by Karen Clarke
‘Oh, Rob’s sorted that out,’ said Mum. ‘He’s done a wonderful job.’
As if on cue, my brother’s head darted round the side door behind the counter. ‘Sandra!’ he said, grinning broadly. ‘I thought I heard your fishwife tones.’
‘Rob, you little shit!’ I shot round to give him a hug, not caring that he still used the version of Cassandra that made me sound like a 1970s secretary. ‘Good to see you, you prat.’ I noticed he’d given up contact lenses in favour of his old, square-framed glasses, and seemed to have reverted to his student uniform of loose jeans, battered sneakers and a plaid shirt over a faded T-shirt.
I reached up to ruffle his untidy hair, which was the same curly brown style as Mum’s, and he grabbed my arm and twisted it up my back.
‘Ow, gerroff!’ I broke free and punched his bicep.
‘AHH that hurt!’ He clutched his arm and pretended to cry, then straightened. ‘Gotchya,’ he said.
‘No, you didn’t, I knew you were pretending.’
‘It’s like you’re both still twelve,’ said Dad behind us.
‘For goodness sake, you two,’ added Mum with a tut. They joined the pair of us in the little passageway, which was still reassuringly old-fashioned and smelt of teabags, and it felt so good to be back in the bosom of my family that I burst into noisy tears.
Chapter Four
‘Cassie, what on earth’s wrong?’
Mum’s shocked voice quickly brought my crying under control. ‘Oh, nothing, sorry,’ I sniffed, accepting a tentative hug as I wiped my sleeve across my face. ‘Just got a bit of a headache, that’s all.’
‘Here,’ Dad said gruffly, stuffing a paper napkin into my hand. ‘Blow your nose.’
I managed a high, embarrassed laugh as I obliged. ‘I feel like I’m six again.’
‘You never cried when you were six,’ Rob pointed out, even though he’d been a year younger and couldn’t possibly remember. ‘You never cry.’
‘She cried on her seventh birthday,’ Mum reminded him. ‘Remember… when you snapped the arms off Kimberly?’
‘Only because she wouldn’t let me play with her.’ Rob sounded defensive, even after all these years. ‘She was too possessive with those Power Rangers.’
‘And I cried when Tufty died.’ I’d loved that hamster, but it was true that I hadn’t been prone to tears as a child. I’d never had cause to be.
As I dabbed my eyes, Mum flashed me a knowing look that suggested she’d worked something out. ‘It’s that boyfriend of yours, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘You’ve broken up, am I right?’ Oh god, they still think I’m seeing Adam. ‘Is he the real reason you’ve come home?’
‘Ah, yes, the amazing Adam,’ said Rob in a film-announcer voice. ‘We never did get to meet him, did we?’
‘It was… complicated.’ I blew my nose again while I tried to find the right words.
Rob lifted a faux-sympathetic eyebrow. ‘Was he a figment of your imagination?’
‘Don’t be stupid,’ I snapped.
‘Ed, tell him to stop teasing Cassie,’ said Mum.
‘Leave your sister alone, Robert.’ Dad sounded uncomfortable, as he always had on the rare occasions he’d been called upon to tell us off. ‘You can see she’s upset about the break-up.’
‘I’m not upset,’ I said, though I was hardly jumping for joy either. ‘We weren’t really compatible, that’s all.’
‘But why?’ Mum’s forehead creased. ‘He sounded so nice from what you told us, and was certainly very handsome’ – she gave Rob a warning look – ‘judging by that photo on your phone you texted me.’ The one where I’d pretended to be reading a message while we were waiting to be seated in a busy Italian restaurant. I’d secretly snapped Adam standing behind me, smiling at the approaching maître d, his face deeply tanned by the golden glow of the lighting, his teeth gleaming white. ‘He looked like a young George Clooney.’
‘Still not over your obsession with Clooney?’ Rob grinned. ‘You do know he’s married with kids now?’
Mum ignored him. ‘So, what happened, Cassie? We were looking forward to meeting him one day.’
‘It… it just wasn’t working out.’ My mind flitted back to us laughing over plates of linguine. I couldn’t even remember what we’d been laughing at, I’d been so spaced out with tiredness, but I’d liked the feeling of something new unfolding, and the way he’d looked at me over his wine glass, as though he felt it too.
