‘Wasn’t so hard,’ I say as I swirl my whisky into a whirlpool. When he looks for a further explanation, I say, ‘We were estranged.’
He goes back to mopping the bar top, his gaze fixed on me. ‘Yeah, I remember. Talk of the village you were at one point. Weren’t nobody who didn’t know about the little Harringford girl who disappeared. It was a terrible time for the family.’
‘I didn’t exactly disappear,’ I say, taking a good glug of the fine spirit. ‘I was given away.’
‘I know, I know. I guess she just couldn’t cope, what with that sister of yours.’ He snorts, almost a giggle, as if he has remembered something that amuses him. ‘What a tearaway she was. Hair all colours, nose rings.’ He quietens his voice as if there is a pub full of people to overhear. I even look around in case somebody else has slipped in. It is still empty. It’s only just 11 a.m. ‘Not what we’re used to up here. Quite the taste for men, too.’
‘Yeah, I heard that.’ I take another glug and he eyes me with caution, as if he regrets offering me a double. ‘It’s her that seems to have disappeared now. And I really need to find her.’
An internal door bursts open and a little wisp of a woman clatters through dragging a vacuum cleaner. She smiles at us, straightens her tabard before heading into the snug. Riley thinks for a moment, perhaps assessing what harm it could do to talk to me – it happens when people know that crazy runs in your family – then props himself up on the bar with his elbows. He waits for the cleaner to turn on the vacuum cleaner and then starts talking.
‘The police have been all over the village. Asking questions, snoopin’ in bins. I caught one fishin’ through the waste out back of the pub. Sent him away with his tail between his legs, but I told them others what they wanted to hear.’ He stares off into thin air for a moment, tosses the beer towel back to the bar.
‘What was it they wanted to hear?’ I ask.
‘If anybody had seen her. I saw her all right. Out there in the graveyard. Acting right strange she was.’ I remember now that he was the one who called Joyce.
‘What was she doing exactly?’
‘Well, I put it down to the fact that she’d lost her mother and then her father within a few days of each other.’ He picks up a big bag of nuts and fills a near-empty jar on the bar. ‘That’d be enough to send anybody crackers. Still, I told Joyce about it, and she must’ve called the police.’
‘So you think she was crackers?’
His eyebrows shoot up sky high, as if they’re trying to make an escape from his face. I’m under no illusion what he thinks.
‘Miss, with all due respect, everybody around here knows your sister is crackers. I heard she even spent some time as a child in Fair Fields.’
‘What’s Fair Fields?’
He looks around again to check nobody is there, then beckons me close. ‘Old hospital. For the infirm and mentally insane,’ he says, as if reading from a script. ‘That place you can see in the distance from the road. Looks a bit like an old church.’
The place that Elle hates. ‘Did you tell the police that?’
‘Tell them what? That I heard a rumour? You can’t be selling rumour off as fact when it comes to the police, lassie.’ He looks at me like I am a naive little girl out on a treasure hunt, but then obviously is hit by an attack of pity. ‘I’m not sure it would make any difference even if I did tell them.’
‘I think it would.’
I knock back the last drops of whisky and hold up the glass. I pull a ten-pound note from my bag and slide it across the bar. Against his better judgement he fills the glass, and I take another sip. He doesn’t touch the money. The smell hits me right between the eyes, the liquor burning my throat. It feels warm in here, and I realise now as I hear crackling in the background that there is a log fire burning.
‘So what was she doing in the graveyard to make you think she was acting strange? I mean, strange for a crazy person.’ I flash him an asymmetrical smile that I hope he takes in good humour. He does.
‘It was late, getting dark. Way past dusk. I could hear wailing. It had been a quiet night; it was raining, so not a lot of people were in. I popped my head out the door to investigate the noise, and I see Elle, your sister,’ he adds for clarity, in case I wasn’t sure, ‘running around in circles wearing not much more than a sports bra. Bucketing down, it was.’
A couple of men, regulars by the looks of it, come into the bar. Mr Riley checks his watch then points at me, insinuating that I should wait a moment while he pulls their pints. A minute later he is back.
