The Sister: A psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won't see coming (10 page)

‘They’re all dead, aren’t they?’ Anna kneels next to me. ‘Grace?’

‘They’re not dead. You’ve pulled up nearly everything. It’s taken me years to establish them.’ I bite back tears, tell myself they’re only plants, but I stack this loss against my others all the same.

‘But there’s no flowers, no colour in them. They look like weeds.’

‘It’s winter; they’re supposed to look like that.’

‘I’m so sorry. I’ve never had a garden. Can we put them back?’

‘We can try but the shock might kill them, if it hasn’t already.’

Anna stands, brushing soil from her knees. ‘I’ll fetch some tools.’

The ground is hard, a frost forming already. Anna angles a flashlight towards the solid earth as I stab a fork in, pressing on it with one foot and then two in an effort to drive it down. There is a throbbing in my lower back and I am sweating, despite the evening chill. I almost cry with relief as I hear Dan call out, see his solid frame lumbering towards us. I gratefully hand over the fork and as he loosens the soil I’m able to scrape holes with my hands. It doesn’t take too long before the plants are back in their earthy homes, drooping and withering.

Anna’s apology runs on a loop and it isn’t until we’re sitting cross-legged on the lounge floor in front of a crackling fire, brandy snifters in hands, that I tell her not to worry and I mean it.

‘You were trying to help. We’ll find this funny one day.’

I tell her about the time Charlie tried to bake me a cake. She’d carefully measured out the ingredients, put them in the food processor and switched it on without the lid. The chocolate mix went everywhere. Grandad had to paint the ceiling and Grandma’s curtains still have brown splodges, even now.

Anna and I laugh but Dan sits apart, nursing his drink, an emotion on his face I can’t identify. A shiver runs through me and I’m not sure why.

M
y eyes sprang open
. The day I’d thought would never come had finally arrived.
I’m eighteen!
I leapt out of bed and bounced downstairs like Tigger.

‘Morning.’

‘Happy birthday, Gracie.’ Grandma and Grandad lined up in the kitchen to give me coffee-flavoured kisses. The table was strewn with multicoloured envelopes and while Grandma cooked breakfast I sliced them open, read out the messages inside the cards and handed them to Grandad. He balanced them between the Wedgwood on the dresser.

‘Tuck in.’ Grandma placed a plate before me, piled high with bacon, sausages, eggs, mushrooms, tomatoes and beans.

‘Thanks.’ I picked up my cutlery, wondering where to start.

By the time I forked the last mushroom into my mouth and pushed my plate away, my jaw ached from chewing. ‘No wonder I’m popping out of my clothes with portions like that,’ I said, leaning back on my chair. ‘It’s a good job I’m going to buy a new dress for tonight.’

‘Women nowadays are too thin,’ said Grandma. ‘You look like a woman’s supposed to.’

‘In the 1950s maybe.’

‘Men like a few curves.’

Did they? My love life was dismal. I was too hung up on Dan to consider dating anyone else. I wondered sometimes whether he still fancied Charlie, but she said he’d only ever asked her out the once. He didn’t seem interested in Siobhan, thank god. Even though she practically threw herself at him: leaning forwards every time she talked so he could see down her top; touching his arm and giggling at everything he said, even when it wasn’t meant to be funny. Charlie had started calling her ‘Jessica Rabbit’s evil twin’.

Charlie burst through the back door. ‘Don’t tell me I’ve missed breakfast?’ She was red-faced and panting, hefting a large present in polka dot wrapping paper.

‘I’ve saved some bacon for you, dear,’ said Grandma. ‘You need some meat on your bones. Turn sideways and we struggle to see you.’ Charlie did seem to grow taller and thinner by the day.

Grandma buttered thick white bread and slavered the bacon in ketchup, just the way Charlie liked it. ‘Sit down. We’re about to do presents.’

Charlie thudded the box onto the table and shoved it over to me. She picked up her sandwich, took a bite and licked her fingers.

I carefully removed the ribbons and bows and peeled the tape away from the paper, trying not to rip it. I planned to glue the paper and bow from each present into my scrapbook later, and write details of the gift and who sent it underneath. It was important to me to preserve my memories. Dad had so much stuff. I never knew where it came from or what it meant to him and it never seemed important to ask while he was here. Afterwards, it pained me to think I knew so little about the man I’d thought I knew so well.

‘You’ll be nineteen before you get it open at this rate.’

