A Sister’s Gift (17 page)

‘Look, Duncan – this really isn’t the best time.’

‘She’s there right now. I just saw her walking in the garden.’ I stiffen, edging slowly away from the window with the phone in my hand. Is it true, did he see her just now, looking for snowdrops under the dappled shade of the silver birch? And if Duncan can see her, then where must he be?

‘This is beginning to sound like stalking, Duncan.’ He knows
we’re both in the house; a shiver of discomfort works its way down my neck.

‘I’m not threatening either of you, am I?’ he says nastily. ‘I’m making a phone call to an old friend. I was passing and I saw her. You never bothered replying to any of my emails and I’ve been waiting for her call and…’

‘She doesn’t want any contact with you, Duncan. That’s why you haven’t heard from us.’ I’d forgotten all about his emails -he’s sent a couple through after Christmas as well, but there’s been so much else going on in the past few weeks I haven’t had time to think about him.

The truth is, Scarlett’s been really peed off with having to take her temperature and start up the regime all over again so I never even mentioned his emails to her. Should I put him onto her now? I always get such a creepy feeling about this guy…

‘Look,’ I try and keep my voice pleasant, ‘she’s moved on now, Duncan. You really need to let her go. My sister’s got a boyfriend now too,’ I add for good measure (not that she’s made too much of that, herself). ‘Someone she’s serious about.’

‘You think I’m not serious about her?’

‘I think you’re…’ I want to say deluded, but I don’t want to incite him. ‘You’re mistaken about things. She’s moved on.’

‘Moved on.’ Duncan repeats slowly ‘Maybe. But I’m only hearing all of this from you, aren’t I? Look – I’m afraid I’ve done something a little bit foolish, Hollie.’ His voice has turned sheepish now. ‘And I need to speak to her. Give me her mobile number at least, I’ll call her myself…’

‘I’m afraid I can’t do that.’
Stop being so stubborn
, a little voice in my head says now.
Give him her number and let them sort whatever it is out between them
.

‘You aren’t going to stand in the way of what I need to say to your sister, Hollie. Stop trying to protect her like you always did. She’s not your little sister any more. In fact, you aren’t protecting
her, you know that?’ His voice takes on a new energy. ‘By standing between us you’re only making things worse.’

‘What do you mean, “like I always did”?’ I retort. I’ve got a cold shiver running down my spine at the moment and my previous thoughts about putting him on the phone to her melts in the stream. He was her boyfriend for a short while. She might have told him things about us – personal, family things – that he thinks he can use against me now. I protected her, of course I did, what older sister wouldn’t have done the same…?

‘She’s still got her promise to fulfil to me, don’t forget.’

‘What promise?’ I glance out of the window and I can spy Scarlett now, her cheeks ruddy and her hair windblown, her sketchbook under her arm, tramping back down the path. She’s been sketching the February snowdrops, I can just about make them out from the delicate green and white colouring on her pad. ‘Snowdrops for hope and consolation,’ Auntie Flo would have said. But there’s none of that here for this man. She made a promise to me too, I think. And mine’s more important than yours.

‘She knows what she owes me. She won’t have forgotten, I promise you that.’

‘Duncan,’ I work at keeping my voice reasonable, ‘even if she did promise you something, ages ago…she obviously hasn’t kept in contact and clearly has no intention of fulfilling it, whatever it is. So what can you do about it?’

‘I don’t have to do anything.’ His voice is blurry at the edges and I wonder if he’s been drinking. ‘But do you think…you think that we ever get away with anything in this life? We don’t, you know. Not ever. She won’t, either.’

‘If you’re threatening her…’

‘I wouldn’t harm a hair on her head, Hollie. Believe me. I wouldn’t risk the bad karma. I believe in Uni…’ he’s slurring now ‘…in
Universal Law
, you see. I believe that the bad deeds we do come home to roost.’

‘I’m sorry, I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ Bloody
hell, this man really is some prize fruitcake. My sister knows how to pick them, that’s for sure.

‘Do you remember all those red balloons we sent up for charity in the autumn? The wish balloons?’ he continues now. ‘Well…I sent a special message for Scarlett in my one.’

