Letting You Go (20 page)

‘I think my dad would find it easier if I wasn’t under his feet. He’s hardly home either, I feel like I’m chasing them all out. I don’t know, maybe I should just go home for a few days, let him and Jem regroup or something.’ Become the visiting guest again.

‘It won’t make a difference, Alex.’

‘What won’t?’

‘You going anywhere. Trust me, I tried it. It just geography. Miles don’t separate people. Thoughts do.’

‘Thoughts?’

‘Yeah. Thoughts, feelings … whatever you want to call it.’ Alex wanted to look away but was held by intense green eyes. ‘I stayed in the Falls for eight years thinking you’d come back, Foster. When you didn’t, I thought maybe I’d try somewhere else in the world for a while.’ Alex felt a sharp pain in her chest. Like she needed to breathe more deeply but couldn’t. ‘I tried lots of places, Alex. I was away for nearly two years trying to find somewhere. But it didn’t make any difference. You were with me the whole time.’

‘H
ey,’ Jem said softly. Alex was propped in the doorway to Dill’s room, the backs of her shoulders pink from a too-hot bath, her dark hair bundled up inside a damp towel.

‘Hey,’ Alex replied. She looked how Jem felt. Tired resignation in the set of her shoulders. Jem let her eyes trail off into Dill’s bedroom. The door she’d chased Dill behind and kicked in anger the last time they’d been in this house together.

Jem felt a familiar ache inside. ‘Do you know the last thing I ever said to Dill?’

Alex looked into Dill’s room again, as if the answer might lie inside. She shook her head.

‘I said that I hated him. That Mum and Dad never wanted him, he was just a mistake that came along later.’ Jem chewed on the edge of her lip. ‘He’d seen me trying to put your makeup on that morning, said I looked like a clown.’ Jem laughed emptily. ‘Not just trying on makeup though, he saw me messing around.’ Jem rolled her eyes. ‘Practising how to kiss … on the bathroom mirror.’

Alex smiled. Jem knew she didn’t need to explain the
calibre of ammunition that would’ve given to their brother at the time. Jem felt that ache again.

‘I got so mad at him, he said that I’d scare all the boys away and the girls would laugh at me. He just flipped my switch. So I chased him into that bedroom screaming at him like a lunatic until you and Finn came back to the house, remember? Mum talked you into taking Dill out with you guys.’

The makeup hadn’t even been for the boys. Jem had only been trying it on to please the girls before the new term started back at Eilidh High. Carrie Logan, mainly, because Carrie’s take on Jem’s appearance had been much the same as Dill’s at the time, only Carrie liked to deliver her critiques with more venom.

You aren’t seriously wearing those shoes are you, Jem? They look like men’s shoes.

Jem, do you ever use conditioner? Your hair is so wiry, like my horse’s tail.

Jem, every girl in the school knows how to shape their eyebrows by now. Everyone except you.

Why wouldn’t you kiss Jackson at the disco? He says you’re frigid. You’re not a fridge, are you, Jem?

Jem looked at her sister. Alex had gone quite still. Jem hesitated. There was always a sadness about Alex when anyone talked about Dill or Finn, as if she couldn’t permit herself to enjoy the memories of either of them.

‘That’s what nine year old brothers do, Jem. Annoy big sisters,’ Alex tried. ‘He didn’t mean any of it.’

‘I know.’ Of course Jem realised that. She understood the difference between silly mudslinging and real, palpable, spite. But Dill hadn’t made it to adulthood. Dill didn’t know that Jem hadn’t really hated him like she’d said, did he? ‘I never got the chance to put him right again before …’ Before they’d brought Alex back to the house wrapped in blankets and their mother had fallen to her knees on the front lawn, crippled with anguish.

Jem saw Alex stiffen. ‘It was just a silly thing between siblings, Jem,’ Alex said.

Jem nodded. She knew that. But that Dill might’ve died thinking that she didn’t love him had haunted her.

