By the time I arrive at work I’m exhausted and puffy-eyed.
‘Morning, Grace.’ My boss, Lyn, is always cheerful. ‘Ready for the onslaught?’ Lyn unlocks the front door and holds it open, greeting each parent and toddler by name.
A sea of children floods into the cloakroom, trailed by weary mothers, stamping booted feet and shaking umbrellas. Droplets of rain pool on the floor. I make a mental note to remember to mop, or someone may slip. Emily dashes over and wraps her arms around my knees. I shouldn’t have favourites, and I do love all the kids, but I have an extra-special bond with Emily. I unzip her raincoat and ease it off her shoulders, revealing a pink Dora the Explorer shirt underneath.
‘Morning, Sarah,’ I say. Emily’s mum looks pale, violet smudges under her eyes. ‘How are you?’
‘Tired. This little one was screaming all night.’ She rocks the pram. I peep at the sleeping baby splayed out like a starfish, hands bunched into fists. ‘I’ve been struggling to sleep anyway, since…’ Her eyes meet mine above Emily’s head, and I know she means since Greg left. Sarah warned us several weeks ago that Emily might be unsettled, missing her father. Sarah kicked him out after catching him in bed with his secretary, a cliché that until then I had never quite believed actually happened.
‘I’m off for a nap anyway,’ Sarah continues, ‘before she wakes.’ She plants a kiss on the top of Emily’s blonde hair and walks towards the door, one hand pushing the pram, the other pulling her hood up.
I spend a happy morning at the arts and craft table, observing the children creating their glittery masterpieces, utterly absorbed in what they’re doing.
‘Look, Grace.’ Emily pushes a piece of paper in front of me, depicting two stick figures. Blue paint drips onto my black trousers.
‘It’s beautiful, Emily. Is that you and Lily?’
‘Yes.’
‘It must be fun having a sister?’
‘No. She cries all the time. Mummy says when she’s bigger she’ll be more ’tresting.’
I smile at her mispronunciation. ‘I’m sure she’ll be very interesting.’ I peg the sopping paper onto the washing line above the table. ‘Mummy will love it. It should be dry by the time you go home.’
Emily darts over to the dressing-up corner and I study the image of the two little girls. Growing up, I always wanted a sister, someone to share things with – and then I met Charlie and I thought we’d always have each other. Grow white-haired and walking-sticked together, sucking humbugs on a park bench as we compared our aches and pains. Laughed about the good old days.
‘Penny for them?’ Lyn lightly touches my arm.
‘I don’t think they’re worth that much.’
‘I’m sure…’ She trails off, interrupted by the buzzer. The noise is relentless: either someone is keeping their finger pressed on the button, or it’s broken.
‘Keep the children in here,’ Lyn instructs Hannah, and I follow her into the corridor, closing the activity room door behind me.
Emily’s dad releases the buzzer when he sees us, slapping the door with his palms instead. Rain streaks down his furious crimson face.
‘Let. Me. In.’
Lyn presses the intercom and speaks in her normal tone, and it’s only because I know her so well that I can detect a slight quiver in her voice.
‘What do you want, Greg?’
‘Emily.’
‘You need to go home and calm down. I can’t let you in like this.’
‘Open the fucking door.’ He begins to kick it. Muddy footprints haphazardly imprint the glass like the children’s potato print patterns, and the frame rattles. But it remains secure, for now.
‘You’ll scare the children. If you don’t leave, I’ll call the police.’
‘I have the right to see my daughter, you fucking bitch. You’re all fucking bitches.’
I wonder how long the police will take to arrive. The room next door is silent. I can picture the children’s faces, pale and anxious, small hands covering their ears. Anger nudges out my fear. How dare he? Dads are supposed to be protectors. Long-forgotten feelings ignite as I slip through the staffroom and out of the back door, gasping as the wind blows freezing rain into my face. My shoulders are hunched and my head is down as I arc my way around the building to the front door.
‘Greg.’
He swings around. The vein on the side of his head is pulsing.
‘Where’s my fucking daughter?’
‘I’m not bringing her out.’ Ice-cold water snakes down my back and my purple ‘Little Acorns’ T-shirt clings to my skin.
