The Sister

by Lynne Alexander

  Nineteen

  ‘‘My turn now,’’ I announced. Katharine protested, the water was disgustingly grey and unhygienic but I poo-pooh’d her: I liked the thought of bathing in her shed dirt, her flakes of cast-off skin; as they soaked in I might even become more like her: kinder, more compassionate, more reasonable.

  ‘‘If you insist.’’

  ‘‘I do.’’

  As she manoevred my legs over the tub’s lip I felt as if I were climbing into the body of a great bird, and flexed my own claws in return. She lowered me gently down:

  ‘‘Is the water too cold, dear?’’

  ‘‘It could hardly be too cold,’’ I replied.

  Katharine was wearing a white muslim shift made of transparent Indian cotton and no petticoat beneath. As she moved against the light the flowing outline of her body, the spaces between her thighs, appeared and disappeared. I sank. My own body dissolved. I hardly knew myself without an aching head, a cramping griping belly, a pair of throbbing legs – where was I? I am water. I am … Perhaps I was dying or already dead?

  ‘‘What is it, dear?’’

  ‘‘Nothing.’’

  ‘‘That’s good,’’ she smiled.

  I saw us painted. ‘The Bathroom’ it is called, a rather ‘modern’ picture, libidinous with naked flesh; and yet so innocently domestic with its soft pinks and greens, its sprigged paper, its square of mirror and light streaming in from the window. Notice too the rapt softness in the attendant’s features with her gently folded body in its white muslin, now wet and clinging, leaning over the bather.

  ‘‘Are you having one of your headachy fancies, dear?’’

  ‘‘A fancy, perhaps,‘‘ I replied, ‘‘but for once not headachy.’’

  She lifted my head and placed a folded towel behind it. I had become two Alices, an Alice divided: Alice, out of pain and Alice in pain. Out of pain, as I now seemed to be, was filled with feeling: for myself, for the clawfoot bath, for the very humidity that filled the air. And Katharine? There was the question – fundamental, radical, recurring – of why she’d chosen to devote so much of her time, give up so much of her life, to my care. There would be, I guessed, no single, simple answer: because she ‘cared’ for me; because we were involved, as Henry might have put it, in an inextricable human relationship which must take its course; or simply because we had ‘an understanding’. I was of course dependent upon her, which some claimed gave her undue influence over me; but if it was so, I could only welcome it.

  My body, no longer the enemy, had given up thrashing and fluttering. Kath’s hands meanwhile, rough with earth-scored cracks, came alive in the water making me aware of my skin – thighs, stomach, breasts – still tight, the flesh beneath surprisingly springy. ‘‘Am I not a wrinkled old prune?’’ I asked, testing. ‘‘Oh, no: very much the young prune,’’ Katharine replied. I stuck out my tongue and blew a ‘raspberry’. Then I raised my right leg, slightly bent at the knee with pointed toe in the manner of the magazine mannequins. After that I gulped a mouthful of the mucky water and became William’s ‘spurting fountain’. Katharine ducked, laughing gaily. It was still hard to believe. Did I really have a normal working body (pumping, beating, churning, shedding, discharching, transforming & etc?) Yes and maybe … maybe, this time it would not betray me; or at least not too soon … please not too soon … .

  Out of pain I became fulsome in my imagery, piling one fanciful image upon another. ‘‘I feel like a …’’: first it was a poppy fruit about to burst showering its thousands of seeds upon the earth; then a roll dunked in coffee (frowned upon by Henry especially in public places); then a tomato – the kind we’d eaten in Italy – ready to burst. Out of pain I spouted nonsense and what of it? Between each more far-fetched comparison Katharine, who continued to kneel on the floor by my side, raised the loofah and let go a shower of watery sparks over my breasts. Out of pain, that is, I beamed upon the world and its creatures, and they beamed back upon me.

  Katharine was looking as if she’d just solved a mathematical conundrum.

  ‘‘What …?’’

  ‘‘Dear Alice,’’ she mused, ‘‘how much nicer you would be if you were not besieged with aches and pains.’’

  What could I say to that? I feared I would weep. But she would not allow it. Having sneaked a secretly prepared iced sponge behind my neck, she let it trickle down my spine. I yowled with pleasure or pain – truly it was hard to tell. When I’d recovered I asked:

  ‘‘Now what do you suppose Henry would make of all this?’’

  Katharine sat back on her heels. ‘‘All what?’’

