Islands: A page turning story of love, secrets and regrets

by Gwyn GB

  All the lights downstairs are blazing and the commotion is taking place in the doorway from the hall to the kitchen. Robert appears supporting a slumped James who has vomit all down his front. His head is lolling and he’s clearly very drunk. Robert doesn’t even acknowledge Katherine. His face is set, eyes fixed forward with anger and his jaw white with tension. The pair proceed awkwardly up the stairs towards the bathroom, Robert dragging the not insubstantial weight of his son upwards.

  Katherine peers around the doorway looking for her sister. Margaret is still dressed; she must have been waiting up for her son. She is leaning on the table with one hand, the other scrubbing at her face and hair in exasperation. In front of her a splashed pool of alcoholic smelling vomit is congealing on the kitchen floor.

  ‘Margaret...are you OK? Can I do something to help?’

  Her sister looks up, tears brimming her eyes. ‘Do you know what Katherine? Sometimes I think maybe you had the right idea after all – I really do wonder why we have children when this is all the thanks we get.’

  Katherine lets Margaret’s words dissolve in the air. She doesn’t answer straight away, then quietly she says, ‘You don’t mean that.’

  Margaret looks up at her, ‘Don’t I?’ She answers defiantly.

  Katherine is about to say more, but her nostrils remind her of the congealing vomit. ‘Come on, where’s the bucket and mop kept?’

  ‘Oh no, I’ll do that,’ Margaret sighs, switching back into practical mother mode.

  ‘Well, I’ll make you a cup of tea then.’ Katherine gratefully offers and heads towards the kettle as her sister disappears into a cupboard retrieving Dettol, a mop and bucket.

  Margaret’s comment, ‘I think you had the right idea,’ keeps circling around Katherine’s head. She almost feels as though she’s betraying her sister by not telling her the truth - perhaps she has the right to know. It would certainly be better if she did, if it was all out in the open and Katherine didn’t have to tip toe around the subject anymore. The cracks are appearing in her impenetrable shell.

  It surprises her but she starts to feel the need to talk, to empty out all her festering baggage. By the time the tea is made and on the table, Margaret has adeptly cleared up the remains of James’ night out.

  ‘That’s the third time he’s come home like this. Not just drunk but completely paralytic. Why do they have to drink so much?’

  ‘Pressure from his friends?’ Katherine suggests.

  ‘Friends!’ Margaret says disdainfully, ‘They’re not friends. Ever since he started hanging out with this current group it’s been nothing but grief. You try and guide them in the right direction, give them a good start in life and then they just throw it all in your face. Sometimes I really do wonder why we bother.’

  ‘You bother because you love them, because hopefully this will only be a short term blip. You bother because you care about what they’re doing, who they’re seeing and what kind of future they’re mapping out for themselves. You bother because you want to. You bother because you’re a good mother, Margaret and because, no matter what, you’ll always be there for them: and they’ll eventually be there for you too.’ Katherine delivers her lines earnestly and honestly - a barrier fallen.

  Margaret looks up at her surprised by this sudden pro-children speech from her sister, the sister who didn’t want a family. ‘OH come on, don’t tell me you’ve not enjoyed doing your own thing, never having to be beholden to anyone?’ she replies, ‘I never have time to do my nails like you, I don’t even have time to sit down and read the Sunday papers. If I’d tried to have a career, I would forever be feeling guilty because I’d think it’s taking me away from the children. Not to mention all the money they cost. Think of the clothes and holidays we could have gone on instead.’

  ‘Yes, but do those things really matter?’ Katherine calmly asks.

  ‘Yes… Well... No... I suppose, not really. Of course I wouldn’t change it for the world.’ Margaret replies, her thought process reflected in her face. ‘OK you win,’ she smiles at her sister. ‘Although coming from you, that’s quite ripe.’

  Katherine is silent.

  Margaret tries to look her in the eyes, but she’s looking down at the table. ‘Kath, I’m only joking,’ she says tentatively, concerned now at her sister’s silence.

