A Sister’s Gift (27 page)

‘Rich…’ I arch my back, about to sit up and face him, but he puts a finger to my lips so I cannot say a word.

‘We’ve both promised her to do this, Scarlett. Whether we were right or wrong, God knows. I haven’t been able to talk to her about it. Or talk her out of it. I couldn’t bring myself to explain to her how truly hard this is for me…because I can’t hurt her, I don’t want to let her down. But I’ve been feeling so conflicted these past two weeks, I can’t begin to tell you. I’ve even thought…I felt…that I might just have to leave her over it, you know that?’

‘You did?’

He tenderly wipes away the tear that rolls out of the corner of one eye and down my cheek. ‘I never thought I would ever
feel this way about her, Lettie.’ He gives a short sad laugh now. ‘I guess what I’m asking you to do is change my mind for me. Tell me I’m wrong.’ He sighs heavily. ‘Tell me that I shouldn’t feel like this.’

‘We none of us can help how we feel,’ I say faintly.

‘I do want to give her what she wants, Lettie. I want her to be happy. I’ve always wanted that, all these years. I knew the moment I saw her that I’d met the woman I wanted for life. Don’t ask me how. But once you’d brought me to her I knew I would love her forever…’

Once I’d brought him to her
. That was my one role, it seems.

‘And now?’

He swallows. ‘She’s pushing me away, Scarlett. With this obsession of hers, this desperate, all-consuming need to have a baby.’

We’ve been talking for too long, I worry. About her. It’s always all about her, isn’t it? When he got into the bed with me a while back he was hard, hot for it, I saw that, but all this talk of Hollie, always bloody Hollie…

‘Do you think, when we fall in love like that, so quickly – that it can ever truly be real?’ I whisper now.’ I ask because…’ Because I have never let myself fall in love with anyone other than you, have I? All these years, and all the men I have known and kept at a distance because of the flame that still burned in there somewhere, dampened and low but still burning, for you. ‘I used to think so, Lettie. Now I…’ he puts up his hand to brush the hair gently away from my face ‘…I really don’t know any more.’

‘Richard, I know this is something a brother and sister-in-law wouldn’t normally be doing. And I know these are really very extraordinary circumstances, but…’

He lifts up one finger, putting it to his lips, silencing me. For a few long moments his eyes seem to melt into mine and while he does not speak I can imagine a whole host of things he might be thinking; a whole conversation goes on between us. In the silence behind the sadness in his eyes he tells me how much he’s
always loved me too…that it has always been nothing but a mistake that he ended up with her, but he respects her and he cares for her and he’s a person of integrity so…

‘I can’t do this, Lettie.’ He looks at me apologetically. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You mean you don’t want to do this?’ My voice is thick with disappointment.

‘I mean I…I can’t. Because you aren’t her. Because this all feels wrong.’

‘Stop thinking about your wife, then. Think about me. No -don’t think about me.
Look at me!

I push away the duvet to reveal my naked body and I see him gulp, taking me in. I lean forward then, letting the tips of my breasts lie lightly over his chest. I don’t think I’m imagining that my boobs are larger than usual at the moment – it’s the one single advantage of the pregnancy that I’ve discovered. I hope he likes that, I think, I feel him shudder at my touch but he doesn’t back off. And I kiss him. He responds, at first, too. He returns my kiss. He pushes back my hair from my face and I think for one glorious moment that he’s going to pull me to him but then something else kicks in. His protective, caring nature.

‘I can’t do this to you, Lettie. You’re her little sister, for God’s sake. Christ, how could I have ever imagined that I could?’

‘I’m a woman, Richard. That’s all you need to worry about.’ I cling on to his chest but he’s already pushing me away, gently but firmly.

‘It’s…it’s wrong,’ he says with a sudden air of finality. ‘That’s all.’

But he’s agreed to do it. He
wants to
do it. Why can’t he just…I pull the duvet back over me, swallowing down my disappointment, watching him swing his legs over the side of the bed, making his escape.

Why?
When he kissed me just now I thought we were getting somewhere, despite his protests. Maybe we were, that’s the
trouble? Maybe he found me too arousing? I can’t see if that’s the case or not but the sight of his naked backside certainly arouses me. For all the good it does.