‘So where was I?’
‘Running in the rain.’
‘That’s right. So I step back inside, pick up a raincoat and make to head over there. But then I spot a man with her. He has a car, engine running; trying to coax her into it, he is. I figured it was just another bloke of hers, and that she was all right because she had company. Liked the fellas, that one. Last I saw he was helping guide her into the passenger seat.’
‘What kind of car was it?’
‘Not sure. A white one, four by four.’ Jeep. Grand Cherokee. Antonio’s. The one the police confiscated last night and found full of jewellery that had once belonged to my mother. ‘Next thing I know, the police are up here takin’ statements.’
I smile and thank him, pick up my drink and knock it back. Just as I stand up to leave he says, ‘The house was crawling with police for the last few days, but they’ve left now. If she was going to turn up anywhere, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was there.’
Outside, the air hits me, and there is still that sensation of nausea in my gut as I look across the fields to the old hospital where Elle once supposedly stayed, just visible through the low-lying mist. The whisky hasn’t helped at all, not like I thought it would. But I swallow down the nausea, try to focus, and take my first steps towards the school. My priority is to see Miss Endicott, find out what it was she wanted to tell me.
‘Irini Harringford to see Miss Endicott,’ I say as I walk into the reception, my words out before the door is even closed. The receptionist looks at me over her glasses. She is a different woman from before, doesn’t recognise me. Not at first, anyway. But then her mouth slowly curls open, her shoulders drop. ‘Harringfo—’ I begin to repeat, but she stops me halfway through.
‘Yes, I heard you. Harringford.’ The name is obviously still fresh in people’s minds. ‘You look just like her.’
I pull my jumper cuffs down over my hands, turn my face away.
‘I came to see Miss Endicott,’ I say, not altogether kindly. I take a seat on the nearest undersized chair, stare at the children’s self-portraits that still adorn the walls. The receptionist stands to make her way to Miss Endicott’s office, but stops halfway. The schoolmistress heard me arrive and is already on her way out.
‘You’d better come through,’ she says as she beckons to me.
Her office is large, oversized like her calves. She takes me by the arm to guide me into the nearest grown-up seat, avoiding the row of child-sized chairs, pastel colours lined up along the wall like a row of chewy sweets. Above them there is an ABC chart, letters made out of curly snakes, flowers and beach equipment. She leaves the door to swing closed, giving it an extra push to ensure it is shut before heading to a nearby side table with complex wooden legs. She pours me a coffee from a warmer without asking me if I would like one.
‘You look like you could do with it,’ she says with a smile as she sets it down on the desk. She assumes position in the chair opposite me, folds and then unfolds her arms. After a moment of discomfort she stands up, drags a spare visitor’s chair next to mine and pulls a bottle of Scotch from a small cupboard under the desk. She pours a measure into her own coffee and then leans over and drops a splash into mine. She smiles, but there is no happiness on her face. ‘You look like you could do with that too. Hair of the dog.’ She lights a cigarette and offers me one. I take it, but then set it down on the desk. Feels wrong to smoke in here.
‘Mis
s Endicott, let’s not pretend like we did the first time I was here. You know who I am, and you told me that you had something important to tell me. What is it?’
‘I seem to remember the only one doing any pretending was you, Mrs Jackson.’ She drags on the cigarette, lets a little of the smoke go, gulps the rest down. I reach for mine and light it. ‘But let’s put that behind us. You look like you have been awake all night. And I can’t tell you that the smell of alcohol on your breath is altogether subtle.’ I pull my lips in tight, trying to stifle the smell. I realise I haven’t cleaned my teeth since I was sick, and then I ate the cheesy crackers. I gulp at the coffee, hoping to disguise the reek. ‘Are you sure you don’t want to go home and get some rest? We can meet later.’
‘I’m not sure where you think home is, Miss Endicott, but it certainly isn’t nearby. I have driven for seven hours to get here. I’m looking for answers. And my sister.’ I rub at my hip and she watches my every move. ‘The police have arrested my boyfriend in connection with Elle’s disappearance. They think she might have been harmed, but I know my boyfriend didn’t hurt her. In fact, I doubt anybody did.’ She drags again on the cigarette, and in spite of my breath, I move in closer. ‘I need to try to understand what is going on.’
