Snow Sisters

by Carol Lovekin

  Verity smiled. ‘You don’t have to pretend to be interested.’

  ‘I am interested! I love knowing how you’re getting on.’

  ‘Well … I passed my exams. I’m going to university.’

  ‘Oh my days, Verity, that’s amazing! You clever thing, you’re actually going to be a librarian.’

  ‘I actually am.’

  ‘And you won’t have to get married!’

  ‘No.’

  ‘When you’re famous and working in the best library in the world, I shall tell everyone you’re my sister and how lucky they are to have you.’

  ‘And what do you think you’ll be doing?’ Verity crossed her fingers and made her best wish.

  ‘One thing’s for sure, I won’t be here.’ Meredith rubbed a space in the steamy window. ‘Look at it. Imagine having to live here all your life.’

  The snow was already turning to slush, discoloured and grey.

  Verity kept her eyes on her sister, tried not to look as if she was noticing how Meredith’s hair was red as molten copper and the dreadlocks coiled like magical snakes, how the edges of her eyes were lit up with sparks.

  Don’t leave…

  Over her black clothes, Meredith was wearing a coat one of her friends had given her. It was meant for a soldier and looked as if it might drown her. She didn’t care – in London no one noticed what she wore and the coat kept out the cold.

  I have to remember her…

  Verity changed the subject.

  ‘Do you still hear…?’

  ‘The ghost?’

  Verity noticed how Meredith no longer said Angharad’s name.

  ‘Sometimes. A while back, she told me they buried her in unhallowed ground.’ Meredith chewed her lip the way she used to when she was little. ‘She said she would write her words into my dreams.’

  ‘Oh, Meri, that’s beautiful.’

  ‘She was beautiful. And the bravest person I’ve ever known. She was … audacious.’

  The way you are…Don’t go…

  Another smattering of snow slipped past the window.

  ‘Will it settle? It did last year.’

  Meredith shook her head and her hair moved like coiled rope. ‘I don’t remember.’

  Verity knew this was a lie. Meredith had simply dismissed the snowstorm that hit the city just before Christmas.

  ‘It’s not like the Welsh kind,’ was all she’d said.

  The air in the café was warm and heavy. The mirrors and glasses, even the sugar shaker, reflected Meredith’s hair making them sparkle like fireflies.

  ‘Go on then,’ she said, ‘I know why we’re here. I know you want to talk about her. I can read your mind. It won’t make any difference; you can’t make me care about her.’

  Verity tried not to feel hurt for her mother. She wanted to be on her sister’s side, only if taking sides hadn’t worked in the past, why would it now?

  ‘Don’t tell her anything about me, Verity.’

  Hurt for herself now, Verity snapped. ‘I never tell your secrets.’

  ‘All right, I’m sorry, so tell me. What’s worrying you this time?’

  Verity heard the edge of indifference, how pointless an argument would be.

  ‘Sometimes,’ she said, ‘I look at her and she’s like snow: impossibly beautiful only underneath it’s the same old crazy, the same old darkness.’

  Meredith drained her mug. ‘We’re all like snowflakes – we’re unique.’

  ‘Allegra isn’t unique, not any more. I’m worried about her, Meri.’

  ‘She’ll be fine, and if she isn’t, there isn’t a thing you can do about it. People make their own lives. Their own luck.’

  ‘I know but…’

  ‘She’s unique, we all are. Snowflakes may look the same when they’re falling, they aren’t – and people en masse look the same too.’ She nodded to herself. ‘The trick, Verity, is to see your own singularity and be a snowflake.’

  A hundred years have passed and this garden has become as blue as longing, beautiful and darkly protecting.

  The ghost of me waited through a hundred winters under the weight of snow and the secret it concealed.

  Because of you, I was finally able to wander in my forever night into the places where I’m safe – in the wood and this wild garden hoping, always hoping to find her.

  You knew me … and I knew you … I knew you … I knew you…

  I am a ghost and I have written my story into your dreams in ink made from my blood and the tears of birds.

  You heard me.

