The Lost Sister

by Tracy Buchanan

  Becky smiles. How typical of her mum.

  She walks around the bar to the side of the room towards some French doors leading out to a large enclosed garden littered with trees and, to her surprise, swings, a treehouse with a slide, even toys discarded on the lawn. They look too new to have been there when the house was a hotel all those years ago. So why are they here now? She wonders for a moment if her sister did stay with her mum, hidden away in this vast hotel. But why no mention of her in the will? Why hadn’t her mum told her about her sister earlier?

  Either way, there must have been children here. Becky can’t help but feel a dig of jealousy. Her mum couldn’t stick around when she was a child but it looks like she was happy to have them here.

  The dogs scratch at the French doors so Becky tries some of the keys on the bunch she was given by the solicitor, finally finding one to open them.

  ‘Behave!’ she calls to the dogs as they dart out. She pours some water into a travel bowl and leaves it on the steps for them, then heads back out to the hallway towards some dark stairs that twist upward from behind the reception area. She climbs them, finding there are two further floors, one with several rooms leading to en-suite bathrooms. Some are empty, others are lined with cardboard boxes, piles of books, and clothes draped over chairs. Some have been made into simple guest rooms, clearly recently used, with crumpled sheets and glasses of misty water on the bedside tables. Who stayed here with her mum? She thinks back to the funeral, the many faces … and yet her mum had been described as a recluse. It didn’t make sense.

  Becky goes up the next flight of stairs and knows instantly this is where her mum must have spent most of her time. The walls are papered in luxurious patterns with hummingbirds and exotic flowers. Becky walks down the hallway, fingertips gliding over the walls. She imagines her mum doing the same each day, and bites her lip to stop the tears. The grief still hasn’t really hit her. It’s just so much to take in. So confusing, too. She hadn’t seen her mum in recent years, so the gap left behind isn’t tangible. But it still somehow feels vast.

  There’s a large bathroom with a duck-egg-blue bath that has cast-iron feet. A towel lies discarded on the floor. Becky goes over to it, picking it up and bringing it to her nose, smelling her mum. Her tears wet the material and she gently folds it, placing it on one of the shelves.

  She notices a small amount of blood on one of the double sinks, then some more on the navy blue tiles. Did her mum fall? Is that why she ended up in hospital, no longer able to care for herself?

  Becky sits on the pretty wooden chair by the window, looking out to sea as she clenches her fists. Why didn’t her mum just call her when she started to deteriorate? She would have come to help in an instant, despite all that had passed between them. But instead, she was left to spend her last weeks struggling. She may have had carers but, still, it must have been difficult.

  Becky goes to the room across the hall, no doubt her mum’s bedroom. Her slippers still lie on the plush patterned rug, the bed unmade. There’s hair in her brush, the wardrobe left open to reveal an array of beautiful dresses. And a book, face down on the side table, spine bent, waiting to be continued. It’s her mum’s first novel. Was she reading it again, a step back in time as death descended?

  Becky leans against the wall. It feels as though she’s trekking up a hill, the torrent of grief catching up with her now. She closes her eyes, tears squeezing out between her eyelashes as she remembers her mum’s last breath, and her last words too: Why would I lie about something like that?

  Could she really have a sister out there? She looks at her phone. Still no message from her dad.

  ‘Right,’ Becky says to herself, wiping her tears away. ‘Pull yourself together.’ She checks on the dogs out of the window, happy to see them behaving, then heads down the hallway to the door at the end, her mum’s study … the most important room in the house. She takes a deep breath and walks in.

  The room is large, with huge windows looking out over sea views, the cave – her mum’s precious cave – just a hundred or so metres below. Her mum would have written her recent books on that driftwood desk, similar to the dining table downstairs. Her presence seeps from the dark wallpapered walls and Becky can almost see her sitting there, maybe thinking of the child that was taken from her.

  Why would Idris do that? Maybe her mum had threatened to leave him and this was his reaction. Parents did that, didn’t they? Snatch children away as punishment?

