My Sister’s Secret

The next time I saw that same photo, it was shown alongside photos of the ship languishing at the bottom of the sea the week it sank. My aunt Hope had been looking after me in the ramshackle pebbledash house she and Mum had grown up in in Busby-on-Sea. We got the call in the middle of the night to confirm they’d died.

‘They’re gone,’ she said as she peered up at me in the darkness.

I’ve never quite forgiven her for that. They’re gone.

I hadn’t been able to process it properly, I was so young. I remember running to my room and slamming the door, saying ‘no’ over and over. My aunt didn’t come to comfort me. Instead, she went outside and knelt on the shore, smashing her fists into the waves as though she was punishing the sea for taking her sister away from her.

The memories dissipate. I can’t get caught up in them, I must stay focused.

So I continue swimming towards the ship, trying to stifle my grief and sadness. After a while, I see the hole in the side of the ship that the rescue divers must have made all those years ago. The lights from our torches join up to illuminate the area in front of us. The hole’s ragged and just about wide enough for two to swim through without snagging skin.

Am I really about to go in there?

I stop a moment, floating in the water, staring at the ship. Then I kick my legs hard and head towards the hole. Guy goes to follow me but Ajay holds him back. I know why he’s doing it: I have to be the first one in there. My heart clenches at that.

Thank you, Ajay.

I slide my body through the hole and the ship’s once grand dining room is right there in front of me, an eerie shadow of what it once was. I find it hard to breathe for a second, my chest struggling to take in the air being pumped from the tank on my back. The tank itself suddenly feels heavy, too heavy, and my heads swims slightly.

I try to focus on my breathing as I look around me, the rest of the divers are spilling into the hall behind me and spreading out around the area, cameras ready to take photos, to assess what needs doing. Some divers have large nets to bring items of note up to surface. But my camera stays floating from my belt. I need to see this with my own eyes, not through a camera lens.

Faded Garden of Eden murals line the walls above, a large staircase winds its way up to a gilded balcony. Nearby, a huge chandelier lies on its side, its smashed crystals glinting in the light from our torches. To my right are tables and chairs embellished with gold leaf, piled on top of each other. And in the middle of it all, now lying on its side but once lying across the dining room floor, a glass viewing pane that’s splintered and thick with sea moss.

Survivors said the first wave hit as dessert was served that evening.

I imagine the whole area coming to life before my eyes as it does still in my nightmares: the tables and chairs righting themselves, silver cutlery clinking into place, fragments of glass floating back together to form large wine glasses. I pass a smashed piano and can almost hear the soft lilt of music echoing in the background, the sound of laughter and chatter around me.

Maybe Mum would have been sitting at one of these tables in her long black dress, the silver mesh purse I’d got her for her birthday clutched in her lap. Dad would be dressed in his smart tux, his blond hair swept over his forehead. He’d be whispering something to Mum and she’d laugh in response as they clinked their champagne glasses together. This would have been a big night for them, the launch of Dad’s ship. In those last few months, he had worked into the early hours. Mum often waited up for him, and I sometimes watched her without her realising. She’d be curled up on the sofa in her silk nightie reading a book, glasses perched on the end of her nose. When the key turned in the door, her face lit up and Dad would walk in, twirling her around in his arms as she laughed.

A few nights later, they were here, in this very dining room.

But then the scene disintegrates, chairs splintering, tables collapsing, glass and silver smashing apart as my parents fade away until I’m back in the foggy depths of this sea coffin again, still an orphan, still alone.

This is harder than I thought. I’ve wanted it so long I’ve lost track of what it really means: I’m here, in the belly of the ship where my parents died.

The yellow of Ajay’s fins catch my attention. He’s filming the scenes around him for the video we’ll all watch later to assess just how much work needs doing. He heads down a corridor leading away from the dining room and I follow. Some paintings are still secured to the walls, including one of a woman in her fifties with black hair and penetrating blue eyes. My grandmother from Dad’s side. Like my other grandparents, she passed away before I was born. I slide my fingers over the canvas and it bubbles under my fingertips.

In the distance, I see the remains of a bar, stools toppled on to their sides. A large balcony appears on my right, providing a route out on to the ship’s decking area and the sea beyond.

