Authors: Anouska Knight
‘A
lex? Your mum has a visitor. A Mrs Sinclair? Shall I let her know Blythe’s sleeping?’
Alex straightened up in the green vinyl chair. Louisa Sinclair?
Here?
Alex had churned the question around and around in her head since pulling that florist’s card from her dad’s pocket last night. Two questions. Why was Louisa sending excessive bouquets for her mum with, frankly, very poorly chosen words of support and, more to the point, why had her dad taken the card?
The nurse was waiting wide-eyed for an answer. ‘Just so you know, I think she’s brought baked goods with her. In case that influences your decision.’
Louisa Sinclair? Baked goods?
And
flowers? ‘No, that’s OK. She can come in if she likes.’
The nurse nodded and ducked back out of Room 2. Alex found herself straightening up her vest and running her fingers through her hair, smoothing down as many wayward bits as possible before the mayor’s widow deigned to enter. Good job Jem wasn’t there. Again.
‘Alex?’ said a soft voice. Alex looked up, momentarily
dazzled by the blonde peeping around the door. ‘Are you sure it’s OK to come in, she’s sleeping? I do come bearing cookies, though.’
Millie Fairbanks, Mrs Sinclair now, was exactly the sort of woman little Poppy Parsons would want to be welcomed by on her first day at St Cuthbert’s Primary. Everything about Millie, Alex thought, from her English rose complexion to her honeyed voice was as inviting as a vanilla cupcake. Alex thought she was getting Louisa, the wicked Sinclair of the West to Millie’s friendly, cookie-baking good Sinclair of the East.
‘Hey, Millie. It’s fine, come on in, cookies, that’s so kind.’
Millie eased into the room, her hands protectively clamped around a small basket as if trying to prevent any sounds escaping from inside the wicker and disturbing Blythe. Alex gestured to the seat beside the hand basin.
‘Don’t thank me too quickly,’ Millie whispered apologetically, ‘my mum baked them with Alfie.’
‘That’s really kind of you, Millie. Thank Alfie for me.’
It really was very kind of them. Alex had a flashback of Jem and Mal through the pantry window, the way their body language had betrayed them. Alex shifted uneasily. She suddenly felt as if she were keeping a secret she didn’t exactly understand. Like one of those people who tried to get through customs with someone else’s suitcase on
Customs & Excise: Conveyor Belt to Crime.
‘You might want to keep an eye out for a policeman’s
head though, sorry. I have an awful feeling there’s an officer about to turn up where he shouldn’t.’
Alex stiffened,
oh God
, she was here about Malcolm. She was going to ask awkward questions about her husband Alex didn’t know the answers to.
Alex swallowed. ‘Policeman’s head?’
‘Alfie thinks he lost one of his Lego bits, somewhere near the kitchen worktop we were kneading the cookie dough on. I’m really sorry, it’s a policeman, looks a bit like George Michael, the 90s version.’
‘Oh! Oh, OK.’ Alex would be useless as a drugs mule. One hard look from an airhostess and she’d be a sweaty wreck. ‘I’ll nibble with care then.’
Millie sat elegantly at the edge of her chair. ‘How’s your mum?’
‘She’s OK, thanks. Getting there.’ Actually, Blythe had been a bit lethargic so far today.
‘Did they say how long before she can go home?’
‘I don’t think they’re really sure themselves. Mum’s lost some of the mobility down her right side. She needs to be able to get out of bed I think before we can start planning a homecoming.’
‘She’ll get there, Alex. You’re all supporting her. My mum feels bad that she can’t get here today but the Reverend’s asked her to help brainstorm a tea and cake afternoon for the nursing home so the residents can watch the boat race next weekend.’
‘Is Viking Fest next weekend?’
‘Yes, have you been home for one? They’re good fun. Mal raced last year but they had so many hassles with all the extra traffic coming through the town, he’s been assigned to duty this year.’
‘No, I haven’t seen one. Not since it was just the lowly boat run, I mean.’
‘Well whatever you do then, don’t tell my mother. She has about a thousand photos from last year’s and she is
not
afraid to sit you down for two hours and bore you to death with them.’
Alex smiled. ‘Helen likes Vikings, does she?’ Alex had a sudden mental image of Bill Fairbanks dressing up in furs and buckles behind closed doors for Mrs Fairbanks. Shudder.
‘Probably.’ Millie laughed. ‘But they’re mostly of Alfie throwing eggs at the invaders from the riverbank. He got upset when he saw people throwing their eggs at his dad though, it’s probably for the best Mal’s not racing this year.’
