Sister Pact

by Ali Ahearn

  ‘Shh,’ Frances murmured.

  Joni laid her head on her shoulder. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘What’s done is done.’

  She felt Joni stiffen at one of their father’s old chestnuts but it was all she had. Frances rocked slightly as they both stared at the silver tray illuminated by the firelight behind and the treasure that meant so much to both of them.

  The card was insignificant now.

  How could she have ever thought it even classified as treasure? Compared with the locket, it was just a worthless piece of plastic.

  ‘What do you think they’re talking about?’ Joni asked.

  Frances shifted her gaze to the confab that a gesticulating Lex was leading. The Stapler stabbed Darryl viciously in the chest with an imperious finger while Lex tried to soothe her.

  ‘Ways to humiliate us even further, no doubt.’

  Joni laughed and the sound vibrated through Frances’s shoulder and tickled her neck. If she shut her eyes, Frances could almost believe they were sitting around the camp fires at Greenham Common. All they needed was a bunch of women singing ‘Kumbaya’.

  The group of three took leave of each other and a grinning Lex gave them a surreptitious thumbs-up signal. Joni pulled her head from Frances’s shoulder and gave her a puzzled look. Frances wondered if Lex had brokered some kind of deal on their behalf. She didn’t know whether it would be a good thing or not.

  The grim look on The Stapler’s face was more telling.

  ‘Right, you mangy lot of toerags, let’s play ball!’ she roared.

  The contestants took their places around the fire pit, now immune to Sally’s insults. The cameramen and the lighting crew made some last-minute adjustments. Darryl positioned himself on the altar stairs, waited till everyone was ready and the silence had reached a screeching crescendo, then looked down the camera and opened his gob.

  ‘The treasure hunt did not go well for our Feuding Heiresses.’ The camera was trained on Joni and Frances for the dram-cam shot. ‘They lost the challenge and tomorrow night will face the votes from around the globe as they stand on the trapdoor again, with Kandy and Misty. But now …’

  Darryl paused again and shot each woman what Frances could only suppose was meant to be his sex-god impersonation.

  But looked more like a pissed Terry Wogan.

  ‘The time has come to destroy the losing couple’s treasure.’

  ‘No,’ Joni whimpered. Frances took her hand and squeezed hard.

  There was another pause while Sally handed Darryl a piece of paper and Frances sucked in a deep breath. Could she stand by and watch as Endurance Island destroyed something so precious to her? Was one million pounds worth this kind of mental anguish?

  ‘Or,’ droned Darryl, ‘has it?’

  Joni gasped and Frances’s gaze darted from Sally, to Lex, then back to Darryl. The hairs on the back of her neck stood to attention as the entire jungle seemed to lean in a little closer.

  What was going on?

  Frances was aware of their opponents whispering either side of them as the game took this sudden turn.

  Darryl turned to the silver platter, and picked up the card and the locket, which swung back and forth like a hypnotist’s prop. The firelight caught it and for a moment it glowed in the night, like a firefly.

  ‘How badly do you two want to keep them?’

  Frances’s gaze again flicked to Lex, who gave her a small but encouraging nod. She opened her mouth to give a measured indication they’d be interested.

  ‘Badly,’ Joni jumped in. ‘Anything. We’d do anything.’

  The scratch of The Stapler’s pen was the only noise in the jungle now. She ripped the paper out of the notebook – loud in the loaded atmosphere – and prodded Darryl with it.

  He smiled. ‘Really, Joni? Would you eat another rat leg? And keep it down this time? We have several left over.’

  Frances shot her sister a sharp look, and saw her throat bob as she swallowed hard against her revulsion.

  ‘Yes.’

  Joni’s voice was strong and steady but Frances knew just what it had taken for her to say the word. She remembered when her sister had first announced she was becoming a vegetarian, just after Indira had come to live with them. Their meat-and-potatoes father had refused to entertain such hippy bollocks. It seemed his patience with alternate women had well and truly been exhausted by their mother. They’d endured three days’ worth of meals at which Joni had been re-presented with her rewarmed steak and kidney pie for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She’d refused to partake. And their father had flat out refused to bend. It was a standoff of military proportions.

