by Paige Toon
‘Sorry,’ he replied cheekily, nodding at my cigarette. ‘Have you got a spare?’
‘No, it’s my last one.’ I narrowed my eyes at him. ‘I didn’t know you smoked.’ Phoebe hated smokers.
‘I don’t usually, but I’ve had one too many beers,’ he replied. ‘Give us a drag?’
I hesitated, but then thought why not, putting down my guitar and leaning out of the window while he leaned out of his. We must’ve both been very pissed because there was no way in hell we were going to reach each other.
‘Bollocks,’ he said.
‘Shall I throw it to you?’ I suggested.
‘Sure, if you want to burn the house down.’
I sniggered. ‘Guess I’d better not risk it.’
He grinned at me, still hanging out of his window. ‘Where have you been tonight?’ he asked.
‘Pub in the city. What about you?’
‘Just down the local with a few mates.’
‘You’ve made some, then.’ I took a drag of my cigarette and blew the smoke out in his direction.
‘Shit, I really want a drag,’ he said, distractedly ignoring my jibe. ‘I know!’ His eyes lit up and he ducked back inside. I could hear him making a racket in his room and then he reappeared with a long plank of wood.
‘What the hell is that?’ I exclaimed.
‘Skirting board.’ He stuck it out of the window in my direction without further explanation. It wobbled this way and that from the effort of keeping it straight.
‘There’s not much left,’ I said, indicating my almost-butt.
‘Quick,’ he urged, so I popped it on the end of the plank. It immediately rolled off and fell into the flowerbed below.
We both swore at the same time.
‘Sorry,’ he mumbled.
I smirked at him. ‘At least you won’t have dog-breath in the morning. Phoebe will still kiss you.’
‘Where is she?’ he asked.
‘In bed.’ Her room was at the back of the house, overlooking the garden.
‘Didn’t you go out for dinner tonight with your uncle?’ he asked.
Uncle Simon – the youngest of Dad’s three brothers – and his long-term partner Katherine were over from Australia.
‘Yeah, but I stayed out afterwards.’
He nodded and we fell silent, neither of us making any move to go back inside.
‘What was that song you were singing?’ he asked after a while.
I shrugged. ‘Just something I wrote.’
‘Wow.’ He looked impressed. ‘Are you in a band?’
‘Ha. If you can call it that,’ I replied sarcastically. Our drummer, Matt, couldn’t keep time, and Gavin, the bassist, couldn’t play anywhere near as well as he thought he could.
‘Well, if that was a single, I’d buy it,’ Angus said.
‘How drunk are you?’
‘I’m pretty fucking wasted,’ he declared with a chuckle, smiling at me. The look in his eyes made my heart flip.
‘I should hit the sack,’ I said.
‘Already?’ he asked with surprise. ‘I reckon I’ll throw up if I lie down now.’
‘Me too,’ I reluctantly admitted.
‘Stay and chat to me. I’ve hardly spoken to you since I moved in.’
I knew he was just being friendly. But I also knew that I shouldn’t allow myself to get too close to him. Honestly, though? This was the first time I’d had him to myself and I didn’t want it to end.
So we sat and talked about our favourite music, movies, comic book heroes, friends, everything, for another hour – it might have even been two. When we got the munchies, he remembered a squished Twix in his rucksack, and this time we managed to get the plank to work. I’ve never stifled laughter so much in my life. We formed a bond that night that never went away, but it was a bad thing for both of us.
The next morning, I woke up and cursed at the pounding in my head, but when I saw the ball of paper on the floor, I smiled the biggest smile. I don’t know why I didn’t just put it in the bin, but instead I flattened it out and the sight of Angus’s messy handwriting made my heart swell. It was just the start of a piece of English homework – nothing special – but I couldn’t throw it away.
As the days turned into weeks, I longed to have him to myself again, but I forced myself to keep my window shut. Sometimes I caved, but on those nights, he wasn’t about.
Then, in June, just before our eighteenth birthday, his best friend from Brighton came to stay.
