“I miss your cock.”
The embarrassment is total, as if someone’s poured scalding water over her head. Without hesitation, without worrying whether she can be heard, she flees outside. Then, horrified by the thought that Joe might hear her, she races up the outside stairs to her bedroom. Thank God the door’s unlocked. She can pretend she’s been in here for ages, come downstairs and surprise him. She wishes she could take her brain out and scrub it.
I miss your cock. That’s not sweet, that’s disgusting. No, it’s not, she’s being a child. If anyone’s disgusting, it’s her, for listening in. They’re adults. Of course they do more than hold hands and kiss. But still, did he have to say… She shies away from the words. Stop being such a child. It’s not gross. It’s not gross. It’s not. But she somehow hadn’t thought of her uncle as…
Are they still on the phone to each other? What would she have heard if she’d stayed there longer? I miss your cock. Was that the start of them having phone sex? Is her uncle in the kitchen right now, his belt unbuckled, his jeans unfastened, one hand on his phone and the other on his… She squeezes her eyes tight and wills herself not to think about it.
Her bed has been remade, the sheets crisp and fragrant, the quilt smoothed perfectly into place. She’ll concentrate on that, not on the awful thing she overheard and definitely not on what Luca said, but on the nice thing Joe’s done for her. She’ll lie here on the quilt, maybe even have a little sleep, and then by the time she goes downstairs, she’ll be able to forget all about it.
On the edge of sleep, her mind wanders to her parents. What might they be doing, in the secret darkness of their home with no need to worry about waking their daughters?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“It’s so quiet here without you.”
Hearing her mother talk is like a caress of her hair, like a kiss on her forehead. Willow closes her eyes and lets the words flow over her.
“Your dad and I have had to start having proper conversations.” Her mother’s laugh sounds easy and natural, as if she’s been doing more of it recently. “Just the two of us, all by ourselves. I thought we might have forgotten how. We talked about politics last night. Can you believe it?”
In the time before, there were sometimes family Sunday lunches where – instead of brief exchanges about what film they might watch later and whose job it was to clear the table – they would have proper conversations. A proper conversation involved the exchange of real and serious views, about life and death and healthcare and euthanasia and US politics and the gender pay gap. In a proper conversation, everyone’s opinions were valued, and the phrases because I’m the adult here or that’s just you being old were never spoken. A proper conversation meant a chance to discover that, as well as loving each other as family, they also liked each other as people. A proper conversation couldn’t be engineered or planned for; it could only happen spontaneously, thanks to some strange confluence of time and inclination and the right question being asked at the right time. There had been no proper conversations since The Day.
“It made me realise,” her mother said, as if she’s following the same path as Willow. “We haven’t really talked properly since… since Laurel died. I’ve missed that so much.”
And then I stopped talking all together. Willow aches with longing.
“Do you remember the time Laurel asked your dad if he got paid twenty per cent more than his female colleagues? And you said he ought to tell them what he earned, so they could compare and see if they were being underpaid?”
The memory swims upwards like a fish. She remembers sunlight pouring through the window, and the scent of the jug of daffodils on the table, the blooms going over and pungent with pollen. She remembers she and Laurel simultaneously realising they had their father on the ropes. Yeah, Dad, you should do that. It’d be brilliant. I mean, you don’t think we should get twenty per cent less just because we have vaginas, do you? So stand up for your colleagues! Be an ally. You’ll be our hero. And the look on their father’s face. Boxed into a corner by experts, or maybe just a man who knew he was outnumbered. His quick glance towards their mother, wondering if he was allowed to call them out for saying vagina.
“She was so fierce,” her mother says. “You both were.” She catches herself. “I mean… I mean—”
But what does her mother mean? Willow closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to talk about Laurel. She only wants to hear her mother speaking to her.
“Anyway. Joe says you’ve made friends with a local boy who lives on a farm, is that right?”
