Weird Sister (25 page)

Karen is in the doorway. ‘Graeme?’

He stands abruptly, his voice catching in his throat. ‘I saw him talking to Agnes.’

‘She’s always talking to him, god knows what she finds to say –’

‘No. I saw him talking to her, he was laughing, he was smiling, he was –’

Karen moves across the room swiftly and draws Graeme near to her. ‘Sweetheart,’ she says, drawing his head down to her shoulder.

‘All these years,’ Graeme whispers, ‘all these years without speaking. Where has he gone, Karen? Where is he?’

‘Graeme, shh, shh, be quiet. You know he doesn’t . . . you know he can’t . . .’ She walks him over to the settee. ‘Come here,’ Karen says, and she takes him into her arms like a child.

‘Karen,’ Graeme whispers, his head on her breast, his voice catching. He feels everything narrowing in on him. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s all right, shh, it’s okay.’ Karen thinks he’s apologizing for his outburst. She hoards these shards of Graeme and his troubles, as though once she finds all the pieces she’ll be able to mend something, put it back together again. She turns and looks at Martin, he is looking at them, staring, but she knows that’s a trick of the light.

Later, in the night, Karen is jolted awake. She is thinking about Agnes and Martin. Agnes with a cigarette in her mouth, passing it to Martin. Martin and Agnes in the sitting room talking. Martin . . . Just then, Graeme rolls over. He’s asleep, but he’s talking. ‘Agnes,’ he says, loudly and clearly, ‘Agnes.’ In a flash Karen knows about Graeme and Agnes, in a flash she sees what has been happening.

Elizabeth

I knew Robert didn’t want to talk to me. I knew he was beginning to feel my involvement with his family had moved beyond interested and toward meddling. But I couldn’t stop myself. I had to talk to him. I told myself that if my suspicions were correct, I had to do something to prevent him from being hurt. I knew my motives were questionable. I didn’t care.

The next day I left work early and went round to the Throckmorton house. I let myself in through the back door. Robert was in his office, catching up with paperwork. I was relieved to find him alone.

‘Listen,’ I said, full of purpose. ‘How are you – how are you and Agnes getting on these days?’

‘What?’ Robert was annoyed again. I could hear it. He didn’t want to see me. ‘Thank you for picking up Jenny the other day,’ he said, forcing a smile. ‘I’m dealing with it.’

‘I’m not worried about that,’ I said, ‘about school. I’m worried about you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, you.’ I took a breath. I knew there was a good chance I’d humiliate myself, whatever I said. ‘Graeme –’

Robert interrupted. ‘So his reaction was a little harsh. Jenny knows how to take him, we all do. We find ignoring him works best.’

‘That’s just it. What if he relies on that? What if . . .’ I looked around for somewhere to sit, feeling defeated before I’d even begun.

‘Come on Elizabeth, I can’t read your mind.’

‘It’s something that Jenny said the other day when I took her out for lunch. She told me that she finds Graeme disgusting, that all he ever thinks about is sex. And fucking. That’s what she said. Sex and fucking.’

‘Really?’ Robert put down his pen. At last I had his attention.

‘I thought it was odd. I thought, well, I thought it was inappropriate. It made me wonder, it made me wonder if perhaps, well, something . . . something wrong was happening with Graeme . . .’

‘Something wrong?’

‘Yes, if Graeme and Agnes . . .’

Robert started to laugh.

‘What?’ I asked, ‘what’s so funny?’

‘I see,’ he said nodding, ‘okay. This makes sense now. You’ve got it completely wrong.’

‘What?’

‘Jenny thinks that Agnes and Graeme are having an affair.’ Robert laughed again. ‘Agnes told me.’

‘Oh,’ I said, and I felt like I’d been pushed back in my seat. It wasn’t true then.

‘Yes, it’s silly, well, not silly. But that would explain what she said to you, wouldn’t it? If she thinks that Graeme’s the kind of dirty dog who would have it off with his own sister-in-law, well, no wonder she’s disgusted.’ Robert laughed once more, and stopped abruptly. ‘It’s the kind of thing I might have imagined when I was her age.’ He gave me a look that made me think about what we had been like as teenagers. Jenny was a paragon of good behaviour. Into witchcraft perhaps, paranoid about her new sister-in-law, but nothing more sinister – or adventurous – than that.

‘You should stop worrying,’ Robert said. ‘She’ll be fine.’

And maybe he was right. Standing there next to him I wanted to believe him. For a long moment I did.

