My Sister's Bones

by Nuala Ellwood

  I scrunch the letter into a tight ball and, lifting my fist, watch as the wind catches the paper and carries it high across the harbor wall, up and up like a gull, twisting and turning in the salty air.

  As the sky clouds over and the marine light shifts, I see a deserted street at dusk and the shadows of two soldiers lengthening on the concrete, their guns raised. I am back in Aleppo staring numbly into an abyss. I put my hands over my eyes and start to count, willing the images to go away.

  I need to get out of here.

  I walk back to the seafront and wait by the bandstand for a moment to watch the fishing boats come in. A cluster of fishermen stand on the breakwater smoking cigarettes. One of them, a thickset man in a blue cable-knit sweater, looks up and sees me. He nods his head and I recognize him.

  It’s Ray Morris. Dad’s old friend.

  “Ray,” I call, waving my hand.

  He stubs his cigarette out and steps across the shingle toward me.

  “It’s never Denny’s girl?” he says. “Little Kate. How are you?”

  His skin is dewy and pink and his eyes, reflecting the last rays of the late afternoon, are pale gray and glassy. He takes off his hat and shakes my hand. His hands are raw and callused as if he has spent a lifetime immersed in salt water. The last time I saw him was the night before I left for university. He’d come to deliver some fish and Mum invited him to stay for dinner. We’d avoided sitting around the dining table since my father’s death the previous year; too many bad memories. But that night my mum made an effort and set the table with the best china. It was the first civilized meal we’d had in years. And my last in that house.

  “I’m fine,” I reply, suddenly feeling like a child again.

  “What are you doing back?” he says. “Last thing I heard you were in the middle of some war.”

  “I’m just here for a few days,” I tell him. “Sorting out Mum’s things.”

  “It was terrible to hear about your mother,” he says, looking out toward the horizon. “Terrible. She was a good woman.”

  “Yes,” I whisper, trying not to think about the letter. “She was.”

  “I’m sorry I didn’t go to the funeral,” he says, putting his hat back on. “Only I . . . well, I’ve never been one for churches and all that.”

  “Don’t worry,” I reply. “I didn’t go either.”

  “Oh,” he says.

  “I was in Syria.”

  He nods his head.

  “We all read your stuff,” he says, gesturing to his mates out on the beach. “But must take its toll, eh?”

  He smiles and it’s all I can do not to cry. Something about his voice reminds me of my mum.

  “It’s nice to have a break from it for a bit,” I say. “Have a bit of normality.”

  “How’s that sister of yours?” he says. “Sally, weren’t it? Has she moved away too?”

  “No,” I reply. “But she keeps herself to herself these days.”

  “She used to work in the bank on the high street, didn’t she?”

  “Yes, she did,” I reply. “She left a few years ago. I think she fancied a change.”

  “Don’t blame her,” says Ray, frowning. “I don’t think I’ll be doing this much longer. It’s getting on for fifty years now. You get less for murder. Still, it’s given me a decent living.”

  “Which one’s yours?” I ask, gesturing to the boats that are lying upended on the shingle.

  “That one over there by the rocks,” he says, pointing to a small black-and-white vessel.

  I strain my eyes to read the squiggly writing on the side but I can’t make it out.

  “What’s it called?” I ask.

  “The Acheron,” he says, a slow smile creeping across his face.

  “The river of pain?” I ask. “That’s rather dark.”

  “Yes,” he says. “Appropriate, though. People forget how forbidding that sea can be.”

  He stops and I watch him as he looks out at the water. His whole being is rocky and solid as though he was carved out of the sandstone cliffs centuries ago and left to weather in the salty air.

  “It must be a tough job,” I say.

  “It has its moments,” he replies. “The thing to remember is that, no matter what, you can never tame that beast.” He points toward the sea. “It will always have the last word.”

  I go to answer but the wind swallows my words. One of the fishermen calls Ray’s name and he puts his hand up.

