Hello, Again

by Isabelle Broom

  And so, Pepper set to work creating more, and the work became her salvation. Tiles were soon piling up in the bottom of her studio cupboard, each one a tribute to something she had seen or a feeling she had experienced in Barcelona. She painted Vespas with laughing faces and trailing hair, a simmering pan of paella so large she needed six squares to finish it, and she sat up late into the night trying to recapture even a sniff of Gaudí’s unmistakable magic. While she worked, she wrestled with her problems, determined to face them rather than grouting over the gaps. Thoughts of Finn were her constant companions, there in morning when she woke and always with her in the dark. He had spent the night in her hotel room in Barcelona, but she had woken before dawn to find him gone, a note left on the pillow reminding her that he would wait.

  That had been a week ago, yet Pepper was still no closer to a decision.

  Today, however, she had lifted the needle from her spinning mind in order to host a candle-making class in her studio. She had five enthusiasts seated at her table, each one clad in an apron that was becoming steadily doused with soft wax. Jars of essential oils, sprigs of dried herbs, cinnamon sticks and matches littered the table, while coils of wick snaked along the floor.

  Making candles was both messy and smelly, but the sessions always proved to be popular – especially around Christmas time, when people wanted to craft a gift. Today’s bunch – who varied in age from nine to ninety-two – were very nice, but also very slow. The day was supposed to have finished over an hour ago, but a few were still deciding on a fragrance.

  ‘Try not to overthink it,’ she said to Sally, who ran one of the gift shops on the high street. ‘You can’t go wrong with citrussy notes or vanilla.’

  ‘I want an aroma that will relax me,’ Sally mused, squinting at the small print on a bottle of eucalyptus oil.

  ‘In that case,’ Pepper said, making for the door, ‘you need lavender. I’ll just pop into the garden and get you some.’

  Swerving to avoid a chair that another of her pupils chose that exact moment to push back, Pepper skittered sideways and knocked a large bottle of white spirit onto the floor.

  ‘Oopsy,’ she trilled, swallowing the seven or so much ruder words that had sprung to mind.

  She had just deposited the lavender on the table and was heading inside to get a cloth when her phone started ringing. It was then that Pepper remembered her vow to call her mother when she got back from Spain – a vow she had failed to keep.

  ‘Mum? Hi. I know, I said I’d call – I’m sorry. It’s just been busy. Work’s been busy.’

  ‘It’s fine,’ her mother replied, for once with enough buoyancy to sound convincing. ‘I’m just on my way round to you, actually.’

  ‘But it’s Monday.’ Pepper stopped halfway along her garden path.

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said her mother. ‘I–– Well, I thought we could go for a walk?’

  Her mother wanted to spend extra one-on-one time with her – was choosing to do so?

  ‘Er, OK.’ Pepper said, unable to mask her surprise. ‘But don’t bother coming all the way here. Shall I meet you by the coastal path, in say ten minutes?’

  ‘Sorry, everyone,’ Pepper said, addressing the room two minutes later. ‘Something’s come up and I have to pop out. Feel free to stay and finish. You all know what you’re doing, right?’

  There was a chorus of nods.

  ‘Right, when you go, can the last person make sure they shut and lock the studio door behind them? Just leave the keys on the kitchen worktop. And don’t worry about clearing up,’ she added, pausing with one arm through the sleeve of her denim jacket. ‘I’ll clear everything up in no time when I get back.’

  She found her mum waiting at the foot of the beach path, sparse grass behind her and the wide, salt-and-pepper spread of stony beach ahead. It felt unusual to be meeting her like this, on a non-designated day and not in a pre-scheduled place, and to make matters even more astonishing, her mother was actually smiling.

  ‘Have you won the lottery or something?’ Pepper asked as she drew closer. She and her mother rarely hugged and never kissed each other hello, but today her mother extended a hand of greeting.

  ‘Are we shaking hands now?’ Pepper said bemusedly. ‘Very formal.’

