A Sister’s Gift

by Giselle Green

‘In fact, I’ve been thinking I might soon be well enough to make the trip back to Manaus, as it happens.’

  ‘Oh.’ My sister frowns, letting the tulips slide from her hands, and the whole bunch sag out to the side of the vase immediately. ‘Have you had word from Eve then? Or that new lot who are taking over who contacted you?’

  ‘No,’ I allow. ‘But no news is good news, isn’t it?’

  Hollie looks perturbed. ‘I just meant – perhaps you should make sure it’s still all OK. Before you book the tickets. There was that letter saying they were looking into those allegations, don’t forget…’

  Chrissie looks at us both quizzically and I shoot my sister a furious glance. What on earth did she have to bring that up in front of Chrissie for?

  ‘All nonsense.’ I wave my hand dismissively at her. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, I told you that.’

  ‘You miss your work in Brazil desperately, don’t you?’ Christine leans forward and touches my arm gently. ‘I’m really impressed with how you’ve coped these past few weeks. It can’t have been easy for you.’

  ‘It hasn’t been.’ That momentary touch on my arm, the kindness in her eyes, it drags something out of me that I didn’t even know was there.

  ‘Oh, my dear. What’s brought all this on? Don’t cry.’ Chrissie wraps her arms around me in a warm hug and over the top of her shoulders I spy my sister scrambling around for a tissue.

  ‘I’m not sad, Chrissie, honest. I’m just…’ I gulp. I’m just what? Empty. Lonely. I miss him, that’s all. His friendship at least.

  ‘What you’re feeling right now – it’s just natural, darling. It’s the hormones. They do that to you, make you sick and make you weepy and all sorts…’

  ‘I miss all my friends back in Brazil,’ I tell her staunchly. I do miss them. I miss Gui because everything was all so uncomplicated with him. I miss the tribe. I miss my PlanetLove colleagues. I miss Rich, too.

  Christine smiles softly. When she does that thing, wrinkling up the sides of her eyes, she reminds me of Rich and I have to look away from her.

  ‘I know, darling. But when you leave here and go back there you’ll miss us too, won’t you?’ She glances up at my sister and I get the impression she’s doing her best to re-establish some of the rapport that’s been lost between us.

  Does Christine even know? Richard’s been staying at his parents’ place since he got back from Italy last month. He must have spoken to her about what went on, surely? I can’t believe he wouldn’t have said something…

  ‘Look, where’s Richard this morning?’ I blurt out at last. ‘I haven’t seen him since – well, since I got pregnant. Is he planning on staying away from me forever?’

  ‘Away from you, Scarlett?’ Christine looks at me in surprise. ‘Well – you were asleep when he and I arrived last night of course, but I thought you might have seen him this morning?’ She looks from Hollie to me questioningly, then runs on. ‘This whole restructuring of the business thing – it’s been a complete and utter nightmare, of course. And with you being so unwell, he thought he’d best stay up with us and sort out work and leave you two girls to it. I’m sure Hollie’s told you that?’

  ‘Is that the reason he’s given for staying away?’ I feel my mouth drop open slightly. I want to tell Chrissie the truth, I really, really do because if we’ve got to keep up this whole pretence for very much longer I think I am going to explode.

  ‘He had to go out to his local office first thing,’ Hollie puts in hurriedly.

  ‘He’ll be…he’ll be home tonight then?’ I breathe.

  ‘No, Lettie, he won’t be here tonight. He only came down to bring his mum and then he’s off again. He and I have a lot to catch up on.’

  ‘You’ll have had plenty of time to talk. I need to see him too, you know. He hasn’t yet thanked me personally for that the fact I’m carrying his child. He hasn’t even had the decency to…’

  ‘Scarlett!’ Christine’s eyes have widened in horror. ‘I think you can understand why Richard and Hollie would need to have time to reconnect with each other. They are married after all.’

  Hollie gets up slowly and walks out of the room. I’d go after her if Christine didn’t have her hand on my knee, preventing me.

