My Sister's Bones

by Nuala Ellwood

  “Nidal!”

  He is frozen in the road, his thin arms raised above his head. He is terrified and I am here, trapped behind glass.

  “Kate, help me.”

  I smash my fists against the window but it won’t break.

  “Help me.”

  Eventually the glass yields and I fall with it, down, down, onto soft sand. When I open my eyes, Paul is standing there above me.

  “Come on, sleepyhead, time we headed back.”

  “I must have nodded off,” I say as I get to my feet. “What time is it?”

  “Almost four,” he says, his voice agitated. “I fell asleep too. We really should go, tide’s coming in. Mist too.”

  I look toward the cliffs and realize I can’t see them. The fog has obscured most of the route back.

  My head feels thick and I wonder how long I’ve been asleep.

  “Come on,” calls Paul as he heads up the beach. “Quick, before the water rises.” He’s soon lost in the fog.

  I grab my coat and fling it around my shoulders, then stumble across the rocks in the direction Paul went in. But after a few steps I lose my footing and fall facedown into the shingle. My legs are wobbly, the dream still working its effects.

  “Kate!”

  I can hear Paul but I can’t see him. I want to call him back but my head hurts and I feel dizzy. I feel drunk. What is wrong with me? I have to stop taking those pills.

  Finally I pull myself to standing and start to stumble toward where I think the path was.

  Suddenly through a gap in the mist I see him.

  “Get to the rocks,” yells Paul. He’s on the far side of the beach, gesturing with his arms. In between us a churning sea of water has somehow appeared. “Don’t walk this way. I only just managed to get over. You need to head to your left, to the rocks.”

  Then he disappears again behind a wall of mist. Seawater laps around my ankles as the beach slowly disappears. I am trapped against the rocks.

  “Climb up!” yells Paul from somewhere to my left.

  The wind whips water into my face as I try to get my foot onto the rocks and I am blinded. Wiping my eyes with the back of my hands serves only to blur my vision even more as my mascara loosens off in thick black clumps. The water is rising and I know I will have to get out of here soon or risk being swept away. I grab hold of a sharp rock that’s jutting out and heave my body onto it. It’s no wider than my foot and won’t hold me, I’m sure of it, but somehow it does and I stay there immobile while inches below me the water thrashes angrily.

  A sheer cliff face rises above me, leading to the towers. I need to climb it. But as I look up, panic surges through my exhausted body. There are no ledges, just a smooth surface. There is no way I can get to the top. I think of the tourists up at the towers. Maybe if I call out one of them will hear me.

  But my voice is a whisper against the surging sea and I close my eyes and try to summon my strength. Then I hear him again.

  “Kate.”

  Paul. I open my eyes and look up to the top of the cliff.

  “Kate.”

  He’s far away, but it must be him. It is. I can see him, vaguely, through the mist. He is holding his hand out. I hear him telling me to climb.

  “There are no ledges,” I cry. “I won’t be able to get a grip.”

  “Okay, listen to me,” he yells above the howling wind. “You need to jump down . . . tread through . . . before it gets too high. There’s another way you can get up.”

  I look down at the water. Even on this ledge it is almost at my knees.

  “I can’t,” I cry back.

  “. . . have to, Kate . . . only way.”

  “Tell me what to do,” I shout. My mouth fills with salty water and I spit it out onto the rocks.

  “Wade through . . .” he shouts, “. . . to your left . . . boulders . . .”

  His voice follows me in snatches from above as I wade into the water. It is thick with mud and I have to lift each foot high to avoid sinking into the slime. The mist enfolds me glutinously as I search for the boulders.

  “There,” he shouts. Paul is running along the top of the cliff, observing my floundering.

  Finally I see the boulders and trudge toward them. The water is rising and my legs feel like lead.

  “Climb up . . . there’s a ledge. Go on, Kate, hurry.”

  The boulder is covered in saturated seaweed and at first my hand slides down it as I try to climb up. I try again, this time using my elbows too, and finally get a grip. I haul myself up and stand on top of it, catching my breath and looking back at the rising water.

