My Sister's Bones

by Nuala Ellwood

  Maybe I should call him, I think, as I close my change purse and put it back into the handbag. I could explain myself; tell him that it was a one-off incident brought about by exhaustion; that I don’t drink excessively, that a large glass is usually my limit. But then I change my mind. The poor man’s probably had enough of me for one night.

  The pain in my head intensifies as I get to my feet. I go down to the kitchen and take out two painkillers from the box in the cupboard, washing them down with a glass of water. As I stand at the sink I am startled by the sight of a gaunt, skeletal woman glaring at me from the window. I jump back, then realize that it’s me. Jesus, I look a state. I need to rest otherwise I’m going to make myself ill.

  Back upstairs I pop two of my sleeping pills into my mouth, swallowing them with the remainder of the water. Then, turning off the light, I get back into bed.

  But as my head touches the pillow I am dragged back by a piercing scream. It sounds like the noise a cat makes when you step on its paw. I sit up in the bed and listen. Another scream. This time softer, a pathetic resigned yelp that dissolves into a series of low moans and sobs. Foxes, perhaps?

  I climb out of bed and open the curtains. Flocculent night clouds drift across the sky and the lights from the distant pier trickle through them like thin golden arteries. The noises have stopped and all seems calm. Get some sleep, Kate, I tell myself, stepping away from the window. But as I go to close the curtains, I see something.

  A small figure is crouched in my mother’s flower bed.

  My stomach contracts. This can’t be happening. I’m awake. The nightmares don’t come when I’m awake.

  I blink my eyes. But, no, the figure is still there, right in front of me. This is no hallucination; there is a child in my mother’s flower bed.

  I stand at the window looking out. For once I have no idea what to do. The child isn’t moving and, for a moment, I think it may be dead. But then the figure looks up, right up at the window, and I gasp. In the glow from the moon I can see that it’s a boy.

  I pick my phone up from off the floor.

  “Hello, yes,” I say when I finally get through, my hands shaking. “I need to report a case of child abuse. He’s the child of my neighbors and he’s . . . he’s in my garden. He’s there right now. He must be freezing. I heard a scream a few moments ago, then I looked out and . . . Sorry? My name? It’s Kate Rafter, 46 Smythley Road, and as I said the boy is the child of my neighbors, they live at 44 Smythley Road. Yes, he’s alone as far as I can tell. Where am I? I’m standing at my bedroom window looking out and he’s huddled up in the cold. Thank you so much. What? Oh gosh, I’m afraid I can’t remember the postcode right now . . . It’s my mother’s house, she died and I’m . . . Er, it’s Smythley Road by the . . . Okay, that’s great. Sorry? Why do you need that? Okay. It’s 16.06.75. Yes. And please do hurry. He’s not moving . . .”

  I can’t wait any longer—I slam the phone down and run downstairs. On the way I go to the closet on the landing and take out a thick blanket. It smells of dust and mothballs but it will be warm. He’ll be so cold out there.

  Before I can get out of the back door I hear a noise at the front and run to the window. The police have arrived. I open the door to two police officers, a thickset older man and a pointy-faced young woman with heavy bangs that nearly cover her eyes.

  “Mrs. Rafter?” asks the woman. She looks shocked. They obviously don’t get many calls like this in Herne Bay.

  “Yes, come quickly,” I say. “He’s out there . . . I was just going . . . He’s in the flower bed . . .”

  I march them through the house and into the kitchen. My head feels woozy and I hear the female officer sigh as I struggle with the back-door key. Finally it yields and I beckon them outside.

  “He’s this way,” I say, keeping my voice low so as not to scare him. “He’s . . .”

  My legs buckle as I stand looking at the empty flower bed. He’s gone.

  “He was here,” I say, turning to the police officers. “I don’t understand. He was here just moments ago.”

  “Mrs. Rafter,” the male officer begins.

  “It’s Ms.,” I say, still staring at the flower bed. “I’m not married.”

  “Ms. Rafter, you told the operator that the child you saw lives next door, is that right?”

  “Yes,” I say, my heart lifting. “Yes, he’s their child. I don’t know his name . . . she’s called Fida . . . they’re from Iraq. You have to go next door and search for him. He was trying to get my attention. Please, you have to find him.”

  The two officers look at each other and nod. They’re taking me seriously, I think, as I lead the way back into the house. Maybe the boy is known to them; perhaps he’s on some sort of “at risk” register. Oh, please, let them find him.

  “Okay, Ms. Rafter,” says the male officer as we open the front door. “We’ll go and see what’s going on.”

  “I’ve heard screams,” I say as they step outside. “I’ve heard him screaming every night. It’s horrendous. You have to stop them.”

  The female officer nods her head and I watch as they make their way down the driveway.

  “Please,” I say to myself as I close the door and go into the living room to wait. “Please God let him be all right.”

  Finally, after an interminable wait that seems like hours, but can only have been minutes, the doorbell rings. I jump out of the chair and run into the hallway.

  “Oh God,” I say as I open the door and see their grave faces. “Is he . . . Please tell me he’s . . .”

  “Ms. Rafter, may we come in?” asks the male officer. He puts his arm out as if calming a flighty gelding.

