The Alphabet Sisters Page 38

Then Ellen became overexcited, insisting on being in every photograph from then on, bursting into tears and having to be soothed. “She’s my mummy who’s sick in bed, so I have to be in every photo.”

  “Of course, Ellie.” Anna patted the bed beside her. She was exhausted from the activity, her eyelids starting to flutter. “Hop up here, sweetheart. Shall we have one big family one to finish? All of us together?”

  “I’ll take it,” Matthew and Richard said as one.

  Carrie looked over at Matthew, beckoning him over. He shook his head. She understood. This one was for immediate family only. They moved in around Anna’s bed, surrounding her. Lola on a chair beside her, Ellen tucked in next to her, Jim and Geraldine on either side. Bett and Carrie sat where they could.

  Bett was struck with a memory of people at airports, crowding around the person who was heading away on a long journey, wishing them well, sending them love.

  “Smile, everyone.”

  They did their best.

  A week later, Bett and Daniel walked down the tree-lined road behind the motel. There were vineyards on one side and paddocks of grazing sheep on the other. Sunlight flickered through the trees, sending shadows, then flashes of light in front of them. Since Anna had come home Daniel had called by every few days, dropping in just for a few minutes with flowers for Anna or a bottle of wine for the rest of them. Each time he had invited Bett to go for a walk or a drive with him, or for a meal in one of the local restaurants. The first few times she had said no.

  “Go, Bett,” Lola had finally insisted. “You have to have some time for yourself. Otherwise you’ll have nothing left to give her.”

  “But what if …”

  “Take the mobile and I will ring you if there is any change. But there won’t be. You heard the doctor as clearly as I did. He said weeks not days.”

  As if that made a difference, Bett thought. Oh, we’ve got weeks with her and there was me thinking it was only days, silly old me. She was so angry and so sad, all at once, and it was massing in her, settling inside her.

  From then on she started walking with Daniel several times a week, out on the quiet back roads behind the motel, or along the walking track that followed the path of the old railway line through the Valley. The walks began to mean a great deal to her, brief breaks from the slow heartbreak of seeing Anna fade away a little more each day, seeing the weight disappearing from her, the alertness dulling bit by bit, as she ate less, slept more. Daniel visited Anna briefly and was able to nod in understanding when Bett spoke of the light in Anna’s eyes, the warmth of her smile. They spoke about his mother, too, both of them painfully conscious of the difference in their situations. Mrs. Hilder was physically healthy but fading mentally, already long gone from Daniel and Christine. Anna was still herself, the personality still strong in the failing body.

  That morning had been particularly bad for Anna. She hadn’t been able to eat anything at all and they’d managed to get her to sip only tiny amounts of water. The morning dose of morphine had finally eased her. She had been sleeping, with Geraldine and Lola by her bedside, when Daniel had come to collect Bett.

  They walked for some distance before Bett was able to talk, to find the words for what she was thinking. “I always thought it was good to know lots of things, Daniel. To experience lots of things. But I don’t know if that’s true anymore.” She stopped and looked up at him. “I know words I don’t want to know. Like palliative care. Metastases. I know how to give Anna morphine. I know that when her breathing changes it’s because the tumor is pressing on her lungs. I know that oxygen comes in tanks not just in the air. And I don’t want to know any of those things.”

  As they started walking again he put his arm tighter around her.

  “She’s not even dead yet, and I miss her, Dan. And sometimes I go into the room and she’s asleep and I think, oh she’s died, as if it will be some simple thing like that. But I know it won’t be. And I can’t bear that she’s suffering. But the thing is I just don’t want her to leave us.”

  Her tears came in a flood. He took her in his arms and held her close for a long time.

  Glenn came to stay at the motel full-time. He and Richard circled each other for a day or two, before there was a silent acceptance of each other. They took their turns at Anna’s bedside.

  Walking past the kitchen one afternoon, Bett heard Glenn’s low tones, followed by her parents’. She walked in. It looked like a legal meeting. She excused herself and was about to walk away, when Glenn beckoned her in.

