She kept her face expressionless. ‘Just times like this?’
‘Well, no, lots of times, of course. But we could have asked them for help now. Asked them more about Rose, and her husband. Are you like me? A bit shocked about how little we know about where Lara came from, who her parents were?’
‘We knew a fair bit, didn’t we? Remember the memorial days? They were all about her parents.’
‘I know that. But it’s the facts we don’t know. A little girl came to us out of the blue, and the more I think about it, the more I realise we hardly asked a question about it or did anything special for her. We went on as if it was a normal thing, that a stranger arrived to live with us.’
‘No, we didn’t. Everything changed when she arrived.’
‘No, it didn’t. We still went to school, to the beach, helped in the office. It’s just there were four of us kids, not three.’
They were interrupted by the arrival of their coffee. The wind threatened to take the foamy tops off their cappuccinos. Across from her, Austin was checking his mobile phone. ‘Sorry about this, Harriet. Want to double check I’ve got a signal here. I was thinking about calling Lara’s flatmate first, but I think I might turn up unannounced. I’m going to call into her college too, see if I can have a word with one of her lecturers or any of the others in her class. They might have noticed something.’
‘Thanks for taking the time to drop by and say hello.’
He picked up her tone. ‘Harriet, I’m sorry.’ He leaned over and tweaked her nose. He’d been doing that since she was little and she had always hated it.
She was cross enough now to say it. ‘Please don’t do that. I’m not a child any more.’
‘You on your cranky pills, Harold? With me, your dearest brother, here on the other side of the world with you? And you not treating me with respect and adoration? Aren’t you finding your heart beating faster with the excitement of being in close proximity to me?’
She couldn’t help it. She started to smile.
‘That’s better. You looked like you’d been drinking sour milk. Harold, I’m sorry to talk about Lara and not shower you with praise about how well you’re coping on this tour. I’m not surprised, that’s all. I knew you could do it. I told Lara that as well.’
‘Told her what?’
‘That I had complete faith in you.’
She sat up straighter. ‘When did you talk to her about me?’
‘The day James had his accident. She rang to see whether I thought you were up to it.’
She could feel the colour in her cheeks. ‘Why did she have to check with you whether I was up to it?’
‘What else could she have done? Rung you, in the middle of the night? When she knew you’d be flat out getting ready? Calm down, would you? Think about it from her point of view. She’d spent months setting up this tour and then James pulls out the day before. She was concerned and reasonably so. Don’t overreact.’
‘I’m not overreacting. But it’s a pretty funny way of showing how much you care about something, not showing up like this. Leaving all of us in the lurch.’ She felt a hot, prickly sensation inside. She knew she was being bitchy but she couldn’t seem to stop herself.
‘Which brings us right back to square one. Why I’m here. To find her.’
‘But what if she doesn’t want to be found? What if she wants to be left alone?’
‘I told you before. I’ll leave her alone as soon as I know she’s okay.’
‘I still think if she’s decided she wants some space we should give her some space.’
Austin gave her a strange look. ‘Harriet, this is Lara. Lara whose parents were killed when she was eight years old. Lara who had to go and live with a whole new family. Don’t you think this is out of character for her? That something’s up and she might be needing some support right now? What’s got into you? I thought you and Lara were close.’
The feeling again. The uncomfortable ripple of hurt and confusion. ‘Things change in a family, Austin. Relationships change, people behave differently. Lara might not want you chasing after her.’
‘Lara’s heart would skip a beat if she saw me appear out of nowhere, just as yours did. My two little acolytes, that’s how I’ve always seen you. My little elfin-faced Harold, and ice queen Lara. Not so much sisters as followers, I always liked to think. Such sport too, playing you off against each other, making you do my bidding. I suspect I’m part wizard, actually. What do you think, Harold?’
She stood up. ‘I have to go, Austin. I’m meeting the tour group.’
‘Not until lunchtime, you told me.’
‘I’ve got work to do.’
