Claire Kendal - The Second Sister

‘I suppose so.’ She touches our father’s bristly orange head, flitting away from the subject as she does. ‘Only your father has a full head of hair at his age. And not a speck of grey. Look at him and then at his friends. Your father is still handsome. It’s because I take such good care of him.’

Dad laughs. ‘You certainly take good care of me, Rosamund.’

Our father’s head still looks as if it is topped by a scouring pad that has rusted to dull copper. When Luke was six he drew a picture of Dad as one of the creatures from Where the Wild Things Are , snaggle-toothed and goggle-eyed. He drew another picture around that time, of you and me, in imitation of Outside Over There . How can I have forgotten this? I file the memory away, so I can remind Luke that there is a story of a sister searching for her lost sister. And finding her. He made me read him those exquisite books so many times I still know them both by heart.

‘I’m with Mum,’ I say.

‘It’s your mother who hasn’t changed a bit since the very first time I saw her.’

‘Yeah. Dancing that poor man to death during the Giselle rehearsal. Don’t say you weren’t warned, Dad.’

‘Very funny, Ella.’ But she is smiling. ‘Your sister tells the same joke.’

‘I was supposed to be working,’ Dad says. ‘Building something last-minute for the set. But the only thing I could see was your mother. She stood out from all those other Wilis . I nearly fell off my ladder, twisting around to watch her.’

How many times has our father told us this romantic tale? One of his tricks for pleasing Mum, who never tires of it. You used to circle your throat with your thumb and index finger and pretend to mock-choke yourself whenever he did.

‘I love this story,’ I say. ‘And ten months later, Miranda was here.’

‘Yes,’ Mum says. ‘Yes she was.’ She closes her eyes and reaches out a hand. Dad grabs it.

‘Your mother was an enchantress, Ella, from the first time I saw her,’ Dad says.

Mum brushes the compliment away. ‘Your father was the real enchanter,’ she says. ‘The three of us lived among the dust and rubble as he turned a crumbling old wreck of a house into the beautiful thing it is now.’ She gestures her arms slowly out, a ballerina on the stage showing us the world. ‘He made all of this for his family.’

‘You are both magical,’ I say, imagining you closing your eyes, yawning widely, and fainting your head sideways into your cupped hand with a slapping noise.

‘What could the police have been doing with Miranda’s things for the best part of a decade?’ I try to sound casual, despite my abrupt change of subject. I pick up my water glass and lift it towards my lips before realising it is empty.

‘Letting them gather dust in a store cupboard somewhere,’ our mother says. She gives me her sharp look as she sits down. She knows where I am headed. She scoops fish pie from the casserole dish and onto our plates with studied grace and care. ‘Eat your lunch,’ she says.

‘But why finally give them back now?’ I say.

Dad fills my glass from the jug Mum has already put on the table.

‘They probably wanted the space for more recent cases.’ Mum can’t stifle a laugh when Dad signals with a wordless frown that she hasn’t given him enough fish pie, though he has four-times the bird-like quantity she took for herself.

‘They made a big show of victim’s rights when they returned the box, saying it was important that families had their loved ones’ belongings returned as soon as was practicable,’ Dad says.

‘A decade is hardly soon,’ I say. ‘Do you think the timing means anything? So close to the ten-year anniversary, and the new stories about Jason Thorne?’

‘I don’t want you thinking about Thorne, Ella. It simply means that they’d forgotten about Miranda’s things until now.’ Our mother puts more food on Dad’s plate. ‘It’s a mistake to credit them with any plan. It’s all coincidence.’

Dad’s eyes bulge. ‘It’s a confirmation that she no longer matters to them. They put the data into their fancy predictive analytics and the computer tells them where to focus their energy and funds, where the future dangers and risks are. Finding Miranda at this point in time isn’t likely to save someone else. She will be at the bottom of their list.’

‘Where did you get that term, Dad? Predictive analytics?’

‘Ted. He doesn’t like it much either.’

‘It’s just that – I wondered if one of you asked for her things?’ I am searching for any flicker of a reaction from either of them. ‘Maybe if one of you wrote to the police? I can’t make sense of what else would have prompted this.’

‘I certainly didn’t,’ our mother says. She pops out of her chair and turns her back on us to root around in a cupboard.

Dad stares down at the table, moves his glass an inch. His cheeks flush. He looks up and catches my eye before hastily shovelling food into his mouth.

Mum is still facing away, mumbling. ‘Where is it? – Nobody in this family ever puts anything in the right place.’

I mouth the word, ‘Why?’ but Dad shakes his head in warning, a single slow movement to one side and back. When I get him alone I will find out.

Although bonfire night isn’t until tomorrow, somebody in the village is already playing with fireworks. The first burst makes our mother whirl away from the cupboard clutching a grinder filled with black peppercorns. She huffs in irritation as she sits down. ‘Probably some truanting kids.’

‘Yes. Probably.’ Dad watches me lift my glass in the silent toast to absent loved ones that he and I always make. I am looking at your empty chair as I do this. Only Luke ever sits in your chair. Mum and Dad and I always take the places we have occupied for as long as I can remember.

‘You can’t have the box, Ella,’ our mother says. ‘How many times do I need to repeat myself?’

‘Why can’t she have it?’ Our father reaches out a hand but she leans out of reach. ‘Rosamund?’ He stretches farther, until his fingers brush hers.

‘It’s not the box,’ she says. ‘Ella is losing sight of her priorities.’

‘Excuse me, but I am in the room. You don’t need to talk about me in the third person. And I don’t need predictive analytics to see where our priorities lie.’

‘Reviving all of this will lead nowhere.’ She gives our father’s hand a brief squeeze before she slowly rises, her lunch barely touched.

‘Can you say what you mean please, for once, Mum, in plain English? It’s obvious that something’s bothering you but it’s not fair if you don’t tell me what it is.’

‘This isn’t good for Luke.’

‘What isn’t?’

‘Talking about his mother stirs up his feelings. Don’t forget that he’s only ten years old. I realise he is mature for his age, but don’t treat him like a grown-up.’

‘Maybe you shouldn’t treat him like a baby.’

‘How dare you speak to me like that, young lady?’