Soul Sisters

by Lesley Lokko

  ‘Oh, it’s you,’ she said, her face breaking into a smile. She comes and goes. Mrs Smith’s warning rang in Jen’s ears. ‘Hello, Catriona. Where’ve you been?’

  ‘Hello, Mother,’ Jen said, advancing into the room. Alice was wearing a delicately patterned nightdress with a woollen cardigan draped across her thin shoulders. Her hands held it together at her neck. They were paper-thin, Jen noticed with a pang, and almost entirely covered in liver spots and large freckles. Her mother had aged suddenly, terribly. She bent down to kiss her on the cheek. She smelled none too clean, a faint trace of sweat and urine, as though she hadn’t washed in a while. She drew back, afraid her wrinkled nose and expression of distaste might show. Next to her mother’s feet was a large wicker basket, folded in two. She looked at it and her face broke into a smile. It was her mother’s mending basket! She remembered it clearly. One half contained a bizarre assortment of needles, bobbins, scissors and cotton reels in a rainbow of colours, and the other contained old cigarette tins bursting with buttons and eyelets and cards filled with studs . . . As a child, it had been an Aladdin’s cave of treasures. Every week, when Alice couldn’t put it off any longer, the basket would come out and Jen would sit happily at her feet, watching her mother’s hands dart about, her face a mask of concentration, as shirts were mended, lost buttons sewn back on, and skirt hems taken up or down.

  ‘Are you mending, Mother?’ she asked with a smile.

  Alice looked at her feet. ‘Oh, goodness no. I was just looking for something. I can’t remember now.’ She looked up at Jen and frowned. ‘What have you done with your hair? You look like a boy.’

  Jen put up a hand self-consciously. ‘I . . . I had it cut.’

  ‘I can see that,’ Alice said tartly. ‘Are you just up from London for a visit?’

  Jen swallowed. ‘You rang me, Mother, don’t you remember? I live in South Africa now.’

  Alice’s eyes narrowed. ‘South Africa? What on earth are you doing out there?’ Then her voice hardened. ‘Have you seen her?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Her.’ Alice jabbed the air with her finger, pointing at something past Jen’s shoulder. She turned around. There was an assortment of photographs on the mantelpiece. She walked over. Some of them she recognized. There was a school one of her, gap-toothed, her long red hair in pigtails. There was another of her parents’ wedding day, both looking stiffly at the camera, neither smiling, she noticed. There was a picture of her maternal grandmother whom she’d never known, an even thinner, more washed-out version of Alice, and then the picture of Euan that she’d sent them soon after he was born.

  ‘Oh, you got it,’ she said delightedly, holding it up. ‘He’s completely different now. I’ve got some new pictures to show you of the twins. You remember I told you about the twins? Alicia and Bryony.’

  Alice’s voice was still hard. ‘I’ve no need to see them,’ she said clearly and distinctly. ‘One’s quite enough, thank you very much. I keep it to remind me.’

  Jen looked at her in surprise. ‘Of what?’ she asked, puzzled.

  But Alice’s face had closed. Her gaze slipped away from Jen and she pointed to the remote control sitting on the coffee table. ‘Will you hand me that?’ she asked, her voice suddenly light, almost child-like. ‘It’s time for Gardeners’ World. I do like that programme, I have to admit.’

  Jen picked it up and handed it to her, still frowning. What on earth was Alice talking about? Her mother had already switched on the television. The volume was deafening.

  She touched her mother lightly on the arm and left the room. She’d better go to the hospital. It wasn’t a journey she was looking forward to, in more ways than one.

  86

  She looked down at the diminished figure in the hospital bed and her throat almost closed over. Her father was dying. Her first sight of him was a physical blow. He had always been tall and physically imposing, a giant to her as a child. The wizened old man lying propped up with pillows as white as his hair was shrunken, shrivelled, a presence that sucked at the air greedily though the plethora of tubes and pipes that were keeping him alive.

  ‘He can’t really talk,’ the nurse said cheerfully, ‘but he can hear you. Go on, don’t be afraid. You can go closer.’