‘Please don’t…Rich…Don’t leave me.’ I grasp hold of his arm, making him turn to face me. ‘You’ve been the most important person in my life since as long as I can remember.’

‘Me?’ He looks bemused.

‘You. Everything I’ve done and everything I have in my life that means anything to me – it’s been because of you. You were always the one who accepted me just the way I was. You’ve no idea how much that meant to me. You’re even the reason I took up the study of botany in the first place. Because you suggested I should.’

‘No, Scarlett.’ He shakes his head. I can see that he is confused, perplexed, a whole host of conflicting emotions are battling inside him right now. ‘You were passionate about the garden – about plants – long before I ever knew you…’

‘But you’re the one who suggested I should study them.’ I sit up straight and the bedsheets drop off me. I see him gulp, turn his head away again. ‘Listen to me! You said I’d be good at it and I could be like my mum and really make a difference in the world.’ I lean in and put my hand on his shoulder. When he turns to me I kiss him softly just under his lips. ‘So I did it. Because you said I could.’

He frowns, puzzled. He looks at the floor, avoiding my gaze.

‘I did it for
you
, Richard. Because I wanted you to be proud of me. Because I wanted to show you that I could achieve so much more…’ I hiccup ‘…than all those people in school and at college ever thought I would. Nobody but you ever really thought I was going to amount to all that much, did they?’

‘Hollie always believed in you…’He says quietly. He half-turns to look at me but I can see he’s taken aback.

‘Everyone always said “Oh, Scarlett’s got green fingers, everything that Scarlett plants will grow,” but…but no one ever
believed I was really all that bright, did they? Nobody except you.’

‘You were always bright, Scarlett. They’d never have given you that job of yours if you weren’t incredibly bright.’

‘Yes, but if only you knew what I had to do in order to…’

‘Bright and beautiful.’ He picks up one of my hands and kisses my fingers, slowly, one by one, and he steals away my voice and all my words. ‘And we all knew it and were always proud of you.’

‘Richard, I…’ I look at him desperately, not wanting to say them, those words I can feel about to slip out so easily, after I’ve been holding onto them for, oh, so many years…

‘I love you, Richard. I have always loved you.’

‘You – encouraged him?’ I draw in a shocked breath. No, that cannot be right. Whatever Chrissie’s feelings on the matter, it can’t be right that she took such an active part in what’s going on today. I look at my mother-in-law through horrified eyes.

‘He had real reservations about it all but I could see how the family might gain in the long term. How he might gain. Can you understand that?’

I stare at her wordlessly for a second.

‘What about Sarah and Jay’s baby?’ I mutter stupidly. ‘Surely once you have a grandchild through them, you…’

‘I’ll want to be around them, naturally. I know. In so many ways it’s the worst possible time for any of us to be thinking of moving abroad, isn’t it?’

‘Who’s thinking of moving abroad?’

‘Us!’ She grabs hold of my wrist, shaking it earnestly. ‘Isn’t that what we were just talking about? You two and me and Bill. I’ve just told you, I know about Richard’s hopes and dreams. I’ve just admitted that I’ve been the one to encourage him in them and I hope you’ll forgive me for it. I know all about your opposition to moving to Italy, how it’s pulling you apart.’

I stare at her, open-mouthed. So that’s it. She’s been talking about the move to Italy all along. Not Richard and Scarlett after all.

‘Hah! You don’t know the half of it,’ I tell her, shaking. I’m not sure whether to laugh or cry. ‘What did Rich tell you?’

‘That he loves you to bits and doesn’t want to do anything to hurt you. That the business here is withering away to nothing; that he’s got the chance to make this move now and it might not come again.’

‘Ah.’ I don’t know what I feel more keenly at this moment -relief, that she doesn’t know the terrible secret, or disappointment, because I am on my own with it again.

‘Help me?’ she says after a bit. She picks up one of the half-unravelled jumpers and positions my hands so she can wind the wool around them more neatly. Once it’s all sorted into skeins I know she’ll wash them and knit them back up into something new. I used to do that with her, too. I cling to the memory because it’s part of what first endeared me to her, I know, what bonded us. She used to laugh, this is an old-fashioned mother-daughter sort of activity, she used to say. You’re the daughter I never had, Hollie. I know that’s how she’s always thought of me too, more than Sarah. Perhaps because I had no mum of my own? So many surrogate mums…

It’s hard to recall that this was once my passion – making up designer garments and selling them on to boutiques. All a long time ago now. Where did all that go?

