Sisters and Lies Read online

  I heard nothing that weekend. In fact, by Monday evening, I thought I’d got away with it. That we’d never see each other again.

  But that evening, as I walked up to the door of my apartment building, I saw a familiar figure sitting on the steps outside, holding a bag. I froze. ‘How did you find out where I live?’ I asked, hearing the terror in my voice.

  ‘I have my sources,’ he said, smiling up at me. His body was so long it spanned almost all of the steps. For a second, he reminded me of a piece of sculpture. ‘Just wanted to give you something,’ he said, holding out a bag in front of him. It was one of the posh ones with ropes. ‘That shoe you lost – the heel was broken, so I bought you some new ones.’ He withdrew a pristine box from the bag, the same brand as my old ones, Jimmy Choo.

  ‘Sit down there, please,’ he directed, pointing to a step. ‘We’re going to have to make sure they fit.’

  I did as I was told. For some reason, I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

  It was late and the street was empty. All that could be heard was a faint rustling of trees and some cars in the distant background. He knelt in front of me and gently prised off the shoes I was already wearing – a pair of black pumps with a ribbon on the front. I worried that my feet would smell: I wasn’t wearing any tights. But they didn’t appear to. All that was in the air was a faint waft of Donnagh’s aftershave, something musky, of course, with the faintest tinge of orange.

  Then he made a great show of removing the new Jimmy Choos from their box – withdrawing the stuffing from the toe, pushing out the leather with his fingertips – then finally sliding them onto my feet. ‘They fit,’ he whispered, delicately holding my ankles. I looked at him, unable to say anything. My heart was thumpety-thumping in my chest.

  Slowly he traced his finger up one of my bare legs, stopping at the inside of my knee. I heard myself moan, and wanted to cut out my voice box.

  He stared at me for a second and then, with a sudden movement, he wrapped his hands around my waist and pulled me towards him. ‘You didn’t say goodbye properly on Friday night,’ he said, his mouth inches from mine.

  I focused on his top lip again. The way it jutted out slightly. ‘Goodnight,’ I said, the first word I had spoken for ages.

  ‘You can’t run away from me, you know.’

  ‘I know,’ I said, looking directly into his eyes.

  And then I kissed him.

  12.

  Rachel: day three, 5 p.m.

  I went back to the flat, still in shock, threw a few things into a suitcase, then caught a flight straight back to London, tears obscuring my view the whole way. However, on the aeroplane I gave myself a stern talking-to. I had been the one to walk out on Jacob; I had encouraged him to find someone else. So, now he had, why was I bawling and sniffling?

  I needed to be strong. In my experience, the only thing for it was to bite down and push through the pain. That was what I had done after Mammy had died, when I’d left Jacob the first time. And after the abortion. When I was seventeen.

  Back in London, I went directly to the hospital to check on Evie. Still nothing. The tears threatened to start flowing again but I hurriedly wiped them away when a young nurse entered the room.

  ‘Any improvement?’

  The nurse, Heather, smiled weakly at me. ‘Well, she’s no worse,’ she said. ‘Her blood pressure and her heart rate are good.’ She fiddled around with some wires and wrote something on a chart.

  Evie was never going to wake up, was she? This was it. How it would go on. Day after day after day of endless hoping, waiting, expectation.

  At least when I’d thought Jacob and I might get back together, the uncertainty had seemed bearable, manageable. But now … now that I knew that wasn’t going to happen, how would I survive this horror?

  ‘Let me know if you need anything,’ the nurse said kindly, as she made her way towards the door.

  I nodded, and soon all was still.

  After that I sat holding Evie’s hand and cried till my throat hurt. ‘Please wake up,’ I whispered, as I laid my head on her arm. ‘Come on, Evie. You can’t do this to me any more.’

  But nothing happened. Not to Evie, anyway. All I noticed was evening setting in, a darkening of the light and, at some point, another nurse popping her head through the door to tell me that visiting hours were over, that it was time to go home.

  When I reached Evie’s apartment, Donnagh was back from his business trip, cooking something in the kitchen.

