My Sister's Bones(68)

And I wanted, more than anything, to go down and help her but my father’s words were ringing in my ears: ‘She’s dangerous, Sally. She’s a bad person.’

As Kate waved her arms and begged me to let her in she suddenly looked like some wild monster. A frightening, uncontrollable thing. And for the first time in my life I was scared of her. My father is right, I thought, as I drew the curtains and blocked her out, she needs to learn her lesson.

And I thought she had. But then just a few weeks later she did something that made me change my mind. I had a school friend over to play. Jenny Richards. Kate was out and Jenny asked if we could go and look in her bedroom. We had a good root around and then we pulled out Kate’s clothes and started playing dress up. It was just two little kids having a bit of fun. But then Kate came back early and found us. She went mad. I’d never seen her so angry. She dragged us out of the bedroom then slammed me up against the wall on the landing.

‘Never go near my stuff again,’ she yelled as she put her hand round my throat. ‘Do you hear me? Never. Just keep out of my way.’

The anger in her eyes made me feel like I’d done something much worse than just try on a few of her dresses. She looked like she wanted to kill me. It was terrifying.

I was shaking as I made my way downstairs. My mum asked what the matter was but Jenny and I were too shocked to speak. When Kate came down for tea a few hours later neither of us could look her in the eye. From that moment on I did what she had asked and kept out of her way. But something inside me changed that day. I became tougher, less trusting. And I told myself that no one would hurt me like that again.





31


I’m sitting in the back garden waiting for the sun to come up. It must be around 5 a.m. now. My sleep was plagued with nightmares. Every time I closed my eyes I saw Kate in the flower bed staring up at me with dead eyes. I woke up an hour or so ago screaming. Paul ran in and made a big fuss. He brought me cocoa, told me everything was going to be okay, but how could it be? In the end I gave up on sleep and came out here.

The garden is slippery with dew and my feet feel damp as I sit huddled on my plastic seat. I should have put proper shoes on but my slippers were the nearest thing to hand. As I tuck my feet underneath the chair I feel something brush against my leg. I stifle a scream. But when I look down I see it’s just a scrawny little seagull.

‘What do you want?’ I say as it slinks around my legs, like a cat in search of petting. ‘Are you lost?’

I take my phone out of my dressing-gown pocket and shine its light at the bird. Its eyes are half closed and I see that it has a broken wing. Black dots, like specks of mould, are scattered along the edge of it and the flesh beneath is raw and broken. It must be in agony but I have no idea what to do. I’ve never tended to a sick bird before. It stares at me pathetically, like a small child looking to its mother for reassurance. Its eyes unnerve me and I shoo it away.

‘Go on, you mangy thing,’ I hiss. ‘There’s nothing I can do.’

It feebly flaps the broken wing and staggers away into the darkness.

As I watch the bird disappear I think of Hannah. I remember when she was a little girl she wanted to be a vet and she would bring half-dead birds and mice into the house that she’d rescued from next-door’s cat. I would try to explain that it was kinder to let them die but she would spend hours tending to them, wrapping them in bits of cloth. When the inevitable happened we’d take the little bodies and bury them at the bottom of Mum’s garden. Hannah would sob as we laid them in the soil and my mother would tell her that God was calling them back. We’d have a little wake after that with cake and lemonade but we always knew it wouldn’t be long before the next casualties arrived. She would have made a wonderful vet if she’d stayed on at school. God, I miss her.

As I sit in the darkness I feel a dull pain creeping up my body. I’ve lived with this pain ever since she left. It’s an emptiness I’ve filled with booze but now, with no alcohol in me, the pain is all I have. At Dad’s funeral the vicar said when you lose someone you love a little piece of you dies. I didn’t know what he meant until Hannah left. Then it all made sense. Without her I was no longer a mother, I was barely a wife. The Sally that had existed before then had disappeared and been replaced with the person I am now. I may look the same, and talk the same, but there is a hole inside me that can never be mended. I may as well be dead.

It would be so easy to slip away, to say that’s it. I think of the many ways you could do it: a couple of bottles of champagne and a fistful of pills; a sleek pistol edged in gold leaf like a baddie in a James Bond film – both too glamorous for me, of course. Perhaps a luxuriously hot bath and a sharpened knife. I look at the bulbous blue veins that snake along my wrists and imagine myself slicing through them.

I shudder as I look up at the sky. The night is thick and heavy and I wish for the light to come and take away these thoughts. I stand up, suddenly desperate for a drink. I flick a woodlouse from my lap. My legs feel like lead as I make my way to the conservatory door and I know that I’m only going to make myself feel worse, but I need it. It’s the only way I can deal with this pain.

I tiptoe across the room and grab the wine bottle from my new hiding place, an old holdall that I’ve kept hidden under my armchair. Paul hates coming in here so there’s no danger of him finding it. I managed to sneak out of the house when he’d gone to sleep last night. I went to the all-night petrol station round the corner and bought a couple of bottles. He was still asleep when I got back, thank God.