She’s been trying not to give Luca any headspace at all. A local boy who lives on a farm. Made friends. It sounds so healthy, so wholesome. Nothing at all like the sick-sweet feeling in her chest and stomach when she was near him. It’s probably for the best that she hasn’t seen him since he walked away from her that day.
“I couldn’t work out if he meant friend or, you know, friend,” her mother continues. “I mean, I know you probably wouldn’t want to tell us anyway.”
Identical twins in their teens. In the days before, she and Laurel were uneasily conscious of the seedy half-formed fantasies their doubled nature provoked, growing and swelling like an underground tuber. The questions, from strangers sharing the same train journey or standing behind them in a queue or even selling them popcorn at the cinema: Do you ever pretend to be each other? Do you wear each other’s clothes? If one of you showed up to the other one’s date, would your boyfriend know the difference? It had made them both wary of the boys who asked them out; they were never quite sure if it was their singular, different selves, or their doubled nature, that had pricked the boys’ interest. She remembers Luca in the woods, the astonished joy when he first saw the photograph.
“It’s all right to be happy, you know.”
The unexpected words jolt Willow’s gut so that she lets out a little gasp of surprise.
“Willow? Sweetie? Did you—?”
If she could speak, what would she say?
“Happiness is so precious,” her mother continues at last. “I know nothing’s the same without Laurel. We’ll all miss her every day of our lives, and that’s never going to stop. But we have to learn to carry that, find ways to be happy alongside all that grief. Because there’s so much life still left to live, and I want – we want – you to have it all, all the lovely things you can still have.”
But we’re not going out, Willow thinks. I’m not even going to see him again. He’s a complete dickhead. If you knew…
“And I know Laurel would want you to be happy,” her mother continues.
Would she, though? If she’d died and Laurel had lived, would she have been okay about Laurel going on without her? Each day takes Willow further away, as if they were taking a train journey and Laurel got off at an earlier station. One thing she’s sure of: Laurel would have hated Luca.
The sky outside’s growing dusky, but the curtains aren’t closed yet. If Willow opens her eyes, Laurel will look back at her from the windowpane.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Right.” Joe straightens the corner of the tablecloth and minutely arranges a fork. “The table’s laid. The salad’s ready for dressing. The cheese is out of the fridge. We’re good.” He catches Willow watching him and gives her a wink. “Never ask a gay man to host lunch. We’re a nightmare.”
But at least you know where to get all the best deli meats, she thinks. Would this be too rude to say out loud? Maybe it’s a good thing she can’t speak. Joe’s smile is bright and innocent. She’d never have guessed at that other side of him, the man who hunched urgently over the phone and murmured his longing across the distance between the two of them.
No, she thinks. Think about something else. She neatens the cheeses on their flat slate platter, and turns the jars filled with three different kinds of chutney so the labels are aligned.
What’s the matter with her? She’s started to adopt Joe’s habits: tidying things that are already tidy enough, assignin
g places for objects she’s previously left lying wherever she last finished using them, wiping every surface she sees then washing her hands afterwards. Her bedroom looks almost as unused as the day she first came. Cleaning and tidying has begun to feel like a ritual, and the farmhouse has begun to feel like another world, somewhere she visited once but will not go back to again; the pigs in their mudbath, the hens and geese roaming the yard, the clever suspicious faces of the goats. Every part of Katherine’s home teemed with life, leaving you smeared in it, coated in it, grimy with it. Did she really chase goats round the farmyard and hold one of the kids in her arms? Has she imagined the sprawl of cats by the huge enamel stove, reaching their arms out and stretching their long bellies for her to stroke?
Did Luca wrap his fingers around her wrist and rest the sharp points of the pickle fork against her skin, whispering threats that sounded like promises?
No, she thinks. Think about something else. Her mind serves up an image of a goose flinging itself across the yard, hissing and flapping its wings, and Katherine grabbing it effortlessly by the neck and saying firmly, “No, you don’t. Go on with you.” And after a minute the goose calmed down again and retreated to a corner, where it consoled itself by pecking viciously at another goose that happened to be walking past. Did that really happen? Or did she make it up? She won’t go back again – Luca has seen to that – but there’s a special pleasure in turning over her memories like a stone in her pocket. Her room here is beautiful, her Uncle Joe is kind and loving, but there’s still something missing.
