When I allow myself to look again, I notice Mum’s fingers twitching.
‘I think she wants to touch you, but she’s too weak,’ I say.
Rosie nods. She reaches out and takes Mum’s hand. ‘I’ve been in rehab, Mum. Getting better. I wanted to come sooner, but …’ Her voice wobbles. ‘Well, I was ill. I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ Mum’s voice is a raspy whisper.
‘Do you want a drink, Mum?’ I ask.
She shakes her head.
While Rosie talks about rehab, I find myself pacing back and forth, full of nervous energy. When Susie returns with the tea, I want it after all. God bless her. At least my mum has known kindness in the late stages of her life. Unselfish kindness.
‘Hev.’ Rosie’s voice pulls me back from my thoughts. ‘Mum wants to talk to you.’
I rush to the bedside, only remembering that I’m holding a mug of tea when I reach the chair. Rosie takes it and puts it on a nearby table. I hold Mum’s hand and wait patiently for her to speak.
‘I want you to know,’ she says, the words causing her precious energy, ‘that I never regretted anything, and that I love you very much.’
‘I love you too, Mum.’
* * *
She slipped away in her sleep three hours later, and despite the four months of nursing, the weeks of build-up, and the knowledge that she could go at any time, it still felt sudden, as though I wasn’t prepared for it. But it was in death that she appeared her age again. The cancer had crept up little by little, adding decades to her appearance, but now that she was at peace, she was back to how she looked before.
And it was at that moment that relief washed over me. It was brief, but it was there. After it went away, my stomach lurched.
Rosie placed her head in her hands and sobbed. I just sat there, staring at Mum, thinking about how beautiful she was now that she had passed away, wondering what was wrong with me.
We’ve been sitting by her now for almost thirty minutes, with Rosie crying and me silent.
‘Take your time, girls,’ Susie says. ‘Stay with her as long as you need.’ But there’s an edge to her voice suggesting that it’s time for us to leave this room. By telling us we can stay, she’s reminding us that at some point we need to go.
I’m not sure Rosie can hear her over the sound of her own tears. But Susie’s voice brings me back to reality, and I wrap an arm around Rosie’s shoulder, holding her tight.
‘What happens now?’ I ask. My voice is so hoarse, it surprises me that Susie can even hear me.
‘Well,’ she says gently, ‘we’ll take her down to the mortuary. You can help us with that, or we can take care of everything. It’s entirely up to you. Then we’ll issue a certificate and you use that to register her death.’ She continues giving her advice, and I nod along, but at the sound of the word ‘death’ I begin to hear a high-pitched ringing in my ears. She hands me a tissue and I realise that I’m crying too. ‘I’m so sorry, girls. Iris was a wonderful woman. You can tell the kind people, the truly kind ones, from the way they are when they’re in pain. Your mum was one of those.’
Rosie lifts her head and wipes away the tears on her cheeks. ‘We were lucky to have her as our mum. Weren’t we, Hev?’
All I can do is nod my head. I can’t speak any more.
* * *
‘I can’t stand the thought of her in that horrible cold little room,’ Rosie says.
My fingers wrap tightly around the steering wheel. ‘It’s just temporary. Once we get in touch with the funeral directors, she can be taken to the chapel of rest. It’ll be … nicer there.’
‘None of it’s nice.’
‘I guess it’s the best we’ve got.’ My tone is a little snappier than I intend it to be. But Rosie doesn’t appear to notice. Despite the windy day, she rolls down the window and holds her hand out, spreading her fingers.
‘Do you think we’ll get it too?’ she says. ‘It’s genetic, isn’t it? Everyone dies young in our family.’
‘You can be tested for the gene if you want. I think I’m going to do it.’ I pause. ‘Grandad didn’t die young. And Dad killed himself.’
‘I guess,’ she says in an absent-minded tone. ‘Grandad was one of those old codgers running on bitterness and old-man anger until his eighties.’
‘I take it you miss him, then?’
