‘Let me help you with that.’ My caseworker at Mulberry fastens the buttons on my dress that my shaking fingers can’t quite manage. ‘Your husband is waiting for you in reception. He’s bringing you back afterwards?’
‘Yes.’ My voice is hoarse with the tears I have already shed this morning.
‘Are you sure you’re up to it, Leah?’
This I don’t answer. I’m not up to it. Is anyone ever ready to let go of someone they love?
George doesn’t ask if I’m okay. He knows I’m not. We don’t talk on the way to the church, my head is too full of worries for words. Should I have let Archie come even though he’s only four and barely knew his aunt? Should I have travelled in the procession behind the hearse? Endlessly I think of Carly. Where is she? Is she okay?
Will she turn up today?
The car crawls along the High Street, through the lunchtime traffic. I’ve only been at Mulberry for a few days but the world outside, it feels too big. Too overwhelming. Brighter and louder than I had remembered it.
I clasp my gloved hands tightly together on my lap and keep my eyes lowered. Already I’ve started Acceptance and Commitment therapy at Mulberry and I don’t want to negate the scant progress I have made with a sighting of him, real or imagined.
Simon.
My father.
I haven’t spoken to Mum but when she wrote to tell me she’d like to be the one to make the arrangements today, she reassured me that Simon wouldn’t be at the funeral out of respect for me.
Respect.
We park. It takes several deep breaths before I can climb out of the car and walk towards the church. The sight of Marie’s name in white flowers is a blow to the abdomen and I fold into myself. If my arm wasn’t linked through George’s I would have fallen to the ground.
I can’t cope.
I’m caught between panic and utter despair.
‘Let’s do this,’ Marie had said, hands on her hips, preparing to dance.
I count in my head five, six, seven, eight over and over again as I shuffle forward, staring at my feet, until somehow I am in the church. The smell of beeswax and roses fills my nostrils. I raise my face and my eyes meet Marie’s. She’s smiling out of the photo resting on her coffin. It’s an old picture, her hair is still red. We look identical.
I have lost a piece of myself.
Sorrow is a solid weight in my chest. It’s hard to move.
George grasps my hand as we take a slow walk past the pews – not as empty as I’d feared; hordes of theatre people have come to pay their respect.
Marie was loved. She just hadn’t known it.
Carly is loved but she doesn’t know it.
And me? I slide into a row beside my husband. He hasn’t once let go of me.
The vicar speaks of Marie’s life. Her achievements. The roles she played, but he doesn’t mention the most important role of all.
The sister that she was.
It is unspeakable to me that everyone might leave not knowing that, but the thought of standing up, walking to the lectern is unimaginable. I can’t.
Let’s do this.
I can’t, Marie. I’m not brave enough.
Acting is easy. You just pretend.
And so I pretend to be braver than I feel. My legs are paper-doll precarious as I shuffle to the front, feeling the tear-bright eyes of the mourners on my back.
‘I just…’ I clear my throat. ‘I want to say a few words about my sister. Marie. We were twins but she never stopped reminding me that she was twelve minutes older than me. She took her role of big sister very seriously, as did Carly who…’ – I scan the faces in front of me hopefully, just in case – ‘who… isn’t… can’t be here today. You all know what we went through twenty years ago. The Sinclair Sisters. The Stolen Sisters, the press called us – but we were so much more than that. Marie was so much more than that. I was frightened. Terrified… much as I feel today, but Marie… Marie made up games while we were trapped in that room. Made up stories of dragons and princesses.’ Grief is my dragon with fiery breath and scorching heat. Beads form on my top lip. I wipe them away. ‘In Marie’s stories we always ended up with medals for courage, and that is what I wish her to be remembered for. Her courage. Her kindness. The way she always tried to protect the people she loved.’
In my head I promise her that this will be her legacy. That no one will ever find out that she knew what my parents had planned. I almost feel her little finger linking around mine.
A pinkie promise can’t be broke
Or you’ll disappear in a puff of smoke
This is my vow to you,
I’ll keep my promise through and through.
