The Grip Lit Collection

by Claire Douglas

  ‘You don’t want a party? You’re going to be thirty. Beatrice thought—’

  ‘No,’ I say sharply. ‘I definitely don’t want a party.’

  ‘Whatever you want. I’ll organize something special, just the two of us. My birthday treat to you. We could go to London?’

  ‘No, not London.’ I can’t possibly face London at the moment.

  ‘What about somewhere on the coast then? Lyme Regis or Weymouth?’

  I agree that Lyme Regis would be nice and he assures me that he will sort it out, that he knows exactly the place, that it will be a surprise. As I hang up I’m more optimistic than I’ve been all day, and I fall asleep to the thought of spending the weekend with Ben, cuddled up in our hotel room, walks along the front, acting as a normal couple in love with nothing to worry about; no sex bans, no house rules. And best of all, no Beatrice.

  Chapter Twenty

  It never crossed my mind that I would reach thirty and Lucy would not. But when I wake up in the room that I still think of as Jodie’s I’m painfully aware that I’m doing this without her, that regardless of my dread, August third has come around, and I’m turning thirty alone. Will it ever get any better, or am I destined to spend every birthday buckling under the weight of her absence?

  Our parents always spoilt us on our birthdays, making sure to throw us a party no matter how tight things were financially. Mum, who was born in the depths of winter, continually informed us how lucky we were to celebrate our birthday in the summer, even though most years the sun was an elusive guest while overcast skies and thundery rain gatecrashed our parties. Not that this put her off. If the rain was particularly bad, she would retrieve the awning from the garage and get Dad to erect it over the patio, insisting that we sit outside to make the most of the summer irrespective of the droplets of rain that ran off the awning and down our necks. She would invite the whole estate as well as our classmates. And Lucy and I would giggle at the sheer silliness of it all, as Mum bustled around us, making sure everyone had jelly and ice cream along with waterproofs and wellies. ‘You’ll be thankful for these memories one day,’ she would happily chide us when she noticed our conspiratorial giggles, carrying out cheese-and-pineapple sticks protruding painfully from a foil-wrapped orange. But she was right. I look back on each and every one of the birthdays that we shared as children with such nostalgia, such longing, that it becomes an intense, gut-wrenching pain.

  I suppose it isn’t so strange that, as the years inevitably roll on without her, I will become more absorbed in my childhood, in the past, in a time when we were happy.

  The doorbell rings and I spring out of bed, wrapping my dressing gown around myself, and hurry down the stairs. But before I can get to the front door Beatrice is closing it, a huge bouquet of white lilies and roses in her arms. Lilies are my favourite flower. Roses were Lucy’s.

  ‘Happy birthday.’ Beatrice smiles at me. ‘These have just arrived for you.’ She hands them to me and I almost drop them, they are so heavy. I press my nose against the petals of a velvety rose. Who would have splashed out on such an opulent bouquet? ‘Come with me, I’m sure I’ve got the perfect vase in the kitchen.’ I follow as she pads off down the hallway, her pink silk dressing gown billowing out behind her.

  Since returning from my parents’ house I’ve noticed that Beatrice has gone out of her way to be nice, including me in an excursion to an art gallery, which I politely declined, and a party at Niall’s house, which I readily accepted, and as the week has progressed it’s almost as it used to be between us, and I suspect Ben had a word with her after I left. Whatever he said seems to have worked. We’ve reached some kind of impasse. Neither of us have mentioned the letters, the photograph or the bracelet. And even though I toss and turn at night at the thought of those lost letters, of the eerie photo of me with no face, nervous of what might come next, I have no choice but to bide my time, for now.

  Everyone is in the kitchen when we come down, and as I round the last step they all start singing Happy Birthday energetically. Ben stands at the Aga, poised over a frying pan that sizzles and crackles. After the singing he bounds over to me, wrapping his arms around me, almost crushing the flowers as he plants a big kiss on my forehead. ‘Happy birthday,’ he says. ‘Who are the flowers from?’

  ‘I’m not sure yet, I haven’t read the card,’ I say, slightly overwhelmed. It’s as though I’ve spent the last few weeks in the servant quarters, only now being allowed to mix with the gentry. Pam shoves a card and a bottle of expensive champagne at me, while Cass hovers by my side with a cup of tea.

