My little sister has been crying, and a part of my heart that I didn’t even know still existed begins to bleed for her.
Chapter 23
Poppy
When she finally does park up, Rose doesn’t seem to want to get out of the car. Joe is at her side, so tall his head is almost scraping the roof of the battered old Fiesta, and he is looking at me through the window with a great deal of curiosity.
It’s only natural, I know – I don’t even have a clue what she’s told him about us. She’s probably fobbed him off with one of those ‘it’s complicated’ comments that grown-ups use on teenagers when they’re too embarrassed to talk about something.
The way Mum always did with us when we were young and asked about our dad; before we were mature enough to realise the subject stressed her out so much that we gave up and left it alone. Our mum rarely got stressed – at least on the surface – and it was too painful to see her flustered.
She’s switched off the engine and Adele isn’t singing any more, so I decide to approach them. Apart from anything else, I am desperate for a wee, and she has the bloody cottage keys – I still can’t figure out why Lewis gave them to her and not me. I suspect he was just being bitchy – I recognise the signs. I practically invented them.
The doors to the car finally open, and Joe climbs out, immediately stretching his legs and arms and jumping up and down on the spot. God, he’s so tall. I mean, I know he’s 16 – and Mum has showed me photos of him over the years – but knowing it and seeing it are two different things. Whatever has happened between me and Rose, I hope I at least get a chance to get to know my nephew. Even just a little bit.
As soon as he was born, I started saving for him, salting away a small chunk each month into an account imaginatively called Joe le Nephew. I had no idea if I would ever get to meet him, and it was the only way I could think of to try and show that I’d always been thinking of him. It’s been one of the greatest sadnesses of my life, not being involved in his.
Now, he’s here. In the gangly, man-child flesh, and I feel a sudden rush of happiness as I watch him squinting through his fringe.
I’m not quite sure what to do with all my feelings right now; they’re tumbling over me like a waterfall – grief and pain at losing Mum; relief and fear at having Rose back in my life; sheer affection for Joe.
Affection doesn’t have much of a place in my emotional repertoire, and I’m not sure how I’ll fit it in – or even if I’ll be allowed to. That, as ever, will be down to my sister, who has certainly made it clear enough over the years that I’m not welcome in her life.
Rose follows him out of the car, and she looks terrible. I was shocked at her appearance at the funeral, and it is still shocking now.
The Rose I remember was curvy and pretty and had this lovely, wild, curly hair. She was confident and laughed a lot and just had that certain something about her that people automatically liked.
This Rose … well, this Rose is almost unrecognisable. Mum had stopped showing me pictures of Rose a while back, after that time we were having afternoon tea in Claridge’s, and I burst into tears. I don’t know who was more embarrassed, me or the poor waiter, who was hovering in the background not knowing whether we wanted our cucumber sandwiches or not.
She’s gained weight, quite a lot of it, and her hair is a mass of grey-streaked frizz, tendrils clinging to the sweat on her forehead and neck. She’s still extremely pretty, in a pre-diet Dawn French kind of way, and her eyes have retained their show-stopping glory, but right now her face looks bloated and puffy, not helped by the fact that it’s bright red from the heat.
She’s trying to arrange her expression into something presentable, but I know her too well, even after all these years, not to see the pain and the anxiety creeping through.
She looks old, and tired, and as if she hasn’t laughed in years. It’s painful to be presented with the real-life evidence of exactly how much of a train wreck she seems to have become.
I know that at least some of that is down to me. I’ve always known this, and I spent a long time trying to get her to forgive me – years of my life were consumed by it, until I simply couldn’t be both people at once any more. I couldn’t be me, and move on with my own life, as well as being the grovelling sister who would do absolutely anything to make things up to her sainted sibling.
I gulp, and hope she doesn’t hear me. If I crack, she’ll crack, and poor Joe will be left with two hysterical middle-aged women to mop up from the gravel.
‘Nice of you to join us,’ I say, more sharply than I intended, cringing inside when I see her flinch. Joe gives me a look that says he’s not happy, and I realise I am not making a brilliant impression on my long-lost nephew.
‘The traffic was bad,’ replies Rose, finding enough steel to give me a little glare. ‘Tough tittie.’
That almost makes me laugh, the way she says it. ‘Tough tittie’ – just like she used to when we were kids, and we had a fight about something. I roll my eyes – just like I used to as well – and give Joe a small smile. I’m not evil, or unfeeling, or cruel – I’m just well practised at faking it – and I know I’ve started this off exactly the way I didn’t want to.
‘I’m dying for the loo,’ I say, bouncing around on my wedge heels as if to demonstrate. ‘Could we go inside, do you think?’
She nods, and fishes the keys out of her bag. It takes an age, and I try very hard not to look as annoyed as I feel. It’s not her fault I need a wee. It’s not her fault our mum is dead. It is, however, her fault that her handbag is the size of a small African republic and just as crowded.
‘How are you, Joe?’ I ask, as I follow Rose to the front door. He’s taller than me, even in my heels, and is at that painfully lean stage where he is only growing in the one direction.
‘I’m okay, thanks,’ he replies, super-polite, looking at me over his shoulder. ‘And she’s right. The traffic really was bad.’
I’m being told off, I understand. Gently, but definitely. Good for him.
‘I’m sure. There’s always a bottleneck near Ludlow. We’ll all feel a bit better when we’re out of the heat.’
He nods, and we both stand around awkwardly while Rose struggles with the keys. Finally, the old wooden door swings open, and we all walk in.
