I glance around, looking for proof, trying to jog a memory. I find nothing. ‘So where is the cot?’ I challenge her. ‘This can’t be my room. I was a baby. I would have had a cot.’
‘You couldn’t sleep in a cot because you had your legs all plastered up, dangling from that thing on the ceiling.’ I look up, following the line of her finger, her once-perfect manicure bitten down and chipped. Sure enough, there is the hook I assumed was for a lamp. Now I realise it is an outdated traction system used for fixing my hip. ‘I used to run up the corridor from my bedroom and sit with you when you couldn’t move, draw butterflies on your plasters because you liked them. I told you that one day they would make you fly.’ She wriggles her fingers against my arm, all the way up to my shoulder. When she starts fluttering her tongue against the roof of her mouth, the sound of wings, I remember her childhood face above mine, peering over the bed, making the same fluttering sound. The same delicate touch of a child’s hand against my bare torso. The tears hit me as fast as the vision. I go to the chest of drawers and pull out the faded picture of the butterflies from behind it. Something I liked. Something that is mine from childhood. Butterflies. ‘But all of this is irrelevant now. Just like your tears. Because now I know.’
I am holding the butterflies in my hand, the faded wings never more beautiful. I am barely listening to what she is saying. ‘This was my room,’ I stutter. ‘You were here with me.’ I swallow hard, try to breathe. ‘You were sweet with me, and I remember … you drew butterflies all over me.’
‘I was a child,’ she says dismissively, with a shake of her wrist. ‘Of course I was sweet.’
‘I liked butterflies,’ I say, smiling down at the framed watercolour. ‘You even used to paint the wings different colours, right?’ She nods. I want to ask her to make the sound again, flutter her fingers over me like she did before. But something holds me back. I should reach out and hold her, thank her for making me remember. But she is staring at me, her eyes so dead that I don’t dare.
‘We all liked butterflies,’ she says. ‘Don’t you remember how she used to play the Madam Butterfly soundtrack? She always loved it. Even before,’ she says, giving me the strangest look. Before what? ‘Mother used to tell us the story and play the songs over and over on an old vinyl. You were scared of the crackles of the needle at the beginning, before the music started.’ I sit back down next to her, the faded butterflies in my hand. ‘She used to hum the tune, say that one day you would grow into a butterfly. That you were a brave girl and would spread your wings.’
‘That’s what Dad was listening to the other day,’ I say as the memory of seeing my mother’s body comes back to me. ‘And you in the car. It was Madam Butterfly. I remember.’
‘Yes, but regardless, like I was saying, you are free of me now. I will never look for you again. I always knew that one day I would get you here, put you with him, and then I would know. And now I do.’
‘Know what?’ I ask, wiping my wet eyes, the memory of the mournful music still loud in my head.
‘He told you that you should never have come here. It proves that he doesn’t regret what he did for me.’ She looks around the room, scans past me as if I am nothing more than an inanimate object. ‘It means that I was wanted. That he still chooses me over you.’ She gets up, picks up the little leather box from the side table. ‘Finish getting ready.’ She tosses the box at my chest, as if she has lost all interest in me. It falls on to the glass of the picture. ‘And wear that. The cars will be here soon, and like I say, we don’t want the whole village talking about how awful you look. It will reflect badly on us.’
She leaves me clutching the faded image of butterflies, the sound of Madam Butterfly playing out in my head. She slips from the room, turns the corner, and I buckle, collapse on to the sheets, the shaking of my hands rippling into the rest of my body.
After a few minutes I get my act together. I go back to the bathroom, wash my red, puffy face. But this time on the way back to my room, I don’t walk with my head down. I stop, turn to face what sits in the alcove: the dresser covered in photographs. There is a layer of dust, but the pictures are clean. I pick one up and notice that there is even dust beneath it. The photo has been placed here recently, perhaps for my benefit. I look at the image of what is clearly Elle. I am also in the picture, no more than eighteen months old. I am giggling, and she is staring at me with icy eyes. There is some kind of smile on her face, but it isn’t a happy smile. There are other photos too, but I can’t face them all today. I toss the frame back down, scattering the other pictures like ten-pin bowls.
