The Lost Sister

by Tracy Buchanan

  But not so soon.

  She pauses at the entrance to her mum’s ward. The last time she was here would have been when she was a newborn on the maternity ward a floor down. She thinks of the photos she once pored over after her mum left, especially the one of her holding Becky in her arms, looking down at her with a frown, as though the tiny being was so confusing to her, so alien.

  Becky sighs and peers at the sign at the front of the ward.

  Ward 3. Oncology.

  The sight of that sign makes her stomach turn. She is used to seeing that word on notes and in books. That word was for her patients, which was bad enough anyway, but now it is for her mum.

  She takes a deep breath and walks in, past the smiling suns and fluffy clouds. She knows her mum would hate all that. Her old office in their first house was dark and brooding: an autumnal forest scene across one wall, brown paint on the others, mahogany furniture, the only sparks of colour in the form of deep purple cushions and scarlet pens. No doubt she is feeling out of sorts here in this hospital.

  Maybe that’s why she needs me, Becky reasons. A familiar face.

  Is she really so familiar though? It’s been ten years, after all. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in a window she passes: blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, her face makeup free. Old jeans peppered with muddy paw prints. At least her light blue T-shirt is fresh, pulled on from the top of the clean laundry pile in a rush. But it’s a contrast to her mum, who was always glamorous, always perfectly made-up. Would she be any different now? She was sixty-five, after all.

  Becky searches the ward for her mum. There are ten beds squeezed in. People are dozing. Some have visitors. There are cards wishing them well, flowers bright and thriving as though to detract from the life seeping from their recipients’ bodies.

  A male nurse passes. Becky wonders if it’s the nurse who was with her mum when she called.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she says, stopping him. ‘I’m looking for my mum, she’s—’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ he says, smiling. ‘You must be Miss Rhys’s daughter.’

  Becky nods. It is strange that her mum has kept her married name all this time, but Becky is not surprised. It is the name her readers know her as.

  ‘Come through. She’s in the private room,’ the nurse says.

  Private. Of course. She is an acclaimed author, after all.

  ‘Is it as bad as she says?’ Becky asks the nurse as they walk to her mum’s room.

  ‘I’m afraid so,’ he says with a sigh. ‘She does a good job of looking well, but it won’t be long.’ He pauses and puts a hand on Becky’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’

  Becky takes a deep breath. ‘I just had no idea, that’s all. We haven’t talked in years.’

  The nurse frowns. ‘She told me you were at her last book launch a few months ago.’

  Becky tenses. No doubt one of her mum’s embellishments. ‘No, she must be getting confused.’

  The nurse nods sympathetically. ‘It happens.’

  He leads her down a small corridor lined with doors, knocking gently on one of them.

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to knock, Nigel,’ Becky hears her mum call out. ‘God knows you’ve seen it all already the past few days.’

  It feels strange to hear her mum’s voice again, just a metre or so away instead of over the phone. Deep and gravelly like it’s scratched with sand.

  The nurse laughs. ‘Your daughter’s here, Miss Rhys.’

  Becky smooths her hair down, feeling nervous.

  ‘Come in then,’ her mum calls out. The nurse opens the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he whispers with a raised eyebrow. Then he walks away.

  Becky stands at the threshold. She can’t see her mum properly, just the end of her bed and a large window that looks out to sea. Suddenly, she feels the urge to run away. Hadn’t her mum once, when Becky needed her the most? She was just eight, for God’s sake. And yet her mum had still turned on her heel and left, hadn’t she?

  But she wasn’t like her mum.

  She walks in, her mum gradually revealed with each step she takes. She’s lying in bed, head turned towards the window, her once lush dark hair now brittle and greying in parts. Her arms that were once plump and tanned are now thin, papery and white, and her apple cheeks are sunken.

  She turns towards Becky. Even her blue eyes have changed. Once vivid but now pale and watery. The only sign of her old self is a kind of fierceness in those eyes. And, of course, the vividly coloured nightdress, bright green nightingales against navy skies.

