Sisterland

by Linda Newbery

  ‘If we can find it in that lot. I’m sure there’ll be an avalanche one night and you’ll be discovered in the morning crushed under a mountain of books. Battered by Beethoven … bruised by Bach … suffocated by – by Schubert—’

  ‘Squashed by Scarlatti, mashed by Mozart, yeah, OK. Come on, stop putting it off. Sit down here and I’ll show you.’

  Concentrating hard for the next half hour or so, Hilly managed to produce a semblance of the first few bars. ‘I can learn the different bits of it,’ she complained, when both she and Reuben had had enough; ‘it’s putting it all together I just can’t do. I don’t think I’ve got a musical brain, like you have.’

  Reuben turned off the switch at the socket. ‘Bloody scrambled brain, at the moment. OK, you’ve made a start. Shall we go back to the hospital?’

  ‘Sure you want me to come, this time?’

  ‘Course. I bet his mum and dad’ll be there anyway. You’re useful camouflage. Unless you’d rather go home?’

  Hilly pulled a face. ‘No thanks.’ Going home meant confronting Zoë, if she was in. Not yet. ‘Camouflage it is, then.’

  However, they found Saeed alone, propped up in bed listening to his Walkman. ‘Is it still Sunday?’ he said, with a wincing smile. ‘I’ve lost track. It seems to have gone on for ever.’

  ‘Are you tired?’ Hilly said. ‘Would you rather we left you alone?’

  Hilly sat by his feet, Reuben next to him by the pillow, leaning close. ‘That policewoman’s here again,’ Saeed continued. ‘She’s just gone to get a cup of tea – said she’ll be back.’

  ‘Any news?’

  ‘No. If there was, she didn’t say.’

  ‘Si, who exactly did you recognize last night? Three of them, you said – which three?’

  Saeed looked reluctant. ‘I only think I recognized them. Couldn’t be sure. Even if I was, I don’t know names.’

  ‘But I might. You said they were the ones who hassled you in the coffee bar?’

  ‘I think so. Didn’t have too much time to take in the details.’

  ‘You gave a description to the policewoman, you said?’

  ‘Yeah, but that wasn’t much. Your sister’s boyfriend – the tall one, cocky, tanned face—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘He definitely wasn’t one of them,’ said Saeed. ‘There was one with the swastika and skull badges, leather jacket, ear-studs. I’ve seen him before. He was the one called me Abdul and Towelhead.’

  Hilly nodded. ‘Pete, that’d be.’

  ‘Then there was this big ugly one – face like a shovel, big square chin.’

  ‘Clyde,’ said Hilly. She looked at Reuben. ‘He’s the one I told you about, who stayed the night. Stayed the night! In our house!’

  Reuben grinned. ‘You ever thought of playing Lady Macbeth?’

  ‘Uh?’

  ‘When she hears the king’s been murdered, first thing she says is, What? In our house? – like it’d be quite OK for him to get bumped off anywhere else.’

  ‘Well, you know what I mean,’ Hilly said. ‘All right, he’s got to sleep somewhere, but I don’t like the thought of our house being polluted. Anyway, Si? That’s two.’

  ‘Big greasy-looking one, shaved head.’

  ‘Tuck,’ said Hilly, ‘could be.’

  Saeed frowned. ‘Don’t know if I could identify them.’

  ‘But you told all this to the police?’

  Reuben looked doubtful. ‘Not much to go on. There could be any number of blokes roaming the streets with swastika badges and leathers and pierced ears. It’s not actually an offence.’

  ‘They’ve probably been caught on CCTV, just before or just after – the policewoman was telling me,’ said Saeed.

  ‘But we know who they are,’ said Hilly. ‘And Zoë must know more.’

  ‘Think she’ll tell you?’

  ‘She will when I get hold of her.’ Hilly got to her feet, annoyed with herself for doing nothing constructive all day. ‘You don’t mind if I go now, do you? I need to make an urgent appointment with my sister.’

  In the corridor, walking fast, she rounded a corner and almost collided with a young WPC coming the other way. Both smiled and apologized; then, as the WPC made to walk past, Hilly said: ‘Are you visiting Saeed Anwar?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said the policewoman, who looked little older than Hilly and was blonde and very pretty, with hair pinned back in a neat ponytail under her cap, and careful make-up. ‘Are you a friend of his?’

  ‘Yes – Hilly. Hilly Craig.’

  ‘Hi! My name’s Jo.’

