The Liar's Sister (ARC)

by Sarah A. Denzil

  I am less than an hour’s walk from the cottage; this is a good spot to turn around and head back. I glance out past the bluebell field once more before turning away.

  My phone rings and a bird leaps into the air from a nearby tree. A robin. My heart flutters. I lean forward and catch my breath before answering.

  ‘Hello? Heather?’ I recognise the voice right away, and it does nothing to calm my startled heart. The woman on the line is one of the nurses taking care of Mum in hospital, and she could be calling me with bad news. Every minute of the day I find myself steeled for the possibility that Mum has slipped away in her sleep overnight, or that this is the moment I drop everything to go to her and keep her company through her last moments.

  ‘Yes. Is everything okay?’ I ask.

  ‘Your mum’s fine,’ Susie says, understanding why I’m anxious. ‘It’s just that she was asking about you this morning. I told her you’d be coming in, but I just wanted to check.’

  ‘I’ll be there,’ I say. ‘I’ve popped out for some fresh air, but I’ll be coming to the hospital this afternoon.’

  ‘Oh good. I thought so, but … Well, she’s a little agitated today.’

  ‘Are you sure she’s okay?’ My fingers grip the phone a little harder. Mum’s cancer has reached the incurable stage, and she will never be okay again. And yet I continuously find myself asking that question.

  ‘She’s no worse,’ Susie says in a gentle voice, answering as diplomatically as she can. ‘But she has been asking after someone else too. Rosie? Does that name mean anything to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ I say, the air leaving my lungs. Rosie. ‘She’s my older sister.’

  ‘Oh, wow, I didn’t know you had a sister.’

  ‘We haven’t seen each other for a long time. Rosie has … issues.’

  ‘Ah,’ she replies. ‘That could be why your mum’s thinking of her.’

  I find myself nodding my head. ‘You’re probably right.’

  ‘Anyway, I’ll be working later, so I’ll see you then.’

  We say goodbye, I hang up and I then begin my walk back to the cottage.

  * * *

  When I arrive home, I have an hour to kill before visiting hours begin at the hospital. I think back to the call with Susie, to Mum asking for Rosie. When Mum’s cancer worsened, I knew she’d want Rosie to come. Of course she would. Which means I have to do this for her. I suppose you could say I’ve been waiting for this moment. Sitting down at the kitchen table, I retrieve my mobile from my jeans pocket, scroll through my contacts until I find Rosie. Then I call.

  A dialling tone. Then nothing. This number has been disconnected. Well, it was a long shot. I haven’t seen Rosie since Dad’s funeral. Five years is a long time in Rosie years. Some people rarely move anywhere in five years. They don’t change their number; they stay in the same house, the same country at least. But not Rosie. She could be anywhere. The last place I remember her living was a bedsit in Brighton.

  But Brighton is a long way away and Mum doesn’t have a lot of time left. Even though I’ve tried this before, when Mum first became ill, I fire off a message to Rosie’s last-known email address. After that I try Facebook, the ideal place for people to connect to each other but rarely used for that purpose. Instead we use it for our own vanity, while occasionally spying on our exes. I type Rosie’s name into the search bar, and her profile is the first result. We’re still friends on Facebook, which is a good thing, but I rarely log on, so I don’t know what she’s been up to. In fact this is the first time I’ve logged on since Simon broke up with me a few months ago. I daren’t check to find out if he is still my friend, or worse, whether he’s moved on to another woman. No, I concentrate on Rosie, resisting the toxic urge to know about Simon.

  And then I hear Rosie’s voice in my mind, crystal clear: You always were good at delayed gratification. The tips of my fingers tingle at the sound of her words in my head. She teased me a lot about my prim personality. We were opposites. She was the wild, daring one. I was the mouse. The obedient one. I should be the rose, correct and proper. Rosie should be heather, growing wild on the moors. Mum got us the wrong way round.

