Letting You Go

by Anouska Knight

  Norma flopped back down to the floor and padded off.

  ‘Will Dad be joining us?’ asked Alex.

  Jem glanced over her shoulder. ‘Yep. So can you guys try to get along? Please?’

  Alex bit resentfully into a breadstick. ‘Don’t worry, Jem. I think I’m done blowing his hair back for a while.’ Alex thought about that statement. Only if her secrets stayed nicely tucked away beneath the waterfall. She’d left Finn standing behind the wall of water, half dressed, knowing that she’d cemented the pattern between them. She’d flitted back in to Finn’s reach for another taste, and then had hotfooted it out of there again when her nerve had left her. Before any uncomfortable conversations could start.

  Jem stopped chopping. She began scraping a carrot Alex had watched her peel already. ‘Well maybe it’s my turn to blow his hair back. There are too many secrets in this family anyway,’ Alex heard her mutter.

  ‘What do you mean, blow his hair back?’

  Jem turned around and leant back against the sink. Veggie scraper in one hand, pencil-thin carrot in the other. ‘I have something I need to talk to you both about.’

  The hairs stood up on Alex’s neck. She hadn’t managed to come up with a way of telling Jem about Mal yet. Half-brother. Half-brother. Nope. The half didn’t make any difference, you couldn’t have a half-incestuous relationship any more than you could be half in love, or half pregnant. Jem was not going to be half horrified now was she?

  ‘About what?’ Alex asked shakily.

  Jem set the carrot down on the side. She flexed her fingers, then picked it up again. Nervous wasn’t Jem’s usual style.

  ‘I was putting it off, like you said. I wanted to talk to Mum first, but you were right, she’s not up to it but you’re going to find out eventually and I don’t want you hearing it from someone else and people talk and—’

  Norma began barking in the back lounge seconds before Alex heard her father’s recovery truck growling up the track. Alex’s heart was beating as quickly as the words were crashing out of Jem’s mouth. Jem was looking towards the hallway and Norma’s warning, the rash around Jem’s lips had gotten worse today, Alex noticed, despite Mal’s de-bearding. Maybe she was allergic to him. Maybe it was Mother Nature’s way of telling oblivious human beings, Stop! You can’t snog him! Your face will break out first and if that’s not enough I’ll give your offspring gills! Alex couldn’t stop looking at that rash as Jem was chewing on her lip. Alex shuddered. They must be snogging like teenagers.

  ‘You need to stay away from Malcolm Sinclair,’ Alex blurted. It had just come out. Exploded from her mouth like a crackerbomb.

  Jem stopped chewing at her lip. ‘What?’

  Alex’s chest was thudding. Ted’s truck had just rolled past the kitchen window towards his spot next to the workshop and Alex had just loosed a conversational monster for him to walk in on. ‘He’s no good for you, Jem.’

  ‘What? Mal’s a good friend, Alex. You sound just like Dad, you know that?’

  ‘Maybe Dad has good reason, Jem.’

  Jem straightened. ‘For not liking Mal? No, he hasn’t actually, Alex. I know Dad’s going through the mill, but Mal’s a good guy. He hasn’t done anything to make anyone have any reason to take a shot at him. And if anyone’s going to try and criticise him to me, they’d better have their facts straight.’

  Jem tensed her jaw. Alex had expected some resistance but she hadn’t expected a full on defence from the outset. Alex felt a flicker of something angry and unpleasant. Jem wasn’t even trying to hide how she felt about him. About Millie’s husband.

  ‘He’s married.’ Alex slapped a hand on the table.

  Jem grimaced. ‘And?’

  ‘Nice, Jem. Really nice work.’

  Jem slapped the carrot peeler onto the draining board. ‘What the hell do you mean by that?’

  ‘I like Millie. And what about Alfie? Doesn’t it bother you?’ Alex was hoping to appeal to Jem’s sense of honour, get a result before she had to bring out the big guns and be brutally, mortifyingly honest. But Jem wasn’t playing ball.

  ‘I like Millie too. And Alfie’s a great kid.’

  ‘You’ve been sneaking around with him, Jem!’

  ‘What?’ Jem looked busted. ‘How do you know that?’

