A Sister’s Gift (47 page)

‘I’m going to be in London for a whole month,’ he told me late last night. ‘If you change your mind, you’ve got my mobile number, right? In fact, ring me anyway when you’re settled. Promise?’ He’d been fussing over me like a mother hen. The memory of that unlikely scenario makes me smile, even now.

Gingerly, he pulls up the blinds by our window and the bright morning sun streams in. ‘Have you got very far to go from here?’

I rub my eyes blearily. I’ve got to get on another bus, but I’m not sure which one. I need to find that scrap of paper Barry wrote down all the details on.

Man, I’m tired. I barely slept a wink, it was so hot, even with the air conditioning and that child in front was whinging all night. He’s snoring softly now, but everyone’s making a move
and his mama’s going to have to as well, in a minute. I shoot her a sympathetic glance which Emoto intercepts.

‘Want some help bringing your bags down?’ he offers kindly. I’ve got up to let him by, but now I’m just standing in the aisle like a dummy. In a minute, Emoto is going to leave and I’ll be left here all on my own. Who would have thought I’d be feeling as devastated as I do about that?

‘Come on, girl. It won’t be as bad as all that.’ Emoto helps me with bringing all my luggage down. Then he helps the mum in front of us with her toddler. She thanks him profusely but I can see he’s already glancing at his watch. Is he going to be late for his flight?

‘Scarlett, I feel really unhappy leaving you like this.’ He hesitates.

‘Have you even sorted out where you’re going next?’ ‘I’m sorry?’ I look at him blankly.

‘The address you’re going to next. Look, why don’t I call you a cab…?’

‘Too expensive.’ In a daze, I follow him down the coach steps and out into the heat of the day.

It is so bright standing out here. The air is so hot you can smell it. Was it really only one month ago I stood here waiting for Eve to arrive, imagining that somehow returning to South America was going to be the solution to all my problems back home?

‘But are you going to be OK?’ Emoto is still hovering, unsure of what to do next. ‘You look like you could do with some help, only I’m supposed to be booking in for that flight to London some time soon…’

I turn away from him deliberately so he can’t see my face. Man, I wish I was the one getting on that flight. There was a time when I couldn’t get away from England quickly enough. There
was
no place on earth that could have been too far away from home for me. Yet now…

The hazy afternoon air shimmers off the pavement and my memories flicker like a colourful kaleidoscope of images before my eyes; the stone lions on the bridge at Rochester, Michaelmas daisies in the garden at Florence Cottage, Ruffles with his tail wagging, deliriously happy to see me,
Richard’

I have forfeited all that, I recall, for the thing I thought I wanted more than anything. But it wasn’t worth sacrificing my sister’s peace of mind for. It wasn’t worth losing her and Richard’s love and goodwill over. Nothing could ever be worth that.

‘What’ll you do now?’ Emoto still seems reluctant to leave this damsel in distress.

‘Scrub toilets, pull the hair out of plug-holes like you said, help peel potatoes in the kitchen…’ I run through the list of duties Barry warned me would be on the rota if I accepted the au pair’s job.

‘No, I mean,
right
now. How are you going to cope? The whole band has scattered. You’re going to be so alone, aren’t you?’ He knows, that’s the thing. He can see right past my ‘I’m up for it’ act.

‘Alone?’ I force a laugh, indicating the pied-piper throngs surging out of the airport and all around us. ‘It is difficult to see how when there are so many people in the world.’ A food vendor smiles, waving the greasy smell of arepas under our noses, a parrot on a chain stretches his wings out, balancing on a man’s shoulder, a flower seller places a single orange bloom in my hand.

‘You won’t be lonely, Scarlett. Remember you’re the one who told me that the Yanomami say: “Whatever you need, do not look too far. It’ll be right there in front of you”,’ Emoto says feelingly.

‘I know.’ It was always true, too, when I was out there with them in the forest. Will it still be true now?

‘Oh, crap!’ Emoto dives out suddenly as the toddler who was our companion and tormentor on the bus wanders happily right into the middle of the road. His mum took his eyes off him for
a second and he must have caught sight of that sinking red metallic balloon…

My hero scoops up the toddler and balloon seconds before he’s crushed by the bus that’s just pulled out into the street. I give him a round of applause, laughing as he crosses back over the road to me.

