Читать книгу The Half Sister - Catherine Chanter - Страница 15

Chapter Eight

Even the kitchen would have been nicer than this, thinks Mikey, but they’re eating in the huge dining room because Diana wanted to do things properly for them. The table is much too big for three people and it all smells like air freshener, but it might be the real flowers. There’s no ketchup and the lasagne is slimy and everything is made of silver so he can see his reflection bent out of shape wherever he looks. His mum is drinking too much too fast; it’s a long time since she was properly drunk so he feels sad and a little scared. Diana is probably drunk too, but she is fixed together tightly, so it isn’t so easy to tell if she’s falling apart. It hasn’t taken long. All evening it’s been the same: one moment arm in arm, giggling about the seesaw in the park opposite where they used to live, and the next squabbling like girls in the playground. Brothers and sisters always argue, that’s what his friends do, but they just argue over stuff; maybe that’s what they’re arguing about, stuff, because Diana has a lot of stuff and his mum doesn’t have much stuff at all.

‘Just because I made something of myself and you haven’t,’ Diana is saying.

She can’t have made all this, she must have bought it.

‘Lady Muck!’ says his mum, reaching for the bottle. ‘You wait!’

If Solomon was with them it wouldn’t all be down to him.

‘Off you go to bed, Mikey! Give your mum a big, big kiss!’

Over his mother’s shoulder, Mikey can see his aunt raising her eyes. His mum’s neck smells of smoke, but that’s only because today is difficult and just one probably won’t kill her. Once he made a secret list of all the things that could kill her and then crossed them off so they wouldn’t. He’s the one who’ll do the killing, he’ll kill all her enemies, like Diana, for instance, rat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat-a-tat in his head goes his imaginary machine gun.

As he leaves, he overhears his aunt say something about him not being much of a talker. In the hall, with full on acting, he rat-a-tat-tats his aunt again, then he crouches on the bottom stair straining to hear what they’re saying, letting the ticking and the tocking of the grandfather clock match his pulse. The dog is shut in the kitchen, which is sad for them both. When Mikey’s been there what he thinks is probably a very long time and their voices are getting louder and his heart is beating faster than the clock allows, he struggles with the golden knob on the dining-room door which slides round between his hot hands and sneaks back into the room. Opposite each other at the table, his aunt is leaning forwards, jabbing her finger at his mum’s face. He doesn’t think they’ll hit each other because they’re both women, but he isn’t sure. When there was a girl fight at school, Ali said, ‘They scratched each other’s eyes out.’ ‘Really?’ Mikey asked him. ‘Really,’ Ali confirmed.

Sifting through his word bank of phrases, Mikey selects something a child might say at a time like this. ‘Night night, then, Mum!’ he says. ‘Thank you for supper, Diana.’

Neither of them even notice he is there.

‘Are you coming to bed soon, Mum?’

His aunt is bending down, picking up something from the floor and his mother is lighting another cigarette from a candle, the wax dripping onto the table, the flame that close to her hair. He is a nobody.

‘Fuck,’ he says.

‘What’s he doing out of bed?’

‘Mikey, go back to your room. Now. I’m not joking.’

‘Fuck.’ He slams the door hard behind him, it’s the rudest and worst thing he can think of saying. ‘Fuck you,’ he shouts as he runs through the horrid hall in his slippery socks and up the stairs, and there is the door wide open and the bedside light on all ready for him and he throws himself under the duvet and pulls it over him until there is nothing of him showing. If anyone comes creeping through the house to kill him, even if the black birds from the forest come pecking on his window, they won’t even know he’s there, he’s that invisible, that quiet. And if he has to leave in a hurry, he still has his funeral clothes on and his rucksack packed and his trainers are ready by the front door. He knows how to escape, he does it all the time on Lockdown.

Downstairs, his exit provides the right-shaped space for the argument to grow. Valerie can physically feel the size of the tumour between her hands.

‘Charming little boy you’ve brought him up to be,’ says Diana, sweeping crumbs across the polished surface of the dining room table into her palm.

