NOT RIGHT NOW, DARLING

“STARVED” marked the changes for the Linden family when Sarah was seven years old.

Her sister Caitlin’s brain was starved of oxygen when she was injured in a road accident.

From that day, Sarah felt starved in a different manner. She would not have been able to describe how, being too immature to identify her complaint. An impartial observer would have done so in one glance - even one of Sarah’s equally immature classmates.

Sarah, however, was too close to many conflicting signals and guilt. She could not say she felt neglected. She did not even consciously think it, not until much, much later. And by the time she could have said it, she was old enough to know better. People would think she was being selfish and petty-minded. It would not have gained the results she wanted.

Caitlin was four years older than Sarah. Sarah had only the vaguest of memories of how Caitlin had been before the accident. If Caitlin hadn’t been away in hospital for so long - first in a coma, then with pneumonia - perhaps the memories of Caitlin would have stayed fresher. Instead, Sarah was sent to live - far, far, away - with Grandma for a while, and the memories of Caitlin and the games they must have played, were displaced.

Her memories of staying with Grandma were much happier. Then she had felt important. It was as though she were central to Grandma’s world. And she probably was.

Too central. Mummy and Daddy didn’t like it. They argued with Grandma after Sarah returned home. Mummy said Sarah had been allowed too much her own way, so Grandma became a non-figure in Sarah’s life again. Sarah had to adjust to not having things her way. Not at all. Not even a little bit.

Caitlin’s injuries always meant that her parents would struggle, but they didn’t just struggle, they fought.

They fought with the hospital because they believed Caitlin was not receiving adequate care, and social services to gain help in altering their home to accommodate Caitlin’s new needs. They fought the local council to get funding for the alterations, and the Benefits Agency for the different benefits they could claim but weren’t told about. They fought a media campaign to stop drivers speeding, because the driver of the car had been doing 39mph in a 30mph zone. That campaign, especially, ate into their time and made them bitter.

And when Sarah’s parents weren’t fighting everyone else, they were fighting each other. Her father started to work longer hours, and her mother felt dumped with too much of the burden. They argued about household chores, money, whether she mothered Caitlin too much, and the enlisting of outside agencies to help, none of whom seemed good enough in Sarah’s mother’s eyes.

They even argued with the neighbours, because at the beginning Caitlin shouted throughout the night, and no-one - absolutely no-one - within a 50ft radius could get any sleep. They controlled the problem eventually with drugs. The friction with the neighbours became inactive, but never resolved. Sarah’s mother resented them too much.

The unforgiven status of the neighbours perhaps made Sarah wary in her dealings with her mother. Home stopped being a home. It was an environment where negotiations took place. Very few of them worked in Sarah’s favour.

When Caitlin first came home, curiosity made Sarah helpful. She wanted to know the extent of Caitlin’s injuries and the best way to help her. She learned how to care for Caitlin because she wanted to.

But her willingness to help was misconstrued. Sarah quickly learned that helping was a reliable means of gaining approval. Over time, it seemed as if it were the only method.

Before the accident Caitlin had been a pretty girl, with long blonde hair. She was slim and willowy, good at sport, gymnastics and dance. They said she was popular. Sarah could only remember that she was bossy. At the time of the accident Caitlin had been “head girl” of the primary school.

Now she was brain-damaged. She had hearing and sight problems. She couldn’t feed herself, or dress herself, or exercise any kind of control over her toiletry habits. She didn’t look pretty. She looked bloated and her hair was cropped short.

She spoke, but it was unintelligible. She laughed, too. Her mum could make her laugh, but Sarah could not.

If only Sarah knew it! She was good for Caitlin. Not in a way her mother could have imagined. Sarah was good to Caitlin because she was cruel to her. When feeding her, she would not pliantly spoon mush into Caitlin’s mouth. She would goad her. When the spoon was touching Caitlin’s twisted lips, Sarah would withdraw the spoon, just as Caitlin was opening her mouth to receive.

“You’re not having it,” Sarah would tell her. “I’m going to eat it, not you.”