Alex looked pained again. Like she was in a constant state of treading on eggshells. ‘Are you hungry? I didn’t know where you were or anything, Jem, I haven’t made anything to eat,’ Alex said apologetically.

‘No, that’s OK. I should’ve let you know, I’ve got to go out in a while anyway.’

Alex had
again?
written all over her face.

‘Work?’ Jem saw the doubt flash over Alex’s eyes and then something else. ‘Jem, I’m so sorry! I’d forgotten about your “big unveiling”. How’s all that going?’

Jem fidgeted. ‘Not great, actually. George has decided to push things on.’ No kidding. George turning up in the Falls? Jem hadn’t seen that one coming. Maybe George was right and Jem did need a push, but just thinking about it was enough to put a fine film of sweat above her lip.

‘Still gently nudging you, is he?’ Alex asked.

‘Something like that.’

Alex nodded without giving Jem a hard time about it. Jem felt a surge of deceitfulness. She was wronging Alex. Alex was busting a gut to close the distance between everyone and here Jem was, doing her best to widen it. It was all starting to wear Alex down, Jem could see it right there in front of her. She shouldn’t have snapped at Alex outside Carrie’s florist yesterday.

‘Al? Can we talk?’

Alex held her hands in front of herself, one rubbing over the other. ‘Sure. I have something I need to speak to you about too. I was just going to get dressed. Want to come in my room?’

Jem stepped out of Alex’s way and followed her across the landing into the guest room. ‘Alex? Did you wear your pumps in the bath? I saw them at the bottom of the stairs, soaking.’

‘Norma got a bit carried away up near the old town bridge. That collar you adjusted doesn’t fit her properly.’

‘Norma?’

‘You said she needed a name.’

‘The crazy priestess, right?’ Jem had been bombarded with opera at weekends too.

‘It suits her.’ Alex smiled, closing the bedroom door behind Jem.

Jem wandered over to the window and checked the view outside hadn’t changed. ‘I like it.’

‘Hopefully Mum will too when she comes home.’

Jem buried her hands into her jean pockets and turned to lean against the wall. Alex sat on the end of her bed.

‘How is she?’ Jem asked weakly. She shouldn’t have abandoned her station at her mum’s bedside, it was just,
how
could she go to the hospital? Blythe knew just by first glance when Jem was holding on to a secret. Bar the big one. Blythe had never cornered her on that one.
That’s your second biggest secret, now
, Jem reminded herself.

Alex pulled the towel from her head, a wet mess of chestnut hair slumped around her delicate face.

‘
Ancient Minoan Ceramics
, yours I take it?’ Jem picked up the book from the chest of drawers beside her and flicked through a few of the pages. Something flittered to the floor. ‘Shoot, sorry. I lost your page’

Alex stopped towelling her hair while Jem picked up the scrap of paper.

‘Sorry, was this your bookmark?’ She held out the little scrap of paper to Alex. ‘Do you know which page you were on? Huh, look at that, it’s a heart.’ Jem turned over the torn shape in her hand.

‘It’s not a heart. It’s a leaf.’

Jem saw Alex’s expression falter. ‘What’s up, Al?’

Jem watched Alex take the paper shape as if it was a rare stamp and set it down delicately on the bedside table. ‘Nothing. Just, seems like there’s a headache everywhere I look at the minute.’

Jem listened as Alex relayed what had happened when their mother had woken. How Millie had mentioned Alfie,
the change in their mum’s awareness, her language. ‘I think she must have been referring to the mayor.
Alfred Sinclair
Mum said. Millie said
Alfie
, but Mum definitely said
Alfred.
When Dad comes home, do you think I should ask him what she meant?’

‘No.’ Jem hadn’t meant it to come out like a bullet, but there it was, hard and to the point. ‘The nurses said they’d keep an eye on her, Alex. Dad doesn’t need this on his plate too. I think we should let him concentrate on getting her back home. He needs her home, Alex.’

