The Sea Sisters

by Clarke, Lucy

  ‘That’s a terrible thing to say.’

  He ran the back of his hand along his forehead, wiping away the moisture. ‘Perhaps a better man would have overcome his jealousies. I was desperate to love you both equally, I truly was,’ he implored. ‘But I could never get past the fact that Mia wasn’t mine.’

  Her world slowed down to contain only his last words: Mia wasn’t mine.

  *

  The blood drained from Katie’s face and her legs felt weak. She gripped the edges of the sink behind her. ‘I don’t under—’ but she did understand. She saw it all clearly now. ‘You are not Mia’s father.’

  The surprise was his, too. ‘I thought you knew?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘But you … you said Mia had told you about her visit?’

  ‘I read it. Her journal. She wrote that she came here – you sent her away.’

  His eyes widened. ‘She came back – it was a few days later.’ He put both hands behind his neck. ‘Jesus! I can’t believe you didn’t know.’ He paced onto the deck, then turned back towards the doorway as if unsure where to anchor himself. ‘When Mia came here the second time she was angry. She wanted answers. I either had to shut the door on her again, or give them to her.’

  A wave of nausea swirled in Katie’s stomach. She spun to face the sink and took slow breaths through her nose. Somewhere within the house the shrill ringing of a phone began. Neither of them moved. When the phone stopped she turned to face him. ‘Am I your daughter?’

  ‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘You are.’

  The truth tasted bitter. She imagined Mia learning this, the discovery shattering the foundations of her family. Katie despised Mick suddenly – couldn’t bear to be near him. Her chest felt tight. She needed space to think.

  ‘I am sorry for all of this,’ he offered, and she could see that he was.

  She left the kitchen and moved along the hallway, eager to leave.

  ‘Katie—’

  She paused, but didn’t turn.

  His voice was tentative as he asked, ‘Will I see you again?’

  She turned then and looked at him. He was no longer the exuberant but aloof presence from her childhood memories; he was a man approaching sixty who had been absent for most of her life. Katie had done her growing up with a mother and sister she adored. He was too late. She shook her head.

  Mick sucked in his lips, nodding.

  All that mattered to her now was understanding how Mia had felt. She pushed through the front door and, by the time she reached the driveway, she was running.

  She ran as swiftly as she could in the direction of the hostel. She passed a woman walking two grey dogs on bright red leads, a surf shop where boards stood in a rack waiting to be hired, a tourist speaking into a payphone in a language she didn’t recognize. The heat engulfed her as she ran, turning her feet damp in her sandals and making her dress cling against her thighs. Eventually she reached the hostel and burst into her dorm, ignoring a young man talking into a headset on his laptop.

  She yanked Mia’s journal from the backpack and set it on her bunk. She flicked to the page she’d read up to this morning and pushed aside the ripped photo – Mia, with Katie no longer in the same frame. She kept turning the pages, skimming over a dinner Mia had with Finn, and past a visit to the airport when they couldn’t afford to change their tickets, and then onto a small sentence that had been circled: ‘I need to see him again.’

  Katie turned the page slowly, her heart in her mouth. This could change everything. This truth Mia was about to learn would rock even the strongest person. But if that person was already vulnerable, had already lost her mother, and felt things so deeply you could read her heart on her face, would this be enough to trigger a downwards spiral that took her so low, it seemed there was no way out?

  10

  MIA

  Maui, October Last Year

  Mia felt as if the room were filled with water and she was sinking, breathless. Her vision darkened. She tried to suck in air but all she swallowed were Mick’s words: You are not my daughter.

  Half an hour earlier she had been eating French toast at a breakfast bar with Finn and talking about their plans for Australia. Mid-sentence, Mia stopped short. Across the street she had seen Mick. He was carrying a box of groceries and had paused to talk to a man with a thinning ponytail. Mick said something, the other man laughed, and then they walked on separately. She watched him cross the road and return in the direction of his house.

