The Lost Sister

by Tracy Buchanan

  ‘Rubbish. I don’t want the hotel. I didn’t even know he’d lived there when I met him.’

  ‘Then what did you want from him?’ she asked, cocking her head. ‘Why did you leave your family? I might have been a shit mother, let’s face it. But I never left you, no matter what.’ She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Now that takes a certain kind of coldness, doesn’t it?’

  I backed away, shaking my head. ‘No.’

  ‘Yes,’ my mother said, following me. ‘Admit it, Selma, like I’ve learnt to. Everything we’re responsible for turns to crap. Your daughter knows it, your husband does. That’s why they’re leaving town. Yeah, I overheard someone mentioning it.’ She cracked another smile. ‘We’re two peas in a pod, you and I.’

  I stood staring at my mother, speechless.

  She was right.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Selma

  Kent, UK

  1 June 1992

  ‘Hush little baby, don’t you cry, Daddy’s gonna buy you a painting brush. If that painting brush don’t work … Mummy’s gonna buy you a pile of books.’

  Catherine gurgled, reaching up for my face as I sang. My mother used to sing the original version to me. Dad told me that. There must have been a time she loved me, when I was very young. Like I loved Catherine now, like I loved Becky. But then it turns bitter. Becky’s right, I’m not capable of real love.

  One of my tears splashed onto my daughter’s chubby cheek and I gently wiped it away.

  Outside, I saw the flicker of the fire. Julien, Caden and Idris were sitting out there with Donna and Tom, who was scribbling in a notepad I’d let him have. Maggie had finally left a few weeks before, unable to take it any more after some paper flowers she’d made were destroyed in a flood. When Idris told her it was all ‘for a reason’, she’d exploded, telling him she couldn’t cope with living in the cave any more, seeing the very reason she’d gone there in the first place – her art – destroyed. I’d met up with her in the café when I’d bumped into her one day while I walked along the beach. She’d told me it suited me, being a new mother. I’d smiled, nodded, pretended I agreed.

  I heard Idris laugh. He was in good spirits. The topic of Spain had come up again, Julien and Idris concocting a plan to sell furniture and art from the cave to make enough money to go.

  ‘Just a few months,’ Idris had said to me just the night before, ‘and we’ll have enough money for flights for all of us. We can give our little Catherine the life she deserves and Becky too, when she comes out to visit. No more running.’

  But I hadn’t listened properly. It was a pipe dream. The fact was, I’d never be able to run from the true threats to my daughters.

  Me.

  Becky was right, my mother was right. What chance did Catherine have with a mother like me?

  I’d been mulling over my options since I’d seen them both. If I handed Catherine to social services, there was a chance she could have a wonderful life with new parents. But what if the right parents couldn’t be found for her? What if she stayed in care throughout her childhood, just like my mother had? For some, it worked. But for others, like my mother, it didn’t. I couldn’t rely on Idris to look after Catherine. He was a loving, doting father, but completely impractical.

  So there was only one option left really.

  I looked down at my beautiful daughter, kissing her rosebud lips as I stroked her face, breathing in her sweet smell.

  ‘I do love you,’ I said in a trembling voice. ‘That’s why I must do this,’ I whispered into her ear. I looked into her eyes. She deserved more than what I could offer her, what the world could offer her. It was my fault, being foolish and careless enough to bring her into this world. So now it was up to me to give her peace from it.

  ‘My darling,’ I said, sobs beginning to wrack my body now. ‘My beautiful sweet Catherine. I love you forever and ever.’

  Then I placed the blanket over my dear baby’s mouth. She wriggled, making a muffled sound that broke my heart. I closed my eyes, shut myself to what I was feeling, what I was hearing. Instead, I saw Becky as a newborn, the sun above her head, bright and orange. And then my own mother, face expressionless as she looked at me when I was a child.

  When it was over, I wrapped my daughter’s lifeless body up in a blanket. Then I got up, walking towards the small dent in the wall, placing Catherine gently inside.

