Fiona Harper - The Memory Collector - The emotional and uplifting new novel from the bestselling author of The Other Us

CHAPTER THREE

NOW

It’s a double-edged experience for Heather as she leaves her flat on Sunday morning and heads off to her sister’s in Westerham. On the one hand, it’s a relief. Even though she does her best to ignore it, there’s a radar-blip deep inside her, always pulsing – the awareness of all the stuff lurking behind the faceless door of her spare room – but its intermittent throb lessens in intensity and frequency as she joins the A21 and heads out into north Kent. On the other hand, she’s out there. Exposed. And the locks on her doors, the ones keeping all that stuff safe and secret, seem flimsier with each mile she travels from home.

It only takes half an hour to get to Faith’s. The red-brick Victorian houses, pre-war semis, and chunky blocks of flats of Bromley slowly give way to fields and hedgerows, country pubs and rows of flint cottages. Faith says Mum and Dad used to bring them to the little commuter village when they were kids. Before the divorce, obviously. Before things got so crowded in their mother’s head. But Heather doesn’t remember that. She doesn’t remember very much of her childhood at all.

She used to think everyone was like that, that anything before the age of thirteen was just smudges of sound and scent and colour in people’s memories, like the inkling of a dream after waking, but she’s since discovered that some people have crystal-clear memories of their early years: who their first teacher was, what kind of cake they had for their best-ever birthday, stories their parents used to tell them before they went to sleep.

She doesn’t worry about this, though. Mostly because she doesn’t want to remember any of it anyway. The tiny snatches that do try and poke through the fog aren’t that pleasant.

All except one. The holiday with Aunt Kathy at the seaside. Lovely Aunt Kathy with her dark curls and her red coat. Heather doesn’t mind letting that one come.

She’s smiling when she pulls up outside Faith’s house, thinking of candyfloss, jeans rolled up over pale calves, and icy water on her toes, of running out of reach of the waves and then back again, just to tease them into catching her once more.

Faith’s front door opens before Heather is fully out of the car, and her sister stands there, waiting. She isn’t smiling but she isn’t cross either. Just neutral, accepting the monthly visit as she always does.

Faith is three years older than Heather. She has the same gradually darkening blonde hair that won’t keep a wave, no matter how deft she is with the curling tongs, the same grey eyes. They are exactly the same height, but her sister has always seemed taller. Heather has never quite been able to work out why.

Heather follows Faith inside. Her brother-in-law, Matthew, wanders into the hallway from the kitchen, wiping his hands on a tea towel, and gives Heather a proper smile. ‘I keep wanting to do a roast, but there’s never enough time after church, so I’m afraid you’re stuck with slow-cooker casserole again,’ he says with a smile.

Heather nods and smiles back. She likes Matthew. He always treats her as if she’s just another one of the family. Normal, in other words. Lots of people would shrug off that label, thinking it boring, but Heather would love to embrace it. For a couple of hours a month, Matthew makes it seem as if that might be possible.

But then Heather thinks of the chest of drawers in her spare room, the one containing all her dirty secrets in pastel colours, and she starts to doubt herself again. She doesn’t let Faith or Matthew see it, though. She keeps smiling, she says the right greetings and asks after the children, whom she can hear stampeding in another part of the house. They’re the only reason she keeps this monthly ‘duty’ date with her sister. She can feel her heart thudding in anticipation of seeing them again.

As if on cue, they come thundering down the stairs at the sound of an unfamiliar voice in the hall and then stop short, staring at her shyly, as they always do at the beginning of a visit. Alice is six and Barney is three. She wants to go and hug them so much. She yearns to feel their tiny arms around her. She wants to rest her chin on their soft hair and just breathe them in, but now they’re all standing there staring at each other and the moment to lean in naturally for a cuddle has passed.

Thankfully, Alice saves Heather with one of her usual blunt questions. ‘Did you bring any presents for us? Aunty Sarah always brings presents.’

Barney nods seriously as his sister watches on.

‘Barney wants to know if you’ve brought chocolate,’ Alice adds, translating her little brother’s gesture.

Heather shakes her head, silently disgruntled with Matthew’s beneficent sister. ‘Sorry, no chocolate today, or toys.’ She risks a glance at Faith. ‘Mummy says you already have lots and lots of toys.’

It happens then – one of those moments that rarely flashes between the two sisters. Just like Alice, Heather is able to translate the look her sibling gives her, an expression on Faith’s face, both knowing and grateful, that for once acknowledges their shared past, their shared hatred of extraneous stuff .

‘But I will play any game you want after dinner,’ Heather adds, hoping that the gift of quality time – something she would have killed for when she was younger – has not gone out of fashion in this era of brightly coloured electronic worlds accessed with the swipe of a chubby finger.

Barney looks blank, but Alice pipes up. ‘I get to pick what game?’ she asks brightly, and Heather nods. Alice is pleased with this response. She smiles to herself and skips off towards the living room, leaving Heather to wonder if it’s right that a six-year-old should look quite so much as if she’s cooking up a plan.

Heather follows her sister and brother-in-law into the kitchen, where pans are boiling on the hob and delicious smells are wafting from a large slow cooker. She watches her sister as she and Matthew bustle round each other, putting the finishing touches to the meal. When he puts an easy hand on Faith’s hip as he reaches past her for a wooden spoon, Heather looks away. It seems too intimate. Too much. Too much to watch, anyway. It’s been so long since someone of the opposite sex touched Heather that she can’t even remember if a man’s fingers have ever rested on her hip that way.

Faith doesn’t even notice the affectionate touch, and that makes Heather sad. And maybe a little bit angry. She’s reminded of her mother, who amassed so much stuff that even her treasures were lost in the sheer volume of her possessions. This seems to be the same kind of wastefulness. Faith has also amassed much – but it comes in the shape of love and people, not things, so now the moments that would be treasured by Heather if she were in Faith’s place are buried and lost in the fullness of her sister’s life.

Once again, it causes Heather to wonder how they turned out so differently. Is it just that she’s broken, damaged, in a way that Faith never was? And how could that be, after the childhood that they both endured?

She waits for Faith’s mask to slip, prods the robustness of her sister’s smile each time it appears. But either Faith is much, much better at this game than Heather is, or her sister has attained the thing that has eluded Heather all her life: she’s moved on. She’s over it.

If that’s the case, Heather isn’t sure whether to worship her or hate her. Faith knows, you see. She knows what’s behind Heather’s façade. She has an understanding that can never be gained from a distance, by studying and logical analysis. This is knowledge that comes from experience, from being flung in the mess and the chaos and struggling through it to come out the other side. Even though they frequently think to themselves that they would rather just cut each other loose so they no longer have to deal with each other, it is this shared struggle that binds the two sisters together. Another thing to blame their mother for.