by Paige Toon
We fall silent. When he speaks, his tone is gentle.
‘You were a good nurse, weren’t you?’
People often said so, but his tone of voice implies that he doesn’t require an answer from me. ‘Maybe I’ll go back to it one day, when I’m ready,’ I say.
‘Did you quit because of what happened to your sister?’
‘Yeah,’ I reply softly. He’s hit the nail right on the head. ‘Dealing with death and loss was too hard after that. I couldn’t bear it.’
‘I’m sorry,’ he says, his hands resting on my shoulders.
‘It’s okay. Anyway, Mum needed me, too. It was a good time to come home.’
‘She doesn’t need you now, though.’
I glance over my shoulder at him. ‘Are you trying to get rid of me?’
‘Christ no, I’d be lost without you.’
He said I, not we.
I pat one of his hands and reach over to pull another chair out from the table. ‘Well, you know I’m not going to be here for much longer.’ I confessed quite early on that this was only a summer job.
He sighs and sits down beside me. ‘I wish I could quit,’ he says dejectedly, resting his elbows on the table and dropping his jaw into his palms.
‘You can. You’re an adult. You can do what you want.’
‘How could I leave my dad with all of this to deal with?’
‘He could employ someone else to help.’
‘He wouldn’t.’
‘He employed me,’ I point out. ‘And the girl before me who couldn’t cut the early mornings, and Vanessa. He might not like it, but he could get other people in, and who knows? Maybe your mum will be well enough one day to return to work herself.’
He’s not cheered by this sentiment. ‘I’ve been waiting for a long time for things to go back to the way they were when I was younger. They never will.’
‘You don’t know that.’ I reach across and touch his forearm, pained by the emotion in his voice. ‘Let me organise those leaflets. She could get better. Try to have faith. Around a third of people with agoraphobia eventually achieve a complete cure. Half see an improvement. Believe in her. Maybe she’ll start to believe in herself.’
He takes a deep breath and exhales shakily. ‘So where will you go?’ he asks. ‘When you leave here?’
‘I’d like to go travelling,’ I tell him wistfully. Reading about Phoebe’s adventures has inspired me. I just need to save up enough money.
‘Yeah? Where?’
‘Europe, and Chamonix where Phoebe died.’ I stare past him to the wall.
‘What happened to her?’ he asks softly.
‘She went to Chamonix for her hen week, just before her wedding. She was caught in an avalanche.’
‘Jesus.’ He falls silent. ‘Won’t it be sad going to the place where she died?’
‘I sort of hoped it might help. I thought I might feel closer to her somehow, following in her footsteps, seeing the things she wrote about in her diary.’
‘Her diary?’
Damn. Walked right into that one.
‘I found the one she kept when she was a teenager,’ I confess. But he doesn’t judge me, and I find myself telling him all about her visit to the grotto, the views from the top of Mont Blanc and her day to day life on the Aiguille du Midi. I sigh. ‘Then again, I could just go and visit my uncle in Byron Bay.’
His eyes light up. ‘I’ve always wanted go there. I wish flights to Australia weren’t so expensive. Perhaps we should rob a bank and go together.’
The thought of this is oddly appealing.
‘I’ll walk with you for a bit,’ Toby says a little later when we’ve locked up for the night. He drops his skateboard to the ground and pushes away from the pavement.
‘I wish I had one of those,’ I say. ‘I always have to hurry to keep up with you.’
He raises one eyebrow at me. ‘Can you skate?’
I crack up laughing. ‘Are you joking? Look at me!’
I’m wearing ballet pumps and a white cardigan over a green and white summer dress with a hemline that floats around my knees.
‘So?’
‘Do I look like a skater girl to you? You honestly would get on so much better with Eliza,’ I mutter.
‘I can’t imagine getting on better with anyone than I do with you.’
He says it so easily, but I realise with warm surprise that he’s deadly serious.
‘Have a go on my board if you like,’ he says flippantly.