A whispered breath of thank you, against my neck.
I stumble back to my seat. The music begins. Annie promising us that the sun will come out tomorrow.
Later, the last of the mourners have retreated to the pub. George is waiting in the car to give me some space while I say my final goodbye. It’s hard to believe that Marie is under the heaped earth. Once more trapped in a small, dark, space.
‘Is this all my fault?’ Mum slips into the space beside me.
I am about to say yes when I turn my head and register the anguish on her face. She has lost a child. I can’t even begin to imagine.
‘I don’t know. There are many paths that lead us to the same place.’ Who’s to say Marie wouldn’t always have turned out an addict? I think of the small girl with her big dreams of stardom who just wanted to be universally adored and I want to weep.
‘I didn’t think Carly would miss this,’ Mum says.
‘Carly’s broken. She coped with so much. If it wasn’t for her…’
‘Tell me,’ Mum cut in.
‘What?’
‘Tell me what it was like. What you said about Marie’s stories. Her games. I want to hear it. All of it.’
So I tell Mum the details that she’d never wanted to know. That Carly escaped but she came back for me and Marie. She fought men three times as big and a hundred times scarier to set us free. That when we were cold and scared we sang and danced. Together.
‘When Marie was ill Carly kept her calm, held back her hair and cleaned her up. I was beside myself, thinking she was going to die, but Carly never showed us she was scared, not once. When the door was left open Carly could have left us, she’d have been quicker on her own, particularly after I twisted my ankle but she was always… there.’ Tears gather but I don’t let them fall. ‘She never let us down. Not once.’
‘I am sorry,’ Mum says. ‘For all of it… so is your dad.’
‘I don’t want to talk about him. How could you even bear to visit him? I know that you did.’
‘Because… Because he’s sorry. Because part of loving is forgiving and because—’
‘How could you forgive him?’
‘He’s forgiven you.’
‘For what?’
Mum holds my gaze. ‘For all those extra years he served in prison. For being beaten almost daily by the other inmates. For being put on the Sex Offenders Register, effectively ruining all his future job prospects, meaning he’ll always have to look over his shoulder.’
‘When did he find out it was me?’ There is no point denying it. There have been enough lies.
‘Within a couple of days of being arrested. You can find out most things in prison. Criminals know other criminals. It only took a few packets of fags for him to find out your name.’
‘Why didn’t he tell the police it was me?’
‘Because… Because you’d have been arrested and… he felt he deserved it. All of it and worse. Like I said, he’s sorry.’
I can’t speak for a minute.
‘Mum?’ I ask. ‘Are you seeing him again? That day I came to your house… the steak? I thought I saw somebody inside.’
‘Yes. I am. I know you won’t approve or understand but we’re moving away. To Scotland. I don’t want you girls to have to worry about seeing him around.’
> ‘Again. You’re putting him before us again?’
‘Leah…’ Mum’s eyes glisten. ‘If you want me to stay, I’ll stay.’
I think about the unhappiness we have all suffered. The potential for happiness that is within her grasp. I don’t know if I will ever stop resenting her for what happened. If I stop her being with him – Simon – she might never stop resenting me.
‘Go,’ I give her my blessing.
She doesn’t speak but opens her arms and, although I hesitate, I step into them for the first time in years. It is both a hello and a goodbye.
She releases me. I blow my nose and dry my eyes as I watch her leave. She doesn’t look back.
On the way to the car I notice a shadow slip behind the trees. A halo of glossy blonde hair.
I think it’s Carly but I can’t be sure and by the time I get there, she is gone.
Chapter Eighty-One
Leah
Now
George rings the doorbell when he comes to see Archie, which feels odd. He still slots in here. The last puzzle piece of our beautiful, broken, healing family. Since I left Mulberry he has been renting a small place in town on a month-by-month basis. During our time apart I’ve been building on the work I started at the hospital. I’ve a new counsellor – a man this time – and slowly I’m learning to live again. I am choosing who I want to be and I want to be happy. I hope Carly is too, wherever she is.
