My Sister's Bones

by Nuala Ellwood

  “He was in your arms,” he whispers. “And when you saw me you said . . .”

  He pauses to wipe his eyes again.

  “You said: ‘I’m trying to keep him warm.’”

  He takes my hand and squeezes it tightly.

  “You thought you’d saved him.”

  My body goes cold.

  “So it’s not true then?” I stammer. “I—I didn’t drown my brother?”

  “No, Kate,” he says, looking at me clear in the eyes. “You never drowned him. I had a view of it all and I saw him facedown in that water minutes before you got to him. You didn’t drown him, love, you brought him back to shore.”

  I nod my head as the enormity of his words begins to sink in.

  “Then why?” I say. “Why would my father tell Sally that I did?”

  Ray shakes his head.

  “I don’t know,” he says. “I told your old man exactly what happened. I told him about your mum standing frozen on the beach—we found out later she was in deep shock, it can do that you know, make you immobile—and I told him that you’d run through the waves and got to David first. I told him how you had him in your arms and that you said you were keeping him warm. But your dad, he was a troubled man, Kate. Your brother’s death was senseless and he needed someone to blame. He took what I’d told him and it got all jumbled and warped in his mind, I guess.”

  “So Dad chose to believe that I drowned David while Mum just stood and watched,” I say, shivering as I remember the venom on my father’s face whenever he looked at Mum or me.

  “As I said,” says Ray softly, “he was a troubled man.”

  We sit for a moment, not speaking, barely breathing, as the past flutters, then settles around us.

  “Thank you, Ray,” I say, puncturing the silence. “Thank you for being there.”

  “You don’t have to thank me,” he says. “All I want is to see you happy; to put all this heartache behind you and go and live your life. There’s been too much pain in your family. Make it end, eh?”

  I nod my head and we sit in silence for what seems like a lifetime.

  “I’d better go,” I say finally as I get up from the table. “I’m leaving with Sally’s daughter and grandson.”

  “Good,” he says, smiling warmly. “A new start is what you all need. But before you go I want to say something.”

  “Okay,” I say, sitting down again.

  “What happened that day at the beach was the worst thing I have ever lived through. Laying your little brother out in my boat and desperately trying to revive him . . . I had nightmares for months afterward. Horrible nightmares that wouldn’t leave me alone.”

  He has had the nightmares too. I understand.

  “But do you know what eased them?” he says, pressing his hand into mine. “Do you know what got me through?”

  I shake my head.

  “It was the memory of those few minutes,” he says. “When the sun was shining and I’d just set up my line and I heard the sound of laughter. And it reassured me to know that in his final moments David was happy; he was playing in the waves with his big sister.”

  Tears run down my face as I stand up from the table.

  Ray gets up and hugs me. He hugs me like my father should have all those years ago.

  “They will stop,” he whispers. “The nightmares. I promise you they will.”

  I leave Ray in the cafe and make my way out. But before I head back to the hospital I stand for a moment on the shingle and look out to sea. And as I breathe the last of the day’s air into my lungs and listen to the faint moan of the seabirds I feel something leave me. It is subtle, barely discernible, like the tickle of a feather across a sleeper’s face, but I know what it is as I turn to go. My brother, the boy I tried to save, has said good-bye.

  Epilogue

  The little boy squeals as the plane begins its descent and I lean across the seat and take his hand.

  “This is exciting, isn’t it, David?”

  He nods his head and smiles a beautiful, beaming smile. When Sally was a child we used to say that her smile was like the sun coming out and as I sit holding her little grandson’s hand I feel something of her spirit around us. She will live on through this little boy.

  Hannah opens the blind and looks out.

  “Just a few moments and we’ll see it,” she says.

  David lets go of my hand and presses his face to the window, waiting for the clouds to part so he can get his first glimpse of our new life.

  A woman in the seat across the aisle looks at us and smiles and a deep sense of contentment stirs in my bones. Here we are, a little family, broken at the edges but slowly piecing ourselves back together.

  We spent the last few months in London living in a rented house while I finalized the sale of my Soho flat. A safe house you could call it, though Hannah blanched when the family liaison officer used that name to describe it, as that was how Paul had referred to the shed: their “safe house.” So I suggested we call it our holiday home; a place to stay for a while until we were ready to face the world again.

  It wasn’t easy. Hannah and David had to attend twice-weekly counseling sessions where the horrors of what they had endured were dredged up, sifted through, and analyzed. There were some days when I thought we wouldn’t make it and I worried that I’d made a terrible mistake in agreeing to look after them. But then light began to break through the darkness, slowly, tentatively, like snowdrops through hard frost. David still wakes up screaming some nights but I’m learning how to help him. I’m learning how to be a mother, to dispense hugs and kisses liberally and check for monsters under the bed.

  As for my nightmares, they still come. I guess they always will. The hallucinations have lessened, though there are still times when I have to ask myself if what I’m seeing is real life or just a strange trick of the eye. But I’m talking to someone—a counselor who specializes in PTSD—and things are starting, slowly, to get better. Instead of running from my memories and trying to blot them out with sleeping pills and booze, I now face them head-on. And like most monsters, once you stand up to them you find that they are not as powerful as you thought.