‘Eggs? They pelt the invaders with eggs now?’
Millie’s forehead wrinkled. She still looked serene. ‘They’ve used eggs for years.’
‘Oh. I did wonder how they were managing to let people go downriver on the floatables now with groups of spectators firing dangerous missiles at them. So they don’t just send a couple of Viking targets down the Old Girl now and try and sink them?’
Millie seemed to shrink into herself. ‘No. Mal’s dad kind
of outlawed the whole bow and arrows thing after … didn’t Jem tell you?’
Maybe she had. Alex had always been so eager to get off the phone before Jem tried to talk her into going home for any length of time. Millie was looking uncomfortable, she was doing that thing people did when they thought they’d tripped up and had starting talking about a forbidden topic.
‘The mayor did that, after Dill died?’ It was easier for people if you just threw Pandora’s Box wide open for them.
Alex saw a flicker of relief in Millie’s big brown eyes. ‘Mal said Alfred didn’t want any other little boys practising with bows and arrows along the riverbank after that, so now the entries are all manned and the spectators all get to take part lobbing eggs at the invaders. Little boys don’t get so excited about losing eggs as they do sharp things, Alfred said. That was the reasoning, I think.’ Millie smiled awkwardly.
That’s why Alfred Sinclair had been mayor. The sort of person to put sanctions in place, thinking ahead for the safety of children everywhere while Alex hadn’t even managed to safeguard one.
A pause was stretching out between them. ‘Sorry, Alex. Do you want to talk about this?’
‘Sure. It’s fine. Actually, Millie, I like to hear about old faces. Life in the Falls. I haven’t been here much.’
Millie nodded. ‘Well Mal’s dad was definitely part of life in the Falls, right to the end. It didn’t surprise me that Alfred
changed the river race rules. He was such a big softie,’ Millie continued. ‘And you should have seen how he doted on our Alfie as soon as he was born. He was a smashing grandfather. Always watching Alfie like a hawk in case he hurt himself. Mal said his dad had always been sensitive like that. I guess it wasn’t unusual that Mal had seen him so affected,’ Millie said cautiously, ‘after what happened to Dill.’
Alex vaguely remembered the mayor coming up to the house with Mal after Dill’s service. He hadn’t looked like the mayor at all without all the finery around his neck or Louisa on his arm. His eyes had looked bloodshot, Alex remembered because his long sad face had reminded her of a basset hound’s. He’d reminded her of Rodolfo.
‘The mayor cried for my brother?’ Maybe Mayor Sinclair had felt some terrible regret or responsibility for giving Dill that bow and arrow set in the first place.
‘Mal said his dad was devastated about it. The death of a child is a terrible thing though, Alex. Who wouldn’t have been touched by what happened to your family?’
‘That was nice of him.’ Alex smiled. ‘I’m sorry he passed away. Jem said he was a really nice guy.’
‘He really was. Mal misses him dreadfully.’
The conversation tailed away beneath the sounds of Blythe’s gentle snores.
‘Actually, Alex, I wanted to ask you how Jem’s doing these days.’ Alex felt a cool quiver down her back for some reason, as if she was about to be asked for an alibi.
‘Jem? She’s fine. You know Jem, bit of a closed book.’ Nothing incriminating there.
‘I was hoping to grab a coffee with her at some point. We used to be good friends once upon a time. It’d be really nice to catch up with her now we’re all older. I was quite jealous of Mal Friday night.’
‘Jealous?’
‘Well it’s hard getting out with Alfie. I told Mal he could’ve stayed home and I could’ve gone for a drink with Jem,’ Millie laughed, ‘but I guess they have more history and Mal was so keen to check on your mum and things.’ Alex nodded in agreement. ‘It’s funny, now that I teach, I see things so differently.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I used to think of Jem … this is going to sound off but I don’t mean it in a bad way.’
‘Go on.’
‘I used to think of Jem as a bit of a tough nut. I was a bit scared to be friends with her, actually, even though we were all thrown together when our mums were practising for choir and Easter services and all that stuff.’
Alex grinned. ‘It’s Ok, Millie. Jem
was
a tough nut.’
‘I know, I know, but she wasn’t tough
bad
, she was tough
good.
I could’ve done with a couple of Jems in my class last year, girls are so catty and,
boy
, do they hold a grudge.’
‘Even at five years old?’
‘You’d be amazed how awful some of them are to each other, Alex. And they can be like pack animals too. Really
mean. A girl like Jem would have levelled out that sort of unpleasantness.’
