A Sister’s Gift

by Giselle Green

  If anyone ever found out, does she realise the deep shit I’d be in? My name would be mud in ethno-botany circles. I’d be finished. I push the thesis back into the folder and shove it out of sight so I don’t have to think about it any more. There’s too much at stake for me to go back on this now.

  I am in real trouble now. I didn’t cheat, but this sure makes it look as if I did, and if Gui finds that out then I’m done for. He can’t abide liars, he’s always saying. That’s part of the reason he loves me so much. Because he thinks I can’t tell a lie!

  I am royally screwed. Unless of course there is some way to keep it quiet. Nobody has realised the mistake up till now, have they? All I have to do is make sure that nobody ever finds out what Hollie has done.

  Never, ever.

  Hollie

  How am I going to start this letter?

  I stand up on Scarlett’s little bed in the bare-walled beige room that she left in such a hurry and I reach up for the last time to close the darned window. There’s a stiff breeze blowing off the Medway today. I can see the sun sparkling on it in little silver patches here and there and the sight makes me pause in mid-reach. It’s not such a bad view, really. We’ve had some good times here by this river. We’ve never sailed on one of those real sailing boats but we sent plenty of paper boats spinning down the river in our time.

  Funny how Scarlett only remembered how I’d stopped her from chasing after them that night after Flo’s birthday party. She didn’t recall I was holding her back for her own safety, she was only a diddy thing. If she’d have jumped in and tried to swim after them she’d have got swept away, no question about it. So I’d pinioned her arms to her sides and held onto her for dear life so she couldn’t jump in.

  I thought her heart would break. I remember us standing there for the best part of half an hour while I tried to drum it into her head that the little paper boats were gone. For good. And I have never forgotten the look on her determined little face when she turned to me and declared, ‘I will get them back, Hollie. When I’m bigger I’ll get on a boat myself and follow them all the way out to sea and I’ll search and search till I find them and you won’t be able to stop me, no one will.’

  I feel a lump in my throat now. Maybe that was the first time I realised that one day the tide would come that would take my Lettie away from me.

  My eyes flicker over the static barge and its crane and the bags of sand it’s still off-loading to shore up the piers. They’ll be done in a few weeks, they tell me. After all my worrying and fretting, it’s all going to be sorted and the bridge isn’t going to fall down after all. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger, as Flo used to say – and I must be a hell of a lot stronger than I used to be, I reckon.

  Strong enough maybe to look towards the site of the Blue Jazz café, the spot where I fell into the water all those years ago? All these years we’ve lived right opposite it, and in all this time I’ve never once looked at it. That’s why I like the window closed. I raise my eyes very slowly, very tentatively, to the place where my downfall took place. And then I do a double take.

  It’s gone!

  The Blue Jazz café has been pulled down and in its place is nothing but a small empty field. Is this what Scarlett was trying to get me to look at, that evening when I sent her packing? This place that has haunted my nightmares for so many years till eventually I blocked out my dreams altogether…It’s gone. All gone.

  I watch as some strange-looking birds circle round and round before landing on the fence by the water. Some very rare Chatham albatrosses maybe? I manage a small smile, feeling a strange sense of relief flooding through me. Dear old Mr Huang would know. He lives on the other side of the river. His house would be that one with the blue door. And then I remember the sign- ‘Closing down sale, returning to China for family reasons’. He’s leaving and I still have so much unfinished business – will I ever get to learn to swim after all?

  Anyway. I shake my head to get rid of these thoughts, trying to focus on what I came in here to do. I come down off the bed and pick up the writing pad again. How am I going to start this? What shall I say to the PlanetLove people when I write the letter that Duncan was so keen for me to write? It won’t be easy. I flick open the folder which I’ve kept stashed away on top of Scarlett’s wardrobe for the past two years. Inside is the envelope which she asked me to post for her; her thesis on Orchidacea. She was honest enough to decide against using Duncan’s work and instead submit her own. I’m no botanist but I’ve learned a fair bit just from reading Mum’s old papers when I was a kid. And Scarlett was being foolhardy if she thought her own work would cut it. Even I could see that it wouldn’t. So I sent off our mother’s thesis in its place.

