The Sister

by Poppy Adams

  Chapter 16

  A Nuclear Test and Titus

  On Good Friday, just two days after the skillet incident, my mother, Maud, died—at fifty-four years old—shortly after five in the afternoon. She and Clive had spent the entire day together. Clive had packed a picnic all by himself and they’d driven to a little cove on the Dorset coast called Seatown, which isn’t a town at all but a beach full of pebbles with high limestone cliffs rising up on either side of it and a lone guardhouse perched halfway up the hill. It had been their favorite picnic spot during my childhood summers, but that day was still wintry and they drove the car almost onto the beach and picnicked looking through the windscreen at the stormy sea and beyond. I don’t know what they did for the rest of the day but they were out in the drizzle in the car until midafternoon, while I worked alone in the laboratory upstairs.

  It happened around teatime. I was iodizing some white-mantled Wainscot caterpillars in prep to section them, when I heard Clive shouting my name. “Virginia! Virginia!” I knew something was up. I’d never heard Clive shout before.

  “Virginia, quickly!”

  I raced downstairs and found him at the bottom of the wide hall stairs, clutching the thick oak newel post for support. His breathing was heavy and he was staring at the floor by his feet.

  “It’s your mother,” he said. “She’s fallen down the steps.” I looked about me, not understanding. “The cellar.” He tilted his head in the direction of the cellar door, which I now saw was open.

  I walked over to it and peered down the steep stone steps. I could see only the darkness. I looked back at Clive. He was very still, very quiet, leaning on his post. Was he too shocked to go to her? Was Maud really there?

  “Down here?” I asked softly.

  He nodded.

  I flicked on the light and illuminated Maud at the foot of the steps. She was lying perfectly still on her back, her hands and legs splayed out wide to the sides, like a child acting dead.

  “What does she look like?” Clive asked quickly. “Is she moving?”

  “No.”

  I knew she was dead, but I went to her anyway, listened and felt, unsuccessfully, for any sign of life. Clive clutched his post. I called for an ambulance, then tried halfheartedly to resuscitate her, but she reeked of so much alcohol that I became light-headed with the vapor.

  Finally I went to Clive, prised his hands from their post and held them. He was in shock.

  “She would have died instantly, Clive,” I told him, “and she wouldn’t have known a thing about it. She was too drunk.”

  “Thank you,” he said.

  There was a long silence. Poor Clive, I thought. What a shock it must be to face, so suddenly, the end of nearly thirty years of marriage. Then a really strange thought popped into my head. I have no idea why, and I’m sure you’ll say there were far more appropriate things to think at the time, but I was simply hoping that they’d enjoyed their car picnic a few hours before.

  Then I thought of the stories of their early love affair, when they’d had to keep it a secret from her father. I thought of them in the photograph on the table in the drawing room, the one taken before I was born on what looks like a Parisian balcony (although I’d never thought to ask them), and the adoration with which they are gazing at each other.

  I think almost the instant that you hear of somebody’s death, it’s a bit like when someone comes back again after a very long time: all those moments you’ve had with them pop immediately into your head, all the most loving moments, from a more distant past. And never the more disturbing ones since.

  “Virginia,” he said, “I left the cellar door unlocked. She must have mistaken it for the kitchen one.”

  “It’s not your fault, Clive,” I tried to reassure him, but he didn’t look up.

  “Go and phone Moyse,” he said. “Go and phone Dr. Moyse.”

  “Clive. There’s no need—”

  “Just phone him, please, Ginny. I want him to see her.” With that, he took himself off and locked himself into his small study behind the kitchen.

