20
Then
It was the early hours of the morning by the time Mum and I had walked back from my eighteenth birthday party at Lexie’s. We sat at Grandma’s wooden table, steam curling from the mugs of coffee in front of us. My hair, wet from my shower, was making my shoulders damp, but at least it smelled apple-fresh now, not of sick. I felt self-conscious in my pyjamas and tugged my dressing gown to cover my knees. It was freezing. I’d flicked the heating on and there was a click-click-click as the pipes warmed.
‘You should dry your hair. You’ll catch a cold.’
‘You do not get to come back after ten years and tell me what to do.’
‘No.’ Mum raised her cup to her lips and blew. ‘I don’t suppose I do.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘To talk.’
‘I don’t want to.’
I didn’t want to deal with this now. I felt ashamed and I wasn’t sure if it was my past actions or present words making me feel that way. I gulped my drink to try and wash my confusion away. The liquid scalded my tongue and tears sprang to my eyes as I jumped to my feet. I yanked open the freezer and cracked an ice cube from the tray, let it melt in my mouth.
‘Well, I do. Darling, I’m so sorry I left, but you’re old enough to understand. It wasn’t that I didn’t want you. I wasn’t well. It was hard to cope with what happened.’
What happened. It was as though I were expanding. My lungs were pushing against my ribs. My skin stretching. And then I was back there. Back in the day I’d tried so hard to forget.
I’d woken swathed in a honeycomb glow as pale sunlight penetrated my thin yellow curtains. It was early. It was coming up to my ninth birthday and I was too excited to sleep. I shed my pyjamas and pulled on jeans and a jumper, then scraped my hair into a ponytail before padding barefoot downstairs. Mum was already in the kitchen, Radio 2 playing as she whisked the batter for our lunchtime Yorkshire puddings. ‘Morning,’ I called as I walked past the open kitchen door, heading towards the dining room and the tinkling of the piano.
I sat next to Dad on the worn brown piano stool, resting my head against his shoulder. ‘Can we go to the park today, Dad?’
He gave me a hard, Paddington Bear stare over the top of his glasses. ‘You should really practise for your exam next week, Grace.’
‘We could practise after lunch?’
‘OK.’ He smiled. ‘Have some breakfast and wrap up warm. It’ll be colder than it looks out there.’
I scuttled to the kitchen and munched on Marmite toast as Mum peeled parsnips for dinner. On the radio, ELO promised ‘Mr. Blue Sky’. Dad brought me my coat and boots. ‘It’s a beautiful new day,’ he sang along. ‘Hey, hey.’ We were ready to go.
‘Be back by one, and don’t fill up on ice cream,’ Mum started.
‘Or there’ll be no pudding for you,’ chorused Dad and I. Mum kissed Dad goodbye and handed me a bag of bread for the ducks.
We rustled through the orange and brown fallen leaves, walking with my small hand wrapped inside Dad’s giant one, making up stories. The biting air nipped at my exposed face, the rest of me wrapped tightly in my pink Puffa jacket. We adventured down the road in wellington-booted feet, jumping bravely into every pile of curling leaves that carpeted the pavement. Each one had the possibility of containing a portal to another world. There would be a parallel universe, we decided, containing carbon copies of us. ‘Although without the tummy,’ Dad said, patting his rounded belly.
At the park, we headed straight for the duck pond and opened the bag of stale crusts.
‘I’m foregoing my bread pudding for you,’ Dad told the snapping birds. ‘I hope you’re grateful.’
I hid behind his legs as the geese jostled the ducks out of the way. I’d had my finger nipped the week before. The bread was soon gone and we headed to our usual bench and watched fathers and sons whizz remote-control boats around the water, leaving foamy snail trails behind them.
Dad produced a packet of strawberry bonbons and for a while we sat toffee-tongue-tied. The church bells chimed twelve and over the hill I saw a flash of yellow.
‘Ice cream!’
‘It’ll spoil your dinner.’
‘Just a small one. Please?’
Dad pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and nodded, and off I raced. Arms pumping. Boots slip-sliding on the damp grass.
‘Wait at the road for me,’ Dad called.
