Lena came out of the chalet with two cups of coffee, setting them down on the table near her sister. A couple of lone joggers ran along the wet sand and a woman in her early twenties worked through yoga poses.

  ‘Right, of course — We should paint—’ Lena said.

  Their easels stood behind them on the veranda, their paintings still up overnight.

  ‘Coffee first.’ Lena was reluctant to get into it. ‘Anyway, Arun will be here soon—’

  ‘To clear up the mess we’ve created on canvas.’ Stella mocked herself as she sat with a shudder in front of her work. ‘It makes you wonder what it’s all about—’

  ‘And then you find yourself having another gin—’ Lena laughed.

  ‘You know your trouble, Lena, ’ Stella joked.

  Lena shook her head and gave her sister a wry scowl. ‘You know me so well.’

  ‘You’ve never really grown up,’ Stella finished.

  ‘Why not?’ Lena sipped her coffee and settled by her painting. ‘Everyone should know the child inside themselves.’

  Stella gave a short grunt, then angled her brush and thrust a cross through the lower section of the painting. ‘We never did see eye to eye did we? I could never discover why. Even when mum lost it with you I kept trying—’

  ‘Maybe you should stop trying now, and just start being yourself.’ Lena shrugged. ‘When things get bad I just sing the blues.’

  ‘That’s a good way out for you.’ Stella tried to disguise the rising feelings of resentment she felt: it did not seem like Lena appreciated any of the lengths she had gone to in the past to help her. Until Stella too, like her mother, could do no more and left Lena to drift away into her own world.

  ‘There’s nothing easy about the blues. Bessie Smith singing on street corners when she was a girl to make ends meet, being ripped off by managers and flooring them with her fists. Ma Rainey hiding being a lesbian by marrying a bloke. The blues is the blues, it’s life. You’re not the only one who’s been there. Even Lena Horne—’

  ‘Your namesake.’ Stella turned back and started to rub out the angry cross with a rag.

  It was too hot to paint in the afternoon, so they snoozed over gin and read used books from a shelf in a restaurant facing the sea.

  By half four the sun was low enough for Stella to be drawn back to her painting, encouraging her sister, who moaned at first, to join her. They settled at their easels and began silently. After half an hour of intense brushwork, Stella leaned back, shaking her head. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’ She felt Lena watching her.

  ‘Let go of the inner critic and just do it,’ Lena said.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Stella replied sharply.

  ‘You know, the one that’s always telling you you’re no good — like mum.’

  Stella stared at her. Lena could always dress well. Her golden yellow top and long loose skirt accentuated her shape. Nothing fitted Stella properly. Diets were a failure. And somehow the bright reds and maroons she was attracted to tended to exaggerate her size rather than shape it. ‘She loved you.’

  ‘Pity she didn’t have the hands and heart to show it then, because all I got was ice.’

  Stella raised her tone in defence. ‘She was gentle and generous — in all things.’

  ‘Are we talking about the same woman?’

  ‘She was always good to me.’

  ‘To you — maybe,’ Lena said.

  Stella shuffled uncomfortably. This felt like old times with Lena, the tension in the verbal exchanges. ‘And when do you open your inner eyes and let it flow,’ Stella said pointedly. ‘Where’s your blues gone?’ Stella pushed her brush through the beach area on her canvas. ‘If it was only that easy. If my hand would just do that, it would be all right.’

  ‘That’s what art is — taking risks.’

  Stella frowned at her. Lena could sound superior and condescending sometimes. ‘It must be like life, then.’

  ‘Even doing nothing’s a risk.’ Lena shrugged and went back to her images. ‘You’re the one, you’re the success.’

  Stella wanted her to be quiet. ‘I’ve got the money, you’ve got the talent. You call that success?’ Stella scoffed at her picture. ‘Things just come naturally to you. They always have — although you block them. Ever since—’

  ‘What?’ Lena scowled.

