The Prodigal Sister: An emotional drama of family secrets

by Laura Elliot

  ‘Are you all right?’ Rebecca taps the door, a bloodhound on the scent.

  ‘I’m fine.’ Lauren slides the blade back into its hiding place and opens the door.

  ‘Want to walk?’ Rebecca has pulled on her jeans and a sweater.

  ‘Might as well. I won’t sleep after Steve’s call.’

  Julie remains sleeping and Lauren wriggles into a dress and quietly opens the camper door.

  They walk along a tree-lined path. Tiny silver lights shine on the branches but, otherwise, the holiday park is in darkness.

  ‘Is he coming to the wedding?’ Rebecca is the first to break the silence.

  ‘He’ll be in Havenswalk before us.’

  I see.’

  ‘Why do you dislike him so much?’

  ‘I don’t dislike…oh, what does it matter what I think? If I thought you were happy—’

  ‘I am happy. How can you believe otherwise when you know what I was like before…you remember?’

  ‘You didn’t have to marry him. There were other ways—’

  ‘Pills and psychoanalysis. I’m familiar with the routine. It wasn’t for me.’

  ‘Niran Gordon—’

  ‘Is inconsequential. I’m not going to break up my marriage. I owe Steve so much.’

  ‘You owe him nothing.’

  ‘Except my sanity.’

  ‘Sanity is not your problem, Lauren. It’s fear of trusting your sanity that’s keeping you trapped.’

  ‘Rebecca, why don’t you say it out straight?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Trophy wife. Pampered doll. Take your pick.’

  ‘I wanted you to be free, Lauren. To be courageous and find your own happiness.’

  ‘Did love serve you well?’

  ‘At least I wasn’t afraid to experience it.’

  ‘But at what cost? I don’t want that kind of baggage in my life.’

  ‘Or children? I often think about the accident—’

  ‘Don’t!’

  ‘We never do. I never gave you permission to talk about them—’

  ‘Don’t…’ Even now, all those years later, their memory still has the power to strangle her vocabulary.

  Lauren draws away from her sister and turns towards the camper. ‘Let them rest in peace. It’s easier that way.’

  Chapter Fifty-three

  Rebecca’s Journal – 2003

  It’s OK to shed tears when the old year passes into the new. This year, I’m not going to make any resolutions. I never keep them. Last year I promised myself I’d find a reasonable excuse and refuse Lauren’s invitation to her New Year’s Eve drinks party. Failed again. I was there last night, raising my glass of champagne and kissing strangers.

  I searched her face for signs of stress but she appears happy, fulfilled. She has perfected the art of air kissing and is a confident hostess. Julie looked lovely. Six months at WeightWatchers has done the trick. Paul, too, looked well. They kissed each other so passionately at twelve o’clock I almost said, ‘Behave yourselves. I don’t want the neighbours talking.’

  That’s when I started to cry. Stupid carry-on! Thankfully, in the New Year euphoria, no one noticed and I hid in one of Lauren’s bathrooms until I was in control again. Then I ordered a taxi and slipped away. Back to the horses, their quiet breathing, their nuzzling gentle loving.

  Six months since Jeremy died. Six months! Unbelievable. I still don’t know how I feel. Lulu wants me to go for bereavement counselling. I suspect she’s afraid I’ll wander off into the woods and go crazy among the hollies and elderberry. What good will counselling do? Perhaps it might help me define my emotions…name the numbness. Is it grief, anger, betrayal…relief?

  Unlike my parents, Jeremy never knew what hit him. His death was due to a cerebral oedema, his brain swelling so quickly he died almost immediately. The cause of death was a lunch box falling from the sky–or, to be more accurate, a skyscraper scaffolding. Before I was escorted to the morgue, the doctor at the hospital relayed the details–academic information that I was unable to absorb–but the scene that greeted me when I entered the morgue could be absorbed at a glance.

