The Sister: A psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won't see coming (12 page)

‘Why’s the chain on?’

‘Where have you been?’ I cross my arms over my chest.

‘Out with Harry. I left you a note. Didn’t you see it?’

‘And you call Harry “babe”, do you?’

‘Of course not. What are you talking about?’ Dan pulls his trainers off. ‘Are you OK? Your eyes are really bloodshot.’

‘I’m tired.’ Nothing makes sense. ‘Anna heard you on the phone calling someone “babe”.’

‘Did she?’ Dan throws his trainers onto the mat and they thud against the front door. Fragments of mud stipple the carpet.

‘And I suppose you expect me to hoover that up?’

‘I don’t
expect
you to do anything except believe me over some mad bitch you’ve only known
five minutes
.’

‘Keep your voice down.’

‘Why? In case precious Anna overhears and twists things around? I can shout if I want. This is my bloody house.’

‘Our bloody house. So where were you?’

‘At the club with Harry. Ask Chloe, if you don’t believe me. She was there. There are still girls around who actually want to spend time with their boyfriends.’

‘Well, maybe their boyfriends don’t go around calling other girls “babe”.’ I stomp back upstairs and lie rigid in bed, listening to the muffled sounds of the TV drifting up through the floor as Dan watches a late-night film, all squealing tyres and gunshots. It seems ages before sleep tugs me under. My dreams are strewn with torn-up notes, red Corsas and a figure in a black padded coat hiding in the bushes.

E
verything is stark white
: my fluffy robe, slippers, the floor and wall tiles. If it wasn’t so warm I’d think I was in the Arctic. I stuff my belongings into a locker and drop the key into a canvas bag that is already bulging with my towel and a book,
Jane Eyre
. Anna’s cubicle door creaks open. She steps out, swamped in her robe. I pull my belt a little tighter.

‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’

‘Sauna first?’

‘I’ve never had one before.’

‘Never? Let’s do that, then. You should leave your necklace here. The metal will heat and burn your skin.’

I finger the gold hearts. ‘I never take this off.’

‘I’ve noticed; did Dan buy it?’

‘No. Charlie.’

‘It will be safe in your locker. You won’t want it on for the massage anyway.’

I carefully take the necklace off, fasten the clasp and put it inside my jacket pocket.

‘Let’s go.’

We hang our bags and robes on the hooks outside the sauna. Anna tugs the glass door and the rush of escaping heat takes my breath away. I trail her through the gloom and copy her as she spreads her towel out on a wooden bench and kicks her slippers off.

‘Are you OK?’ she asks.

‘I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so hot in here.’

‘You’ll get used to it pretty quickly. I was wondering, Grace, if we can go and see Lexie tomorrow?’

‘I’m sorry, Anna. I haven’t talked to her about you yet. I will, I promise, but I haven’t had a chance.’

‘We could surprise her?’

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea. She’s very fragile.’

‘But I might cheer her up?’

‘Maybe. I’ll talk to her. How about you come and have Sunday lunch at my grandparents’ tomorrow? They’re dying to meet you and they have lots of Charlie stories.’

‘OK.’ Anna lies back and closes her eyes and I do the same. Sweat runs in rivulets down my body and, when Anna suggests a swim several minutes later, black dots dance in front of my eyes as I stand. I grip the bench to steady myself before I walk. It’s a relief to take a shower and plunge into the cold pool. I swim lengths until my breath rasps, then I flip over and float on my back. Anna climbs out the pool before me. Her thighs are covered in puckered scars I haven’t seen before. I wonder what happened to her after her parents died. She can be so guarded sometimes.

I shuffle across the poolside, conscious of the slippery tiles. Lots of the guests have brought flip-flops and I decide that if I ever come again, I’ll do the same. It’s so warm I don’t bother drying my skin, but I rub my hair with my towel as I perch on the edge of Anna’s lounger.

‘Can I ask you something personal, Anna?’

‘You can ask. I might not answer.’

‘Where did you go? After your parents…’

‘I was fostered for a while, but it didn’t work out.’

‘Why?’

‘Some children are hard to love, I suppose. I was very angry. I wanted my mum. Hungry?’ Anna stands and folds her towel into a square and I feel hurt that she doesn’t feel able confide in me.