Caitlin, frustrated, would try to reach for the spoon in temper. Or she would shout, which her mother misinterpreted as joyful noises. Caitlin would exhaust herself and sleep more soundly later.

Careful never to let her mother witness her cruelty, the poor woman only saw the end result, and came to depend ever more on Sarah to help out. Sarah was praised for her caring attitude, for being such a wonderful, kind, patient girl. Sarah was praised only for things she had not really done. It made her feel there was nothing praiseworthy about her at all.

Caitlin had been a clever girl. Not only did her mother say so, but Sarah overheard people talking. It was as though she had become invisible. People talked in front of her without apparently remembering that she was anything to do with Caitlin at all.

“Such a shame,” said Mrs Collins. “She used to be such a bright girl, too. Always top of her class at everything.”

After overhearing that, for two whole terms, Sarah would come home and tell her mother, “There was a maths test today, Mummy. I got the top mark.”

“Well done.”

“And I was top in spellings yesterday too.”

Whatever boasting she had done, it was always interrupted, usually by Caitlin.

“Not right now, darling,” her mother would say, breaking off to attend to whatever the interruption was that time.

Whatever it was that Sarah wanted, even if it was only to talk, the response was always, “Not right now, darling.”

Sarah’s “top of the class” deceit lasted for only two terms. Then there was a parents’ evening, and her Mummy and Daddy realised she wasn’t really a clever girl after all.

They didn’t ask her why she lied. They assumed they knew.

“I know you were only trying to stop us from worrying,” Sarah’s mother said. “Heaven only knows, we have plenty to worry about...”

But Sarah hadn’t lied just to stop her parents from worrying. She had no idea why she told the lies at all.

Her teacher tried to delve deeper. She had some surprising news for Sarah.

“If you want to be top in your class, Sarah, you could be, but you will have to work at it. Really learn your tables and your spellings. Read as much as you can at home. Some people might try to do all these things and never be the best, but you could, if you really tried.”

Sarah didn’t make friends at school. She didn’t want people coming round and seeing Caitlin as she was. She didn’t want them to ask questions about her, or to know it was a drag having a sister like that. Holly Partridge asked her about it once, and Sarah said Caitlin was “all right.”

Another lie. She still didn’t know why she lied. She told lots of lies.

Because she had no friends to distract her, and her mum didn’t take her to swimming, ballet, gymnastics or French classes, as she had once with Caitlin, Sarah had plenty of time to concentrate on her schoolwork. She escaped to bookworld whenever she was able. She learned not to ask her mother to help her.

“Not right now, darling,” her mother would always say.

When Sarah went to high school, she was no longer top of the class. But she was near the top of the class, and she worked hard at keeping herself there. She managed it, in spite of Caitlin.

“Can you just watch her while I...” her mother would say, or, “would you just feed her for me, Sarah?”

“But I’m doing my homework,” Sarah would say.

“Not right now, darling. Do it later.”

By now, Sarah was no longer cruel to Caitlin. It took too much time. She did what was necessary. Sometimes, she was even nice to her. She realised it wasn’t Caitlin’s fault. She couldn’t help being like that.

Sarah’s mother had a breakdown a few months after Sarah’s 13th birthday. She went to hospital for a while, and outside agencies and Sarah took on the task of looking after Caitlin. When her mother recovered, she took a part-time job, manning the helplines of a telephone banking company. Sarah’s father was supposed to help too, but he was often home late.

They had many nights together, just Sarah and Caitlin, but Sarah didn’t mind that so much. There were less interruptions when her parents weren’t there.

Because they led such busy lives, her parents stopped going to parents’ evenings. They didn’t really absorb that Sarah was doing well at school, but she cherished a dream that one day they would find out, and she would be in the limelight for a while.

It seemed that day had to wait until Sarah was 16, on the morning that her GCSE results arrived. Sarah had achieved four A grades, five Bs and one C.

“That will do nicely,” she decided.

Her parents were amazed. They were also delighted. It seemed she was finally going to get the recognition she deserved from them.

Her joy was cut short the next day when she overheard her father talking on the phone.