  ‘Oh, come on, Jem! I saw you, in Mal’s front room. You were pretty cosy in there, giggling and sipping wine while Millie wasn’t home, and Mal never said a word! Your own sister turns up and he doesn’t even say a word about you being inside the house! I know you’ve been seeing him, Jem. That’s why he never speaks when I answer the phone, isn’t it? Because the two of you have been meeting up in secret and I might recognise his voice!’ That still didn’t explain Millie’s part in covering for Jem but Alex was already set in motion. She could suss out the loose ends later.

  Jem looked stunned. ‘You’re right, Miss Marple. We have. But you’re mental if you think I’ve been seeing seeing Mal. Are you nuts? Mal?

  Jem looked genuinely shocked at the prospect. Well she could look as shocked and stunned as she liked. Alex wasn’t falling for it. She wasn’t falling for anyone’s face value ever again thanks to Susannah Finn’s revelations about their dad’s extra-marital activities.

  ‘What’s the big news then, Jem? What’s the big deal Mum’s not up to hearing, if not that you’ve been knocking off your old boyfriend?’

  Jem laughed. ‘Mal was never my boyfriend!’

  ‘Mum saw you both! Snogging once outside Frobisher’s!’ There, definitive proof.

  OK, so that evidence was a bit shaky but Alex had still knocked her sister off course, she could see that. Jem wasn’t nervously clinging to the carrot any more, she was squinting, trying to piece something together in her head. Boots were coming up the path. Alex glanced towards the hallway.

  ‘Mal was never my boyfriend, Alex. Believe it or don’t, that’s up to you. But it’s good to know that if you disapproved of my choice in partner, you’d go right on ahead and tell me so.’

  ‘Stop waving that carrot at me. So you’re saying, you haven’t been holding out for Mal all these years? That he isn’t your sodding lightning bolt?’ Alex’s skin wanted to crawl off and run away every time she suggested it.

  ‘I haven’t been holding out for Mal,’ Jem said coldly.

  ‘So why haven’t you ever brought anyone home to meet Mum and Dad?’

  ‘Why haven’t you, Alex! Oh yes, that’s right, because you’re not really crazy about Finn are you Al? And you’re not really too much of a wimp to do something about it.’

  Norma toddled along the hallway to the front door. Alex heard her dad making sounds of encouragement as he shuffled into the hallway past her. Jem turned back to the sink. Alex rattily lifted her teacup back to her face. They would always break a fight before their dad got a chance to wade in. It was easier for sisters to keep a dispute going if no one tried to moderate it.

  Ted moved across the hallway into the kitchen doorway. ‘Evening.’ He gave Alex a glance, the first since she’d flipped out in the middle of his backgammon game, but Alex couldn’t match it without picturing Mal’s mother and him so she looked at the breadsticks instead. ‘I’m just going to go get washed up.’

  Jem turned and watched him go up the stairs from the sink. Some of the annoyed colour Alex had put in her cheeks had faded to a pale, sickly pallor. Jem didn’t look so confident all of a sudden, like all the fight had just leaked out of her. She rubbed at the pink skin on her face.

  ‘You’ll make it worse. You should ask Mum what she used when she had beard rash,’ Alex said sourly.

  Jem looked at Alex. ‘Beard rash? It’s my eczema, Alex. It always flares up when I get stressed.’

  Eczema? ‘So what are you stressed about, Jem?’ Alex asked accusingly.

  Jem looked back to the stairs. She pushed both hands through her hair and braced herself against the sink behind her. Jem took in a breath like one of these free-divers Alex couldn’t fathom. ‘It’s not Mal who’s be
en hanging up on you, Alex. It’s my boss.’

  Alex felt herself grimace. ‘Your boss? Why would your boss hang up on me?’

  ‘Not just you, Dad a few times too. I know, it’s hardly a great start, but … well, I told George not to call the house in case you answered but the phone reception up here is totally shit so—’

  ‘You’re having an affair, with your boss?’ The relief flooded Alex’s veins like one of those lovely warm sedatives they gave you at the dentist.

  ‘What’s with all the affairs, Alex? Jesus Christ. Not an affair,’ Jem hissed in exasperation. ‘We’re in a serious, MONOGAMOUS, relationship, OK?’

  ‘But not with Mal?’ Alex established with mirthful relief.

