The Endsister

by Penni Russon

  Sibbi’s face is fierce with concentration. The texta in Sibbi’s hands is scribbling in smaller and smaller circles.

  ‘Sibbi! What are you doing? It’s naughty to draw on the walls!’

  Sibbi looks up, her face flushed. She looks at the texta in her hand and drops it on the ground.

  ‘It was an accident,’ she says.

  She has drawn on herself as well, black lines running up her arms, more black lines straight down, over her eyelids, and down her cheeks.

  ‘You’re going to be in big trouble,’ Finn says. ‘Come on.’

  Sibbi lets Finn lead her into the bathroom. She looks at herself in the mirror. ‘I know what an endsister is,’ she says to Finn. Under the black texta her skin looks yellow. Sickly. Homesickly.

  ‘Yeah?’ he says, not paying much attention. He begins to scrub at the texta with a wet washer. It doesn’t erase.

  ‘It’s a kind of a ghost.’

  ‘This isn’t coming off. We’re going to have to tell Mum.’

  Sibbi looks in the mirror. ‘I don’t look like me.’

  ‘It’s just texta. It’ll wash off eventually.’

  But Sibbi tells him, ‘I don’t already look like me. That’s why I drew on there. Because I didn’t look like me anymore. I look like her.’

  ‘Like who?’

  Sibbi looks at Finn. ‘I know,’ she says. ‘I know what an endsister is.’

  ELSE

  I CAREFULLY CLOSE the lid of the baby violin. I go to the door of the workshop.

  The violin that I held the other day is still sitting there in its case. I remember how it felt to hold it. I remember the electricity of unplayed music fizzing between me and the violin. I close that lid too, like closing the lid of a coffin. It seems wrong to leave it open. I zip up the case.

  And then, hardly knowing what I’m doing, I pick up the violin in its case, and strides out the door with it. It is the worst thing I have ever done in my life. But I cannot stop myself from doing it.

  Every step is a choice to continue on this path, and yet it’s as if I have no choice. I glimpse my reflection in a shop window. I look like a phantom from my own past – Else and the violin – and yet I barely recognise myself at all.

  CLANCY

  I SPEND ALL day waiting for Pippa to come home from school, but when she does, she has homework. I feel weirdly envious. I sort of miss homework. It’s still a few weeks till the summer break, and then holidays. I won’t start school till September.

  ‘Remember you and your parents are coming to dinner at our house tonight, though?’ she says.

  I perk up.

  ‘When’s Dad coming home?’ I ask Mum. She’s staring at her computer screen. She bites her lip. She selects a couple of paragraphs and hits delete. Then she sighs and hits command+Z.

  ‘I wish there was an undo button in real life,’ Mum says.

  ‘Mum!’

  ‘What? Sorry. Did you ask me something? I’m working. Oh, your father. Isn’t he home? He should be on the next train, I suppose. What time is it?’

  ‘We’re having dinner with Pippa and her dad, remember?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ says Mum, but I see alarm in her eyes. She’d obviously forgotten. I wonder if Dad has remembered.

  I walk up to the station to meet him coming off the train. I hardly recognise him, blending in with all the other commuters in their business suits and briefcases. He looks like a proper adult. It’s hard to imagine him back home building fences, playing dress-ups with Sibbi, chasing birds out of the veggie patch, walking the bounds of Aunty May’s land under a big Australian sky.

  Home. Strange to think that London was Dad’s first home.

  ‘Do you remember living here?’ I ask him as we walk down Mortlake Road together.

  ‘Flashes of it,’ Dad says. ‘I used to play football, soccer of course, not Aussie rules, in the street with other kids.’

  ‘What else?’

  ‘I remember punks in the high street. And Dad – my dad – losing his job at the bank. And then it seemed to me that his job was looking for work, because every day he’d get up early, put on a suit and tie. And then one day I came home from school and all these holiday brochures were on the kitchen table. Uluru (though they called it Ayers Rock back then), the Sydney Opera House, kangaroos hopping along a beach at sunset. And they told me, “Well, Davey. This is Australia, how would you like to live there?” The only thing I knew about Australia was cricket. Greg Chappell, Allan Border, Dennis Lillee, Rod Marsh.’

  ‘And then you moved?’