  You are brave enough for both of us.

  Sixty-two

  Meredith left soon after.

  Verity almost missed her going. When her friends decided they’d had enough of the cold, it was time for an adventure, and asked Meredith if she would go with them, she smiled and said, why not.

  She told her sister she’d thought about not saying goodbye because she didn’t want Verity to try and stop her.

  ‘Then I decided you wouldn’t let go of me until you knew there was no point in holding on.’

  ‘What am I supposed to do, if you go?’

  They sat on the bench in the square, watching the sky, still hoping for snow.

  ‘Write me down in your address book and I’ll seal it with a kiss.’

  ‘What do I write?’

  ‘My name for now, I’ll let you know the rest when I find it.’

  Verity found a pen and Meredith dug a deep red lipstick out of her bag, made a lipstick kiss on the page.

  ‘There you are. Now you won’t ever lose me.’

  ‘Can’t you at least stay until Christmas?’ Verity, bareheaded, wearing a long, navy-blue coat, held her gloveless hands in her lap.

  She still didn’t feel the cold.

  The trees were bare and against the pale sky they looked like a scribbled drawing. Verity watched how their shadows ran away from them across the gravel and onto the grass on the other side of the path.

  ‘Nain will be so disappointed if she doesn’t see you over the holiday. Without Gethin the house is empty…’

  (Mared had finally been persuaded her beloved brother would be happier in a home. ‘This is his home,’ she had said to Verity. ‘Yes, Nain, but you can’t manage. Neither of us can.’)

  ‘… and I’m out all day now,’ Verity went on. ‘Can’t you please stay, until Christmas Day?’

  Meredith blew into the wool of her mittens to warm her hands. ‘I’m sorry for Nain, really I am.’ She paused. ‘I don’t want to see her, Verity.’

  Verity nodded. ‘Aren’t you nervous, going off like this?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘I would be.’

  ‘No you wouldn’t.’ Meredith said, ‘You’re far braver than I’ve ever been.’

  ‘You’ve always done what you wanted.’

  ‘That’s not bravery, Verity, it’s self-preservation.’ Her voice softened. ‘You stuck to your guns and followed your dream. And look at you now. You’re practically a librarian.’

  For a moment neither of them said a word. Then they grinned and each of them made a face and said, ‘A librarian!’ extending the middle syllable in an almost perfect imitation of their mother. They burst out laughing and the sound of it sent a group of starlings into the air.

  Meredith watched them fly away. ‘Don’t call me brave, sis. I’m not. I’m a fraud, like her. Maybe if I go away I’ll work my real self out.’

  Verity turned to face her sister, laid an arm across the back of the bench. Meredith was wearing the rose-coloured beret and although most of her hair was caught inside it, a few red dreadlocks escaped and Verity touched one. ‘I love your hair that way.’

  Meredith stroked her sister’s bare hand and said nothing.

  ‘Why do you have to go?’ Verity maintained her gaze.

  ‘You know why.’

  Verity did.

  ‘Not really,’ she said.

  Meredith carried on stroking Verity’s hand. ‘S
pain isn’t so far. It’s warm there and maybe I’ll finally learn how to swim.’

  ‘I want you to stay.’

  ‘I know.’

  Meredith leaned back, still holding Verity’s hand, and swung her crossed feet sideways catching her heels on the gravel, the movement creating its own momentum.

  ‘You’ll ruin your boots,’ Verity said.

  Meredith said they were only boots and things could be replaced.

  It’s only things, Verity … not a house…

  ‘She’ll miss you.’

  ‘No she won’t.’

  ‘She’s not as bad as you think and she’s our mother…’

  ‘We don’t have parents, we have escape artists.’

  ‘And that’s why you’re going.’

  ‘Not entirely.’ Meredith shuffled down the bench, leaned against her sister’s shoulder. ‘I’m no one here, Verity, and when you aren’t anybody you have to make yourself up. I’ve been doing it ever since we came here and I’m tired of it.’