  ‘Sweet dreams,’ I said. ‘You’ll be safe now.’ I kissed my finger and pressed it against Catherine’s tiny face, felt her cheek still warm and full.

  Then I placed the blanket down over the hole like I’d planned.

  I took a deep shuddering breath. Then I walked from the cave and past the fire and the people surrounding it, completely unnoticed. I could see Idris was still smiling and felt a sudden surge of love for him. I almost ran to him. But then my resolve returned. It was best this way. My family had brought him only heartache. I hadn’t told him the truth, that my mother was the woman who’d taken everything from him. Best he didn’t know.

  When I stepped into the sea, my skirt ballooned up around me, my jumper dragging my arms down. I imagined Idris treading water beside me as I started pulling my clothes off.

  All the weight of the years, I imagined him saying as he’d once said before, the dark thoughts, the negative vibes. No longer will they weigh you down.

  The waves came to my chin now, salt water entering my mouth.

  Then strong hands were gripping me under my armpits, long hair silver beneath the moonlight gliding in the sea around me.

  ‘Selma!’ I heard Idris shout out. ‘What are you doing? Selma, for God’s sake.’

  I looked up at him, at his beautiful eyes, the same slanted eyes as Catherine’s.

  ‘Help me,’ I sobbed. ‘Our beautiful baby is gone, Idris. Help me.’

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Becky

  Kent, UK

  6 July 2018

  Becky snaps the book shut. It’s nearly dark now. She’s been in the cave all day, reading this book, her mum’s story, skipping sections so she could quickly get to the end.

  She closes her eyes, imagining her mum sitting here with Catherine in her arms, the torment of her mind, the words Becky had screamed at her still etched into her thoughts. If she’d only kept her mouth shut in the café that day all those years ago, her sister might still be alive …

  No, she mustn’t think like that. That kind of thinking had been her mum’s undoing. Guilt. Lack of self-belief. All compounded by her grandmother’s cruelty. But more than that, she was depressed. A deep dark depression that she tried to keep at bay for years by lying to herself. But when the lies fell apart like a pack of cards, those old insecurities and black clouds returned, making her feel she was incapable of even loving her own daughters.

  Becky peers towards the back of the cave. She takes in a deep shuddery breath then walks towards the hole her mum had placed Catherine in. It is empty now, of course, no blanket … no baby. Becky places her hands inside though, feels the chalk crumble slightly beneath her fingertips. She tries to find the dents left there by her sister. She knows they are long gone now, but she can pretend, can’t she?

  ‘Catherine,’ she whispers. ‘Poor Catherine.’

  She peers back at the book, lying on the side. What happened to her sister’s little body? Did Idris go back, retrieve her, bury her somewhere? He must have. So in love with her mum, he even covered up his own daughter’s death at her hands. And Donna knew – Becky could tell from the look in her eyes as she’d handed the book over to her that morning.

  Becky looks at her watch. It’s been eight hours. She desperately feels the need to talk to Donna and starts walking towards the café, despite knowing it’s unlikely Donna will still be there. But she is. She’s been waiting all this time.

  She doesn’t say anything when Becky sits down across from her.

  ‘You knew, didn’t you?’ Becky says. ‘All this time?’

  Donna nods. ‘Yes.’


  ‘What happened after Idris saved my mum from drowning?’

  Donna takes in a deep breath and looks towards the cave. ‘I saw Idris in the sea with your mum. I knew something was up. To be frank, I knew something was up way before that. Your mum was showing all the classic signs of post-natal depression and more on top of that with her paranoia. I had spoken to Idris about taking her to see a doctor I knew – a man I could count on to be discreet. But then she seemed to get better. So I thought that perhaps she had just been suffering with the “baby blues”, as so many women do. There are so many hormonal and chemical changes that take place in your body after childbirth – it’s entirely normal for women to feel down and depressed at a time they expect to feel happy at having a new baby to look after.’ She sighs. ‘But I was wrong. It wasn’t just “baby blues”. I kick myself when I look back. Especially with cases of post-natal psychosis, people often pretend to the world that everything’s okay when it’s so far from that. I didn’t pick up on it though, and the absolute worst happened.’

