Heartstones

Heartstones

by
Kitty Glanville

Chapter One

Phoebe looked down on the rain-shrouded mourners. She was too far from the grave to make out the cleric’s words; the only noise she could hear was the rhythmic sound of wheels on wet tarmac coming from the flyover behind the cemetery wall.

Her long red hair whipped against her freckled cheeks in the wind and the heels of the unfamiliar shoes were sinking into the sodden turf; mud began to ooze inside, they would no doubt be ruined. Phoebe hoped Nola wouldn’t be too annoyed. She wrapped the thin, black jacket around her tiny frame. It was at least four sizes too big; Nola had shoved it at her when Phoebe arrived at her house earlier on.

‘Here, you’d better borrow my work jacket, you can’t possibly go to a funeral in your old parka, and take off those awful boots and I’ll get you my patent shoes.’

Phoebe had reluctantly shrugged on the jacket and put on the shoes. Her sister had looked her up and down with arms folded across a suit that strained at all the seams, ‘You could have at least have done something with that mane of hair of yours and put some make-up on. You look terrible, and you really need to get more meat on your bones. No wonder you haven’t had a boyfriend for years.’

As the wind and rain increased Phoebe shivered and Nola’s words echoed in her head. She wished for the thousandth time that she could tell someone the truth

Below her she could just make out the crow-like figure of Sandra – black coat flapping around her gym-honed figure, ash-blonde hair scraped tightly back, her expression agonised. Phoebe thought her role as grieving widow could have won an Oscar; there was no doubting that she was the star of the show. Beside Sandra stood the twins, their small white faces stark against their funeral clothes; a lump rose in Phoebeʼs throat at the sight of the two little girls. She knew how they would be feeling; lost, confused, frightened. She had felt the same, standing, shivering beside her sister all those years before. Phoebe wanted to scoop them up and take them away, wasn’t it bad enough that their father had died? They shouldn’t have to witness him being lowered into the cold, dark ground.

Suddenly, Sandra covered her face with her hands and turned away from the open grave. She seemed to crumple into the line of mourners behind her; their inky forms enclosed her in a cocoon of black umbrellas and supportive embraces until she had completely disappeared.

In the distance Phoebe could see the large figure of her sister Nola detaching herself from Steve’s side and moving to join the others until she too was absorbed by the tight group.

Phoebe stood very still. Around her people had started moving, walking up the hill, slowly at first, then hurrying as the ground levelled out. Their waiting cars would take them to the brightly lit function room of the local pub where, as they dried out and filled themselves with sandwiches and tea and pints of beer, they’d go over and over it all again – almost relishing the tragic set of circumstances that had led to David’s death.

Victoria Leach touched Phoebe’s arm with a bony, blue-veined hand.

‘You’re soaking,’ Victoria said. ‘Didn’t you bring an umbrella, foolish girl?’ Phoebe didn’t reply. She had taught in the classroom next door to Victoria’s for over three years, but she had never managed to get over the feeling that the older woman thought of her as just another silly pupil rather than a fellow teacher and colleague. Phoebe looked at Victoria’s lips – two thin lines of orange lipstick. They were moving; she was talking but Phoebe couldn’t hear the words, only a gushing sound, like water filling up her head, blocking out the world around her. Suddenly words burst through again.

‘It’s such a shame we couldn’t have had a bit of sunshine to see him off,’ Victoria sounded almost cheerful. ‘This wet weather makes it all seem even worse.’

Even worse?
Phoebe wanted to scream the words back at her
. How could it be even worse?
But she remained silent, not trusting herself to speak. Victoria began to move away.

‘Are you coming to The Kings Arms?’ she called. Phoebe shook her head. Victoria stopped. ‘You could at least come for half an hour. To show a bit of respect. He was the headmaster, Phoebe.’

