The Half Sister Read online

  In the border, she parts the aquilegia with great care, slides her hand under the yew bush: dry earth, needles, roots like fists, thorns for fingernails, the cold key. Quite bewildered by the smallness of this thing which has grown so big in her mind, she weighs it in the palm of her hand, then, having locked Monty in the house because she doesn’t want anyone watching her, she sets off for the river.

  Once there, it does not seem such a simple thing, to throw away a key, and the river pushes at the banks of her confidence. She thought it would be carried away downstream, but of course it will sink. The rapids are more shallow than she remembered; it will shine its guilt through the water. It is nearly summer, the reeds are fast-growing and green, and the small islands in the river have inlets and harbours where beachcombers might find messages. The pool is deep enough, but what if Edmund hooks it, fishes up an answer to a riddle, and brings it home alive and wriggling for the truth? It’s always been his river.

  Back in her bedroom, on her own territory, Diana opens the drawer where she hides some of the things she never talks about. Here, at the back, is the pregnancy test kit, for instance. She could have thrown that away, but she didn’t. Edmund is a man who prefers not to take the lid off those things he fears, he’ll never look here. He isn’t the reason she bought the kit, of course – that will never be necessary – and only one of the tester sticks has ever been used. He has such little faith in his physical self and she loves him all the more for that. In the early days of their relationship, people in the office used to gossip about whether she was more than a companion to the boss and they were simultaneously right and wrong. She opens the box with all the hasty, hot-faced guilt of an adolescent.

  That Mrs H’s grandson would brag to his mates about what happened, Diana took for granted, but she never dreamed he’d tell his family. It’s hard to see how it ever happened, two and a half years ago, when things weren’t so different from now: Edmund always away on business, the honeymoon days at Wynhope over, and something lumpish and dull-coated which she could only assume was routine squatting outside on the doorstep every morning, waiting for her with its chin in its hands. Like now, she missed going to work. Like now, there was little or nothing to do in the house – Mrs H and the cleaners did that. There was little or nothing to do in the garden – John and the contract gardeners did that. There was little or nothing to do socially that she could control, being at the mercy of other people’s seating plans. The only thing she had rights over then was herself, so she spent a lot of time polishing, plucking, trimming and perfecting her self, although she knew there was never likely to be a great physical return on that investment.

  Then one day, there was Liam, earning some pocket money in the summer holidays by helping out in the garden, hedge cutting. All she really wanted was someone to talk to, but with his ear guards on he didn’t hear her. The sunken garden sucked the heat into its belly, the humid air was swollen with plump bees and sickly with the scent of fat roses, and purple lavender brushed against her bare legs – the whole garden was a brothel. His body was beach brown, and when she touched his arm, just to get his attention, her fingers slid on his sweat. She offered him a beer, he asked for Coke, then she drank too much wine. That’s how ridiculous the whole thing was, ridiculous but gorgeous. He was taut, pumped like the thoroughbred she stood next to in the paddock, the first time Edmund took her to Ascot. It didn’t occur to her that she was the first to break him in, fluid bodies and fullness amidst the drystone walls and geometric perfection of the box hedges. He was less beautiful when it was over, tucking his flaccid cock into his off-white pants and running down the drive like a guilty kid. The hedge trimmer was heavy when she tried to put it away; there was oil down her legs which wouldn’t wash off. Afterwards, she stood in the bathroom in a shower of partial understandings: she didn’t regret it, didn’t know why she did it, wouldn’t do it again, didn’t even particularly enjoy it – she rarely did – and as she wrapped herself up in a soft white towel, she thought it was something she needed to do just once, now that she was married to a man. No one ever gets to have all of anyone.

  It wasn’t long before Diana noticed the change in Mr and Mrs H. I know that you know that I know that you know. Should she tell Edmund before they did? That’s always been the dilemma: to speak out or not. The following weeks were counted carefully, Diana imagining all his pent-up boyhood sperm inside her, then there was that one moment in her life when she experienced the briefest, ridiculous regret that there was no blue line and never would be. She didn’t say anything, John and Mrs H didn’t say anything either, not directly, and Edmund didn’t know. What you don’t know can’t hurt you is one of his favourite clichés.