‘Did you put work first again?’ Mum’s hesitant voice punctured the memory.
‘Something like that.’ It was the reason I’d given before, to explain why I wasn’t in a relationship before meeting Adam. I’d been so focused on carving out a career I hadn’t had time to cultivate a love life. ‘We… wanted different things,’ I said, aware I was talking in clichés. It was easier than explaining that I hadn’t been able to face telling Adam I’d been fired, and him finding out that I wasn’t quite the success story I’d led him to believe, and that after a hasty text exchange along the lines of: It’s not you, it’s me and Can’t we at least talk about it? and I haven’t got time for a relationship, I’d blocked his number and told myself it was for the best.
‘Well, it’s his loss,’ said Dad. ‘One day, you’ll meet a man who won’t be threatened by your power.’ He made me sound like Wonder Woman. ‘Someone you’re on an equal footing with, like me and your mum.’ He gave her a schmaltzy smile, and I remembered his oft-told story of how Mum had walked into the bank where he used to work, and had liked his smile so much she’d come back the following day and asked him out, and they’d been inseparable ever since. Feeling sniffy again I tried to pull myself together. Any crying I’d done over the past couple of years had been limited to tears of relief in the toilets after pulling off a successful event, while everyone else was celebrating.
‘At least you’ll always have your career,’ Mum said kindly. ‘You had so much ambition, even when you were young,’ she went on, while I shoved the damp paper napkin up my sleeve, and a hank of hair off my forehead. ‘We knew you’d be a success at whatever you put your mind to.’
They were nodding in admiration – even Rob, who’d taken X-Y-Zed on tour last year, reached number two in the download charts, and been nominated for a music award.
‘Not as successful at Roberto,’ I said in a jovial voice, hoping to distract them from my blotchy face. ‘No one’s ever asked me to sign their bare buttocks in permanent marker.’
‘Oh Christ, don’t remind me.’ Rob whipped off his glasses and pushed the heels of his hands into his eyes, as if to block out the memory. ‘One of the many, many reasons I’m glad I’ve given it up.’
I’d been on the verge of suggesting to Rob that we take a walk on the beach to catch up, while Mum and Dad were working, but the words jammed in my throat. ‘What?’ I looked from him to Mum, to Dad. Why were they smiling benignly? ‘Given it up?’ I echoed.
‘Yeah.’ He replaced his glasses and scratched the back of his head. ‘I’ve quit the band. Finally accepted that a life on the road’s not for me.’ What? ‘Emma gave me an ultimatum,’ he continued with a sheepish grin. ‘To start being honest with myself, or we’re over. That’s why I’m at home at the moment, instead of at hers.’ He lifted a shoulder. ‘Soon as she said it, it was obvious.’
‘What was?’ I felt dizzy, as if my blood pressure had dipped.
‘That I never really wanted to be in a band, I just got carried away, and then suddenly we were doing well and it seemed like I couldn’t just stop.’
‘I thought you loved being on the road.’
‘Hated it.’ Rob shuddered. He looked younger, now I thought about it. His shoulders weren’t hunched, like they usually were, as if a great weight had rolled off them, and he wasn’t ghoulishly pale. The gauntness I’d noticed the last time I’d seen him – and assumed was part of the ‘musician’ look he’d refined – had gone. In fact, he looked better than I’d seen him in ages, despite his unstylish clothes.
&n
bsp; ‘So, you’re giving it up, just like that?’ I clicked my fingers, a flare of something like jealousy bubbling up. Or maybe it was indigestion from the eggs I’d eaten for breakfast. ‘The thing you’ve been doing since leaving university?’
‘Yep.’ He nodded, his eyebrows flipping up. ‘Don’t know why I didn’t decide a lot sooner,’ he said. ‘It’s all down to Ems.’ I wondered whether Bossy Emma had put the idea of leaving the band into his head.
‘I didn’t realise that’s why she’d thrown you out.’ Mum sounded as if she admired Bossy Emma, all of a sudden. ‘Good for her.’
‘But… you love being in a band,’ I persisted, as if saying it would make it true. ‘You were always messing about on your keyboard, composing tunes.’
‘Exactly.’ He jabbed a finger at me. ‘It was always meant to be a hobby.’
