by Fiona Harper
Heather really doesn’t want to have this conversation but there’s no escaping it, so she tells Faith about her trip to the library, and gives the bare facts – times and dates and names – as cleanly and swiftly as possible, hoping against hope that this will be an end to it.
Faith sighs as Heather finishes her tale. ‘If only we knew where Aunt Kathy was. I’m sure she’d have some answers for us.’
‘But we don’t.’
Faith nods. ‘She disappeared from our lives not long after what happened to you. She and Mum used to argue a lot anyway, but the year after you came back it got a whole lot worse and then one day she was just… gone.’
Heather makes a huffing sound. She’s not surprised their lovely Aunt Kathy cut off all contact. Their mother had a gift for driving people away. ‘What did they argue about?’
‘The hoard, mostly.’
Heather nods. That would make sense. If her mother started hoarding after her disappearance, surely those around her would have challenged her on it. That always created conflict.
‘It’s a pity we can’t find her. I’ve often wondered if there was something in Mum’s background that set the stage for her later behaviour.’
‘Maybe.’
‘She and Aunty Kathy were taken into care when they were kids, just for a couple of months, but that had to have some impact, didn’t it? Maybe we should ask Dad when we Skype him this afternoon?’ Faith pipes up.
‘No.’ Heather’s response is firm and low.
‘Why not?’
‘Because… Because…’ Heather stammers.
Because she and her father don’t discuss her mother or the house in Hawksbury Road. It’s an unwritten rule between them. Even if Heather wanted to talk about that time (which she doesn’t), her father would find some way to change the subject. It’s as if he wants to erase his life before he met Shirley. Heather understands that. The only problem is that now Heather knows about her disappearance, her abduction, she supposes she’s a bigger part of that unwanted period of his history than she ever realized. Maybe that’s what causes the distance between them? After all, her sister doesn’t seem to struggle in the same way.
‘Because…?’ Faith prompts.
‘Because he’s been through enough,’ Heather says plainly, looking her sister in the eye. ‘Because that time must have been very painful for him too. I don’t want to push him about it unless I’ve exhausted every other avenue.’
Her answer sounds altruistic, which it is. Partly. She does want to spare her father any more distress. He put up with five lifetimes’ worth of crap living with her mother. They all did. But a tiny part of her is scared that if she opens that can of worms again, it’ll destroy what is left of their relationship. It’s hanging by a thread as it is.
It’s the right answer for Faith, though, who studiously tries to love her neighbour as herself, as the Good Book commands, even if that amount of care and thoughtfulness is never extended to her sister. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘I get that.’
When they’ve put every last plate away and the dishwasher is humming beneath the counter, Faith goes out onto the patio and wipes down the garden furniture with a tea towel. They take their coffee cups out there and stare down the long garden as the kids race around after a pale-blue Frozen plastic ball. Heather watches Elsa’s face spinning round and round, over and over, her blonde hair blurring, and knows it’s just like the thoughts spinning inside her sister’s head.
‘Do you think this woman who took you… this Patricia Waites… was mentally ill?’ Faith finally blurts out.
‘How should I know?’ Heather replies.
‘Well, haven’t you looked further ahead with the newspaper articles? Checked if there was a trial or something?’
‘No. Not yet.’
‘Are you going to?’ Faith says, leaning forward and invading Heather’s personal space.
Heather puts her cup down with a clatter, stands up and walks away. ‘Oh, my God, Faith! Stop, will you?’
‘But I thought you wanted to find out about this woman, about what happened?’ Seeing Heather’s stony expression, she exhales and looks penitent, which is a surprise in itself. ‘Sorry. I know I’m being pushy. It’s just that I’m so… so…’
Heather can see fifteen different emotions flitting across her sister’s face, but they’re travelling so fast she can’t pin them down and label them. She’s not sure she’s ever seen her so worked up before. ‘So… what?’ she asks, puzzled.
