My Sister

by Michelle Adams

  Elle drags me out of bed and bundles me into the bathroom. At first I protest, much like a child might. I keep my arms by my sides, hesitant, not looking at her. But she tugs and yanks at my jumper, dragging it over my head, pulling at my ear lobes.

  ‘All right, all right,’ I say as I accede to the removal of the jumper. ‘Just get out. I can shower on my own.’ Reluctantly she leaves, turning to look at me as I turn the shower tap on. She is standing in the doorway as she whispers something to me, but I don’t hear what she says.

  I reach back and turn off the tap. ‘What did you say?’ I ask.

  ‘I said, we are sisters, you know. You don’t have to be shy. I know what you look like underneath those clothes. I know about the scars that cover your hip. I know the way your belly button is an outie and not an innie. You should let me in, don’t push me away. There are lots of things I know about you.’ She shuffles awkwardly and smiles, runs her fingers up the brittle frame of the door. ‘Like the fact that you liked mashed-up banana for breakfast as a baby, and always used to pee as soon as they took off your dirty nappy. Plus, I know how you feel. I know how it hurts to be unwanted.’ She waits there, staring at me, reminding me that I was, and remain, unwanted. I have to grip the sink for support. Then she closes the door behind her without waiting for a response.

  I leave the bathroom fifteen minutes later, skin clean and dripping wet. I pass the cupboard of photographs, keeping my head down so I don’t have to look, because to get through the next couple of hours will take all my strength. When I open the door to my bedroom, Elle is sitting on the edge of the bed, the sheets draped across her. My bag is beside her, spilling open.

  ‘Do you remember that time when I jumped from the aqueduct?’ she asks me, without any introduction or appreciation of the fact that I am virtually naked, wrapped only in a towel too small for my body. She sets the picture of me and Antonio down on the bedside table. Last night, in a moment when I was sure I was about to leave, I packed it away. I take the bag from her and rustle inside for some fresh underwear.

  ‘Yes, of course I remember,’ I say, almost able to feel the cold wind that whipped against my skin as I stood on the railings. It was a winter’s day, no more than three degrees. A crisp layer of frost was clinging to the ground. There were patches of ice on the water below where it had started to freeze, and a big hole where Elle had fallen through. She only kicked for a moment, until the cold got her.

  The moment when we left the garden was probably the only time they took their eyes off us. Just a second for her to lure me away. That was all it took. Perhaps they were distracted by my mother’s tears. Elle said she wanted me to go with her, something she had to show me. I hesitated, maybe because Aunt Jemima had told me never to follow a stranger. I suppose there was a chance I was scared of what she might show me. But the truth, if I’m honest, was that I was scared of her. I could see there was something about her, as clearly as if she had a birthmark across her face.

  ‘You would have died if that passer-by hadn’t dragged you out.’ Jumping, Elle said, would unite us. They would never be able to separate us again. But there was something in me that couldn’t go through with it. All the while I was standing up there in only a T-shirt, shivering, watching her floating, I wondered why I hadn’t kept my promise. Any distant hopes that our parents had of reuniting our family died that day. ‘Why are you bringing it up now?’

  ‘After that, they wouldn’t let me see you any more. You know, that’s the last time we saw each other for years.’ She rests back on the bed and pulls the covers up tightly under her chin, never appearing more fragile. ‘Until I found you again.’

  ‘I know. Aunt Jemima moved house so that you wouldn’t know where I was.’ I sit down next to her limp body, holding on to my towel. I remind myself that it is the day of the funeral, that I should be softer with her, sweeter. ‘I know all this, Elle. Why won’t you tell me the things I don’t know?’

  She ignores my effort at truth-digging. ‘But I found you, didn’t I? They couldn’t stop me; I found you.’

  ‘Yes, you always found me, Elle.’ I think of the first time, when she attacked Robert Kneel. The last was at the hospital when security dragged her away. Every time she found a way back. And every time I felt a wave of relief that she never stopped searching. Even this time, if I’m honest. I shuffle up towards her head, rest my hand on her arm and rub it.

  ‘I had to. You understand that, right? You understand now why I had to find you?’

  ‘Because we are sisters,’ I say as I stroke her hair from her eyes.

