Sleep Sister: A page-turning novel of psychological suspense (7 page)

For an instant Beth was too shocked to speak. Then she realised that there was nothing she could say, or wanted to say, that could erase the cruelty of her sister’s remark. They did not speak as they descended the headland. As soon as they arrived home Sara entered her bedroom and slammed the door behind her.

One day, when Sara was at school, Beth looked inside the room they had once shared. Sara had painted the walls white. She had filled it with white veneer furniture, white curtains and a pale blue carpet. A large white bear was propped on a wicker chair, the only childish thing in this cold clinical room. Enlarged photographs hung on the walls. Shots of Fatima Parade, doorways, alleyways, open gates, starkly empty. The river running through the centre of the town had a sinister fury. It reflected the high octagonal tower with the clock face on River Mall. Sara had written ‘Time Flows By’ at the bottom of each photograph. Beth felt uneasy as she closed the door quietly behind her. She felt as if her presence had left a smudge on the pristine surroundings, like the twiggy footprints of a bird running over a surface of snow.

B
arry Tyrell died
in the middle of the night, suddenly and alone. By the time his family reached the hospital it was over. Sara did not want to see him. She sat outside the ward, a mug of tea untouched by her feet.

‘I’ll have nightmares,’ she said. ‘He’s only a shell anyway.’ She had knotted a bright red scarf at the neck of her jumper and nervously pulled at it, twisting it tighter. Her feet tapped rapidly against the floor, sending tremors through her legs. She seemed unaware of her skittish movements until Beth put her hand on her knees to calm her down. The younger girl’s face was white, glistening with a sheen of perspiration. She swayed and slumped forward. Beth tried to press her head between her knees but Sara fended her off, struggling to remain conscious.

‘I have to get away from this place.’ She walked down the corridor, almost running as she neared the lifts. On the tiled corridor her boots clacked loudly, red, the same shade as her scarf. She stopped briefly to speak to Catherine O’Donovan, then hurried on again.

‘Poor little Sara. She’s very upset.’ Catherine sat down beside Beth and handed her a mug of hot tea. ‘No matter how well prepared you think you are it’s always a shock when someone you love dies. God bless him, he’s at peace at last. Have a good cry if you feel the need.’

Beth leaned into the crisp white uniform to be hugged. The hospital was silent. The small hours when death comes quietly. She didn’t feel like crying but the solid feel of the nurse’s arms comforted her.

‘I’ll phone Jess first thing in the morning and tell her the sad news,’ said Catherine.

‘I miss her something awful. I wish she could be here now.’

‘We all do.’ Catherine sighed. ‘But as long as she’s happy that’s what counts.’

Her mother and uncle were still inside the ward, making decisions. Beth wondered if she should try to find her sister. The effort of moving was too great. She stared dully at the opposite wall. She must feel something. There had to be certain emotions suitable for the occasion.

Exhaustion. She was floating on a wave of exhaustion. Her father’s death had given her permission to be tired.

H
is coffin gleamed
on the altar steps. Voices murmured the responses. The silence of transubstantiation was disturbed by someone coughing at the back of the church. The Eucharist bell jingled. Everyone bowed their heads except Beth, who stared woodenly at the altar. At communion the congregation held back, making space for the Tyrell family to lead the procession to the altar rail. Father Breen stood waiting, the host upheld in his hand. Marjory walked slowly towards him, sharp and dramatic in high heels and a black suit with impeccable shoulder pads.

‘Move,’ whispered Sara, standing up to follow Beth.

‘I’m not receiving.’ Beth shifted her knees, allowing her sister to pass. Her uncle slid into the space vacated by Sara.

‘Have you no respect for your father’s memory?’ he asked, his voice low but commanding. ‘Stand up at once and go to the altar.’

‘No.’

‘Do as I say!’

‘Why? God doesn’t exist.’ She hissed the words into his ear. ‘He’s a fake – just like you.’

She wondered if the tabernacle would shatter. If blood would flow from the Eucharist in a tidal wave of outrage. Would the flame from the sanctuary lamp gutter and die? Blasphemy was a sin that marked the soul of the sinner with an indelible brand – Sister Clare had warned them in First Year. Her uncle’s mouth opened, shocked.

‘May God in his mercy forgive you. You have disgraced the memory of your dead father.’ He bowed his head and moved past her.

The congregation rose respectfully to its feet and followed him.

