The Lost Sister

It was certainly attracting a lot of attention in town – in particular the mysterious Idris, with more and more rumours circulating about him. According to one woman, who I’d overheard at the café one lunchtime, he was a millionaire from Canada who’d turned his back on his fortune after his wife died. Monica reckoned he was an Australian artist on the run after forging masterpieces. Perhaps my favourite rumour was that he was a rock star from New Zealand.

When the morning of Haley’s son’s party arrived, Mike took Becky out so I could focus on the cake I’d promised to bake. I stared at the recipe I’d found in a library cookbook. A cake in the shape of a monkey, for God’s sake. What had possessed me to offer to do it? I looked at the clock. I had four whole hours before Mike was due back with Becky. Four whole hours of baking … or four hours of writing?

‘Screw this,’ I said out loud.

I grabbed my keys and ran outside, jumping into the car. I’d seen a gorgeous cake shop a few towns down with lots of children’s cakes on display. I headed straight down there, and when I stepped inside, I couldn’t believe my eyes. The first cake to greet me was in the shape of a monkey face. No monkey body but it was close enough. In fact, it was fate!

When Mike and Becky got back, they were amazed when they saw it.

‘Oh my gosh, Mummy, this looks amazing,’ Becky declared.

I smoothed down my apron, the flour and chocolate I’d scattered over it earlier falling to the floor.

‘It does,’ Mike said, brow creased slightly. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. ‘I’m impressed.’

‘It was easier than I thought actually,’ I said, wiping the sides down.

‘Then you’ll have to do it more often,’ Mike murmured, wrapping his arms around me as Becky skipped out into the garden. I froze. He rarely touched me nowadays. Clearly the domestic goddess vibe turned him on.

I peered at the clock. ‘We better start getting ready, the party’s in an hour.’

‘Wear something sexy for me,’ Mike said.

I looked at him in surprise. ‘What’s got into you?’

He shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I guess you’ll find out tonight if Becky goes to sleep on time.’

I smiled but, inside, I felt nothing. Shouldn’t I feel something for my husband? A thrill, or some millimetre of warmth? There was nothing.

I squeezed out from his embrace. ‘I’ll go and transform from domestic goddess to sexy fox then.’

Half an hour later, I stood staring at myself in the mirror. I was wearing a crimson lace dress with a plunging neckline. It wasn’t quite right for a child’s party but I didn’t care. It would give the other parents something to talk about!

I stepped closer to my reflection, putting my fingers to my eyes and pulling at the delicate skin around them. I was getting wrinkles. The odd grey hair or two under my dye job.

I thought of the young girl I’d encountered by the cave a few days ago, so young and smooth with those pert nipples of hers. I lifted my breasts, noticing the fine lines between them. I knew I was attractive, had been told it all my life, just as my mother had. But lately, I’d been less confident of it.

I suddenly got a flash of my mother staring at herself in the mirror with the same disappointed look on her face.

No. I’m nothing like her.

I grabbed a patterned scarf, winding it around my neck to cover the fine lines on my cleavage, then I smeared some red lipstick on and twisted my long dark hair into a bun at the nape of my neck, pulling some locks down to frame the front of my face.

‘Gorgeous,’ Mike said as he walked into the bedroom. He wrapped his arms around me. I resisted a moment, then leaned into him. He loved me, found me attractive. Wasn’t that what mattered?

‘What if we just forget about the party?’ I said. ‘Get Julie and Greg to look after Becky, go on an impulsive weekend away like we used to?’

Mike laughed. ‘What about the cake?’

‘What about it? Julie can come and collect it. We’ll say we’re ill. Food poisoning …’

Mike shook his head, unwinding his arms from my waist and turning around to check his checked shirt in the mirror. ‘You’re being ridiculous. Come on, we’ll be late.’

I felt disappointment roar through me. ‘I’ll be down in a minute,’ I said.

When Mike walked out, I looked at myself in the mirror again, saw the smile drop instantly from my face. For a moment, I was sure I could see the four walls of the room behind me shifting inwards.

‘Trapped,’ I whispered to myself. ‘I feel trapped.’

‘Why are you trapped, Mummy?’

I jumped, putting a hand to my chest as I noticed Becky standing in the hallway, watching me. I walked over to my daughter and pulled her into a hug, burying my nose in her soft sweet hair and drawing comfort from her.

