by Jack Lewis
“You’re not staying?”
“Here?”
“No, in a tent in the woods,” said the woman. “Of course here.”
“Mags, I was eight when Dad decided to send us away like we meant nothing. You were seven. Altair here was a hundred, but he was born an old man, and that’s not his fault. Either way, Dad made it clear we weren’t welcome, and I’m not sleeping under this roof just because he’s dead. Besides, my hotel has a minibar.”
“Fine,” said the older man. “Just tell me if you come across the library.”
“The library?”
“There’s a library marked on the floor plans, but I haven’t been able to find it. It’s as though it doesn’t exist.”
“Maybe it doesn’t. Why are you so bothered?”
“There’s a book I need, that’s all.”
Loe had enough of lurking behind a door. It wasn’t because she felt bad about eavesdropping. If people were dropping their eaves, then it was only right that you picked them up. But she felt Clive presenting himself as a stirring in her gut, and she just wanted to get it over with.
Rather than creep in quietly she burst the door open, holding her arms out wide.
“Surprise!” she shouted.
Silence.
Confused, annoyed, and slightly hostile faces turned to face her. The tallest man recoiled like a startled cat, while the other guy and woman kept a better hold on themselves and simply glared at her.
They were in a living room or parlor or study or kitchen or bedroom, it was hard to say exactly what because the room was gigantic and boasted a hodgepodge of furniture. A green chesterfield sofa. A kitchen counter, marbled and colored night-time black. A bookshelf crammed with aging tomes. A chandelier, bulb less and collecting dust. Her father was eighty-two years old when he died, according to the internet, and he must have converted this part of the hall to serve all his needs.
She allowed herself only the barest of glances at the room, because that wasn’t what she was interested in.
The first thing she felt on seeing her brothers and sister in person was a curious relief. They weren’t dressed like mourners ready for a funeral, unless jeans and shirts were acceptable these days. Either way, Loe felt overdressed. But that was good; it meant the funeral was later on. Or maybe even tomorrow. For once, she’d gotten something wrong and yet it had worked in her favor.
She tried to match their faces to the voices she heard behind the door and thought she had a pretty good idea. The eldest looked like he spent his days lecturing at a university and his evenings reviewing craft beers. He was balding, but the hair on the side of his head was immaculately groomed. This guy hadn’t accepted he’d lost the fight yet, and it was good to know that he wasn’t the sort of person who’d just give up. She’d have to remember that.
She pointed at him. “Let me guess – you’re Altair,” she said, filling a silence she hadn’t anticipated.
“Does anyone know her?” said the woman.
The youngest guy shrugged.
Now Loe pointed at the woman. Pretty, with a harsh glare, shadows under her eyes, and a colorful bracelet on her right wrist that could only have been made by a child. “And you’re Mag.”
Altair and Mag exchanged looks. The third sibling, a guy around Loe’s age, set a beer bottle down on the counter behind him. “Do we know you?”
“I didn’t get your name,” said Loe. “But you look like a Rupert.”
Mag grinned for a second, then instantly replaced the expression with disdain. “You’re in our father’s house a day after we just buried him, sweetheart,” she said. “We’re all pissed off that we had to come back here in the first place, and we aren’t very nice people.”
“Speak for yourself,” said Altair.
Mag ignored him. “Altair here might look like a toothless St. Bernard, but he’s got a ferocious temper. I once saw him kill a crow with a hammer.”
It was all a little too much to process. Loe had so many questions spinning around her head that she decided it was better to catch just one of them. “Wait…did you just say a day after you buried him?” said Loe.
“Yep. What, you think I went to my father’s funeral in jeans and a t-shirt?”
“I don’t know you, and I don’t judge. I just thought…”
“You thought the funeral was today,” said Jay, looking Loe up and down. “And yet you came here dressed like you have a dress ball and then a squash match to get to.”
Loe put her hands on her hips “Yeah, well, who’s supposed to know how you country types dress?”