(Of course there’s something bloody missing. Laurel is here, and she’s not pleased. Are you forgetting me?
For God’s sake, not everything’s about you! Willow’s shocked by her own anger; she forces herself to breathe through it and let it go. I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean that. I only meant this place is so… so…)
What is the word she’s looking for? She almost had it, but now it’s gone again. Staring at Joe, humming to himself as he arranges crackers on a plate and absent-mindedly rubbing a water stain off the edge of the sink with one finger, she has the sense that despite his cheerful little song, he’s not relaxed at all. He’s coiled up tight inside his own skin, making preparations, holding himself ready and alert. Waiting.
Well, of course he’s waiting. They’ve got visitors due any minute. But then, why is he like this all the time?
And then Katherine and Luca arrive, with the suddenness that comes when there’s no crunch of car wheels to announce you. Katherine wears a pretty pink tea dress with roses printed on it, incongruously teamed with tall green wellies. Luca trails reluctantly behind her in the masculine version of Willow’s own outfit. Skinny jeans and Converse trainers. A band t-shirt. A hoodie that he’ll defiantly describe as ‘my new one’ if anyone tells him he’s not dressed smartly enough. Does anyone tell him this? She can’t imagine Katherine fussing about someone else’s clothes.
“Hey, lovely lady. Sorry it’s been so long.” Joe holds his arms out to Katherine for an embrace.
“How are you?” Katherine hugs Joe tightly for a minute, then looks carefully into his face. “Not too lonely?”
“I’m fine.” Joe’s smile is sweet and confident. “It’s not for ever, you know. And I’ve got Willow keeping me company.”
Luca glances awkwardly at Willow, then looks away again. The quick word he mutters in her direction could be ‘hi’, but it’s over so fast it’s hard to be sure. She gives him a grudging nod, but she’s not sure he’s even looking. Instead he’s messing about with the positioning of his beanie hat, which he took off as soon as he came in and is now trying to put back on again without anyone noticing. Katherine takes off her wellies and replaces them with black silky-looking ballet pumps with fat ribbony roses on the toes, produced from her dress pocket like a magic trick. Her long grey-black hair fans out around her face. She looks surprisingly pretty.
“The pigs are coming on well,” she tells Joe. “Be ready to go soon.”
“They’re doing all right, then?”
“Happy as anything. Big fat porkers they are now. They’ll do you proud. I’ve got some kids about ready to go too. I’ll give Francis a call in a couple of weeks, so have a think about how you want them dressing.”
Joe laughs. “What would I know about dressing a pig? You pick, and I’ll go along with it and pay the bill.”
Joe and Katherine are easy and relaxed with each other, which makes up for the stubborn silence between Willow and Luca. Thank God no one’s suggested they go off and leave the adults to talk; thank God all they have to do is sit at the table and not look at each other. Joe pours tea for himself and Katherine. She hasn’t seen anyone use a teapot that she can remember in her entire life, and now she knows two people who seem to think it’s perfectly normal behaviour.
“There’s Coke and Diet Coke and various other awful fizzy things in the fridge,” Joe says to Luca. “Help yourself to whatever you want. Willow, do you want to show him what there is?”
She’s sure Luca is more than capable of opening the fridge door and looking inside, but she stands up anyway, and offers him a silent tour of the contents of the bottom drawers. The cans stand two-by-two, four each of everything. Luca chooses a can of Pepsi Max. Willow resists the urge to re-arrange the remaining cans to fill the space.
“What about you? Are you having one too?” He’s trying to catch her eye. Tough luck; she’s not interested. She takes a can of Fanta without looking at him, and sits back down at the table.
