Kitabı oxu: «The Lost Sister»

Dedication

In loving memory of my close friend, Dympna Joyce-O’Byrne. Her zest for life and her tremendous courage will always be remembered

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Prologue

Departures

Chapter One

Havenswalk, New Zealand–October 2008

Chapter Two

Rebecca’s Journal–1985 1985

Chapter Three

Dublin-January 2009

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Rebecca’s Journal–1985

Chapter Six

Havenswalk–January 2009

Chapter Seven

Letters to Nirvana

Chapter Eight

Rebecca’s Journal–1986

Chapter Nine

Letters to Nirvana

Chapter Ten

Rebecca’s Journal–1987

Chapter Eleven

Letters to Nirvana

Chapter Twelve

Letters to Nirvana

Chapter Thirteen

Rebecca’s Journal–1989

Chapter Fourteen

Letters to Nirvana

Chapter Fifteen

Rebecca’s Journal–1990

Chapter Sixteen

Letters to Nirvana

Chapter Seventeen

Rebecca’s Journal–1991

Chapter Eighteen

Letters to Nirvana

Chapter Nineteen

Rebecca’s Journal–1993

Chapter Twenty

Letters to Nirvana

Chapter Twenty-One

Rebecca’s Journal–1993

Chapter Twenty-Two

Letters to Nirvana

The Journey

Chapter Twenty-Three

Havenswalk

Chapter Twenty-Four

Bangkok

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Christchurch

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Lake Tekapo

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Cromwell

Chapter Thirty-One

Rebecca’s Journal–1994

Chapter Thirty-Two

Havenswalk

Chapter Thirty-Three

Queenstown

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Six

Milford Sound

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Te Anau

Chapter Thirty-Eight

Rebecca’s Journal–1996

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Havenswalk

Chapter Forty

Queenstown

Chapter Forty-One

Cardrona Valley

Chapter Forty-Two

Wanaka

Chapter Forty-Three

Haast

Chapter Forty-Four

Jackson Bay

Chapter Forty-Five

Rebecca’s Journal–1998

Chapter Forty-Six

Fox Glacier Village

Chapter Forty-Seven

Chapter Forty-Eight

Rebecca’s Journal–2002

Chapter Forty-Nine

Havenswalk

Chapter Fifty

Akona’s Place

Chapter Fifty-One

Kaikoura

Chapter Fifty-Two

Chapter Fifty-Three

Rebecca’s Journal–2003

Chapter Fifty-Four

Nelson

Chapter Fifty-Five

Havenswalk, Day One

Chapter Fifty-Six

Chapter Fifty-Seven

Day Two

Chapter Fifty-Eight

Day Three

Chapter Fifty-Nine

Day Four

Chapter Sixty

Day Five

Chapter Sixty-One

Day Six

Chapter Sixty-Two

Day Seven

Chapter Sixty-Three

Day Eight

Chapter Sixty-Four

Day Nine

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE

21 Heron Cove

Broadmeadow

Dublin

Ireland

Urope

The World

15 April 1985

Dear Mammy,

This is Cathy. Mrs Mulvaney said to rite you a letter. Is it stupit to rite to dead people? Mrs Mulvaney said it will stop me being sad. When I sleep anjels will come and read my letter. Is that true? Are you a anjel with wings? Is Daddy a anjel to? I hope you are in heven not hell. I saw a picture of hell. It is worse than a vulkayno. Is heven far away? Mrs Mulvaney said it is not. Mr Mulvaney flys in the window at night to see her when she is in bed. I dont know what to rite. She said rite the cat sat on the mat the cat sat on the mat and the words will come good. Nero dose not chase cats now. He is fat and old and sleeps with Becks and puts hairs all over the dubay. It is 3 months since you and Daddy are dead. Our house is sad like rain that wont go away. I like Kevins house best. We play Chuki Egg on his XZ Spectum and Mrs Mulvaney make us fish fingers and chips. Lauren is home from hospotal. The doctor cut the plaster off her legs. All her brooses are gone. She looks nice again. She dont talk to me or Becks or Julie She only talks when shes sleeping and wakes me up. The doctor gave her pills to make her smile but she just stare stare stare at the wall and dont make a face even when Becks komes the notts in her hair. Gramps says Becks is our Mummy and Daddy now. If we are bold the woman with the blak case will take us away. She come lots to our house and rites things down. 2 can play that game Becks said and she has a black book now. She rites when the woman rites and they stare stare stare at each other but not like Lauren. Lauren is just the same as a zombi in a film.

We went to the grave today. Becks gave us seeds to plant. She said stop crying stop crying you are doing my head in. I see you and Daddy all the time. Then I look again and I see red dots that’s all.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX to you and Daddy

Cathy

DEPARTURES

Chapter One
Havenswalk, New Zealand–October 2008

She will ring her sisters this morning. Now, right now, while the day is still under her control. Right now, Cathy repeats to herself, before Hannah arrives for work. Right now before her son starts demanding, ‘Have you done it yet…why not…why not?’