‘Really?’ My face breaks into a grin. The idea of me being able to ride a skateboard – hilarious! But also really bloody cool!
‘Come through here.’ He changes direction and heads off towards an alleyway.
‘What, now?’ I ask with alarm as I hurry after him.
‘Just for a minute.’ We arrive at a deserted space at the back of some shops and he kicks up the rear of his board, doing that spin thing between his fingers as he catches it.
‘Now you’re just showing off,’ I say.
‘You reckon?’ There’s a touch of sarcasm in his tone and I’m guessing that’s the least of what he can do.
‘Hop on,’ he says, nodding at the board. It’s plain and bashed at the edges with faded lime-green wheels.
I step on the end and emit a squeal as the front flies up.
He laughs under his breath and I jolt slightly as he places his hands on my hips to steady me. His touch is warm through the fabric of my dress. ‘Take it easy. Put your foot here, and here.’
He kicks the board gently to demonstrate where he means and this time when I step on, I’m better balanced. I’d quite like his hands to stay where they were, though.
‘Go on,’ he prompts, so I push away from the ground and skate forward a few metres. ‘Put your foot down on the tail to stop yourself,’ he calls after me. I do what he says and almost fall off.
He chuckles as he lopes over.
‘Do you ever skate on a ramp?’ I ask, stepping back onto the board. I don’t want to give up just yet. He stands facing me, and he’s still taller than I am, even with the height of the apparatus I’m standing on.
‘Sometimes.’
I edge my foot to the rear so the front tips up slightly, trying to get a bit of balance. ‘Can you do that thing where they fly up at one end and spin around then zoom back down again?’ I’ve seen that on TV and thought it was pretty cool.
He grins and shrugs. ‘Yeah.’
‘Really?’ I am so impressed.
I could stay here for hours, but I remember I have somewhere to be.
‘My mum’s expecting me,’ I say reluctantly.
He nods, skating ahead to the exit to the street. There’s a small flight of stairs there and I watch in astonishment as he jumps up with his board and slides down on top of the handrail.
‘Oi!’ I hear someone shout at the bottom. ‘No skateboarding!’
I run to catch up and see a policeman glaring at Toby as he kicks his board up and catches it. ‘Sorry,’ he apologises casually, then spins on his heels and walks backwards a couple of paces, his eyes steady on mine. ‘See you tomorrow.’
‘Okay. Bye.’
I don’t know why I’m blushing as I turn and walk in the other direction.
‘I wondered about making it part of the condition,’ Mum says, eyeing me over the top of her teacup.
My jaw is on the floor. She’s just broken the news about giving Eliza and me some money from the house sale. Now she wants us to kiss and make up.
I shake my head, coming to my senses. ‘I agree with you that our fall-out has gone on for too long. I’ve already been thinking about calling her.’
Mum’s whole face lights up with her smile. ‘Really, love?’
‘Yes.’ I nod. ‘Yes, and it has nothing to do with the money,’ I add.
She takes a sip of her tea. ‘I told her that you’re living with Angus,’ she says.
My face falls.
‘But she already knew,’ she adds.
‘Really?’ In that case, I’m surprised she hasn’t come out of the woodwork to have a dig at me. ‘Was she okay about it?’
‘She seemed to be,’ she replies. ‘I don’t know why we kept it from her in the first place, to be honest.’
‘I didn’t want her to think I was jumping the gun.’
She nods, understanding. My eyes are drawn to the photo frames on the bookshelves. There are pictures of Mum and Dad, and of Eliza, Phoebe and me. There are no photos of us on our own apart from individual school photographs at the age of five, but even these are side-by-side in a three-part hinged frame.
If Phoebe had married Gus, there would be a picture of them on their wedding day. The thought makes me want to cry. Will Eliza and I ever feature in a photo, just the two of us? I really shouldn’t be thinking like this in front of Mum. I need to change the subject before I get upset so I say the first thing that comes to mind.