I
t was
good to be back in Oldport, like coming home, thought Beth, not sure whether she should feel sad or happy at this realisation. Much to her surprise Mrs Wallace informed her that she would be working directly under her. Away from cigar smoke and the grumbles of the sales manager, life was good, provided she didn’t think about Sara and the tears she had shed on Anaskeagh Head. Or the silent phone calls that had haunted her since her return. They came late at night when she was getting ready for bed, always around the same time. She dreaded the eerie silence as she waited for someone to speak. She confided in Stewart one evening when he returned from a motorbike rally in Skerries. He believed they were obscene phone calls and should be reported. She disagreed. Obscenity was heavy breathing. Fear and control. Ugly suggestions and demands. This was different. An invisible presence, wraithlike, holding on, trembling at the brink of words.

‘I know it’s Sara.’

‘Why don’t you go home and see her?’

‘I can’t… not yet.’

‘You’ve more important things to do, I suppose.’ He made no effort to hide his jealousy. ‘Surprise me and tell me he’s finally finished those paintings.’

‘Almost.’ She did not want to discuss the Saturday sessions with anyone, particularly Stewart, who always looked sceptical whenever Peter’s name was mentioned. He seldom went to Havenstone any more.

‘What exactly is he doing?’ Stewart asked. ‘Please educate me on the finer aspects of art.’

She tried to explain about the Cat-astrophic Collection and watched his eyebrows climb.

‘I’ll say this for him, he’s feeding you a great line in bullshit,’ he interrupted her angrily. ‘And there’s only one reason you’re falling for it.’

‘It’s not like that,’ she protested. ‘You’ve got it all wrong.’

‘Have I? What have I got wrong? The bullshit or the fact that you fancy him like mad.’

‘Both!’ she snapped. ‘I’m too busy to fancy him – or anyone.’

‘Busy doing what?’ he asked. ‘All you ever do is work. No one expects you to run Della Designs single-handedly.’

He lifted his arm as if he meant to put it around her shoulders, then let it drop to his side. ‘Everyone falls in love sooner or later. For some of us it’s sooner…’ He paused and cleared his throat. When Beth stared stonily ahead, he left the sentence unfinished.

The final painting was called Cat-holic.

‘Sacrifice,’ said Peter, smiling in his know-it-all way as he stood in front of her. ‘No more cats. This is about martyrdom. Washed in the blood of the Lord.’

‘I’m an atheist,’ she retorted. ‘Shouldn’t you be talking to Jess about this?’

‘I’d have to carry her over the convent wall. She has a steely vocation, unlike my father, who jumped that wall the first chance he got.’

He occasionally spoke to her about Bradley Wallace, a frail, elderly man, who had entered a monastery in his youth but left when he’d realised he lacked the necessary discipline to live the life of a monk. He’d grown vines in the garden at the back of Havenstone and had collected art, specialising in painting of martyred saints. Peter had been twelve when he died. The vines perished in a frost soon after his death and wild ivy crawled across the vineyard. His paintings had also disappeared. Della needed new machinery for Della Designs and what was the sense in all those paintings gathering dust when she had a factory to run?

Peter raised Beth’s arms above her head and linked her fingers together. Her body felt as if it was suspended by chains. Her heart began to pound when he moved closer. She sensed his excitement, felt his body pressing lightly but insistently against her. She was aware of his strength and also of her vulnerability as he drew her arms higher and her breasts tautened, her hips thrusting forward involuntarily. Her face tilted upwards, their lips almost touching, before he moved away and picked up a sketchpad.

‘Try and hold the pose, Beth. Sublime ecstasy, that’s what I want to capture. I want to lift your body into the celestial light.’

‘Stewart’s right. You do talk a load of bullshit.’ Her eyes challenged him. Her arms ached with the effort of holding them aloft.

‘What’s the problem, Beth? I’m trying to paint you, not rape you.’ Peter put down the sketchpad and walked towards her, lowering her arms, then resting them on his shoulders. When she tried to pull away his grip tightened. ‘Who are you, Beth Tyrell? What’s the big mystery behind those eyes? Beautiful girl, no boyfriend. No existence outside the walls of a boring factory. I can understand my mother being a workaholic, but you’re too young – too gorgeous – and I want to kiss you. What have you got to say about that?’