Lunch is a buffet. I feel virtuous following my swim, and heap my plate with colourful salads and cold rice. I can’t resist the dessert table, though, and eat two slices of cheesecake, telling myself I can swim it off later. However, by the time we’ve finished our coffees and nibbled on after-dinner mints, I’m too full to exercise, so we sink into the Jacuzzi instead. The water comes up to my chin.

‘How many foster homes did you have?’ I can’t help probing.

‘Not as many as the calories you’ve just eaten. Look at the body on him.’ Anna nods towards a guy spreading his towel on a lounger.

‘His biceps are huge.’

‘That’s not the only huge thing, looking at his Speedos.’

I avert my eyes. ‘Not my type.’

‘I don’t really have a type. I want someone who can make me laugh.’

‘Dan’s funny.’ I catch her expression: she looks slightly scornful. ‘No, really, usually he is; he was, anyway,’ I persist, not sure why I’m feeling so defensive.

‘What do you mean, “he
was
”? What happened?’

‘I couldn’t cope when Charlie died. It was such a shock. I began to wonder if I was cursed. I couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. I snapped at Dan constantly, hating him for not knowing how to make me feel better. He started going out drinking every night just to avoid me. He’s never been one to talk about feelings. Anyway, it has got a bit better lately. Relationships are hard work, and you’ve got to take the rough with the smooth, I guess. I want to make it work. We both do.’

‘I’m sure you will.’

‘How long have you been single?’

Anna fiddles with her hair. ‘Not long enough!’

‘Bad break-up?’

‘Is there such a thing as a good one? I don’t know if I believe in all that happy ever after stuff. It’s not the way it works in real life, is it? I have this idyllic memory of my parents, but maybe they just died before it could all go wrong. Relationships don’t last, do they? Between anyone?’ She looks at me intently.

‘My grandparents are doing all right. It’s their golden anniversary this year.’

‘They’re the lucky ones then, or maybe more tolerant than the rest of us. Living with someone’s faults, accepting their mistakes, forgiveness – that’s true love, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Suppose.’ I wonder, should you compromise to accept someone for who they really are, or is that settling for less than you really want? I’m not sure.

‘How about your parents?’ Anna asks.

But before I can answer, a girl in a black tunic sashays towards us, clipboard in hand. She looks barely old enough to have left school and I wonder how it is her thick make-up doesn’t melt in this heat. I don’t often bother with make-up but when I do it doesn’t take long before my nose is shiny, mascara smudged and there’s lipstick on my teeth. I’m lucky Dan prefers the natural look, but is that something men just say? The women they seem to look at in magazines, in movies, on the street, are the glamorous, the über-thin. Not like me. Not like most of the women I know.

‘Grace Matthews?’

‘That’s me.’

She smiles, teeth impossibly white. ‘I’m Caroline. I’ll be doing your aromatherapy massage. If you’d like to come this way?’

The room is in semi-darkness; wall lights in the shape of candles cast a mandarin glow over the therapy couch. Pan pipes stream from an iPod dock. I undress and lay on my front on a chocolate faux-fur throw that tickles my skin. Caroline covers me with a soft fleecy blanket and I breathe in essential oils, praying my bottom won’t wobble too much once the massage starts. Caroline warms lavender oil between her palms, and her fingers start to unknot long-neglected muscles. I stop worrying about my cellulite as the heels of her hands slide either side of my spine. My eyelids flutter and close.

‘Grace, it’s time to get dressed.’ A whispered voice and a gentle hand on my shoulder stir me. I sit up, blinking and disorientated, feeling like I’ve just come out of the cinema into blazing sunlight. Caroline passes me a glass of water and I take a sip.

‘That was magical. Thank you.’

It feels like I float back to the poolside. ‘You’re up,’ I tell Anna.

I flop onto a lounger; I don’t want to swim and wash the oils off. My skin feels so soft. I close my eyes and doze, until Anna gently shakes me awake.

‘Time to go home, sleepyhead.’

‘Do we have to?’ I yawn and heave myself upright. ‘I could happily stay here for the rest of my life.’

‘You’d get bored.’

I’m not convinced I’d ever tire of this, but I follow her to the changing rooms all the same. I fish my key from my bag and open my locker, bundle my belongings and find an empty cubicle. My arms feel heavy as I guide them into sleeves. I can’t remember ever feeling this relaxed. I drag a brush through my hair and reach into my jacket for my necklace. It isn’t there. I’ve barely taken off the heart since Charlie gave me it on my fifteenth birthday and I feel light-headed. I check again. The pocket’s empty. All the pockets are empty. Panic wells. Where is it? Fingers of dread twist my insides and I bang open the door, scouring the floor as I rush back to the locker I used. The necklace isn’t there.