  Their own personal Cuban Missile Crisis.

  It had ended when their mother had said enough. Joni became a fully fledged vegetarian, Carter put in extra time at the firing range and Lizzie was inundated with recipes from her hippy friends.

  It was apparent to Frances from the way Sally kept handing Darryl his lines that whatever was happening had not all been scripted months beforehand by a bunch of industry sadists at a top-secret location in London. No, this had been cooked up on the spot and Darryl, who couldn’t ad-lib his way out of a paper bag, was having his strings yanked by the master puppeteer.

  ‘No need,’ Darryl intoned, letting Joni off the hook. ‘Instead, though, you must convince us; plead your case. Can you do that?’

  Both Joni and Frances nodded their heads wildly. Anything.

  Anything.

  Darryl accepted another piece of paper from The Stapler, his gaze flicking back and forth over the words before he raised his face and fixed the sisters with his Hollywood stare.

  ‘Joni, we think you lied about the significance of the locket. Is that true?’

  As Darryl’s words sank in, Joni looked increasingly worried, like one of those rabbits from Watership Down she’d become obsessed with when she was little. Small and frightened, hypnotised by the light, unable to move as destruction rolled ever closer.

  Frances opened her mouth to say no but Joni nodded and said, ‘Yes.’

  Darryl slid Sally a smug look before turning back to Joni and Frances. ‘We need to know the truth. The whole truth.’

  Darryl lifted the locket above his head as if he were brandishing the Star of India.

  Oh, sod this!

  ‘Don’t,’ Frances whispered with sudden clarity. ‘It’s not worth it.’

  Joni flicked her a glance and Frances knew it was hopeless. Her sister’s grey eyes, large and wounded in the firelight, spoke volumes. The guilt in their depths was heartbreaking.

  ‘It means as much to me as it does to you, Frankie. I’m not going to let him destroy the only thing that still connects us,’ she whispered back vehemently.

  ‘Are you ready for the truth?’ Darryl boomed, the locket still grasped on high.

  Oh Jesus! She could see the scene now as the viewers would see it after it had been cut and edited. Atmospheric music, jungle drums and Darryl acting like some voodoo priest.

  Frances wanted to turn and yell, You can’t handle the truth!

  But she knew that was a lie. If anyone couldn’t handle the ugly truth of that night, it was her.

  Joni nodded. ‘I am.’

  Darryl slowly lowered the jewellery back onto the tray as if it were a bomb primed to go off at any second.

  Tosser.

  ‘Very well; tell us, Joni. Tell us the significance of the locket.’

  Joni squared her shoulders. ‘It’s not mine,’ she murmured. ‘It’s Frankie’s.’

  Darryl gave the camera a James Bond look. ‘I’m sorry,’ he intoned. ‘We didn’t quite hear that.’

  Frances felt tension knot her shoulderblades as Joni’s chin rose. ‘I said, the locket belongs to Frankie. Not me.’

  Darryl forged on, tramping all over their pain. ‘Care to explain?’

  ‘G … our grandmother gave the locket to Frankie for her thirteenth birthday.’

  Sally quickly scribbled on her pad, tore off
the page and passed it to Darryl. ‘And yet … the locket’s in your possession,’ Darryl read. ‘How so?’

  ‘I found it on the floor seven years ago at Frankie’s hens’ party and I … kept it.’

  Frances heard two gasps from her left. Kandy and Misty understood that women did not steal each other’s bling.

  ‘You kept it?’ Darryl’s voice went up an octave and his eyebrows tried manfully to follow suit. It was a pity his frozen forehead let him down. ‘Why didn’t you return it?’

  Joni glanced at Frankie and then looked back to Darryl. ‘I was kind of … angry with her at the time.’

  Darryl opened his mouth to say something but shut it again as Sally dug him in the ribs and handed him another hastily scrawled note.

  ‘Seven years ago?’ he mused, rubbing his chin, as if the words were his own. ‘That was about the time you and your sister became estranged, wasn’t it? Something happened that night, didn’t it, Joni? You didn’t attend your own sister’s wedding the next week. What happened?’