  Jen’s legs had turned to stone. She stared down at him. One hand was above the coverlet, the skin as wrinkled and papery as an insect’s wing. The nails were yellowed and thick, and there was a dark orange nicotine stain on the third finger that almost glowed in contrast to the pale, ghostly figure he’d become. She swallowed. She moved closer, aware of the nurse’s presence as she bustled around her, checking dials and screens. She put out a hand to touch his arm. It was like touching the bark of a tree, dry and leathery . . . the body returning to its elemental state. ‘Father,’ she whispered. ‘It’s me, Jen.’ There was no sign from the inert figure that he’d heard her, let alone recognized her voice.

  ‘Don’t be scared,’ the nurse said, more gently this time. ‘It often helps them in these last few days. You know, to hear the voice of a loved one.

  Jen turned to look at her. ‘Are we talking days, then?’ she asked hesitantly.

  The girl pulled a stoic face. ‘Or hours. You can’t really tell at this stage. It was a massive stroke. It’s good you got here in time. The woman who came with him in the ambulance said you live abroad.’

  Jen nodded. ‘Yes, in South Africa.’

  ‘Och, I’ve always wanted to go out there,’ the nurse smiled. ‘Could do with a bit more sun. Aye, he’s only had the one visitor. Little old lady . . . Mrs Logan, if I remember. She used to be the cook, she said.’

  ‘Yes, she was. A long time ago. It was good of her to come.’

  ‘Aye. Well, I’ll leave you for a wee bit. I’m only across the ward if you need me. Sit with him a while. Like I said, it helps them . . . and I dare say it’ll help you too. Always better to have the chance to say goodbye, that’s what I’ve noticed.’

  Jen couldn’t answer. She turned back to the bed and the rasping figure lying there, his whole wasted, beaten body engaged in the struggle to stay alive. She couldn’t bring herself to stroke his hand, or whisper to him as she supposed others in her place might. She sat there in the deepening gloom as the sun dipped below the horizon, the sounds of the ward receding. It was so quiet. She was tired. She began to doze.

  She’s not sure what it is that’s woken her, but she lies in her narrow bed across the room from Kemi’s, her heart thudding. She’s always been afraid of the dark, but this time there’s something else in the room that’s more frightening, though she doesn’t know what it is. She opens her eyes a tiny crack, and then a little bit more. It’s her father, but from the way he’s standing, she knows something’s wrong. He’s leaning over Kemi in a way that doesn’t seem right to her. He’s holding something in his hand. She opens her eyes a little more. He’s stroking something but she can’t see it properly. There’s almost no sound in the room except his heavy breathing, then a little groan, a moan . . . a sigh of release. She’s completely frozen. She doesn’t know what she’s looking at, but she knows it’s wrong. Kemi is still fast asleep. She watches her father reach out and touch Kemi’s forehead, so gently, so lightly . . . he’s never touched her like that, she thinks to herself enviously. He barely looks at her. And then he straightens up and walks away, light as a feather. He’s in his pyjamas. She closes her eyes.

  Her eyes flew open. Her heart was thudding. She surfaced from a nightmare and focused her eyes blearily on the figure in the bed; he had slipped sideways. She knew immediately then that he was gone. His face carried an expression that was beyond sleep. His mouth was open and the fingers of the hand that still lay on the coverlet were relaxed, although the sheet was bunched up as though in the last moments before death, he’d tried to grasp hold of life, to hold on. It was unnaturally quiet in the room. The desperate see-sawing sound of the respirator had suddenly fallen silent. She got up as quietly as possible, tiptoeing out of the room with
out understanding why she felt the need to be silent. She tapped on the glass window separating the nurses’ station from the ward. The girl looked up from her computer. Suddenly tears leaped out of Jen’s eyes. They didn’t well up and trickle down her face in the usual way; they seemed to spring straight out. The nurse got up immediately and came to her, leading her to a chair. All around her, the routine hospital procedures for dealing with a person’s passing kicked into place. Someone brought her a cup of sweet, weak tea. Was there anyone she’d like to call? She shook her head. The chances of getting Solam on the phone were slim to none. It was pointless telling Alice over the phone and she wanted to tell Kemi in her own way, privately, not in the hospital corridor or nurses’ station with people traipsing past.

