester? Yes, we were in the same class. Are you looking for an accountant?’
‘Me, no. I’m looking into her disappearance and because you were friends with her I wonder if you wouldn’t mind talking to me about her, please?’
‘School was a long time ago. What is it you want to know?’ His tone is more brusque now, verging on accusatory.
‘What she was like, if anything unusual happened before she disappeared, that sort of thing.’
He replies straight away. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t help you. Gemma and I weren’t that close. I don’t know anything.’
‘But I just want to find out more about her, I was only five when she went missing. What was she like as a person? What was her relationship with Toby Smith?’
‘As I said before, Miss Towcester, I’m sorry I can’t help you. I’m a very busy man, so unless you want an accountant please don’t call again.’ He hangs straight up. I’m blindsided by his reaction. Gareth had told me that Gemma and Mike were as thick as thieves and in the photograph upstairs they are sitting next to each other on a bench and certainly appear friendly, enjoying a joke together.
I look down. There’s a large droplet of blood emanating from the nail bed of my left thumb. I suck it better but another ruby red one immediately takes its place.
Thursday 4th May 1989. 8.10 p.m.
Diana had only been back to sleep a few minutes when the shout ripped her from her dream about flying above the rooftops towards the clouds, higher and higher until the town below was barely a speck of dust on the horizon. The first call she ignored, but when it was repeated she dragged herself out of bed, slid her fluffy mules on her feet, put on her towelling dressing gown over her tired frame, and walked to the top of the landing. She tapped her chipped nails on the bannister and suddenly wished she was in a permanent sleep that Frank’s demands couldn’t wake her up from. Deep breaths. Slowly in and out like the doctor said.
‘What?’ she shrieked.
‘Di, love, can you come down please? I’m really sorry but Gemma can’t take Annie to school today and I have to be at work on time. Can you walk her?’
Diana sighed, feeling the little energy she had seep out of her body with her breath. Her heart began to beat faster at the thought of having to go outside.
‘Are you sure you or Gemma can’t take her? It doesn’t matter if she’s a bit late for school, does it?’
‘She’s got exams soon Diana. She’s revising with a friend before school.’ Did Diana hear an exasperated edge in her husband’s voice?
‘Right, I’ll get dressed then, shall I?’ It came out sounding martyrish but wasn’t meant that way, more as an instruction to herself on what she had to do. Diana was sadly aware of how little she did for her daughters, how the mother she thought she’d be before pregnancy was so far removed from today’s reality. She would walk Annie to school, force herself to leave the house and nod and smile when the other mothers spoke to her. She knew what they were thinking, that she was a mad mother. A bad mother. She would bear it until tablet time when she could truly be herself wrapped up in her own little cocoon.
Annie’s bedroom door was slightly ajar and from inside there came a mangled up yet endearing rendition of ‘The Wheels on the Bus’.
‘Annie, stop singing and get dressed. I’m taking you to school.’
Diana barged into the bedroom, her robe coming undone at the tie revealing her slightly-scratched knees.
Annie was sitting on the floor wheeling a toy bus on the carpet. ‘School bus stop! Children get off!’ she said, not registering her mother’s presence. Was it deliberate? Diana thought so, exasperatedly, but then took some more deep breaths and the voice in her head told her to try harder.
She bent down on her knees to lower herself to her daughter’s height. ‘Annie, dear, you’ve got to get dressed. It’s nearly time to go to school.’
Annie looked up at her mother with big, wide eyes. ‘You’re taking me?’
‘Yes.’
‘But Daddy or Gemma always take me.’
‘Well today I’m taking you.’
Diana tried to lay a soothing hand on her daughter’s shoulder to guide her up but Annie flinched.
‘I haven’t done anything bad!’ she wailed. Diana winced at the knowledge that her daughter thought that physical interaction with her mother was a punishment, not a show of love. Yet love, in her brain fogged and permanently exhausted state, was what she found so difficult to express.
‘I didn’t say you had, Annie. Now come on, I’ll take you in the bathroom to brush your teeth and wash your face then I’ll find your school uniform.’ Diana opened a few drawers in the dresser.
‘Where do you keep your underwear?’
Annie stood up and went over to the bottom of the wardrobe where there was a cardboard box full of clean socks and pants.
‘Right, off with your nightie and put some clean socks and underwear on please.’
Footsteps stomped up the stairs and Gemma’s bedroom door slammed shut.
The noise. Diana couldn’t stand it. The sound throbbed in her head. She walked to Gemma’s bedroom door and opened it. ‘Gemma, do you have to be so loud? Are you incapable of climbing the stairs without imitating a herd of elephants?’