‘No, darling, Mummy’s not trapped. Come on, let’s go to this party.’

Ten minutes later, we were at the village hall, the monkey cake held up at my chest as Becky looked on proudly.

Haley jogged over when she saw us, blowing a wisp of hair from her eyes.

‘Stressed?’ I asked her.

‘Organising a library event for a hundred dignitaries was less stressful than this.’ She looked down at the cake in my hands, her pretty face lighting up. ‘But so what, I have a monkey cake! You are a genius, Selma!’

‘She is, isn’t she?’ Mike said proudly.

‘My mummy’s very clever!’ Becky added, jumping up and down in excitement. So this was how it felt to be the wonderful mother and domestic goddess Mike wanted. Why did it make me feel so empty?

‘Oh Selma, how do you do it?’ I peered up to see Cynthia approach, looking at the cake in awe as she elbowed Donna out of the way. ‘Working, writing … and cake-making! I’m pre-booking you for Elijah’s first birthday.’

So now suddenly I was flavour of the month. What measures these people judged success on!

‘Sorry but I’m never making a cake again,’ I declared, forcing myself to be jolly. ‘I’m still emotionally scarred from this experience.’

‘So’s the kitchen,’ Mike said with a laugh. ‘It looks like a bomb hit it.’

Other mums jogged over, cooing over the cake, but I felt numb. I was hoping I’d enjoy it, the secret deception. But I felt nothing, not even guilt. In fact, as I watched Haley carry the cake over to the large food table, I hoped she’d slip over, and that the cake would tumble through the air before landing face-down on the hard floor, sickly sweet monkey skull caving in, sugar bananas flying everywhere.

Music started blaring from some speakers as a sprightly-looking woman in a ‘Monkey Fun Children’s Entertainment’ T-shirt bounded into the room. Behind her, Julie and Greg walked in. My stomach sank at the sight of Greg. I’d hoped he wouldn’t be there. I wasn’t sure I could take much more of that man.

‘Gather around, children!’ the entertainer cried out as the children rushed over.

I retreated with Mike to the back of the hall as the party games unfolded. Over the next hour, I gulped down warm wine, growing hot in the stifling hall. I went to unwind my scarf but Mike put his hand on my arm. ‘Best keep it on.’

‘But you wanted me to look sexy,’ I whispered, smiling at him, the wine making my head whir.

He glanced at the fine lines between my breasts. ‘It’s a bit low cut.’

I felt my cheeks flush again and caught sight of Donna, who was watching from nearby with her son Tom.

I suddenly felt the urgent need to be the person she thought I was. So I yanked my scarf off.

‘Well, I’m hot so I’m taking it off,’ I said defiantly to Mike. ‘I’m also getting another wine.’

Donna smiled.

By the end of the party, children were running around, hyper from a mixture of E numbers, exhaustion and excitement. Becky’s pink tutu and white top were filthy, her cheeks red from all the fun. The party entertainer started singing an off-key version of ‘Happy Birthday’ and everyone joined in, including Becky, who screamed the lyrics at the top of her lungs as she bobbed up and down. I felt my heart surge as I looked at my daughter. There’s never been anything fake about Becky, especially back then. It was all pure and unadulterated joy. As I watched her, I wished I could be like that.

‘Pub?’ Greg said to Mike as the party wrapped up. ‘Few of us going to The Kingfisher next door.’ I noticed he didn’t look at me this time, even with my low-cut top.

‘Yay, pub!’ Becky said, clapping her hands.

Greg and Julie burst out laughing. ‘It gets Becky’s vote,’ Mike said. ‘That okay?’ he asked me. ‘Just one pint.’

I shrugged. ‘Go on then.’

That one pint turned into many and one hour turned into three as several sets of parents gathered around two pub benches in the setting sun. The pub had a pretty garden surrounded by trees, with benches littered all over. As I sipped my gin, a welcome reprieve from the warm wine, I grew quiet, watching the others chat, enjoying the way the gin made my head swim.

‘Right, listen up everyone,’ Cynthia said dramatically, clapping her hands like a headmistress, the sun dipping into the sea behind her. ‘I’ve started a petition to get rid of that homeless man.’

I looked at her over the top of my sunglasses. ‘Idris, you mean?’

Mike frowned. ‘Is that his name?’

‘That’s what I’ve heard,’ I replied casually, taking a quick swig of gin and sweeping my dark fringe from my eyes.

