Sister

knew would end our relationship.

Despite the snow and slippery pavements, it took me only ten minutes to walk to Kasia’s flat. She’s since told me that she always came to yours, and I guess that was to avoid Mitch. Her flat is in Trafalgar Crescent, an ugly concrete impostor among the crisp symmetrical garden squares and properly shaped crescents of the rest of W11. Alongside and above her street, as if you could reach it as easily as reaching a book on a tall bookshelf, is the Westway, the roar of traffic thundering down the street. In the stairwells, graffiti artists (maybe they’re called painters now) have left their tags, like dogs peeing, marking out their patch. Kasia opened the door, keeping it on the chain. “Yes?”

“I’m Tess Hemming’s sister.”

She unhooked the chain and I heard a bolt being pulled back. Even on her own (let alone the fact that it was snowing outside and she was pregnant), she was wearing a tight cropped top and high-heeled black patent boots with Diamante studs up the sides. For a moment I worried that she was a prostitute and was expecting a client. I can hear you laughing. Stop.

“Beatrice.” I was taken aback that she remembered my name. “Come. Please.”

It had been just over two weeks since I’d last seen her—when she came round to the flat asking for you—and her bump had got noticeably bigger. I guessed she must be around seven months pregnant now.

I went into the flat, which smelled of cheap perfume and air freshener that didn’t mask the natural smells of mold and damp evident on the walls and carpet. An Indian throw like the one on your sofa (had you given her one of yours?) had been nailed up at the window. I’d thought that I wouldn’t try to put down Kasia’s exact words or try to get across her accent, but in this meeting her lack of fluency made what she said more striking.

“I’m sorry. You must be … How can I say?” She struggled for the word, then, giving up, shrugged apologetically. “Sad, but ‘sad’ not big enough.”

For some reason her imperfect English sounded more sincere than a perfectly phrased letter of condolence.

“You love her very much, Beatrice.” Love in the present tense because Kasia had yet to learn the past tense, or because she was more sensitive than anyone else to my bereavement?

“Yes, I do.”

She looked at me, her face warm and compassionate, and she baffled me. Straight off, she had hopped out of the box I’d so neatly stuck her into. She was being kind to me and it was meant to be the other way around. I gave her the small suitcase I’d brought with me. “I’ve brought some baby things.” She didn’t look nearly as pleased as I’d expected. I thought it must be because the clothes were intended for Xavier, that they were stained with sadness.

“Tess … funeral?” she asked.

“Oh yes, of course. It’s in Little Hadston, near Cambridge, on Thursday, the fifteenth of February at eleven o’clock.”

“Can you write …?”

I wrote down the details for her, and then I virtually pushed the suitcase of baby clothes into her hands.

“Tess would want you to have them.”

“Our priest, he says Mass for her on Sunday.” I wondered why she was changing the subject. She hadn’t even opened the suitcase. “That was okay?”

I nodded. I’m not sure what you’ll make of it though.

“Father John. He’s very nice man. He’s very …” She absentmindedly moved her hand onto her bump.

“Very Christian?” I asked.

She smiled, getting the joke. “For priest. Yes.”

Was she joking too? Yes, straight back. She was much sharper than I’d thought.

“The Mass. Does Tess mind?” she asked. Again I wondered if the present tense was intentional. Maybe it was—if a Mass is all it’s cracked up to be, then you’re up there in heaven, or in the waiting room of purgatory, present tense. You’re in the now, if not in the here and now—and maybe Kasia’s Mass reached you and you’re now feeling a little foolish about your earthly atheism.

“Would you like to look in the case and decide what you want?”

I’m not sure if I was being kind or trying to get back into a place where I felt superior. I certainly didn’t feel comfortable being the recipient of kindness from someone like Kasia. Yes, I was still snobby enough to think “someone like.”

“I make tea first?”

I followed her into the dingy kitchen. The linoleum on the floor was torn, exposing concrete underneath. But everything was as clean as it could be given the handicap it started with. White chipped china gleamed, old saucepans shone around their rust spots. She filled the kettle and put it on the stove top. I didn’t think she’d be able to tell me anything useful but decided to try anyway. “Do you know if anyone had tried to give Tess drugs?”

She looked aghast. “Tess never take drugs. With baby, nothing bad. No tea, no coffee.”

“Do you know who Tess was afraid of?”

Kasia shook her head. “Tess not afraid.”

“But after she had the baby?”

Her eyes filled with tears and she turned away from me, struggling to regain her composure. Of course she’d been away with Mitch in Majorca when you had Xavier. She hadn’t come back till after you’d died, when she’d come knocking on your door and found me instead. I felt guilty for upsetting her, for questioning her when she clearly