  ‘It’s been really hard for them, darling. You must try and understand that. What you’re doing for them is truly wonderful, but it doesn’t mean you’ve…how can I put it…earned the right to any place within their marriage. I haven’t known how much you’ve been aware of – it’s delicate, isn’t it – one never knows how much one should say. But I suspect there’s been some unhappiness brewing between Hollie and my son and the Italy business is only part of it. I do think it’s odd he hasn’t wanted to come back home sooner than this. And I know she’s been really unhappy at the prospect of him having to look so far afield for work. Quite apart from the fact that he’s wanted to give you both your space…’ She touches my shoulder gently. ‘Well, you know how it is.’

  I fold my arms. ‘You think they’ve been at loggerheads then? About what? Is it the baby?’ I look at her through lowered lids.

  ‘I suspect that may be part of it. He’s not told me the whole story of course. I thought maybe Hollie might have filled you in on more details?’

  I shake my head. ‘I just can’t believe he’d come home and not even say hello to me,’ I mutter out loud, because that’s the thing that’s really hurting. ‘And then to sneak off in the morning without even…’

  ‘Well, it was very late last night…Look, this isn’t about you, darling. Please don’t take it personally. There’s stuff going on between them. That’s why I came down really. I’ve offered to look after you for tonight while they go out and enjoy themselves somewhere. They both need the break, don’t you agree?’

  Hah! Is that why Hollie had her little travel case out on the bed this morning? They’re going away for a minibreak so everything can be all lovey-dovey between the two of them again.

  ‘I don’t need anyone to look after me now, Christine,’ I say stiffly. ‘I’m feeling much better. I just said so. I’ll be going back to Brazil very soon.’

  ‘That’s hardly wise now, is it?’ she says gently. ‘You’re bound to be feeling fragile for a while yet. Why risk any harm to yourself or the baby when you’re so well looked after here?’

  ‘Because it’s stifling me!’ I tell her candidly. ‘I have a life outside of Rochester. At least I had one. I have to get it back before it all slips away from me for good. What Hollie said about PlanetLove looking into allegations about me – that’s bugging me too. I really need to get back to find out what all that’s about – somebody must have made a mistake somewhere – but it’s one that might prejudice my job.’ I’m hoping that all this talk of mundane matters will put her off the scent of what’s really on my mind.

  I’ve been feeling gradually better over the last few weeks, it’s true. I’ve only hung on in the hope that I could come to some sort of truce here – with Rich and with my sister too. I didn’t want to leave with this horrid atmosphere still hanging over us, but it doesn’t look as if it’s going to go away that easily.

  I stand up, my legs shaking, and go over to the table, my eyes lighting on the drawing of the bridge that Christine propped up there earlier.

  ‘My sister doesn’t get this picture at all, does she?’ My fingers run over the smooth edge of the dark silver frame as I take it in again. ‘You know why? It’s because she doesn’t like to see the darker side of things. She once told me that the chapels they built on either side of medieval bridges weren’t put there just for grateful travellers to give thanks for their safe passage over. They were there so that outbound travellers could pray they wouldn’t get mugged or murdered while going across, either.’

  ‘A dangerous occupation crossing these medieval bridges…’ Christine joins me at the table. ‘But without them, I guess the “other side of the river” must have seemed as far away to your average peasant as the moon is to us.’
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br />   ‘I think it’s what Hollie’s scared of, you know: the possibility that if she reaches out far enough and long enough to get the thing she wants, that there might be some very unlovely things waiting there for her, too,’ I hint.

  ‘Aren’t you scared of that?’ Christine looks at me curiously now. I shake my head slowly.

  ‘I’ve been right to the other side of the world, Chrissie. And I’ve come to the conclusion that the most scary things are often the ones we leave back home.’

  Well. Maybe it’s about time my sister stopped going around as if everything in life came straight out of a Disney movie. Maybe it’s time she woke up to how things really are, to how I’m really feeling about this whole rotten set-up – to what really went on between me and her husband that day up on Bluebell Hill.

  Before they have their sweet little reconciliation tonight, I think she really needs to know.

