The Thing About Clare

by Imogen Clark

  She read the details on the poster again. Auditions were being held later that week for this ‘new and exciting production’. She scribbled the phone number down on the back of a supermarket receipt which she found in her bag. She would think about it.

  It was nearly time for her shift at the Help the Aged shop and she liked to be there on time so that she would be allocated to work on the till and not sorting the donations. Going though bags of discarded belongings was still difficult, even though it had been a couple of years since the four of them had stripped their mother’s home like a plague of locusts. Nothing had been left by the time she and the house clearance firm had finished. That was the idea, of course, but it still seemed so very brutal to remove everything that had once created their home. All that remained when she locked the door for the final time was the makeshift height chart that their father had carved into the scullery door. It broke her heart to leave it behind. If she could have cut the wood out and replaced it with a new piece she would have done. She had even toyed with the idea of doing some sort of rubbing of it, like you did of brass on a gravestone, but Richard had told her that she was being ridiculous. He was right. They were middle-aged adults now and no one needed to know how tall they had been when they were five. But still . . .

  Her phone started to ring and she screwed her nose up in irritation. She was nearly at the shop. She didn’t have time for interruptions. The phone had got itself trapped in the lining of her handbag and by the time she extracted it, the caller had rung off. It had been Anna. Miriam would ring her back later but then it rang again. Anna.

  ‘Did you lose your phone in your bag again?’ asked the familiar voice when Miriam answered. ‘I always ring twice. You never get to it in time on the first go. Why don’t you put it in your pocket? Or on a string round your neck?’

  ‘Oh, ha ha,’ she said. ‘No one ever rings me except you and Richard. The girls just text or send pointless emoji that I can’t see without my specs and then can’t decipher.’

  ‘Listen,’ said Anna. ‘Something’s happened. We need to talk.’

  ‘Well, can it wait?’ asked Miriam. She had reached the shop and was now standing with one hand on the door ready to push it open. ‘I’m just about to start at the shop.’

  ‘I suppose so but it’s important. Can you meet me tonight? I’ll ring Seb too.’

  ‘And Clare?’ asked Miriam, but somehow she knew the answer to that.

  ‘No. I’ll explain when I see you.’

  They made a plan for later and Miriam finally got into the shop just in time to see her co-worker claim her place at the till with a smug smile. Donation bags it was, then.

  They met later at Sebastian’s as he hadn’t been able to get a sitter at such short notice. Even before Miriam was in the house she could hear that Theo and Zac were neither in bed nor showing any signs of wanting to go there. Sebastian’s approach to a bedtime routine had always differed from her regimented one, but since he had been on his own, it seemed to have fallen away entirely. Anna had told her that the boys usually fell asleep where they dropped and then had to be carried to their beds. It was no way to bring up children in Miriam’s opinion but then Sebastian had enough on his plate and the boys were delightful, if a little boisterous. They had such a large measure of their mother’s carefree spirit running through their veins. They looked far more like Tessa’s side of the family too – dark with chocolate-drop eyes and smooth, caramel-coloured skin.

  She rang the doorbell and told herself not to judge.

  Anna opened the door, still dressed in her work clothes and looking like she needed at least a week’s sleep at once. Zac skidded down the hall behind her on his knees, closely followed by Theo, who was brandishing a lightsaber. Neither boy looked like he would ever need to sleep again.

  ‘Come in,’ said Anna. ‘We’re in the kitchen.’ She pulled her face into an expression that suggested that Miriam should prepare herself.

  Sebastian’s kitchen was not like Miriam’s. The table was still laid for the evening meal, the plates left abandoned. The area around the sink was piled high with what was certainly more than one day’s washing-up and the sink was full of pans. On the floor was a basket overflowing with laundry. Miriam couldn’t tell if it was clean or dirty but she suspected dirty. One corner was entirely taken over by a carpet of footwear: mainly trainers but also school shoes, wellington boots and one roller skate. A supermarket bag-for-life was disgorging its contents on one work surface and another was piled so high with paperwork that the stacks were starting to topple. Miriam bit her tongue.

