Chapter TWENTY-FOUR
‘Oh, God, I never meant to put Sylvia’s life in danger.’
Joyce turned pleading eyes on us.
‘You have to believe that. I thought not taking her regular dose of insulin would just make her tired and a little unwell. I didn’t think she’d fall into diabetic shock so quickly!’
‘I think she might have forgotten to take a dose because she was so busy with the wedding preparations,’
I said.
‘But obviously when you hid the meds and she couldn’t take her next regular dose . . . that’s when it became incredibly dangerous and life-threatening.’
Joyce gazed at us, tears in her eyes.
‘She’s going to be all right now, isn’t she?’
I nodded.
‘Thankfully. But I think you might have ruined her wedding tomorrow.’
At that moment, Evelyn emerged from the kitchen with two mugs.
‘Hot chocolate?’
she called over to Joyce.
Joyce attempted a smile.
‘Lovely. Thanks, Evelyn. I . . . I’ll be with you in a minute, okay?’
‘Don’t be too long or it’ll get cold,’
said Evelyn, already on her way to the morning room.
The three of us trouped into the kitchen. Joyce, looking distraught, slumped into a chair and leaned over the kitchen table, burying her face in her arms and wailing.
‘I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I never, ever meant for it to go that far.’
She looked so miserable, I almost felt sorry for her.
But I had to know.
‘Why did you do it, Joyce? What had Sylvia ever done to you that would make you want to ruin her wedding? If that’s what you were trying to do.’
‘Yes, what on earth have you got against a lovely woman like Sylvia?’
asked Mark, sitting down opposite her at the table.
Joyce didn’t answer for a moment and when she finally looked up, her eyes were smudged black with her mascara.
‘Nothing. I’ve got nothing against Sylvia. Really, I haven’t. She’s a lovely woman. But it’s just . . .’
She tailed off, shaking her head in distress.
I sat down beside her.
‘It’s just what, Joyce?’
I asked softly.
‘My big sister. Ettie. She was the bravest, kindest, most amazing sister a girl could have. But now she’s gone.’
She looked up at me and I could see in her eyes the crucifying pain of her loss.
‘But what has Sylvia got to do with you losing your sister?’
I asked gently.
Joyce shrugged.
‘If it hadn’t been for Mick and Sylvia, she wouldn’t have died. Ettie, my brave, beautiful big sister would still be with us.’
At that, she dissolved into tears and sobbed for a long time, her tears soaking into the sleeves of her dressing gown. And I couldn’t help it. I laid my hand gently on her back, wanting to comfort her. The woman was a mess but it was clear she was tormented by grief . . .
At last, she calmed down and blew her nose. Then she looked up at us, her face red and blotchy.
‘I suppose I owe you an explanation.’
‘I think you do,’
I murmured with heartfelt conviction, passing her another hanky from the box I’d fetched from my bedroom.
She sighed and sat back, discarding the hanky on the table in front of her, almost with an air of defiance. Then she drew in a deep breath, blew it out slowly and started to tell her story.
‘My sister, Ettie . . . she had a terrible life. She was fifteen years older than me and her dad walked out on her and Mum when she was just three. Mum didn’t cope well and she ended up having a complete breakdown, which meant poor Ettie was taken into care for a couple of years, while our mother fought her way back to health. Years later, Mum was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder . . . which explained the shocking mood swings and the bouts of deep depression she suffered during her life.
‘So she got Ettie back and for the next decade, things were okay. Then Mum met Danny, a guy she worked with, and after a while, I was born. Ettie was fifteen by then and planning to study medicine, specialising in mental health. But then Mum and my dad split up, and Mum dived into another deep depression. She tried to take her own life and the result was a stroke that left her half-paralysed and unable to care for herself. So my big sister, bless her, gave up all of her dreams to be a doctor and she looked after Mum and me instead. I was still little so I didn’t realise at the time what a huge sacrifice she made, but looking back now, I think she was a saint the way she got me through school and off to college.’
‘It must have been so hard for her,’
I murmured.
Joyce sniffed, her chin wobbling a little as she remembered.
‘I know. It must have been. But honestly, I don’t think I ever heard her complain about the crappy hand life had dealt her. She was like a mother to me. I eventually left home, but Ettie stayed behind. She always said she was determined our mother would never have to go into care. She looked after her until she died five years ago.’
‘So Ettie never married or had a family? She gave all that up for you and your mum?’
I asked softly.
Joyce nodded.
‘She was in love once, a long time ago, in her twenties. With a soldier called Benny. They were going to be married, but he was killed in the Falklands War.’
Mark made a sympathetic noise in his throat and my eyes filled with tears.
‘That’s terrible.’
‘I know. But as I say, she never seemed to complain. She just got on with things. But then after our mother died, Ettie seemed to lose her sense of purpose in life and it affected her quite badly. She ended up spending time in a psychiatric unit and it was around then that she discovered she needed heart surgery. That was an awful time for us, but she had the op and she seemed to be recovering really well. And that’s when she signed up for the local support group.’
Joyce closed her eyes tightly and blew her nose again, and for a moment, she looked too distressed to continue.
After a while, Mark prompted her gently.
‘The support group?’
Joyce nodded and took a breath.
‘Yes. And she found it so helpful, you see. I noticed the change in her, week by week. She’d been like a boat without a rudder since our mother died . . . quite depressed, really – especially when her heart problems came to light. But her life changed when she started going to the support group.’
She smiled, remembering.
‘She met a man, you see. A lovely, kind man who she felt she could open up to. She told him her life story and he told her his – and with his support, she got back to being the sister I’d always known, who was always helping others and who lit up rooms with her sunny nature wherever she went.’
‘So she got better?’
Mark asked gently.
Joyce nodded.
‘For a while. She’d fallen in love, you see, for only the second time in her life. And I knew it, even before she confessed it to me. She’d started looking to the future again. I think she was imagining a much brighter future now that this man had miraculously arrived in her life.’
‘But that’s wonderful,’
I murmured.
‘That she found someone she could think about growing old with.’
‘Soulmates. That’s what she said they were.’
‘So what happened?’
Joyce shrugged.
‘Just a few months after her heart operation, Ettie was diagnosed with skin cancer.’
‘Oh, no!’
My hands flew to my mouth in horror. How much suffering could one woman bear?
‘He was there for her, though,’
said Joyce.
‘Always on the other end of the phone, whenever she needed to talk or just cry. He helped her face up to the diagnosis and when she was hesitating over having chemotherapy, I couldn’t convince her – but he did! I’m certain she agreed to a course of chemo because she believed she would have a future with this man. After all the lonely years, she was going to have her happy ever after.’
I swallowed, feeling a lump in my throat.
‘But it didn’t happen?’
Joyce shook her head.
‘It didn’t happen. It turned out that all he had really been offering her was support through her illnesses. She’d dreamed that he might offer his heart as well. But that’s all it had been – a lovely dream. My sister always had a fertile imagination. She used to dream up the most wonderful stories to tell me when I was little. But in the end, her imagination was the death of her.’
‘She must have been devastated,’
I whispered.
Joyce nodded.
‘She was. But there was worse to come.’
‘Worse?’
‘Marriage. Mick broke the news to her that he was getting married. To Sylvia.’