I see now why my feet touch the end of the bed. It was not made for an adult. I pull up the sheets and find extendable side rails that might once have stopped me from falling. I open the drawer where I stowed the ornament and find terry-towelling nappies and a pot of pins. Untouched for years. I open another and find a collection of pink babygros that range from birth to eighteen months. My things. Things I would once have worn. I pick one up, smell it, but the covering of a fine dust layer makes my nose itch. I pick up the ornament and cradle it to my chest, edging back on to the bed. I reach for my phone, remember it is broken. Breathe, I tell myself. Stop crying. I pop a Valium and wait for it to work. When it doesn’t, I wipe my eyes and call Antonio on the house phone, and then hang up when he doesn’t answer.
I stir once I hear the cars pulling into the driveway in that slow processional fashion reserved for funerals. I stand up, spot five black Jaguars, one a particularly large affair at the back with the rear doors wide open. A gaping mouth ready to swallow up the coffin. I catch a glimpse of my reflection, my shoulder-length hair and fringe kinked and wavy, still wet, hanging in clumps. The pallbearers exit the house, slide the coffin into the car just as a knock arrives at my open door.
It is Joyce. She spots my tears and makes what should be a reasonable assumption: that I am sad for my loss. It is true, but it is not my mother for whom I mourn. It is the life I lost. The baby I once was. The child I never got a chance to be.
‘There, there,’ she offers, taking me by the hand. She does a quick scan and notices that I am barefoot. She looks around the room and sees that all I have are the flat black boots I was wearing when I arrived and a fancy pair of new Reeboks. She picks one up and checks the sole. ‘Stay here,’ she mutters as she pushes me into a sitting position before scurrying from the room.
She returns after a few minutes with a pair of sensible black lace-up pumps, the kind she herself wears. When I remain unresponsive to her suggestion to put them on, she crouches down and, even with the left-sided weakness, fastens the laces for me, propping my feet on her knee. She looks up when she has finished, spots the leather box on the bed alongside the ornament. She picks up the box and opens it. Inside is a pearl necklace. She turns so that I can see it, looking to me for answers, perhaps wondering if I took it.
‘Elle gave it to me.’
She purses her lips, and at first I think she doesn’t believe me. But then she nods, like a self-affirmation. ‘Which is why you won’t be wearing it.’ She closes the lid and reaches back, shoving it in my bag. She helps me up, slicks down my troubled hair. She pulls a tissue from her pocket and dabs at my red eyes, but her kindness only brings about more tears.
‘Oh, Irini, you have to settle. I don’t want her to see you like this. Nor that father of yours. Come on now, girl. Get it together.’ She puffs out her chest and braces herself, as if showing me how I am supposed to pull myself together by mirroring her actions. I nod and wipe away my tears on the back of my sleeve. Arm in arm we shuffle down the stairs. She grips on to me for steadiness.
Well done! Brave girl! Now spread your wings.
When we arrive on the driveway, I spot my father, who looks so small, as if he has been crushed. He is being held up by a man I have never seen before. The squat little man who was here at the house on the first night I was here is also nearby. I don’t see Aunt Jemima. Elle is directing, ordering people into cars, arranging
flowers. Roses, the flower of both love and death. Before the last people climb inside, she steps back and assesses her arrangements with a satisfied smile. She beckons me forward and I try to follow. But Joyce tightens her grip on my arm, preventing me. Instead, she edges me into another car, with her.
‘Best you come with me,’ she whispers as the driver closes the door behind us. Elle doesn’t appear too bothered. The cars begin their slow, painful journey of deliverance.
‘Where’s my Aunt Jemima?’ I ask Joyce, but I’m not sure she hears me over the sound of the car’s tyres on the gravel.
