I park and run through the rain to Starbucks, nestled just alongside the tube station. I order an espresso and take a seat at the bar in the overcrowded coffee shop, which smells like a combination of hot cinnamon and vanilla. From my seat at the window I watch people passing by, staring through the condensation-drenched windows. A street florist opposite hurries to rearrange pots of daffodils and tulips and sprays of gypsophila. People are rushing and dashing; everyone has somewhere they should be. Some hurry inside to escape the downpour, laden with shopping bags, bringing with them the scent of summer rain. One of them is a mother with a child in a buggy. Some people help by clearing a path, shuffling their chairs out of the way. But the kid is crying, screaming out as if it is in pain. I watch the woman as she buys a drink, a cookie for the kid, which he proceeds to smash against the table, sending crumbs high in the air like wedding confetti. She looks close to tears, beyond hassled. Yet she scoops that kid up, bounces him on her knee. Such a simple thing. A few minutes later he is asleep. She catches me watching her, smiles awkwardly in my direction. How hard can it be? I turn away, stare instead at the mottled reflection of my face in the window, not sure I even recognise who I am.
An hour passes like this before the rain eases off. The café empties gradually, the mother and child among the first to leave. I try a smile as she is on her way out, but the moment for friendship has gone and I end up turning back to my reflection, feeling awkward. I’ve never been very good at making friends, which is why I suppose I don’t have anybody to turn to now. I guess I never did learn how to integrate, despite Aunt Jemima’s best efforts.
I drive home, reminding myself on every corner of exactly where that is. Home. Home. Turn left towards home. I check the prepaid phone before I step from the car, but there is no reply from Elle. To fill the time, I call the number left by Miss Endicott.
‘Yes, hello?’ She answers in her very best telephone voice, a softening of her Scottish accent. She sounds so different that at first I’m not sure it’s her.
‘Hello, Miss Endicott? This is Mrs Jackson.’ Confusion on the end of the line as I keep up the pretence. ‘We met at the school a couple of weeks ago.’ There is silence while she thinks, so I try to jog her memory. ‘I was searching for a placement for my child.’
‘Oh, yes,’ she says slowly, as if the parts of the jigsaw are starting to move into place. ‘I wasn’t sure you would return my call.’
‘Your message sounded important. You told me there was some information I should know.’ I’m not sure why I am skirting around the subject. I would love to just blurt it out, tell her that I saw her at the funeral, that really I am related to the family from Mam Tor, the place that is not for sale. But I remember just how strange Elle’s reaction was when she saw Miss Endicott arrive in the church, so I stick to my false identity, wear it like a bulletproof vest.
‘Yes, I did, Mrs Jackson. It is regarding that house you mentioned during your visit. It has become vacant, but,’ and she pauses, a last breath before she lets herself fall without a net for safety, ‘I think we both know that already. I wanted to warn you in advance that pursuing that house could be very difficult.’
‘Oh,’ I say, feigning surprise, clinging on to my own lies even though I am sure she has all but admitted she knows who I am. ‘Well, I will bear your advice in mind. Have the residents moved on?’
‘The residents have indeed moved on. Before their time. There is a daughter in the picture, but rumour has it she is not set to inherit the house.’ She whispers this last part as if it is hot news, salacious gossip burning her tongue, steam coming off her sizzling words. I can hear voices and laughter in the background and I realise I have lost track of the days. I glance at the clock and see that it is Tuesday.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Endicott, but are you working at the moment? Perhaps there are people there and you can’t talk?’
‘Yes, that’s right, my dear. Now listen. The house is empty, but might not go forward for immediate sale. I believe somebody else is set to inherit it,’ she continues, ignoring my question but somehow also answering it. I go along with her coded conversation.
‘Who will inherit the house?’
‘Mrs Jackson, I am good friends with Mr Witherrington. Just friends, mind. I don’t want there to be any confusion.’ There is no confusion. ‘Mr Wittherington is the lawyer who has been charged with handling the estate. But you might already know that,’ she murmurs. I imagine her turning away, her usual brusque, overbearing nature reduced to huddling in a corner with her hand cupped over the mouthpiece.