‘I can’t believe you couldn’t even be bothered to come to the pub afterwards.’ Nola filled the kettle in Phoebe’s tiny kitchen. ‘I don’t think poor Sandra was in a fit state to notice who was there, but, all the same, you could have made the effort.’ Nola searched through Phoebe’s cupboards for tea bags, white jeans stretched tight over her thighs as she crouched down on the wooden floor. ‘Don’t forget that he gave you your job, though probably with a hefty prod from Sandra.’ Phoebe sat at the table, still in her pyjamas and dressing gown, her unbrushed hair a mass of auburn tangles. She stared mutely at her sister.

‘Honestly, Phoebe, when did you last go shopping?’ Nola stood up. ‘No wonder you’re so skinny.ʼ She looked disdainfully around the cramped kitchen. ʻI don’t know why I’m thinking of making tea anyway, all your mugs need washing up and I suspect you haven’t a drop of milk in the fridge. I know you’re domestically challenged but this is worse than usual. Are you ill?’

Phoebe realised she had been unconsciously twisting at the cuff of her dressing gown so tightly her wrist hurt. When she released it she saw an indented ring of red left on her skin. She thought of the bracelet David had given her for her birthday – a thin string of silver links interspersed with red glass hearts.

Nola sat down at the table and her ample chest spilled out in front of her like a shelf. Phoebe looked down at her own small breasts beneath her dressing gown and remembered how the bitchy girls at school used to call her Flat Phoebe. She’d once gone home in tears but Nola had simply told her to stuff some socks in her bra and stop being such a drip.

Nola let out a sigh and ran her hands through her messy blonde bob.

‘Poor David, I can’t stop thinking about him.’

 For the first time Phoebe could see that her sister’s dark brown roots contained a scattering of grey. She kept noticing little things like this, tiny, inconsequential things that grabbed her attention for a few seconds, offering brief respite from the painful thoughts until a deluge of misery engulfed her again.

Nola reached into her handbag and brought out two packets of M&Ms. She pushed one towards Phoebe.

‘My secret stash of bribes for the children. When all else fails, throw chocolate at them.’ She ripped the shiny brown packet apart and Phoebe noticed the tiny broken veins on her sister’s plump, pink cheeks. ‘The diet can start again tomorrow. Steve thinks I’ve gone to the gym; he’s taken the kids swimming. I just couldn’t face the gym, it’s bad enough having to exercise without everyone asking questions,
ʻHow is Sandra? How are the girls? How are they coping?
’ Honestly! How do people think Sandra is? She’s lost her husband; she’s devastated, in pieces. I can’t see how she’ll ever recover from this.’

Phoebe thought of the rows that David had told her about, the plate of macaroni cheese he said had hit his back as he walked out the door to go to the last governors’ meeting, the wine bottle smashed against the kitchen wall, his cold and lonely nights in the spare bedroom, the empty silences at mealtimes – was that what Sandra would miss? Or did she feel regret? Guilt? Phoebe had noticed the way Sandra flirted with the teachers’ husbands at staff get-togethers, she’d seen the way she danced with Steve at his and Nolaʼs last New Yearʼs Eve party.
You make me feel like dancing, romancing 
… Sandra had sung along loudly with the Nolans while shimmying around a delighted-looking Steve. What did she feel now? Phoebe wondered if Sandra had the throbbing pain in her chest. Had she lost all sense of taste and touch? Did she have to remind herself to keep breathing, to keep taking breaths when everything inside her longed to give up?

‘Are you not eating these?’ Nola picked up the unopened packet of M&Ms still lying on the table between them. Phoebe managed to shake her head before Nola opened it and poured half the contents into her palm. ‘Sandra and David were together for
so
long,’ she said through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Do you remember that first time she brought him to visit us? They were on their way to the airport, off to spend the summer travelling round India – I was so jealous, she seemed to have it all, gorgeous boyfriend, university, the chance to travel to somewhere so much more exotic than a caravan park in Tenby.’ Nola poured the rest of the chocolates directly into her mouth. ‘I was eight months pregnant with Amy, felt like a whale – I had no idea I’d still be feeling like that twelve years later.’ She pulled her cardigan tightly over her stomach.