Once yesterday, and twice the day before, she tried to ring but lost her nerve, hung up before the line connected. Today she will tap out the digits, the correct prefix, wait for the ringtone. But what then? Should she make small talk, apologise, accuse, beg, rant or sob? Should she opt for nonchalance? Whoa there, Rebecca. How’s it going, Julie? How do you do, Lauren? Remember me? It’s Cathy, your long-lost sister calling from New Zealand…yes…I know it’s over fifteen years since we spoke but time passes…and you know how it is…what can I say…?

Half-formed sentences and muddled apologies run through her mind as she walks across the lawn towards the grapefruit trees. The grapefruit is ripe and falls easily into her hands. When the basket is full, she lingers for a moment by the shore. She loves this time of morning. The pause between stillness and motion. The mist has cleared and the rising sun is pinned bright as a brooch against the throat of the mountain.

In Ireland, the dark evenings have settled. Leaves are bronze and falling. Children in masks are knocking on doors and dogs are howling.

She remembers the dog, Nero. A squiggle in a sack before Rebecca rescued him from the sludge of a low-tide estuary. When the bangers exploded, Nero heard them seconds before everyone else. A low growling in his throat, followed by a crescendo of petrified barking. Rebecca was the only one who could calm him. Halloween killed him in the end–heart failure–and Rebecca brushed his dead black coat until it gleamed and it was time to bury him at the bottom of the garden. A year later roses were growing there, bold and defiant as a bloodstain. These stingray memories, the sudden darting pain, they undo her.

She shakes herself loose from the past and returns to the kitchen, takes bread from the oven and places the loaves on a wire tray. The smell wafts through the open window, a more potent summons to eat than bells or alarm clocks. No sign of movement from the chalets so far. In the distance she hears the roar of a motorbike. Hannah emerges from a screen of trees and veers around the bend in the avenue, body and bike moulded. She enters the kitchen and shakes her black hair loose from the helmet, sheds her leathers.

On the buffet counter in the restaurant, Cathy arranges serving dishes of muesli, apples, prunes and apricots, nuts, seeds and the fruit, freshly picked. She lays a selection of cheeses on a blue-rimmed platter, stacks yoghurts in triangles, fills jugs with fruit juice and milk, sinks them in a crunch of ice, checks the buffet as keenly as an artist preparing to exhibit: a tweak here, a tweak there. The kitchen is loud with the clang of pots, the clunk of crockery, and Hannah singing one of her Maori songs that makes Cathy feel like swaying as she prepares the terrace for those who wish to eat outside.

‘Have you phoned them yet?’ Conor joins her on the terrace. His question is petulant, more like an accusation than an enquiry. He knows the answer. With breakfast preparations underway, his mother has a ready-made excuse.

‘Later,’ Cathy says. ‘The guests will be coming in for breakfast soon. I’ll do it afterwards.’

‘Not yet, they won’t.’ He opens parasols, arranges chairs around the tables. ‘You still have time.’

‘No—’

‘Yes. Do it now. Stop making excuses. You promised last night—’

‘I know what I promised…and I will.’

‘But if you leave it until later they’ll be asleep. What’s the sense in making promises if you’ve no intention of keeping them?’

She is familiar with his lip, the bee-sting pout already in position, the yearning curiosity in his eyes. He follows her to her office, yapping at her heels. She will phone her sisters and he will rake the leaves from the glow-worm trail, a job he has avoided doing for the past two weeks. He is dressed for the task, jeans and boots, a frayed sleeveless T-shirt printed with the face of an obscure rap singer he once admired.

‘Think about it,’ he says before she enters her office. ‘You’ve got the best end of the deal. I’ve only procrastinated for a fortnight. You’ve been doing it for over fifteen years.’ He likes to remind her of the time lapse, twist the guilt screw a little tighter. He looks back once, as if to challenge her indecisiveness, then disappears into the forest.

From the window, Cathy watches the first guest emerge from the Kea chalet and head towards the swimming pool. Two women walk across the lawn and sit on the bench that encircles the rata tree. Her hand trembles as she lifts the phone. Rebecca first. Grasp the bull by the horns, the nettle by its sting, the rose by its thorn. Her breath quickens as she dials her sister’s number. There should be crackles and clicks, hums, clangs and crossed wires, so many crossed wires, but the connection is instant, a clear double ring answered almost immediately.

‘Lambert Animal Sanctuary.’

‘Rebecca…’

The pause that follows is as startling as a missed heartbeat and, in that instant of recognition, Rebecca discovers that there is nothing, no barriers or soft landings, nothing to prevent the years rushing in and submerging her.