  Anna started to clear a corner of the table so that they could at least sit down without putting their elbows in the remains of whatever had just been consumed. Miriam started to move the plates across to the sink area but Anna shook her head. Sebastian was very touchy about anything that suggested that he wasn’t coping. They had run into that particular obstacle before. The things that were important to Miriam, like order, tidiness, even cleanliness, didn’t matter to Sebastian. They hadn’t mattered to Tessa either but people forgot that. It wasn’t that the house looked like this because Sebastian had no wife. It had always looked like this.

  Miriam piled the plates on top of each other, pushed them to the opposite corner of the table and turned so her back was to the sink.

  ‘Right,’ they heard Sebastian say in the hall. ‘I have to have a chat with Aunts Miriam and Anna so can you leave us in peace and try to keep the noise down so we can hear each other speak. Can you do that?’

  There was no anger in his voice. He reminded her of their dad, although Sebastian’s turn of phrase was far less floral.

  ‘Okay,’ he said as he came into the kitchen. He was smiling broadly. ‘I reckon we’ve got about twenty seconds before—’

  ‘Can we watch a movie?’ asked Theo as he careered into the kitchen using the other roller skate as a skateboard.

  ‘Yes. But only if it’s approximately age-appropriate and you don’t make too much noise.’

  Satisfied, Theo rolled back out into the hall.

  ‘Drink?’ asked Sebastian, getting a bottle of beer from the fridge and flicking the cap off with his thumb. ‘I have white wine, beer or tea. No coffee. I forgot we’d run out.’

  ‘Wine, please,’ said Anna, and Miriam nodded.

  ‘So,’ said Miriam when they all had a drink, ‘what’s happened?’ She looked at Anna expectantly but Anna was picking at a thread on her jacket sleeve and wouldn’t meet her eye.

  ‘It’s very complicated and you’re not going to like it but could you try to stay quiet until I get to the end and then we can discuss it.’

  Miriam looked at Sebastian, who was nodding gently.

  ‘Okay. Let’s have it.’

  Anna took a deep breath and ran her fingers up and down the stem of her glass.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘I got a letter for Clare from a firm of solicitors acting for a friend of Mum’s. He had died and his solicitors wanted to see Clare.’

  ‘What?’ asked Sebastian. ‘Just Clare? Why did they want . . .?’ Anna put her hand up to silence him. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘Carry on.’

  ‘So, Clare went and they gave her a letter. Basically, it seems that there’s a chance that this friend of Mum’s might be her father.’

  Miriam wasn’t sure that she’d heard her properly. ‘What? What did you just say?’

  ‘Miriam. Please,’ said Anna in exasperation. ‘Just let me get to the end of it. So this bloke has said that Clare will inherit all his stuff if she can prove that she’s his daughter. She has to do a DNA test.’

  Sebastian whistled. ‘Bloody hell. So that means . . .’ He crinkled his brow as he thought through the consequences of what Anna had just said.

  ‘That means,’ said Miriam, ‘that either he’s a lying toe-rag or Mum had an affair.’

  Miriam brought an image of their mother into her mind. She was old, grey-haired, as she remembered her last. She dug deeper into her memory for the Dorot
hy of fifty years ago, a young and vivacious Dorothy who might have had her head turned by someone who wasn’t their dad, but there was nothing there.

  Sebastian took a swig of beer and then said, ‘So how did Clare react?’

  ‘Pretty much like that,’ said Anna, nodding towards his bottle. ‘I found her in the pub. She was in a state, not really knowing what to do.’

  ‘No.’ Miriam sighed. This was a blow. A sober Clare was a rare and precious thing. ‘And she’d been doing so well. You didn’t leave her there, did you?’ she asked, panicked now at the thought of what might happen to an unsupervised Clare with the possibility of money behind her. Miriam had seen Clare on a bender and was hoping that it was something that she would never have to deal with again.

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ said Anna, her tone indignant. ‘She wouldn’t speak to me so I kind of stalked her until she was too drunk to function and then I took her home.’

  The three of them sat there staring into space. Sebastian spoke first.

