This time I nodded without delay. I didn’t want to think about what had happened that day when I was nine years old, or the ambulance, or the cold, or the fact that Aunt Jemima’s whole family had to move in order to keep me away from her. ‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Good. Because they can’t stop us, Irini. Nobody can.’ She leaned in, kissed me on the lips. I felt her tongue poke into my mouth, wet, sweet as the apple pie she had just eaten, yet cold from her chocolate milkshake. I didn’t move. It wasn’t sexual, more like the way a frog might catch a fly. I just think she wanted to know if I would let her. After watching her kick Robert Kneel in the balls, I would have let her do pretty much anything. Even though I couldn’t deny that background level of fear, she was like a hero to me, and for the next five years the pattern was stuck. ‘Nothing can keep us apart, you have to know that. But this is our little secret,’ she said, before leaving me there with my milkshake and no way to get home.
Robert Kneel never bothered me again. He was taken to hospital by his parents, where one of his testicles was surgically removed because it was twisted and starting to go black. Everybody called him One-ball after that. The school asked me about the incident, and I admitted to being there. I said I had no idea who the attacker was, and that I got away from her by hitting her with my backpack. It helped that one of the other boys thought her hair was pink, and another blue. The next time I saw Elle, it was black.
That was the end of it. Elle had got away with it. Of course, Aunt Jemima knew the truth, and there were several fights between her and Uncle Marcus about her brother’s fucked-up family. Aunt Jemima wanted to move again. Uncle Marcus refused. They wanted me to change school. I refused. I should have felt sorry for them perhaps, for all the difficulty my presence was causing. But I didn’t. After all, they were trying to keep me from my hero. From Elle.
I should have felt sorry for Robert Kneel as well, but I never did. Even now, as an adult, I cannot muster any sympathy for his loss, even though I dream about him at least once a month. In fact I think he should be grateful for what Elle did to him, because when it would later come to setting up Margot Wolfe, someone else who hated me, he was still away from school recovering from the surgery. Otherwise he might have ended up a one-balled rapist.
6
I stand at the window and gasp at the chilly evening air. It is so much colder up here in the north, without the simmering heat of the city concrete to warm me. I scrabble in my pockets, pull out a pack of cigarettes and light one. I breathe in the smoke, suck it down. I look outside again as I exhale and notice that the short man who was straining over the Mercedes has left it unattended, doors wide open. I drag in one last lungful of smoke before stubbing out my cigarette on the wall, then waft the smoke through the window and march towards the door. I brace myself for confrontation, listening out for ghosts as I snatch it open, but I hear nothing and see nobody. I sacrifice silence for speed and rush through the house along the red carpet like some kind of VIP. I thought irony was supposed to be funny.
I move through the corridors, wishing I had been paying attention to the route when Elle brought me here. There are only two possible turns, but they look essentially the same, and taking the wrong one, stumbling into another household member, doesn’t exactly fill me with fuzzy family feelings.
I plump for the left turn and strike lucky, arriving in the kitchen. I revisit the memory I had on the way in. Again I see myself as a baby, crawling along the floor. Well done! Brave girl! Now spread your wings, I hear, as if she, whoever she is, is here with me now.
Into the hallway. I hear voices in the background, coming from one of the adjoining rooms. I’m sure that one of them is the voice I heard on the telephone. Elle isn’t here to divert me away. I could go and speak with him now. But I have to get my phone. So I skip awkwardly to the door, and breathe only once I get outside.
I can hear somebody moving about in one of the garages as I approach the car. I don’t want to be seen, so I reach in, snatch up my bag and start back towards the house. I rummage inside to check the contents and realise that my phone isn’t there.
‘Is this what you are searching for?’ I turn to see the portly man who was wiping over the car. He is holding up my phone.
‘Yes, it is.’ I snatch it from his hand. There is a perfect hole in the centre of the screen from which a series of jagged rings fans out.