“Of course,” he said, sounding pleased with himself. “We’ve always been so careful to make sure Sarah’s needs were not neglected...”

And that was the moment that Sarah decided Caitlin had to go.

Her father’s self-deceit, his inability to consider what barriers she had overcome, made her realise that he would just carry on ignoring her. He would never give her a fair crack of the whip when Caitlin was around.

Did she think her parents would ever release her from the endless onerous duties of looking after Caitlin? Not without a huge guilt-trip they wouldn’t. “Can you just...?” and “Would you mind...?” was going to be all she heard from them for evermore until Caitlin was off the scene. At this rate, she could be looking after Caitlin for the rest of her life.

And what ate at Sarah more than anything else was the feeling that if the accident had happened to Sarah, and not to pretty, intelligent, talented and popular Caitlin, all would have been different. She knew - she just knew - that they would not have asked Caitlin to do so much to help. They would have preserved Caitlin’s way of life.

But Sarah? Sarah fell victim to being so young at the time. She hadn’t yet proved herself to be intelligent or talented. She had not started gymnastics or music classes, or French classes, or whatever. She was just supposed to blend in, with all her needs being subjugated to the almighty Caitlin. Sarah had not figured large in her parents’ priorities, except as an unpaid nurse.

There had been many times in the past when Sarah had toyed with the idea of killing Caitlin - in the first few months after the accident especially. Sarah had already pondered at length on the best method, but always shied away, knowing it was over the top.

Always within a few days after the ugly thought had occurred to her, she would realise she was nursing and cursing Caitlin again. And she would catch herself thinking: “If I had bumped her off, I wouldn’t have to be doing this right now.”

But after receiving the exam results, it no longer seemed over the top to Sarah. As every objection sprang to mind, she chased them away with the knowledge that every day, every week, every month and every year for evermore, she would still be thinking to herself: “If I had bumped her off, I wouldn’t have to be doing this right now...”

Sarah had figured the best method of disposing of Caitlin was suffocation. She thought that if she put some cloth over her face, then heavy duty plastic, then a pillow pressed firmly on top, they might not realise Caitlin had been suffocated, but think she had died of heart trouble.

Choosing the moment was far more tricky. Sarah decided too much suspicion would fall on her if she were alone with Caitlin in the house at the time. She would have to opt for the altogether far more riskier time when the whole family was in the house, asleep.

She selected 3am as the best time.

The first night she chose, she ducked out of it. Her father started a row over Caitlin. He said she had put on too much weight and was too hard to move around. The outcome, after three hours of rowing, was that they decided Caitlin should be put on a diet.

Because the row had been so bitter, Sarah delayed her plan. It might have been abandoned completely if Caitlin had not suffered one of her innumerable tummy bugs and Sarah - Sarah! - was asked to clean it all up.

That decided it.

That night, she lay in bed and waited for everyone to fall asleep. To pass the time, she listened to her favourite music by Queen through the headphones. She had few doubts. Inside, she was feeling unnaturally calm. Nothing was going to dissuade her this time.

At 3am, she got up. She had left her bedroom door ajar, stuffing a shirt in the opening to stop it banging against the frame. With the door already opened, it meant she could leave the room more quietly.

Sarah crept downstairs, knowing by heart which stairs creaked and wincing as she carelessly stepped on a weak tread. She stopped to listen, her heart thumping in case her parents woke. Deciding they had not, she moved on.

At the end of Caitlin’s bed, as though intending to change her sheets earlier that day, but the task left undone, Sarah had thoughtfully left out her suffocating sandwich of pillowcase, plastic and pillow. The heavy duty plastic was a cover that went over the mattress to protect it from Caitlin’s accidents. They were in use all the time.

There was always a night-light glow in Caitlin’s room. She hated to be in the dark. As Sarah stepped forward with her layers of pillowcase, plastic and pillow, she could see Caitlin was lying on her back, which was highly convenient of her, really. Her mouth was open. She was snoring slightly.

The doubts hit her as she stood over Caitlin, holding the layers about a foot away from her face. Sarah dismissed her fears and pushed the layers down, pressing firmly against them.

