There is a CD player on a small cabinet just inside the door, and next to it a selection of CDs. I pick a few up and shuffle through them. Puccini’s Madam Butterfly. My mother’s favourite. I open the case but find it empty, so I turn the CD player on and press play. Soon enough, just as I expected, the room is filled with the anguished refrain of a female soprano. I listen, remembering the story: a mother who has to say goodbye to her child, a wish that he might remember her face. I think of the times my mother must have listened to this. Was she thinking of me, praying that I might remember her? What did Elle mean when she said that it was our mother’s favourite even before? Before what? Before we said goodbye?
I leave the music on low, dodge the blood to sit on the edge of the bed. I lean backwards, rest my head back, my eyes to the ceiling. I smell him as if he is here. The scent of ginger mixed with cardamom, the spicy neckline that I have nuzzled into so many times. I know he was here, rubbing himself all over her and the sheets, leaving his scent. I reach up, flick on the lamp. The same black dust covers the bedside table, fingerprints picked up on the glass and the receiver of the beige plastic phone. Is this the telephone she used to speak to him, to entice him to visit? Is this where she called me from on so many occasions? There is a dish next to it overflowing with the little black twigs of fully burnt-out matches. I finger a handcuff hanging from the bed and look up at the portrait.
‘Where are you?’ I ask.
I pull open her bedside table, looking for anything that might help me. Inside I find a few magazines, one of which is unsurprisingly called Elle. Main story? How to start over, and then a subheading: Everything you need to make a clean break. There is a selection of body creams, at least five hand creams, and a bottle of eye drops. A couple of bracelets. A box of matches nestled under an upturned jewellery box. Further back, a vibrator and a tube of lube.
There are a couple of framed pictures, both of Elle. In one of them, from childhood, she is staring at the camera. No smile. I pull it out, try to prop it up, but the leg of the stand falls off. I pick up the frame and find the whole back casing is hanging loose. I pull at the edge and it comes away, revealing three more photographs inside. Polaroid pictures. It is her, naked, here in this bedroom. In one she is smiling at the camera. In another she is on all fours, a close-up taken from behind with the tip of a finger in the frame. In the third she is strapped into the handcuffs, her body writhing about while whoever is behind the lens looks on. I drop them back into the drawer, kind of sad, kind of embarrassed. She would do anything for anybody, just to be wanted. We are not so very different. But then I wonder if it was Antonio who took these pictures, and if it was, perhaps it would prove to the police that she was a willing participant. I look at the tip of the finger caught in the frame. Antonio’s? Maybe. I snatch them back up and stuff them in my jeans pocket.
As I stand back up, I notice something on the floor. It is almost hidden by the bedside table, only a corner poking out. I crouch down, nibble at it with my fingertips, use my shoulder to push the bedside table back and free the card underneath. Anything hidden has the potential to be useful.
When I wriggle it out from underneath the furniture, I realise that I recognise the blue lettering and the name. ‘Gregory Waterson, Investment Banker,’ I say aloud, remembering that I have Matt’s card. I slide it out from my jacket pocket, the edges dog-eared and dirty. I stand up and silence the music just as it is reaching its devastating climax. Without thinking, I take out my phone and dial the number.
‘Hello, Matthew Guthrie.’ He answers after only two rings. He sounds distracted, and noise fills the background.
‘Matt, it’s me, Irini.’ He doesn’t say anything for a moment, and I suddenly feel stupid for calling. Like maybe I missed the part where he was only being nice by giving me his card, and there was an unwritten rule that I wasn’t supposed to call. ‘We met a couple of weeks ago with my sister, Elle.’ The background noise quietens and I hear the click of a door.
‘Irini, I remember who you are. I just didn’t expect you to call. But I’m glad you did.’
‘Matt, there is a problem with my sister.’
‘Aye, I know.’ I hear the creak of a chair and the whistle of wheels as he sits down in it. ‘I saw it on the local news, and the police came to my house yesterday to speak to me.’
‘What did they want to know?’
‘About the night we spent together. About Elle drugging you.’ He lets out a heavy breath. ‘I thought they were going to arrest me on suspicion of rape. I think they thought I might have been in on it.’