‘Rebecca…can you hear me?’

She struggles to answer but her mouth is dry and her heart, racing with relief that the long wait is over, but also with an inexplicable panic, tightens like a fist in her chest. She is filled also with an overwhelming need to weep, but tears will come later when she is alone and able to release this torrent of emotion. For now, she must remain in control. If she frightens Cathy away, there will be no explanations, no apologies, no opportunity for her sister to defend the indefensible.

‘Please say something, Rebecca. You’ve no idea how many times I dialled your number but I always lost my courage at the last moment and…oh God! I don’t know what to say…’ Cathy has acquired a slight New Zealand accent, the vowels compressed, the words precise but pleasant to the ear. She speaks too fast, spilling out excuses and apologies, as if she believes the torrent of words will prevent Rebecca hanging up on her.

‘You’re not the only one who’s stuck for words, Cathy. I can’t believe you finally decided to contact us.’

‘I’ve wanted to…so often.’ Cathy hesitates again then rushes on. ‘But, as time went on, it became harder and harder. Try and understand—’

‘Understand what? Why you never picked up the phone? Wrote a letter? Paid us a visit?’

‘I did keep in touch—’

‘Fifteen years! All the time waiting to hear from you. How could you disappear like that? Nothing except postcards…Christmas cards that never included your address. How can you possibly call that keeping in touch? One of us could have died and you’d never have known.’

‘Mel kept me informed about everything.’

‘You kept in touch with Melanie Barnes but not your own sisters?’

‘She was my only support at the time…the only person who understood.’

‘Understood what, Cathy?’

‘Understood why I had to leave. But I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.’

‘How else do you expect us to communicate?’

‘In person, Becks.’

‘Becks? You stopped using that name a long time ago.’

‘I remember. I remember everything—’

‘You said, in person. Does that mean you’re coming home?’

‘No. Not now, but, hopefully, in the future. I’m getting married in January.’

‘Congratulations. I wish you every happiness.’

‘Thank you.’

They could be strangers, Rebecca thinks. Word-perfect and skilled in the art of polite conversation. She forces herself to concentrate on what Cathy is saying. Havenswalk, she says, is a relaxation centre where people come from all over New Zealand, and even beyond, to be pampered and massaged. She runs it with a business partner, a woman called Alma.

‘It’s a wonderful place,’ Cathy enthuses. ‘And the grounds are beautiful. I’m going to be married there, on the lawn beside the lake. I want my sisters with me, Rebecca. I want us to use the occasion for a reunion and I’m hoping—’

Unable to endure Cathy’s enthusiasm, which keeps sliding through her repentant tone, Rebecca’s composure finally snaps.

‘I thought the prodigal sister was supposed to come home to eat the fatted calf, not the other way round.’

‘It doesn’t matter where we eat the fatted calf as long as we can be together again,’ Cathy retorts.

The wind, gusting through the rain, rattles the stable doors and starts a horse whinnying. Others, hearing, take up the call until it throbs like a wound inside Rebecca’s head. Throughout the day she had hoped for rain and it has been lashing against the sanctuary walls for over an hour. With such a deluge coming down, no more horses will be forced to jump the bonfires tonight.

A button on the control panel signals an emergency call.

‘Cathy, someone is trying to get through. It’s one of our busiest nights. Hold the line a moment.’

Without waiting for her sister to reply, she clicks into the incoming call. Every year Halloween brings them out of the woodwork, the crazies and the cruel, and the sanctuary crew are working round the clock to rescue injured animals. A stray pony has been spotted on wasteland near Naas, burns on its belly, a torn ear, one eye completely closed. The caller–she sounds young, probably a teenager whose night has turned sour–begins to cry. Rebecca asks for details of the location and radios her emergency team with the information. The shock of Cathy’s call is beginning to subside, yet it seems unreal, this mature voice with its taut inflections ringing out of the blue.

‘Rebecca…?’

Cathy’s hesitancy snaps her back to the present. ‘I’m listening. You want me to go to your wedding.’

‘I’m hoping you will. We need closure, Rebecca.’

‘And how do you suggest we achieve closure?’ Rebecca clicks her fingers, an audible snap carried across continents. ‘Draw a line through the past and pretend it never happened?’

‘We can’t wipe out the past but we can make peace with it.’

‘You really believe it’s that easy?’

‘Of course I don’t think it’s easy. But we have to begin somewhere. It’s taken me a long time to reach this point. How could I look for forgiveness from anyone else until I had the courage to absolve myself?’

‘Is that what you want from me, Cathy? Absolution?’ She imagines Cathy squirming away from her questions, as she did so often in the past, settling her face into a hard white mask of defiance.

‘Not absolution, Rebecca. I want you to come to Havenswalk to meet my son.’

