by Fiona Capp
I plodded my way through the New Testament every night and wrote desperate letters to God, but after a year of trying, I couldn’t stand the deafening silence. By the time I was confirmed, I no longer believed. I decided I must be spiritually tone deaf. For all I knew, there might be music of the spheres but I just didn’t have the ear for it. Despite her dramatic baptism, Ros, too, moved on. Later, she shrugged it off as one of those adolescent phases you go through. I wondered if she’d given any thought to that experience since she’d been sick; whether she’d found herself wishing she could recapture the intensity of it, the absolute certainty that all would be well in the end.
We walked down to the main square and, as if we had agreed on a destination, Ros headed straight for the ruined church. Parts of the church’s outer walls were still standing as were the internal pillars and arches, but where the stained-glass windows and roof had once been, there was nothing but blue sky. We picked our way over the dirt floor and ended up sitting on a wooden stage at the front where the pulpit used to be.
Ros lay back, resting on her elbows, staring up at the sky. ‘Better here, isn’t it? No icons. Nothing for sale.’ She said she liked the way it was open to sun, and how the wind blew through the ruined roof and walls. You forgot about nature when you lived in a big city like London. There would be times walking through Trafalgar Square or crossing the Thames when she would see the moon rising over the rooftops and it would fill her with a strange, sad ache. The city lights quenched most of the stars, and the sky seemed shrunken somehow, but the moon remained defiantly, mysteriously elemental, especially when it was full and low in the sky. There was something intimate and friendly about the moon, she mused. That beaming, kindly face in storybooks from childhood, always watching over you. It made you feel you weren’t alone.
She sat up, suddenly matter-of-fact. ‘But the truth is, Est, that I am alone. And I’m sick of it. Sick of facing it all on my own.’ A brief spasm twisted her face before she mastered herself. ‘I want a mate.’
Something in me quailed, didn’t want to know. It shocked me that she had come out with it. Ros, of all people. My bossy big sister. I wanted to tell her she wasn’t alone, that I would come and stay with her whenever I could. But I wasn’t what she needed. When I look back on this conversation, I marvel at how deaf I was to what else she was saying.
I wondered about her last boyfriend, Jude, who did a runner when she told him about the cancer. From what she’d said in emails and phone conversations, he had seemed different from all the rest. More like a stayer. I didn’t know whether to mention him. Then I decided she wouldn’t want me to tiptoe around her.
‘Any word from Jude?’
She gave me one of her close-lipped smiles. ‘Oh, he came to visit me in hospital with a big bunch of flowers. He wouldn’t sit down. Kept glancing at my chest. It’s the mastectomy. People can’t help themselves. They have to look.’
Ros toyed with the ends of her hair. ‘Did I tell you we’d been thinking about getting married before I got the diagnosis? He was pretty keen. Keener than I was, really. He was always saying I was such a strong person. It seemed to turn him on. I guess he panicked at the thought of what he’d be saddled with if the cancer came back. Having to look after me. Maybe for years. Can’t blame him, really. It can be a slow, grisly business.’
I had wanted confidences, but this was almost too much to bear. I wrapped my arms around her and put my nose to her hair but it didn’t smell like people’s hair normally does. I think this was what set me off. I started to cry uncontrollably. The more I cried the more I longed for her to cry too. I didn’t want to be the sobbing little sister whom she had to comfort, I wanted to comfort her. But she wouldn’t be comforted. She made soothing sounds and we rocked together and she remained dry-eyed.
We walked very slowly up the stone steps to the hotel and I suddenly remembered what she’d said to Sven when we first met. She knows nothing. What had she meant?
‘You are out of the woods, aren’t you?’
‘I am, Est.’ She sounded spent. ‘It’s all right.’
Once we were back in our room, Ros said she needed to lie down. I pretended I needed a nap too, just in case she wanted to talk. I still had the feeling she was holding something back.
