by Sasha Greene
She looked across at Lily and Sandra, both sitting right next to her.
‘Are you sure you don’t want me to do it, dear?’ Lily’s tone was gentle. ‘I could do it tonight. When he’s not at work.’
Jade shook her head. It had to be done. And now, so that it was done as soon as possible.
She pressed the button. The phone rang on the other end.
‘Jade?’ Nick’s voice was hesitant. She hated the hope that was in his voice. Of course, he would be hoping that she’d changed her mind.
‘Nick. Hi. Are you somewhere you can talk?’
‘Wait. Hang on.’ She heard rustling noises. ‘I’m just heading out into the corridor. Give me a sec.’
She waited, heart thumping, as the sound of a door opened and closed.
‘Right, I’m good. What is it? Is everything OK?’
‘Nick, I’m really sorry. It’s Archie. He had a heart attack last night.’
There was more rustling. ‘Sorry, I’m just sitting down on the stairs.’ Nick’s voice sounded suddenly tired. ‘Is he OK?’
Jade winced. ‘No. No. He’s not OK. I’m sorry, Nick, but he’s gone.’
She felt Lily squeeze her hand and Jade squeezed back, grateful the older woman was there to support her.
‘God. That’s awful. I only saw him two days ago. And he looked fine.’
‘Yeah. I know. It’s been a bit of a shock for everyone.’
There was a pause, as if Nick was digesting the news. ‘He did have a pretty good run.’ His voice was suddenly tight, as if he was struggling to hold back his emotions.
‘Yeah.’ Jade suddenly wished she was sitting beside him on the stairs. ‘Look, the funeral’s on Wednesday morning next week. Can you get time off work to go? I know he would have wanted you to be there.’
‘Uhm.’ There was another pause. ‘I’ll ask. I don’t think it’ll be a problem.’
He was silent for a moment. ‘Look, I really need to get back to work, OK?’
‘I’ll call you tonight when I get a break from work,’ Jade promised.
‘Look, really, thanks, but there’s no need.’ Nick had switched back into his professional mode, and she knew he was steeling himself to go back into the office. ‘I’ll see you at the funeral. Can you text me the details of where it’s going to be?’
‘Sure.’ Jade nodded, forgetting he couldn’t see her. ‘I’ll send them as soon as I have them.’ She hung up.
‘How did he take it?’ Lily sounded slightly anxious. It was just like her to be thinking about someone else, even though she had just lost her closest friend.
Jade frowned. ‘I don’t know. It’s always hard to tell over the phone.’ She threw it onto the sofa in disgust. ‘I hate these things sometimes.’
Lily’s arm went around her shoulders, while Sandra rose, heading towards the door. ‘I’m going to make a pot of tea.’
Tea, thought Jade gratefully. Everything always looked better from the bottom of a cup of tea.
Nick had thought that the funeral would be held in a church, but it turned out Archie’s humanist ceremony was going to be held in a community centre. Nick arrived just a few minutes before it was due to start, hoping to disappear at the back, but Jade was watching out for him and had saved him a seat next to her and her parents, who nodded to him, smiling, as he sat down. Lily was just across the aisle.
Five minutes in Nick knew that Archie had spent quite some time organising his own ceremony. It was just so … him. Mainly conventional, just a little bit quirky. Lily got up and gave a speech about him. Someone else read a poem. But the adapted song about a Scotsman who went a yodelling, while pictures of Archie climbing mountains flashed up on a big screen, made everyone laugh, and Nick knew the old man had done it on purpose.
He had the photo of Archie in his jacket pocket. Surely the family would want it now. He would give it back to them at the reception.
The family went off to see the body cremated, and the hall was quickly rearranged for the reception. There were sandwiches and amazing scones It was a pretty impressive spread. Jade found him hiding in a corner and dragged him out. ‘Come and meet the family. They’ll be happy that you’re here.’
She introduced him to a middle-aged couple, who shook his hand politely.
‘Nick used to take Archie out on our Saturday outings,’ Jade explained.