Austin didn’t move. ‘Don’t be like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘Prickly. Pretending to be tough. It doesn’t suit you.’
She lost her temper. ‘What am I supposed to be like then, Austin? Answer me that? Because I don’t seem to be able to win in this family. I’m either too weak, falling apart, the basket-case or it’s “Don’t get tough, Harriet, it doesn’t suit you.” Which one am I?’
‘You’re my dear little sister Harold, that’s who you are. My little anxiety bag of a sister. Come on, Harriet, sit down and calm down, would you?’
He disarmed her, as he always could. Her temper flickered and then went out. But he was wrong. She wasn’t just his little sister, the anxiety bag of a child. Not any more. But he kept choosing not to see it. They fell quiet again. She made a point of slowly stirring sugar into her coffee. The mood had changed and she didn’t know whether she wanted to fix it or not.
Austin broke the silence. ‘I thought he was supposed to be an old man.’
She looked up. ‘Who?’
‘That Patrick Shawcross. He’s not old at all. In fact, he’s a hunk.’
‘A hunk? When did you ever use a word like hunk?’
‘Don’t you think it suits him? He’s like one of those old-fashioned matinee idols. “Hunky actor Patrick Shawcross, pictured today in St Ives”,’ he spoke in a bad American accent. ‘If I had known my little sister was travelling around the wilds of Cornwall with a sex symbol …’
‘Yes, a sex symbol and twelve old-aged pensioners.’
‘So he hasn’t tried anything on you?’
‘Tried what?’
‘You know. These actor-types, no morals …’
She knew he was trying to joke with her, but she didn’t like it. ‘Austin, what’s got into you? You never did this big brother act when we were at home, so why now?’
He shrugged. ‘Because you had Simon guarding you back then. I might be your brother but I can see these things. He’s an attractive man. You’re a single, good-looking woman. I know from the orchestra that you put those things together on tour and boom. I saw the two of you, getting on so well, that touch on your back …’
‘Of course we get on well. And he’s an actor. Everyone knows actors are tactile.’
‘Is he married?’
‘Yes, with eleven children, but he told me this morning he loves me and wants to leave them for me. Austin, listen to yourself.’ She was laughing now, but she was also serious.
‘Just worrying about my little sister. Protecting her, as I always have.’
She poked out her tongue at him.
‘ “Please don’t do that,” ’ he mimicked her. ‘ “I’m not a child any more.” ’
She couldn’t help herself. She did it again.
After waving goodbye to Austin as he drove off in his hire car, she went for a walk along the beach on her own. He had given her a nice hug, and told her he thought she was great, and the tour was obviously going well, but he’d been distracted when he said it. It was obvious he wanted to get on the road.
She walked down the beach, taking in deep breaths of the fresh air, trying to focus on the peaks of white on the water. The seagulls were loud. The weather was changing. The blue in the sky was being taken over by large dark clouds, and the wind was picking up, getting colde
r and gustier. The buildings and streets of St Ives were to her right, just out of her line of vision. She tried to concentrate on the fishing boats out on the water, real, solid things, not the uncomfortable thoughts pushing their way into her mind.
She’d had the dream again the night before. Reliving the phone calls that her parents were dying and she was rushing to get to them, feeling the panic in her chest that she wasn’t getting closer even though she was running as fast as she could. Getting to the hospital and racing to the door, only to find it locked. To find Lara standing there behind the glass, staring at her without expression. Hearing herself call out, ‘Lara, let me in.’ Not being able to get her to understand, or to hear. She’d woken up then, her heart racing. It had taken her a long time to get to sleep again. If she had the dream, the bad memories always followed. Memories of the terrible conversation with Lara three months ago, the night before she left for her course in England. Like a video in her mind she couldn’t erase.
She should have told Austin about it. Explained why she felt so strange about finding Lara. Told him what she had learned, from Lara herself.
