House of Straw

by Marc Scott

  She held herself together for the whole three minutes he hugged her and told her it was the best thing to do. She fought back the tears as he waved her goodbye and set off to wrap those toys he had bought for his beloved daughter. But as his car left the car park of the clinic, Krista fell to her knees as if she had been struck by a bullet from a sniper rifle. She felt so cold, so isolated, as if she was stranded on an island of misery. She knew now that she was not, nor had she ever been, his true Persephone, she was far from it. She was just some dumb woman that had fallen madly in love with a man who she could never be with. She had never felt so alone in the whole of her life. The snow began to fall around her body as she picked herself up from the cold tarmac, pulling tightly on her coat to keep out the chill. Her emotions were all over the place. The tears ran down her face, she could taste them as they passed her dry lips. She knew that she would need to find an inner strength to carry her through. These tears were not for anyone else but herself now, herself and the beautiful creation that was still growing inside her.

  Bree’s mother sat on the wooden floor of her home in Tampere, remembering that cold December day in 1997, when her fantasy had ended and been replaced with harsh and frightening reality. She wondered if Bree would ever understand why she made the decisions that she did. She wished that she was close enough to her daughter to be able to tell her the truth. That it was not sordid, it was not just sex, it was love, real love. Even if it had only ever been in her head, she believed that it was true love.

  Krista saw the ghosts of her past every day in the faces of her beautiful twins. It was a torturous pain that never faded. As Jamie reached manhood those images became almost unbearable. He looked so much like his father that she had called him ‘Dean’ on more than one occasion. Jamie may have had a striking resemblance to his biological father, but he was certainly more astute. Her son had been asking her from the age of eight why he bore no resemblance to Per. Why he had dark hair and matching complexion, while his father looked like a walking advertisement for natural Scandinavian yoghurt. Her son may have failed miserably at university, but in the end, he proved that he was smart enough to work it all out for himself.

  Krista was terrified that the truth was closing in on her when he told her of the mystery man who had contacted him at the gym. Millie had also called to say that she had been approached by a strange old man asking questions about her son. Her friend had only ever met Dean once in her life and was caught off guard when he spoke to her. She felt that she may have given him too much information before realising who he might be. Krista had begun to fear that Dean might just turn up on their doorstep. Her twenty-two years of living a lie would finally be exposed, the twins would hate her forever, she would hate herself forever.

  Bree had never bought into Jamie’s theories, maybe because she had her mother’s pale features and glossy blonde hair. Or it could have been because she idolised Per and had always been something of a ‘daddy’s girl’. Bree would always take his side in family arguments. The older she became the more distance she put between herself and her mother. It hurt Krista sometimes, to think that her own daughter could prefer to spend so much of her time with a man that was not blood related. She was sure that if her Bree had a choice, she would always choose Per to have been her natural parent, rather than her. Krista had, for some time, been deeply concerned about her daughter’s erratic behaviour. She seemed to change from being a loving, attention-seeking princess to a cold and calculated loner. Over the past few years her daughter had shown that she would construct elaborate lies and constantly manipulate people in a bid to get her own way, traits that Krista believed she may well have inherited from her real father.

  Since she witnessed the incident in Jamie’s bedroom, she felt that she had no option but to separate the two of them. Despite the fact they had both denied vehemently that they were doing anything more than cuddling in bed, she knew what she had seen, and she did what any parent would have done. Krista had spent years protecting her twins from the real world, not just the bullying they encountered at their schools because they were so well spoken, or the jealous teenagers who isolated them from their crowds, simply because they wore nice clothes. She never in her life thought that one day, though, she might have to protect them from each other.

  Bree refused the counselling that her mother had organised for her, dropping out after just three sessions. When confronted by her mother she would lock herself in her bedroom for days at a time to avoid any form of conversation. From that moment onwards, her relationship with her daughter became very strained to say the least. Bree never spoke to her the way she used to. There were no more intimate chats about boys and the hopes and fears she held for the future. She missed their shopping trips to the London and Bicester village, they never felt the same when she went with Per or Millie.

  When Bree left high school and went to college she became a completely different person, using extremely bad language on a regular basis and experimenting with cocaine and ecstasy. Krista never knew from one day to the next what her daughter was feeling anymore. They were like strangers living together in the same house. It sometimes seemed as if her stubborn daughter wanted to punish her for the rest of her life.

  Krista was still confused as to what had happened on the night of the tragic accident, but she did know that Jamie had been under severe stress. He had never really opened up about losing his girlfriend in the accident in Iceland, he even insisted that no one ever mention her name again. For a while she could not possibly perceive that he would have been in a bad enough place to have taken his own life, but his moods had become very dark and she thought that he might be capable of anything. Despite the fact that he had managed to mask his feelings with binge drinking and bouts of outrageous behaviour, she knew that deep down inside he was still tormented by the death of Jess.