‘So angry,’ Faith replies simply. ‘I’m so bloody angry that this woman, this stranger, did this to you. To us.’
Heather sees a familiar fierceness in her sister’s expression but it shocks her so much she sits down again. It’s the same look she gave Heather the other week when she wouldn’t play hide-and-seek, but this time it isn’t directed at her; it’s felt on her behalf. When Heather looks at Faith she gets that same sense of solidarity she used to feel when it was just the two of them against the hoard.
Faith’s arms twitch, as if she wants to step forward and hug Heather but isn’t sure it will be welcomed. Heather wants to give her a little signal that it’s okay, but she doesn’t know how, so they just stare at each other.
‘I’m so sorry this happened to you,’ Faith says. ‘I know I always knew about it, but revisiting it now we’re both grown up… Well, it’s made me see it in a new light.’ She sighs. ‘I know it’s not very Christian, but I’d like to punch that woman in the face for what she did to our family.’
‘I hate her,’ Heather says quietly, aware her teeth are almost grinding together as she talks. ‘I don’t care who she is or what was going on in her head. I really, really hate her.’
People always say hate is such a destructive thing, but Heather is questioning that prejudice. This burning thing inside her is alive, raw, powerful. It makes her feel like an avenging angel. She downs the rest of the coffee and stands up again, not because she’s cross with Faith this time, but because this emotion will not allow stillness.
‘How do you wake up one morning and decide: you know what? I’m going to wreck a family today. I’m going to tear it apart so it’ll never be the same.’ She looks at Faith, needing agreement and sees it. ‘And – oh! – poor Mum. No wonder she was such a mess. How do you get over something like that?’
A rush of warmth for her mother fills Heather’s chest. She hasn’t felt that kind of compassion towards her in decades, and now it’s returned it is as if Heather is crushed beneath it. She collapses back into the garden chair and sobs into her hands.
After a few seconds, she feels a palm on her back. It rubs gently. That only makes her cry harder.
‘Mummy! Aunty Heather! Oh—’ Alice’s voice gets nearer then cuts off. Heather hears Matthew’s hushed tones as he hurries the children back inside. She can’t look up, just cries hot tears until there are no more, then she takes the packet of tissues her sister offers her and blows her nose loudly.
‘Have you thought about talking to someone about this?’ Faith asks softly when Heather has folded the tissue and shoved it in her back pocket.
‘I’m talking to you, aren’t I?’
‘No,’ Faith replies, her voice softer still. ‘You know what I mean.’
Heather does one of those weird laughs – the kind that’s half disbelief, half offence – and stares at her sister. Hasn’t she always known Faith thinks of her as being weak? Damaged? But it’s one thing to suspect it and another thing entirely for your sister to confirm it out of her own mouth.
She knew things had been going too well between them. It was inevitable that, after that shining moment of understanding and solidarity, one or other of them would say or do something to send things spiralling back to normal. ‘That’s what you think I am, is it? A basket case? Thanks a bunch!’ She stands up again, mainly because her instinct is to stride away.
‘Heather…’
‘What? Haven’t I got a right to be angry? This is not my fault!’
&nb
sp; Faith stands up too, walks towards her. ‘I know that. I don’t think you’re a basket case! Anyone who’d been through what you’ve been through, who’s just found out what you have, would be… struggling.’
Heather crosses her arms. ‘I am not struggling,’ she says through clenched teeth. ‘I’m dealing with it fine.’
Faith shakes her head. It begins to rain gently again but neither sister moves. ‘Heather…’ she says in that same tone she uses on the kids when she knows they’re fibbing.
That’s it. That’s all it takes to blow the lid off Heather’s fragile composure. ‘Don’t!’ she says, jerking back as Faith reaches out to lay a sympathetic hand on her arm. ‘Don’t you dare touch me! You can’t understand! How could you?’
Faith pulls her hand back and tucks it into the crook of her opposite elbow. She looks hurt, which is odd because Faith never looks hurt. She never seems to look anything but capable and calm and efficient. But Heather can’t think about that now, she’s too busy trying not to explode into a million tiny pieces. What a mess that would make of her sister’s neat, trimmed garden!
