My Sister's Bones

by Nuala Ellwood

  “Yes,” I say. “But that doesn’t excuse what he did to Mum and me. Why did he have to take it out on us?”

  “It was the drink,” sighs Ray. “Many’s the time I’d pop in for a quick pint and your dad would already be on his third and it was not yet six in the evening. I’d drink mine and leave him there. God knows how many he knocked back each night.”

  I flinch, remembering the feeling of dread as we waited for him to come home.

  “But don’t you see?” says Ray, putting his hand on mine. “It was the drink that made him angry. If only he’d have dealt with that, then maybe things would have been different.”

  “Maybe,” I say, though I don’t believe it. Dad hated me even when he was sober.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, taking my hand away. “I know you were friends but the day that man had a heart attack and died was the day my life and my mother’s changed for the better. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh but that’s the way it is.”

  He nods his head and sighs.

  “You know my sister’s an alcoholic?” I say. “That was another of Dad’s legacies.”

  “Yes,” he says. “I’d heard she weren’t doing too well. It’s such a shame. She was a sweet little girl. Always chatting away nineteen to the dozen and such a pretty thing too. It’s funny but whenever I think of you two girls I see you there on that beach with your mum. She would always be taking you for picnics.”

  And as he talks I am blindsided by a memory. We’re at Reculver beach. I’m searching for sharks’ teeth while Sally builds sandcastles and my mother sits on a towel reading a novel.

  I’m digging in the sand with my fingertips, waiting for the touch of a jagged tooth, but instead my hand rests on something thick and hollow. I pull it out and sit back on the shingle to examine my find. The object is black and has a complex criss-cross pattern indented into its surface. I run my fingers along it, delighting in the rough, sandpapery feel. It is my treasure, my secret, and I sit for a few minutes holding it to my chest like a sleeping baby.

  “What are you doing?”

  My mother is yelling at me. She grabs the object and runs toward the sea.

  “Bring it back,” I shout, but she doesn’t hear me and I can only watch helplessly as she throws my treasure into the waves.

  “You could have been killed,” my mother gasps breathlessly as she returns to the beach and slumps down onto her towel. And then she explains that the precious object I’d held to my chest was a tiny bomb—it was most likely a remnant of the famous bouncing bombs that had been tested on Reculver beach during the war.

  “Bombs explode,” my mother tells me, “and God help you if you get in their way.”

  A few seconds later my mother has resumed her position reading her novel, while Sally finishes building her sandcastle. The incident is forgotten. But I can’t move. All I can think of is the bomb and as the years pass I will ask myself over and over again how it can be that something so beautiful and small can cause so much pain.

  “Such a shame,” says Ray, interrupting the memory. “Is there nowhere she can go to get help?”

  He’s talking about Sally.

  “We’ve tried,” I tell him. “But she doesn’t want help. I went round to see her yesterday and she was in a really bad way. I tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t listen. She just got spiteful and started trying to make out she knew things about me.”

  “Oh yeah?” says Ray. “What things?”

  “She wouldn’t say,” I reply. “But it won’t be anything; it’s just her way of deflecting attention from herself. My dad was the same. He’d always get vicious when he’d had a drink and start doling out the insults.”

  “Hmm,” says Ray. “You’re right. Don’t take it to heart. She won’t have known what she was saying. It’s very sad.”

  He drains his tea and stands up.

  “Well, I best be off,” he says, putting his cap on. “I don’t want to keep you. Just glad to see you’re okay. I’m an old man and I worry.”

  “I’m fine, Ray,” I say as we walk into the hallway. “But thanks for coming over. With Mum gone I’ve no one else to worry about me.”

  I smile as I open the door.

  “Thanks for the tea,” he says, stepping outside. “And give my best to Sally, won’t you?”

  “I will,” I say as I walk him to the end of the drive. “Though I don’t know if I’ll see her again before I go.”