In her room, Gemma was rifling through books on the floor. When on her knees, her skirt rode up so short that Diana could see the bottom of her knickers.
‘
And for goodness sake, put a longer skirt on. People will think you are a prostitute.’
Gemma exploded. She turned to her mother with violence in her eyes – latent energy just waiting for a release.
‘Shut up, you useless cow! Look at you, still in your dressing gown at this time of the morning! Moaning on because once, just once, you have to take your daughter, your own daughter, not mine, to school. Don’t you dare lecture me!’
Slap.
It happened before Diana had thought about doing it – an almost mechanical response: a lever turns, the hand raises, the palm flattens out and then quickly collides with Gemma’s cheek.
The two women faced each other in horror.
‘Don’t touch me,’ screamed Gemma. ‘Don’t come near me. I hate you. I never want to see you again.’
12
The next few days pass quite slowly, my new routine embedding itself in: cleaning, cooking, helping Mother, going for a brisk walk every day and sharing texts with Priti about what we’ve found out. Ian got back to me the day after I emailed him. He sounded really pleased to hear from me and said that, whilst he was ‘up against it’ this week with meetings (I laughed at how he has embraced corporate speak) he will be free late afternoon on Monday. We arrange a time for me to meet him at his office.
Mike’s reaction still bewilders me. Why was he so defensive? Does he have something to hide? Or is he, as he said, a busy man who can’t spare the time to talk about the past? Somehow I don’t think so. Priti immediately puts him down as a prime suspect, coming up with lots of lurid theories about his guilt. Did he kill Gemma during a lovers’ tiff? Was he a drug dealer and Gemma planned to grass him up to the police? Does he know who murdered Gemma but is too frightened to say so? Was he in league with Toby Smith? Or perhaps he’d helped Gemma disappear and she was still alive somewhere?
I am about to go in to town to research recruitment agencies when the phone rings. I’m hesitant to answer it because ‘caller unknown’ appears on the screen, but after a few rings I pick up in case it’s important. I’m glad I do because it’s the HR department at the hospital trust offering me an interview next Monday – someone else had dropped out and then they received my application. I’ll have time to attend before my meeting with Ian. I thankfully confirm that I’ll attend and hang up with a smile. I want this job. It has surprised me that going with Mother to her chemo appointments, even though it hasn’t been for that long, has piqued my interest in nursing. It would be great to get a job that leads to a qualification, even a career, and smash the minimum-wage ceiling I’ve been stuck under.
What will I wear to the interview though? My clothes are out of date and I don’t own any smart clobber. I didn’t need any for my previous jobs and it’s never been my style to dress up. I think about going to a charity shop but they’re hit and miss and these days they aren’t the bargain they used to be. Besides, I don’t have any spare cash to buy anything – I bought more mobile phone credit with my ever-stretched overdraft – and I’m certainly not going begging to my mother. I doubt she’s got much to spare herself anyway; treatment and car parking are free on the NHS but cancer still costs a lot of money due to things like loss of earnings and extra heating bills. Did she used to have a job? It occurs to me I don’t even know that.
I heat up the leftovers of a chicken casserole I’d batch cooked two days before. Whilst we’re having dinner, or rather I’m wolfing it down and mother’s picking at it like a sparrow, I fill the silence by telling her about the interview.
‘Well done, Annie, I’m proud of you.’ She looks genuinely pleased.
Proud of me? That’s a phrase I’ve never heard before.
‘Nothing’s guaranteed. I’ll have to wait and see.’
‘You only applied a few days ago. They must be impressed by you.’
‘Or they’re desperate,’ I joke.
‘Don’t be silly. They’d be lucky to have you.’
Really? Does she think that or is she rolling out a stock platitude?
‘Someone else pulled out. I’m not sure what to wear. I ought to dress up smart, I think.’
‘Yes you should. I read an article in a magazine last week that said women should dress for where they want to be and not where they are.’
‘So I should rent a nurse’s uniform from a fancy dress shop?’ This makes us both laugh.
‘No, you should dress as if you are the head of the company.’
‘I don’t own any suits,’ I reply. ‘I’ve never needed any in my previous jobs.’
Mother places her knife and fork neatly together on her half-full plate to signal that she has finished eating.
‘What did you do before?’
‘Call centre work, that sort of thing. I was a receptionist once and also did a few stints as a barmaid.’ I hesitate. ‘Did you have a job, before the cancer came, I mean?’
Mother sighs and sits back in her chair. ‘I did casual work on a market stall selling fabrics. I had to give it up when I fell ill.’
‘Weren’t you entitled to sick pay?’
‘No, my boss couldn’t afford it. She paid me shift by shift.’