‘Oh. How kind of you to come. Uncle Archie really looked forward to those outings.’ The woman looked tired, Nick thought. Her voice was remote, as if she was just going through the motions.
‘Nick visited Archie not long before he died.’ Jade was being helpful again. Nick just wanted to get out of there as fast as he could. All through the funeral he had kept telling himself that he didn’t have any right to be upset, that at ninety-two death was only to be expected, but it hadn’t done anything to plug his crushing sense of loss. And now his emotions were threatening to overwhelm him.
‘Yeah. We were going through some of his old photos. Actually—’ Nick reached his hand into his breast pocket.
‘Oh, I’m afraid they’ve all gone now. We just don’t have the room for them at home. Not with the two of them still at home.’ She nodded to where two lanky young men, who looked maybe just a couple of years younger than himself, sprawled on chairs near the window, clearly bored by the whole thing. ‘We had to throw everything out. All his clothes went to the charity shop though.’
Nick froze, then gently placed the photo back into the safety of his pocket. ‘Ah. Yes. I can understand.’ Inside his mind was racing. They had chucked away all of Archie’s photos? All of his personal memories? All his hopes, of being able to continue his connection with the old man through his family, were suddenly in tatters. He had to go before he said something that he would regret later.
He said a polite goodbye to the couple and wandered towards the door. Jade grabbed his arm. ‘Where are you going?’
He turned towards her. ‘I need to get back to work. Say goodbye to your parents and Lily for me.’
But Jade insisted on dragging him off to see them. They all gave him hugs and told him how glad they were to see him.
Jade came with him to the door, and they stood outside for a few minutes, despite the light drizzle falling.
‘Are you OK?’
He looked at her. ‘Honestly? I don’t know. I think, in the grand scheme of things, then yes. But day to day?’ He ran a hand through his hair, which was getting slightly damp. ‘I think I’m going to go home for a bit. If I can take some time off work. Just get a bit of perspective on things.’
‘That sounds like a good idea.’ Jade smiled at him.
On a sudden impulse he pulled her in for a hug. She came willingly into his arms but didn’t stay long before she stepped away. ‘You take care of yourself, OK?’
‘OK.’ He took one last look at her before turning off down the street.
Back in work, the usual office banter was somewhat muted, as if the creases of his carefully-pressed suit made them all aware that life was short.
He made his way across to his boss’s office, who looked up as he knocked on the open glass door.
‘Ah, Nick. My condolences.’
Nick didn’t really know what to say in response. ‘Erm …’ He hesitated, then gathered himself together. ‘I was thinking, I’d really like to take a couple of weeks off sometime fairly soon, if that’s possible. I mean, I haven’t had a holiday since Christmas. And I’d really like to go home and see my parents.’
The other man nodded sympathetically. ‘Let me just pull up the leave spreadsheet.’ He fiddled around on his computer for what seemed like an age. ‘Actually, if you want to take next week and the week after that, I think we could cover you.’
The response surprised Nick. ‘Really?’
Another nod. ‘Yes. That means we’ll have you back before the school holidays start. When everyone else wants to be off.’
‘OK. I mean, that would be great.’ Nick brushed aside the idea that
he was obviously bottom of the office food chain. He would be home by Saturday night. He’d have to give his parents a call. They’d be thrilled. And Jamie as well. It would be great to see him too.
He felt like skipping back to his desk but restrained himself, anxious not to let his colleagues realise how happy he was at the idea of being away from the office for two whole weeks.
Chapter 19
Saturdays were always tricky now. Jade hadn’t realised quite how much she’d enjoyed spending time with Nick until she’d given it up. Even on the days that she hadn’t seen him, his messages had buoyed her up.
The weather had been beautiful, and they’d invited a few of their friends over for a barbeque, which had been fun. But now her dad was out at work, and her mum had gone out for a drink with some friends. Jade was sitting on the kitchen doorstep, sipping a cool glass of lemonade, watching the early evening sun filter through next door’s tree, and feeling miserable.
She heard the doorbell ring inside the house. That would be next door but one, come to pick up the hat their two-year-old had left behind by accident. She carefully positioned her glass on the step, picked up the hat and went to answer it.
