Letting You Go (7 page)

‘J
em? Are you hungry yet? I think we should wait until Dad gets home. Shall one of us call him?’

Alex’s voice bounced up through the house as she sniffed the contents of the heavy casserole dish on the kitchen table. How Helen Fairbanks had managed to hoist all that cast iron and lamb hotpot up to the house and leave it on the porch deck without putting her back out was an enigma, but Mrs Fairbanks was one of those practical can-do women, cut from the same old-school cloth as Blythe and Susannah Finn. ‘Jem?’ Alex yelled again. Jem had regressed back to her early teens since they’d got back to the house. She’d been upstairs on the other side of a closed bedroom door while Alex had skulked around the kitchen in quiet contemplation. Someone had to keep the new puppy from chewing or piddling on anything else and Jem still seemed immune to all things cute and cuddly. Alex meandered back out from the hall. Their parents’ kitchen was still homely and vast as any of the other farmhouse kitchens along the track, it still smelled of the dried lavender Blythe had tied to the beams and the ashes in the Aga, despite the new addition to the
household peeing with excitement every time Alex walked into the room.

Alex’s stomach growled. Helen Fairbanks’ mercy meals were legendary. Over by the log basket a bundle of fur the colour of wheat fields heard the noises of Alex’s gastric processes and began wagging herself to death again. The pup waddled excitedly towards Alex, a wet trail in her wake. ‘Agh, not
again
!’ Alex groaned. ‘You’re like a tap …
dog.’
The dog needed a name. Alex seemed to be the object of its unwavering affection and if they were going to have this intimate relationship of ankle-licking and wee-clearing every time the thing set eyes on her, the dog definitely needed a name.

Alex listened to the bump bump bump of Jem finally plodding down the wooden stairs. Jem bobbed lethargically back into the kitchen, her hair tied up now like the renegade ballerina she’d briefly been in her childhood. Alex had only just shook her own out, her scalp was still throbbing from having had its hair follicles pulled back too vigorously, too carelessly in the rush to make the drive up here.

‘You cut your hair,’ Jem observed, reaching for the auburn tendrils sitting against Alex’s shoulders. Alex finished placing a knife and fork aside the last of the three placemats their mum had already set out for Jem’s weekend stay.

‘Yeah. Think I should’ve just hacked the lot off though.
I have to keep it tied back all the time at work, so …’ Not to mention the swimming issue. It only took a few strands to break free and start floating around her face to freak her out completely.

‘Looks nice, anyway. You look like Mum did, in that photo she used to have of her and Dad.’ Alex frowned. ‘At the mayor’s annual dinner.’

Alex fished for the memory. ‘Oh, yeah. The one with Mayor Sinclair letting Dad wear his gold BA Baracas chains. I haven’t seen that picture for years.’ She smiled. It was one of her dad’s favourites. He used to tell everyone how he’d fallen in love with their mum all over again that night, she looked so beautiful. Like Grace Kelly. Grandma Ros had insisted that picture be kept in the hallway where visitors would definitely see it, having your photo taken with the mayor and his wife was a badge of honour too shiny to be left in a back room.

Jem moved lethargically over to her chair. Her mood seemed to have been on a steady decline since their debate on who should to call Mal for a proper chat about what had happened last night. Alex was probably just over-scrutinising again. Finn had accused her of that the night he’d showed up at her university digs, of looking for a problem until she found one.

An image of Finn, chest heaving with the rigours of his morning run poked Alex in her mind’s eye again. This morning was a fluke, it didn’t mean they would keep bumping into each other, not necessarily. Even if they did, a simple
hello
would suffice. Just a nice, polite hello, like old friends. They weren’t kids any more, were they?

‘Neither have I actually.’

‘What?’

‘Seen that photo of Mum and Dad and the Sinclairs. Can’t say I miss not seeing Louisa’s sour face every time I come into the house though,’ Jem said. ‘You know, she called me a thief once. Said I’d stolen one of the ornaments from Sinclair Heights. Like I’d want anything out of the mayoral mansion.’

Mal hadn’t grown up in a mansion, but he’d been the most well kitted-out kid Alex and Jem had ever played with. Ted had said they were the perks of being an only child. Mal had told them over toasted marshmallows one night that his dad really wanted Mal to have a brother but Louisa said no because she detested being fat.

‘Ornaments?’