‘Yes, I do know that.’ I am losing my patience and can’t keep up the pretence any longer. ‘Please, Miss Endicott, you known damn well who I am,’ I snap. ‘That’s why you called me. Get to the point.’
Silence for a minute, save the background voices still joking around. I wonder if I have blown it, whether I misread the conversation and have given myself away. But then Miss Endicott chuckles as if we have just shared a joke. I pull out a cigarette and light it quickly, cracking open the window. Breathe in. Breathe out. Water drizzles in, chilling my leg as it falls. ‘Oh yes. Of course, Mrs Jackson. You gave me all the details when you came to see me at the school. I understood perfectly.’
‘So,’ I say, happy to be on the same page, ‘if you know who I am, tell me what is going on. You must know that my sister has gone missing.’ I puff hard on the cigarette, close the window a little to stop the rain from falling inside the car.
‘Why yes, dear. Of course. And that is why I had no choice but to call you. Mr Witherrington is dealing with the transaction, but I must stress that I would advise you against following it up. You see, there is an issue regarding the inheritance of their firstborn daughter.’
‘Miss Endicott, be straight with me. What are you trying to tell me?’ I stub the remains of my cigarette out. I don’t understand. In one breath she is trying to help me, but in the next she is being so cryptic. At the funeral she didn’t even speak to my father, so why is she so concerned to help me now? Does she know something about Elle that I don’t? About her disappearance? Why would she hide it if she did?
‘I just think that you should let that property go, Mrs Jackson. It’s not worth the risk. But of course, if you were to come here, I would gladly meet with you and try to help you find the missing pieces of your jigsaw, so to speak.’
‘Are you suggesting I come to Horton, Miss Endicott?’
‘Well, yes, of course I’d be delighted to meet you again. Any time you are able to stop by. Thank you for returning my call, my dear.’
‘Wait, Miss Endicott, don’t go yet.’ But she has already hung up. I dial her number again, but she doesn’t answer. It doesn’t even go to voicemail.
31
I think about starting the engine, driving straight up there. Whatever it is she has to tell me is important enough that she has to cover it up on the phone, secrets that perhaps she doesn’t want overheard. But I see Antonio waving from the window, and decide there are other things that demand my attention first.
I step from the rain and into the house, the hallway dark, humid. I can hear the tinkle of a spoon in a teacup, the shuffling of a liar’s feet across the tiles of the kitchen. I think about his plans to open a restaurant and wonder if he told me he had the loan or if he had only applied for it. I wish I had read the letter from the bank when he’d given it to me. Forrester certainly didn’t seem convinced that it had been approved. I try to focus on anything I know as fact as I close the door behind me. Trouble is, the only facts I know just seem to make things worse.
Antonio is a liar.
He’s going to be questioned.
He hasn’t been in Italy.
He was with Elle.
I walk through to the living room, stand next to the couch where we made love, the spot where I harboured desperate hopes that life was going to get better. The same place we have snuggled, watched movies, dropped popcorn. The room still smells like our hot bodies, the smell of sex
on the furniture. I hear him coming towards me, cup of tea in hand, and so I sit down, my clothes still drenched. Rainwater drips to my shoulders, runs through my hair and across my scalp, falling like tears down my cheeks. I see his raincoat, the one I paid for, draped over the back of an old leather chair. Why would he have bought that to go to Italy in the summer? There’s another fact for you. I’m gullible and stupid.
I think about what I am going to say, playing out at least five different scenarios in my head. But when he arrives in front of me, all of my caution, careful questioning and plans to get him to trip himself up fall apart. I blurt everything out.
‘You weren’t in Italy,’ I say before he has even set my cup down. He stares at it for just a little too long, looking for answers that he never expected he would need to find.