  “Quick,” he shouts. “It’ll be over your head in less than a minute. Get yourself onto the ledge.”

  I look up. It’s so far. How will I make it?

  “Come on, Kate!”

  My body feels so heavy. My arm is throbbing and when I look down I see that it’s bleeding in several places. I must have cut it climbing. A sea gull cries overhead. Seabirds can smell blood, like the vultures in Ethiopia. I drag myself up onto the ledge. It is wide and I manage to get both feet onto it but as I stand up straight the wind almost sends me flying backward.

  “Lean into it,” shouts Paul. “That way you’ll get your balance.”

  I do as he says and lean my body into the cliff face, so close I can taste seaweed.

  “Now grab that ledge just above you.”

  I look up into the driving rain and see a wide bit of rock jutting out. I’m terrified it won’t hold my weight but I reach up and haul myself onto it.

  “Good girl,” shouts Paul from somewhere above me. “Just a couple more to go and then you’ll reach the top.”

  I get myself into a standing position and reach out for the next ledge. It’s closer this time and more sturdy. I get myself onto it but I have to stop to catch my breath.

  “Come on, you’re nearly there. One more to go.”

  I see the next ledge but it is so far up I’m scared I won’t make it. My legs are numb with cold and if I miss my footing it’s a long way down.

  “Just grab it, Kate!”

  His voice spurs me on and I pull myself onto the ledge.

  “Good girl.”

  I look up and see him.

  “Now on a count of three I want you to grab my hand,” he shouts.

  I look up and see his hand hanging over the edge.

  “Kate. I’m going to count. Are you ready?”

  “Yes,” I call. My hands are trembling.

  “One.”

  I wipe my shaking hand on the back of my sleeve.

  “Two.”

  The water below me is a raging sea. All I can do is go forward, no matter how terrifying.

  “Three.”

  I reach out and grab his hand and he holds me so tight I fear he will break my wrist. Soon I am flying through the air, over the cliffs, off into the ether it seems, and I close my eyes, waiting for the moment he loses his grip and I fall. But I don’t. We do it. We hold on to each other and we don’t let go until I’m safely on the clifftop. Paul puts his coat over me as I lie there trying to get my breath.

  “I thought I’d lost you,” he cries as he pulls me toward him. “Jesus, I really thought I’d . . .”

  He buries his face in my shoulder and as I hold him close I feel his body trembling.

  “Shall we go home?” I whisper into his sodden hair.

  He looks up and it may be the salt in my eyes or the dense mist that hangs over the clifftop, but he looks different. His hair, battered by the wind and the rain, looks black. I watch as he pushes it out of his eyes and a familiar sensation twists inside my stomach. He looks, for a moment, like someone else.

  “Yes, I think we should,” he says. We get to our feet and stand face-to-face, our backs against the violent coastal air. “Come on.”

  I nod my head and he takes my hand as we walk silently toward the lights of the bay.

  24

  Herne Bay Police Station

  36 hours detained />
  The air has changed inside the interview room and I am finding it difficult to breathe.

  “Could we open a window?” I ask Shaw. “It’s so hot in here.”

  “It’s the central heating,” she replies. “It comes on automatically. I’m afraid the window only opens slightly but I can see if it helps.”

  She goes to stand up but I shake my head.

  “Oh, don’t bother, it’s fine,” I say. “Let’s just carry on.”

  I take off my cardigan and drape it over the back of the chair. As I sit here in my flimsy undershirt and mud-splattered jeans I feel vulnerable, exposed. As though I have no dignity left.

  “Okay,” says Shaw. “Let’s continue, if you can, Kate.”

  She looks down and reads from her notes.

  “Nidal was playing football in the hallway. His father came out of the room and they argued. Then you told the boy that he should listen to his father and stop playing football. The boy shouted and ran away.”

  It all sounds so neat and contained, nothing like how it actually was.

