What You Become (18 page)

‘I can’t get up, Joe; I feel too bad. I left her on her own, and now it’s too late. I was too selfish and now I’ve lost her.’

He looked around the room for a minute, and I wished he was older so he could understand properly or reassure me in a way that I could believe.

‘You’re being selfish again now,’ he said. ‘But you can stop it. You just have to get up and come out with me.’

‘Wow,’ I said, because he was right. He was only eight, but he was right. ‘You’re a little wise man.’

‘I know.’

Within the hour I was out of bed, showered and dressed, and walking Joey into town to buy Mum a get-well card and some sweets.

Thirty-nine

Suddenly the whole town cared about the De Furia twins. Posters were displayed in every shop window – Ti and Ophelia beaming at their birthday party last year, with their straight-haired mermaid cake. Ti loved the cake so much she kept the green glittery candles. She was soppy like that. The conch shell I’d found on Durgan Beach last spring tide was still on her dressing table with some sea glass in it. She still had the ticket from the aquarium for Joey’s birthday.

Joey treated the posters like adverts for a band the sisters were in, pointing them out and cheering them, and I tried to channel some of his faith that they were happy somewhere. Kids from school smiled sombrely at me when we passed. Proximity to tragedy breeds popularity it would seem.

‘This is
awesome
,’ Joey said as the second group of girls from my school cooed over how cute he looked in his blue best.

We were picking out a card in Wilkos when I saw them: Charlie, Alex and Mia, scooping sweets into pink-striped paper bags. I questioned Joey’s card choice, sending him back to search again, hoping we might dodge them if we wasted extra minutes. Instead of chivvying him along as usual, I indulged his quest to compile Mum the ultimate bag of pick-and-mix, languidly debating the perfect chocolate to jelly sweet ratio.

Still, walking out on to the high street, there they were.

Charlie made a beeline for me, and the others followed. She lifted her hand for a high-five from Joey, as though we were still friendly, but he left her hanging.

‘Is that for Ms Chase?’ she asked, tapping the get-well-soon card that Joey hugged to his chest. ‘Because she’s not allowed visitors yet.’

Joey opened his mouth, but I glared at him to shut him up. The gossip machine wouldn’t get any new information from us.

‘So she isn’t dead then?’ I said, and Charlie looked embarrassed.

‘She almost was! She slipped into a coma. It didn’t look good!’

Part of her was enjoying this, I could tell. ‘You should delete my number from your phone. I deleted you years ago.’

‘Don’t be nasty, Rosie, not with what’s going on. I got swept along with everything that’s been happening, that’s all. It was a mistake. Have you been to pay your respects?’

Kids had been taking flowers to the burnt-out Drama block, but I didn’t want to see. It sounded like a depressing and weird thing to do, but mostly I didn’t want to hear the rumours flying around. Mia drew closer, unable to resist the pull of whatever might happen next, but Alex hung back. Maybe the idea of Ophelia drowning had made him develop some empathy.

‘You should go. See it for yourself,’ Charlie said. She bit her lip and frowned. ‘What
happened
to them? Why did they do it?’

‘Nothing happened to them,’ Joey said, when it became clear I wasn’t going to answer. ‘And they didn’t
do
anything.’

Adoring looks appeared on Mia’s and Charlie’s faces, but Joey didn’t smile. He hated people finding him cute when he was being serious. He continued to talk, as though giving a statement to the press.

‘They’ve just gone off somewhere for a bit. For a break. There’s really no reason at all to worry.’ He puffed out his chest and held Charlie’s gaze.

Alex was staring at the ground, which surprised me, because Mia was looking from me to Charlie like we were daytime TV.

‘Will went to see Ms Chase yesterday. He’s allowed in, because they’re so close. She’s still in intensive care. Her room is full of flowers.’

‘He’s livid about what happened,’ Mia added, eager to say anything Will-related.

‘She’s not well enough to talk,’ Charlie said. ‘I don’t know if she knows about Ti and Ophelia yet . . .’

‘That they started the fire?’ Mia said.

‘Nobody knows who set the fire,’ Joey said.

‘I meant that they’re . . . missing. The police were round there again yesterday,’ Charlie added.

‘Everyone’s saying their dad did it,’ Mia said.