‘What do you mean? I went to Italy,’ he replies. But he hasn’t looked at me yet. He is avoiding eye contact. Eventually he manages a quick glance. His nose twitches, mouth pulls up slightly at the side. I know immediately he is lying.
‘You are lying,’ I say, unblinking, unflinching. ‘I know where you were.’
He smiles, laughs, as if it is a case of, OK, caught me. I am almost waiting for him to raise his hands, as if I am holding a tiny concealed gun like a James Bond villain. ‘You don’t know where I was,’ he says, pantomime fashion. He picks up the raincoat and reaches into the inside pocket, bringing out a small red box.
There are not many things he could have produced to stop me in my tracks, but this is one of them. I see the familiar smirk he gets on his face when he feels pleased with himself, when he knows he has shocked me or done something to make me happy. Under normal circumstances he is satisfied by both results in equal measure. The first night we slept together he did things with his tongue that made my body shake. It’s that face I see now, the same one that loomed over me after I came, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘What is that?’ I ask.
He doesn’t say anything, but the smug grin fades to one of hope. Pitiful hope. He opens the box and drops to one knee, and inside I see a tiny diamond set on a beautiful mount. It’s the kind of diamond that says, I don’t really have enough to offer you, but I am making my best effort. My best and final offer.
‘I want us to be married. Now that the thing with your family is over, we can move on. Be our own family with a big wedding in Italia.’ I become even more nervous now that he has started substituting Italian for English, because he only does that when he is really excited, or really angry. He isn’t angry. He actually means this.
‘Just exactly how did you conclude that the thing with my family is over?’ He is still crouching on one knee, holding the box up to my face. I can see from the way his smile has disappeared – even the pitifully hopeful one has slipped – that this is not going how he pictured it.
‘Your parents have passed, and your sister has finally disappeared from your life. You have what you always wanted. Now you can move on.’
‘My sister hasn’t disappeared from my life. She has disappeared completely.’ But he is undeterred and edges towards me, still down on one knee. I push the box away from my face. But I am shocked because it seems that even Antonio never realised that it was all a big game; me running, hoping secretly that they were on my tail. Doesn’t he understand why I went there? In my astonishment he manages to wriggle the tiny ring on to my finger. He takes my lack of resistance as a good sign and kisses my cheek.
‘It looks good,’ he says, a tear forming in the corner of his eye.
‘No, Antonio,’ I say shaking my hand out from his. ‘I didn’t agree to marry you.’ I try to pull the ring off, but my fingers are swollen and the ring is too small. It is stuck. ‘Where did you get this idea from? That everything was over, settled? It is so far from over.’ I make another attempt to pull the ring off, and when I fail, my hands drop to my sides as if I have given up. ‘I know where you were, and you were not in Italy buying this tiny thing. You were in Horton, with my sister. And don’t pretend that you weren’t. I have seen the pictures with my own eyes. Why did you lie to me? How did you find her?’
He stands up and moves over to the other couch. He sits down and tosses the box on to the table, just forcefully enough that it rattles towards me, landing open-mouthed and empty. He runs his hands up through his hair, then pulls at his T-shirt like he wants to rip it off. Now he is angry.
‘I didn’t find her. She found me. You called me from her phone, and that’s how she got my number. She wanted to get to know me.’
I think back to my phone when I found it on the driveway, the broken screen, the precise way in which it was smashed. As if on purpose, perhaps with a stiletto. When did she have time? I don’t know when she slipped outside and did it, but I know it was Elle. Just one simple move was all it took to cut me off, then bide her time, snare his number. ‘How many times did you speak to her?’
‘Seven, maybe eight while you were there. She called me in the evenings, asking about you. Asking about our life together. I thought I was helping.’
‘Helping?’ I hang my head in my hands, thinking of all the effort I went to in order to keep them apart. ‘What did you tell her?’
‘Just simple things at first. Things that sisters would want to know. What kind of house you lived in. How many hours you went to work. How many on-call shifts you had to do. She wanted to learn about your life. She asked where we went on holiday, about my family, about Italia.’