  Finn, who had followed her gaze, asked, ‘Is that him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You should speak to him.’ She was surprised by the firmness in his tone and when she turned, she saw his jaw was set.

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘I will, then,’ he said, standing.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘The guy is an arsehole, Mia. You’ve travelled all this way.’

  ‘Finn, don’t,’ she said, her hand on his arm.

  He looked at her for a long moment. Then his face softened. ‘Sorry, it’s not my place. I just hate seeing you upset.’

  After visiting Mick four days ago, Mia kept catching herself in imagined conversations, airing all the things she wished she’d said. She owed it to herself to stop imagining and act. ‘You’re right. I do need to talk to him.’

  Leaving her knife and fork splayed on her plate, she said, ‘I’ll meet you back at the hostel.’

  She jogged lightly to Mick’s house with the sun prickling at the back of her neck. When she arrived, she ignored the bell and rapped three times on the front door. A moment later, Mick answered, holding a punnet of tomatoes.

  ‘Mia.’ He didn’t look surprised to see her, more resigned as if he was about to undertake a task he’d hoped to avoid. ‘I think we need to talk.’

  They had moved through to the kitchen where the box of groceries waited on the counter beside a packet of pasta and two courgettes. Mick put down the tomatoes and faced her.

  This time, Mia did not lose her voice. It was strong and level as she said, ‘I want you to know that I haven’t come to Maui to ask you to be a father to me – I’ve come here to understand why you left. I deserve that, at least.’

  ‘You do.’ He looked at her closely. ‘I’m only afraid you won’t like the answer.’

  She waited.

  ‘Perhaps we should sit down.’

  ‘What is it?’ she said, not moving an inch.

  Mick squeezed the bridge of his nose. ‘I am sorry, Mia, but you are not my daughter.’

  And that was how it came out.

  ‘Here,’ Mick said, taking her by the elbow, ‘you need air.’ He led her onto the decking and helped her into a chair. She bent forwards, putting her head between her knees. Mick opened the parasol in the centre of the table, casting her into shade.

  He fetched a glass of water and placed it in front of her. She sat up slowly and lifted it to her lips.

  Mick pulled out a chair opposite.

  ‘Katie?’ Her voice was small. She had lost the thunder and conviction of earlier.

  He nodded. ‘She’s mine.’

  Katie was his. She wasn’t. Mick stood between them like an impossible divide.

  ‘I had always thought your mother would have told you.’

  Of course her mother had known. How could she have kept this from her?

  ‘When you came here a few days ago,’ Mick said, shaking his head, ‘I was staggered you thought I was your father.’

  She remembered his shock when she announced, ‘I’m Mia. Your daughter.’

  ‘I feel terrible for asking you to leave. I’d convinced myself that it wasn’t my place to tell you the truth when Grace hadn’t. Pathetic, I know.’

  She wished she hadn’t come here, wished she hadn’t flown to Maui. But it was too late to rewind now. She had no choice but to go forward. ‘Who is he?’

  Mick crossed his legs and set his hands in his lap. ‘His name was Harley.’

  ‘But yo
u and Mum were married…’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She had an affair?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mia would never have expected that. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Not until later,’ he answered. Then he added, ‘Although perhaps I always suspected.’

  She looked beyond Mick, out to sea. A light breeze made ripples across the water that glittered in the sunlight.

  ‘Your father was a musician,’ he offered. ‘The front man of a band I managed, the Black Ewe.’

  She straightened, remembering the photo she found in her mother’s belongings – Mick alongside a band called the Black Ewe. On the reverse, her mother had written the names of the men: ‘Harley’ had been written in the centre, beside ‘Mick’. She pictured the man with the black hair who stared intently at the camera. Or, as she now realized, at the person holding it.

  ‘You knew him, then. You were … friends?’

  ‘He was my brother.’

  Her skin grew hot.

  ‘We both met your mother on the same night, after a gig. We were at the bar when she was introduced to us. I happened to offer her a drink first – and it was me, six months later, who married her.’ He shrugged. ‘But as it turned out, Harley was in love with her too.’