  ‘Sorry.’ Her mother went to snatch it away, but Pepper caught hold of her and gave the hand a brisk shake.

  ‘There we go,’ she said lightly. ‘Not weird at all.’

  Her mother’s mouth had gone rather lopsided, as if she was trying hard to suppress a grin.

  ‘I thought that we . . . Oh, never mind. Anyway, shall we?’ She gestured to the path. ‘I thought it might be nice to walk along to Thorpeness, get an ice cream or something?’

  Any moment now, Pepper thought. Any moment now I will wake up.

  They began by talking about Barcelona, her mother gazing mostly towards the far horizon as Pepper told her about Park Güell, Casa Batllò and La Pedrera, trying her best to explain how it had felt to be surrounded by the work of such an imaginative genius.

  ‘I’m only vaguely aware of Gaudí,’ her mother confessed. ‘But I always did like mosaics.’

  She did?

  Pepper was about to reply when they were both distracted by a dog bounding along the path, all long floppy ears and lolling pink tongue. Bethan had begged incessantly for a puppy, had scrawled the word at the top of every birthday and Christmas list she made. Her mother had not been keen on the idea, but Pepper’s dad was more easily persuaded. Bethan would creep onto his lap while he watched the news and curl her fingers around his, promising that she would be a good girl, that she would do all the walking herself, that if he said yes to a puppy, she would never ask for anything else ever again.

  If the accident had never happened, her sister would have got her way in the end. Pepper was sure of it.

  She began to collect things as they walked – pebbles, feathers, twine, plastic bottles and sweet wrappers – slipping it all into a canvas tote bag she’d slung over one shoulder. It was the kind of thing her fastidiously clean mother would usually screw her nose up at, but today she didn’t comment. She did not say much, in fact, seemingly content to listen as Pepper brought up one safe subject after another – what she planned to wear to Martin and Keira’s wedding, the drama series about corrupt police officers that she’d just discovered and was watching every night, the outdoor watercolour class she hoped to launch soon. When Pepper filled her in on the Vespa tour she and Josephine had taken, and what her friend had said about ‘beautiful beasts’, her mother laughed. Actually laughed. Pepper almost fell off the path in shock.

  She ran out of topics just as they reached Thorpeness, but by then, it was clear her mother had a plan of where she wanted to go next.

  ‘Look,’ she said, as the village green came into view on their left, covered as it always was by waddling ducks and geese. ‘The House in the Clouds is just up ahead – do you remember it from when you were little?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  She and Bethan had spent so many happy days down on the beach as children, lying on their tummies side by side on the warm stones, gazing up at the distant house and making up stories about the people who lived in it. Pepper could remember teasing Bethan that you could see right across to Belgium from the top floor, and that once upon a time, fairies had been found living at the bottom of the garden.

  ‘There’s a secret in every room of that house,’ she would tell her. ‘If you stand on the path outside and whisper your secret into the wind, the house will keep it for you.’

  ‘It reminds me of Bethan,’ Pepper said quietly, testing the subject that so often caused her mother to spiral downwards into abject misery. She saw her take a deep breath.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Bethie always loved it. But I’ve always found it more reminiscent of you.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘You’re the one who’s most like it,’ her mother said. ‘Ever since I can remember, you’ve been walking around with your he
ad in the clouds.’

  Where was the sullen tone? Where was the weary, withering look?

  ‘I try not to do that any more,’ Pepper said, as they turned down the lane that would lead them right to the house. ‘I learnt my lesson.’

  Her mother stopped walking and Pepper glanced back.

  ‘What?’

  Her mother said nothing at first, she simply stood and picked listlessly at the bobbles on her over-washed cardigan. She looked less prim and put-together today and had swapped her sensible heels for a pair of plimsolls and put on a floral blouse instead of her standard navy or cream. It made her seem softer somehow, more vulnerable, but with her sharp elbows and hunched shoulders, she reminded Pepper painfully of Josephine.