  “All right, Jack!” He turns to me. “I’m needed,” he says. “It was good to see you, love.”

  He pats my shoulder and smiles.

  “You too, Ray,” I say, suddenly feeling very small.

  “Mind you pass on my best to Sally, when you see her,” he says. “And you two look after each other. Now your mum’s gone you need to stick together. Most important thing in the world, family.”

  He looks at me for a moment, then nods his head and goes to join the others by the boats.

  Ray’s words ring in my ears as I make my way back along the seafront.

  Most important thing in the world.

  I pass a group of children casting crab lines over the edge of the pier. Two little girls start to bicker over a twisted line, but the older one takes charge and begins to detangle it. And as I walk on I know what I must do. I take out my phone and hastily type out a brief text:

  I’m coming over.

  Then I put the phone in my pocket and flag down a taxi. I know it won’t be easy but I need to talk to her. Ray is right; she’s all I have left.

  11

  Herne Bay Police Station

  18 hours detained

  Would you like a glass of water?”

  I turn from the window and try to compose myself.

  “No, thank you, I’m fine,” I reply, but as I return to the blue plastic chair images flit through my mind like a film on fast-forward. My head pounds but I try not to show my discomfort to Shaw. I have to seem to be in control or I’m finished.

  “Okay,” says Shaw, clasping her hands together. “We talked a little about your last day in the newsroom. Am I correct in thinking that you left for Aleppo two days later?”

  My stomach twists but I try to stay calm. This is an interview and I am a journalist. This is not beyond me. If I keep on my toes I can do what I have always done with tricky subjects and second-guess her.

  “Yes, that’s right.”

  “It was a very risky assignment,” says Shaw. “I understand you were smuggled across the Syrian border via Turkey.”

  She’s not going to let this go. Though every part of me wants to avoid talking about Syria I know that I am going to have to. But I will only tell her what I want to tell her; nothing more.

  “How do you know that I was smuggled into Syria?”

  She goes to speak, then looks down at her notes. She shuffles through them for a few moments, then looks up.

  “Harry Vine told the officers when they contacted him,” she says, holding up a piece of paper. It’s a printout of my last dispatch. Harry must have sent them it.

  “Seems like Harry has been very useful,” I say with an empty laugh. I keep eye contact with her for as long as I can. She must not know that I’m falling apart here.

  “The district where you were staying was under siege, I believe,” she says, holding my gaze. “And being heavily bombarded.”

  I nod my head.

  “And most nights you were holed up in a basement which belonged to a shopkeeper and his family.”

  “Yes.”

  “The shopkeeper had a young child,” she continues. “A little boy.”

  I want her to stop. I want to shout at her, but I have to stay calm. I must.

  “You grew rather attached to the boy, didn’t you, Kate?”

  I see his little face looking up at me from the doorway, a scrap of paper in his hands. I’ve brought you a present to take back to England, to cheer up the grumpy people.

  “I was there to work, Dr. Shaw.”r />
  It’s called the book of smiles. See.

  “But children are different,” she continues. “They are more vulnerable than adults. They need protecting.”

  Mama said you were sad. I’ll make you happy.

  I clear my throat and his voice subsides.

  “Yes, they do.”

  “You focus on children quite a lot in your work, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I reply.

  “Why is that?”

  “Because they’re the victims, the innocent bystanders,” I reply. “When you meet children who have lived through war you see how futile it all is. Children don’t see borders or divisions. They aren’t bound by tribal loyalties or politics, they just want to play, to go to school, to be safe.”

  Shaw is silent for a moment, then she smiles at me, her head cocked to one side.

  “Do you have children of your own?”

  “No. You must know that.”

  “Yet it’s clear you have an affinity with them which is remarkable when you’re not yet a mother.”

  “It’s not about being a mother, Dr. Shaw,” I reply. “It’s about being a human being.”

  “Would you like to be a mother?”

  “No.”