  “Oh, do,” he says, pressing his hand in mine. “Do try, Kate. She’s your sister. You can’t give up on her, otherwise you’d never forgive yourself.”

  I nod my head.

  “Good-bye,” he says, taking his hand from mine. “Take care now.”

  “Bye, Ray,” I say and I watch him walk away down the hill.

  As I turn to walk back toward the house I see Fida. She’s coming from the other direction carrying shopping bags, looking like she hasn’t got a care in the world. How can she be so blasé when her little boy is suffering? I feel the anger boiling up inside me as I watch her. I have to say something.

  “Why did you do it?” I cry as she draws closer. “Why did you lie to the police?”

  She tries to push past me but I stand firm.

  “Come on, Fida,” I say. “This is silly.”

  “No, what is silly is you,” she says. She takes her bags and marches up her drive. I watch as she unlocks the door and puts the bags inside.

  “Fida, just talk to me,” I call. “What is it you’re so scared of?”

  She shuts the door, then turns and comes back down the driveway. She looks furious as she stands in front of me.

  “Is it this?” she shouts, pointing to her hijab. “Is that it? You think I’m up to no good? Well, you’re not alone. There are many in this town don’t want people like me here.”

  “Don’t talk nonsense,” I cry. I am horrified that she would think such a thing. “I’ve spent my whole career reporting from the Middle East. I’ve worn a hijab myself. That’s nothing to do with it. Now tell me where your child is.”

  She closes her eyes and shakes her head.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she says, throwing her hands in the air. “I have told you I don’t have a child. I’ve told police I don’t have a child. What is it with you? You think if I had a child I would hide it? You think I’m crazy?”

  “No, I don’t think you’re crazy,” I say, lowering my voice. “I think you’re scared. It’s your husband, isn’t it? He’s the one doing this.”

  “My husband!” she shrieks. “Now you’re blaming my husband?”

  My head is splitting and I desperately need some more painkillers.

  “I’m just saying I understand,” I say. “I had to watch my mother go through a violent marriage.”

  “Your mother was a lovely lady,” she says, her voice softening. “Always kind and asking me about my homeland and what it was like.”

  I try to speak but my words won’t come out. All I can hear is Nidal’s voice. It’s been growing more insistent these last few minutes. He’s calling my name, begging me to help him.

  “Shhh,” I hiss. “Just shhh.”

  “Don’t tell me to shut up,” cries Fida. “Your mother would never have done what you did. She would never accuse my husband of wrongdoing and she would never call the police. Do you know what I have been through in Iraq at the hands of the so-called police? Do you?”

  “I can only imagine,” I mutter, a sinking feeling in my chest. It is all I can manage though I want to tell her that I know about Iraq, that I understand. I put my arm out and rest it on the wall.

  “You don’t look well,” she says, coming toward me. “You should get back inside.”

  “Yes,” I say and I let her guide me down the drive, back to my mother’s house.

  She settles me on the sofa, arranging cushions around me as I lean back, my head a black void.

  “I’ll make you a hot drink,” she says and I watch through half-closed eyes as she disappears into
the kitchen.

  She returns with a mug of steaming sweet tea. I sip it slowly and it seems to help.

  “Sugar is good when you feel . . .” She struggles to find the words so I help her out.

  “Hungover?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Lucky for me I never feel that.”

  “No, of course not,” I reply. “Very wise too.”

  I watch her as she rearranges her headscarf. She is very beautiful and so polite. She reminds me of my mother, always apologizing and overcompensating with smiles. That’s what beaten wives do. But why would she lie about something like having a child? I realize as I watch her that I will have to tread carefully if I want to get to the truth.

  “Fida’s a nice name,” I say as I sink my head back into the cushions.

  “Thank you,” she says. “I was named for my grandmother.”

  “Me too,” I say. “Though I never met her.”

  She smiles and I notice that her hands are shaking.

  “Fida, if there is anything you want to tell me,” I say, “you know you can, don’t you? You can trust me.”