‘You’re just jealous,’ Valerie slurs. ‘Even you haven’t been able to buy children.’

The heavy curtains are letting in a line of light from the security lamp outside. Diana corrects them and then resumes drip-feeding her abuse. Words spit from her like unpalatable food – chav, pissed, failure – they land on Valerie and dribble down her dress, adding to all the other stains where Paul has spilled his filth over the years.

‘We’re not so different after all. We’ve both been in the gutter, it’s just that your gutter is better decorated than my gutter.’ Valerie stubs her cigarette out in the butter dish. ‘And we both live on estates, so that’s hilarious when you think about it.’

‘For Christ’s sake!’ Diana tips the bottle before noticing it is already empty. In the kitchen she finds another Rioja in the everyday wine rack. The dog stretches, comes to her, but he is pushed away. Her head is swimming, she runs some water into a glass and gulps at it as if it might provide something different. Beyond the kitchen window, nothing but the night, no neighbours, the rest of the world is kept beyond the stone wall which marks the boundary of the estate. She is a grasping, selfish cow, her half-sister, always has been. When they moved house, Valerie must have been five, she was what, twelve? And there were three bedrooms in the new house: one double for her mum and stepdad; another double, with a window over the park, a built-in washbasin and a fitted pink carpet, like you’d think a teenager would have; then there was the little room, a single bed crammed in a corner, head next to the toilet wall so she could hear him farting and coughing up his phlegm, and that was her prison. Well, who has the best place now? Out of nowhere, she wonders what they did with her room when she left, whether they burned the poster of the ballerina she was going to be when she grew up.

After struggling with the corkscrew Diana realises it is a screwtop. Back in the dining room, Valerie has gone and she realises she should never have asked her to come to Wynhope. Life was always better without her.

In the downstairs loo, Valerie is clinging to the washbasin. They’re inching around the unsayable, Valerie feels its heat; she should just chuck on the petrol, watch the whole lot go up, at least that way they can start again with whatever is left in the ruins. Having splashed cool water over her face, she returns.

‘She got swallowed up, didn’t she?’

It’s not clear to Valerie what Diana is going on about.

‘Mum, I mean. He just swallowed her up, she was never the same after she married your father.’ Like water from a stiff tap, the words, when they come, splutter across the table. ‘Your fucking father and then you. Fucking father, that’s funny, that is.’ Diana looks a little mad, appreciating her own puns. ‘All Mum had to do was say something, but she never did, did she?’

‘Spell it out, what exactly was it she was meant to say?’

‘You know.’ Using the table for support, Diana inches towards her. ‘Do you think I wanted to sleep on friends’ sofas, give up sixth form, live out of a plastic bag?’ Her voice is raised to cover the enormous distance between them. ‘There was Mum, little Val, the bastard – your father – and no room at the inn for me. So I left. He locked the front door, so I climbed out of the window and jumped. Is that so surprising? Then I made something of myself, without you, without any of you. And you know full well what he was like, you, tucked up safe and sound in your pink nylon sheets.’

The meringue didn’t taste as good as Valerie expected; she scraped the cream onto her plate. ‘You’ve been watching too much daytime telly. Everyone’s at it, aren’t they? Abuse this, abuse that. My dad did a lot of bad things, but he never did that and you know it.’

‘You’re telling me he left you alone after I’d gone? The way you behaved afterwards, dodgy relationships and unwanted pregnancies, shoplifting, abusive partners . . . I bet you go around fantasising about setting fire to things, just to see the engines arrive. Textbook. I know, I’ve read all about the signs.’ Diana waves her hand in a circle as if to imply that the extent of Valerie’s depravity is at least the size of their house.

But Valerie is hardly listening, she’s thinking how it is true that her father never left her alone, he wrapped her up so tightly in attention that she could barely speak. But not that. He divided them all, that was true as well, he drove Diana out, demonised their mother, sanctified her and, yes, he was a controlling man, she recognises that now. But not that.