  ‘No,’ she laughs, sitting up. ‘It’s got nothing to do with being sisters.’

  I stand, snatch up the dress she brought with her. I turn away so that she cannot see my scars, even though she knows they are there. I pull the dress over my head slowly, waiting for the flush of embarrassment to pass. When I turn around, she is staring at my hip.

  ‘So what is it then?’ I snap. I fasten the zipper and think how this time she got the size just right. It’s a nice black shift dress, three-quarter-length sleeves. Something I would buy. ‘Somebody to do crazy shit with you, like jumping off bridges or taking drugs?’

  ‘No,’ she says, raising her gaze in the direction of my face. ‘To learn the truth, Irini. You have no idea how hard it’s been for me. But I knew that one day you would be here in this house, back in your old room, and that finally I would know.’ She breathes deeply, lets out a long, steady breath. ‘I’m a patient woman, Rini. And now I do.’

  The words hit me like a train wreck, and I stagger back, gripping the frame of the tiny bed to stop myself falling.

  ‘This is my old room?’ The words stutter out, shameful and afraid. My eyes skirt around the details, the lame picture that I have hidden away behind the furniture, the drawer where I have stowed an ornament. Mine? ‘My room when I was a baby?’

  She screws up her face, as if what I am asking is one of the dumbest questions she’s ever heard. ‘Where did you think I had put you? This is your room, exactly as you left it.’

  I glance around, looking for proof, trying to jog a memory. I find nothing. ‘So where is the cot?’ I challenge her. ‘This can’t be my room. I was a baby. I would have had a cot.’

  ‘You couldn’t sleep in a cot because you had your legs all plastered up, dangling from that thing on the ceiling.’ I look up, following the line of her finger, her once-perfect manicure bitten down and chipped. Sure enough, there is the hook I assumed was for a lamp. Now I realise it is an outdated traction system used for fixing my hip. ‘I used to run up the corridor from my bedroom and sit with you when you couldn’t move, draw butterflies on your plasters because you liked them. I told you that one day they would make you fly.’ She wriggles her fingers against my arm, all the way up to my shoulder. When she starts fluttering her tongue against the roof of her mouth, the sound of wings, I remember her childhood face above mine, peering over the bed, making the same fluttering sound. The same delicate touch of a child’s hand against my bare torso. The tears hit me as fast as the vision. I go to the chest of drawers and pull out the faded picture of the butterflies from behind it. Something I liked. Something that is mine from childhood. Butterflies. ‘But all of this is irrelevant now. Just like your tears. Because now I know.’

  I am holding the butterflies in my hand, the faded wings never more beautiful. I am barely listening to what she is saying. ‘This was my room,’ I stutter. ‘You were here with me.’ I swallow hard, try to breathe. ‘You were sweet with me, and I remember . . . you drew butterflies all over me.’

  ‘I was a child,’ she says dismissively, with a shake of her wrist. ‘Of course I was sweet.’

  ‘I liked butterflies,’ I say, smiling down at the framed watercolour. ‘You even used to paint the wings different colours, right?’ She nods. I want to ask her to make the sound again, flutter her fingers over me like she did before. But something holds me back. I should reach out and hold her, thank her for making me remember
. But she is staring at me, her eyes so dead that I don’t dare.

  ‘We all liked butterflies,’ she says. ‘Don’t you remember how she used to play the Madam Butterfly soundtrack? She always loved it. Even before,’ she says, giving me the strangest look. Before what? ‘Mother used to tell us the story and play the songs over and over on an old vinyl. You were scared of the crackles of the needle at the beginning, before the music started.’ I sit back down next to her, the faded butterflies in my hand. ‘She used to hum the tune, say that one day you would grow into a butterfly. That you were a brave girl and would spread your wings.’

  ‘That’s what Dad was listening to the other day,’ I say as the memory of seeing my mother’s body comes back to me. ‘And you in the car. It was Madam Butterfly. I remember.’

  ‘Yes, but regardless, like I was saying, you are free of me now. I will never look for you again. I always knew that one day I would get you here, put you with him, and then I would know. And now I do.’

  ‘Know what?’ I ask, wiping my wet eyes, the memory of the mournful music still loud in my head.