  My voice stays steady though I want to scream and shout it hurts so much. Make her stop. Please make her stop.

  “And you’re not married?”

  I shake my head.

  “In a relationship?”

  “Christ, what has any of this got to do with why I’m here?” I snap. Then reining myself in, I lower my voice. “Why aren’t you taking me seriously? I know I have some . . . some problems—but you need to search that house.”

  “Please just answer my question, Kate. Are you in a relationship right now?”

  “No,” I say, sitting on my hands to stop them from shaking. “No, I’m not in a relationship.”

  12

  Wednesday, April 15, 2015

  I arrive at Sally’s house just after three. The street is deserted. She lives in one of those new-build estates where every house looks identical. It’s in a cul-de-sac and Sally’s is tucked right in the center of the curve with two houses leaning in from either side. I feel like a thousand eyes are on me as I knock on the door and wait.

  There’s no reply but I know she’s in there. She has to be; according to Paul she never goes out. I knock again, harder this time, but still there is no response. Eventually I bend down and shout her name through the letter box.

  “Sally, it’s Kate. Will you let me in?”

  The hallway is silent and there’s no sign of life. I shut the letter box and as I stand up I see a woman coming down the driveway of the neighboring house.

  “She won’t answer,” she tells me as she draws near. “You can bang on that door and make all the racket you want but she won’t come.”

  I look at her. She’s a large woman with neat gray hair cut short. Her brightly patterned blouse reminds me of one my mum used to wear but this woman has none of Mum’s gentleness. She folds her arms across her chest as she stands there weighing me up.

  “I’m her sister,” I tell her. “She knows I’m coming. I can wait.”

  “She only comes out at night when it’s dark,” continues the woman. She shakes her head and sighs as if going out at night is a mortal sin. “She sneaks out when she thinks no one can see her,” she goes on. “But I see her. Dreadful state she gets herself into. Dirty clothes and hair all over the place, and she drives, though I’m sure she’s in no fit state to do that. They say she spends the whole day drinking. And I’ve had words with her partner, what’s his name?”

  “Paul,” I say, not taking my eyes off the door.

  “Paul, that’s it,” says the woman. “But he’s hardly here so he doesn’t see what I see. Says she’s got depression but he doesn’t see her lurching back in the car with bagfuls of bottles. Depression? There was another word for it in my day and it didn’t end well. You’re her sister, you say? I haven’t seen you around here before.”

  “I live in London,” I explain, trying to disguise the contempt that is rising in my voice. “And I work away. Look, I’m sorry I disturbed you with the knocking but everything’s fine. I’m going to go round the back and see if she’s in the garden.”

  But the woman isn’t finished. She starts telling me what a state the garden has become in the last few months.

  “Look, I’m sorry but you’ll have to excuse me.” I interrupt her midflow. “My sister needs me.”

  I hear her mutter something as I walk down the drive and open the side gate. I gasp as I enter the garden. The woman was right. It is a state. The grass is patchy and overgrown with weeds and there are bits of broken furniture tossed here and there. Why hasn’t Paul done something about it, I wonder. He lives here too. Surely he can’t feel comfortable with it. But it sounds like Paul is keeping away. I remember his face when he turned up to take me to the solicitor, pale and exhausted. Now, seeing this detritus, it all makes sense. This is no home.

  I can just about make out the path that curves around the back of the house and I follow it up to the doors of the conservatory. That’s when I see her. She is sitting on a chair, bolt upright, staring out at the garden.

  She looks so different it startles me. It has been several years since I last saw her and she has deteriorated. Badly.

  After a second I raise my hand.

  When she sees me, her mouth drops open.

  “Sally,” I call, knocking on the window. I gesture to her to let me in but she doesn’t move. She just sits there staring at me as if she can’t trust what she is seeing. I rap on the glass again and finally she mouths back at me: “It’s open.”

