Sisters

by Prue Leith

  Carrie could not answer because she was blowing into Lorato’s mouth again. She swopped from blowing to pressing and back again, and kept it up without speaking.

  David’s voice cut in, “The ambulance is on its way, Carrie. They’ll be with you very soon. Tell me each time you press her chest, so I can monitor your speed, will you?”

  “I can do that,” said Angelina. “I’ll tell you when she’s pressing and when she’s blowing.”

  And she did. Even as Carrie breathed and pressed, and searched Lorato’s face for a flicker of life, she registered Angelina’s clear, high voice “She’s blowing. She’s pressing. One . . . Two . . . Three . . . Four . . . Five. Now she’s blowing and counting ‘And One and Two.’” A rush of love for both these children threatened to overwhelm Carrie. Don’t think, she told herself, don’t think.

  Carrie kept up the steady blow, press, press, resisting the desire to speed up or blow and press harder. She tried not to think, but now her brain was released from decision making, it would think. Lorato is going to die. Maybe she’s already dead. It feels like ten minutes at least since I got her out. But maybe it’s only three. Please God, can it be three? How long can you live without breathing? How long for the brain not to be damaged? How long before full cardiac arrest? Is this cardiac arrest? Oh Christ, how did she get to the river? I have killed my sister’s daughter.

  Lorato coughed. Her eyes flickered open, then shut again. She vomited feebly, the water and sick running down one side of her chin. Carrie pulled her upright and bent her head between her knees, thinking that she must not choke. She coughed again, then drew a gasping breath, and started to cry. A tiny, mewing wail.

  Carrie’s face crumpled. She reached to pull Lorato to her. The little girl’s wail strengthened and she turned into Carrie, arms lifted in appeal.

  Relief and happiness enveloped Carrie, and she started to cry too, her blubbering mouth uncontrollable. She held Lorato tight against her wet and naked skin. She was smiling and crying and she thought, I will always remember this moment. It is the best moment of my life.

  David was talking in her ear. Something about the recovery position.

  “Is she alright?” ’Lina’s frightened voice brought Carrie to her senses. She looked up and reached for the girl’s arm, pulling her down beside them.

  “Yes. Yes, she is, darling. And you saved her.” Carrie kissed the side of her niece’s head, and wrapped her arms round both the children. The three of them sat huddled on the grass, Lorato cocooned between Carrie’s chest and her sister’s. All three of them were crying.

  The paramedic’s voice got through to her. “Are you OK, Carrie? I gather you’ve done it?” He sounded excited now, released from calm professionalism.

  “Oh, yes, yes. We’re all fine.” She was blubbering and ecstatic. “Thank you, David. Thank you. Thank you.”

  “That’s OK, Carrie. You did it, not me. The ambulance must be almost there. Shall I stay on the line?”

  “No. It’s OK, we’re OK,” she said, more calmly.

  He said, “Fine, but you need to wrap Lorato up warmly. Can you get a blanket?”

  ’Lina, who still had the phone clamped to her ear, struggled up at once and pulled off her denim jacket. “Here,” she said, wrapping it round her sister. “I’ll go . . .”

  And then, wonderfully, came the distant wail of the ambulance siren. Carrie, lifting a face luminous with triumph and relief, said, “Run into the lane, darling, and tell them where we are.”

  Carrie sat rocking Lorato, who seemed sleepy now, as she watched an advancing posse of hurrying people. Angelina danced beside them. Soon this will all be over, thought Carrie, and we will be a family again. She dropped her head over Lorato’s, exhaustion seeming to take over every limb, as she waited for them to get to her.

  Then, really near, she heard Angelina’s voice protesting, in high-pitched distress, “But she saved her…”

  She looked up to see Guillia, her face set, mouth zipped shut, swooping down on them. In seconds she had reached down and yanked Lorato from Carrie’s lap. Other people were running toward them.

  Suddenly she felt hunted, terrified of the advancing crowd. She put an arm up as if to defend herself.

  “She’s alive,” she said, trying to smile, trying to recapture the triumph and relief of a few minutes ago.