We both exchange a glance with thin smiles. Mum’s death happened sooner than I’d anticipated, but I had known it was going to happen. Still, the tiniest of jokes brings back the churning in my stomach. It reminds me of the relief I felt when Mum’s face relaxed and she finally let go of life. It reminds me of the guilt.
It’s almost an hour since we left the hospital, and we’ve both managed to get our emotions back under control. Maybe I shouldn’t feel guilty about the relief I’d felt as she passed away. It wasn’t relief that Mum was gone. No, I’ll miss her every day for the rest of my life. The relief was for her, that she wasn’t in pain any more. But it still feels strange to say anything lighthearted to each other. And yet at the same time, it wouldn’t feel right to still be sobbing.
Rosie sighs. ‘We should make everything perfect for her. The funeral, the wake. I know I ruined Dad’s wake. I can never take that back. But I can help you with Mum’s.’
‘Thanks,’ I reply. ‘We’ll organise it together if that’s what you want.’
‘What did she say to you at the end?’
‘Oh, that she loved me.’ I pause, considering holding back the rest. ‘She also said that she didn’t regret anything.’
‘That’s weird. Because she told me that she was sorry. She didn’t say what for, though. It made me feel as though she did have some regrets.’
‘I guess she wasn’t quite herself, what with all the drugs,’ I reply. ‘Maybe her thoughts were jumbled up.’
‘Yeah, you’re probably right.’ Rosie shakes her head. ‘She might not have any regrets, but I do. I could build a whole new version of me just by stacking up all my regrets. During the rehab process I’m supposed to forgive myself. But I’m not sure I ever will.’
‘I’m sure you …’ but I find my voice drifting off, because Rosie has done some unforgivable things. And while I know that she’s been ill, I’m still struggling with the idea of forgiving her for them.
Silence fills the car. My silence, in particular, speaks loud and clear. It means that I think she’s right. Moving my hand from the wheel, I stretch out my fingers towards the radio control, then think better of it. Maybe silence is better.
‘It’s okay,’ Rosie says. ‘I don’t expect you to forgive me either.’
I shake my head. ‘You’re my sister.’ And I love you. I’m not sure why I can’t say that out loud. I’m too similar to Dad – terse to the point of making people uncomfortable. The occasional hug was as much emotion as you could get with him.
‘That doesn’t absolve me of anything.’
‘It means that I’m here for you no matter what. It means we’re a team.’ But even as I say the words, I can’t tell if I mean them. I want to, but there’s always that night between us, acting as a wedge. A Samuel Murray-shaped wedge. Always making me wonder what my sister is capable of.
Right on cue, we pass the edge of the land belonging to the Murrays. It never changes here. There’s still the rusting five-bar gate to the road, the dry-stone walls topped with barbed wire, the stretching fields of sheep. Further up, near where the weird tree used to be, is the entrance to the courtyard, with the sign on the road for fresh milk and eggs at the shop. In a few months there’ll be a sign for Christmas-turkey bookings too.
And as my eyes roam the length of the estate, I see the three of us, young and innocent, running around chasing the chickens. Just kids. Me, Rosie and Samuel. We started going to the Murrays’ when I was barely twelve years old. The two of us hacked our ponies over to the farm and let them graze in the paddock as we collected eggs, mucked out the barns and swept up spilled hay for the cattle. Every summer we spe
nt all our time there, racing each other through the yard with Samuel’s younger brother Peter lagging behind, never truly part of the group. They were the happiest days of my life.
Until every day of that happiness became tainted by what happened next. A shiver runs down my spine as I think about Rosie standing in the kitchen, her clothes filthy, the tracks of tears in the dirt on her face. She was seventeen then, while I was sixteen, but up until that day we’d still been working on the farm every summer.
Rosie turns away from the Murrays’ field, but I don’t. I stare at it, and I think about the night she came home in tears. We never went to the farm again.
Six
Rosie
Then
I never told Heather about meeting Samuel in the woods that day, and I’m not sure why I never told her. There was the fact that Samuel was hated at school, but there was another reason too. One I didn’t quite understand at thirteen years old. It could be because I was trying to protect that experience. To make it mine and mine alone. Or it’s possible I’d felt the burgeoning of an attraction towards Samuel but was too young to understand it. Perhaps it was a little of both.