I fiddle the card over my fingers, tap it against the cupboard. ‘Have the police spoken to Greg?’
‘Aye. He’s devastated. He’s been trying to help, but he was away for the weekend with his fiancée. He hasn’t seen Elle since the hotel. Where are you? Are you calling from London?’
‘No. I’m calling from the family house. I drove up here.’ I should tell him about Antonio and his arrest, but although it is right there on the tip of my lying tongue, I can’t. ‘I just wanted to be close in case there were any developments.’
‘There are a lot of rumours going around, Irini. About your sister, about Greg. About your parents. Your father and Elle’s inheritance.’ I wish I could tell him everything I know, but I’m back to feeling like the liar, the one who is trying to keep two lives separate. ‘That’s the thing with small villages,’ he continues. ‘People talk.’ He pauses for a second, and when I don’t interrupt he says, ‘I’m so sorry for what your father did, Irini. It looks like you were best off out of it all.’
‘Maybe. It seems I was given away because of Elle’s mental state. You were right when you said that something happened to make them do it. It was Elle that happened. She came home from a mental hospital and I was the victim. As were my parents.’ I am surprised to think of them this way. Perhaps I could already accept the idea of my mother being a victim, the good wife going along with her husband’s plan. But perhaps my father was also trapped by his decision. By Elle. His hand forced to do something that not even he thought was right. I try to imagine how it must have felt to be them, to have a disabled daughter they loved, and another in psychiatric care. Knowing that when one came home, the other couldn’t be cared for. It was nothing to do with depression like Aunt Jemima said. I try to put myself in my mother’s shoes, easier than my father’s, and I can’t even do that. It is too big for the scope of my emotional maturity. ‘But whatever happened back then, it doesn’t matter. Right now, I have to find Elle.’
‘How are you planning to do that? As far as I understand it, there’s no trace of her anywhere.’ For the first time I wonder if I really have a plan, and I’m not sure that I do. So I focus on one thought: prove that Antonio isn’t to blame.
‘Didn’t you grow up nearby?’ I ask.
‘Hm,’ he says, sounding surprised. ‘You remember that? Aye, I did. Why do you ask?’
‘Do you know a place called Fair Fields? It was an old hospital.’
He pauses for a moment, takes his time to think. ‘Everybody who grew up nearby knows it. Big old place not too far from Horton. You can see it from the village. It’s not a hospital any more. Part of it burned down in the early nineties and it was later closed.’
‘Only part of it?’ I look at the pile of burnt matches on the bedside locker, and then up to Elle’s smoky portrait. If only part of Fair Fields was damaged there might still be something useful to be found there. ‘Do you know if they moved the old records before it closed down? You see, the police believe that Elle has no history of mental health treatment. But they can’t find the records because it was all private care. If I can prove them wrong about that, then maybe they’ll see that they could be wrong about other things too. They are holding a man. They think he hurt her.’
‘Antonio? Your boyfriend?’
I’m speechless for a moment, and swallow hard before I can carry on. ‘How do you know about him?’
‘Elle told me.’
I hear a knock in the background of the call, and the squeak of the chair as Matt stands. I listen as he tells whoever has arrived that he can’t speak right now, that he is taking an important call with a very important client. I get lost in thoughts of how easily I paved Elle’s way back into my life. If she had realised that all it took was a death, I’m sure she would have bumped our mother off years ago. ‘Sorry about that,’ he says, returning to the phone. ‘Elle told me about him.’
I sigh. ‘Yes, she spoke to him on the phone while I was here. I guess I’m not surprised she told you after what happened between us.’
‘No, Irini. I mean she told me before you even came here. That her sister had a boyfriend called Antonio. That he was an Italian and that you lived together. I just assumed that you didn’t want me to know about him. I took it as a good sign.’
He tries a light giggle to lighten the mood, but I cut him off. ‘Before I came here? But she didn’t know anything about Antonio before I came here.’