  But no one came near her. They surrounded Guillia and Lorato. A paramedic was checking Lorato; another was tucking shiny silver foil around her. One of them said something about running some checks in hospital, and Guillia, without a word to her, carried Lorato away across the field, with Angelina at her side.

  Carrie’s teeth started to chatter. She was jibbering and shaking with cold. She looked down at her mud-streaked body. Wet blades of grass stuck to her arms and belly and there was a long, bloody scratch along one thigh where the barbed-wire fence had caught her.

  “Here.” It was an ambulance man with a blanket. He put it round her shoulders and said, “You saved that child’s life, you know.”

  *

  He shepherded her toward the house. As they reached the ambulance, he said, “Do you want to come with us? You’re in shock. They’ll give you something at the hospital.” He led her round to the back doors.

  Grateful, Carrie nodded. But when she looked into the ambulance she was met by Guillia’s gaze. Stony-faced, she looked at Carrie with a mixture of hostility and contempt, even hatred. She held Lorato tight against her breast, her arms round the foil-wrapped bundle, as though she expected Carrie to wrest her from her. Tom sat on the bench beside her, looking scared.

  Suddenly Carrie’s calm and exhaustion vanished. She felt the hot swell of rage rushing to her face, the relief of letting go, of losing it. She jumped onto the ambulance step and, eyes flaring, shouted at Guillia, “Do you think I did it on purpose? Do you think I wanted her to drown?” Grief and desperation contorted her face.

  Lorato, as always distressed by shouting, started to cry again, and Guillia turned her head away from Carrie without responding, soothing Lorato with “Calma. Calma. Tranquilo bambina.”

  Carrie fell back from the step and turned toward the house, shaking off the paramedic’s arm. She saw Angelina’s look of bewilderment as, called by Guillia, she climbed into the ambulance. Carrie half ran, half staggered to the kitchen door. She fumbled with the handle and fell into the house and onto a chair. Immediately she felt a hand on her shoulder.

  It was the paramedic. “If you won’t come with us, miss, WPC Jones, that’s Karen here, will stay with you. She’ll make you a cup of tea, I’m sure.”

  “Yup, that’s right,” responded the policewoman, her voice both matter-of-fact and kind.

  Carrie didn’t reply. Her outburst at Guillia seemed to have emptied her of every last ounce of energy. She could not say a word.

  There was a silence. Then he said, “I’m sorry, miss, but do you think I could have the blanket? It belongs to the ambulance. And it will be a nuisance for you to have to return it. Can Karen get you a dressing gown or something?”

  Carrie started to laugh. She had a vision of the man having to account for the loss of a blanket. “Yes sir, I realize it is Health Authority property, but the woman was stark bollock naked.” Can women be bollock naked? The more she thought of it the funnier it seemed. Soon she was laughing so hard her eyes were streaming and she could barely breathe.

  Suddenly a stinging heat exploded down one side of her face. Her mouth and eyes shot open in astonishment. Karen had slapped her cheek.

  The WPC said, “Sorry about that, but you’ll exhaust yourself if you get hysterical. Just sit there for a minute and I’ll get you something.” She was back almost at once with the mohair rug from Poppy and Eduardo’s bed, which she held up like a screen to shield Carrie from the paramedic’s gaze as she shrugged off the blanket. Carrie felt the mirth rising again. What a farce: the man had alr
eady seen her in the buff. Another glimpse would not constitute a social crime. But she bit hard on her lip, and managed to change blankets without guffawing.

  The paramedic made a final attempt to get Carrie to go with them to the hospital.

  “You could do with a check-over. And I bet you’ll all be back tonight. The little girl is fine. She looks better than you do.”

  But Carrie shook her head. “I’m fine. Really. Please go. You’re holding them up.”

  At last the policewoman went too. Carrie had stopped shaking, and was now deadly tired. Wrapped in the mohair rug, she carried the mug of tea the woman had made for her upstairs to the little spare room over the kitchen. She drank it sitting on the bed, then rolled over and buried her face in the pillow. I should have a bath, she thought, I smell of the river. But I’m too tired. I should go home. I should telephone Poppy. I should telephone the hospital. Later. I’ll do it all later. Her thoughts drifted in a delicious semiconscious cloud between sleeping and waking, then slid away altogether.