  Rosie’s profile contains a tagged photograph from a month ago, but aside from that she hasn’t updated Facebook for a long time. I click on the photo. It’s nondescript. Two young women drinking coffee in a café. Rosie smiles at the camera, her dark hair spilling over the table. The sight of her takes my breath away, because in this picture she’s Mum’s double. Her eyes that same shade of blue, her hair dark as the unending night sky above Buckthorpe village, her skin neither pale nor tanned, more of a creamy colour. The last time I saw her, she was at least two stone lighter than in this photo, her skin was a waxy yellow and her eyes were red-rimmed and bruised. In short, she was a mess.

  But this Rosie glows with health. There is a genuine smile on her face, and that intelligence I always missed when she was deep into her addictions is there in her eyes.

  I scroll through older photographs in reverse chronological order, tracking the journey from sobriety to addiction. But I soon stop myself, no longer able to cope with the pain emanating from the computer screen.

  Will she come to visit us before Mum passes away? If she does, what will we talk about? It’s been such a long time since I was in the same space as my sister. I hardly know her now. She could be a completely different person. The thought makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck. I breathe deeply, trying to ground myself to stop my thoughts from spiralling. There’s no time for that, I need to go to the hospital to see Mum.

  As I stand up to start getting ready to go, a new email appears in my inbox. The sight of it makes me inhale sharply. I hadn’t thought she would email me back. Not right away. This is so unlike Rosie. When Dad died, I had to track her down through friends at a youth hostel in Thailand. But this is Rosie checking her email straight away, as any regular person would. Rosie is not a regular person.

  Even my heart responds to the name on the screen, reacting to the flood of emotions working their way through my body. First there’s the joy of seeing my sister’s name. The excitement of knowing Rosie has noticed me. As the younger sister, I’ll always have that reaction. Then there’s the sense of dread, the anticipation of allowing her back into my life. And finally there is the fear.

  * * *

  The email is still unopened when I climb into my Golf and make my way to the hospital. Same old timid Heather, needing her mother with her when she has a problem. A hard thump to my chest. Fist against ribs. That’s the painful reminder that my mum has not got long left. The cancer, which began in her left breast three years ago, has spread to her organs and her blood. It’s everywhere, and there’s nothing anyone can do. It’s time to make her comfortable before she slips softly away when it’s her time.

  Except that none of it is comfortable and none of it is soft. Even when her smile is fixed, she can’t keep the pain out of her eyes. Her mind wanders often. This is the woman who has every Shakespeare sonnet memorised, who could recite Tennyson backwards, who could finish a Sudoku faster than anyone I know. Now she is addled by the painkillers, so that sometimes she doesn’t even recognise me. Sometimes she calls me Lily, her mother’s name, or Rosie.

  After parking the car, I do the same thing I always do. I take a deep breath, close my eyes, open them and get out of the car. Sometimes I cry, making sure that I get it all out before I see her.

  I make my way through the labyrinth of hospital corridors, say hello to the nurses at the station and hand them the Tupperware box of cookies I’ve baked.

  ‘You’re a bad, bad woman, Heather Sharpe,’ chides Susie. ‘Those are at least ten Syns on Slimming.’

  ‘Have half now and half later. Then it’s only half the Syns,’ I reply with a shrug.

  She takes a cookie and laughs.

  I guess it’s a nice gesture for them, but the real reason I bake the cookies is to give me something to do to keep me occupied while I’m alone in th
e cottage. Banging around the old-fashioned kitchen with the radio on full blast makes me feel less alone. I’m still acclimatising to the quiet after living in London for the last few years. Buckthorpe is eerily silent, and pitch black without street lamps on its tiny country roads.

  The few hazy childhood memories I have of the village are full of life and noise. We had two ponies, a coop full of chickens, and Mum’s golden retriever, Buster. None of them are around any more, and the emptiness adds to my sense of disconnect with the place. At least the hospital is full of bustle and noise.

  My mum has a room to herself now. She’s propped up with some pillows, her sunken face bearing little expression amidst the white fabric. Because her hair hasn’t been dyed for a while, there are two inches of grey beneath the dark brown. Mum and Rosie always had the same colour hair, and even after mum’s went grey, she kept on maintaining it. I always lusted over Mum and Rosie’s thick dark manes. In contrast, my hair is mousy and fine.

  ‘Is that you, Rosie?’ she rasps.

  I move over to the bed and take her hand, sinking into the chair already in place for the visit. I let my bag fall to the floor.