Can silence echo, Rebecca wonders. Can it crash so heavily that all she hears is the echo…son…son…son…reverberating?

‘Your son?’

‘Yes. His name is Conor.’

‘Conor?’

‘Conor Lambert.’

‘What age is he?’

Cathy hesitates, the briefest of pauses, but long enough for Rebecca to know the answer. ‘He’ll be fifteen in December.’

‘Fifteen?’ Why on earth does she keep repeating her sister’s words?

‘You lied to us!’

‘At the time I believed…it seemed better that way. You wouldn’t worry so much—’

‘Worry? What do you know about our worries…our fears?’ Memories of their last encounter press like a claustrophobic band against Rebecca’s forehead. She winces and tightens her grip on the receiver. ‘Why did you never mention him in your cards?’

‘Would you have wanted to know?’

‘He’s my nephew, Cathy. Of course I would have wanted to know of his existence. You deliberately deceived us.’

‘I was so confused—’

‘Your son?’ Rebecca harshly interrupts her. ‘Who does he look like?’

‘His personality reminds me of Julie.’ Cathy swallows, an audible gulp, as if her throat has contracted with nerves, then forces a laugh. ‘A bit wild, like all lads his age, and into his music in a big way. He wants to be a vet when he’s older so you’re there too, Rebecca. I guess he resembles all of you in little ways. Most of all, Conor is uniquely himself. He’s anxious to meet his aunts. Please come and visit us. I’ll put you up in the chalets so it’ll only cost you the plane fare.’

‘No…I can’t. It’s nothing to do with the cost. It’s just…did you really expect it to be that easy?’

‘I didn’t expect anything. I just hoped—’

‘I’m sorry…sorry…it’s too soon. I’m not able to handle this at the moment. I’m sure the others…Do you have Julie’s number? Lauren’s in Spain; I can give you her mobile.’

‘I have their numbers. I wanted to speak to you first. Oh, Becks—’

Headlights beam through the darkness: the sanctuary crew, arriving with the latest victims of the night’s excesses.

‘I have to go, Cathy. Yes, give me your number. I’ll ring…of course I’ll ring. Goodbye…goodbye.’

Rebecca hurries to help Lulu May, the sanctuary manager, to calm an injured horse whose hoofs flail dangerously when they lead him down the ramp. Her life has moved on a long way from bobbing apples and dipping for pennies.

The sanctuary is quiet when she finishes her shift; the new arrivals sedated and out of pain. Leaves squelch under her feet as she walks across the field towards her cottage. The dank earth releases the smell of the dying year. She is facing into a grey Irish winter but spring is underway in New Zealand. A time of renewal, Cathy said. A time for closure.

She opens her cottage door. Her legs are leaden, her eyes gritty from tiredness. She switches on her computer. Amazing to think the information she needed about her youngest sister’s whereabouts had been only a finger-tap away. All that was missing was the key word–Havenswalk.

Havenswalk does indeed look like a walk in heaven. A cluster of wooden Alpine-style chalets encircle a central two-storey building where guests gather to eat, meditate and practise yoga. Outside, they soak in hot tubs under star-lit skies, relax under umbrellas, loll by a swimming pool that appears to have been hollowed from a rock. Accompanied by the haunting strains of panpipes, Havenswalk promises Serenity, Tranquillity, Spiritual Harmony, Empowerment, Healing Energy, Emotional Balance.

Cathy’s photograph smiles from the Home Page. Her eyes are bluer than Rebecca remembers, as blue as a painted icon. No longer wasted behind thick black eyeliner but staring outwards in an open, welcoming gaze. Her crimped Kate Bush hair has been tamed and replaced by a sleek black plait. From Goth to guru in little more than fifteen years. How has such a transformation occurred?

Teabag slithers from underneath an armchair and rubs against her ankles, demanding attention. Rebecca lifts the cat, cradles him against her neck. She stands by the window and watches the sun lift above the fields. Time is a thief, she thinks, gilding sorrow, stealing the intensity of loss and allowing people to move on with their lives. But all it takes is a trigger: a song, a smell, a juggernaut flashing past–or a forgotten voice echoing from another time–and memory becomes a flailing thing, capable of shattering rock.

The rain has ceased. Only tears remain on the sodden branches, glistening like pearls in the milky morning light.

Chapter Two
Rebecca’s Journal–1985 1985

Name–Mary Green

Occupation Social worker

Intention–To break up our family

Obstacle to achieving her goal–Me!

Duration of visit–2 hrs

Mary Green doesn’t like it when I make notes but I’m not supposed to object when she does the same. Was she trained to ask questions then wait silently, however long it takes, for me to stumble into her trap? Or did she pick up the trick when she started dealing with ‘dysfunctional’ families? She makes ‘orphans’ sound like a disease and ‘Care’ sound like the Promised Land.

