Letting You Go

by Anouska Knight

  ‘You can’t put all your faith in birth certificates and paperwork anyway, Millie,’ Malcolm said brusquely. Millie looked at him as if he’d grown a third eye. ‘Sorry, honey, I just meant … how accurate are family records anyway? They’re only as good as the word of the person who had them filled in, aren’t they?’

  ‘I don’t think you can trace back to Vikings anyway, Millie,’ Alex offered. ‘Mum said that records only go so far back, after that it’s just names and characteristics anyway.’

  Millie went to reply but something had just caught her eye. ‘Sorry, would you excuse me? There’s Emma Parsons, Mal. I’m just going to try and catch her.’ Millie turned to Jem and Alex. ‘Her daughter’s in Alfie’s preschool class, Poppy. Poor family, Mr Parsons had a horrific accident, he was working under a car and the jack gave. The man has a broken sternum and no money coming in. I’m really worried about them. Emma will be walking all the way to the hospital again, I’ll bet. Of course, she can’t drive, it was their car Mr Parsons was fixing when it fell on him.’

  Alex and Jem looked out onto the road as Millie nipped off to intercept the brunette they’d seen in the hospital gardens, stridently pushing her pram along the road while her little girl tried to keep pace. It was a good walk to Kerring General, no wonder her flip-flops had been so worn.

  ‘Grotty Feet,’ Jem whispered. Alex jabbed her softly with an elbow. Jem pouted and went back to checking her phone. ‘Come on, we have to go too, Al,’ she said taking the puppy from Hamish’s hands. ‘I’ve just missed another call. From George.’

  CHAPTER 21

  Alex was moving up a rung on her fear ladder. The plunge pools at Godric’s gorge weren’t as intimidating as she thought they might be. The Falls weren’t really waterfalls, not like the ones you’d see rainbows over or Superman rescuing foolhardy boys from. Actually, Alex realised, their local beauty spot was really just a very decent sized water feature cutting through the landscape. She’d even gotten her shoes and socks off, and she could’ve stood in the water if she’d wanted, only it looked a bit cold and she hadn’t even brought a towel so, hey ho, she couldn’t really and that was that.

  Alex breathed satisfying breaths that smelled of moss and sunshine. Blythe had looked great this afternoon. Helen and Susannah had done what no hospital could and had put some of the colour back in her mum’s cheeks.

  Dad was at the garage, Jem had buggered off somewhere and Godric’s gorge was basking in the late afternoon sun. Alex put her hands on her hips lifting her chin to the warmth of the sky. She took a deep lungful of fresh air and realised, for the first time since she could remember, it felt good to be here.

  Alex kept breathing in that fresh air, listening to the gentle gushing around her.

  ‘We really must stop meeting like this, Foster. People will start to talk.’ Alex didn’t startle. She hung an arm across her head and squinted up to the top of the first waterfall. Finn was picking his way across the top of the rocks. Alex spotted the large rectangular pad in his arms and the small backpack and realised immediately what they were. She pulled at one of the reeds next to her while Finn effortlessly made his way down the rocks jutting from the side of the first gorge.

  Alex waved a reed at his belongings. ‘I didn’t know you were still an artist,’ she said. It surprised her. It felt easy to talk to him, this person she’d banished to her past, imprisoned there.

  ‘Old habits die hard.’ He smiled. He was wearing a white tee under the blue shirt, the colours accentuated the skin tone his travels had given him. ‘You know how it is when you let a thing get under your skin.’ Alex thought she might blush again. What a sap.

  ‘Still putting your shirts on inside out then?’

  ‘You do remember my mother, right? She still goes spare if I get paint on my clothes.’

  Alex grinned. ‘So, can I have a look?’

  ‘Maybe next time.’ Finn pouted. ‘I’m a bit rusty. Actually I just wanted to get a bit of landscape practice, while it’s still quiet up here. So, are you going in?’

  Alex looked at the water. ‘In there? Oh, no. It’s not warm enough and I haven’t brought a towel or anything so …’

  ‘Really? It’s just that you looked like you were psyching yourself up.’ Finn dropped his things to the grass and pushed the hair from his eyes. ‘’Course not, no one takes twenty five minutes to make an in-out decision.’ He smiled.