Altair removed his glasses and coughed on the lenses, before rubbing them with his sleeve. Loe noticed that the lenses were so thin that she doubted they made much difference to his eyesight. Then again, what did she know about glasses?
“Mag,” Altair said. “That business with the crow never happened, and you know it. You just told mother that it did.”
“I saw it, Altair. Come on; we’re adults now. Just admit it, nobody will think any less of you. You hammered a crow to death. You can quit the charade.”
“Who are we to believe? Me, or an actress who appeared in an advertisement for herbal tea that reputes to boost your immune system but instead leaves you bad gas?”
Mag mimicked pulling something from her back. “That one went deep, Altair. Really deep. Golden Gut Herbal Tea seemed totally legit. And so what? At least I gave things a go. Maybe the acting didn’t work out, but I put myself out there until I knew for sure.”
Jay slammed a new bottle on the counter beside him. “Can you two shut up? I’m sick of hearing about the damned crow. It happened or it didn’t, I don’t give a shit. What I care about is boxing all this crap up and getting out of here, and then normal service can resume. Back to not seeing each other, and to phone calls at Christmas and birthdays.”
“For those of us who remember them,” said Altair.
“Altair…”
Though older than Jay, Altair looked every bit like the sheepish younger brother after his rebuke, and he recommenced huffing on his classes for no discernible reason, since he appeared to just be fogging them up. Loe could sympathize; when she was a kid and used to get nervous, she’d scratch her hands until they bled.
“What? I sent you both presents on your birthdays last year. For the last three years, actually. And what did I get-”
“Alt!” shouted Jay, pointing at his brother.
Blood was streaming from Altair’s nose. Where before there had been none, now there was a torrent of it. Jay backed away, already pale-faced.
Loe grabbed a roll of kitchen towels from a counter, bunched them up, and handed them to Altair.
“Pinch your nose,” she said. “The fleshy parts just above your nostrils. Keep them pinched nice and tight, it’ll stop the bleeding. Breathe through your mouth.” She turned to Jay now, who had backed away as if Altair was contagious. “Does Stanway have a freezer? We need ice or frozen peas or something.”
“Stanway?” he said, his mouth gaping open.
“Your father,” said Loe. “I assumed you’d know his name.”
“Right. I just didn’t think anyone would know him, much less come out here.”
“We’ll get acquainted once we make sure your brother doesn’t bleed to death through his nose. The ice, please?”
“Uh…yeah. Let me check.”
Jay opened the giant refrigerator door and then the freeze. He pulled out each shelf. “Nothing, except a few loose carrots.”
“You aren’t on blood thinners or anything?” said Loe.
Altair shook his head. “No,” came a muffled reply.
“Then you should be fine. Just keep the towels there to soak the blood, and keep your nose pinched. It’ll stop on its own. Okay?”
“Thanks,” said Altair, looking at her rather pathetically behind his mask of blood-soaked kitchen towels.
“Don’t worry about it. I used the get one of those suckers every week. It stopped a little w
hen I got older, but lately…anyway, you’ll be fine.”
Mag stared at Loe now. “I used to get them too. Jay was always just as much of a coward when I did. Ridiculous.”
“Rather pathetic, to be honest,” agreed Loe.
Mag grinned. “Yeah. Big, tough rugby player, scared of a drop of blood.”
“That’s a fountain of it, not a drop,” said Jay. “And we all know what you’re scared of, Mag.”
That was like a dagger stabbing through the atmosphere, tearing it apart, and neither Mag nor Jay said anything.
As Altair breathed heavily through his mouth, as the color returned to Jay’s face, Loe took the opportunity to size them all up. She looked at their hands. She saw a wedding band, no wedding band, and a strip of pale skin. Married, divorced, and single. A regular cross-section of society.
