The Half Sister Page 22

  ‘Never, never let your gun

  Pointed be at anyone.

  That it may unloaded be

  Matters not the least to me.’

  Edmund made him learn that off by heart and Mikey recites it to himself as he skulks round the back of the garages, darting from cover to cover. He hunkers down when he reaches the ditch and points the gun away from himself and towards her.

  ‘Michael,’ she calls. ‘I know you’re there.’

  Heads down, men, below the parapet.

  ‘Someone will come soon. It’s better you unlock the door now. Michael. Mikey.’

  Brazenly, he stands up in the trench, tries to swagger like a soldier except the gun’s a bit heavy.

  ‘There you are. Listen to me, darling. I love you, really, I’m sorry about what I wrote. I’ve done everything all wrong.’

  He waves the gun at her.

  ‘That’s really dangerous,’ she cries.

  The gun is pointed up at the window. She disappears. The gun is lowered. She reappears. In out, in out, shake it all about. Up goes the gun again. You do the hokey cokey and you turn around. With the gun pointed at the clouds, Mikey pulls the trigger, the crack of the shot punches him in his shoulder, but she’s the one who’s crying. That’s what it’s all about.

  Suddenly she retaliates. There is a thud on the drive and there is the packet of felt-tips.

  One thing leads to another, that’s what Edmund says. Like he pushed her in and slammed the door and now look what’s happened, except it started before that, she started it on the night of the earthquake. Anyway, she’s thrown out the pens so she can’t write the account so he can’t let her out so she’ll die in there and what will happen to him then? Without the felt-tips, his plan is worthless. A great disturbance grows deep inside him, it heats him up so that he sweats, it clenches his fists and turns him into an alien who crashes through the house, smashing everything he finds with his gun, the little blue sugar basin, the china hen with eggs in it, even the mug with an M which Grace gave him as a secret present when she left. When the alien’s gone, Mikey screws himself up under the dining-room table with Monty, who has licked up all the eggs and the sugar, and it’s quite some time later that he locks the gun away again. Edmund is right, you never know. Then he re-examines his packet of felt-tips and realises the orange one is missing.

  So the next note is orange.

  You want me to write an account of what happened. Where do you want me to begin?

  Duh. He doesn’t want some long story, all about herself, she’s really old and it would take her ages to get to the bit that matters. That would be a biography or an autobiography, he can’t remember which; it’s something to do with who was telling the truth. He just wants her to get it over and done with.

  I will begin with where you came from.

  So now she thinks she can tell his story, she has no right to do that. This note is written quite carefully, with bits corrected and full stops added in afterwards.

  You have a right to know where you came from. Your mother and I had different fathers. My father was a gentleman, her father was a beast. That’s your grandfather. He was an evil man. He was a bully and a liar, he spoiled people’s lives.

  Do you recognise yourself? Because when you are older you will understand that this is what he did, planted his evil in you, like a seed, and as you grow, it will grow as well until it has spread throughout your body and your mind.

  Without his clothes on, Mikey examines his body. What would it look like if she was right? Pressing his finger into his tummy button, into his ear, into all the other places where bad things can get in, he doesn’t think he can defend himself. He wonders if that’s why his willy does what it does sometimes, like now, like someone else is controlling it from inside. On the end of his bed, Mikey winds a jumper round and round his neck and stays like that for a long time. Even the circus animals are hiding, they don’t want this note in their box.

  The sky is changing, the weatherman says the heatwave is coming to an end and there are warnings. Squeezed between the low cloud and the sulky ground, Mikey feels there must be thunder somewhere; it will be difficult to make it down the drive and back for the vegetables before the storm, he would rather be anywhere in the world than here when the thunder comes. In a crazy way, hurtling very fast down the drive as if he is a racing driver, further and faster than anyone ever before, he collects the box. The cars swish past, nobody waves back. A siren comes and goes in the distance, he waits, but it’s not coming his way. Dark stains on the tarmac mark each individual raindrop. The box is too heavy, so he throws away the cabbages and the cauliflower, gets half way home, ditches Diana’s disgusting yoghurt drink, and struggles back with the rest of it just before the thunder stamps its feet on the doorstep. For some time it hangs around out there, clearing its throat and cackling, before suddenly, without warning, it roars and the whole of Wynhope trembles in remembrance of the terrible shaking that was the start of all this. The doors bang, the curtains in his bedroom flap in panic, and all he wants is someone to count the spaces between the lightning and the thunder in sevens like his mother did and tell him it is marching away, mile by mile, across the globe and on out into space, but now he’s the one who has to be brave because Monty is shaking, scuffling to get under the bed.

