My Sister's Bones

by Nuala Ellwood

  “What are you doing here?” I ask as we stand motionless, two damaged souls in front of a hospital full of hundreds more.

  I feel his breath on my face, inhale his cedarwood scent, and it’s all I can do to stop myself from grabbing hold of his arms and losing myself completely in him. But instead I allow him to kiss my cheek before breaking away and standing as before. Two people, two separate lives.

  “I saw it on the news,” he says, putting his hands into the pockets of his smart woolen coat. “And I couldn’t believe it. I had to see for myself. I’ve been beside myself . . . and then suddenly there you were. It was like . . . a miracle.”

  “My sister is dead,” I tell him. “I couldn’t save her.”

  “I know,” he says quietly. “It’s all over the news. I’m so sorry, Kate.”

  “Sorry for what?” I say as I look deep into his eyes. “My sister’s death or the fact that you’re an arsehole?”

  I can’t help it. Seeing him brings it all back: the restaurant, the lies, the baby. Our poor dead baby.

  “I deserve that,” he says. “What I did, the way I did it, was cowardly. I know that now.”

  “I need to sit down,” I say, walking back toward the strip-lit entrance. “There’s a cafe somewhere in this godforsaken place. We can get a coffee.”

  We walk in silence through corridor after corridor. I can sense him behind me, his tall, reassuring frame.

  “Here we are,” I say as we approach a set of garish orange doors. “You get the drinks. I’ll find us a table.”

  I walk through the deserted cafe and sit down by the window, looking out as an ambulance pulls into the parking lot below. I flinch as I remember the paramedics lifting Sally’s lifeless body off the floor.

  I’m sorry, I think as I look out into the expanse of concrete. I’m so sorry, Sally.

  “Here we are.”

  I look up as he places a plastic cup of coffee on the table in front of me. His face glows in the borrowed rays of the morning sun, making his eyes a sharper blue. Everything I love about him is magnified and for a moment I allow myself to imagine a different life. We could live together in some sleepy Yorkshire village, buy a dog, and take it for a walk each morning. I could bake cakes and every night I would go to sleep entwined in his arms. In the morning I would wake first and watch him sleep, the sunlight bathing his face in gold just like it is now, and I would whisper thanks to whatever God we believed in that day for sending this man to me.

  But the dream dissolves and scatters across the cafe as he takes off his coat and sits down opposite me.

  “Why have you come, Chris?”

  “I needed to see you,” he says, wrapping his long fingers around the coffee cup. “And after all you’ve been through I reckoned you could do with a friend.”

  “Oh, is that what you are now?” I snap. “Sorry, I can’t keep up.”

  “You know we’re more than that, Kate,” he says, leaning forward and touching my arm. “Much more.”

  “Then I must have dreamed the bit where you took me out to lunch and told me it was over,” I say bitterly. “I’ve seen your wife, Chris. I know what kind of life you lead when I’m not around.”

  “Kate, I’m so sorry.” He looks at me sheepishly.

  I look out of the window as he sits opposite me. I see his reflection in the glass: his hands clasped together, hiding the gold wedding band with his thumb. I have to tell him. It has to be now, otherwise I’ll lose my nerve. But I keep my eyes on the knotted wilderness of cars outside as I speak. I don’t want to see his face as he hears it; that would be the end of me.

  “I was pregnant, Chris,” I say, my eyes fixed on those cars. “I wanted to tell you that day in the restaurant but you got your announcement in first.”

  I hear him take a breath but I need to get the rest out.

  “The baby died a few hours later,” I say coldly. “So, don’t worry, there’s no mess for you to deal with.”

  His silence fills the huge space and I turn to see if he’s still there. He is. He sits with his head in his hands, staring at his coffee cup.

  “Chris?”

  He looks up and his eyes are swollen with tears.

  “Oh God, Kate,” he whispers. “I’m so sorry. You deserved so much better than me. You’re right, I am an arsehole. It should be me who got punished, not you.”