‘Irini, your sister is a very troubled young lady. I have known her since she was small, and she was always the same. I’m sorry for the mysterious message, but as soon as I saw you here at the school, I knew you were the daughter they gave away.’
‘And yet you didn’t say anything,’ I point out, looking as sad as I might have done on the very day I was handed over. ‘You let me pretend to be Mrs Jackson.’ In this moment I feel pretty stupid. Having pretended to be somebody else, even though I have years of practice at it, feels so degrading.
‘What was the point of saying anything?’ She concentrates on straightening out a pleat in her fine cotton-weave skirt. ‘The fact that I knew who you were didn’t change anything. You were still the Harringford child that was given away, and your mother was still dead.’ Perhaps abashed at the harshness with which she stated the most painful facts of my life, she adds, ‘I figured it would only make you uncomfortable.’ She wasn’t wrong, and I am grateful. A brief smile flashes across my face.
‘Why tell me now?’
‘Because now things have changed. I heard you inherited the house. Elle won’t let that lie, you know that. Let her have it, and be grateful they gave you away when they did.’
Let her have it? Be grateful? Being grateful for what happened to me didn’t even cross my mind until a couple of weeks ago, and only then because I saw how dysfunctional my family really was. Miss Endicott is an outsider, a bit player. Somebody who sat in the back row at my mother’s funeral. But to make such a statement she must be privy to something, and I have to know what it is.
I take a sip of the coffee. ‘Do you know why they gave me away?’
‘Of course, my dear.’ She almost chuckles at first, but when she realises that she is the only one laughing, she turns to me, her face serious and puzzled. ‘Do you not?’
‘No. I have been looking for answers all my life.’ I guzzle down the tepid coffee. I am certain there is a definitive answer coming my way, like the last scene in Murder, She Wrote when the cast comes together and the solution to the crime is announced. Yet Miss Endicott’s thought processes appear stymied by my ignorance, and she is stumbling for words.
‘Well, it was . . .’ she begins, but falls short of a full sentence. She breathes hard, tries to focus. ‘It was in many ways a simple decision on their part. Your sister was a difficult child, both at home and at school. She was very troubled, spent some time in psychiatric care. Everybody knew that. Horton is a small place. But when the time came for her to return home, they realised they couldn’t raise both you and your sister. They tried, but it was obvious that it wouldn’t work. Elle needed a special sort of care.’
‘Yes, I know about that, although the police seem to think she has no history of mental health problems. There is nothing on record.’
‘Of course there isn’t, dear. There was quite a stigma back then. It was a private hospital and the records remained confidential.’ She looks away, bashful. ‘Things were different in those days.’
‘I think it was a place called Fair Fields,’ I say. ‘The large building you can see from almost anywhere in the village. But that still doesn’t really explain why they gave me away.’
She offers me another splash of whisky, but I refuse. ‘You’re right, that is where Elle spent some time. As a young teacher I offered to lead a couple of classes over there. Just occasionally, mind, and it was never what one might call official.’
‘You taught her?’
‘Once or twice. A long time ago.’ She adds a couple of measures to her own cup, but doesn’t go on to top it up with coffee. ‘You were a victim of circumstance, Irini. Your parents agonised while you were at home with them, waiting for your sister to return. She was institutionalised for over a year, might have been two. They knew you couldn’t stay together. They had to make a decision.’ She returns to her skirt, finds another offending fold out of line.
‘But still, why me? If she was crazy and I was good, why not send her away?’
‘Because nobody would take her. Your mother was distraught.’ She drains the coffee cup. ‘She loved you dearly, both of you, in whatever way it was that Elle could be loved. They were trying to protect you, hoping that they could at least give you a stable life in a stable family. They couldn’t just leave Elle to fend for herself. They feared for her.’
She looks away, pours herself another shot of whisky and knocks it straight back. I wonder how she will ever manage to teach with so much liquor on board.