  ‘Hey, Rachel, would you like to join me for dinner? I’ve made some pasta,’ he said, nodding towards a saucepan. But I declined the invitation. First off I was wrecked after everything that had happened with Jacob, plus I was in no humour for making small-talk with a stranger. ‘Okay, suit yourself,’ said Donnagh, but he looked hurt. Then, in a quieter voice, he said, ‘I don’t bite, you know.’

  ‘It’s not you, it’s –’ I was suddenly afraid I was going to start bawling again, so I ran to my room, mortified at my childish behaviour but knowing I had no alternative. How could I explain to a man I had only just met everything that had happened? Where would I even start?

  During the night I dreamed about Jacob – that he was drowning and I was trying to rescue him. Except every time I came within touching distance of him, a wave crashed over me, dragging me further and further away. In the final frame all I could see was Jacob sinking as I bobbed in the water, paralysed, unable to do anything except scream.

  I woke up a shivering, shaking mess, got out of bed and padded to the living room. There, I sank into the couch and just sat for a while, staring at the grey London dawn.

  ‘You okay?’

  I turned to see Donnagh in the doorway, wearing just a pair of boxer shorts and a T-shirt. ‘Jesus Christ, you scared me.’

  ‘Sorry.’ He downed a glass of water, then went towards his coat. He held up a packet of Benson & Hedges and rattled it. ‘You want one?’

  I looked at it for a second, every inch of me craving a cigarette, but gave a terse shake of my head.

  ‘Fair enough,’ he said. ‘I’ll be out on the balcony if you change your mind.’

  He didn’t comment when I slunk up beside him a few minutes later, dragging a plastic chair behind me. ‘Here,’ he said, proffering the packet in my direction. He flicked his lighter and I bent my head towards it, took a long drag inward.

  ‘Jesus, that feels good,’ I said, inhaling the smoke deep into my lungs.

  ‘Spoken like a true nicotine addict,’ Donnagh said wryly. ‘Been trying to give up?’

  ‘Kind of.’ I shrugged, not wanting to get into it. Jacob had hated me smoking and had waged a constant battle against it, but it seemed pointless now to fight the urge. To fight anything, really.

  ‘So how’s Eve? Any change since I’ve been away?’

  ‘You mean you haven’t been to see her yet?’

  ‘Jesus, give me a chance. I only got in the door a few hours ago.’

  ‘Oh, right. Well, she’s the same. Still hasn’t woken up.’

  ‘Oh.’

  For a while we said nothing more, the cigarette smoke twirling through our fingers, like snakes.

  At some point Donnagh looked at me and nodded in the direction of my left hand. ‘You’ll wear a hole in your finger if you keep doing that.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Fiddling with that wedding ring of yours. Missing your husband, I take it.’

  ‘I … um …’ A huge lump had formed in my throat, and for the life of me I couldn’t speak.

  ‘Hey, none of my beeswax,’ Donnagh said quickly, clearly realizing he had put his foot in it. ‘Forget I mentioned it.’

  I took another drag from my cigarette. ‘About my husband,’ I whispered. ‘That’s the reason I was so rude earlier.’

  ‘Sorry?’ Donnagh said, flicking ash onto a nearby saucer.

  ‘When you asked if I wanted dinner …’

  ‘Oh, that. Jesus, don’t worry. It wasn’t exactly haute cuisine.’


  ‘Maybe not, but you were nice to offer, and I owe you an apology. The truth is, my husband and I split up recently. Well, today, in fact. I went back to see him in Ireland, to tell him about Evie and everything.’ Here I paused for a moment, drew a quick breath. ‘Anyway, it didn’t work out, so I decided to end things. That was why I was acting so weird tonight. Licking my wounds and all that.’

  Donnagh shook his head. ‘You didn’t need to explain,’ he said softly.

  ‘I felt I did.’

  We returned to stillness once more, the smoke continuing to curl through our fingers. Beneath us, faint echoes of sirens and car horns rose from the city.

  ‘For what it’s worth, it does get easier,’ Donnagh said, moving his head a fraction, so that he was now looking at me properly.

  ‘What does?’

  ‘That feeling. After a marriage ends.’

  ‘How could you possibly know?’