Despite the presence of two silent teenagers, the lunch is surprisingly not awkward. Joe and Katherine keep up an effortless flow of quiet conversation, talking about nothing in particular that Willow can put her finger on, just filling the air with a pleasant hum of words that make her faintly sleepy. She eats more cheese than she really wants, enjoying the salty crumble against her tongue, and takes an ambitious chunk from a white wax-paper-wrapped cylinder that sends up a pungent and faintly recognisable aroma.
“That’s goat’s cheese,” Joe says. “Made with the milk from Katherine’s herd.”
Willow hesitates over the crackers. She knows intellectually that all milk comes from lactating mammals, but this seems uncomfortably close to home.
“It’s all right,” Joe says. “You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want it.”
“Only cheese in the world that smells like the animal it comes from,” says Katherine. “That girl ate one of my pickled onions. She’ll manage a bit of goat’s cheese if she wants to.”
She isn’t sure she wants to, but she doesn’t want to let Katherine down, so she spreads a sliver of cheese onto a cracker and forces herself to eat it. Luca breaks into semi-sarcastic applause, blushes violently, and hides his head in the fridge in a quest for another can of Pepsi Max. Roll up, roll up, Willow thinks, and see the amazing Twinless Twin! She never speaks! She eats anything! Ladies and gentlemen, for your viewing pleasure…
“Are you both done?” Joe smiles at Luca and then at Willow in a kind but unmistakeable dismissal. “You don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to.”
Willow wants nothing more than to stay at the table and carry on ignoring Luca. She pushes her chair back and wonders whether she can possibly get away with going to her room, leaving Luca to fend for himself. It would be rude, but so what? He started it.
But Luca is standing by the back door and looking at her with such unguarded hope that she can’t make herself do it. This is such bullshit, she thinks. Why do I have to be nice to him when I don’t even like him?
“You know,” Luca says, as soon as they’re decently outside, “no offence, but your uncle’s very strange. Why’s he got a henhouse but no hens?”
Willow shrugs. She’s wondered the same thing, but she doesn’t want to hear Luca picking over it.
“And you know those two pigs, right? The ones in Katherine’s field? They’re his. But he gave them to Katherine.”
This time Willow doesn’t even both
er shrugging.
“Look,” Luca says. “I wanted to say…”
How good would it feel to tell him to forget it?
“I’m sorry if I was a bit of a twat the other day.”
Her stomach burns. If she had her voice she could shout him down.
“I mean, all right, I definitely was. And not a bit of a twat, a lot of a twat. I wouldn’t have made all those jokes about, like, killing the goats with a pitchfork and that. If I’d known, I mean.” His eyes snag on hers, then slide away again. “Not that I think that’s what happened to—”
She ought to be grateful for the effort he’s making, since this is clearly the worst conversation he’s had all year, but she only wants him to stop.
“And I wouldn’t have asked about you not talking. And I wouldn’t have made jokes about it – I mean, I shouldn’t have done anyway cos it’s not funny, but – and I shouldn’t have stormed off like that, but it was such a fucking shock. I mean, I’m not trying to make out like it’s all about me or nothing, and I appreciate you telling me—” He laughs. “You know what? I am so fucking lame at this.”
She could tell him to shut the fuck up.
“I mean,” he continues, and then stops.
She could smooth over this moment for both of them by saying something quick and meaningless.
“I mean,” he repeats.
But then, why should she save him from awkwardness, when he’s made her feel so naked? She won’t reach out and touch him, she won’t. She isn’t curious about the way his hand would feel in hers. She isn’t watching the shape of his mouth. His lower lip looks plump and vulnerable. How would it feel if she took it between her teeth? When his eyes meet hers and then flicker away, she realises she’s holding her breath.
“This is going to sound well dodgy,” he says, and she has to harden herself against his smile. “But do you want to come back to my place and see some kittens?”
It takes them a while to find a walking rhythm that works for both of them. He’s trying to slow down to match her pace, without bothering to find out if she can keep up with him. She takes long swift strides to throw him off, irritated by his assumption that she’s weaker than he is.
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