The Sister(13)

Her hair was the palest shade of ginger, and it spilled down over her shoulders. The way she sat hunched made her backbone stick out through the fabric of her nightdress; her skin was as fine and white as porcelain. He’d not expected to see such delicate beauty after seeing her mother.

‘Vera?’ Ryan spoke softly.

She turned to look at the young doctor, the expression on her face serious, her eyes green and feline, fixed on him.

‘Doctor Robert won’t be coming will he,’ she said.

‘No, Vera something happened, he—’

‘Died in his sleep last night,’ Vera looked from him to her aunt. ‘And she’s my aunt, not my mother.’

Mrs Flynn’s piggy eyes were as wide and round as they could go. Her hand covered her mouth, stifling a gasp.

‘How could you have known about Dr Robert, Vera?’ Ryan said, also taken aback.

Without answering, she moved over to the painting. Her hands worked with incredible speed. Vera’s aunt and the doctor watched transfixed as she mixed colours and painted the outlines of three additional characters. She left them unfinished, but clearly recognisable as a man and woman, carrying a pinkish baby.

The significance of the earlier work troubled him, and a feeling of apprehension passed through him as it became clearer. He wondered if he should ask about the addition of the new figures.

Vera raised her eyes from the painting and stared over the top of the canvas at him.

She smiled with all the self-assurance of a grown woman.





Embarrassed, Ryan attempted to usher Vera away from the window to the bed, where he could more easily examine her. She refused to move from her chair, and no amount of coercion could persuade her otherwise, so he conducted his examination right where she was, by the light of the window.

He checked her eyes, ears and throat, pausing between to make notes. ‘Say aah...’

Mrs Flynn, having provided a running commentary of Vera’s symptoms throughout, now demanded his diagnosis.

He held his hand up for her to wait while he finished note taking. Conversation and writing at the same time wasn’t good for him. Some people could do it. He could not.

Even without talking, he made enough mistakes, so he always drafted in pencil. It made it easier to correct if the need arose. Scrawled out corrections looked so unprofessional; he’d sooner rub them out and start again. He clicked a further millimetre of lead into the nib and examined it before continuing.

‘Dr Robert would’ve had the answer by now. What do you think it is, Dr Ryan?’

‘Give me a minute, please.’

Although he was a doctor of medicine, he longed to qualify as a psychiatrist. He had a flair for it, an affinity with people and a clear understanding of how their minds worked. To put bread on the table, however, he’d had to take a job as soon as he’d qualified as a doctor. Often, while making his medical diagnosis, he’d include a psychological evaluation he’d keep to himself, but this time his analysis was for her aunt. Despite making an allowance for her anxiety, he marked her down as an impatient woman.

She was asking him questions again. ‘I know you must have some idea of what’s going on with her. What is it, in heaven’s name?’

He knew she wouldn’t drop it until he gave her something, so he effectively summarised what she’d already told him. ‘Mm-m, she looks anaemic. From the diet you told me she has, it’s unlikely that’s what she’s suffering from. Her complexion is naturally pale, a well-known characteristic of her hair type. You said she can’t go out on sunny days without blistering and yet she blistered up with sunburn when the weather was dull like this yesterday – if I have that right?’

‘That is what I told you.’

Where had all the blisters gone? Ryan frowned. ‘She has no melanin in her skin – was she always like this?’ The pigmentation of her eyes and hair were normal. If he didn’t know better, he might have thought she was suffering from a type of albinism. It puzzled him. She was as pale as alabaster, even in the grey of the dull day; she was almost pure white.

She continued to gaze out of the window. Her eyes were almond shaped, her face elfin. She didn’t look hot; she had no difficulty breathing; her pulse was normal. He decided to check it again and took her hand in his, turning it over, so the back of it lay against his palm. It was surprisingly soft, yielding and warm; his thoughts turned inexplicably to images of post-sexual spooning.

Ryan shook his head involuntarily to get the image out; with his other hand, he spread her fingers and inspected her palm. Opened fully, it was remarkably unlined, completely unblemished. His intention was to take her pulse, but he waylaid himself into examining the structure of her hand. They were not the hands of a girl that worked physically at all. Her fingers were long and slim; there was a slight callous near the tip of her middle finger, and he already knew it wasn’t from writing. He guessed she must do a lot of painting.

Ryan felt for her pulse, frowning as he manoeuvred his finger around the inside of her wrist, he found no trace, feeling only the throb of his own heart in his fingertip.

He became aware of her turning away from the window; her eyes had changed appearance, no longer feline, they were now wide-open sea green and had settled on him. For the second time she smiled as a woman and then her pulse began strongly, it mingled and beat in accord with his. Ryan suddenly felt self-conscious under her gaze and looked away to break contact.