One of the nurses from the hospital had set it in motion, unwittingly, at Lara’s farewell party. It was the first time Harriet had seen her since the day her mother died. The young woman had put her hand on Harriet’s arm and expressed her sympathies again about Mr and Mrs Turner, asking how she was getting on, in a tone of voice that gave away she knew about Harriet’s breakdown.
Harriet had answered as brightly as she could. She’d told the truth. She missed her parents very badly. ‘I just keep wishing I could have one last conversation with them.’
‘It must have been some consolation to Lara, I suppose. Nothing takes the sadness away, but perhaps it would have helped.’
Harriet didn’t understand. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure what you mean.’
‘It might have helped Lara, that she was able to speak to your mother before she died. Before she had the second stroke.’
‘But Mum wasn’t conscious after the first stroke. She was in a coma when she had the second one, wasn’t she?’
The nurse had looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry. I thought you—’
‘No, it’s fine. Really. Will you excuse me?’
She’d gone directly to James, who was in mid-conversation with several clients. She’d pulled him to one side. ‘James, did you know Mum was conscious before she died?’
‘What, Harriet?’ He’d looked unhappy to be interrupted.
She repeated the question.
‘Harriet, why are you asking this now? What will it change?’
He didn’t understand. She went to Austin, on the other side of the room, and asked him the same question.
‘Harriet, don’t do this to yourself.’
‘I’m not doing anything. But did you know?’
‘Harriet …’
He didn’t understand either. Lara was in the far corner of the room, talking to several clients. Harriet could hear her explaining what the course in Bath was about. She knew it was rude to interrupt but she couldn’t stop herself.
‘Lara, can I talk to you. In private?’
They went outside to the garden. Harriet blurted it out. All the nurse had said. ‘Is it true? Were you talking to Mum? Before she died?’
Harriet didn’t know what she’d expected from Lara. A denial perhaps. An explanation that the nurse had got it wrong. What she hadn’t expected was what Lara did.
She nodded. After only a moment’s hesitation.
Harriet was shocked. ‘But when? I thought she was in a coma. Why didn’t any of you tell me she’d been conscious?’
‘Harriet, it wasn’t for long. We’d just got to the hospital and James went outside to ring Austin and Melissa and he asked me to ring you and …’ Lara stopped there.
Harriet stared at her, trying to make sense of what she was saying. ‘James asked you to ring me? To tell me Mum was in hospital? That she’d had a stroke?’
Lara nodded.
‘But you didn’t ring me. James rang me.’ Even as she said it, a sharp memory of James’s call that day seemed to echo in her mind. ‘Harriet, thank God I got you.’
Harriet saw something in Lara’s expression. She knew what it was immediately. It was guilt. ‘Lara, did he ask you to ring me? And you didn’t?’
Lara didn’t answer that time. She just kept looking at Harriet.
Harriet had to know. She had to know for sure. ‘Lara? Is that true? I have to know, can’t you see that? Did James ask you to ring me and you didn’t?’
‘Harriet …’
‘Is that what happened?’ She knew the answer from Lara’s face. ‘But Lara, if you had rung me, I could have got there earlier. I might have been with Mum when …’ Back it came, the panic and the hurt and the desperation of not being with her father or her mother when they died. She could hardly look at Lara, unable to believe what she had just learned. ‘I can’t understand. How could you have done it?’ Still no answer. ‘Lara, please, you have to tell me. How could you have done it? Don’t you see what you have taken from me?’
There had been no response from Lara. Nothing. That’s what had stunned her. No tears, no apologies. They had just stared at each other, and then Lara had turned and gone inside.
The next day Lara had left for England. They hadn’t spoken of it – spoken of anything – in the months since. Harriet hadn’t known where to start. How did she begin to ask about something that she knew would hurt so badly to hear? How did she get past the fact that Lara had done something so terrible?