Greg darts forward, raising his fist. I flinch. The muscles in my thighs tremble; they feel too weak to support me. I think of Emily, pink tongue between her teeth as she concentrates on her painting.
‘If you don’t let me see her, Grace, I swear you’ll be sorry.’ His jaw tics.
‘Do you really want her to see you like this?’ My voice is measured, belying my fear.
His arm suspends mid-air as his eyes lock onto mine. Distant thunder rumbles. His legs crumple and he drops to his knees, his face wet with rain and remorse. He covers his eyes with tremulous hands.
‘I miss her. I miss them both, so much.’ He lowers his forehead to the ground as if pleading to a God that isn’t listening.
I reach out and touch his shoulder, not sure whether I’m trying to comfort him or steady myself.
He raises his head, looking at me through bloodshot eyes. ‘I can’t cope with the pain I’ve caused.’
But he can. We all have to carry the consequences of our own actions, no matter how heavy they are. I know that better than anyone.
‘Please. Let me see her, Grace.’
‘I can’t.’
‘Then I’ll make you feel the way I feel right now. How would you like that?’
Lyn queues for our drinks, while I bag a table by the window. I unwind my scarf and shrug off my coat. I’m wearing Hannah’s gym clothes. My wet pre-school uniform is scrunched up in the boot of my car. I lean back in the tub chair and slide forwards on the faux-leather material. There are hordes of people scurrying past the window and I wonder where they’re going: home; picking up children; meeting a lover, perhaps? Feet slap against the wet pavement as coats are zipped around shivering bodies, scarves wound a little tighter. We haven’t yet had the forecasted snow but the January air is biting.
Across the road, under the street light, stands a lone figure: black padded coat, hood up, face shrouded. They’re looking directly in the coffee shop. At me? I shift uncomfortably in my seat and look away, but when I glance back they’re still there. Still motionless. The same feeling I’d had on Sunday, when the strange car sat outside my cottage, creeps up and down my spine.
‘Here.’ Lyn plops mugs of steaming chocolate on the table. Cream trickles down the sides and she licks her fingers.
‘See that person across the road?’
‘Where?’ Lyn squints without her glasses.
‘There.’ I stand and press my palms against the window. My forehead touches the window and my breath fogs the glass. I turn my head to her. ‘Do you see them?’
Lyn puts her glasses on and stands, forehead creased, peering into the darkened street. ‘Who am I looking at, Grace?’
I turn my head back, but the figure is gone, and I wonder if they were ever there at all.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ I say. ‘I think Greg’s unnerved me. Thanks for this.’ I sit and pull my mug towards me, half listening as Lyn recounts a mix-up with the order. My eyes are drawn out onto the street again. There is definitely no figure and I berate myself for my paranoia. My senses have been on high alert since Charlie died. It’s odd how many sides there are to grief: tears and sadness, confusion and anger. I reach forward and open the bag of mini muffins, pull one out and take a bite. The sugar rush goes some way towards restoring the energy the day has drained from me.
‘What a day.’ Lyn picks chocolate chi
ps out of a muffin with her fingernails and pops them on her tongue.
‘At least Emily’s safe.’ I’d found the number of Greg’s sister from the emergency contact book and she’d come to pick him up. Despite everything, I didn’t think he deserved to be arrested. I know how it feels to have guilt sit in the pit of your stomach, gnawing away. A dull ache that never quite goes. Greg is human, as flawed and repenting as the rest of us, and we all make mistakes, don’t we? Only some mistakes are harder to forgive.
‘Do you think Sarah will take him back?’ Lyn asks.
I shrug and spoon cream into my mouth, savouring the velvety sweetness as it dissolves on my tongue.
‘It’s so nice to sit down,’ says Lyn. ‘I danced so much at Steve’s niece’s eighteenth on Saturday I’ve got blisters on my blisters. I wish you’d come.’
‘I know. It’s just…’
‘Too soon after Charlie.’ Lyn pats my hand, reaches for another muffin and leans back.
