25
‘Are you sure you want to get rid of all of these?’
Annie was standing by the open back doors, a cardboard box full of ornaments balanced in her arms.
Holly had so far chickened out of telling her about the plans to sell. Why upset Annie now, when she’d be gone in a few days anyway?
‘I’m not really one for ornaments,’ she smiled, choosing to ignore the fact that she’d already stashed the little glass turtle in her suitcase. ‘I’d like a charity to make some money from them, if they could. Better that they go to someone who will appreciate them.’
‘But won’t the place look a bit bare?’ Annie persisted. She’d made a big show of nosing around every single room as soon as she’d arrived that morning, but if she was surprised by the changes Holly had made, she didn’t mention it.
‘Thank you for helping me out like this,’ Holly told her, carefully sidestepping Annie’s original question.
‘Oh, it’s no bother. No bother at all,’ Annie beamed at her. There was a patch of angry-looking red skin on her chest where she’d clearly spent too long in the sun. She’d driven her rickety old car up the hill so she could fill the boot with boxes, and Holly was amazed when the entire chassis didn’t buckle under the weight. As she eased a box of particularly chintzy crockery on to the back seat, she saw that the gearstick was held together by reams of Sellotape.
‘Is this thing safe to drive?’ Holly asked, earning herself a shout of mirth from Annie as she clambered behind the wheel.
‘I assumed you wanted to keep that last box of stuff in the bedroom,’ she said, fiddling with the rear-view mirror.
‘Which box?’ Holly was confused. She’d been sure that her aunt’s room was clear.
‘It was under the bed,’ Annie said, doing up her seat belt. ‘If you don’t want it, just bring it on down to the bar later, yeah?’
‘I will.’ Holly waved her off, trying not to wince as Annie performed a five-point turn, narrowly missing the wall, the moped and a cat that was sunning itself on the kerb. Aidan’s jeep was mercifully missing, which had elicited a groan of disappointment from Annie when she’d arrived earlier that morning. ‘It would have taken half the time with some extra muscle,’ she’d proclaimed. Probably true, but Holly would rather pack boxes with her teeth than ask Aidan for any help.
Filling a glass with cold water from the fridge, she headed back upstairs to investigate this mysterious box. She was hoping that it would contain some more sewing stuff. She’d long since plundered the original supplies.
No wonder she hadn’t seen it before; the box was jammed into the furthest corner and was surrounded by a tangled heap of dust and hair. Yanking it out across the rug made Holly cough, and she brushed irritably at the fresh dirt on her clean shorts. The shoebox looked old and battered and the lid was held in place by several elastic bands. The thick layer of dust covering the top suggested to Holly that it hadn’t been opened in a fair while, and she experienced a tremor of foreboding. Just like the day that she’d discovered that message from Rupert on her phone, she felt convinced that she was about to see something that perhaps she’d rather not.
The first postcard on the pile confirmed her fears.
Friday, 30 June 2000
Sandra,
I’m writing to tell you that this will be the last time. It’s been so long since I left the island and I have never heard a word from you. I did what I promised – I left and I never came back. I kept what happened a secret, like you asked. I haven’t even told Holly, even though it breaks my heart to keep things from her. She’s fifteen today – can you believe it? She’s a better teenager than I ever was. I was out drinking by the time I was her age (some habits never die), but all she’s interested in is her sewing kit. She’s much more like you than me. You should see Holly, even if you won’t see me. Think about it. As for you and me – I think it’s time to stop begging. My heart is black with self-loathing. I will never forgive myself for losing you. Goodbye, Sandy.
Your twin,
Jenny x
So, her mum had tried to stay in touch with Sandra. Ever since she arrived on the island, Holly had assumed that the blame for the estrangement lay firmly with her mother. Despite what Sandra had written in her letter about being unworthy of forgiveness, Holly knew that her mum had been flaky. It was how she’d always been as Holly was growing up – flighty, disorganised, impatient and eventually utterly disconnected, not just where Holly herself was concerned, but from life in general. She’d watched as her mum had given up on living, so it wasn’t far-reaching to think she’d given up on her own twin sister too.
The truth, though, which was becoming ever more apparent as Holly skim-read the pile of postcards, was that her mum had tried to build bridges. So many times she read the words in her mother’s familiar handwriting, asking Sandra if she could come back to visit, begging that they could put the past behind them – but it appeared that her pleas had landed on deaf ears.
After the final postcard from June 2000, in which Jenny had sworn she would not write again, there were no more messages from her mother, but there were more postcards addressed to Sandra, carefully written in her mum’s hand. She’d simply sent blank postcards every few months, right up until – Holly peered at the date next to the stamp – six months before she died.
They must have meant something to Sandra, or why would she have kept them boxed up like this?
There were more photos in the box too, some of Sandra and Jenny on the island, tanned and grinning, and lots of them as children. Someone had written on the back of a few in spindly blue pen: Jenny in Athens aged six. J&S, Zakynthos, 1970. They all looked so happy.