I hadn’t expected to fall asleep. The next thing I knew, I was woken by the sound of Ros talking in a low voice. She was on the phone, standing by the window with her back to me. I couldn’t make out much of what she was saying but it was obvious from the tone of her voice that something serious had happened. Typically, I imagined the worst: that she was talking to her doctor and that he was giving her bad news. When I heard her say something about a fire and damage, I sank back on the pillow in relief. Even if there had been a fire in her flat, at least the damage wasn’t to her.
Perhaps I wasn’t fully awake but I couldn’t help feeling that I’d played a role in keeping her safe. It was because of me, after all, that she was here and not there. And by fearing the worst I’d made sure it wouldn’t happen. I’ve done this all my life. Tried to protect those I love by imagining the worst that could happen in order to prevent it. Bad news usually takes you by surprise. So, if you think, for instance, that your daughter might get kidnapped on her way to school, you are in fact ensuring that she won’t. It’s an exhausting kind of vigil and you can’t keep it up all the time, otherwise you’d go mad. I knew it was totally irrational, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.
As soon as Ros hung up the phone I asked her what was going on. She jerked around in surprise, then came and sat down on her bed. There had been a fire at chambers, she said calmly. A radiator left on overnight that had shorted. All her paper records, decades of court cases, were in that office, along with her computer which contained more recent files. Then there were the things of sentimental value – her antique roll-top desk with its little compartments for storing things, just like the one our father used to have in his study. The delicate watercolour our mother had painted of a beach we went to for day trips every summer. All of it might have gone up in smoke. The colleague who rang said the building was still in chaos. He would call back as soon as he knew more.
What really alarmed me was the way she took it so serenely, so philosophically. As if it was a sign that she had to give up her attachment to worldly goods. I wanted to shout how unfair it was that this should happen to her, on top of everything else.
‘I might have to go back tonight,’ she said. ‘There’s a ferry at ten.’ But I could tell she didn’t want to. Apart from anything else, she was exhausted. She needed to rest. What difference would it make if she went back now? She couldn’t change what had happened. She might as well finish her holiday and gather her strength.
I touched her arm. ‘Have a sleep, Ros. I’ll let you know if the phone rings.’
She didn’t protest. I stayed with her until she fell asleep and then I took the phone and went in search of Sven.
I found him on the path that meandered along the top of the hill. From a distance he looked like he was wearing some kind of head-dress. As he got closer I realised it was a bunch of leafy celery stalks poking out the top of his backpack. He was on his way home from the shops. We stopped and sat on a bench behind our hotel, the town and the Baltic spread out like a gigantic picnic at our feet.
Sven is a tall, big-boned man and the bench looked like a child’s seat with him on it, elbows resting on his knees. He stared straight ahead as I told him about the fire and Ros’s response. Then he sat back, one arm spread out along the back-rest behind me. With the other, he absentmindedly swatted a small insect that was hovering around his face.
‘Wish there was something I could do for her,’ he said.
‘You are doing something. She loves this place and being here with you. She raved so much about it. The more she raved, the more I resisted.’
He smiled. ‘And now you’ve seen the light.’
‘Hallelujah!’
We both laughed awkwardly, our eye
s sweeping over each other before we lapsed into a charged silence. When I stood to go, the insect that had been hovering flew straight into my eye. I gave a small cry and brushed it away, but a gritty feeling remained.
Sven jumped up. ‘Here, let me have a look.’
I tilted my head and he loomed over me, his thumb pressed into my cheekbone as he peered into my eye. ‘I can’t see anything.’
I blinked rapidly. ‘It’s fine now.’
Sven paused for a split second, smiling, and dropped his hand. Over his shoulder, I saw Ros standing at our hotel-room window staring down at us. Then she stepped back and out of sight.
I was heading for the hotel when Ros’s phone rang. It was her colleague, Lawrence, with good news. Some of the other offices at chambers had been all but destroyed, but hers was largely untouched. There was smoke damage and ash everywhere but all her files were intact. I was so thrilled I forgot about the look on her face at the window, and rushed upstairs to our room to tell her.