  A chill ran through Verity and it had nothing to do with the weather. Before she could speak, Meredith put her hand in her pocket and brought out a little box. She fumbled: the woolly mittens made her clumsy.

  She opened it and inside lay one the red hearts.

  Tears sprang into Verity’s eyes. ‘You kept them.’

  ‘Of course I did. I’ll keep them forever; the sewing-box too. I want you to have this one. Keep it close and so long as you do we’ll never be parted.’ She pressed the heart into Verity’s hand. ‘We’ll be inseparable. Indivisible.’

  ‘You and your words.’

  ‘You and your rationality.’

  Verity drew in a breath and blew it out, slowly, through pursed lips. ‘You’re going soon, aren’t you?’

  ‘Today.’

  ‘You can’t go today!’ Verity sat bolt upright, put the flannel heart down on the bench between them. She waited, not trusting herself to say anything else.

  ‘Yes I can,’ Meredith said picking up the heart and thrusting back into Verity’s hand. ‘And you have to take this and keep it and you know why. It’ll be all right, sis, I promise. We’ll be all right.’

  Don’t make promises you know you can’t keep…

  Verity brushed the heel of her hand across one of her eyes and didn’t look up. ‘I hate it when you call me sis.’

  ‘All right, Ver-it-y,’ Meredith said and laughed. ‘Verity, my best beloved sister, you have to promise too – you won’t come looking for me.’

  ‘I can’t promise that.’

  Verity said she hated her, because she didn’t know what else to say and because she wanted Meredith to cry, to be upset enough to change her mind.

  Meredith didn’t cry; she smiled and said, ‘No you don’t, you love me. Now swear on this, that you won’t look for me.’ She pulled her battered copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe from a deep pocket in her soldier’s coat. ‘And never say you hate me, only evil people say that.’

  ‘Idiot.’ Verity placed her hand on the book. ‘I swear and I’m sorry; I don’t know what I’m saying. Of course I love you. It’s why—’

  Meredith pulled her sister to her feet, took off her mittens and held Verity’s face in her hands, the way Nain did. ‘How about we make a deal? If I promise to keep in touch, you’re allowed to come and find me, but only when you’ve found the magic. I’ll come back for that.’

  Verity only half understood what Meredith meant; she knew it was the best she could hope for. ‘And you’ll always let me know where you are?’

  ‘Always. My name’s already in your silly old address book, remember?’

  ‘You promise?’

  ‘On Angharad’s life.’

  It was the first time in ages Meredith had said the ghost girl’s name. She fished in her pocket again. ‘Here, it’s your day for being given things.’

  In her hand lay a silver pendant shaped like a snowflake. Meredith opened the top of her coat, pulled out an identical one on a chain.

  ‘To remind us we’re unique.’ She placed the pendant in Verity’s palm, drew her into a hug.

  Verity closed her eyes, soaked up the scent of her sister’s hair, her old grief, her impossible optimism and it spread through her like medicine.

  ‘Like a spell,’ Meredith whispered. ‘And you aren’t allowed to worry about me either.’

  Their faces touched. Verity was on the brink of tears. She breathed deeply, inhaled Meredith some more, the scent and the inside out of her.

  ‘I’ll always worry about you.’

  She kissed her sister and let her go.

  Sixty-three

  Allegra stopped painting.

  It wasn’t a question of talent. She no longer drew any pleasure from her work and saw no point in it. For a while after Meredith left, she painted images of her daughter in emeralds and greens as pale as new leaves. She painted her lost daughter with green eyes and hair, dozens of pictures, each one poignant with her loss and missing until she could bear it no longer and gave up altogether.

  There was no longer any ego to Allegra and Verity found it unbearably sad. The shadow of a perpetual hangover clung to her mother as if the only thing she wanted was to exist in a state of withdrawal from the world.

  Because she was taller and still gauche, Verity remained in her mother’s sights. But Allegra had used up all her insults.

  ‘What am I doing in this dreary place?’ she asked, as if this daughter must surely have the answer.