By the time I’d got to the top of the hill I was breathless. The van was double-parked and a queue was forming already. I looked left and right and shot across the road. There was a squealing of brakes. A flash of silver. My feet felt glued to the spot. I’ve never forgotten the image of the driver’s face, his mouth a silent scream as he forced himself back in his seat, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. I felt boiling hot and freezing cold at the same time. And then I was flying, twisting, crashing. Sprawled on the pavement, jeans torn and palms scraped. Behind me, Dad was lying in the road. He’d pushed me out of the way but he was motionless. Blood pooled under his head. His spectacles lay shattered beside him. Fragments of glass glinted in the sun.
A woman in a bright red hat ran towards Dad. ‘Someone call an ambulance,’ she cried.
People scurried over to where my father lay; they gripped each other’s arms. Some covered their mouths unable to look away, others covered their eyes, peering through splayed fingers as though watching a scary film.
There was a stillness. Utter silence. Even the wind had stopped blowing the leaves. Pigeons landed and pecked the scattered bonbons that had rolled out of Dad’s pockets. I crawled over to him.
‘Wake up,’ I whispered. His unseeing eyes, hazel like mine, gazed back at me as if trying to impart one last message that I couldn’t quite decipher. And then the air was full of sirens. Full of ‘Oh my God’s and ‘Did you see?’s and I was wrapped in an itchy orange blanket and bundled into the back of an ambulance.
He wasn’t dead. Not his body, anyway. But his mind was gone, they said, and I never understood how he could look the same, feel the same, although the essence of him was missing. Where did it go?
Mum consented to turn his life support off and went to stay with her sister. I felt I’d lost them both.
‘It was my fault,’ I sniffed. ‘No wonder you couldn’t bear to look at me afterwards.’
‘Oh Grace, is that what you think? I was ill. I’d been with your dad since I was sixteen; the thought of carrying on without him was unbearable.’
Mum passed me a tissue, and as her sleeve rode up, I spotted it. A sliver of silver puckered skin across her wrist.
‘You tried to kill yourself?’ Scorching hot anger erupted. ‘You had a child.’
‘I had a breakdown. Grandad found me in the bath a couple of weeks after we moved here. Grandma sent me to a clinic. Didn’t want me around you. She’d watched her own mother having a breakdown. We wanted to shield you. And when I was discharged, I went to stay with Aunty Jean. I kept ringing you, darling, but when you kept hanging up I gave up. I shouldn’t have done. I’m sorry.’
‘You had “nerves”, Grandma said. I thought that meant I got on your nerves.’
‘I wasn’t capable of looking after you.’
‘And afterwards? You got better?’
‘It took a long time before I felt able to be your mum again, but by the time I did, you were settled here. School. Charlie. You were happy. We talked about me moving here, but I know what Grandma’s like. She’d have fussed and fussed, got involved in every single decision, and I’d never have properly felt like your mum. You wouldn’t even talk to me on the phone. I went back to Devon. I felt closer to your dad there.’
‘But further from me? He was gone. I was still here.’
‘I know. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. For all of us, but if I could go back and change things, I would. Not a single day has gone by when I haven’t thought of you. Grandma sent me all you
r school reports, photos, home movies. I’ve watched you grow. You just never knew.’
‘I can’t believe Grandma never told me you wanted me back.’
‘She did what she thought best. She watched her own mum go in and out of clinics for years. She didn’t want to put you through the same thing. She loves you. We all do.’
I tried to speak but a sob escaped my throat. Years of bottled-up grief poured out of me as I cried so hard I thought I’d never stop. Mum stood next to my chair and wrapped her arms around me, pulling my head into her chest, stroking my hair over and over. She still smelled the same. Of Opium perfume and Elnett hairspray, and I never wanted to let her go.
‘I killed him. I killed Dad.’
‘You didn’t, Grace. Never blame yourself.’
But how could I stop feeling the way I’d always felt? Enough people had told me it was an accident. Grandma; Grandad; my counsellor, Paula. Even Charlie. But my heart? My heart felt differently. Guilt permeated into every cell, multiplied, until it was as much a part of me as my skin. My bones.
