Tracy Buchanan - My Sister’s Secret

I haven’t cared for this place.

I breathe in the sharp clear air and remember doing the same as I set off for my first day at school from this very spot, uncomfortable and rigid in my bulky new uniform. I’d stared out towards the sea and realised, even at that young age, the perimeters of my little world were widening. Then Mum had put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

‘Come on then,’ Dad had called out as he held the door to his Range Rover open for me. ‘Time for you to break some hearts at school.’

‘Come on then,’ a sharp voice says right now.

Aunt Hope is standing at the door, arms crossed, an impatient look on her face. Her grey eyes – the same colour as my mum’s – drill into mine. Her long red hair is loose around her shoulders, silver bits threaded through to the ends. I didn’t realise she’d started going grey, but then the last time I saw her was a few months ago, a brief visit to drop in her birthday card and present, an old book of poetry I’d found while visiting Scotland for a dive. She’s wearing one of her eccentric long dresses, blue-green like the sea with pearlescent gems all over.

I lug my bag over my shoulder and walk up the mossy stepping stones towards her. She pulls some keys from her bag and places them in the door. It creaks open and I pause before entering, noticing the slate-grey floor tiles, the beginnings of a long staircase. Memories accost me: me skidding down the stairs with a screech as Dad chases me; Mum greeting me at the door after playing outside.

I step into the house and the warmth of the memory disappears, replaced with the dust and the cold. The awful pain of my parents’ absence hits me in the chest.

‘Dust didn’t have a chance with the housekeeper your father hired,’ Aunt Hope says, marching down the hallway towards a small window in the middle. She yanks the yellow flowered curtains apart, dust billowing around her. The sea is unveiled in the distance, vast and blue. ‘Remember her? All ruffles and disapproving glances. What was her name?’

‘Linda, I think,’ I say, but I’m not really listening to her. I walk down the hallway, taking in the photos on the wall. Mum and Dad on their honeymoon, all tanned and smiling, against some pretty mountainous backdrop. Mum looking down at a newborn me in hospital, face soft with disbelief and love. Another of Dad holding a tiny me curled into his arm, a huge smile on his face. Then the three of us dressed in woolly coats, huddled up together outside this very house in the snow.

I walk up to it, tracing my fingers around my parents’ faces, the grief bubbling inside, almost unbearable.

‘Were they happy here?’ I murmur to Aunt Hope. ‘They looked happy.’

She looks into my eyes a moment. ‘I think they were, yes.’ Then she heads towards the large kitchen as I follow. The white marble floor tiles are now filthy; the pine units streaked. Aunt Hope pulls the sheet off the marble island in the middle of the kitchen, dust making us both cough.

‘Tea?’ she asks, pulling a travel kettle from her bag. I can’t help but smile, typical of my aunt, always needing a cup of herbal tea wherever she goes. I often wonder if that’s all she eats, too, she’s so thin.

I try to peer out of the grimy French windows, catching a glimpse of the willow tree.

‘Still have lots of sugar?’ my aunt asks.

‘Yep.’

She shakes her head with disapproval, heaping three spoonfuls into my tea.

‘You could do with some sugar yourself. You’re looking really thin,’ I say.

She waves her hand in the air like she always does when I bring up her weight.

‘So,’ I say, getting the necklace out and dangling it between my fingers. ‘Recognise this?’

She looks over her shoulder at it. ‘Nope.’

I examine her face. I can’t tell if she’s hiding something from me. She sits down across from me and we sip our tea in silence, the necklace lying between us.

Sometimes it’s better if we’re quiet, that way there’s no chance of an argument brewing. The argument we had before I moved out was the worst. She’d always told me the reason she didn’t have many photos of Mum from when they were young was because she’d lost them all. But on my sixteenth birthday, I’d crept up to the loft and found a photo album. Inside was a photo of Mum sitting in the sun, tanned pretty face tilted up to the camera, black hair piled on to her head with a red halter-neck top on. On the back was the year: 1974. Mum would have been thirteen. I flicked through the rest of the album, noticing blank sections that suggested photos had been removed.

When I’d shown the album to Aunt Hope, she’d said some must have fallen out. I could tell she was lying. We argued bitterly – she was holding bits of my mother back from me and I couldn’t forgive that. In the end, I packed all my things and stormed out of the house, staying with an older girl I’d met at swimming classes. I still saw my aunt, working at her café at weekends and in evenings, and we settled into a strange relationship, half aunt and niece, half manager and employee. When I handed in my notice after getting a job as a lifeguard in Brighton, she’d wished me good luck. ‘You know where I am if you need me,’ she’d said.

Since then it’s just been a case of popping in for birthdays and at Christmas, and the occasional phone call. I guess I’ve preferred my own company over the years. Coming back to Busby-on-Sea and seeing my aunt just brings back too many memories, not just of my parents but also those sad empty years after they passed away.

I study her thin face over the rim of my cup, take in the lines around her pale grey eyes that seem more pronounced than last time I saw her, the pinch of her lips, the pale shade of her skin.

She’s definitely getting older.

After we finish our tea, she stands up. ‘Well, we can’t sit here and sip tea all day, can we? How about we tidy the place up a bit and you can have a think about what you want to do?’

We spend the day in awkward comradeship getting cleaning supplies from the local shops and ringing around local handymen to get some broken windows sorted. By the time darkness falls, we still haven’t finished the last room: the living room, a long room divided by a pretty alcove with plaster-clad butterflies around its edges. One part of the room used to be dedicated to the TV and sofas; the other to all my toys. I remember winter nights with the fire roaring, the three of us snuggled up watching TV or playing games.

It’s cold and draughty now, dust and spider webs clogging the walls. The once thick rug I used to love is dirty with dead flies and mud.

‘Shall we just stay here?’ Aunt Hope suggests. ‘We can work into the night, get it out of the way. There are clean sheets in storage.’

I peer up at the ceiling. It’ll be strange staying here again, the first time since my parents died.

‘I presume you’ll be wanting to get away again?’ my aunt continues as she examines my face. ‘If we leave now, it might mean another whole day of clearing up.’

I take a deep breath. ‘Alright, let’s stay.’

Aunt Hope helps me roll the rug up and we place it in the hallway. We then scrub the dark wooden floorboards, both seeming to take comfort in the repetitive nature of the task.

‘Your mum loved these floorboards,’ Aunt Hope says after a while. ‘Your dad wanted to get a posh carpet but she insisted on stripping these down and restoring them.’

‘Yeah, she used to get annoyed when Dad pulled me along the floorboards on that rug. But then she’d join in after a while.’

My aunt wipes a grimy hand across her forehead, leaving a dark streak behind. ‘Put this in the bin bag, won’t you?’ she says, handing me the filthy rag she’s been using. I pull the bin bag in the corner of the room towards me and go to throw the rag in. But something catches my eye, an envelope with my name on it. I pull it out. It has the cottage’s address on it, a postal stamp from a few days before.