Shadow Sister (11 page)

Less sleepy than ever, I get back in bed, leaving all the lights on, and crawl under the duvet. There are many different kinds of loneliness, but being on your own at night, awake and worried, is the worst.

When I wake again it’s still dark outside. It takes me a while to remember why my bedroom light and the hall light are on. It all seems a little unbelievable now.

I look at the time – 5:33 – and throw off the duvet. My god, what thick pyjamas I’m wearing. They’re completely damp with sweat.

In the shower, warm water streams over me, comforting me. I raise my face, eyes closed, to catch the drops and rinse the night away.

Gradually the bathroom fills with steam; it clings to the mirror and the shower cubicle. I should have left the bathroom door open.

I squeeze some shower gel onto a sponge and run it over my body. I hold onto the taps with one hand and wash my feet. When I straighten, I see something through the clouds of steam in the bathroom. A dark shape, next to the sink. I’m so shocked I almost slip. I grab hard onto the doors and peer into the bathroom. The dark shape has vanished. But it was there.

I get dressed. On the stairs, I think I hear something behind me as I descend, but there’s nothing there. As I bend down in the kitchen to get out the toaster, I feel something brushing past my back.

At that moment I’m certain I’m not alone in the house.

Sylvie is dumbstruck.

‘What?’ she says, as if she hasn’t heard correctly.

‘Lydia is here,’ I repeat. ‘I keep feeling her behind me, like a shadow, but when I look around she’s gone. I know it sounds weird.’

We’re in the kitchen clearing up after dinner. Sylvie looks at me in alarm then her eyes glide around the kitchen. ‘Why do you think that?’

‘I’ve just told you. Because I can feel it.’

‘Oh…’ Sylvie wipes the bench with a cloth. ‘And can you feel it now?’

‘No. I mean, not here in the kitchen, but I know she’s nearby. I keep hearing noises.’

There’s a silence during which Sylvie avoids my gaze. ‘Noises? What kind of noises?’

I can’t blame her for not believing me. I can hardly believe it myself, but the need to share it with someone is greater than my
fear of seeming ridiculous. ‘As if someone was walking around the place,’ I say quietly. ‘Last night I heard a door open, but when I went to look there was no one there at all.’

‘And the door was open?’

‘Yes, but I’m not sure whether I closed it or not.’

Sylvie takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. ‘You should call the police. If you think there’s someone in your house, they should come and look around.’

‘There isn’t anybody here but Lydia. I can’t see her but she’s here with me. I know it sounds crazy and I won’t blame you if you don’t believe a word of it, but.’ I break off the sentence, empty the sink and wonder whether I should go on.

‘Are you paranormally gifted or something?’ Sylvie asks.

I shake my head. ‘No, it’s not that. At least, I don’t think so. I don’t see ghosts, I don’t hear ghosts and I don’t expect to either. But my mother has always said that I’m very intuitive.’

‘Oh, I am too,’ Sylvie says. ‘Sometimes I’ll be talking to someone and I’ll know that they’re lying, or hiding something from me. It’s the way they fiddle with their clothes or avoid my gaze.’

That is not at all what I meant. ‘In those instances it’s revealed in people’s behaviour, but I also get it when I’m talking on the phone.’

Sylvie nods in agreement. ‘Yes, when they want to cancel a date. Then they get a bit stuttery or come up with excuses. Men in particular are so transparent.’

‘Yes, but I get it as soon as I pick up and say my name,’ I say. ‘I often know who’s calling before they’ve said anything.’

‘Oh yes, sometimes you know even before you’ve picked up,’ Sylvie laughs. ‘One of my friends always used to call me at exactly half past eight, once the news had finished. Then I’d pick up and say, “Hey Manon” straight away. She never understood how I always knew it was her.’ She grins. ‘These days I have caller recognition, but I didn’t then.’

I remain silent and begin to understand why Lydia always got annoyed with Sylvie. It doesn’t bother me because I know Sylvie better than anyone else. It’s not that she’s told me that much about herself, but her history comes across in what she doesn’t say. I know that she didn’t have an easy childhood, that she’s alone in the world.

Sylvie brings me back to earth. ‘What is it?’

‘Was I staring?’ I say with an apologetic laugh. ‘Sorry. I was just thinking that I know very little about you, for such a good friend. I know that you haven’t had it easy and that you’re not in touch with your family anymore, but you’ve never told me why.’ I fill the coffee machine with water and put a filter into the holder. ‘Ever since Lydia died, I find it very easy to imagine how lonely you must be. And I’ve still got my parents, and Raoul and Valerie.’