  ‘I know, don’t worry,’ Katherine replies. ‘I think it’s time I put the record straight about something though,’ she continues, her voice soft and calm. When she looks up Margaret sees tears brimming in her eyes.

  ‘Are you OK?’ Margaret asks her, taken aback.

  ‘Yes. I’m fine. But you’re wrong you know, Margaret. I didn’t choose my career over a family,’ she swallows hard. She can’t help it. Despite the years, or perhaps because she’s bottled it up for so long, her face starts to quiver; her chin crumpling into creases as she struggles to prevent tears. When she does manage to talk her voice is small and weak. ‘I didn’t choose a career instead of a family – I needed it, I had to concentrate on work because there were some things John and I never told you or mum, never told anyone actually.’

  Her sister is holding her breath now.

  ‘You know I had a miscarriage?’ Margaret nods slowly, ‘Well that wasn’t the only one. We had five. Five times I got pregnant and five times I lost the babies. One after the other. It devastated me Margaret...’

  ‘Oh my God Kath,’ Margaret’s face registers the shock, and she reaches out across the table to hold her sister’s hands. ‘Why didn't you tell us...talk to us? You should have said something...’

  ‘I couldn't. At first I didn’t want to worry you both, and then I think we started to believe that if maybe we could keep it between us and not let anyone else know, then maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.’

  ‘That’s ridiculous Kath, ridiculous. We would have wanted to help, to support you, dear God it must have been awful going through that time after time.’

  ‘Yes,’ is all Katherine replies.

  ‘Is that why you left?’

  ‘Yes. You’d just had Sara, I didn’t want to ruin your joy, I’m sorry I just couldn’t cope with not being able to have a baby of my own. It sounds really selfish, I know, but I had to get away. I was scared Margaret. Scared if we tried again, and failed, it might tip me over the edge. It was only real to me, to anyone else it was just some kind of concept. Even to John. I couldn't face seeing him every day, watching him with Sara and knowing I could never make him a father.’

  ‘Kath, that’s just awful. Couldn’t the doctors help you? Did you ever find out why? Why you had so many miscarriages?’ Margaret gently asks.

  ‘Not really, they did think that perhaps it was the placenta not working properly, but that was never confirmed. Of course if I’d been a little older, more mature, I might have pushed for some answers, demanded to know why we’d failed time after time. I think I was just too young and too much in pain to be honest.’

  Margaret nods and sighs, ‘I so wish you’d told me. Given me some credit whether I was pregnant or not. You needed our support.’

  ‘I know but I honestly thought that if I allowed even the tiniest bit of emotion to escape it would have let the floodgates open and I wouldn’t have been able to stop it – and that scared me.’

  ‘I’ve often wondered what happened between you and John. Why you left him. You’d seemed so happy the pair of you I just couldn’t understand it,’ Margaret says softly.

  Katherine nods and wipes away a tear. ‘I thought that at least if I wasn't around, he had the chance to try with somebody else. I didn’t intend to leave him, I just needed some time away. Somehow... Somehow that time just got longer and longer.’

  ‘But John came to London.’

  ‘Yes and he hated every second of it. He just didn’t understand why I needed to be there – I guess he couldn’t... He’d never held any of the babies or had any kind of physical relationship with them – but every one of them had been a part of me, inside of me...’ She looks at Mar
garet, ‘You know what I mean?’

  Margaret nods. ‘Yes I do,’ she replies softly and squeezes Katherine’s hand.

  ‘It’s so difficult for other people to understand how hard each loss was for me, how desperate I was for each pregnancy to work, how much I mourned all our lost children. I knew that if I stayed I would be tempted to try again, and then what if I lost another one? I felt like I was a failure and I didn't want to be seen as some sympathy case that everyone pitied because we'd spent years trying to have children and couldn't. I wanted people to see me as a success, so I turned to my career. At least in my job I could succeed, get some sense of self-worth, feel like people would look at me and think wow she's done something with her life instead of shrivelling up like a dried, infertile fruit.’

