Laura Elliot - The Lost Sister

My jeans a perfect fit.

Love to you and Daddy

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Cathy

Heron Cove

15 Jan 1986

Dear Mammy,

A year has gone. I keep thinking if I open your coffins I’ll see you laughing like it is a big joke. We had a mass for your annaversorry. Fr Morris said your names out loud and made it reel again. Lauren made a big fuss and ran out of the church. She said she can not run but she can and Mr Moran brote her back in his arms. She is still a zombi but not so much now. Last night she said F…off and mind your bisness when I ask her if you and Daddy said goodbye. She is spoiled rotton and she made you dead. We all went to the balley concert and saw her dancing like a sugar plum fairy. So why did she make you and Daddy go 2 times? Why why why? She is a show off thats why. Becks said I must never never never say that to Lauren or she will cut out my tung. Me and Julie sleep in your room now. Lauren sleep on her own. So do Becks with Nero. It’s nice being in your bed, like I can touch you. Daddy’s gitar is still against the wall. Julie tuned it and we put it back there again. His jacket is in the wardrobe. I can’t smell him, only mothballs and lether, but I rub my hands really hard on the lether and that feels nice. All your books are in the shelfs. There’s so many. The Colour Purple has a book mark in it. My favoritt authors are Judy Blume and Enid Blyton. Julie said a year is gone and Maxeemum Volum must be a band again. She is a brill singer. Paul is brill on drums. They sit on the wall and kiss and kiss. Becks said its not on. Neybours will talk. We all had a birthday since you die. Julie is 15 and Lauren 13 and Becks is 18 and I am 9. Gramps comes for our birthdays. He smells bad like the farm is on his skin and he gives Becks money for bread on the table.

Make him stop crying. It makes me cry to and Beck said we have to move on. I don’t want to move. I like our house. The red dots are gone. I will rite more tomorrow.

XXXXXXXXX to you and Daddy

Cathy

Thank goodness for spring. There’s green shoots in the ground and the forsythia will soon bud. I thought we’d never get through the year but we did…we did. The mass was nice, the church packed and it’s good to know people remember them. I felt a hypocrite having the mass when I don’t believe in God or any religion that forces us to accept there is a divine plan to anything. But I can’t let on. What’s the sense in saying there’s nothing left except bone and memory when Cathy believes she’s writing to an angel and Julie’s convinced she’ll meet them in heaven?

To lose so much in a year…it’s too much…too much…but it’s nice to stand in the garden and look at the green shoots. They promise so much. Unlike Jeremy, they’ll deliver.

He’s still with Rose Moore. Do I care? No way, José. Julie calls him a ‘wanker’ and Cathy sneaks her hand into mine and squeezes it when his name is mentioned. Their pity unhinges me. Even Lauren came out of her shell for a while after he broke off with me.

Jeremy is not a wanker. He just doesn’t know how to deal with it all. I can’t blame him. I don’t want to sit in every night either, but I’m too tired to go out and, when I do, I’m worried about Julie being in charge, knowing she’s alone with Paul, and Lauren’s locked somewhere deep inside herself and Cathy’s probably crying or writing those letters, and if I get plastered, like my friends, I won’t be able to get up in the morning, and that’ll be the very time Mary Green calls and writes her notes and makes me so nervous I want to sit on my hands to keep them from shaking.

On the positive side, my driving is improving. Lydia’s a good teacher and doesn’t get worried when I can’t engage the clutch and the traffic builds up behind us. She’s going to help me paint the rooms. But not yet…not just yet. Little steps, she says. Everything can be done in little steps. She started art classes after her husband died. She said it started as therapy and became her grand obsession. Her paintings are strange and weird, ruins of abandoned cottages in the middle of nowhere. She calls them ‘famine echoes’. If women could work and rear children in such a hostile environment, she says the least she can do is follow their footsteps and record what is left of their existence. Her paintings look similar; crumbling walls almost invisible under ivy, weeds growing like spun sugar from chimney breasts. It’s her use of light and shade that makes the difference.

Gramps is beginning to pull himself together. His cheque arrived on time this week. He’s promised to stop drinking and come with me and Lydia to the inquest. I dread it…and the court case. It’s like the anniversary mass. Another stepping stone that walks them further away from us. Life moves on…tick tock tick…and a year has passed.

13 August 1986

Dear Mammy,

I have sad news. That is why I did not write for 3 days. Gramps is dead. I cried for ages at his funral and Im crying writing this. Mrs Mulvaney said we cry for all sorts of different reasons at funrals. At Gramps funral lots of things came back to me. I thought I was going to be sick. He is glad to be dead. He said so to Becks after the court. Do you think that killed him? He went with her and Mrs Mulvaney to find out how you and Daddy died. Why? We know why. A big lorry, that is why. The lorry driver said he was very sorry. His family hugged him when the judge said he wouldn’t go to jail because of the rain making the road slippy. Becks hates his guts. So do I. I don’t want to write any more tonight.

XXXXXXXXX to you and Daddy

Cathy

22 September 1986

Dear Mammy,

Today was nice. We cleaned out Gramp’s cottage, what a mess. Whisky bottles everywhere and mice droppings in the presses. UGG! UGG! Tell him thanks for the money. Becks said it is for our edukayshon. Julie wants to spend it on ecuipment for the band. Maxeemum Volum are going to tour when they are famous and they need a image. She wont do her Leaving exam. Becks said no way ho-say you do it or I’ll lock you in your room and throw away the key.

Lauren would’nt help clean Gramps cottage. She sat in the car with her walkman on and told me to F…Off when I asked if she wanted to see your bike in the barn. I only asked!! It was covered in cobwebs. I closed my eyes and I could see you riding the road and the wind blowing your dress. Lauren is in a rotten mood again. Remember the last photo Daddy took on the night we all went to her ballet show? Daddy timed the camera so he could get into it too? Well, she broke the glass and screamed at me to stop putting flowers in front of it. I’m never going to speak to her again!!

She didn’t want to go to secondderry school because people would laugh at her limp and call her a spa. She has no limp. Only when she’s tired and tries to do her ballet. Mrs Moran took her to Arnotts for her new school uniform and they went to a posh hotel for tea.

I have to write to Mrs Moran every week. She sends back my letters with red marks. I hate her. I only want to write to you and tell you all.

I will write again soon.

Love to you and Daddy and Gramps

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Cathy

15 January 1987

Dear Mammy,

I can’t believe you are dead 2 years today. We planted lavender on your grave and put fresh flowers on the spot where you died. Becks wants to put a cross there but the council said it’s not on and would be a distracshin for drivers.

The garden is all weeds now. Its Julies job to keep the grass cut but she is a lazy lump and calls Becks a commonist dictater. She told her a fib about playing with Maximum Volume at a concert for cancer. Kevin said it was in a pub where men look up girl’s legs and buy kondoms. My lips are zealed. Maximum Volume are my favorite band, next to Adam Ant. Me and Kevin listen to the band when they pratis in the garden shed. Sebby Morris is lead guitar. Do you remember him from around the corner? He is the biggest poser ever and shakes his head when he plays guitar like there are bees in his ears. He keeps pointing his guitar at Julie and making kissing mouths when Paul is not looking.