  Sliding her phone out of her pocket, she realised that she’d been alone with her mother for almost an hour now, but for the first time since Pepper had reached adulthood, she had not been starkly aware of every awkward passing minute. She had always thought it was her mum who had driven the wedge between them, but perhaps they had been equally evasive.

  ‘This is weird,’ she blurted.

  Her mother’s expression gave nothing away.

  ‘Weird how?’

  ‘Us, here, spending time together doing something other than sitting in your house or shopping.’

  ‘We used to do it all the time,’ she said. ‘Before Bethan was born, it was always just the two of us.’

  Pepper swallowed. Her lungs felt flat and unyielding.

  ‘You always wanted to be outdoors as a child,’ she went on. ‘I used to joke with your father that we’d brought the wrong baby home from the hospital, because Martin and I were such homebodies. With you, it was always the beach – you wanted to play chase with the waves and collect shells for all your collages.’

  ‘I still do both those things,’ Pepper told her, and was surprised when her mother smiled.

  ‘I don’t think I’m all that different from my childhood self, not really.’

  ‘In some ways, you are very much the same,’ her mother allowed, finally moving forwards again. When she drew level with Pepper, she lifted a hand, as if she wanted to touch her, but then dropped it again.

  They walked on in silence, less companionable now, and Pepper rummaged through her mind in search of something to say. She wondered where Finn was, and what he was thinking about right at this moment. Were the two of them connected enough that their individual thoughts would throw a rope around the other’s and draw them in? Or was it more realistic that Finn was simply concentrating on work, or his pregnant best friend? It was horrible not speaking to him every day, but she couldn’t see how they could slip back into their FaceTime habit until she had made a decision.

  ‘Philippa.’

  Her mother had come to a halt again. They were so close to the House in the Clouds now that Pepper could make out the pattern of the curtains at its windows and hear the faint sound of a family perhaps sharing a picnic lunch in its front garden. Just beyond them lay a windmill, its sails frozen forever in the shape of a kiss.

  ‘I wanted to say,’ her mother began, falling silent as Pepper’s phone began to ring.

  ‘Aargh! Sorry, Mum. I’ll just . . . Oh, it’s my neighbour, Mrs Hill. That’s strange – she never calls. Hang on.’

  ‘Pepper! Dear oh dear – where are you, love?’

  ‘In Thorpeness,’ Pepper said, feeling mystified. ‘Whatever’s the matter?’

  ‘Do you have your–– No, I can see it. No matter. I will come and get you – can you go to the green and wait for me there?’

  ‘Why?’ Pepper became more insistent. ‘What’s the big hurry?’

  ‘I saw smoke.’ Mrs Hill faltered. ‘Don’t worry, love – I called 999 and they’re on their way.’

  ‘Hang on – there’s a fire?’ Pepper felt fear plummet like a potted snooker ball into her stomach. ‘Where?’

  Mrs Hill took a breath.

  ‘Go to the green now and wait there,’ she repeated. ‘I’ll be with you in five minutes.’

  Chapter 39

  ‘No, no, no!’

  Pepper slammed the door of Mrs Hill’s pink Fiat behind her and hurtled towards her cottage. Smoke was billowing out above the roof and she coughed as the acrid smell filled her throat.

  ‘Philippa!’ she heard her mother shout, but she didn’t stop. Shovelling her way through the crowd that had assembled like ghouls on the pavement outside, Pepper flung herself into the house, hurtling along the hallway and across the kitchen.

  She had known as soon as Mrs Hill had said the word ‘smoke’ that it would be her studio. The candle-making class left unattended; the spilt bottle of white spirit never mopped up – Pepper had done this to herself.

  There was a loud crack as the glass in the studio door shattered and fell, and Pepper watched on in muted horror as flames began to lick their way out through the gap. All her materials, her paints and mosaic tiles in their little tins, her charcoal and paper and feathers and glue, the red pepper Finn had made for her, the stack of tiles she had so lovingly been painting since she met him. It was the best work she had ever done – the most real and honest thing she had ever created. And now it was burning. It was all turning to ash.