She was surprised that Altair, the eldest, was the single one, and more so that the divorce belonged to Jay. Maybe he had a darker side. Course, it was possible that his ex was a bitch and he was a saint, but in the spirit of equality Loe would just assume that either one of them was the bad guy for now.
“Now,” said Jay, taking a swig of beer. “As Mag said, you’ve intruded on some rather private grief. I know we don’t all look like we’re about to fall apart, but the point stands. We just buried our dad. This is his house. You aren’t Dad. So…who the hell are you and what are you doing here?”
All of Loe’s rehearsed explanations were gone now. Their hostility was borne from suspicion of her, and the timing of her arrival. There was no point in trying to use rehearsed greetings because it would just sound phony.
“You guys aren’t too upset he’s gone, either, are you?” she asked.
None of the three said anything for a while, each other them regarding her in their own ways, with their own expressions ranging from suspicion to curiosity.
Mag took it upon herself to speak for the three of them. “It’s none of your business whether we’re grieving or not, and not your place to gauge the level of our despair. Do you see the stuffed hog head mounted on the wall? That’ll be you if you don’t explain what you’re doing here.”
“Wait. You said either,” said Jay. “Implying that you would have a reason to be upset, too, and also that you aren’t. Who are you?”
“I suppose I’ll keep it simple,” replied Loe. “I’m your sister.”
Silence.
More silence.
A little bit more.
And then a voice, Jay’s.
“Bullshit.”
“Seriously. My…our…father seduce my mum, knocked her up, and then disappeared into the sunset.”
“Bullshit,” said Mag.
“I don’t know what to say to you. Maybe he’s a hero to you guys or something, but two score and eight years ago, he rode into town and seduced a fair maiden – my mother - and then completely abandoned her and the kid – me.”
“Tripe,” said Altair.
“Why would I lie?”
“The reason anyone lies,” said Mag. “Money.”
“You three are pathetic,” Loe sighed. “Fine, if you’re going to whine about it. Wait a second.”
She swung her rucksack around and opened it. She was looking for her phone but there was too much crap in there, so she started setting stuff down on the seat of an armchair next to her.
A plastic fan with meaningless Chinese symbols on it, which folded out to become a six-inch blade. A quarter bottle of gin with some liquid sloshing around the bottom. A half-empty box of matches from the Tulu hotel.
Finally, she found it.
“Perhaps we should call the police,” said Altair. “You never know what…”
Loe waved a sheet of paper triumphantly. “Here, a letter. See? You might recognize the handwriting. It says-”
“We don’t care what it says,” said Mag. “Whoever you are, whatever you’re up to, this isn’t the time. You need to leave.”
Altair approached Loe. She handed him the letter. He scanned it feverishly, his pupils flitting side to side.
“I don’t believe it.”
“It’s there, in black and white.”
“Anyone could have written this.”
“What’s it say?” asked Jay, sipping on his bottle.
Altair passer the letter to his brother, but Mag stomped forward and snatched it.
“This better not be a love letter,” she said.
“Apparently, it’s a letter from Father to some woman,” said Altair. “Advising her that he regrets that he cannot be around for her and her child, but he will support the child financially.”
“Yep, that counts as a love letter by Altair’s romantic standards,” said Jay.
Loe couldn’t tell if he was incredibly blasé on learning that he had another sister, or whether he was just drunk. Maybe it was both, with a little bit of grief mixed in.
Mag tore her eyes away from the letter. “Sorry, sweetheart, but this isn’t proof of anything except you learned how to copy Dad’s handwriting. What is it you want?”
As she spoke, she waved her hand – and the letter – in the air. Jay tried to grab it like he was catching a butterfly in a net, and every time he tried Mag would flail her arm.
“Can I see it?” he said.
Mag dropped the letter on the floor and then stared at Loe with burning eyes.
