The Sister's Secret

by Penny Kline

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘How can a dead person have a baby?’ She tossed back her fringe. ‘I know, they could cut her open and lift it out. Erin?’

  ‘Mm.’

  ‘I’m very, very, very, very sorry.’ She stood up noisily and ran to her, flinging her arms round her waist. She was ten and a half, but not much taller than the average eight-year-old, yet there was nothing wrong with her intelligence. In fact, Erin considered her wise beyond her years.

  ‘I once saw a picture of a baby inside its mother.’ Maeve’s cheek was pressed against Erin’s shirt. ‘It was only sixteen centimetres long but it had fingers and toes and eyes and everything. Poor Claudia.’

  It was the first time since the accident that anyone had hugged her, and tears dripped down Erin’s face.

  Maeve gave her a squeeze. ‘Crying’s good for you. That’s what my mum says. Where’s Ollie gone? How could he look after a baby? He wouldn’t know what to do. No, it’ll be all right, you can help him.’ She broke off, screwing up her nose. ‘Will you still live up here or will you move downstairs?’

  ‘Too soon to think about things like that.’ Erin guided her back to her chair and gave her a bowl containing an orange, an apple and a banana. ‘Don’t forget, before you start drawing spend time looking at the fruit carefully.’

  ‘And the spaces between. What I can see, not what I know in my head. The orange is round but you can only see part of it. Because of the banana,’ she added, ‘and because you can’t see the back. Apples smell nice, sort of sweet and juicy.’ She leaned over to prove her point. ‘But bananas go black and smell horrible. I like the smell in here. Is it your deodorant? Mum has a herbal one. Can I see your drawings of guinea pigs?’

  ‘Later.’

  ‘What’s the story about?’

  ‘A pet shop. Three conceited guinea pigs and a small one that’s frightened of the others.’

  ‘Poor thing.’ Maeve thought about it. ‘Are there any other animals?’

  ‘Chipmunks, rabbits, and a mynah bird.’

  ‘Does the mynah bird talk?’

  ‘Yes, but it doesn’t say very much.’

  ‘Birds carry diseases. No, I think that’s parrots. After we’d been to the zoo, I had a rash and Mum thought I must have touched something, but we didn’t go to the doctor. Mum doesn’t like doctors. She goes to a herbalist. Herbs are good for you. They’re natural.’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘If you can’t go to sleep you can put bay leaves under your pillow.’

  ‘Good idea. I might try it. There’s a bay tree out at the back, although it looks as though it’s on its last legs.’

  ‘Trees don’t have legs.’ Maeve grinned, touching the apple with the tip of her finger. ‘Dad thinks . . .’

  ‘What? What does he think?’

  Maeve put an arm into the old shirt Erin had given her, to keep her clothes clean, and in the process knocked the box of oil pastels off the table. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter. They’re easier to hold if they’re in small pieces.’

  ‘Are they, or did you say that so I wouldn’t feel bad?’

  ‘You know me better than that.’

  Maeve laughed, narrowing her eyes to study the fruit. ‘Why has Ollie disappeared?’

  ‘I expect he’s staying with a friend.’

  ‘Dad’s worried about him. Are the police looking for him? Is he in trouble?’

  ‘No.’ What had Jon been saying? ‘What did your dad tell you?’

  ‘I heard him and Mum talking. I like Ollie.’

  ‘I know you do.’ It was something she had said before, shortly after she first met him, but never that she liked Claudia. Had Claudia said something? Maeve was sensitive about her clumsiness, and her lack of height. Surely Claudia had not been so tactless as to remark on it.

  ‘When he was a little boy, Ollie had a rabbit. It was called Ethel.’

  ‘Really? Funny name for a rabbit. When did he tell you that?’

  ‘His mother’s a nervous wreck.’

  ‘The two of you seem to have had a good chat.’

  ‘My hands are sticky. No, it’s all right, I’ll lick them and wipe them on a tissue. And his father had a stroke and he couldn’t talk properly and then he died.’

  ‘Poor Ollie.’ Erin was trying to remember when she had left Maeve alone with Ollie. The day Claudia had shouted that her laptop had crashed? And once or twice, they had spent time in the garden together and Ollie had showed Maeve how to stop her yoyo unwinding immediately. What else had he told her?