I miss her.
She hasn’t been in touch, not once.
I think about her every single day.
These past few weeks George’s visits have stretched beyond the time Archie is tucked up in bed. Often, evenings find George sitting in one armchair, and me in the other. Steaming mugs of coffee and a plate of biscuits on the table between us, forming a barrier. At first we skirted around the real issues, clinging to the superficial that was less painful. Firing minor irritations across the room – the loo seat being left up, is it fair it’s always one person who empties the bin or does the shopping. We talked in circles – tag; you take the blame now – until one of us yawned and I’d show him to the door like the visitor he’d become, watching as he strode down the driveway, shoulders hunched, breath clouding from the mouth that hadn’t kissed me goodnight.
Eventually we talked about Francesca, of course we did.
‘Have you had any contact with her?’ I asked.
‘No.’
‘You would say no. How can I trust you?’ It was my stock reply.
‘I don’t know.’ George looked sad. ‘I can’t tell you how, I can only hope that one day you can.’
‘Did you think about me when you were with her?’
‘Every time. I felt horrible.’
‘Did you think about her with you were with me?’
‘Leah…’
‘Well, did you?’ I wanted to know everything; when it started, how often he saw her, how it felt. I cried every single time, and at first so did he.
I had spoken to Francesca on the phone. Just once. She couldn’t have been more sorry. At first I thought she was worried I’d report her for professional misconduct but as her apologies tumbled down the receiver I realized she was genuine. In her own way she cares about me, as does George. He was just at a loss to know how to help me. I get that. I had no idea how to help myself.
But now I do.
Once I had thought women who take men back after affairs were weak but, although I think sleeping with somebody else is inexcusable, it has taken strength for me to admit my share of responsibility for our problems.
Just like being happy, I could choose whether to forgive or not. I had already lost so much. Mum, Dad, Marie and Carly.
‘You’re stronger than I have given you credit for,’ George told me after I’d explained what had happened in the decontamination chamber with Carly. How my injuries were self-inflected.
‘We have to fight for the ones we love,’ I told him, and that’s what we’re doing. Fighting for love. For each other. The thing I have learned is this: nothing is irreparable. My sense of safety, my trust, my hope. It may feel spiderweb-fragile, easily swept away, but it can be rebuilt if I want it enough.
And I do.
We became gentler as we picked at the cracks in our marriage, peering in to see if there was any way we could possibly fill them, and we are. With hope and understanding, and love. We’re filling them with love. Little by little we’re healing from the inside out.
There’s been a change, a shift. Our conversations are not only deep and heavy but more and more peppered with lightness. Laughter. The do you remember when tales that everyone with a joint history has. The ones that are nice to share. We sip our wine. Hands wrapped around glasses, itching to touch each other. I wanted to take it slow.
We sit on the sofa together now, me with my legs tucked under me, leaning against one arm, him with his elbow resting on the other, still a distance between us, but perhaps not quite so far. I want to bridge the gap entirely.
‘George.’ His eyes meet mine, there’s an unspoken question in them, and then an understanding. Relief. He comes closer, leans in.
Our lips meet and I can almost hear Marie chanting, ‘Leah and George sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G.’
We break away. He tenderly tucks a strand of hair behind my ear; it’s still long, still red.
I’m still me.
We’re still us.
Epilogue
Leah
Eight months later
‘Mummy!’ My son’s face is pure joy as I walk into the kitchen. Archie is my warmth on this biting autumn morning. ‘My rucksack is all packed.’
‘Great.’ I crouch and clip the lead onto the dog’s collar while George zips up Archie’s coat before tugging his bobble hat over his head. ‘You can come along for the ride, pooch.’
‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ George looks at me with concern. ‘You know we don’t have to.’
‘It’ll be exciting for Archie and good for me to see it.’
‘Can we get a hot chocolate afterwards? With cream. Please!’ Archie pleads.
