Hush (34 page)

Connie opened the door to find Lily standing on the other side of it. She looked lost, and a bit sheepish. ‘I went to see Dr Mervyn,’ she said, and Connie ushered her inside.

‘Are you serious? He’s still practising?’

‘He’s only fifty or so.’

‘Yeah, I guess.’ Connie walked through to the kitchen. ‘Do you want tea? I was just going to make some.’

‘Thanks.’ Lily stood in the living room, feeling awkward. She was suddenly aware of how quiet the house was, and couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen her sister at home without the boys around, drowning out the silence with childish screams. ‘Boys at school?’ she called.

Connie appeared in the kitchen door, looking puzzled. ‘It’s gone six,’ she said.

‘Oh. Yeah.’ She remembered now. The darkness setting in while she sat in Dr Mervyn’s waiting room. She must have been there for hours. She felt suddenly dizzy. Connie noticed as she reached out a hand to steady herself on the back of a chair.

‘Have you eaten?’

Lily tried to remember, but the whole day had condensed into sitting in that chair, waiting. The time she’d been in his office was microseconds, already gone. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘For fuck’s sake, Lily, you’re thirty-three years old.’ But the tone was kinder than the words, and Connie guided her into a seat. ‘What do you want to eat?’

‘Where are the boys?’

‘Karate. Nathan’s picking them up. They’ll be at least half an hour yet.’ Connie disappeared into the kitchen again, shouting behind her. ‘Toast? Soup? Pasta? I think I’ve got some stuff in the freezer if you want.’

‘Um.’ She felt as though her brain had atrophied, and she couldn’t remember how she’d come to be here. ‘Soup?’

‘Sure.’ Banging, of saucepans on counters. And a crackling. Connie rummaging in the freezer. ‘Carrot and coriander okay?’

‘Yeah. Thanks.’

For a few minutes Connie banged around in the kitchen, and Lily stared into space, wondering why she was here. Dr Mervyn had suggested it, so she had come. But what had he expected her to say, now that she was here?

Connie appeared in the doorway again. ‘Does Richard know where you are?’

‘No, I don’t think so.’

‘Do you want me to call him?’

Lily shook her head. ‘I will. In a bit.’

Connie ducked back into the kitchen for a moment, and then reappeared carrying a bowl of soup, which she set down on the coffee table in front of Lily. ‘Leave it for a minute, it’s hot. Are you sure? It would only take a second, to call him. He’s probably worrying about you.’

‘No. Thanks.’

‘Lils.’ Connie leaned forward, took her hand. ‘Can you tell me why you went to see Dr Mervyn?’

Lily considered the question. ‘I think I was scared.’

‘Of what?’

‘Myself.’ Lily leaned back in the chair, so that Connie was forced to drop her hand. ‘The collapsing, you know. And, um. Bad dreams, and things.’

‘That house?’

‘Yeah, partly.’ Lily groped for the words, clenching and unclenching her good fist. ‘Dr Mervyn suggested I speak to you.’

‘Why? What does he expect me to be able to do about it?’ Connie’s voice was defensive, and Lily looked down at her hands and didn’t answer. ‘Does he think I’m the reason you’re not well?’

‘No.’

‘What, then?’

Lily found her eyes crawling the walls, as if searching for what she wanted to say. ‘Did you ever read the coroner’s report?’ she asked eventually.

‘Billy’s? Or Dad’s?’

Lily looked at her, confused. It had never occurred to her that their father’s death would also have been investigated: it had been so straightforwardly awful. ‘Billy’s.’

‘Oh. No, I didn’t. I don’t think I understood what a coroner’s report was, at the time. And I doubt Mama would have let me read it even if I’d wanted to.’

‘What about when you were older?’

Connie shrugged. ‘I was there, wasn’t I? So there was no need.’

‘You weren’t ever curious?’

‘What is this? You know what happened, don’t you? He fell; he hit his head and he broke his neck. End of story.’

‘But –’ Lily’s protest sounded feeble, but felt terribly important ‘– I don’t remember. It feels as though if that’s all there was to remember then I wouldn’t feel like something was missing.’ She looked up at Connie, pleadingly. ‘Do you know what I mean?’

Connie’s face was blank confusion. She inhaled sharply, as if about to speak; then she shook her head. ‘Finish your soup,’ she said, her voice tired. ‘I’ll drive you home.’

They got back to Drayfield after nine. Connie led the way up the front path, pointlessly, because she then had to wait at the
door for Lily to find her key. They pushed open the door on to a brightly lit hallway, but no sound.

‘Hello?’ Connie’s voice, louder than usual as she stepped over the threshold. Lily was already kicking off her shoes, walking towards the kitchen, but Connie felt oddly cautious. Something in the silence felt wrong. She was reminded of another time, years before, when she had walked into this house to find things not quite as they should be.

‘Richard?’ she called, but still no answer. She closed the front door behind her, and followed Lily into the kitchen.