When Samuel and Heather hit it off from the start, I realised I was grateful that he never mentioned our hour or so creating a weapon in the woods. And it made me feel as if we had a secret, though that also brought with it conflicting feelings of guilt. All these complicated teenage emotions could explain why I was snappy and off with him at the farm, because I knew he was keeping my secret for me, and I was oddly scared that he’d reveal it to my sister. Hev and I weren’t supposed to have secrets. We’d spit on the stones near the bluebell field and make promises to each other. We never kept anything from each other.
And yet … I still loved having an experience she couldn’t touch. Samuel was someone Heather knew from school. He was in her year and some of her classes, so when I spent time with him whittling a spear, I had a one-up on her and I enjoyed the fact that she knew nothing about it. Not that the feeling lasted. When Heather and Samuel became friends, I suddenly became the person on the outside looking in, and mine and Samuel’s secret faded into insignificance.
Mum was in a terrible mood when she collected us from the Murrays’ that first time. Our old Jeep dragged the rusting trailer behind it, rattling along the roads. Grandad was in the passenger seat, and he was enjoying the trip out, it seemed, because he’d taken up the offer of a cup of tea and a slice of Bakewell tart while we loaded the ponies into the trailer.
‘She’s not going to let you come back, is she?’ Samuel had said, glancing first at Heather, then at me.
‘Yeah,’ I agreed. ‘I doubt it.’
The truth is, I didn’t want her to let us back there, not after watching my sister make friends with a boy I potentially liked.
‘She will.’ Heather was the most confident about it, and she was right.
The next day, we rode our ponies back to the farm, and this time Heather kicked Lady on as the weird tree came into view. Even though her body tensed with nerves, she gritted her teeth, pressed her heels into Lady’s flanks and remained firm with her. I didn’t say anything, but I was proud of her.
I remember not knowing what to expect when we got there, but we soon learned what was required of us. Mr Murray showed us where we could keep the ponies while we worked. Because they weren’t as agitated this time, we decided to let them into the paddock to enjoy the sunshine and have a graze. He had already arranged for a trough to be set up with water, giving them everything they needed.
‘Right then, girls,’ he said. ‘You can collect the eggs, fill the feeders with slop for the pigs, and muck out the cow shed while they’re in the fields. What do you want to do first?’
‘Let’s do the eggs,’ Samuel said.
‘All right,’ Heather said keenly.
He glanced over at me and twisted one corner of his mouth up in a tentative grin. ‘That all right?’
‘Guess so,’ I said, my thoughts still on the day in the woods months ago. Still smarting that Heather was the one he usually talked to first. My bad mood was evident to Heather too, because she turned and glared at me. She wanted to have a day of fun and I was wrecking it all by being glum. She was right to be annoyed; I was being a moody cow.
We followed Samuel over to the chicken coop, which was behind the farmhouse. The hens clucked and pecked and moved in a comical way that made us all laugh. He picked one of them up, carefully holding its wings down, and showed us how you could move it all around and its head stayed in the same position.
‘They have weird necks,’ he said, chuckling as he lifted the hen up and down. ‘It’s hilarious.’
Still moody, I rolled my eyes, but Heather laughed and gently petted the bird as Samuel held it tight.
‘Show me again how you pick them up,’ she said.
Samuel demonstrated. The hen seemed to sense what was about to happen and lowered its little body towards the ground, clucking nervously. He gently wrapped his hands around it, clamping down the wings, and lifted it up.
Heather had a go next, but she was clumsy and the bird ran away when she moved too quickly. We all laughed at her attempt. Even me. The sweet little creatures were warming me up and I was starting to relax.
Samuel’s dark-blue eyes fell on me. Even at twelve, he had a seriousness about his expression that meant you kind of enjoyed it when his attention fell on you. It was a strange sensation, being held in that attention. As a popular girl, I wasn’t supposed to fancy a boy younger than me, and I especially wasn’t supposed to fancy one who was mostly regarded as a freak. But there was definitely a prickle at the back of my neck when he glanced at me.