  ‘Have you got, er, any information – any names?’

  ‘We’re working on it. Saeed was able to give us quite good descriptions, and we’re checking against CCTV.’

  ‘He was just telling us. They go to the coffee bar sometimes – you know Settlers, where Saeed works? I was there once when they banged on the window and shouted insults. They’re all members of a band my sister’s in.’

  ‘Just a minute.’ WPC Jo pulled a notebook and pen from her pocket. ‘Hilly Craig, you said? Can I have your details?’

  On the front doorstep, Hilly paused, feeling for the key-ring in her pocket, hoping Zoë wouldn’t be in. As she turned the key in the lock and opened the door she felt someone pushing from the other side, trying to stop her from entering.

  ‘Gran! Heidigran! Is that you?’ she called. ‘It’s only me, Hilly.’

  Heidigran opened the door a fraction and peered round it. She smiled brightly, recognizing Hilly. ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s Hilly, isn’t it! I didn’t know you were coming today.’

  ‘Let me in, Gran!’ Hilly pushed, and sidled through. ‘What’s the matter?’ she said, noticing her grandmother’s teary eyes, and a shiny trail down one cheek.

  Heidigran fixed her with a glance and raised a finger, turning in an instant from child to stern adult. ‘You must lock the door. You must always keep the door locked,’ she said. ‘I keep telling that other girl but she won’t take any notice.’

  Hilly closed the door behind her; Heidigran pulled at her arm. ‘No, no! The bolt and chain as well! You must always lock the door!’

  ‘Gran, there isn’t a bolt, and I can’t lock and chain it or no one’ll be able to get in. Mum’s at the sports centre, isn’t she? Is Dad here?’

  ‘Lock the door.’ Heidigran was fumbling now as if for a non-existent bolt. ‘You must always lock the door.’

  And now Zoë’s feet were clumping down the stairs. ‘Christ Almighty, is she still on about that? She’s been driving me demented, banging on and on.’

  ‘Gran,’ Hilly said, trying to steer her grandmother through to the front room, ‘it’s only six o’clock. Not night-time. Why’s she been crying?’ she said over her shoulder to Zoë.

  ‘Christ knows. She won’t stop going on about the door.’

  ‘Why did you leave her on her own down here?’

  ‘That’s right – have a go at me! It’s not my fault she’s ga-ga!’

  ‘Don’t say that in front of her! Don’t say it at all!’ Hilly said fiercely, then, in a louder voice, ‘There, Gran, sit down in your chair. We’ll make you a cup of tea.’

  Zoë glowered, standing squarely in front of Heidigran’s chair, hands on hips. ‘Go on then, Saint Hilary. If you want to do your Florence Nightingale bit, you’re welcome. I’ve been lumbered with her all afternoon. She’s got a stuck record instead of a brain – something about men coming to the door.’

  ‘Zoë’s going to put the kettle on,’ Hilly told her grandmother.

  ‘Like a mug of tea’s going to cure everything!’ Zoë grumbled, but took the excuse to leave Hilly with their grandmother, and went into the kitchen.

  ‘It’s all right, Gran.’ Hilly sat on the arm of the chair and stroked the knitted sleeve of Heidigran’s cardigan, noticing that it was inside-out. ‘What’s all this about locking the door?’

  ‘Bad men came,’ said Heidigran, looking at her with round eyes.


  ‘What bad men? When?’

  Heidigran shook her head. A tear oozed from one eye; she raised stiff fingers and brushed at it. ‘Lock the door. You must always lock the door. Lock the, lock the door.’ Her voice became agitated; she made to get up again. ‘Bolt it tight.’

  ‘Shh, shh, Gran! It’s all right. The door’s locked – no one can get in, only Mum and Dad, with their keys.’

  ‘Bad men came,’ Heidigran insisted.

  ‘What bad men? Did you have burglars, Gran? At home in Banbury?’

  ‘At home.’ Heidigran nodded earnestly. ‘Home.’

  ‘Did you have burglars?’ Hilly repeated, pronouncing it clearly. Heidigran watched her, craning her neck, then her lips moved silently as she tried it for herself, like a child learning a new word. ‘Burglars, Gran? Intruders?’

  ‘They came in at night,’ Heidigran said, in her little-girl voice. ‘The door wasn’t bolted and they came in. They took my daddy away.’

  ‘Daddy?’ Hilly said in astonishment.