It’s been over five months now and I’m trying to rebuild my life. Sometimes I fleetingly feel something close to normal, but my grieving feet are not yet ready to dance, however much I appreciate Lyn’s attempts to get me out. I’m trying to let people back into my life, grateful they’re still here. I’d fallen apart after we buried Charlie; couldn’t seem to wrench myself out of bed. It was only as my grandparents stood over me with fake smiles and brightly wrapped gifts on my twenty-fifth birthday that I really noticed the worry etched into their faces. After that, I started to piece myself back together. I tell myself I’m coping but I’m not. Not really. Take away my sleeping tablets and I would shatter.
‘Grandma saw Lexie, Charlie’s mum. She wants to see me.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know. Only one way to find out, I suppose.’
‘Is that a good idea? She was awful to you, Grace. Driving you out of your best friend’s funeral.’
‘I know, but she’s Charlie’s mum and she has no other family. I really should check she’s OK. She probably wants to apologise.’
‘Probably,’ said Lyn. But she looks as unconvinced as I feel.
The washing machine rinses my uniform as I stab holes in the film covering the fish pie I found languishing at the bottom of the freezer. I’d meant to go shopping, but the events with Greg and the sense of being watched had unsettled me, and I’d come straight home after leaving Lyn. I put the pie in the microwave and slosh some wine into a glass. Dan has football training on a Monday and always has dinner in the bar afterwards. He’s texted to say he’s found his phone; I’m glad we hadn’t replaced it already. I’ll eat and have an early night.
I flick through my albums, trying to find one that matches my day. The TV is rarely on when Dan isn’t around. I lower the needle and listen to the static before the singing starts. Ella Fitzgerald croons ‘Stormy Weather’; I’m ready for some sunshine of my own. Even though it’s early, I put on my fleecy pyjamas, the tartan ones that Dan says make me look like Rupert the Bear. Charlie’s pink envelope stands between my bedside lamp and a stack of books I have yet to read. I pick the letter up carefully, as if it may explode, and take it downstairs, where I stare at it while eating out of the greasy plastic container to save washing up. I’m curious to know what Charlie’s written, but equally reluctant to open it, scared of the emotions it may engender. This is the last new memory I can form of Charlie. Once I’ve opened it, everything else will forever be re-runs.
I place my tray on the floor, swing both feet up and stretch out on the sofa, pulling a patchwork throw over my legs. Picking the envelope up between thumb and finger, I ease it open.
7
Then
‘Bulbs are coming up. Daffodils already.’ Grandad washed his hands at the sink, while Grandma wiped splashes of water from the stainless steel taps with her ‘J’Adore Paris’ tea towel. She’d never been to France, never been out of England at all, but she loved tea towels, always buying one when she visited somewhere, and was often bought them as gifts. She had a drawer full of places she’d never been. It wasn’t like I’d been abroad either, but at thirteen, I thought I had all the time in the world.
I sat at the pine kitchen table, squeezed next to the Welsh dresser crammed with blue and white crockery. Only a few crumbs remained from my slab of lemon drizzle cake and I pushed my plate away, slid the stack of photo albums towards me.
I opened the brown crinkly pages. My hand rose to the stabbing in my chest. Seeing my fractured family always left me breathless. It was something I usually avoided, but I needed some photos for a school project. Grandad stood behind me and placed his hands on my shoulders as I silently turned the pages. I traced the faces with my fingertips. We looked like an ordinary family: Mum, Dad and me. Quality Street Christmases and sandcastle summers. We had been an ordinary family. I missed that. I paused at a photo of Mum and Dad grinning on the beach, holding me up proudly between them like a trophy they’d won, their hair blowing in the wind. I must have been about two and had ice cream dripping off my chin as I thrust my cone towards the camera. The image captured the moment in time so perfectly I could almost feel the sun, see the crashing waves, hear the seagulls. The sense of home. There was a grainy photo of Dad and me. We were sitting at the breakfast bar, nestling mugs of hot chocolate topped with whipped cream and flakes. Dad used to make me proper hot chocolate, ‘None of that powdered rubbish for my girl.’ He’d a special pan just for milk, and would stir chunks of Cadbury’s round and round until the milk was smooth and brown.