She resisted for an instant, drawing back from the pressure of his mouth. Then, with a low sigh of surrender, she kissed him back. His hand touched her waist, sliding inside her blouse, confidently moving towards her breast. Her heart pounded, suffocating her with its fury. She felt him slipping away, vanishing in front of her eyes. The walls of the studio folded in and crushed her into darkness where nothing existed except the sound of heavy breathing and the touch of flesh stealing away her senses. She struggled, flailing wildly, dragging herself back from the edge of memory.

‘Leave me alone! Don’t you dare touch me… Don’t you dare!’ Ashen-faced, almost hysterical, she stared at him, his face swimming into view again, angry, puzzled, then frightened when she began to weep violently.

‘I can’t. I just can’t!’ She covered her eyes, no longer able to look at him. ‘I have to go… You don’t understand… No one does. Leave me alone!’

She understood now why she had never been jealous when he talked about his girlfriends. The women he loved briefly had helped her to play a waiting game. To deny her fear. To dream that when the right time came it would be different with him. She would experience the sensations that made the women in the office coy and giggly when they discussed their boyfriends. She knew the names they called her. Frigid Brigid. Arctic Knickers. She deserved them – her skin lifting in horror, her body clenched, rejecting even him.

The following weekend, four months after her father’s death, she returned to Anaskeagh to visit Sara.

S
ince leaving
Dublin the rain had been falling steadily. Beth shouldered her rucksack and left the fuggy heat of the bus, crossing Turnabout Bridge and heading towards the town. The river was swollen, swirling high under the bridge, carrying the sheen of bogs and the dead chill of underground caverns. In the early spring old Sam Burns had died in this river. Some said it was an accident. Too much red biddy and a belief that he could walk on water. Others believed it was suicide, an old man tired of ranting. The smell of chips made her mouth water. Through the steamy windows of the corner building on River Mall she saw Hatty, busy as ever on a Friday night. She opened the door and joined the queue.

‘Would you take a look at what the cat dragged in!’ Hatty waved a vinegar container at her. ‘And a drowned one at that. I must say you picked a strange weekend to come home considering your mother only went away last night.’

Startled, Beth stared at her. ‘What do you mean? Where’s she gone?’

‘Ah now – that’s a good question. There’s many around here would like an answer to it.’ She worked fast at moving the queue along, talking non-stop over her shoulder. ‘She’s kicking up her heels with the rest of them chancers in the Anaskeagh Chamber of Commerce. They’re supposed to be at a conference in Blackpool finding out about tourism but it could be Timbuktu for all we know.’

‘Blackpool? Are you serious?’

‘Taking that lot off on a “fact-finding mission” is enough to make a donkey stop laughing.’ Hatty, as sturdy and round as a small barrel, was an insatiable gossip. Barry used to claim she could draw secrets from a corpse.

She lifted a pan of sizzling chips, expertly pinching one between her fingers, then plunged them back in for extra crispness. ‘It’s not that I’d begrudge your mother the break. It was time for the poor widow to kick up her heels after the terrible spell she’s had – and who is Hatty Beckett to even mention the word “junket”?’

‘Where’s Sara?’ Beth asked.

‘You’ll find her at Cherry Vale.’

‘Did my uncle go on the trip?’

Hatty nodded emphatically. ‘He organised it. He wants to bring the tourists here to the Western seaboard to enjoy our golden beaches and quaint little town. And why not? It’s time to put Anaskeagh on the map and there’s no better man knows how to organise a junket – sorry, fact-finding mission – than Albert Grant.’

Beth’s aunt was watching television and eating chocolates when she arrived at Cherry Vale.

‘Hatty Beckett would be wise not to go bandying words like “junket” around the place.’ May was not amused when Beth repeated the conversation. ‘How long are you staying this time, may I ask?’

‘Only the weekend. I’m so busy.’

‘Well, you’re back in Anaskeagh so you can just ease your foot off the pedal. You can sleep in Conor’s room but don’t touch anything. He gets very upset when he comes home from university if his things aren’t exactly the same as he left them.’ May smiled her wafer-thin smile at Beth. ‘Why didn’t you come back for your sister’s show?’

‘What show?’

‘The nuns, for reasons best known to themselves, decided to show off her photographs. Not that I’m one of Sara’s fans. I told her so, straight out. She had the nerve to make Fatima Estate look like a slum after all the great work Albert did on the houses.’

Sara appeared to be asleep but she opened her eyes immediately when Beth entered the room.