  I nod my head and look into his eyes. Here in the bright light of the cafe I can see him properly for the first time. Our whole relationship had been conducted in near darkness, sneaking into bed in the early hours of the morning, clandestine meetings on hotel balconies as the sun went down. We were a pair of vampires who sucked the life out of each other. Now, looking at him in the white glare of the strip lights, I realize that I have no idea who he is. The man who I made love to, who caused me to tremble with lust and desire, who kissed my forehead as I lay in his arms, was a shadow, a figment of my imagination. He bears no resemblance whatsoever to the man sitting opposite me now in his expensive suit.

  The cafe doors open and a family with two young children comes inside. One of the children, a girl, has her arm in a sling and the parents look exhausted as they navigate their charges toward a vacant table.

  “It was callous of me,” says Chris, leaning in to let the family pass. “Cowardly. And believe me, Kate, I have gone over that last conversation in my head countless times since then, wondering if I could have done it differently.”

  I look at the little girl with the bandaged arm as she settles into her seat and suddenly this whole conversation with Chris seems utterly futile. I want him to go now so I can be with Hannah and David. So I can find some redemption for all of it: for my brother, Nidal, Sally.

  “Chris,” I say, folding my arms across my chest, “what’s the point of all this? We’re over. Whatever we had is over. Your wife and daughters need your undivided attention. I understand that.”

  “You’re being remarkably calm, Kate,” he says, smiling nervously.

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” I yell. “What do you want to hear? That you ripped my heart to shreds?”

  A polite silence descends upon the cafe, broken only by the high-pitched chatter of the children at the table behind us.

  But I’m angry now and I want to unsettle him, want him to feel the pain that is invading every inch of my body.

  “Your wife,” I say, raising my voice slightly. “She’s not at all how I imagined. But, hey, you were always full of surprises.”

  He puts his head in his hands and I turn away. This is pathetic. I’m being pathetic. But I can’t stop myself.

  “I needed you,” he says. “Not once did I lie. You knew from the beginning that I was married.”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “And you said that you didn’t want commitment,” he continues. “What with your father and everything, the idea of marriage repulsed you. You told me that when we first met, before anything had happened.”

  “And you said your wife repulsed you, if I remember correctly,” I say, my voice catching.

  His shoulders sag.

  “I love you, Kate,” he says.

  Big fat tears well in my eyes. Why won’t he just stop?

  “I love you so much it scares me. But we could never work. We’ve seen the same horrors; we have the same nightmares. I read what your cameraman, Graham, said in the paper about that child in Aleppo and I knew what you’d gone through because I’ve hauled bodies like his from shallow graves, sometimes up to ten of them a day. I’ve cradled them in my arms and they looked just like my children sleeping.”

  His face is puffy with tears and I can’t help but lean across and wipe his cheek gently. He catches my wrist and kisses it.

  “When I close my eyes at night I see those dead children,” he says. “There’s a darkness that sits up here and won’t go away.” He taps his forehead with my hand. “That’s why I need Helen. I need her because she has no idea what I’ve seen. I can go home and forget everything. I can wash away the smel
ls and replace the images. The house, the girls, Helen, they’re untainted.”

  “And I’m damaged goods,” I say, releasing my hand from his grasp.

  “No, Kate,” he says. “You are beautiful and clever and brave, the most amazing woman I’ve ever met. And if this world was good and just, well, who knows what would have happened.”

  “Happy ever after,” I say ruefully. “You know that doesn’t exist, Chris, and it wasn’t what I was looking for.”

  “Then what was it?” He leans forward and stares at me. “What made you stay with me all those years?”

  “While I was with you the nightmares stopped,” I say. I meet his gaze for a moment, then turn and look out of the window.

  Another ambulance has pulled into the parking lot and as it sits waiting to dispatch its patient I feel the engine vibrate beneath my feet. I can sense that Chris wants to continue the conversation but I am tired, tired of trying to resurrect something that had no right to live in the first place.