Jem had thought about her parents a lot lately. How strong their marriage had always been, how Jem had just wanted something as strong and honest and
normal
as her parents’ relationship for herself one day. But things were never what they seemed, were they? She was only just getting that. And while she’d been burying her head in the sand since meeting up with Mal, her mum had been slipping towards this new delirium that had descended upon her.

Jem felt her breath get short. She’d been complacent. She’d let Malcolm throw her off course. Now she needed to get back on it. No more putting things off. She was going to deal with what she could, while she could. Before it was too late. Starting with her sister.

‘Alex. About yesterday, outside Carrie’s. I didn’t mean—’

‘It’s OK, Jem.’

Jem flopped down onto Alex’s bed. ‘No it’s not.

‘Jem, really, it’s OK. You were right. I wasn’t around for
you when you were having a rough run. I should have asked Mum more questions, found out what was going on. Supported you. I’m glad you had Mal around. Someone to lean on.’

A silence stretched between them.

Jem ran a finger over the flowers embroidered onto her mum’s bedlinen. ‘Can I ask you something, Al? If you had the choice, to keep a secret to yourself in case it hurt somebody or be brutally honest, so they at least knew the truth … what would you do?’

Alex watched Jem carefully. ‘Total honesty, or damage limitation?’

Jem nodded.

‘With your sister, do you mean? Who will love you whatever you might say?’ Alex had left it for her, an invitation hanging there in the air. Jem wanted to tell her, one of her secrets at least. The now-mediocre one that would only blow up in Jem’s face, not the full-blown bundle of dynamite one that promised to obliterate their whole family. Alex was still watching her, she’d gone quite still. It was a St Cuthbert’s Primary cornerstone that Alex cam back with. ‘Honesty is always the best policy, Jem. I’d go total honesty.’

Jem sucked in a deep breath and felt her nerves beginning to jangle.

Alex set her hand over Jem’s. ‘Jem, whatever it is, it can’t be as much work as keeping it all to yourself. I know what I’m talking about here, Jem. Look, what you said to me outside Carrie’s yesterday, it was right. And I’m not trying
to make excuses, I should have been there for you and I’m sorry that I wasn’t. But I probably would only have been a naff sister if I’d have stuck around anyway. I’m crap at confrontation, I hate violence and I don’t know a lot. The only thing I do know, is that it’s heavy carrying something around with you that you don’t think you can share with another soul in the world. It gets really heavy, Jem. Trust me on this. Whatever it is you’re holding up all by yourself, if you can, go and set it down.’

The thoughts screamed through Jem’s head.
I want to, Alex! I want to tell you and I want you to say that it’s OK! And you won’t judge me and that you’ll love me for who I am whether you approve or not!

Jem wanted to say all of these things, but she was already running behind. And Mal was expecting her on the track to the plunge pools.

A
lex wasn’t looking for reasons to bump into Finn. ‘No I’m not,’ she said aloud, because actually saying it might make it more true, kind of like
I don’t believe in ghosts
or
I’m not that far into my overdraft.
She wasn’t here, sitting across the street from the Longhouse for any other reason than she wanted to check in on Emma Parsons … and say a proper hello to Susannah after making herself scarce yesterday, before Susannah had a chance to attack her with food and kindness … and give Susannah these few surplus items from her mum’s pantry, chip in a little while Susannah was helping out the Parsons family.

Alex tapped her fingers across the top of her steering wheel. A cynical voice popped into her head.
Who. Are. You. Kidding.

Alex took the small paper leaf from her jean pocket, all neatly folded like a pound note, and looked at it again. It was just a scrap of paper. Something that meant nothing … and something. Finn used to leave them lying around for her to find after one of their tutors had told him to take a leaf out of Alex’s book. Little paper leaves had flittered from most of
Alex’s college books after that. Little paper nudges, saying nothing and everything.

Alex turned it over in her fingers. Finn had put it inside the book for her to find, the book he’d found in a side street gallery in Crete and carried around the world for two years with him. For her. Alex took a breath and gave in to the montage of images already flipping through her head. Finn standing in the cold, snowflakes like confetti in his hair. Finn in the dim light of her room, skin slickened with sweat. The glimpse of his torso yesterday, when he’d reached under his top for a wayward earphone.

