O looked everywhere, but couldn't find it...anywhere; he had mislaid the key...
When - and he could swear it wasn't there a minute ago - there it was, right there, beside him on the bedside table...just lying there saying here I am in a rather self-satisfied, 'told you so' kind of way [...]
...the letter [...]
My Dearest Sister,
My Dearest Sister,
Few can even say your name. And few have ever heard your voice. There are no dainty footsteps on the stairs, no creaking boards when the house is still and ready for sleep.
When I was a small boy, in the window of a white room, staring at the sparrows on the fence, I thought I felt your cool breath on my neck. I stood very still, faked unconcern, then suddenly turned to catch you. But you were gone. I clenched my fists, screwed up my face, and willed you to return. And I thought I heard tinkling laughter, and glimpsed white ankle socks and a flouncing party dress disappear round the bannister at the top of the stairs.
It was Christmas at St Peter’s, and I was sitting in music class. We were all in a circle, learning Christmas carols. Around the class, each one of us would sing a line. My stomach hurt and I was hot, and then it was my turn. Without looking up from the stave, and the tiny dancers on the page, a clear, bright soprano voice came piping: ‘the holly and the ivy, when they are both full grown…’ and everyone gasped at the Christmas magic; and everyone clapped. And later, Mrs Baron told my dad I had the voice of an angel. The voice of an angel! But it wasn’t the voice of an angel: it was the voice of my angel; my dearest sister, Niamh.
‘He’s such a beautiful boy’, said Auntie Lynne, one day at Grandma’s house. Mum looked down at me. The sorrow in her eyes made me turn away, to the open window, towards the boys chasing their ball across the green. It was then I decided I would become Fred.
And I would get my knees dirty and care less about clothes and hair and the thickness of my legs. And I would impress Mr Jessop and get picked for the football team. ‘Yes, I am a boy’, I said to myself, making straight-arm, tight fists. And maybe that was when you left.
Ah, Niamh. How I missed you at that awful Grammar School, where I learned to turn my back and run from you - and everything that was good - into the playground, to follow a ball across a vast, windblown plateau, just one among many lost boys, swinging in huge disciplined arcs, like flocks of birds following the fishing boats. I don’t remember ever having actually kicked anything; except myself.
For a few moments, in bed this morning, as I emerged from a comfy, safe place, I was very close to you, Niamh. I was soft and warm, and there was a sparkle at the end of my finger, as I reached to turn off the alarm. It was a tender moment: I loved myself, and we were one. But somewhere in the moments of becoming, you slipped away, and I knew once more the disappointment of waking to an ordinary day.
Do you remember the time I was crossing the road with Tom, and he and I were head to head, deep in conversation? And I was staring across the road at you. Yes. Full in the face; a romantic comedy, love-at-first-sight, shameless stare! You flashed a coy, schoolgirl, come-on smile - you were almost beside me as you crossed - and you were gone... Niamh, this time your hair was red, and your mouth was a tidy, pillar-box bee-sting.
How is it, whenever you appear, you haven't changed a bit? Every time - and many years have passed since first I knew your face and name - you're still a rose-bud ready to bloom. You are Myfanwy on your bicycle, Holly holding tightly onto cat, Clare the playful dancer; you are youth, beauty, and energy; the wild one, the mischievous twin; the water-nymph, the dryad; the elf, the fey, the star-child; you are my sister.
You are what I seek. And you are what I will never find. What makes me mad; what makes me sad; what makes me…what makes me, well, me, I suppose…