Should she have told Austin about it? She couldn’t have, she realised. Something inside, some instinct, had stopped her. The uneasy feeling that he wasn’t automatically on her side any more. Because like it or not, she knew there had always been rivalry between her and Lara over Austin. Over who spoke to him the most. Who made him laugh the most. Who he liked the most.
Austin had looked at her as if she was crazy when she dared to suggest it hadn’t all been smooth sailing when Lara arrived. For once, she had heard herself voicing something close to the truth, but it had been dismissed. Austin was in his rescuer mode, and nothing was going to get in his way. He’d always been like that. Playing the older brother card, but only when it suited him.
For the hundredth time since her parents died, Harriet wished they were there, so she could ask for help and advice. She thought about what Austin had said about wanting to ask about Lara, her parents, what had happened to them.
The questions she wanted to ask them came straight into her mind. ‘Did you know how much I loved you? Did you love me? Did you love me as much as you loved Lara?’ She knew what they would have said. ‘Of course we did, Harriet. We had enough love for all of you.’ She’d never been able to hear it enough times. And what questions would they ask her, she wondered.
Perhaps they knew all about her already. If, as she hoped, they were up in some sort of heaven somewhere, she liked to think of them keeping an occasional eye on her, or at least getting regular reports, like dossiers. She liked to imagine the two of them, sipping cocktails on some big cruise ship in the sky, a tuxedo-wearing waiter swishing up to them with a tray. ‘Here’s this week’s report on your children, Mr and Mrs Turner.’
It had disturbed Harriet recently to discover that her memories of her parents were fading. When she tried to picture them sometimes, the edges were hazy, as though she was looking at them through frosted glass. She could remember minor details, but not the whole. The way her father walked, an upright, brisk movement. The way her mother laughed, with one hand covering her mouth, so ladylike. She could still imagine their voices, though. They’d always kept their English accents, even after so many years in Australia. Sometimes just a touch of another similar accent was enough to hear them in her head.
Harriet came to a boat pulled up on the sand. She leaned down to touch it, running her hand along the wood, the solid feel of the paint layers. Will o’ the Wisp was writte
n in curvy letters on its side, a bright starfish painted beside it. She traced it with her finger, counting the five points. A childhood memory came back to her. A conversation she’d had with Gloria about six months after Lara had come to live with them. Harriet had just finished her regular drawing on the travel agency blackboard. Gloria had come over to look.
‘That’s lovely, Harriet. But you’ve forgotten your starfish.’
Since doing her Christmas cards, Harriet had started putting a small starfish in a corner of all of her drawings, as a little symbol of her family. She hadn’t forgotten it this time. She’d been thinking about it, picturing the five pointed arms, trying to decide what colour she would do it, when she had realised it didn’t work now. ‘No, I haven’t. I can’t do it any more.’
‘Why not?’ Gloria asked.
‘Because there are six of us in my family now, not five.’
‘You can get six-pointed starfish. Twenty-pointed starfish, even. Starfish come in all shapes and sizes.’
‘I’ve never seen them.’
‘You’ll just have to search harder, then. And in the meantime, the five-pointed one can still be your family. You’ll just have to look at it differently.’ Gloria had drawn a five-pointed starfish on the blackboard then and there. ‘See? One of you can go in the middle of the starfish – you for now, as a special treat, but you can take turns.’ She’d written Harriet’s initial in the centre of her drawing. ‘And the other five, your mum, your dad, James, Austin and Lara, can surround you,’ she’d been writing their names as she spoke, ‘standing in a circle with their funny pointy heads, looking after you.’
The memory made Harriet smile and made her sad, all at once. She ran her hands along the wood of the boat again, picturing it out on the water, riding waves. As children they had built rafts and swum in the sea, but she had never spent much time sailing or boating, preferring to swim. She imagined climbing in, setting sail, going across the water for miles, until she arrived at a whole new place. Is that what Lara was trying to do, make a fresh start somewhere? Leaving the Turners, and that whole life, behind her? Reclaiming the life that would have been hers if her parents hadn’t died?
Family Baggage Page 26