Holly stacked the postcards into date order and began reading them again, this time taking in every word. Some of the stuff she read made her smile:
Do you remember the time it snowed on the island and we ran starkers down the beach to Porto Koukla? … I thought we would die laughing.
While other bits struck a deeper chord:
Holly would have loved to see you. I won’t let her forget her Auntie Sandra, I promise.
As she read, Holly realised with a shiver of understanding that her suspicions about being on the island before had been correct. She clearly had been here in Zakynthos, and she’d even met Sandra, although she had no memory of it. There was something there, beyond all the darkness that she’d bricked up so carefully, a spark of something bright and full of joy. Could it be her memories of the time she’d spent here as a child?
Writing to you seemed like a better idea than opening a bottle of vodka, although neither one makes me feel any better.
Holly continued reading in the hope that she’d stumble across a mention of what had happened, but all there seemed to be were pleas from her mother to be forgiven. One postcard talked about the sale of Jenny and Sandra’s childhood home in Kent, with her mum lamenting the fact that Sandra had instructed a solicitor to throw away all her belongings. Jenny had decided against keeping any of the furniture in the end, as she and Holly were still living in rented accommodation at the time and it was all a bit much for her to deal with. She’d written to Sandra thanking her for organising it all and told her that she planned to invest her share of the money in her friend’s business venture.
Holly had no idea what had happened to all that money, but there certainly hadn’t been any left at the end. Given the company her mum had kept throughout her life, though, Holly wasn’t surprised the inheritance had been frittered away.
Jenny had told her when she was still very young that her own parents had both been only children, and she’d never met any grandparents that she could remember. How sad, Holly thought now, that her family seemed to be locked into this awful cycle of losing their parents at a young age. Jenny was too young to lose her mum and dad, just as Holly had been too young to lose Jenny – things could have been so different for all of them if fate had only given them a break. When she’d read through all the postcards a third
time, Holly lost her battle against the tears.
It’s been so long since I left the island and I have never heard a word from you. I did what I promised – I left and I never came back. I kept what happened a secret, like you asked. I haven’t even told Holly, even though it breaks my heart to keep things from her.
What had her mother kept from her? What had been so devastating that it engendered so much loss and regret? It dawned on Holly now that this rift with Sandra was probably a lot to do with why her mother had eventually turned to the bottle. Whatever it was had clearly been eating away at her for years, and without Sandra’s forgiveness allowing her to move on, the booze had perhaps provided a refuge. Holly sobbed for her mother, imagining how wretched she must have felt. She had long ago reached the point where she’d almost forgotten what it felt like to be loved by her mum, but these postcards proved that she had been.
In the end, when Jenny’s alcoholism had stolen her away, she’d become a shell of the person Holly cared so much about. The lines between sweet Jenny and damaged Jenny had become so blurred in Holly’s mind that she’d started to think of her as having always been that way. Everything that had come before, which had been so happy, was infected with the harsh reality of how Jenny had ended up. The past was tainted by the present, and Holly’s heart had closed itself to the idea of forgiveness. Sitting here now, surrounded by the words of hope and love that her mum had written, Holly knew that she must forgive her. For everything. For the drinking, for the neglect, for the lies and for never introducing Holly to this place, this beautiful island. Jenny had wanted nothing more than for Holly to know her aunt and spend time in the place she’d presumably loved so much as a child, but it was Sandra who had stood in their way. She must let go of it all now, she knew that. It was the only way she would ever be able to be happy.
As she shuffled the postcards into a stack and went to return them to the box, Holly noticed a yellow envelope at the bottom that she hadn’t spotted before. Turning it over, she felt a jolt as she saw her mother’s name written on the front.
Dear Jenny,
I’ve sat down and written this letter so many times, but I’ve never been able to send it. I haven’t received a postcard from you in over two years now, so I’m trying my best not to think the worst. I always was a coward – you were the brave one. You led and I followed. I often think that my life would have been very dull without you in it, but then I also wish that you hadn’t always been quite so headstrong. You always went after what you wanted when I knew you, as I’m sure you still do now, but why did one of those things have to belong to me?
I remember the day I got that postcard from you telling me that you were leaving India and coming here, and I confess that I felt nervous. When Mum and Dad died you turned into such a brittle version of yourself. We’d always been so close, but even I couldn’t crack through that protective shell you built up around you. When you left to go travelling, I was devastated, but a small part of me was also relieved. I’d lost my parents too, but I felt like I wasn’t allowed to grieve for them like you did. I didn’t have the indulgence of misery because I was too busy looking after you.
I came here to get away from all the ghosts back home and when I met Dennis I just felt as if I’d been reborn. I’d always been fearful of falling in love, as you know, but with him it felt so easy. I know you could tell how I felt about him as soon as you arrived, but I can distinctly remember seeing a look on your face, perhaps it was just for a brief second, but it was a look that told me I belonged to you, not to him.