Sarah the darer was going to make life fairer.

Caitlin must have woken. She began to struggle. Sarah sat astride her on the bed and pushed all her bodyweight on top of Caitlin’s face. Above all, she was trying to ensure no noise could escape from Caitlin.

The struggle, which was panicky, affected Sarah in a way she could never have predicted. Little did she know then what trouble she was storing up for herself later. She could hardly tell her future husband that her greatest sexual thrill happened when she was murdering her sister, could she?

The thrashing eased. Sarah, breathless and shocked by the pleasure it had given her, cautiously lifted the layers from Caitlin’s face.

Caitlin always had an unnatural stare, but the stillness of her stare now told Sarah what she needed to know. Caitlin was dead.

Sarah was sorry to see her stare. It meant Caitlin had woken and realised something was happening to her. Sarah hated the thought of her suffering, no matter how brief it was.

She wanted to try to close Caitlin’s eyelids, but did not like the thought of touching them. It was hard to believe Caitlin was dead, her body was still warm and looked natural, apart from her staring eyes.

Sarah turned Caitlin on her side, then dropped the layers on the floor beside her. She crept her way back upstairs to bed, sure her parents would wake at any moment and discover her in the act. But they did not.

By the time she reached the sanctuary of her own bed, Sarah had convinced herself it was a mercy killing.

It all went amazingly well, considering.

It didn’t initially seem like it, but that was because of Sarah’s guilt, which she hadn’t reckoned on.

The guilt struck her the moment she heard her mother’s first cry, “Robert! Robert!” and the pounding of his feet on the stairs.

Her parents were uncontrollable in their grief. Sarah never thought they would be like that. Seeing it, hearing it, Sarah thought, “If they knew what I had done they’d never forgive me.” She cried, but she was crying for herself.

The doctor came. The police came. They always had to be told of a sudden death, apparently. They concluded that Caitlin must have become tangled in her sleep with the plastic sheeting, accidentally left at the end of the bed, and that Caitlin had suffocated.

“I’ll never forgive myself!” Sarah burst out.

They rushed to reassure her that it was an accident. She was not to know, when she left the things for Caitlin’s bed nearby, that this would happen.

Sarah had a curious temptation to confess what she had done. She bit it down.

They held an elaborate funeral. Sarah hugged herself with glee as all Caitlin’s paraphernalia was cleared away and Caitlin’s bedroom became a dining room once more. Sarah enjoyed the quiet, the sheer bliss of not having to keep getting up and tending to Caitlin. No more hassle, no more disgusting smells, no more noise, no more having to look at her.

She would remind herself of her new-found peace every time she suffered a pang of guilt.

“The only thing to be sorry for is that I didn’t do it sooner.”

She discovered she could no longer listen to Queen. It would take her back to that night, that moment before she bought the layers down on Caitlin’s face when she could have changed her mind, and the thought of seeing her staring eyes. Queen had become her “murdering music”. It was tainted by bad memories.

Her parents didn’t, at first, lavish too much attention on her, but Sarah had allowed for that. Give them time, they would adjust, she reasoned. They would soon start acting like proper parents to her once more.

Four weeks after the funeral, they approached her. “I’m going to be taking your mother away for a while,” Sarah’s father said. “She desperately needs a break.”

‘I need a break too,’ Sarah thought, but she said, “Of course. Where are you going?”

“Australia.”

“Australia?”

They had relatives in Australia.

In an instant, Sarah knew. This was not going to be one of those holidays where they came back all lovey-dovey after a fortnight. No, this was going to be one of those marathon several-month jaunts, visiting innumerable relatives and wonderful different places. And it would end, inevitably, with a phone call home to say they were going to start a new life for themselves out there ...without Sarah.

“You’re going to leave me alone all that time?” Sarah demanded.

“But Sarah, you’re 16 now. You’re very mature and independent. You’ve always been able to cope so well.”

That was precisely Sarah’s problem. She had damned herself to be always ignored by them - because she was able to cope so well.

Sarah swallowed hard. “Can’t I come with you?”

“Not right now, darling.”

******