‘Sometimes I worry that he cares too much,’ she’s saying now. ‘He’s always so keen to please, not to let anyone down. I worry that he’s running the danger of sacrificing something very precious in favour of the more pragmatic.’

‘Sacrificing what?’ my hands tauten around the wool.

‘His…’ Christine shrugs, struggling with words again. ‘His joy. My older boy has always been the quiet one, the dutiful one, the son who worries too much about looking after his parents when he should be looking forward to his own…’

‘His own family?’ I look directly at her as she winds the wool round and round my hands.

‘His own life. Hollie, can’t you see it? They’re having to go to such extremes to get the new contracts in this country, whereas abroad he’d have a far better quality of life. I’m not just saying this for my husband’s sake, believe me. I believe it’s what would be best for Richard, and maybe for you, too.’

The wool she’s winding up right now is bright daisy-yellow; it’s thick and luxurious and soft all at the same time and I close my eyes enjoying the sensuous feel of it around my fingers. It’s been such a long time since I’ve done anything creative. For an instant, a collection of images tumbles through my mind; patterns of flowers weaving in and out of trelliswork on the front panel of a jacket or cardigan. Little bright oxeye daisies, if I could use that deep blue I spotted earlier on; I imagine them dancing round the edge of a toddler’s jumper.

‘Darling, won’t you even think about it?’ she implores me now. ‘Come and have a look at the place you’d be living in, in Italy before you close it all down. Didn’t Rich tell me you once had plans to go over there yourself? You must have thought the idea of living in the sun attractive once upon a time?’

‘Once,’ I admit. Once upon a time I had an idea that there could be some life beyond the garden gates of Florence Cottage. I’d studied classical art and design at college and it had opened up new worlds. The idea of going abroad had beckoned to me then. I’d started night classes to learn the language. I’d scoured the libraries for books on all the world’s ancient and beautiful cities, trying to decide which one beckoned me the most. Should I spend a year in sprawling Athens or in Venice maybe, surrounded by the knolling of ancient church bells, sketching out my ideas to the wheeling of a thousand pigeons in St Mark’s Square from the shade of an aromatic coffee shop? Or should I head for the mountains, spend a year in Turkey, or maybe in Umbria, high up in the sweet-scented hills or down by the tumbling dark rollers on the coast, walking barefoot over miles
of demerera-sugar sands? I feel a flicker of bitter-sweet excitement at the memory.

‘I did dream of living abroad in the days when I was still at university.’ I smile sadly at her. When all the cogs and wheels of an ordered life at home still turned beautifully and smoothly, oiled by the careful ministrations of capable Auntie Flo…

Before the rest of my life happened and I forgot how to dream.

‘You could resurrect that dream.’ Chrissie leans in towards me earnestly. ‘You couldn’t live it then, but you don’t have to stay here holding the fort, keeping the home fires burning or whatever it is you think you should be doing. Scarlett’s gone, a grown woman now and a very capable one. You have the undying love of a good man instead. Richard adores you, Hollie. He won’t do anything to hurt you. But consider – no matter what you promised Flo, I’m sure she’d release you from it if she knew what a shackle this place had come to be for you now.’

I look up at the clock, my heart constricting painfully because it is half past two and there is still no sign of my husband. Or of my sister who is, as Chrissie just pointed out, a grown woman and a very capable one. Capable of keeping my husband by her side far longer than she needed to, if they were simply carrying out the one act?

‘It is too late for all that now, Chrissie,’ I tell her in a cracked voice.

‘Why, Hollie?’ she begs. ‘Don’t throw it all away, love. You’ve got your whole life before you yet.’

She’s right, she should be right. But there is Bluebell Hill and there is Scarlett and Richard.

My eye falls on the disconcerting picture of Rochester Bridge again:…
the bridge thrusts forward past the viewer; the rippling light on the water snakes towards the foreground; the platform juts out from the left…

‘Too much water under the bridge,’ I murmur softly. I have
sacrificed too much and the hour is so much later than she knows. And after today, I have my doubts about whether my darling Richard will still adore me as much as she thinks he does, or whether he will hate me.