  ‘Here, let me have those,’ says Beatrice, noticing I’ve got no spare hands with which to take the tea. She lifts the flowers from my arms and lays them on the worktop as she bends down to search in the cupboard underneath the sink for a vase.

  Ben steers me to the table, tells me he’s cooking breakfast, bacon sandwiches as a special treat. His enthusiasm is so endearing that I can’t bring myself to tell him I’m not a fan of bacon. Pam and Cass take a seat opposite me while Pam chatters away about when she was thirty ‘many moons ago’, as if it isn’t obvious, by her many lines and grey parting, that it was nearly two decades ago when she was my age.

  Cass shyly pushes a wrapped gift across the table. ‘It’s not much,’ she blushes. I thank her and open it, unable to hide my surprise when I see it’s a large black-and-white print. It’s of me – but it could be Lucy, or Beatrice – a close-up so that only my face and the top of my shoulders are showing in a white T-shirt. I’m deep in thought, the wind blowing some strands of hair across my cheek, the background out of focus so that I can’t tell where or when it was taken. Callum is a great photographer but this is in a different league entirely. ‘Cass, it’s amazing,’ I say, genuinely touched. The others crowd around me to see it, exclaiming at its loveliness. Suddenly my blood runs cold. There is something sickeningly familiar about this photograph – the pose, the blonde hair, the white T-shirt – and it slowly occurs to me where I’ve seen it before. The photograph is a larger version of the one I found in my bedroom, the one where my face had been scratched away, leaving a large white spooky void.

  ‘Can I have a copy?’ Ben grins as he returns to the Aga, spatula in hand, oblivious to my discomfort. My heart is racing, my head swims. Am I about to have a panic attack? I turn to look at Beatrice, to see how she’s reacting to all this, but she’s leaning against the worktop, a smile on her lips, the bouquet of flowers arranged beautifully in a vase behind her.

  Ben serves up bacon sandwiches and as I look around the table, at Beatrice perched next to me happily recounting her and Ben’s thirtieth birthday a couple of years ago, at Cass smiling shyly at her over her coffee cup, at Pam gurning and flashing her gold tooth, it’s as if I’m in some surreal play. Did Cass leave that photograph in my bedroom? Was she acting on Beatrice’s behalf? Was it meant as a warning? A threat?

  ‘So,’ says Beatrice, turning to me. Her plate is empty. ‘What have you got planned for today?’

  I open my mouth to say that Ben has promised to take me to Lyme Regis for the night when he interrupts me. ‘It’s a surprise, remember?’ he says. A look I can’t read passes between them and I take a bite of my bacon sandwich although it feels like cardboard in my mouth. All I can think about is that damn photograph.

  ‘Oh, I nearly forgot my gift,’ she says, handing me a small parcel prettily wrapped in embossed butterfly paper.

  ‘Oh, thanks,’ I mutter, aware that I must sound ungrateful, but I’m terrified of what I’m going to discover inside. I open it with trepidation. The box is small, navy blue, recognizable as the kind that Beatrice uses to package up her jewellery before selling it. My mouth goes dry. I lift the lid and gasp. Sitting between the crevices of dark velvet is a bracelet. At first I think it’s the bracelet that has allegedly gone missing. It’s very similar, sparkly silver, but instead of being inset with sapphires this one shimmers with small round yellow stones.

  ‘Peridot,’ she says w
atching my reaction. ‘The birthstone for a Leo.’

  ‘I always thought my birthstone was a ruby.’ I’m amazed at her thoughtfulness. I gently touch the bracelet, then slide it on my wrist. It’s a perfect fit.

  ‘Not for an August-born Leo. I’ve done my research. Do you like it?’ And by the childlike eagerness in her voice I realize that it’s important to her that I do and it confuses me. What’s going on? Is this another of her tricks to play with my mind?

  ‘I love it,’ I say, trying to sound normal. Deep down I am touched, but I don’t trust her motives. Not any more. She smiles in answer then gets up and empties her dirty plate.

  ‘Oh, don’t forget this—’ She hands me a tiny envelope that’s next to the vase. ‘It came with the flowers. Don’t you want to know who they’re from?’

  I take it from her and slide the card from the envelope, frowning as I read the words. They’re so unexpected, so shocking, that the ink swims in front of my eyes. And I cry out, the card falling from my hand and on to the stone tiles, only semi-aware that Ben is picking it up, that the others are all watching my reaction as he reads out the card.

