A Sister’s Gift (11 page)

He takes one of those wooden stick things – like lolly-sticks – and says ‘Open, please’, and places it on my tongue. Then he looks under my eyelids.

‘Ah, so. And you have been trying
all
this time? For so long?’

Too long, I think, tight-lipped.

‘Long enough to worry, ha?’

‘Is this…relevant, actually?’ I shift my bottom on my plastic chair. ‘To…er…learning to swim?’

‘It is most relevant.’ He leans over and switches off the tape and I feel myself relax instantly.

‘It’s my sister,’ I tell him at last. ‘D’you remember I once told you about her, she works abroad? Well. She’s back in the UK at the moment and she’s agreed to act as a surrogate for me and Rich and have our baby…’

‘This is most fortunate,’ he says approvingly. ‘In my country, each family only allowed one child per couple. If couple not fertile, big problems for whole family unit!’ he grins wryly. ‘Parents not happy. Grandparents not happy. But families can help each other out in this thing. This is good way, and this how we came to have our precious Daisy-Lou, too.’

‘You did?’ I crane my neck to look at him. ‘You used a surrogate to have Daisy-Lou?’

He nods. ‘A surrogate
father,’
he says. That’s slightly different, but it’s the same thing in principle.

‘Oh! Who’d have thought it? Do you mind if I ask, Mr Huang, did it take very long?’ I ask shyly. He might not want to talk about it, I realise, but it’s the one thing that’s been bothering me ever since Scarlett made her offer. Scarlett isn’t known to be the most patient person in the world. If it’s going to take more than one or two attempts she might reconsider…’My sister needs to get back to her job, you see,’ I offer by way of explanation.

‘Ah, she must return to job. Sister
most
kind to do this for you. If sister is healthy, then it should not take too long. For Mrs Huang, it took only one attempt, which we considered a great good fortune. My wife not so young now,’ he explains. ‘And time was getting short. Like for you. We had to get conditions right.’

‘I hope we can get the conditions right too, then. First attempt isn’t too bad,’ I say, heartened.

‘Now, Miss Hollie. Tell me what you dream of.’ He’s picked
up his plastic skull with the little meridian lines drawn on it and he’s considering it thoughtfully.

‘I never dream, Mr Huang,’ I tell him, surprised. ‘I used to, when I was a kid. But not for years now. Not everybody does dream, do they?’

‘Everybody does,’ he asserts. ‘That is the normal way.’

‘Well,’ I stop and consider, ‘maybe I do, then. I just don’t remember them.’

‘Ah. Then you must try, Miss Hollie. It is important and -after first treatment, I think, you will become better at this. We say dreams are…’ his eyes go to the ceiling, looking for the right words ‘…building blocks of future. Come from desire.
Very
important.’

I look at him, confused.

‘Now. When you are awake, Miss Hollie. What do you dream of? The child…’

I swallow uncomfortably. Why is he asking me all this? He didn’t quiz me last time. He just stuck a few needles into some acupuncture points. I imagined maybe he could do the same thing to release the phobia.

‘Well.’ I squirm. ‘Silly little things, really. Daydreams.’ You don’t talk about daydreams to other people, do you? They’re private. ‘I imagine…’ my eyes go up to the small white ceiling, trying to bring something down so I can tell him about it ‘…taking my son up the steps of Rochester Castle – one day when I have one, that is. When he’s old enough. My Auntie Flo used to take my little sister and me up there when we were kids. The stone steps are very precarious – well, you live around here, you probably know that – so we’d have to climb very carefully. And it’s dark in there. A bit scary, really. It smells all musty and old. But when you get to the top there’s…this sudden release of light. You can walk along the edges of the battlements and look down over the river. The air is so fresh up there, Mr Huang. It smells of the salty sea wind. She used to say to us – Auntie Flo – that
that’s where all the supply barges would come in. Auntie Flo was very big on history.’ I realise suddenly I’ve been banging on a bit. ‘Her ancestors had an important part to play in the history of the city so I guess that’s why she was so proud of it.’

Mr Huang’s eyes shine encouragingly. ‘Your ancestors too?’ he prompts.