  Hollie

  ‘All ready for your date?’ Scarlett peers at me from her favourite position up on the coal bunker. She’s almost hidden behind the wisteria right now; it’s climbed so high this year up the old pear tree it’s made a whole curtain but I can just about make her out there behind it. I knew I’d find her down here. It’s where she always comes to lick her wounds.

  ‘Lettie…’ How to put this? ‘I’m really sorry…’

  Sorry that Richard won’t see you any more because of what I asked you both to do; sorry I ruined the familiar and comfortable relationship you two had with each other; sorry I’ve caused you to stay away from the work you love; and sorry that you can’t come with us tonight.

  ‘…For everything,’ I add, because there is such a long list of things to be sorry for. ‘I feel I haven’t treated you right.’

  ‘Ha!’ Her eyes range darkly over mine. ‘Never mind, Hollie.’ She swallows, as if making an effort to gain control of herself. ‘Look, just go now please, go and have your dinner with Richard. I want you to go away before I say anything I’m going to regret, all right? Go away and have a nice evening and…talk to Richard.’

  ‘Why don’t you invite some of your mates over to…?’

  She shakes her head fiercely.

  ‘I’m not in that kind of mood. Look, stop worrying about me. I’ll be fine here with Chrissie.’ She turns away to look back over the fence. I pick my way delicately over the grass towards her, my heels sinking into the long grass as I go. I’m meeting Rich at the gastropub in Rochester High Street in half an hour, then we’re planning to spend the weekend on the coast.

  ‘I just wish that…that things were different at the moment, and I could invite you out with us tonight and we could all celebrate the pregnancy like you said – but I can’t.’

  Scarlett doesn’t turn round. She’s staring at the static barge the engineers have set up on the river; there’s a guy manning a small crane that’s busy manoeuvring sediment into place even at this hour.

  ‘They’ve been there for weeks now, haven’t they?’ She deliberately doesn’t answer me. ‘Makes you wonder how bad the problem under the bridge could have been, really.’

  ‘They’ve got to shore up the abutments,’ I tell her distractedly. ‘With the weight of all that water that’s flowing by all the time, it’s a delicate operation…’

  ‘Just think. It might just have collapsed one day when all the traffic was on it. Imagine the mayhem that would have caused. Might have brought on a few headaches back at the office, don’t you think?’

  ‘It’s already been the cause of a few headaches, Lettie. Many of them mine. Look, we need to talk, don’t we?’ I put in suddenly. ‘I know you’re mad at me because Richard’s cut you out of his life. He’s pretty much cut me out too, can’t you see that? It isn’t just you. If I don’t do something about the state of our marriage…’

  ‘They’ve torn down most of the old buildings that were part of that business complex along Strood Esplanade – have you seen that?’ Maddeningly, she’s still batting away my every attempt to have a proper conversation. She lifts the pendulous lilac blooms of the wisteria so I can see the river better and she points towards the opposite bank.

  ‘I’m not interested in the buildings, Scarlett.’ I want to make our peace, but she keeps bringing in red herrings. Reluctantly, I rise up on my tiptoes and pretend to peer out over the wall. I’m not going to look where she wants me to. I can’t. ‘OK,’ I breathe.

  ‘How does that feel?’ she says after a while. Then, when I don’t answer her: ‘Like an old wound you never wanted to look at, eh?’

  ‘Look, let’s not go there, shall we?’ I look at her entreatingly. I’ve got twenty minutes before I meet up with Rich. I need to concentrate on the here and now, put right the things that have gone wrong again. That’s the most important thing just at the moment.

  ‘Lettie. I want things to be OK between us. I want a truce. The atmosphere in the cottage this last month has been pretty unbearable. It must have been for you, too?’ I take a step nearer to my sister but she crosses her arms and legs, keeps her distance.

  ‘It’s always been like this though, hasn’t it?’ she observes.

  ‘What d’you mean, always? It hasn’t always been like this.’

  ‘It has for me,’ she says shortly. ‘I feel stifled here. I’ve always known I wouldn’t stay.’