  “What happened then?” asks Shaw.

  “I don’t know,” I whisper. “I can’t remember.”

  “Please just try,” says Shaw.

  I don’t answer. Silence seems so appealing. I feel like I have no words left.

  “Perhaps if I can read you the account Graham Turner gave to Harry Vine when he returned from Aleppo,” says Shaw, her voice calm and deliberate.

  “No,” I cry. “Please don’t do that.” How could Harry do this to me?

  “Kate, I need to understand the conditions that led to your arrest at number 44 Smythley Road,” she says. “And part of that is to look at what happened that day in Aleppo.”

  She is holding a sheet of notebook paper. So that’s all it took to sum up what happened, Graham? A few lousy paragraphs?

  “‘Account given by Graham Turner,’” Shaw begins.

  As she continues I put my head in my hands and try to drown out her words with the rhythm of my breathing.

  “‘We had been staying in downtown Aleppo for a week and during that time Kate had befriended a young Syrian boy, the son of the family we were staying with. Her behavior went beyond the professional and I could see that she was becoming emotionally involved with the boy and his family to the detriment of our safety.’”

  I think of Graham Turner, my friend, my colleague, the man who’d accompanied me through hell on so many occasions, and I wonder why he has done this to me, why he felt the need to betray me like this.

  Shaw clears her throat and continues:

  “‘On the afternoon of March twenty-ninth we had been disturbed by the boy kicking a football outside our room. Kate ran out to see him and the next thing I knew she had grabbed her shoes and was making her way to the shop above to find the boy. At that time of day it was a grave mistake as the district was under heavy bombardment and the shop was in a prominent position. Alarmed for her safety, I ran after her, and when I got to the door of the shop I saw her outside on the street.’”

  Tears stream down my face as I sit listening to Graham’s words. I can smell the dust and the petrol in my mouth as Shaw continues.

  “‘She was talking to the boy and telling him that if he came back inside she would take him to England.’”

  “And I would have,” I sob. You bastard, Graham. “I would have taken that child anywhere he wanted to go if it meant I could have saved him.”

  Shaw waits for me to catch my breath, then continues.

  “‘I opened the door and saw them coming toward me. The boy had taken her hand and they were coming back inside.’”

  “No, no, no,” I wail as I feel his little hand in mine. “Don’t do this to me.”

  We were nearly there; we were so close.

  “‘They got to the door and were just about to step inside when the boy said something about his football, said he’d left it in the street. Kate told him to leave it. She said she would buy him a new one. But the boy was frantic. He was pulling at her, trying to break free from her hand. Kate lost her temper. She shouted at him. Told him that it was just a stupid football and to get back inside. Then the boy yanked his hand from hers and ran into the street. She went to run after him but I held her back. I told her not to be so reckless. The street was a no-go area and we needed to get back inside and find the boy’s parents.’”

  My whole body is shaking. I can’t do this. I need to make her stop. Please make her stop. As she continues with Graham’s account, I put my hands over my ears. But I can’t block out those final moments.

  A series of shots. A cloud of dust rising into the air. I can’t see him but I can hear his little voice:

  Kate. Help me.

  My legs are lead and it seems like forever until I get to him.

  “Help me!” he screams.

  He’s been shot in the head but it wasn’t a clean shot. He’s still alive.

  “It hurts,” he whimpers.

  “It’s okay, Nidal,” I whisper. “Help is coming. You’re going to be fine.”

  He struggles in my arms and I hold him tighter. Where is Graham? Why isn’t he coming to help?

  “That was a great match, Nidal,” I whisper. “The captain says you’ve made the first team. Next stop: Brazil, eh?”

  He squeezes my hand.

  “Not long now and we’ll get you safe,” I say. “Keep your eyes open, Nidal. Don’t close them. Stay awake, baby, stay awake.”

  But his eyes are rolling to the back of his head.

