The Sister

Four hours later—almost ten in the evening—after the police had taken their statement, Maud had been taken to the mortuary, the cellar door had been firmly locked and the house had finally fallen silent of strangers, Clive emerged from his study and sat me down at the kitchen table. He put four hard-backed A4-sized notebooks on the table and on either side of them three piles of typed papers and letters. Then he handed me a binder, opening it to reveal its first immaculately typed page. It was titled: BULBURROW COURT: TERMS OF… DEPENDENTS, ESTATE HOLDINGS, ACCOUNTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS OF…

Before I had a chance to read any further Clive made his shocking announcement: “I’m leaving Bulburrow and my whole estate to you and Vivien. I am moving to the Anchorage retirement home on Paul Street in Crewkerne. The address is in the last section of these notes.” He talked as though it were a recitation. He didn’t look at me once but concentrated on the paperwork in his hands or on the table. “I have organized my affairs so that you can easily take it on from where I’ve left off. I’ve written you a detailed list of recommendations in here to cover most eventualities in the years to come. As I’ve put here”—he flicked a few pages over and pointed to a section; I saw his hands were trembling—“first of all, you need to sell the glasshouses to pay off some outstanding debts. I’ve resisted selling them for the past few years but now I’ve determined there’s no other choice. I’ve already had one conversation with Michael about it and I think you’ll find he’s able to offer you a good price. I’ve written to my colleagues, letting them know of my retirement, and to the Royal Society, the British and Natural History museums in London. I’ve instructed them to address all future research to you. I’m leaving in the morning.”

“But…” I had no words. I stared at the neat piles in front of me. I didn’t believe a word of it. He was still in shock. He needed a good night’s sleep.

“I think you need time to think about this,” I managed finally.

“I’ve thought about it for a long time,” he said—but he couldn’t have. He didn’t know what he was saying, what he was doing. “Here is my paper.” He handed me the last few sheets he held in his hand. The article was headed: “Nomophila noctuella, a West African Visitor.”

“It’s in Lepidopterologist–Atropos this week and the Journal of the Society for British Entomology in two weeks’ time. And it’s being considered for Nature.”

“Nomophila noctuella? That tiny moth from the Robinsons on the drawing-room sill?”

He nodded. “It was radioactive. That’s why I didn’t poison it. It would have invalidated the results.”

“Radioactive?”

“Yes, contaminated by radioactive dust from a French nuclear test in the Sahara desert. The half-life was exactly the same. It had to have been there,” he said unenthusiastically.

I’ll admit I didn’t understand the significance at first, not until I had scanned a little of the opening statement: “Micro-moth Nomophila noctuella… definitive proof of the staggering 3,000- mile migration from West Africa by its contamination with radioactive dust by French nuclear test,” it read dramatically.

Radioactive! Who would have guessed? I didn’t presume to understand the ways in which Clive worked sometimes but it was impressive. Fairly impressive. No one had yet proved that any moths or butterflies, weighing in at a maximum of around two grams, were able to fly the vast distances they were suspected of flying. But Clive had proved it—with this little moth, at any rate.

“Congratulations,” I said, but I too was finding it hard to muster enthusiasm. He stuck out his chin and scratched the hair at the top of his neck.

“Well, I did it, so I thought I’d retire,” he said halfheartedly.

“Yes, you did it.”

He was already three years past retirement age, but whenever the issue had been raised he’d always refused to contemplate it. He wouldn’t retire, he had said, until he had made his mark on the world. Clive had lived with an overdeveloped need for recognition. Maud had said it was a man thing. I looked down and scanned his neatly constructed paper. We both knew it wasn’t important enough for Nature, and proving one journey of a little-known moth hadn’t exactly fulfilled his lifetime’s ambition, but perhaps we also knew it would have to do. Besides, it’s possible to feel very important indeed, for a time, within the world’s exclusive community of lepidopterists, as the first person to have used radioactivity as a tracking device. It might also have been of interest further afield, perhaps even to the entire entomology world. If he were to walk through the corridors of the Royal Entomological Society in London during the next couple of weeks, I’m certain he would have attracted more than a few outstretched hands and passing praises.

“What about the Brimstones?” I demanded, thinking of all the work we’d done over the summer.

“I ran out of time for that,” he said.

I was amazed at how easily he was giving it up.

At that moment a car screeched up the drive and we both knew it was Vivi. She’d left London as soon as she’d heard and we’d been expecting her. We went into the hall to greet her but as soon as she stormed in I could see, beneath a face bruised by sorrow and tears, that she was livid. She marched straight past me and followed Clive into his study without greeting me. Now I think of it, I don’t think she greeted Clive either. She didn’t say anything, didn’t even look at me, although I was standing right in front of her. I’m not sure why I’m bothering you with such a trifling detail, but I do remember thinking how odd it was. I know memories shouldn’t be trusted, that two people’s recall of the same event can be unbelievably different, that even their perceptions at the time can be paradoxical, so I accept that my own recollections may be distorted, but I remember it as being the strangest entrance. As soon as Clive saw Vivi he turned his back to walk towards his study, without a word, as if he knew she was going to follow him, as if the entire movement had been choreographed.

Dr. Moyse, who’d been lurking about since he’d arrived and making himself scarce at what he considered the necessary moments, latched on to me again with his unnecessary comforting as I went upstairs. I suspected he and Clive had agreed not to leave me alone in case I collapsed beneath the weight of my grief, which they hadn’t realized was eluding me. At times I could hear Vivi’s voice from the study, puncturing the silent aftermath, sometimes strained and sometimes angry, and then her bursting into tears. I presumed Clive was informing her of his rushed retirement plans and her reaction, as expected, was a little more explosive than mine.

I didn’t get to see Vivi at all during her visit, which lasted well into the night and early morning in discussions with Clive. The last thing I overheard before I finally fell asleep was an argument, not between Vivi and Clive, but between her and Dr. Moyse. They were in the hall and Moyse, who had been discharged from his duties, was at the front door, about to leave. I think it must have been lack of sensitivity on his part, but I heard him say something like, “Even your mother would have understood, Vivien.” At that, she hit the roof. I’ve never heard her yell so loudly and I was scared.

“Don’t you presume to come in here and tell me what my mother would have wanted. She damn well wouldn’t!” she screamed.

By the time I got up the next morning, Vivi had gone. And that, I can tell you now, was the last time she ever set foot in this house until yesterday.

The following morning, a Saturday, Clive carried out his itinerary to the letter and by nightfall, just a day after Maud’s accident, Vivi and I had acquired our parents’ entire estate, along with its outstanding debt.

I spent the next three days from dawn to dusk scrubbing the house, closing and locking the rooms that, on my own now, I wouldn’t need. I’d left lots of messages for Vivi. I wanted to see her desperately but Arthur had said she was too shaken to come. Finally, on Tuesday, she phoned and said she’d gone to see Clive at the Anchorage but she still wasn’t coming to the house.

On Wednesday morning I got in the car and drove through the high-hedged lanes, up Bulburrow hill and down again to Crewkerne. I parked outside Gateway and walked the short distance to the cobbled square, where the town hall stood in the center with a huge bronze statue of the man who had founded the town’s first paper factory. According to the inscription, Titus Sorrell turned round Crewkerne’s ailing economy in the mid-nineteenth century. I’d arranged to meet Clive there, on the bench outside The George. When I sat down an elderly man joined me, planting himself at the opposite end. I looked at the clock tower. Eleven-thirty exactly. Titus surveyed his empire smugly while pigeons fought to perch on his shoulders, desecrating him front and back.

At 11:33 Clive arrived. He sat down next to me and we both looked ahead at Titus and his pigeons for a