  ‘When’s the funeral?’ Kemi asked softly.

  ‘In about a week. It’s strange. It still doesn’t feel quite real. Mother switches from tears to laughter in the space of five minutes. She doesn’t quite get it.’

  ‘She doesn’t, at least not in the way we think. That’s what dementia does to the brain. I suppose it’s probably better that way. It spares them at least some of the pain.’

  Jen nodded doubtfully. From her perspective, what was happening to Alice was far worse than her father’s passing. ‘I suppose so. Anyway, I’ll let you know the exact date. I’ll get someone to meet you at the airport if I can’t get away.’

  ‘Is Solam coming?’

  Jen shook her head. ‘Not a chance. Anyway, I’d better go. You can’t imagine how much work planning a funeral is.’ She clapped a hand to her mouth. ‘Jesus, I’m sorry, Kem . . . that was thoughtless of me. I’m sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK. I’ll see you soon. Hang in there.’

  Jen put down the phone. She could have kicked herself. Downstairs the big clock in the hallway chimed the hour. It had never sounded so solemn and final. She picked at a loose thread in the bedspread. It was five o’clock. There were still papers to be sorted out in her father’s study before the solicitors arrived the following morning, and she’d been putting it off for nearly a week. There was nothing for it – it had to be done.

  She pushed open the door to the study cautiously, as if she expected him still to be sitting at the vast mahogany desk by the window. She stood for a moment in the doorway, her heart thumping. Here on the first floor of the house, the ceilings were highest. The walls were pale blue, as they’d always been, with elaborate white cornicing and a picture rail in the style of the period. The furniture was all dark polished wood, and one wall contained only his books, rising all the way to the top. There was a bureau in one corner, and a row of silver-framed pictures hanging on the wall just above it. She looked nervously at the desk. Something hovered at the edge of her mind but she wouldn’t allow herself to dwell on it. She walked over to the bureau. All his legal papers were kept in it, Mrs Smith had told her, including the will. She was the only person allowed into the room to clean it, she whispered, not wanting Alice to hear. She knew where everything was kept. It was a good job she did, Jen thought, otherwise she’d have been completely in the dark. Her father had not been one to divulge anything, least of all his business affairs. She knew where he banked – a private bank in St Andrew Square where her dividends and trust monies were paid every quarter – but beyond that, nothing. She had no idea how much money there was. Like everything else, it wasn’t a subject every broached in that house.

  She put out a hand to open the drawer, but her eye was caught by the photographs. She peered at them. She picked one carefully off the wall and looked at it curiously. It was her grandfather, George McFadden. She had no memory of him but the resemblance to her father was striking. The same high, sloped forehead, upright bearing. There were two children in the photograph; a young, light-skinned girl and a darker girl who stood shyly in front of a thickset, very dark-skinned woman in a chair. She looked at the photograph more closely. It was uncanny. The light-skinned girl looked strangely familiar. She put it back and then saw another one of the same girl, this time older, as a teenager. She was dressed formally, in a high-necked white blouse with a fussy brooch. The photograph looked as though it had been taken somewhere in Scotland, perhaps even in Edinburgh. Her face was carefully composed for the photographer, the light-coloured, crinkly hair pulled back and held in place with a flowered comb; lips made into a lovely shape with lipstick and dark eyes with long, thick lashes. The girl’s image ended in the photograph at her shoulders. She wondered who they all were.

  The clock downstairs chimed again, making her jump. It had been a long time since she’d heard the measured division of quarters and halves of time in its companionable way, soothing her fear of the dark when she was little. It was 5.30 p.m. She pulled open the drawers and carefully lifted out the files. It would take her days, not hours, she realized, as soon as she opened the first one. There were records going back almost a century. She sighed deeply. Silence in their family was so deeply entrenched that it had become its own tradition, part of the culture of the McFaddens. Silence was who they were. Her mind kept returning to the picture of the girl on the wall. Who was she, and why was she hanging in her father’s study in what seemed like pride of place?