  ‘It’s Heather, Mum.’

  ‘Hi, darling.’ She reaches out to touch my face, and then her arm drops. I catch it a moment before it hits the bed to give her a softer landing.

  ‘Susie says you’ve been asking after Rosie today.’

  ‘She should be here,’ Mum says. ‘I want to talk to her.’

  She should be here, I can’t help thinking bitterly. But she never comes home. Before her response to my email today, there were several that went unanswered when Mum was first diagnosed. But I never told Mum I’d contacted her, so that she could be spared the knowledge that her elder daughter had ignored my requests for her to visit. Mum will never know the real reason why Rosie hates to come home. I think I might be the only person who does.

  ‘I got an email from her today, Mum.’ Gently letting go of her hand, I reach into my bag and find my phone.

  ‘You did?’ she says, a little life coming back, that raspy whisper filling out into the voice I remember hearing as a child.

  I’m glad that I’m leaning away from her, because hearing even a hint of vitality come back to Mum’s voice reminds me of the past. It reminds me of her calling us down for dinner, or shooing Buster out of the kitchen. It reminds me of her laugh, which I haven’t heard for weeks now.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, quickly brushing away a tear. ‘Do you want me to read it to you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she says, still excited.

  The familiar sensation of prickling nerves makes its way up my skin as I open the email. At least being with Mum gives me the strength to finally look at it. I quickly scan it to make sure there’s nothing in there that I need to keep from Mum – though I doubt Rosie would bother replying if she wasn’t going to come – and then I begin to read it aloud. ‘Hi, Heather, I’m so sorry that I didn’t send you my new phone number. I didn’t realise things were tough there and I’m sorry for not getting in touch sooner. I’m actually doing much better. I’m six months sober and I’m in a better place right now. I think I’m well enough to come to Buckthorpe. I’ve missed you and I’ve missed Mum. I need to see you both. Love, Rosie.’

  Mum’s mouth gapes open as I read the last line of the email. Her skin is remarkably delicate around her mouth, cracking at the corners. I pull some lip balm from my bag and gently apply it, and her eyes water with tears.

  ‘Oh, Heather,’ she says. ‘You look just like your father.’

  I shake my head a little. ‘I guess I have his eyes.’

  She twists away and tears trickle down her cheeks. ‘You must make sure that Rosie comes. It’s important.’

  ‘I know,’ I say. ‘I’ll do my best, Mum.’

  She directs her gaze back to me. ‘You don’t understand, Heather. You can’t be alone in that house after I pass on. You remember all the details I left, don’t you?’

  I place the cap back on the lip balm, frowning. ‘Yes.’

  ‘Everything is in the drawer in the desk. My will. The deeds to the house. Everything. Don’t stay here, Heather. Just sell the house and move on. This place is …’ She pauses, as though she wants to tell me more.

  But as she fixes me with those piercing blue eyes, the nurse walks in and the moment is lost.

  Two

  Rosie

  Then

  You could say that I’m guilty of it all because I set off an unfortunate series of events, It’s all because I wanted to go faster. We were riding too slowly. I clamped my legs against Midnight’s side and lifted my arms higher up his neck to give him the space to gallop. And he did. He pushed that little bit more until we were flying along the grass verge. I wished I hadn’t put my riding hat on, because galloping with the wind in your hair was much more fun, but Mum had a heart attack every time I did it. She always thought I was going to fall off. I never did, though. Heather was the one who used to freak out and end up on the ground.

  To be fair to Heather, I was forcing us to ride fast next to the road that swept around the side of Buckbell Woods. It wasn’t a busy road, because not many travellers passed through Buckthorpe, but it still wasn’t the safest place to be pegging it on skittish animals.

  The grass verge came to an end and I reined Midnight back to a slow trot. He pulled against me for a moment until he realised the soft grass had ended and we were back on the hard road. With an unenthused snort, he steadied to a walk, puffing after the exertion of the gallop.