  Donnagh shrugged. ‘Because it happened to me too. A long time ago when I was living in the States.’ He paused, as if lost in thought. ‘We were just kids and had no business getting married. But when it ended, it still, you know …’

  ‘… hurt like hell,’ I said, finishing the sentence for him.

  ‘Something like that. Yes.’

  A few moments later he stood up and stubbed out his cigarette in the saucer. ‘Christ, I’m tired,’ he said, stretching his arms above his head, revealing a taut six-pack. ‘It’s been good talking to you, Rachel, and I’m really sorry to hear about what happened today.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, diverting my gaze from his stomach. ‘Oh, and thanks for the cigarette.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said, then turned to face me. ‘I find that’s one of the benefits of being single – you can smoke as much as you want, when you want.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I muttered half-heartedly.

  ‘Or fall in love with someone who smokes,’ he said, holding my gaze for a second. Then he slid the balcony door open and returned to the living room. Away from me. Not looking back.

  13.

  The next morning, Janet rang. ‘Hi, hen. How have you been bearing up? Any updates on Evie?’

  ‘No,’ I said, desolate. ‘She’s exactly the same.’

  ‘Right. Well, I’ve discovered something I think you’ll find interesting.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. Did you know that Donnagh Flood went to secondary school in Leitrim?’

  I assumed I must have misheard her. ‘Say that again.’

  ‘I know – unbelievable, right? I was in WHSmith in St Pancras last night. Just back from that school trip to Belgium I was telling you about.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Anyway, I came across the magazine Evie writes for, Business Matters. It comes out quarterly so the edition with Evie’s interview of Donnagh Flood was still on the newsstand.’

  ‘And it mentions Leitrim?’

  ‘There’s a whole paragraph on it. Apparently he moved there from Dublin as a fourteen-year-old after his father died. Settled in some place called Mohill. I missed the piece when we checked the internet the other day because it’s subscription-only.’

  ‘Jesus,’ I said, forcing myself to breathe properly. ‘Mohill is where Evie went to school.’

  ‘And Donnagh didn’t tell you any of this?’

  ‘No.’ I felt a dark fury pass through me. ‘No, he fucking well didn’t.’

  Janet took a deep breath. ‘Do you think he might have known Evie from childhood?’

  ‘I haven’t a clue.’ I’d never before contemplated the possibility. Not when I’d thought we’d all grown up in completely different places. But now that I knew he’d lived just down the road from us … What the fuck was going on?

  I tried him on his mobile but couldn’t get an answer, so I rang his office.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Flood is in meetings all day,’ his secretary said unhelpfully. ‘Do you want to leave a message?’

  ‘Forget it,’ I said, hanging up, but that evening, as soon as I heard the key in the door, I pounced on him. ‘You never said you lived in Leitrim,’ I snarled, before he had even taken off his jacket.

  ‘Hello to you too,’ he said, throwing me a confused look. Then: ‘Why, may I ask, is Leitrim relevant all of a sudden?’

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Donnagh, don’t act the innocent. You know that’s where Evie and I grew up too.’

  Donnagh swung round. ‘Sorry, but did you just say you grew up in Leitrim?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I thought you came from Clare.’

  ‘Whatever gave you that idea?’

  ‘Eve told me. She said your parents were French but that she’d grown up in Lisdoonvarna.’

  ‘My father is French, but we have no connection with Clare. Not that I know of, anyway.’ I sank onto the couch, my mind whirring. Why would she say that?

  ‘Which school did you go to?’ I continued.

  ‘The community school in Mohill,’ he replied. ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s where Evie went. You must have known her.’

  Donnagh’s eyes widened. ‘Eve went to my school?’

  ‘Looks like it, yes.’

  He shook his head. ‘I have absolutely no memory of her. I’m a year older so we were probably in a different class but still …’ He removed a box of cigarettes from his pocket, took one out and began fiddling with it. ‘She’s so pretty, though. It’s hard to believe I would have missed her.’

  Actually, it wasn’t hard to believe. With the weight loss and the nose job, Evie looked nothing like her teenage self, but surely her name should join up the dots for him. Eve Darcy. Eveline Darcy. Come on, how hard could it be?