  ‘Yeah. It was hard on my mum. Not so much on Dad, because he was just happy to be working again. Then Mum got a job as well, in a café, and she was happy too. And I lost my English accent, even my English nickname, Davey. In Australia, I was always Dave.’

  Before we go inside Outhwaite House, Dad asks me, ‘How’s your mum today?’

  I shrug. ‘She never goes anywhere. She just sits at her computer all day.’

  ‘The faster she can finish her PhD, the easier it will be for her to get teaching work over here. She’ll be happier when she’s working.’ But Dad doesn’t look that sure about it. ‘Maybe we can get her out this weekend. A walk along the river.’

  So Dad has noticed that Mum never leaves the house too?

  Sibbi is sitting in the middle of the big couch in the lounge room, sinking into the cushions. It looks like it’s digesting her. The TV is on and Sibbi is staring at it vacantly.

  ‘Hi, Sibbi,’ Dad says.

  She blinks up at him. ‘Daddy!’ she says, but when he leans over to give her a kiss she twists sideways so she can see past him to the screen.

  ‘Shall we turn this off?’ he says, picking up the remote.

  ‘No!’ Sibbi says. ‘I’m watching my shows.’

  ‘Oh, Dave.’ Mum comes into the lounge room, towel-drying her hair. She’s wearing a dress too. ‘Don’t turn it off!’

  Dad puts the remote down. ‘But Sibbi never watches TV.’

  ‘What do you expect, Dave? I can’t entertain her all the time. There’s just not that much for Sibbi to do here when the kids go out and we’re both working. Like it or not, television is our new friend.’

  I look at Sibbi. Her skin looks pale, doughy, her eyes hollow and dark and her cheeks still streaky with dried-out tears, her body soft and floppy – I find it hard to picture her scrambling up trees, or walking kilometres and kilometres over paddocks and through the bush on the family weekend rambles, or even running down to see Aunty May with a basket of warm rolls fresh from our oven. She has a glazed look on her face, and her fingers are in her mouth, a habit I thought she had given up.

  Mum tells me, ‘I’ve asked Else to babysit tonight.’ ‘Babysit?’ says Dad.

  ‘Next door’s invited us over for dinner and a drink. You know, Pippa’s dad. The architect. Dave, I told you.’

  ‘Pippa?’

  ‘Clancy’s friend. The girl next door.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, I remember,’ Dad says. ‘Clancy has a friend.’ He nudges me. ‘And she’s only got two legs, right? I mean, she’s an actual child? Not a dog or a cat or a possum or a fox or a –’

  ‘Bird,’ says Sibbi.

  ‘She’s a bird?’ Dad asks.

  Sibbi laughs. ‘She’s not a bird. She’s a human people.’

  ‘Why isn’t Sibbi coming?’

  Mum looks drained. ‘We can’t take Sibbi. You know how she carries on lately.’

  ‘We always take Sibbi.’ Dad looks at me, but I shake my head. Honestly, Sibbi’s been such a pain lately, I’d rather not take her either.

  ‘I’ll take her to the park tomorrow,’ I promise. ‘You want to go to the park, right, Sibbi?’

  Sibbi shakes her head. ‘Nuh-uh.’

  ‘He’s a single dad, with an only child. He’s not prepared for Sibbi. You know she bit me the other day?’

  ‘And I drawed on the walls,’ says Sibbi, brightly. ‘And it won’t wash out.’

  ‘Oh, Sibbi,’ says Dad. �
��But you’re sorry now, aren’t you?’

  ‘Sorry, not sorry. Sorry, not sorry,’ says Sibbi.

  Dad says, ‘I think you are a bit sorry, really.’

  ‘We could just skip it altogether,’ says Mum.

  ‘No way!’ I say. ‘Pippa’s dad will have already started cooking. You promised, Mum!’

  ‘Of course we’ll come,’ says Dad. ‘It’s a good idea, Olly, hey? Get out and about? Relax, and meet some people? You’re right. Else can look after Sibbi.’

  Mum doesn’t look convinced. ‘You two go,’ she says. ‘I’ve been thinking I need to rewrite that chapter again. I found a new reference and –’

  ‘Mum, I want you to come,’ I say. ‘Please.’

  ‘How long has it been since you’ve spoken to another adult, Olly?’ Dad asks.

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Mum asks.

