The Swan and Her Brother

Prologue

As my three sisters and I briskly negotiated the thick gravel of the churchyard path – Diana carrying the urn containing our father’s ashes – a thought popped into my head.

‘You do realize,’ I said, ‘that one of us four will be at the funeral of all the other three?’ They broke stride for a second, absorbed my curious logic, then teased me loudly for such a macabre interjection.

‘Thanks a bunch for that!’ laughed Diana. ‘Typical Carlos!’ and the four of us carried on, towards the Spencer family tombs, chattering away, assuming that, we being in our twenties and thirties, it would be many decades before even the first of us would be claimed by death.

But five and a half years later I found myself marching behind my youngest sister’s body, as it powered through a sea of grief, her heartbroken sons on either side of me. I was keenly aware that I had an urgent task ahead, one I was hoping against hope that I could see through, on Diana’s behalf.