‘Yes.’ The smile has disappeared from Sylvie’s eyes and her voice is flat. ‘I’ve always been quite jealous of you. I’m always jealous of people who have families.’

I spoon the coffee into the filter. ‘Do you really not have anybody? No one at all?’

‘Yes, but I don’t see them anymore,’ Sylvie says. ‘I’m an only child and my father walked out on us when I was six. You might think I was too young to remember much about him, but I can actually remember quite a lot, and it hurts. I’ve never been able to understand why he left us. He never tried to explain it. Before he left he was such a good dad. I missed him so terribly, and then some.’

Her voice breaks and I reach out my hand and touch her arm to comfort her.

‘Sorry.’ Sylvie’s smile is weak. ‘I came round to help you.’

‘Perhaps it would help me more to know that I’m not the only one who has it hard,’ I say. ‘Not that I want you to be unhappy, but I’m tired of people’s sympathy. I’m a good listener too, you know.’ I touch her arm. ‘Tell me, is your mother still alive?’

‘Yes, but we’re not in touch anymore. After my father left, my mother and I were on our own for years until she met Bert.’ A shadow passes across her face. ‘He moved in with us when I was thirteen. I couldn’t stand him at first. The idea he might think he could take my father’s place made me furious. But that wasn’t Bert’s plan. He left my upbringing to my mother and treated me like a friend. We were close.’

Sylvie is silent for while, sinks into a kitchen chair and continues. I can barely hear her. ‘A bit too close. One night he came into my bedroom and tried to get in bed with me. I kicked him away and threatened to call the police. That shook him. He never tried it again, but he’d stare at me if I was walking around in my nightie, or if I was sunbathing in my bikini in the garden. Try to imagine what that was like for a growing girl. What a creep he was!’

I’m horrified. ‘And your mother? Did you tell her?’

‘She didn’t believe me,’ Sylvie says. ‘She thought I was imagining things and said that she’d never noticed anything. If I had a problem with him looking at me, I shouldn’t go wear a bikini or parade around the house in mini-skirts. Parade! That was the word she used, as if I was inviting him to keep accidentally brushing against me whenever we passed each other in the hall.’

Sylvie stares ahead without speaking and I feel deep sympathy for her. No wonder she never reveals much about her childhood. I pour the coffee.

‘How long did it go on for?’ My voice is full of repressed anger.

‘Until I was sixteen. I left school, got a job and moved out. I was too young of course, but they made no attempt to stop me,’ Sylvie says. ‘So you understand why I don’t visit them.’

We go into the sitting room carrying our mugs and sit down on the sofa.

‘Did you ever see your real father again?’

Sylvie shakes her head. ‘As far as I’m concerned he can stay away. I’ve managed without him all this time, the rest of my life should be possible too.’ She straightens her shoulders and smiles. ‘Enough about me. Let’s talk about something else.’

I nod, but the silence that falls stretches out.

‘How’s it going with your studio?’ she asks.

It’s a difficult change of tack, but Sylvie clearly doesn’t want to talk about herself anymore.

‘I haven’t been doing much, but I can allow myself not to work for a while.’

‘That makes a difference,’ Sylvie says. ‘It must be useful, having so much money. But both of you went out and got jobs, didn’t you?’

‘What else were we going to do? The money has never been that important,’ I say. ‘It made it easier to study, that’s true. We didn’t need weekend jobs and we could afford to live in nice places, but neither of us would have been happy doing nothing. I’ve invested a lot of my money in my studio, and in my house, of course.’

‘And Lydia?’

‘In Raoul’s company. I think she owns half of the shares. That was smart, Software International is going to be big some day.’

I realise that I’m talking about my sister in the present tense, and the reality undoes me. I struggle for breath and close my eyes in an attempt to master the pain.

‘Are you all right?’ Sylvie’s voice is gentle.

I nod, even though I’m not really. ‘When I talk about Lydia, I keep forgetting that she’s gone.’

I can’t hold it back anymore and Sylvie puts her arms around me. She lets me cry until I’ve calmed down, which takes quite a while. I’m embarrassed about crying, but Sylvie doesn’t seem to mind. She rubs my back, makes consoling noises and says all kinds of things that barely get through to me.

