Death's Door

Seventeen

‘Who?’ the belligerent telephone voice exclaimed.

This was not someone, she thought, who would ever hold down a job in a call centre. ‘It’s Maggie,’ she repeated. ‘Your partner’s sister. Is Bet there?’

‘Of course she’s here.’ Sarcasm took over. ‘It’s twenty before three in the bloody morning. Hold on: give her a second to come round.’

She waited; the man’s voice became indistinct and then she heard a rustling noise as the phone was passed over. ‘Margaret, it’s you?’

‘Yes, it’s me. Hello, Sis, how are you doing?’

‘I’m fine. I’m even awake now.’

‘God, I’m sorry: I thought you were ten hours behind us, not ahead.’

‘No, it’s tomorrow where I am.’

‘I’ll call you again, tomorrow morning our time. How would that do?’

‘Margaret, I’m awake now, so talk to me. Who’s dead?’

‘Nobody.’

‘You’re not calling to tell me that Dad’s surfaced again, are you?’ Suddenly Bet’s tone was fearful. ‘You’re not going to say he’s in Australia, are you?’

‘No,’ said Maggie, hurriedly, ‘you can relax on that score. Look, he is dead, for sure: he was shot. .’ she hesitated ‘. . that’s to say he shot himself, a couple of years ago.’

There was a long silence, until ‘Our father died,’ her sister repeated, ‘and you didn’t call or write to tell me?’

‘I chose not to. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t think you’d want your life tainted by him again; not after what he did to us when we were children.’

‘No, when I think about it, you’re right about that,’ Bet conceded. ‘It would have been good to know that they’d finally screwed the lid down on the bastard, though. I haven’t forgotten, you know, any of it, even though I was younger than you when it all happened.’

‘How could we forget? It’s haunted me all my life; or at least it did, until recently.’

‘And me. I went halfway round the world to get away.’

‘You can’t run away from memories, or bad dreams.’

‘I know that. I ran as far as I could from the possibility that he might ever come back into my life.’

‘I guessed as much, even though you never spelled it out at the time.’ Maggie sighed. ‘He’s kept us apart, you know, as sisters.’

‘At least he didn’t prevent us making lives for ourselves. ’

‘No, he didn’t do that. Who’s the guy? Husband?’

Bet laughed; the sound seemed to disperse the dark cloud that had linked two continents. ‘No, thank you very much. Boyfriend, that’s all; he doesn’t live here. In fact he’s just gone stumbling off to dress and hit the road. How’s the bloke you married? Do you still outrank him?’

‘Not any more, but I’m not married to him any more either. We divorced last year; I’m on my second husband now, and you, sister, haven’t even scored up one.’

‘Is that why I haven’t had a card from you, the last two Christmases? Or a birthday card?’

‘Mainly. I was a bit screwed up for a while, and I didn’t want to inflict it on you.’

‘So you’re giving me insomnia instead?’

‘Sorry.’

‘Just kidding. Tell me about the new man.’

‘His name’s Stevie, Stevie Steele; he’s almost three years younger than me, very bright, very calm, dark hair, good-looking, just a lovely guy.’

‘What does he do?’

‘He’s a detective inspector.’

An explosion of breath covered ten thousand miles in an instant. ‘Bloody hell! Another copper? Don’t you have any imagination?’

For the first time that afternoon, Maggie smiled. ‘I did fuck an actuary once,’ she said. ‘That was enough to make me stick to my own kind. No, that’s not strictly true. Actuaries don’t fuck; like everything else, they do it by numbers. Actually, I shouldn’t blame the poor sod. Until Stevie, nobody ever rang my bell, not even Mario. . and he certainly has some clapper.’

‘Confession time for both of us,’ Bet murmured. ‘I may live a free and single lifestyle, but I’ve always been pretty repressed too, in that respect. The difference is, I’m still looking for my Stevie. The guy in the bathroom? Nowhere near it.’ She paused. ‘You know, Margaret, this is the first sister-to-sister talk we’ve ever had, and it’s taken us more than thirty years. Tell me something. Have you ever travelled in your life? I don’t mean a fortnight in Shagaluf, I mean really travelled.’

‘I haven’t even been to Shagaluf. I went to Italy with Mario a couple of times, and once to Paris for a long weekend, but that’s it.’

‘In that case, why not come to Sydney?’

‘I think I’d like that, Bet, but there’s something getting in the way right now. I’m pregnant.’

‘You?’ Maggie’s sister gasped. ‘Oh, Christ, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean for it to sound like that, but I can only take so many shocks at one sitting.’

‘Don’t worry about it; a year ago I’d have said exactly the same thing. But now it’s happened, I don’t know what to say, other than that it’s magic.’

‘How long do you have to go?’

‘About ten weeks. According to the scan, it’s a girl.’

‘That’s wonderful: I’m going to be Auntie Bet.’ There was a sound in the background. ‘Okay, Bradley, close the door hard behind you. Call me in a couple of days.’ Pause. ‘That’s him gone, face tripping him.’

‘Sorry again.’

‘Cobblers, you’ve done me a favour. He’s a sour-faced bugger in the morning.’ Maggie stared at the closed door of her office. There was something about her sister’s voice, its vivacity, that sent an enormous pang of regret running through her for all the years she had kept her at a distance; her eyes blurred.

‘Now, come on,’ Bet exclaimed. ‘I’m going to take it for granted that you’d have called me once the baby was born to give me the good news. But it’s five years since we’ve spoken. . my fault as much as yours, I admit. . so what’s made you call me right now, in the middle of my night? My super-efficient sister doesn’t get mixed up with time zones, unless there’s something wrong.’

‘It’s nothing, Bet, just something I need to ask you.’

‘Everything’s nothing with you. Out with it.’

‘There’s something on my last scan: my consultant says it’s probably an ovarian cyst, but he asked me about the family medical history. Have you ever had a problem like that?’

‘I had a polyp in my womb three years ago. Had it removed and that was that. Nothing else, though.’

‘Did Mum ever talk to you about Granny Kellock dying? I know we were only kids when she did; she never discussed it with me, but she never discussed anything with me. I think she blamed me for what happened with Dad.’

‘Come on, Margaret,’ Bet protested. ‘I remember her battering you when you told her about it, but blaming you, that’s daft. You were only a kid at the time: you hadn’t even started your periods.’

‘Nonetheless, that’s how she felt. We never spoke much after that.’

‘She only spoke to me about Granny once; I asked her when I was doing my nursing training before I turned to design. All she said was that it was a cancer “down there”.

That was how she put it; to Mum, everything below the navel was just “down there”.’

‘What about Aunt Fay? Hers was in her stomach, as I remember.’

‘Yes, but it was a secondary. It was discovered very late, and she was riddled with it by then. They never did know where the primary was. Margaret, this consultant of yours, he’s not worried about you, is he?’

‘No, no, not at all; just routine, he says. That’s the exact word he used, routine.’

‘Have you told your husband?’

‘No, but I only just found out today. I don’t see why I should, though; Stevie’s like any other new father-to-be. He’d worry himself silly for no good reason.’

‘Isn’t he entitled to do that?’

‘He’s got enough on his plate. I’ve got a follow-up scan tomorrow; once I’ve had the result I’ll probably tell him then. There’ll be no reason not to.’

‘And will you tell me too?’

‘I will, Bet, I promise.’

‘You’d bloody well better. And not in the middle of the night either.’