  “Bett, please, it’s all right. We’re talking about Ellen.”

  Bett waited.

  “I was just explaining to your parents that Ellen’s going to come to Singapore with me to begin with, after …” his voice seemed to catch. “Afterward. But you’ll always be her family as well. I want you to know that. I want her to come here as often as she can, I want you to feel you can all come and see her as much as possible. No matter what the situation might be, or where we are.”

  Bett needed to bring everything out into the open. This was no time for secrets. “Will your girlfriend be all right with her?”

  She saw her parents’ heads shoot up. She would have to explain it to them later.

  “She and Ellen get on very well,” he said simply. “And she knows Ellen will always come first to me.”

  Bett knew he meant it. He was trying as hard as he could. “Thank you, Glenn.”

  Then Geraldine spoke, her voice very soft. “Ellen needs to know that it’s not going to be long now. We need to tell her. Prepare her.”

  There was a pause before Glenn spoke again. “Anna and I talked about it last night. She’s asked me not to tell Ellen in front of her. She said that it would—” that break in his voice again. “It would be too hard for them both.”

  Bett had never seen Glenn look so vulnerable. “Can I help, Glenn? Do you want me to be with her when you tell her?”

  He nodded. She could see he was now fighting tears, too. “Yes please.”

  She knew he was thinking what she was thinking. How on earth did they do it?

  The moment came the following afternoon. Ellen had spent the morning lying on the bed beside Anna, chatting away as normal. When the palliative care nurses arrived, she’d only gone a little way away, sitting outside Anna’s room, drawing with chalk on the footpath. She was still there when Glenn and Bett went to find her.

  Hand in hand, the three of them walked over to Lola’s seat overlooking the vineyards. Ellen clambered up onto her father’s knee, waiting, as if she knew something important was happening. Glenn cleared his throat. “Ellie, we have to tell you something very sad about your mum.”

  “I already know.”

  “You know?”

  “She’s not going to get better, is she?” Her voice was very matter-of-fact.

  Glenn and Bett exchanged glances. “How did you know that?”

  “I heard the ladies talking about her. They said they thought she might not have more than a few weeks to live.”

  Bett took her niece’s hand then. “Ellie, do you know what that means?”

  Ellen nodded. “It means she’s going to die.”

  Another shared glance. Bett could see Glenn was struggling.

  “And do you know what that means?”

  Ellen shook her head.

  Bett tried to find the right words. “It means that this time we have with her now is very special, Ellie, because after your mum dies—” She lost her way for a moment. “Ellie, after she dies that means we won’t be able to see her anymore.”

  Ellen looked puzzled. “But she doesn’t go anywhere, does she? Doesn’t she just stay in the bed even after she dies? And we keep on visiting her?”

  “No, Ellie. It means she’s going to go away from us.”

  “But where is she going to go? Why can’t I keep seeing her?”

  Bett couldn’t speak any more. It was left to Glenn to try to answer. He held Ellen tight against him, pressed his face against
her hair, tried to hide his tears. “I don’t know, Ellie. I don’t know.”

  Anna started sleeping most of the time, so thin now there seemed almost nothing of her beneath the cotton sheet. The days revolved around the visits from the doctor and the nurses, or coaxing her to eat a spoonful or take a sip of water.

  Somehow, around all this, the motel kept running. Geraldine and Jim worked like automatons, spending every spare moment with Anna. Guests were dealt with efficiently, briskly, checked in and checked out in record time. Lola spent hours in Anna’s room, reading snatches of poetry, arranging tiny bouquets of autumn leaves, late flowers, or colored pieces of silk for Anna to look at. Richard read to her, or just sat with her. Glenn kept close to Ellen. Carrie started to show her pregnancy but didn’t mention the nausea, or the tiredness, her own discomfort nothing compared to Anna’s. Ellen moved from confusion to understanding, then back to confusion. Bett cleaned the motel rooms in the morning, spent all afternoon with Anna, then waitressed in the evening, a forced smile fixed on her face. Daniel called by every day, but they had stopped going for their walks. She needed to stay close to her sister.

