The Sisterhood (40 page)

She seemed agitated, and she didn't look up as I came closer. The evening air was still, the sun casting long shadows. I saw that the table was set for a meal, with a big bowl of salad in the middle, and four places laid. I wondered whether Tom was still in London. He had to be: Mary had said he didn't live there at the moment.

Helen started hitting her chin repeatedly, hard, with her hand, frowning at the table. I had never seen her like this.

'Hello, Liz,' Mary said. She stood up, and pulled out an empty chair. I sat down heavily. I looked at Helen, then back to Mary. Nobody said anything for a minute or so. As I was about to launch into a random conversation to stop the awkwardness, Helen's father stepped in.

'My name is Jean-Pierre,' he said. 'And what will you drink? A little of our wine?'

I smiled. 'I suppose a little won't do the baby any harm. Is it your own? Helen's told me all about it. She says it's very good.'

He and Mary looked at each other.

'Does she?' Mary asked. She looked at Helen. 'Well, that's a first.'

Helen frowned. 'What do you mean?'

'You've never been at all interested before.'

'I have.'

Mary held up her hands in surrender. 'As you wish. Now, let's have a toast.'

Helen shook her head. She coughed. She banged her fists on the table. Everything rattled.

'Everyone,' she said clearly. 'Um, before that, there is actually something we need to drink to. There's something I need to say.'

I was embarrassed on Helen's behalf. I had no idea what her announcement was going to be, but I was certain that it would be something that was better left unsaid. I waited, wincing internally.

No one said anything. The cicadas were chirruping, and a couple of frogs croaked.

'Right,' she said, visibly pulling herself together. She was shaking: she looked terrified. 'Right. Mother. Papa. Liz. There is actually a reason why we're here. None of you realise it, but I've brought you all together for a reason. Particularly Mother and Liz.' She seemed to be forcing herself to speak. 'Mother,' she said. 'Your first child was called Elizabeth Greene. You abandoned her, thirty-seven years ago, and ran away to India. Liz — Elizabeth Greene — you're thirty-seven. And you've never known your mother.'

She let it hang in the air. It took me several minutes to realise what she was saying.

Mary's first child wrote her a letter after Tom died.

It was the first time she had heard from her, and although she knew she should have been swamped by guilt and relief and hope and all sorts of other things, she felt nothing. Everything was grey. The world had constricted around her and she spent every moment fighting an urge to run away to India and live in a Buddhist convent, for ever. She would have left Jean-Pierre to do that, but she couldn't leave Helen. She couldn't do that again, and so she stayed, and tried to stay alive through one day at a time.

Many years ago, on Elizabeth's fifth birthday, Mary had managed to post the card she bought her. She dropped it into the box quickly, knowing that another fraction of a second would have changed her mind. She didn't expect to hear anything back, and Elizabeth never wrote. Equally, though, neither she, nor Billy, nor Billy's nasty mother ever told her to stop sending cards. So Mary kept on doing it, and then she added an annual Christmas card, too. Sometimes she felt she was mailing them off into an abyss, but she carried on, just in case. She hoped that, by sending a few lines, reliably, twice a year, she might not be a monster in her child's eyes. She knew that was futile. Two cards a year was the sign of a lax godparent, not a mother. It occurred to her that Billy might be intercepting the letters and telling Elizabeth that her mother was dead. It would not have surprised her.

Then, one year, he sent a change of address card. There was nothing personal about it, but Mary was deeply affected by everything it implied.

When little Tom was gone, there was nothing she wanted to do, no one she wanted to see. All she wanted to do was to run away, and she wasn't allowed to do that. She tried. Four times, she packed a bag. Once she got as far as the end of the drive.

It was Helen who kept her there, who forced her to stay in the house where the thing had happened, to give the baby clothes to a second-hand shop, to put the photographs away where no one would ever see them. Jean-Pierre refused to listen when Mary talked urgently, breathlessly, about the three of them going away together.

'We can't do that,' he said tightly. He was suffering, too, although Mary couldn't find the strength to comfort him. 'Our life is here,' he told her. 'Our business is here. We have a daughter.' He put his arm on her shoulder to leaven his words, but Mary pushed him away. She never slept. She paced the perimeter of their garden, marking the boundaries that kept her in.

