We left the village hall shortly after, wishing each other all the best for the Christmas break. I loaded my belongings into the car and turned back to face the village hall. Being part of Cake & Craft Club over the past few months had given me such a lift and my life didn’t seem nearly so grey, but I still had a long way to go before I fully emerged from the shell I’d been hiding in. One day I’d have the confidence to suggest doing something together outside of the club. And one day I’d be brave enough to talk about my past. One day…
6
On Christmas Day, I woke up with a feeling of dread in my stomach. I hadn’t seen Marianne for five years – not since I visited her a few days after Cliff died. Being my only surviving relative, it had felt right to give her the news in person rather than over the phone. She’d told me she was sorry for my loss and asked me what happened, but there’d been no emotion in her voice, no words of comfort, no hugs. I don’t know why I’d ever thought there would be.
Marianne and I had never been close. I think the fifteen-year age gap was partly to blame – so big that we had nothing in common. It hadn’t been what our parents had planned. Mum had told me that she and Dad had wanted a big family but, after three miscarriages, had given up on that ever happening. Then I arrived and, as Mum put it, their prayers were finally answered. I suspected I hadn’t been the answer to any prayers my sister had uttered and was convinced she’d resented me for stealing our parents’ attention after she’d been the centre of it for so long.
All my childhood memories of Marianne involved absolute uninterest in me – not wanting to play, read stories, or even talk to me. Mum would often encourage her to make an effort –she’s your sister, Marianne, and she deserves your attention– but Marianne would simply stare at Mum, her expression unreadable, before storming up to her bedroom where she spent increasingly more time alone.
It didn’t really bother me that Marianne and I weren’t close because I had a wonderful mum. She played with me when I was really young and, when I was a bit older, we cooked and baked together and she taught me how to sew and knit. She loved nature so we spent a lot of time outside together, going for walks in the beautiful Cumbrian countryside where she taught me the names of trees, wildflowers, birds and insects. An invitation was always extended to Marianne to join us, but she rarely accepted. The few times she did join us, she complained that we were walking too far, that it was too muddy, that the songs of the birds were too loud and mocking. I’d never forget the last time she came out with us. It was the summer between finishing primary school and starting at senior school so I was eleven and Marianne was twenty-six. Large clouds floated across a cerulean sky and Mum and I were lying on our backs, our heads touching, our feet pointing in opposite directions.
‘Look!’ I cried. ‘There’s a hippopotamus in that one.’
‘Oh, yes!’ Mum said. ‘I see it! Well done, Yvonne.’
A shadow covered my face as Marianne stood beside me, looking up. ‘That’s ridiculous. It looks nothing like a hippo.’
‘With a little imagination, it does,’ Mum insisted.
‘It doesn’t. It looks like a cloud because itisa cloud.’
‘It’s a hippo.’ I pointed to another cloud. ‘And that one’s a rabbit.’
‘A cloud,’ Marianne snapped. ‘Just another cloud.’
Mum sat upright. ‘Oh, come on, Marianne! It’s just a little fantasy.’
My sister planted her hands on her hips. ‘A fantasy? And it’s all right to live in a world of fantasies, is it? Because that’s really healthy. You should be teaching her about reality. Cold, harsh reality because, let’s face it, life sucks.’
I turned my head, bewildered by her outburst. Mum’s eyes were following Marianne as she ran across the field in the direction of home. I wanted to ask Mum what Marianne had meant but a couple of tears slipped down her cheeks and she wiped them away before turning to me, her voice overly bright as she asked if there was anything else I could see in the clouds. Something told me not to ask Mum about Marianne and not to let on that I’d seen her tears.
After that, Marianne barely left the cottage at all and the distance between us widened. Throughout primary school, Mum had asked me to knock on my sister’s bedroom door every Friday after school to show her any artwork or crafts I’d completed and to tell her how my week had been. Sometimes Marianne granted me a few minutes but most of the time she told me to clear off. I hated it. Mum wanted me to continue the routine once I started senior school but I was finding the rejection harder and harder to brush off. After a couple of terms of far more misses than hits, I told Mum I wasn’t going to knock on Marianne’s door anymore.
‘She doesn’t like me,’ I said.
‘That’s not true! She loves you. She just struggles with her emotions. It would mean the world to me if you’d keep trying.’