  A deeply unpleasant odor hits me as I enter the house, a mix of overripe apples and sweat. Sally sits on a grubby white wicker chair in the corner of the conservatory. Her blonde hair has grown very long and it hangs greasily around her shoulders. She is wearing a dirty pink dressing gown and as I draw close it becomes clear that she is the source of the smell.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks as I close the door.

  “I’ve come to see you,” I reply. “I’ve just been to the solicitor . . . about Mum.”

  “Mum’s dead,” she slurs, staring past me toward the window. “He take you, did he?”

  I assume she means Paul so I say, yes, he drove me there. “He took me to see her grave as well and told me all about the funeral,” I add.

  “He always had a soft spot for her,” she says coldly. “Don’t know why. She said she couldn’t stand him, but then she hated anything that I loved, didn’t she?”

  “I don’t know about that, Sally,” I reply. “Mum loved Hannah.”

  At this she lets out a snort and pulls her knees up to her chest.

  “Oh, here we go again.” She sighs. “Is that why you’re here? To give me another lecture on parenting? You’re so deluded, Kate. You always were, even when we were kids.”

  I choose to ignore this slight and look around for somewhere to sit but there is nothing except an old, chipped coffee table. My stomach cramps as I bend down to sit on the edge of the table. I’m still feeling delicate and the smell inside the house is making me light-headed.

  “You must have known that she didn’t have long. Why didn’t you let me know sooner, Sally? Why just send that e-mail? You could have called me and I would have got home in time.”

  Sally just shrugs. We sit in silence for a minute or so before she speaks, her voice low and slurring with the remnants of her morning pick-me-up.

  “I didn’t call you because you were off in bloody Timbuktu or wherever. I only had your e-mail address.”

  “Syria,” I snap, feeling all our old resentments bubbling to the fore. “I was in Syria.”

  “Syria. Oh, I do apologize,” she sneers. “And no, I didn’t know she was about to pop her clogs so I couldn’t have warned you in advance. Anyway, I knew you wouldn’t make the funeral so what was the point of going into detail?
You haven’t been back for years. Only time I hear from you is when I see your name in the papers.”

  “That’s unfair, Sally,” I reply. “Yes, my job means I’m away a lot, but if I’d known Mum was failing I would have dropped everything to get back to see her. You know I would.”

  She nods her head and I can see in her eyes she knows she’s gone too far. The drink makes her spiteful but it’s wearing off and soon she will be full of remorse. It’s always the same.

  “Anyway, how are you?” she asks at last. The room has grown heavy with my silence and she’s trying to win me over. She’ll probably ask me to get her a drink in a minute. “You don’t look too well.”

  And I look at her then, my baby sister, the person whom I spent our childhood protecting, and for a moment have the urge to tell her. The words burn inside me, but then I see her trembling hands and I think better of it.

  “I’m fine,” I say. “Just had a bit of flu.”

  “It’s all these strange places you go to,” she says, her lip curling. “God knows what diseases you might pick up. I see it on the news all the time. What’s the latest one? Ebola? You want to be more careful.”

  I take a deep breath and try not to let her rile me. The smell in here is really overpowering.

  “I’m not ill,” I say. “Just a bit tired.”

  She shrugs her shoulders and we sit in awkward silence for a few moments.

  “I need another drink,” she says, getting up out of her chair. “Do you want one?”

  “I’d love a glass of water,” I say. “If it’s not too much trouble.”

  I’m trying to keep my voice friendly to avoid any confrontation but my words come out sounding harsh. Still, Sally doesn’t seem to have noticed.

  “Come through,” she says as she walks to the door.

  I follow her out of the conservatory and into the living room. It’s tidier in here; there are vases of fresh flowers on the mantelpiece and a small pile of paperwork on the arm of the sofa. It’s clear that the conservatory is Sally’s den, the place where she hides. The rest of the house seems to be Paul’s domain and as I sit down and sink into the folds of the soft armchair I feel a pang of pity for him. How lonely he must be in this big house with no child and a ghost for a wife.