  Alex smiled back. Sod. Had he’d been up there the whole time? Did he see her scratch that bite on her backside? The midges up here were on steroids.

  Finn began picking through the pebbles near the water’s edge.

  ‘So, Foster. You still a crack shot?’

  This was too easy. It felt too easy falling back into their old stride. ‘Still a better shot than you.’ Something playful in her voice made her heart flutter in warning. Don’t do this, Alex. You are not seventeen any more.

  ‘Let’s see it then.’ Finn held his hand out for hers. His fingertips were blackened with graphite from his sketching. He dropped three pebbles into her hand and gently closed her fingers around them. The stones felt smooth and solid, the way his body had when she’d bounced into him yesterday. ‘Pick your target, Foster.’ Alex was pretty good at this. Alex used to be pretty good at this. She surveyed the water, gently flowing off from the plunge pool.

  ‘The small black rock, with the moss on the right face.’

  Finn nodded, his jaw tensed. Bugger. She hadn’t done this for years. She wasn’t even sure what was at stake but it felt as if there was definitely something. Alex focused on that small black rock with the water gently breaking over it.

  She selected her first pebble, poised her arm and concentrated. She narrowed down on the target. She used to nail this, there was a time she’d have bet Finn a piggyback home on getting three straight hits. Alex released and came a good foot wide of target.

  ‘Dammit.’

  ‘Looks like I’m not the only one who’s gotten rusty, Foster.’

  ‘Shhh.’

  This time, Alex, just a little curve …

  ‘Ooh, close that time! I can’t believe that missed,’ Finn teased.

  ‘Would you just shush for a second?’

  ‘You always did get ratty when you missed.’

  ‘Really? I can only ever remember you missing,’ she said confidently.

  Last pebble. He was looking at her, she could feel it. He’d been looking at the rock across the water before.

  Alex calmed her thoughts and breathed.

  In and out, nice and steady. You’re doing it.

  The pebble hit and ricocheted off at an awkward angle. Finn whistled beside her. ‘Nice aim, Foster.’

  Alex clasped her hands together in satisfaction. ‘Your turn.’

  Finn had already chosen his missiles. He sent the first one off with a respectable effort. But missed. Alex laughed under her breath, she could tell he was concentrating properly this time; his eyes had narrowed. She heard a light splosh in the background.

  ‘I think that hit. It definitely scuffed,’ she observed.

  Finn ran his fingers through the hair that had come to fall in front of his eyes. Alex heard the last splosh! And realised she’d been watching him instead of the challenge.

  Finn caught her looking. ‘You win, Foster. Best of three?’

  Maybe he was the challenge.

  ‘I have to go, I’m cooking tonight.’

  ‘That’s too bad, Foster. I was hoping maybe we could give it another shot.’

  The words hung between them.

  He means the pebbles, Alex. He only means the pebbles. She tried to let some of the new tension in her shoulders ebb away. What would it hurt anyway? Why couldn’t she stay and throw a few more rocks with him? Ted had already seen Alex with Finn and despite her initial concerns he’d been totally pleasant today. ‘Thanks, love,’ he’d said when Alex had passed him those sandwiches. ‘Love’!

  Say it. Just pick up a few stones, now, and say ‘on second thoughts
, Finn, best of three!’ Just say it, Alex.

  Finn looked away briefly then gave her a small smile. ‘You know, thinking about it, I should probably be getting back.’

  Too late. ‘Sure. Me too.’ She smiled.

  Finn collected his things up from the ground. ‘I have to go – I’ve got this commission I need to get done.’

  ‘You’re painting for work, Finn? That’s really great.’ It was great, not that being a handyman wasn’t a good trade, it was just that Finn had blown the competition out of the water at college. The art block had been an exposition of his talent. Walls covered with his still-lives and portrait studies, vibrant and gloomy, testaments to the breadth and depths Alex already knew Joseph Finn had.

  ‘As I said, I’m a bit rusty. But I’m getting back into it. Brings a few quid in on the side and I get to keep a few skills up. How about you, Foster. Still throwing pots?’

