by KE Payne
“It’s nice that we’ve still done this, isn’t it?” Freddie’s words drew Tag back to her.
“I can’t believe my father carried it on for so many years,” Tag said. “It started as a bit of fun really. An excuse to have a party when Blair and I were children.”
“The other guys like it,” Freddie said. “It’s a chance for everyone and their families to get together.” She drank back some wine. “Adam always said it was important for families to do at least one thing all together during the year.” She stopped. “Sorry, I didn’t mean…”
“It’s okay.” Tag’s gaze roved around the room. “It’s just ironic that this party was pretty much the only time of the year we still all used to get together after mum died.”
Her eyes settled on various faces. Husbands and wives. Fathers and sons. Mothers and daughters. Families. There was laughter and happy chattering. Unity. Just as it used to be for her as a child. As she looked around her, the sense of her own isolation hit her with a force she’d never experienced before. She was an outsider. An intruder. This was a gathering for families. What did Tag know about family? She’d been on her own for such a long time it had become second nature. Tears she didn’t even feel coming pooled in the corners of her eyes.
“I need some air.” Tag slammed back her drink and shouldered past a startled Freddie. She headed for the exit before anyone could see her tears. If there was one thing Tag didn’t do in front of other people, it was tears.
*
The cold night air slapped Tag as she stepped out into the car park. Winter had blown in hard over the course of the day and now icy fingers wrapped round her. Tag shivered, wishing she had something warmer on other than the lambswool sweater that was doing little to keep the cold off her bones.
She tilted her head back, listening to the muffled music still playing inside the cafe, and took in a gulp of air. The night sky was the colour of ink, stars dotted like silver beads. She’d forgotten the intensity of the sky in the countryside. Stars loomed down at her, appearing so close that she felt as though they were in reach.
Tag closed one eye. She reached up and scooped a handful of stars, stuffing them into her trouser pocket, then reached for some more.
“You okay?”
Tag spun round at Freddie’s voice. She wiped at her eyes with the inside of her sleeve.
“Just needed some air.”
“It’s hot in there, isn’t it?” Freddie came and stood beside her.
“Very.” Tag wavered. “And I got sad. Back in there, I mean.”
“I guessed that.” Freddie allowed her hand to rest on Tag’s for the briefest of moments.
“Seeing everyone with their families,” Tag said, “made me miss something I know I had a long time ago.”
“Who’s to say you can’t have that again?”
“Maybe.” Tag wrapped her arms around herself. “But I know I’ll never have that in Liverpool.”
The brief conversation ended. Both stood in silence side by side, watching the stars. Tag’s phone vibrated somewhere in her pocket and she retrieved it to look at it before putting it back again.
“Problem?” Freddie asked.
“Nah.” Tag turned her phone over in her pocket. “Just work.”
Anna, to be more precise. Another text about the photographic stills for the Milton contract. The same photographic stills Tag was supposed to have be working on since Monday.
Tag inhaled slowly, choosing not to reply to it. Anna could go to hell. She wasn’t here to be thinking about work. It was bad enough Anna constantly e-mailing her work without bugging her now with texts about the fucking Milton deal. Why couldn’t she see that? Tag stared ahead into the endless darkness. A nerve thrummed in her jaw. Irritation always made her do that. She breathed back out again, even slower.
“You look pissed off about it.” Freddie spoke quietly.
“Wouldn’t you? Getting a text from work when you’re supposed to be grieving?”
“I would, yes.”
“The fact it was from my married ex-girlfriend as well didn’t exactly help.” Tag laughed through her nose.
“You work with your ex?”
“Nah. Work for her.”
“And she’s married?”
“Yup.” Tag shunted a look to her, expecting to see judgement in her eyes. She saw only empathy.
“That’s gotta make things awkward, hasn’t it?”
“Yeah, especially when she was the one that did the dirty on me,” Tag said. “So. What about you? Any significant other?”
Freddie pulled a face. “Oh, I’m very dull in comparison,” she said. “Single, and definitely no married lovers hiding anywhere, that’s for sure.”