Alex’s finger tapping intensified. She was being ridiculous. ‘Utterly ridiculous!’ she said aloud. ‘Just go and knock.’

She reached to take the keys from the ignition and caught movement over at Susannah’s place. Poppy darted out from behind the sheets hanging on the line across the back lawn, Finn fumbling clumsily after her into the clearing.

Poppy was aiming something at him,
a water pistol?
Only she was having trouble with her aim, gripped in a bout of laughter.

That’s it, Poppy
…
now. Yes! You got him.
Alex smiled. ‘You big goon, Finn.’ She watched him stagger towards Poppy as if his legs were made of wood, waving his arms around giant killer-crab fashion. Dill had taught him the killer crab. Alex watched Finn scoop Poppy up and sit her on his shoulders, her head thrown back in laughter. Something hopeful pulled inside Alex.

Susannah’s white sheets flapped behind them and another killer crab Alex hadn’t been expecting burst through the garden towards them. Poppy turned her water gun on her new assailant. Who was that? Finn pushed the woman away, playfully. Alex felt her centre of gravity plummet through the bottom of her truck. She watched Finn and Poppy duck and dodge the athletic brunette. Ah. Waterbombs. Brilliant. Oh, and another one. Down his t-shirt?

Alex held on to the key for a moment, her heart pattered unpleasantly, she thought she might need to wind down the window for a small gust of air but her body was already swinging into action by itself. The truck engine rumbled to life around her, her hand automatically shifting the gearstick into first.
What are you thinking, Alex? Are you losing your mind too?
She shouldn’t be here.

Alex stole another glance over at them. The brunette was slipping her arms into a denim jacket. She slapped Finn softly and playfully on the back. Poppy got a high-five before the brunette skipped out of the Longhouse’s entrance drive and turned out onto Eilidh high street. Alex watched her scoop the long dark hair from the neck of her jacket and set it all free down her back. And then she slipped into an Audi and zipped off.

Alex looked back to Finn and Poppy still playing.

Plan B. Alex needed a Plan B. Something useful to do. Something useful and helpful and nothing at all to do with green eyes or tiny scars on noses or meaningless little scraps of paper. Alex clumsily dug out the paper leaf and scrunched
it in her palm. Finn would have put it in the ceramics book years ago. He’d probably forgotten it was even in there. She flicked it into the box of surplus tins of kidney beans and pineapple chunks she’d dug out of her mum’s pantry. Plan B suddenly presented itself.

Millie.
Millie could pass on the things Alex had put together, Millie knew Emma and Poppy, maybe it would help the Parsons if Millie had a reason to go over there and talk to Emma about the foul Mr Mason?

There. That was useful, helpful. A decent reason to be cruising around the Falls in the nice summer top Jem had lent her before Jem had stepped out of the house looking like a movie starlet. See! Not a pointless trip out at all, Alex would hang by Millie’s place on the way home. Now, in fact. She could drive there right now.

Alex took the high street as far as St Cuthbert’s Primary then made a left onto the grove where Helen had said Mal and Millie lived now. It wasn’t hard finding it, the police car out front helped.

Alex pulled into the kerb and jumped out. Her flip-flops slapped awkwardly against the gravel running up to Millie’s house. She checked her ponytail was still somewhere near the right spot on her head and pressed the doorbell. There was laughter the other side. It sounded like Millie was home.

The door opened and a jovial looking Mal stood in the doorway.

‘Hi, Mal. I hope you don’t mind me just calling by.’

Mal’s eyes darted to the box of goods in Alex’s arms then back to her. The smile turned into something more strained. Mal pulled the door closed a little and sandwiched himself in the gap, like Emma Parsons had when Alex had gone back with the dummy.

‘Alex!’ Mal called. The laughter in the background stopped. ‘What er, what can I do for you?’

Alex felt bad for disturbing them. ‘Sorry, Mal, is Millie home?’