‘She’ll never get that, Duncan!’ I might be talking to a four-year-old. ‘Only a fraction of those things ever reach their target recipient and, frankly, as far as I could see, none of those red balloons were ever meant to. Nobody was putting any addresses on the envelopes, were they? It was all more of a “sign of intent,” a wish for somebody, that’s all.’

‘I didn’t have to put her address on it,’ he says confidently. ‘The universe knows where she’s at.’

The universe, right.

‘That balloon will find her all right. And when it does, she’ll bring herself to justice in the end. I won’t have to do a thing.’ ‘What did you write?’

There’s a long pause now. When he comes back, his voice sounds deflated, sapped of all its former determination. ‘Five words, Hollie. Just five little words. But she’ll know what they mean.’

‘Listen, Duncan. Listen to me.’ I lower my voice as the French doors open and I hear my sister pulling off her boots on the mat.

‘You
listen.’ He suddenly changes gear again. ‘I know what’s important to your sister – her job, right? You think I don’t know that? I went out with that girl for six months. I cared for her.’ His voice wobbles. ‘But you mark my words. I’ve got intel that could pull that job right out from under her. Just imagine. I could discredit her so as she’d never be able to go back to her precious seeds in the rainforest again. Everything she’s worked so hard for – it’ll come tumbling down about her ears like a pack of cards…’

‘But you won’t do that,’ I remind him. ‘All that bad karma, remember?’

‘I told you. I won’t have to.’

‘Come on, you’ve got nothing on her, Duncan,’ I mutter.

‘She knows that I do. Ask her. Just you ask her.’

I hesitate, looking up briefly as Scarlett comes into the room now and makes a beeline for the magazine I was leafing through earlier. He’s beyond odd, that’s for sure – but he’s right about one thing – he’s
her
problem. When Scarlett sees the magazine’s a pregnancy one, she drops it with a scowl and for some reason that makes up my mind for me in an instant. I’m sticking to my guns here. She’s only still here in Kent because she’s hoping to get the money from the house to carry on her work in the Amazon, isn’t she? If she thought that Duncan really could pull the plug on all that – and that he has every intention of doing so – she wouldn’t stay.

And she must stay.

‘Tell her,’ he says.

‘OK,’ I tell him calmly. ‘I’ve got to find the right moment though.’

There’s still ten days to go before we find out whether my sister’s pregnant after her second attempt or not. I’m not risking driving her away before then by exposing her to this guy.

‘Ready yet?’ Scarlett points to the swimming bags. She’s making a ‘wrap it up’ signal with her finger.

‘She’s there, isn’t she?’ His voice is suddenly wistful.

‘No, no, she isn’t.’ I put the phone down too hard, too rapidly, and my sister looks at me, puzzled.

‘For me?’

‘Just a wrong number and, yes, I’m ready to go to the pool if you are?’ I affect an air of nonchalance that I do not really feel.

Duncan is bluffing. He might think he’s got something on her, but he hasn’t. I rack my brains but he’s using her devotion to her job as a means to try to get to her, I decide. She already had all that paperwork she was waiting for through from a Professor Klausmann, I remember, and everything seemed to be in order.

There is nothing, I decide, nothing for us to be worried about at all.

I put the phone with its text message back in my pocket and fold my clothes away in the bag to place in the locker. Hollie’s still in the changing room, taking her sweet time. I could text Gui back, I suppose. Better than speaking to him because he’ll worm it all out of me if I do and I still don’t want to tell him about the surrogacy. Silly I know, because it’s my body, my life. He isn’t in control of me. I’m just not sure how he’ll take it, that’s all.

‘Are you nearly there?’ I call to Hol through the closed changing room door. I take her muffled reply as a yes.

Oh, fuck it. I pull my phone out again.

That should keep him happy for the time being. No good frightening him off. I’ll make sure the pregnancy’s a go-er first.

There are a couple of messages from the PlanetLove guys too. Emoto’s just sent me a pic of him holding up one of the rarest
orchids in the world – so rare it’s only been documented once before – and I feel a real pang at not being there myself.

Eve’s sent a message to say there’s a new European group who might be about to offer us a lifeline. She didn’t mention anything about my allegedly dodgy job application, which means either she’s not heard of any problems or they don’t merit a mention. Either way I feel really out of the loop right now.