Robert

When I came home from London it was as though everything had changed. I couldn’t say exactly what was different, there was nothing definite, apart from what had happened to Jenny, and I found that inexplicable, along with her allegations about Graeme and Agnes. I was completely baffled. Agnes was the same, if anything things were even better with her than before, sharper, sexier. But she had hardened her dislike of Elizabeth; she felt my old friend was prying. So did I, really. And Graeme, well, Graeme seemed to be having some kind of brain fever, he was all over the place. At the time I couldn’t understand what was happening to him and even thinking back now, I still find it difficult. And Karen was lost. Karen was lost to us already.

But Jenny . . . I see now that it was Jenny I was failing. I found it hard to be her parent and her brother at the same time; I guess I wanted her to be grown-up, to take care of herself like Graeme and I did after our mother died. From the time our father was disabled it had fallen on us to be her parents. Karen was living with us by then and I suppose I assumed that Karen would mother Jenny, although truth be told, I didn’t think about it all that much. I was confident we could stay together as a family, in the house, as though the house itself would parent us. And we did stay together, and we did get by, and we were a happy household. And Agnes only added to my joy.

But after Elizabeth paid her call and told me her suspicions about Graeme and Agnes I was cross with Jenny. And her stories. I laughed it off in front of Elizabeth, but I was angry. When my sister came home from school I cornered her outside her bedroom.

‘Agnes and Elizabeth tell me you’ve been telling stories,’ I said.

‘What?’ Her eyes narrowed.

‘Agnes tells me that you’ve accused her and Graeme of having an affair. Elizabeth says you said virtually the same thing to her.’

‘She is.’ I could see Jenny’s hands were clenched into fists. Colour was rising in her cheeks.

‘She is what?’

‘Having an aff–’ She stumbled over the words.

‘Yes?’ I said, attempting to be patient, understanding.

‘I wasn’t going to tell you. I saw –’

‘You saw nothing. Out of the blue you accuse Agnes of having it off with Graeme. You’ve got no right to –’

‘I did not.’ Jenny was angry. ‘I never accused Agnes of anything.’

‘Oh, so now you deny it. It’s not true then?’

‘I saw them,’ Jenny said coldly. I could see she was trying to salvage her dignity. ‘She’s only saying it because she knows I saw them fucking.’

I was shocked. I tried not to show it. ‘I don’t believe you.’

‘Fine. Don’t believe me then. See if I care.’ Jenny turned and walked away, leaving me standing in the hallway.

And I didn’t believe her. Agnes would never do that to me. Graeme would not do that to me. They would not. What had got into Jenny?

When the builder Derek Hill finally turned up on the following Monday morning he declared our house a disaster site. He wasn’t joking – he threatened to call in Health and Safety. He said that the whole structural fabric of the old wing of the house had been undermined, primarily by neglect, although the work of the last set of builders hadn’t helped any. I’d been hoping that his crew would simply move in and take over where the last lot had left off and that Agnes and I would finally get our own bathroom and sitting room. But according to him the costs had sky-rocketed well beyond all previous estimates. The wing needed a new roof, all the structural supports – joists, beams – should be replaced, new wiring, new plumbing . . . he said it would be best if we could think of that part of the house as just a shell. It would have to be taken apart and put back together again, including what was left of the precious plaster ceiling in the room downstairs.

He gave me a quote. There was no way that we could afford it, especially not this time of year. I was still paying off the previous workmen; I’d had to struggle to prevent them from suing. I could pay Derek Hill to shore things up and prevent the wing from collapsing, but that was it. He said Agnes and I had to move out of our room, it was too dangerous, both the roof and the floor could go at any time. I would have ignored him but, as though to demonstrate, half the ceiling in our bedroom collapsed that evening while we were downstairs eating.

So Agnes and I moved into what was my old bedroom, back on the same side of the house as everyone else. There wasn’t time to redecorate. In my old bedroom I felt like a boy again; contrary to how that might sound, it was not a good feeling. And Agnes wasn’t happy. She didn’t show it, she hid it well, but I could tell she was dismayed.

Lolly makes a discovery

Lolly is doing a research project for History. T-top-secret, she tells everybody. She has got permission from the Headteacher to use the university library at Cambridge to do her research. Her mother drives her in after school once a week.

‘Lolly,’ Jenny whispers during class. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m not telling.’

‘Come on,’ Jenny wheedles, ‘you can tell me. You owe me one.’

