‘Rose, you don’t mean that,’ says Nancy.
‘Don’t I?’ As soon as she sees the look on our mother’s face, my eldest sister softens again, retreating inside the version of herself she thinks we all want her to be. ‘I’m . . . sorry. I already had a terrible day before I got here and, like everyone else, I just can’t believe what has happened. Or that Nana and Dad are gone.’
Rose’s unexpected Jekyll and Hyde routine catches us all off guard. When I try to translate the look on her face, I think it is fear. Rose is terrified, and maybe she is right to be. Maybe finally, and for the first time, my family does know what it is like to be me; to live with the constant fear that today might be their last. I see the same fear on the faces of the residents at the care home where I volunteer; because they know their time is almost up. I do my best to comfort them, listen to their regrets and ease their anxiety, but they know it’s inevitable. Life kills us all in the end. I stare at my family as we sit in yet another awkward silence, wondering how it came to this. In contrast, the storm outside continues to make itself heard, the sound of rain constantly tapping on the windows like a thousand tiny fingernails.
‘Why was yesterday a bad day?’ Conor asks Rose, sounding genuinely interested.
She makes eye contact with him very briefly, then stares into the distance as though reliving another memory she would rather forget.
‘I got a call from the RSPCA yesterday afternoon. I had to stop off at a disused barn on the way here and there were six ponies locked inside. They hadn’t had food or water for days.’
Even Lily looks moved. ‘That’s so sad. What did you do? Will they get rehomed?’
‘I shot every one of them. Between the eyes.’ Rose looks up, but nobody says anything. I look around the room and see that everyone is as shocked as I feel. ‘I had to,’ she says. ‘It was too late to save them, there was nothing I could do. They were in agony. I had to do something to end their pain, but I didn’t have enough anaesthetic to inject them all. My gun was the only option. It was awful. I can still hear them. Did you know that horses cry when they are scared? Like children.’ Her hands tremble a little and she balls them into fists. ‘I wish I could have shot those responsible instead. Sometimes I loathe people, I really do. I don’t understand how human beings are capable of such horrific things, or why they inflict so much pain on others.’
The silence seems to swallow us all this time.
‘I didn’t even know you had a gun,’ says Lily.
Rose sighs. ‘It’s just a small handgun. A lot of vets have guns and are licensed to use them. It’s normally locked in the safe at the practice.’
Nancy frowns. ‘But if you did . . . that on the way here, does that mean there is a loaded gun in the house? With real bullets?’
‘Don’t worry. I hid it somewhere safe when I arrived.’
The silence resumes and I study my eldest sister for a while. I know that her vet practice is having a little money trouble, but I also know she has always been too proud to ask for any financial help from anyone, unlike Lily. Rose would have really benefited from Nana’s money had she been left any, and would have put it to good use. I notice how she keeps checking her watch, and wonder whether she is just counting down the hours before we can leave. Just over four now, I think. Rose looks so sad. She has always found human company unsatisfying. She says she finds it exhausting to listen to the manufactured feelings of people too stupid to know when their thoughts are not their own. I wonder what her thoughts are now as she checks her watch again, for the second time in less than a minute. I’m not the only one studying Rose, and it’s as though the weight of our stares are too heavy for her to bear.
‘Why are you all looking at me like that?’ she asks.
‘I think, given everything that has happened tonight, we all might feel a bit anxious about there being a gun in the house,’ says Nancy.
‘Fine. My gun didn’t kill anyone, but if it will make everyone feel better, I’ll go and check that it’s still safe where I left it,’ Rose says, standing to leave the room.
Vets are more likely to commit suicide than almost any other profession. That statistic used to make me worry about my eldest sister – vets work long hours, often alone – and when I think of all the horrific things she has seen, it scares me. Rose knows how to end lives as well as save them; sadly, it’s part of her job.
‘I might see if I can get a signal on my phone upstairs . . . maybe it will work up there,’ says Conor.