  Becky sighs. It’s no good speculating. She walks around the room. There are some framed covers of her mum’s books on the walls, all similar in theme: title and name in purple bold typeface, formed into a circle atop the silhouette of a woman’s face. Award certificates join them too, including one for the Baileys Women’s Prize for Fiction the previous year. Becky had learnt about the win from a newspaper she saw someone reading in the practice’s waiting room. It had shocked her, seeing her mum’s face staring out at her: one of her dark eyebrows was raised, her lips painted scarlet red, shoulders swathed in black silk, still so beautiful in her sixties. For a moment, she was tempted to call her mum and congratulate her. But then she’d remembered her mum’s absence from her graduation a few years before. She’d just got a small card of congratulations for that, nothing else. Why did she deserve more? So Becky had sent her a congratulatory card too, but she’d spent ages looking for just the right one. She found one that featured a woman on a cliff, peering out to sea. When you looked closer, you could see the cliff was made from piles of books. Her mum hadn’t acknowledged it. She’d thought there might be a phone call. But nothing.

  Becky walks to the desk, misshapen and stretched across the corner of the room. There’s a mug sitting on it, congealed milk at the bottom that’s beginning to smell. Becky leans over the desk, opening the window to let fresh air in. As she does, she notices a pair of glasses on the table, a trace of foundation on the bridge. A pile of paper lies in the in-tray, some of it spilling onto the floor, contracts and invoices probably ignored. Her agent had promised to check out any paperwork. Becky reaches to gather everything up, ready to place in her bag to post the next day, then pauses.

  On top of the pile is an old copy of the National Geographic, opened to a faded article featuring a photo of a group of people sitting on a hill, caves spread up above them, rows of houses below. The Cave Dwellers of Sacromonte, the headline reads. The people pictured are an eclectic mix. In the middle stands a man with long blond hair, his hand on the shoulder of a young girl of about three or four. But she can’t make out their faces properly, the magazine looks pretty old after all. Could the man be Idris? She’d seen glimpses of him as a child, remembers his long white hair. But not much more, so she can’t be sure.

  But her mum had clearly been interested in him. His face is circled, as is the face of the young girl with him.

  Becky picks the article up, heart thumping as she looks at the child, then at the date: June 1996. If her mum had given birth just before Becky left for Busby-on-Sea with her dad, then her sister would be around the same age as the little girl in the photograph then. Could it be her sister? Maggie had mentioned Spain.

  Becky sits down on the chair, the article in her hands. Maybe they were still in Spain – the article describes the caves as ‘permanent dwellings’ after all.

  A breeze drifts in from the window, and out of the corner of her eye, Becky sees something fluttering. She looks towards an armchair by the bookshelves, noticing a range of paper objects hanging from the ceiling there: Birds. Bats. Shells. She imagines them being real, frozen creatures with their lives on hold.

  She walks over and reaches up, her fingers grazing one of the bird’s wings. It twirls, sunlight glinting on its pink paper feathers, turning them silver. Then Becky notices something. On the back of each one are small photos, printed over and over.

  She raises herself to get a better look then gasps. They are photos of Becky, lots of different ones of her as newborn and a child … and as an adult,
too. In fact, one of them is taken from her profile page on the veterinary practice website.

  Becky puts her hand to her chest. Her mum was following her progress all this time.

  Then she notices another face behind the smallest bird: a baby, tiny with its eyes closed.

  Her sister?

  Did her mum sit here watching her daughters’ faces twirl around above her? Two daughters she let slip through her fingers.

  ‘Oh Mum,’ Becky whispers, tears gathering in her eyes.

  ‘Becky?’

  Becky looks up with a start, surprised to see her dad standing at the door.

  ‘Dad, you scared the life out of me! What are you doing here?’

  ‘I got your message yesterday.’ He steps in, looking tired. He’s fair-skinned like Becky, tall and slim, blue-eyed with a bald head. Each time she sees him, she realises how old he’s getting, nearly seventy now. ‘I should have come to the funeral. I’m sorry, love.’