“So, you read about the owner of Harrow Hall dying. You save up all your money to buy a black dress, and you hike all the way out here pretending to be a long-lost sister or something. What, you think we’ll just agree, welcome you to the family, and cut you into the will? You cheap piece of-”
“Mag…enough,” said Altair. He looked at Loe. Not with kindly eyes, but he at least didn’t seem like he wanted to tear her head off. “You must understand…” He paused now, clearly trying to remember her name. It was funny watching him struggle, but she decided to be nice and help him out.
“Loe.”
“You must understand, Loe, that I could present Queen Elizabeth with a letter professing that I am her long-lost son and heir to the throne, but the existence of a letter isn’t proof of its claims.”
“Quite right, Altair,” said Loe. She pulled a second sheet of paper from her rucksack and unfolded it. “Which is why I also have this.”
Altair read the second sheet of paper. Then Jay read it. Both men stared at her with a completely different expression now.
“What?” said Mags. “What does it say?”
She went to grab the letter from Jay, who dropped it on the floor. Mag gave him a sisterly punch on the shoulder and picked it up.
“A DNA test?”
“My mum never told me who my dad was,” said Loe. “but luckily, the modern age is making lots of family secrets unsustainable.”
“And you matched to Altair.”
“Altair Harrow, possible sibling match,” said Loe. “Years of Mum withholding the truth when I was growing up. Years of me asking questions every way I could think of. In the end, all it took was my grandma slipping up, and me spitting in a plastic tube to find out who he was.”
“You have to admit, we could use the help,” said Jay.
Loe eyed his beer enviously now as the initial adrenaline from their meeting wore off. “Help with what?”
“The Door.”
“Huh?”
“We better show her, Alt. What do you say?”
“I say this girl’s still full of shit,” said Mag.
Altair ignored his sister. “It’s worth trying, at least.”
“Come on,” said Jay. “We’ll show you the door.”
The Door. Never had she heard the word door said with such mysticism. She was dying to know what was so special about it. But first, she was dying for something else.
“Now that we’ve established that we’re all a happy family, do you think I could use the bathroom? I just hiked for three hours to get here.”
Jay nodded. “Sure. Down the hall, on your left.”
; Loe followed the hall and opened a door on the left side of it, only to see a small cupboard full of brooms.
“Huh. I guess people do still keep cupboards with brooms in them.”
“Sorry!” called Jay. “I meant the second door on your left.”
Chapter Three
Now that she’d met her siblings and her pre-meeting nerves had washed away, it left her with a strange sensation. They didn’t feel like siblings at all. There was no instant connection, no bond. They were just people. Strangers. Ones that maybe she shouldn’t trust.
That was the size of it. She didn’t know these guys, so she had to keep her guard up while she was around them. Jay seemed goofy but nice, Altair looked harmless but nice, and Mag seemed…like Mag. Difficult to describe. Not goofy or harmless, and probably not nice. Hard to weigh up one way or the other. But that didn’t mean she should trust Jay or Altair, either. Seeming nice didn’t equal being nice, and she resolved to be careful around them.
This begged the question, what next? Ever since the shock of finding out she had siblings, all she’d thought about was meeting them. Now that she had, what did she do? It was clear there was no instant happy-ever-after.
The way she saw it, she either stuck around and got to know them better, or she left Harrow Hall and got on with her life. If she did that, she was closing a door. The time to get to know them was now or never. She couldn’t give up on that just yet, she realized. She’d stay here for the day, sound them out a little, and then decide from there.
“So,” she said, leaving the bathroom and re-joining them. “I suppose we have things to talk about.”
Thirty minutes later, after lots of questions and few concrete answers from all sides, Loe felt like she’d at least learned a little about her siblings, and them about her.
She’d told them about her mum, their flat, her childhood. They’d explained that they had moved to Harrow Hall with their parents. Just three months later, their dad had sent them and their mum away.
Loe envied their sibling closeness. Even when they were being mean to each other – which was mock meanness at worst – there was a bond. Loe had never had a connection like that, just missing pieces. Not that she wanted pity or anything. She just envied it a little, that’s all.