  Stella found she could not go forward and putting her brush down, she fanned herself with a piece of card. ‘The mountains keep coming back to me. I was with my first husband up near Badrinath as the flowers were coming out in spring. The snows had thawed and we were so high up and in love. I want to go there again. I can’t tell you how much you would enjoy it, the snow hanging over the summits like lace—’

  Lena leaned forward and slipped her hand into her bag on the floor, pulled out a silver flask and took a swig.

  ‘Not again.’ Stella caught her. ‘You had so much this afternoon, Lena. I thought you’d given all that up—’

  ‘It keeps the throat lubricated.’

  ‘Honey and camomile is what you need.’ Stella watched her sister looking up the far end of the beach to where a little river fanned out to the sea. Beyond it an island seemed to float around the edge of the mainland. ‘Let me look at yours then.’ Stella came over to Lena’s canvas and gawped a second. ‘There you see, it works. You’re so damned natural at everything. It’s all so easy for you.’ Stella stood in the way of Lena looking at hers. ‘Don’t look at mine. No, no, you mustn’t.’ But Lena eased herself past.

  ‘You can work on it,’ Lena said.

  ‘Never picked up a paint brush before and look at you,’ Stella nodded at Lena’s landscape. ‘The sheen of light around the island, even the specks of people have shape and movement. Not like mine — and I seem to need to get every bit of detail—’

  3

  ‘It was good of you,’ Lena began telling Stella over dinner. It was Red Snapper again for Stella and a Vegetable Balti for Lena. The Rocking Globe had a sand floor. Imitation lanterns hung around the wooden walls. There were no singers tonight, only melancholic background music too low to cover their chat or the sound of the waves. They sat with a view of the sea, darkened by night, but with lines of surf. ‘I mean, coming here—’ The words trailed off as though she seemed embarrassed for a second — something unusual for her, Stella mused.

  ‘I had to do something to get us back together,’ Stella said. ‘And what with mum gone now — I want us to be sisters again, Life’s too short—’

  ‘Of course, I suppose—’

  ‘What?’

  Lena stirred her vegetables then said, ‘You haven’t told me. Perhaps that’s what this is all about, bringing me here — to tell me—’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘She left it all to you.’

  ‘Not exactly.’ Stella felt awkward. Although she had known this question would be posed to her at some point, she still felt unprepared to answer it. Their mother had long since banned Lena from the house. For years she had tolerated drug inspired abuse until a day had come when the door was locked.

  ‘She left me nothing then. Not even a two pence piece. Did she?’

  Stella gestured for Lena to calm down. But when Lena got hold of something she would not let go. Stella searched for words that would make it sound palatable. ‘Your lifestyle, the—’

  Lena scowled, pursing her lips. ‘How do you get on stage before a rowdy crowd without a shot of something. It goes with the territory, Stella. I mean, you can’t be singer without it.’ She drew breath.

  ‘Not so loud.’ Stella looked around her at eaters snatching looks at them.

  Lena took no notice. ‘So I’m a risk. Big deal.’

  ‘It takes a certain sort of personality — risks, I mean.’ Stella tried to keep calm. She did not want a scene ending with Lena storming off.

  ‘She thought I’d blow it all on stuff. I’ve been clean, Stella, how many years?’ Customers close by were taking an interest now. ‘Did you tell her?’

  Stella looked down, placing her knife and fork aside. ‘I tried with her, but she would not budge — and you would not come and see her — Lena—’

  ‘I might as well have carried on.’

  ‘And you would be pushing up daisies by now. How many times have I rushed you to A & E? And mum gave up bailing you out years ago.’

  ‘And I wake up sweating in the night asking myself: why did you save me? You know what cold turkey is on your own — just a few mates hanging in for you? And now I can’t write another song. It was like the pain and all the junk kept driving me on. I was nothing without it. I became nothing. I am nothing—’

  Stella was about to tell her it wasn’t true, but she got up and was off, abandoning her half finished meal.

  The following morning Stella stepped from the veranda into the small garden and then down the steps to the beach. Three men were pushing a boat of chatting tourists through incoming waves.