  ‘‘You know very well,’’ I replied, flicking water in her direction.

  She ducked, ‘‘And if I do?’’

  ‘‘Well, what then, if he could see us now?’’

  She gazed upwards, as if she might see Henry lurking like a spider on the ceiling, and shivered. Then she cried, ‘‘Oh, Alice, why bring him into this?’’

  I reached out for her, but she shied away. I had spoiled the day.

  ‘‘Alright,’’ she said. ‘‘In answer to your question: I presume he’d disapprove.’’ She stood and fiddled with the towels, folding and refolding them.

  I said nothing. Was she right? Would he dislike what he saw, or simply record it in the way of a camera: Katharine and Alice alone. Katharine writing Alice’s letters. Katharine playing nurse and servant. But bathing Alice? ‘‘I admit,’’ I finally said, ‘‘that my brother, in spite of his genius, is also a firm bourgeois.’’

  Katharine shook out one of the newly folded towels (snap it went). ‘‘That is not the point,’’ she said impatiently.

  ‘‘The point is …?’’

  She collapsed back down and hung over the edge of the tub. ‘‘The point is’’ – here she hesitated – ‘‘your brother does not like me.’’

  I sat upright in the bath. It was my turn to be unamused. ‘‘Henry,’’ I countered, ‘‘does not like or dislike anyone. Anyway, he’s extremely grateful for your devotion.’’

  ‘‘Grateful, yes, but also suspicious.’’

  ‘‘Of what, pray?’’

  ‘‘Of taking such good care of you.’’

  ‘‘And that’s a bad thing?’’

  ‘‘It keeps you dependent on me.’’

  ‘‘But I am dependent on you! Where would I be without you?’’

  ‘‘You would be, perforce, more dependent on him.’’

  ‘‘And you think he would prefer that?’’

  ‘‘Yes and no. Nothing is simple, as you well know, with your brother. I believe he would rather look after you himself but he hasn’t the time or indeed the capacity or …’’

  ‘‘Katharine!’’ I slapped the water. ‘‘A year ago I crossed the water and suspended myself like an old woman of the sea round his neck where to all appearances I shall remain. In spite of all my morbid shenanigans he has never ever lost his temper with me. He comes at my slightest whim …’’

  ‘‘As I do not, I suppose?’’

  ‘‘As you do, faithfully, dependably, reliably …’’.

  ‘‘Alice, enough.’’

  ‘‘Alright, but it’s different, don’t you see, for Henry.’’

  ‘‘Different …?

  ‘‘He is my brother.’’ I threw the wet washcloth at her. She caught it. ‘‘Bad shot,’’ wringing it out as if it were my neck. It looked for all the world like play, but I saw that if we were not careful – I believe she saw it too – the gap that had opened between us would widen beyond closing or crossing.

  ‘‘And this brother of yours …?’’ she pursued dangerously.

  ‘‘Well, there’s his writing and his friends and his life abroad and …’’

  ‘‘And he is a man,’’ she supplied bitterly, ‘‘after all.’’ She missed a beat. ‘‘Therefore, this arrangement suits him.’’

  I sat up. ‘‘Pity you were not born male,’’ I snapped, ‘‘you could have made the law your practice.’’
/>   She winced.

  But what of her argument? I imagined Henry’s disapproval running alongside his inability to do anything about it. If he devotes his life to nursing his sister (so it went) then he is left with no time or energy to work. An impossible position. He has no other option than to leave her in Katharine’s more-than-capable, more-than-willing female hands.

  ‘‘So he disapproves, but he finds it convenient?’’

  ‘‘Exactly so.’’

  I feared the churning inside me must make waves. ‘‘I hope,’’ I said, ‘‘it’s not as hot down in Bournemouth as it is here. Henry hates this weather, it makes him feel run-down, then he can’t concentrate on his writing.’’ I lifted my elbows like a child:

  ‘‘I’d like to get out now,’’ I said. Wrapped cosily in a towel I announced:

  ‘‘I believe I am now quite hungry.’’

  ‘‘And what is it you would like to eat, madam?’’

  ‘‘Cherries,’’ I said.

  In Italy, Henry had once led us a merry dance down a narrow street and through a winding alleyway. The shop was cool and dark and he began collecting up all sorts of exotic foodstuffs for a picnic. Having been paid, the proprietor then presented each of us – Henry, Aunt Kate and myself – in lieu of small change, a chiliegi; or cherry, as Henry had translated unnecessarily. I held mine for the longest time, dangling it by its stem. ‘‘Go on,’’ Henry had encouraged, ‘‘pop it in your mouth, it won’t hurt.’’

