Sisters

by Prue Leith

  Carrie took them, unfolding them. They were color photographs of several very drunk young people. As soon as Carrie saw the first one, she screwed up the bundle and jumped up.

  “Oh Christ,” she said, looking about as if for escape. But then she went to the work surface by the sink and flattened the sheets out again. Carrie was in three of the photographs. In the top one she was dancing with nothing on but one chef’s clog, waving both arms above her head.

  For a second, Carrie’s mortification was tempered by satisfaction that she looked so good—slim and willowy, with high, round breasts and flat stomach, like a model. Then she saw how coarse and drunk her face looked and flipped the picture over.

  There were a couple of pictures without her. They were of young men, half naked, singing and leering at the camera. But there was worse to come.

  In one she was sitting on the lap of one of the boys, wearing her chef’s trousers but no jacket or bra. The boy was wearing her chef’s hat, and he had his arms round her bare tits. Another lad was pulling her clogs off, and all of them were laughing. In the third she was lying face down, bum to the world, on a bed. Her head hung over the edge of the bed, her hair sweeping the carpet. She looked asleep, or unconscious. Or dead.

  Chapter 24

  As Poppy stepped out into the narrow alley at 10:15 p.m. she kept her head down. The play had been on for eight months now, and there were seldom any autograph hunters in the February cold. Just drunks peeing in the alley, or occasional junkies.

  So when Carrie put an arm around her, her heart leapt with fright and she started back, flinging Carrie off.

  “Christ, Carrie, what the hell are you doing?”

  Then she looked into Carrie’s face and saw it crumple. “Please, Poppy, for God’s sake, I’ve got to talk to you.”

  So they went to a pub, and Poppy asked for two glasses of wine.

  “No, I’ll have tea.”

  “Tea?” Poppy looked at her sister in disbelief.

  “Yes. Tea. Or decaff or something. I’m trying to stop drinking.”

  Poppy didn’t believe it. The unkind thought crossed her mind that her sister was being dramatic as usual.

  She took the bundle of papers from Carrie, saying, “What’s this, Carrie?”

  “Just look.”

  Poppy unfolded the sheets and looked at the photographs. She found her face burning. It was as though it was she lying on the bed, she dead drunk, she dancing around stark naked, she arsing about with a lot of drunken youths. A little burst of anger overlaid the humiliation. Why do I take on Carrie’s shame?

  Carrie was gabbling on about Lulu quitting, about the money she owed, about Richard walking out. Poppy, once she’d got over the shock of the pictures, listened with changing emotions. There was the old pull of “poor Carrie”—the familiar feeling that Carrie could not be blamed, that whatever inner weather blew Carrie off course, she could not help it. But Poppy felt tired too, wrung out. The thought flicked across her mind, I’ve had enough of Carrie.

  Carrie was pleading, “You’ve got to help me. You’ve always helped me.”

  Poppy watched her sister’s anguish but did not share it as once she would have. What she felt was weary sadness and resignation, not love, not real concern. Perhaps the horrors of the summer could never be papered over.

  Still Poppy didn’t answer and Carrie went on, her pale face contorted as she struggled to wring some of the old sympathy from her sister’s passive one.

  “I’m losing it, Poppy. I didn’t even remember doing this.” She clutched at the photographs. “Lulu had to remind me. She says I’m a druggie. But I’m not. I know I drink too much . . .”

  Poppy listened for a long time as Carrie talked. After a while she put out a hand and held her sister’s forearms, holding down her violent gestures. She saw the desperation in Carrie’s eyes, the drawn, hysterical look.

  “Carrie, I cannot help you. You are on your own, Sis. I’m sorry.”

  *

  Carrie took a taxi home, stunned. But even as she rehearsed Poppy’s lack of sympathy, she understood her sister’s refusal to help. How could she help? What had Carrie expected her to do?

  She was going to have to get out of this mess on her own. It was tempting to give in, go to a doctor or a shrink, get on a detox program, let the professionals take over. But Carrie knew in her heart that even with all the white-coated help in the world, things only got better if you wanted them to. Trite but true.

