My Sister’s Secret

by Tracy Buchanan

  Aunt Hope gets a faraway look in her eyes then she shakes her head as though shrugging it off. ‘Fine life you live, isn’t it,’ she says, ‘being able to follow some teenager’s pipe dream at the drop of a hat. I bet you’ve whittled all your inheritance away?’

  How typical of my aunt, ruining a special moment. I sigh. ‘Actually, I haven’t. I earn decent money with the diving and anyway, I’m between jobs right now. I can do what I want.’

  Aunt Hope looks around her. ‘What about this place? Will you sell it or not? I need to know so I can tell the estate agent, who’s due to value it.’

  ‘Not yet,’ I say, unwilling to let go of the past right now.

  ‘Good,’ she says. ‘Your mother was very happy here.’ We both stand at the window in silence, looking out over the overgrown garden. A gust of wind makes the long grass ripple, and the swing sways, a ghost of a past I so desperately miss.

  Chapter Three

  Charity

  Busby-on-Sea, UK

  March 1987

  Charity peered out of the café’s window. The sun was a soft globe as it sank into the horizon, the air no longer so cold that she had to run from table to table to clear up just to keep warm in the arctic temperatures. The spatter of sea spray now felt less like daggers of ice on her cheeks and more like the spit of a mermaid, as her dad used to say.

  Spring was coming.

  While others rejoiced, the improving weather made Charity anxious. She’d promised herself she’d be back on her feet by spring after being made redundant. But there was still no job, no money. Every extra day she spent back in Busby-on-Sea, dark memories pressed even closer, gaping and roaring with every sight she saw, every person she spoke to, the smell of seaweed and brine, the squawk of seagulls and the hoot of distant ships feeding the old grief again and again.

  She had to get away before it swallowed her whole.

  ‘Charity, love?’

  Charity looked up to see Mrs McAteer peering at her. She was the queen of gossip here with her coiled grey hair and pearl necklace. Her daughter Addie used to be best friends with Charity’s big sister. Addie had managed to escape Busby-on-Sea for good. Most people did escape now.

  ‘So sorry,’ Charity said. ‘Got lost in my thoughts there for a moment. So, you were saying about your son?’

  As Mrs McAteer launched into a story about her ‘poor Gav’, Charity nodded sympathetically. People had started coming to the café to bend her ear about their personal problems after hearing she was a qualified NHS counsellor. She didn’t mind so much, it was good to know she could help. But it would be even better if they could pay her. Then she might have a chance of getting out of this town.

  It hadn’t always been like this. She used to love it here. Busby-on-Sea was one of several small towns on the south coast of the UK, a few miles from Brighton. It had felt like the only town in the world to her and her sisters when they were kids, the three of them its rulers. Their parents let them run riot along the stretch of pebble beach outside their house, collecting shells and rubbish washed up ashore. The town centre was too tidy for them with its smart shops circling a grand old ship; the long promenade that led from the marshes near their house too civilised with its white railings and gleaming pavements. Even worse were the new houses that lined it, all modern and posh. And then there was their mother’s café which sat smart and welcoming on the opposite end of the promenade to their house. Each sister took a job there as they grew older.

  Some kids walked past with a ghetto blaster, music blaring out from its speakers. How different it was now, Charity thought as she watched them walk past the disintegrating white panels of those houses. Everything seemed to be rotting now. The only thing that remained new and gleaming was the large white house that sat overlooking the town from the cliffs above, renovated just a year ago, according to Charity’s sister, Hope, for a millionaire and his wife. It was glossy but it looked isolated and vulnerable up there alone, exposed to the elements.

  ‘That’ll be ten pounds,’ a voice said from behind Charity.

  It was Hope, her long red hair tied in a knot above her head, a bright patchwork dress with long sleeves worn beneath her purple apron.

  Mrs McAteer looked indignant.

  ‘I’m including twenty minutes of Charity’s time,’ Hope said with a serious look on her face.