‘I knew,’ she begins, and as soon as she says the words she wonders what she knew for certain. ‘I knew, I think, that I was spoiled, sitting in the front seat, staying up later, better presents under the tree, everything always your fault. But whatever it looked like to you, I didn’t like it because I wanted you to be my best friend. What was I meant to do, Diana? I was so young.’

‘You’re avoiding the question. Once he’d finished with me, did he start on you?’

‘No.’

‘And after all this time, you’re still saying nothing. Keeping mum, that hits the nail on the head, doesn’t it, Valerie? You’re still claiming you never knew what was going on?’

‘I was a kid, Diana. When you left, I was Mikey’s age. But the reason I didn’t know what was going on, as you put it, is because nothing was going on, was it? Let’s say it like it is, shall we? Use the proper words. My dad was not a paedo. He did not sexually abuse you in your poxy little bedroom. Truth is, you were always looking for someone to blame for what you were like. Controlling, bitchy, always falling out with your friends, causing trouble, wanting things all your own way. You always had to be king of the castle. You could never share anything or anyone, not even Mum.’ Valerie empties her glass. ‘And you always were a liar. Pants on fire, that’s what they called you at school. They were lies then, and they’re lies now. Maybe you’ve taught yourself to believe them, but they are lies, Diana, or make-believe, whatever. You need help.’

‘What do you think it was like for me?’ screams Diana.

‘And did you ever stop to think what it was like for us?’ Valerie springs up and the plate of uneaten meringue slides onto the carpet, face down; everything always falls butter side down. ‘What it was like for Mum, left behind in that street, in school, after all that? It was all lies then and it’s all lies now.’

‘You still don’t believe me?’

Having wiped her mouth with the napkin, Valerie pronounces her verdict as clearly as she can. ‘I don’t believe a single word you say.’

Punctured, Diana deflates, sags to the floor crinkling in on herself, cross-legged, her dress exposing the tops of her thighs, the years collapsing until she is a little girl again, head down, hands and hair covering her face. Valerie can only just make out what she is repeating, over and over again, in time to her rocking body. You don’t believe me. You don’t believe me.

Finally, Diana uses the wall to push herself back up. ‘I’m going to bed. I should never have tried,’ she says, then with renewed venom she remembers her trump card, ‘and you, you’re all on your owny-o in the tower.’ She blows out the candles and leaves.

Like a new baby who throws their hands into the air and finds no one to hold them, Valerie panics. ‘Wait for me, Di.’ She crawls after Diana, up the stairs, slumps and clasps the banisters, refusing to follow her into the tower. She doesn’t want to sleep there, she’ll sleep with Mikey, but hands drag her to her feet, push her along the landing, through the narrow passage, up the spiral staircase. She’s slipping on the stone, staggering against the steepness of the steps. Her hands, his hands, whose hands, I can fall and she’ll never pick me up, she can push me, and no one will ever be any the wiser. Every year women are found dead at the bottom of staircases they know like the back of their hands. Even once she reaches the tower room, Valerie’s heart does not slow; there are drunken footsteps on the landing when the lights go out.

Default. On the bed. Curl small. Hug head. Avoid eye contact. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t be like that again, I promise. Leave the light on, Di.’ Valerie reaches out. ‘I’ve been scared for such a long time. Even when I was small I used to kneel by my bed and pray you’d come back for me.’

‘Well, surprise, surprise, no one was listening. I didn’t come back, did I, and that was the best decision I ever made.’ Diana is unpeeling Valerie’s limpet fingers from her dress. ‘He’s dead, Mum’s dead, and that just leaves little old you.’

Step by step across the room and away she goes, going, going, pausing, in the doorway, the light of the staircase behind her. One last chance, that’s all they have, before it’s too late and everything comes crashing down around them. This is her sister, not Paul; to apologise would be a strength, not a weakness. ‘I’m sorry, I want you to know I’m sorry, sorry for both of us, sorry that it all turned out like it did. And about this evening and everything else.’