  Her mum smiles slightly and, for a moment, time stops. Becky’s that eight-year-old girl again, standing on a windswept beach, reaching her hand out to her mum as she smiles down at her.

  ‘You came,’ her mum says.

  ‘Of course.’ Becky walks over as her mum struggles to pull herself up, adjusting the top of her nightdress. Becky examines her mum’s face. There are folds and creases there she’s unused to. Her mum was never smooth-faced – a few pockmarks from childhood acne on her cheeks, crinkles around her eyes even when she was young – but they made her even more beautiful. But her age is really showing now. The torment of illness.

  ‘Not quite how you remember me, I imagine,’ her mum says as though reading Becky’s thoughts.

  ‘It has been ten years,’ Becky replies. She moves a book from the chair by her mum’s bed so she can sit down. Love by Angela Carter. She remembers her mum reading a lot of Angela Carter’s books.

  ‘Has it really been ten years?’ her mum asks.

  ‘Yes, that long.’ Becky leans forward. She feels like she ought to take her mum’s hand, kiss her cheek. But things feel so brittle between them, like one touch might break everything. ‘How long have you known?’

  ‘I’ve known about the cancer for years.’

  Becky frowns. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I seem to recall you saying you never wanted to speak to me again the last time we talked.’

  Becky’s cheeks flush.

  ‘Anyway, I’ve been managing fine until now.’ Her mum straightens her crisp white bedsheets with her fingers and shrugs. ‘Had to catch up with me sooner or later, I suppose.’

  ‘I presume it’s spread?’ Becky asks.

  Her mum nods. ‘Brain. Bones. Liver. Cuticles and hair strands too, probably. The lot.’

  Becky turns away, a tear trailing down her cheek. Out of the corner of her eye, she notices her mum reaching her hand out for her.

  Then there’s a knock on the door.

  Her mum lowers her hand. ‘Come in!’ she calls out in a faux bright voice.

  A doctor walks in; an Indian woman, tall and serious looking.

  ‘Ah, you have a visitor,’ the doctor says, smiling.

  ‘Yes, this is my daughter,’ Becky’s mum replies.

  Becky stands, putting her hand out to the doctor. ‘I’m Becky.’

  The doctor shakes it. ‘Doctor Panchal.’ She turns to her patient. ‘How are you today?’

  ‘Not dead yet,’ Becky’s mum replies.

  Doctor Panchal gives her a stern look. She turns to Becky. ‘I’m pleased you’re here. Your mum may have explained that we’re making preparations to move her to a hospice, a very good one. They have an excellent reputation in palliative care.’

  Becky blinks. Palliative care. End of life. End of her mum’s life.

  ‘My daughter’s one of you lot, you know,’ her mum says to the doctor.

  ‘You’re a doctor too?’ the doctor asks Becky.

  ‘No, a vet,’ Becky explains.

  The doctor smiles. ‘Wonderful. I have two cats.’

  ‘What sort?’ Becky asks, clutching onto the familiar conversation to stop her whirling down a rabbit’s hole of grief.

  ‘Siamese.’

  ‘I had a Siamese cat in one of my novels,’ her mum says.

  ‘Oh yes,’ the doctor replied. ‘The Circle, wasn’t it?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Becky’s mum sighs. ‘It’s actually m
y least favourite novel.’

  ‘Oh really?’ the doctor says. ‘I loved it!’

  It still feels alien to Becky, hearing people fuss over her mum’s novels. She was used to those early years, when her mum was struggling to make a success of things. But now, her mum has several million book sales and awards under her belt. Of course, she’d watched it all happen from afar, reading articles in newspapers describing her mum as the ‘Sunday Times bestselling author’ and ‘book club favourite’, the publicity photo of her staring out to sea, trademark sunglasses on, all Greta Garbo-esque. Then she’d won a major book award a few months later, and foreign deals meant she made it big in the States too.

  At first, she gave interviews that Becky would read and throw away in frustration when she saw the little white lies littered throughout them: ‘My divorce was amicable; I still see my husband.’ Or: ‘I see my daughter as much as I can.’