  “Ms. Rafter, there is nothing to tell,” she says, flashing a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Now, I’ll leave you quietly. Try to get some sleep and no more calling the police, okay? No more talk of children.”

  As she gets up to leave I catch something on her face. What is it? Something like resignation, I think. I have to try one last time.

  “I grew up with a man like this, Fida. I know how it works. They destroy you, up here.”

  I tap my fingers against my temples as she stands in the doorway staring at me, her face now blank.

  “You have to be strong for your child, Fida,” I continue. “You owe it to him to be strong. My mother, God bless her, should have left my father but she didn’t, she stayed silent and that silence allowed him to carry on.”

  My voice catches in my throat and the smell of the hospital comes back to me, the thick, suffocating smell of blood and bleach.

  “Ms. Rafter, please. Stop this.”

  “No, I won’t stop this,” I shout, pulling myself up from the sofa and spilling my tea. “I have a duty not to stop this. I hear your boy screaming every night.” I lower my voice, seeing her about to run. “I know it must be tough for you to admit but you can get help. I can help you. There are people I know who can get you away from him: women’s refuges, counselors. You have to, Fida, for your child’s sake, you have to do it.”

  The exertion of spitting out the words is too much and I flop back onto the sofa.

  “This is crazy,” she says as I turn on my side and bury my face in the musty material. “You are not well. I will leave you alone. But, please, I ask you to leave me alone too.” Her voice is full of barely hidden disgust.

  I listen to her footsteps shuffling out of the room, then the front door slams shut and I am alone in the thickening silence.

  “Are you dead?”

  It’s him. I recognize his voice even through my sleep-fogged brain.

  “Oh, good,” he says as I open my eyes. “You’re alive.”

  Nidal is sitting on the floor. His hair is matted with dust and grime.

  “Hello,” I whisper. “What time is it?”

  “It’s late but I can’t sleep. The bombs have started again.”

  His face is pale and the dark shadows under his eyes have deepened. He must sleep or he will get ill.

  “Where is everyone?” I ask.

  “They’re sleeping. But I cannot.”

  “You should try to rest, Nidal,” I say. “You can’t keep coming and waking me up like this. You have to sleep.”

  He shakes his head. “I will never sleep. You tell me a story. About England.”

  “I can’t, Nidal. I’m too sleepy. You tell me a story.”

  “But you are adult and I am child. Adults don’t need stories.”

  “We all need stories, Nidal.”

  “Okay, I tell you about Aleppo; how it used to be.”

  I feel him shuffle closer to me, then he rests his hand on my head. It is cool and soft just like Fida’s was, and as I close my eyes he takes a deep breath and I’m there with him, walking through a beautiful city that no longer exists.

  17

  I can smell Aleppo when I wake up two hours later, my back aching from the springs of my mother’s sofa.

  “Nidal?” I whisper as I slowly come to. And then I remember where I am.

  The dream had been so clear, so vivid, that as I stand up and make my way to the kitchen I can hear his voice in my head, the words he always left me with.

  “Tusbih ‘alá khayr, Kate.”

  Good night, Nidal.

  I need air, I tell myself as I cross the kitchen and open the back door. If I stay in the house I will dwell on Nidal and Aleppo and then the nightmares will come. I have to get out.

  I pour myself a glass of water and take it with me to the garden. Pulling a plastic chair over to the patio, I sit and watch as the sky darkens. It is chilly and I rub my arms to warm myself. And then I see something: a triangle of light showing through the fence.

  I get out of the chair and go to take a closer look. One of the slats in the fence has come loose and is hanging at an angle.

  “One more thing to fix,” I mutter to myself but as I go to return to the chair I hear something.

  A voice. A very faint voice.

  “Kate?”

  I stand frozen to the spot. Fear ripples through me. The voice is coming from an unexpected direction. It is coming from a silent place, an empty place; it is coming from the house. Not next door—mine.