  “Come on, Nidal,” I shout. “Come on. You’re not dying here. You hear me? You’re not dying on this street. We’re going to get out of here. We’re going to go to Disneyland and we’ll stand on that bridge together, do you hear me? And then you can write all about it in your book of smiles. But you have to open your eyes to see it, Nidal. You have to open your eyes.”

  But as I speak he goes limp in my arms.

  I hear voices above me, men’s voices. They try to prize him away but I won’t let him go. I won’t.

  “Kate,” says Shaw, her voice a blade cutting through my heart. “Kate, are you okay?”

  “Stop!” I yell. “Stop, stop, stop! What are you trying to do to me? You want me to live through all that again just so you can prove I’ve lost my mind; so you can tick some bloody box? He’s dead. That little boy died, he was shot as he tried to get his football. And it was my fault. I shouted at him. I lost my temper and he ran off. If I’d stayed calm he might still be alive. Is that what you want to hear? That he died in my arms and that ever since that moment he won’t leave me alone; that I see his face and hear his voice every minute of the day?”

  “Kate,” says Shaw. “Calm down now. Take deep breaths.”

  “Fuck off, you patronizing bitch,” I shout. “I don’t need to take deep breaths. I need to tell you some hard facts. About Graham Turner. The man whose statement you’re using to paint me as a madwoman—do you want to know what he did instead of helping me? He just stood there with his camera. He stood there, photographing a dead child. He’s the one who should be in here being assessed, not me. This is bullshit, every word of it is bullshit.”

  I hurl myself out of the seat and run at Shaw, grabbing the sheet of paper from her hands.

  “Nidal,” I cry as I slump to the floor and hear Shaw’s reedy voice calling for assistance. “Nidal.”

  25

  Saturday, April 18, 2015

  It is getting dark as the taxi pulls up outside 46 Smythley Road. The journey from the seafront was short and we sat in silence, damp, cold, and exhausted on the back seat while the driver ranted about migrants, raising his voice to be heard above the din of local radio.

  And now we are here. There is no turning back.

  “£3.20 please, folks,” says the driver as Paul fiddles with his knapsack. He pulls out his wallet from the front pocket. It is dripping with seawater.

  “Sorry about that,” he says as he hands over a soggy ten-pound note. “It
’s all I have.”

  “No bother,” says the driver. “It’s all legal tender, wet or otherwise.”

  He fiddles with his money holder as we sit waiting awkwardly.

  “Listen, keep the change,” says Paul impatiently, leaning across me to open the door.

  “Thanks, mate,” says the driver, folding the note into a neat square.

  We step out onto the rain-soaked street and as I look up at the darkened house I feel a stab of panic. This was not my intention when I agreed to the day out. I look at Paul. He smiles, though I detect a sense of unease. Are we really going to do this? Perhaps there’s still time to turn back.

  “Come on,” he says, holding out his hand. “Let’s get out of these wet clothes.”

  A light goes on next door in the upstairs bedroom, and I imagine Fida pulling the curtains, climbing into bed beside her brute of a husband, and suddenly I don’t want to be alone anymore.

  So I take Paul’s hand and let him lead me inside the house. I let him lay me down on the stairs, where my mother’s blood still stains the carpet, and slowly remove my sodden clothes. His skin is warm against mine and as I lift my head to meet his lips my body tingles with desire. It’s been such a long time.

  It’s different from how it was with Chris and I blink away the memories of the last, precious time I did this and yield instead to this new being, the one that is pressing against me. But there is little emotion as he turns me over and takes off my panties, no tenderness as he thrusts himself deep inside me. A sharp pain makes me cry out and I know that I am not better yet. I shouldn’t be doing this. He is heavy on me and I try to shift position but he pushes me back. He doesn’t want to see me, I think, as he presses my face into the dirty carpet. If he sees me, it will ruin it all. This way we can both pretend we are with someone else and that will absolve us of our guilt. He’s thinking of Sally, the girl he first met with the loud voice and the zest for life. As he comes jerkily, he yelps with a sound that falls somewhere between pleasure and pain. I lie deathly still as he pulls himself out of me.