I chew my lip.
Think, Grace.
I rummage through my handbag. Everything is still there.

‘Are you OK?’

Anna stands behind me, shower-wet, dripping over the floor.

‘My necklace has gone.’

‘What do you mean, gone?’

‘Gone, as in it’s not there.’ I bite my lip hard to stop myself from crying.

‘It must be.’ Anna checks the locker and my pockets. ‘I don’t understand. Has someone taken it?’

‘How? The door was still locked. I left the key with you when I went for a massage. Did you go in my locker?’ I cross my arms.

‘No. Of course not. Let’s think. Have you let the key out of your sight at all?’

‘No.’ I sit down heavily on a bench. ‘Well, I did fall asleep after my massage. My bag was on the floor next to me.’

‘Someone could have taken your key then?’

‘And stole my necklace but left my phone and purse, and put the key back before I woke?’

‘That’s pretty implausible, isn’t it? Let’s go and talk to reception.’

I stand tapping my foot as Anna dresses, then we rush back to the entrance I had floated through so happily, just hours before.

‘Sit down,’ Anna says. ‘I’ll fetch the manager.’

I sit on the edge of a high-backed chair and grip the table in front of me. My knuckles are chalk white.
Charlie, I’m so sorry.

Anna murmurs in a low voice to a woman in a black pencil skirt and white blouse, who glances over. Her forehead is Botox-smooth and glossy, eyebrows rigid and arched. It’s impossible to see if she’s shocked. She totters over to me, thrusting out her tanned hand. ‘I’m Tina. Let’s go back to the changing rooms, shall we?’ She leads the way. ‘Which one was yours?’

I point to the locker on the bottom row.

‘Look. There’s a slight gap between the door and the base. How thick is your necklace?’

‘It’s quite thin.’

‘It’s possible then that if you didn’t put it in your pocket properly, or if it slipped out when you pulled your jacket out, it could have fallen down there?’

My heart sinks as I examine the gap, thinking of the way I dragged my clothes out: bundling them together, trying to carry everything at once. ‘I suppose so.’

‘I think that’s the rational explanation. We’ve never had an experience of theft here.’

‘So how do I get it back?’

‘Is it valuable?’

‘It has great sentimental value.’

‘Rest assured that when we next renovate and replace the lockers, we’ll find it. If you want to leave your name and number, we’ll contact you.’

‘When will that be?’ I feel so desperate.

‘I don’t have an exact date, but we’re always improving our facilities. That’s why our customers return again and again. Did we give you a membership leaflet?’ I turn away from her dazzling smile.

Anna rubs my arm. ‘I’m so sorry, Grace. I know how much the necklace means to you. We’ll buy another one.’

‘It won’t be the same. It won’t be from Charlie.’

‘No, but it will be from me.’ Anna smiles and I feel grateful she’s there, wonder what I would do without her.

I
t was
the early hours of the morning by the time Mum and I had walked back from my eighteenth birthday party at Lexie’s. We sat at Grandma’s wooden table, steam curling from the mugs of coffee in front of us. My hair, wet from my shower, was making my shoulders damp, but at least it smelled apple-fresh now, not of sick. I felt self-conscious in my pyjamas and tugged my dressing gown to cover my knees. It was freezing. I’d flicked the heating on and there was a click-click-click as the pipes warmed.

‘You should dry your hair. You’ll catch a cold.’

‘You do
not
get to come back after ten years and tell me what to do.’

‘No.’ Mum raised her cup to her lips and blew. ‘I don’t suppose I do.’

‘Why are you here?’

‘To talk.’

‘I don’t want to.’

I didn’t want to deal with this now. I felt ashamed and I wasn’t sure if it was my past actions or present words making me feel that way. I gulped my drink to try and wash my confusion away. The liquid scalded my tongue and tears sprang to my eyes as I jumped to my feet. I yanked open the freezer and cracked an ice cube from the tray, let it melt in my mouth.

‘Well, I do. Darling, I’m so sorry I left, but you’re old enough to understand. It wasn’t that I didn’t want you. I wasn’t well. It was hard to cope with what happened.’