‘If…’ I took a breath. ‘If I hadn’t run out in front of the ice-cream van. If he hadn’t run out to save me, I’d be dead now. Not him.’
‘He wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want that. None of us would want that.’ Mum reached across the table to me but I leant backwards.
‘But I killed him.’ I slammed my drink down. Coffee sloshed over the pine table.
‘You didn’t. I was the one who consented to turn off his life support. I hope you can forgive me for that.’
‘I hated you for that.’ I squeezed the handle of my mug so tightly I was surprised it didn’t splinter.
‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.’
We sat in silence. I dabbed the spilt coffee with my tissue. Grandma would be furious if it seeped into the wood. You’d think it’d be quiet in the dead of night. Still. But the fridge hummed, the clock ticked, the world turned. My world shattered long ago, but I had a chance to put it right now.
‘I’m sorry I wouldn’t talk to you afterwards, when you used to ring me, but I hated myself, and when you disappeared I thought you hated me, too.’
Mum twisted her gold wedding band round and round her finger. ‘I could never hate you, Grace. Never.’ She pushed a small gift bag into the centre of the table. ‘This is for you. Happy birthday.’
Inside the bag was a small box. I placed both thumbs on the lid and popped it open. Nestled on a red velvet base was something I hadn’t seen for many years. ‘It’s your engagement ring.’ I began to cry again as I ran a finger over the sparkling diamond.
‘I wanted you to have something your dad played a part in, Grace. He’d be so proud of you. I am, too. Is it too late to start again?’ She stretched out her hand across the table.
‘We can try.’ Our fingers laced together and they stayed that way as we talked until the sun came up.
21
Now
No matter how many times I tell myself it doesn’t matter that I’ve lost the necklace, the necklace that linked me and Charlie, that I still have my memories, I can’t fight the blackness swirling around my veins. I paint on my happy face every day before work and laugh and play with the children, but it takes every ounce of energy to pretend to be something I don’t feel. By the time I arrive home, my eyelids are heavy with exhaustion although it’s only six o’clock.
Anna cooks every night and Dan makes the effort to finish work earlier, but the atmosphere at home is tense and thick and I know I am mostly to blame. Dan is snappy with Anna and I hear them stage-whispering in corners, angry and frustrated conversations that cease when I enter the room. I think they’re thinking of ways to lift my mood and I am grateful that they care.
While talking to Mum on the phone last night, I broke down. Choking, angry sobs that burned my chest. Mum asked me to go and stay with her in Devon. The sea air will do you the world of good, she said, and although I long for the salt stinging my lips, the wind whipping my hair, the sand seeping into my shoes, I can’t leave Anna. I’ve only just found her.
Lexie has taken to telephoning me every day, sometimes lucid but often rambling, her voice slow and thick with alcohol. I stay on the line, listening to her racking sobs, knowing that ten minutes after she hangs up she won’t remember calling, and will likely ring again.
Today, I pull up outside the cottage, relieved it’s Friday, when my mobile rings. I cringe at the thought of talking to Lexie again today and I’m tempted to ignore the phone, but then berate myself and reach to answer. Esmée’s name flashes on the screen and I relax, glad of the chance to immerse myself in someone else’s news. Esmée’s life has always seemed far more exciting than mine, even before she moved to London.
The line is crackly and I switch the engine off to hear her better. Esmée describes her most recent foray into the world of speed dating and my smile is genuine for the first time in days.
‘It’s lovely to talk to you, hun, but I do have a reason for calling,’ Esmée says. ‘It’s no biggie, but I think someone’s hacked your Hotmail account.’
‘Hacked?’
‘I’ve had a few links come through.’
‘For what?’
‘Porn. It’s pretty hard-core stuff. I clicked on the first one thinking you’d sent me a link to shoes or something. I’ve deleted them now, but you need to change your password, hun.’
I’m mortified when I think of the people in my email address book. My grandparents, my mum. Have they all received these links?
‘I’m so sorry, Esmée.’
‘Don’t be. It’s really common. It happened at the Gallery last week. Two hundred prospective clients opened an email from us expecting an invitation to an exhibition, and found a half-price offer for a penis extension instead.’
