Laura Elliot - The Lost Sister

I saw Rebecca’s sweater lying on the back seat, two of her books about animals and her Eurythmics CD. I couldn’t stop crying but he kept saying, it’s all right…it’s all right…stay still…it’s all right. I wanted to shout stop stop stop but his hand was over my mouth and I heard him sigh, as if there was a great pain within him that must be relieved by reaching into that place…that private place that belongs only to me.

Stars fell from the sky and faded. His face was anxious, frowning when he told me to hurry. We could be seen. But only the heron kept watch on the estuary. He never meant it to happen. I’m jail bait, he said, a dark torment. He fastened the buttons on my dress, not fumbling like Kevin, but sure, as if he had done it so often to Rebecca he knew exactly how to slide them into the buttonholes. Oh God oh God, I can’t believe what I’m writing to you…

I’d made him angry. His mouth was a hard straight line. He parked at the high wall on the edge of Heron Cove and dried my eyes. Don’t break Rebecca’s heart. You owe her everything. I placed my hands across my face. I no longer wanted to fly. Only to be alone. There was nothing inside me, not even the sound of music thooming.

I feel so sick this morning but there’s nothing left in my stomach to throw up. I’ve lost my silver locket with your hair inside it. I don’t remember getting into bed but I must have shoved my clothes underneath it. They smell of smoke and perspiration and beer. My black dress is covered in dirt, my panties crumpled inside them. The dark rust stain against the white cotton was so shocking I rushed to the basin to rinse it out, scrubbing and scrubbing until the water ran clear. Until then, I thought it was a dream!

His car has gone. There’s no one in the house but me. Please hold me…hold me…hold me!!!

Cathy

24 March 1993

Dear Mum,

Kevin called to the house tonight. The security men roughed him up, blackened his eye. When he gave back cheek they called the guards. Poor Mrs Mulvaney had to collect him from the garda station. His girlfriend dumped him afterwards. He asked me to come over to his place some night and listen to his new Cure album. I said yes, and the heavy feeling lifted from me for a little while.

Lauren is still in hospital. I understand her a little bit better now. She knows about fear and how it can wreck the mind. I’m walking on eggshells. Love and hate, it’s a fine wire vibrating. I think of Jeremy’s kisses, and the way he tosses his head when he laughs and I’m sick all over again with love for him. What a mess I’ve turned out to be. What a pathetic mess!

Love you all,

Cathy

22 June 1993

Dear Mum,

I’m a waitress. In other words, I’m an invisible species with a tray. Leah’s boyfriend gave me and Melancholia summer jobs in Chilli Factor. It’s the best Mexican restaurant in Dublin and there’s sparks on my heels when I run run run. No time to think about anything except burritos, enchiladas, tostadas, salsas, tacos and sizzling chillies. But the real reason why I haven’t written for ages is because I’m anaemic. My eye sockets look really pale pink. Last week I was dizzy in work. Melancholia said it’s the slave galley conditions. I keep thinking anaemia or a rare blood cancer…anything other than what I really suspect. Oh God, I’m so scared. Every time I go to the loo I check. Nothing. I think about it first thing in the morning. Last thing at night I pray, please please, God, let it happen tomorrow. If I go to a doctor I’ll know for sure. I keep intending to go but suddenly it’s a week later and I’m still doing the normal things that everyone else is doing. I stare at people, wondering what’s going on behind their faces. Are they pretending too?

In the Pro-cathedral I light a candle. The Virgin stares down on me. She is sad and compassionate but she hasn’t answered my prayers. Holy Mary, please listen to me. Let it happen soon because if it doesn’t I’ll soon be three months late. Officially.

Desperate,

Cathy

28 June 1993

Dear Mum,

The cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat the cat…oh God, I don’t know what to do…I don’t know what to do. I threw up in work today. All the spices and the smell of garlic was so strong, I couldn’t help it.

Melancholia sounded far away when she told me to open the toilet door. She’d seen me running to the loo twice and heard me being sick. She asked if I’d missed a period. I told her three. She looked so shocked I wanted to grab back the words. I’d made it real by saying it out loud.

I’m going to her house after we finish our shift tomorrow. She’s buying a pregnancy test kit. She knows a girl who used one when she was late. As soon as she discovered the test was negative her periods came back. It’s worrying that causes the problem.

So many times I’ve leaned into the silence of empty rooms to hear you whisper my name. You have only offered me silence in return. Help me now. Tell me I’m going to be all right!! I’m begging you…please help me.

Cathy

6 July 1993

Dear Mum,

The rain is coming down. Sheets of it turning the graveyard into a mud river, soaking your bones and stirring the dead clay. I feel it soaking through the cracks of your shining walnut coffin with the brass handles and the white lace framing your face. I wish I was dead. Dead as you and Dad. Shadows, not substance. Shadows flit. Substance suffers.

As soon as I came home from work, I knew Rebecca knew. But not everything. Thank God she does not know everything. Melancholia is the only one who shares my secret and she has sworn an oath on the blood pricked from our fingers that she will never tell.

I’m not the only one who’s pregnant. Sheila Brogan, who is now Mrs O’Sullivan, was at the Rotunda Hospital today. I didn’t see her but she saw me. At first she thought I was with Melancholia but then she heard the nurse call out my name. She’s Rebecca’s best friend so needless to say she felt it her duty to ring my sister and tell her. Bitch, bitch, interfering bitch. What am I going to do?

Rebecca demanded to know everything. I told her I didn’t know the father’s name. Liar, liar, she said. It’s Kevin Mulvaney, isn’t it? She kept saying his name over and over again. I didn’t nod. I know I didn’t nod but she shouted that it was bad enough with Julie, but now I was going the same way and Kevin would know all about it, oh, yes, he would, she’d see to it that he did the right thing…I put my hands over my ears and ran out of the house. I could smell the rain on the estuary but it was still only a cloud and I sat on the jetty until it was dark. When I came home Rebecca had gone to Kevin’s house to have it out with Lydia.

Oh God, oh God, I can’t bear it…I’ve tried to talk to Kevin on the phone but he hung up on me. What am I going to do? TELL ME. Stop sitting on your Cloud Nine and do something useful, for a change. TELL ME WHAT TO DO!!!!!

Cathy

15 July 1993

Dear Mum,

Do you agree with Rebecca? A man should know that he is to become a father? It sounded strong and proper when she said it but I don’t know anything any more. I went to his office. VisionFirst is engraved on a brass plate outside the front door. There was a bell to ring and a receptionist to pass before I was brought in to him. A nerve twitched in his cheek when I said he was the father.

Delusions…delusions…this is not his baby. He stated this fact with conviction, repeated it twice, as if the force of his words would make it true. Everything sounded different when he repeated it back to me, like echoes bouncing off the wrong walls. I must stop lying. How could we have been together when I was out of my head on drugs that night? Drugs that make the mind crazy. Hallucinations and paranoia. He never did anything to me. He knows for a fact I was screwing around with Kevin Mulvaney, no matter how often Kevin denies it. He grabbed my arm, hurting me, and demanded to know if I’d told this ridiculous lie to Rebecca.