‘You must have dropped it on your way out of the car.’ He pulls a dirty rag from his overstretched belt and begins wiping his hands. We exchange a light handshake, which he steers to a natural end by pointing at the ground. ‘I found it just down here.’ He tucks the rag back into his belt, and folds in a stray piece of his shirt. It is filthy, with a line of dirt engrained into the belly from where he has repeatedly brushed against the sides of the car.
I crouch down and run my fingers across the ground like a detective looking for clues. I find shards of glass and nod my head affirmatively before standing back up. I push the Off/On switch a few times, and a flicker of life flashes across the screen like the final beats of a heart just before death. The phone is fucked, and my annoyance whinnies out of me like a stroppy teenager. ‘I can’t believe it’s broken.’
‘Maybe you stepped on it,’ he says, peering in to take a closer look.
‘I don’t think so.’ I hold up my small left foot for his inspection, as if its minuscule size proves innocence. ‘Who knows? Whatever. Anyway, thanks,’ I mutter without sounding remotely thankful. As I begin to slink away, hoisting my tote over my shoulder, I hear him call out to me.
‘Miss Irini,’ he says. It is strange to hear my name used in this place. As if I belong, as if I have a place in the life that happens here. I turn, find him investigating the gravel of the driveway with the toe of his shoe. ‘If there is anything you need while you are here with us, I’d be happy to oblige. Any time you want to leave, you just say. I will drive you anywhere you want to go.’ I nod my head, smile in a way that doesn’t look unappreciative. ‘But in the meantime, go easy with Miss Eleanor. She, um…’ He pauses, and I wonder what it is that is so hard to say. ‘She doesn’t take kindly to having to answer to anybody. I know it can be claustrophobic in there. The atmosphere…’ He trails off, patting the disturbed gravel back into place. ‘Oh,’ he smiles, lets out a little chuckle, ‘listen to me going on when you have only just arrived.’
‘It’s OK,’ I tell him. ‘But what do you mean?’ I already knew that there were secrets hidden in the creases of this house, and something about the way he looks at me, so pityingly, makes me certain that at least some of them are about me.
‘Oh, you know, just a big old house,’ he chuckles, but he doesn’t seem amused. ‘Creaks and bumps in the night.’ I look back at the 1970s-design flat wooden panelling smothering the upper floor, the ugly double bay windows and the Corinthian columns holding up the porch. Even uglier in today’s grey light than I imagine it might be in the summer. It’s a hotchpotch design of whatever my parents might once have thought elegant. ‘Anyway, anything you need, you just let me know. My name’s Frank.’
‘OK, thanks, Frank,’ I say as I start to walk away. When I get to the front door, I glance back to find that he is still looking at me, watching me with a level of compassion I find hard to understand when I am nothing but a stranger.
I arrive back in my room and drop my bag at the side of the bed. I lie down, my legs curled up, my feet brushing against the foot end. I turn on to my back and stare at the ceiling. It is white with occasional patches of brown, water stains that must have been making steady progress for years. My eyes move across the objects in the room, searching for details upon which I can focus. I stare at the image of the faded butterflies and remember the words I heard in the kitchen. Well done! Brave girl! Now spread your wings. After a while I get up from the bed and take the picture down, creating a clean window of lemon paint. I shove it behind the chest of drawers. I take an ornament from the top; a little boy sitting on a mushroom, fussing wi
th the fur of a rabbit at his feet. I open a drawer, place the ornament inside.
I lift the receiver of the old rotary phone. I dial my home number and hope that Antonio answers. I need to talk to somebody outside this house, and who else do I have? He picks up after three rings.
‘Hey you,’ he says.
‘Hi,’ I answer, surprised. ‘How did you know it was me?’
‘Rini, hi.’ He pauses. ‘Caller ID, distance call. Good guess, I suppose.’
Silence follows and I know he is still pissed off with me. Not for the argument we had the previous night, but instead for the things that remain unsaid. ‘I made it safely,’ I say, starting with something easy, stating the obvious. ‘But my phone is broken.’
‘I’m just glad you’re OK.’ He is quiet again for a long moment, but then I hear him physically soften, his voice sweeter and kinder. ‘How are things?’