‘Too late. You said the only words I’ll ever remember and never forgive.’ Diana mimics her sister. ‘I don’t believe a word you say.’

‘I feel sick.’

‘As long as you don’t spoil the sheets, you can choke on your own vomit, for all I care.’

Now Diana is gone and all lights are out. It is an awful thing that has happened this evening, terrible things said by both of them, cats mewling and howling in a back alley, that’s what they’re like, cowering behind overfilled dustbins and scratching each other from walls topped with broken glass, and looking down from a window which will never open again, their mother, tapping and shaking her head. Valerie needs to use the bathroom, but at the top of the spiral stairs, she realises that she can’t find the switch, the stone steps fall away beneath her, probably all the way down into her sister’s top-of-the-range dungeon. Paul used to do that, take the light bulbs out, but he hasn’t been able to keep them in darkness in the end, has he? Diana is still down there somewhere. Valerie can hear the echo as the door from the passage to the landing is closed. Feeling her way to the window, she pulls open the corner of the curtain and looks down on the silhouette of the bronze boy. The moonlight shines on the child’s song hung on the wall. Diana tries to own everything with her posh words – not a ditch, a ha ha, not a picture, a sampler.

‘By the rivers of Babylon,’ hums Valerie, ‘where we sat down.’ She loves a bit of reggae and red, red wine. Reggae’s always been one of her favourites (second only to Elvis, who is definitely not dead), just the memory of the beat takes her back to the festival where she met Solomon for the first time and knowing he was something else straight away, dancing in the street as if there was no tomorrow.

‘Lift up your hearts, with the meditation lift them up.’ Without undressing, Valerie falls onto the four-poster bed. The visit has been like a grave robber; it has got out its spade and dug questions out of the ground where they have been quietly decomposing for years, and now the bones demand answers. Why did Diana do it? Why did she make it all up? Did she make it all up? She must have known the future would be impossible for her once she said what she did. To think of Solomon is to reconnect with his sort of wisdom. What’s happened must be forgiven. Tomorrow is another day. All we have is grace and hope. Tomorrow. Maybe there’ll be answers then.

‘Lift up your hearts, with the meditation lift them up,’ she sings drunkenly to herself as the room turns circles around her. Night night, Sol, love you. The thought of him in his cell is terrible, but it’s only three months and then they’ll be a proper family and the sky’s the limit. She can wait. Suddenly, she sits up. She never goes a night without checking on Mikey, she hasn’t kissed him goodnight, and him in a strange room in this strange house, but it’s too late now and she hopes Diana’s left the landing light on for him and the door open, like she promised. Night night, Mum, you sleep now, nothing left to fight about now. Night night, Mikey, God bless, she whispers as she slips under the silk bedspread.

Her tears flow onto the huge goosedown pillows, and the song and her love for her son curl like a kind current around her head until she sleeps as she hums and she hums as she sleeps. ‘Let the words of our mouth and the meditations of our heart, be acceptable in your sight, here tonight.’

Her light is out.

Leaning heavily on the closed door to the tower, Diana understands the turn of the key in her hand, hears the click of the catch, experiences its security like a zookeeper closing up for the night, turning his back on the restless beasts and stale cages and stepping out safe into the fresh air. She opens the landing window. The tower which has been like a child for her, coaxed and dressed and spoiled to death, is now polluted by her past in a way that Wynhope has never been in the three short years it has been her home. She was so full of hope. More fool her. Far from settling her slurried mind, the bitter air and the strange sounds of the night unnerve her: the barking fox, the relentless, repetitive bleating of a lost lamb and the breathing out of ghosts. In the centuries to come, there will be some other woman at this window and she will have become the ghost, nothing more than a footnote in Wynhope’s history, and her mother buried, even this same day. Her mother is never coming after her, Valerie and the boy will be gone tomorrow as well, taking with them their wheelie suitcase and sniggers and her last chance of ever being validated. So be it. She shivers. Somewhere beyond the stables, maybe in the Cedar of Lebanon, a tawny owl is shrieking.