I shut the phone down. Sometimes it can be really hard to do your bit, but I know I’m doing the right thing in being here at the moment. Now, where’s Hol? The changing room door is open so I guess she’s made her way down to the poolside already.

But she hasn’t. When I get down there my sister’s sitting hunched in the spectator area, still fully dressed and looking utterly miserable.

‘Hey!’ I’m on her case in an instant. ‘Come on. Just a little paddle. Just dunk a toe in. Anything. You promised.’

‘I can’t.’ Hol shakes her head.

‘You can’t, or you won’t?’

‘I wanted to try, Lettie, believe me. I know I promised you I would but…I physically can’t bring myself to get into the water. I changed into that swimsuit and then I – I changed back again, because I knew I couldn’t do it. You can’t force me.’

‘Hollie, darling,’ I tell her patiently, like you would a little kid, ‘if you’d only just try…Come on, try and go to the water’s edge this one time. I don’t ask anything more. You’re scared of what you imagine will happen, that’s all. And the more you let it go on, the bigger it gets.’

‘I know.’ She’s closed her eyes now, she’s not even looking at me. Her fists are clenched tight on her lap and her face has gone a strange shade of grey. ‘I know all that. But it doesn’t make any difference, I still can’t do it, don’t you see?’

‘No. I don’t see,’ I tell her baldly. ‘You won’t try anything new, you’re determined not to step out of your comfort zone even if it kills you…’

‘I realise I must be wearying.’ When my sister opens her eyes there’s no mistaking the pained expression in them. ‘And I want to go in, believe me I do. But trying to force me like this, it isn’t the way.’

What does she think having this baby for her is going to do to me, though? Gui’s text message right now has thrown it all into stark relief for me. After all, if he does get upset about it I’m potentially screwed, aren’t I? I’m risking it all. What is
she
prepared to risk?

‘Hollie,
Hollie
…you are a complete and utter…utter wimp!’ I throw at her at last.

‘I’m a wimp?’ she repeats softly. She turns to look at me but for some reason I can’t return her gaze. ‘Maybe now, Scarlett. But it wasn’t always so, was it?’

‘Hey,’ Richard murmurs softly as the warm end of the quilt slips from him. He reaches out and pulls my snug body to him instead in sleepy protest. It feels as if we went to bed hardly any time ago and already the radiator is gurgling into life, warning me that it’ll soon be time to be getting up again.

6.15 am? I stare blearily at the bedside clock. I turn in towards my husband, trying to lure myself back into sleep but it won’t work. I kiss his face gently, not really wanting to disturb him but unable to stop myself nonetheless. I watch his face while he is sleeping. He’s been away for just under a week this time. Rich and his dad have been negotiating some work with a building firm that belongs to an Italian guy who Bill used to know. Rich hasn’t filled me in on all the details yet. But – I lift my face to look at him more closely – even asleep he looks preoccupied. Distant.

Was he distant last night? I cast my mind back to yesterday evening, our tenth wedding anniversary. Rich was massively contrite because he’d only remembered it at the very last minute, and had to buy a magnum of champagne from the duty-free, but I didn’t mind. Last night he more than made up for it. I grin happily. Judging by the amount of time it took before we actually got to
sleep
last night, I’d hazard he was pretty happy to be back with me too.

‘Penny for your thoughts,’ Richard murmurs now, his mouth
on mine so sudden and warm and delicious that I’m loath to admit to having any thoughts at all. I want him to make love to me again. When we’re in bed together that seems to be about the only time we have any privacy these days. We even shared our anniversary champagne with Scarlett last night. I didn’t mind sharing the champagne, but it kind of ruined the intimacy.

‘I’m not thinking about anything much.’
Only about how much I’ve missed you, and about how unsettled things are here at the moment what with Duncan ringing and there still being over a week to go before we find out if my sister’s expecting our baby, and the fact that she nearly ended up having a massive argument with me in public yesterday when I couldn’t bring myself to go into the pool…

‘No?’ He opens one eye curiously now and looks at me. ‘Nothing you want to share with me?’