My turn for silence. Realising how fragile things are between us, I settle on a lie. ‘I’m good. No problems.’
‘That’s good,’ he says. Yes, everything is good. Perfect. Fine and dandy. Two idiots lying to each other because neither wants to face the truth. The word ‘sorry’ is right there on the tip of my tongue. It feels right to say it, but I’m not sure what it is I’m sorry for. I’m not sure I’d know where to begin. ‘The flight was OK. She picked me up from the airport.’
‘Your sister? Oh, really?’ he says, not waiting for confirmation. ‘How is everything?’ he says again. I breathe in deeply before I reply.
‘OK, I suppose.’ I pause. ‘She brought me here to the house. I’m in one of the bedrooms now. I’m using their phone.’ For a second he doesn’t say anything, but he quickly tries to cover up his shock.
‘What is the room like? Is it comfortable?’
‘It’s OK.’ I edge up in the bed and roll over on to the pillow. I have stopped listening out for signs of family life on the other side of my four walls. Instead I watch the tops of the trees sway behind the garages, where the workmen are trimming them back. I can feel tears welling in my eyes and I hope my voice does not betray how I really feel.
‘When is the funeral?’ he asks. I hear him light a cigarette and it makes me want one, so I rummage in my pocket, pull out the pack of Marlboro red and take one with my teeth.
‘I don’t know,’ I say, getting up from the bed to light my cigarette. I pick up the telephone base and take it with me as I move towards the window. I pull out more dust and fur balls as I lasso the non-elastic flex out from behind the cupboard. ‘I guess soon.’
I lean against the window and gaze outside, and that’s when I see my father. Goose pimples shiver across my body. He’s holding something, a beaker with something brown that makes me salivate. He is watching the workmen attend to the trees, casually puffing on a cigar. A car pulls up and another man, short, thick around the middle with bright red cheeks and a flash of orange hair, steps out. My father walks forward to greet him, and they shake hands. The second man retrieves a briefcase from the car. As they turn to the house my father glances up at me. This time there are no shadows to distort what I see.
I dodge back into the room. I am not ready to put a real face to my idea of what he looks like. I have imagined him so many times, a character playing a role in my fantasies of family. He was always strong, broad-shouldered, and I was always small and in need of his help. Perfect father–daughter. If I grazed my knee I would imagine it was him tending to me while Aunt Jemima dressed the wound, his large hands on my cheeks, telling me that everything would be OK. The same if I woke from a nightmare. But now he is there in front of me, more diminutive than I had hoped. I pull the window shut so that I become nothing more than a shadow behind the glass. We are two strangers, but he must know it’s me. Just in the same way I know it’s him. The call of DNA from our bones.
Despite my hesitation I edge forwards, glancing down, revealing myself as the last light of day streaks through the window. I realise that although his face isn’t familiar, he looks like the portraits on the wall in the hallway. I can see from here that he has the same slate-grey eyes as those painted faces, and his chestnut hair resembles mine. Nothing like the straw-yellow colour of Elle’s. His long, angular nose, sharp and square as a meat cleaver, casts a shadow across his cheek.
‘Rini, are you there?’ comes the voice on the end of the telephone line. I watch a while longer until the two men disappear into the house. ‘Rini, can you hear me?’
I step back into the room, curl up like a foetus on the bed as I hear Antonio speak. There was no joy in my reunion with my father. I thought at first he was pleased to see me, but after hearing his telephone conversation I realise that I am not the thing he aches for. Not the thing for which he cries at night. For the first time ever I wonder if what I hoped to find here even exists. But at least now he cannot pretend that I don’t exist. Now perhaps I have been elevated from distant memory to painful reminder of a badly made decision. Perhaps he can feel me in his stomach, like the throb of an ulcer. I would take that over nothing.
‘Rini, are you there?’ There is desperation in Antonio’s voice.