I was down the back of the garden, hanging out in the tree house that Dad had built for us when we were kids. Rose and Phoebe hadn’t used it for years, but it had sort of become my sanctuary, my favourite place to go to write.
It was still light, only just, when Angus and Kieran came down to the back of his garden with a couple of beers. Phoebe and Rose had gone to the movies with a few friends, but I hadn’t wanted to see the romcom they’d chosen, so I’d stayed at home.
I listened to Angus and Kieran’s conversation as it carried across the fence to my ears, and it wasn’t long before they started talking about us.
‘I can’t believe you live next door to triplets,’ Kieran said. ‘Jeez, mate, no wonder you’re not missing Brighton.’
‘They’re pretty beautiful, aren’t they?’ Angus replied, his tone laced with dry amusement.
‘Hot as hell.’
‘Oi. That’s my girlfriend you’re talking about,’ Angus said.
‘I’m referring to the other two.’
They both laughed.
‘Seriously, though, are Phoebe’s sisters single?’ Kieran asked.
‘Rose and Eliza? I’m pretty sure they’re both seeing people.’
We weren’t.
‘What are they like?’ Kieran asked. ‘You’re really into Phoebe, right?’
‘Yeah, she’s amazing,’ Angus replied warmly. ‘I reckon she could do anything and she’d be good at it. Rose doesn’t have Phoebe’s sense of adventure, but she’s really sweet and she goes out of her way for people. And Eliza...’ His voice trailed off and I felt like I could hear my heart beating in my throat. ‘Liza is very cool, very smart, and she’s fiercely protective, especially of Phoebe. But underneath it all, I think that she’s the one who needs protecting, although she’d bite your head off if you ever suggested it.’
‘You sound like you’re in love with all three of them,’ Kieran mused. ‘Ever thought about, you know, getting it on with all—’
‘Piss off!’ Angus interrupted.
They laughed, but that was the end of the interesting conversation.
I stayed where I was, not wanting them to know I’d overheard, and eventually they got sick of the midges and went back into the house.
But my head continued to reel. No one had ever had us – me – so well pegged. It seemed like everything Angus said or did made me fall for him a little bit more. I knew I was in trouble, and the feeling was unbearable.
Sometimes I would catch him looking at me and I’d sense a slight confusion radiating from him. Perhaps he also wondered what would have happened if he and I had got to know each other before he’d jumped headfirst into a relationship with Phoebe. Did he ever regret doing that?
I know he’s loved her from the beginning. Even when he was with me, he loved her. But I suspect there’s a small part of Angus that has always loved me, too.
With all of these thoughts still spinning around my head, I come to a stop on the pavement outside another estate agent’s. Gathering myself together, I push through the door. If Angus and Phoebe are moving to Manchester, I really have no choice but to leave.
Chapter 10
Phoebe
And so here we are again.
I can’t see Remy’s blue eyes behind his dark glasses, but I watch his attractive, suntanned face as he checks over my equipment. He looks quite a lot older than he did nine years ago – more weather-beaten, somehow, but in a good way. He’s in his early thirties, now.
‘All good?’ I
ask in French.
‘Oui,’ he replies with a smile.
Josie was still asleep when I left her this morning, and it’s probably just as well because I know she’d try to talk me out of this. I wrote her a note, reassuring her that I haven’t lost my head. Honestly, I’ve never felt clearer about what I need to do.
I fell hard for Remy when I was younger. Our relationship was a rollercoaster ride of epic proportions, but there were times when I hated feeling out of control. So today I’m testing myself. I need to know that I’m in control now, and then I can walk down the aisle and commit to a life in Manchester with Angus, knowing with absolute certainty that I’m on the right path.
I doubt Angus would understand my mindset so I’ve begged Josie to tell him I’ve gone shopping if he calls. I hate the thought of him freaking out when I’m sure there’s nothing for him to worry about. I love him so much – I always have, and never more than I do right now. When I think about what we’ve gone through, how many years we’ve been together, I can’t imagine ever throwing it away...