  I’m not proud of it—far from it, believe me—but I think you should know that from the moment I saw Maud’s lifeless body splayed out on the cold stone at the foot of the cellar steps right up to this very day, I have not shed one tear for her, nor felt one pang of sorrow. At first I thought it must have been the shock. Her death was so sudden that I thought perhaps I hadn’t yet given myself a chance to believe it and feel it. For years afterwards I searched for my grief, thinking it had somehow become trapped within me and just needed a nudge to be released. Each day I waited, and when I felt that rather than getting closer it was moving farther away, I’d spend hours thinking of her, of my childhood, reminding myself of the comfort and love and wisdom she’d given me. I’d think of picnics by the river, the lardy cake she’d make on our birthdays, the smell of her hairspray, the feel of her skin and her lips, and I’d insist that the tears and the grief should pour out of me. But they never came, and it wasn’t because I didn’t love her, miss her and want her.

  I must have been too busy. I understand that now. I’m too practical, that’s my problem. It’s the scientist in me. Until I forced myself to reflect on her, I remember thinking less about Maud and more about how everything was going to work now, the house and the family; how it would all fit into place. More so as, believe it or not, Maud’s death wasn’t the only life-changing thing that happened that day. I haven’t yet told you the extraordinary thing Clive did when he’d finished up in his study.

  But i’ll start where I left off. Clive locked himself into his study. Dr. Moyse, of course, came “as quick as he could,” which was all a bit too quick for my liking and, once he was there, he wouldn’t leave me alone. He stuck to me like a limpet, taking me to a quiet room upstairs so that, he said, I didn’t have to see my mother’s body being covered up and removed, or get involved with the other proceedings of her death that Clive was busy dealing with. I wouldn’t have minded. Perhaps it would have helped me grieve.

  Four hours later—almost ten in the evening—after the police had taken their statement, Maud had been taken to the mortuary, the cellar door had been firmly locked and the house had finally fallen silent of strangers, Clive emerged from his study and sat me down at the kitchen table. He put four hard-backed A4-sized notebooks on the table and on either side of them three piles of typed papers and letters. Then he handed me a binder, opening it to reveal its first immaculately typed page. It was titled: BULBURROW COURT: TERMS OF…DEPENDENTS, ESTATE HOLDINGS, ACCOUNTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF…

  Before I had a chance to read any further Clive made his shocking announcement: “I’m leaving Bulburrow and my whole estate to you and Vivien. I am moving to the Anchorage retirement home on Paul Street in Crewkerne. The address is in the last section of these notes.” He talked as though it were a recitation. He didn’t look at me once but concentrated on the paperwork in his hands or on the table. “I have organized my affairs so that you can easily take it on from where I’ve left off. I’ve written you a detailed list of recommendations in here to cover most eventualities in the years to come. As I’ve put here”—he flicked a few pages over and pointed to a section; I saw his hands were trembling—“first of all, you need to sell the glasshouses to pay off some outstanding debts. I’ve resisted selling them for the past few years but now I’ve determined there’s no other choice. I’ve already had one conversation with Michael about it and I think you’ll find he’s able to offer you a good price. I’ve written to my colleagues, letting them know of my retirement, and to the Royal Society, the British and Natural History museums in London. I’ve instructed them to address all future research to you. I’m leaving in the morning.”

  “But…” I had no words. I stared at the neat piles in front of me. I didn’t believe a word of it. He was still in shock. He needed a good night’s sleep.

  “I think you need time to think about this,” I managed finally.

  “I’ve t
hought about it for a long time,” he said—but he couldn’t have. He didn’t know what he was saying, what he was doing. “Here is my paper.” He handed me the last few sheets he held in his hand. The article was headed: “Nomophila noctuella, a West African Visitor.”

  “It’s in Lepidopterologist–Atropos this week and the Journal of the Society for British Entomology in two weeks’ time. And it’s being considered for Nature.”

  “Nomophila noctuella? That tiny moth from the Robinsons on the drawing-room sill?”

  He nodded. “It was radioactive. That’s why I didn’t poison it. It would have invalidated the results.”

  “Radioactive?”

  “Yes, contaminated by radioactive dust from a French nuclear test in the Sahara desert. The half-life was exactly the same. It had to have been there,” he said unenthusiastically.