  The two of them had been working so hard – with only a short break for apple juice and ginger biscuits – that when Maeve pushed back her chair with a contented sigh, Erin was surprised to discover almost an hour and a half had passed.

  ‘Finished.’ Maeve’s legs jigged up and down as she waited for Erin to look at her latest drawing.

  ‘That’s good, Maeve, especially the banana.’

  ‘The third time I drew it I looked at it properly. I like oil pastels, you can smudge them so the colour goes all blurry. It’s nice and warm in here. Warmer than our house.’

  ‘Is it?’ Erin was surprised. Perhaps, as well as her liking for herbs, her mother was keen on fresh air. The family had moved to Bristol when Maeve was four, and Jon got a job at the university. That was all she knew about them, apart from the gossip Maeve passed on – her mother’s herb garden and Jon’s dislike of buying new clothes. And how he suffered from insomnia. Maeve loved long words and said her favourite was “soporific” and she had read it in a book by Beatrix Potter.

  She was washing her hands, with plenty of soap, like a surgeon preparing to operate. Then she picked up a towel, dried each stubby finger in turn, and gave Erin one of her beaming smiles.

  ‘Why haven’t you got a husband?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ She was not up to that one, not just now. ‘Not everyone’s married.’

  ‘No, some people have a partner, and it said on TV that millions of people live on their own. Do you like living on your own? I wouldn’t mind. I mean, when I’m grown up.’

  Erin made no comment, and sensing her reluctance to talk about partners, Maeve changed the subject. ‘Where’s Miss Havisham?’

  It was the name she had given to the cat. Rather a good one, since it had a look about it, as though it was dressed in scruffy black and white clothes. ‘How do you know it’s a female?’

  ‘I don’t.’ She grinned. ‘It wouldn’t let me look.’

  ‘You’ve read Great Expectations then?’

  ‘Me and Mum watched the film. Miss Havisham lived in a ruined mansion with her adopted daughter. She was mad but I felt sorry for her. I don’t think she could help it. Erin?’

  ‘Now what?’

  ‘I wish I had hair like Jennie down the road.’

  ‘Oh, you know Jennie.’

  ‘She’s married to an actor. Actually, I don’t know if they’re married. He’s called Ben. Mum says I have to keep my hair short in case I get nits. Your hair’s nice. Hair like yours always looks all right. Claudia’s hair . . .’ She broke off, afraid it was wrong to mention her.

  ‘Go on. Yes, you’re right, a better colour than mine. When we were little it was so fair it was almost white.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘It’s all right, Maeve, I don’t mind talking about her. Now, what are you going to draw next, or are you tired?’

  ‘I’m never tired.’

  Erin handed her another sheet of paper. ‘Lucky you.’

  They worked on and by the time Jon rang the bell, interrupting a conversation about the relative merits of breast and bottle feeding, Maeve had been with her for two hours and it was clear Jon was in a hurry, needing to get her home in time for their evening meal.

  ‘If there’s anything I can do . . .’ His half-hearted offer was to make up for the fact that he was going to leave straight away and there would be no chance to talk.

  ‘There isn’t,’ she said, and
he flinched at the coolness in her voice. ‘Unless someone tells you they’ve seen Ollie.’

  ‘Have the police . . .’

  ‘Going missing is not a crime.’

  ‘No.’ His eyes met hers and she guessed he was thinking about the accident although, on second thoughts, he could have noticed how rough she looked. Her jeans were ragged where the hem of each leg brushed the ground and her shirt stained with Indian ink. Still, artists were allowed to look a mess. But not have tear-stained faces and unwashed hair.

  ‘Someone phoned,’ she said, ‘a man.’

  ‘Did he tell you his name? Could have been Hoshi I suppose.’

  ‘Hoshi?’ Maeve said. ‘That’s a funny name.’

  Jon was studying the back of his hand. ‘He used to be a student but dropped out. He and Ollie were friends.’

  ‘Can’t have been him who phoned,’ Erin said. ‘A friend would have known what’s happened. And before that a girl knocked on the door, said her name was Lana, no Lara. Could this Hoshi know where Ollie’s hiding out?’

