Page 87 of The Man Who Didn't Call
I’m at the front door when she calls, ‘Eddie?’
‘Yeah?’
I go back in, and this is the moment that will change everything, although I don’t know it yet.
‘There’s something you should know,’ she says. No eye contact.
I sit warily on the chair opposite her. Over her shoulder is a photo of Alex on a swing, shortly after she started primary school. She’s screaming with happiness as she flies towards the photographer. Totally ecstatic. Over the years I have wondered if perhaps Mum got pregnant deliberately, to try to stop our father leaving – the affair with Victoria Shitface had been going on for a long time apparently – but whenever I look at that picture, I remember that it doesn’t matter. Alex brought nothing but joy to our lives, with or without Dad.
‘Seeing the Harringtons earlier has ruined my day,’ Mum repeats after a pause. She bites a fingernail.
‘I know,’ I say tiredly. ‘You said earlier.’
She looks around her, runs a hand along the edge of her side table, checking for dust. ‘I don’t know how they can forgive that daughter of theirs . . .’
I stand up, ready to leave again, but something in her face makes me sink back down onto the arm of the chair. She knows something.
‘Mum, what was it you wanted to tell me?’
‘Hannah’s turned out well, at least,’ Mum says, ignoring me. ‘She still visits me, you know. She still cares, even if the parents don’t.’ She pauses, alternately clenching her fists and splaying out her fingers. ‘Although in truth I haven’t seen her since just before Christmas. We had a bit of a set-to.’
‘What about?’
Mum continues to look anywhere but at me. ‘About that witch of a sister of hers.’
‘Sarah?’ I lean forward, staring at her. ‘What did she say about Sarah?’
Mum offers a little shrug. Her face is jammed tight and I’m suddenly petrified of what she’s hiding.
‘Mum . . . ?’ I can feel my heart pounding. This has something to do with Sarah’s parents, rushing out of the cafe today. ‘Mum, please tell me.’
Mum sighs. She untucks her legs so that she’s sitting formally on the sofa, as if being interviewed. Her hands are folded tidily in her lap. ‘Hannah came over just before Christmas. She told me she had some news I might find difficult. Well, she wasn’t wrong there.’
She stops, as if unable to find the words, and I begin to feel sick. What happened to Sarah?Oh God, what happened to Sarah?My hands scrabble like spiders, although what they’re clutching for, I don’t know.
‘What did she tell you?’ I ask.
Mum doesn’t say anything.
‘Mum, it’s very important that you tell me.’
She clenches her jaw and her temples bulge. I can’t remember the last time I felt so anxious. Eventually, she says, ‘Sarah’s moved back to England. She moved back in August last year.’
Blood rushes to my face, and I lean back in the chair. Ithought she was going to tell me . . . I thought she was going to say—
I’ve wondered, again and again, who that funeral was for. Whose life was being mourned and celebrated by those beautiful wildflowers. I’ve done my best to talk myself down from paranoid theories, but those insidious questions never quite went away.What if she died? What if it was Sarah in the hearse?
Sarah is alive and well. She’s in England.
It takes a while for all of these words to register. ‘Hang on,’ I say, sitting up. ‘Mum, did you say she moved back here? ToEngland?’
Mum springs out of the sofa with an energy I seldom see. She stands in front of me, her tiny frame rigid with anger. ‘How can you look so pleased?’ she hisses. ‘Look at your face, Eddie. What’s wrong with you? She—’
‘Where is she?’ I interrupt. ‘Where has Sarah been living?’
Mum shakes her head and walks over to the window. ‘With her parents, from what I gather,’ she mutters. After a moment she turns round and walks back to the sofa, looking at Alex’s photo. I suspect this is for my benefit.Just look at your poor sister.
‘Living with her parents, like some sort of parasite. Penniless and . . . apparently . . . pregnant.’ She shoots a hand up to her mouth, as if she hadn’t meant to say this. After a pause, she sits back down, closing her eyes and sinking back into the sofa. She shudders. ‘I mean, if at her age you still haven’t got your act together, then what hope is there?’