  Wrapped up in the instructions, the tower key is hidden in the pregnancy test box, the box pushed to the back of the drawer, the drawer closed.

  It all adds up to a Jenga tower of secrets and lies, and wouldn’t Mrs H just love to see it fall. Over the next few days Diana notices that the housekeeper is already undermining what little authority she has with Michael with the swagger of a woman who has brought forth the fruit of her womb (of course, when you’ve had them yourself ), but also of Edmund (you should have seen him with our Louisa, before your time). And when Michael is with Mrs H, the boy materialises in much the same way as he does when he is with the dog. He touches her if he wants attention; he lets her wash his bleeding knees; he accepts food from her; he allows her to help him with his spellings, difficult, different, deliberate. More than that, the two of them are developing some way of understanding each other, even without language. Mrs H chases the giggling child around the hall with the end of the vacuum cleaner – ‘I’ll get you, young man’ – and another afternoon she was singing songs as she pushed him on the rope swing John hung from the cedar, Diana throwing open the sash window, not knowing if it’s the crows or the boy, but she can hear screaming. She often hears screaming.

  ‘To think they never found the key.’

  Someone is always moving her keys. Diana strongly suspects Mrs H; it’s the sort of deliberate malicious thing she would do. If not her, then the boy. If not him, then she fears to think who or what; up until now she’s never believed in poltergeists.

  ‘Won’t it be something when the laddie starts to talk? The truth will always out.’

  No more secrets, no more lies, Michael writes on his whiteboard, and Mrs H thinks this is an excellent motto to live by. ‘Did Mummy teach you that? I thought so. She was a good lady, your mother, and never forget it.’

  Having decided to get a bit more of a grip on things, Diana has decided to go back to the health club. She checks her sports bag and in there finds the boy’s whiteboard with just the one word on it.

  Liar.

  Hastily she erases the letters and returns it. Head on the table, elbow over the words, Mikey writes something new then wipes his sleeve across the board. Now you see it, now you don’t.

  ‘You and your secrets,’ says Mrs H.

  Who is she referring to?

  Swimming seems like too much bother, so instead Diana sits in the steam room where she is dizzy and light-headed, and all it takes is a quiet rumble from the sauna pump and she’s back at Wynhope, the tremor building beneath her. It’s difficult to make out what is what, because of the steam, but she can feel the drops of moisture on the damp lawn under her feet, and hot and cold with fear she registers a child screaming on the other side of the door and the locker key on her wristband. Bringing with her a brief gust of cool air, a woman materialises in the mist opposite her. Valerie will never let her be. Even far away from Wynhope there will always be those thin arms and nail varnish and one twisted leg sticking out from under a towel.

  ‘I’ve cut the quote of the day out of my magazine for Mikey,’ says Mrs H when she gets home. ‘We’ve stuck it on the fridge, haven’t we, Mikey? I’ll read it out. “Never trust someone who lies to you. Never lie to someone who you trust.”’

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mrs H has g
one one step too far, in her opinion. Diana waits for her opportunity and it presents itself on a plate less than a fortnight later. She was asked to pop into school to see the head. Edmund said it was probably nothing serious; he couldn’t stand anything being wrong with the boy, or with her, or the computer, or the wine, you name it. On the increasingly rare occasions he spent time at home he wanted it to be nothing more or less than a refuge and if it wasn’t, he was furious with her. But it wasn’t a refuge, was it, with its fallen tower and silent orphan, it was a madhouse. The school thing turned out to be something about a poster Michael had drawn in his ‘All About Me’ unit.

  Task: Five things someone should know about you.

  1. I come from the Mandela Estate.

  2. I do not know my dad.

  3. Someone I know murdered someone else.

  4. Diana and Edmund are fostering me.

  5. My mum was killed.

  ‘The head’s wondering if he should be in touch with social care,’ Diana tells Edmund and Mrs H as they examine the poster, the childish proclamation slanting chaotically away from the margin, incongruous on the immaculate dining-room table. ‘Edmund, are you listening?’