  ‘Yuck, no. I think Mal’s really great, I do. But that would be like … I don’t know, I imagine a lot like going out with my own brother.’ Jem grimaced. Alex wanted to jump on her and lock her in a grateful embrace. A whole horizon of damage limitation was opening out before her, Jem might not even have to know about their dad’s and Louisa Sinclair, Alex could spare her from it, save her the hurt. And then another thought made its return.

  ‘But, you were over at Mal’s, Jem. I saw you in there. And you’ve been out, nearly every night, Jem.’

  Jem came to the table and slipped into the chair beside Alex’s. She clasped her hands together and tapped them to her mouth like they used to when they were supposed to be praying in assembly. ‘Mal and Millie have been letting me and George relax over at their place. George turned up here in the Falls last week. It wasn’t the plan but George wanted to support me while Mum’s so poorly and by the time I knew anything about it …’

  ‘George is here?’ What an old romantic. ‘So where is he? Where’s he staying?’

  Jem breathed steady. ‘Over at the Longhouse.’

  Alex ran through all the guests she’d seen there. Someone old enough to head up a big jewellery designer. Someone stylish and attractive, staying at the Longhouse alone. Alex frowned. Boiled egg man? Alex tried to picture Jem eating a boiled egg across the table from the guy who’d tucked his napkin into his shirt. Who even wore a shirt on a weekend away? No matter. Boiled egg man was a stratospheric step up from Malcolm. Even if he did hang up on people.

  ‘So when do we get to meet the elusive George?’

  ‘Soon. I hope. Only … did Dad look wiped out to you? Just now? I don’t think tonight’s the night to go into this.’

  A diversion was probably what they all needed. ‘Jem? You’re talking yourself out of it. Why?’ Alex heard an unimpressed voice through her head. Why did you talk yourself out of staying with Finn yesterday, Alex?

  Jem swallowed and rubbed at her raw skin again. Alex felt a sudden pang of guilt. Was Finn a diversion too? Was Alex going to keep him a secret until she broke out in a nervous skin condition?

  Jem put her hands in her pockets so she wouldn’t rub her face any more. ‘I’m not sure that George is going to be everyone’s cup of tea.’

  CHAPTER 50

  Alex pulled around the Longhouse and parked up next to several more cars that hadn’t been here before the bank holiday weekend. ‘Goddamn tourists are already descending like one of the great plagues. That’s the traffic shot to shit,’ her dad had complained before Alex had made her excuses and gone to bed early last night.

  It was an odd feeling, being the angry one. It didn’t make honouring her promise to her mother any more straightforward though. Odder still was that her dad seemed to be making an effort again. Was it possible that she’d actually shamed him the other night at The Cavern? Last night, before the complaining about the tourists had started, he’d actually stretched to a couple of conversations about the weekend’s festivities in the town – who was odds on favourite to win the boat race, how much Hamish would charge for his authentic mead – as Jem had shovelled salad onto their plates with the same ashen expression she’d had when their dad had first walked in through the door. This George of hers had to be a big deal. Jem hadn’t stopped fidgeting the whole time in case Alex brought it up, she could tell. Jem’s eyes had darted towards Alex, nervous and birdlike, on the few occasions Alex had bothered to speak.

  ‘Morning, Alex.’

  Emma Parsons was stepping across the lawn from the back of the Longhouse, a basket of laundry under her arm closely followed by Poppy and a peg bag.

  ‘Hi.’ Alex climbed out of her truck. ‘How are you?’

  Emma set the basket down. ‘Good, thanks.’

  ‘Where’s the baby?’

  ‘Susannah’s spoiling her with cuddles.’ Emma looked down and set a hand on Poppy’s head. ‘It was all a bit hectic at breakfast Friday, I still haven’t had a chance to thank you, Alex.’

  Alex batted it away. ‘The quiche was amazing, Emma.’

  ‘I meant, in person. Properly.’

  Alex looked at Poppy’s big wide eyes and hoped again that she hadn’t brought any more trouble to the Parsons’ door. ‘I didn’t do anything, Emma. Finn was the only one of any use.’

  Emma smiled crookedly. She looked like Poppy when she smiled, the same way Jem looked like Dad when she laughed. ‘Finn and Susannah, they’ve both been really great to us.’

  ‘They are really great,’ Alex agreed. Was it wrong that she felt more at ease here than back at the farmhouse? Was that still her fault? Her dad having an affair didn’t cancel out all the hurt Alex had caused their family.