  Tears gather in her brown eyes. ‘Anyway, I was waiting for them on the beach. Idris begged me to help carry your mum into the cave. We told the others she’d gone for a swim, got into some difficulty, refused offers of help. When she lay on the bed, she was barely coherent, mumbling something about her beautiful baby and being sorry. We searched everywhere for little Catherine. We were frantic …’ Donna shakes her head, pursing her lips. ‘I knew, I knew deep inside the poor thing was dead.’ She puts a fist to her mouth, sobbing. ‘Idris found her, in that little hole. I’ll never forget the sound I heard from him. It sounds like a cliché but that noise that came from him was inhuman, it really was.’

  ‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’

  ‘I wanted to,’ Donna says, wiping more tears away. ‘But Idris begged me not to. He said he’d take care of little Catherine if I took care of your mum. I never asked what he did with her body. Idris said he never wanted to talk about it again so we didn’t.’

  Becky leans back in her chair, feeling a mixture of sadness and exhaustion. ‘What happened to Mum after?’

  ‘That doctor I mentioned? He agreed to take your mum in, and not to say a word to the police. Your mum was in that hospital for eight months, getting treated.’ She smiles slightly. ‘Enough time to write a bestseller.’

  Becky thinks back to that time. Her mum had sent her letters – short ones in that pretty writing of hers – saying she’d gone away to a writing retreat. Becky had resented that but was used to pretending like she didn’t care by then. When they saw each other again, a whole year later on Becky’s tenth birthday, her mum was like a different person. Very quiet, her usual vibrancy gone. Becky put it down to the fact her grandmother had passed away a few weeks before. But now she knows it wasn’t her grandmother’s death that had made Becky’s mum so withdrawn … it was Catherine’s death.

  Her novel, which Becky now knows she wrote while in hospital, garnered a huge publishing deal and news was just breaking about it when she met up with Becky that day. She’d even given Becky a cheque for five hundred pounds, the first of many that would be handed over with each meet-up. Becky had saved the cheques up, eventually using them to pay for her veterinary course.

  ‘It was so difficult for Idris,’ Donna says. ‘He changed after that.’

  ‘You don’t know where he is now?’

  Donna shakes her head. ‘I like the idea of him coming back here and taking back the house he lived in with his mum and dad. But that hasn’t happened, so I imagine he’s living in a cave in Mauritius or something.’ She laughs. ‘Yes, I like that idea. Even with him knocking my daughter up, he was good to her in those months they spent in Russia, caring for Solar. But the demons obviously caught up with him and he felt he couldn’t stay. He was always looking over his shoulder. I just wish I knew then what I knew now, the person he was running from was a cruel, drunk woman who couldn’t really do him any harm.’

  ‘But my grandmother did do him harm though, didn’t she?’ Becky says. ‘The way she treated Mum must have had an influence on her state of mind, and played a role in what she eventually did. I must have played a role in that too, the way I was with her the last time I saw her before I moved to Busby-on-Sea,’ she adds in a whisper.

  Donna grasps her hand. ‘You can’t blame yourself. We can’t even blame your grandmother. Your mum was ill, very ill. Anyway, now you know it all, the whole tragic story. Makes you realise just how close you need to hold the ones you love, doesn’t it?’

  Becky thinks of her dogs, of David, of her friends and her patients too.

  But before all of that, she surprises herself as she thinks of Kai.

  After Donna and Becky say goodbye, Becky walks back to her car, pausing as she passes the local bookstore. There’s a poster of her mum in the window, lit candles surrounding a small display of her novels. Behind the poster is another display of books – the very book she’s just read by Donna’s son, Tom. Next to it is a sign: ‘Summer late night opening.’

  She impulsively goes into the store and gathers up all her mum’s books, taking them to the counter. She’d never owned one, let alone read them. Too painful. But now, for the first time, she thinks she can.

  ‘Did you know her?’ the shop assistant asks as she notices Becky staring at the photo of her mum.

  ‘No,’ Becky replies. ‘I didn’t know her at all.’