What happened.
It was as though I were expanding. My lungs were pushing against my ribs. My skin stretching. And then I was back there. Back in the day I’d tried so hard to forget.

* * *

I
’d woken swathed
in a honeycomb glow as pale sunlight penetrated my thin yellow curtains. It was early. It was coming up to my ninth birthday and I was too excited to sleep. I shed my pyjamas and pulled on jeans and a jumper, then scraped my hair into a ponytail before padding barefoot downstairs. Mum was already in the kitchen, Radio 2 playing as she whisked the batter for our lunchtime Yorkshire puddings. ‘Morning,’ I called as I walked past the open kitchen door, heading towards the dining room and the tinkling of the piano.

I sat next to Dad on the worn brown piano stool, resting my head against his shoulder. ‘Can we go to the park today, Dad?’

He gave me a hard, Paddington Bear stare over the top of his glasses. ‘You should really practise for your exam next week, Grace.’

‘We could practise after lunch?’

‘OK.’ He smiled. ‘Have some breakfast and wrap up warm. It’ll be colder than it looks out there.’

I scuttled to the kitchen and munched on Marmite toast as Mum peeled parsnips for dinner. On the radio, ELO promised ‘Mr. Blue Sky’. Dad brought me my coat and boots. ‘It’s a beautiful new day,’ he sang along. ‘Hey, hey.’ We were ready to go.

‘Be back by one, and don’t fill up on ice cream,’ Mum started.

‘Or there’ll be no pudding for you,’ chorused Dad and I. Mum kissed Dad goodbye and handed me a bag of bread for the ducks.

We rustled through the orange and brown fallen leaves, walking with my small hand wrapped inside Dad’s giant one, making up stories. The biting air nipped at my exposed face, the rest of me wrapped tightly in my pink Puffa jacket. We adventured down the road in wellington-booted feet, jumping bravely into every pile of curling leaves that carpeted the pavement. Each one had the possibility of containing a portal to another world. There would be a parallel universe, we decided, containing carbon copies of us. ‘Although without the tummy,’ Dad said, patting his rounded belly.

At the park, we headed straight for the duck pond and opened the bag of stale crusts.

‘I’m foregoing my bread pudding for you,’ Dad told the snapping birds. ‘I hope you’re grateful.’

I hid behind his legs as the geese jostled the ducks out of the way. I’d had my finger nipped the week before. The bread was soon gone and we headed to our usual bench and watched fathers and sons whizz remote-control boats around the water, leaving foamy snail trails behind them.

Dad produced a packet of strawberry bonbons and for a while we sat toffee-tongue-tied. The church bells chimed twelve and over the hill I saw a flash of yellow.

‘Ice cream!’

‘It’ll spoil your dinner.’

‘Just a small one. Please?’

Dad pushed his glasses onto the bridge of his nose and nodded, and off I raced. Arms pumping. Boots slip-sliding on the damp grass.

‘Wait at the road for me,’ Dad called.

By the time I’d got to the top of the hill I was breathless. The van was double-parked and a queue was forming already. I looked left and right and shot across the road. There was a squealing of brakes. A flash of silver. My feet felt glued to the spot. I’ve never forgotten the image of the driver’s face, his mouth a silent scream as he forced himself back in his seat, gripping the steering wheel with both hands. I felt boiling hot and freezing cold at the same time. And then I was flying, twisting, crashing. Sprawled on the pavement, jeans torn and palms scraped. Behind me, Dad was lying in the road. He’d pushed me out of the way but he was motionless. Blood pooled under his head. His spectacles lay shattered beside him. Fragments of glass glinted in the sun.

A woman in a bright red hat ran towards Dad. ‘Someone call an ambulance,’ she cried.

People scurried over to where my father lay; they gripped each other’s arms. Some covered their mouths unable to look away, others covered their eyes, peering through splayed fingers as though watching a scary film.

There was a stillness. Utter silence. Even the wind had stopped blowing the leaves. Pigeons landed and pecked the scattered bonbons that had rolled out of Dad’s pockets. I crawled over to him.

‘Wake up,’ I whispered. His unseeing eyes, hazel like mine, gazed back at me as if trying to impart one last message that I couldn’t quite decipher. And then the air was full of sirens. Full of ‘Oh my God’s and ‘Did you see?’s and I was wrapped in an itchy orange blanket and bundled into the back of an ambulance.

