Letting You Go

by Anouska Knight

  ‘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.

  Alex gnawed down hard on her own cookie.

  Millie went on, ‘Sometimes I feel like we’re both drowning in paperwork, Mal with his incident reports and me in lesson plans. Is Jem feeling better now, stomach upset, wasn’t it?’

  Alex was grappling for something to say without it smacking of a lie when the bedclothes moved beside her. Blythe woke like a child, a few seconds’ disorientation then a lazy smile for her company.

  Thank God.

  ‘Mum, hi. Did you have a good sleep?’

  Millie tucked her blonde waves behind her ears and leant in towards Blythe’s bed as if about to listen to a child read.

  ‘Mum, Millie’s here to see you. She’s brought cookies too.’ Potentially with pieces of melted plastic in them but, ‘Isn’t that nice of her and Alfie?’

  Alex watched her mum’s face fall. Blythe looked suddenly wracked with concern. ‘Alfie? Alfie who?’ she drawled.

  ‘My Alfie, Blythe. Alfie Sinclair. You’ve seen his photos, probably at least a hundred of them if I know my mum,’ Millie said light-heartedly.

  Alex saw her mother twist the bed sheet in her left hand. ‘Alfred Sinclair? Oh no, he mustn’t come in here.’

  ‘Mum?’ Alex felt a small flush of embarrassment. ‘Millie hasn’t brought Alfie with her.’

  ‘No. No. No. No!’ Blythe was trying to speak too quickly and her slurring was worse for it.

  ‘Mum? Are you feeling all right?’

  ‘Should I get someone?’ Millie asked, rising from her seat.

  ‘Alfred Sinclair … is a … spineless … bastard. That’s … what your … father … thinks.’

  Alex felt her eyes widen more than Millie’s. Millie looked horrified. ‘OK, Mum. It’s OK. Just rest, it’s OK.’ Good God, what was she talking about? She never swore. And little Alfie?

  Blythe was getting more and more agitated. She looked firmly at Alex though as if she had something of burning importance to tell her.

  ‘Sorry, darling. I’m so … sorry.’

  ‘It’s OK, Mum. Don’t upset yourself, everything’s going to be OK.’ But Blythe was broken, tears already streaking down her pale face. Alex felt her throat close. She looked back to Millie, shell-shocked beside her chair. ‘Millie? Would you mind going and calling one of the nurses, please?’

  CHAPTER 35

  ‘You could’ve drowned!’ Alex said, mildly hysterical. Norma chewed smugly on the wayward ball she’d just retrieved. Alex grimaced at her while her heart rate levelled out. Norma had absolutely no regard for the fact that this stretch of the river could’ve been far deeper than it was or that she could have possibly, maybe just set in motion a series of cataclysmic events by launching herself in after a piece of squeaky plastic.

  Alex slumped onto the grassy embankment and kicked her shoes off. The walk hadn’t cleared her head as much as she’d hoped. ‘Sorry, darling,’ her mum had wept. Sorry for what? Alex shook her head. How could you ever think you had anything to be sorry for, Mum?

  It wasn’t fair. It was such a stupid childish sentiment to keep coming back to, but it wasn’t fair. Alex angrily rubbed the droplets of water from her calves and ankles. She needed to get a grip. There were worse things than the cold shallows of rivers, far worse things, but these were the things she usually spent her energies worrying about. Alex looked out across this shallow stretch of the Old Girl. She wouldn’t have darted in after Norma quite so heroically had her mum not been clouding her thoughts.

  ‘You stay there, Norma … sit …
no! Don’t shake!’ Alex manoeuvred her bum and sat awkwardly on the dog lead in a bid to anchor Norma to the spot for just a minute. Any second now the puppy was going to realise that she could still wriggle from her collar if she tried hard enough.

  Alex replayed in her head the way her mother’s voice had wrapped itself around the word bastard earlier. Jem hadn’t been home after Alex had made the grim journey back from Kerring General this evening, Alex hadn’t yet offloaded this particular nugget. Instead she’d gotten the dog and her lead and walked straight out of the house again before anyone could come home and hear her relay Blythe’s suddenly erratic behaviour. Ted would’ve gone straight there from the garage a little while ago, he might be finding out for himself right about now.

  Alex fumbled around at the stones by her feet. Poor Millie, the look on her face. ‘Alex, your mum’s not well. Really, please don’t worry about it, leave that to the medical staff. Anyway, Alfie’s five years old for heaven’s sake, I’m pretty sure other than his feelings on green vegetables he hasn’t given anyone any reason to call him a spineless bastard just yet.’ Millie had put her teacher’s head on and tried to be reassuring. ‘Unless … You don’t think Blythe meant Alfie’s granddad do you, Alex? No, sorry! I’m just randomly guessing now. Everyone liked the mayor, didn’t they?’

  Alex had come up with her own explanation. Her mother was losing her mind.

  Alex sent a stone sailing over the shallows towards the timber posts, each carved into their own abstract Norse design, set along the water’s edge. She heard the splosh then a tug against the lead beneath her as Norma took an interest in the noise on the water. She wasn’t aiming for anything specifically. She didn’t know what to aim for any more. The goalposts kept shifting. Everything was in a constant state of change. Jem was leading the way, then she was hiding behind her bedroom door. Ted was infuriated, then gentle, then infuriated again. And now Blythe, yesterday eating lunch with visitors, today swearing at them. And Alex was just as guilty, running hot and cold all the time. Staying away from Finn, running to him for help. Not having the decency to go thank him for his help. She was out of order.