Richard was nowhere to be seen, but the patio door was wide open. Lily stood motionless near the doorway. Her expression was sheer terror, but Connie couldn’t understand what she was seeing that would scare her so much.

‘Is he outside?’ she asked, putting an arm on Lily’s elbow, causing her to jump. Lily looked at her briefly, but didn’t reply.

‘Let’s go and look, shall we?’ Connie said, her voice halfway between parental and exasperated. She took a step forward, and then heard Richard’s voice, carrying in through the open door.

‘What the hell are you playing at?’

Both Lily and Connie darted forward at the same moment.

Her grandmother looked older than Connie had remembered her looking, and more tired. Her smile as she opened the door was genuine, though, and her hug as warm as it had ever been. ‘Look how grown-up you are,’ she sighed, and Connie was shocked to see tears in her eyes. She hadn’t registered, until she was face to face with it, that the loss of her father had also been the loss of her grandmother’s son.

‘I’m afraid Grandpa’s still finding things a bit of a struggle,’ she said, leading Connie through to the kitchen. ‘But Lily will be thrilled to see you. Will you be staying long?’

‘Well, it depends,’ Connie hedged. A slightly surreal feeling was setting in: after almost a year of travelling by herself, of flitting from job to job and town to town without ever really speaking to anyone, it felt odd and abrupt to be back on familiar ground. There were school photos of her on the wall; her and Lily, aged seven and ten, sitting tall in school uniform. Lily was missing two teeth, and the gaps made her smile seem wider, somehow.

‘How was your mother?’

Connie shrugged. She didn’t want to talk about her mother. She felt very aware that her clothes were dirty, that she hadn’t showered for two days, that she hadn’t brushed her hair or her teeth since the plane had landed that morning. She’d been lucky that she still remembered her grandparents’ phone number after all these years: she couldn’t have stayed with her mother, and the thought of spending the night in a
random hostel after the shock of her homecoming was more than she could bear.

‘Do you know that she’s been having some problems? They’ve been talking about hospitalising her.’

Connie tried to suppress disloyal thoughts:
melodramatic, attention-seeking, weak and pathetic.
Making such a fuss, when she’d never really loved him anyway, while the rest of them carried on as best they could. Her feelings must have showed on her face.

‘They were very much in love, once,’ her grandmother said gently, and Connie knew it was the nicest thing she could find to say about her.

‘Well, she’s moved on,’ Connie said bluntly. The expression on her grandmother’s face made Connie realise she already knew. ‘How long?’ she asked, not sure she wanted to know.

‘As I say, they were in love, once. It was a long time ago. Anna needed comforting, and she found someone who would give her what she needed. Don’t judge her too harshly.’

‘She cheated on your son. Don’t you hate her?’

Her grandma smiled sadly. ‘No, dear. I don’t hate her.’

‘I missed his funeral.’ The words, barely a whisper, were uttered in the direction of Connie’s feet.

‘Oh, Connie. I’m so sorry.’ Her grandmother stepped forward to wrap her arms around her. ‘We wanted to wait, but your mother just wanted to get it over with. We did try to find you, but – well, you did a good job of keeping yourself hidden.’

‘Yeah.’ Connie blinked, clearing the tears from her eyes, disengaging herself from the embrace as delicately as she could. ‘So where’s Grandpa, then?’

‘He and Lily have just gone for a walk up the lane. They shouldn’t be more than half an hour or so, and then dinner will be ready. Did you want to wash first?’

Connie went up to the room that she and Lily had shared as children, the one that Lily had taken over when she’d
moved in properly. Once it had had twin beds, and the only personal items had belonged to her grandparents: a picture of them together in their twenties, framed by a trellis of roses; a dish full of delicately elaborate brooches. It was unmistakably Lily’s room now: the second bed had been removed, and there were her books, her school things. A small cluster of make-up on the dresser, half of which had obviously come free with magazines. And a photograph of their father in an ornate silver frame. He was in his late thirties, perched on top of a cluster of rocks, giving a wide smile and a thumbs-up to whoever was holding the camera. She wondered who it was: probably her mother, but had they really ever been that happy?

A camp bed had been set up for Connie, with towels laid out on it, and she dropped her bag on the floor and started to undress. It was a relief to peel off her dirty clothes, to brush out her hair. Most of the places she had stayed had been nice enough, but they hadn’t felt homely. The familiarity here might be disarming, but at least it was there.

She had a shower, taking her time, filling the bathroom with steam. The hot water was invigorating, pounding the muscles in her shoulders and soothing the tension that had gathered there. She felt as though she was washing off at least a week’s worth of dirt, as opposed to a couple of days’ worth; her hair was thick with the scent of other people’s unwashed bodies.

Drying off, she rubbed a hole in the steam on the mirror and peered at her reflection. Her skin looked pale and blotchy, her cheeks hollowed out by a year of work and half a day of grief, but her eyes retained some of their brightness. She looked older than her sixteen years, but not so old that people would miss her youth completely.