‘Did what? Nothing has been
done
to anyone,’ I said, gesturing with my eyes to Joey whose face had dropped, and the fierceness in my voice broke through Mia’s and Charlie’s scandal-crazed pea brains.

‘There was a
huge
argument the night before they went missing, that’s all I’m saying. Everyone says that the neighbours complained,’ Charlie said.

Without having to think, I was on Fab’s side. He had the De Furia temper, and he lashed out, but he adored his girls.

‘Who’s “everyone”?’ I said.

‘People that know.’

‘You mean your parents and your brother?’

Charlie twitched her hair from her face in a haughty little gesture.

‘Tell Will to stop spreading lies to cover his own back.’

‘What are you talking about? He hated Ophelia.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘He hated her. That’s why they used to meet in secret all the time. To
hate
each other.’

Charlie looked fuming, and Mia’s smile dropped. She had been mooning over Will for as long as I had known her. Alex looked like he didn’t want to be here at all, and I wondered if Ti had been right when she claimed he was still in love with Ophelia.

‘They haven’t met in secret for months,’ Charlie said.

‘So how come Fab came round your house the day after they went missing? And what was “the huge fight” he had with Ophelia about?’

Charlie’s blue eyes flicked to the side for a second, doubtful.

‘Fab’s a mad man,’ she said, recovering. ‘Everyone knows. The whole family are insane.’

‘I expect the police will want to talk to Will soon too,’ I said. ‘Seeing as he hated her so much, and that they spent so much time together . . .’

Charlie’s head was shaking, and I felt sorry for her, because she was such a spiteful person, and her life was really going to suck if she carried on this way. Joey looked at me to check everything was okay, and I ruffled his hair to reassure him.

‘Hurts when rumours start about the people you love, doesn’t it?’ I said, and putting my arm round Joey, I pushed through them, and it was strange to imagine that I’d ever felt intimidated. They were petty and malicious and small.

‘Ti will come back soon, won’t she?’ Joey said, and I nodded.

‘She will.’

Faux-scolding him for taking all the best sweets before we delivered them to Mum, I took the road that led to the De Furia café, praying it would be open. Business as usual would mean they had faith that their daughters were safe and well, and coming back. But it was shut. No note on the door or anything.

Poor Fab. He had enough to worry about without stories like that going round. How were he and June coping? I tried to imagine how Dad would feel if things were the other way round, and my heart ached.

At home I sent my brother upstairs with the treats for Mum, then headed back out again, up the hill to the Beacon. It didn’t matter if it was awkward at the De Furias’ house, I realized. What mattered was that I let them know I cared enough about them and their daughters to go and see how they were doing.

Forty

The curtains in the living room and the bedroom upstairs were closed, and it took me a minute to build the nerve to knock. Perhaps they didn’t want guests. Perhaps they were having difficulty sleeping, and making up for it this afternoon. What if I ruined their first deep sleep since . . . I rapped on the door, hard enough to sting my knuckles before I could wimp out.

Movement inside, and then Fab appeared, thick grey hair seeming to swarm around one side of his head, his broad face frosted with white stubble. He wore old jeans and a sweater, rather than his usual shirt and checked trousers, and on his feet were the oldest, most beat-up and dirty-looking slippers I’d ever seen.

‘Rosie,’ he said gruffly, returning into the house in a way that I hoped meant I should follow. At the end of the dark hallway June peered cautiously from the kitchen.

‘Rosa!’ she said, and a smile broke out on her face. Her calling me ‘Rosa’ gave me strength, and I looked each of them in the eye.

‘I want to help,’ I said, and June nodded gladly, as though she had been expecting this. She wore a dressing gown too, with an old-fashioned nightie underneath, like someone’s grandma from a programme about the Victorians. She had on thick slouchy socks that pooled round her ankles as though considering falling off altogether.

‘Coffee?’ Fab said, taking apart the small aluminium coffee maker that all the De Furias used. I preferred the jar stuff, but Fab refused to have it in the house.

‘Yes please.’

‘Sit down,’ June said, following her own instructions. Fab shook coffee into his little contraption and set it on the hob, then took a cigarette from a packet on the windowsill, and stepped out the back door to smoke. June didn’t take her eyes off me. Usually it was Fab that did the talking – he liked to grill people, asking questions and poking fun, not caring about being polite – but today he didn’t have anything to say.

