Will she turn up today?
The car crawls along the High Street, through the lunchtime traffic. I’ve only been at Mulberry for a few days but the world outside, it feels too big. Too overwhelming. Brighter and louder than I had remembered it.
I clasp my gloved hands tightly together on my lap and keep my eyes lowered. Already I’ve started Acceptance and Commitment therapy at Mulberry and I don’t want to negate the scant progress I have made with a sighting of him, real or imagined.
Simon.
My father.
I haven’t spoken to Mum but when she wrote to tell me she’d like to be the one to make the arrangements today, she reassured me that Simon wouldn’t be at the funeral out of respect for me.
Respect.
We park. It takes several deep breaths before I can climb out of the car and walk towards the church. The sight of Marie’s name in white flowers is a blow to the abdomen and I fold into myself. If my arm wasn’t linked through George’s I would have fallen to the ground.
I can’t cope.
I’m caught between panic and utter despair.
‘Let’s do this,’ Marie had said, hands on her hips, preparing to dance.
I count in my head five, six, seven, eight over and over again as I shuffle forward, staring at my feet, until somehow I am in the church. The smell of beeswax and roses fills my nostrils. I raise my face and my eyes meet Marie’s. She’s smiling out of the photo resting on her coffin. It’s an old picture, her hair is still red. We look identical.
I have lost a piece of myself.
Sorrow is a solid weight in my chest. It’s hard to move.
George grasps my hand as we take a slow walk past the pews – not as empty as I’d feared; hordes of theatre people have come to pay their respect.
Marie was loved. She just hadn’t known it.
Carly is loved but she doesn’t know it.
And me? I slide into a row beside my husband. He hasn’t once let go of me.
The vicar speaks of Marie’s life. Her achievements. The roles she played, but he doesn’t mention the most important role of all.
The sister that she was.
It is unspeakable to me that everyone might leave not knowing that, but the thought of standing up, walking to the lectern is unimaginable. I can’t.
Let’s do this.
I can’t, Marie. I’m not brave enough.
Acting is easy. You just pretend.
And so I pretend to be braver than I feel. My legs are paper-doll precarious as I shuffle to the front, feeling the tear-bright eyes of the mourners on my back.
‘I just…’ I clear my throat. ‘I want to say a few words about my sister. Marie. We were twins but she never stopped reminding me that she was twelve minutes older than me. She took her role of big sister very seriously, as did Carly who…’ – I scan the faces in front of me hopefully, just in case – ‘who… isn’t… can’t be here today. You all know what we went through twenty years ago. The Sinclair Sisters. The Stolen Sisters, the press called us – but we were so much more than that. Marie was so much more than that. I was frightened. Terrified… much as I feel today, but Marie… Marie made up games while we were trapped in that room. Made up stories of dragons and princesses.’ Grief is my dragon with fiery breath and scorching heat. Beads form on my top lip. I wipe them away. ‘In Marie’s stories we always ended up with medals for courage, and that is what I wish her to be remembered for. Her courage. Her kindness. The way she always tried to protect the people she loved.’
In my head I promise her that this will be her legacy. That no one will ever find out that she knew what my parents had planned. I almost feel her little finger linking around mine.
A pinkie promise can’t be broke
Or you’ll disappear in a puff of smoke
This is my vow to you,
I’ll keep my promise through and through.
A whispered breath of thank you, against my neck.
I stumble back to my seat. The music begins. Annie promising us that the sun will come out tomorrow.
Later, the last of the mourners have retreated to the pub. George is waiting in the car to give me some space while I say my final goodbye. It’s hard to believe that Marie is under the heaped earth. Once more trapped in a small, dark, space.
‘Is this all my fault?’ Mum slips into the space beside me.
I am about to say yes when I turn my head and register the anguish on her face. She has lost a child. I can’t even begin to imagine.
‘I don’t know. There are many paths that lead us to the same place.’ Who’s to say Marie wouldn’t always have turned out an addict? I think of the small girl with her big dreams of stardom who just wanted to be universally adored and I want to weep.
‘I didn’t think Carly would miss this,’ Mum says.
‘Carly’s broken. She coped with so much. If it wasn’t for her…’
‘Tell me,’ Mum cut in.
‘What?’
‘Tell me what it was like. What you said about Marie’s stories. Her games. I want to hear it. All of it.’
So I tell Mum the details that she’d never wanted to know. That Carly escaped but she came back for me and Marie. She fought men three times as big and a hundred times scarier to set us free. That when we were cold and scared we sang and danced. Together.
‘When Marie was ill Carly kept her calm, held back her hair and cleaned her up. I was beside myself, thinking she was going to die, but Carly never showed us she was scared, not once. When the door was left open Carly could have left us, she’d have been quicker on her own, particularly after I twisted my ankle but she was always… there.’ Tears gather but I don’t let them fall. ‘She never let us down. Not once.’
‘I am sorry,’ Mum says. ‘For all of it… so is your dad.’
‘I don’t want to talk about him. How could you even bear to visit him? I know that you did.’
‘Because… Because he’s sorry. Because part of loving is forgiving and because—’
‘How could you forgive him?’
‘He’s forgiven you.’
‘For what?’
Mum holds my gaze. ‘For all those extra years he served in prison. For being beaten almost daily by the other inmates. For being put on the Sex Offenders Register, effectively ruining all his future job prospects, meaning he’ll always have to look over his shoulder.’
‘When did he find out it was me?’ There is no point denying it. There have been enough lies.
‘Within a couple of days of being arrested. You can find out most things in prison. Criminals know other criminals. It only took a few packets of fags for him to find out your name.’
‘Why didn’t he tell the police it was me?’
‘Because… Because you’d have been arrested and… he felt he deserved it. All of it and worse. Like I said, he’s sorry.’
I can’t speak for a minute.
‘Mum?’ I ask. ‘Are you seeing him again? That day I came to your house… the steak? I thought I saw somebody inside.’
‘Yes. I am. I know you won’t approve or understand but we’re moving away. To Scotland. I don’t want you girls to have to worry about seeing him around.’
‘Again. You’re putting him before us again?’