‘I shouldn’t say this, Irini, but your sister was a deeply unlovable child. She was spiteful. Vile to other children, her hatred towards them obvious. I saw it during the teaching sessions. The way she would look at them.’ She closes her eyes, picturing the memory, then opens them and looks down at my hip. ‘Do you know what she did to her dog? Trampled it to death. Trampled it, I tell you! You just ask Joyce. She was the one to find her with it, bloody up to the elbows and knees with a butter knife in her hand. A butter knife!’ Her voice becomes a fluster and she takes a moment to calm down. She is scared of Elle too. ‘Imagine a thirteen-year-old child that could do such a thing. Folk feared her. She seemed capable of things we as adults couldn’t comprehend.’
I could imagine it all right. And something else I was beginning to understand was that Elle and I were not all that different. I too was a deeply unlovable child. Ask Margot Wolfe. It’s the second time I feel gratitude towards my parents for giving me away. If I’d stayed with Elle, God knows what I would have become.
‘What things?’ I ask. She stares at me for a while, contemplating whether or not I can stand to hear it. She needs encouraging, coaxing to spill the beans. ‘Miss Endicott, with all due respect, there is no reason to hold back now. I’m well aware of what my sister is like. Last time we were together she drugged me with Ecstasy. I know what she is capable of.’
‘Then there is no reason for me to embellish matters any further with opinions from the past. What you should know is that what happened broke your parents. They loved you dearly, and they tried to care for you the best they could. It was easier when Eleanor wasn’t there, but even so, her shadow hung over the household.’ As if on cue, a cloud casts us in shadow, and Miss Endicott shakes off a chill before swilling what is left in her cup down her throat. ‘When she returned home, they had no choice. They kept her because they knew nobody would take her. They couldn’t risk what might happen to you if you stayed. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. That’s how the saying goes.’
‘Are you telling me they saw my sister as an enemy? That’s absurd. She was a child.’
Miss Endicott rises to her feet, sighs as if she was expecting more from me. She places her hands on the desk; four whiskies in and no doubt in need
of some support. ‘Do you honestly think of her as just another adult? Do you not see what I see?’
I think about what it is I see when I look at Elle, remember how I was so sure that she was responsible for our mother’s death. A woman who I am more convinced than ever loved me.
‘I thought she killed our mother.’
‘And if your dear mother hadn’t been suffering with cancer, we would all have thought the same thing. Elle knew it was your father who made the decision to keep her and send you away. She never forgot that, and never forgave your mother for feeling differently.’
‘But I got the impression that something happened to her. That they brought her home through guilt.’
‘Nonsense. Whatever stories Elle has told you, don’t believe them.’
‘It was Joyce that told me.’
She shakes her head. ‘A busybody, plain and simple.’
‘You just told me to ask her about the dog.’
‘I said that she knew about the dog. Not that she knows about everything.’
‘Regardless, Elle loved me, I think. She always wanted to reach out for me.’ I stand up, move in close to Miss Endicott, place my hand on her arm. The touch shocks her, and she backs away. ‘That’s why I have to find her now. Help her. I shouldn’t have run away when my father died.’
‘No,’ she shouts, jumping forward. She knocks my coffee cup, the contents spilling on to a pile of papers that look like school reports. For a moment I think she is going to grab me, but at the last minute she stops herself. ‘Don’t look for her. Give up the house. Let them go, all of them. Leave it as it is. Don’t open up the past by searching for answers. You never know what you might find.’
‘Might open up old wounds?’ I ask sarcastically, and she looks again at my hip. She knows more about me than I do myself. But she is struck by a pallor, her face white as fresh snow, her eyes like two little piss holes.
‘What about old wounds?’
‘Nothing,’ I say. ‘Just something my father said.’ I set what is left of my coffee down, brush some drips from my knee. ‘But I have to find her, because the police have arrested my boyfriend. They found her blood in the house.’ Miss Endicott’s brow furrows, anxiety spreading as if perhaps she has underestimated the nature of Elle’s disappearance. ‘But Antonio is innocent. He didn’t hurt Elle.’
My Sister Page 26