  The sound of wheels on gravel beneath the window woke her, and for a second her mind spun in panicky confusion. But as her eyes focused on the mohair rug, the horrible pieces of the jigsaw fell into place with the inevitability of a nightmare. Oh Christ, she thought, I should have gone home before Guillia got back with the children. She leapt up and looked out of the window. But it wasn’t a taxi or ambulance returning the family. It was Eduardo.

  Carrie’s first thought was what a mess she looked. She looked down at her naked body, still streaked with mud and grass stains. She turned her gaze to the dressing-table mirror to register puffy eyes, tangled still-wet hair, pale face.

  Heart banging, she watched Eduardo climb fast out of the Range Rover and make for the kitchen door. She pulled the rug round her and ran down the stairs and into him.

  “Eduardo, I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she said, forcing him to put his arms round her as she plunged into him.

  He smelled so familiar, so wonderful. He said, “Carrie. Carrie, what’s up? You look s. . . . What’s happened?” She jerked her head back to look into his face. Could it be that he didn’t know? That Guillia had not told him? That he hadn’t been to the hospital?

  “Don’t you know?” she asked.

  “Know what? What, Carrie?”

  “I . . .I . . .”

  “For Christ’s sake, Carrie, tell me.” Eduardo held her away from him, shaking her roughly by the shoulders. “Is Poppy all right? What is it?”

  She tried to tell him, but it all came out wrong. She wanted him to realize that she and Angelina had saved Lorato’s life, but he wouldn’t listen. As soon as he’d understood that Lorato was in the John Radcliffe, he left her standing in the hall, and rushed into the kitchen. She heard him dial the hospital and ask for Casualty.

  Carrie leaned against the passage wall and listened. She heard the relief in Eduardo’s voice as some distant staff nurse got through with the good news she had been trying to give him.

  “But is she OK? Are you sure? I mean, is there brain damage? . . . Oh, thank God . . . I’ll be there. thirty minutes, max. Thank you. Thank you.”

  He strode past Carrie, and headed back toward the yard. She was crying again now, her face ugly with exhaustion and misery. She reached for him, gripping his jacket sleeve with the tenacity of desperation.

  “Eduardo, for Christ’s sake, Speak to me.”

  But he shook her off, only pausing at the door to say, “Carrie. I’ve nothing to speak to you about. Other than to tell you to get out of my life. Out of all our lives. You’re a wrecker, Carrie. Or a witch. Go haunt some other family.”

  Chapter 19

  Carrie sat at her computer, but she was not working. She was churning. She would never forgive the Santolinis. The cruelty with which they had simply shut her out was breathtaking.

  She had, bloody hell, saved Lorato from drowning. She knew she had acted with sense and courage, and you would have thought at least Poppy would have acknowledged that. That there would have been a word from her. A phone call, a note. But no, nothing.

  And how could Eduardo, who a few months ago had been so in love with her, not even want to know that she was all right? And she was not all right. How could she be when her erstwhile lover, by way of thanks for saving the life of his daughter, kicks her out of the house, calling her a witch? Condemning her to a nightmare drive back to London, in which she’d had to stop twice because she couldn’t see for the tears, and after which she’d had to drag her shaking body to bed. Alone.

  Anyone with half a heart would have tended to her scratches, run her a bath of healing herbs, tucked her up in bed with a whisky, a sleeping pill and a hug.

  As always when she went over the events of that day, self-pity welled into tears. Pushing abruptly away from her desk, she walked into the kitchen and yanked a piece of kitchen roll off the roll to bury her face in, then jerked the fridge door open. She poured a glass of white and stood drinking it with her back to the Aga.

  Her mind made an inventory: this table is where he rolled our joints; over there he first kissed me and unwound my apron; that sofa is where he first saw me naked; that patch of floor is where we first made love.

  But when her thoughts wandered upstairs, and to Poppy discovering the condoms, she hauled her mind away and went back to her My Mag article.