I shake my head, embarrassed. ‘She wasn’t our auntie by blood. She was…she was my mum’s best friend. And when my mum couldn’t look after us any more she took over everything. Anyway…’ He nods me on. ‘I guess that’s my deepest desire: to pass on everything she taught me to my own child. Not to just let it all slip away. Can you understand that?’

‘It is sufficient that
you
understand it.’

‘I came here because I need to learn how to swim,’ I remind him.

‘But in Chinese medicine, we say that all things are connected, Miss Hollie. You do not yet know this. Ah, excuse, please.’ He stands up as the shop door bells sounds. ‘Mrs Huang not here today.’

I’m left in the little white room all on my own. I don’t know about all things being connected but I’ve got to learn to swim because it’s the one condition Scarlett imposed on me, and she meant it, too.

‘It’s not about the swimming,’ she told me this morning. ‘It’s about you facing your demons.’

But I know why she really needs me to do this. Perhaps it’s time she faced some of her own demons too? I had an email at work from that guy Duncan this morning. I printed it out to show her but I’m in two minds now about whether that would be wise. I pull it out of my handbag and scan over it again while I’m waiting.

Why Duncan doesn’t just contact her himself, I have no idea. Still, I’m not acting as his messenger girl, I decide. Scarlett will only get jumpy if she knows he’s after her. What if she changes her mind about sticking around here? The longer he remains out of the picture the better, as far as I’m concerned.

Mr Huang is back, beckoning me from the doorway. As we leave his little room and head down the tiny corridor on the way to his treatment area, the sun is beaming right through the dusty window that looks out over the river.

‘Ah.’ He pauses, entranced for a moment as some strange looking seagull type thing lands on the mast of a rickety sailing boat. ‘Very rare. A Chatham albatross. Where I come from in China we do not have so many birds as you have here. Too many…’ he searches for the right word ‘…buildings.’ He turns to look at me then. ‘Do not worry. You know many things. I will be your water teacher and I will help you connect everything up.’

‘And you will help me with the – er – fear of water thing?’

‘We will use acupuncture and herbs, Miss Hollie, to find the energy blockage.’

‘And then,’ I prompt, ‘this “energy blockage” – you will release it?’

‘Then,’ he says firmly, ‘it will be up to you to release it. Only you can choose to release your own fear.’

‘I already choose that.’ I grip the handles of my bag a little tighter. ‘Then I will be able to swim?’ I persist.

‘When you release energy blockage, you will be able to
dream.’
He smiles, looking up at the very rare Chatham albatross that’s soaring away from us even as we speak. ‘Then you’ll be able to do a lot more than swim, Miss Hollie. Wait and see.’

‘When I pop my clogs,’ Scarlett nudges me as we drive through the ornate iron gates into St Margaret’s cemetery, ‘I want to be buried beneath a huge fuck-off angel just like that one.’

Trust you
, I think.

‘And I want a plot with a magnificent view of the whole place, just like that person has got. I don’t want to be tucked away in a corner somewhere with just a view of a boring grey wall.’

Like our mum’s got
. I sigh, applying the handbrake and opening my car door to check I’m parked in a proper position before turning the engine off. It’s cold this morning. It doesn’t look it but it is.

‘I think it’s going to hail,’ I tell her. ‘We’ll have to be quick.’

Scarlett spreads out her hands, palms up as we walk along the path. The sky is greying over but at the moment the air is quiet and still.

‘And that person whose headstone you’re looking at happened to be married to an extremely wealthy property tycoon,’ I point out. ‘She
would
get the valley view plot.’

We stop and examine the angel figure. Her eyes are mournfully downcast and her long slender hands are held together in prayer.

‘Story goes that the man who erected this memorial was desperately in love with his wife. They say she had an affair which
broke his heart but in the end, when she got ill, he took her back and forgave her.’ I pull my gloves out of my pocket as a solitary drop of ice falls out of the sky, darkening a spot on the ground in front of me.

‘Imagine if
I
ever got to marry a hugely rich man who loved me that much.’ Scarlett folds her arms primly. ‘What would you think to
that
, Hollie?’

‘I bet they’re thin on the ground,’ I venture. She nods thoughtfully.

‘Mind you,’ she laughs shortly, ‘I suppose you’ve already got someone like that, haven’t you? Apart from the hugely rich bit? Richard worships the very ground you walk on. I’m sure he’d give you anything you asked for.’ She tosses her head.