  I paused, sobered, remembering:

  The trouble was it did, hurt; pleasure did.

  Twenty

  ‘‘Where will we meet him then?’’ asked Katharine. ‘‘Heath Brow, Jack Straw’s Castle,’’ I replied. The furthest point West from The Vale, we noted, on the Heath. Katharine tucked me up in the new bath chair and off we went passing a neat row of brick houses painted white with green shutters; from there we headed southwest over undulating ground, sunlight catching the leaves of the poplars and beeches.

  ‘‘Why are we going South?’’ I grumped: ‘‘when the Castle is due West?’’

  ‘‘Because,’’ Katharine replied, ‘‘I have decided upon a triangular route taking us towards the reservoir and from there northwards to the Castle. We’ll return the direct way, thus completing a circuit. Does that meet with your approval?’’

  I humphed; what did I know about routes and distances?

  She pushed hard uphill over broken ground covered by bracken and gorse. From the top we had a good view of distant hills, as well as Flagstaff Pond with its carriages and horses, children with flotillas of white sailboats, horses splashing knee-deep in the shallows. Directly South was the reservoir with its regimental flower-and-rhododendron beds. ‘‘Oh stuff it!’’ cried Katharine veering violently off the path away from parkland and into a rough field.

  ‘‘Is this wise?’’ I queried. Katharine, dragging the chair backwards through a gate, muttered ‘‘Wisdom, dear, has little to do with it.’’ A herd of cows grazed peaceably in the meadow.

  ‘‘And there,’’ I pointed, ‘‘is a bull.’’

  ‘‘So I see,’’ said she.

  The bull lay hunched like an outsized cat. As we watched, it stirred, then one haunch shivered. ‘‘Flies,’’ said Katharine, ‘‘nothing to worry about,’’ – and off she went to pick wildflowers in the tall grass. Swallows circled overhead and broad sweeps of gentle wind went rustling through the trees nearby. Then the bull lifted his heavy head to gaze at me, and I was overcome, bulldazed, with the desire to sink my hands into the rows of curls covering the bony space between the creature’s horns; to be encircled by his bulk, to feel his bull-heat, the rumble of his belly against my back. But he had begun to pull himself up and paw the ground, snorting.

  Katharine returned and tossing the posy of late summer flowers into my lap, began pushing as fast as she could. I admonished her to keep calm. She quickened her pace further; I ordered her to slow down. ‘‘Slow down, Alice?’’ she spluttered: ‘‘You are nothing if not perverse.’’ But at the far gate I turned in my chair and gazed back. A flash of sun was illuminating the tips of the creature’s horns, the ring in his nose. He had lain back down. ‘‘There,’’ soothed Katharine, ‘‘you are quite safe.’’ I held tight to the sides of my chair. I was not so sure I wanted to be.

  The Castle, perched on the highest ground, sported a continental-type outdoor garden cafe with striped awnings and window boxes full of bright red pelargoniums. Katharine admired the Swiss chalet effect. As we approached, Henry rose to greet us. ‘‘Do sit,’’ he said indicating the empty chairs. But which – I was already ‘seated’ – should Katharine take? Should she put herself between Henry and me or – removing one of the chairs – park me beside him? She hesitated only briefly; after all, she could afford to relinquish me – she grinned broadly – because she ‘had’ me.

  Henry inquired after our ‘adventure’ across the Heath. Katharine chose a few botanical details to describe while I waved my posy. Neither of us mentioned the detour, or the bull.

  ‘‘You will of course have noticed the dark brick house near the Reservoir,’’ Henry stated.

  ‘‘Actually, we did not,’’ replied Katharine.

  ‘‘Should we have?’’ I asked.

  He swiveled round in his chair. ‘‘It is only the former Upper Flask Tavern, where Clarissa Harlowe fled in the Richardson novel.’’

  She admitted bravely to not having read it, while I turned my attention to one of the other tables. I leaned close to my brother: ‘‘A honeymooning couple,’’ I whispered. ‘‘But, my dear sister,’’ Henry exclaimed, ‘‘how can you possibly know?’’ To which I replied: ‘‘I believe I can read the signs.’’ Henry raised an eyebrow.