So now I know how she seduced him into talking. He loves rattling on about his overextended family with eight grandmothers and a gazillion aunts. Oh yes, nice, kind, poor misunderstood Elle and her simple interests. I can hear him now, sighing about how fucked up I must be to have cut her out.
‘You said at first,’ I say as he reaches across the table and recovers the box, perhaps embarrassed by its presence. He closes it and sets it down next to him on the cushion. ‘What about after that? How did it stop being simple?’
‘Her questions became more personal.’ He makes an effort to close the gap, inching towards me. Something holds him back. ‘But she didn’t seem crazy like you said she was. She was kind, friendly, told me she was worried about you.’ I avoid breaking eye contact in the hope that it is my cold, ice-hard stare that is keeping him from standing up and reaching out to touch me. ‘Then she told me that you weren’t coping well. That you were behaving strangely.’ A tear breaks free and he brushes it away. ‘I was worried about you.’
‘Of course I was behaving strangely,’ I shout. ‘How else would I behave while I was there with her? Have you forgotten everything I ever told you about her?’
‘But that’s the problem, Rini. You never told me anything.’ His head drops to the back of the couch, and I can see that this isn’t the first time he has realised what a stupid idea it was to meet her. I know the look, the feeling of being weighed down by something Elle has said or done. It sticks with you like an albatross lashed to your leg. The feeling of joy she brings with her when she first makes contact is short-lived. But by then she has got you, already got her claws stuck in your flesh, dragging you down beneath the waves that she, no doubt, has created.
‘I only told her a few personal things,’ he says as he braves his way towards me. ‘I wanted to help. Like the fact you always wanted to know who you looked like, what foods you liked as a baby, what your childhood room was like.’ Maybe all the time we were together it was just one long script she was working from, filling in the gaps as Antonio presented them. Same with the butterflies on the wall, her fluttering fingers against my skin, the insects she drew on my casts. A theatrical seduction to win me over. Another mind trick that I soaked up, believed, made real.
‘You’re so stupid,’ I say, shaking my head, wiping away my own tears. I don’t feel good about crying, but there is no covering it up. Not this time. ‘She only wanted to know those things so she could use them against me. Anything she knows about my life has potential to her. It is something she c
an manipulate to get to me. And she did. She used those things to soften me to putty. So she could mould me, lure me into her world.’ How easily I fell into her plan. Just one drink. A last goodbye. She used that night to isolate me from the only thing left that I was connected to. Antonio. Without him she knew I was alone. Without him I would need her. Without him I would be hers and for once in our sorry lives I would start chasing her.
‘No. She was trying to get close to you.’
‘God, Antonio, don’t you get it? Do you know what this looks like? That I organised the whole thing. That I wanted my family dead so that I could inherit the house. The money. That this is a crime for inheritance.’
‘But that’s ridiculous. Is that what DC Forrester said?’
‘She didn’t say it, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t thinking it. And yes, it’s ridiculous, but that doesn’t stop her believing it. You know what isn’t so ridiculous, though? The fact that everything I have done makes me look guilty. I don’t have a relationship with my family, but as soon as my mother dies I am straight there. My father changes his will and then commits suicide with Valium, which nobody but me has access to.’ He has started stroking my leg, and I don’t stop him. It helps. Soothes me. ‘But you know what is even better?’ I say, pushing his hand away as I remember the facts. ‘They think you were in on it.’ He stands up, straight as a lamp post. ‘They have pictures of you, Antonio. You lied to me. You weren’t in Italy. You were the last person to see her.’
‘They think I have something to do with her disappearance?’
‘Yes. That we both do, maybe. They probably think I put you up to it. Why did you go there? Why did you meet her?’
He crashes back down on the other sofa, his T-shirt parting from his trousers, exposing his olive stomach. He looks so good, and yet I can feel him slipping away from me. I know there are more lies beneath the surface. Scratch at it for a bit and they will all come bubbling out, like the tiniest prick on a septic wound, opened up and spilling pus.
My Sister Page 23