‘I think Angus might be seeing someone.’ I glance at Mum to see the pain cross her features and instantly regret opening my big mouth.
‘I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later,’ she says quietly, placing her cup on the table. ‘How do you feel about it?’
‘Not that great,’ I admit.
She nods perceptively. ‘You’ve always had a soft spot for him.’
My face heats up and I’m about to splutter a denial, but she continues calmly.
‘A mother knows these things. Do you still care about him in that way?’
I shake my head.
‘Maybe just a little?’ she pries.
‘I don’t know, Mum. That was a long time ago. I still care about him, of course. What about Eliza?’ I ask, keen to move the conversation away from myself.
‘What about her?’
‘Do you think she has feelings for Angus?’
Her brow furrows. ‘I’m not sure. Eliza is more difficult to read.’
So much for a mother knowing these things. I try not to take offence that I’m the predictable, transparent one.
‘Well, it may not matter either way,’ I say. ‘Because like I said, I think he might have a new girlfriend.’
I leave Mum after a while so she can break bread – literally – with her friends. I want to spend the evening with Angus. I’m desperate to have a heart-to-heart with him and talk everything through. I hope he’ll open up to me, but I also want to tell him that I intend to go to Chamonix. Maybe he’d like to come too.
I’ll be going sooner rather than later, thanks to Mum. She approved of me using some of my inheritance to travel as long as I promise to do some serious soul-searching while I’m away. She’d like me to come back to England with a clear head and ideally get back to nursing. I’m still not sure, but maybe I’ll feel better after some more time away from it.
Unfortunately, though, my plans for tonight amount to nothing because I return to the apartment to a message on the answerphone from Angus, saying he’s going to be late.
I feel deflated as I slump onto the sofa and stare into space.
After a while, my thoughts drift to Toby. His dark-eyed stare. His lovely smile. He doesn’t choose to show it very often, unless he’s alone with me. There’s certainly something about him. And he is very good on that skateboard. The memory of his move on the stair railings makes me feel a little flustered.
Fine, I’ll admit it. I might have a bit of a crush on him. But he’s only twenty-one! If Mum knew what I was thinking, she’d have a fit. Talk about unsuitable.
Too fidgety to sit there with my mind ticking over, I get up suddenly. I don’t know where I’m going until I’m standing in the doorway of Angus’s bedroom.
There’s a window on the left that looks out onto a large cherry tree and a double bed backs up against the right-hand wall. Ahead of me is a bank of built-in wardrobes. In terms of furniture, it’s minimal. In terms of mess, it’s atrocious. Why can’t he put his clothes away? I mutter inwardly, scooping up his T-shirts from the floor.
I bring one up to my nose to see if it needs a wash, thinking I’ll put a load in, but all I can smell is his deodorant. My head spins as I breathe him in. I’ve always loved the way he smells.
I start to fold up the clean T-shirts and throw the dirty ones into a pile, then I go over to the wardrobes and open the double doors on the left, looking for somewhere to place his shirts.
But there is no space in this wardrobe for Angus’s clothes. Instead the cavity is filled with boxes. I’m mystified. What’s inside the boxes? And then I realise.
These are Phoebe’s things.
It may surprise some people to hear it, but when we were children, I was the most accident prone of the three of us. Eliza was gawky and often clumsy, but when it came to heeding warnings, I was the one who would be most likely to disobey.
I was the one who’d touch the gas ring when I’d been told it was still hot.
I was the one who’d climb a ladder to see the view from the top of the apple tree.
I was the one who would come back downstairs at bedtime to eavesdrop on an argument between my parents.
I was the one who got burnt, who fractured bones, who tortured myself with fears of my parents getting a divorce.
I was the one who was ruled by my curiosity.
And now, I am sitting here surrounded by boxes containing the belongings of my lost sister. Clothes, make-up, jewellery, sunglasses, photo albums, an iPhone with the earphones still plugged in, pink and purple climbing rope with a knot still tied in it.