  ‘How did the affair start?’

  ‘Distraction and disillusion, I imagine. I was distracted by my career and Grace was disillusioned by her husband.’ He lit a cigarette and took a long draw, the ember glowing red. ‘Mia, back then I was a different person. When the Black Ewe took off, I was so fired up about the music and about success, family life took a back seat. I booked tour after tour and was out of the country more often than I was in it. Grace got left at home with a young baby. I think she knew my lifestyle on the road wasn’t entirely savoury – there were drugs and plenty of booze, and other women too.’

  ‘So she turned to Harley?’

  ‘Yes. I didn’t blame them for the affair. I hadn’t been a good husband. Or brother.’

  ‘Did he love her?’

  ‘Very much,’ he answered without hesitating. ‘But his love was too intense, obsessive almost. Grace’s feelings could never match his and I think the ferocity of his love scared her.’

  Mick lifted the cigarette to his lips again and Mia shifted to avoid the drift of smoke. She levelled her gaze at the water, noticing white caps forming on the tips of waves. ‘When Mum was pregnant with me … did you know that the baby wasn’t yours?’

  ‘Yes, but Harley didn’t.’ He tapped the ash from his cigarette. ‘Grace said she’d end the affair and come back to me if I could accept Harley’s baby as my own. I thought of the alternative: her leaving me for him. Jealousy and pride are powerful emotions. I dropped the Black Ewe from my label, cut Harley out of our lives, and stayed.’

  She wondered how her life might have been altered by that one decision.

  ‘It was so much harder than I expected. You were a constant reminder of what had happened between Grace and Harley. You were just a tiny baby – none of this was your fault – but every time I looked at you, I saw him.’ He stared at her closely. ‘You’re so much like him. God, your eyes! I should have seen it the instant you arrived. His were the same emerald green. Your mother always said how unusual Harley’s eyes were. You have his hair, too, but your mother’s smile.’

  ‘You left because of me?’

  ‘I realized that I would never be a good father to you. So, yes, I left.’ He held the memory of what that end point was in his gaze, but chose not to share it and Mia did not ask.

  He stubbed out his cigarette.

  Mick had left Katie and her mother because he didn’t love her enough. She felt as if she’d been tossed around in the ocean, buffeted by waves until she was exhausted and weak. She was desperate to leave but there was still one more thing she needed to know.

  ‘Harley,’ she said, the name feeling alien on her tongue. ‘Do you know where he is now?’

  ‘Sorry, Mia, but he died a long time ago.’

  It was just another fact in a sea of things she’d discovered today. There was too much to feel – she knew there’d be plenty of time when she would feel all of this acutely. For now, she let it wash through her and asked, ‘When?’

  ‘Years back – he was twenty-four.’

  Her eyebrows rose at that. ‘So young. What happened?’

  ‘It was such a long time ago,’ he said, as if that would be enough.

  ‘What happened to him?’ she repeated.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mia.’

  A needling of anxiety began at her brow. ‘I need to know.’

  He sighed. ‘My brother was complex. He had so much talent. He was a phenomenal songwriter – a poet, really. I’ve never heard lyrics that touch his. His fans saw this wild, irrepressible man on stage launching himself into the crowd or dancing like he was possessed – but none of them knew how much he had to drink before he came on.’ The breeze toyed with the edge of the parasol and blew a dusting of ash across the table. Mick brushed it away, smudging grey streaks into the wood.

  ‘Harley wasn’t always an easy person to get on with. He was very up and down. Things that washed off other people’s backs, ate Harley up. He thought deeply about everything. It made him insular sometimes, and he could go for days without speaking to anyone. Other times he was wild, completely out of control.’ Mick paused; thought for a moment. ‘If I’m honest, I’m not sure he ever truly liked himself.’

  Mia felt a shiver travel along the nape of her neck: in a handful of sentences Mick had described her.