Inside the box was an assortment of vinyl records: Billie Holiday, Etta James, Bessie Smith. The music I’d grown up with that Charlie didn’t quite understand. I shook my head to dislodge the lump in my throat and stood up to hug her. She squeezed me with her forearms, her greasy hands splayed out to the side.

‘Where did you find them all?’

‘Car boot sales, eBay, Amazon. I’ve been saving my babysitting money and collecting them for the past year.’

Grandad took the albums through to the dining room, and as the strains of Etta James drifted through the open door, he came back and proffered his hand.

‘Ginger?’ He pulled me to my feet and I giggled as he Fred-Astaired me around the kitchen, twirling me around in his pinstriped pyjamas.

‘This is from Grandad and me,’ Grandma said, as we sank, breathless, into our seats. She pushed a sparkly silver-wrapped box towards me.

I rotated it in my hands, looking for the best place to open it.

‘Here we go again,’ said Charlie. ‘You do know the shops shut at five-thirty?’

‘Very funny.’ I slid the present out of the paper. Diamond stud earrings.

‘They were my mum’s,’ Grandma said. ‘I’ve had them cleaned for you.’

I tilted the box towards the window and my great-grandmother’s earrings sparkled in the light. It was hard to equate something so beautiful with the frail old woman who smelled of pear drops that I remembered visiting when I was small.

‘They were a present from your great-grandfather on their wedding day.’

‘They’re so beautiful, thank you.’

‘And buy yourself something nice to wear tonight when you go to town.’ Grandad pressed notes into my hand.

I was suddenly overcome by emotion. ‘I love you all.’ My voice caught.

‘And we love you, too.’ Grandma gave me a hug and then began to shoo me out of the kitchen. ‘Now go and put some clothes on, unless you’re planning on shopping in your pyjamas?’

I scooped up the wrapping paper before Grandad could recycle it and ran upstairs to get dressed.

* * *

T
he sofa was heavy
. Charlie pushed as I pulled. Together, we wedged it into the corner of the room and slid the coffee table against the wall. The sideboard had been cleared and I flapped open a sheet and covered it up, ready to set the buffet on.

‘Are you sure your mum doesn’t mind me having a party here?’

‘Nah. She’s looking forward to it. I made her promise she won’t embarrass me.’

I ripped open packets of Wotsits and flung them into bowls as Charlie made a punch in a giant glass bowl I’d brought from Grandma’s. The liquid turned orange as Charlie sloshed fruit juice into the mix and gave it a stir.

‘Try this.’ She held a teaspoon to my lips and I slurped.

‘God, that’s strong. What’s in it?’ My eyes watered.

‘Everything.’ Charlie grinned and unscrewed the top from a half-open bottle of gin she’d found at the back of the cupboard.

‘It’s a good job my grandparents aren’t coming,’ I said.

I had invited them, but they’d said they’d leave us ‘young ’uns’ to it.

* * *

B
y nine o’clock
my head was fuzzy, my step unsteady. Half the sixth form were crammed into Charlie’s tiny house and the walls vibrated with the thump-thump-thump of the bass. Disco lights flashed red, green and blue, and I had a sense of detachment as I watched bodies sway on our makeshift dance floor to the playlist Charlie had created. Dan shuffled his feet to ‘Sex on Fire’, waving a beer can in the air, as Siobhan raised her hands high and shook her head from side to side. Her chest wobbled. She didn’t have a bra on under her spaghetti-strapped top.
Slut.
I swiped a cocktail sausage and bit it in half, wishing I could stab Siobhan with the stick. It was my birthday. Dan should be with me.

Beside me, Lexie ladled punch into a pint glass. ‘You should go get him, girl,’ she slurred, as she nodded at Dan. ‘You’re only young once. Just don’t do what I did, Grace. Don’t fuck it up.’

‘What did you do?’

But the opening bars to ‘Mamma Mia’ rang out and Charlie yanked my arm.

‘Let’s boogie.’

I swigged what was left of my drink and fought my way into the middle of the lounge. Esmée clasped my left hand, Charlie my right. I lost sight of Siobhan and we were spinning and spinning and flying and falling. We heaped on the floor, arms and legs tangled, giggling, but then I felt sick.

The queue for the toilet snaked down the stairs and I pushed my way into Lexie’s darkened bedroom instead. There was a pile of coats on the bed and I sat cross-legged on the floor, pressing my palms into the floorboards, wishing the room would keep still.

