A Sister’s Gift (29 page)

What if I miss the boat with my Brazil job and they take on somebody else? I don’t even know what’s happening with José and his family at the moment. Nobody is telling me anything. I haven’t had a text or a call from Eve in weeks. And even Gui’s texts are drying up…

The quiet knock on the door interrupts the maelstrom of thoughts.

‘In here, Hol.’

She’s not looking too good either. Her face is all pinched and white like she’s sickening for something. Maybe she’s just missing Richard? She’s got the test kit in her hand, I see. Any moment now she’s going to find out for certain that I’m pregnant. Which is going to make it all the more difficult for her when I have to leave her. Her eyes take in the stripped bare walls, the curtainless windows and the bed in one fell swoop. Then they’re back on my face.

Does she know about me and Rich? Did he tell her, before he left on his latest trip out to Trieste with his dad, what I said to him that day in his flat at Bluebell Hill? These past two weeks, stuck here in the cottage with my sister, both of us so subdued and awkward, I have been utterly unable to tell. She hasn’t said anything to me, but then that’s just her way, isn’t it? She could still
know
. I blush to think of it now, how I opened myself up to him and how he…he spurned me.

‘Is it too much?’ she says now, sitting down at the little dressing-table stool, the test kit in her lap. ‘Am I asking too much of you?’

My eyes flick up to her. I wish more than anything that she would just go away.

‘Perhaps you are.’ My throat is dry, my voice rasping. Too late now, though. It’s done. And I had my own reasons for complying too.

‘It’s going to be positive, isn’t it?’ She glances at the unopened test kit and we both know I’m not going to actually need to use it.

I pull a face at her.

‘How long have you known?’ Her voice is high-pitched, strained.

‘You don’t sound very pleased,’ I accuse. ‘I thought this was what you wanted. I’m pretty sure I’m pregnant, yes. All the signs are there, aren’t they? Tender boobs, fatigue to the point of exhaustion, nausea…I can use that kit to confirm it if you like?’

‘If you don’t mind.’ She lets out a long, slow breath as if she’s just gone into shock. What’s wrong with her? She should be hollering and jumping up and down for joy, just like Lucy and Roma and…and everybody else when they find out. She should be
happy
.

I get up and go and take the kit off her lap but she doesn’t move. She’s still looking around the room as if she hasn’t seen it properly in ages.

‘I hadn’t realised how jaded this room had become. I’m sorry. I’ll redecorate the whole thing for you now of course.’

‘No need.’ I bite back the comment that’s ready on the tip of my tongue – wait and do it up for the baby. ‘I’m not planning on staying here the entire pregnancy, Hol. I don’t think that would be such a good idea, do you?’

Her eyes widen and I see she knows what I’m talking about.

‘Did Richard…did he…ever say anything to you about what we did two weeks ago? About how it was?’

‘No, Lettie!’ She turns to me, distressed. ‘And I don’t want to know. Better we never speak about it again.’

‘He was right about one thing though.’ I’m turning the little cardboard box round and round in my hand. ‘It
has
changed things between us. He doesn’t feel comfortable being here any more, does he? He’s not away just because of his dad and the business, is he, let’s be honest. He can’t bear to be in the same
house as me any more…’ I get up and walk out into the corridor and she follows me.

‘It isn’t that, Lettie. He’s had so much to do…’ she begins but I shrug her off.

‘Don’t
, Hollie. Just don’t. Let’s be real with each other. Just for once.’

She folds her arms, inclines her head a fraction.

‘You know, for the longest time I’ve been – well – I’ve been envious of you.’ She takes in a breath when I say it but she doesn’t interrupt. ‘For having what I thought you had but I never could.’

Hollie shakes her head, frowning, but I carry on regardless.

‘Everything has always been so
perfect
between the two of you, hasn’t it? You actually do love each other. You have something special. Whatever it is, I think that I will never have that.’ I had meant to go to the bathroom but a thin line of sunshine draws me over towards the French doors now, burning through the mist.

‘What on earth are you talking about?’ Hollie grabs hold of my shoulders, stops me twisting the box round and round in my hands.

‘It’s a myth, isn’t it? Love. For most people, it’s just a myth. And I can’t stay here.’ I put the test kit down on the coffee table and open the French doors wide. A small chill breeze enters the room.