  Julie was with me. She squeezed my hand, a different squeeze to the grief-stricken clasp that held us together on the flight to New York. This squeeze signalled the need for a different kind of courage but, at first, when I saw the woman standing beside Jeremy’s body, I thought she was an official, a liaison officer or even a plain-clothes policewoman. But the face of an official would not be ravaged from weeping. Her hands fluttered slightly when she saw me. Otherwise, she maintained her composure. She was dressed in chic black trousers and a knee-length black coat. I wore jeans and a brown leather jacket. No mistaking the widow. Before walking away, she bent over his body and kissed him. How could she bestow such passion on his rigid mouth? In that gesture, she laid her claim on him, revealed their history.

  How is it possible that life and death can be separated by a random decision? If Jeremy had hesitated before leaving her apartment and kissed Anna Kowalski, whose sheets were still warm from his body, he would be alive today. If he had paused to offer alms to a polite but homeless man, or stopped to view the sun between the chinks in the high-reaching glass towers, we would still be married. But he did not pause, nor did he look upwards in time to see his life flash in front of his eyes before it was extinguished.

  I wonder, sometimes, what was inside the lunch box that struck my husband’s head. Salami on rye, a cream bagel with onion seeds, mayonnaise or mustard? Did it belong to a carpenter, a plasterer, an electrician? I imagine this stranger who killed my husband poised wren-like above the Big Apple, the steel lunch box balanced on the ledge of the scaffold. I imagine the instant he moved and accidentally kicked it over the edge. I imagine it gaining speed, turning into a ballistic missile. I refuse to imagine the instant of impact.

  Anna Kowalski was waiting for me in the hotel foyer on the day I flew home. She showed me her ring, a solitaire mounted on a circle of tiny diamonds, and demanded to know why I was so shocked. She had been under the impression that Jeremy had confessed all, was already in the process of obtaining his divorce. She did not explain or apologise for their relationship. When he was unable to meet her in New York, she had flown to join him in far-flung places, and, occasionally, on his home territory. I asked her what she drank. Margaritas, she said. The only time her mask slipped was when she asked me to respect her grief and dispatch a small portion of his ashes to her. To my amazement I agreed and, in time, sent a small casket by special delivery. I did so on the advice of Olive Moran.

  Olive visited my sanctuary soon after his cremation. We now maintain a tentative friendship, sharing, as we do, common bonds of betrayal, childlessness, and have, in different ways, lost our husbands. She spoke of Mayan caves and Indian forts and Tibetan monasteries.

  ‘Karma,’ she said when I mentioned Anna’s request. ‘What goes around comes around.’

  Where does Anna keep the ashes in her chic New York apartment? I scattered him into Dublin Bay and walked away without looking back.

  Olive stayed for lunch, then left. She had a plane to catch. Unlike her successor, she travels light.

  Chapter Fifty-four

  Nelson

  They arrive in Nelson and haul their luggage from the interior of the camper. A young man rushes from the office and lifts Lauren’s suitcases into the street. Perhaps, Rebecca thinks, as she surrenders the keys, when they look back over their holiday, all their recollections will be condensed into those three suitcases, always in flagrant disarray as Lauren emptied out their contents in search of the perfect outfit to wear.

  They transfer their luggage to a hired car. Havenswalk is only a short drive away.

  ‘No way am I appearing before Cathy looking like a bush woman,’ Julie declares when they settle into the car. ‘How about it, Lauren, Rebecca? Want to find a friendly hairdresser who’ll transform us?’

  ‘Count me out,’ replies Rebecca. The thought of sitting i
n the heated atmosphere of a hair salon is intolerable. ‘I’ll have a wander round the city and see the sights while you’re having your hair done.’

  Lauren looks up from the coffee-ringed copy of Traversing New Zealand. ‘I wouldn’t mind some time on my own either. The Queens Gardens looks interesting.’

  ‘Don’t you want to be beautified before meeting your husband?’ asks Julie.

  ‘Why should I do that?’ Lauren’s hand moves lightly, almost absently over the contours of her face. Her nails are chipped, the cuticles cracked, and her hair, dried from the sun, needs urgent treatment.

  ‘No reason.’ Julie shrugs. ‘After living rough for three weeks, I thought you’d be beating down the door to the nearest beauty salon. Steve will—’

  ‘Steve will what?’ Lauren’s stare challenges her. ‘Want his princess in prime condition?’