  ‘I mean Sibbi’s here all day by herself watching television. Who knows what the twins are up to. Else disappears all day. Clancy seems to be spending all his time next door.’

  Mum crosses her arms. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  Dave puts his hands up. ‘Look, I’m not trying to pick a fight here. I just think you could do with some company.’

  ‘Look, you were the one who wanted to –’

  Sibbi puts her hands over her ears and screams.

  ‘Sibbi!’ says Mum. ‘Mama and Daddy are trying to have a conversation.’

  ‘I can’t hear my show,’ says Sibbi.

  ‘Are you two fighting?’ Else asks, bored, peering into the lounge room.

  ‘No!’ Mum and Dad snap at the same time. Else looks at me and rolls her eyes.

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘But we are having a personal discussion,’ Mum says.

  ‘All right, all right, I get the hint. I’ll be in my room when you need me. Don’t come in without knocking.’

  ‘It’s my room too,’ Sibbi says.

  ‘Don’t remind me.’

  I follow Mum and Dad out into the hallway. ‘We’re still going to Pippa’s, aren’t we?’

  Dad ignores me. He tells Mum, ‘My dad grew up here. His dad grew up here. Outhwaites have always lived in this house since it was first built.’

  Somehow Mum isn’t cross anymore. She answers, as if they’ve been having another conversation all along: ‘It’s just a house, Dave. At the end of the day, it’s just a house.’

  ‘Are we still going to Pippa’s?’

  ‘Let me take a shower and get out of this suit,’ Dad says. ‘Then I’ll be ready for dinner next door. I’m looking forward to meeting this real human people friend of yours, Clancy.’

  CLANCY

  DAD AND JONTY, Pippa’s dad, seem to have a fine old time discussing the finer details of inheritance tax, building regulations in London, property law and the value of the Australian dollar against the British pound. Money! Why do grown-ups always want to talk about boring things?

  Mum pokes absent-mindedly at her watercress and cheddar tart. She looks tired and a little bored.

  ‘I might just nip in next door and check on Sibbi and Else and the twins,’ she says, putting her fork down.

  ‘No!’ I say, knowing that if she leaves she’ll never come back. ‘They’re fine.’

  Dad sits back in his chair. ‘Poor Else can’t believe she’s moved into this enormous house and she still has to share a bedroom with the baby. Of course, eventually we’ll clear out Dorothy’s study for Sibbi, but it’s a big job.’

  Jonty raises an eyebrow. ‘Have you thought about going up into the attic?’

  ‘Attic?’ asks Dad.

  ‘There is no attic,’ Pippa and I say together, quickly.

  Jonty raises a finger. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Ah, that’s what Dorothy used to say. She had an infuriatingly stubborn mental block about it.’

  ‘I wonder why,’ says Mum.

  ‘Ghosts, probably,’ says Jonty, pouring himself and Dad another glass of wine. Mum covers her glass and shakes her head.

  ‘Ghosts?’ says Dad. ‘You’re not serious!’

  ‘Oh, perfectly serious. Some surveys say as many as three in four Britons believe in ghosts. I come across it all the time in my line of work, renovating historic houses. People are always thinking it’s unhappy ghosts that are banging on the pipes, playing haywire with the electrics, thumping on the stairs, pushing things off the shelves. Usually there’s a perfectly ordinary explanation, of course, rats or bats or birds, the wind, old warped wood, dodgy wiring, worn-out plumbing.’

  ‘You said usually,’ I say. ‘Usually there’s an ordinary explanation.’

  ‘Well,’ says Jonty. ‘Sometimes . . .’ He takes a sip of wine. ‘I mean, I’m not saying I believe in ghosts. But I’ve certainly seen things I can’t explain. I’ve never been frightened, though, more curious.’

  ‘Was Dorothy frightened?’ Dad asks.

  Jonty shrugs. ‘Just . . . resistant. Sort of protective. I’d have taken her for a baked-on history nut, you know, the type that doesn’t want anything to change ever, even as the house falls down around them, except I knew her better than that. She had a lively, progressive mind, she loved new ideas, and new things. She just seemed . . . disinterested in updating the house, sort of noncommittal, as if was something she might get round to one day.’

  ‘She was busy,’ says Pippa. ‘That was all.’

  Jonty agrees. ‘I always had the feeling she’d have liked to move to something smaller and more modern, but she didn’t have the heart to give up the family home.’