  I press closer to the glass and as the landscape fragments into a series of dots I see my past flickering in front of me. I see my father standing on the doorstep, his arms folded, a broken man in a broken house; I see my mother running toward the waves; David’s face as we collected pink seashells; Hannah wriggling in her plastic crib. I see Nidal’s football lying in the street and Sally’s smile as she closed her eyes. The cafe is full of ghosts and as Chris holds my hand I close my eyes and try to brush them all away, but they remain lodged inside my brain like tumors feeding off each other.

  I look at Chris and I can see in his face that we have said all that needs to be said. This is it; the end of the line.

  Silently we stand up and make our way out of the cafe, through the labyrinthine corridors and out into the vast concrete parking lot.

  As the air hits my face, my muscles contract with exhaustion. A cab toots its horn and a group of hospital workers bustle past as we stand inertly on the curb, neither wanting to be the first to say good-bye.

  “You’re right,” he says finally. “Happy ever after doesn’t exist. But we can try, Kate, we can hope. Because at the end of it all surely it’s not wishful thinking to dream of a happy life?”

  “Of course it isn’t,” I tell him, thinking of Hannah and David and the long journey ahead. “I couldn’t do my job if I didn’t believe that. As long as I can believe that human beings can love as well as hate, then I can go on living.”

  “And the nightmares?” He looks at me pleadingly, as if he is hanging from a precipice and I am his only hope of salvation. “Do we just live with them too?”

  “I’m going to work on it,” I tell him. “Maybe go and see a therapist, I don’t know.”

  “Well, if it works, give them my number, eh?”

  I smile. Here we are, two shattered people standing on the threshold of a new life, both reticent to take the first step.

  “So,” I say. “Where are you headed?”

  “I . . . I’m not sure,” he says. “What did you have in mind?”

  “Me? I’m going to go back in there and find my family,” I tell him. “And I think you should too. Go home, Chris.”

  He nods his head and frowns. “And then what?”

  “Then who knows?”

  “Yes,” says Chris. “Look, I’m going to get a cab and let you . . .”

  He leaves the sentence trailing as I pull him toward me and kiss his cheek. I feel his body relax into mine like it always did and for a moment I almost succumb, almost let him back in.

  “Good-bye, Chris,” I say as we peel apart.

  His eyes glint in the reflected light of the hospital entrance as he presses a finger to his lips, then places it on my mouth.

  Then, turning, he walks toward the row of cabs and I watch as he opens a door and climbs inside. I watch as the taxi pulls away and the back of his head grows smaller and smaller, until it’s just a dot quivering on the edge of the watery horizon.

  48

  It is almost 2 P.M. when I arrive at the seafront. The fishing boats are moored and a group of men stand on the beach untangling their nets. I cross the road and head toward the boats, reading their names as I go: Castaway, Star of the Sea, Merlin, Captain’s Mate. And then I see it: The Acheron, with its ominous black and white stripes. But there is no sign of him as I walk along the shingle crunching mussel shells with my boots.

  It’s my last day here and, though I’m scared, I know that I have to ask him before I go.

  The men look up from their nets as I approach. They smell of sweat and salt.

  “Excuse me,” I call out above the growling waves. “Is Ray around?”

  “He’s on his break,” says one of them, a young man in his late teens. He stands looking at me, his eyes narrowed.

  “Oh,” I say as the wind pummels my face. “Do you know when he’ll be back?”

  “You’ll find Ray at the cafe over there on the corner, love,” says an older man, stepping forward. He pushes the younger one aside. “Sorry about this one; he has no manners.”

  I thank the men and as I walk back across the road I can feel their eyes on me. It’s like they know.

  The cafe smells of egg and chips. I step inside and look around. Then I see him. He’s sitting at a table by the window looking out to sea, a big mug of tea in his hand.

  As I walk toward the table he looks up.

  “Kate,” he says, getting to his feet. “I saw it all on the news. Poor wee Sally. I’m so sorry.”

  “I need to know, Ray,” I say as I sit down at the table. “About David’s death. And this time you have to tell me the truth.”

  He looks at me, his eyes full of pain, then he gestures to the waitress.