‘Can’t we talk about this calmly?’ Faith begs.
‘I can’t win with you,’ Heather says. ‘If I stay calm, I’m bottling it up. If I get angry, I need to see a shrink. Make up your mind, will you?’ Faith looks stunned, and well she should do, but it feels wonderfully liberating for Heather to unleash all the things she doesn’t usually say for fear of making things worse. But she’s not sure things can get any worse now, so she aims and fires. ‘Okay, how about this? How about when you discover you were kidnapped and taken from home as a kid, stolen and subjected to goodness-knows-what, only for your return to herald the complete implosion of your family? – Was it so bad to have me back? Was it? – Then you can talk to me about staying calm!’
She marches back in through the house, pausing only to snatch up her bag and coat. In the distance she hears her sister call out, ‘Heather! Come back! We haven’t video chatted with Dad yet!’ but Heather ignores her, heading outside, leaving the front door open and getting into her car.
The kids and Matthew are standing there open-mouthed as she pulls away. She sees Faith run up behind them in her rear-view mirror as she exits the driveway and joins the traffic, but she doesn’t care. She puts her foot down and drives.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
NOW
Heather moves back into her flat a few days after her horrendous lunch with Faith. The hotel is too expensive and the repair work is finished: the plumbing is fixed, her spare room dried out, complete with new carpet. The men have even moved all the salvaged boxes, crates and bags back in. She can’t put it off any longer.
After keeping everybody waiting, summer gets truly underway with one of those bright, unannounced heatwaves that causes the nation to adopt shorts en masse and sport patches of lobster-bright sunburn.
The cheery weather does nothing to stop Heather stealing things. A sun hat, a blue toy elephant, and a packet of two dummies stuffed in her chest of drawers attest to that. Knowing more about the abduction hasn’t helped at all. In fact, it may have made everything worse.
Faith doesn’t phone. Not that Heather would necessarily expect her to in the days that follow. They don’t have that chatty kind of relationship, so it would be unusual for her sister to ring until the next monthly lunch is looming, but every time Heather looks at the handset in the living room she can feel Faith’s silence. The phone is deliberately not ringing, and it doesn’t ring for almost two weeks.
The worst thing is that now she’s calmed down, she knows Faith is right. About keeping going with her investigation, anyway. She can’t carry on like this. Even though she leaves the door of the spare room locked, she starts digging into the past again. Googling. The information she hopes to find will be her peace offering to her sister next time they see each other.
The only problem with her search for more facts is that her story, while huge and devastating to her, was a minor event in a boring London suburb, overshadowed by much bigger national news stories in those few short weeks. And this was before the internet had come of age and was beamed into every home. It doesn’t matter how many times she types ‘Patricia Waites’ into the search field, she never finds the right person. They’re either too old (dead and part of someone’s family tree) or too young and posting endless selfies on Instagram, or living in a different country. It’s as if the woman she’s after has disappeared.
She’s mulling this over one evening while sorting through the post on the console table in the hall, sifting her bills from Jason’s and Mrs Rowe’s upstairs, when she hears a key in the front door. Jason appears, dressed in a suit and looking much less hot and sticky than she is, even though she’s had the benefit of air conditioning in her car and he’s been stuck on a packed commuter train.
‘Hey,’ he says, looking for all the world as if he’s pleased to see her.
Heather hands him a couple of faceless envelopes and a gas bill. ‘Don’t say I never give you anything,’ she quips.
He folds the letters in half and stuffs them in his suit jacket pocket, then thinks better of it and shrugs the jacket off and loosens his tie. ‘That’s it,’ he says wearily. ‘It’s officially too hot to do anything this evening. I don’t even want to venture inside my flat.’