‘Yes,’ I whisper, my voice shaky. ‘I am still here. I was…’ I am not sure what to say. I’m not sure what exactly I was. I take a big breath before I whisper in hushed tones, ‘It’s him.’
‘Who? Your father?’
‘Yes,’ I say, as I fiddle with the flex of the telephone. I look around the room, searching for something to tell me I belong here. I find nothing. Antonio is here on the phone with me, and yet still I feel alone. I feel the tears streaking across my cheeks. ‘I have to go in case they pick up the phone. I’ll call you back later.’
I hang up while Antonio is still talking. I stand and grab my bag and rush to the door. I even open it, as if I’m really going to leave. I could march downstairs and get Frank to whisk me away, if only I could just push myself through the doorway. But I can’t, because where would I go? Back to Antonio? Home? If I did that, what about the reason I came here in the first place? I have to know why this place stopped being my home, and why my parents spent so many years keeping their distance. I drop my bag on the bed and take another Valium.
Chemically pacified, I dare myself down the stairs and into the kitchen. I can’t stand this feeling of hiding, as if I should be ashamed that I am here. I came here for a purpose, and I have to fulfil it. So I edge towards the hallway, following the voices with every scrap of confidence I have left, sure that if I can just talk to him this could be easier. I’m close enough to hear the mumble of voices, but not close enough to make out their words. And as I follow the dark corridor, I see them, the two men, one of whom is my father. I hide in the recess of a doorway and watch him for a while.
‘Just once, there.’ My father is leaning over a desk with only a dim beam of light from an old brass lamp to help guide him. He is writing something, under instruction.
‘And this one too?’ he asks.
‘Yes, I’ll keep a copy,’ says the other man. ‘Better that way in case she creates a stink about it.’
My father nods in agreement but whispers, ‘Keep your voice down. She is upstairs. I don’t want her to overhear.’ He straightens the papers and turns. I hear him say, ‘No thank you. That will be all.’
I attempt to edge closer, but just as I begin to creep forward, an elderly woman dressed in a white pinafore slips out of the office carrying a tray. At first she doesn’t see me. But when she looks up and catches sight of me trying to hide behind the grandfather clock, she dashes back, closes the office door. Shut out. My confidence slumps, limp as a wilted flower. I retreat into the kitchen and close the door behind me. Is there anything left for me here?
I root through the cupboards until I find an old bottle of sherry behind a bag of solidified flour. When I hear footsteps approaching from the hallway I hurry to the bedroom, curl up under the dusty sheets, my left leg hanging off the bed, sore from the stairs and all the running. I feel cold, so pull another jumper out
of my bag, slip it over my shoulders. I become still and inanimate, something forgettable like the paintings and ornaments that have been left in this room to fade. This room and I are stuck in the past. A closed book, a sealed chest. It is only me who is still searching for people who don’t seem to exist.
Just before I fall asleep, I hear the sound of a vehicle. I sit up and glance out of the window. I see four men, strong, dressed in black suits. I immediately know who they are, and what they are here for. I watch as they open the back end of the car, slide out a black coffin. They carry it low at their sides, and disappear through the front door of the house.
7
I awake the next morning with a head heavier than lead, and full of regret. All those years I erroneously thought returning home might provide a sense of belonging. It was the nonsense of a child. There is no calm from being here, and no hush has descended to quieten my pain. I’m still Irini.
My stomach is gurgling, rabid for food. I haven’t eaten anything in hours. I reach for my phone on the bedside table before remembering the thing is broken. I look at the house phone and consider using it to call Antonio. But I decide against it, even though I think I remember telling him that I’d call him back.
Light is streaming through the window, and I catch sight of the little patch of lemon on the wall from where I removed the butterfly painting. I sit up, swing my feet out of bed. It is a beautiful day, the clouds have dispersed and the sun is shining. In the distance I can see mountains; somewhere closer still a village with a church. There are several impressive houses scattered in the nearest hills, and the view is quite beautiful. I reach for my bag and pick up the bottle of Valium, but put it back down again without taking anything.
If You Knew My Sister Page 4