Karen Clarke - The Secret Sister

A folder on the bedside table informed me the guesthouse was close to the Atlantic Ocean, near Rosses Point, and a forty-minute walk to Sligo.

I turned to look at Gabriel, sprawled face down on the crumpled bed, taking in his narrow shoulders, his flop of lank blond hair. Hopefully, he would be out for hours.

A flashback of me talking too much, and later my words slurring into an incomprehensible blur filled my head.

What had I said to him?

I eyed his open wallet on the floor, stuffed with a wad of euros. A table by the door was littered with rolling tobacco, two empty bottles of wine and half a line of cocaine. I etched a finger round my nostrils, praying I hadn’t taken any. I’d been clean since meeting my husband, Jake, fifteen years ago.

How had I let this happen?

My heart pounded as I tried to recall the night before. But, despite raking around my head for clues, I could barely remember a thing, just tiny bursts of memory that floated in and out in disjointed flashes. ‘But I don’t drink,’ I could hear myself saying in a silly flirtatious voice that didn’t suit me, laughing as a large glass of wine was pushed in front of me. ‘Not anymore.’

I heaved with self-disgust as my eyes skittered around, looking for my rucksack, noticing a row of cheap-looking seascapes, fixed to the wall with nails in case some loser tried to take off with them.

Had Gabriel booked us into this horrible dump?

I couldn’t remember.

There was a laptop on the dressing table, its charge light flashing, and a rubber plant in a plastic pot on the floor, starved of everything it needed, but somehow surviving.

I finally spotted my rucksack, lying on the floor beneath a pillow. I grabbed it and headed into an adjoining bathroom that looked as if it hadn’t been updated since the Seventies. I closed the door quietly, filled a tumbler with water and gulped it down as I stared at my pallid, blotchy reflection in the mirror above the sink. Already, I didn’t look like me. I hadn’t worn a hoodie before, for a start. Jake would never have approved.

I retrieved the black hair dye and scissors I’d bought the day before, and taking a length of my hair between my fingers, snipped it off. Another clump followed, and another. I daren’t look at the honey-coloured strands of hair in the sink in case I cried.

My eyes stung as I mixed the dye and pulled on the plastic gloves. Once I’d massaged the lotion into my hair, I thought I might puke and hung over the toilet, but after retching several times, nothing happened. I rose and sat on the edge of the bath, waiting, striving to make sense of everything, trying to work out how I got here. I pummelled my temples. Still nothing. Gabriel certainly hadn’t forced me to drink wine. I could see myself, willingly knocking it back. Perhaps Jake had been right. Perhaps he was the only person who could stop me from self-destructing. I’d proved him right within a day of leaving.

Twenty minutes later, I rinsed off the dye and studied myself again. My hair was so dark my skin looked like Snow White’s, my freckles more distinctive.

Jake won’t recognise me now.

I threw the remnants of the dye in the wicker bin then took a lukewarm shower. Afterwards, I pulled on black skinny jeans and a black T-shirt. I didn’t bother with a bra.

Jake would call me a tramp . He knew I’d gone. He’d already cancelled the credit cards, and texted me.

Where the hell are you?

I returned to the bedroom, opened Gabriel’s wallet and took out the wad of notes. There must have been over a thousand euros. It would help me get by until I found my father. What little money I’d withdrawn from a cashpoint before Jake cottoned on wouldn’t go far.

Gabriel was snoring into his pillow, his spine rising and falling. Had we had sex? Surely I’d have remembered that.

He suddenly swung his arm above his head and it landed with a thud on the pillow, making me jump. A flash of memory of his arm tightly round me, him whispering, ‘I love you, Colleen.’

Had that happened?

I shoved the money back in his wallet and left it on the table.

After pulling my hoodie back on, I pushed my feet into my trainers, grabbed my rucksack, and left without looking back.

Thick clouds gathered as I walked towards Sligo, and heavy spots of rain began to fall. A bus drew up at a shelter, and I ran and jumped on it. It was empty, apart from an old lady talking to herself.

As the bus revved a man leapt on, tall and slim with dark hair slicked to his head. My heart began to hammer against my ribs. I dragged up my hood, and slid down in my seat, but the man wasn’t Jake. Apart from his build and hair colour, he looked nothing like him. My heartbeat slowed as he sat in front of me and took out his phone.

Before I walked out yesterday, I’d felt sure Jake had been following me for months. ‘Are you having an affair?’ he’d asked more than once, as though something had happened to raise his suspicions.

I’d wanted to say, ‘When? When the hell do you ever let me out of your sight long enough to meet anyone?’

My phone vibrated in my pocket, making me jump. I pulled it out and saw Gabriel’s name flash up. Christ, I’d given him my number. I declined the call and within seconds a text came through:

Hey gorgeous. Shall we meet in the same bar tonight in Sligo? xx

‘Not a chance in hell,’ I whispered, typing a reply.

It was a mistake, Gabriel. I’m sorry.

I deleted his contact details, just in case.

My head pounded as the bus rocked and jolted on its way, and I prayed I wouldn’t throw up. I hadn’t even got a bag to be sick in, just the hood of my jacket, which would be all kinds of messy. I breathed deeply, fighting nausea, watching the sea through the window, spreading endlessly.

Rain speckled the window like tears, blurring the view. I gripped the necklace – a letter ‘B’ – that I always wore, and rested my head on the glass. I closed my eyes, but the sound of the man in front watching videos on YouTube on his phone and shifting in his seat prevented me from dozing.

As the bus stopped in Sligo its exhaust backfired, jolting me alert. It had been dark when I arrived the evening before and I hadn’t appreciated the colourful buildings curving around the banks of the River Garavogue. A smile tugged at my mouth. This was the town where everything would change.

I jumped from the bus, bought a local paper from a stand, and searched the pages for somewhere to stay.

The cheapest place I could find was a bedsit, near the town centre.

‘It’s yours if you want it,’ said the man who answered the phone, with very little charm. ‘You can rent on a day-to-day basis.’

It was obviously basic, probably terrible, but it didn’t matter. I was in Sligo, where I needed to be. This was where I would find Reagan, my father. Everything would be better then. I’d have someone on my side, to look out for me, protect me – maybe convince Jake I didn’t want to be with him anymore.

‘Leave her alone, you controlling bastard,’ I imagined my father saying.

Words I could never quite say myself.

As I headed towards the bedsit address, the rain eased off and my thoughts drifted to Celia. I couldn’t call her my mother anymore. Not after what she’d told me two weeks ago, during one of my rare visits.

‘It’s time you knew the truth, Colleen.’ That’s how she’d started the conversation, out of the blue.

We’d become estranged over the years, but I made the effort to see her now and then. We would sit in her dark kitchen – it was always dark, even with the lights on – and she would make tea, a mug for me, and always a cup and saucer for her. We’d sit at the old pine table, barely saying a word, until it was time for me to leave.