  Mum’s magnum opus on Mycorrhizal biodiversity that she slaved away so many years for – devoted her life to and, partly, stayed away from us, for. It never got published or ever saw the light of day because she died before she could do anything with it. I don’t regret what I did – and why would I? Why waste it? Her work got to be of some earthly use in the end. Scarlett got accepted for the Amazon job that she so desperately wanted and Mum actually got to be useful to one of her girls.

  Well, now she’s going to be useful to me too. I need to just get on and write this letter.

  Scarlett

  I crawl out of the tent and straighten my aching back. I am frozen to the bone and every part of me hurts. It’s been raining for days now, pelting down steadily on the canvas outside but this morning at last – at last! – the downpour has stopped. High up above the canopy there are patches of bright blue sky visible from the ground. The day is going to be hot. I’ve been confined to base camp since I got back but I’m finally going to be able to get moving.

  ‘Hey.’ I look up blearily as Emoto comes off the jeep radio and joins me outside Eve’s tent. ‘Looks like today we’ll finally be able to make a move out of here, get on with some work.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, Scarlett.’ I watch as he pulls off his thigh-length wellies. They’re covered to mid-calf in mud. ‘The forest floor isn’t just muddy and mired – it’s impassable. For the time being, people like you and me have to stay put.’

  ‘For Pete’s sake!’ I groan. ‘I need to find the tribe…’

  I stand outside the tent for a while and squint up at the sky. If it could get hot quick enough, maybe everything would dry out and then we could make a move? That noise I’ve been hearing in the distance is louder now that I’m standing outside. It sounds like…like the noise I’ve heard the loggers make with their electric saws. I frown at Emoto, indicating with my head towards the direction it’s coming from and he stops in the middle of pulling off his boots. Are the loggers here? Even in all this mud?

  ‘Get back inside,’ he says thickly.

  ‘Emoto, I’ve been stuck in there for three whole days. I’m not going to miss out on the chance to get on with what I must do just because those bastards are logging illegally. If they can move about in this mire then so can we. They have no business being here, anyway. We have to do something to stop them…’Strange, but the noise is already twice as loud as it sounded a moment ago. And it seems to be coming from everywhere all at once.

  ‘There is nothing we’re going to be able to do that’ll stop this lot. And you can’t go out looking for the tribe in your condition.’

  He knows? I look at him, shocked. ‘When did you find out?’ I ask faintly.

  ‘I overheard Eve tell Defoe all about it. You’re expecting Almeira’s baby, aren’t you? Oh, don’t worry,’ he adds as my face colours. ‘I didn’t spread it about. I imagined you might prefer to keep it quiet for now…’

  ‘Thank you,’ I manage.

  ‘But the truth is, you don’t need to do any of this any more. You don’t need to put yourself through these harsh conditions. If this is all about finding some seed samples to replace what you lost, I’ll give you some of mine.’

  ‘What makes you think I want yours?’ I challenge. ‘Even in my co
ndition. I don’t. I don’t need your pity, Emoto. I’ll find my own samples. Don’t think you can prevent me.’

  ‘Not right now you won’t. In,’ he growls, advancing as if he’s about to push me into the tent.

  I turn to him and stand my ground. ‘You’ve been surly and sulking ever since I got here, Emoto, and I’ve just about had enough of it. You aren’t going to tell me what to do any more so you’d better…Ow!’ I yelp as he pushes me forcibly back into the tent. The ground is so uneven I miss my footing and it’s only because he reaches out to catch me that I don’t hit the floor.

  ‘What the…?’ Alarmed, I back off, while he fumbles with the tent zips, sealing us in hermetically. I look at Emoto shakily, rubbing my sore wrists where he grabbed hold of me to stop my fall. The noise outside has grown exponentially louder in a matter of seconds. The bright white light that was hitting the tent’s exterior has gone, the sky has clouded over again, and now the tent canvas is being battered again but this time by -by hailstones? Huge hailstones by the sounds of it. ‘Mosquitos,’ he informs me.

  ‘They…it can’t be.’ They couldn’t be so big, there couldn’t be so many of them. The black bodies continue to pelt thickly against the outside of Eve’s tent for a few minutes. Oh God, now I feel sick. I sidle up to Emoto and push my fingers into his, my anger melting away into fear.