* * *
We pull up outside the churchyard after just a few minutes of procession, and one by one the people vacate the cars. Ours is the last. The congregation links arms for support amongst a crowd of waiting villagers. A random stranger, a woman in a floral shirt and royal-blue hat, takes my free arm in hers. We all shuffle into the church, following behind the minister and the coffin. Incense burns and clings to the back of my throat, forcing out a little cough. I take a seat in one of the pews and look around for Aunt Jemima and Elle. I spot Elle up at the front. She looks distraught, although I know only minutes ago she was composed and calm. Is it an act? When I realise that I still don’t know how my mother died, I wonder if Elle is trying to cover up something she has done. I’m not sure she is as heartbroken as she would like us to believe. I look around at the congregation of friends and family and wonder who really is mourning if neither of the deceased’s daughters are. I can’t see Aunt Jemima anywhere. Why wouldn’t she be here?
I hear the minister say, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,’ and I realise that even in her death there will be no peace. Not for me. Not for any of us.
15
‘Forgiving God, in the face of death we discover how many things are still undone, how much might have been done otherwise. Redeem our failure.’
Joyce clings to my arm as the mourners shuffle left and right, assuming position. I am frozen, rooted to the ground. A tree without fruit or leaves.
‘Bind up the wounds of past mistakes,’ the minister continues. I wonder whose failure and mistakes he is referring to: mine, my mother’s, or everybody’s in my family? ‘Transform our guilt to active love and by your forgiveness make us whole. We pray in Jesus’s name.’
‘Amen,’ I say, the response taught to me as a child at school. Speak when they speak. Wait your turn. Follow the lead.
I hear the shuffling of bodies, the crumple of jackets. The minister’s words are lost on me. Somebody unwraps a sweet behind me and I hear another person hush them. I try to focus on Elle, as I am sure many of the congregation are doing. She is a snivelling wreck at the front of the church. Her face is perfectly made up, yet her eyes stream, her shoulders shake. Hollywood tears.
‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and staff, they comfort me.’
I try not to listen, glance around at the mourners. Who is here to say goodbye? There are maybe thirty people besides those that came with the cars. The villagers, most of whom are in excess of the age of sixty, are dressed in black, a flock of crows around a carcass. I spot the schoolmistress, Miss Endicott, shuffling in late, alone at the back. A man in a long overcoat greets her, offers her a place near the front, which she declines. I turn away in the hope she hasn’t seen me. Joyce takes my movement as a worsening of my mental state and pulls me in close. I bury my face in her shoulder, and although I’m concerned that this diverts attention my way, I cannot risk being seen by Miss Endicott. So far, in spite of Elle’s warnings, nobody else seems to know who I am.
I’m surprised to see that Miss Endicott’s arrival has piqued Elle’s interest too. She has twisted in her seat, transfixed as several other attendees jostle about the teacher, offering respectful smiles and warm welcomes. I look back to Elle’s grave face, her wet cheeks glistening, her eyes narrowed to acrimonious slits. She goes to stand, but our father senses her movement, and after a quick look over his shoulder he settles her back into the pew with an encouraging stroke of his hand and a few words in her ear. I look back at Miss Endicott and see that she is huddled up to the wall, almost like she is trying to disappear. Elle takes one final look in her direction before turning back to face the casket. What is it about the schoolmistress’s arrival that has bothered her so?
Moments later my father stands, more composed than before, though his head still hangs low. He steps up to the lectern and a chill passes over me, radiating from the bare stone walls. I realise that he is about to read a eulogy, and the very idea of it draws me like a moth to a flame.
‘I would like to thank you all for coming here today to celebrate my beloved Cassandra’s life.’ Only now does he look up and glance at those of us packed inside the small church. He avoids me, which convinces me that he knows where I am. ‘Cassandra’s life was cut shorter than we would have hoped, taken from her by a terrible disease. Many of you here have watched as she battled cancer, and many of you supported us and helped. I thank you all for being there when we needed you, now, during her disease, and in times past.’
The crying intensifies around the church. Gentle sobs turn into proper tears. Handbags rustle and noses are blown. I am composed and calm, the antithesis to my sister, who is wailing, and who for the first time I can absolve of any guilt. It was cancer that killed her. Just another average death, in another average family. Because I think I am starting to ascertain that that is exactly what we are.
