David and I were both silent on the journey back to the House of Flores. There were too many emotions twisting inside my head. I was afraid that if I spoke, I’d lose control.
I thought I’d seen every picture that existed of my sister – the photos they’d used in the papers; the snapshots we’d had at home. Now I’d discovered an entirely new image inside a stranger’s house and I didn’t know how to react.
From time to time, David gave me a curious glance and I wondered if he resented my detachment. There was nothing I could do. I didn’t have the strength to take his feelings into account.
Still, I felt a tug of regret when David came into the House of Flores and I refused his offer to stay and help. He suggested meeting for a drink instead and I made an excuse for that too.
‘It’s all right,’ he said with a rueful smile. ‘It’s not obligatory.’ But he pulled out a pen and scribbled his number onto a scrap of paper before he left. ‘In case you change your mind.’
I took the boxes into the back room. The clock chimed from its hidden place and I checked my watch. Two o’clock. Rita and Mattie were due. I pulled out the portrait and slipped it into my bag. By the time they arrived I’d gathered myself and a pile of paperwork together and was pretending to be absorbed.
They worked in the back room, sorting Edward Lily’s clothes, his shirts and pinstripe trousers, linen jackets, hats and shoes. After a while, I gave up on the accounts and fetched the portrait.
The artist had captured Gabriella exactly, the way she looked to one side, the hint of a smile on her lips. The picture had been drawn by someone who knew my sister, or else had watched her, day after day. Dawn had said Lydia was strange. Withdrawn. A solitary girl with solitary pursuits. She’d been a reader. Had she been an artist too? Taking my address book, I flicked through until I found Dawn’s number and made the call.
Dawn sounded out of breath. ‘I was in the garden, pulling out weeds,’ she said. ‘Needs must, now I’m on my own. Is everything all right? Did you find Lydia’s things?’
‘Yes. Thank you.’ I stopped and walked across to the window. From the back room, I heard Rita and Mattie discussing how to deal with Edward Lily’s clothes.
‘Good,’ said Dawn. ‘I wasn’t sure what to do with them, because of course I couldn’t carry them, and the man with the van said—’
‘That’s all right,’ I said, interrupting. ‘They’re at the shop now.’ I hesitated. My heart was beating too hard. I put my hand on my chest to try to slow it down. ‘There’s a drawing. I wondered where you found it.’
‘Drawing? Oh yes. It was in the living room, on the empty shelves. I thought it had been forgotten so I popped it in the box.’
‘Do . . . ?’ I stopped again, and tried to breathe normally. ‘Do you think Lydia might have drawn it?’
There was a pause. ‘Well,’ said Dawn. ‘I don’t know.’
‘Did you ever see Lydia drawing?’
‘I don’t remember. I don’t think so.’
‘It’s only . . . the portrait is very good.’
‘Is it? Well, to be honest, I didn’t really look. I was in a hurry to get the boxes sorted. The man with the van—’
‘That’s fine,’ I said. ‘Don’t worry.’ I waited a few seconds before I asked my next question, gathering my breath and speaking quickly to get the sentence out. ‘What about Edward Lily? Was he an artist?’ My voice was high and strange. I gripped the phone. Had Dawn noticed?
‘I’d say it was more likely,’ she said. ‘All those paintings he collected, but I can’t say I ever saw him doing anything like that himself. Perhaps he bought it. What makes you think it was either of them who drew it?’ It was a good question and one I couldn’t answer. So I thanked her again and told her to come in any time if she wanted to take another look through Lydia’s things. I was going to keep them for a while in case Edward’s sister or Lydia herself came back to claim them.
After the call, I considered more carefully the possibility of Edward Lily being the artist. I imagined him watching Gabriella so often he’d managed to capture her expression exactly; to draw her hair, her eyes, her mouth so precisely. I thought of the man in the photos, his books and his beautiful things. I thought of his wife. His daughter. If it was true, had they known what he was like?
Crossing the room, I stood before the Modigliani. The girl’s eyes looked back. Defiant. Strange I’d never seen her like that before. I touched the glass gently with my fingertips, traced the narrow face. Gabriella. She was everywhere. In my thoughts and in my dreams, beside me now, staring outwards from this painting. And there was I, my reflection, staring back. Two sisters, trapped in one place.
That night I stayed awake, moving through the darkness in the house. Gabriella: my first thought in the morning, my last memory at night.
The discovery of the portrait had changed everything. The faceless shadow that had visited me in my dreams was real. Suspicion finally had a foundation. The figure had a face. And that meant something else. The police would need to know. The newspapers would dig up the story all over again. People would pick over the pieces, like crows on raw meat.
The realisation bore down on me as I paced. I’d spent years barely speaking of Gabriella, and it struck me now: so few people I’d ever met beyond this village even knew that I’d had a sister. When friends talked about their childhoods or complained about their families I was silent and they assumed I had no one. People told me that I was lucky. I didn’t tell them otherwise. I looked at their family photos and showed them nothing in return. Now I would have no choice but to admit I’d had a sister. I would no longer be able to deal with things alone.
The thought gripped my throat, suffocating me. I needed air. Out in the garden, I stood beneath the damson tree, staring upwards through the thin boughs at the cold moon.
I remembered the day Gabriella disappeared. The loneliness, the desolation; how I’d made up stories in my mind to explain where she’d gone. I’d refused to believe her absence was absolute until I’d finally given in and accepted what everyone else had seen as inevitable. What choice had I had? I’d needed to get on with my future and put that other life behind me. Although I hadn’t done that, had I? I’d only hidden the grief inside myself. And now perhaps this was the closest I could ever be to Gabriella, beneath the tree where we’d gathered fruit, feeling her breath in the wind.