  Lena would be here with her for the next six weeks or so. Stella had set it up and paid for it all; they would have to learn to live with each other. She walked towards the estuary. The journey Lena had been on had caused suffering to her and those around her, but because she had given up that way of life she needed support. From childhood Stella had had to be patient with her, to learn to take it calmly when things got tight between them.

  Slipping off her shoes she let the sea sweep over her feet again and sighed, reflecting on her past. Now that the split with Alan was complete, her sons were married off and living abroad, and now that mother had passed away, Lena was all that was left of family. She Skyped Ollie and Eric every week and chatted to the grandchildren, but it was usually painful, not being there with the little ones.

  And Lena was alone — as usual — a sad loner with melancholic eyes. She sang the blues because she knew the blues. It throbbed through her: the lack of knowledge about her father, of her heritage, of where her voice had come from. It seemed right after years of estrangement to draw her close again.

  They must enjoy themselves. Life was short and had to be fruitful. She had reached the river estuary, where the stream broadened into a delta of wet sand and narrow rivulets. Now the tide was out it was easy to ford even the deep parts. A favourite spot for Stella, she sat on a rock in shadows watching the activity of bathers in the main bay and fishermen mending nets under little open ended shacks along the river bank.

  It was not just because of Arun that she had come back to Bagolem. Although in his early fifties he still had the freshness and vitality of youth about him, which made him naturally alluring. Yet there was a look of sadness in his eyes, and she recognised that he was suffering. He hid the loss of his wife Lakshmi well. When he arrived each morning at the unfinished paintings he guided, advised and instructed the women sensitively. Stella liked his easiness and his smile, and how he encouraged her. Through his praise and help she felt her self esteem rise.

  Yet when he was gone she again fell back to self doubt and discouragement. Through this picture she wanted to achieve something out of her own efforts that could outlast her. And she felt alone and vulnerable.

  The holiday was not just about getting Lena back on her feet, it was about addressing Stella’s own doubts, fears and insecurities.

  ‘It’s all different now,’ Lena said when they were together again at their canvases. ‘I mean, not out there. I mean, for us. We’re different. Life changes us. We’re renewed — and if not renewed — we’re damned—’

  ‘You’re cheerful this morning,’ Stella forced a laugh.

  ‘No, I mean — life changes us. Makes us see—’

  ‘That’s one way of looking at it, I suppose.’ Stella deliberately left the figures and concentrated on the hulls of several boats, some orange, green and white, others ice blue under the sun’s relentless hammering. Mixing in white with Cadmium Orange, she softened the glow of the brighter pigment. ‘I know it hasn’t always been easy for you, Lena.’ She looked up at the sister she still felt she knew little of. ‘I mean, drastically changing your lifestyle and all that.’

  The fact that she had never fathomed Lena bothered her, made her feel distant and estranged, and she struggled to find a way to undo that ignorance — if she could, if it was only Stella’s doing and not Lena blocking her. Lena was that type: she put up a shell to protect herself which became a wall to keep her vulnerabilities intact. You could see it in her eyes — not their mother’s but her father’s eyes.

  ‘There’s been that great gap between us,’ Stella tried to sound casual as she shaped the hull. ‘And I wanted to do something to bring us together. That’s all. It’s nothing to do with Arun. I want us to be sisters again. I don’t know, time seems very short sometimes, we’re not here for long—’

  ‘Now who’s being serious and morbid,’ Lena said with an ironic laugh. ‘Of course—’

  ‘You don’t have to say it like that.’ Stella was close to anger with her again. It was not always what Lena said, it was the sarcastic way that she said it that cut Stella.

  ‘Like what?’ Lena gave a slight shrug.

  ‘I never know with you.’ Stella outlined shacks behind boats and contemplated putting the figures of fishermen there tending piles of nets. ‘Whether it’s the truth or another poke.’

  Lena did not reply quickly, the pause being filled by the sound of a long wave pounding down. Stella knew she would respond, it was an accusation that was intended to get one.