‘But I do not wish to dwell on such times,’ my father continues. ‘It is not how I want to remember my wife, my friend. My partner. I choose to remember her as the fair-haired girl of seventeen who complimented me on my bicycle and asked me to take her for a ride. I will remember her as a keen painter and collector of antiques.’ I think of the faded butterflies and know, just know, that they are hers. Painted for me. ‘How she used to drag me out into the surrounding hills whatever the weather. Our happiest times were in youth, when our family was young, when our memories were fresh.’
And then he glances at me. I see the tiniest flicker of his eyes, like the glint of a distant planet in a dark night sky. But it disappears as soon as I look at him. I think Joyce notices it too, because I am sure that she clutches my arm a bit tighter at that moment.
‘I am sure many of you can attest to Cassandra’s generous soul. She was always there to help when a friend or stranger was in need. She was a woman who would sacrifice her time for the sake of another. A wonderful wife who loved to cook, and who never tired of making me laugh.’ By this point I can hardly stand to listen to the fairy tale. The eulogy; a version of the truth with all the ugly details scratched out. It’s me Photoshopped, so that I have no scars and my bones are perfectly aligned. He pauses to wipe his eyes, and somebody dashes to offer him a tissue. They hang around supportively at his side, but he reassures them he is all right to continue, and they return to the second row. He clears his throat.
‘Cassandra was a selfless mother, always doing what she thought was best for her child.’ A rumble of interest whips through the crowd, and I’m sure a few heads turn my way. Do they recognise me after all? Again my father looks to me. For certain this time. Joyce seems bothered by this last comment, and her grip on my arm keeps strengthening. Maybe she thinks I am a flight risk. But I’m not going anywhere, because the thought that he can describe her as a selfless mother while looking at me has to mean something. Why did he want to see me alone? What couldn’t he tell me while Elle was there? What truth is he still hiding? More than ever I think my mother loved me, wanted me, and did what she did believing it was for the best. He is telling me that they had no choice, that it hurt her too. Otherwise he wouldn’t be able to say it, not with me here. Perhaps I can learn to mourn. Perhaps I will be comforted and find peace.
A little while later, we disperse from the church. I hang back from the crowd, not wanting to get too close as they lower the coffin. While the dig
gers shovel soil into the grave, the crowd buzzes around my father offering good wishes and kind words. I stay hidden behind a large gravestone, from where I keep an eye on Elle. Miss Endicott is close by; she must have been quick out of the church, one of the first. She appears awkward, lingering behind the wall of the porch in the same way I hide behind the gravestone. Soon she begins hurrying away, making her way across the road to either the school or her house.
Joyce mutters something under her breath as she watches the schoolmistress leave. I don’t quite catch what it is. ‘What did you say?’ I ask. ‘I didn’t hear.’
‘Never mind, Irini. Nothing important.’
My detachment from the crowd is noticed by more than a few inquisitive eyes, and I see people whispering to each other while casting sneaky glances over their shoulders. It is quite obvious to me now that they know who I am: the lost child, returned. It makes me feel like an intruder. But Elle soon starts rounding them up, ushering them in the direction of the Enchanted Swan, her behaviour bordering on inappropriately cheerful. Nevertheless, I am grateful, because as she directs the crowd, she doesn’t spot me in my hiding place. And soon enough, with the exception of a few unknown faces hovering in the graveyard, perhaps visiting their own relatives, I notice that my father is alone. After reassuring Joyce that I am going for a walk to catch my breath, I make my approach.
‘We have nothing to say to each other,’ he says, before I have even got within an arm’s length. He is steadying himself with the help of the wall that bounds the church, standing next to a small gravestone. The wall is supposed to keep the nearby sheep out, yet now it keeps him from running away. He will listen to me. He has to. ‘You heard everything I had to say in there.’
I take another step forward, not wanting to let him off the hook. Doesn’t the fact that I have just attended my mother’s funeral mean anything to him? I have recovered from our previous meeting, and know that now is my chance, whether he wants it or not. Elle isn’t here, and he is broken. This is as strong as I’m ever going to feel.
If You Knew My Sister Page 11