  ‘He told you that you should never have come here. It proves that he doesn’t regret what he did for me.’ She looks around the room, scans past me as if I am nothing more than an inanimate object. ‘It means that I was wanted. That he still chooses me over you.’ She gets up, picks up the little leather box from the side table. ‘Finish getting ready.’ She tosses the box at my chest, as if she has lost all interest in me. It falls on to the glass of the picture. ‘And wear that. The cars will be here soon, and like I say, we don’t want the whole village talking about how awful you look. It will reflect badly on us.’

  She leaves me clutching the faded image of butterflies, the sound of Madam Butterfly playing out in my head. She slips from the room, turns the corner, and I buckle, collapse on to the sheets, the shaking of my hands rippling into the rest of my body.

  After a few minutes I get my act together. I go back to the bathroom, wash my red, puffy face. But this time on the way back to my room, I don’t walk with my head down. I stop, turn to face what sits in the alcove: the dresser covered in photographs. There is a layer of dust, but the pictures are clean. I pick one up and notice that there is even dust beneath it. The photo has been placed here recently, perhaps for my benefit. I look at the image of what is clearly Elle. I am also in the picture, no more than eighteen months old. I am giggling, and she is staring at me with icy eyes. There is some kind of smile on her face, but it isn’t a happy smile. There are other photos too, but I can’t face them all today. I toss the frame back down, scattering the other pictures like ten-pin bowls.

  I see now why my feet touch the end of the bed. It was not made for an adult. I pull up the sheets and find extendable side rails that might once have stopped me from falling. I open the drawer where I stowed the ornament and find terry-towelling nappies and a pot of pins. Untouched for years. I open another and find a collection of pink babygros that range from birth to eighteen months. My things. Things I would once have worn. I pick one up, smell it, but the covering of a fine dust layer makes my nose itch. I pick up the ornament and cradle it to my chest, edging back on to the bed. I reach for my phone, remember it is broken. Breathe, I tell myself. Stop crying. I pop a Valium and wait for it to work. When it doesn’t, I wipe my eyes and call Antonio on the house phone, and then hang up when he doesn’t answer.

  I stir once I hear the cars pulling into the driveway in that slow processional fashion reserved for funerals. I stand up, spot five black Jaguars, one a particularly large affair at the back with the rear doors wide open. A gaping mouth ready to swallow up the coffin. I catch a glimpse of my reflection, my shoulder-length hair and fringe kinked and wavy, still wet, hanging in clumps. The pallbearers exit the house, slide the coffin into the car just as a knock arrives at my open door.

  It is Joyce. She spots my tears and makes what should be a reasonable assumption: that I am sad for my loss. It is true, but it is not my mother for whom I mourn. It is the life I lost. The baby I once was. The child I never got a chance to be.

  ‘There, there,’ she offers, taking me by the hand. She does a quick scan and notices that I am barefoot. She looks around the room and sees that all I have are the flat black boots I was wearing when I arrived and a fancy pair of new Reeboks. She picks one up and checks the sole. ‘Stay here,’ she mutters as she pushes me into a sitting position before scurrying from the room.

  She returns after a few minutes with a pair of sensible black lace-up pumps, the kind she herself wears. When I remain unresponsive to her suggestion to put them on, she crouches down and, even with the left-sided weakness, fastens the laces for me, propping my feet on her knee. She looks up when she has finished, spots the leather box on the bed alongside the ornament. She picks up the box and opens it. Inside is a pearl necklace. She turns so that I can see it, looking to me for answers, perhaps wondering if I took it.

  ‘Elle gave it to me.’

  She purses her lips, and at first I think she doesn’t believe me. But then she nods, like a self-affirmation. ‘Which is why you won’t be wearing it.’ She closes the lid and reaches back, shoving it in my bag. She helps me up, slicks down my troubled hair. She pulls a tissue from her pocket and dabs at my red eyes, but her kindness only brings about more tears.

  ‘Oh, Irini, you have to settle. I don’t want her to see you like this. Nor that father of yours. Come on now, girl. Get it together.’ She puffs out her chest and braces herself, as if showing me how I am supposed to pull myself together by mirroring her actions. I nod and wipe away my tears on the back of my sleeve. Arm in arm we shuffle down the stairs. She grips on to me for steadiness.