  Charity smiled to herself. Typical of her sister to be so blunt. If it weren’t for Hope’s delicious cakes and the arty facelift she’d given to the café since their parents passed away a few years ago, they’d have no customers. Charity could see the way people regarded Hope with wary eyes. What if one day they had enough of her sister’s attitude and stopped coming? Then where would her sister be? She couldn’t rely on her poetry, that never made much money. And she’d taken on the remaining mortgage repayments on their cottage.

  ‘Don’t listen to Hope,’ Charity said to Mrs McAteer, smiling.

  Mrs McAteer looked Hope up and down, then placed some coins on the side before squeezing her ample frame out from behind the table, patting Charity on the arm and smiling. ‘You’ve always been a good girl.’ Then she left the café, turning once to throw Hope daggers.

  ‘Silly old bat,’ Hope muttered.

  Charity rolled her eyes. ‘You’re wicked, Hope.’

  ‘Can’t you see she’s taking advantage of you, expecting a free counselling session each time she visits? We could turn this place into a café-come-therapy practice the way you’re going.’

  ‘I can see it now,’ Charity said, putting her arms in the air, making the shape of a sign with her hands, the sleeves of her bright red jumper sliding down her arms. ‘Shrink Shack: cakes and counselling.’

  ‘We’ll make millions.’

  They both laughed. For a moment, it almost felt like old times, like Charity hadn’t moved to London eight years ago with just weekly letters and the occasional visit bringing them together. When she’d been made redundant, leaving her with no choice but to move back to Busby-on-Sea, she’d worried things would be awkward with her sister. But after a couple of weeks, it felt like they’d slipped right back into their childhood routines.

  The sound of screeching tyres could be heard from outside. Everyone looked up as a red sports car pulled to a stop outside the café. A woman stepped out, tall like a model with glossy caramel hair and bee-stung lips. She was wearing a black fur coat over tight red trousers, and was tottering on tall black stilettos. A handsome blond man in his mid thirties slid out of the passenger side, adjusting the collar of his expensive-looking suit and shooting the woman a smile.

  As they strode into the café, the whole place fell silent.

  ‘Dan and Lana North,’ Hope whispered to Charity.

  ‘The ones who own the mansion?’

  Hope nodded, looking the woman up and down. ‘So they finally decide to grace us with their presence.’

  Lana North stopped in the middle of the café, peering around her. Charity wondered how it must look to this rich, privileged woman. At least it no longer had Formica tabletops and orange tiled walls. But the driftwood tables and paper sculptures made from pages ripped from poetry books hanging from the ceiling might look odd to her.

  ‘Well, look at this place,’ Lana said to her husband. ‘Isn’t it sweet, darling?’

  ‘Quite the hidden gem,’ her husband replied smoothly. Charity looked at him as she wiped the sides down quickly. He looked alien among the teacups and perms and half-eaten slices of Victoria Sponge. Tan too bronze to be from anywhere but some distant island; blond hair too perfect for the salty air here.

  He caught her eye and she smiled at him. ‘Hello, welcome to the Art Shack,’ she said. ‘What can we get you?’

  ‘I really fancy a glass of champagne,’ Lana said, throwing herself into one of the pastel painted chairs.

  ‘I don’t think they’re licensed to sell alcohol, darling,’ Dan said, smiling to himself as he sat in the chair opposite her.

  ‘You’re right,’ C
harity said. ‘We have coffee though, the Busby-on-Sea special: piping hot, black and sickly sweet.’

  Dan looked up at Charity, green eyes holding hers. ‘Now that sounds like my type of coffee. I’ll have one of those. Darling?’ He looked at his wife.

  She shrugged. ‘I suppose that will have to do. And maybe one of those things too,’ she said, flicking her hand towards a tray of shortbread.

  ‘Make that two,’ Dan said.

  As Hope and Charity prepared the order, the hubbub returned to the café and Charity watched the couple out of the corner of her eye. They were laughing about something, Dan leaning close to Lana’s ear as he whispered to her. They looked completely in love.

  She’d felt like that about someone once.

