Читать книгу The Lost Sister - Laura Elliot - Страница 13

The attic in Havenswalk is reached by a spiral staircase. A handy place for dumping broken furniture that has some possibility of being repaired but is inevitably forgotten once the door closes. Next year, Cathy plans to convert the attic into a dance studio but, for now, it is a repository for all the bric-a-brac she and Alma have acquired and abandoned since they moved to New Zealand.

She switches on the light and browses for an hour among boxes and crates, sifts through account ledgers and old books that release the fusty smell of neglected papers. She stops to examine some clothes and toys belonging to Conor, items she decided to save for the memories they evoke. The silence is uneasy. She suspects unseen creatures lurking in the eaves and crannies, but only the spiders ignore her intrusion and continue spinning in gauzy corners.

The edge of the moon shifts from her gaze as she moves the broken frame of an awning to one side. It is heavy and almost topples over. She prevents it falling and waking everyone. Underneath it, she finds a wicker picnic basket. The weave is broken in places. Snapped reeds jut outwards and cobwebs trail like a shiver across her fingers when she snaps open the rusting lock. Her letters to Nirvana. Carefully she lifts them out. They are tied together with an elastic band that breaks with an exhausted snap when she stretches it.

She hesitates, undecided. Does she really want to delve into the past and relive those fragmented years when hormones, confusion and unresolved heartache formed their own convulsive mix? Never look back, Rebecca used to say. Nothing but dust around corners.

The date on the first letters startles her. Was she only eight years old when she wrote it? She always imagined she was older, probably about ten. The early ones were written on notepaper with delicate border drawings, Edwardian ladies with parasols and lacy, ruffled collars. A writing set, she remembers, given to her by Lydia Mulvaney as a starter present. Write to your mother, Lydia said, and when you are sleeping she will read your letters. Angels fly at midnight. Their first stop is home.

Cathy smiles, remembering how the image of hovering angels had comforted her and how, when the fancy notepaper ran out, she wrote on the torn-out pages of copybooks and refill pads, writing by torch light at night when the house was quiet, secret hours under a duvet tent.

If she read the letters before contacting Rebecca her courage would have failed her. Yet the die has been cast by now, Conor at her heels, demanding…ring them now…now…

Her sisters are on their way. She is still amazed that Rebecca changed her mind. Amazed and frightened and relieved in equal measure. She rang her sisters seeking closure but how that closure is to be achieved is impossible to tell. Cathy tries not to panic. Has she made the worst mistake of her life–or is this the beginning of healing, the closing of a wound that has festered for far too long? She sinks to a cast-off settee and begins to read.