  ‘Oh Kath...’ It’s Margaret’s turn to cry now. ‘That’s so stupid, we wouldn’t ever have thought you were a failure...God it must have been awful for you I can’t imagine...come here.’ Margaret stands up and walks round to her sister’s side of the table, her arms open wide. Katherine can’t remember the last time they’d hugged. There had been a brief kind of back patting at their mother’s funeral, but not this kind of a hug, the kind where you feel enveloped by love.

  Robert found them like that, wrapped in each other, two sister’s sharing - both of them crying. He’d finished putting James to bed and was ready for a rant about his son, only to walk in and find the two women sobbing.

  ‘Are you two OK?’ he asks. ‘James is in bed now, he’s all right.’

  ‘Yes we’re fine,’ his wife replies and waves him away. Robert raises his eyes to the ceiling and wonders if he’s the only sane one in the house, before taking himself off to bed.

  ‘Poor John,’ Margaret mutters. ‘He’s not said anything about it all these years.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Kathy sighs and looks at the bank of photographs on the dresser, finding John with a young Sara and James sitting on his tractor; all of them with beaming smiles.

  ‘I don’t blame him for coming back to Jersey, London was suffocating him, he’s happy when he’s in the fields.’

  ‘He never stopped loving you. You know that don’t you?’ Margaret adds, ‘Never found anyone else.’

  ‘I know and believe it or not I didn’t either. I did try once but it just didn’t seem right. I’ve always considered myself married you know, strange as it might seem. I guess it’s been an odd sort of a marriage but I never thought about divorce.’

  ‘Have you ever told John that?’

  ‘No,’ Katherine replies quietly.

  Margaret says nothing further; she knows she doesn’t need to. She stands holding her sister and secretly wishing their mother could be here now to hear what Katherine has said. All these years Marie never understood Katherine’s reasons for upping and leaving her husband and her island, and it had driven the two of them apart. Now it’s too late for explanations.

  37

  1982, Jersey – Katherine

  Katherine had never been as close to her mother as Margaret was. On the beach Margaret would want to walk in the sand shapes of her mother’s footsteps. Katherine would run ahead and create her own track. In her teen years there was always the friction of Marie’s disapproval of her relationship with Anne without there ever being any good reason for it. Sure she realised Katherine saw Anne at school, Marie tolerated that - she had to - but outside of school she frowned upon their close friendship. Katherine was convinced it hadn’t always been like that. She and Anne had been friends since nursery and back then her mother would have had it in her power to determine who Katherine mixed with. So what changed it all?

  After Anne died, Marie seemed to sympathise; but Katherine’s anger at not being allowed to go to the funeral became a festering boil in their relationship. On the night before her wedding to John, it burst.

  Margaret, Marie, Katherine and her friend from work, Trisha, went out for dinner to celebrate Katherine’s last night as a single woman. It was an evening of girlie laughter and fun oiled by wine and the excitement of the wedding to come. When they got home, Margaret went to bed while Marie sat with her eldest daughter checking through her dress and accessories for the big day.

  ‘I’m so pleased for you,’ she said, rubbing Katherine’s arm tenderly. ‘I wish your father was here to see this.’ Marie had perhaps drunk one too many glasses of wine, or perhaps it was the emotion of the event, for she allowed herself to cry.

  Katherine didn’t know quite what to do at first, her mother had always seemed so strong, even after their father’s death she’d barely seen her crying. Now here she was sobbing.

  ‘Come on mum don’t cry.’ Katherine tried, putting her arm around her slightly awkwardly. She wished Margaret was still up, her sister is always so much more forthright with her hugs and physical contact. ‘I know Dad will be with me anyway, with us all.’

  ‘Yes, of course he will love, of course he will.’ Marie struggles to hold back her tears and manages a smile. ‘I’m sorry I don’t mean to upset you it’s just... well it’s just I wish he was here that’s all. I still miss him you know.’

  Katherine rubs her mother’s back. ‘I know mum, I know. I wish Anne could be here too.’

  Her mother doesn’t look up from her lap. ‘Anne! No I don’t, she’s better off where she is believe me.’

