What You Become (21 page)

The kind nurse’s mouth was moving, worried about me, but I dodged out the way, as she reached forward to offer comfort. I didn’t deserve to be consoled. I was a horrible little liar, and Ms Chase was a real person with a mum, like anyone else. Ti was right; I couldn’t fix this. And I should never have come.

Forty-six

Dad came to wake me from a too-long pretend nap at one o’clock, and my stomach chugged with dread. I was due at June’s and Fab’s to discuss my speech. They’d rung as I arrived home from the hospital to ask if I would read at the vigil, calling me Ti’s greatest friend and their honorary daughter with such affection that I’d burst into guilt-ridden tears and agreed at once, though I had no idea if I could manage it.

Setting down a cup of tea, Dad told me how proud he was that I was stepping up finally, and speaking my truth, and when I mentioned a stomach ache I thought his head was going to fly off his neck. His ears went red, and he told me to not
even think about it
, and ordered me out of bed right now.

After making me a fried-egg sandwich – ‘Protein will give you energy’ – he walked me all the way to the De Furias’ though it was the opposite direction to the university.

‘You’re a good girl,’ he said, knocking on the door. ‘You’ve just got to resist this urge to do nothing all the time.’

June told him I was a little treasure, and I wished it were true.

‘I bought sfogliatelle,’ June said when Dad had left and I was struggling to take my shoes off in the hallway. My fingertips were sweaty and I couldn’t breathe. When had I become such a fraud? Fab smoked by the back door in his grubby grey dressing gown. My heart beat fast, making me twitchy. I didn’t deserve sfogliatelle. If the opportunity arose, I would sneak it out to Ti. But perhaps she didn’t deserve it either.

Coffee boiled on the stove, and June rushed to remove it from the hob before Fab had a go at her for scalding it. Though perhaps those days were over.

The candlelit vigil was the next evening, and June talked about the arrangements so far. The weather was promising to hold – a gift from god, she said – and she’d been worrying about whether they should buy candles or if people would remember to bring their own, and then St Benedict’s Church had stepped in and offered to provide tea lights for the evening.

‘We’re so happy to have you speak, Rosa. You’re such a good girl,’ she said, but I wasn’t. Had I ever been a good person? Or had I always just been a sneak? Lying about who I was and keeping secrets that shouldn’t be kept.

The girls are safe
, I wanted to say.
I saw Ti last night. This whole thing is a sham.

But June was on to her next question, about how many candles would be needed, and it was a tough one, because the De Furias weren’t the biggest collectors of friends, especially the young ones.

‘How many do you think will come from Fairfields? A guestimate,’ June asked shyly, and my heart sank.

‘Quite a few,’ I offered, and June’s sad eyes sparked a little, inspiring me. ‘Yes, quite a lot, I’d think.’

Fab threw his cigarette over the fence, and spat in the drain.

‘You don’t have to lie to us, Rosie; we’ve had enough of that. We love the truth round here. New policy.’

I looked at my feet, and June tutted as she poured milk into a pan on the hob.

‘They were little pigs sometimes, June, and you know it. Especially Ophelia. Takes after her effing father.’

‘
Fab!
I mean it. Stop now. All morning he’s been like this: negative, every word that comes out his big mouth. Ignore him, Rosie, please.
Ignore him.
Maybe the girls weren’t nice to
every single
child at school
every single
day of the year, but people like to give second chances. People like to think they’d get a second chance themselves. Wouldn’t you agree, Fabio?’

Fab sat at the kitchen table, and closed his eyes.

‘My friends Alisha and Ava and Kiaru will come,’ I said, wanting to give something that was true, however puny. June looked pleased as she poured the coffee.

Kiaru didn’t call any more, but this morning he’d sent an email telling me they’d be at the vigil, along with an attachment of an orang-utan cuddling a koala. We’d talked about it once, odd pairings of different animals, and whether there was anything better. I sent back a tiger and a bear, wondering if he’d still want to email me if he knew I was hiding my best friend in his garden. If he knew the real me. (Who even was that?)

At June’s insistence Fab showed me the leaflets they’d had made: the same birthday picture of the twins, with the words
HAVE YOU SEEN US
? at the top, and then details of the vigil printed at the bottom. My eyes were drawn like magnets to the question, and I thought I might gag.