  ‘Don’t go all dramatic on me, Lauren. All I suggested was a blow-dry. Go for your walk. I’ll see you both later.’

  Rebecca drives Julie to a beauty salon and continues onwards with Lauren to the Queens Gardens.

  ‘Would you like me to keep you company?’ She parks the car and turns to her sister, who is staring blankly out the window.

  ‘Would you be offended if I said no?’ Lauren rouses herself with an effort.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I’m not going to cut myself, if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘Rebecca, I always know what you’re thinking, but you’re wrong. I’m not falling apart. I’ve never felt better.’

  She lies with conviction but the strain is tearing at her face.

  Rebecca strolls aimlessly through the city. She is tired of doing touristy things. Wineries and galleries no longer interest her. Her body aches from the numerous activities that have given a focus to her days.

  Hardly aware of where she is going, she walks into a shopping mall and enters a fashion boutique. Alien territory and an impulse decision, immediately regretted. Amidst the rustle of chiffon, silk and viscose, she flounders and would have fled if a persistent saleswoman had not waylaid her and ushered her into a fitting room. When she discovers that Rebecca wants something to wear to her sister’s wedding, she hands her a succession of dresses, each one more outlandish than the previous one. Finally, having been persuaded to buy a midnight-blue dress with a low neckline and a ruffled hem, Rebecca splurges out on shoes and accessories. She shops with the same grim energy that helped to channel her fear throughout the journey.

  Her nephew has an identity, a father, a name, but Rebecca is unable to picture his face, can only imagine it as a blank canvas, his eyes devoid of colour, his features enigmatic, perhaps carrying Cathy’s strong wilful mouth, her nose with its cheeky upwards curve. She said he loves animals, as Rebecca does, and so she imagines his skilled hands calming sick animals, using a breathing, silent language that comforts them while he, in apron and gumboots, works by the light of a lantern to deliver a foal or, more likely, it being New Zealand, a lamb.

  Who does he resemble, she had asked Cathy and her sister side-stepped the question with platitudes about individualism. But they both know that the answer is all about seed and breed, genetic imprinting, generation upon generation, bending the branches of family trees with the weight of history.

  Chapter FIfty-five

  Havenswalk, Day One

  The wind is strong on the lake this morning. The turbulence increases as Conor steers his kayak between two small islands. He explored them once but, with only stunted trees and bush sprouting on the bare rock, there was nothing there to excite his imagination. But they are tricky to manoeuvre past and sometimes treacherous if he does not concentrate. He passes through the narrow channel, his blades riding the currents, steering him clear of submerged rocks.

  The last guests have departed Havenswalk. His mother calls them ‘guests’, but they pay at the end of their visit, unlike the real guests that have started to arrive. Robbie, Alma’s brother, is flying into Christchurch today. She has gone to meet him and they will overnight with friends before arriving in Havenswalk tomorrow. Steve Moran arrived yesterday in a flash rental Jaguar. Conor’s aunts will be here by evening time, and Mel…he pulls on the blades and increases speed…Mel will soon be in the swimming pool and he intends joining her there.

  He saw her earlier with his mother. They were sitting at the kitchen table, their heads bent together like they were sharing secrets, unaware that he was watching. He had seen his mother’s lips pucker, her face crease as if she was about to weep. Mel had clasped her hand and his mother’s shoulders had straightened. She said something quiet and forced a laugh that sounded more like a cry, and Mel, looking up, had seen him. He had moved away, walked quickly from Havenswalk towards the boathouse. Mel caught up with him as he was about to float his kayak. She sat on the jetty, her bare legs dangling, and claimed his mother was suffering from pre-wedding nerves. Every bride, she said, had the right to shed a few tears over her loss of freedom. How does she know? She calls marriage ‘bonded slavery’, and has loads of lovers, if the hints his mother drops are to be believed.