  It wasn’t easy. When she’d agreed to do it she’d been determined to ingratiate herself back into the Santolinis’ life, and she saw it as a means to please them. Now she hated them both, and she wished she could write an altogether different article. One about infidelity and lies, about ingratitude and indifference.

  But My Mag was in the hagiography business. And she was to receive three fees, one for the article, one for her photographs and a bit extra for getting the Santolinis to agree.

  Not that they ever had agreed. And it was too late to tell them now. It was also too late for them to object since she had the pics: Nick’s had been beautiful, and he’d done a great job doctoring hers, especially a close-up of Eduardo, head back, glass in hand, laughing. All Nick had had to do was change the red wine in the glass to lemonade.

  Carrie shuffled the prints on her desk until she found the one of Eduardo. As she looked at the deep-set eyes, the clear olive skin, the whole energetic animal health of the man, she felt again the lunge of longing. She still wanted him, still loved him.

  No she didn’t. He was a shit, like most men. Only too willing to cheat on their wives for a bit of totty, then dump the totty if it became inconvenient.

  At 5 p.m. she’d done the piece. She’d managed it by pretending she was writing about some other couple, unknown to her, who just happened to have all the accoutrements of the Santolinis: four of the five big Fs—fame, fortune, family and friends.

  But no fucking, she thought with a little shaft of malice. I get the fucking, and they get the rest.

  Not that sex with Richard was anything like as good as with Eduardo. But she needed someone who cared about her, and Richard did.

  Getting him back had been easy. She just rang him up and asked him over: she had to talk to someone, she said.

  At first he’d been stand-offish and hurt. “But are you in love with Eduardo?” he wanted to know.

  “Oh Richard, how do I know? I thought I was. But now I think I hate the bastard.”

  Richard looked unconvinced and Carrie put her arms round his neck. “Look, I know I was a cow to you. I must have been mad to think that Eduardo was a better bet.”

  He put his arms round her, and dropped his head, rather wearily, on top of hers. “He’s not a bastard, Carrie. He’s just Eduardo. And you are difficult to resist, you know.”

  Carrie pulled back, indignant.

  “Are you saying I hit on him then?”

  “No I’m not, but it would be difficult not to come on to you. You radiate pheromones. It�
�s like diving into honey. And Eduardo could never resist a honeypot.” He kissed her forehead, and went on, “It killed me watching you falling for Eduardo. I knew you’d end up hurt. They all do.”

  Carrie didn’t want to be alone. She knew she was drinking too much, and smoking too much dope. But at least Richard confined her to marihuana and wine, which couldn’t be too bad. He wouldn’t do coke. Sometimes he behaved like a maiden aunt, like the time he’d taken down the poster on her bedroom wall. She still thought it was funny, but he’d said it was childish. It was a picture of a skull and crossbones with the slogan “Don’t Drink and Drive. Have a Spliff and Fly.”

  *

  With professional detachment Poppy examined her puffy eyes and dull skin mercilessly lit by the fifty bare bulbs that ran like fairground lights round the dressing-room mirror. Condemned veal, she thought.

  She took her glasses off to smooth the foundation over her face. Without them she looked softer and mistier. Pity Eduardo didn’t wear them. If he did, at least she’d look OK to him when he took them off.

  Not that it mattered now. Eduardo had regarded her as a comfortable but undesirable wife for years. And he was right.

  Oh God, she thought, I’m thinking those thoughts again. I must not do this. She put her hands each side of her forehead and pressed her temples hard. But, as in a bad dream, she could not drag herself away. She knew her mind would now take her one of two ways. Lorato’s near drowning, or Eduardo’s betrayal.

  Carrie’s words plagued her: “He’s just frightened of you, Poppy, and he loves the children”; her taunts that Eduardo strayed “because life at home was so satisfying, so exciting.”

  I’m completely outclassed by Carrie. I’m a boring, unsexy, spent mother of three.

  Poppy let out a thin moan and bent double to put her forehead down on the dressing table. The thought “mother of three” had triggered the other nightmare. Oh God, imagine if Lorato had drowned? After all that little girl had been through in her short life. What kind of a mother lets her little girl fall in the river? Me, Poppy Santolini, that’s the kind.