There’s a loud creaking sound. Ajay and I both pause, his limbs floating, almost disappearing into the haze. One of the pictures falls from the wall, bobbing towards me. I push it away.

Another creaking sound.

Ajay waves his hand from side to side, the diver signal that something is wrong and we need to head back to the surface. My first chance to see the place where my parents died and I have to leave after less than five minutes here?

I shake my head. He grabs my arm. We look at each other through our masks, my eyes pleading with his to give me more time. He shakes his head and points towards the surface.

In the distance, the other divers start heading back. I feel like taking my snorkel out and screaming. Instead, I follow Ajay out of the ship.

Before I head towards the surface, I look back once more and say a silent goodbye to my parents.

That evening, I walk into the restaurant of the large beachside hotel where we’re staying in Rhodes. People turn to stare as I pass them. I suppose I look out of place here among all these tourists, a lone wolf, as Ajay calls me, pale skin, tattoos and short black hair. Wait until they see all the other divers pile in.

Ajay and Guy are already here, sitting in a quiet corner, two bottles of beer nearly empty already. I slump down across from Ajay, unable to hide my disappointment.

‘It sucks, doesn’t it?’ Guy says.

‘Sure does,’ I say, trying to get the attention of a waiter, desperate for a beer too.

‘So you must have been young when your folks died? Did you have family who took you in?’

I nod. ‘My aunt.’

I spent that first week after my parents died imagining them coming back, found and safe. Then my aunt had come to me one morning, her bag slung over her shoulder. ‘Right,’ she said. ‘Let’s see your new school’.

That’s when it hit me, my parents were really gone and the wonderful life I’d had with them gone too. Waves of grief overwhelmed me and the emptiness of the life that lay before me seemed to unravel. I yearned for the huge cottage I’d grown up in just outside Busby-on-Sea. I yearned for my lovely room with its aqua walls like the sea. I yearned for my dog, Tommy, but Aunt Hope had refused to take him in. I didn’t want this decrepit old seaside town with its soulless school and strange homeless woman with her trolley full of shoes.

I’d burst into tears. My aunt had to postpone the visit I was such a mess.

The only thing that got me through those first few months was imagining the grey sea outside my aunt’s house was the Aegean Sea. I’d envisage diving under the waves, plucking my parents to safety. It wasn’t long before I begged my aunt to take me swimming. She reluctantly agreed, and would sit perched on a rock with her notepad and pen in hand as she watched me teach myself to swim in the shallow sea just outside the cottage. Occasionally, she’d look up and shout out some half-hearted words of advice. ‘Kick your legs harder, Willow!’ or, ‘Not like that, you look like a rhino.’

‘Did you get into diving because of your folks?’ Guy asks now.

I nod as I order a beer. ‘If the rescue divers had got down there quicker all those years ago, they might have saved more passengers. I guess I wanted to see if I could do better.’

‘Why didn’t you get into rescue diving then?’

‘I did at first. It wasn’t enough. So I did my commercial training with Ajay.’

‘What inspired you to get into all this?’ Guy asks Ajay.

‘I used to dive the forest in the lake near where I was born. I suppose it got under my skin. You?’ he asks Guy.

Guy smiles. ‘Grew up by the sea.’

When the waiter arrives with my beer, I take a sip, savouring its coolness. We all grow quiet, looking out at the sea. White buildings scatter across a nearby hill that stretches out above the waves, tourists walking up a set of steps towards some ancient ruins, the setting sun casting them in yellow. Beyond, the sea stirs, flexing its muscles, ready for another night.

Ajay tilts his bottle towards mine. ‘To the sea getting under our skin,’ he says.

I cling my bottle against his. ‘To lost souls,’ I say.

I wake the next morning, eyes adjusting to the glare of light slicing through my hotel room. There’s a ringing sound and I can’t quite figure out where it’s coming from.

‘Your phone,’ Guy says, handing it to me. He’s lying naked in my bed, his arm flung over his head to protect his eyes from the sunlight.

I take the phone, see it’s Ajay, and so I drag myself out of bed, grabbing on to the desk nearby to steady myself when I see stars. I put the phone to my ear.