‘No,’ Mal said casting a look back over his shoulder. ‘Sorry, Alex. Millie goes up to her folks’ with Alfie on Tuesdays. They have dinner. Can I pass on a message?’

Mal seemed restless. Alex got the distinct impression she was disturbing him. Mal would make a useless bad cop. He was too soft, one of those people who’d always worn his feelings on his shirtsleeve. Like his dad, by all accounts.

‘Um, can you ask her if she wouldn’t mind passing these on to Emma? It’s just all sitting unused at our place and Susannah could probably use a few extra emergency supplies. I’d take them myself but I er …’
but I’m frightened of the way I feel when I’m around her son.
‘But I thought maybe Millie might like the chance to touch base with Emma, before the children start back at school.’

Mal practically grabbed the box. ‘Will do. Sorry, Alex, you’ve caught me on the hop. I’ve got something burning on the stove.’

‘Oh, sorry. Sure, I’ll leave you to it.’

‘Thanks, I’ll tell Millie.’ The door closed again before Alex had even left the step. She stood stunned for a few seconds. Something moved in the window. The lounge curtains were being yanked closed, Mal had gone inside and was battening down the hatches. Alex and Finn used to do the same. Close the blinds to the annexe in Susannah’s garden, just so they could have some privacy, watching movies and messing around with Finn’s art stuff in peace. ‘My antennae are twitching!’ Susannah used to say when she came over to check on them. Alex used that phrase all the time now. Mostly at work.

Alex’s antennae were twitching.

She moved over to the living room window. Mal had left a crack in the curtains. Her dad was the same, it was something unique to the male of the species, an inability to leave soft furnishings in an orderly fashion. Alex glanced through.

Jem?
A shot of cold adrenalin ran down Alex’s spine.

Malcolm was comforting her. Was he reassuring Jem that Alex had gone? The coast clear? Alex felt giddy. Jem was holding a glass of wine. A glass of wine! In Millie’s home! Oh God. Alex knew it. She bloody knew it. Jem had gone out dolled up tonight, lippy, jewellery, the works. Alex peered through the window. Jem knocked back a glug of wine; she looked concerned.
So you should, Jem! He’s married! He has a child! What the hell are you doing? And in their home!
Mal rubbed Jem’s arm, Jem rewarded him with a smile.

Get your hands of her, Sinclair, you cheating shit,
Alex growled at the glass.

Alex heard a car roll onto the drive behind her. The lights shone on her, peeking at the window but she didn’t care. The driver shut the engine off and got out. Alex couldn’t see through the twilight at first, her eyes hadn’t adjusted to the car lights turning off.

‘Alex? Hi!’

Oh God.

‘Millie! Hi.’ Alex looked at the ground floor window.
Shit
…
SHIT!

Millie stepped elegantly along the gravel in her flip-flops, her ballerina posture still present. ‘How’s Blythe now? I’ve been worrying about her. Sorry, what brings you over here, Alex? I should probably ask that first. Alfie? Come on, baby.’

A little pair of legs clambered from the back door of Millie’s car.
No!
Not with her little boy here too. ‘Me? I just wanted to drop off a few things, for er, Mrs Parsons. You know her better than I do and umm …’

Jem was about to get sprung. Alex did not condone it, but this was not what any of them needed right now. Maybe Jem was having some sort of blowout? She’d been under a lot of pressure, with work … and their mum and … Alex baulked at the thought of what an affair might do to someone as straight-laced as their mum. Someone who had championed lightning strikes and marriage and soul mates, to both of her daughters. Alex caught sight of Alfie’s profile in the hazy
evening light and something familiar knocked her off course for a second. It was a trick of the light. He probably shared that same look with a hundred little boys. ‘Alex?’

‘Sorry. Yeah, um, these things for Emma Parsons …’ Alex needed a diversion, to spare that little boy from hearing his parents fall apart. ‘I’ve given them to Mal but, ugh, I’m such a klutz, I think I dropped my car keys into the box I just gave him.’