  “Yes,” I say. “But please tell me he’s okay.”

  I lead them through the dark passage into the kitchen. Their radios splutter and tinny disembodied voices trail in their wake. Panic rises in my chest as I gesture to the chairs but the officers stay standing. The woman looks around the kitchen. She still has that odd expression on her face and I notice her eyes rest on the box of sleeping tablets that I’ve left on the kitchen counter. She catches my eye, then speaks in a slow Kentish drawl.

  “Ms. Rafter, we’ve been next door and the woman who lives there tells us she doesn’t have a child.”

  “What?” I exclaim. “Then she’s lying . . . she must be.”

  It’s then that I smell it: a strong, stale odor of wine. It clings to my clothes and my breath tastes sour. I step back toward the sink, hoping the police can’t smell it too.

  “She’s talking nonsense,” I say. “I’ve seen him and heard him several times since I’ve been here. He was out there in my mother’s flower bed. I saw him. Did you search the house? What about the loft? She might have hidden him in there.”

  My head spins as I talk but I have to tell them everything; they need to know how serious this is.

  “That woman next door,” I continue, “she’s all very nice, chatting to me and smiling, but I know what she’s up to. I know what I saw, Officers. It was a boy . . . a little boy.”

  The officers look at each other awkwardly and then the man speaks.

  “Mrs. Rafter—”

  “I’ve told you, it’s Ms. Rafter.”

  “Sorry, Ms. Rafter, I just want to reassure you that we’ve done all we can this evening based on what you told us on the phone. We haven’t found anything next door that concerns us. There was no sign of any children there. No toys, no child’s bed . . .”

  “Well, there was certainly a sign of him when I woke up,” I reply. My brain is jumbled with the sleeping pills and the words lie heavy on my tongue. “There was a scream . . . a child’s scream. It sounded like he was in terrible distress. . . . I looked out of my window and he was there as clear as you are now, curled up in the flower bed.”

  “So you’d just woken up when you saw him?”

  The female police officer looks up from the notepad in which she is recording my account. My brain creaks like an old wheelbarrow as I try
to think.

  “Yes, I’d just woken up,” I reply. “But a couple of nights ago there was another scream and the day before that I heard a child laughing in the garden. But when I looked, there was no child there. You should put an alert out on your radios: tell your colleagues to keep an eye out for a small child with dark hair. You know, the first few hours are crucial in missing-child cases. I know what I’m talking about, I really do. I’m a journalist.”

  It all comes out in a stream of words and I feel breathless. I lean back against the counter to steady myself.

  “What time did you go to bed?” asks the male officer. He smiles condescendingly. It makes me angry. It’s like they are dealing with a confused old woman.

  “I can’t remember,” I reply. “I got back to the house sometime between eleven and midnight.”

  “So you’ve been out tonight?”

  “Yes,” I say. “Just for a couple of hours.”

  “And have you been drinking alcohol?” The woman’s face is rigid as she asks the question.

  “I had a couple of glasses of wine, yes,” I reply. “But that doesn’t make any difference to what I saw tonight.”

  The woman raises her eyebrows and glances at her colleague. I want to yell at them. All I have done is report a serious incident and I am being treated like the bad person.

  “Okay,” says the male officer. “There’s nothing more we can do here tonight. We’re happy that there’s no child next door but I do appreciate you were concerned and you did the best thing you could in calling us.”

  I shake my head. “You’re both looking at me as though I’m some sort of—of fruitcake and that really bothers me,” I say, trying to stay composed. “I know what I’m talking about, believe me, I have experience in these situations. I—I . . .”

  My brain freezes and I cannot find the words I need. I pound my head with the heel of my hand, trying to dislodge the words, but they are stuck fast.

  “As I said,” continues the officer, raising his voice above the chatter of noise from his radio. “You did the right thing in calling us and nobody is questioning your judgment. But if I were you I’d make myself a milky drink and try to get some sleep.”

  I want to scream at them, tell them that I’m not mad, that the boy was real. But instead I compose myself and smile politely at them. What else can I do?

  “I’ll see you out,” I say and as I follow them down the hallway I notice they exchange glances. I hurriedly open the door and usher them out into the damp air.

  “Good-bye, Ms. Rafter,” says the male officer. “We’ve made a record of our visit. Do get in touch if you have any further concerns, but I would strongly advise you to get some rest. You’ve had a long night.”

  He smiles and turns away and I watch as he follows his colleague down the driveway to their waiting car.

  I’m not giving this up though. I’ll go next door and talk to the woman, tell her that I know what’s going on. I’ll ask her about the screams; I’ll tell her what I told the police: that I can hear the screams every night.

  I go to fetch my coat, but in the hallway I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, the image that greeted the two officers. I gasp. My eyes are caked in thick black mascara that runs in watery spirals across my eyelids to my temples; my hair, styled into a neat chignon earlier in the evening, has collapsed and wisps of it stick to my forehead. I am still wearing the floral wrap dress, tights, and cardigan I had worn to the pub and the clothes reek of stale white wine.

  I see myself as they saw me: a drunk with a sleeping pill habit. If I were in their shoes I wouldn’t believe me either.