Cathy has nits in her hair…so what? Everyone in her class has them. It’s called an infestation. Julie bunks off school. Her and half of the student population, but when she does it, it’s seen like a crisis for the State. Lauren…well, there’s the rub…I don’t have any easy answers but she’s not going anywhere and if they try to take her away they’ll do so over my dead body. Mary Green says I’m overwrought, hysterical, too young and inexperienced. She forgets to include ‘grieving’.

We’re drowning in tears. It’s awful. Julie is the loudest. She’s loudest at everything and her grief is terrible to hear. Crying with her face in the cushions or against Paul’s chest, crying over the slightest thing, and I want to scream at her to stop…stop…stop!! but I can’t because it only makes her cry louder and call me a heartless cow.

Cathy cries in corners or behind chairs or under bedclothes. I know by her eyes. They’re pools of grief. She’s like a shadow behind me, clinging to my presence, afraid I’ll disappear if she lets me out of her sight. I don’t blame her. I feel myself disappearing all the time, my dreams dissolving one by one. Then I’m furious with myself for being resentful when we have all lost so much. What kind of person thinks about trivial things like college and friends and travel and being able to walk away from it all?

She writes letters to Mammy. She showed me one but I choked up and couldn’t finish it. I showed her how to spell ‘angel’ correctly. Why did I do that? Why didn’t I rock her in my arms instead? I would have…in the past. I would have held her until her chest stopped heaving and her face was dry. She falls asleep in class. She’s slipping behind the main stream. It’s all there in Mary Green’s little black book.

How am I supposed to manage? I couldn’t boil an egg before they died. Julie says my dinners look like Nero’s vomit but she eats everything-unlike Lauren, who never says a word, even when she’s dumping hers in the bin. Cathy says I’m the best cook ever. She’s forever trying to please me but not the way she used to. It’s more like she’s learning new lines and is unsure of the way forward. After all, I’m the boss now. But I’m only seventeen! I haven’t a clue what I’m doing. Little steps, Lydia says, step by little step, anything is possible.

I’ve accepted the Morans’ invitation. A break will do us good. They’ve a fabulous house, and horses too. Country air will be good for Lauren, put some colour in her cheeks.

Lauren’s tears are like icicles. When I hold her, I get nothing but frost burn. I’m afraid if I hold her too tight she’ll snap cleanly away from me. I wish she’d cry like Julie, howl and yell and kick the doors. But she’s frozen with guilt. I keep telling her it’s not her fault. But she doesn’t hear me. Even if she did, she’d figure I was lying.

I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to forgive her.

Chapter Three
Dublin-January 2009

Lauren Moran awakens to the whirr of freshly ground coffee beans. She hears her husband’s step on the stairs and imagines what he will see when he enters their bedroom: her black hair spilling over the pillows, the sultry welcome in her eyes, her voluptuous mouth. Aware that her lips are taut, she clenches her face, holds for a count of ten, then relaxes. A new day is beginning. The day of departure.

Steve hesitates at the door, a light tap, and, without waiting for her response, enters. A tray with coffee and crisp, flaky croissants, lime marmalade and whorls of butter, slender as wood shavings, is placed before her. The centrepiece is a long-stemmed rose in a delicate cut-glass vase. No thorns are visible and the scent is lost behind the aroma of coffee.

‘You spoil me.’ She smiles at him and lazily rises.

‘Always,’ he replies. His movements are deft, almost delicate, as he pours coffee for two and butters croissants. The thin straps of her nightdress slip from her shoulders when she leans forward to accept the cup from him. He touches the satiny fabric, lifts one strap back into place and leaves the other resting against her arm. The creamy shade emphasises her tanned skin, draws his eyes to the deep plunge of lace at her breasts.

When breakfast is over, she clips the rose to her hair and clicks her fingers like a Spanish dancer. They feint on the bed, this way and that. He likes games, an initial resistance, which he can masterfully overcome. He is still strong and muscular, his lovemaking as vigorous, if not as regular as in the early years of their marriage. Viagra, Lauren suspects, but, if that is the case, he will never admit it and she will never ask.

Afterwards, she lies quietly by his side while he, his breath slowing back to normal, caresses her cheek. His touch is gentle yet she feels the calluses rasp against her skin as each stroke finishes and begins again. His nails are manicured weekly, his hands nourished with moisturising oils, but the scars he earned from his years on the building sites can never be removed.

‘Everything packed?’ he asks.

‘All organised,’ she replies.

‘Passport?’

‘In my handbag.’ Her Gucci handbag rests against the opposite wall, along with her three red leather suitcases and her matching overnight case.

‘Tickets, schedule?’