It was Dad’s death that brought Angus and me back together. We lost him suddenly in the spring, six months after I returned from France. I was only nineteen and it came as such a shock. Dad was fit and healthy – the least likely person to have a heart attack, it seemed. And then Mum woke up one day to find him gone, just like that.
Angus came to the funeral. We had vowed to stay friends, but he and I hadn’t spoken much in the months since I’d got back. Seeing his beautiful but bloodshot eyes did something to me. Maybe it was my grief, but everything I’d felt for him came rushing back. I desperately wanted him to hold me, to be close to him again, and when he took me in his arms, I felt safe. He held me tight while I cried into his shoulder, and I didn’t want to ever let him go again. I think I fell back in love with him then, right there, on that spot – if I’d ever fallen out of love with him in the first place.
We were both at different universities in London, so after the funeral, we saw each other regularly and soon it felt as though we’d never been apart. I’d told Angus about Remy, but we rarely spoke about him or the couple of girls from university that he’d had fleeting relationships with – we were both keen to move forward and that suited me fine. Angus finished his journalism course a year before I completed my degree, but instead of moving back to Manchester to be close to his mum, which was always his intention, he found an apartment in Kentish Town, an easy tube ride away from my campus, and we moved in together.
Mum said I was too young to be living with a boy – even Angus, whom she adored – but her heart wasn’t fully in the argument. I think she was glad that I had someone to love, someone to help me come to terms with our loss. She missed Dad terribly, and I was still beside myself with grief.
Living with Angus fortified our relationship, and when Rose finished university and moved to London, too, my bond with her strengthened. She got a job at the Whittington Hospital in Highgate, where Mum used to work, and the three of us hung out regularly. Angus to her was like the big brother she’d never had, always checking out her boyfriends and making sure she felt safe.
But Eliza kept her distance, and even to this day I feel a block between us. When I think about the years we spent as teenagers, lying on my bed with our limbs intertwined, reading magazines or pouring our hearts out over the boys we fancied, my chest hurts. She’s grown up, gone her own way, and I still miss her so much. I miss the little girl that she was, the little girl who once punched Heidi Maunder in the face because she picked on me.
But you see, the thing that I couldn’t admit to Josie at dinner yesterday, or to anyone else in the world, is this: I know that Eliza keeps her distance because she’s in love with Angus.
And I know that he has feelings for her, too.
I’ve seen it on their faces and in their demeanour when they’re near to each other, and a few years ago, it struck me like a bolt out of the blue that something had happened between them when I was on my gap year. The feeling was intuitive, and I sensed that they’d both laid whatever had passed to rest, but it made everything clear. That was why Eliza had begun to detach herself from me. I’d always thought she was bitter about being left behind at the age of eighteen – and maybe she was, a little. But the truth was entirely more complex. I suspect she gave up Angus because she didn’t want to hurt me and had never come to terms with the loss.
Angus has always been easy to read – he’s open and honest and I believe he would tell me the truth if I asked him about it.
But Eliza has tried so hard to keep her emotions hidden that I sense it would crush her if I brought it up.
So I never did.
Who am I kidding? I’m too scared to.
Sometimes I feel guilty that I got to Angus first because Eliza would be so much happier with him by her side.
But the problem is I would have to fall spectacularly out of love with him, or spectacularly in love with someone else, for them to ever stand a chance.
Last night, I came to the following conclusion, and my words are still ringing around my head now as I stare at Remy trudging through the snow ahead of me: if Eliza and Angus are meant to be together, the stars and the planets will have to align to make it happen.
Because I can’t let him go easily. And while Eliza knows that I still love him, she won’t touch him with a bargepole.
Chapter 11
Rose
I find Mum at the back of the garden, staring at the rose that has climbed its way up into the branches of the old apple tree over the years.
‘Are you okay?’ I ask her.
She nods abruptly and turns her face away from me.