‘It’s lovely to see you,’ June said. ‘I’ve been wanting to get in touch.’

The coffee on the hob began to stir, and Fab blew out a stream of smoke using more power than seemed strictly necessary. He was like Ophelia in that respect. Cigarette smoke drifted into the room, mixing with the coffee smell, and I was reminded of dozens of early breakfasts here, before Ti’s shift started on Saturdays and Sundays.

‘Did you hear from Ti? Before . . . ?’ She let her sentence trail off, and blinked, and I jumped in to fill the gap, not wanting to finish that thought either.

‘I got an answerphone message, but I didn’t hear it till the next day. I got suspended from school, and Dad took my phone, you see. Plus we’d sort of fell out. I had some missed calls,’ I said vaguely, and then changed my mind: ‘Eleven. She needed me and I wasn’t there.’

June nodded. Clearly she understood that. ‘And what did she say?’ she asked, and I felt my face burning up. June seemed different to usual. More formidable and alert. More like her daughters.

‘It was a bit garbled, but she said there’d been an argument,’ I said hesitantly. June winced, and Fab took a deep drag on his cigarette, then scraped it down the brickwork before chucking it over next-door’s fence. June didn’t look at him, but lowered her head slightly, and I tried to remember if Ti had said her mum was there too.

‘I hit her,’ Fab announced, walking to where the coffee hissed on the hob.

He pulled a cupboard door open, retrieved three gold-tipped china cups, and began pouring expertly without spilling a drop. There were dark rings around his eyes, and his mouth was very straight. ‘I hit my littlest girl.’

June looked at him now, and her eyes were accusing and angry, and I realized that since I’d arrived they hadn’t talked directly to each other.

Fab put my cup in front of me. Shaking his head, he tipped spoonfuls of sugar into his and June’s coffees, then pushed the bowl over to me. Wiping his hands over his face, he sniffed, then drank his coffee in two quick, loud slurps. He put the delicate cup on the table, and all the time June eyed him with the same unforgiving expression.

‘That what it said in the message?’ he asked, and he seemed boyish in his slippers and T-shirt, this big man whose shouts I’d listened to since I could remember.

I nodded.

‘You girls tell each other everything, don’t you? Have the police spoken to you? They might want to . . .’

I shook my head fast, wanting him and June to know that this wasn’t what I believed. Fab could be scary and unpredictable, but he was warm too, telling jokes and teasing. Once at dinner when Ophelia was being a brat, he draped linguine around her head, like a pasta crown. It shocked her so much her bad mood evaporated instantly.

‘Why haven’t they been round?’ June said, standing up. ‘I’m going to call PC Rush. They should be talking to everyone, it’s like they’ve given up . . .’

Fab carried on as though June hadn’t spoken. ‘I just thought, if we could keep them out of trouble these years, we’d be okay. Just be tough until they were old enough to make good choices . . .’

Fab turned his cup, and June walked to the dresser to get something from a drawer.

‘It’s hard being the father of beautiful girls,’ he said. ‘When you know what boys are like. And they don’t listen to you. They don’t listen to their father like they should . . .’

‘Look, Rosie,’ June said. ‘They found this on the beach, with their clothes.’

In her hand was the seahorse necklace I’d bought for her fifteenth birthday.

‘The chain’s broken,’ I said, as she placed the delicate gold in my palm.

June nodded sadly. ‘She loved that necklace.’

What had happened? Had she pulled it off? Why? June and me stared at the tiny charm, as Fab went out for another cigarette.

‘My brother thinks they’re hiding,’ I said.

‘They’re punishing him,’ June said, without lowering her voice.

‘They’ll not come back,’ Fab called in from the garden.

‘De Furias are stubborn,’ June admitted. ‘But they’re loyal too.’

‘Cut off our tongue in spite of our mouths.’

I couldn’t help a tiny smile at the Fabism.

‘There’s no way Ti would swim at Durgan unless she knew it was safe,’ I said.

‘See!’ June’s face brightened. ‘Fabio’s finding it hard to think positive. He doesn’t know the meaning of P. M. A.’ She turned to look at him properly for the first time since I’d got there. ‘Positive. Mental. Attitude.’

Fab jutted out his chin, returning to the table.

‘We’ve had a lot of time to think,’ June said, and Fab looked at his empty cup, turned it ninety degrees.