‘Hobby?’
‘Computers are really my thing.’
‘For god’s sake,’ I muttered. ‘Computers?’ It was true he’d had something of the geek about him once he’d reached his teens. He was never off the second-hand computer Dad had caved in and bought him one Christmas, but even when he’d pursued it at university, I assumed it was because he’d thought he ought to, just like I’d decided to drop art (my favourite subject at school) in favour of a management course, because I knew it would lead to a profitable career. ‘I thought music was your thing.’ I sounded brittle, but no one seemed to notice.
‘It was OK when I wasn’t doing it for a living. It was even exciting for a bit, then it became like this massive pressure.’ Rob stabbed his temples to demonstrate his head being full. ‘I was breaking out in spots and drinking too much.’ I thought of the footage of him falling off stage in Germany and felt bad that I’d found it funny.
‘I didn’t know,’ I said quietly.
‘Alcohol kills your short-term memory.’ His tone became conversational. ‘After a session, there’d be chunks of time missing. And it doesn’t help anxiety, it makes it worse in the long run,’ he continued. ‘It wasn’t good for my health.’
‘No, of course not.’ He sounded as if he’d been in therapy for a decade, and while I was pleased he’d had some valuable insights he felt able to discuss, I couldn’t help feeling as if I was standing on quicksand.
‘My biggest worry about throwing it in was these guys.’ He cast a look at Mum and Dad, their eyes big pools of love and understanding. ‘I didn’t want to let them down, when they were so proud of me.’
‘We’ll always be proud of you, son.’ Dad fist-bumped Rob with easy familiarity. It was obvious they’d had the ‘big’ conversation already and had come to terms with it all.
‘What about the rest of the band?’ I said. ‘Won’t they be hacked off?’
‘Nah, they were glad to see the back of me,’ he said. ‘They’ve already replaced me with Gnasher’s brother Dom, and he’s gone down a storm.’
‘But I never even got to see you on your European tour. I was too busy.’
He looked at me with soulful eyes that were just like Dad’s. ‘No, you didn’t,’ he said, wrapping his arms across his chest. ‘Even Mum and Dad managed a weekend in Barcelona, and they don’t even like electronica.’
‘We loved it!’ Mum protested.
‘She got a migraine for the first time ever,’ Dad said, almost proudly.
‘I know, you told me.’ Mum had sent me some wobbly phone-video footage of X-Y-Zed playing in a gigantic nightclub called Razzmatazz, where apparently ‘Bananarama once played!!’ She’d swung the phone round to herself, and her eyes had looked in danger of popping out of their sockets. It had felt like looking at someone else’s family – one I barely recognised. I’d resolved to make the effort to visit, but had been too busy organising a masquerade ball for a politician’s wife and couldn’t get away.
‘So, what are you going to do now then?’ I said to Rob. A light frown ruffled Mum’s forehead and I tried to moderate my tone. ‘Unless you’re taking a year off, or something.’ A year off sounded blissful. I wished I could afford one.
Rob was shaking his head. ‘Remember my mate Nick, Emma’s brother?’ I gave a terse nod. ‘Well, he teaches now at the university in Dartmouth. They’re looking for a permanent IT tutor from September, so I’ve started a fast-track teaching course.’ He nudged his glasses further up his nose with his finger and gave a satisfied grin. ‘It’s a suburban life for me now, hopefully with Emma, when she realises I’m serious.’ He assumed a grave expression. ‘It’s down to you to fly the success flag for the Maitland family.’ He mimed waving a flag and pretended to bash me over the head with it. ‘You’re the high-flier now, Sandra.’
‘Don’t call me that.’ I felt like crying again, but didn’t know why. It wasn’t that I didn’t want my brother to be happy. Perhaps I couldn’t accept that he would rather sit at a computer than travel the world playing his synthesised music to appreciative fans. ‘And, anyway, Mum and Dad are the real success story,’ I said, trying to ignore a clutch of dread in my chest. I’d come close to having panic attacks in the past, more recently since losing my job, and discovering things had radically changed on the home front wasn’t helping. ‘It’s hard to keep a business going for as long as they have.’
‘Silly,’ Mum said, without a hint of false modesty. To her, what they did for a living came as naturally as breathing. ‘None of us could do what you do, Cassie.’