  Hope handed Charity a tray with the coffees on, interrupting her thoughts. ‘You take them,’ she said under her breath. ‘I’ll only pour the coffee over that bimbo’s head for being so disdainful about my shortbread.’

  ‘I don’t think she’s a bimbo. She managed to attract a millionaire, after all.’

  ‘That doesn’t take brains.’

  Charity smiled as she walked towards the couple with their order. Her sister’s view of the world was rather black and white.

  ‘Busby’s famous coffee times two,’ Charity said, placing the coffees down on the table. ‘And my sister’s fantastic shortbread,’ she added, placing their plates in front of them.

  ‘That’s the real reason we came. My staff tell me the cakes here are to die for,’ Dan said. He took a bite of his shortbread and raised an eyebrow. ‘Looks like they were right. You’re very talented,’ he said to Charity.

  ‘Oh, I can’t take the credit. My sister Hope is the cake connoisseur.’

  Dan peered towards Hope, shooting her a huge smile that lit up his handsome face. ‘Divine, thank you!’

  Hope’s face flushed. Charity smiled. She rarely saw her sister blush.

  ‘Do you cater for events?’ Dan asked Charity.

  ‘No, but maybe we should.’

  ‘Well, just shout if you need any financial advice.’

  He held her gaze and she felt herself blushing too.

  ‘I will,’ she said, walking back to the counter and mouthing the word ‘divine’ to her sister.

  Half an hour later, as the last customers trickled out of the café, including the Norths who left an almighty tip, Charity and Hope worked together quickly and quietly, putting dishes away, clearing tables, wrapping leftovers up to take home. They’d been doing this for three months now and it was beginning to work like clockwork. They quickly closed up then started the short walk home. Their house was away from the hustle and bustle of the town, down a lane that sloped away from the promenade and ran through long grass by the sea. There were just three pebbledash houses there, their backs to the sea, wild gardens reaching out to the pebbles beyond. Though the houses had been battered by the salt and the grit, white exteriors discoloured and damaged, they looked charming in the right light, the long green grass and stretch of blue sea in the distance almost giving a picture postcard look.

  But right now, under the fierce glare of the setting sun, they looked old and tired, like the town itself.

  Hope let them both in and they walked down the small hallway into the messy living room with its red patterned carpets and tatty old chairs, dusty books higgledy-piggledy in a tall oak bookshelf, its shelves bending under the weight.

  The kitchen looked just the same as it had when Charity had grown up there with its beige cupboards and dusty glass cabinet filled with old china cups. Even the thick oak table had her name still etched on its surface. Maybe Hope had done that on purpose, keeping it the same after their parents passed away? She’d never left home and had helped her father care for her mother when she got cancer, then her father when he had a heart attack not long after, the heartache from losing his daughter and his wife finally taking its toll.

  She walked to the fridge, shaking the memories away, and reached in for a courgette and some peppers, throwing them to Hope. Hope caught them with a smile, finding an ancient chopping board and knife. Preparing meals had been a big part of their household as kids. One of Charity’s early memories was from when she was five, her podgy hands kneading some bread dough on a speckled old wooden board as her dad stood over her, his bushy white eyebrows sprinkled with flour, his livered cheeks red from the wine he’d been drinking. Nearby, Hope would sit with their mother at the dinner table peeling carrots, the same solemn look she still held now on her face, her mind no doubt conjuring words to describe the orange of the carrot and the spiral shape its skin made when peeled for a poem she was writing.

  And then there was Faith, who usually stood at the sink, singing softly to herself as she made a fruit salad, the orange glow of the setting sun highlighting the outline of her long blonde hair, her neck arched gracefully as she peered out of the window towards the school fields behind the cottage, always searching for something beyond what lay within that family kitchen. Probably one of those submerged forests she’d become so obsessed with.

  Charity glanced now at the old map of the world they still had pinned to the corkboard, illustrated trees marking the location of all the submerged forests Faith wanted to visit. Her eyes settled on the tree Niall had drawn. She wondered where he was now.