It wasn’t who she was expecting. Instead, Carina stood there, looking gorgeous in a pair of pink hot pants and a white t-shirt. Her long brown hair was swept up in its usual effortless style, and a pair of sunglasses rested on the top of her head. Jade took all this in, even as she started to close the door.
‘No, wait, please, JJ.’
Something in her friend’s tone arrested Jade’s movement. Instead she glared at her. ‘You’ve got a nerve. Coming round our house like this.’
‘Look. I’m sorry. I’ll go. I promise. But I couldn’t go a day longer without giving you this.’ Carina stepped forward and held out a package, wrapped in a white plastic bag.
Jade took it gingerly and unwrapped it. And as soon as she saw it, she knew what it was. She was looking at Ruby’s diary.
‘Oh my God. Where did you find it? I looked everywhere for this.’
Carina shifted her weight, as if it was a tale that made uncomfortable telling. ‘It’s a long story.’
Jade looked at her for one long minute, then nodded. ‘You’d better come in.’
Something in Carina’s stance shifted, as if she hadn’t expected Jade to capitulate. ‘Thanks.’
Jade held the door open for her as she passed. ‘Go through to the back. There are chairs outside. D’you want a drink?’ She was delaying with the social niceties, she realised, to give herself time to regain her mental composure.
‘Yeah. Thanks. That’d be great.’
Jade took the lemonade from the fridge and went to pour a large glassful. She found herself trying to do it with the book still clasped in her fingers, and gently put it down on the worktop. It felt almost like a physical wrench to let go of it. She had looked repeatedly for her sister’s diary, in those days afterwards, hoping that it might hold some clue as to why she’d done what she had. But when she couldn’t find it, she had been forced to conclude that Ruby had tossed it somewhere, wanting to get rid of it. And to think that Carina had been holding onto it all this time! She supposed she should be angry, but she couldn’t find it in her. Anyway, it was herself she should be angry at really. She was the one who had fobbed Carina off for so long. And this wasn’t the time for anger. It was time for questions.
Carina had dropped her bag and sat down on one of the faded red wooden chairs. Jade set the glass on the table next to her and retired to the step where she had been sitting only a few minutes earlier.
Carina took a long swig from her lemonade. ‘Thanks. That’s amazing.’ She set the glass back on the table. ‘First, I want to tell you, I was going to give that back to you at Ruby’s funeral.’ She grimaced, as if even the memory was painful to her. ‘I didn’t find it until that morning, just before we were leaving. I was helping Dad put on his cufflinks for his posh shirt, and one of them fell out of my hand and bounced right under the sofa. It was when I was looking for that then I found her diary. She must have just slid it under the sofa and either forgotten it or left it there because she wanted to get rid of it.’
‘But how the hell did it get in your house anyway? This is her private diary. She used to keep it locked in her top drawer.’ Jade was genuinely puzzled.
Carina shifted in her seat. ‘She came, that night.’ Her blue eyes seemed to flatten as she spoke, as if the weight of what had happened was dulling their spark. ‘It was gone eleven. I was pretty unimpressed, because I had that heavy cold and I was just about to go to bed. But something made me open the door to her. She said she’d tried to call you, but you weren’t answering your phone. She thought I might know where you were.’
The thought that her little sister had tried to come and find her that night was like a twist of a knife in Jade’s stomach. She leaned back against the doorframe, closing her eyes. It all made so much sense now. Ruby had known that she had three or four favourite places for a night out in town. Had probably gone to check them and found nothing. After all, how was her sister to know that they had gone to try out a new swanky cocktail place in Merchant City? And from town, it was only a ten-minute walk to the bridge.
She opened her eyes. Carina was waiting patiently for her. Was that tears she could see in the other girl’s eyes?
‘Why didn’t you tell me that she had come to see you?’ Jade demanded.
Carina sighed. ‘Honestly, I had no idea what she was going to do. I mean, she seemed pretty upset, but I never thought she would go that far.’
Another realisation dawned on Jade. ‘We never told you about the episode with the pills two weeks before that.’