  Lying on the floor, reaching his hand past the lost socks and the dust, finding the fur and the clink of the tag on the collar, he comforts the dog so the dog knows he’ll always be there for him, that he can make everything better, only he can do that, that he loves him and that he’s not really horrible with bad seeds in him, he’s just a child.

  The thunder stays close, prowling in circles around Wynhope like a tiger, swiping at the house with its paws. To make Monty feel better, Michael gets his animals out and arranges them throughout the castle. When the earthquake comes again, the castle is shaken, the sides buckle, it loses it shape, the animals tumble from the battlements, the bricks crush them, even the tanks and the soldiers seem powerless against it, but nobody gives up. When the storm is over, gently he lifts the Lego off the bodies of the circus animals, encourages them to stand, bandages their limbs with paper and string, and then there is an awards ceremony for bravery for all those who stayed at their posts, which is everyone, and a special medal for Monty and a bit of a ceremony for Gorilla, who had to survive it all on his own.

  If she’s died in the thunder storm at the top of the house, there would be a sign, like the sour smell of the rats which ate the poison in the woodshed and rotted under the floor.

  Time is going so very slowly; he thinks all the clocks have stopped, maybe he’s meant to wind them up. It must be nearly supper time, but who knows, who cares.

  With the new organic loaf on the kitchen table, Mikey gets out the bread knife, his hand barely stretches across the top of the crusty bread and he struggles to keep it still as he saws away for a piece of toast. The first slice gets wider and wider at the bottom so it won’t fit in the toaster. He tries again, the knife slips and there is blood all over the bread. That’s my scream, he thinks, I have cut off my finger and no one can hear me and there’s no one to help me. I’ll bleed to death. With his left hand held in his right hand, his right hand gets covered in blood and so does the bread board and the counter and the floor. He stands at the sink on tiptoe, but the blood keeps coming, running red all over the white basin, his life pouring out of him, spilling away down the drain. There is someone upstairs he can go to, knock hard and say I’ve cut my finger and I don’t know what to do, but he no longer knows what he might find behind the door.

  He could call 999, but how would he ask for help? Without his voice, nobody can hear him. He has become Nobody.

  On the floor with his head between his knees, he knows he’s going to die because the world is fading away. There’s a voice. We can stick that back together again, it’s saying. His mum, it must be his mum, of course she’ll be here when he dies. A memory of being on his mum’s knee and her w
inding a white bandage round and round his hand, round and round the garden, tickle you under there, the scratch of her jumper on his bare arm, her hair soft as nothing on his face, that’s how close she is. Reaching for the kitchen roll, he winds it round and round his finger, most of the paper falling away on the floor and unravelling, and the bit round his finger red to start with, then only just a bit red, then plain white. He kisses himself better because she can’t. There are no signs that the red is seeping through the white, so after waiting a long time just to make sure he butters the fat-bottomed piece of bread one-handed and feels better. He has saved himself.

  Because he’s still alive he runs outside. The evening feels as if it might float away, light as the balloon he can see drifting above the park, striped like the big top on the lid of the circus animals box. A little boy in the garden of a big house, playing all on his own, that’s what the balloon travellers must see. They’re waving at him, he waves back with one white finger.

  ‘Hello,’ he calls.

  His word is taken from him, carried all the way up into the sky and given like a present to the people in the balloon. They unwrap it and throw gifts back down to him.