“What brought you and Skye to Balfour?” Tag asked.
“The mill,” Freddie said firmly. “I used to help out in a cafe about twenty miles from here. Then a few years ago the chance came up to run the cafe here. I applied for it and got it.” She squinted into the darkness. “We don’t live in Balfour, though.”
“You live just over in Lyster, is that right?” Stalker alert. “I heard,” Tag added hurriedly.
“Yep, that’s right,” Freddie replied. “Actually, Pete and I only just moved there,” she said. “It’s closer to both our workplaces, and it’s a really nice village.”
“Pete who I met earlier?” Tag asked.
“My housemate,” Freddie said. “His fiancée lives in the next village along, so it’s convenient for him too.”
“Blair and I used to go fishing in the river by the church in Lyster when we were kids,” Tag said. “And then when we were a lot older, we’d sometimes go to The Bull pub, down by the bridge. Is it still there?”
“It is.” Freddie’s face lit up. “Nice place. Skye and I go there when we can. She loves the swings in the gardens there.”
“How old is she?” Tag asked. “Skye?”
“Five,” Freddie said, “going on twenty-one.”
“You’re very lucky to have such an awesome kid.”
“Sometimes, especially during her tantrums, I do wonder.” Freddie laughed, then shivered.
“Cold?”
“Frozen.”
“You want to go back inside?” Tag resisted the urge to fold Freddie into her arms, to rub her skin until she was warm again. “It is kind of cold out here.”
“How do you feel about it?” Freddie asked. “We can stay out here a bit longer if you need time to yourself.” Her teeth chattered and she pulled her arms tighter round herself. “Let’s stay. It’s a bit of a lion’s den in there.”
Tag studied Freddie, touched by the sincerity and concern on her face. Despite her obvious cold, she’d be prepared to stay outside with Tag, if it meant saving Tag from the demons that waited for her inside the cafe.
“It’s okay.” Tag started to walk. Easing Freddie’s discomfort was more important to her than not wanting to return. How hard could it be? She thought of Skye and Magnus, waiting for her inside. Her angst dissolved in an instant. “I could use another beer anyway,” she lied.
“If you’re sure?” Freddie’s concern was moving.
“Sure.” Tag held her hand out for Freddie. It was frozen. “After all, there’s a little girl waiting to hear the tale of the fox in the river,” she said, squeezing Freddie’s hand and pulling her inside.
Chapter Ten
Freddie grabbed an armful of hay and shuffled in through the back door of her cottage, kicking a pair of small shoes out of the way as she did so. The shoes scudded across the linoleum of the utility room, out of her way, only to be replaced by another pair. This time, directly in Freddie’s path.
“Skye.” Freddie stopped walking. She waited and called again. “Skye!”
So Tag thought Skye was awesome, did she? Freddie smiled as snippets of their conversation returned to her, as they had done the entire night after they’d parted at the ceilidh. It wasn’t just their conversation that constantly dripped back into Freddie’s mind, delaying
sleep and now demanding that she stop what she was doing and give it her full attention. The looks that had passed between them frequently returned to Freddie, sometimes at the strangest moments, taking her quite by surprise. Over breakfast that morning, even just the memory of Tag wiping her tears away when she thought she was alone, then looking to Freddie with eyes so full of sorrow Freddie had thought her heart would crack, had caught her so off guard that even Pete had asked her if she was okay.
“Skye!” Freddie called again, louder this time. Tag had the ability to do that, Freddie thought as she waited patiently for Skye to appear. Catch her off guard. Throw her. And she liked it.
“Yes?” A small voice called from the front room.
“Come here.”
“Why?”
“Because I want you to.”
“But why?”
“Now.”
Freddie never knew five-years-olds could sigh quite as much as Skye could. But her summons to the utility room had elicited a long, impatient puffing of the cheeks from Skye who now stood, hair sticking up at the back, in the hallway. The spitting image of her mother at the same age. Freddie’s annoyance dissolved.