‘Are you crying? Mum!’ I exclaim with dismay, going around to her front to make her look at me. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Rosie,’ she laments, shaking her head, but still not meeting my eyes. Instead she stares up at the rose – my rose. I was eight when we planted it; when I asked if we could call it mine. Now it is so deeply intertwined with the apple tree that it seems almost part of it. It’s currently giving the apple its second flowering of the year: a brilliant orange instead of its pale pink blossoms of spring.
‘I’m not sure about all of this,’ Mum says.
‘Come and sit down,’ I urge, guiding her across the lawn to the chairs on the deck. The garden is in full bloom: flaming reds, sizzling oranges and hot pinks blazing out from around the border. I pull out a chair for her and take one for myself.
‘What aren’t you sure about?’ I ask gently, resting my feet on the cool wrought iron of the matching coffee table.
‘This house. This garden.’ She shakes her head again, despondently. ‘They hold so many memories. I don’t know if I’m ready to let them go.’
My chest feels tight with worry. We’ve come so far. This is the right thing to do. Isn’t it?
‘Do you think you’ll ever be ready?’ I ask carefully.
‘That man rummaging around,’ she spits suddenly, and I presume she’s talking about the architect who’s just left. ‘Do you know they plan to knock through from the sitting room to the kitchen?’ she asks indignantly. ‘What’s wrong with the sitting room? They’ll take all the cosiness out of it! Your father and I loved reading the papers there in the sunshine—’
Her voice cracks.
‘Oh, Mum.’ I lean across and put my arms around her, feeling her collarbone beneath my fingers. She’s lost so much weight in recent years. ‘It’s normal to get cold feet. I love this house, too, you know. It’s going to be hard for all of us to say goodbye.’
It was actually this garden that helped me to bond with Mum for what felt like the first time, on my own, away from my sisters.
We’d moved from a tiny two-bedroom apartment in London, and being in such close quarters for the first seven years of our lives had been stressful, to say the least. Phoebe had been no trouble at all, but Eliza would turn the room into a pigsty and we’d all get the blame for it. We had to share
everything: birthday parties, toys, clothes, even our knickers, and damn, it would piss me off when Eliza managed to nab the ones with the unicorns on them. We all loved those knickers.
It was easier when we moved here and got bedrooms of our own. At least then, we had our own space.
Mum had got stuck straight into the unkempt garden and I found myself helping her. Eliza and Phoebe had no interest in gardening, but I discovered I loved it, and I hated it when our time was interrupted by my sisters – usually Eliza – seeking some attention of their own.
Later I decided to follow in Mum’s footsteps with nursing, too.
I wanted to make my parents proud, so in that way my career choice was pretty much predetermined.
Mum draws away from me and flashes me a sardonic smile.
‘Don’t suppose you fancy taking care of me instead of your patients?’
‘What, quit my job and move back home?’ I ask with alarm.
She laughs and shakes her head. Okay, so she’s not being entirely serious, but I can tell she’s not entirely joking, either.
‘What would I do for money?’ I ask, humouring her.
‘We could take in a lodger – you could keep the rent.’ She raises her eyebrows hopefully.
‘What about my life?’ I ask, feeling a little panicky now. Has she given this some thought? ‘My friends? What about Gerard?’
‘Is he still married?’ she demands to know, all teasing gone from her tone.
I tut. ‘Technically, but they’re not together like that,’ I add quickly. ‘You’ll like him when you meet him. He says he’ll come to the wedding.’
‘That’s good of him,’ she mutters.
We both start at the sound of the Templetons’ French doors being opened. I peer over the fence to see Judy stepping outside.
‘Hello!’ she calls amiably. ‘We seem to be getting a summer at last.’
‘Yes.’ Mum’s reply is half-hearted. I flash Judy a reassuring look as her smile slips.
‘Is everything okay?’ she asks.
‘We’re a bit down about the move,’ I explain.
‘Oh dear,’ she sympathises. ‘Do you want to come in for a cuppa?’ She and Mum have become good friends over the years.