  ‘Hello there, little boy,’ they cry. ‘Hello and goodbye!’

  ‘Goodbye,’ he calls back, goodbye to you and your balloon and Mummy and Nanna, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye.

  Higher and higher climbs the balloon, skimming its way through the sea of a sky, waves of white foam and blue, and they take his word with them, wherever they sail, they pass on the message to whoever they meet.

  His word.

  It’s going through a curtain to another world. Maybe it’s all magic and everything is make-believe. The test is if he can do it again. Monty has brought him a stick, it’s his way of saying go on, try. The dog speeds after the stick thrown far into the long meadow grass.

  ‘Come,’ he cries.

  And the dog comes.

  ‘Fetch,’ he cries.

  And the dog fetches.

  Deep down in his tummy, his name wants to be next, pushing, its tiny hands reaching for the surface, its very own lungs looking for air. With closed eyes and screwed-up face, he clenches his fists; it’s in his mouth now, it’s coming, mmm . . . Mum, me, Mikey.

  ‘I am Mikey,’ he says. ‘Hello, everyone. I am Mikey, Mikey, Mikey.’ The balloon is barely a speck in the sky. ‘Help,’ cries Mikey. ‘I am Mikey. Can you help me?’

  The bush that climbs up the house is covered in them. He can see from as far as away as the swing tree, hundreds of them in the dead branches flapping to get free like trapped doves. The first piece of paper he picks up from the drive says ‘Dear Mum’. The next he pulls from the leaves, just ‘M’. He tears down those he can reach; they’re all the same, or nearly the same, they have nothing written on them except ‘Dear Mum’. Mikey stares into the sky as if for answers, wonders if the balloon man dropped them for him, but they’re to his mum, not from his mum. Then he realises, they’re all orange; it’s not his mum at all, it’s her. Gathering as many as he can, he understands that she is writing letters to the dead. Even though they’re meaningless he can’t really throw them away, but he can’t keep them either. She must have gone mad, so what does he do now? Not long after, another ‘Dear Mum’ note floats down from the nursery. If you catch a leaf, you can make a wish.

  Dear Mum,

  I wish I’d written to you before. You used to say never let the sun go down on a quarrel, but now it’s too dark and too late.

  I don’t know what to say except to ask you questions. I loved you so much when I was small and you loved me, you and Dad both loved me, but after Dad died, where did all that love go? Most of it disappeared when you married the bastard. The last little bit went when you had Val. I suppose you loved them more than you loved me. Or were you scared of him, like I was?

  I had to leave, but I wanted you to call me back. Even when I was packing stuff, I wanted you to come in and say don’t go. Maybe even if you had begged me, I would have gone. I was in an impossible position. Why didn’t you believe me? Was I supposed to wait until it was too late?

  I’ve done OK for myself, I want you to know I have been happy at times. I love Edmund so much and he did love me, so you mustn’t worry.

  I’ve been thinking about our family holidays in Minehead. That’s because from up here in the attic I can hear the rain pattering on the roof and it reminds me of the caravan, the smell of the gas heater and Dad’s homemade beer, the grey waves and tea at Gran’s on the way home. She had a door knocker in the shape of a boat, didn’t she? Because Grandpa was a sailor. I think I’ve remembered that right.

  I was so happy when I was small and it was just the two of us. There was no need for anyone else.

  Diana

  It isn’t what he wanted, he can hardly bear to read it; to know she had a mum and that she loves Edmund and that she’d had a holiday in a caravan in the rain just like him. He can talk now and maybe she can talk too, someone like this Diana has to be able to talk. Maybe he can let her out and they can sort things out and it will all be over and be their secret before Edmund comes home. He did promise no more secrets, no more lies, but this is different. If Edmund loves her as much as she loves him, then Edmund will be cross if he knows. It’s a frightening thing to do, but what else is there?

  ‘Hello, it’s me, Mikey. I’m talking. I’m just outside.’

  There is no reply.

  ‘It’s me, Mikey. I can talk now. Do you want to come out?’