  She was wearing sandals, shorts and a top. Except for her jet-black Cleopatra hair, no one would have guessed she was a Goth. He wonders if she whips her lovers at night and wears high black boots with suspenders. Impossible to look her straight in the face since she became his fantasy. When he thinks about last night…the drowning pleasure…the stab of excitement almost sickens him. He pulls the blades under his kayak, a mistake that will lose him precious time in the Coast to Coast. Sandy, waiting patiently on the jetty, leaps upwards when Conor returns and licks his hand. He will bring his dog for a walk later but, for now, he wants to swim with Mel.

  To his disappointment, she is breakfasting with his uncle on the veranda. She calls Conor’s name and beckons him to join them but he keeps going, unwilling to share her with another man, even if he is a geriatric.

  ‘There’s one thing for sure,’ his uncle declared when he was introduced to Conor, ‘your father can never disown you. Put it there, young man.’ He offered his hand to Conor and winked as he slyly slipped two fifty-dollar notes into his palm.

  When Cathy protested, he said, ‘I’ve always looked after this family and I’m not going to stop now.’

  He wants to walk her up the aisle. Giving her away, is what he calls it. Conor imagines his mother gift-wrapped in a box and handed to Kevin at the altar. She must have felt the same way because she flashed that smile on him, the one she uses on difficult guests, and said, ‘The only person to escort me to the altar will be my son.’

  In the kitchen Ruthie is putting the finishing touches to the wedding cake. She intends icing the tiers in green, white and yellow. Conor wonders what his mother will think of this decision but Ruthie is a law unto herself when it comes to culinary matters.

  He fills a glass with water and drinks deeply.

  ‘What do you think, Conor?’ Ruthie stands back to examine the cake. ‘Will I put a little leprechaun on top?’

  ‘Murder the leprechaun if you want to continue working at Havenswalk,’ he advises, knowing the leprechaun will be in place when the cake is finally displayed.

  His parents’ bedroom door is open. He is relieved to find the room tidy, their clothes hanging in the wardrobe. It has changed since Kevin’s arrival, not so feminine any more. The cushions she used to scatter over the bed are gone and the duvet cover, once white with lace edgings, has been changed to a cream and maroon striped design. Kevin’s books are mixed with hers, his shaving lotions on the ensuite shelves beside her creams.

  Conor notices a Terry Pratchett book on the floor. His favourite author. Kevin finished reading it last week and has offered to lend it to him. When he stoops to pick it up, he notices the corner of a wicker basket sticking out from under the bed. He recognises it, even though it is years since he last saw it.

  When Havenswalk was being built, his mother used to make picnics, wh
ich they would eat among the rubble with the builders. He pulls out the basket, lifts the lid. Letters lie inside, divided into bundles and tied together with ribbons. He hesitates, reluctant to open someone’s private mail. The notepaper is crumpled and yellow with age. He pulls out a sheet of paper at random and studies a child’s handwriting. He can hardly make out the words: ‘Dear Mammy, This is Cathy. I hate school but Becks…’ His mother had obviously been writing a letter to her own mother.

  Intrigued by this glimpse into her childhood, he begins to read the letter. He smiles at her atrocious spelling. Wait until the next time she comments on his school report. Before he can finish it, the back door slams. Sandy barks. His mother orders the dog to hush. She calls Conor’s name. He shoves the basket back under the bed and runs to his room. When she taps on his door he yells that he is in the shower. Something about the letter puzzles him. Was his grandmother on holiday when his mother wrote to her? He steps from the shower and dries his hair. The date is wrong. He sees it clearly in his mind. October 1986. His mother must have confused her dates. Or else, he pauses, the towel draped over his shoulders, she was writing to a dead woman.

  She stands next to him in the evening when the car carrying his aunts comes through the blue gates. Conor winces when she grips his hand but he does not pull free. She wears a white dress with a red belt and matching shoes. The sun shines through the material and outlines her legs. He decides not to mention this in case it adds to her nervousness. She breathes fast, as if she has been racing towards this moment for a long time. His father stands behind them. His hands rest on their shoulders. Conor’s heart thumps as hard as it did on the beach in Sumner when he studied his father’s features and settled them like a second skin over his own.

  The car reappears from behind a screen of trees and draws nearer. He sees floppy sunhats and dark eyeshades, tanned shoulders, coloured tops, a hand with a turquoise bracelet waving from an open window.