  ‘They took my daddy away.’ Heidigran picked at the inside-out seam of her cardigan. ‘It wasn’t really a business trip. He didn’t even come to the station. Never said goodbye! They smashed things and threw them out on the street!’

  ‘Who did, Gran?’

  ‘The bad men. You must lock the door. Keep it locked and bolted. Where’s my tea?’ Heidigran craned her neck to look past Hilly towards the kitchen door. ‘That other girl said she was making tea.’

  ‘Zoë, Gran. That’s Zoë, your granddaughter. You know Zoë. Who am I?’

  Heidigran stared at her and chuckled, as if they were playing a game. ‘Rachel,’ she said.

  ‘No, I’m Hilly. Gran, who’s Rachel?’

  ‘You’re Rachel. That’s a funny thing to ask me!’ Heidigran said plaintively. ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘Because you keep talking about her. I showed you the photo, do you remember?’

  ‘Yes,’ Heidigran said, in a troubled voice. ‘I think so.’

  The moment was broken by the sound of a key turning in the lock. Hilly stood, expecting Heidigran to panic, to rush to the front door, start worrying again about bad men and locks. But Heidigran sat back calmly, remarking, ‘That’ll be Rose, I expect.’

  Hilly looked up with relief as her mother entered the room, in trainers, exercise shorts and a zipped lycra top.

  ‘You’ll catch your death, going about dressed like that!’ Heidigran said sharply.

  Hilly giggled, and her mother said, ‘What? On a warm day in August? I thought you’d be out in the garden, Mum!’

  ‘We’re having tea,’ said Heidigran. ‘Zoë’s making tea for us all.’

  Just like Happy Families, Hilly thought, for the moment at any rate. It was a relief to let Heidigran’s puzzling remarks take precedence over the inevitable row with Zoë. Hilly found Heidigran’s knitting and tuned the radio to Classic FM, then followed her mother upstairs, knowing she’d be heading for the shower.

  ‘Mum?’

  ‘Mm?’ Rose was in her bedroom, in a white towelling bathrobe, freeing her hair from the high ponytail she wore for exercise classes.

  ‘Gran was saying the weirdest things. Something about bad men coming in. I thought at first she must have been frightened of burglars in Banbury, or something – but she’s never been burgled, has she? And then she said something about bad men taking her daddy away, and I realized she meant back in Germany.’

  ‘Oh, dear,’ said Rose. ‘She often rambles, but that’s a new one.’

  ‘Gran’s never wanted to talk much about her life in Cologne,’ said Hilly. ‘Remember when I tried to interview her for my history project? She hardly told me anything – it was practically useless. But bad men ? And something about it not really being a business trip and her dad not being at the station. And she called me Rachel again.’

  ‘Bad men,’ Rose said slowly. ‘The bombers, did she mean? The RAF who bombed Cologne? She might think they deliberately killed her parents.’

  ‘No, I don’t think that’s what she meant.’ Hilly propped herself against the door-frame. ‘She keeps going on about locking the door.’

  ‘Oh, yes, she did that the other night,’ said Rose. ‘Didn’t tell you, did I? Dad found her down in the hall at half-past two in the morning, saying the door wasn’t locked. He had to show her five times, and she still went down again afterwards to check. I don’t suppose we’ll get any sense out of her. Maybe she meant looters? There’d have been looters, wouldn’t there, raiding the bombed-out houses?’

  ‘Mm. Maybe,’ Hilly said doubtfully. She moved aside to let her mother through to the hall and the bathroom.

  ‘It’s a feature of Alzheimer’s,’ said Rose’s voice through the open bathroom door, ‘not being able to remember what’s happened in the last five minutes, but having clear memories from years and years ago. And it’s going to get worse.’

  But I want to know, Hilly thought; and there’s only Gran to tell me. Once her memory goes completely, it’ll all be lost, her past, and we’ll never know what she meant; what’s there, somewhere, tangled in her brain. Eventually, Heidigran will die of Alzheimer’s – the part of Hilly’s mind that knew this was able to contemplate it quite emotionlessly – and then everything will be gone for ever. We’ll be left with a few pieces of jigsaw that no one else can possibly fit together.

  I must go back to Gran’s house, she decided; get Mum or Dad to take me, see if there are more pieces to be found.

  Rose turned on the shower. ‘Be a love, Hilly, and bring my tea up for me when it’s ready?’