  But the articles petered out after her mum started withdrawing from the public eye – no more inviting journalists into her home to chat. Becky had been surprised at how much she’d resented that. She was hungry for more details of her mum’s life outside the brief visits they had before they became estranged, so her mum’s new solitude made her angry.

  And then her mum had moved to the vast house above the cave. Becky had found out about it a few years ago after reading a feature in one of the glossy Sunday magazines, a photo of the ‘reclusive author’ outside her new home, the cave sprawled out below it. Becky wanted to call the journalist who’d written the piece and scream: ‘That cave was where she ran away to! That was what she abandoned me for.’

  But she hadn’t. Of course she hadn’t. Instead, she tried to ignore any mention of her mum, of her growing book sales and accolades, glamour and enigma.

  ‘I think Becky could have been a good writer actually,’ her mum says now.

  Becky laughs. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘You won that short story competition once, remember?’

  Becky knows what she’s referring to. And she hadn’t won it, she’d got third place. She was still proud though, and had even brought it to one of the monthly meet-ups she’d had with her mum in those initial years after she’d left. Her mum had read the story, then peered up at her. ‘You’ll improve, with time.’ And that was it, nothing else.

  ‘I came third, Mum,’ Becky says now.

  ‘Oh, first or third, it doesn’t matter. It was a wonderful story.’

  Becky frowned. ‘You didn’t give that impression when you read it!’

  ‘Probably because I was trying to hide the fact I was about to start crying.’ She looks at the doctor. ‘I get teary when I’m proud. What about art?’ she continues. ‘You were always so good at drawing, Becky. Remember that painting you did of the horse for my fortieth birthday?’

  ‘Dog.’

  ‘Ah yes, dog. Such a fabulous painting. If you’d just put your mind to—’

  ‘I did put my mind to something!’ Becky exclaims, her patience running out. ‘I’m a vet!’

  The doctor raises an eyebrow. ‘Okay, I’ll leave you both to catch up.’ She backs out of the room, shutting the door quietly behind her.

  ‘You’re a bit tetchy this evening,’ her mum says when the doctor leaves.

  ‘Discovering your mother’s dying kind of does that to a girl.’

  Her mum smiles and Becky can’t help but smile back. She knows how spiky her mum can be. Why get upset about it now, when they have so little time left?

  ‘So the hospice your doctor mentioned sounds nice,’ she says, sitting down again.

  Her mum makes a face. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘It’ll be the best place for you, really.’

  She crosses her thin arms. ‘Nope. Not happening.’

  ‘But you can’t stay here,’ Becky counters as gently as she can. ‘Hospices like the one your doctor mentioned are there for a very specific reason. And many of them have lovely, beautiful grounds. They’re peaceful places, and more spacious.’

  Her mum pulls at her sheets, biting her lip. ‘It doesn’t matter. I’d still feel trapped.’

  Trapped.

  Becky has a memory then, of her mum standing in front of the mirror at home. ‘Trapped, I feel trapped,’ she remembers her saying.

  She pushes the memory away. ‘Look Mum,’ Becky says gently. ‘I think it’s important you—’

  ‘I said no!’ her mum shouts. Her voice bounces off the walls. She leans forward, grasping Becky’s hands. ‘I know where I want to die and I need your help to do it.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘The cave. I want to die in the cave.’

  Becky moves back. ‘It’s out of the question.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You don’t understand the care involved. Your priority soon will be comfort. Rest and comfort. And being in a cave will not provide that.’

  ‘It did once,’ her mum counters.

  Becky feels anger bubble up. It’s so tempting to ask her mum where her eight-year-old daughter’s comfort was when she was lying in bed alone at night, wondering when her mum would return. But instead, Becky forces a soft smile, squeezing her mum’s hand.

  ‘I promise you won’t regret going to the hospice. Let me get more information about it, and some others too so you have options. I think you’ll come to realise it’s the right thing to do.’