I can picture Phoebe practising her knots. Some of them were quite beautiful, her hands graceful as she threaded brightly coloured rope, crossing it this way and that.
‘This is a clove hitch...’
‘This is a figure of eight...’
‘This is a bowline...’
‘Watch me, Rose, I’ll show you how to do it...’
She would leave bits of rope around the house. Mum was forever scooping them up and dropping them into her bedroom with a sigh, but Dad would watch her master one knot and then move on to teaching her another. I remember him saying that there were only three knots she really needed, but Phoebe was determined to learn them all. She loved impressing him.
We all wanted to stand out and be different, but Phoebe was the first of us to achieve that. She became the star of the show the moment she first scaled the climbing wall, with Dad proudly watching on. From that moment on, she shone the brightest, and she continued to do so right up until the day she died.
I pick up her perfume and spray some onto my wrist, bringing it up to my nose to inhale. She’s all around me and it’s almost too difficult to bear.
I miss her so much. I’d give anything to hear her voice again. I pull out the grey cashmere hoodie that’s lying on the top of one box full of clothes and begin to cry as I shrug off my cardigan and pull it over my head, sliding my arms into the cosy-soft armholes. I hug the material to my chest, wanting to be engulfed by her. I search through the boxes for her favourite jeans and my heart jumps when I spy them. I’m still wearing my dress so I tuck the flimsy fabric into the waistband and go to the mirror, taking out my bobby pins as I go. My hair swings down into a high ponytail.
I stand for a long moment, staring at my sister. We look the same, except for our eyes. Where hers were bright and sparkling, mine are red and puffy. I slide down to the floor and sob my heart out, raising my wrist to my nose to inhale her perfume again. The lump in my throat is aching painfully, and it shows no signs of diminishing.
I reach into a box for one of the photo albums, but as I lift it out, I spy the navy and yellow notepad underneath.
My heart skips a beat.
I pick it up and skim through the pages and it’s as I could hardly dare to hope: the dates tell me that this is Phoebe’s most recent journal, the one she was writing when she died.
She’s not gone. I can still hear her voice, if only I dare to read it.
I know full well that my curiosity will get the better of me.
/> Chapter 31
Eliza
‘Sorry about that,’ I say to Angus as I deliver his third cup of coffee of the evening.
My boss has been getting increasingly impatient with the amount of time I’ve been spending at this side of the room.
‘Is your boyfriend going to sit there all night?’ was his last grumble. We’re not even busy. It’s not like they need the table.
I asked Angus to come here so I could tell him about my meeting with Mum earlier. I had hoped my boss might let me leave early tonight – we had no reservations or big groups – but he’s being a bit of an arse about it.
‘Don’t wait any longer for me,’ I tell Angus downheartedly. ‘I’ll be here until ten thirty, eleven, I reckon.’
He shakes his head and offers me a small smile. ‘I’m happy.’
‘Eliza!’ That’s my boss again. I barely conceal my irritation as I turn away and head back over to him.
‘Take Table 9’s coffee order and then you can go.’
‘Really?’ I ask with delight.
‘Quick before I change my mind.’
After the awkwardness of Monday night, Angus and I don’t go back to my apartment and neither, of course, do we go back to his.
‘I can’t believe I haven’t even seen where you live, yet,’ I complain as we slide into a booth seat in a nearby pub.
He doesn’t reply and the message is clear. Until Rose and I sort out our differences, I’m not going to.
It’s an added incentive, I have to admit, but I’m still in no rush to come clean to my sister about Angus and face her wrath.
He wraps his arm around me and pulls me close so the whole right-hand side of my body is flush to his left. I drape my arm across his stomach and rest my face against his chest. It feels intimate, being here like this with him, never mind that we’re in public. I tilt my face up and press a kiss to his neck. He holds me tighter in turn.
I wonder if he will ever feel like he’s mine. Completely mine. How long will it take? Years, certainly. He was Phoebe’s for almost a decade. How long before I can wipe clean the memory of the two of them together?
