Sister Sister(76)

‘Fucking hell, you ask the most stupid questions sometimes.’ I hear him exhale of long breath of air. ‘Of course something is wrong. Us. That’s what’s wrong. I don’t even know how we got to this point in such a short space of time. What the fuck went wrong?’

‘I don’t know either,’ I say, then correct myself. ‘Actually, that’s not true. I know exactly what went wrong. Alice.’ I brace myself for the response.

‘You’re wrong about Alice,’ he says.

‘I am not. Trust me.’

‘Trust you? What about you trusting me?’ says Luke. I can image the look of indignation on his face. ‘I’ve never done anything, ever, to give you any reason not to trust me. I thought we were solid. I really did. I know how I feel about you, it’s one hundred per cent. The trouble is, I’m not sure you know how you feel about me.’

‘Luke, it’s not like that, honest.’

‘Of course it is. You’ve all but accused me of shagging your sister and on top of all that, you’ve caused fucking mayhem at home between you and your mum. You’ve even been sodding arrested for vandalising your best mate’s car.’

‘I didn’t do anything to Pippa’s car. And besides, I wasn’t arrested. I was helping with inquiries.’ As soon as the words are out, I want to kick myself for being so pedantic.

‘You’re splitting hairs. Jesus Christ, what is wrong with you?’

‘Look, I may have implied there was something going on with you and Alice and, for that, I am sorry. But I don’t trust her.’

‘Is there anyone you trust?’

‘Can we leave all this until I get back?’ I say, trying to defuse the situation. What started off having the potential for being a tender conversation, has ended up in a ruck. ‘I don’t want to argue with you over the phone. I’ve come away to clear my head, not fill it up with arguments. It’s not productive.’

There’s a small silence before Luke replies. ‘I don’t want to argue either. I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have phoned.’

‘No, I’m glad you did,’ I say. And I genuinely mean it. To hear his voice is the closest thing to a hug I can get right now.

‘I’m missing you,’ says Luke. ‘I’ve been missing you for days, even when you’ve been here, I’ve missed you. Us not being close, it just doesn’t feel right. It’s torture.’

‘I know. Just give me a couple of days.’

‘Okay,’ he pauses and lets out a small sigh. ‘So, how’s Nadine anyway? I expect you were up half the night catching up with each other on the past twenty years.’ I can hear the injected upbeat to his voice.

‘She’s fine,’ I say in a clipped tone that shuts down the conversation. I close my eyes and wish for forgiveness for my lies.

‘I’ll let you get on,’ says Luke; the dejection is back.

‘I’ll see you later in the week,’ I say. As much as I want to speak to Luke, I don’t. The more he asks me about Nadine, the more lies I’m going to have to tell.

‘Say hello to her for me,’ he says. ‘Bye.’

‘Yeah, sure. Bye.’ There’s a small silence. ‘Love you,’ I say quickly. It’s a mere whisper and then the phone line goes dead. I’ve no idea if Luke heard me or not. I slide the phone from my ear to my forehead and close my eyes as I recover from the painful conversation and ask myself the same question Luke did; how the hell did we even get to this point?





Chapter 21


I prowl the house again, backwards and forwards, from the living room to the bedrooms, as I try to get a feel for Alice and her life here. I find myself drawn back to Alice’s room. There is a bookshelf to the right that I didn’t pay much attention to before. It’s filled with books. I run my finger absently along the spines, looking to see what sort of reading she likes – anything to make me feel close to my sister. One shelf looks like textbooks on childcare and education and, I assume, were to do with her teaching. The rest of the shelves are filled with paperbacks. I pull one out and see it’s a thriller. In fact, the whole shelf is filled with thriller-type books. Then the genre seems to change on the next few shelves, where they look more like contemporary women’s fiction and romance. Alice is definitely a bookworm, I conclude, and I think back to the recent conversation in Mum’s sitting room, where she said she’d overcome her dyslexia, to prove everyone wrong. I’m sure she said something about not reading books.

Something is bothering me about the room, the bookcase in particular. I tap one of the shelves with my fingernail, trying to relax, to allow the thought to break through all the other thoughts that are filling my head. I look around the room and then it strikes me. There are no photographs. I scour the bookshelf and look for anything that might be a photo album, but I see nothing at all. It seems odd that there are no photographs anywhere, other than the one of Patrick Kennedy on the mantelpiece.