  ‘After Grace, he lost sight of everything, even his music. The band split up, I was gone, and he drained his money on booze and drugs. In a matter of months, he’d lost it all. He was a wreck.’ He sighed. ‘We were close, once. He was an astounding musician, but fronting a band never suited him. It was me that pushed him to do it. I had the business brain but not the talent. And I resented him for that.’

  Mick wiped at a streak of ash he’d missed. ‘I knew him better than anyone, so I understood exactly how hard it would have been for him after Grace. I heard he was feeling low, but I never called him.’ Mick looked past Mia as if she were no longer there and he was alone with his memories. ‘I was his brother. I knew how deeply he felt things.’ His eyes were glassy. ‘It was my responsibility to look after him, but my pride got in the way. I’ll always be sorry for that.’

  ‘What happened?’ she asked, nervous now.

  He looked at her and she saw the sadness in his face. ‘Harley was found dead in a hotel room.’ His voice didn’t hold as he said, ‘He hanged himself.’

  *

  Dazed, Mia returned the way she had come, but everything had changed.

  She wasn’t Mick’s daughter.

  Her father had committed suicide.

  Her mother had kept it a secret.

  Katie was her half-sister.

  The sun blazed down against the crown of her head as she hurried along the pavement with her eyes to the ground. Her breathing was ragged and she could hear the blood pounding in her ears. Everything she believed had been a lie.

  She had to call Katie. She needed to hear her voice. There was a payphone near the edge of town and she began to jog to it. Her legs felt disconnected from her brain. She ducked around two teenagers slurping milkshakes, then crossed the road, barely glancing to check the traffic.

  The front edge of her flip-flop caught on a crack in the concrete and she stumbled forward, stubbing her toes. She bent and snatched off both flip-flops and, clutching them in one hand, she ran, the pavement rough and hot beneath her feet.

  When she reached the payphone, she pulled her credit card from her wallet. Speak to Katie. Tell her everything. She lifted the receiver and slid the credit card into the slot.

  She heard the dialling tone and screwed her eyes tightly shut, trying to remember the international code for the UK. When it came to her, she stabbed in the numbers with trembling hands.

  A few seconds late
r, Katie answered. ‘Hello?’ The line crackled and fizzed, and Katie’s voice sounded distant, as though the two of them were already separated.

  Half-sisters.

  Half.

  She hated the term being applied to her and Katie, as it nailed a divide between her and all that remained of her family.

  She wanted to let the tears that were damming her throat flood free. She wanted to hear her sister, who would be both pragmatic and loving, tell her she would be okay, that she loved her. But spiky doubts crept into her thoughts. Might Katie love her just a fraction less? Hadn’t she always noticed how different Mia was from her? Wasn’t Mia the reason why Mick had left?

  ‘Hello?’ Katie repeated.

  Mia clamped her teeth over the words she couldn’t say and placed the phone lightly back in the receiver. She couldn’t tell her.

  Mia had needed to come to Maui to find out if she was a reflection of her father. And now she would have to live with what she’d discovered.

  11

  KATIE

  Western Australia, May

  The heat was inescapable and the flies ferocious, yet there was a rugged beauty in the vast, barren landscape of Western Australia. Katie had spent a month riding the backpacker bus south, following the entries in Mia’s journal. The endless stretches of flat, scrub-lined road became a kind of comfort as she rested her head against the bus’s sun-warmed window and was lulled and rocked into mindless oblivion.

  Now she had reached Lancelin, a small coastal town north of Perth where crayfish boats docked at the jetty each afternoon to unload their catch. She lay beside a concrete pool in the shade of a sun umbrella, the journal open in front of her. It was before ten but already the heat was fierce, the wind having not yet arrived.

  She glanced up as a plane cut a sharp line through the cloudless blue sky. It left behind a trail of white vapour, which she watched until it gently feathered away. Mia had once told her that jet trails were clouds that had been inhaled by a plane, then expired in a long white whoosh. Katie hadn’t corrected her. She was intrigued by the magical places Mia’s imagination wandered to and thought if she followed closely enough, she might glimpse those places, too.