“Do you deliberately leave your shoes where I can trip over them?” Freddie asked her over the top of the hay.
“Sorry.”
“Come and help me clean out Paddington.” Freddie dropped the hay onto the floor. She pulled the door of a hutch open and reached inside, scrabbling with her hands until she made contact. She drew the wriggling, squeaking guinea pig to her chest, then shushed him soothingly and smoothed down his fur. The guinea pig quietened.
“So, how was school today?” Freddie gently handed Paddington to Skye. She waited as Skye repeated Freddie’s action of stroking and soothing him, then turned back to the hutch.
“It was okay.”
“What did you do?”
“Music and movement.” Skye bit at her bottom lip and rolled her eyes. “And spelling.” Paddington wriggled.
“Keep a tight hold, please.” Freddie nodded to him. She busied herself pulling old bedding from the hutch. “Anything else?”
“Nope.” Skye frowned. “Wait. Yes. We did sums too.” She pulled Paddington closer to her. “But they were boring.”
“Sums are always boring.” Freddie screwed up her nose.
“Boring.” Skye drew the word out and then giggled. “Did you see the lady at work again today?”
“The lady?”
“The lady that fell in the water,” Skye said. “She told me at the party last night.”
“Tag?” Freddie liked how her name sounded when she spoke it. “No, not today.” She stuffed soiled straw and hay into a bin liner.
“I’ve never been fishing.” Skye spoke as if it was the worst thing in the world. Ever.
“I can’t say I have either,” Freddie said.
Skye tutted. Freddie resisted the urge to laugh.
“Who is she?”
Freddie fluffed the hay up. “Well, you know Blair? From where I work?”
“Yuh-huh.”
“She’s his sister.”
“She’s funny.” Skye gripped Paddington tighter.
“Is she?” Freddie smoothed Skye’s curls down. She was. Funny and beautiful and…“She make you laugh?”
“Yeah.” Skye thought for a moment. “Freddie?”
“Yuh-huh?”
“Is she your new friend?”
“Well, she’s sort of my new boss,” Freddie said. But did bosses make you lose all rational thought, as Tag was making Freddie do? “But I suppose you could call her a new friend too,” she added. That, Freddie thought, was possibly the first understatement of her day.
“What’s she called again?” Skye handed Paddington back to Freddie.
“Tag.” Freddie pulled the guinea pig to her.
“Tag?” Skye looked perplexed. “Funny name.”
“Not to her.” Freddie placed Paddington back in his hutch and closed the door.
“To me it is.”
“Wash your hands, please.” Freddie put a guiding hand on Skye’s shoulder and steered her to the sink.
“Did she like it?” Skye rolled her sleeves up with the care and precision of a surgeon. She held her hands under the tap and waited for Freddie to turn the water on. “The party?”
“Tag?”
“Mm.”
“I think so, yes.” Freddie handed Skye a towel.
“Freddie?” Skye gave her hands a cursory wipe and handed the towel straight back to Freddie.
“Yes?”
“If you and Tag ever go fishing,” she asked, “can I come too?”
“Well I don’t think we’d ever—”
“Freddie?”
“Yes, Skye?” A patient sigh.
“Can I go and watch TV now?”
*
“We must stop meeting like this.” Freddie spun round at the voice. Tag’s smile was genuine and sincere, and drew, Tag noticed with pleasure, a spontaneous smile back from Freddie.
It was late Thursday afternoon, the day after the ceilidh and just three days since the funeral. And even though Tag was well aware Balfour was only a small town, the number of times she’d encountered Freddie in the time she’d been home had been astonishing. Not that she was complaining. She’d thought about Freddie a lot in those three days and bumping into her never failed to cheer her up. Or, curiously, from making her heart beat just that little bit faster. It was as though Freddie had the ability to make even the most miserable person break into the biggest smile. Such was her sunny nature and the way she was never anything other than cheerful. It was infectious.
“Are you feeding the five thousand?” Tag signalled to the bulging bags of groceries that Freddie was holding. “Hello, Skye.”