  Happy Birthday, Abi. Have a great thirtieth. Wish I could be with you.

  Love Lucy xx

  There is a deathly silence as they all digest what’s been written, as the realization dawns on them that I’ve been sent flowers by my dead twin sister.

  I can barely breathe. Beatrice breaks the silence first. ‘Could she … could she have ordered them before she died?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I moan, covering my face with my hands, fighting the urge to vomit my recently ingested breakfast. ‘How would she have known I’d be living here? Anyway, there’s no way Lucy would have been that organized. She died nearly two years ago.’

  Ben massages my shoulders comfortingly. ‘It’s okay, Abi. It’s someone’s sick idea of a prank.’

  ‘And the photograph.’ I grab it from the table and wave it at Cass’s startled face. ‘This is identical to the one I found in my bedroom.’ I explain about the scratched-off face, but they all gawp at me as if I’m making the whole thing up.

  ‘You’re upset, understandably,’ says Beatrice. ‘I’ll get rid of the flowers.’ I can hear her footsteps behind me, hear the squelch as the flowers are lifted out of the vase, the gurgle of water sluicing through the plughole, the wet stems dripping on to the cold tiles. She says she will put them in the recycling box and her voice is brisk, conciliatory, helpful. I turn to see Cass and Pam hovering by the stairs, unsure of what to do or say. They hurry out of the room after Beatrice as she holds the dripping flowers away from her as if they are poisoned.

  ‘I’m so sorry.’ Ben sinks into Beatrice’s recently vacated seat. ‘Please don’t let it ruin your birthday.’

  I shake my head. ‘Can’t you see?’ I groan. ‘Someone is out to get me.’ I’m aware of how paranoid I sound.

  He takes my hand and kisses it in answer. ‘That’s not true.’

  ‘Then how do you explain all this?’ I wail. ‘It’s got to be someone from Bath,’ I say, ripping up the photograph that Cass had given me for my birthday. It’s a reminder of all the horrible things that have happened since I’ve moved in. From the corner of my eye I can see Ben staring at me in shock, but he doesn’t say anything. ‘Nobody from my old life, apart from Nia, knows this address.’

  He raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ I snap. ‘I’ve known Nia since I was eighteen.’

  ‘What about Callum?’

  I pull my hand from his. ‘Callum would never do this.’ I think of Luke and I discount him quickly. As much as he might hate me for the accident, he would never stoop this low or use Lucy to get at me. It’s got to be someone who never knew her. Someone who lives in this house.

  ‘Where did the flowers come from? Which shop?’

  Ben’s head shoots up. He reaches for the card that he slung on the table. ‘It doesn’t say. And neither does the envelope.’

  I think of Beatrice, standing by the front door this morning with the flowers already in her arms. I never saw a delivery person. She could have rung the doorbell herself and waited in the hallway for me to come down. I close my eyes, biting my lip so that I draw blood. I thought we had a truce. Surely Beatrice wouldn’t be that cruel?

  I remind myself that I hardly know Beatrice at all.

  I try not to let it ruin the rest of my birthday, telling myself it’s exactly what the culprit would want. But I watch Beatrice carefully, noting she’s chirpier than she has been in weeks as she bustles around the house, singing under her breath. I want to believe it’s because we’ve put our differences behind us and not some other, more disturbing reason.

  I’m in my room packing a small overnight bag when Nia calls to wish me happy birthday. I can hear the echo of a tannoy announcer in the background and Nia explains she’s at the train station. When I enquire as to her whereabouts she manages to avoid the question, instead asking about my plans and I tell her about Ben’s birthday surprise, that I’m hoping the hotel will be in Lyme Regis as I’ve never been. I decide to keep quiet about how we’re unable to spend nights together because he doesn’t want to be ‘disrespectful to Beatrice’s house rules’ – words which irk me because they remind me how much of a control freak and how possessive his sister is. For reasons that aren’t clear even to me, I find that I don’t tell her about the flowers or the photograph.

  ‘You’re going away tonight?’ She sounds puzzled.

  ‘Well, hopefully this afternoon, although Ben hasn’t said.’

  ‘It’s, well …’ She falls silent and for a minute I think we’ve been cut off, but her voice comes back on the line, faint and indistinct, telling me she hopes I have a lovely time, that she will come and visit soon. The phone goes dead, making me wonder why she’s acting so mysteriously.