Helen was an insult. She was full of life and energy, and she kept smiling and laughing. Her blond hair shone in the sunlight. Her little face was chubby, angelic. Mary was viciously angry when she saw how easily Helen accepted the death.

'She's four,' Jean-Pierre said, holding Mary's shoulders, staring into her face. 'She has no idea what this means. How could she?'

Mary couldn't help it. She was furious with Helen's callousness, and with herself, because she had had three children, and now she had one. Helen was all there was. Mary knew she ought to have been nurturing her, watching her play, drawing comfort from her, and making Helen's world the best place it could possibly have been. She couldn't help herself: she pushed her away, figuratively, and literally, any time Helen came close.

One autumn night, while Helen slept, Mary sat down in a gloomy room and stared at the rain that was falling torrentially outside. She had a pen and a piece of paper, and after a while, she started to write. She wrote a letter to Elizabeth, because she wanted Beth to know what kind of a monstrous mother she had lost. She wanted to tell Beth never to miss her, never to regret anything, never to wish that her mother had stayed. Beth was twenty-two. She was older than Mary had been when she had Billy Greene's baby. She was old enough to know everything.

Once she started writing, she couldn't stop. She put it all down on paper: she had never deserved Tom, not after what she had done to Elizabeth. She had been asking too much of God, or Fate, or of Karma. She told Beth that when she was younger, she had wanted to be a Buddhist nun. She said she wished she had done it. She said she wanted to do it now, with every fibre of her being, that the world would be a better place when she shut herself away in a convent with her hair shaved off. She told Beth about her time in Asia, about bathing in the
tatopani
springs until someone said the lepers washed there. She wrote and wrote. It got darker outside her window and the moon melted the clouds away and lit her with a ghostly light. When she had finished, she put the letter into an envelope, and stuck a random row of stamps on the front. She no longer cared what Beth thought of her.

Five weeks later, there was an airmail letter in unfamiliar handwriting. Elizabeth did her best to say the right thing to her bereaved, angry mother. That was how they started to build a relationship, of sorts.

My mother was staring at me. She was shocked, but in a good way. It had to be a good way. I stretched my arms out. I was still shaky, but I had done it. The sun shone on my arms, and thousands of tiny hairs glowed golden. I looked at Liz. She was staring down at her bump. She didn't look up at me at all.

Seconds ticked by. Cicadas and frogs voiced their thoughts, but nobody spoke.

'Liz, my mother is your mother,' I said, spelling it out, desperate for someone to say something. This was everything I had waited for. Everything I had done, I had done for this moment. Now it had happened. They were going to hug me. They were going to hug each other. People were about to cry. They would marvel at me. They would be amazed at my dedication, at my cunning, at my love for them both. I looked at Liz, then looked at Mother, and waited.

Of course, it was going to take a while to sink in. Of course, they might not believe it at first. I wondered where Tom was. He was the one who had done this, really. He was the one who had made me do it.

Liz was the first to respond.

'My mother died of cancer,' she said. Her voice trembled. She said it like a question. 'I was a baby.'

I could see that she was doubting everything she'd ever been told.

'No!' I hadn't meant to raise my voice, but I was so excited that I couldn't stop myself. 'No,' I said, more quietly. 'Your father
told
you your mother had died. That's all. He said it because he didn't want you to know that she'd left you. She left you, you see. I don't know why, but she can tell you herself. She went away, travelling.'

Liz was looking down. The evening sun shone on the top of her head.

'Helen,' she said. 'I can't believe I'm arguing with you about this. My mother is dead.' She swallowed. 'I've been to her grave.'

I knew she was wrong. I was bouncing in my seat.

'It was someone else's grave,' I explained. 'It was all a trick. She left you. Here she is.'

'Helen,' Liz said, and she looked at me for the first time. I held her gaze. In a moment, she would see the truth. I could see in her face that she was starting to see that I was right. 'Helen, I have no idea what you're on about. But I do know that I'm not the person you want me to be. I do know that.'