‘You’re planning on leaving. Now? Why?’ She drops my shoulders and takes a step back. For the first time I see an energy in her, alarm bells going off at the thought that I’m not going to stay here under her wing. ‘And why do you think you will never have your own man to love?’

‘Why?’ I give a little laugh, walking through the French doors and out onto the dew-spattered lawn. This is the only time I ever feel…truly at peace, I realise. When I’m out in the open, among the grasses and the plants, the living things of the land. ‘Because love is a four-letter word, Hollie. It’s just a dolled-up
word for lust, isn’t it? Or dependency. People say it to each other all the time but what do they really mean by it?’ I turn to catch sight of her uncomprehending eyes. ‘I don’t think I know, really.’

‘Scarlett, you
know
what love is. There are so many kinds. And so many people have loved you in your life. Flo loved you. And me. And…and…’ She can’t quite bring herself to say Richard.

‘Yes, yes, I know you have. But have I loved you back? Sometimes I think I’ve got a cold splinter in my heart, where the love-chip should go. I don’t think I have ever
loved
you, Hollie. I thought,’ I choke, ‘that I might have been in love with…oh, look, never mind. The thing is, I wanted to have this baby partly to show you that I could do something for you too. I know how much you’ve done for me throughout my life. I don’t always show it but I do know what you sacrificed for me. I wanted…’ I touch her arm, willing her to understand. ‘I thought maybe I’d changed and I wasn’t selfish any more and I could really do it. But I’ll be honest now, before this goes any further. I don’t know if I
can go
through with this.’

Her eyes narrow, becoming so hard that I’m forced to look away. ‘Are you saying that you might – you just might – change your mind. You’d abort my baby?’

I’m trying to be honest with her. She has to know…

‘And you think I would just stand there and let you do that. Do you?’ She grabs hold of my shoulders again now and this time she shakes me, her eyes shot through with a darkness I don’t remember ever seeing before. ‘I…I even let you sleep with my husband. I risked my marriage! And you imagine I would just let you get rid of it, now? You aren’t going to do this to me, Scarlett, so you can stop thinking this way. Not even for one minute. I won’t let you.’

I look at my sister archly, folding my arms now because she forgets whose body it is we’re talking about here. Whose life. She forgets how much I will stand to lose now.

‘Don’t you understand what I just told you, Hol? This isn’t how I want it to be – this is just how I am. This is how it is.’

Heartless and single-minded
, he said.

‘I wanted to do this for you, I’m trying, God knows. I’m fighting myself on this, you must try to understand that.’

‘You’ll keep my baby.’ It’s a statement not a question. And in this moment, standing right here in front of her, seeing everything that I see swimming in the depths of her eyes, how could I doubt it? I draw back, clenching my fists, not wanting to get swallowed up whole by her desperation.

‘Fine. I’ll keep the baby. I’ll try. But on my terms, not yours. First of all, understand that I
will
go back to Brazil, just as soon as the nausea lets up. Agreed?’

She squirms uncomfortably, but she has no option but to concede. She nods at me tersely. ‘And second?’

‘Secondly, you’ll have to decide if you’re prepared to give up what’s most precious to you as well. I want you to sell Florence Cottage. If I can’t work I’m going to need money and this is the only way left to me to get hold of it, OK? We’ve reached that bridge we talked about all those weeks ago, Hollie. Now it’s up to you whether or not whether you’re prepared to cross it.’

Rich hasn’t called.

I stare at the phone, willing it to ring, but it doesn’t.
Come on!
I know Chrissie was expecting you and your dad back in Lincolnshire some time this morning, so why haven’t you been in contact?

All along, I’ve thought that by the time spring starts showing through, the worst of it will be over. Scarlett will be expecting and my baby will be on its way and now – it’s actually happened. Through the pattering of a sudden shower on my windowpane I can spy a bright, cold, blue-skied morning in March. The crocuses are all shivering like brave little gold and purple flags.

I pull the little wand out of my pocket and stare at it again. ‘Pregnant’, it says, in incontrovertible black and white. It’s true. It’s really true. I’m waiting for the floodgates of joy to open and fill up my heart; I’m waiting for the euphoria to descend but it hasn’t yet. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been able to share it with Rich yet. Should I ring him?

Ordinarily, I wouldn’t think twice about it, but something is stopping me. He’s been in Trieste ten days and in all that time he’s rung home only once. And when we did speak, he was just as distant and cold with me as he was before he left.