“Hi.” Skye fell shyly against Freddie’s leg, the short time since the ceilidh making all her bravado go again.
“Sometimes it feels like I’m feeding a small army.” Freddie groaned.
A silence settled between them.
“I’m glad to see you, actually.” Tag spoke first.
“Yeah?” Freddie placed the bags at her feet. She wiggled her fingers where the handles had dug in. “You’re not going to quiz me over customer numbers for the cafe are you?”
“No, of course not.” Shyness washed over Tag. Freddie was all that was on her mind right now, not the mill, and certainly not customer numbers. She looked at a point in the distance and hoped the shyness would pass. After all, she didn’t actually do shyness. Ever.
Freddie looked at her expectantly. “You were glad to see me…?”
“Oh, yeah.” Way to feel stupid. “I just wanted to say, well, thanks for the chat at the ceilidh last night. You know, outside. After I…” Her face flamed. “I appreciated it.”
“Any time,” Freddie said.
“It’s been years since I’ve felt like I could just talk to someone like that.” A point behind Freddie suddenly became very interesting to Tag. Make eye contact. Look at her. “It would be great to do it again sometime.” Tag flicked a glance Freddie’s way, then away again. “Coffee and a chat, you know?”
“I’d like that, yeah,” Freddie said. “Perhaps again before you go?”
Skye’s grip on Freddie’s leg loosened.
“And I just wanted to say…yeah, before I go again, perhaps.” Tag stuttered. She swallowed. Since when was talking to a girl so fucking difficult? Get a grip. “No, I just wanted to say, I hope I didn’t go on about stuff too much. When we were up there. I hope I didn’t bore you.”
“Stuff?”
“About Dad and the cafe and that.”
“You didn’t go on about anything.” Freddie assured Tag. “And I wasn’t bored, I promise.”
“Okay, because it’s been bugging me since,” Tag said, “and I thought if I saw you, I’d mention it. Say sorry.” Rambling. Quit rambling. Take a breath. Talk. “So, there you go.” Lame. Totally lame. “Anyway, how are you, Skye?” The fire on her cheeks r
emained.
Skye nodded but didn’t answer.
“It’s fine. Honest.” There was Freddie’s smile again, impossible to ignore. Tag returned it. “And, you know, any time you feel like you want to spill. Just let me know.”
“That’d be good. Thanks.”
“Well, I’d better head off.” Freddie bent to collect her bags.
“Head off. Yes.” Tag plunged her hands into her pockets. If she didn’t, she thought, she’d punch herself for acting like a complete tool. “Me too. Better go.”
Nothing inside Tag wanted Freddie to go. Nothing. The eighteen or so hours since she’d last seen her had felt like days, and who was to say it wouldn’t be ages until Tag could see her again after today?
Freddie hauled her bags up and grimaced. “I’ll see you soon?”
She was leaving. Tag looked at the bags. Go with her. Another ten minutes with her is better than nothing. “Where are you parked?”
“Town square. By the memorial.” Freddie looked over Tag’s shoulder.
“Here, let me.” Tag reached over for one of the bags. “I’ll walk with you.”
“You sure?”
“Yeah, ’course. I’m heading that way anyway.” Liar.
Freddie handed her a bag and stepped to one side.
“This way, yeah?” Tag signalled with her head.
“No, this way.” Skye pointed towards the left.
“Are you sure you’re going my way?” Freddie asked.
“Totally.” Tag almost convinced herself too.
They all walked, side by side, across the street and made for the town square. Mostly they walked in silence, Freddie occasionally lifting her head to someone she knew. Tag followed. She switched her bag from hand to hand as it felt heavier the longer they walked. She mentally calculated that, by the time she’d walked Freddie to her car and had gone back over to her own car, in totally the opposite direction, she would be back at Glenside an hour later than she’d anticipated. Not that she cared. Her choice between escorting Freddie and Skye across Balfour, or spending the rest of the afternoon at Blair’s talking accounts, was a no-brainer.
