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A memory is nudging at my brain but I can’t pin it down. There’s something oddly familiar about the girl’s face...
Gran comes back in with coffee on a tray and sees me looking at the photo.
Her face falls and she stops in the doorway, the tray wobbling a little in her grasp. I leap to my feet and gently relieve her of it, then I guide her back to her seat.
‘Gran? Who is this girl?’ Sitting down beside her, I touch the photo. ‘What’s going on?’
*****
At first, Gran seems unable to speak. She’s holding a hanky to her face, just staring at the photo.
I place my hand gently on her back, as the memory I was searching for slips into my head.
‘Gran?’ I say softly. ‘Is this your sister?’
She turns, her eyes filled with tears. ‘How do you know?’
I swallow hard, feeling emotional myself. ‘Someone told me. They thought I’d know about her, I think.’
Gran shakes her head slowly. ‘Well, it must have been someone who knew us long, long ago. Because I haven’t spoken Freda’s name to anyone in years.’
‘Freda. What a lovely name.’
She nods. ‘A lovely name for a lovely person.’ She touches the photo, tears spilling over, and when she turns to me, I see the agony in her face. I pull her into my arms and she sobs for a very long time. Each time I think she might be all cried out, she looks at the photograph and she’s racked by tears all over again.
At last, she calms down enough to speak. And the story she tells is astonishing.
‘Freda was my big sister, Clara. She was ten years older than me, and as a young girl, I worshipped her.’ She smiles, remembering. ‘She wanted to be a dancer. She was so good. But Dad was really protective of his daughters. He loved us, bless him, but he wanted the best for us, and in his eyes, that meant following a ‘proper’ career path. He wanted us to be teachers or secretaries, and an ‘arty farty dancer’, as he called it, just didn’t cut it as far as he was concerned.’
She sniffs and I pass her another hanky, and she blows her nose hard.
‘Freda sounds amazing,’ I murmur.
Gran smiles. ‘She was. But she was so very strong-minded and she and Dad clashed all the time. Unlike me, Freda knew what she wanted from an early age, and nothing was going to stop her. She auditioned in secret for a place at a dance academy in London and she was accepted. But Dad was furious that she’d gone behind his back and he said that as long as she was living under his roof, she’d obey his rules, and that was that. They had a flaming row and Freda stormed out.’
‘For good?’ I ask, horrified.
Gran nods. ‘She went to stay with Gloria, a friend of hers who was already working as a dancer, and she’d meet me from school and take me for cake and hot chocolate. I’d tell my parents I was at my friend’s for tea because I didn’t want to get Freda into trouble. I knew they were desperate for her to return, but she and Dad were as stubborn as each other. Freda couldn’t come home. She had her dreams and she was determined to follow them.
‘So one day, she broke the news to me that she was going to America.’
‘America? Oh, wow.’
‘I know.’ Gran nods. ‘She was always so brave. Gloria was older than Freda and she had contacts over there, and she’d been promised a job in the chorus of a musical that was opening in New York. So she persuaded Freda to go with her. I think Gloria knew that with Freda’s talent and determination, there was a good chance she’d make it over there. And of course, it was too fabulous an opportunity for my sister to pass up.’
‘So Freda went to America?’ I stare at Gran, incredulous to think I have a great-aunt I knew nothing about until now.
‘She did. Mum and Dad were destroyed, and she left under a cloud, swearing she was never coming back. I think she was just heartbroken that they refused to support her in her chosen career, and she just wanted to be as far away from here as she could. Going to America must have seemed like the perfect opportunity to change her life for good.’
‘Oh, but what about you? Freda must have hated leaving you behind.’
Gran sighs. ‘She did. She swore she was going to come back for me, once I was older and I’d finished school, and take me back to New York with her. I think she was worried Dad would stifle my ambitions as well. But I wasn’t like Freda. I was quite happy doing a job Dad would approve of. I wasn’t interested in a starry, magical career like Freda was. But I was still glad she was coming back.’
‘But how did you feel after she’d gone?’ I gaze at Gran, trying to imagine losing a sister like that.
‘Well... it was just terrible. I cried so much the night she left, I was sick and couldn’t go to school the next day.’ She shakes her head, remembering. ‘For the first few months after Freda left, she used to call me on the house phone when she knew Mum and Dad wouldn’t be there– we didn’t have mobiles back then, of course– and I could tell she was having a whale of a time. She’d got a job, dancing in the same musical as Gloria, and they were sharing a tiny flat. It sounded so exciting. The last time I spoke to her, she’d got a job in a diner to supplement her theatre wages and she was really happy about it. She’d met a lovely man and things seemed to be going well. I asked her when she was coming back to see me, but she couldn’t give me an answer. I think she was worried that if she returned for a visit, Mum and Dad would put real pressure on her to give up the dancing and stay. She missed us like crazy, I could tell that, but her career was all-important and she said she wasn’t going to lose the opportunity to live out her dreams.’
‘You said “the last time I spoke to her”. So what happened, Gran? Did you lose touch?’