‘Take some with you,’ June said, and I took them in silence.

‘Alex Riviere printed those for us,’ June said. ‘He got in touch with Pirate FM too. He’s going on the radio tomorrow, to put a call out. He’s friendly with one of the DJs apparently. Poor boy, he’s quite distraught. I think he might have a soft spot for our Ophelia.’

Fab harrumphed, and June shot a look at him that said quite clearly:
don’t you dare
.

She pulled a plate of sfogliatelle from the oven, and with a determined expression turned to me. ‘Eat them while they’re warm,’ she said, and her hand visibly trembled as she added milk to our gold-rimmed cups.

Fab took the darkest pastry, and shoved half of it in his mouth. With flakes on his lips he spoke, and his voice was soft and quiet, like I’d rarely heard it. ‘Nothing tastes the same without the girls, does it, eh? Pigs or not.’

June dipped her head, leaning over to wipe at Fab’s lips with the cuff of her cardigan, and my mouthful of cream and pastry turned to cat litter on my tongue.

Forty-seven

‘I can’t keep your secret,’ I said to Ti.

It was around one o’clock in the morning, and we had just arrived at the summer house, were sitting on the sofa with the heat turned high. Ti refused to look at the flier Fab had given me, twisting her body away when I put it in front of her face. ‘Please don’t, Rosie. I feel terrible as it is.’

‘No, you need to know what you’re doing.’

‘Stop it!’ She grabbed the flier from my hand and scrunched it up.

‘See! You couldn’t do it, if you knew. If you could see your mum and dad, you wouldn’t be hiding like this. They haven’t given up on you, you know. And they’re never going to.’

Ti closed her eyes.

‘I went to see Chase too.’

Oh my god.’

‘I wanted to have something good to tell you, that’s why I went, but there isn’t anything good, and I shouldn’t have gone. She’s not out of the woods yet, that’s what the nurse said. She’s got breathing apparatus, and bandages all over her face . . .’

Ti had her head in her hands.

‘People are accusing your dad of . . .’

‘Don’t! Will already told us; we know all about it.’

‘And it’s okay with you is it?’

‘No, but . . . you know. It’s not like they’re going to find our bodies, is it?’

‘Can you hear yourself? What you’re saying? Your dad’s not shaving or getting changed out of his dressing gown, Ti. They’re thinking of selling the café. I mean, are you even sorry?’

‘Of course I’m sorry!’

‘Because I think, if you could just
see
Chase and your mum and dad, you wouldn’t be able to do this, what you’re doing now, what you’re planning. What
Ophelia’s
planning.’

‘Everything’s so black and white with you, isn’t it? Ophelia bad, Titania good. Phe’s right, you don’t get it.’

‘No, Ti, it’s you that doesn’t get it. You’re not helping your sister by doing this. Do you think everything will just be all right when you’re in London?’

‘Rosie, stop it.’

‘No, I’m serious. What makes you think there won’t be any more “accidents”?’

‘
Rosie
. You’re wrong about me. You think I’m better than I am. You always have.’

‘No.
You’re
wrong about you, Ti!
I
know exactly how good you are.’

‘Rosie . . . I need to tell you something. In the garden that time, with Chase—’

‘No.’ I sat back on the sofa, pulse racing. I knew what she was going to say.

Ti swallowed, visibly nervous. ‘You’ve always thought so well of me,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t bear you knowing . . . that I—’

‘No!’

‘I wish so badly that I hadn’t.’

‘So Chase isn’t a liar? You did threaten her?’

Ti nodded.

‘What’s wrong with you? Why would you even do that? What did you say?’

‘I said that she didn’t know who she was dealing with. That she didn’t know the kinds of people I knew. I was just trying to stop her from calling the police!’

I felt my mouth open in disbelief. Not for one second had I believed Ti was capable of threatening a teacher, and yet somehow her confession wasn’t entirely shocking.

‘You should have told me.’

‘I know. I was ashamed. I could hardly admit it to myself.’

‘You should have trusted me.’

We sat for a while in silence. It was another clear night, and out of the window of the summer house I could see the waves of the ocean reflecting the moonlight.

‘Poor Chase,’ I said after a while.