Finally I wipe the tears from my face. ‘How could she just die,
Sylvie? One minute she was here and the next she was gone. She can’t be gone, she just can’t. How can you just suddenly stop existing?’

Sylvie looks at me helplessly. ‘I don’t know.’

Another silence falls. After a while I wipe my hair out of my face, look at her and ask, ‘Do you believe there’s life after death?’

Sylvie hesitates. ‘I don’t completely rule it out, but I don’t really believe in it either. I’ve never had a reason to believe there’s anything more.’

I get up and fetch a box of tissues from the cupboard. I pull one out and blow my nose. Crumpled tissue in my hand, I say, ‘Lydia and I always used to go and look for chestnuts in the graveyard in the autumn.’

Sylvie looks at me expectantly.

‘The chestnut trees were enormous. At the end of September the conkers would be pouring off them and we’d cycle there with big plastic bags.’

‘Didn’t you think it was scary?’

I shake my head. ‘Not at all. Lydia certainly didn’t, she wasn’t afraid of anything, and I felt more respect for all those graves than fear. I didn’t see the graveyard as a place full of dead people, but as a sort of…spirit realm. It’s not that I saw anything in particular, but I could feel the presence of all those souls.’

‘Really?’ Sylvie shivers.

‘I was just a kid, so I didn’t really think about it, but I knew exactly which graves we could get chestnuts off and which we’d better leave alone.’

Sylvie’s fingers tap against her mug. ‘And now you think that Lydia is visiting you.’ Her voice is cautious.

‘Well, maybe she is. Just because I don’t have a sixth sense doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.’

She takes a sip of coffee and adds, ‘I’m happy I don’t have a feeling for paranormal things, it seems dead creepy.’

My eyes wander around the room and come to rest on the chair where Lydia liked to sit when she visited. I picture her there, one leg crossed over the over, chatting away.

‘It’s not creepy, it’s reassuring,’ I say gently. ‘It means that she hasn’t gone completely away.’

She hasn’t gone. Most of the time she’s with me. She goes away when I sleep, work or when I’m momentarily distracted by my grief. I can sense it immediately when she’s not there and I try to summon her back

On a sunny, windy day, I catch the train to my parents’ house. I know they aren’t home and that’s why I’ve chosen to go today. I haven’t been home since Lydia’s death; I’m afraid of the memories.

On the path up to the house I contemplate the imposing white manor. It looks so familiar, so unchanged while everything else is in pieces. Part of me expected the trees to have lowered their branches, the leaves to have withered and the sun to have disappeared from the place where I was once so happy. I stand there for ages, my hands buried in my pockets, until my feet take me further along the garden path. I follow it past the house and, once again, I feel a shadow joining my own. It comes to stand next to me when the back garden opens out in front of us.

‘Papa made that picnic table so that we could eat outside in the summer,’ a voice says.

‘Yes,’ I say quietly. ‘And we turned it into a den.’

‘Do you remember how we wanted to spend the night in it?’

‘We weren’t allowed to.’ I smile at the memory.

‘No, we were upset about that, weren’t we?’

‘We were furious!’

I go deeper into the garden and feel Lydia close to me. She moves within each gust of wind, she envelops me in the sunlight that dances over the grass. Together we summon up the memories hidden in every nook and corner.

Here we…there we…do you remember…?

I stay in the garden until the shadows grow longer and the sun sinks behind the fence. I’m reluctant to leave my childhood home, afraid I’ll lose Lydia again if I do. But she fills every corner of the train back to Rotterdam with her presence.

When I get home, Thomas is waiting for me in the back garden. I see him through the kitchen window when I go to inspect the fridge for possible dinner ingredients. He’s sitting in a garden chair, smoking a cigarette and reading the paper.

I repress the urge to knock on the window and instead decide to observe him for a while. How long has he been there? He must have climbed over the gate to get into the garden, but why didn’t he go away again when he realised I wasn’t in?

Because Thomas doesn’t mind waiting, I know that. He’s the most patient person I know. Elisa isn’t home? Then I’ll just wait until she gets back. His body is not as busy as his mind, my father would say.

And what he doesn’t see doesn’t exist is something else I’d add. When we were students I had a couple of relationships. Whenever I was in love, Thomas acted like he didn’t know me. He walked right past me in the corridor and sat next to me in the photo lab without saying a word. He only looked at me if I
said something to him, with an expression difficult to gauge.