  She patted tobacco into liquorice paper. The scent filled the room. Verity watched as Allegra twisted excess fibres from the end, dropped them into the pouch. She lit up and immediately began coughing, harsh paroxysms causing her to hold the heel of her hand against her heart.

  ‘Mam?’

  ‘I’m fine. You never give up do you?’

  The idea Verity might not know her sister forever only occurred to her once Meredith was gone.

  Now it was her turn to be broken. Although Meredith stayed in touch she was always reticent about her whereabouts. The only clue would be a stamp and a smattering of foreign words in amongst the English ones. In her neat, pretty hand she told Verity about bazaars and souks, heat and oceans as clear as glass. Although she insisted she loved the freedom, Verity knew that when a person took off with no directions it was usually because they were trying to get away from themselves.

  For years, what saddened her most was the absence, the whirlwind of Meredith’s obsessions, the cadence of her voice; the brilliant lights in her eyes foreshadowing her various moods.

  Verity knew her sister wouldn’t want to be found.

  On the few rare and precious occasions she telephoned, her voice always sounded as if it was a million miles away.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter where I am, so long as I’m somewhere.’

  If it wasn’t enough it would have to do. Verity pieced together her sister’s tattered life as best she could, made her promise to stay safe.

  Meredith continued to send cards and occasional letters, from Spain then France and Italy, until she moved further away and they tailed off. Verity added each new address and tried to understand.

  One night Meredith telephoned, sounding so far away she might as well have been on the moon. For an entire minute lasting an hour, she didn’t say a word and then told Verity not to worry, she was fine and the line went dead.

  On Verity’s eighteenth birthday, a parcel arrived, postmarked Morocco, and inside was a pair of soft leather gloves, dark blue, lined with grey fur, inlaid with the most exquisitely embroidered silver stars.

  “Wear them at night under the moon,” she wrote on a card, in her delicate writing.

  Star gloves from Morocco.

  It sounded like the name of a song.

  Sixty-four

  Verity met Carla in her first week at university and it began with a random act of kindness.

  Carla was lost, outside the wrong lecture room and Verity pointe
d the way.

  Later, this time in the right place, they met in the café. They were drawn to one another from the beginning and if other people viewed their relationship with a raised eyebrow, they took no notice.

  Verity, who had long suspected when her prince turned up she might be a princess, noticed how Carla moved between other people as if they were merely tall grasses in a breeze. She placed her tray on the table at precisely the same moment Verity put down hers.

  ‘Hello, again.’

  Neither of them gave their meeting more than a passing thought, until one day they did and it was perfect. Around them, people played the field, fell in love, broke up, broke down. Verity and Carla made friends and made it last.

  ‘You are my still point,’ Carla said.

  She had huge brown eyes and spiky hair the colour of toast. She was studying English Literature, loved The Smiths and that first day had roared with laughter when Verity said she preferred The Clash.

  ‘Who’s a dark horse? I wouldn’t have had you down as a punk.’

  ‘I’m on a mission to erase the relentless sound of a Fleetwood Mac earworm.’

  ‘Pourquoi?’

  Carla had a way with words too.

  ‘My sister was addicted to Stevie Nicks. Still can’t get it out of my head.’

  ‘And punk’s the antidote?’

  ‘Do I look like a punk?’

  Carla said no, Verity looked like she meant business, as if she knew more than she let on and she had dreams.

  ‘I have a dream of a common language.’

  ‘Adrienne Rich?’

  ‘You’ve heard of her?’

  ‘She’s my shero.’

  In the centre of Carla’s dark eyes, paths opened and Verity held her breath, held herself back.

  ‘And your sister?’

  ‘My sister is mine.’

  Within weeks Verity had told Carla so much about Meredith it felt like a betrayal. They wandered along the banks of a stream, watched the sun glittering on the water, shivery shadows of willow trees caught in the ripples. Carla brought a paper bag full of stale bread. She threw the bread out across the water and dozens of ducks appeared.

  ‘Disappearing and going away aren’t the same,’ she said. ‘Whichever way you view it though, the person isn’t there. Telling me is safe, Verity.’