Blood Sisters(54)

‘You can’t.’

Kitty’s face was bright with spite. ‘Stop me, then.’

That’s the moment when I pushed her. I couldn’t help it. All the anger over the years came out with it. The pain. The hurt. And now the fear. She fell over the pavement and into the road.

She staggered up. ‘Now look what you’ve done.’ My sister’s school dress had a dirty smear on it. It smelt, too. Sickly sweet.

‘Dog shit. Ugh. How can I play in the concert looking like this? You cow!’

‘You can’t tell Mum about Crispin,’ I said desperately. ‘Anyway, if you saw me, why haven’t you told Mum already?’

Vanessa butted in. ‘Because little sister here didn’t want to get you into trouble. Said it would put you off those precious exams of yours. Instead, she had to ruin the whole evening and insist we went back home instead of staying on and having fun.’

Kitty had stood up for me?

‘If it hadn’t been for you,’ spat Vanessa, ‘Crispin would have asked me out. I know he would. He kept looking at me on the bus.’

‘You?’ I laughed out loud. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. You’re eleven years old! Do you honestly think he’d be interested in you?’

Vanessa’s eyes went cold. ‘Why not? Actually, that’s not the secret I was talking about. Come on, Kitty, you tell her or I do …’

Not the secret she was talking about? What did she mean?

‘No,’ said Kitty. She grabbed Vanessa’s arm. ‘Stop. Don’t say any more.’

Vanessa shook her off. ‘Leave me alone. Why shouldn’t I say? I don’t owe you any loyalty. Fine kind of blood sister you are. Ali –’

Roaring in my ears.

Roaring all around.

And then it happened.





40


May 2017


Alison


‘Sorry about the disturbance, miss,’ says the officer, opening my cell door. He has fresh baby skin that doesn’t look as if it belongs here. ‘Some of the men got, well, a bit excited about your presence and began kicking up. Banging the walls between their pads. But it’s sorted now.’

He looks around. The window is still open. Curtain flapping. ‘Everything all right?’

‘Fine,’ I manage to say. ‘Just needed some air.’

‘Hard to breathe inside, isn’t it?’ He glances at the window. Surely he’ll see the bars are missing. But he doesn’t appear to. Weirdly, I find myself praying that Stefan is hiding in the darkness. Why do I want him to be all right?

‘Let me know if you need me. OK? Not long until morning now.’

After he’s locked my cell door again, I go to the window. ‘Are you there?’ I hiss.

Nothing.

Reproaching myself for being so utterly stupid, I sit on the narrow bed and go over everything Stefan said.

I get into fight.

I didn’t mean him to die.

Does she still smell of lavender?

Ninth of December. Fourteenth of July.

I think about the few facts I know from Mum. Dad died when I was three. I barely remembered him apart from that scene with the lavender fields. Had he had a foreign accent then? If so, I don’t remember it. Once, a few years ago, I had looked up my father online. I couldn’t find anything. Then again, I’d been looking for ‘Stephen Baker’.

This is crazy. My father is dead.

Yet another part of me wonders whether it’s time to ask Mum again. Even if Stefan is talking rubbish – which, of course, he is – it’s stirred up the old longings to know more about my dad.

In the morning, when the tannoy announces that it’s time to wake up and the baby-skinned officer finally unlocks my cell for good, I’m tempted to say what had happened. But then how would I explain why I hadn’t raised the alarm when he’d come in during the night? I am still fretting about why I hadn’t told him about Stefan.

‘It seems very quiet now,’ I say instead.

His lips tighten. ‘The troublemakers have been shipped out.’ Then he tries to make a joke as if to lighten the atmosphere. ‘They say the first night in prison is the worst. Just as well you’re not here for longer, eh?’

It’s still early – another half an hour before I officially start class – and the men are queuing up at the post hatch. You can see the ones who don’t have any mail from the dejected faces, swiftly followed by over-casual whistling.

No sign of an old man with a stick.

There is just time to make my way to the car and my precious mobile in the glove compartment. An umbilical cord to the outside world. I’m beginning to see why they’re such hot currency in prison. Mum picks up immediately.

‘Alison? Thank heavens. Something’s happened again.’ Her voice is edgy. Verging on panic.

My heart misses a beat. So Stefan’s got to her too? Or was it just my sister causing trouble with the other residents?

‘Kitty’s in hospital. She’s bleeding.’

When I finally reach the ward, my mother is waiting in the visitors’ area. I hold her tight. Breathe her in.

Hospitals always bring back all the old feelings after the accident.

Disbelief. Terror. Guilt.

‘She’s OK. There was a lot of blood but she hasn’t lost the baby.’ Mum has two red spots on each cheek; the way she does when upset. ‘She’s having more checks. The good news is that the baby’s heartbeat seems steady.’