  ‘Is he hiding?’ Maeve squealed. ‘Look, Dad, I drew some fruit.’ She pulled at the sleeve of Jon’s dark blue sweater and Erin wondered if his wife had knitted it, and felt a twinge of something she quickly suppressed. What did Diana look like? Was her colouring dark or fair? Was she tall or short, fat or thin. She could ask Maeve but it would sound nosy, and sooner or later she was bound to meet her.

  One evening, a few weeks’ back, Jon had called by when Ollie and Claudia were out, to pay for Maeve’s classes, and over a glass of wine, told her a little about his work. She had enjoyed talking to him. He was passionate about his research, and Maeve was probably right about his dislike of shopping, since he gave the impression he had little interest in his appearance. Unruly hair and a long face with a deep cleft above his upper lip. Heavy-lidded eyes with thick, dark lashes. Declan had spent a fortune on clothes, especially shirts, and had his hair cut in the latest style by a barber called Fernando. Jon had different priorities.

  Touched that he had trusted her enough to tell her about Maeve’s birth, she had been encouraged to talk about her split with Declan, although when she blamed herself for becoming involved with him, he had reacted angrily. You thought his marriage was over. If you want my opinion, he sounds like a self-centred bastard and you’re better off without him.

  ‘Look, Dad.’ Maeve’s voice was high-pitched with frustration.

  ‘You did that?’

  ‘Erin likes it.’ Hopping on one leg, Maeve lost her balance and crashed to the ground. ‘Erin, was only Claudia hurt? What about the other people in the street?’

  ‘She’d stopped to look up at a building.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ It was something that ran through Erin’s mind repeatedly.

  ‘Perhaps she saw someone,’ Maeve suggested.

  ‘Someone she knew you mean?’

  ‘If she was pregnant, she should have been being careful. She should have been holding your arm.’

  ‘That’s enough, Maeve.’ Jon was waiting for her to collect her drawings. Standing in the doorway, he was so tall he had to bend his head. ‘Maybe we should leave the classes for a while.’

  ‘No.’ Maeve reacted fiercely. ‘Erin doesn’t mind, do you, Erin, it takes your mind off things.’

  Erin laughed, but Jon failed to join in, and unspoken words hung in the air between them. Then Maeve caught hold of his hand and pulled him through the door.

  ‘See you soon,’ she called, falling over her own feet and grabbing the stair rail.

  ‘Bye, Maeve.’ Erin watched the two of them descend the narrow stairs, but in her mind’s eye she saw Claudia, looking up at the protesters and, a moment later, sprawled across the pavement with blood seeping from her head. Maeve was right. she should never have let her walk on her own, should have stuck to her like a leech, but at that precise moment she had been thinking how lonely she felt and how painfully aware she was that Claudia had friends she had never met and a life she knew nothing about. She should have made more effort to meet her friends. But Claudia had never offered to introduce them.

  Why had she crossed the road to look up at the protesters?

  Perhaps she saw someone she knew. Maeve’s words came back, but more than the words it had been the expression on her face. And on Jon’s when Erin turned to him, hoping for reassurance.

  Chapter 6

  Claudia could have been sleeping, and the baby inside her had no reality. Erin looked away, unable to believe her sister was incapable of knowing she was by her bedside. People in a coma sensed the presence of others, especially their voices, but Claudia was not in a coma: her brain had been destroyed.

  Whose idea had it been that they go to the shops together that Saturday afternoon? She preferred to think it was Claudia’s, but had a vague recollection she had said she wanted to buy something for the baby, a thank you for letting her escape from London for a while.

  It had been cold that day and breakfast television had shown thick snow covering London and the south-east, but Bristol had missed out and elongated clouds drifted across a clear blue sky. Erin had hoped to leave straight after lunch, but as usual Claudia had things to do, things being a string of phone calls, followed by a visit from Jennie, and a long discussion about Jennie’s actor partner, Ben, who, according to Claudia, had a roving eye.