  And then she remembered Karl’s message about a stay at Kaia Moya sorting her out. Maybe he was right. Certainly she needed to get away for a bit. She’d go to South Africa, maybe take that job at My Mag.

  The next day Carrie scrambled into action. She rang the editor.

  “Joanna, it’s Carrie.”

  “Hi, Carrie, nice to hear you.” She sounded genuinely pleased. Carrie charged at her question.

  “Jo, does your offer still hold good?”

  “Good Lord. Yes, of course it does. But you turned us down flat. Why the change of heart?”

  Carrie combed her hair off her face with her fingers and said, “Oh Jo, you don’t want to know. Personal stuff. I need a change of scene.”

  “Works for me. When can you come?” Carrie imagined Jo pulling the diary toward her, efficiently clicking her pencil into action, already planning her induction as Food Editor.

  *

  The overnight flight was horrible. The rugger team in front of her kept her awake most of the night and one of them spilled his lager into her sandals, which she’d kicked off under his seat. Now her feet slipped against the squashy leather. It felt disgusting, but she could hardly go through Customs and the luggage hall barefoot.

  Why aren’t I rich, damn it, she thought. I was born to turn left into a jumbo, not right. If she took this job, she’d never get rich, that was for sure.

  It took forty minutes to get through Customs, and another ten until her old holdall came bumping round the conveyor belt. She lugged it into the Ladies, washed her feet in the basin—to the obvious disgust of the other occupants—and changed into trainers. She considered washing the sandals, but binned them instead. They were pretty tatty, and it was winter here.

  She took the airport bus to Sandton and checked with relief into the luxurious vulgarity of the Savoy Towers. As she turned on the great taps in the black marble bathroom, and tipped all four of the little bottles of bath gel into the whirling water, she thought that a glass of champagne would work wonders. I wonder if My Mag expenses will run to fizz? And then she pushed the thought out of her head. She must drink less, a whole lot less. No boozing until the evenings would be a good start.

  Still, at least she’d made a dramatic change. She was pleased with herself for the speed with which she’d extricated herself from London. She was tempted to call Poppy, to tell her that she was in Johannesburg, that she, Poppy, need never bother with her again. For a minute she dwelled on the pleasant thought that Poppy would feel guilty, would know that her refusal to hold her hand had driven Carrie away. And then she thought that if she sorted herself out maybe Poppy would be proud of her, which would be nice. Poppy had told her often enough to grow up, drink less and sleep more. Well, maybe she would.

  And My Mag were satisfyingly keen to have her join them. Jo had been delighted with the piece on the Santolinis, and with the recipes and the pictures, and Carrie’d been writing a monthly Euro Food column for her ever since. Now My Mag had stumped up a plane ticket. Carrie had tried for Club, but the budget wouldn’t run to it, they said.

  A good half of My Mag was food-related, so Food Editor was a good job, although it paid, by British standards, lousy money. But right now it felt like a lifeline. Carrie had agreed to a month’s trial while she thought about a full-time job.

  As she topped up the foamy water her mind turned to Kaia Moya. She was both longing to see Karl, and dreadi
ng it. She’d sent him a fax saying she’d like to come for a holiday after the Johannesburg stay, and had half hoped the message would prompt him to ring her. But he’d just scribbled on her fax “June 19–25 is fine. See you then” and faxed it back. There was no message at the hotel, though she’d told him when she was arriving, and where she was staying.

  For a while after the evening in her house she’d been sure that kiss had meant something to him. For the next two months she’d half expected a letter or an e-mail from him, and a dozen times had been on the point of writing herself. But what to say? Maybe she’d got the wrong signals. Maybe he’d forgotten the kiss by the next day. But then she’d remember the way he’d stopped resisting, and how he’d seemed to fall into her, as into a pool. The intensity of it had been real.

  But then, at New Year, Poppy had blown any little fantasy about Karl right out of the water. “Karl would never marry Carrie in a million years. He told me so.” Why would he say that to Poppy? Who said anything about marriage? Why discuss it at all?

  It bugged her that she still thought of Karl’s kiss. If he could shrug it off as a non-event, why couldn’t she? But it wasn’t just the way he’d kissed her, it was also what he’d said afterward: “You cannot just jump from guy to guy. Sooner or later you need to be able to bear your own company.”