‘Stop worrying about me, Steve.’ She eases away from him, allows his hand to glide from her cheek to her breasts, then fall into the empty space she leaves behind. Her nightdress ripples as she slides her legs to the floor. Each movement is a slow separation yet she makes it seem like a lingering embrace. She sits at the dressing table and nods towards her luggage.

‘Rebecca will go crazy when she sees what I’ve packed.’

Only one piece of luggage. Rebecca’s email had been specific. Anything more will cramp their living conditions. She has studied the dimensions of the camper and knows exactly where everything will fit. The six-berth is her idea, a compromise between backpacking, which is all Julie can afford, and the five-star hotel accommodation Lauren had expected.

Lauren is convinced that Rebecca, even if she were not the first-born of the four Lambert sisters, would automatically have risen in the pecking order and assumed that right. Unable to understand any form of indecisiveness, she makes everything sound effortless–flights, accommodation, itinerary; all the planning and discussion condensed on the email, which Lauren received yesterday and wilfully ignored.

Steve slides her pillow under his cheek and breathes into the indentation where her head rested. The rose lies discarded and crushed on the floor.

‘I’m sorry I won’t have an opportunity to see you wearing your wardrobe,’ he says.

‘When I come home, I’ll put on a special fashion show for you.’

‘I’ll look forward to it.’

She gathers her hair in both hands and secures it in a topknot. ‘We’d better get moving—’

‘What’s the rush, princess? We won’t see each other for a month.’ An astute man, and attuned to her thoughts, he has sensed her impatience.

‘You’ll be so busy you won’t have time to miss me.’

He shakes his head and rises, enters the ensuite. While he showers, she opens one of her suitcases and folds in another dress. A good Girl Guide must be prepared for all eventualities.

After the shock of Cathy’s initial phone call subsided, Steve planned a month-long tour of the South Island. He has been to New Zealand before, with his first wife, and knows the sights they should see. Luxury hotels, car hire, lake cruises and helicopter flights were booked in advance. They intended using Havenswalk as their base for the last ten days of the tour, with Cathy’s wedding providing the highlight of the trip. But Steve was forced to change his plans when the start-up date for a shopping complex, which he hoped would officially open before Christmas, was postponed until March. Trouble with acquiring new tenants, he explained. Worried about the slow-down in the property market, he phoned Cathy to discuss the situation. Lauren later discovered he suggested that she postpone her wedding until later in the year when he would be free to travel.

‘Why are you so angry?’ he demanded when Lauren, furious, yet not surprised, at his audacity, challenged him. ‘She waited over fifteen years to contact you. What difference will another few months make?’

‘He hasn’t changed,’ said Cathy when Lauren contacted her to apologise. ‘Thankfully, I have. My wedding takes place as arranged. I want you there, Lauren. But if you don’t feel capable of travelling without Steve, I understand.’

Stung by Cathy’s assumption, Lauren decided to take the trip on her own. Rebecca, then later, Julie, agreed to accompany her. Instead of travelling in luxury, they will do so in a camper van. Rebecca calls it ‘a motor home’, which makes it sound spacious, almost luxurious. Lauren suspects Steve was closer to the truth when he referred to it as a sardine can.

He used this comparison one night when he invited her sisters out for a meal and offered to pay their hotel costs, car hire and sightseeing trips.

‘You girls could do with a little pampering in your lives,’ he said, a remark that immediately raised her sisters’ hackles. Steve has acquired many skills in his life but handling the Lambert sisters is not among them.

‘We girls are quite capable of doing our own pampering,’ Rebecca replied, while Julie, whose idea of a manicure was a few strokes with an emery board and a cocktail stick for the cuticles, nodded vigorously in agreement.

‘There’s nothing wrong with a little luxury now and again,’ Steve retorted. ‘Wait till you’re cooped up like sardines in a tin can, especially in that heat. I’ve told Lauren to call me immediately if conditions become unbearable.’ Even if he had not made the comment, their answer would have been the same. They always resisted his generosity, claimed it it patronised them. They had never understood Lauren’s reasons for marrying him and those reasons were no longer relevant.

Lauren watches him in the dressing table mirror as he slips on his shirt. Recently, he has gained weight but he is a tall, blocky man and it adds an extra layer of authority to his appearance. He stands behind her and fixes his tie, his hands automatically forming a Windsor knot, his eyes watching.

‘You’re relieved I can’t go with you.’ His abrupt tone startles her.

‘Stop talking nonsense, Steve. We planned this trip together, remember? I’d no intention of travelling in a camper van. We’ll probably end up bored out of our minds and not speaking to each other for most of the trip. I can’t think of anything I have in common with my sisters any more.’

‘Thankfully, you never had anything in common with them, princess.’ His tie is knotted, his suit buttoned. He has a business meeting to attend after he leaves her at the airport. He bends down until his gaze is level with her own. ‘What’s going on behind those lovely green eyes? Some day I’ll figure it out. Then, perhaps, I’ll begin to know you.’