He wasn’t dead. Not his body, anyway. But his mind was gone, they said, and I never understood how he could look the same, feel the same, although the essence of him was missing. Where did it go?

Mum consented to turn his life support off and went to stay with her sister. I felt I’d lost them both.

* * *

‘
I
t was my fault
,’ I sniffed. ‘No wonder you couldn’t bear to look at me afterwards.’

‘Oh Grace, is that what you think? I was ill. I’d been with your dad since I was sixteen; the thought of carrying on without him was unbearable.’

Mum passed me a tissue, and as her sleeve rode up, I spotted it. A sliver of silver puckered skin across her wrist.

‘You tried to
kill
yourself?’ Scorching hot anger erupted. ‘You had a
child.
’

‘I had a breakdown. Grandad found me in the bath a couple of weeks after we moved here. Grandma sent me to a clinic. Didn’t want me around you. She’d watched her own mother having a breakdown. We wanted to shield you. And when I was discharged, I went to stay with Aunty Jean. I kept ringing you, darling, but when you kept hanging up I gave up. I shouldn’t have done. I’m sorry.’

‘You had “nerves”, Grandma said. I thought that meant I got on your nerves.’

‘I wasn’t capable of looking after you.’

‘And afterwards? You got better?’

‘It took a long time before I felt able to be your mum again, but by the time I did, you were settled here. School. Charlie. You were happy. We talked about me moving here, but I know what Grandma’s like. She’d have fussed and fussed, got involved in every single decision, and I’d never have properly felt like your mum. You wouldn’t even talk to me on the phone. I went back to Devon. I felt closer to your dad there.’

‘But further from me? He was gone. I was
still here
.’

‘I know. It seemed the right thing to do at the time. For all of us, but if I could go back and change things, I would. Not a single day has gone by when I haven’t thought of you. Grandma sent me all your school reports, photos, home movies. I’ve watched you grow. You just never knew.’

‘I can’t believe Grandma never told me you wanted me back.’

‘She did what she thought best. She watched her own mum go in and out of clinics for years. She didn’t want to put you through the same thing. She loves you. We all do.’

I tried to speak but a sob escaped my throat. Years of bottled-up grief poured out of me as I cried so hard I thought I’d never stop. Mum stood next to my chair and wrapped her arms around me, pulling my head into her chest, stroking my hair over and over. She still smelled the same. Of Opium perfume and Elnett hairspray, and I never wanted to let her go.

‘I killed him. I killed Dad.’

‘You didn’t, Grace. Never blame yourself.’

But how could I stop feeling the way I’d always felt? Enough people had told me it was an accident. Grandma; Grandad; my counsellor, Paula. Even Charlie. But my heart? My heart felt differently. Guilt permeated into every cell, multiplied, until it was as much a part of me as my skin. My bones.

‘If…’ I took a breath. ‘If I hadn’t run out in front of the ice-cream van. If he hadn’t run out to save me, I’d be dead now. Not him.’

‘He wouldn’t want that. I wouldn’t want that. None of us would want that.’ Mum reached across the table to me but I leant backwards.

‘But I killed him.’ I slammed my drink down. Coffee sloshed over the pine table.

‘You didn’t. I was the one who consented to turn off his life support. I hope you can forgive me for that.’

‘I hated you for that.’ I squeezed the handle of my mug so tightly I was surprised it didn’t splinter.

‘It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.’

We sat in silence. I dabbed the spilt coffee with my tissue. Grandma would be furious if it seeped into the wood. You’d think it’d be quiet in the dead of night. Still. But the fridge hummed, the clock ticked, the world turned. My world shattered long ago, but I had a chance to put it right now.

‘I’m sorry I wouldn’t talk to you afterwards, when you used to ring me, but I hated myself, and when you disappeared I thought you hated me, too.’

Mum twisted her gold wedding band round and round her finger. ‘I could never hate you, Grace. Never.’ She pushed a small gift bag into the centre of the table. ‘This is for you. Happy birthday.’

Inside the bag was a small box. I placed both thumbs on the lid and popped it open. Nestled on a red velvet base was something I hadn’t seen for many years. ‘It’s your engagement ring.’ I began to cry again as I ran a finger over the sparkling diamond.

‘I wanted you to have something your dad played a part in, Grace. He’d be so proud of you. I am, too. Is it too late to start again?’ She stretched out her hand across the table.

‘We can try.’ Our fingers laced together and they stayed that way as we talked until the sun came up.