  ‘If there’s one thing I hate about this country it’s the insects,’ I say in answer to his surprised look at this sudden gesture of intimacy. ‘I love everything else but the huge-winged, creeping, crawling, sticky, black, segmented…I can’t stand them. They won’t be able to get in here, will they?’

  ‘They shouldn’t be able to,’ he assures me, but I can see the sweat forming on his brow. ‘Let’s sit down, it’s going to be a while before this passes. You know, the insects were the one thing that nearly put me off coming on this whole trip.’ He smiles shakily.

  ‘You hate them too?’ I never knew. ‘Sorry about before, I just…’

  ‘Don’t worry about it, Scarlett. The minute after I heard them I knew what was coming. We’ve had several of these swarms since you’ve been away. If you’re out in it when they arrive…’

  ‘Yeah. I can imagine. At least there won’t be any of these waiting for you when you go back to Tokyo, eh? That’s one advantage to leaving Brazil.’ Despite steeling myself to try and stop, I’m trembling pretty hard. I just can’t help it and he must think I’m such a wuss. The swarm is still passing overhead. The noise coming from outside is almost deafening. Somehow we’re now both sitting bunched up together on the groundsheet and he’s got his arm comfortably around my shoulders…

  ‘You’ll have that job at Tokyo Uni to go back to, I guess?’ I say to distract us, shouting above the sound of millions of insect wings. He always seemed dead keen on the lectureship idea but now he shakes his head despondently.

  ‘I won’t…I won’t be getting an offer for that job, Scarlett. It was always contingent on my doing well in this post. I think they expected me to get the award. That’s why they were mooting it, but…look, forget it.’ He taps my arm consolingly. ‘Just before that mozzie storm arrived I heard some good news over the car radio…’

  ‘What d’you mean you won’t be getting that job?’ I question. ‘I thought you’d already been offered it? What’ll you do if you don’t teach?’

  He shrugs, trying to brush off how much it matters to him but I can see how very much it does. He looks at me silently. The electric drill noise outside is beginning to fade as rapidly as it came.

  ‘I am not going to win the Klausmann, so I will not be offered the post,’ he says simply. ‘Perhaps I can work in my brother’s electrical shop till I sort out something else.’

  ‘In an electrical shop?’ My eyes widen at the thought. ‘That would be a complete waste of everything you know. Besides, you’re the cleverer of the two of us. We both know that. You might still win it.’

  ‘Perhaps it was you who was the cleverer one, though?’ He looks at me sidelong and unlinks our arms. He reaches for a towel to wipe his face with.

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Getting in with Almeira. That was your smartest move, no?’

  ‘I never…I never wanted to go with Gui for that reason, Emoto. I was cool towards him for ages precisely because I didn’t want to use him.’

  ‘It’s all worked out in your favour though, hasn’t it? Everything. Even though you didn’t plan it this way. There is no move that you can make that will mean you lose.’

  ‘That’s what you think.’

  ‘Ha! Scarlett, I bow to my superior opponent. You. You will get the man and you will command his riches and you will have his baby and you will win the award. Simple as that.’

  I look askance at him. One minute ago we were hanging onto each other for dear life and now he sounds so…so bitter and envious and…jealous?

  ‘You think…you think my life’s like a candy-coated version of some movie-star’s, don’t you? You think I don’t have to make difficult decisions ever? You think I don’t suffer at all? That I never do anything out of truly charitable reasons and not self-interest?’ I let out a long breath and he remains silent. ‘This isn’t Gui’s baby, Emoto.’

  He looks at me disbelievingly.

  ‘It isn’t. It’s my brother-in-law’s child. It isn’t what you think.’ I say quickly in answer to his shocked look. ‘My sister asked me to be her surrogate. But things turned ugly. She chucked me out of the house.’

  ‘It really isn’t his?’

  ‘No. And now I have to…terminate this pregnancy before Gui ever finds out or else he won’t want to help us out here at all, will he? I need to find the tribe, Emoto. I need Tunga to give me some herbs to end this pregnancy.’