That evening, Sven brought out the sparkling wine to celebrate. After a boozy dinner, we retreated upstairs to Sven’s living room armed with more wine.
Backlit by the setting sun, the cathedral outside Sven’s living-room window made a fairytale cut-out against a red and gold sky. As I sit here at my desk overlooking the garden at the Lodge, the pergola dripping with wisteria, I only have to close my eyes to see that view, that window on to another world, and to call up the confusion I felt that night.
‘I suppose you don’t even notice it,’ I said to Sven, gesturing with my glass. ‘Just another glorious sunset.’
He shook his head. ‘You’ve no idea what it’s like here in winter. The days are short and gloomy. The nights are endless. If the sun comes out, you worship it. You soak it up.’
Ros had been surprisingly subdued when I told her about Lawrence’s phone call, even after she’d spoken with him herself. It had taken a few glasses of wine but gradually she had loosened up and now she was smiling wistfully at Sven.
‘I used to think I couldn’t face a Gotland winter. To tell the truth, I couldn’t understand how you lived here. You know I love this place but the isolation – I was sure it would get to me. But just lately, I’ve changed my mind. I think I could handle it now. I think it might even be what I need, all this … peacefulness.’
Her gaze lingered on him before she turned to the window, her face set ablaze by the sinking sun.
Sven looked unconvinced. ‘I find that hard to believe, Ros. I think you’d get bored pretty fast. Not many sharp legal minds here to tangle with. Not much crime, either.’
She waved her arms extravagantly. ‘Perfect! I’m sick of crime, sick of criminals. Sick of the whole shebang.’
Like Sven, I found it hard to imagine Ros living here. The island might once have been the centre of things – back in medieval times when it was the hub of trade in the Baltic and in northern Europe, until invasions and occupations put an end to its glory days – but it certainly wasn’t any more. I assumed it was the alcohol talking. Ros was too accustomed to a high-powered life and, in spite of all her protestations, I knew she thrived on her job, especially the court appearances. She was a performer and she liked to win. The good thing was that she was ready for a change and that her skills were transportable. She could bring them home.
‘Let’s have some music,’ Ros said, wandering unsteadily over to Sven’s CD collection. She glanced down the stack until something caught her eye. ‘Lugubrious Leonard! Do you remember, Sven, how we were always playing him in Cambridge?’
‘You called them dirges.’
‘I’ve come round. Somehow he’s gone and written the story of my life.’
We laughed, knowing what she meant. It was what made him so good.
Ros paused and smiled. ‘All I ever learned from love is how to shoot at someone who outdrew ya. Which rhymes with …?’
A soft baritone answered, ‘Hallelujah!’
We both turned to Sven in surprise.
Then I did something I wouldn’t have done without the wine. Assuming Ros would join me, I leapt to reply, ‘Hallelujah!’
Sven and I smiled at each other and repeated the chorus together. I even tried some harmonies, our voices separating, weaving around and then blending again. It felt good to be singing so freely. Although I had enjoyed being in the choir at school, I’d never been one for singing alone. At work, I always used recordings for the children to sing with and was happy to be drowned out by their eager voices. Only when Kate was born did I stop caring if anyone heard me or not. To my surprise the songs poured out of me. Nursery rhymes, folk songs, pop songs, my own silly lyrics when the mood took me. It came so naturally, this urge to sing to my daughter, and it seemed to bind us more powerfully than words alone. Then, as Kate grew older, the need faded and the singing stopped.
Sven was thumping his thigh in slow motion to keep the beat as he sang. Like a spectator at the tennis, Ros glanced back and forward between us with a stunned look on her face.
Our voices swelled to a rousing finale: ‘Hallelu-uuuuuuu-jah!’