  Her mum shakes her head in frustration. ‘Please, you’re the only hope I have, Becky! These people here won’t chance it, all obsessed with health and bloody safety. What does it matter when I’m dying anyway?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I couldn’t do that to you. Let me go and ask about those brochures. Is there anything you need me to get for you while I’m out there? Shall I go to the shop, get some chocolates, a magazine?’

  Her mum’s face turns glacial and she looks away. ‘No. I’d like to be alone actually. Probably best if you go home. It’s late.’

  Becky watches her mum for a few moments. ‘Are you sure? I can stay, really.’

  Her mum folds the top of the bedsheet down, smoothing it. ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘Right.’ Becky stands up. ‘You know my number, just call if you need anything. I’ll be back first thing tomorrow.’

  Still no response.

  Becky leans over, squeezing her mum’s shoulder. ‘It’ll be okay,’ she says softly. ‘Sleep on it. Things always seem clearer in the morning.’

  Her mum’s forehead crinkles slightly. ‘Someone else said the opposite to me once. That clarity comes with darkness.’ Then she sighs and closes her eyes.

  Chapter Six

  Selma

  Kent, UK

  27 July 1991

  Idris was wearing just shorts, holding a fishing line in his hands. His golden hair fell to his tanned shoulders, and his green eyes were so vivid they didn’t seem real. His bare chest was bathed in moonlight and, in that light, I saw scars tapering down his chest.

  ‘You can,’ he said again, stepping towards me. ‘Whatever the question in your mind is, you must answer yes.’

  I looked at him in surprise. ‘How did you know I even had a question?’

  ‘You’re on a precipice. I can sense it.’ He placed his rod down and sat beside me, looking out to sea. He smelt of the sea, salty and luxurious. ‘Your body screams it,’ he said. ‘Your posture, the expression on your face, everything.’

  I crunched my hands into fists, watching as the sand squeezed out between my fingers. I wasn’t sitting on this beach to be preached to by someone like him, no matter how much he fascinated me.

  ‘I came here to be alone,’ I said.

  ‘Then I’ll leave.’ He went to get up.

  ‘Wait!’ I couldn’t let him go before asking something. ‘How do you know so much about me? My name? The fact I’m an author?’

  He gestured towards the small bookshop in town. ‘You did a signing there.’

  ‘Ages ago.’

  ‘They still have a poster up at the back.’

  �
�Ah. I see.’

  ‘We’re all reading your book. It’s wonderful.’

  ‘The Queensbay Cave Dwellers’ Bookclub, is it now?’

  He laughed. ‘Something like that. I’ll leave you to it then.’

  He went to walk away but something inside me wanted him back. I was so curious about him. Why was I sending him away?

  ‘Wait. Stay. It’s fine. Now I know you have good reading taste anyway.’

  He smiled, walking over and sitting next to me again. ‘Is that how you judge people, by what they read?’

  ‘Why not?’

  We sat in silence for a few moments more, then I turned to him. ‘You said I should say yes to the question in my mind. What if yes means losing everything?’

  He thought about it, brow creasing. ‘What is everything to you?’

  ‘My family. My husband and daughter.’

  He explored my face. ‘No. I don’t think that’s everything.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘If that’s the case, that your family is everything, that it makes you whole, why are you looking so empty right now?’

  I took in a deep breath then let it out.

  ‘Society tells you family is everything,’ he said, drawing a circle in the sand with his finger beneath the moonlight. ‘But for some, it’s not enough. For some, there needs to be more.’ He drew an oval around the circle, turning it into an eye.

  ‘What kind of more?’ I asked, feeling my heart thump against my chest, the hair on my arms stand on end. I did feel I was on the precipice of something. Idris was right.

  ‘You’re a writer,’ he stated. ‘How do you feel when you’re writing?’

  I paused a few moments. ‘Right,’ I said eventually. ‘It just feels … right.’

  ‘It makes you feel whole?’

  I nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘We have callings in life.’ I couldn’t help but scoff and Idris smiled. ‘I know how clichéd that sounds, but it’s the truth. We each have a role to play. Our true callings. Anything that takes us away from that makes us unhappy.’