‘Ajay?’ I say as I squint out of the window at the bright blue skies, the clear sea. Behind me, Guy rises and pads into the bathroom.

‘I’ve been looking through the items some of the divers recovered from the wreck,’ he says.

‘They managed to recover stuff?’

‘Only a few bits and pieces. I think there might be something here that belonged to your mother.’

My heartbeat gallops. ‘I’ll be there in half an hour.’

Twenty-eight minutes later, I’m standing in a large warehouse by the main port in Rhodes, looking at one of four tables laid out with items taken from the ship. Before me is a bag threaded with silver, its straps made from satin and silver leaves. It’s faded by the sea and time, but it looks like the bag I’ve seen in photos, the same bag Dad helped me buy Mum for her thirty-fifth birthday just a few months before I lost her.

I gently pick it up and open it…and there it is, etched into a tarnished silver plate inside:

Mummy,

Happy birthday.

Lots of love, Willow x

I clutch it to my chest, emotions so intense I can hardly breathe. I remember how excited I’d been to give it to her. Dad had made her breakfast, setting it all out in our gorgeous garden. I’d patiently sat at the table, waiting for her to come out, the bag carefully wrapped in my lap. When she’d opened it, she’d been delighted.

I look inside, not surprised to find it empty. I wonder what she kept in there that night. Her trademark red lipstick, a small bottle of perfume – that rose scent of hers. Maybe a comb?

I slide open the small zipper, carefully dipping my fingers in. There’s something in there.

A necklace.

I pull it out. It’s rusty and twisted but the pendant hanging from it is still intact. It’s a symbol of some kind, half a circle with a curved thread of gold inside.

‘Was that in the bag?’ Ajay asks, looking over my shoulder.

I nod. ‘I don’t recognise the symbol though.’

‘Looks like two initials, a C and an N. Wasn’t your mum’s name Charity?’

I frown. ‘Yes, but Dad’s name was Dan.’

Ajay shrugs. ‘Maybe it’s not initials then.’ Someone calls him over. He puts his hand on my arm. ‘You okay?’

‘Yeah. Thanks for calling me, I’m pleased we found the bag.’

He smiles. ‘Me too.’

As he jogs away, I stare at the necklace. It’s not in any of the photos I have of Mum and God knows I’ve stared at them enough to know.

I pull my phone from my pocket, dialling my aunt’s mobile phone number. It takes a few rings for her to answer.

‘Willow?’ she says, voice curt.

‘Hi. Are you at the cottage?’ I ask.

‘I am.’ She pauses. ‘Well, how did it go?’

‘Not great. The ship’s unstable, they’ve had to cancel the recovery. To be honest, I don’t think I’ll get a chance to dive it again, it’s just too dangerous.’

‘Good. It’s best left alone.’

I suppress a sigh. We’d argued when I’d told her I was going to be part of the dive crew who’d be salvaging the ship. She had this romantic notion that it would be disturbing the dead passengers’ souls, even though all the bodies had been recovered long ago.

‘They found some items though,’ I say, looking at the necklace, ‘including the silver bag I got Mum for her birthday.’

My aunt doesn’t respond for a moment. I just hear her breath, quiet and slow. ‘That’s good,’ she says eventually, sounding a bit choked up. ‘I’d like to see it when you come back.’

‘I’ll bring it with me. There was a necklace inside that I don’t recognise.’

‘She had lots of jewellery.’

‘This one’s unusual though. Ajay thinks it might be two initials intertwined, a C and an N?’ My aunt’s silent again. That silence speaks volumes. ‘Did you see Mum wear it?’

‘No, never.’

‘Then why did you go quiet?’

‘No reason.’ She’s lying. I can always tell when she’s lying, her voice goes up an octave. ‘So if the dive’s cancelled, does that mean you’ll be coming to clean up the cottage with me?’

I think of stepping into my parent’s cottage for the first time in twenty years. ‘I might stay here for a few days actually.’

‘Don’t make excuses. It might be the last chance you’ll get to see it.’

I’ve been trying to forget the fact that I finally relented to putting the house I grew up in on the market. I haven’t stepped foot in there since my parents died. Maybe if my aunt had taken me there after, like I’d begged her to, it might have been different. But she’d insisted it would just upset me. And the more months and years that passed, the more painful the thought of going back there became.

