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Back The Missing Sister
Chapters (58)
  1. Cover
  2. About the Author
  3. By the same author
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  56. Author’s Note
  57. Acknowledgements
  58. THE BEGINNING

‘Depends. I might be.’ And he gave her a wide smile.

He passed the pocketknife to her and gradually she prised the lid open. When she glanced inside, the first thing she saw was a yellowing photograph of her parents with their arms wrapped around each other, broad, happy smiles on their faces.

She felt a hot flash of resentment battling with the longing she’d always tried so hard to hide. She did not love her mother. She had persuaded herself of it. Steeled herself. Nor did she care that her mother did not love her. But she’d been living with a lie.

As she thought of Diana, she stared at the gently drooping branches of the tamarind tree and shaded her eyes from the narrow shafts of piercing sunlight streaming between its leaves too brightly. The intensity of the light, plus the loud buzzing in the air, made her feel strange and she reached out a hand to Oliver.

As he held her hand for a moment, there was one thing she knew without question. Whatever had happened in this garden, whatever had happened beneath this self-same tree, it had changed her mother, and in doing so it must have altered her father too. She had a sudden uneasy sense of how her mother might have once been before the tragedy destroyed her life and her mind. She wrapped her arms around herself, feeling the ache of it because, however much she might have thought otherwise, however much she’d longed for it to be otherwise, their story was her story too.

Penguin Books

17.

Diana, Cheltenham, 1921

The longer I am not myself, the harder it is for Douglas. He still smells the same as he always has, of Trumper’s Wellington Cologne. I’d know the mix of cumin, orange and neroli anywhere. But we don’t speak to each other now except to argue and I have no chance of winning against his logical mind. That cuts deep. The more I think about it, the more the thoughts tangle in my head. To make them stop I go down the stairs and out to the garden by the French windows in the drawing room. Despite the biting cold of the afternoon, it soothes me to see the birds ruffling their feathers in the birdbath on the terrace. I love my birds. Their song lifts my spirit and I even dare to hope a little. Hope. How wonderful is that little word?

Maybe things can change. Maybe I really will remember what happened in Golden Valley. And if I do, maybe it won’t be as bad as I fear.