  The real monster, Cheverell, is in prison now. I don’t know which one and I don’t want to know. After the trial we found out that he had been in prison before for raping and beating his first wife. He had just been released when he returned to Herne Bay to claim his parents’ house. According to the psychiatric reports, he saw himself as a messiah figure, preying on any vulnerable woman who crossed his path. I think of Sally waving to him across the garden fence that day and how her fragility must have reeled him in. She always saw the good in people and it was her downfall.

  But I made a vow as I saw him being sentenced to life imprisonment that I would rebuild what he had tried to destroy. Bit by bit, Hannah and David are recovering and I am determined that we will live without fear.

  “Will we see her soon?” cries David, his face still pressed against the glass.

  “Very soon,” I tell him as the city skyline looms on the edge of the horizon.

  Harry thought the change of scene would do me good and I think he might be right. There was a time when the thought of a desk job would have signaled the end of the world for me, but I have a family to think about now and, anyway, “New York correspondent” has a nice ring to it.

  “Now, David,” I say. “Get ready to say hello to your new home.”

  We huddle around the window, then Hannah jumps back.

  “Mum needs to be part of this too,” she says.

  I watch as she lifts the porcelain container out of her hand luggage. We have planned to scatter Sally’s ashes when we get there and I know that it’s almost time to say good-bye.

  “I see her, I see her,” David shouts. And suddenly there she is, rising up into the sky, a beacon of hope and freedom.

  “She’s huge,” he exclaims. “Like an angel.”

  I lean back in my seat, letting Hannah and David take in t
he Statue of Liberty while I close my eyes. He is there as always, holding up his book of smiles.

  “Tusbih ‘alá khayr, Kate.”

  I wrote one last article before I left. I wrote about a small Syrian boy who loved football and dreamed of a better life. I wrote about my sister, Sally, who just wanted to feel safe. I wrote about Layla, Hassan, and Khaled, all the people who gave me something of their lives and who will stay with me always.

  I think about my final words, the words I’d hurriedly typed as I prepared to leave the newsroom for the last time.

  “It’s a peculiar way to earn a living,” I’d written. “Hurling yourself time and time again into the eye of the storm. People think we’re fearless because we go toward the battle rather than run away, but I could never call myself brave. For me, being a journalist is about giving a voice to those who have been silenced; to tell their stories and show the world the true human cost of war.”

  And as Nidal’s face begins to fade I think of the inscription on the statue: Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door! And I weep for the man he would have become, the life he could have had.

  “Tusbih ‘alá khayr, Nidal,” I whisper as the plane touches down.

  Acknowledgments

  I would like to thank the following people for their help and encouragement as I wrote My Sister’s Bones:

  Katy Loftus at Viking for being such a wonderful and inspiring editor. Your intelligence and insight have truly helped bring My Sister’s Bones to life.

  The whole team at Viking Penguin.

  My agent, Madeleine Milburn, for your belief in this novel from the start.

  Cara Lee Simpson and all the team at the Madeleine Milburn Literary, TV & Film Agency. You are wonderful people and I really appreciate all your support.

  Arts Council England for giving me the time and space to immerse myself in the research for this novel.

  Dr. Anthony Feinstein (professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto and author of Journalists under Fire: The Psychological Hazards of Covering War). Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, for shedding light on the impact of trauma on journalists around the world and outlining the stark realities of PTSD.

  Hayley Vale for giving me an invaluable insight into the daily life of a forensic psychologist.

  Mark Starbuck for your brilliant design work on the booklet as I documented the research phase of the novel.

  Rowan Coleman, Carolyn Jess-Cooke, and Cally Taylor for your words of encouragement when I needed it most. You are wonderful writers and I admire you all so much.

  My family and friends. Thank you Fiona, Adam, Daniel, and all my nieces and nephews for your love and encouragement.

  My sister, Siobhan Kerr. Thank you for sharing your experiences of life as a journalist, the highs and lows, the procedures, the spine-tingling feeling when a story is unfolding. I will never forget election night 1997 when I came to sit with you in the newsroom and watched history being made as the new government swept to victory. I knew then why you loved the job so much and you inspired Kate Rafter in lots of ways.

  Mam. You’re my best friend and I couldn’t do any of this without you. Thank you for listening to lengthy, unedited chapters over the phone and crying at the sad bits!

  Dad: a brilliant journalist with a command of language I can only aspire to. Quite simply, you’re my hero and this book would not exist without you. “Words have value,” you once told me. “Do them justice.” I hope I have.

  Luke. My beautiful, big-hearted boy. You inspire and delight me on a daily basis. Thank you for giving me the strength to write this novel. Everything I do is for you.

  Nick. Thank you for bringing the story of My Sister’s Bones to life with your beautiful reportage drawings as part of the research process and for cheering me on to the end. The stories you shared of life in a refugee camp in Calais will stay with me forever, and I am so proud of the work you do.

  To the memory of Marie Colvin, a fearless and gifted journalist who always sought the human story within the chaos of war, and whose bravery inspired this novel.