‘I don’t remember school being that way.’ Alex had really enjoyed school as it happened. It had been the college summer holidays when it had all gone to shit.
‘Honestly, Alex. Girls are mean. You know, my mum took me to a dance recital about six months after my accident, just to watch obviously. I was only six, but I can sure remember it. Carrie Logan walked straight up to me and said she was taking my spot at the bar because I couldn’t dance ballet if my legs didn’t match.
Cow.
’
Alex fought not to glance down at Millie’s lovely long legs, to check if she could still spot the giveaway lines and dinks where Millie’s surgeries had been after the front end of her mother’s car had crumpled against the wagon.
‘But
Jem
, wow. Jem walked straight up to Carrie and jabbed her with her finger and said that she was holding my place until I was well enough to go to ballet again and if Carrie even tried taking my spot at the bar she would give Carrie’s new ballet slippers to your dog!’ Millie fluttered with hushed laughter. It suddenly occurred to Alex that hers wasn’t the only family suckerpunched by fate. The Fairbanks hadn’t deserved their lot either.
Alex looked at her mum sleeping. Blythe believed in fate. She’d told Alex many years later that even though Finn’s dad had done wrong not checking Helen’s brake fluid properly, it still might not have made any difference. ‘Some things are just all part of a bigger picture, darling,’ her mum
had said. Whether Helen had braked late or not, she’d had little chance avoiding that wagon. Take away Finn’s father’s hand in it even, the snow still hadn’t let up all day, the construction wagon still hadn’t taken the bridge cautiously enough. ‘Fate, darling. Everything comes full circle in the end.’
‘Jem was always fearless like that,’ Millie finished.
‘Sorry?’ Alex had drifted away for a second.
‘Jem. She’s fearless. Not like me, I’m a total wimp.’
Alex puffed out her cheeks. Now that she thought about it, the confident little hell-bat Jem had been once seemed to have gotten lost along the way. ‘She’s not always fearless, Millie. I think it’s a shield she uses.’
Only not with Carrie Logan any more.
‘Maybe. Although Jem had calmed down quite a bit by the time Carrie started to get at her. You did know that Carrie used to be awful to Jem too? In high school though, I mean.’
‘I got that impression,’ Alex replied. ‘I was at uni but I know Jem was in and out of the school office for a while. I’m surprised Jem didn’t just flatten her, back then.’
Millie’s eyes widened. ‘That’s what I used to think. Especially as Jem had been so bolshie up until then. But Carrie, well, we all knew she had a bit of a mean streak, but I think she must have had something on Jem. Leverage. For Jem not to stand up to her. I wish I’d have been braver and stuck up for Jem but I only ever saw her on the bus, none of our classes were together.’
‘She had friends though, Millie. Didn’t she?’ Alex couldn’t bear the thought of Jem wandering the barren landscape of Eilidh High alone.
‘Oh yeah, Mal was practically joined at the hip! He didn’t mind putting Carrie in her place for picking on Jem,’ Millie said proudly.
Alex exhaled. Good. Good for Mal. Alex reached into the basket Millie had brought in with her and helped herself to a misshapen cookie. She gave it a quick once over. No sign of George Michael on first inspection.
‘Did you ever ask Mal what it was all about? With Carrie and Jem?’ Alex chomped.
‘I did ask Mal, but he said he couldn’t remember. Honestly, I think Mal just didn’t want to gossip about Jem, even to me. Mal’s always had a soft spot for your sister. They were like brother and sister themselves, don’t you think?’
They were like brother and sister at one point. But Mal had better not have a soft spot for her now. Alex shook the thought away.
Don’t be ridiculous.
‘I guess it’s nice, that they can catch up with each other, now that they’re all grown up,’ Alex said. Because what was wrong with two members of the opposite sex sharing a platonic evening?
Nothing!
Absolutely nothing. So they’d stayed out a bit late. It wasn’t like anyone had tried to cover any tracks or anything.
Millie took a cookie too and bit into it. ‘It was a shame Jem had to go home early though, Mal’s a nightmare for going back to the office and staying there half the night. The
paperwork he has to deal with is unreal,’ Millie said daintily around her mouthful.
What?
But Jem hadn’t come home early that night.
A piece of cookie had stuck itself to Millie’s lip. Alex focused on that crumbly fleck at the edge of Millie’s mouth. Now would be a good time for George Michael’s head to turn up, a cracked tooth might just save it. Steer this conversation back out of dodgy territory.