‘We had a barbecue,’ said Phoebe quietly. ‘You thought Steve was going to set the hedge on fire.’

‘That’s right,’ Nola laughed. ‘We’d only just moved in, the garden was awful; overgrown and full of piles of builder’s rubble. I’m surprised you remember; I’d have thought you’d have been moping about in your bedroom taping the Top 40 or something. Steve was in charge of the cooking, he put on a terrible PVC apron with a bra and frilly knickers printed on the front – I was so embarrassed. I can still see him now, wielding flaming sausages, pretending to be some sort of fire eater, assuring us they were cooked when really they were stone cold in the middle.’ Nola smiled. ‘David was so funny; he told us stories about his tent getting washed away by rain at the Glastonbury Festival. He did some trick I can’t quite remember – something circusy, I think he’d done a circus workshop on his gap year in Australia. Was it plate-spinning?’

Juggling, it had been juggling
. The images of that summer evening were still vivid in Phoebe’s mind. She had been fifteen and wearing her baggy camouflage jeans. David had juggled with Steve’s barbecue tongs, fish-slice, and fork – stainless steel flashing against the empty blue expanse of sky. Steve had tried not to look upstaged and ended up looking grumpy. Phoebe thought that David was the most wonderful human being she had ever seen.

‘Life’s too short to get tied down,
’ he had said as he helped her wash the dishes later on. ‘
You’ve got to grab each day and live it to the full, see the world, meet people, experience as much as you can.
’ He’d pushed back his mane of sun-streaked hair and Phoebe had looked at the tattoo around his bicep and the bright white shark’s tooth necklace around his neck and wondered what it would be like to wake up beside him in a muddy field in Glastonbury.

‘I can’t get the image of those poor little girls out of my head.’ Nola had heaved herself  up and was running hot water into the sink, swirling Fairy liquid into a froth of bubbles before starting to wash the pile of dirty mugs and glasses. ‘Did you see them at the funeral? Did you see the twins?’ She turned to look at Phoebe. ‘They’re not much older than you were when the accident happened. You were too young to remember but I’ll never forget how it felt.’

Phoebe closed her eyes; she could see her ten-year-old self standing beside Nola. Her wild red curls had been pulled into two tight plaits by unfamiliar hands and she had felt hot and uncomfortable in a borrowed black coat. Her eyes flew open at the memory of the three wooden coffins disappearing one by one into the ground.

‘Don’t forget you’re baby-sitting for us tonight.’ Nola was drying her hands on a tea towel covered with two hundred happy faces; it had been Phoebe’s idea to get the tea towels printed, every child in the school drew a self portrait and there had been a competition to draw pictures of the staff. It had raised over £1,000. David had told her she was fantastic. ‘If you don’t feel well enough then Amy and Ruben could come round here, watch telly with you.’ Nola was using the tea towel to rub at a stain on her cardigan. ‘Tell you what; we’ll bring round fish and chips when we drop them off. You look like you need feeding up.’

‘Honestly, Nola, you know I love seeing Amy and Ruben but I don’t think I can manage …’

Nola put the crumpled tea towel on the table and sat back down on the chair.

‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to have a whole portion, I’ll have a bit of yours – it’ll stop me stuffing my face in the restaurant.’

Phoebe reached for the tea towel and slowly spread it out in front of her. She found her own face, drawn by Hannah Jewson aged nine and three-quarters. The little girl had depicted Phoebe’s hair as a mass of tiny ringlets and dotted her cheeks with so many spots she looked as though she had measles rather than freckles.  David was at the centre of the tea towel, of course. The portrait had been drawn by Samuel Elson, Year Two – he given David a gigantic tie, spiky hair, and a big wobbly smile. Phoebe touched his damp, linen face and wondered what Nola would say if she told her.