  Frances watched the shadow of Joni’s lashes fall across her beautiful cheekbones. The distant surf seemed suddenly to roar in Frances’s ears. She should say something. Should stop Joni airing their dirty laundry in front of these strangers. In front of the world.

  But she couldn’t. Perversely, she wanted to hear Joni say the words, admit her wrongdoing.

  ‘Frankie … Frankie caught Edward and me … together … in the cloakroom. In the dark. It was … so dark.’

  Frances felt all the air leave her lungs at her sister’s halting confession. Heat flushed her cheeks. It was something they’d never spoken about.

  It was the elephant in the room.

  Another note was passed hastily. Darryl tsked as he read the note. ‘In flagrante delicto with your sister’s soon-to-be husband.’

  ‘No!’ Joni denied. ‘No. It was … we were … there was just … snogging,’ she ended lamely.

  Frances swallowed the lump in her throat. God, did Joni really think what base they’d got to mattered? How far would they have gone had she not been looking for the lippy she’d stashed in her jacket pocket?

  Darryl’s curious expression echoed Frances’s thoughts. ‘What happened then?’

  Joni shot a quick glance at Frances. ‘We argued. I tried to explain … to get her to understand –’

  Frances remembered it in vivid detail.

  Edward pushing Joni off him, wiping his mouth on his sleeve like Joni had the plague, calling her crazy and oversexed. A slut. Accusing her of coming on to him.

  Joni, her mouth smeared with lipstick and mascara smudged across her cheekbones, looking like a cross between the Joker and a two-bit hooker, swivelling her head from Frances to Edward and back to Frances.

  Bewildered. Shaking her head. Her eyes glazed, pleading.

  Saying, ‘Let me explain, please let me explain.’

  ‘And did she let you?’

  Joni shook her head. ‘She was angry. Too angry. She was pushing and pushing me closer and closer to the wall, and yelling that she never wanted to see me ever again … that I was dead to her … and Edward was trying to drag her away and I guess that’s when she lost the necklace … It was so dark.’

  Frances was aware of Joni’s tentative gaze back on her but she was too caught up in the gut-twisting memories of that night to acknowledge it. The pain, the ugly words, the violence. And the death of something far more precious than the treasure that was now being held to ransom.

  Darryl accepted another scrawled missive from Sally. ‘So, you kept it out of spite?’

  ‘No!’ Joni’s head snapped up and she shook it vehemently. ‘I kept it because … because it was the only thing I had of hers. Because it had her smell and her warmth and … her fingerprints from years of rubbing it as she went to sleep each night. It was a tiny piece of her. And I knew, I knew this time for sure that she really was going to cut me off for good. She was so … cold. The locket was all I had.’

  Joni turned to her sister. ‘I’m sorry, Frances. I really am.’

  Frances sucked in a breath. Joni never called her Frances. She blinked hard at foolish tears. She daren’t look at Joni. She couldn’t. Emotions churned inside her like a blender on overdrive.

  As if she’d just walked out of that cloakroom all over again.

  ‘Is this true, Frances?’ Darryl’s farcical David Attenborough voice broke into her turmoil. ‘Is Joni telling the truth?’

  Frances forced herself to look at him. It was time. Time to look at Joni and say yes. Expose her for what she really was – all the things Edward had accused her of being.

  As well as a murderer of sisterhood.

  Time to get the locket back.

  But the smug judgement on Darryl’s face pulled her up short. Frances looked around, saw it mirrored everywhere. Kazuki and Takahiro, big on honour in their own perverted way, were shaking their heads at Joni. Kandy and Misty, whose code about boyfriend boundaries was quite clear, were openly hostile. A couple of the crew looked at Joni with distaste, while Sally scribbled furiously, a smirk firmly in place.

  Even Lex, Joni’s champion, looked uncomfortable.

  Frances felt her hackles rise as her dormant big-sister protective instincts roared to life. Joni might be a screw-up but she was Frances’s screw-up and no-one, not fake Darryl or anyone else on this fake island, or around the world watching their real pain on this fake program was going to judge her sister.

  What did they know of the circumstances?

  They didn’t know Joni had been as high as a kite that night.

  Or that she’d just buried Aung San, her beloved tortoiseshell stray. They didn’t understand her struggle with addiction or how her behaviour had been escalating out of control for years. They didn’t know the demons that drove her back then.