‘If we get enough signatures,’ Cynthia said, ‘our local councillor has agreed to look into it, get the man evicted from that cave.’

‘Isn’t it owned by the Petersons?’ Haley asked.

‘Not any more. It was taken over by someone else years ago,’ Greg said.

‘No one can get hold of the new owner,’ Cynthia added. ‘But the councillor I know says he’s found a way of getting around it. He’ll have the man out within the week if we add some pressure as local parents.’

‘He’s not doing any harm though, is he?’ Donna said softly.

‘Of course he is, Donna!’ Cynthia exclaimed. ‘He’s dealing drugs from that cave.’

‘We don’t know that,’ I said, irritation ticking at the core of me. ‘The country’s in the middle of a recession, Cynthia. He might have just lost his job.’

‘But it’s obvious something’s going on,’ Cynthia’s husband Clive said, a man who held himself in that straight-backed way that suggested he wanted to let everyone know he was in charge. ‘All those kids hanging around.’

‘Kids,’ Greg said. ‘That’s the operative word here. I don’t think drugs is the real issue. The man clearly has a thing for young girls.’

Everyone nodded apart from me and Donna.

Donna frowned. ‘I don’t think that’s very fair.’

‘Speak up, love!’ Clive said, Cynthia laughing.

‘She said it isn’t fair!’ I said in a loud voice. ‘Can you hear yourselves?’

Mike put a warning hand on my leg but I shoved him away.

‘There’s no evidence of these allegations,’ I continued, feeling all the frustrations of the past few days building up inside. ‘Just rumours and speculation.’

‘Rumours should be enough when it comes to our children, Selma,’ Cynthia said, the lines around her mouth tight. ‘As a mum, you should—’

‘Oh yes, as a mum,’ I replied, taking another swig of gin. ‘I should be perfect in every single fucking way, shouldn’t I?’

Cynthia shut her mouth as Greg raised an eyebrow, everyone around the table going quiet. Only Donna smiled slightly.

‘Selma,’ Mike hissed, hand now painfully squeezing my knee.

I closed my eyes, felt something boiling and frothing within. Part of me wanted to contain it, but the other part wanted to let it explode and roar. Mike could sense it – I felt it in the firmness of his hand on my leg.

‘You do like defending the man, don’t you?’ Cynthia asked.

I opened my eyes, looking right into Cynthia’s cunning green ones.

‘And you like defending your husband, don’t you?’ I snapped back. ‘Despite the fact everyone knows he fucked the nanny?’

Everyone’s mouth dropped open, even Donna’s. Cynthia’s cheeks flushed and her husband’s face went white.

‘Jesus, Selma,’ Mike said.

I looked at them all, at all the shocked and wounded faces around the table. I knew I’d gone too far, but I realised I didn’t care. I didn’t care at all.

I stood up. ‘I need to get away from here.’

‘Yes, I think you do,’ Mike said, grabbing my arm and standing with me.

I pulled my arm away from him, glaring at him. ‘No, you stay.’

I peered at Becky who was playing with her friends at the back of the pub garden. Then I walked away, my heels grappling with the gravel in the car park, my mind full of a heady mixture of emotions: guilt, embarrassment, pride and exhilaration.

‘Fuck them all,’ I said to myself, forcing the guilt and embarrassment away. I quickened my step, heading towards the sea, chest feeling like it might explode. The sea roared around me, the darkening skies above regarding me as though to ask: ‘What next, Selma? What next?’

In response, I started running, my dark hair untangling from the high bun I’d ended up putting it into, streaming behind me. When I finally got to the sea, I grabbed onto the edge of one of the chalk stacks, leaning over and gasping for breath. Then I stumbled to the water’s edge, sinking to the ground, the smell of sand and seaweed clogging my nostrils.

‘I can’t,’ I said, grabbing onto handfuls of sand. ‘I can’t do this any more. I just can’t.’

I closed my eyes and saw the faces of all the people who’d made up my social world the past few years. And then I saw Mike … and Becky.

My beautiful Becky.

They were the walls with which I’d built my life lately.

They are my prison.

I imagined those walls falling one by one, a glimpse of light in the distance. Just some space, that was all I needed. A few days would give me a chance to catch my breath and get away from it all. It had worked another time, many years ago, when Becky was a newborn. Why wouldn’t it work now?