‘Goodnight,’ whispers Diana as she creeps past Michael’s bedroom door. ‘Sleep tight.’ She can sympathise with a child who wants nothing more than uninterrupted sleep.

In her bedroom, Diana undresses, holding tight to the bedstead and her routine, slips her silk dressing gown over her white cotton nightdress, takes up her place in front of the dressing table. Wiping from her face the thick layer of pale foundation applied for the funeral, she notices her mascara has run, and with cotton wool she disposes of the evidence that Valerie is able to make her cry. Downstairs, Valerie has stamped their mess into the very fabric of the carpet; however hard she scrubs, everything is stained.

It is stupid to get in such a state. Tomorrow, today it must be now, Edmund will be home. She pulls the curtains across his parkland, his shadow sheep, his whole estate at night, as if by doing so she can bring him back in here with her; for someone who has made their own way in the world for over twenty years, it is extraordinary how she now feels incomplete if anything takes him away from her. She lies with one hand clutched tightly around the key to the tower in her dressing-gown pocket, like a child with a special object, the other hand pulling the empty pillow closer. She is thinking of the things she should tell him when he is back, he will believe her, because tonight of all nights, she realises, you never know when it might be too late, you never know when one drunken sleep might last a lifetime.

Mikey is only small and not used to staying away from home. He didn’t want to sleep lost in this strange room in this half empty house in the middle of nowhere with nothing but fields and sheep and sky and trees and birds and poo. Mikey’s had three jobs so far in his life: the first is to make everything better for his mum and he’s the only one who can do that; the second is to do very well at school; the third is to stay awake, to be the lookout, and to make sure everyone goes to bed in one piece and stays that way until morning.

Here, even the house doesn’t know how to go to bed quietly. It creeps around, it stands on the step which creaks, even its stomach rumbles. He is good at only being half asleep, at identifying stumbling on the stairs as the sound of grown-ups going to bed, and it triggered him to slip out from under the duvet and creep to his bedroom door, just to make sure. Which is why he was hiding behind his bedroom door like a spy, watching her, feeling the strange thin air of the countryside from the open window against his hot cheeks. He witnessed her turn the key, he saw her put it in her pocket, even though she promised she’d leave the door open, he heard the rattle of the handle as she checked it was locked, and then a quiet breathing out of something he thought was half way between laughter and cross.

It didn’t make sense to Mikey. He was trying to unpick the magic trick with which Diana vanished his mother, along with the fantasy film of false candles and a four-poster bed and a spiral staircase which went all the way up to nowhere and all the way down to a hole in the ground. All gone, just like that, with one turn of the key. The house was fidgeting, it knew he was hiding there in his crumpled school shirt and trousers, it was going to give him away. What he wanted to say was give me the key, I’ll look after her, but even when he found the words, he was just not brave enough, never had been brave enough when it mattered, and then his aunt was turning towards him, surely she’d see him, hear his heart beating, but she walked on past and disappeared down the dark landing, like a ghost.

Now he’s sure she’s gone, he turns on the little bedside lamp and slips out and finds the door which leads to the tower. He wants to say sorry to his mum about the rude words and to tell her he loves her before he goes to sleep. Because he does love her, more than anything. She’s better than anyone else’s mum and more beautiful, and the two of them together, nothing’s going to stop them now, that’s what she sings sometimes. He pushes the door as strongly as he dares, he even whispers through the keyhole, ‘Mum, it’s me’, but he knows it’s a long, long way to the bedroom at the top of the tower and she’ll never hear him even though everything sounds ten times louder in the dark. He was right. This door is locked. There is no key. No light. No mum. Nothing except a hollowing stomach and a racing pulse and the words he hasn’t said for cold company as he creeps back to his room and, a little like a dog, turns in circles before he lies down and makes a bed of his duvet on the floor. The lamp throws shadows, transforms his new for-the-funeral jacket into a body and his new for-the-funeral tie into a rope. It’s worse than darkness, so he shuts his eyes tight and turns out the light. Why would she lock the door, why would she do that?