‘See. I’m not who you think I am,’ she said. ‘I’m not a good person. I’m broken.’

‘You’re not broken, Ti. You made a mistake, that’s all. You were stupid. But you didn’t start the fire. You don’t have to take the blame for that. You don’t have to disappear.’

‘Part of the reason Phe was so convinced about the affair was because she thought Chase had lied. I tried to tell her, that night at school, but she wouldn’t believe me. She thought I was just saying it to calm her down.’

‘Ti, listen to me, you’re not to blame for this. Ophelia is the one that set the Drama block on fire. There’s no excuse for doing that – can you not see?’

‘But what would we look like? Coming out of hiding after what we’ve put our parents through? It’s got too big, Rosie. We’ve caused too much trouble.’

‘People like to give second chances; they like to think they’ll get them for themselves. It’s true. Isn’t it?’

Ti cocked her head to the side, and I felt hopeful for a second.

‘I can’t do it, Rosie. I can’t do it to Phe.’

‘And what about what she’s doing to you?’

We could just about hear the sea from here, rearranging the stones at Durgan again and again like the world’s biggest obsessive compulsive, and I forced myself to say the thing I’d been thinking for a long time, that I’d never dared say before.

‘Ti, what if your sister needs proper help?’

‘She just needs to start again,’ Ti said too quickly. ‘We both do. A fresh start, that’s all. Listen, I’ll talk to her. I’ll see what she says. Just promise me you won’t do anything. Not until then.’

Forty-eight

Durgan Beach was fuller than on a hot day in August. Near the cliffs to the east, on the rocks where the girls had left their clothes stood Dad’s sound system and generator and a tower of speakers. From Will’s shed Ti and Ophelia would be able to hear the speeches. That’s what I’d latched on to as the sun rose. Too agitated to sleep I’d written my speech, trying hard to work out what I wanted to say. What I
needed
to say. What combination of words must Ti hear to realize what was right?

Here and there candles in jars flickered against the dark, and the sea rushed in and out. Dad held a clipboard and answered questions, and I couldn’t help smiling. He and his activist friends wore T-shirts emblazoned with
SISTERS COME BACK
, and I was glad he hadn’t listened to me when I told him being on their side now made him look like a hypocrite.

A banner with the same words hung from a table full of bottles of pop and plastic cups that Mum attended to, seated in the deckchair Dad had set up for her. Her medication seemed to be working, and she had persuaded Dad to let her try attending tonight. ‘How could I miss our daughter’s first speech?’ she’d said, and Dad had caved.

It was like fireworks exploding inside my chest, seeing how much effort people had made. There was no way Ti could leave when she saw the turnout.

Joey was babbling about what he was going to say when she revealed herself. He was going to give her a cuddle, and then tell her off, but not too much, because she would already be feeling bad, plus her mum and dad would be planning to tell her off properly . . .

Walking here, the streets had been busy with a mixture of kids from school and people from Ti’s church, as well as a handful of overweight customers I recognized from bleary mornings waiting for Ti at the De Furia café. There were teachers and shopkeepers too, though no sign of Kes or Ms Chase. Her absence hovered over proceedings, and I wondered how she was. Dad swore that when it came to hospitals no news was good news, and I hoped that he was right.

Kids dodged around in gangs, setting up little games and making the most of being allowed out late. They ran and whooped, wound up by the idea of a disappearance, while curious detached adults sipped from paper cups. Dad had made it into an event.

A canny student had cycled down a freezer and generator and was selling ice creams to a growing queue of excitable kids, and Joey tugged at my arm, begging for money to get one. I found a pound in the bottom of my bag, and off he went, fist tight round his money, positive things were going to turn out okay. It was only two minutes to Will’s shed from here, I could see what Ti was making of all this, while Joey queued.

It was tough running up the narrow cliff path with all the oncoming traffic, but I made it, scanning the hedgerows as I went. The wild area around Daphne’s bench was clear too. There was just the odd cluster of people now; most of those who were going to attend had already taken their places. The attic light was on at Kiaru’s house, which made my stomach flip, but the summer house was empty. Too early for Ti to be there.

Will’s house looked empty too, as I let myself through the gate. There was nobody in the shed. Or so I thought, until I looked down to find Will, Ti and Ophelia huddled together on the floor beneath a blanket.