I pick up the three heavy bin bags Scarlett just gave me to add to the rubbish I put out for today’s collection. Outside, it’s still raining and I hesitate by the front door. When I asked them
to sleep together – is it possible that I was being far more incredibly naïve than I knew? Scarlett implied as much this morning. We’ve not spoken of it till now but then this morning she asked if he’d ever said anything about ‘how it was’ between them.

Rich would never bring that up. It isn’t like him not to phone, either, or to stay away for so long. I hate to think that Scarlett might be right and he might actually be avoiding us.

Oh, when is it going to stop raining? I’m going to get soaked taking these out. I should have cleared out that room a long time ago, I just never wanted to touch it. It’s been in limbo all this time – neither properly Scarlett’s nor decorated for anyone else. I always thought it would be the baby’s room.

Damn it. I drop the bin bags outside the front door just in time to see the refuse men already working their way back down the other side of the road. Oh, why does everything always have to be so complicated? Why can’t I just have what I want for once, and let it all be the way I thought it would be without all the thorns in my side? And why is it, after all this time and all I have sacrificed and everything I have gone through, I still just don’t feel…
happy?

I want Richard back. I miss him. Oh, have I made the hugest mistake of my life? If he feels this bad about what he had to do to get this child, will he even be able to love it once it’s born? Or will it always remind him of what they did? I close the front door, my heart thudding in my chest. I can’t keep thinking like this. I’ve got to stop torturing myself, I’m becoming so maudlin.

I wander back into the kitchen, and when the phone rings it nearly makes me jump out of my skin. I run to it, nudging it off its hook so quickly that I nearly manage to disconnect us.

‘Richard?’

‘Hello, darling.’ He sounds tired but also so – my hand goes to my heart – so much more like himself again.

‘Rich, I’ve missed you so much! Where are you? Are you back at your mum and dad’s?’

‘The flights have been delayed. We’re still at Trieste, Hollie.’

‘Oh. I’ve hardly heard a thing from you this trip – have you been terribly busy?’ I don’t quite succeed in keeping the reproach out of my voice. He goes quiet. ‘Will you come here straight after you’ve dropped your dad off?’

He clears his throat. ‘I can’t.’

Damn, damn it!

‘Because Scarlett’s still here, you mean?’

‘That’s right. I got the impression she mightn’t stay around for too long though?’

‘You did?’

‘She seemed keen to get back to Brazil,’ he says tersely.

‘Oh, she is, believe you me. Except she can’t because she keeps throwing up every two minutes…’ He goes silent at the other end now. It’s a thick, palpable silence which is very different from the joyous reaction I’d been hoping for.

‘Ah, right,’ he says at last.

‘Yes, Rich! We’re pregnant. Look, we have to talk,’ I plead now. ‘Come home. Please?’

‘No,’ he says. ‘But I have missed you too. Come to me?’

‘Up to Lincolnshire, you mean?’

‘Why not?’

I let out a groan. ‘I can’t leave her, Rich. She’s got terrible morning sickness. She can barely do a thing for herself at the moment, and given that that’s all our doing I can hardly leave her to it, can I? Aren’t you even a little bit pleased?’ I accuse after a while. ‘I’ve just told you we’re expecting. We’re going to have our baby at last. Aren’t you happy?’

‘I’m happy if you’re happy. It’s the single reason I agreed to go along with it in the first place. You know I never wanted to…to be with her. I can’t be around her, Hollie. And I’m pretty sure she feels the same way about me.’

‘What
went on
between you?’ I get out. ‘Whatever happened that day up on Bluebell Hill?’

‘Can’t you imagine, Hol? You’re getting what you wanted at long last, love.’ His voice takes on the slightest edge. ‘We’d best drop it, OK?’

A shiver goes through me then. By the gently burning fireplace I glance up at the one and only wedding photo ever taken with the three of us in it. I move closer to it now, peering up at it.
You’re getting what you wanted at last
. That’s what she said to me too, isn’t it, the day I married him. My fourteen-year-old sister had refused to be in any other picture and I’d been so radiantly happy, so filled with my own good fortune and joy that I hadn’t properly noticed her absence till the end. Oh, she’d been moody and sullen and just generally difficult the whole year prior to the wedding. Ever since Flo had died in fact…