  Well done! Brave girl! Now spread your wings.

  When we arrive on the driveway, I spot my father, who looks so small, as if he has been crushed. He is being held up by a man I have never seen before. The squat little man who was here at the house on the first night I was here is also nearby. I don’t see Aunt Jemima. Elle is directing, ordering people into cars, arranging flowers. Roses, the flower of both love and death. Before the last people climb inside, she steps back and assesses her arrangements with a satisfied smile. She beckons me forward and I try to follow. But Joyce tightens her grip on my arm, preventing me. Instead, she edges me into another car, with her.

  ‘Best you come with me,’ she whispers as the driver closes the door behind us. Elle doesn’t appear too bothered. The cars begin their slow, painful journey of deliverance.

  ‘Where’s my Aunt Jemima?’ I ask Joyce, but I’m not sure she hears me over the sound of the car’s tyres on the gravel.

  We pull up outside the churchyard after just a few minutes of procession, and one by one the people vacate the cars. Ours is the last. The congregation links arms for support amongst a crowd of waiting villagers. A random stranger, a woman in a floral shirt and royal-blue hat, takes my free arm in hers. We all shuffle into the church, following behind the minister and the coffin. Incense burns and clings to the back of my throat, forcing out a little cough. I take a seat in one of the pews and look around for Aunt Jemima and Elle. I spot Elle up at the front. She looks distraught, although I know only minutes ago she was composed and calm. Is it an act? When I realise that I still don’t know how my mother died, I wonder if Elle is trying to cover up something she has done. I’m not sure she is as heartbroken as she would like us to believe. I look around at the congregation of friends and family and wonder who really is mourning if neither of the deceased’s daughters are. I can’t see Aunt Jemima anywhere. Why wouldn’t she be here?

  I hear the minister say, ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted,’ and I realise that even in her death there will be no peace. Not for me. Not for any of us.

  15

  ‘Forgiving God, in the face of death we discover how many things are still undone, how much might have been done otherwise. Redeem our failure.’

  Joyce clings to my arm as the mourners shuffle left an
d right, assuming position. I am frozen, rooted to the ground. A tree without fruit or leaves.

  ‘Bind up the wounds of past mistakes,’ the minister continues. I wonder whose failure and mistakes he is referring to: mine, my mother’s, or everybody’s in my family? ‘Transform our guilt to active love and by your forgiveness make us whole. We pray in Jesus’s name.’

  ‘Amen,’ I say, the response taught to me as a child at school. Speak when they speak. Wait your turn. Follow the lead.

  I hear the shuffling of bodies, the crumple of jackets. The minister’s words are lost on me. Somebody unwraps a sweet behind me and I hear another person hush them. I try to focus on Elle, as I am sure many of the congregation are doing. She is a snivelling wreck at the front of the church. Her face is perfectly made up, yet her eyes stream, her shoulders shake. Hollywood tears.

  ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and staff, they comfort me.’

  I try not to listen, glance around at the mourners. Who is here to say goodbye? There are maybe thirty people besides those that came with the cars. The villagers, most of whom are in excess of the age of sixty, are dressed in black, a flock of crows around a carcass. I spot the schoolmistress, Miss Endicott, shuffling in late, alone at the back. A man in a long overcoat greets her, offers her a place near the front, which she declines. I turn away in the hope she hasn’t seen me. Joyce takes my movement as a worsening of my mental state and pulls me in close. I bury my face in her shoulder, and although I’m concerned that this diverts attention my way, I cannot risk being seen by Miss Endicott. So far, in spite of Elle’s warnings, nobody else seems to know who I am.

  I’m surprised to see that Miss Endicott’s arrival has piqued Elle’s interest too. She has twisted in her seat, transfixed as several other attendees jostle about the teacher, offering respectful smiles and warm welcomes. I look back to Elle’s grave face, her wet cheeks glistening, her eyes narrowed to acrimonious slits. She goes to stand, but our father senses her movement, and after a quick look over his shoulder he settles her back into the pew with an encouraging stroke of his hand and a few words in her ear. I look back at Miss Endicott and see that she is huddled up to the wall, almost like she is trying to disappear. Elle takes one final look in her direction before turning back to face the casket. What is it about the schoolmistress’s arrival that has bothered her so?