  ‘Fostering. That’s a sad way he’s described it,’ says Edmund. ‘But I suppose it’s hard to find the right words for complicated family relationships.’ He notes Diana’s annoyance. ‘What do you mean, social care? It’s not exactly a, you know, an allegation.’

  ‘It’s a disclosure,’ says Mrs H.

  That’s the word Diana was looking for as she drove home; all she could think of was ‘confession’, which was altogether different.

  The housekeeper gives her diagnosis. ‘It’s not normal.’

  ‘He’s not normal,’ replies Diana, but nobody is listening to her.

  ‘I don’t see what the problem is.’ Edmund explains that the boy has done exactly what the teacher asked, ending up with the sad, but incontrovertible fact that Valerie was killed.

  Looking at it with fresh eyes, Diana realises it may be one writing task, but there are many ways of understanding it.

  Mrs H is less convinced. ‘It’s clear he has something he wants to tell us,’ she says.

  Enough. Mrs H is a bitch. She should have forced Edmund to get rid of her ages ago. Diana returns to the dining room to have it out with her and there she catches her housekeeper with her mobile phone, the tell-tale click of the camera, the phone slipped back into her trousers as quick as a pickpocket with slick fingers.

  ‘Were you taking a photo of Michael’s work?’

  ‘What would I want that for? I was just checking my messages. Louisa’s not been too well and Naomi’s been keeping me updated.’

  ‘I’d prefer it if you didn’t spend so much time on the phone while you’re working.’ Diana has crossed a line and knows it. Mrs H’s response is that she will need to leave on the dot today and will not be able to collect Mikey from school. Upstairs, Edmund is muttering something about getting changed and the two of them going down to the river. He doesn’t speak clearly any longer; it’s as though he’s mainly talking to himself, but, even so, she knows he doesn’t mean her.

  ‘I’m a bit worried about Mrs H,’ Diana calls through the wall to the dressing room. It’s easier that way. Edmund has a strange upper-class loyalty to those people others would call employees.

  ‘What about her?’ He comes into the bedroom, buttoning up an old, frayed check shirt. He is starting to look a little frayed himself.

  ‘She’s had a bit of an attitude since leaving the lodge.’

  ‘Such as?’ Edmund is caught up with his own reflection.

  ‘For example, just now, spending yet more time on her bloody mobile, fussing about her grandchildren, and when I commented on it, she flounced out saying she has to leave early and won’t be around to pick up Michael later.’

  ‘Mikey.’

  Running her hand along the bedspread to effect a perfect crease in front of the pillows, Diana stops herself retaliating. ‘Whatever. Anyway, she’s as much use as a sick headache, sometimes.’

  ‘Can you do without her?’ Opening a packet of indigestion tablets, Edmund finds it empty. ‘Now they can’t live in the lodge and their salary isn’t offset by their rent . . .’ He opens the window to release a bee; its buzz is replaced by the white noise of John on the mower outside. ‘I only mention it because you seem to be saying you won’t mind if she goes, or at least reduces her hours.’ The pill packet goes in the bin, his hands go to his stomach. ‘But I don’t want to make things difficult for them.’ Quite suddenly he sits heavily on the bed. ‘I don’t know how I’ll manage, everything’s felt so difficult since Valerie.’

  Standing over him, Diana massages his shoulders. ‘It’s probably better for them if it’s a clean break,’ she says. ‘It’ll make it easier for them to find something else if they want to, although they might not need to. They’ll get their pension soon and might have left anyway. And we’ll cope without them.’ She smiles confidently. ‘You know I’ll do whatever I have to for the two of us to be happy together.’

  When the last day comes, Mikey hides in his nursery, Edmund hides in his office in London, and Diana tells the housekeeper she doesn’t expect to see her at Wynhope again, it’s better for the boy that way. No cards, no phone calls, nothing.

  The car is inching forwards when Mrs H lowers the window. ‘I know something awful happened that night, it was written all over your face,’ she says. ‘You should have learned your lesson. The truth will always out.’

  Jumping to one side, Diana only just manages to avoid being blinded by the grit thrown up by her housekeeper leaving.