  I was recalling the meeting during one of our Grand Tours with my friend Clover Hooper and her new husband Henry, at Thussis: how they seemed to be enclosed in brilliant sunshine while the rest of us – Henry, Aunt Kate and I – sat enwreathed in a vaporous cloud.

  ‘‘Indeed,’’ sighed Henry now. The subject of honeymoons, I sensed him thinking, is perhaps best avoided.

  He directed our attention towards my invalid’s chair which he proceeded to admire excessively. ‘‘There is no jarring,’’ I explained, ‘‘and one can lie out in it like a bed, as you see.’’ The foot extension had been pulled out so that I could sit with legs extended. He bent to examine one of the tires.

  ‘‘I do believe those are bicycle wheels.’’

  ‘‘How very observant,’’ muttered Katharine.

  ‘‘It was Katharine,’’ I further explained, ‘‘who bought it for me.’’

  ‘‘Ah, the munificent Katharine.’’

  Henry’s sarcasm shocked me, but Katharine rose above it.

  ‘‘Not at all,’’ she said. ‘‘It gives me great pleasure to take Alice about in it.’’

  ‘‘Indeed.’’

  Things did not improve with the introduction of the Irish Question. I said it was distressing to hear of so much squabbling among Nationalist ranks.

  ‘‘Their efforts sound more like the plots of boy’s adventure stories than serious attempts to undermine British authority,’’ said Henry.

  ‘‘That is because you do not take their cause seriously,’’ I replied.

  ‘‘Then you do not believe in the Parnell letters condoning the Phoenix Park murders?’’

  Katharine looked to me. ‘‘No,’’ I said, ‘‘I am sure they were forged.’’

  ‘‘Will you be joining the Republican Brotherhood then …?’’

  Here Katharine’s rapped the table with a finger. ‘‘No, but I have supported Anna Parnell in the Ladies’ Box.’’

  ‘‘Anna Parnell? The sister? They say she’s an embarrassment to her brother.’’

  ‘‘Do they?’’ charged Katharine. ‘‘Perhaps that is because she is too radical. While her brother plays at politics at Westminster or in prison, Anna and her Ladies’ Land League have been busy fighting a land war. They have climbed fe
nces and leaped ditches, bravely standing up against vicious and vindictive absentee English landlords in their abominable treatment of tenant farmers.’’ She had risen half out of her seat in her excitement. I placed a hand on her arm, and she subsided.

  Henry thanked her for the history lesson.

  Our refreshments arrived. The waiter, at Henry’s insistence, left us to do our own pouring. I watched as Katharine and Henry reached simultaneously for the pot. Their hands would have met but for Henry’s catlike recoil. The thing was Katharine’s; she turned to me: ‘‘Will you take coffee?’’

  The other was Henry’s: heavy silver with a fluted spout. ‘‘Or tea?’’

  I could not decide. I would like coffee but suddenly it felt impossible to say so since coffee, as well as tea for that matter, could over-excite.

  It had happened before. We’d been staying in Paris. One morning Henry put at least three buttery brioche on his plate, beside his cup of chocolate. Before actually eating them he pointed out a certain pattern in the tiny black seeds decorating them, admiring their ‘jaunty little topknots’. Then, having consumed them one after the other, he ordered a second chocolate. When I tried to do the same, however, Aunt Kate’s hand had moved to close gently but firmly around my wrist:

  ‘‘Chocolate,’’ she warned, ‘‘can be a little too stimulating, you know.’’

  I had turned then to Henry, ‘‘What shall I do?’’ The waiter had remained standing statue-like, pencil poised, allowing the question to balloon monstrously.

  ‘‘To chocolate or not to chocolate,’’ Henry had mused. At last he had asked me why.

  ‘‘Why what?’’

  ‘‘Why do you want a second cup?’’

  ‘‘Because,’’ I announced: ‘‘it represents Europe to me: freedom, pleasure, indulgence …’’

  ‘‘In that case,’’ he declared, ‘‘you have your answer.’’

  As it turned out, I went on to eat and drink freely with no untoward consequences. But there remained the possibility of danger in indulgence.

  Katharine was still awaiting my decision. ‘‘Do not think too hard, Alice,’’ she counselled. ‘‘Say simply what you would like.’’ The coffee pot hovered. What I would like, I thought, is not simple, that is the problem. Katharine’s arm, meanwhile, strong as it was, had begun to quiver, forcing her to use the other one for support. I guess it took some self-control not to tip the spout into my lap – or Henry’s.