  I’ll admit I didn’t understand the significance at first, not until I had scanned a little of the opening statement: “Micro-moth Nomophila noctuella… definitive proof of the staggering 3,000-mile migration from West Africa by its contamination with radioactive dust by French nuclear test,” it read dramatically.

  Radioactive! Who would have guessed? I didn’t presume to understand the ways in which Clive worked sometimes but it was impressive. Fairly impressive. No one had yet proved that any moths or butterflies, weighing in at a maximum of around two grams, were able to fly the vast distances they were suspected of flying. But Clive had proved it—with this little moth, at any rate.

  “Congratulations,” I said, but I too was finding it hard to muster enthusiasm. He stuck out his chin and scratched the hair at the top of his neck.

  “Well, I did it, so I thought I’d retire,” he said halfheartedly.

  “Yes, you did it.”

  He was already three years past retirement age, but whenever the issue had been raised he’d always refused to contemplate it. He wouldn’t retire, he had said, until he had made his mark on the world. Clive had lived with an overdeveloped need for recognition. Maud had said it was a man thing. I looked down and scanned his neatly constructed paper. We both knew it wasn’t important enough for Nature, and proving one journey of a little-known moth hadn’t exactly fulfilled his lifetime’s ambition, but perhaps we also knew it would have to do. Besides, it’s possible to feel very important indeed, for a time, within the world’s exclusive community of lepidopterists, as the first person to have used radioactivity as a tracking device. It might also have been of interest further afield, perhaps even to the entire entomology world. If he were to walk through the corridors of the Royal Entomological Society in London during the next couple of weeks, I’m certain he would have attracted more than a few outstretched hands and passing praises.

  “What about the Brimstones?” I demanded, thinking of all the work we’d done over the summer.

  “I ran out of time for that,” he said.

  I was amazed at how easily he was giving it up.

  At that moment a car screeched up the drive and we both knew it was Vivi. She’d left London as soon as she’d heard and we’d been expecting her. We went into the hall to greet her but as soon as she stormed in I could see, beneath a face bruised by sorrow and tears, that she was livid. She marched straight past me and followed Clive into his study without greeting me. Now I think of it, I don’t think she greeted Clive either. She didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me, although I was standing right in front of her. I’m not sure why I’m bothering you with such a trifling detail, but I do remember thinking how odd it was. I know memories shouldn’t be trusted, that two people’s recall of the same event can be unbelievably different, that even their perceptions at the time can be paradoxical, so I accept that my own recollections may be distorted, but I remember it as being the strangest entrance. As soon as Clive saw Vivi he turned his back to walk towards his study, without a word, as if he knew she was going to follow him, as if the entire movement had been choreographed.

  Dr. Moyse, who’d been lurking about since he’d arrived and making himself scarce at what he considered the necessary moments, latched on to me again with his unnecessary comforting as I went upstairs. I suspected he and Clive had agreed not to leave me alone in case I collapsed beneath the weight of my grief, which they hadn’t realized was eluding me. At times I could hear Vivi’s voice from the study, puncturing the silent aftermath, sometimes strained and sometimes angry, and then her bursting into tears. I presumed Clive was informing her of his rushed retirement plans and her reaction, as expected, was a little more explosive than mine.

  I didn’t get to see Vivi at all during her visit, which lasted well into the night and early morning in discussions with Clive. The last thing I overheard before I finally fell asleep was an argument, not between Vivi and Clive, but between her and Dr. Moyse. They were in the hall and Moyse, who had been discharged from his duties, was at the front door, about to leave. I think it must have been lack of sensitivity on his part, but I heard him say something like, “Even your mother would have understood, Vivien.” At that, she hit the roof. I’ve never heard her yell so loudly and I was scared.

  “Don’t you presume to come in here and tell me what my mother would have wanted. She damn well wouldn’t!” she screamed.

  By the time I got up the next morning, Vivi had gone. And that, I can tell you now, was the last time she ever set foot in this house until yesterday.