I know Dennis was just another man to you, but he was everything to me. He was the reason I wanted to open my eyes in the morning and the reason why I never wanted to close them at night. He taught me what love really was and for a time I’d even started to love myself too. You never had that trouble. How is it, do you think, that we can be twins but be so different? Perhaps if I was more carefree like you, I would have been able to forgive you for what happened, but I can’t, even after all these years. I have tried, I promise, but these black feelings just won’t go away. They’ve poisoned my life, perhaps even my soul, and it’s been so long now that they’ve just become part of who I am. Asking me to give them up would be like asking for a piece of my heart.
Sometimes I think that if you’d told me in the beginning, before Holly was born, that I may have been able to find a way to forgive you – but to wait all those years? You let me love that little girl when all along you knew what she was, who her real father was. That was cruel of you, Jenny. You should have let me decide who I wanted to love, but you knew I’d love that little girl more than life.
Dennis became someone different to me overnight. All that love I felt for him just sucked right out of me, and it left this gaping hole of rage and bitterness. I know you told me that it only happened one time, that you were both drunk and that it was you who made the first move, but his eyes told me different. Of course, he denied knowing that Holly was his, but how could I believe him? I’ve tortured myself imagining the three of you taking secret trips out together on the boat. Sharing some family bonding while I waited at home, none the wiser. It makes me so angry that I want to grab the two of you by the hair and shake you. I know Holly is the innocent one, but the thought of looking into those big brown eyes of hers again – his eyes – well, that just breaks my heart all over again. He was mine, but you took a part of him that could never, ever be mine. How can I forgive you for that?
Perhaps I will send this letter to you one day, but I don’t think I’ll ever have the guts. You were always the brave one, Jenny. I wish I had been stronger, but I wasn’t.
Not a day passes that I don’t think about you and wish things could be different, but I don’t believe they ever will. I gave up on love a very long time ago.
Sandra
So, there it was. Dennis, the man in that photo she’d found, the same man who Kostas had informed her was ‘with Sandra’. He was her father.
For a long time, Holly just sat on the rug, the letter in her hands, her tears causing the ink to run into untidy streaks down the page. There was so much to take in. Jenny had slept with her own twin sister’s boyfriend and she, Holly, had been the result. She was the reason they had stopped speaking to each other. This was what her mum must have meant when she told Holly that she should have given her up. And the worst thing of all – Holly had followed in her mum’s footsteps and done exactly the same thing. She’d become a cheat. All these years she’d been promising herself that she would be nothing like her mum, and she’d gone and turned into her without even noticing. What Sandra had written about Jenny putting up a protective shield around herself had made Holly wince with recognition. And she knew what it was to be crippled by grief too – but was it reason enough to behave the way Jenny had?
She forced herself to remember what she’d been like in the weeks and months after Jenny’s death. She’d be doing her best to go about her business as usual, then she’d suddenly be hit by a tidal wave of hopelessness and anger. Sometimes the pain was so acute that it left her gasping for breath at the side of the road. She could very easily believe that grief on that level could make a person do anything. Certainly do anything they could to escape the agony. Poor Jenny, and poor Sandra too. Once that sadness had got under their skin, they were both lost.
The truth that she had an actual, real, presumably still-living father was slowly working its way through Holly’s senses. The shock of the revelation was still resonating, but she could sense a surge of emotion brewing in her chest. She’d looked at that photo so many times and never made the connection – never even questioned it. She’d always held on to a fairy-tale belief that she’d know her dad the second she saw him. She’d imagined walking past him in the street or sitting opposite him on the tube. Now all she felt was confused, upset, and very, very angry.
She read her Aunt Sandra’s letter again, sniffing away her tears and wiping them angrily from her cheeks. It was implied that her dad had known
about her, but he too had chosen not to pursue any sort of relationship with her. Even if her mum had fled Greece, he could have tried. Or perhaps he had. Maybe he had come all the way to their door only to be turned away. It seemed unlikely, but then so did the idea of finding out you had a father in a dusty old box of postcards. At this moment in time, Holly believed that literally anything could be possible. What she needed was answers. She needed to find Dennis and ask him what happened that summer. Ask him why he’d abandoned her. But where the hell was she even meant to start?
When the knocking started downstairs, it made Holly jump so violently that she cracked her elbow on the bedframe. It was loud and insistent, but she didn’t move. Whoever it was, she didn’t want to see them.
‘HOLLY!’ Aidan’s voice was muffled, but he sounded upset. So what? He could sod off.
‘HOLLY! You really need to let me in!’
She didn’t move. The sunlight shining in through the window was illuminating the cloud of dust she’d disturbed by unearthing the box, and she watched as the particles danced and dived around each other.
‘HOLLY, PLEASE!’
Bloody hell, what was his problem?
Holly stayed put, even when she heard a key in the lock and the sound of running feet on the stairs. Aidan appeared in the bedroom doorway a second later, his cheeks flushed and a bunch of keys in his hand. A quick scan of the room caused him to look momentarily confused, and then he beckoned to her.
‘Come on, we need to go.’
‘Go where?’
Aidan sighed and crouched down on his haunches.
‘To the hospital.’
My Map of You Page 25