  Hope, Faith and Charity had first met Niall as a grubby-faced boy on the beach outside their house when Charity was just nine. He’d told them his parents were never around and he didn’t even go to school; that he could come and go as he pleased. The sisters were in awe. When he taught them to dive, they spent summer days searching for the submerged forest he was so sure existed off the coast of Busby. Faith was the best diver. She’d scoot ahead with Niall, her long legs sweeping gracefully through the water. When Hope wrote a play about the submerged forest, Faith insisted on being the goddess of the sea, Charity and Hope demoted to mere nymph status. But that’s what she was, a sea goddess, completely at home in the ocean.

  In contrast, Niall powered through the water. As he got older, he got stronger from working at the docks. Charity couldn’t help noticing how muscular he was becoming. When Charity was fifteen and he was seventeen, Hope had got into trouble one day when they were swimming. Niall had dived into the sea and saved her, and something had changed in Charity’s attitude towards him. Instead of being the kid she and her sisters played with, he became a romantic figure, a man strong enough to save her sister.

  She’d sought him out at the docks to thank him the next day, and he suggested they meet up after he finished work. She’d pretended to be disgusted at the idea. But of course, she went. They’d both walked to a beach just outside Busby-on-Sea and Niall introduced her to her first taste of oysters – illegally sourced, as it turned out. They talked until it grew dark, finally sharing their first kiss. When Faith met her at the front door coming in later than her curfew, she’d expected a telling off from her oldest sister. But Faith had just smiled. ‘Don’t go breaking his heart,’ she’d said. ‘I like Niall.’

  Hope hadn’t been so happy, she just glared at Charity then shook her head.

  Faith had always been so kind, so understanding. God, she missed her so much.

  That night, Charity pulled the small wooden box she kept full of Faith’s keepsakes from beneath her bed. It was the size of a shoebox, intricate flowers etched around its sides. She opened it and gently lifted out the photos she kept that told the story of Faith’s short life. She looked at each one, trying to control her emotions. One was of the three sisters standing with their parents outside the café the day her mum opened it twenty years ago. Charity was just six, her dark hair frizzy like her mum’s, her knees chubby; an eight-year-old Hope stood awkwardly beside her, just a wisp of a thing with red hair down to her elbows. And then Faith, nine and already so beautiful, smiling directly into the camera, the blonde hair she’d inherited from their grandma shining under the glare of the morning sun like it might evaporate any minute. There were more phot
os too, one of Faith picking up a swimming award when she was twelve, another of her at her fourteenth birthday party, all legs and glossy hair. Then one taken the day she got all the A-Level results she needed to get into the marine biology course she’d applied for at the University of Southampton, face flushed with happiness as she gave a thumbs up to the camera.

  The last photo was of Faith standing outside the University of Southampton. Charity recognised that nervous smile of hers. Faith used to get it the morning of her exams, or that time when her dad discovered she’d been storing underwater plants in the café, stinking the place out. Despite all her bravado about leaving Busby-on-Sea to go to university, Charity remembered how nervous Faith had been that day. Charity hadn’t wanted her big sister to go.

  Charity set the photos aside. Beneath them was the pale pink lipstick Faith always wore; a small Petri dish; a solitary silver pearl earring…and then the ornate silver necklace Faith had been wearing the night she died, a bejewelled anchor hanging off it. Charity picked it up, tangling it around her fingers.

  She thought of that terrible evening. Faith was back from university for the Easter holidays. She seemed distant, tired. Her parents explained it away, saying the course was hard work and Charity and Hope must leave her to study. Charity remembered being disappointed. She’d envisaged days on the beach with the sister she so worshipped, even some diving if the weather behaved. The first sign something was wrong was the doorbell ringing in the early hours. There’d been the sound of shuffling from their parents’ room, then the door opening, her dad’s heavy steps as he’d walked downstairs. Charity stood at her bedroom door with her ear to it.

  There was the sound of muffled voices then her father’s footsteps on the stairs again.