  When Jamie died, Krista’s world seemed to collapse around her. She blamed herself for not getting her son professional help when he needed it. She should have insisted on counselling for him. She knew that she should never have booked his flight to Australia, letting him travel thousands of miles away from home when he clearly needed her and Per’s support. But her intentions had been good. She thought if he went away for a while, travelling, meeting new people, it would take him away from all the hurt and pain, away from everything that reminded him of the tragedy in the Husavik Straits. But Krista realised that, selfishly, she also wanted him to be away, a long way away, from the things that could hurt him most. She didn’t want him to meet his real father and she knew that it was bad for him to be back with his sister.

  Krista knew that if it had not been for Per, she would never have got through these past few years. He had been a rock in her life, a solid rock – reliable, dependable, faithful and trustworthy, all the things that the twins’ real father had never been. When she had ended things with Dean and was at her lowest ebb, he had taken her back without ever questioning her about her motives for separating in the first place. He even treated the large bump in her belly as his own, regardless of the fact that she told him the twins were not his. He was the best father she could have ever chosen for Jamie and Bree. Like her, he sacrificed everything to give the children the best life they could possibly have. He always treated the twins as if they were his own and loved them unconditionally.

  Krista loved Per, she loved him in a special way, but she knew in her heart that no matter how hard she tried, she would never love him the way she had loved Dean.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Bree would certainly not be feeling any sympathy for the torment her mother had been through for all those years. In her mind, she deserved every heart-wrenching twist of pain she was now feeling. It seemed as if Krista’s troubled daughter had found another reason to hate her mother now. Bree regretted nothing from her earlier phone call. If anything she wished that she had trusted in her brother more and believed his theory, which was not only true, but was com
ing to life at the rate of knots.

  Sitting at the corner table of Chez Blanc, Bree sipped her coffee and waited for the first glimpse of her sibling. She began to practise her opening speech in her head but kept changing her mind about the best way to approach the situation. After all, you can’t just say, ‘Oh I will have the mushroom risotto and by the way you and I are related, we are sisters’, can you?!

  Bree had turned her mobile off, just in case her mother called and attempted to instil some form of emotional blackmail in a last attempt to get her to back out of this situation. Nothing and nobody was going to stop her from meeting her sister now, least of all her lying and deceitful ‘bitch’ of a mother.

  Poppy was parked at the rear of the restaurant. She had driven the last mile into work with a flat tyre and Danny was helping her change it. The punctured tyre was proving to be somewhat difficult to remove, so her boss enlisted the aid of a large heavy-duty tyre iron, borrowed from his neighbour. His perseverance finally paid off and he prised the stubborn obstacle off the wheel of her car. He told Poppy that he would finish changing the wheel while she went into the restaurant to clean her dirty hands. ‘I will leave the tyre iron in the boot,’ he shouted to her as she left him. ‘Just in case one of the others goes down.’

  Matt grabbed Poppy’s arm as she entered the kitchen. ‘There is some posh bird in there,’ he said. ‘She is asking for you.’ Poppy headed towards the sink and began soaping her hands. ‘She looks a bit official,’ Matt added. ‘Maybe you have been a naughty girl and she has come to tell you off.’

  Poppy screwed up her face as she ran her grease-covered hands underneath the taps. ‘I bet it’s that Mrs Bishop, I wish the Reverend bloody Joe would get off my case about all that shit.’

  As Poppy finished drying her hands, Matt passed her a small brown envelope. ‘£400,’ he said. ‘It will get that landlord guy off your back. I was saving it for a holiday, but I would rather know that you are not going to be thrown out onto the street.’

  Poppy smiled and tucked the envelope into her pocket. ‘Do you know, Matt, you are OK, for a geeky northerner, you are actually OK.’ She gave him a friendly peck on his cheek and headed for the corner table.

  Bree looked up as Poppy approached. Her sibling looked much older than she had imagined. She must be in her late twenties or maybe early thirties, she thought. Her skin was covered in blotches and her hair looked greasy. She had a rough sort of look about her, even her walk seemed to have an attitude of its own. Bree’s mouth dried up as Poppy sat down opposite her, but she managed to ask the first important question of the day. ‘Are you Poppy, Poppy Jarvis?’

  There was an immediate stare of arrogant disdain from the woman in front of her. She clearly did not want to be here, having this meeting. ‘Yes, I am Poppy. Did Joe send you?’

  Bree was puzzled. ‘Joe?’

  ‘Yeah, Joe from Probation, did he send you here? Do you work with Mrs Bishop, because I have been trying to call, but it’s always late at night and no one ever answers the phone, so it’s not my fault.’

  Shaking her head Bree put Poppy in the picture. ‘No, I am nothing to do with Probation or Mrs Bishop.’

  ‘You are not a news reporter, are you?’

  ‘No!’

  Poppy felt slightly more at ease and sat back in her seat. ‘Well, if it is nothing to do with my probation what do you want me for?’

  Bree was becoming more anxious by the second. They were less than a minute into the conversation and this stroppy girl, who could well be her sibling, had already mentioned probation and reporters. What in God’s name had her sister done? she thought.

  ‘I am Brianna, Brianna Nylund, but everyone calls me Bree.’