‘Yeah, that miniature Viking ship, of Dill’s remember? I was showing it to Mal, he had one similar and was trying to tell me how valuable his was because it had these markings on the bottom.’ Jem’s face twisted as she recalled the tale. ‘Then Louisa saw me showing Dill’s ship to Mal and freaked. Said I was trying to steal it, that it belonged to a set of theirs
Malcolm’s father keeps in his private study.’
Jem imitated Louisa’s acerbic voice. ‘She told me it was
about time I stopped acting like a little thug
and how coming from a family with no money was no excuse.’

Alex whistled. ‘That’ll do it.’

‘Oh yeah, she also said I should start behaving like a “lady”.’ Jem held her fingers up to denote inverted commas. ‘Starting with rectifying my
boy’s haircut
.’

Alex bit at her lip. She felt for Jem, everyone knew Mal’s mum was a tyrant. Alex had been lucky on the ‘boyfriend’s mothers’ score, Susannah Finn had treated Alex like a daughter, virtually.

‘To be fair, you were always a bit thuggish, Jem. But you never looked like a boy … not once your crew cut grew out a bit, anyway.’ Alex smiled, trying for a little light relief at the expense of Jem’s historic rash makeover choices.
I just wanted a change
, had been Jem’s official line when the head had sent her home. Alex had made a few of her own dodgy fashion statements in her teens but only Jem had ever come home from school with a short back and sides.

Jem wasn’t listening; she was too busy looking blankly at her mobile phone.

‘So who won?’ Alex asked, straightening the place settings. Her mum always laid the table so elegantly, an art form with its own choreography.

‘Won what?’

‘The battle of the Viking ship?’

Jem winked. ‘There was no way she was keeping that little carved ship. It’s in Dill’s room now, go and have a look.’

Alex caught her smile before it dropped. She didn’t go in there. Mum had kept it nice, unchanged. Everything in its place like her finely laid table settings. Alex didn’t even want to risk moving the dust in Dill’s room.

‘I believe you, Jem. How’d you get it back off her?’

Jem grimaced at her phone and slapped it onto the table, slumping into one of the chunky wooden chairs. ‘Louisa? I’d have prised it from her bony fingers if I’d have had to, Al. As it happened, Mal’s dad came home. You should’ve seen Louisa’s face when the mayor told her she’d made a mistake. Nearly killed her handing it back, you’d have thought she was handing me Mal’s inheritance. Anyway …’ Jem wriggled herself more upright in her seat, ‘your room’s all sorted, Mum and I already changed all the bedclothes yesterday.’

‘Thanks, Jem.’

‘No worries.’ Jem lifted her phone again, twisting it in an attempt to find a gobbet of phone signal somewhere over the tablecloth. She huffed and stood up again. ‘I could do with a drink. There must be a bottle of Pinot here somewhere.’

There wasn’t, Ted was teetotal now. Blythe didn’t keep a drop in the house any more, Jem knew that just as well as Alex.

‘Are you OK, Jem? You seem preoccupied?’

‘Hmm? Sorry. It’s just work, being difficult.’ Jem’s phone had been bleeping all afternoon, until they’d driven back into dodgy mobile signal territory and the bleeping had died a death.

‘Is that who you were on the phone to?’ Alex asked. Jem had been up there for over an hour. ‘You haven’t given your work the house number have you, Jem? You’ve said it before, they don’t exactly respect your work–life balance.’

‘Ha! Nope, those lines have definitely been blurred.’

Alex felt a pang of territorialism. Jem was needed here, her swanky jewellery company could sod off.

‘Can’t they cope on their own for a while?’ Dan would never bother Alex here. He’d already insisted she take all the time she needed from the food bank. Jem came back to the table, examining the base of her glass. She poured the water Alex had set out and hovered. ‘George is under a lot of pressure, Alex. We have a huge opportunity coming up. There’s a lot to get through.’

‘Who’s George? Your boss? Or just the bloke tasked with tracking you down to Mum’s bedroom phone?’ Alex felt her eyebrow rise like her dad’s would whenever he used to catch them on his bedroom phone.

Jem looked guilty. She set the water jug back down and braced herself on the back of the chair. ‘George can be … difficult. Thinks everything is always so simple … black and white,’ she muttered, sliding back into her seat.

‘How nice for George.’

Jem obviously didn’t want to get into it. ‘Did you call me before?’

‘I wanted to know if you were ready to eat? Or do you think Dad might leave the hospital soon?’ Alex pulled the lid away from Mrs Fairbanks’ pot and beheld six fat juicy dumplings proudly peeping from a puddle of rich gravy. Saliva rushed into her mouth. She never ate like this any more. Casserole for one? Unlikely.