I let out a sob as I thought of Becky. No! What was I thinking? I couldn’t just run away, I had responsibilities …

Or could I?

‘I can’t,’ I whispered.

‘You can,’ a voice said.

I froze. Someone had spoken, a voice carried over on the breeze. I explored the darkness behind me then noticed a figure. Of course, I knew who it was before he stepped into the moonlight.

Idris.

Chapter Five

Becky

Sussex, UK

1 June 2018

Becky has to sit down when she hears her mum’s voice at the end of the phone, grasping at the arm of the chair she’s in, trying to control her breathing.

Ten years.

It has been ten years since they last spoke. They’d had an argument over her mum’s reluctance to send money to help Mike after a walking accident in France. Not that they’d talked much before then anyway, just the occasional awkward dinner for some birthdays, the odd letter. Of course, the cheque had arrived the next day for her dad. But the words her mum had spoken as she’d tried to defend herself, the bitterness and hatred she’d directed at Mike, the lies, had been the final straw.

Until now.

Her mum clears her throat. ‘He said I ought to call.’

‘Who said?’

‘The annoying nurse standing over me right now. Honestly, you should see the look he’s giving me.’ There’s a voice in the background, some laughter.

‘You’re in hospital?’ Becky asks.

A sigh. ‘It seems so.’

Fear bubbles at Becky’s core but she swipes it away. She can never be sure with her mum. She must wait, see what she says, before she allows herself to react.

Summer pads over, nudging her nose into Becky’s lap as though sensing her discomfort. She pats her dog’s head, drawing strength from her.

‘Are you okay?’ Becky asks politely, like she’s asking an acquaintance.

‘I’m dying.’

Becky drops the phone. She scrambles to grab it before it hits the wooden floor. The other dogs bounce in, crowding the hallway. Becky stands, pressing the phone to her ear.

‘Wait,’ she says. ‘Just … wait. What’s wrong with you?’ she asks, voice trembling.

‘Cancer. Of course it’s cancer. When isn’t it cancer?’

‘Jesus.’ Becky paces up and down the hallway as the dogs trot after her. ‘Have they actually told you you’re dying? The doctors, I mean?’

‘Yes, of course.’

Becky’s medical training suddenly rushes to the fore. She grasps at it like it’s an anchor stopping her from drowning. ‘What type of cancer?’

‘Breast cancer.’

‘Have you had chemo? There are new advances, new treatments being developed. You have money, they can—’

‘Oh Becky, sweetheart, I’m a lost cause.’

Becky feels tears spring to her eyes. She looks up at the ceiling. It doesn’t matter what her mum has done really. She’s Becky’s flesh and blood. The person who gave birth to her, who had her curled up inside of her for nine months.

And now she’s dying. She will be gone, the person she wakes each morning thinking of despite all her attempts not to.

Becky takes a deep breath, trying to calm herself. ‘How long?’

‘Days, they’re saying.’

Becky suddenly feels sick. How could it be days?

‘Are you still there, Becky?’ Her mum’s voice cracks then. The first hint of vulnerability. It strikes such sadness in Becky’s heart, she can hardly breathe.

‘Sorry, Mum, just trying to get a handle on things,’ Becky whispers.

They’re silent for a few moments. Just breathing together, mother and daughter.

‘Will you come?’ her mum eventually asks, her voice small like a child’s. ‘I don’t want to die alone.’

Becky puts her hand to her mouth, stifling a sob. ‘Of course. Where are you? I’ll be right there.’

The ward Becky’s mum is staying in isn’t bleak like Becky expected. Instead, there are sunny scenes painted on the walls. Becky can even see her old hometown’s quaint shops from the vast windows that line the back, including the charming little bookshop she remembers her mum doing a signing at once. It was three years after her mum had left. Becky was living in Busby-in-Sea with her dad then, settled at school … just. It had taken time to adjust to a life without her mum’s presence in it, without any woman’s presence, especially at certain times, like when she needed to buy her first bra. A chat over the phone or a quick lunch snatched in between her mum’s writing deadlines weren’t quite enough for occasions like that. She’d hoped a weekend stay with her mum to attend the launch of her novel would change things, but her mum had been so busy and flustered sorting out her party, practising her speech. Did that sound right to you, Becky? The part about writing being like the float keeping me above water? Would boat be better? It meant they barely spent time together to say hello, let alone talk about shopping for bras. An eleven-year-old Becky had attended that book launch resentful and sulky, the photos after showing not one smile from her.

