‘Sally, it’s Kate. Will you let me in?’
The hallway is silent and there’s no sign of life. I shut the letter box and as I stand up I see a woman coming down the driveway of the neighbouring house.
‘She won’t answer,’ she tells me as she draws near. ‘You can bang on that door and make all the racket you want but she won’t come.’
I look at her. She’s a large woman with neat grey hair cut short. Her brightly patterned blouse reminds me of one my mum used to wear but this woman has none of Mum’s gentleness. She folds her arms across her chest as she stands there weighing me up.
‘I’m her sister,’ I tell her. ‘She knows I’m coming. I can wait.’
‘She only comes out at night when it’s dark,’ continues the woman. She shakes her head and sighs as if going out at night is a mortal sin. ‘She sneaks out when she thinks no one can see her,’ she goes on. ‘But I see her. Dreadful state she gets herself into. Dirty clothes and hair all over the place, and she drives, though I’m sure she’s in no fit state to do that. They say she spends the whole day drinking. And I’ve had words with her partner, what’s his name?’
‘Paul,’ I say, not taking my eyes off the door.
‘Paul, that’s it,’ says the woman. ‘But he’s hardly here so he doesn’t see what I see. Says she’s got depression but he doesn’t see her lurching back in the car with bagfuls of bottles. Depression? There was another word for it in my day and it didn’t end well. You’re her sister, you say? I haven’t seen you around here before.’
‘I live in London,’ I explain, trying to disguise the contempt that is rising in my voice. ‘And I work away. Look, I’m sorry I disturbed you with the knocking but everything’s fine. I’m going to go round the back and see if she’s in the garden.’
But the woman isn’t finished. She starts telling me what a state the garden has become in the last few months.
‘Look, I’m sorry but you’ll have to excuse me,’ I interrupt her mid-flow. ‘My sister needs me.’
I hear her mutter something as I walk down the drive and open the side gate. I gasp as I enter the garden. The woman was right. It is a state. The grass is patchy and overgrown with weeds and there are bits of broken furniture tossed here and there. Why hasn’t Paul done something about it, I wonder. He lives here too. Surely he can’t feel comfortable with it? But it sounds like Paul is keeping away. I remember his face when he turned up to take me to the solicitor, pale and exhausted. Now, seeing this detritus, it all makes sense. This is no home.
I can just about make out the path that curves round the back of the house and I follow it up to the doors of the conservatory. That’s when I see her. She is sitting on a chair, bolt upright, staring out at the garden.
She looks so different it startles me. It has been several years since I last saw her and she has deteriorated. Badly.
After a second I raise my hand.
When she sees me, her mouth drops open.
‘Sally,’ I call, knocking on the window. I gesture to her to let me in but she doesn’t move. She just sits there staring at me as if she can’t trust what she is seeing. I rap on the glass again and finally she mouths back at me: ‘It’s open.’
A deeply unpleasant odour hits me as I enter the house, a mix of over-ripe apples and sweat. Sally sits on a grubby white wicker chair in the corner of the conservatory. Her blonde hair has grown very long and it hangs greasily round her shoulders. She is wearing a dirty pink dressing gown and as I draw close it becomes clear that she is the source of the smell.
‘What are you doing here?’ she asks as I close the door.
‘I’ve come to see you,’ I reply. ‘I’ve just been to the solicitor . . . about Mum.’
‘Mum’s dead,’ she slurs, staring past me towards the window. ‘He take you, did he?’
I assume she means Paul so I say, yes, he drove me there. ‘He took me to see her grave as well and told me all about the funeral,’ I add.
‘He always had a soft spot for her,’ she says coldly. ‘Don’t know why. She said she couldn’t stand him, but then she hated anything that I loved, didn’t she?’
‘I don’t know about that, Sally,’ I reply. ‘Mum loved Hannah.’
At this she lets out a snort and pulls her knees up to her chest.
‘Oh, here we go again,’ she sighs. ‘Is that why you’re here? To give me another lecture on parenting? You’re so deluded, Kate. You always were, even when we were kids.’
I choose to ignore this slight and look around for somewhere to sit but there is nothing except an old, chipped coffee table. My stomach cramps as I bend down to sit on the edge of the table. I’m still feeling delicate and the smell inside the house is making me light-headed.