  Erin remembered waiting in the garden, checking the plants while trying not to think about Declan. How could she have been so stupid? Because being in love means you are more than a little crazy, and it was only when he let slip that his wife was pregnant (“but I don’t suppose it’s even mine”) that she had begun to use her head instead of her heart. Needing to escape – fast – Claudia’s house in Bristol had been the obvious choice, somewhere where there was a faint hope she might be able to re-start her shattered life.

  ‘Erin?’ Claudia had called her name, impatient, as though she was the one who had been waiting for nearly an hour.

  ‘Ten past three,’ Erin said, ‘soon be dark. Maybe we should leave it until tomorrow.’

  ‘What!’ She had given her a good-natured shove in the back. Good-natured but so hard she almost lost her balance. ‘Of course we can’t leave it till tomorrow.’ And the two of them had set off, heading for a special shop where Erin had promised to buy an extravagant present for the unborn baby.

  Claudia knew the place well – Erin suspected she had visited it secretly before anyone knew she was pregnant, ‘Is it a boy or a girl?’

  Claudia laughed. ‘I told them at the clinic I’d rather wait and see.’

  ‘I’ll believe you. How are you feeling?’

  ‘Starving. There’s this new coffee place and they have these amazing pastries with a chocolate and almond filling.’

  ‘You had a late lunch.’

  ‘God, you’re such a spoilsport, Erin. Hang on, I’d better phone Ollie.’

  ‘Why?’ Ollie was younger than her and slightly traumatized by the news he was going to be a father. ‘He had a bit of a meltdown.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound like Ollie.’

  Claudia gave her a look. ‘You think he’s a soft touch. Ought to see what he’s like when he decides to dig his heels in. Don’t worry, I’ll cook him something nice. Or I could buy him a present although heaven knows what. Right then.’ She crammed a purple woollen hat on her head. ‘Honestly, Erin, you’re getting so bossy, like you’re my mother or something.’

  ‘Somebody has to knock some sense into you.’ At the words “like you’re my mother or something” Erin had flinched. Claudia had always been the bossy one.

  They had expected a post-Christmas lull but if anything the shops were even more crowded than the previous week. People fed up with sitting at home, enjoying the festivities, or shopaholics unwilling to waste a precious second of bargain hunting?

  The shop Claudia made a beeline for was stuffed with baby walkers, high chairs and nappy pails, and a special display of organic cotton
dolls with flaxen pigtails and flowered smocks. A pram or a cot, even a first-size sleep suit was out of the question – they were both far too superstitious – but somehow the shoes were different and, when the baby was born, Erin would dash out and buy whatever else was needed.

  ‘Look at them,’ Claudia crooned, ‘they’re so cute.’

  ‘Yes, they are.’ Cute was not a word Erin had heard her sister use before. Ollie must have been working on her. Ollie was a softie. Claudia was as tough as old boots. ‘Quite sure they’re the ones you want?’

  ‘Certain.’

  Erin opened her purse, and took out her card, and an assistant wrapped the shoes in tissue paper and placed them in a shiny carrier bag, holding it out with a smile, not sure which of them was to carry the treasured gift.

  Claudia gave Erin an unexpected kiss on the cheek. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘It’s a lovely present.’

  ‘It certainly is.’

  They stared at each other and burst out laughing. It was such an unfamiliar situation – devoted sisters shopping for a new arrival – and even Claudia, not known for her sensitivity, must have been aware how Erin was feeling. Not that she would have dreamed of mentioning it since she disliked tears, her own or anyone else’s.

  Ahead of them, a woman with a double buggy was struggling to open the shop door and Erin hurried to help, glancing into the buggy and causing one of the infants inside to let out a piercing wail.

  ‘Driving me insane,’ the woman said, and Erin imagined a time in the not too distant future when the novelty of her baby had worn off and Claudia wanted her to childmind. Just for an hour or two, Erin, so I can get some rest.

  The woman with the double buggy had disappeared and Claudia was waiting impatiently for Erin to emerge from her daydream.

  ‘Sorry’ She snapped back into the present. ‘Is that all or are there more shops you want to visit?’

  ‘What were you thinking?’ Claudia struggled with the top button on her coat.

  ‘Nothing’

  ‘Liar. Hang on, I need a couple of ready meals. And some bananas. See, I told you I was looking after my health.’