‘What are you doing here?’ she asked, limply lifting her head before letting it fall back again on the pillow.

‘I came to see you.’ Beth sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. ‘May told me about your exhibition. Congratulations. I’m really sorry I missed it.’

‘It wasn’t anything much. Just an old school thing…’ Shadows smudged the skin under her eyes. She yawned and pulled the blankets over her chin. ‘Go away, Beth. I’m too tired to talk to you.’

‘Just tell me first – are you ringing me at night and then not speaking?’

‘Don’t be so stupid!’ Sara muttered then turned her face to the wall. ‘Why would I waste my time making phone calls to
you
? Let me go back to sleep.’

By the following morning the rain had eased to a light drizzle. May applied a slash of lipstick to her mouth before driving off to Anaskeagh to have her hair set. Her statuesque figure was encased in a purple suit. A blouse frothed lace at her neck. She intended dropping Sara off at First Fashion to help in the boutique. If Beth wanted a lift into town she could come with them. Beth shook her head. She planned to visit O’Donovan’s farm.

Catherine was still in her nurse’s uniform when Beth arrived. Night duty in the casualty ward always left her exhausted. Beth made her a mug of tea and persuaded her to go to bed. She promised to feed the fowl and fetch Frank from the hill field when the vet arrived to look at a sick horse.

The day passed swiftly. Frank and Jess’s brother, Bernard, arrived in at noon for lunch. A pot of stew simmered on the range and Beth smiled, remembering how, when the O’Donovan children had complained of hunger, Catherine used to wave her hand towards the pot and say, ‘You know where it is, honeybuns. God gave you your hands for a reason. Help yourselves.’

The men were joined briefly by Sheila O’Neill, who had cycled over from Anaskeagh. Sheila was engaged to Bernard. They planned to build a bungalow on the farm. She still had jittery eyes and the same compulsion to talk about her sisters, who were coming home for the wedding. She took off her engagement ring and showed it to Beth.

‘Twist it towards your heart and make a wish,’ she said.

Beth twisted the ring and pretended to wish before handing the ring back to Sheila.

‘How’s Nuala?’ she asked. ‘Is she coming home for the wedding as well?’

‘I don’t know.’ Sheila looked away, embarrassed. ‘I’d like her to come but you know my mother. Anyway, she’s mad busy working in this craft place. It’s some kind of co-operative that these women run in a basement. They make pots and candles, that sort of thing. Nuala sells the stuff for them.’

‘Did she ever get married?’

‘Married!’ Bernard held up his hands as if warding off an evil word. ‘The only man in her life is the kiddie she had after she was in the traces with Derry Mulhall. She’s one of those feminists. A holy terror she is when it comes to us poor men.’ He winked at Beth. ‘What about you? Are you stepping out with one of them jackeens or saving yourself for the local lads?’

‘That’s for me to know and you to find out,’ retorted Beth, slipping easily into the familiar banter of the O’Donovan household.

Sheila was working in the new supermarket. She listed the recent engagements, marriages and births that had taken place in Anaskeagh. When Beth mentioned Oldport, Sheila checked her watch and said she had to run, bored by events that had no relevance outside the circle of her own life.

By evening the rain had cleared and the countryside was bathed in sunshine. Goldie lay on the lawn in Cherry Vale, his head flopped between his paws, looking reproachfully at them through the open French doors. May fluttered anxiously around the table, her bare arms quivering as she ladled mashed potatoes, carrots and peas. Two slices of roast beef glistened on each plate. She talked throughout the meal. She had always been a talker but Beth was surprised at how aimless her conversation had become: rambling monologues that relayed the minutiae of her daily routine and the demands that were made on a busy councillor’s wife. Her nieces were not expected to participate in the conversation, only to nod at appropriate intervals.

Sara moved her food around, chewing continuously on a piece of meat, as if the effort of swallowing was too great. Her aunt leaned across the table and coyly tapped her knuckles with a fork.

‘I heard about your latest conquest, you sly puss.’ The young girl looked up from her plate, puzzled. ‘What do you mean, Aunty May?’

‘Ben Layden!’ She glanced over towards Beth. ‘His family own the new supermarket. I was talking to his mother last week and she spilled the beans.’

‘Baked were they?’ asked Beth.