  They all took turns sitting with her, watching her sleep, the sound of her breathing more ragged each day, the effort of getting air into her lungs racking her body. She spoke rarely, but her eyes were bright, her smile still her own.

  Four weeks after Anna had come home from the hospital, Bett was woken by a knocking at her door. She hadn’t been in bed long. All of them had been around Anna’s bed until after midnight, talking a little, praying a little, mostly just quiet in their own thoughts. They were now keeping a vigil at her bedside. Bett was due to be back with her in just three hours’ time.

  At first she confused the sound of the knocking with the sound of the rain that had been pelting down on the roof when she had gone to bed. It had been wet for five days running. Then she heard a voice and was out of bed before Lola opened her door. She knew by the expression on her grandmother’s face before Lola had a chance to tell her.

  Anna was dead.

  Chapter Thirty-one

  Anna’s funeral took place on a perfect autumn day. The sky was blue. The air was crisp and clear. The rows of vines around the church and the cemetery were vivid reds, browns, and oranges.

  They all dressed up. Lola, Carrie, Geraldine, and Bett put on makeup, did their hair, getting ready quietly and calmly, moving from room to room at the motel. The men shaved carefully, polished their shoes, wore good suits. Ellen wore her favorite clothes, the pink dress and matching hat she had worn the night of Lola’s party.

  They took up the entire front pew of the church. Lola. Jim. Geraldine. Bett. Daniel. Carrie. Matthew. Glenn. Ellen. Richard. There wasn’t quite enough room, but they couldn’t be separated, needing the touch of another each time they sat down. Ellen had hardly let go of her father’s hand since Anna had died.

  Several feet away from them, in the middle of the aisle, was Anna’s coffin.

  The church was crowded. The service was simple, the readings and music beautiful. Lola had produced a sheet of paper the day after Anna died. It was a list of the songs she wanted played, the readings she loved. She had dictated it to her grandmother several weeks before.

  They had all been sitting around the kitchen table in the motel when Lola had shown it to them. Numb with shock, Carrie and Bett had found it irrationally funny, nearly falling into each other’s arms in hysterics, a raw mixture of laughter and tears. “She’s still telling us what to do? Even now?”

  After the funeral mass, after the time in the cemetery, everyone came back to the motel.

  “I’m so sorry.” “We’re so sorry for you all.” “Please accept our sympathies.”

  The mood was dull, subdued. There was talk, but not a great deal. Cups of tea. Sandwiches. Bett felt removed from everything. She kept expecting to turn and see Anna in a corner of the room. The old Anna, not sick Anna. She kept expecting to see that glossy dark hair, that tall, straight back. She wanted to hear her voice.

  She saw her father in the corner. He was pouring tea, his head bent low to hear what an elderly lady was saying to him. He looked ten years older. Her mother was on the other side of the room. Her face was like a mask. Carrie was standing with Matthew. He had his arm tightly across her back. Richard was in a corner, in conversation with the local priest. He seemed dazed, as though he wasn’t taking any of it in. Glenn was holding Ellen, so tightly it was as if he never wanted to let her go.

  “Bett?”

  She turned. It was Daniel. “Is there anything I can do?”

  In that moment it seemed to hit her. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing anyone could do. He opened his arms and she moved soundlessly into them.

  Glenn and Ellen left a week later. The departure was heartbreaking for all of them. Ellen kept going to Anna’s room, as if expecting her to be there. An hour before they were due to leave, she disappeared. It took them nearly thirty minutes to find her. Bett reached her first. Ellen was tucked up behind the shed at the back of the motel, holding tightly to Bumper by his lead.

  “Ellie, you need to go, sweetheart. Daddy’s nearly ready.”

  Ellen wouldn’t look at her. “I don’t want to. I want to stay here.”

  “You can come back here whenever you like.”

  “I want to be here now.”

  Glenn came up behind her and took in the situation. He got down to Ellen’s level. “Ellie, I promise you can come back very soon. I want you to come home with me for a while first, though. I need your help.”

  She shook her head.