I look down at the necklace. Maybe it’s finally time I go.

Chapter Two

Willow

Near Busby-on-Sea, UK

August 2016

I peer up at the large white cottage that was my childhood home until my parents died. It seems to blur into the clouds above, the green of the grass that spreads out behind it and the blue of the sea in front add the only hint of colour.

I walk the stones I used to skip up. They’re overgrown with moss now, barely visible. And those large bay windows, I’d once sat by as I waited for Dad to return from work. But they’re so grimy now, no way anybody could see through them. The rose bushes are still here. They used to be so beautiful, Mum tending to them, dark hair wrapped up in a scarf, lip caught in her teeth. Now they’re overgrown and tangled with weeds.

I haven’t cared for this place.

I breathe in the sharp clear air and remember doing the same as I set off for my first day at school from this very spot, uncomfortable and rigid in my bulky new uniform. I’d stared out towards the sea and realised, even at that young age, the perimeters of my little world were widening. Then Mum had put her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

‘Come on then,’ Dad had called out as he held the door to his Range Rover open for me. ‘Time for you to break some hearts at school.’

‘Come on then,’ a sharp voice says right now.

Aunt Hope is standing at the door, arms crossed, an impatient look on her face. Her grey eyes – the same colour as my mum’s – drill into mine. Her long red hair is loose around her shoulders, silver bits threaded through to the ends. I didn’t realise she’d started going grey, but then the last time I saw her was a few months ago, a brief visit to drop in her birthday card and present, an old book of poetry I’d found while visiting Scotland for a dive. She’s wearing one of her eccentric long dresses, blue-green like the sea with pearlescent gems all over.

I lug my bag over my shoulder and walk up the mossy stepping stones towards her. She pulls some keys from her bag and places them in the door. It creaks open and I pause before entering, noticing the slate-grey floor tiles, the beginnings of a long staircase. Memories accost me: me skidding down the stairs with a screech as Dad chases me; Mum greeting me at the door after playing outside.

I step into the house and the warmth of the memory disappears, replaced with the dust and the cold. The awful pain of my parents’ absence hits me in the chest.

‘Dust didn’t have a chance with the housekeeper your father hired,’ Aunt Hope says, marching down the hallway towards a small window in the middle. She yanks the yellow flowered curtains apart, dust billowing around her. The sea is unveiled in the distance, vast and blue. ‘Remember her? All ruffles and disapproving glances. What was her name?’

‘Linda, I think,’ I say, but I’m not really listening to her. I walk down the hallway, taking in the photos on the wall. Mum and Dad on their honeymoon, all tanned and smiling, against some pretty mountainous backdrop. Mum looking down at a newborn me in hospital, face soft with disbelief and love. Another of Dad holding a tiny me curled into his arm, a huge smile on his face. Then the three of us dressed in woolly coats, huddled up together outside this very house in the snow.

I walk up to it, tracing my fingers around my parents’ faces, the grief bubbling inside, almost unbearable.

‘Were they happy here?’ I murmur to Aunt Hope. ‘They looked happy.’

She looks into my eyes a moment. ‘I think they were, yes.’ Then she heads towards the large kitchen as I follow. The white marble floor tiles are now filthy; the pine units streaked. Aunt Hope pulls the sheet off the marble island in the middle of the kitchen, dust making us both cough.

‘Tea?’ she asks, pulling a travel kettle from her bag. I can’t help but smile, typical of my aunt, always needing a cup of herbal tea wherever she goes. I often wonder if that’s all she eats, too, she’s so thin.

I try to peer out of the grimy French windows, catching a glimpse of the willow tree.

‘Still have lots of sugar?’ my aunt asks.

‘Yep.’

She shakes her head with disapproval, heaping three spoonfuls into my tea.

‘You could do with some sugar yourself. You’re looking really thin,’ I say.

She waves her hand in the air like she always does when I bring up her weight.

‘So,’ I say, getting the necklace out and dangling it between my fingers. ‘Recognise this?’

She looks over her shoulder at it. ‘Nope.’