  ‘Oh, no.’

  ‘No?’

  ‘Nope. I haven’t really done any art since I left uni. I don’t even think I own a paintbrush any more.’

  ‘That’s too bad. You should stop by next time your passing my mum’s place. I have a small studio space round the back. Actually, I’m hoping to get a few hours in there when I finish work tomorrow. You visit your mum every day I’m guessing?’

  ‘Er, yep. Then my dad keeps her company at night.’

  ‘Well, you know, if you were passing tomorrow, I don’t know, on your way home maybe … you could stop by. Borrow my brushes, if you wanted.’ Finn smiled playfully before a grin got the better of him. Was he being bashful? He rubbed the awkwardness from his mouth and left a grey smudge over his cheek from the graphite on his hands. Alex swallowed a smile. ‘Seriously, Foster. My mum would love to see you.’

  A very light thrumming started up in her chest. Something light and butterfly-like. It would only be a mooch around. And Susannah would be there and it would be so lovely to see her and, well, after how things ended with Finn at her university halls he was just being so … cool. It wouldn’t be like they were parading around in public. Ted might not even be aware of it.

  Alex breathed deeply. ‘Sure. Sounds, nice.’

  Finn bit on his bottom lip as if he was about to aim another pebble and was concentrating on his target. ‘I wasn’t sure about coming back to the Falls, Foster. But, I don’t know, I’m starting to feel glad that I did.’

  Alex felt a funny sensation, like driving over the bridge outside The Cavern too fast. A dangerous, reckless feeling. She was starting to feel glad she’d come back too.

  CHAPTER 22

  Alex yawned at her reflection in her truck’s rear view. There were dark shadows under her eyes. Yeah, thanks for that, Jem. Yesterday had been a good day, rounded off with an ambitious attempt at baked cod and green beans last night (another one of her mother’s fridge note recipes) pulled off to near perfection, much to Alex’s astonishment. Alex had even enjoyed a solid half hour of conversation with her dad over that delicious dinner about Viking raid tactics and the common belief that most of them were high on mind-altering drugs at the time of their conquests. Alex had been all set for a decent night’s sleep after that, and then Jem had decided to bumble around the kitchen cupboards at some ungodly hour, setting the puppy off again.

  Alex tapped her steering wheel while the lights changed. Migraine my backside, Jem. The only migraine Jem had this morning was the kind of migraine she could buy at The Cavern for a fiver a glass. Alex wondered if that’s where they’d ended up last night after Mal had called Jem out of the blue for their impromptu catch-up. Must have been a good’n, Jem wouldn’t even open her bedroom door this morning, now Alex was going to have to wait to hear what Mal had seen happen to their mum in the churchyard.

  It was still playing on Alex’s mind, the details of what may or may not have caused her mum’s stroke to hit while she was visiting Dill’s grave. Jem would’ve come to the bedroom door and told her, wouldn’t she? If Mal had said anything worrying. If Mum had been distressed or if anything obvious had triggered the stroke? Maybe it really had been just bad luck and nothing at all to do with the strain of Dill’s birthday.

  She has arrhythmia. Don’t go letting yourself off the hook just yet, Alex reminded herself.

  Alex chewed on her lip and pulled into Foster & Son’s yard. Baby steps. That’s the term Jem had used. It seemed a good approach in general, Alex had decided this morning while whipping up Blythe’s egg and bacon breakfast muffins. Baby steps. If you can make all this effort to get back home, Mum, then the least I can do is try too.

  Alex grabbed the Tupperware box from the passenger seat. ‘Righto, Dad. Let’s see what we can do with these muffins.’

  Wonders could be worked by the tasty and wholesome, Alex had seen it first hand at the food bank. She would use her mother’s food to keep the lines of communication open between her and Ted; he’d responded well to Alex’s cooking so far, this would be her back door in – the way she would gently remind him that she could still do some things right. Alex let the idea form in her mind again. You’re getting way ahead of yourself, she warned. But it wasn’t completely far-fetched. It would be a very long road but eventually, her dad might start to remember that Finn could still do some things right too.

  Alex took a last look in her rear view mirror at Finn’s hardware shop. Finn was right yesterday. Old habits did die hard.