  She strides towards him and hugs him, feeling him stiffen slightly in her arms. He was never one for hugs, not like her mum was. She missed that when her mum left, the way she’d always be hugging and kissing her when they lived together. Becky’s dad tried his best. It wasn’t that he was cold or unkind. He just didn’t know how to show affection like her mum had. He had been there for Becky all those years though, just him. She’ll always be grateful for that.

  ‘I thought you were going away?’ Becky asks him.

  ‘I had to come back. It felt wrong you being alone at a time like this. I could hear in your voice you needed me.’

  Love rushes through Becky. She gives him another hug. ‘Thanks, Dad. That really means a lot.’

  Her dad walks around the office, his fingers faintly gliding over everything.

  ‘Is Cynthia here?’ Becky peers into the hallway. Truth is, she hopes she isn’t. She’s never got on with her stepmother. Her dad had actually met her when he was still with Becky’s mum. She was one of the school gate mums. They’d shared some playdates after her mum left and the two kept in touch over all those years. She clearly cared for Mike, but Becky could never warm to her. The way she held herself all straight-backed and stiff with her glacier eyes like she was above everyone. It just didn’t sit right with Becky.

  ‘No, she’s rather annoyed at me for coming here actually,’ Mike replies.

  Becky grimaces. ‘Oops.’

  Her dad smiles slightly. ‘Won’t do me any harm putting my foot down every now and again.’ He walks over to his ex-wife’s desk, placing his palm against it. ‘This is just how I’d imagine your mum’s office to be. The whole house, actually. She always said she’d buy this place. Good on her for doing it.’ He smiles sadly. ‘So,’ he says, taking a deep breath. ‘How was the funeral?’

  He doesn’t turn to look at Becky when he says that but she can tell from the slump of his shoulders he’s finding it difficult. He loved her mum after all, and he hadn’t wanted them to split up. Becky had caught him crying once, a few weeks after her mum left. He’d quickly recovered himself – lied and said he’d got something in his eye. But Becky had known, even at that age, how heartbreaking it was for him, for both of them. She wished they’d talked about it more, shared the burden.

  ‘Shall we get some tea?’ Becky says. ‘I’d better let the dogs in before they dig up the garden anyway.’

  ‘Yes, I heard them running around out there,’ he comments, following her out. He pauses to look back at the study, shoulders slumping in sadness. Then he sighs and walks out.

  Five minutes later, they’re sitting at the large table overlooking the sea with two steaming mugs of tea. The dogs are sprawled out on the floor, Womble with his chin on Mike’s feet. He was a bit like her mum, never one for dogs. But he tolerated them, had even grown to feel some affection for them. Cynthia, on the other hand, couldn’t abide them. She’d kick them away from her; something Becky’s mum never would have done – despite everything that had passed, hurting others was not in her nature.

  ‘I feel bad for rushing the phone call the other week,’ Mike says. ‘I was in shock.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘It was all rather sudden, wasn’t it?’

  ‘It was.’

  ‘And the funeral. Was it … bearable?’

  Becky looks down at her mug. ‘It felt more like a large publishing bash, to be honest. A sombre one, anyway.’

  Her dad coughs slightly. ‘I feel bad you had to endure it alone.’

  ‘Oh, it’s fine Dad,’ she says, shooting him a smile. ‘Really. You’re here now, and that’s what counts.’

  He frowns, his eyes fixed on the sea outside. ‘I know things weren’t great between me and your mum, but it still saddens me. Her death has brought back lots of memories too actually, good and bad. Especially that summer.’

  ‘The summer she left?’

  Her dad nods. ‘It was a difficult summer anyway, what with the recession and people losing their jobs. Made for a strange atmosphere in the town, all the joviality of those warm months felt a bit false, you know?’

  ‘I remember. Lots of kids at school had parents who lost jobs.’