  The truth was that those two sentences had changed something for her. Until then Karl had just been a friend, albeit one she liked to torment a bit and flirt with. And although she admired him, she’d resented his big-brother attitude, always ticking her off. Now, for some reason, she was nervous of him.

  Blast him, she thought, it’s no good lecturing me about independence. I want a husband, and I want children.

  *

  Carrie hired a car with air-conditioning and central locking. The air-conditioning was perhaps not vital in March, but she knew that when you dropped off the escarpment to the lowveld below, it would be much hotter. The central locking was to foil hijackers and muggers. I must be getting old, thought Carrie. A year ago I’d not have listened to scare-stories, but a month in Johannesburg, where the rich lived in fortresses and the poor in slums, had taught her caution.

  Last night she’d been so excited about leaving Johannesburg she’d woken each time the security lights came on, which they did every time the electronic gates creaked open to admit a resident. She longed to get to Kaia Moya, where no one locked a door, and where the only security was to protect humans from animals and animals from humans.

  But My Mag was a good publication, with rising readership. And the staff had been great, really friendly. Carrie knew the job would not hold her forever, but she was tempted to take it. She’d have to make a decision by the time Joanna came back from holiday, in three weeks’ time.

  The roads were good, and Carrie enjoyed the drive. She’d done it dozens of times, but never alone, and she felt grown-up and free.

  She watched the small round kopjes of the highveld come and go, then marveled at the colors of the escarpment: great kranses of deep brown, bright pink, cool gray, the bald rock falling hundreds of feet to wooded valleys.

  Once down on the lowveld floor the thorn-spattered veld stretched mile on mile, punctuated by an occasional roadside stall offering a few hanging nets of greenish oranges. Every few miles the land was scarred by merciless erosion. It should have been ugly to her, but she’d played in just such red-sand dongas as a child, and the pleasure of it came back to her. The stun-gun heat, the smell of the dry grass, the sand too hot for bare feet. Then the darkening of the sky, the sudden fearful lightning crack and monumental thunder roll. The first drops of rain, big as marbles, splashing in the orange dust, the glorious smell of water on the parched ground. And then the rivers running red and thick as soup.

  She’d loved those storms. Inside the house the racket as hail hit the corrugated tin roof was deafening. And exciting. Outside it was scarier, but exhilarating. She wasn’t meant to be outside, of course. You could be struck by lightning. But she always ran out into the warm, pelting rain if she could, or failed to come in if she was already outside. It was glorious.

  *

  Once in the Manyeleti reserve, Carrie slowed down, automatically quartering the bush with her eyes. She rolled down the window and turned the air-conditioning fan off.

  The smell of dust and autumn veld came through the window and Carrie stuck her head out to breathe more deeply. In the ten miles of corrugated dirt road before she came to the lodge, she saw a family of warthogs, a lone bull elephant and two giraffe. How considerate of them, thought Carrie. A happy foretaste.

  Carrie pulled into the bougainvillea-covered carport at 5 p.m., and before she’d opened the boot, Nelson was there.

  “Sakabona, Miss Carrie,” he said, his big head tipped shyly, both hands grasping her outstretched one.

  He would not let her help, and she followed his back, loaded with both her bags, her computer and her briefcase, to Reception.

  Karl wasn’t there. She felt a tiny wash of hurt. Or disappointment. He’d taken some tourists on a game drive, and would not be back until 8 p.m.

  Carrie had been given the same lodge as she’d had nine months ago, and as she unpacked her stuff she frowned at the memories the little cabin contained. She and Eduardo had made hasty love on this bed. Poppy, surveying her African purchases spread out on this matting, had berated her for being extravagant. On the little verandah outside, Maisie had told her not to lust after her sister’s husband.

  It seemed a long time ago. It felt like someone else’s life.

  At 8:15 she was sitting on a barstool on the stoep, listening to Piet telling his old tales to a French couple, his eyes narrowed as he peered back through eighty years in the bush. Carrie had heard, many times, about the ostrich that got a mouth organ stuck in his throat and forever after breathed on e-flat, or the 14-foot crocodile that had eaten six people before he was caught, but she listened with pleasure. Piet was a great storyteller and the tales got better with the telling.