When we were done, Ros clapped and smiled at us, but her eyes weren’t smiling at all. She had picked up another CD and was studying its cover notes, apparently absorbed in what was written there. It was obvious – to me, at least – that she was upset. Then I remembered that Ros never sang. It was one of the few things she couldn’t do. And if there was something she couldn’t do well, she wouldn’t do it at all. Suddenly, belatedly, it hit me and I wondered how I’d been so thick. I was in the way.
I looked at Sven, wondering if he had any idea what was happening. He told me later that it never occurred to him. Certainly, he had been keen on her when they lived together in Cambridge but she had made it clear to him she didn’t feel the same. She used to tell him he was a good person and he knew what that meant. She was warning him she wasn’t interested. She wanted excitement – and he didn’t excite her. A lot had happened since then and any passion he’d once felt for her had died a long time ago.
I was grateful for Ros’s sake that she was such a consummate performer. She quickly rallied.
‘Esther,’ she said with an imperious air that I remembered from childhood, ‘go and grab us some more grog from downstairs, will you?’
When I got back from the cellar, music was playing. It was Leonard, of course, up loud, and they were dancing a waltz. I watched them from the doorway, wondering what had happened. Perhaps I’d been wrong. But the way Sven held her told me this wasn’t the case. His embrace was tender but there was no passion in it, nor in his face. I watched as they talked and laughed and swung each other around the room. Ros was flushed and murmuring the words from ‘Take this Waltz’. In a final flourish she jerked her head back and her wig went skew-whiff. Sven reached out to straighten it for her but before he could, she had whipped it off.
I stared at the halo of red and grey fuzz on her scalp. There is something inexplicably disturbing about a woman without hair. And to see my sister that way hurt more than I could have dreamed. The music whirled on.
Ros looked triumphantly at him, as if to say you asked for it, the wig dangling from her hand like a head-hunter’s trophy.
I expected him to be uncomfortable, but instead he gave a defiant laugh and said something I couldn’t hear that made her crack up. My heart ached for her at that moment. She had salvaged the night. They were brother and sister again.
We walked in silence down the dimly lit road to our hotel. When we were almost there Ros glanced at her watch.
‘I’ve only got fifteen minutes to pack, Est. Sven’s going to carry my bags down to the harbour. The ferry leaves in half an hour.’
I stopped. ‘But your office is okay. Why go now?’
Ros wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘I’ve got a feeling Lawrence has played it all down. He thinks I need a holiday. If I stayed, I’d just spend my time worrying. I wouldn’t be able to relax.’
‘But you do need this holiday!’
&n
bsp; We both knew the fire wasn’t the reason. And she knew that I knew. But we would have to go on pretending.
Once we were in our room, Ros went straight to her suitcase and started stuffing things into it. It was clear nothing I might say would dissuade her. She’d already mentally packed up and gone home.
It didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t go with her. And it would be for the best. If I stayed, things could get awkward. The important thing was to be with Ros. ‘We can come back another time.’
She stopped what she was doing. ‘I’m going back on my own.’
The fury in her eyes shocked me. What an idiot I was. She wanted to get away from me and I could understand why. She would always wonder whether things might have turned out differently if I hadn’t been there.
‘You can’t help me.’ She clamped her lips together, as if to stop herself saying something she might regret. When she spoke again, she could have been talking to a client. ‘I’ll be flat out dealing with insurance companies and the police might get involved if arson is suspected. And I may have to find a temporary office space while the building is being repaired.’
Although I knew it was hopeless, I had to keep trying. ‘I could clean the flat for you and cook and do the shopping. It would make things easier.’
‘I do have friends, Esther,’ Ros snapped. ‘Good friends and colleagues who will rally around.’ She closed her suitcase and straightened up. When she saw the look on my face, she softened.
I seized my chance. ‘At least let me go to Stockholm with you. I can fly home from there.’
‘Look, Est, what would help me more than anything would be to know that you were here, enjoying the island. Having the break that you need before the election madness begins. There’s something about this place that helps put things in perspective. Promise me you’ll do this.’