  There is someone in there and I am out here alone. The hairs on my arms bristle as I hear footsteps coming closer.

  “Oh, there you are.”

  My shoulders sag with relief when I see him.

  “Paul, what are you doing here?”

  “You’d left the front door open. I was worried.”

  He stands in the fading light of the patio. The kitchen behind him is dark and for a second he looks like a photograph that hasn’t yet developed. I go to greet him and slowly his features begin to re-form.

  “The door was open?” I exclaim. “But it can’t have been . . .”

  I leave the sentence unfinished because there is no explanation for it. I heard the door slam when Fida left. I slept for a couple of hours and then I came out here. I haven’t been anywhere else, have I?

  “You got to be careful,” he says. “There’s been a spate of burglaries on this road. Not that there’s much to steal in this old place.”

  As I walk toward him I see that he is holding shopping bags.

  “What’s that?”

  “Dinner,” he says, raising the bags to his chest like a set of dumbbells. “I thought you could do with a home-cooked meal. Tell me to sod off if you want. I’ll understand.”

  I wish he wouldn’t feel the need to drop in and check on me all the time. I need space to think, to make sense of what is happening. But then I think of last night; my behavior.

  “No, it’s me who should sod off,” I say, ushering him into the kitchen. “I am so sorry about last night. I haven’t had much sleep lately and I don’t normally drink. I’m afraid the wine just went straight to my head.”

  “It’s okay,” he says, placing the bags on the table. “It’s not a crime to have one too many, and anyway, you were very entertaining, especially your views on Dover.”

  “What did I say about Dover?” I ask, trying to recall the previous evening’s events. “Oh, actually, on second thoughts, don’t. I dread to think what I said. Really, Paul, I’m mortified.”

  “Don’t be daft,” he says with a chuckle. “You were just merry, that’s all.”

  I watch as he slowly removes the contents of the bag. There’s a cooked chicken, a bag of salad leaves, some cherry tomatoes, lemons, balsamic vinegar, olive oil, some sort of seed bread, and two bottles of wine.

  “Oh please, no more wine,” I groan.


  “Come on, just a glass,” he says, unscrewing the bottle.

  I smile awkwardly. I’d wanted to be alone tonight, wanted to clear my head, maybe even call Harry. I don’t need to spend another night talking about Sally with Paul, it’s just futile; but then I don’t want to offend him either.

  “Oh, I brought you this as well,” he says, throwing a bulky newspaper onto the kitchen counter. “Thought you might like to catch up with what’s going on.”

  I see my employer’s name in bold black type on the masthead and think to myself that it’s the last thing I want, but I smile and thank Paul all the same.

  “Right, let’s have a drink,” he says.

  I watch as he rummages through the glassware and emerges with a pair of old green-stemmed wineglasses. And as he pours the wine I think of Ray’s visit earlier. I need to find out what happened.

  “Paul,” I begin tentatively, “last night . . . when we left the pub . . . did I make a scene?”

  Paul finishes pouring the drinks, then hands me a glass.

  “You were a bit drunk, that’s all,” he says, smiling sheepishly. “Nothing to worry about.”

  He’s trying to protect me but I need to know.

  “Please,” I say, taking the glass. “Tell me.”

  His smile fades and he has a long drink of wine before speaking.

  “We were waiting for the cab,” he says, rubbing his finger and thumb along the stem of the glass. “And you just went all funny. For a minute I thought you were going to faint or something. Your eyes went strange, and then you started to shake. You couldn’t seem to hear me. It was like you were somewhere else.”

  I go cold. He is describing what I go through each night. It’s as though he has reached into my head and pulled out my nightmares. I take a nervous sip of the wine. So much for giving up.

  “Then the cab drew up,” he continues. “And I thought about getting in with you and taking you to the door but I knew I should be getting back to check on Sally. So I spoke to the driver. It was a woman; that reassured me. She was nice, said she’d make sure you got home safely.”