‘This one.’ I eased it out from its plastic cover and added it to the pile of photos of my grandparents, Mum and various aunts and uncles I didn’t think I’d ever met. Scrawled names on Christmas cards I never recognised.
‘You must miss them.’ Grandad sat next to me. ‘It doesn’t have to be this way. Your mum rang again last night.’ He covered my hand with his. His palm was warm and moist.
‘I don’t want to talk about her.’ My stomach twisted when I thought of what I’d done and I snatched my hand away.
‘You should talk about her. Get things straight in your head.’
‘I talked to Paula at the time, didn’t I? What was the point of having a bloody therapist if I have to talk to you too?’
‘Don’t swear, Grace.’
The chair legs screeched on the tiled floor as I pushed back my seat and stood. ‘I’m going to Charlie’s.’
‘Wait.’ Grandma held up a hand the way a policeman might stop traffic and I leaned against the door frame, drumming my fingertips on the wood as she placed a huge slice of sponge on a piece of foil and parcelled it. ‘That’s to take with you. That girl needs feeding up.’ According to Grandma, nobody ate properly except us. ‘You might want to ask her on holiday with us this year, we’re going abroad.’
‘Really? Where?’ Curiosity lifted my mood. I crossed my fingers behind my back: Disneyland, Disneyland, Disneyland. Esmée had been to stay with her aunt in Paris last year and hadn’t stopped talking about it since.
‘The Isle of Wight.’
‘Ivy, it’s not abroad. I’ve explained this to you.’ Grandad winked at me and I couldn’t help smiling back, my outburst all but forgotten.
‘If it’s not abroad then why do we need to catch a ferry to get there, eh? Explain that.’
The Tesco carrier bag stuffed full of photos and cake bumped into my legs as I sprinted through the village, past humming lawnmowers, and garden hoses spraying grubby cars. My trainers smacked against the concrete as I ran faster and faster, trying to drive out Grandad’s words, which were circling around my mind. My life seemed split into two. Before and after.
My T-shirt was damp with sweat by the time I got to the high street and I slumped against the postbox to catch my breath. A peal of laughter floated across the road. Siobhan. She’d come out of Boots with her younger sister, Abby. I began to call hello but Siobhan cupped her hand over her mouth and whispered in Abby’s ear. They both looked over and
giggled. I snapped my jaw shut and studied the mail collection times, conscious my cheeks were probably the same colour as the postbox, wishing I’d cut across the park – but Grandma didn’t like me going there alone. ‘Undesirables,’ she said, but in the day the park was usually full of sticky toddlers and fraught mothers. I wasn’t sure what Siobhan had against me but she’d never welcomed me the way Charlie and Esmée had, and the older we’d got, the unfriendlier she’d become. Abby and Siobhan ducked into the coffee shop and I scurried passed the window, head low, shoulders hunched.
Charlie’s house was sandwiched in the middle of a row of Victorian terraces, red-bricked and chimney-stacked. These were where the employees of the old textile factory used to live. The factory was long gone, it was a primary school now, but the houses remained.
The grass was knee-length and full of nettles and I kept my hands raised as I picked my way towards to the front door. Ignoring the doorbell – I’d never known it to work – I banged the knocker. Specks of black paint flaked off, fluttering onto the step. I waited, and just when I was about to knock again I heard stilettoed footsteps, the jangling of bangles, and the door swung open with a creak.
‘Hi Lexie.’ Charlie’s mum flattened herself against the wall while I squeezed into the hallway. Lexie flapped her hands.
‘Wet nails. Shut the door, Gracie-Grace.’
I pushed the door shut behind me and bent down to pick up the post from the mat.
‘Any red ones take them home with you,’ said Lexie. ‘I don’t bleedin’ want them.’ She blew on her ruby red nails. ‘How’s it going? Got a boyfriend yet?’
‘No. I…’
‘You’re better off without one. They’re no bleedin’ good, the lot of ’em. Charlie’s in the kitchen – she’s cooking tea. Hungry?’
‘Starving.’ I’d run off the lemon drizzle cake.
Charlie was shaking chicken nuggets and chips onto a baking tray that was ginger with rust.
The Sister: A psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won't see coming Page 4