  87

  Whenever she heard an explanation she didn’t like, Hélène had a way of tucking her forefinger into the soft pad of her cheek, saying nothing, but following the speaker with an expression on her face that transmitted her message clearer than any word could. You’re trying to fool me? Solam had seen it many times. Now he felt that gaze upon himself. His voice petered out.

  Hélène leaned forward. ‘He’s your father-in-law. The father of your wife. Your children’s oupa.’ She used the Afrikaans word, uncharacteristically sentimental. Grandpa. ‘Of course, you must be there.’

  Solam swore silently. He didn’t want to be there. He wanted to be here. The closed tenders for a host of World-Cup-related contracts were due to be opened that week. He had to be here. Hélène didn’t know that, and neither should she. He swore again. ‘Jen’s got her hands full,’ he began, then stopped. He knew when he was beaten.

  ‘All the more reason for you to be there,’ Hélène said crisply. ‘Didn’t you say there was some connection with Tole Mashabane?’ she asked, getting up from her desk.

  ‘Yes. I think her grandfather was the one who sent Tole to medical school in Edinburgh.’

  She walked to the window. Her offices looked directly onto Table Mountain. She turned back to him. She was smiling. ‘It’s a perfect opportunity,’ she said firmly. ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Perfect for what?’ he asked, confused by the sudden switch in tone.

  ‘Public reconciliation, three families bound by history as well as love. You couldn’t script it any better. I’ll arrange for coverage. There are a few journalists who owe us one. Wear your best suit and play the part of the supportive husband. This could turn out to be political gold.’

  You had to hand it to her, Solam thought, as he walked back down the corridor to the lift. The woman didn’t miss a damn thing. All that oupa business? She was thinking two steps ahead, as she always did. She was right. Properly handled with a few key images . . . his popularity would soar. He punched the button, a smile beginning to form. He wouldn’t tell Jen, either. He’d let it be a surprise. He’d take along one of the bodyguards, probably François. He liked the way the man handled himself. He was very quiet, very discreet, didn’t say much but nothing got past him. He stepped into the lift and pulled out his phone.

  ‘Get me two tickets on tomorrow night’s flight to London, with a connecting flight to Edinburgh. Myself and François. We don’t need to sit together but keep him close. Oh, and find me a black suit, will you? Something formal, classy. I’ll be attending a funeral.’ He hung up and walked out into the dazzling sunshine.

  88

  The silence was so loud you could hear a pin drop. Mrs Logan stared at the photograph, but not in the way of someone looking at something for the first time; rather in the way of someone who’d
been waiting decades for a moment like this to take place. Her throat pulsed softly, almost like a frog’s.

  ‘Who is she?’ Jen asked.

  Mrs Logan sighed, one of those sighs that seem to come from so far away as to have nothing to do with the lungs that produced it. ‘She’s the bairn. The African bairn. Auld McFadden’s bairn.’

  Jen looked at her, puzzled. ‘You mean my grandfather? How is she his child?’ She stared at it. She looked up at Mrs Logan. Suddenly, the significance of her words began to take shape. ‘Are you telling me,’ she began haltingly, the words coming out with difficulty, ‘that she’s my grandfather’s daughter?’

  ‘Aye. Yer father’s sister. His half-sister. That’s her mither in the picture, the wan sittin’ doon. She passed away no long after that picture was taken. She was aboot eighteen, I think. She had an illness . . . I dinnae ken the name o’ it.’ She put her hands around her mug. ‘I said to yer ma . . . I think that’s the reason, ye ken?’

  ‘For what?’ Jen was struggling to make sense of everything Mrs Logan had said. Her father had a half-sister? Her mind was reeling.

  Mrs Logan looked up. ‘I reckon that’s why he done it. He couldnae help hisself.’ Mrs Logan fell silent.