‘You’re such a foolish man.’ She turns her head towards him. Her laughter is light and easily silenced with a kiss. He opens his briefcase and removes a small gift-wrapped package.

‘A farewell present.’

Jewellery, she thinks, and wonders what has stretched his imagination on this occasion.

‘State of the art,’ he adds when she lifts out a silver, slim-line mobile phone from the wrappings.

‘But I already have one—’

‘State of the art,’ he repeats. ‘It will work from anywhere in the world.’ He demonstrates its various applications. She smiles as he shows off this latest toy and promises to ring him every day they are apart.

After he leaves the room, she switches on the bath taps and pulls on an exfoliation glove. She sinks into the scented water and scrubs her skin until she tingles all over. On her neck there is an angry weal, a bruise on her breast, red and tender. When does a love bite become a wound, she wonders. A caress become a pain so sharp that she had gasped at his touch? Could what took place between them just now be called ‘making love’? She will not sleep by his side for a month yet she went through the familiar choreography of passion without once losing herself in him or responding to his desire, which, she suspects, is fuelled by resentment that she is leaving without him. A month on her own without a safety net to catch her if she falls. She shivers and rises from the bath. The last dress she packed was the wrong one. Too heavy for the summer that is taking place in New Zealand.

Steve is wrong when he says he does not know her. He knows her better than she knows herself. Perhaps that was why he bit so deeply into her neck. Keeping a part of her behind.

Chapter Four

The house waits for her to leave. Julie Chambers senses its impatience. Perfection is a fine balance and she insists on disturbing it. She buffs the already gleaming kitchen counters, straightens the canisters, clangs her index fingernail off the hanging mugs. Homemade soup and apple crumble have been prepared for her sons’ return from school and the hot press is stacked with their freshly ironed clothes. Everything she can do to ensure the smooth running of her home, family and business has been done, and she is anxious to leave before she remembers that she is indispensable.

The taxi is already twenty minutes late and panic is setting in. On a weekend morning the drive from her house to the airport is less than fifteen minutes. On a weekday, it is impossible to calculate. She checks the road. Rain clouds hover over the rooftops and the crows, perched like exclamation marks on the telegraph wires, have a damp, bedraggled appearance. The daffodils will be out when she returns, the cherry blossom coming into bloom.

The taxi driver, arriving ten minutes later, is in no mood for tolerance. ‘Make no mistake about it, missus, this ’ucking city is a bottleneck to hell.’ His omission of the letter F is an obvious contribution to the clean-up-language campaign being imposed on taxi drivers, and Julie smiles to show she appreciates his restraint. As she settles into the back seat, he stows her suitcase and her mandolin in the boot. She is cheating slightly by bringing along her mandolin but life without music, as far as Julie is concerned, is not worth living.

The driver grumbles loudly as he bumps over the speed control ramps leading from Baymark Estate. He is a stubby, red-faced man with a tight mouth made for complaining. His querulous voice hardly registers with Julie. Every mile that separates her from home, her demons shout louder for attention. What if Jonathan has another asthmatic attack and the ambulance doesn’t make it through the traffic on time? What if Philip is carried from the rugby pitch with a fractured neck? What if Aidan raids the cocktail cabinet and takes to the fields with his friends? Where will she be while all this horror is going on? In a camper van in the Antipodes, playing at being a bush woman.

‘Going far?’ The driver glances at her through the rear-view mirror.

‘Far enough,’ she replies, hoping to end their conversation and, for a few minutes, he drives in silence through Swords village. The back of his neck turns red as the early morning traffic shudders forward inch by inch.

‘’Ucking traffic,’ he mutters. ‘They build one ’ucking motorway after another and what do we get? Ulsters! Nothing but ’ucking stomach ulsters. Where’d you say you’re going, missus?’

‘New Zealand,’ Julie replies. ‘To my sister’s wedding.’

‘That’s a long way to go for a wedding. You planning on taking in the sights while you’re there?’

‘That’s the idea.’

‘Stopping off on the way?’

‘Two nights in Bangkok.’

‘Sex capital of the world, so I’m told.’ He brakes at traffic lights and leans despairingly over the steering wheel. ‘If you ask my opinion, this ’ucking country’s heading the same way, what with lap-dancing clubs and sex shops springing up like ’ucking mushrooms. The sights I see in this taxi…Things have changed for the worst since my young days, I’ll tell you that for nothing. As for the ’ucking recession…’

She texts Rebecca: ‘Hold that plane! I’m at the mercy of a taxi driver in the advanced stages of Tourettes…the abbreviated version,’ and hopes her sisters will appreciate her attempt at humour.