  ‘Shit.’ He turns the towel round to find a clean spot and uses it now to gingerly wipe away the sweat that’s formed on my forehead. I’d take the towel from him myself but my limbs are still like lead, immobilised with fear. Those horrible insects, are they gone yet? I get a quick flash of Hol, awoken by me in the early hours one winter night to remove a huge spider from my bedroom, and doing so kindly and without making a fuss because she knew how terrified I’d been. I haven’t always been so compassionate about her fears, have I?

  And Emoto probably thinks I’m a heartless, grabbing bitch. Now I’ve told him about the child too, and what I have to do with it. I put my face down, covering it with my hands, because it is all too much.

  ‘I’m so sorry. It looks as if I’ve misjudged you, after all.’ Emoto has put his hand back on my shoulder. ‘And if you really need to see Tunga that badly, then you’ll be even more pleased to hear what I just learned on the radio a few minutes ago. Barry’s found Tunga. They’re making their way back. They can do it.’ He shakes his head as I raise my eyes to his, answering my unspoken question. ‘We couldn’t. The river’s about to break its banks. I was out looking at the bridge this morning. It’s on its last legs. Without the right kind of vehicle, there’s no way we can go anywhere. They should be with us sometime in the next twenty-four hours, however.’

  I stare at him. Tunga is coming here? He’s coming here and that’ll mean I’ll get the herbs to make my way clear with Gui again. It’s what I wanted…no, it’s what I needed to happen.

  But why do I feel so strange now? I glance at Emoto.

  I’ve got the feeling very deep inside that something has changed and I don’t know what.

  Hollie

  I don’t stand there this time as I have done so many times before, looking at the light shimmering off the surface, bouncing off the ceiling in its eerie way. Rich squeezes my hand – I am so glad he offered to come with me – and I go straight to the metal steps that lead down into the shallow end. I can do this. I am going to do this.

  As the water hits my ankles, then my calves, then my thighs, I draw in a shocked breath, but this time it is not fear causing the trembling in my limbs, it is only the cold. I brace myself. I look up at Mr Huang who is waiting pati
ently by the poolside. Rich is beside him, holding the towel. The rest of the pool is silent and empty, just as they’d said it would be at this time of day; the sole lifeguard sitting at the other end has her head down, probably texting.

  I’m feeling strangely calm after my acupuncture session. Mr Huang told me: ‘It will help steady your nerves, Miss Hollie, but the rest is up to you.’ Rich nods encouragingly in my direction and I take the next step down the rung and into the pool. The water snakes around my hips but it feels strangely peaceful. There are little blue underwater lights making the whole place brighter and I do not feel in the slightest bit afraid. I’m not sure why or how this can be, unless it’s the acupuncture, but it feels like a marvellous release to be here in the pool, and to not be afraid.

  I take a few steps further in and the water comes up to my chest. The weight of it feels quite heavy against me now. I’m not sure I’m entirely comfortable with it. No, if truth be told, I don’t like the feel of it at all, but I’ve come this far.

  ‘We’re right here with you, Hol.’ Rich calls to me from the side. He wanted to come in too but I preferred to do it this way. It’s enough for me that he’s here. He feels a long way behind me now. I’m still striding out, my legs moving in big slow water-retarded arcs, like an astronaut making strides on the moon, and the water has risen above my chest and up to my shoulders and my arms are moving out to the sides now, steadying and balancing. I close my mouth so as to not accidentally gulp down any pool water. I close my eyes and pretend I’m just like any kid who’s plunged headlong into the pool for the very first time. I’ve seen them all do it, and they don’t feel any fear, they just go for it.

  Like Scarlett. Just like Scarlett’s always done everything she ever wanted to do. How strangely heavy this water feels, dragging against my back and chest now, swaying me first one way and then the other so that I feel the need to constantly readjust my position. Behind my closed lids I can see my sister clear as daylight in her little pink costume. I’m sitting on the side and watching her with Tim, and he’s cupping his hands to his mouth and is yelling, ‘You can do it, Scarlett, go for it, girl!’ and her, simpering and preening and pretend-swimming and not imagining for one minute that she’d go down, laughing and splashing and somehow unimaginably buoyant, floating. How little must she have been then. Maybe five?