  Katherine takes her hands away. Her mother looks up. ‘What do you mean better off where she is? Are you glad she’s dead?’ Katherine’s voice has risen, her whole demeanour suddenly defensive.

  Marie’s face registers the realisation she’s just said something she would have been better off keeping to herself. ‘No. I’m sorry I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant that she’s at peace now, that’s all...’

  Katherine isn’t convinced. ‘What do you mean? She’s better off dead? How can you say that?’

  ‘I know, I didn’t mean it to come out like that, just forget about it darling. Forget I said it.’

  ‘I can’t believe you said that mum, I really can’t.’

  Her mother closes her eyes and sighs, shaking her head. ‘Sorry Katherine. Please don’t let’s argue about Anne, not now, not today.’ In the space of just half a minute her mother seems to have aged. Suddenly she looks weary, drained. Katherine holds her tongue, confused.

  ‘I think we’d better get to bed now, you’ve an exciting day ahead,’ Marie continues, eager to move on. ‘I’ll wake you in the morning darling. Get a good night’s sleep. I love you.’ She tenderly kisses Katherine on the cheek and then with a sorrowful backwards glance leaves her.

  ‘Goodnight mum,’ Katherine returns.

  Later as she waits for sleep, Katherine goes over her mother’s words. What could she have meant? Why did she say that? Did she really hate Anne that much?

  It was a slip she never forgave her mother. Not then, not years later. She knew her mum loved her. She remembered a happy childhood but that comment was never again discussed, or explained, and it niggled her. When her mother suddenly died of a brain haemorrhage in 2002, Katherine buried her with regrets. They never sorted it out; never mentioned it again. She’d loved her mother, of course she had, but she couldn’t work out her motivation, her dislike of Anne.

  Now her mother isn’t here and Katherine’s questions will remain unanswered.

  38

  March 6th 2008, Jersey

  The next morning James comes down to breakfast expecting a tongue lashing from his mother. Sometimes it’s difficult to tell who will be the angriest. His dad can be more physical but his mother has a different kind of punishment, more emotional and, at times, crueller. Trouble is, he’s got the post-drinking munchies and has to get food a.s.a.p. He decides he might as well face the music with his mother and hope the presence of his aunt might embarrass her into not going over the top.

  He can’t be more surprised when he walks into the kitchen to find her chatting and laughing with his aunt - like two girlfriends. His mother ten years younger and his aunt without her sharp
edges - as though overnight she’s become softer, more pleasant.

  ‘I’ll talk to you later.’ His mum tells him, knitting her eyebrows but he knows her well enough to realise that’s more for show than carrying any real threat. ‘Now what do you want for breakfast? Bacon and egg?’ James isn’t going to miss the opportunity. He doesn’t care what has happened since last night. His mother and aunt could have been abducted by aliens and morphed into these two friendly, chilled out clones for all he cares. What he does know is he’s going to take the chance to have a big slap-up breakfast to soak up his hangover.

  To say Katherine feels relieved from telling Margaret about the miscarriages is an understatement. She feels almost foolish for having waited so long, and why? Why she’d never told her she doesn’t know. It had been a lot easier than she thought and by sharing, she’s rebuilt a bridge with her sister. The atmosphere between them has cleared, the storm passed over - no more tiptoeing around on eggshells. The whole experience makes her more confident, more positive about why she’s come back. It’s also served to remind her of the catalyst for her return: Anne’s mother’s letter. When Margaret says she’s going out for some shopping Katherine excuses herself from the trip and instead goes upstairs to where the letter sits waiting - a loaded revolver in her suitcase.

  It still says exactly the same as it had when she was in London. Only now she is back in Jersey the words seem to stand out from the paper, urging her on. Katherine doesn’t even know if the woman is still alive - the whole thing could be completely irrelevant by now. She does know she will regret it if she doesn’t find out. She’s spent too long not dealing with things. Buoyed by the relief she feels from sharing with Margaret, she decides there’s no time like the present, she’ll go round to the house now and see if she’s still there.