I wonder whether she means cash in hand, nudge nudge, wink wink, don’t tell the taxman.
‘That’s a shame. Did you enjoy it?’
‘Yes, very much. We often got new rolls of material in. I liked talking to customers about what they were making. It’s fashionable again to sew your own clothes and curtains.’
Perish the thought. Why sew it yourself when you can buy it cheaply from a chain store? That’s a thought I politely keep to myself.
There’s silence, only punctuated by the scrape of moving chair legs, whilst I clear the table and replace the used plates with fruit and yoghurts for pudding.
‘Not for me, thank you, Annie.’
‘You’ve got to eat something. Try a yoghurt. For me.’ I realise I’m treating her like a five-year-old.
She chooses a raspberry one and peels off the lid then places it carefully on the table. No licking yoghurt lids in this house. Strange how although mother rarely used to eat with us I still picked up all her culinary foibles.
Mother eats a few teaspoons-worth and then pipes up with, ‘Why don’t you see if there’s something in my wardrobe that will fit you? Before I lost weight I was about your size. I can use my sewing machine to make any alterations you need.’
I baulk at the thought of wearing some outdated flowery number with shoulder pads that smells of mothballs. Then I realise that before I returned I hadn’t seen my mother for years and I don’t know what she wore during that time before slacks and old jumpers became her sickness uniform. I’ve got nothing to lose and can always decline the offer if there’s nothing suitable. At the very least I’ll get to have a chuckle at fashion that time forgot.
After I’ve done the washing up – mother offers but I decline as she looks as if she’d collapse if she tried to stand up at the sink for too long – we go upstairs to her bedroom. It has been decorated since I was a teenager. Gone are the chintz curtains, matching duvet cover and old wallpaper, they have been replaced by plain walls painted a pale blue, stripy curtains that tone in with the paint colour and pure white pillow cases and a duvet cover. I hardly ever came in this room when I was a child for Mother was usually resting and not to be disturbed. On the left bedside table there’s a framed photograph of my father placed on top of a couple of paperbacks, and on top of the right one there’s a small lamp, a pill box and an old school photograph of me.
Me, not Gemma.
I’m about twelve and am on the cusp of turning from a child into a young woman. My short ginger hair contrasts starkly with the blue of my school uniform and I’m smiling at the camera. If the viewer didn’t know any better they’d think I was a happy young girl.
I perch on the side of the bed whilst mother opens her wardrobe. She has taken over the side where my Father’s clothes, albeit few of them, used to hang. Most of the garments are covered in the type o
f plastic bag that a dry cleaner returns your item in. I brace myself for something hideous and am amazed that what emerges from the covers aren’t actually that bad. Some are shop bought, some home-sewn but all are what fashion magazines would describe as ‘classic’ styles – not the sort of thing I would usually wear but suitable for the smart, bland look that my interview requires.
With Mother’s encouragement, I try on quite a few pieces, looking in the wardrobe’s internal full-length mirror to see what I look like and doing a catwalk-style twirl. Mother has more clothes than I imagined but then again she was brought up with the culture of never throwing anything away in case it could come in useful in the future. I don’t bother with the dresses and skirts as I really wouldn’t feel comfortable in my skin wearing them, so I stick to trousers and jackets.
Eventually, Mother and I whittle it down to a pair of tailored wool black trousers with a side zip. The leg length is slightly too long but straight away she disappears into the spare/my bedroom for her sewing kit and pins them up perfectly. I pair the trousers with a red silky-collared blouse and tuck it in at the waist. On top of that I wear a black single-breasted jacket. It comes with shoulder pads – I knew it! – that rock the 1980s look but are ridiculous on me. I have broader shoulders than my mother. She cuts out the shoulder pads with embroidery scissors, sticks a few pins in to alter the shape and voila, even though I say so myself, I actually look quite good. Mother beams at her little project and says she’ll try and sew them up properly tonight.
The next task is to work out what to wear on my feet. We share the same shoe size. All I own are trainers, knee high winter boots and a couple of pairs of ballet pumps. Mother’s day-to-day shoes are lined up in the hall downstairs but she tells me to look in the bottom of her wardrobe where she keeps her boxes of best shoes.
She’s looking even more tired now and unable to bend down on her knees to sort through them herself, so I sit on the floor and have a rummage through the cardboard boxes. There are ten in total. I reject the three pairs of high heels, aka ankle breakers, as I’ve never worn them before and don’t wish to start now. I prefer to be able to walk freely and not totter on a stiletto heel. I also reject the three pairs of boots as too practical and unstylish to wear with the trouser suit.
My Perfect Sister Page 8