Alex skipped over to the front door and began banging aggressively on it. She couldn’t watch Millie let herself and Alfie in quietly and just walk in on them, wine in hand.

‘Alex, it’s OK, I have a key!’ Millie said.

Alex pushed her own keys farther into her pocket. ‘It’s OK! Mal was just here.’ She drove her finger hard into the doorbell again. And again and again.

‘Alex?’

‘Hello again, Malcolm!’ Alex was nearly shouting. She’d recited a whole monologue this way once, when she’d won the prestigious role of a tree in one of St Bertie’s summer productions. She was projecting, loud and true, just as she had so her dad could hear her at the back of the school hall.
I am a tree, as strong as can be, a tiny acorn grew into what you now see.
‘Oh look! Millie and Alfie are home! Hello Alfie!’ She sounded like C-3PO, only less articulate.

Mal and Millie were both looking at her as if she’d arrived from outer space. Alex laughed loudly enough that it sounded like she’d lost her mind. She just needed Jem
to hear her.
And then what was Jem going to do? Shimmy through Millie’s kitchen window?

‘Alex, are you all right?’ Mal winced. He was pulling the door to again, hiding what or
who
was on the other side.

‘Oh, I don’t believe it!’ Alex said in her loud robotic tone. ‘I thought I’d lost my keys. They’re here! In my pocket!’

I am a lunatic. Unhinged as can be …

‘Alex, would you like to come in for a glass of water or something?’ Millie asked. She’d set a hand down protectively on Alfie’s shoulder. Alfie had cocked his head, intrigued by the nutcase on his parents’ doorstep.

‘No!’ Mal blurted. ‘I mean, I’ve … just started painting that skirting you’ve been on at me about, Mils. The place is a mess.’ Mal laughed awkwardly. Now
he
sounded like C-3PO. And painting? In a nice polo shirt and jeans? Alex could smell aftershave, not paint. Come to think of it, she couldn’t smell what he was burning on the stove either.
Bastard.

Alex saw them then. Jem’s ankle boots, sitting in a neat little pair just inside Millie’s hallway. Alex’s heart was thumping. Was Mal going to try and fob his wife off from coming inside too? ‘Mum?’ Alfie held up a finger with something suspicious on the end of it.

‘Oh, Alfie. Hang on a second.’ Millie looked resignedly at Alex. ‘Let me just go rinse his hands. He’s not well, that’s why we had to come home early, before Nana Helen’s treacle sponge, isn’t it? Come on, to the kitchen, Alfie.’

Millie was going to see the boots. Alex resisted the urge
to dive on the floor and grab Millie’s good leg just to give Jem a few more seconds to get out of there.

Millie and Alfie disappeared into the house. All was lost.

Alex waited for it in silence. Mal was standing in the doorway doing everything to avoid eye contact.
At least move her shoes, you big shit.
Alex wanted to scowl at him but it was pointless while he wouldn’t look at her.

‘Malcolm is a super son-in-law,’ Helen had said.

Alex’s heart hurt for Millie and Alfie. And for Jem too. It would be another wedge between them all, another rock for the Fosters to break themselves upon.

‘I’ve got to go,’ Alex said croakily. ‘Tell Millie … I’m sorry.’

Alex turned to walk back down the Sinclairs’ garden path while Mal pulled the door closed behind him. He stood there on the doorstep, was he watching her leave? Or just avoiding going in and facing the music? Alex walked, waiting to hear Millie come tearing back to the front door demanding answers from her husband.

‘Alex!’ Alex turned, Millie was shuffling past Mal, still stiff in the doorway. ‘Sorry, Mal’s right. The place is a mess. Men and paint huh?’

Alex casually let her eyes drop to Jem’s boots. They weren’t there any more.

Millie looked back to Malcolm and then to Alex again. ‘I was going to ask, would you like to have a cup of tea some time, Alex? Away from the hospital. I saw Jem recently and
she said she thought that maybe you’d enjoy getting out somewhere other than Kerring General?’