  He didn’t mean to ask that, he’s forgotten how words just jump out sometimes on their own, but there’s still no reply.

  ‘It would be better if you came out now. In case you get ill or something.’

  ‘Are you in there? I went on holiday in a caravan as well. I just thought I’d tell you.’

  Is she in there?

  ‘Can you hear me?’

  Is he really talking? Perhaps he’s just imagining it. After all, who is there to hear except Monty, and the internet said people who go mad think they see things and hear things. He thought it would be her who’d go mad, but maybe it’s him because he’s locked up as well in a way, if you think about it.

  ‘I’ll let you out if you promise to be nice and to tell the truth and not tell Edmund.’

  Nothing.

  ‘I’m going now.’

  Maybe she’s asleep. Maybe it’s her who’s lost her voice, she doesn’t shout much any longer, she just makes noises. Maybe she’s . . . What if she’s . . . For some reason, he finds himself fleeing not to his bedroom, but to Diana and Edmund’s room, almost as if he might find them there. There are photos of her in here, like this one of her in a long dress and jewellery, but she won’t look like that when she comes out of the nursery and they zip her up in a black plastic bag and put her in a coffin and push her out the back door of the cemetery. On the little tapestry stool in her bedroom, he studies the boy in the mirror who no longer looks like a Year 5 school photo either. There is a gold box with a lid on a spring and inside treasure on a bed of red velvet. He slides rings on each of his fingers, one by one; he takes a purple silk purse with a drawstring top and finds a silver chain with a locket with no photo, he hangs it round his neck all the same; bracelets, he slips onto his thin wrists; a pink butterfly, he clips in his hair. With his lips painted crimson, he leans forwards like his mum used to and the mascara goes all over his long, dark eyelashes and everywhere else as well. He can’t pull off his T-shirt without all the jewellery falling off and all the make-up smudging, so he just threads his arms through the bra he finds and lets it hang over his shoulders, empty-cupped. Grinning back at him is a mad queen of a boy, with feathers and butterflies and jewels like a celebrity, and he makes faces at the goddess and practises saying out loud, ‘I am Mikey.’ One by one the contents of the drawer are examined and dropped on the floor: tights, false fingernails, dry shampoo, teeth whitener, then comes a packet he recognises, YourNews. His mum had this, she dipped the stick in her wee, and
he asked her if she wanted a baby, and she said one day and Solomon will be the daddy and you’ll be a big brother. Now he knows that he would be a half-brother but he wouldn’t have let that matter, he’d have just had a brother like he’d always wanted. Holding the box, he remembers that Diana’s the one who didn’t want babies so he doesn’t know why she’d want YourNews. The box feels heavy and rattles a bit; he opens it, unwraps the instructions. There he discovers the key to the tower.

  Piece by piece, Mikey dismantles the queen in the mirror. The bra falls from his arms, he unpins the butterfly from his hair, and the bracelets and rings slide onto the floor. With wet wipes from the shiny plastic pouch, he scrubs at his face until his skin hurts, until he no longer smells of her. Breathing faster than fast, hotter than hot and clammy, he vomits into the toilet, then rests back against the bath, his legs trembling at the knees and his mouth sour. After some time, he knows what he’s going to do. He was weak before, but he’s brave enough now, he was right all along.

  At the bottom of the stairs, the dog circles and waits like a set spring.

  ‘I’ve found the key,’ he says to the nursery door. ‘And soon everyone will know that you did it, that you . . .’ This is a hard sentence to finish, so he uses the speech from the policeman on telly. ‘You have the right to remain silent, the whole truth and nothing but the truth and anything you say will be used to punish you.’

  No doubt she’ll write the truth tonight. Suddenly he doesn’t feel so bad about locking her up because soon she’ll be locked up for ever anyway and he won’t have been lying. People will think he was a hero and that he did the right thing, locking up a dangerous criminal and keeping her there, even though he was all on his own, until someone came to rescue him.

  Clearing a space on the floor, on his hands and knees, he gently opens his cardboard box and greets the circus animals.