  ‘Well, it would make a lot of sense,’ he said. ‘I mean, if . . .’ He looked at them awkwardly, clearly hoping that they would understand what he was saying without him actually having to voice it.

  ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ Miriam heard herself say. ‘Clare is a troubled person but that’s just who she is. It doesn’t mean that she has some stranger’s genes. How could you say that, Seb?’

  Sebastian looked like he was going to argue but then thought better of it.

  ‘What’s she going to do?’ Miriam asked Anna. ‘She’s not going to take this test, is she?’

  ‘Honestly? I have no idea. She was okay when I left her – I mean, not drinking or anything – but it seemed like it hadn’t hit her, not really.’

  ‘How much money are we talking?’ asked Sebastian.

  ‘About three quarters of a million net, the solicitor reckoned.’

  Sebastian whistled again. ‘That would make one hell of a difference to her.’

  ‘As long as she didn’t drink it,’ said Miriam.

  ‘She’s doing really well, Miriam. Or she was before this blew up. I don’t think she’d want to go back to how things were before.’

  ‘I’m not sure she’d be able to help herself.’

  Anna poured them more wine, even though Miriam had barely touched hers. Then a thought crossed Miriam’s mind. ‘Do you think this is what was in that letter that we never found? The one in the will?’

  ‘I bet it is,’ said Sebastian, nodding enthusiastically. ‘Mum must have been going to tell Clare and then changed her mind at the last minute. What do you think, Anna?’

  Miriam saw something flicker across Anna’s face, the hint of a blush on her neck, and in that moment, Miriam knew. There had always been something odd about that whole will business, the way Anna had had it hidden at her house, the missing letter that they all had to pretend had never existed. At the time, Miriam had been furious with Anna for withholding it, self-righteously demanding that she explain herself, but what if . . . Miriam winced as she realised that Anna must have been protecting Clare. If she knew what was in the letter then perhaps she had decided that it was better if Clare never found out. Destroying both the will and the letter would have caused a bit of hassle but a lot less damage than telling Clare the truth. But she had messed all that up by finding the will and then charging about with it like a bull in a china shop.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Anna quietly. ‘I don’t know.’

  Miriam knew then that she was right, that Anna had known, at least since their mother had died. Poor Anna for carrying this horrible burden by herself.

  ‘The real question,’ said Miriam loudly, trying to direct attention away from Anna, ‘is how we go about supporting Clare. This must have come as such a shock to her and it’s more than enough to put her recovery back months. I vote we go see her, make sure she understands that none of this makes any difference to us.’

  Sebastian looked at her thoughtfully.

  ‘The thing is, though, Miriam,’ he said, ‘it kind of does make a difference, doesn’t it? I mean, she’ll only be our half-sister. That’s quite a big thing.’

  Miriam couldn’t believe what she was hearing. How could Sebastian think like that? This was Clare they were talking about. She was about to reply but there was no need. Anna was on it.

  ‘That is the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever said, Seb,’ said Anna. She was virtually shouting at him. ‘It makes no difference whatsoever. She’s still Clare, our sister. What if she’d been adopted? Would she not have been our “real” sister then either?’ Anna put air quotes around ‘real’ and sneered at Sebastian. ‘We were all brought up by the same parents in the same house. As far as I’m concerned that makes her our sister. End of.’

  Miriam was surprised by the response of both her siblings. Sebastian was usually so easy-going about things and there had never been any love lost between Anna and Clare. It must be the shock, although if she was right about Anna then this wasn’t exactly a shock to her.

  ‘The most important issue’ – Miriam tried again – ‘is Clare. When did you last see her, Anna?’

  ‘This morning. I stayed over so I was there when she woke up. We had a cup of tea and then I left her to it. She was fine.’

  ‘I think one of us should get over there, just to make sure.’

  A scream went up from another part of the house as Theo and Zac grew tired of their film.

  ‘Well, I can’t go,’ said Sebastian. ‘I need to stay here with the boys.’ He looked relieved.

  ‘I’ll go,’ said Miriam. ‘I’ll go right now.’

  She stood up and Anna stood up with her.