‘Within reason, I guess.’

‘No, he would, I’m sure. He’d give you anything. I bet he’d even forgive you if you fell for someone else, too,’ she adds mischievously.

‘Neither of us is about to embark on an affair, Lettie!’

‘Faith!
She flutters her hand over her heart. ‘The very thought of it, child!’ She can be a tease, my sister, so I just ignore her and we carry on walking down the path to Mum’s plot.

‘I just wonder, you know. I always wonder about married people. How can they be so trusting of one another? Is that what
love
is?’

‘Do you love us like we were your own kids?’ Scarlett had asked Flo once, wrapping her arms around Flo’s floury apron, her hands full of sticky apricot jam.

‘I love you like the very good kids that you are,’ Flo had answered firmly.

‘Like your very own?’ Scarlett had insisted, her cherubic face looking up at her beloved Flo, holding onto the apron for dear life as Flo swung round from cooker to work surface.

‘Who knows what that is, Scarlett? I haven’t any of my own, have I? So how can I tell?’ She’d rolled her eyes at me over the
top of Scarlett’s head then, as if I – as the older girl – must surely understand how she felt. But I hadn’t understood. Not till that very moment had I ever fully understood the nature of the relationship Auntie Flo had with us girls. She looked after us. She cared for us, and very well too. But did she love us?

‘Do you think that’s what love is?’ Scarlett spins round now to look at me suddenly. ‘I think it must be. The tycoon guy forgave his wife. That’s true love for you. I think that statue was made of pure marble. What money can buy, eh?’ She’s got a faraway look on her face, surveying the angel over her shoulder wistfully. ‘And, let’s face it really, what for? She’s dead.’

‘True.’

‘I really believe if there’s any money left over after people drop, it should be spent in improving conditions for the living,’ she says piously. My eyebrows shoot up. Has she forgotten she was putting in for a huge angel headstone herself, moments ago? ‘I mean, if people weren’t so
selfish
with their money there is so much we could honestly do in the world that matters so much more than all this…’ she waves her hands disparagingly ‘…memorial stonework stuff.’

‘Like saving the Amazon forest,’ I put in for her before she says it herself. At the moment all roads lead to Rome with her. She needs to raise £400,000 to put towards buying out a tract of forest, I know – she has told us this quite a few times already. There is no other topic of conversation. There is nothing on her mind apart from this one, all-consuming task which she appears to have no idea
at all
how she is going to accomplish.

Except she’s warned me this fund-raising is going to take up a lot of her time and she won’t have too much spare to be with me. I’m not even sure why she agreed to come up here with me this morning.

‘The rainforest. Precisely.’ Scarlett gives me a ‘you’ve got it’ glance. She takes a surreptitious look around and then, sussing that there’s no one near, she sneaks her juggling balls out of her
pocket. One, two, three, four balls, all harlequin-coloured, whizz up into the muted morning air as we walk along. ‘To bring a bit of jollity to the proceedings,’ she answers my raised eyebrow. ‘Come on, this is a bit of a dull thing to be doing first thing in the new year, isn’t it, Hol? Visiting graves. Do you think she even knows we’re here?’

We come to a halt beside Mum’s grave. It doesn’t look like much. Very
ordinary
, now I look at it through Scarlett’s eyes.

‘Not much money wasted
here
, was there?’ The balls thud down into her palm and stay there. ‘“Helen Hudson”,’ she intones. ‘“Born 1st April 1947. Died 3rd day of Jan 1990. Intrepid explorer, mother and friend.”
Christ.’

Is she looking at that chip in the gravestone that was always there from the first? The bit after ‘friend’. As kids we always thought it looked like a question mark: friend?

My sister puts her fingernails to her mouth. ‘Is that it? All her life amounted to, in five words? It all seems so…bald and…somehow sparse, don’t you think?’ My sister stares hard at the headstone for a few minutes. ‘It all seems so unfair. After all the work she put in, to try and better this world. None of it ever got recognised, did it? Do you think sometimes her life was a total waste, Hollie?’

‘Well – she had
us,’
I remind Scarlett. ‘So whatever we do counts for her too, no?’

Scarlett shrugs.

‘What if we don’t do anything with our lives either?’