‘What about you, Rosie?’ he said in that quiet voice I remembered from the day in the woods. ‘Do you want to have a go?’ The chicken wriggled a little and he held it closer to his torso. I remember that he was wearing one of those awful black T-shirts with a rock band logo on the front. Some sort of death-metal band that did his reputation no good at our small village school. The first rule of a small school was to not make yourself a target, and thinking back, I’ve realised that Samuel failed miserably at that.
Samuel placed the hen back on the ground and I hovered over it, waiting for it to huddle down before gently placing my hands over its wings. The bird weighed almost nothing as I lifted it into the air. It bobbed its head and clucked, its suspended legs scrabbling.
‘You’re a natural,’ he said.
When I felt the hen begin to struggle out of my hands, I placed it back down and rubbed my hands against my jodhpurs. The chickens had a sweet, putrid smell that I didn’t particularly want to carry with me for the rest of the day.
‘Shall we get the eggs, then?’ Heather said. She had her arms crossed over her body and was glowering at me. Heather, someone who excelled at everything she put her mind to, hated it when anyone was better than her at anything.
‘Yeah, come on,’ Samuel said. ‘We might even see one of the hens laying.’
Heather didn’t look at me as she followed Samuel up the ramp into the coop. We’d forget about this moment later and spend the evening practising eyeshadow application with some of Mum’s old collections, but at the time, it was a real betrayal. It made me the boring sister, dragging down the mood. With the funny little secrets and the boy I thought I might like, there was a strange atmosphere between the two of us.
And if I’m honest, it might have been that moment that changed a lot between the three of us.
Seven
Heather
Now
Spring presents Buckthorpe at its most glorious. Bluebells carpet the woods, golden hour touches the green dales outside the village and makes the place glow, and the mornings are cool enough for a long walk without breaking a sweat. I walk alone through Buckbell Woods, drinking it all in: the slight dampness of the earth after overnight rainfall, the silver bark of the birches, and the bobbing branches bending with the breeze. There is birdsong overhead and the throaty cal
l of the occasional crow. I used to walk Buster here, watching as his nose trailed through the muddy ground, doggy saliva dripping on the forest floor. Or I would ride Lady, giving her the reins, leaning back to inhale the fresh scent of a spring morning. Before Rosie turned sixteen, she used to come with me too. But as soon as her sweet sixteen arrived, she changed. Having a dull little sister tagging along wherever she went annoyed her.
Not that we were completely inseparable before she turned sixteen. She would often sneak away for whatever mischief she was up to that day. She was clever enough to know that she couldn’t break any rules around me, because I was a useless liar if Mum asked me a direct question. But it was when she was sixteen that I noticed her not wanting to spend any time with me at all.
Out of habit, I didn’t even think to wake Rosie before I left the cottage. I also wanted to be alone. After a late night of food, talking and grieving, I assumed she’d want to sleep in. But I found myself awake at dawn, imbued with a ton of anxious energy. Being in the house only reminded me of the routine I’d become accustomed to while taking care of Mum. A routine that was no longer needed. There was the morning check-in with the hospital, the packed lunch I’d make myself to eat in her hospital room, the change of clothes that I’d take for her – not that she got dressed properly in the last week or so. The tissues and wipes I’d pack. The sensible shoes I’d wear for walking through the long, winding corridors.
But all that was over, and now it was time to move on to the other practical things relating to illness and death, the things I’m desperate to delay because it all feels too real. Calling work to request more compassionate leave. Registering the death. Choosing which funeral home to hire. The coffin. The service. The food. The newspaper announcement.
None of those scary tasks are here beneath the trees. Here, I can breathe. My spine tingles as I walk on towards the clearing where the bluebells flourish. They opened last week, and we’re never sure how long they’ll last. They are as stunning as I remember. A carpet of soft violet-blue spreads from my feet to the close-knit copse of trees beyond. I bend down, resting back on my heels in a low squat, and let out a long, deep breath. Then I allow myself to pick one perfect flower.
The Liar's Sister (ARC) Page 5