  “I’ll get you a warm drink first,” he says.

  We sit in silence while the waitress places a mug of steaming hot tea in front of me. When she leaves I lean forward and put my hand on Ray’s.

  “Ray, please. Is it true?” I ask him. “Did I kill my brother? I need to know.”

  His eyes widen.

  “It wasn’t like that,” he says, shaking his head.

  “According to Paul it was,” I say, Paul’s words still ringing in my ears. “He said Sally told him that I . . . I drowned David.”

  “Oh, Jesus,” says Ray, putting his head in his hands.

  “Ray, please,” I say, squeezing his arm. “You have to tell me what happened.”

  He lifts his head and looks out the window. His voice quivers as he starts to speak.

  “I was in my boat,” he says. “Moored up just by the rocks. I had a day of fishing ahead of me and I was just setting up my line when I heard children’s voices. Happy voices. I looked over toward the beach and I saw a little girl with black hair. You.”

  My heart is pounding and I can taste the salt water in my mouth as he continues.

  “Your brother was with you,” he says. “Tiny little thing he was, with a mop of dark hair. I smiled as I sat there casting my line, watching the two of you playing. You were holding hands and jumping the waves. And all the time I could hear your laughter. It was such a lovely sound.”

  His voice catches and he gulps, then goes on.

  “I got a bite,” he says. “I could feel it tugging on the end of my line and I started to reel it in. But just as I was about to bring it overboard something made me look up. You see, the voices had stopped.”

  “Voices?”

  “Yours and your brother’s,” he says, clutching his teacup. “It was silent. Oddly silent. I could see you on the shore. You were bending down to pick something up though I couldn’t see what.”

  As he speaks a shiver ripples through my body and I’m back there. I can see it as clearly as if it were yesterday. I’m bending down in the shingle to pick up the pink heart-shaped shells that clustered on the beach. Years later I would see those shells and feel an odd sensation, a fearful feeling, yet I never knew why. I do now.

  “Shells,” I murmur. “I was collecting shells.”

&nbs
p; I look up at Ray. His mouth is open. We pause for a moment to take in the fact that I have remembered something.

  “Yes,” he says finally. “I think you were.”

  I nod my head. I can still feel the rough shell in my hands as Ray continues.

  “But as I watched you my heart froze,” he says, his eyes widening. “You were alone. There was no sign of the littl’un. Something was wrong. I dropped my line and stood up in the boat to get a better look. That’s when I saw him.”

  He stops and takes a breath.

  “I’m sorry,” he says. “It’s just . . . it’s still so fresh in my mind.”

  “You said you saw him,” I say gently. “Where was he?”

  “He was . . . he was floating facedown in the water about ten feet from where you were,” says Ray. “When I saw him I rowed like the clappers. I looked up at the beach and saw your mum running toward you. You put your hand out to her. I think you were showing her your shell.”

  Mummy, look . . . it’s heart-shaped.

  The memory burns in my chest as I sit at this sticky table waiting to hear what comes next.

  “Your mum called out David’s name and I looked up,” says Ray. “I was expecting to see her running but she was just standing there, stock-still, looking out onto the water.”

  Mummy, look . . . look at the shell.

  I see my mother standing looking out to sea. Something’s the matter. Why is she not moving? She’s like a statue. I follow her gaze and see my brother floating on the surface of the water. And I remember now the sense of urgency that has stayed with me my whole life, the feeling that someone is in danger and I have to go and help.

  “It was you that ran,” says Ray, interrupting my thoughts. “Not your mum. As I rowed I could see you running through the waves, trying to get to your brother. Your mother stayed where she was. It was like she was in a trance.”

  Mummy, look . . .

  “When I got near I couldn’t see the little lad anymore. It was just you sitting in the shallows. I jumped out of the boat and ran to you and that’s . . . that’s when I saw . . .”

  “What?” I cry, my hands trembling. “What did you see, Ray?”

  Tears are coursing down his cheeks and he swipes his gnarled red hand across his face.