The door banged open and I was cast in a rectangle of light streaming in through the landing. Charlie tottered towards me.

‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah. Too much punch I think.’ I rubbed my eyes. ‘Do I look a state?’

Charlie clicked on the bedside lamp. ‘A bit.’ She rooted around in Lexie’s drawer and pulled out a handful of Rimmel make-up.

‘Do you miss your dad, Charlie?’ The alcohol had made me emotional. ‘I miss mine.’

‘Your face I can fix,’ she said. ‘Your dad…’

‘I know.’ I sighed. ‘I’m OK, mostly, but days like today… How do you cope?’

Charlie shrugged. ‘Can’t miss what I never had.’

‘But what if you found him? You could have a whole new family.’

‘That might be a good thing. Mum’s pissed again.’

‘I noticed.’

‘Suck your cheeks in.’ Charlie dipped a brush into bronzer.

‘We could find him.’

‘How?’

‘I don’t know, but we’re eighteen now. You can get a copy of your birth certificate if your mum still won’t give you one. There are organisations that will help trace him. Google.’

‘I dunno. We’re supposed to be focusing on our A Levels. It’s our last year. With Mum and Ben and everything…’

‘I’ll do it. It’s not like I have a love life to occupy me.’ Excitement welled up in me. Here was something I could change. Something I could do right. ‘I could do with something to focus on.’

A groan came from the bed. Charlie peeled back coats.

‘It’s Mum. Out for the count, again. Let’s go downstairs.’

The crowd had thinned. Charlie disappeared into the lounge. I crunched down the hallway towards the kitchen – someone had trailed pretzels over the floor – and filled a glass with water.

I jumped as Dan appeared behind me, reflected in the kitchen window.

‘Look.’ He wrapped an arm around my waist and pointed at the night sky. ‘It’s Orion.’

I squinted at the mass of stars. They all looked the same. ‘Where?’

‘You see that cluster that’s brighter than the others, just there?’

‘Yes.’

‘That’s Orion.’

‘Is it?’

‘I’m not sure. Got a telescope for my birthday but haven’t used it yet. You were impressed though, weren’t you? Admit it.’

I jabbed him in the ribs with my elbow, but he kept his arm around me. I leant back into him, fumbled around for something interesting to say and wished I hadn’t drunk so much. I wasn’t sure if it was alcohol or anticipation making my head spin.

‘How’s work? I haven’t seen you in ages.’
Work?
I mentally kicked myself. No wonder Siobhan got all the boys. How did you learn to flirt?

‘It’s OK. I show people around houses they have no intention of buying most of the time. I miss school and the laughs we had. I miss you.’

I studied his reflection in the window. I couldn’t make out his expression. ‘We miss you.’

‘I mean, I
really
miss you.’

My body felt weightless, as if I could float away if he weren’t holding me.

‘Charlie too?’ My voice squeaked.

‘Not in the same way. Look, Grace, I can’t stop thinking about you. You’ve always been there in the background, and I took that for granted. Now you’re not, I find myself missing the conversations we had. Charlie was a crush, someone to flirt with, fun. But what I feel for you, it’s different. Real. Natural. I want to be with you. Do you want to be with me?’

He spun me around and locked his gentle eyes onto mine. I coaxed my nervous tongue to form an answer.

‘Yes,’ I whispered.

Dan brushed my hair away from my face and ran his finger down my cheek.

‘Happy birthday, Grace.’ His lips feathered across mine.

‘No!’

We jerked apart. Siobhan stood behind us, hands on hips.

‘Siobhan,’ I started, ‘I’m…’

‘No fucking friend of mine, Grace Matthews.’ She turned and ran down the hallway towards the front door. ‘You’ll regret this,’ she yelled over her shoulder.

A pang of guilt shot through me. I knew she really liked him. ‘I’d better go after her.’

The garden gate was swinging open by the time I got outside. Siobhan was nowhere to be seen. I put a hand on the stone wall to steady myself and let the icy air fill my lungs. The moon drifted in and out of focus and nausea churned up inside me like a tornado. The ground was hard and damp as I dropped to my knees and vomited Charlie’s punch into the hydrangea.

I heard heels clicking down the pavement towards me and I thought Siobhan had come back to gloat.

Hands bunched my hair behind my head as I vomited again, and cool fingertips stroked my brow.

‘Grandma said I’d find you here, Grace.’