  Try as they might, they cannot break the barricade to get into Michael’s room. After three hours, Edmund is frantic, wanting to call the police. He doesn’t understand Michael like she does, she knows he’s cunning. He’ll have realised that there is no better way of forcing the issue than being locked in a room until the truth comes out. Close to midnight, Michael allows them to open the door, just a fraction; the boy is still in one piece, which is more than can be said for the room. One of Diana’s first jobs as the new housekeeper for Wynhope House is to disinfect it, but the truth is, nothing she does makes the room truly clean.

  Even so, it is so much better having contract gardeners and the Spotless Angels cleaning agency, she says, when she finally returns one of Sally’s messages; no personal relationships involved, just money. They come three times a week and say she is kind woman, boy is lucky. The rest of the time the house is pretty much deserted. The imposed quiet of those afternoons at Wynhope deafens her, like tinnitus, a relentless noise that no one else can hear but which makes everything else impossible. If being in the house is a nightmare, escaping the house is no easier. Her heart rate rises when she walks to the garage, she has to go back and check she has her keys, and then when she’s out locks call out to her as she passes, padlocks on bicycles, keypads on office blocks. Once she passed a note Sellotaped to a lamppost, ‘Found, set of keys’, and a number to call. In the past she enjoyed her trips into town, swapping the rural idyll for the more familiar suburban hassle, overflowing car parks and crowded supermarkets, but even these streets provoke pounding anxiety in her nowadays. And it’s worse when she’s home. Keys appear in strange places: a box of them on the doormat, one on her pillow, and, worst of all, she finds a filthy old-fashioned key in her chest of drawers, its flaking metal hooked through the fine black-and-red lace of a thong, so repulsive it’s almost erotic, rough teeth and the scent of freshly laundered underwear. Mrs H has gone, so it has to be Michael. He always looks as though he’s plotting something and physical, emotional, sexual aggression is in the boy’s genes, she mustn’t forget that. Her suspicions are confirmed by what happens next. At school Michael steals keys from a teacher’s handbag. He is put on a part-time timetable. With Mrs H gone, this is a sentence which punishes both of them equally. Edmund sees it as an opportunity to give the boy more time to play outside in the fresh air, rehabi
litation he calls it.

  ‘Well, perhaps you’d like to come back early from London for PE,’ Diana screams at him as he leaves in the morning. ‘Why is this my job? Why? Women’s work, is it? Show me a bloody job description.’

  For Diana, Michael’s timetable is her timetable, his prison walls are her prison walls. Even the hours in the exercise yard do no more than confirm the height of the wire and the smallness of the square patch of blue. Day-release passes are few and far between, visitors, almost none. Sarah the social worker makes a final visit, bringing over some copies of the local authority carer’s assessment and a box of Michael’s things which she’s rescued from Valerie’s flat, Diana having passed on the opportunity to go there herself. The cardboard box is left on the table like a present at a wedding. When the social worker is gone, with the desultory interest of a rich woman at a jumble sale, Diana sorts through the scraps: a few books, a recorder, a remote control car with no batteries. It’s all rather pathetic. When she opens the large brown envelope with the paperwork, two things fall out: a letter addressed to her care of Valerie’s address and a small photo. The picture is of Valerie and Michael and a man she presumes is Solomon, all at some sort of garden party. There’s a band, a long table covered in food, balloons and a banner which says something about Women’s Aid. They’re holding hands and dancing with each other, she can almost hear the singing.

  The other envelope contains a letter written on rather cheap and childish A5 paper with ruled lines.

  Dear Diana,

  I know we have never met, so I hope you will forgive me for getting in touch, but I wanted to write about Valerie, both to offer you my condolences and also to share my grief, because it is the truth that I have no one else to share it with here.

  Even as I’m writing this, I find it impossible to believe Val is gone and I have had to pray long and hard to find God’s purpose in this. The two of you had not met for a long time, but she told me all about everything at what was her last visit, and she was full of hope for reconciliation and I am sure you found out so quickly what a special, special person your sister became. I pray you found peace between you before this happened. Even with all the troubles she had, she was so kind to everyone else and put their needs before her own. She was full of hope and trust and she believed in people, she believed in me when other people found it easier to be prejudiced against me. I am sure she told you that we were going to be married.