  By mid-morning Ben still hasn’t revealed where he’s taking me. I tell him I’m going to my parents’ for lunch. He seems relieved that I’m going out, ushering me to the door, telling me not to come back before teatime. The hours I spend with my parents are long, excruciating as we all do our best to pretend we haven’t noticed Lucy’s absence, that only one of us is turning thirty today. We sit around chatting, with plates of birthday cake on our laps that none of us have got the stomach for. By teatime I tell them I need to get back as Ben is taking me to Lyme Regis.

  ‘When are we going to meet this new boyfriend of yours?’ says Mum as she hugs me goodbye. I laugh and tell her soon, and I put my arms around her, surprised as always by her thin frame, by how tiny she has become since Lucy died, and I’m worried that if I hug her too hard I will crush her.

  As I arrive back at Beatrice’s house, the sun disappears and I pause, my hand on the wrought-iron gate, and turn my face up to the greying skies, closing my eyes as I remember those birthday parties in the rain, and I sense it – exactly as I did that day in the car on the Isle of Wight – that she’s with me, and as the first drops of rain fall, I take it as a sign that she’s acknowledging those wet parties of our childhood. ‘Happy Birthday, Luce,’ I whisper.

  ‘Abi?’ I open my eyes to see Ben standing in the doorway, frowning. ‘What are you doing? It’s pissing down.’ It’s then I notice the balloons bobbing, like decapitated heads, tied to the gate, the daisy-shaped fairy lights above the front door, the lanterns in the garden lighting the pathway. I tentatively push open the gate, brushing past the balloons with Happy 30th printed all over them, and I’m suddenly cold to the bone. The romantic night I envisioned with Ben in Lyme Regis fades before my eyes.

  ‘We’re not going away tonight, are we?’

  A shadow of doubt passes across his face. Wordlessly he holds his hand out to help me over the step. He leans into me and I can smell his familiar aftershave, as his lips brush my ear. ‘I’m sorry, Abi. Please look surprised.’ And before my brain can even process what he means he’s leading me down the hallway and up the stairs to the colourful drawing room. He’s simultane
ously opening the door while pushing me into a roomful of people who all chorus ‘Surprise’. Someone pops a party banger, another thrusts a glass of champagne into my hand, and I can do nothing but blink in astonishment as I take in Beatrice, smiling widely as she stands in front of Monty, Niall, Maria and Grace, with Cass at her elbow as if she’s a toddler hanging on to her mother’s skirt. I can see Pam snogging her boyfriend (a different one, lanky with a ponytail) by the fireplace and Nia hovering awkwardly beside them. ‘Nia?’ I’m so shocked I almost drop my glass. She edges past the others looking shamefaced.

  ‘I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you,’ she says when she reaches me. She pulls me into her arms and I swallow back tears. ‘Is this okay?’ she whispers into my ear and I manage to nod, to squeak that of course it’s okay, when really a hard lump of disappointment lodges in my throat, and even though I’m delighted that my oldest friend is here with me to celebrate my birthday, a party is the last thing I want. A party only highlights that Lucy isn’t here.

  Later, when everyone is dancing to ‘Groove Is In The Heart’, I spot Ben through the melee, laughing with Beatrice and Nia. I go up to him and take his arm, asking if we can talk in private. Not waiting for an answer, I lead him through the living room and out on to the terrace. The sky has turned violet-grey, the threat of rain still hanging in the air. I see Monty in deep conversation with Pam and her new bloke in the corner, Niall is perched on one of the wet sun-loungers with some people I don’t recognize, sharing a spliff. Ben follows me to the railings and leans back against them. The distant screech of a seagull makes me shudder, I’m always surprised by how many seagulls there are in Bath.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he says distractedly. He’s watching the smokers on the sun-loungers. ‘I hope they’re not going to burn their fags out on that wood. It’s teak. Those loungers were bloody expensive.’ I want to tell him I couldn’t give a toss about the sun-loungers. He reaches into the back pocket of his jeans to retrieve his cigarettes, tapping one out of its packet and into the palm of his hand, and offers it to me. When I shake my head he places it between his lips and lights it. I’ve noticed how twitchy he is when he doesn’t have a fag in his hand. ‘Are you enjoying the party?’