  I walk slowly outside and look up at the house next door. All I see are drawn curtains and darkness. What was I thinking? The police found nothing. It must be nothing. I step back inside and close the door.

  In the bedroom I peel off my clothes and climb under the covers. As I lie there I try to piece it all together. He was definitely real—the boy—I can see him now in my head, a small boy with dark hair. He was there and then he was gone. It just doesn’t make sense.

  My head hurts with it all and anger wells up in my chest. What is happening to me? Why won’t it all just stop? I think of my mother’s letter and Sally’s words. Was she right? Am I just a nosy cow? I don’t know. I can’t make my brain stay still long enough to think clearly. I just want my old life back, my old bed and my beautiful, beautiful Chris. I take my phone and press redial. But it goes straight to the messaging service and a disembodied voice tells me that Chris O’Brien is not available. I throw the phone across the room and flop my head onto the pillow. And as I try to get to sleep I think of all that I have lost. This is what life is going to be from now on, I tell myself. This is what is left. One long nightmare punctuated by voices and screams.

  16

  Thursday, April 16, 2015

  I’m clearing up the breakfast dishes when I hear a knock at the door. My heart races as I wipe my hands on a tea towel and rush into the hallway. Maybe it’s the police, I think to myself; maybe they’ve found something.

  I fiddle with the latch, my head aching from the drink last night. Never again, I tell myself, as I finally get the door open.

  “Oh,” I gasp. “Hello.”

  “Hello, love,” says Ray. “Can I come in?”

  “Yes . . . yes, of course,” I say, flustered at this unexpected visit. “Come through.”

  I lead him into the kitchen, my head pounding. I really need some painkillers.

  “Sit down,” I say, gesturing to the table. “Can I get you a cup of tea?”

  “Yes, please,” he says, pulling a chair out. “Milk. Two sugars.”

  “Well, this is a nice surprise,” I say as I take a cup from the cupboard and pour some tea from the pot. “What brings you here?”

  He takes his cap off and puts it on the table. He looks preoccupied.

  “What is it, Ray?”

  “I just wanted to come and check you were okay,” he says as I put his tea down in front of him. “Last night . . . in the pub. You were in ever such a state.”

  Last night? The pub? I try to order my thoughts. And then I remember: Ray was there. What did he see?

  “Oh, that,” I say, smiling nervously. “Just had a bit too much to drink, that’s all. Nothing for you to worry about.”

  He frowns as he takes a sip of tea.

  “I was just coming out of the pub when I saw your sister’s fella putting you in the taxi,” he says, placing his cup down. “You were shouting and yelling, making a right scene. At first I thought he was hurting you or something but then I saw the state you were in. I thought I’d better check on you, see if everything was all right.”

  I suddenly feel light-headed. I pull a chair out and join Ray at the table.

  “Honestly, Ray, it was just a one-off,” I tell him. “I don’t normally drink. I’m a lightweight.”

  I laugh awkwardly.

  “It’s no good for you,” says Ray. “I’ve seen many a good man ruined by drink.”

  “Me too,” I whisper. “Though I wouldn’t describe my dad as a good man.”

  “Ah, come on now,” says Ray. “He’d suffered a hell of a lot.”

  “We all did,” I say, my voice hard. “You know he knocked my mum around, don’t you? And me?”

  Ray shuffles in his seat uncomfortably.

  “We heard talk of it,” he says. “In the town. But it weren’t our place to—”

  “Get involved?” I snap. “Help? What’s the old saying? All that’s necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing?”

  He looks wounded and I immediately regret being so harsh.

  “I’m sorry, Ray,” I say, my voice softening. “It wasn’t your fault what happened with Dad. I just get so angry when I think about it, that’s all. Especially what he did to Mum.”

  “It’s understandable,” says Ray. “Though I saw another side to your father. A softer side.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say. “I find that
hard to believe.”

  “You know how we met, don’t you?” says Ray, fixing me with his gray, rheumy eyes. “Your folks and me?”

  I shake my head. I’d never asked how they met. As far as I was concerned Ray had been in our lives forever, or as long as I can remember anyway.

  “That terrible day they lost your wee brother,” he says, his voice cracking. “Well, I was the one who found him.”

  “You . . . you were the fisherman?” I stutter, the words of my mother’s letter coming back to me. “The one who brought him back to shore?”

  He nods his head.

  “Oh, Ray,” I gasp.

  “I’ve never got over it,” he says, his hands trembling. “That tiny little boy just floating there . . . I tried. I tried with all my might. Gave him the kiss of life, went through all the first aid I knew, but it was no use. He was dead.”

  My eyes fill with tears as we sit in silence. My little brother fills the room. There is so much I want to ask Ray but I don’t know where to start.

  “But you see,” says Ray finally, “if it affected me like that, just think what it did to your father.”

  “He wasn’t there,” I say, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

  “Precisely,” says Ray. “And you know what? In the years that followed when we became mates, when we sat at the bar in The Ship and nursed our pints, he would quiz me over and over again on what happened that day. He wanted to know every little detail. He said he’d let the little lad down; that he should have been there.”