  ‘There was no Eve Durant in my school,’ Donnagh continued. ‘Everyone was either Reynolds or Brennan or McKeon. There was a kid from Cork called Mackey but that was about it.’

  ‘Eve Durant,’ I repeated. Had I misheard him? Did he honestly not know my sister’s real name was Eveline Darcy? That my surname was Darcy?

  ‘And shouldn’t I remember you?’ Donnagh interrupted, his voice cutting across my whirring thoughts. ‘If we all grew up so close together?’

  ‘Evie and I went to different secondary schools,’ I said, a sad memory coming back of Evie telling Mammy she couldn’t go to the same school as I was in. That she didn’t want to be ‘compared’. ‘Just forget I mentioned it,’ I snapped, irritated now. ‘You clearly don’t remember her. She clearly didn’t want to mention her background to you.’

  ‘Why the hell not?’ Donnagh spluttered. ‘What was she? A spy for the Russians?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ I shouted. ‘That’s something we’ll both have to ask Evie when she wakes up.’ If she wakes up, I added silently.

  ‘So is the interrogation over? Am I dismissed?’ Donnagh was staring at me, his face flushed with annoyance.

  ‘Oh, Jesus, Donnagh. I’m just trying to figure out what the hell is going on here.’

  ‘And you think I’m not? The girl I was dating has a sister she never told me about. Now I’ve found out she went to my school. You don’t think I might be confused? Scared, even?’ For a second he did look quite scared.

  ‘Oh, calm down. Evie obviously had her reasons for keeping some things to herself. Maybe she didn’t want to talk about her past. Our father abandoned us when we were kids. Our mother died of cancer. It wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs, you know.’

  ‘Your mother had cancer?’ Donnagh exclaimed. ‘She never mentioned that either.’

  Another ripple of shock passed through me. Why would Evie keep this information from him – the single biggest tragedy ever to befall her? ‘She never really got over it,’ I said. ‘I think that’s probably why she lied about her background. She just wanted to forget about it. Start over.’

  ‘Funny way of starting over,’ Donnagh muttered, walking towards the sliding balcony doors. He stayed there for a few seconds, as if mulling something over, then turned back to me. ‘Rachel, maybe this was a mistake – me
staying here. Especially now I know Eve was concealing so much.’

  I held his gaze as I shrugged my shoulders. ‘You’re probably right.’

  Donnagh made to walk off, but then a thought occurred to me. If Evie had lied about her identity, what other things was she hiding? And could Donnagh help me figure it all out?

  ‘Actually, Donnagh, now that I think about it, I’d prefer you to stick around for a while.’

  ‘What? Why?’

  ‘Because you’re the last one to see my sister conscious. You’re the only one who can help me.’

  ‘Help you? Rachel, I’ve told you and the police everything I know.’

  ‘I’m sure you have,’ I said. ‘But there are still things I don’t understand, that I want to figure out.’

  ‘Hmm.’ He frowned. ‘I’ll think about it.’ A few moments later, he walked towards his bedroom and closed the door. He didn’t come out again for the rest of the night.

  I sat on the couch, nursing a beer. Why had Evie lied to Donnagh? And why had I failed to tell him my sister’s real surname or that she’d had cosmetic surgery? Was I becoming part of the subterfuge? As I continued to drink, I played with my wedding ring, my thoughts returning to Jacob. I wanted desperately to talk to him, to fill him in on everything that had just happened, but there could be no talking now. Not after the girl. A streak of pain passed through me with such force that my body buckled. Had I really lost him for ever? My beloved Jacob?

  I was tempted to knock on Donnagh’s door and offer him a beer – just to distract myself from all these toxic thoughts. But I couldn’t summon the energy even to do that. Instead I dragged myself off to bed, pulling the bedclothes high around me, like I used to do as a little child.

  I stared at the ceiling for ages, watching the moonlight cast shadows over its surface, until my focus dimmed and eventually I crossed the line into sleep.

  14.

  Evie

  So now Donnagh and I were kissing. I’d wondered what it would be like and suddenly it was actually happening. He tasted good.

  Very gently, very quietly, he murmured, ‘Let’s go inside.’