Lolly looks at Jenny, unaware of owing her anything. Then she thinks of Jenny’s confrontation with Mr McKay, a highlight in recent school memory. ‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Remember I told you there was a story, a really terrible story, somehow connected to this village?’

Jenny pales. Her face shuts down. Her eyes flicker. ‘You mean witches?’ Jenny hasn’t told Lolly about seeing Agnes fly, even though she knows it’s the thing Lolly would most love to hear. It’s too much, she thinks, it will sound daft, like she’s making it up. She can’t tell anybody.

‘Yeah. That’s what I’m researching.’

‘Oh,’ says Jenny. She blinks. ‘Witches and Warboys.’

‘You got it,’ says Lolly. ‘That’s right. I’ll tell you about it later.’

After school Lolly waits for Jenny behind a tree. When Jenny walks by, Lolly leaps out, screeching. Jenny screams herself rigid, and they both laugh hysterically. Lolly links her arm through Jenny’s. ‘Guess what,’ she says.

‘What?’ Jenny expects news about some boy or another Lolly is pursuing.

‘I found out what happened. You won’t believe it. It’s so cool.’

‘What?’ asks Jenny, suddenly frightened.

‘Your aunt – Agnes –’

‘She’s not my aunt. She’s my sister-in-law.’

‘Oh yeah. Anyway, she’s called Agnes Samuel, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ Jenny thinks she doesn’t want to hear what Lolly has to say.

‘Well, four hundred years ago more or less – 1593 – three people from Warboys were hung for witchcraft. An entire family, mum, dad, and their daughter. Guess what their names were.’

‘What?’ Jenny speaks sharply. She doesn’t want to guess.

‘Alice Samuel. John Samuel. And Agnes Samuel.’ Lolly looks at Jenny. Jenny doesn’t react. ‘Agnes Samuel was their daughter. They were accused of witchcraft by – get this – Robert Throckmorton.’ Lolly claps her hands together and jumps in the air with glee. ‘That’s right! Robert Throckmorton! Isn’t that amazing?’

‘Why were they accused?’ Jenny has stopped walking.

‘Why? For bewitching his children, that’s why. For causing his children to have terrible fits. The Samuels were hung – hanged,’ she shakes her head, ‘and their bodies were stripped naked for public viewing!’

Jenny closes her eyes. She skips a beat. ‘So what,’ she says, hedging, defensive.

‘So what? So your sister-in-law is descended from a witch, that’s what. And she’s married the man descended from her accuser and –’

‘She can’t be descended from them. They’re all dead. There was no one to be descended from.’

‘Oh,’ says Lolly, taken aback by Jenny’s logic. ‘Oh. Well then,’ she pauses, and almost levitates with excitement as she works it out, ‘Well then, she IS a witch. She must be! She’s come back. She’s come back from the dead, from an unmarked grave, to get her revenge.’

‘Lolly,’ says Jenny, fear in her voice, ‘shut up.’

‘But it’s fantastic!’ says Lolly.

‘Just shut up, will you, just fucking shut up.’

‘Oh,’ says Lolly, wounded. ‘O – okay. I j–just thought –’ but Jenny has fled.

Jenny runs all the way home and up to her room. She locks the door and refuses dinner. She lies on her bed and stares at the ceiling. She thinks about her mother, tries to conjure her from photographs, but she can’t see her. She’s never been able to see her. Why are you dead, she asks, why did you leave me?

That night she sleeps fitfully. She wakes around midnight and can hear the voices of Robert and Agnes in her brother’s old bedroom on the other side of the wall. Later still she wakes again, to the sound of banging and moaning. She gets up and looks out the window, alarmed. Then she realizes that what she is hearing is Robert and Agnes having sex, the bedstead, or someone’s head, rhythmically hitting the wall. It’s as though she can smell it – them. She sees Agnes and Graeme on the couch and is overwhelmed by disgust. She climbs back into bed and pulls the cover over her head, jamming her fists over her ears.

Karen opens the closet

Evening. The boys are asleep. Graeme is nowhere. Agnes and Robert are at the Black Hat. Jenny is in her room studying. Martin lies on his back in bed, his eyes open. Karen is tidying the bedroom she shares with Graeme, the bedroom she has shared with Graeme since she was nineteen. Since her revelation about Graeme and Agnes she has done nothing, said nothing. She stands at the far end of the bed straightening the patchwork quilt Mrs T. made for Graeme years ago. She plumps the pillows, opens the wardrobe, puts the shoes in the shoe rack one at a time. Footles about looking for her old trainers. Her hand moves against the dry-cleaner’s plastic hanging there.