  Finally, though the character of Nidal is fictional, there are many, many children like him currently trapped and suffering in conflict zones around the world. If this novel does anything I hope that it highlights, in some small way, the pressing need to do what we can to help them and, to paraphrase the legendary war reporter Martha Gellhorn, “to make an angry sound against injustice.”

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . . *

  About the Author

  * * *

  Meet Nuala Ellwood

  About the Book

  * * *

  Interview with Nuala Ellwood

  Behind the Book Essay

  Reading Group Guide Questions

  Read On

  * * *

  Further Reading

  About the Author

  Meet Nuala Ellwood

  NUALA ELLWOOD comes from a family of journalists, and they inspired her to get Arts Council funding to research and write a novel dealing with psychological trauma in the industry. My Sister’s Bones is her debut thriller.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  About the Book

  Interview with Nuala Ellwood

  Q: You ended up doing a lot of research for this book and interviewed a variety of people in the process. What was your experience as you immersed yourself in these heavy topics?

  A: The three main subjects of this novel are PTSD, war reporting, and the conflict in Syria, and I knew as I set out to write My Sister’s Bones, that I would have to research them in great detail. As I began the research process, I spoke to war reporters, psychologists, and aid workers, and their testimonies gave me a greater understanding of the subject matter I was exploring. However, it was when I began to watch footage of the human cost of the Syrian conflict that the horrors experienced by people trapped in war zones really began to hit home. Sifting through such harrowing material day after day started to take its toll on me to such an extent that I almost got PTSD by osmosis. During this stage of the research I became extremely anxious. I was becoming increasingly overprotective of my little boy and started to experience strange dreams and nightmares. It was at this point that I got an insight into the terrors of PTSD. I realized that if I was feeling like this just by looking at footage on a screen, imagine how a war reporter who spends her life reporting from the front line of conflict zones must feel. It was a sobering thought.

  Q: What is the most surprising thing you discovered during the research process?

  A: One of the most fascinating people I encountered during the research process was a man called Dr. Anthony Feinstein who is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto and the author of Journalists Under Fire. Feinstein’s study was the first to explore the link between war reporting and PTSD. While working as a clinical practitioner in 1999, Dr. Feinstein saw a patient, a female war reporter, who was displaying symptoms of PTSD. To better understand her condition, he asked his research team to undertake a literature search on the topic of war, journalism, and emotional distress, and to their collective surprise, they found not a single publication on the topic. I was surprised by this, too. However, when I spoke to war reporters and ex-war reporters about their experiences, they told me that they and most of their colleagues would be reticent to admit that they were suffering from trauma for fear of being demoted at work or being seen to have “lost their nerve.” This helped me to shape the character of Kate Rafter. As a woman working in a male-dominated industry, Kate would be even more reticent to admit that she is suffering from psychological trauma. Throughout the novel, and particularly in the scenes with the clinical psychologist, she tries hard to maintain a hard exterior. When Dr. Shaw remarks that the horrors Kate has witnessed must have taken a toll on h
er mental health, she responds with a curt “Maybe I’m tougher than you.” For Kate, “losing her nerve” or being seen to have is a fate worse than death.

  Q: Herne Bay is a menacing setting from start to finish in My Sister’s Bones, and you had the opportunity to write some of the book during a visit there. How did your time in the town come into play in the novel?

  A: Setting and landscape is very important to me as a writer. I often come up with the setting before I come up with the story, so one of the first things I did during the research process was book a trip to Herne Bay and that trip was so beneficial to the development of My Sister’s Bones. It’s a beautiful but rather neglected town with an interesting history. During the Napoleonic wars it was a smuggling route and legend has it there are tunnels deep underground that the smugglers used to transport their contraband. Further along the coastline is a little strip of beach that was used by Barnes Wallis to test the bouncing bombs that would go on to destroy the German dams and were featured in the film, Dam Busters. In one scene, a young Kate finds a fragment of a bomb on the beach and almost has a premonition of her future life when she asks herself how “something so beautiful . . . can cause so much pain.” The landscape is stunning and is dominated by a set of crumbling towers, known as “The Sisters” that were once part of a Roman fort. I thought this was a wonderful metaphor for my two sisters—Kate and Sally—still standing defiantly, though inside they are crumbling. Local folklore says that the towers hide a dark secret—that the Romans buried children alive in the foundations of the fort as human sacrifices and that their cries can be heard on dark and stormy nights. For a thriller writer, it was a gift and it gave me lots of ideas for incorporating hidden places in My Sister’s Bones.

  But the highlight of the trip was the mornings I spent walking along the shingle beach. The light on the North Kent coast is spectacular—Turner used to paint here and you can see why. There is no distinction between sea and sky and the mist lies heavy on the bay to such an extent that it makes shadows of people. As I was walking, I felt certain that there was someone up ahead of me but then they disappeared and it became clear that the landscape was playing tricks on me. This gave me some excellent imagery to work with for My Sister’s Bones and I realized that it was the perfect place to set a story about a woman who could no longer distinguish between what was real and what was just a strange trick of the eye.