  The following morning, a Saturday, Clive carried out his itinerary to the letter and by nightfall, just a day after Maud’s accident, Vivi and I had acquired our parents’ entire estate, along with its outstanding debt.

  I spent the next three days from dawn to dusk scrubbing the house, closing and locking the rooms that, on my own now, I wouldn’t need. I’d left lots of messages for Vivi. I wanted to see her desperately but Arthur had said she was too shaken to come. Finally, on Tuesday, she phoned and said she’d gone to see Clive at the Anchorage but she still wasn’t coming to the house.

  On Wednesday morning I got in the car and drove through the high-hedged lanes, up Bulburrow hill and down again to Crewkerne. I parked outside Gateway and walked the short distance to the cobbled square, where the town hall stood in the center with a huge bronze statue of the man who had founded the town’s first paper factory. According to the inscription, Titus Sorrell turned round Crewkerne’s ailing economy in the mid-nineteenth century. I’d arranged to meet Clive there, on the bench outside The George. When I sat down an elderly man joined me, planting himself at the opposite end. I looked at the clock tower. Eleven-thirty exactly. Titus surveyed his empire smugly while pigeons fought to perch on his shoulders, desecrating him front and back.

  At 11:33 Clive arrived. He sat down next to me and we both looked ahead at Titus and his pigeons for a while. Finally he said, “I’ve been thinking that if you could find a way to tag other species radioactively you could make some great progress with migratory patterns. There’s been so little research in that area, Ginny. The society might like that.”

  I didn’t reply. At that moment I didn’t care what the society might like and I could hardly believe that he could.

  “Yup,” said the man at the end of the bench eagerly, and for a few seconds I thought, perhaps, that I’d walked into someone else’s conversation. The man and I exchanged a pleasant look. Perhaps he’d only worried it was his conversation because no one else had replied. I glanced at Clive, who stared distantly at the cobbled square and the statue. He seemed altogether older—a real old man—and something else had changed about him too. It was as if Maud’s death had shaken the character out of him, his enthusiasm for life and everything that made him who he was, turning him limp.

  “What did Vivien say?” he asked after a while.

  “I haven’t seen her. She won’t come to the house.”

  There was a long silence.

  “You’ll tell her I love her, won’t you?” he said at last, and, although that should have been a happy tribute, there was something too absolute and eter
nal about it, and I couldn’t help feeling a little sorrow spill from my heart.

  Two men bailed out of The George, shouting at each other and scaring the pigeons to the safety of the clock tower. When they had passed, the bravest of the birds flew down to reclaim Titus’s head.

  “I’m pregnant,” I said, in a moment of unnecessary candidness. It was true, but I wasn’t so much telling him because he should know it, but because I wanted to tell him something happy, or perhaps to shock him—anything, in fact, to get a recognizable reaction from him. All he said was, “Very good.”

  “Congratulations,” followed the old man on the far end of the bench.

  “Thank you,” I said to both of them.

  After a short silence the other man said, “Are you eating broad beans?” I found it impossible to know if he was now talking to me, or to Clive, or to the pigeons we were all looking at, or to some imaginary person, and I didn’t know whether to reply or to ignore him. I ignored him.

  “You must eat broad beans,” he ordered firmly, “if you don’t want a spastic.”

  “Thank you,” I told him, now understanding it was directed at me, and that he must surely have lost his marbles.

  “Every day,” he said.

  “Every day,” I repeated.

  “Then you won’t have a spastic. Nobody wants a spastic,” he observed finally. There was a silence.

  The old man leaned forward on his stick in a posture suggesting that he’d had his say and now he was finished.

  Clive looked at his watch.

  “You’ll be all right,” he said, and again I thought it might have been to either of us. “Well, I must be going now. I have flower-pressing class in ten minutes.”

  And he went.

  When I got home Arthur had let himself into the house. He was in the kitchen, waiting for me. It was lovely to see him and he gave me the first hug, a great big, long, silent one, that anyone had offered me since Maud’s death.