  ‘Stella,’ Lena sighed, putting her brush aside. ‘How could I ever have got here without you paying for it all. I am grateful.’ She looked back at her picture. Stella was flattered for a moment, but sceptical about Lena’s true intentions. History told her it was hard to believe Lena. Truth for Lena was a complex thing, so it was hard to know when you were listening to it. ‘It’s wonderful, Stella. Who knows, I might get something of myself back, find some rhythm, get something down, even—’

  Stella paused again, studying her picture and trying to let the truth sound unforced and casual: ‘All your jokes and tricks. You never were one to conform when we were kids, always challenging mum. Rebelling. Real cheeky you were sometimes and never short of getting a slap from her.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘You think she did not like you?’

  ‘Me? Born of a passing fling. With a black man. In those days?’

  4

  ‘The crescent moon hanging in the sky.’ Lena leaned back in the wicker chair on the veranda and sipped gin and tonic. They had eaten at the Pink City restaurant and had surrounded themselves with candles, incense sticks and mosquito coils. ‘The sea rolling in with its incessant rhythmical pounding.’ Lena looked out at the dark sea with its lines of bright surf.

  ‘You’ve had a little bit to drink, I think.’ Stella let out a short laugh.

  ‘But you see it don’t you? ’Lena pointed with her glass. ‘The purple haze round the island, the lines of lights along the restaurants. You have to look, to take it in. It’s magic.’

  ‘It sounds like one of your songs.’ Stella suggested.

  ‘No,’ Lena said. ‘Not that. This is different. You don’t understand. Watch—’

  Stella was used to her sister inferring that she was a misunderstood creative who had a unique vision of the world. It made it hard for Stella to take her seriously sometimes.

  She sat back allowing shadows to envelop her, responsive to Lena’s sensitivity. That Lena blocked talk about music was a shame, it was what she had been really good at once; it was a flame that burned in her. Now that Lena spurned that past and scoffed at her abilities in song writing saddened and appalled Stella. It was who Lena was and without it she was not a full person. For her, giving up the addictions, meant giving up the lifestyle, the lot.

  ‘The sky is so clear at night.’ Stella took them away from the subject, knowing it could not be denied forever. ‘And so deep and dauntless.’ She sipped a moment.

  ‘Like me then—’ Lena mocked.

  ‘Mum tried with you. Bought you a piano, paid for lessons.’

  ‘I would have been better off without that. I could feel the resentment in her voice — the regret—’

  ‘That’s the drink talking.’

  ‘What do you know?’

  ‘I know you don’t mean it.’

  ‘I mean every word. I would have had a different life — no pianos, no songs, no sex and drugs and rock and roll—’

  ‘A quiet life like me then, Lena. Two kids and two husbands, both unfaithful. A house on a new estate, a daily life of work and bringing up the kids. A boring life with the chattering classes. You think you had it hard. What I would have done to get up on stage, to be shagged in a back room after, to have sniffed a bit of coke — have been able to paint. You had it all, Lena—’

  ‘And squandered it — that’s what you think—’

  Stella felt for her again. ‘Because it’s gone, doesn’t mean it’s lost.’

  Lena scowled, pointing at her. ‘Don’t you ever say that.’ For a moment Stella was afraid Lena might lash out. ‘You told me to.’

  ‘Many times. But you did it. You made it in the end. You can rebuild it all a different way.’

  ‘You want me back there? OD? On the slab?’ Lena thumped her fist on the side of her chair.

  Stella looked past her, down the beach where all the restaurant lights sparkled. ‘I can’t help you Lena, I don’t know what you want.’

  Lena leaned back and laughed. ‘You’re right. For once, you’re right. I used to hate you for all the spoiled things that happened to you as a child. The way your dad doted on you. But now, I can paint. And you can’t.’

  Stella was hurt.

  *****

  ‘I’m not happy, Arun,’ Stella told him the following morning. ‘My painting — too amateurish, too — I don’t know—’

  Arun had a short greying beard and thick straight hair. He did not smile often but when he did his eyes lit up.

  Perusing her images, he said, ‘A lot of energy and colourful points of interest, all vying with each other.’ He stood back contemplating. ‘We can work on it. It will come. Creativity in all its forms is good for the soul.’

 

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