Paul was supposed to drive her to the airport but an early morning emergency call from the office put paid to that plan. His worried expression and hassled apologies as he hurried towards his car, his mobile phone already ringing, had added to her sense of guilt.

Since Cathy’s unexpected phone call, Julie has dithered over her decision to attend the wedding. Paul declared that it was a ‘preposterous’ decision to make. He used his end-of-this-discussion voice and made it sound as if Julie’s being reunited with her long-lost sister was of far less importance than the smooth running of Chambers Software Solutions. Since he established the company from a redundancy package he received during the dot com collapse, Julie has looked after the finances. If she had a business card it would have read ‘Financial Controller’. But she has no business card to flash at meetings and her work environment is a laptop on the kitchen table, which competes with the dishwasher for attention.

They argued bitterly over her decision to take time off work. The row lasted a week. In the evenings they hid their anger under a veneer of normality, carrying on conversations at two levels: one audible and polite, so as not to upset their sons, the other inaudible but loaded. Finally, Paul arrived home early from work one evening and presented her with a bunch of flowers and a guidebook called Traversing New Zealand.

‘I suppose you’ve made up.’ Jonathan, her eldest son, dropped his sports kit in the hall and eyed the flowers she was arranging in a vase.

‘Made up what?’ she asked, the pleasure of their reconciliation still warm on her skin.

‘Give me a break,’ her son sighed. ‘We could scrape our nails off the atmosphere for the past week. Are you going to the wedding or not?’

‘Going.’ She plunged the irises into water.

‘Good for you,’ he replied. ‘We’ll look after Dad while you’re gone. What’s for dinner? I’m starving.’

On reaching the departure terminal, her sisters greet her with relief and hurry her towards the check-in desk. Lauren has ignored Rebecca’s instructions about luggage and the expandable lids on her matching suitcases are strained to the limit. Steve looks in danger of a ruptured hernia as he heaves them onto the weighing scales. The excess fee will be exorbitant but he will pay it without a quibble.

‘What’s with the wardrobe?’ Julie demands as they await his return from the excess baggage counter. ‘We’ll be living in the bush, not the Ritz.’

Lauren is unrepentant. ‘I barely managed to fit my knickers into the first suitcase.’

‘How come I managed with a rucksack?’ Rebecca asks.

‘I don’t do rucksacks,’ replies Lauren, and Julie has to smile at the idea of Lauren bent under the weight of an enormous multi-purpose rucksack.

Steve, returning and overhearing their conversation, says, ‘Call me when the going gets rough. My offer still stands.’

‘Thank you, Steve.’ Julie leads the way towards the departure gate and turns away when he embraces his wife. Spring and autumn conjoined. She has never grown used to their marriage, never will.

‘I’ll phone as soon as we reach Bangkok.’ Lauren hands her boarding pass to the attendant and glides beyond his reach.

An hour later they are airborne. The plane rises from the runway and crosses the Broadmeadow Estuary. Housing estates, surrounded by swatches of green, slant into view. White-capped waves ride towards the viaduct. Yachts and cruisers are moored in the marina, a new addition since their Heron Cove days. Julie strains her neck and is able to pinpoint the house where they spent their childhood. The old chestnut tree still grows in the garden, its bare branches forming a black filigree against the sky. The next house, where Lydia Mulvaney lived until her death, is also briefly visible.

Is Cathy sleeping now, Julie wonders as she settles back in her seat. Or is she lying awake, aware that the day of departure has finally arrived? Is she nervous? She has much to explain and Rebecca will demand answers.

‘How come you changed your mind about visiting Cathy?’ Julie asked Rebecca one afternoon when she called into the sanctuary to collect her sons, who had been volunteering during their Christmas holidays.

‘I want to ask Cathy face to face why she dragged us through hell and back again.’ Rebecca, sitting behind her desk, looked and sounded exhausted. Her black hair, tied back in a tight ponytail, accentuated her wide, flat cheekbones and strong chin. There had been an incident the previous day between her and an alcoholic farmer who had brutalised a donkey. The donkey had been rescued but Julie doubted if the battle with the alcoholic farmer was responsible for the weary slope of Rebecca’s shoulders, the smudged hollows under her eyes.

‘Don’t you think Cathy was in her own personal hell?’ Julie demanded. ‘You’ve a short memory span if you’ve forgotten.’

‘I haven’t forgotten anything. Including how she misled us afterwards. Her deceit…’

Julie saw the familiar anger flare in Rebecca’s eyes, her lips compress, as if she was holding back bitter accusations. Their conversation petered out, as it always does when they speak about Cathy. Sitting beside her now, Julie shivers, as if the tension she senses in her older sister has transferred to herself.

The plane lifts higher. Clouds fall like blots over the familiar landscape and Julie is swept into a grey swirl that banishes the world she knows from sight.