  My name is Rose, and I’ve always hated it. A rose is too structured. It’s a Valentine’s Day cliché. Heather and I used to talk about how Mum should have swapped our names, because I’m more like heather and she’s more like roses, but we’re stuck with who we are. At least Dad chose our ponies correctly. Midnight, a grey gelding, fourteen hands and wilful, was always supposed to be mine. Lady, a red-flecked roan colour, brown-eyed and lazy, was always meant for Heather. She wasn’t the one who wanted to gallop as fast as possible whenever we hit grass. That was always me.

  ‘Well that was stupid.’ Heather, red in the face, glared at me with that judgemental stare she still has. You wouldn’t think she was the younger sister. Even back then she was an old soul. She used to tell me off more than Mum did.

  ‘We were fine.’ I rolled my eyes as Heather came up on my right-hand side with Lady.

  ‘What if there’d been a car?’ she said. ‘Or a tractor? Midnight would’ve panicked.’

  I remember wanting to tell her to stop being such a wimp, but then I noticed that her voice was shaking and there were tears in her eyes.

  ‘I’ve never ridden Lady that fast before,’ Heather said, quickly wiping away her tears. ‘I couldn’t stop her.’

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, kind of half genuinely, half sarcastically. I guess I didn’t want her to know that I actually was sorry. Admitting any kind of emotion when you’re thirteen years old is, of course, an impossibility.

  ‘Didn’t bother me,’ Heather said quickly, turning her head away.

  I’d unbuttoned the top of my shirt to let in some air. It was the second week of the summer holidays and the third day of a surprise heat wave that had everyone in shorts, wafting themselves with their hands. Midnight huffed and puffed beneath me, tired but also wound up from the run, snorting and chomping at the bit.

  By the time we reached the bend in the road with the weirdly shaped tree, he had managed to steady his breathing, but I began to feel weary. The tree provided a canopy, with one large, gnarly branch hanging suspended in the air across the road. As soon as Heather saw it, she sat up as straight as a rod and shortened her reins. Lady was a mostly calm pony, but for some strange reason she hated that tree.

  ‘Just relax,’ I said. ‘She can tell you’re nervous.’

  ‘I am relaxing,’ Heather snapped, her body as rigid as a plank of wood.

  I remember rolling my eyes at her again. Grandad, who had taught us to ride in the fields behind our
house, had told her to loosen up about a hundred times, but she couldn’t, especially when she saw that stupid tree. Poor old Lady always got so spooked by it, because Heather couldn’t stop herself from stressing out. The roan tossed her head and began walking like a crab, half twisting herself away from the trunk. Her head bobbed up and down in distress, and Heather leaned forward, her breath coming out in quick, shallow rasps.

  If I hadn’t galloped Midnight, Lady wouldn’t have worked herself up. It was at this point that I began to feel terrible about it.

  ‘We can get off if you want,’ I suggested. ‘Lead them past the tree and then get back on. I’ll take Lady for you.’

  But Heather shook her head. She gripped hold of the saddle as Lady started to dance, snorting hot air out of her nostrils and lifting her knees up high. I considered grabbing Heather’s reins in case Lady took off, but we were almost past the old tree and hopefully the episode would be over soon. Poor Heather was pale-faced and tense, with her reins as tight as a violin string.

  ‘Deep breaths, Hev,’ I said.

  She nodded and slowly began to relax her shoulders. But I could see that Lady wasn’t relaxing with her. Within just a few seconds I realised that Lady was about to blow, and I reached across to try and grab the rein. But Lady bucked, throwing Heather onto her neck. Heather let out a small whimpering sound as her body hit the saddle and her face connected with the hard muscle on Lady’s neck. As Heather was tossed forwards, she lost her reins. Lady panicked and burst into a canter, her shoes clattering against the tarmac as she ran away. I quickly pushed myself into action, collecting up my own reins and pressing my legs against Midnight’s sides to chase my poor sister.

  ‘Hold onto the saddle, Hev!’ I called out.

  Lady was out of control, galloping down the centre of the road with my little sister clinging on for dear life. I saw that she’d lost one stirrup and was half hanging over Lady’s withers, but I couldn’t see if she still had hold of the saddle or not. My heart was hammering. If anything happened to Heather … I was the older sister; I was the one who should be taking care of her. But I never did, did I? I went off on my own adventures and expected her to keep up, even though I knew she couldn’t.