  Bett realized this was a moment for father and daughter. She silently slipped away, back to where Lola and her parents and Carrie and Matthew were waiting. There was still the jolt at Anna’s absence. The gap where she should be. The terrible reality of all of them gathered without her.

  Ten minutes later Glenn and Ellen came toward them, hand in hand. Ellen was subdued. She said good-bye to each of them very solemnly, hugging them around the neck. Each one of them had the same farewell message. “See you soon.” “We’ll see you soon, Ellie.”

  Then each of them hugged Glenn good-bye as well.

  Richard left three days later. Bett had gone for a drink with him the evening before. He was as sad these days as they were.

  He was going back to London again. For a few months anyway. He’d been offered work at his old newspaper. “I’ll be back, I hope. In a while. I just can’t seem to finish anything here at the moment.”

  “Will you keep in touch with us?”

  “If you’d like me to.”

  “We’d like it very much.”

  They all hugged him good-bye as well.

  Carrie and Matthew came for dinner at the motel most nights. They were trying to fix up one of the rooms of their house as a nursery, but Carrie was finding it very difficult. “I’m so scared that something will happen to the baby, that it’s bad luck. I keep thinking about everyone dying. We’ll have to go through this again and again, with Lola, with Mum and Dad, with you, with …” She was crying. “I want her back, Bett.

  “I want her here so she can tell me off. I wouldn’t even mind if she yelled at me for a week.”

  There was a kind of laughter those nights, but it was fragile, like glass.

  Two weeks after Anna died, a videotape arrived addressed to Lola from Richard’s friend Charlie Wentworth. It was the complete version of the program he had been making, as well as all the rough footage he had shot the day he was in the Clare Valley with them.

  He had enclosed a note. Richard had told him about Anna. He explained that the program had gone to air in the United Kingdom and Ireland a fortnight before, but that he thought they might like the extra footage just as much. “I am thinking of you all at this time of great sadness,” he’d signed.

  They watched it together, on the video in Lola’s room, in virtual silence. Another time the scenes would have caused much hilarity. They would have set the video u
p on the bar TV, ordered drinks for everyone, watched the tape over and over, laughing at everyone’s expressions. Not this time.

  The segment about General MacArthur’s visit to Terowie took up just a few minutes of the program. There were shots of the MacArthur plaque at Terowie Railway Station, then a shot of the Valley View Motel, followed by Lola sweeping in and pretending to work at her desk. The voice-over explained she had emigrated from Ireland sixty years previously and considered this musical her life’s work. There were several scenes from the musical itself. It was fun, snappy.

  The extra footage Charlie mentioned contained image after image of Anna, up onstage with Carrie and Bett, attempting to sing “Sisters,” first accompanied onstage by Matthew, then on their own. There was a kind of joyousness, laughter, a lightness between the three of them. It had taken four attempts, but they had finally gotten their harmonies right, standing in a row with their arms around one another, singing and laughing. The camera kept rolling afterward, long enough to capture Anna first hugging Bett and then Carrie, giving them flamboyant two-cheek kisses, actor-style.

  It was like watching something from another century.

  Bett went back to work at the newspaper three weeks after Anna’s death. At first it was as if she was sick. People kept a distance from her, wary, in case she burst into tears. Only Rebecca was normal, and Daniel.

  She went to his house for dinner the weekend after that. It was the first time she’d been out at night in the weeks since Anna died. She hadn’t been able to go too far from any of her family. He made a simple meal of pasta and salad, opened a bottle of wine for her. Afterward, she sat in his arms on the sofa, watching TV.

  She tried to concentrate on the program, but the dialogue didn’t make any sense and the people looked ridiculous, all made-up, wearing glamorous clothes. As if any of that really mattered in the end.

  She felt Daniel kiss the top of her head. Another kiss on the side of her face. She turned, met his lips, a soft, gentle kiss. His hand went lower, skimmed her arm, touched the side of her breast. She felt the stirring of feeling, a slow melting feeling begin and then the sadness roared in at her again. She couldn’t do this. Not with Anna dead.