  He nods. ‘I was one of the lucky ones. Until your mum left, anyway.’ He looks up at the book chandelier and frowns, reaching up to touch one of the pages. ‘I was so angry, so hurt. But looking back, I understand. Your mum struggled. Sometimes, she’d be fine. More than fine actually. You remember the way she was with that dry sense of humour of hers? Fun too, especially after a few gins. That’s the woman I fell in love with.’ The smile drops from his face. ‘Other times, there was a darkness.’

  ‘Darkness?’

  ‘Depression, I suppose you could call it. I asked her to get help once but she said it was just the way she was, the way writers were.’

  ‘What happened when she was depressed?’

  ‘She’d go into herself. Wouldn’t be very responsive.’

  Becky nods. ‘Yes, I remember her being like that sometimes. It never really occurred to me it might be depression.’

  ‘It wasn’t so bad when you got older actually, but I think she must have felt it returning that summer.’ He sighs. ‘Maybe it was the atmosphere in the town seeping into her? Looking back, I didn’t understand why she ran off like she did. But I understand more now.’ He scrutinises Becky’s face. ‘Do you remember much from then?’

  ‘I remember how embarrassed I was.’

  ‘Embarrassed?’

  ‘All the cave cult stuff in the papers. It’s all the kids could talk about. Then my mum leaves us to live in that cave. To make matters worse, rumours start circulating about her and Idris.’

  ‘You were teased?’

  Becky scratches at some grained-in cheese on the table. ‘Mercilessly. They called me cave child but I’d only visited once.’

  Her dad frowns. ‘Why didn’t you say?’

  ‘We never talked about it, Dad. I didn’t want to make you even more upset than you already were, so I just got on with it.’

  He shakes his head, taking a sip of his tea. ‘That must have been difficult, especially when the tide turned and people started getting angry with the cave dwellers.’

  ‘Yeah, Idris started off as a saviour of sorts, didn’t he? I remember all the older girls at school talking about him in hushed tones.’

  Becky’s dad nods. ‘People rather enjoyed the strangeness of it at the beginning, a chance to talk about something other than the recession. But then the novelty wore off. It was a relief to be away from it all when we moved.’

  ‘Yep, it was for me too.’ Becky gets up and retrieves some treats from her bag for the dogs. ‘I was desperate to start afresh at a school where people had no idea what my mum had done.’

  ‘I was never quite sure if you wanted to go, especially as we were leaving your mum behind.’

  ‘I’d given up on her by then. I was barely seeing her.’ Becky throws the bones for the dogs and they snatch them up, settling beneath the table to chew them. Becky’s brow c
reases. ‘And now I know why I didn’t see her much then. She was pregnant.’

  Her dad closes his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Yes? So you knew?’

  He opens his eyes, looking right into Becky’s. ‘Deep down, yes. I could see how her shape changed when I saw her, the way she was acting.’

  ‘Acting?’

  ‘The depression I mentioned. It got worse when she was pregnant, with all those heightened hormones. She got a bit erratic with it and she was the same those months before we moved. I suppose I was in denial. The idea that the woman I loved was pregnant with another man’s child – not just another man but one some people saw as a god – was too much to endure.’

  ‘Oh Dad.’ Becky reaches over and squeezes his hand. ‘So you really think she was pregnant then, that she was telling the truth when she said she had a daughter?’

  ‘I know your mum was always a bit liberal with the truth, Becky, but why would she lie about something like that? To what end?’

  Becky sighs. ‘That’s what she said, too.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Are you going to try to track the girl down?’

  Becky thinks of the National Geographic magazine she found. ‘It could be a wild goose chase.’

  ‘But you might regret it if you don’t.’

  Becky frowns. She’s surprised her dad wants her to try. This was the child his ex-wife had with the man she pretty much left him for.

  ‘I regretted it,’ her dad says.

  ‘Regretted what?’

  ‘I had a best friend at school, Henry Hope-Frost.’ He smiles. ‘We were thick as thieves. But then he moved away and we lost touch. I always thought about tracking him down again. Friends come and go but he always stuck in my mind. So last year, I decided to try to find him.’