'You
are.
You're Elizabeth Greene. With an "e". You're thirty-seven.' I smiled, encouragingly. 'We're sisters! I tracked you down because you're my sister. I'm sorry I didn't tell you before. I was desperate to bring you here. Now we have the family together. This is it. This is how we're going to be, from now on. Your baby has a whole other family, now. So do you. You understand, don't you?'

We both looked at Mother. Her face was pale.

'Helen,' she said. Then she was silent for a long time. I could see that this was an emotional moment for her. It was the biggest thing that had happened in her life. I was not surprised that she was overwhelmed. We waited for her to speak. The crickets were noisier than usual. I could hear a tractor, several fields away.

'Helen,' she said slowly. 'I did have a daughter a long time ago. I should have told you. Her name was Elizabeth Greene. It still is. You're right about that. But this Liz is a different person with the same name. Our Elizabeth Greene lives in New Zealand. She's a different person.'

My mind spiralled. 'You never told me!' I held tightly to the edge of the table, afraid I would fall. 'But this is her. I know this is her. She doesn't live in New Zealand. She lives in London. I know because I found her. And I brought her to you. I did it for you. I did it for us. For the family. Now that Liz is here, we're complete. Aren't we?'

Mother's hand was over her mouth. Papa leaned forward and topped up all our glasses. Mine was empty. Mother's was empty. Liz's was untouched, but Papa fitted a dribble more into it all the same. I tried to catch his eye, for some support, but he wouldn't look at me.

Mother kept opening her mouth and closing it again. I could see that she didn't know what to say. I decided to carry on speaking, to reinforce my point, but she got in first.

'We're never going to be complete, Helen,' she said quietly. 'Are we? I should have told you about Elizabeth. I know I should. I had an inkling that you knew when I found my box opened last year. But I had absolutely no idea that you would ...' She stopped. I spoke quickly, before she could say any more.

'It doesn't matter now. Because I've found her for you.'

'You haven't, Helen. She lives in Auckland.'

The crickets kept up their racket. The house, the garden, the smell of the unrelenting summer made me sick. It all began to close in. I tightened my grip on the edge of the table.

'Helen?' said Liz. 'Here is the thing. Greene was my married name. I told you I was married for a few years, when I was younger.'

I kept fighting, because I had to be able to make it right. 'But you wouldn't take someone else's name.' I felt I was on firm ground, so I looked at her. Liz looked away at once. 'You definitely wouldn't keep it once you were divorced,' I said.

'My maiden name was Sidebottom. I couldn't wait to get rid of it. There was no way I was taking it back.'

'Your dad isn't William Greene?'

My mother had her head in her hands. My father stood behind her, a hand on her back.

'Marcus Sidebottom.' Liz managed half a smile. 'He'd probably have preferred to be William Greene. But he's not.'

I closed my eyes. The golden evening sun was shining on half my face. I heard Mother and Liz starting to talk to each other, but I didn't know what they were saying, because there was a loud ringing sound in my ears. I stumbled to my feet.

If they were going to do this, to pretend that I had got it wrong, then I didn't want anything more to do with any of them. I still told myself that I was right. They were lying, and I needed to get away from them.

I stood up, and stepped away from the table. Then I looked at them, and this time, they didn't look like my family. They looked like an old man and an old woman, and a pregnant lady with a huge stomach. I looked at them, and I saw that everything was wrong.

I was afraid I would fall over. All three of them were staring at me with horror on their faces. I didn't want them to say anything, and so I turned and I ran. I didn't want to be a part of their world, and I didn't want to know what they would do next. I had nowhere to put myself. I switched off from all of them, like I used to do when I was young, and I ran away. I heard someone coming after me, and I thought it was Mother, but I shook her off. She couldn't touch me. I would never let her touch me. I closed myself off and ran, and ran, and ran.

When I came to the spot in the woods where Tom and I used to come on our walks, I sat on the tree stump and held my knees. I rocked back and forth. I didn't believe Mother and I didn't believe Liz. They hadn't had time to think about this at all, whereas I had thought of nothing else for a very long time. Everything I'd done, I'd done for this moment. I knew I was right. I wouldn't have gone to all this trouble if there was a chance I might have been wrong. I couldn't have done that. I just couldn't.