When she got back to the bedroom, swathed in towels, with damp still clinging to her skin, she found Lily sitting on
the bed, staring out of the window. She looked up as Connie entered, and her eyes were dark, a faint accusation hanging in the air between them.

Connie closed the door behind her and sat down on the bed, awkwardly trying to wrap an arm around Lily while still keeping her towel wrapped around her, the cold in the air biting at her bare skin. ‘Hey, sis,’ she said softly, kissing the top of her head. Lily leaned into her shoulder, closing her eyes.

‘You came,’ she said, her voice barely a whisper.

‘Yeah. I’m sorry it took me so long.’

They sat for a while, arms wrapped around each other, breathing as one.

‘I heard –’ Lily stopped, and moved forwards out of Connie’s arms, twisting her head round to look her in the eyes. ‘I heard you saw Mama.’

‘Yeah. She told me about Dad.’

Lily blinked at her, wordless. Her eyes weren’t accusing, but Connie found the lack of accusation even more painful, somehow, than the presence of it would have been. ‘Lils, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there.’

‘He died on Christmas Day.’

Connie chewed her lip to stop herself from crying. ‘I know.’

Lily stood up and walked to the window. She stood for a while, looking at things that Connie couldn’t see. Connie watched the back of her neck, visible beneath the wisps of hair that had escaped from her ponytail. She realised how grown-up Lily looked: almost a teenager now. She’d always looked younger than she was, childish and delicate and fragile. She was still young, but the fragility had morphed, somehow. She’d developed a sort of quiet strength since Connie had last seen her: you might still want to protect her, but she no longer looked as though she needed it so much.

‘I really wanted to come home, Lils. You have no idea. How it felt, when she said…’ Connie trailed off. Lily hadn’t so much as twitched in response.

After a minute, Lily turned around and headed towards the door. ‘You’d better get dressed,’ she said. ‘For dinner.’ She closed the door quietly behind her, leaving Connie alone.

Conversation over dinner was stilted. Lily didn’t speak at all, and their grandfather sat like a shadow beside her, hollowed out and wordless. Connie answered the questions put to her by her grandmother, but neither of them was really in the mood, and eventually they both gave up. Silence crept in like the darkness, slipping underneath the curtains and lurking in the corners of the room.

After dinner, they all went upstairs to their respective rooms.

There was a tiny TV set up in the corner of Lily’s room, and the two girls changed into their pyjamas and watched
Blind Date
without really seeing it. Connie couldn’t help thinking of their childhood visits to this house, when they would have stayed up talking into the early hours, listening to the low murmur of conversation and the faint scent of cigarette smoke drifting up from the living room. She could clearly remember the shadows the hallway light had cast upon the room: the way Lily had looked, glowing faintly in the darkness, as they swapped ghost stories and talked about what they would do the next day. Now, they barely looked at each other, and the silence from the rest of the house felt like a gaping wound.

Connie tried to imagine what it had felt like, for Lily, coming to live here full time. To leave their old life behind entirely, but to still be in someone’s care: no freedom, and no parents either. In some ways, having spent so much of her
childhood here, it must have been more like coming home. But, if Connie had been around, would things have been different? Would they have stayed with their mother, rebuilt some sort of family out of what remained?

At eleven Lily flicked the TV off without asking Connie whether she was still watching it, and rolled over to face the wall. There was a gap at the top of the curtains, and from the glow of the street-lamp outside the window Connie could just about see her sister’s back, solid and hard and accusatory.

‘I had to go,’ she said, her voice feeling unnaturally loud in the darkness. No response. ‘I know it must have seemed selfish, but I had a fight with Mama, and I saw some stuff, and I just couldn’t stick around any more.’

There was a long pause before Lily spoke. ‘But you planned it. You told me.’

‘I know I said that. But I didn’t mean – I wouldn’t have left
then
. Not like that.’ Connie sighed, twisting the duvet cover between her thumb and her forefinger, trying to find the words. ‘I would have said goodbye, if I’d really planned it like that.’

‘You never called.’

‘No,’ Connie admitted.

‘Dad
died
.’ Lily’s voice was a ferocious whisper.

‘And if I’d have thought for ten seconds that something like that might happen then I wouldn’t have gone, alright? But I couldn’t be in a house with Mama any more. I just couldn’t.’ A beat. ‘I still can’t.’

‘You went back to see her, though.’

‘I thought you’d be there.’

Lily turned over to face Connie. The bed wasn’t much higher than the camp bed, and there was a three-foot gap between the two, so they could look into each other’s eyes easily enough. ‘So what made you leave, then?’

‘I – saw something.’

‘What? What did you see that was so awful?’

Connie groped for the words to explain it. ‘I saw – Mama doing something. And it – it made me think.’ A pause. ‘I think it made me remember.’

Lily’s eyes widened, almost imperceptibly. Connie could feel the tension radiating from her, from both of them, as they waited for Lily to ask the question.

One thousand, two thousand, three –

‘Was it our fault?

– thousand, four thousand, five thousand, six –

‘No.’

Exhale. And: hush.