  When she drives home an hour later, it’s starting to really rain, thunder rumbling across the sky. Thoughts are swirling in her head, anger and sadness and grief crashing together like the storm outside. Her mum killed her own daughter, Becky’s only sister. Of course, she’s read about post-natal psychosis and knows how serious it can be – how it can alter someone. But it’s still so hard to wrap her head around. It will take a long time to digest.

  As she approaches her little cottage, relief pours through her at the very sight of it. She’s finally home. She gets out and runs through the pounding rain to David’s cottage first, smiling at the sound of her dogs’ manic barks as she presses the doorbell. Everything with them is so simple. You feed them. You love them. They love you back. No question.

  ‘Shush now, you crazy lot,’ she hears David shouting from the other side. A door slams then the front door opens.

  ‘You’re a bit late,’ David says, smiling at her. ‘Your plane got in this morning – I was worried.’

  ‘I had something to do first. Sorry, I should have called.’

  ‘So how did your trip to Russia go?’

  She grimaces. ‘Long story.’

  He examines her face. ‘Want to talk about it?’

  ‘I’m not sure. I think I just want to go to bed.’

  ‘At least come in for a quick cuppa? You’re soaking!’

  She thinks of what Donna said about holding people close. And she can’t contest the fact that her T-shirt and jeans are wet through. Perhaps a cup of tea would be a good idea after all.

  ‘Sure, why not? How have you been anyway?’ she asks as she follows David inside.

  ‘Oh, you know, the usual aches and pains.’ He looks at her sideways. ‘You?’

  ‘I’m fine, just tired and desperate to return to normality now.’

  ‘The dogs have missed you. Prepare yourself.’ He opens the doors and the dogs come charging out, whining and jumping up to lick Becky’s face.

  ‘I’ve missed you all so much, you don’t even know,’ she says, kneeling on the floor and greeting each of them. She buries her face in their fur, all the emotions from the past few days soaring through her.

  David puts his hand on her shoulder. ‘You’re not really okay, are you?’ he asks her, handing her a towel to dry off her hair and face. Becky’s mascara is smudged under her eyes, and she can see David isn’t sure if she’s been crying or if it’s the result of her waiting on his doorstep in the rain.

  ‘It’s a long, and rather painful story,’ she replies, standing back up.

  ‘Come on,’ David s
ays, walking to the kitchen. ‘Let’s get you that cuppa and you can tell me all about it.’

  They walk into the kitchen, the dogs dancing around their legs as Becky sits at the table and stares out at the familiar scenes from David’s window. The calm surroundings used to make her so happy, so content, but she feels a new restlessness now. This quest to find her sister has changed something within her.

  David flicks the kettle on and Summer puts her head in Becky’s lap. She strokes her nose, murmuring to her.

  ‘So what did you discover?’ David asks.

  ‘You better brace yourself.’

  ‘I’m ready,’ he says, his back to her as he reaches to the top of the cupboard for some teabags.

  ‘There’s not really an easy way to say this. My sister … she’s dead.’

  David stops, and places his hands on the kitchen counter in front of him. Becky sees his shoulders slump.

  ‘And worst of all,’ she says, voice trembling, ‘my mum killed her. She killed her own daughter, David. A baby! She’s a murderer.’

  David doesn’t say anything.

  ‘David?’

  He slowly turns and Becky sees there are tears running down his cheeks. ‘Your mother wasn’t a murderer, Becky. She was ill. You mustn’t blame her. I didn’t.’

  ‘You didn’t—’

  ‘I didn’t blame her. I loved her. I understood …’

  ‘But I don’t understand …’

  ‘Becky, I’m Idris.’

  Chapter Forty

  Becky

  Kent, UK

  6 July 2018

  ‘You’re Idris?’ Becky says, shaking her head in disbelief, her mind spinning from all this betrayal as she pushes away from the table and stands up. Of all the people she thought she could trust, David – Idris – has always been one of them, the opposite to her mum. And yet he was even worse!

  ‘Please Becky, sit down,’ Idris says, gesturing to the chair.