  Gina, leggy and lithe, skipped down the lawns from the barn and walked around the Longhouse up towards the high street. Long dark hair flowed behind her and Alex remembered how shocked she’d been when Finn had made the first move behind the waterfall. He could have anyone he wanted and Alex was awkward and complicated, not at all like Gina. Gina threw a wave over to Alex and Emma while simultaneously slipping a slender arm through her backpack.

  ‘I used to have a bum like that.’ Emma smiled. ‘Before children.’

  Alex got another look at Gina’s toned legs, an even brown beneath a little khaki skirt.

  ‘You still have, Emma. Must be all that walking to the hospital. How’s your husband?’

  Emma smiled fiercely at Poppy who was crouched between her knees scouring the lawn for daisies to put in her peg bag. ‘He won’t be home for a while yet.’

  ‘What about you, will you be going home for a while yet?’

  Emma folded her arms around herself protectively. ‘Our friend will be back at some point,’ she said, carefully watching that Poppy didn’t catch on. ‘And when he does come, what happened last week, it’s going to be expensive. One way or another it will.’

  ‘Emma, tell Malcolm everything, he’ll be able to help. Our family have known him a long time, he’s a good guy.’ Alex’s confidence in Malcolm wasn’t completely restored but she sounded convincing for Emma’s benefit. Jem had offered up this George character as her only supporting argument that there wasn’t anything untoward going on with Mal. And it should have been enough, Alex knew that. But her dad’s infidelity had thrown her. Until this George materialised, in the flesh, Alex was holding off a fraction.

  Emma was looking intently at Poppy. She caught Alex watching her and smiled. ‘People, problems, like that don’t go away, Alex. Not without either a lot of money, or some sort of divine intervention. And we don’t have either.’

  Alex chewed at the inside of her cheek. ‘Officer Sinclair might be able to help, Emma,’ Alex tried.

  Emma sighed deeply. Her eyes had turned glassy. ‘Why is it, there is so much tragedy in this world, children being hurt, good people suffering, and yet bullies like Mr Mason get to roam the earth completely unchallenged? Terrible things happen to people every day. Why don’t people like him ever get hit by a … by a …’ Emma waved her hand around looking for the words, ‘… a bolt of lightning?’

  Alex had thought the same thing a thousand times. Where was the balance her mum believed in?

  ‘I don’t know, Emma. But how are you going to be able to go home again?’

  Emma
looked like so many of the mothers Alex had seen at the food bank. Unsure of the next move, unready to think that far ahead, just grateful for a momentary reprieve and some small semblance of kindness from strangers.

  ‘Susannah said we can stay for as long as we need. I’m trying to do a few jobs around the place to help out. She has got a lot on with the festival tomorrow. Hopefully she’s glad I’m here.’

  ‘I’m sure she is.’

  The doors off the back extension went again and the hard-boiled egg man stepped out. Was this George? Jem’s George? Everyone else Alex had noticed here was paired or grouped up. Hard-boiled egg man was the only lone ranger. If Alex was honest about it, part of her reason for coming this morning was to get a good look at him. Alex watched him quickly scurry to catch up with Gina. Emma was watching him too.

  ‘Some city type. He’s been sniffing around that woman since he arrived.’ Ah, another ladies’ man, thought Alex. T’riffic. She hoped Jem hadn’t chosen a bad egg.

  Alex cocked her head. ‘I didn’t catch his name at breakfast Friday. George, is it?’ She was probing. Well she was allowed, it was what sisters did, wasn’t it?

  ‘No, it’s Craig.’

  ‘Craig?’

  ‘Definitely Craig. I remember because it’s my brother-in-law’s name.’

  Alex did another mental recap of Susannah’s house guests for an eligible bachelor she might’ve missed.

  ‘Oh, I was sure I heard Susannah mention George in the breakfast room.’ Alex was a rubbish liar.

  Emma gave it a second or two’s thought, probably out of politeness. ‘No, don’t think so. I helped her with the booking diary this morning. She needed everyone’s car registrations inputting under their room numbers. Definitely no Georges.’

  ‘A puppy!’ Poppy squealed, peering in through Alex’s truck window. Norma began scrambling at the open window. ‘Can she come out so I can stroke her, please?’