I’m not doing it any more. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but I gulped them down and focused on the sounds drifting from the café: cups clinking on saucers, a burst of laughter, the whir of the coffee grinder and hiss of the steamer. ‘You probably could if you put your mind to it,’ I said. ‘It’s not rocket science.’
The noise from the café amplified as the door was pushed open, and the woman Mum had called Gwen appeared, short and stout-waisted, her face like a thundercloud.
‘Could someone ’elp me, please, it’s like Piccadilly bleedin’ Circus out ’ere,’ she said, in a strong Cockney accent, nodding a curt greeting at me. ‘Sorry to interrupt.’
‘Of course,’ Mum said, looking horrified to have been caught slacking. ‘Sorry,’ she added to me with a little grimace.
Dad patted my arm. ‘Take it easy, love,’ he said, before disappearing after Gwen.
‘Why don’t you come and have a bite to eat while you wait for Tilly?’ Mum suggested.
‘Or, come through to the office and I’ll show you the new website I’ve put together.’ Rob extended an arm like a magician, but I shook my head. My mind was reeling with too much new information and I needed to be on my own for a while to absorb it.
‘I think I’ll go and see Nan, if you don’t mind.’
‘Good idea.’ Mum nodded, approvingly.
‘Good luck with that,’ Rob said, when Mum had fled after Dad. ‘She’ll probably rope you into her latest fad.’
‘Which is?’
He tapped the side of his nose. ‘I’ll let you have the pleasure of finding out for yourself.’ He made scared eyes. ‘May the Force be with you.’
Chapter Five
Scared of the runaway thoughts flying around my head, I attempted to do some mindfulness as I left the café, by pinning my gaze to the view. ‘Looking at beauty in the world is the first step of purifying the mind.’ Nina had texted me Amit Ray’s words once, when I’d told her I was having trouble sleeping.
The sandy beach was mostly studded with parents and pre-school toddlers, and a group of visiting students pulling off footwear and racing to the water’s edge, shouts and laughter floating on the air.
I remembered the days when Rob and I had the place to ourselves, and would take it in turns to bury each other on the beach. I could still remember the cool, heavy weight on my arms and legs, and how implicitly I’d trusted Rob not to bury me completely – even after he asked once if it was possible to ‘breathe through sand’.
Instantly, his face popped into my head, and his expression as he’d talked about leaving the band. I be
gan walking more briskly, trying to banish the image. Nan lived on the north side of the village, and normally the walk would have been long enough to clear my head, but today it wasn’t working. Every footstep seemed to loosen more questions, until my brain felt as if it was rattling with them, and my breathing sounded laboured. It was a relief to finally reach her bungalow, with its mottled brown roof and pillar-box red front door. At least here nothing had changed, apart from more ivy creeping around the trunk of the sycamore tree in the front garden, where I used to believe fairies lived.
Nan had found a new lease of life after my grandfather’s death, five years ago. Finally freed from her role as ‘wronged wife’ her first hobby had been renovating the bungalow. She was particularly proud of the conservatory she’d had built on the back, where she loved to sit in the evenings with a glass of wine – when she wasn’t watching films on her fifty-inch television.
‘I’m watching Netflix and chilling tonight,’ she’d said the last time we’d spoken, adding with a low-pitched chuckle, ‘and, yes, I do know what that means.’ I’d actually felt envious. My grandmother’s love life had been in a lot better shape than mine.
I knocked briskly on the front door before pushing it open, mindful of the sight that had greeted me at home the evening before.
‘Hi, Nan, it’s Cassandra!’
Nan always called people by their full name, much to Dad’s annoyance. ‘Edmund sounds so old-fashioned,’ he still protested, like a schoolboy.
‘You should be proud to be named after a famous mountaineer,’ Nan always argued. ‘Plenty of famous and well-respected men were called Edmund.’
We hadn’t been able to name any.
As I entered the kitchen, my jaw dropped for the second time that day. There were boxes everywhere, stuffed with books, crockery, pans, linen and the glass ornaments Nan had collected over the years, most of them bought by me for birthdays and Christmas. There was hardly anything left on her ‘vintage’ oak dresser, and all the surfaces were empty, apart from a pan on the stove.