  Suddenly she felt a hand on her shoulder and she knew it was Karl. She swung round to see him looking at her, smiling, surprised.

  “You look great, Carrie,” he said. “Like a schoolboy.” He ruffled her short hair with his hand, and slid onto the barstool beside her. “Coming on the game drive tomorrow?”

  It was as if he’d seen her yesterday. I must have imagined that kiss, thought Carrie. He is just the same as he’s always been. Same big-brother nonchalance, same indifference to the fact that I’m a woman. Schoolboy my foot. This haircut cost an arm and a leg and is supposed to be super-feminine.

  But she was relieved too. Same old Karl. He was wearing, even in the cool of a March evening, very short shorts, a bush shirt and boots.

  “And you still look like Crocodile Dundee,” she replied. “And of course I’m coming on the drive.”

  For a second Karl’s forehead puckered in a slight frown, and he looked away, his jaw set. What have I said? thought Carrie. But almost at once Karl said, “I’ll put some long pants on in a minute. It’s getting cold.”

  Carrie felt a rush of pleasure. It was so good to see him. “It’s chilly already,” she said, putting her hand on his bare leg, rubbing it above the knee. “Look, you’re all goosey, you madman.” She could feel the goosebumps, the fine reddish hairs erect against the stroke of her hand. She took her hand away with reluctance.

  The French couple left the next day and an expected party from the States canceled, too late for Karl to fill the vacancies. Carrie expressed dismay at the loss of revenue, but was secretly pleased to have the camp almost empty. An elderly pair of sisters from the Cape came on the evening drives, but not the early morning ones. The only other guests were a German couple who mostly parked their car at one of the waterholes and waited for the game to come to them.

  Only Cathy, a pretty young trainee ranger, and Carrie were up for the dawn drives. Cathy
drove, with Karl next to her so he could teach her, and the tracker Winston on the elevated lookout seat. Cathy was silent, listening intently, doing as Karl bid her. She drove well, her gloved hands commanding the wheel, her booted feet trampling from clutch to brake and back again as she swung the vehicle through dongas and ditches, obeying Winston’s signals (slow down, go back, go forward).

  When the sun came streaking over the horizon, flooding the plains with light and warmth, Karl asked Cathy to get out the breakfast stuff. She jumped down without a word, slid the bolts on the tailgate, and set up her coffee stall.

  But Carrie thought she lacked friendliness. Even in camp she seldom spoke, and yet answered readily enough if spoken to. She had a quiet confidence and stillness that made one aware of her, gave her a sort of authority. You would not think she was only 19. Carrie could not decide if she was shy or aloof. Walking over to the waterhole at Karl’s side, Carrie asked, “How’s Cathy doing? She seems keen.”

  Karl’s eyes were on the water’s edge, tracking round where the trees met the reeds. He held his gun over his shoulder, but Carrie knew he’d have it at the ready in a second if he needed to. Without taking his eyes from their steady survey he said, “She’ll be good. She’s patient, doesn’t panic. Good eyes.”

  For a second Carrie thought he meant Cathy’s eyes were beautiful, which they were. Almost black with wide lids and long lashes. But no, he meant she could see well.

  “How long has she been here?” she asked, both hands round the coffee mug.

  “Er . . . Don’t know. Must be six weeks. She’s done a season at the Kruger Park, so she’s not completely green.” He looked back toward the jeep, where Cathy was restacking the picnic things. She looked up and he signaled to her. She walked swiftly to join them, the obedient pupil.

  Karl pointed at the ground, his eyebrows flicking into a question. Cathy dropped down on her haunches. Hell, they communicate in signs, thought Carrie a little crossly. Cathy examined what to Carrie looked like an indecipherable jumble of tracks. After a minute of studying her immobile back, Carrie said, “Go on, Cathy, tell us. I’m a partner in Kaia Moya, so you’d better prove Karl’s worth as a teacher.” Oh God, why had she said that? What a crass, pompous little speech.