  Hilly went downstairs; Gran was contentedly knitting, Zoë pouring tea in the kitchen. For all her resolve to open the conversation as tactfully as possible, to avoid Zoë flying into a rage, Hilly found herself saying waspishly: ‘Nice of you to show such concern for Saeed. You knew I’d been at the hospital, didn’t you? Doesn’t it even cross your mind to ask how he is?’

  ‘Oh, fine – start on that again, why don’t you? What’s it to me? I told you I wasn’t there!’

  ‘Thought you might just show a bit of concern – one human being to another, you know? But, right, it’s nothing to you.’

  Zoë slammed the fridge door. ‘Bunch of blokes get into a fight? Happens every night of the week. Even you must know that.’

  ‘Yes, except there was only one bunch. Bunch of your friends, and Saeed on his own. Not quite the same thing, is it – three yobs and one Arab boy? Now, about this band practice you were having. I’d be very interested to know how you could have been having a band practice, when three of the members were beating up Saeed in a back alley.’

  ‘Oh, so I’m a liar now?’

  ‘Just possibly.’

  ‘I just don’t get you. I’m a liar, but poxy little what’s-his-face has got to be telling the truth, is that it? When it comes to choosing between your own sister and some slimy little poofter, you’ll take the other side, won’t you, every time? Every bloody time!’

  ‘Zoë – did you tell your friends about Saeed and Reuben?’

  Zoë flushed. ‘What’s to tell? Bloody obvious, isn’t it?’

  ‘So you did! D’you want Reuben beaten up, as well? Zoë, don’t you know what they’re like, your so-called friends?’

  ‘I know what you’re like. Don’t I just – Miss Shining Halo, Miss Squeaky-Clean. Now get off my back, for God’s sake!’

  ‘Zoë, wait. I want to know about the band practice.’

  ‘Yeah – well, get this. OK, there wasn’t a band practice.’

  ‘So you were lying?’

  ‘It was better than a band practice. We were having sex, Grant and me – heaving, sweaty sex. Got that? Jealous, are you?’

  ‘Jealous?’ Hilly flung back, recovering. ‘Of you having under-age sex with a racist moron?’

  Zoë tossed her head. ‘Don’t suppose you’d understand – you’d rather hang round with queers for some peculiar reason—’

  ‘You, young madam!’ They both turned t
o see Heidigran standing in the doorway. ‘You want your bottom smacked, talking like that!’

  Zoë was shocked into silence for a few seconds, then she gave a spluttering laugh.

  ‘And where’s my tea?’ Heidigran demanded. ‘You’re taking long enough. Are there any biscuits?’

  ‘Go and sit down,’ Zoë said. ‘I’m just fetching it.’ She pushed her grandmother back in the direction of her chair, and muttered to Hilly, ‘Christ! How much do you think she heard? What if she tells Mum?’ She picked up the tray.

  ‘Well, if you choose to broadcast it at the top of your voice—’

  The front doorbell shrilled. ‘I’ll get that,’ Zoë said, plonking the tray down on the work surface, sloshing tea. Assimilating what Zoë had said – thinking of Grant’s piercing blue eyes, his golden skin, his lean body, and wondering if she did, in fact, feel a tiny bit envious – Hilly mopped up the mess and found a packet of biscuits in the cupboard. She carried the tray through to the front room, and almost dropped the lot as she took in the scene.

  Zoë, angry and scowling. Heidigran crouching behind her armchair, knitting wool and needles scattered over the floor. And a uniformed policewoman, WPC Jo, smiling uncertainly.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Snakes and Ladders

  Letter from Eric Thornton to his parents

  Uncle Donald did firewatching at night, so he kept odd hours, going to bed at dawn and getting up in the afternoon. His meal times were upside-down and back to front, he said. When Sarah got home from school he would be reading the paper, his shirtsleeves rolled up. After tea, the two of them sometimes played board games together, Ludo or Snakes and Ladders. Occasionally Auntie Enid played too, more often just Uncle Donald and Sarah. All the games were kept in a cardboard box whose lid was battered from use, with split corners. It was called a Compendium of Games. Sarah was fascinated by the Snakes and Ladders board – the ladders that could carry you on a swift short-cut through eight or even ten rows, and the brightly coloured snakes, zigzag patterned, with grinning mouths and forked tongues, that waited to slither you down. There was one particularly vicious snake, thick and fat as if gorged on countless victims, that twined its way from nearly the top of the board to the very bottom row, back to the start.