‘Oh God.’ Carina put her hands over her mouth. She leaned forward. ‘I swear, if I’d known about that I would have never let her go. I would have called your parents. Or the police. Or anyone.’
Jade rubbed her forehead. ‘I know. We should have told you. But Mum and Dad were pretty ashamed about the whole thing. They thought they’d failed her in some way.’
She picked up the book from her lap. ‘And you were going to give this back to me, and then I acted like an idiot.’ She winced as she remembered how she had gone apeshit at her friend, calling her all sorts of names. Shouting that she never wanted to see her again. Going in for a swing at her and having to be restrained by her dad. Now that the anger was finally gone, the memory made her blush.
‘But why did you say what you did?’ Jade pressed her hands to her still-burning cheeks. Maybe she could blame it on the sunshine. ‘It really hurt.’
Carina came to sit beside her on the step. ‘I said it because of what she told me that night. My next words after that, if you’d have let me get them out at the time,’ she smiled wryly sideways at Jade, ‘were that I wasn’t surprised, because of all the online abuse she was getting.’
It took Jade a moment to take in what she was saying and then it suddenly registered. ‘She was getting trolled?’
Carina nodded. ‘And not just trolled. Trolled to the point of harassment. She showed me some of the tweets. They were pretty awful.’
‘Shit.’ Jade went to take another sip of her own lemonade, but it was suddenly too sweet for her and she set it aside, feeling like she wanted to throw up. ‘I mean, there was all that stuff with the bullying at school, but Mum and Dad went in and sorted all that out. That was ages before that. I didn’t even know she had a Twitter account.’
Jade wrapped her arms around her knees. ‘She used to post a lot of photos on Instagram. And Mum and Dad would check that regularly, after what had happened at school. It was never that bad. Just the odd snarky comment, but never that bad.’ She pulled the band out of her hair, letting it fall over her shoulders, massaging her scalp with her fingertips.
Carina pointed at the book. ‘I haven’t read it. I was really tempted a couple of times, but it seemed rude somehow.’ She looked sideways at Jade. ‘Really tempted. Especially after that banshee act you pulled.
’
Jade’s face flamed again. ‘I’m sorry about that.’ Then she looked at Carina and noticed a tiny upturn at the corner of her mouth and decided to risk some humour. ‘I wouldn’t really say banshee. More like harpy maybe.’
Carina laughed. A slightly nervous laugh. And Jade realised how hard it must have been for her friend to come here, not knowing how she would react. She reached over and touched her gently on the arm. ‘Thanks. For braving the harpy to come here.’
‘And your mum.’ Carina was unrepentant. ‘My dad says he’s never been so scared in all his life when your mum called up to tell him to tell me not to contact you anymore.’
‘What’s this, Make Jade Feel Guilty Day?’ Jade grumbled, sweeping her hair back up into its usual messy knot. ‘Why, what did she say?’
Carina shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I gather she was very polite. But very firm. But he did say she scared the shit out of him.’
And Jade was finally able to laugh, something she thought she would never be able to do in the circumstances. ‘Sorry about that. She did offer to do it, and to be honest, I was such a mess I was happy to let her. After all, I’d just lost my little sister and my best friend. What was I supposed to do?’
It was Carina’s turn to touch Jade on the arm this time, and Jade looked up at her, surprised.
‘I’d just lost my little sister and my best friend too. Can you blame me for trying as hard as I could to get one of them back?’
Jade felt her eyes stinging. With Carina being an only child, and her mother gone, she supposed that Ruby and herself had been pretty much like sisters. She just hadn’t thought about how much she might mean to her friend.
Carina stood up, brushing down the back of her shorts. ‘I’ve got to get home, or Dad will be wondering where I’ve got to. I’ll leave you to read it.’ She picked up her bag and turned, the sunlight winking off her hair as she did so. ‘Thanks for seeing me.’
Jade almost went to give her a hug, but the weight of the past year still hung between them. Still, it was slowly fading, she could tell. She settled for a kiss on the cheek. ‘I’ll text you. I promise.’