  Poppy wasn’t really interested in her visitor’s personal details. ‘And?’ she asked. ‘What do you want?’

  Still feeling a little nervous, Poppy felt it best to ease her way into the conversation. ‘This place seems nice, they have a good choice of menu.’

  Poppy stood up, as if she was about to walk away. ‘So, order some food then. Are we done?’

  ‘No, it is sort of personal and a bit complicated. Please, can you sit back down, I will try to explain.’

  Poppy sat down and started to look around the restaurant, as if she was already bored with the conversation. ‘Can you get to the point, I have to start my shift soon.’

  Bree was unnerved by the brash attitude of the girl sitting opposite her and began to feel more uncomfortable by the minute. As Poppy turned her head again to look around at the rest of the empty tables, Bree noticed something familiar in her features. Maybe she had been studying that photograph for too long, or inwardly had a deep yearning for this to be her real sister, but she could swear that the girl in front of her had some of Jamie’s features, especially his nose. She was now more convinced than ever that the two of them could be related. Searching through her bag Bree produced the photograph from the awards dinner and placed it on the table in front of Poppy. It received an instant reaction as her sibling’s eyes glanced down at the picture. Poppy certainly wasn’t looking anywhere but the table now.

  Bree’s hand trembled, as she pointed to the man in the tuxedo. ‘Is that, is that your father?’ she asked.

  Poppy simply turned her head sideways, as if her interest in the picture had only been temporary, but it was obvious that seeing the photograph had some effect on her. ‘Who are you?’ Poppy asked, the tone of her voice direct and far less welcoming than it had been previously. ‘What are you doing here?’

  Bree sensed that she had touched a nerve, a raw nerve. ‘It is, it is your father, isn’t it?’ she asked again.

  Poppy glanced back down at the picture, her eyes twitched slightly. Bree could tell that she really wanted to pick it up, to study it closer, but she didn’t. She knew who the man in that photograph was but was somewhat confused about her visitor. ‘He is a bit old for you, isn’t he?’ Poppy said.

  It was Bree’s turn to be puzzled. She looked down at the table. ‘No! No! No!’ she said. ‘That is not me, that’s not me in the picture.’ Why the hell does everyone think I look like my bitch of a mother? she thought.

  Bree took a small sip of her coffee to help clear her throat. This was not going the way she had planned it in her head that morning. She felt awkward and slightly intimidated in the presence of the woman opposite. She thought for a few seconds about walking out, but she was here now, she would say what she had come to say. ‘I think that this man, the one in the photograph, is my father. I think that your father might be mine too.’ Poppy said nothing, she simply stared at Bree as if her revelation had not been heard. ‘He is your father, isn’t he?’ Bree asked again. ‘I would like to find him, I was hoping that you might help me find him.’

  There is no way that Bree could have known what was happening inside the brain of the girl sitting opposite her at that moment. She had no idea of the precarious position she had put herself in. Poppy’s blood had begun to boil. A familiar humming sound had started inside her head. It was a sound that she had managed to keep at bay for some time. But now it had returned, and it was slowly getting louder. She was fighting inside to find those soothing colours, she could barely make out the green grass. The sun was in the sky, but she could feel no warmth. Her warped mind began to search. She knew that she had to find some calming colours, the lake, where was the running water? Where was the lake?

  ‘Can you say something?’ Bree asked her. ‘I know it is a lot to take in.’

  Suddenly Poppy did something that she knew she had to do. She rose to her feet to leave the table, her abrupt action causing the coffee cup to spill some of its contents. ‘I don’t know this man,’ Poppy said, staring down at her visitor with a wild look in her eyes. ‘I don’t know this man, he is certainly not any father to me.’ She walked away from the table and headed for the kitchen area, biting the corner of her lip sharply en route. But suddenl
y a comment from her startled visitor stopped her in her tracks and froze her to the spot. ‘But if he is your father, that means we are sisters. That means that you are my sister, Poppy.’

  The small traces of calm colours in Poppy’s head began to fade. She bit her lip hard and then harder, clenching her fist tightly. Swinging around, she moved swiftly back towards her unwelcome guest. It quickly became apparent to Bree that her last comment had angered her would-be sibling and her face turned pale as the girl arrived back at the table. Towering over her visitor, Poppy picked up the photograph and tossed it into Bree’s face, making her thoughts loud and clear. ‘Listen good, missy! I don’t have a father, do you understand? I don’t have a father. If your mother was stupid enough to open her legs to that fucking waste of space, that is your problem. I don’t have a father and I don’t have a sister. You are not my sister, is that clear?’ With that Poppy reached down and tucked her hand around her visitor’s coffee cup, sliding it with great force across the table. Her shove was so hard, that the cup travelled several feet across the restaurant and hit a picture frame on the opposite wall, its impact shattering it into several pieces and leaving a trail of warm coffee stains across the carpet. Poppy stomped off with one final parting warning for the clearly shaken girl sitting at the table. ‘Don’t come back here again, do you understand me? Don’t fucking come back here again!’