  Alex left her truck in the sunshine and stepped into the gloom of the garage. It always smelled of coffee and cold metal. She could hear her dad had tuned in to the same classical radio station Blythe listened to at home. Alex pushed her keys into her jeans pocket and walked past the car stationed over the pit in the floor.

  ‘Dad? Hellooo? I thought I’d drop some brunch in on my way to Mum.’ Alex winced at her use of the word brunch. Was it a yuppie word? She stepped around the air compressor Ted used to very carefully pump their bike tyres up with when they were little and headed towards the office through the back.

  He probably hadn’t heard her. Some big-lunged lovely was belting out One Beautiful Day on the radio in the workshop. Alex knew Puccini a mile off. Madama Butterfly was second only to Norma in their house, thanks to Maria Callas killing it with ‘Casta Diva’.

  Alex was already humming along to the melody when she reached the office door. Ted was stood poker straight, one hand braced on the edge of his desk, the other clamped on the phone receiver. His shoulders were rising and falling in steady rolls.

  ‘Dad? Is everything OK?’

  He didn’t turn. The hospital, had they just rung? Alex was about to ask.

  ‘What time did your sister get home last night?’ Alex felt a small rush of adrenalin, a whiff of a telling off. She’d broken a window on his shed once and that conversation had started with similarly cryptic questions.

  ‘Ah, I’m not sure. I was asleep. Why?’ Must’ve been pretty late. Maybe Jem had gone partying and then woke the neighbours on her way back in.

  Ted’s knuckles whitened over the phone ‘You happen to know what she was doing out with another woman’s husband all night?’

  For a second, Alex hesitated. ‘Oh, you mean Mal?’ Alex relaxed then. ‘We bumped into him yesterday. With Millie. Jem asked him if they could have a word, about him helping Mum. They probably just got chatting about old times. I’ve brought you some—’

  ‘He’s married!’

  Alex looked up from her breakfast muffins, her secret weapons, just as Ted brought a fist down hard onto his desk. Alex jumped.

  ‘You don’t go around with married men when you goddamn feel like it! People talk!’

  Alex felt the shock on her face. His voice, it wasn’t rage, it was something else. He sounded distraught.

  ‘Dad, I don’t think … Jem wouldn’t.’

  Ted’s eyes were enlarged. He glared coldly at Alex and all that distance began to stretch out again between them.

  ‘Why can’t you girls just stay away from what’s no good for you? Why can’t you just let
things lie? Instead of hanging around the sons of no good bastards hell-bent on destroying our family?’

  CHAPTER 23

  Jem felt as if she’d been slipped inside a velvet-lined purse, cushioned from the outside world and all its terrible mistakes. The entire farmhouse had fallen deadly silent once Alex had finished humming over whatever it was she’d been baking at first light.

  Jem was sitting on her bed in a cold damp bath towel, her hands placed on her lap, face looking squarely out across the gardens to the tree where their old rope swing still hung. She missed those long summers, playing with Malcolm Sinclair and her brother before they’d started high school and Dill had just become her annoying little brother, something she’d outgrown like an ugly shoe.

  A terrible knot tightened in Jem’s stomach. A knot that hadn’t been there before she’d met with Malcolm last night. He’d regretted it immediately; she’d seen it in his face. But it was too late then, it couldn’t be undone.

  Jem felt another bout of tears burning behind her eyes. She wanted to go back. To live yesterday again so she could politely decline Mal’s request to meet, to keep things how they were, not what they’d now become. What had they become? What were they to each other now? Oh God, it was such a mess. You stupid idiot. How could she have not seen it coming? It was there all along, all the time they were growing up. A connection. A spark. And she hadn’t realised what it had meant, not fully, and now it could never be the same again.

  Jem wiped her eyes again. He’d asked afterwards if she would tell anyone. Would she tell Alex? But how could she? Alex and Dad, they couldn’t know!

  ‘We have to keep this to ourselves, Mal,’ Jem had said catatonically. ‘Private. No one else can ever find out.’

  ‘Do you really think we can keep this secret, Jem? The game’s changed now. Everything has changed,’ Mal had responded.