‘Well, she told me about him. Weeks, maybe even a month before. She told me that you were a doctor, that he was a chef who was opening his own restaurant, that you lived in London and that soon enough you’d be visiting.’
‘What? But that doesn’t make any sense. You told me—’ I begin, but I am distracted when I hear the latch of a door. I stand bolt upright. ‘Hang on. Did you just open a door?’ I whisper.
‘No, I’m sitting at my desk. Why?’
I hear it again, a door hitting something, then another sound. Something smashes.
‘Rini, I heard that. What was that sound?’
‘Somebody’s here!’
I creep down the stairs, past the faces of my ancestors, anxious to turn the dog-leg corner. My body is shaking, breaths firing in and out like a jackhammer. Matt is talking, but the phone is down at my side and his words are nothing more than a distant mumble. I feel the chill of the wind and hear the rustle of the conifer trees before I even see the open door. The grandfather clock ticks the seconds away. Then, as I approach the hallway, I see the police tape fluttering, the same way that Elle once fluttered her fingers over my leg like a butterfly flapping its wings.
One of the Chinese urns is lying in pieces, particles of dust swirling in the air above it. The door is swinging on its hinges, knocking against the obelisk. I hear my name being called from the phone. I bring it up to my ear in a daze.
‘Irini, are you all right?’
‘Somebody was in the house.’ I run down the last steps, my hand brushing past the smudge of dried blood, sending the sticky note floating to the floor. By the time I make it to the door, there is nobody to be seen.
‘Get out of there. Don’t stay,’ Matt says.
I reach into my pocket to pull out my keys and hobble out to the garages, my hip more painful than ever, the scars throbbing hot in my jeans. I jump inside my car, toss the phone to the passenger seat and stick the key in the ignition, then spin away, a cloud of gravel dust kicking up behind me. I swing out of the gate and take one last look in the mirror. When I see Elle standing in the dust storm, her hair slapping against her face, eyes dark and skin dirty, I slam on my brakes, skidding along the dirt track. I reach behind the passenger seat and swing myself around, looking left and right, but sure as I was that I saw her only a moment ago, now she is nowhere to be seen. I slump back into my seat, hit the central locking and floor the pedal.
With the pictures that I am certain Antonio took in my back pocket, I drive away from the house and head for the hill that climbs out of the village. I can see the old hospital in the distance, the white boards glistening in the sunlight, mist rising from the ground like steam.
Matt is calling me, the phone buzzing desperately at my side. But I can’t answer. I have to focus. I have only one aim. The truth. I must start right back at the beginning of our family’s story, and for that there is only one place to go.
36
I drive through capillary country roads swamped in green, a canopy of autumn blue above. I pass intersecting streams, a couple of farms, and yellow fields full of rapeseed. With no idea of where I am going, I follow the intermittent flashes I get of the white steeple rising above the treeline. ‘House of the Rising Sun’ plays on the radio, followed by ‘Hotel California’. Halfway through the second chorus I see the old building appearing in full view as the trees thin out and the overgrown ground flattens out. Up ahead is a broken sign, aged wood with faded letters, the words Fair Fields Rehabilitation Hospital for the Infirm and Mentally Insane just visible.
I shut off the engine at the end of a fractured tarmac road. The music stops, leaving nothing but the wind rustling through the grasses and the whistling of a few birds overhead to break the silence. I check my phone but find that I have no signal. Regardless, as I step from the car, I slip it in my pocket.
The perimeter of the compound has been fenced off, the metal meshwork covered with hazard signs: Keep Out! They flap frantically in the breeze, as if they are trapped and are trying to fly away. From where I am standing the land appears flat, without dimension, and in the distance I see the main building of the hospital nestled between other smaller buildings. The bracken snags at my feet as I navigate the perimeter until I find a gap in the fencing. I drop down and push through, snagging my jumper on a fault in the meshwork. I get to my feet, dust off my blackened knees. Now that I’m on the other side, the central building feels bigger. A threat as it rises above me.
I arrive at a small building, the blackened smudges of fire damage licking up the side of the wooden boards covering the walls. I look through a broken window and see that it is nothing but a shell, just like Miss Endicott said, the inside of a cavernous black wound. It still smells of soot and burnt wood. Was this where the fire started? The fire that Elle may or may not have been responsible for?