  ‘I’ll come too,’ she said pointedly. ‘We’ll give her your love, shall we, Sebastian?’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Sebastian. ‘Don’t be like that. I’m just saying . . .’

  ‘Well, don’t,’ said Anna. ‘Bye, boys,’ she said as she let herself out of the front door, but she didn’t wait for a reply.

  Sebastian shook his head.

  ‘What did I do?’ he asked. ‘I mean, it’s true. If she has a different dad then she’s not our proper sister, is she?’

  Miriam sighed. ‘For someone so smart, brother dear, you can be remarkably dense sometimes. I’ll ring you tomorrow.’

  She reached up and gave her brother a kiss on the cheek and then followed Anna out.

  II

  ‘I’ll drive,’ Miriam said as Anna dug around in her bag for car keys. Anna didn’t object, maybe thinking of the wine she’d drunk, and Miriam waited as she climbed into the passenger seat in silence.

  Miriam pulled the car smoothly out of Sebastian’s drive and turned on to the main road. Clare’s flat was on an estate on the other side of town. It was dark now and the headlights of cars coming towards her flared. She hated driving at night. She was getting old.

  ‘You didn’t have to be that hard on Sebastian,’ she said to Anna once they were on their way. ‘It was a shock for him. I’m sure once he’s had time to come round to the idea he’ll see that it doesn’t make any difference.’

  They stopped at traffic lights and Miriam turned to look at Anna, who was staring out at the road ahead, her jaw tight.

  ‘It wasn’t a shock for you, though, was it?’

  Anna turned her head and then shook it slowly, eyes downcast.

  ‘The letter was with the will?’

  Anna nodded. There was a silence as the lights turned green and Miriam pulled out into the traffic.

  ‘So,’ prompted Miriam, ‘are you going to tell me how you ended up with the will or is it a secret?’

  ‘Well, it was a secret,’ replied Anna, her voice spiked with indignation. ‘Bloody hell. What a mess.’

  Miriam waited. There was no point pushing Anna. She would share, given time. She didn’t have to wait long.

  ‘It was Mum,’ Anna said, staring resolutely out of the windscreen and not turning to look at Miriam. ‘She asked me to go and find the will and the letter
and made me promise to burn them.’

  Miriam felt her lips tightening. Even after all these years, the fact that their mother had asked Anna to collect the will and not her rankled. She was the eldest. She had sacrificed her life to the task of fetching and carrying for her mother and then, when something important, something significant, needed doing who had her mother asked to help her? Anna! The play poster from earlier flicked into her mind. She would definitely audition. There was still time to do what she wanted for once in her life. She wasn’t dead yet – not quite, anyway.

  ‘But you didn’t do it,’ Miriam said, hoping that Anna didn’t sense her irritation and clam up.

  ‘No,’ replied Anna, shaking her head sadly. ‘I meant to. I was going to but then your washer broke down and you found the will before I had chance. It was just luck that you didn’t see the letter. So, I decided it would be better for everyone if I just kept my mouth shut.’

  Anna took a deep breath and Miriam could see that she was fighting to control her emotions. That was Anna all over, always in control, never giving anything away. It was good to see that some things did have the power to touch her after all, to pierce her ice-maiden exterior. Immediately Miriam felt guilty for thinking like that. Poor Anna. They had all been so vile to her about the will and she had just been trying to protect Clare from the truth.

  ‘Oh, Anna,’ said Miriam. ‘I’m so very sorry. That must have been horrible for you, knowing that massive secret and not being able to say anything. But . . .’ Miriam paused. ‘Why didn’t you just do what Mum asked in the first place?’

  Miriam tried to keep the accusation out of her tone. Actually, Anna had only had to deal with all this on her own because she had overridden their mother’s wishes. In many ways, it did kind of serve her right.

  They turned into Clare’s estate. A gang of small boys was playing chicken in the street, standing on the white line until their car approached and only at the last minute diving for the kerb. Miriam resisted the urge to blow the horn at them. There was nothing to be gained from drawing attention to yourself here. In the distance, a blue light flashed in the night sky and a siren sounded and then faded away.