I promise Esmée that I will visit soon – we both know I won’t – and then I sit in the car, cold and uncomfortable, too sluggish to move. Headlights shine in my rear-view mirror and I wait until Dan cuts the engine, opens his door and pulls a suit bag from the back seat. We walk into the cottage together. Anna is dusting the photos in the hallway. I can’t remember the last time I had to clean.
‘New suit?’ I ask Dan.
‘Nah, got the old one dry-cleaned – for tomorrow.’
‘Tomorrow?’ I root around in my memory banks.
‘The annual Estate Agents’ Dinner,’ Dan sighs. ‘It’s on the calendar, Grace, and I mentioned it last week.’
‘I lost track of the date.’
Anna raises an eyebrow. ‘Is that as fun as it sounds?’
‘It’s a black-tie event held the first weekend in March each year. They give awards to the best agents in the county, and there are speeches. Long speeches.’ I pinch the bridge of my nose.
‘It’s important. I’m up for an award this year.’
It is discomfiting that I didn’t know this and I plaster over my shame with fake enthusiasm.
‘You deserve to win,’ I say. ‘You’ve worked so hard.’ But I can’t remember the last time we celebrated a sale. Is business bad or has he just stopped telling me about his day? Have I just stopped listening?
‘What are you going to wear, Grace?’
‘I’m not sure I feel up to it. How about you take Anna instead?’ The thought of making polite conversation over a three-course meal fills me with dread.
Dan’s eyes narrow. ‘Everyone’s expecting you, Grace. It’ll be fun. We’re sitting with Harry and Chloe.’
‘My hen night dress is ruined – I couldn’t get the wine stain out – and I don’t know if my others fit me any more.’ I think of all the empty Hobnobs packets stuffed inside my glovebox, my bag, my bedside drawer, and conclude that they probably won’t.
‘I don’t mind coming,’ Anna says.
‘No.’ Dan’s voice is terse. ‘I’m sure you’ve got job applications you could be filling in.’
‘Dan!’ I’m embarrassed.
‘Yes.’ Dan stuffs his suit back into the bag. ‘You are.’
The lights in the changing room are muted and golden but that doesn’t soften the horror I feel as too many mirrors reflect angles of my body that I never usually get to see, and never want to see again. My Bridget Jones pants and bra, once white, look far greyer than they did at home. I wrap my arms around my belly, fingers sinking into soft flesh, and wish I were anywhere else but here, half-naked with a personal shopper appraising me.
‘Hmm,’ Tamsin, the stylist says. ‘A pear. Never mind. I will fetch dresses to make you look fabulous, yes?’
She swishes the red velvet curtains with the gusto of a magician. I sink into a gilded chair upholstered with maroon velvet, and sip orange juice. My hand hovers over the plate of complimentary chocolates.
‘It’s incredible here, isn’t it? I feel like a star.’ Anna bursts through the curtains with an armful of cherry-red silk and taffeta on a size eight hanger. I snatch my hand away from the plate.
Anna sheds her clothes and steps into the delicate material.
‘How do I look?’
‘Stunning.’ She does. Her blonde hair shimmers around her shoulders. Tears prick my eyes as I think of all the formal dresses Charlie will never wear.
‘Do you think I need a necklace with this? I’m going to see what they have.’
The curtains part and Anna dashes out as Tamsin totters in, three hangers held high above her head. The dresses look beautiful, stylish, and very, very, expensive. The type of gowns you see in magazines, not on a pre-school assistant.
‘Which one first, Grace? They are all stunning, yes?’
‘I’m not sure. I don’t usually wear stuff like this.’
‘Where do you normally shop?’
‘Mainly eBay.’
Tamsin scrunches her face, as though she has found a caterpillar in her salad. ‘Never mind. You’re here now.’ She slides a floor-length olive-green dress from its padded hanger. ‘This is the new spring line.’ She holds it out for me to step into. I straighten my spine as she zips the back. The dress is heavy, pressing tightly against my ribcage.
The Sister: A psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won't see coming Page 13