I continue to a clearing overlooking the main block. Close up, it has an impressive look about it: columns at the front like the Parthenon, covered by a flaky mixture of grey and green age spots. I can imagine my father here, impressed by the extravagance of the place as he was driving towards it. The imposing columns and high windows; the ornate steeple that I have followed to get here erupting proudly through the roof. I think he would have taken one look at it and been certain it was a good idea. Because even though it was him that wanted to keep Elle rather than me, I am also sure that he would have chosen here over home for her. He was a fixer, a decider, a doer. He saw a problem and found a solution he could stick to. Just like he stuck to shutting me out.
I move up the steps towards the front door, the huge arcade swallowing me up. The door is small in comparison to the rest of the building, almost doll’s-house-like. There is a sign that reads Keep Out; I shove against it, breaking the rules. But a chain, thick and heavy, locks the door shut. I would need bolt cutters to get through it. I rattle it a bit, then let it drop. It clatters against the door, and I watch as more dry paint flakes away.
I follow the line of the building until I broach a corner. Underneath a mass of ivy I spot an old wrought-iron railing marking another entrance. A set of steps descends to a basement. A small metal sign directs me: Visitors. I follow the arrow, edging my way down the creeper-covered steps, clinging on to the railing, which is fortunately still solid. I arrive at the bottom step and test the door handle. Seems loose. I brace my shoulder against the door and with one strong effort break through, sending sprigs of ivy and clouds of dust into the air. I slip inside, my heart racing. I’m in.
And now, standing here alone in the dark, I remind myself why I’ve come to this godforsaken place. It isn’t only to prove that Antonio didn’t hurt Elle. I also need to prove to myself that Elle really is crazy. To hold in my hand the evidence that backs up the story of why I was given away. Because all the years of separation have left me marked, stigmatised as the one who wasn’t wanted. Now, the possibility that somewhere within these walls lies the answer to everything, the single cog that drove my life forward, is exhilarating.
; I pass through several dingy corridors until I come across a large bath standing in the middle of a room, flanked by thick green rubber curtains that are falling apart in places. The walls are covered in peeling paint, as if they are shedding their skin. Perhaps an old hydrotherapy room. Dust clings to every surface, and from somewhere I can hear water dripping. I look towards the next room and see rows of Victorian sinks all lined up alongside each other, still beautiful, like the kind somebody would fit into an old house to restore the period features.
I head along another corridor, up a set of stairs, where the rooms open up and the sunlight gains access. It dapples through in faint bands of light, illuminating the grey fingers of dust that snap at my feet as I tread through years of filth. It is cooler up here, and there is a breeze filtering through broken windows. The walls are painted in myriad colours, as if by children. In squiggly, childish letters somebody has painted the word recover in the centre of a yellow sun. It reminds me of the paintings on the wall in Miss Endicott’s reception area. When I think about Miss Endicott, it reminds me that this place, unlike the first building, isn’t as damaged by fire as she would have had me believe. Was that a mistake on her part? Why was she so sure there was nothing left?
‘Must be the children’s wing,’ I say to myself as I walk through into what looks like an auditorium. There are chairs stacked along the walls, and some left higgledy-piggledy on the floor, scattered about as though a freak tornado hit the room. The windows that remain are dirty, partially covered in threadbare curtains. I fear that if I was to touch one, it would disintegrate in my hand.
The excitement I felt at my proximity to the truth when I first arrived has long passed, sucked out of me by the claustrophobic nature of this forgotten place. It’s as if it’s constricting around me, the sensation of being trapped with no way out. God only knows how it must have felt as a patient. But the paintings on the walls give me hope that it was better than I imagine it to have been. Even so, the smell of damp and bodily functions is hard to ignore. I hold my hands up to my nose and try to breathe through my mouth. But the taste gets the better of me and I nearly choke on it as it hits the back of my throat. I pull my jumper up over my mouth, and then cover that with my hand for good measure.
If You Knew My Sister Page 27