Laura Elliot - The Lost Sister

Jeremy danced with me. His fingers pressed into the small of my back. He said I looked beautiful in blue and that I’d emerged from a chrysalis. I went into the Ladies and stared at myself in the full-length mirror. An ice-blue butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. Flying from a dark place, afraid of my reflection.

X

Catriona

22 August 1992

Dear Mum,

I didn’t think I’d ever get used to it but I have. Jeremy eats muesli and croissants for breakfast. He put photographs of his best ads in frames all over the hall. I sleep with cotton wool in my ears and squeeze my eyes tight so that I won’t think about them in the next room. But I do…I do…In the morning I pretend not to notice when they touch every time they pass each other. I pretend not to hear when they giggle over stupid things I don’t understand. Rebecca looks so young again. A student now, jeans and a ponytail.

I’m not going to write to you any more. What’s the sense in writing to a ghost? I ask myself that question every time I take up my pen. It’s stupid to keep looking for a sign that your fingers touched the paper when it’s obvious you don’t exist!!

X

Catriona

21 September 1992

Dear Mum,

Lauren’s gone to the University of Westminster to learn to be a proper writer. Mrs Moran organised it, the fees and all. Rebecca is furious. She doesn’t want Lauren to leave home but Lauren said it’s got nothing to do with her any more. We’re all growing up and making our own decisions. I haven’t told Rebecca about the night Mrs Moran rang and called me an ungrateful adulterous whore. Her voice was so squeaky and shaky, I didn’t know who she was, at first. When I said, you have the wrong number, this is Cathy Lambert, she hung up immediately. Every time I think about that squeaky voice on the phone something twists inside my chest. When I told Lauren, she stared back at me with her haughty expression that shuts everyone out and never said a word. Mrs Moran is mental to think Lauren fancies her geriatric husband. Lauren doesn’t fancy anyone but herself.

I wanted to tell Julie but I didn’t. I was afraid she’d laugh at Mrs Moran and call her a daft bat. She’s in rotten humour since she discovered she’s pregnant again. Why don’t they take up badminton or marathon running? Sex can’t be the only game they know how to play.

It’ll be easier in the house without Lauren. Not quieter, she never made a sound, but calm like we can open doors without being afraid.

Love you all,

Catriona

1 Nov 1992

Dear Mum,

I’m in deep shit. Grounded for ever, as far as Rebecca is concerned. Remember I told you about Melancholia’s idea for the Halloween Goth party? My date with disaster, as it turned out!! Rebecca thought I was sleeping over at Melancholia’s house and had even checked with Leah, who pretended I was.

We held the party in a warehouse down on the docks. It used to belong to Melancholia’s uncle. All the buildings around are empty too so it was creepy and perfect. We made a papier-mâché coffin and a tombstone and put black netting over the walls. We only invited Goths so it was hush-hush. Or so we believed. Melancholia sneaked vodka from Leah’s cocktail cabinet. Two bottles. Sharon had wine and Kevin brought beer. I drank vodka for the first time. It was like a volcano inside my chest. One of the Goths kept giggling ’cause you’re not supposed to drink it neat. It was easier going down with the orange juice…smooth and easy…easy and slow.

More people came, gatecrashers, not Goths. We all danced together but not touching. Goths don’t touch or invade private space. The gatecrashers didn’t care. Jobbo Boland called me a vampire bitch and begged me to bite his neck. They started a fight and broke bottles against the wall and carried the coffin on their shoulders like it was a real funeral. When there was no drink left they went on to the next party. Most of the Goths went as well.

My head felt fuzzy and my eyes were whirling around. Everything was dark and awful until I saw you. Yes, you, angel Mother, dancing on your own. You were as clear as a star in a jet-black sky. The music was so beautiful. I wanted to dance with you for ever. Kevin shouted at me to stop dancing with shadows but I couldn’t. I twirled around and around, and you twirled with me. The music played louder and louder until it seemed as if my head would explode. Then your face went spinning towards the moon outside the window. You were going away again. I wouldn’t let you. Not this time.

I screamed and my fist went through the window. I don’t remember the glass breaking. Just the moon turning silver and your face vanishing into the night. I woke up in hospital with bandages on my hands. Not a good idea, said the doctor when he came to see me. Don’t do that again, young lady, unless you’re into blood sports.

When I got home from the hospital Rebecca made me look at myself in the mirror. Black panda eyes and black smeared lipstick. I wanted to die. Black…black…black. She kept shouting and flinging my clothes on the bed. She looked at Daddy’s guitar and your perfume bottle shaped like a pyramid, still half-full, and my silver locket with your hair inside. She said my room is nothing but a shrine and it’s time I started living in the real world. She tore my posters of Bauhaus and the Banshees and The Cure from the wall and crumpled them in a ball. Tomorrow I have to paint your room. Primrose yellow or rose-petal pink, I have two choices.

Alcoholic poisoning is what I had. My stomach was pumped. I’m going to stop writing to you for definite this time. Angels don’t read letters. They don’t even exist. Death is a black and bottomless sleep. I’m grounded for 6 weeks. Shit!

Catriona

6 November 1992

Dear Mum,

Your room is painted primrose yellow. I have kitten posters on the walls. Jeremy painted the ceiling and I did the walls. When he did his Michael Jackson moonwalk across the floor, we laughed so much Rebecca came in to see what the joke was about. When I told him I was never going to drink again, he said alcohol is only disgusting when it’s handled recklessly. I was too young. I broke rules. I was heedless of my own welfare. I have to look upon this experience as a baptism of fire. He asked me why I did such a crazy thing. It’s dangerous and corrosive to keep bottling up your feelings, Catriona, he said.

I began to giggle, a high awful giggle that I couldn’t stop. Take it easy…it’s all right…take it easy. His voice was sharp, then soft, like he was coaxing me over a dangerous place and I stopped as suddenly as I started. Goose bumps ran all along my arms when we sat on the bed and he leaned close to me. You should laugh more often, Catriona, he said. But not like that…not like that.

X

Catriona

15 Jan 1993

Dear Mum,

Lauren rang today. Eight years, she said. Who’d have believed it. She lives in one of Mr Moran’s apartments. Real plush, she says, with a view of St James’s Park. He brings her out for posh meals when he’s in London on business. I bet Mrs Moran doesn’t know! I asked who held his zimmer frame when they kissed and she said I was way off the mark on that one. He’s a father figure, kind and decent and nothing more. You’re forgetting rich, I said, and married to the teacher bitch. The teacher bitch has nothing to worry about, Lauren said. Her husband can obsess all he likes but I’m not interested.

I wonder if she’s telling the truth. The boys in school used to call her The Ice Queen and put bets on who could get her to go out with them. They never won. She has lots of boyfriends now but their names keep changing: Louie, François, Colm, Toby, Saul.

She’s OK again after falling off her bike. Rebecca flew over to make sure and said she’s living like royalty.