‘Yes.’ I ruffle his hair. I wouldn’t normally encourage such a hit of sugar in the morning, but then this is a special occasion.
It’s the day I’ve been waiting for.
The sky is dull and grey, which seems fitting. The windscreen wipers swish intermittently, although it’s more moist air than drizzle dampening the windscreen. I watch the scenery flash by, absent-mindedly running my fingers over yesterday’s new tattoo; a comma. I was terrified of infection and threw up beforehand, but I did it.
‘Can you pull in here?’ I gesture to a lay-by next to a café. ‘I think we could do with that warming drink to take with us, don’t you?’
Archie squeals in excitement and launches himself out of the car. I think how wonderful it would be to see the world through a five-year-old’s eyes. Finding the joy in something most of us would take for granted – complain about even, I think as I look at the queue.
Eventually it is our turn.
‘Three hot chocolates, please.’ Archie beams his biggest smile.
‘I think we only want two,’ George turns to me. ‘You haven’t brought your cup, have you?’
‘No. But I’ll have one, thanks,’ I say to the barista. I can feel George still staring at me in shock. Inside I am a mass of delight and pride with a hint of trepidation. The Acceptance and Commitment therapy I’ve been using seems to be working for me in a way that other methods haven’t, which isn’t to say I’ll drink the chocolate that’s now being topped with a heap of swirling cream, but I’m willing to try.
Small steps.
It is properly raining when we get there.
‘We’ll stay in the car and watch,’ George says to Archie. ‘Snuggly and warm.’
There are only a handful of spectators. An elderly man in a wheelchair in full army uniform, medals pinned on his chest. Someone – I’m guessing his daughter – holding a black umbrella over his head.<
br />
A reporter from the local newspaper scowls from under his hood, his cameraman shielding his lens with his hand.
There’s a clutch of people gathered at the wire fence. I’m not sure why they are here but I’m sure they have a reason. We all have a history, don’t we? Tonight, a party has been planned in one of the local pubs. The community will celebrate the demolition of the site that attracts the true-crime ghouls. The demolition of their guilt that Simon was one of their own.
It is time.
Archie scrambles into the front of the car, dragging his rucksack behind him. He settles himself on George’s lap and unzips his bag.
Carefully he unpacks his bright plastic toys: Scoop, Muck, Dizzy, Roley and Lofty, lining the construction vehicles from Bob the Builder on the dashboard.
‘Are you ready?’ he asks them sweetly. ‘Those big machines out there are going to flatten this site.’ He claps his hands excitedly, making me jump. ‘And then they’re going to build some houses. The soldiers don’t need this place any more, do they, Mummy?’
‘No, Archie. No one needs it.’
The wrecking ball begins to swing.
‘Can you see, Dizzy?’ Archie asks his orange cement mixer, leaning forward to listen for the answer. ‘He says he can see.’
I can see.
I can see three young girls kicking and screaming as they are carried inside. I can see a filthy room where the girls sang and danced, watched over by a clown with a shock of orange hair. I can see three sisters huddled together on a mattress, promising to always be there for each other.
I can see it all.
‘I’ll be back soon.’ My eyes find George’s and I shake my head before he asks. No, I don’t want him to come with me.
‘Do you want your gloves? It’s freezing outside?’ He lifts them from the centre console.
‘No.’ I don’t want my gloves today, or any day. Now, I like to feel.
Outside the car, the noise and the vibrations from the wrecking ball are immense. The main building is almost rubble, the NORCROFT ARMY CAMP sign hidden under a cloud of dust. As I pass behind the soldier, I reach out a hand and squeeze his shoulder, wondering if in his mind he’s back in that ballroom – a blue-eyed boy with cropped blond hair, hovering by the refreshment table and summoning up the courage to ask a girl to dance while Vera Lynn sings ‘We’ll Meet Again’, just the way Carly had described.
The Stolen Sisters: from the bestselling author of The Date and The Sister comes one of the most thrilling, terrifying and shocking psychological thrillers of 2020 Page 28