‘That was Dad on the phone just then.’

‘Still nothing?’ Alex asked. It had only been an hour and a half since they’d left them at Kerring General, Ted still pacing, Blythe still sleeping. Soundly they all hoped.

‘Nope. I told Dad to go and get a paper, have a smoke or something, not that I want to encourage his bad habits. I think the nurses are wearing him down though. They’ve promised to call him if there’s any change, he was just mulling over leaving.’

‘We’ll wait then. He must be starving.’ Alex clamped the lid back onto the pot, her stomach grumbled again in protest.

Jem nodded at Alex’s tee. ‘I don’t think Jaws is willing to wait. Come on, dish up. I’ll put Dad’s in the oven.

Alex was still weighing it up when a ladleful of food fell onto the plate in front of her.

Alex bit into a tender piece of hot lamb and nearly slipped taste bud first into a state of euphoria. ‘Bloody hell, Mal Sinclair got lucky marrying Millie! I wonder if she can cook like her mum.’

Jem smiled disinterestedly. ‘Who knows? Probably. Millie’s probably perfect wife material, she’d have to be to get the green light from Louisa Sinclair just to spend time with her little Malcy, let alone
marry
him.’

Alex detected a nip in the air. She wasn’t completely convinced it didn’t smell of sour grapes. Nothing drove a wedge like an old boyfriend. Jem had never admitted to it but their mum had seen her and Mal ‘in a tryst’ outside Frobisher’s Tea Rooms in town once. Blythe had called Alex up at university specifically to tap her for inside knowledge.

‘I thought you and Millie used to be good friends?’

‘Years ago, maybe.’

‘Oh.’

‘Do you see her much?’ Alex asked with a mouthful. ‘When you’re home? Don’t tell me she’s still gorgeous and slender, not with food like this firing out of her mum’s kitchen?’ Millie Fairbanks had always reminded Alex of Sandra Dee on
Grease.
Prim and lovely, and only a pair of black satin trousers away from total sex-goddessdom.

‘Not really.’

‘Not really what? Not really gorgeous or not really, you don’t see her much?’

‘I don’t see Millie.’

Jem yanked a slice of bread in two. Alex silently chewed a piece of swede. ‘That’s too bad. I always liked Millie.’

‘A few ballet classes doesn’t make you besties, Alex. Anyway, she was pallier with Carrie in the end.’

Alex took another bite of food. It was probably best not to get into it. She’d eaten four melt-in-the-mouth potato morsels before Jem spoke again. ‘Did you know they have a kid now?’

Alex backtracked her thoughts but couldn’t find where they’d left off. ‘Who?’

‘Mal and Millie.’ Jem laughed under her breath. ‘They even sound like they should be a couple.’

‘Oh, yeah. I think I heard something. A boy?’

‘Alfie. He’s four. Looks just like his dad did at his age, apparently.’

‘Oh.’

‘But I hear he has Millie’s dark eyes, not blue like Mal’s.’

‘I see.’

Jem nodded wistfully. ‘Helen spent nearly the whole time I was at the mayor’s funeral walking me through all of her grandson’s milestones. It was lucky she’d taken her funeral handbag and not her everyday handbag or I’d have been looking through albums of the things, I reckon.’

‘You went to the mayor’s funeral?’

‘Sure. He was always nice to me when I hung out at Mal’s house, unlike his serpentine wife. I really liked him. Didn’t you?’

‘I guess. I never really saw much of him after Mum finished helping him at the library.’

Jem shrugged. ‘I liked him. He always asked me stuff about Dill, as if he thought it was important to keep talking about him or something. Anyway, someone had to go. The Fosters and Sinclairs go way back. Everyone knows …’

‘The Fosters and Sinclairs have the longest bloodlines in these parts,’ they both said in unison. Jem grinned. She had a brilliant grin. Infectious, Alex always caught it.

‘Good old Mum. The genealogical guru of Eilidh Town Hall.’ Everyone wanted to be of Viking descent in Eilidh Falls, the mayor had been no exception. ‘So the mayor wasn’t cast adrift on a burning pyre then?’ Alex teased.

‘No pyre.’ Jem smiled.

‘Why didn’t Mum and Dad go?’ Blythe and Ted had moved in the same social circles as the Sinclairs once, until
Helen and Millie Fairbanks’ car had collided with a wagon at the bottom of the bridge on Eilidh high street, just after it had left a service at Foster & Son’s Autos.

‘Not sure, it was weird. They both had this mystery bug they didn’t want to pass on. So I went on my own.’