Heather nods, knowing what he means. In the early part of the summer the building’s thick brick-walls and high ceilings keep it cool, so walking through the front door in the evening is blissful, but temperatures have now reached a tipping point, and the inside of her flat is relentlessly stuffy no matter how many windows she opens.
‘I’m just going to get changed and go and sit in the garden for the evening,’ Jason says. ‘I think I’ll fire up the barbie and eat out there. Care to join me?’
Heather pictures sitting in one of the garden chairs as the sun dips behind the hills, turning the sky golden, of how the temperature will drop and the breeze will start to curl around her. ‘Okay,’ she says.
‘I’ve got some steak in my fridge, but only a wilted lettuce and a couple of tomatoes. Don’t suppose you could help on that score?’ He flashes her a grin that would have had her jogging all the way to the supermarket in the heat if she hadn’t got a fully stocked vegetable drawer.
‘How does a mixed salad with lemon-and-thyme dressing and jacket potatoes sound?’
‘Like heaven.’
She smiles back at him. ‘Okay, it’s a—’ She stops herself from saying the next word. This is not a date. It’s just neighbours escaping the suffocating air of their respective flats. ‘It’s a plan,’ she finishes and rushes inside her flat before he can see the blush climbing up her neck.
* * *
Heather’s stomach is fluttering when she opens her French doors an hour later and heads out into the garden. Jason has been out there for ages, but she didn’t have the confidence to just go and sit with him. Bringing food gives her a purpose, a reason to be there.
He smiles when he sees her and lifts the lid off the barbecue so he can cook the meat. ‘Wow!’ he says, looking at the colourful salad she’s prepared. ‘Can’t wait!’ He gestures towards the steaks sizzling on the grill. ‘They won’t take long. Do you want something to drink?’
Heather nods, glowing in his appreciation for her food, and he hands her a bottle of coke from a cooler. It’s blissfully cold and the sharp, sweet taste quenches her thirst instantly. A few minutes later they load up their plates and tuck in, sitting either side of the wooden table.
‘I haven’t seen much of you since you moved back in,’ Jason says as they eat.
Heather’s glad she’s chewing so she can’t answer straight away. ‘Just been busy with work,’ she says once she’s swallowed her mouthful of food, although that’s not strictly true – it’s been no more or no less busy than it usually is. The truth is that their breakfast had seemed so special, so intimate, that she’s felt awkward about seeing him again. She’s been deliberately keeping hersel
f to herself. It was only the fact he caught her off guard this evening that spoiled that plan. ‘Anyway, tell me about your work,’ she adds quickly, deflecting attention away from herself. ‘“Heir hunter” sounds a bit like Indiana Jones but looking for people instead of treasure.’
He laughs at her joke, causing her cheeks to flush. ‘Technically, I’m a probate genealogist. There’s a certain amount of detective work, looking up old birth, death and marriage certificates, trying to make sure you’ve got the family tree right before you contact the beneficiaries – and a certain amount of competition, as there are often other firms on the same case and who want to sign the relatives up first.’
She asks more questions, and when he starts to talk about the bit where they track down the living relatives, she realizes he might know how she can progress her own stalled investigation. ‘So how do you find out where the relatives live so you can let them know they’ve got an inheritance coming? My brother-in-law did some research on his family tree a few years ago and he said a lot of census records and what have you aren’t available until a hundred years have passed.’
‘Ah,’ he says, taking another sip of his beer. ‘We have access to records the general public doesn’t. Without them, it’d be much harder to do that part of the job.’
‘So, say I wanted to trace someone who’s still alive – a long-lost relative or something – it would be much more difficult?’
‘Yeah, unfortunately. The rules on data protection are really strict.’
Heather nods. Blast. Back to the drawing board, then.
They talk some more about their jobs, finding connection in their passion for uncovering the truth about people in the past, and about putting that truth to good use – her to provide knowledge and understanding, him to benefit the family still surviving. He has some really interesting stories about working cases both here and abroad and how much you can find out about someone just from looking at the sparse official records that mark their lives.