I examine her face. I can’t tell if she’s hiding something from me. She sits down across from me and we sip our tea in silence, the necklace lying between us.

Sometimes it’s better if we’re quiet, that way there’s no chance of an argument brewing. The argument we had before I moved out was the worst. She’d always told me the reason she didn’t have many photos of Mum from when they were young was because she’d lost them all. But on my sixteenth birthday, I’d crept up to the loft and found a photo album. Inside was a photo of Mum sitting in the sun, tanned pretty face tilted up to the camera, black hair piled on to her head with a red halter-neck top on. On the back was the year: 1974. Mum would have been thirteen. I flicked through the rest of the album, noticing blank sections that suggested photos had been removed.

When I’d shown the album to Aunt Hope, she’d said some must have fallen out. I could tell she was lying. We argued bitterly – she was holding bits of my mother back from me and I couldn’t forgive that. In the end, I packed all my things and stormed out of the house, staying with an older girl I’d met at swimming classes. I still saw my aunt, working at her café at weekends and in evenings, and we settled into a strange relationship, half aunt and niece, half manager and employee. When I handed in my notice after getting a job as a lifeguard in Brighton, she’d wished me good luck. ‘You know where I am if you need me,’ she’d said.

Since then it’s just been a case of popping in for birthdays and at Christmas, and the occasional phone call. I guess I’ve preferred my own company over the years. Coming back to Busby-on-Sea and seeing my aunt just brings back too many memories, not just of my parents but also those sad empty years after they passed away.

I study her thin face over the rim of my cup, take in the lines around her pale grey eyes that seem more pronounced than last time I saw her, the pinch of her lips, the pale shade of her skin.

She’s definitely getting older.

After we finish our tea, she stands up. ‘Well, we can’t sit here and sip tea all day, can we? How about we tidy the place up a bit and you can have a think about what you want to do?’

We spend the day in awkward comradeship getting cleaning supplies from the local shops and ringing around local handymen to get some broken windows sorted. By the time darkness falls, we still haven’t finished the last room: the living room, a long room divided by a pretty alcove with plaster-clad butterflies around its edges. One part of the room used to be dedicated to the TV and sofas; the other to all my toys. I remember winter nights with the fire roaring, the three of us snuggled up watching TV or playing games.

It’s cold and draughty now, dust and spider webs clogging the walls. The once thick rug I used to love is dirty with dead flies and mud.

‘Shall we just stay here?’ Aunt Hope suggests. ‘We can work into the night, get it out of the way. There are clean sheets in storage.’

I peer up at the ceiling. It’ll be strange staying here again, the first time since my parents died.

‘I presume you’ll be wanting to get away again?’ my aunt continues as she examines my face. ‘If we leave now, it might mean another whole day of clearing up.’

I take a deep breath. ‘Alright, let’s stay.’

Aunt Hope helps me roll the rug up and we place it in the hallway. We then scrub the dark wooden floorboards, both seeming to take comfort in the repetitive nature of the task.

‘Your mum loved these floorboards,’ Aunt Hope says after a while. ‘Your dad wanted to get a posh carpet but she insisted on stripping these down and restoring them.’

‘Yeah, she used to get annoyed when Dad pulled me along the floorboards on that rug. But then she’d join in after a while.’

My aunt wipes a grimy hand across her forehead, leaving a dark streak behind. ‘Put this in the bin bag, won’t you?’ she says, handing me the filthy rag she’s been using. I pull the bin bag in the corner of the room towards me and go to throw the rag in. But something catches my eye, an envelope with my name on it. I pull it out. It has the cottage’s address on it, a postal stamp from a few days before.

‘What’s this?’ I ask.

‘Just some junk mail.’

‘But it’s addressed to me, why would I get post here?’ I say. ‘And why would you open it if it was addressed to me?’

Aunt Hope shrugs. ‘I didn’t notice your name on it.’

I open the bag wider, sorting through the rubbish until I come across what looks like an invitation.

To Willow,

You are invited to a private viewing of

Niall Lane’s next exhibition:

The Charity Collection, a Retrospective and

Commemoration.

10th August 2016

7pm

Brighton Museum & Art Gallery

Beneath the text is a beautiful photograph of a tree that appears to be underwater with an etching in the bark.