May ignored her. ‘He fancies our little Sara but she gives him the cold shoulder, don’t you, you heartless vixen? It won’t do, my dear. It won’t do at all. You can’t dazzle the poor boy with your wiles and then pretend not to notice him.’

‘I don’t pretend—’

‘Every boy needs a little push to get him moving in the right direction. And he’s a shy one, God bless him.’ May’s eyebrows arched, coy slivers of brown pencil. ‘I’ll have to arrange a little tête-à-tête to get the two of you together. More carrots, Beth?’

‘No thank you, May.’

‘Eat up now and none of your nonsense.’ She ignored Beth’s protesting hand, ladling another helping of vegetables onto her plate. ‘You’re far too scrawny for your age. A man likes a girl he can cuddle and there’s little to cuddle on a broomstick.’

‘I saw Conor at a dance in Dublin a while back,’ said Beth, staring at her aunt’s flushed face. ‘When did he start drinking so heavily?’

May’s smile disappeared. ‘What do you mean? Conor’s never broken his Confirmation pledge.’

‘Oh! Then maybe it was drugs. This fellow came up and asked me to dance. He vomited over my shoes. Suede. Such a waste. I had to throw them away. I was sure it was Conor – but under such circumstances it was hard to be certain.’

‘I’m quite sure it wasn’t my son,’ May replied grimly. ‘Conor is a student of law. I don’t imagine he’s in the habit of frequenting the same dance halls as common factory girls.’

‘She’s unbelievable. Yap, yap, yap,’ Beth muttered when their aunt went into the hall to answer the phone. ‘She never shuts up for a minute.’

‘She’s lonesome with the boys gone all the time,’ said Sara. ‘And Uncle Albert’s so busy he’s never here.’ She swayed, slumping forward. Sweat broke out on her upper lip.

‘What’s wrong?’ Beth half stood but Sara lifted her hand and pushed her back. An action that was surprisingly strong, considering her crumpled position. ‘I’ve got a stomach cramp,’ she gasped. ‘I think I’ve picked up a bug.’

‘Were you sick during the night?’

Sara nodded and rose unsteadily to her feet, holding the edge of the table for support. For an instant, as she bent forward, she was silhouetted against the evening sun. It shone through the fabric of her dress, pale blue chambray, soft creased pleats falling loose to her ankles. Her stomach, high and swollen, stretched tight. Her small full breasts rested on the curve.

It was so obvious. Beth wanted to fling the reality far back into the cold reaches of her mind. Her eyes, seeking relief, stared down at the linen tablecloth and almost immediately came back to Sara. Dust motes danced in the shaft of light, shimmering energy. It had to be her imagination. Sara had just turned fourteen, a schoolgirl who played with her dog and took strange photographs of empty lanes and time running away. The young girl moved from the light, oblivious of what she’d revealed, moving heavily, her hand reaching instinctively to touch the small of her back. She opened the door and disappeared from view. Beth tried to detain her but her throat was too raw for words. Her breath wheezed, carried on a wild sob.

The phone call ended and May was back, annoyed at people’s lack of consideration, ringing at meal time when they knew her husband was away and wouldn’t be able to deal with their problems.

‘Sara’s gone upstairs to lie down for a while,’ Beth said.

‘Poor child, it’s probably her monthlies. I used to be cursed with them myself when I was her age. You really are a bold little brat, Beth, teasing me about Conor.’

‘I’ll go and check if she’s all right.’ Beth ran up the stairs, her heart pounding at the thought of confronting her sister.

The bedroom was empty. When she ran downstairs May was standing in the hall, her jacket slung over her shoulders. ‘Is she all right? Does she want me to bring her up a hot-water bottle before I leave?’

‘No, she’s sleeping.’

‘That’ll do her good. I’m off to play bridge with the ladies. I should be back about midnight.’

As the puzzle pieces slotted into place one by one Beth realised she was not surprised. The signs had been obvious yet she had deliberately ignored them. No, surely not deliberately. How could she have guessed what was incomprehensible? Sara had put on weight, a fine layer of puppy fat softening her face. Her strange behaviour, sudden outbursts. Hormones. Moody teen blues. An explanation for everything except the truth. Sara crying on Anaskeagh Head because there was no one to tell. Sara on the phone, panicked, desperate, silent. She had dismissed her suspicions, refused to give them any credence because she wanted to be with Peter Wallace, playing word games, stupid, stupid word games with no meaning. Images on canvas – the mirror of the soul.