Now that same bookshop displays a poster of a moody-looking novel called The Cave, described as a ‘gripping novel from debut author Thomas Delaney’, a photo beneath it of a slightly overweight man in his thirties with a walking stick.

It was strange coming back to the town she’d left all those years ago, seeing the familiar chalk stacks in the distance, the sandy bay and the quaint shops. Maybe part of her had known she’d be here for this one day, her mum ill or dying.

But not so soon.

She pauses at the entrance to her mum’s ward. The last time she was here would have been when she was a newborn on the maternity ward a floor down. She thinks of the photos she once pored over after her mum left, especially the one of her holding Becky in her arms, looking down at her with a frown, as though the tiny being was so confusing to her, so alien.

Becky sighs and peers at the sign at the front of the ward.

Ward 3. Oncology.

The sight of that sign makes her stomach turn. She is used to seeing that word on notes and in books. That word was for her patients, which was bad enough anyway, but now it is for her mum.

She takes a deep breath and walks in, past the smiling suns and fluffy clouds. She knows her mum would hate all that. Her old office in their first house was dark and brooding: an autumnal forest scene across one wall, brown paint on the others, mahogany furniture, the only sparks of colour in the form of deep purple cushions and scarlet pens. No doubt she is feeling out of sorts here in this hospital.

Maybe that’s why she needs me, Becky reasons. A familiar face.

Is she really so familiar though? It’s been ten years, after all. She catches a glimpse of her reflection in a window she passes: blonde hair pulled back into a messy ponytail, her face makeup free. Old jeans peppered with muddy paw prints. At least her light blue T-shirt is fresh, pulled on from the top of the clean laundry pile in a rush. But it’s a contrast to her mum, who was always glamorous, always perfectly made-up. Would she be any different now? She was sixty-five, after all.

Becky searches the ward for her mum. There are ten beds squeezed in. People are dozing. Some have visitors. There are cards wishing them well, flowers bright and thriving as though to detract from the life seeping from their recipients’ bodies.

A male nurse passes. Becky wonders if it’s the nurse who was with her mum when she called.

‘Excuse me,’ she says, stopping him. ‘I’m looking for my mum, she’s—’

‘Oh yeah,’ he says, smiling. ‘You must be Miss Rhys’s daughter.’

Becky nods. It is strange that her mum has kept her married name all this time, but Becky is not surprised. It is the name her readers know her as.

‘Come through. She’s in the private room,’ the nurse says.

Private. Of course. She is an acclaimed author, after all.

‘Is it as bad as she says?’ Becky asks the nurse as they walk to her mum’s room.

‘I’m afraid so,’ he says with a sigh. ‘She does a good job of looking well, but it won’t be long.’ He pauses and puts a hand on Becky’s arm. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Becky takes a deep breath. ‘I just had no idea, that’s all. We haven’t talked in years.’

The nurse frowns. ‘She told me you were at her last book launch a few months ago.’

Becky tenses. No doubt one of her mum’s embellishments. ‘No, she must be getting confused.’

The nurse nods sympathetically. ‘It happens.’

He leads her down a small corridor lined with doors, knocking gently on one of them.

‘Oh, you don’t need to knock, Nigel,’ Becky hears her mum call out. ‘God knows you’ve seen it all already the past few days.’

It feels strange to hear her mum’s voice again, just a metre or so away instead of over the phone. Deep and gravelly like it’s scratched with sand.

The nurse laughs. ‘Your daughter’s here, Miss Rhys.’

Becky smooths her hair down, feeling nervous.

‘Come in then,’ her mum calls out. The nurse opens the door. ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ he whispers with a raised eyebrow. Then he walks away.

Becky stands at the threshold. She can’t see her mum properly, just the end of her bed and a large window that looks out to sea. Suddenly, she feels the urge to run away. Hadn’t her mum once, when Becky needed her the most? She was just eight, for God’s sake. And yet her mum had still turned on her heel and left, hadn’t she?

But she wasn’t like her mum.

She walks in, her mum gradually revealed with each step she takes. She’s lying in bed, head turned towards the window, her once lush dark hair now brittle and greying in parts. Her arms that were once plump and tanned are now thin, papery and white, and her apple cheeks are sunken.