The Lost Sister. Laura Elliot
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