  Nor did she.

  But Frances was damned if they were going to judge Joni, who had just done the bravest thing she’d ever seen. Torn open all the sutures, picked at all the scabs and exposed the real person beneath.

  And she’d done it for her.

  No-one had ever sacrificed that much for her. No-one.

  Frances cleared her throat. ‘No, Darryl, it’s not true.’

  More gasping from Kandy and Misty, and also from Joni this time.

  ‘No, Frankie. Don’t,’ she pleaded in a strangled whisper.

  Frances shot her a Don’t mess with me twice look.

  ‘Are you saying your sister is a liar?’

  Frances pierced Darryl with an impatient glare. She didn’t care if the entire world saw the fuck-you in her eyes. ‘No, Darryl. I’m saying Joni feels guilty about losing the challenge because she knows how much our treasure means to me. Yes, the locket did belong to me, but I lost it. Obviously, she found it at some stage. The rest is just a story. Something dramatic, you know.’ She gave him a grave smile. ‘To go with your tone.’

  Darryl was a little too dense to get the insult but The Stapler, on the other hand, was not. She gave Frances a half-grudging smile and a look that told her she didn’t believe a single word of Frances’s denial, before bowing her head to scribble another message to Dimwit Darryl.

  He took it, a grin breaking across his face.

  ‘In that case, the locket must be burned,’ he said, barely containing his glee.

  Frances rolled her eyes. Bloody hell. What was it with boys and fire?

  ‘No!’ It took everyone a few seconds to register where the protest had come from. ‘No,’ Lex said again. ‘Sally, Darryl – conference. Now!’

  Joni looked at Frances as the cameras stopped rolling. ‘What’s that all about?’ she whispered.

  Frances shrugged, glancing at the animated trio and straining to hear. ‘Maybe all is not lost.’

  ‘You don’t have to do this, Frankie; it’s okay. It’s out now. It’s done.’

  Frances looked at her sister. ‘Yes.’ She reached for Joni’s hand and gave it a squeeze. She owed Joni that much. ‘I do.’
/>   ‘But we could get the locket back. We could –’

  ‘Shh, Joni,’ Frances interrupted, not taking her eyes off the conference. ‘I’m trying to hear.’

  Joni followed her sister’s gaze. The Stapler was in full finger-pointing glory and a couple of times Frances thought she heard her say ratings. Lex looked like he was losing the verbal battle against the other two. Or, against Sally, anyway.

  The group broke up and Frances could see that Lex had failed miserably at convincing them of whatever it was. He gave them a sad grimace and Frances returned a small smile. At least he had tried.

  ‘So,’ Darryl pronounced, as he took his position back at the altar and the cameras rolled again. ‘It’s time.’

  Frances swallowed. If she could save the locket any other way, she would. But she would not barter it for her sister’s dignity.

  Darryl bent to pick up the tray, then turned and held it out. Camera one zoomed in on the gold plastic and the silver chain. The shot seemed to go on forever and Joni muttered, ‘Sadists,’ under her breath.

  Darryl walked down the steps as slowly as if he were a bride walking down the aisle.

  ‘Cut!’ Lex called as Darryl’s foot hit the jungle floor.

  ‘What are you doing?’ Sally demanded as the cameras stopped rolling.

  ‘If you insist on this unnecessary farce,’ Lex said, drawing himself up to his full impressive height and looking down his nose with just the right amount of haughty, ‘then, as the director, I will be the one to direct this pivotal scene.’

  Joni drew in a ragged breath. ‘Why?’ she asked quietly, as Lex ordered the cameras to slightly different positions, taking his time to chat individually with different crew members – camera, sound, make-up – drawing them in close, talking to them individually, obviously wanting to get it just right.

  ‘Why is he insisting on doing it himself?’

  Frances could hear the injury in her sister’s voice at Lex’s insistence on being a part of this sordid scene. She knew how Joni felt. Would discovering Edward with any woman other than her sister have cut so deeply?

  ‘Maybe he’s just trying to assert his authority, Joni. He is the director, after all. Maybe he’s sick of having The Stapler running the show.’