  ‘You’ve always had ants in your pants,’ I agree. I lean my elbows up on the coal bunker and point at the line of ants making their way along the wall. She doesn’t smile back. ‘Do you remember that time at Flo’s birthday party…? It must have been her fiftieth. A whole group of us went down to that hall at Aylesford. It was such a beautiful evening. The river was so calm and flat and…’

  She frowns at me now. Maybe she doesn’t recall? She couldn’t have been much more than four at the time.

  ‘When the sun went down,’ Scarlett continues, ‘each of Flo’s guests wrote a special wish on a piece of paper for her.’

  ‘Ah, so you do remember…’

  ‘Then we made little paper boats out of them and put a candle inside each one and set them off down the river.’ My sister’s eyes narrow. ‘I ran along the riverbank after the boats. I ran and I ran, trying to keep up with them and then I got to that bend in the river where there was a fallen tree trunk and you wouldn’t let me follow them any more.’

  I take in a breath, because she still remembers how I held her back. She doesn’t remember – even now – the reason why.

  ‘I’m not like you, Hollie,’ she says softly now. ‘I never will be.’

  ‘I understand that. Really I do. I know how hard it’s been, remaining cooped up here for all these weeks. And even though I’d do anything in the world to make you stay here – at least until you give birth – I know I can’t make you. And maybe it would be unfair of me to try.’ I hesitate, glancing at my watch. ‘I’ve got to go to Rich now. I know things have been…hard…recently, but all that’s going to change, I promise you. Things are going to be all right.’

  My sister gives a pained laugh then. She shakes her head disparagingly. ‘Things are not going to be all right, Hollie. It’s gone too far for that. Don’t you know that? Can’t you see anything?’

  ‘What is it?’ I hesitate, torn between needing to make a move and not wanting to leave her like this, feeling sad, words left unspoken.

  ‘Do you honestly want us to be real with one another? I don’t know that you could take that, Hollie. I mean, properly real -instead of just glossing over what’s actually going on?’

  ‘Go on, then.’

  ‘Well for one thing.’ She looks at me painfully. ‘I’m not going to give birth in December. I’m expecting for November. That midwife was on the money about my dates being wrong.’

  ‘She was?’ I look at her, startled. ‘So – you’re further ahead than we thought? That’s…that’s wonderful,’ I say resolutely. ‘It means we get our baby all the sooner.’

  My sister shakes her head at me in disbelief. ‘Is that all you can say about it? Hollie, why won’
t Richard see me?’ She’s watching me closely.

  ‘He feels awkward and uncomfortable, I guess. Oh, we’ve been over all this, Lettie. You know how shy he is. When I asked him to be with you,’ I swallow, ‘it must have been unbearable for him.’

  ‘He won’t see me because – that day up on Bluebell Hill – I told him that I was in love with him.’

  Hollie

  I can barely breathe. It feels like the whole world comes to a stop for a moment.

  ‘Well – why on earth did you go and say a stupid thing like that?’ I stutter. ‘No wonder he’s feeling so bad about being around you. Hell, Scarlett…!’

  ‘Why did I say it?’ Scarlett’s face has gone white, her fists clenched into a ball just like when she was a kid. ‘I told you to just bloody go away and have your dinner, didn’t I? All this…this pretend intimacy between us sisters, all this gratuitous honesty and you’re so…so bloody stupid you wouldn’t see the truth if it were emblazoned on the front of a high-speed train that was about to hit you.’

  ‘Scarlett, I have no idea what you’re on about.’

  ‘No, you don’t. Because you don’t want to know. Go away, all right? Just go!’

  ‘No, I won’t. I can’t, not after what you’ve just said to me.’ I step closer to my sister, put my hand on her arm and she flinches away as if she’s just been bitten. ‘Why did you feel the need to say to Richard that you were in love with him? I can understand – under the circumstances – if you might have needed to get some sort of role play going on in your head, but you didn’t need to say it out loud to him.’

  ‘I said it,’ she puts in through gritted teeth, ‘because it is true.’

  I swallow. ‘You do not love my husband, Scarlett. Please – just stop and consider what you’re saying for a moment because words…they last a lifetime. You can’t take them back afterwards. Oh God, Lettie – what did you say to him?’

  ‘I told Richard that I loved him,’ she says, high-pitched now. ‘That I have always loved him.’