  ‘I don’t like to think of her in that big rattly house all by herself. What a good thing she had you, Pippa,’ says Mum. ‘You must miss her.’

  Pippa smiles gratefully at Mum.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ says Dad. ‘Dorothy lived in that house her whole life. You can’t just unsee a whole attic.’

  ‘Well, there definitely is one. You can see the window from the street if you know what you’re looking for. Come upstairs and I’ll show you what we’ve done with ours. The floor plans of this entire row of houses are almost identical.’

  When I first heard Jonty worked from home, I thought Pippa meant he sat hunched over a battered laptop at the kitchen table like Mum’s always done. But stepping into Jonty’s office is like stepping out into an open-plan floor of a city building. All the walls have been removed, so it is one enormous light, lofty space with an open mezzanine floor. Everything is white walls and timber and glass, all of it gleaming. It makes me realise how shabby Outhwaite House is in comparison, like something left over from another century. Which, I suppose, it is.

  I walk over to the wall that Pippa’s house shares with Outhwaite House’s attic and press my ear against it. I don’t believe in ghosts. I believe in bats and rats and birds, in creaking branches, and ageing houses. If I can hear anything – a dry rattle, a scraping, scratching sound – well, it must have a perfectly rational explanation.

  Dave taps his chin with his finger, thinking. ‘That door, on the landing, the one we thought was a locked cupboard. It must lead up to the attic. We could have a look, at least. Maybe Sibbi could move in there. She’d be closer to us. I love the idea of opening it out like this eventually.’

  ‘More space?’ says Mum, weakly. ‘Remember the cottage? Remember how we always said we preferred living in small houses, the children all gathered around us?’

  ‘Well, they’re growing up,’ says Jonty. ‘It stands to reason that Else and the boys will need rooms of their own to grow into.’

  Pippa rolls her eyes. ‘Lots of families in the third world share one room, Daddy.’

  Mum frowns. ‘I’m just not sure I like the idea of Sibbi alone in an attic. Anyway, it’s probably full of boxes and furniture and things. There must be a reason why the door is locked.’

  ‘I can’t believe it,’ says Jonty. ‘I cannot believe you don’t want to explore every square inch of that fascinating house.’

  ‘Fascinating,’ agrees Mum, wearily. ‘But so many t
hings. I don’t even know where to begin sorting through it. I mean, how do you make meaning of someone’s life through their leftover stuff? Everything is important and nothing is.’

  ‘Some of it might be worth quite a bit,’ says Jonty. ‘It can be hard to tell sometimes which are the more collectable pieces. It would be worth getting an expert in. I can recommend someone. Someone who specialises in deceased estates.’

  ‘What’s a deceased estate?’ asks Pippa.

  ‘A house where the owner has died,’ Dad says.

  ‘It sounds like the house has died,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, we ought to do that,’ says Mum. ‘But no expert can tell me which things Dorothy cared most about, which pen she liked to use, which was her favourite poetry book or cup to drink out of.’

  ‘Yes, I see what you mean,’ Jonty says. ‘Still, it will all have to be dealt with in due course. Now, there’s gooseberry crumble in the oven. Can I tempt you?’

  SIBBI

  FOR SIBBI, LIVING with the two ghosts, Almost Annie and Hardly Alice, is not that different from living with Else. The ghosts drift silently from room to room, sometimes showing interest in the children, sometimes absorbed in their own thoughts.

  Sometimes the ghosts are clear as day to Sibbi; other times they are pale smears against the air. Sibbi has never heard them speak, but she thinks perhaps they speak to each other.

  When Sibbi’s emotions become too much for her and she gives way to frustration or despair – screaming till she turns red, kicking the walls, drumming her feet on the floor, throwing toys, tearing the sheets from her bed – Hardly Alice hastily retreats, vanishing through walls. Almost Annie, though, will sit nearby and wait Sibbi out, with endless loving patience.

  Almost Annie is sitting by Sibbi’s bed now, shaking her head, looking worriedly down at Sibbi.

  The ghosts do not frighten Sibbi. That would be like being frightened of Else. She is more frightened of the portraits on the walls: stern Victorian ladies and gentlemen frowning down from the walls as if to say children should be seen and not heard and the corn has ears and spare the rod, spoil the child.