  Without stopping to think what she was doing, Pepper lifted her T-shirt until it was covering her nose and mouth and stepped further along the path. She could feel the heat of the flames on her skin, and hear the roar as they gathered pace, not caring what they stole, or who they hurt.

  There was a chance.

  She had locked her Barcelona-themed tiles in the cupboard with the others just a few days ago. She could get in there and kick it open somehow, snatch them all before the fire caught up with her, save something of her love story.

  Pepper took a few more steps forward, looking for a way in. The heat was almost unbearable now, the smoke growing ever thicker. She should wait until she heard sirens, but logic was fast losing the battle.

  ‘Philippa!’

  She heard her mother’s scream just as she reached the blackening studio wall, but ignored her, instead aiming a kick at what was left of the window and watching it shatter. She felt something rising up inside her chest – not fear or misery, but rage.

  Red hot rage.

  The cupboard was right there – she could see it, she could reach it, she could save something, she could kick down the door, this door and the other door – the bathroom door. She could pull her sister out of the water and bring her back.

  Roaring with frustration and anger, Pepper set off at a run, determined to leap over the flames. She heard a shout and felt someone’s hands on her shoulders, yanking her backwards and down to the ground.

  ‘Let me go!’ she screamed, twisting and writhing away.

  ‘Philippa,’ she heard her mother cry. ‘Please!’

  ‘I need to save her!’ she wailed, incoherent now. ‘I can still save her.’

  The smoke was absolute now. It blinded and choked as the flames crackled and crashed. Pepper was still struggling, but she could no longer see which way was forward or back, she could only see the same blackness that she had on that day, and on every other day that followed. A horrible gaping wound where her baby sister should have been.

  ‘We need to get out of here.’

  Her mother was on the ground beside her, her voice a low croak.

  ‘It’s not safe, sweetheart. My girl, my precious girl.’

  ‘Mum?’

  Pepper turned and groped for her mother. Trinity had fallen silent, her eyes huge in a face blackened now by smoke. She would never leave her, Pepper realised then, and with a sob she pulled herself up, dragging her mother to her feet and back towards the house.

  Neither of them had been able to save Bethan. But as they stood out in the road, the blue lights from the fire engine rotating a pattern across cheeks that were pressed one against the other, Pepper wondered if perhaps the time had come to salvage something from the mess that her sister’s death had left behind. On her
final morning in Barcelona, she had kept her promise to Josephine and walked with her down to the beach. They had searched through the music on her phone for a suitable song as the whispers of a pastel dawn began to appear at the far boundaries of the sea, and then they had stood up, and they had danced to welcome in the new day.

  Josephine had danced for Jorge, and for her memories of a love that she would never forget.

  Pepper had danced for Bethan.

  Chapter 40

  Finn’s invitation arrived three days after the fire.

  He had spared no expense, and Pepper had to smile when she saw the embossed gold lettering that spelled out the name of his website.

  He had called it ‘The Pelican’.

  Beside a quirky sketch of the bird in question – also in gold – were the details of a launch party-cum-exhibition, which was being held at Freunde, in Hamburg, in just over three weeks’ time. There was also a handwritten note from Finn, which simply said:

  ‘I found the perfect artist, so I thought, why wait? See you at the party.’

  That was so like him, she thought, pressing the note to her chest. Assuming that she would be there and not even entertaining the idea that she would not. The two of them had messaged back and forth a handful of times over the past few days, and upon hearing about the fire, Finn had immediately rung her to express his sympathy – and to check that she was all right.

  He missed her, he had said. And Pepper agreed that she missed him, too. But at no time during their conversation did she mention moving to Hamburg, and good as his word, neither did Finn. They stuck to safe topics, and Pepper did not mention the baby except to ask how Clara was doing. When she had filled Josephine in on the pregnancy news on the flight back from Barcelona, her friend’s initial reaction was: ‘I thought safe sex was all the rage these days?’