‘I can’t. I hate Fridays, Mum. I feel sick all day.’
Mum drew me into a tight hug. ‘I’m so sorry, my love. I didn’t realise you felt that way. It’s okay. You don’t have to do it anymore and I promise I won’t keep on asking you.’
She was true to her word and I was so relieved my unwelcome visits were over. I wished my sister did have time for me but barely catching sight of her was infinitely preferable to the painfully uncomfortable Friday afternoon ritual of forced bonding.
Marianne wasn’t the only one who’d shown little interest in me. My dad barely acknowledged my existence, although I wasn’t alone there. He worked incredibly long hours, leaving the cottage at 5a.m. and taking his lunch with him. He’d return for tea but often head out again, only communicating through a series of grunts. Mum idolised him and I honestly couldn’t see why. I told myself that he must act differently towards her when I wasn’t around as I couldn’t bear the thought of her being ignored by him and Marianne while I was out at school all day.
The remoteness of our hamlet in the northern tip of the Lake District National Park meant it was difficult to form and maintain friendships. Mum didn’t drive and it was too far to walk to the closest village. The only bus that passed was the school one so I couldn’t play with any of my classmates outside of school, get to parties or attend after-school clubs. I could have been lonely but Mum was always there for me – my friend, my champion, the only person who made me feel loved. I could cope with Dad’s and Marianne’s uninterest in me as long as I had my lovely mum. Except I didn’t have her for nearly long enough. She suddenly passed away when I was twelve and it was as though the brightness was sucked from my world, leaving me in darkness and misery. If it hadn’t been for Cliff, that’s the way it might have stayed.
* * *
It was shortly after 2p.m. when I pulled off the B-road and onto Hayscroft Lane, carefully navigating my car around the potholes on the farm track. The first three cottages had Christmas trees displayed in the lounge windows and fairy lights draped round trees or across hedges outside but number four – my childhood home – was in darkness. It saddened but didn’t surprise me. Mum had loved Christmas but, after she died, it was barely acknowledged.
I pulled onto the drive, switched off the engine and sat in the car, my heart heavy as I took in the overgrown tangle of weeds where there’d once been a pristine front lawn with pretty floral borders. It hadn’t been in the greatest condition last time I’d been here, gardening not being one of my sister’s interests, but she’d clearly stopped doing anything to care for it which annoyed me. The cottage was, after all, half mine. I wouldn’t have dreamed of making her sell up and leave so I could have my share, but I didn’t think it was unreasonable to expect her to make a little effort to keep the garden under control.
Exiting the car, I looked up at the whitewashed cottage and tutted. The garden evidently wasn’t the only thing my sister had neglected. The cottage desperately needed painting, there were weeds growing in the guttering which could be causing damp problems inside and, even from a distance, I could see that there were rotten patches in the wooden window frames. She should never have let it get into this state, especially when I’d emphasised on several occasions that I was happy to contribute to – or even fully cover – any maintenance needed.
Marianne had instructed me that I wasn’t to bring any gifts but there was no way I could turn up empty-handed on Christmas Day so I retrieved a gift bag containing a large box of locally made chocolates from the passenger footwell. Making my way along the drive, I forced my frustrations aside. Interrogating Marianne about the state of the cottage the moment she opened the door was not the ideal way to start the visit. Instead, I needed to focus on the positive of my sister wanting to spend some time with me. She’d never invited me to visit before and it was especially touching that she wanted to see me on Christmas Day. Marianne wasn’t the greatest conversationalist and was usually curt so I wasn’t expecting the easiest of afternoons in her company, but a few hours of small talk beat being all alone. I wondered whether she ever felt lonely. It had, after all, been twenty years since Dad died. I’d struggled through five years without Cliff. What must it feel like to have four times that long without anyone to talk to?
The front door opened when I was a couple of feet away and there she was, clinging onto the doorframe with one hand and the door with the other, as though she’d collapse without their support. And indeed she might. Marianne had always been slim but she’d lost weight since I last saw her and my stomach lurched. Was she all right? A dark grey knitted jumper hung limply from her tiny frame, her collarbone was protruding and her cheeks were hollow beneath haunted eyes. She appeared to have aged considerably. If I hadn’t known she was seventy-five, I’d probably have put her in her late eighties and guilt nudged at me. Should I have made more of an effort to visit her? Should I have phoned more often?