‘That was a close call,’ I grin. ‘Hey, little fella.’ I smile at the toddler, who seems oblivious to all the drama. I watch as Emoto pulls off a little envelope before handing the shining balloon over to the child, passes the boy back to his mother.

‘Bloody
hell
, Scarlett.’

I give him a clap, laughing as he crosses back over the road to me.

‘That was a close call,’ I agree.

‘Yes, it was. But look at this…’The way he’s waving that little envelope in his hand, you’d think it was some kind of precious document.

‘You’re going to miss your flight,’ I remind him. I don’t like balloon messages. Not since Lucy Lundy warned me Duncan had sent one off with a nasty message about me inside it. Bastard. ‘Chuck it in the bin,’ I advise him.

‘You
chuck it.’ Emoto hands me the envelope, his eyes shining in wonder and anticipation of my response. ‘After all, it is addressed to you.’

No!

I shiver as he hands it over. It can’t be. Who the hell would be sending me messages like this? Gui? Duncan?

I pull the thin card out of its envelope, my fingers trembling. There is one little sentence on it on it. That’s all. My eyes have misted over…

This isn’t Duncan’s handwriting, though. I’d recognise this neat script anywhere.

I feel a lump in my throat at her use of my old pet name. God. I miss you, Hol. I miss you so much…

How in God’s name did this get here?

And could she really have forgiven me? For
everything?

I turn the card quickly over, looking at the date. There’s a lot of other stuff written on the envelope too – this card has been doing the rounds – but it looks like this was originally sent last autumn. So maybe she’s talking about Aaron, here?

In the autumn I was still out in the rainforest gathering seeds, dating Gui at the weekends, enjoying my time with the tribe. In the autumn, Hollie must have had her letter through from that doctor in India. She’d have realised that I was the best chance she still had left. She’d have realised that all these years of holding onto resentment at what I’d brought her to, was never going to help. When she asked me to have this baby for her, I see now what that must have cost her. She swallowed her pride.

That’s what I’m going to have to do, now. Could it be possible that, somewhere deep in her heart, she still wants me back? I’m not after her Richard any more. I know now what a deep mistake that was. It was what we two sisters did to him that brought out that other side of him that I discovered that day up on Bluebell Hill. He is still a deeply loving and loveable man. But he’s
her
man.

And this baby I’m carrying – it’s their baby, and I know I could still get it back to them. There’s a flight out of here this afternoon, if I spent every last penny I have, I could be on it. The sudden realisations tumbling through my mind feel…they feel like the release of white doves at a wedding. If Hol forgave me for Aaron, she might forgive me for everything else as well. I could be on that flight. Oh, I don’t know how this baby’s parents will receive me if I go back, whether they’d be more angry than pleased, or whether they’d welcome me with open arms…

‘Is this the bus that you need, señorita?’ The South American lady is bustling around, picking up her bags and her son now.

The bus. Oh, God! Should I get on that bus? I have a job waiting for me. I have a chance to stay here a bit longer, see what comes up, see how it all pans out. For a split second I’m my four-year-old self at the bend of the river once more, stamping my feet and crying after the little boats Hollie said I would never get back again, because I still believed in the possibility of things and she did not. Have I given up on that now? Do I really believe that it will never be possible to retrieve what we have lost?

The bus screeches to a halt on the other side of the road. The little lad waves goodbye. I can just about see him still, his fists flailing a wave over his mum’s shoulder, still holding tight onto that crumpling red balloon, the one that has travelled so incredibly and inexplicably far to get to me today. I take in Emoto’s puzzled face, realising that I’ve still got some explaining to do.

Whatever you need, don’t look too far for it, because it’ll be right there in front of you…

I glance back towards the airport doors. The weltering throng heaves and settles like an Amazon Blue parrot shaking out its feathers on some branch high up in the mist-topped canopy.

I don’t know where that bus is going. I shake my head at the lady from the coach because, wherever it’s headed, I’m not getting on it. Instead, I turn to cross back over the road with Emoto, back towards Caracas International.

I am going home.

Pandora’s Box
Little Miracles