Remy
Remy walked towards the house with a lightness to her being, this despite it being the saddest of days. It was what her dad would have wanted, reconciliation between his girls. The most fitting way to honour him. She filled the kettle, set it to boil, and put teabags in the old earthenware teapot, before sloshing milk into two mugs.
‘All right, Rem.’ His voice came from the kitchen door. She grimaced at no more than the sound of him.
Oh Christ!
Jamie walked into the kitchen. He was the very last person she wanted to see. She stared at him, her mouth pursed. Having barely spoken to him in recent years, other than the most perfunctory ‘hello’ and ‘goodbye’ when their paths had crossed and only when it was absolutely unavoidable. A thought persisted, that if she was talking to Ashleigh, then maybe it was time she spoke to him too, no matter how uncomfortable. She’d keep it as civil as she could, just like she always had, including him, inviting him, for Sophie’s sake.
‘It was a lovely service, I thought.’
‘It really was,’ Remy replied curtly, reminding herself that it was good of him to have come and paid his respects to her dad. She poured the boiling water into the teapot and replaced the lid.
‘Elio did us proud, didn’t he?’
Us . . .She shuddered.
‘He really did.’
‘You still not talking to me then?’ He waggled his eyebrows.
‘You still think it’s funny?’ She turned to face him, his apparent amusement enough for her to momentarily forget her pledge of civility.
‘I don’t know what you want me to say.’ He looked a little sheepish, but with a smirk around his mouth, his lips parted over his sparkling veneers, stark against his perma-tan.
‘I don’t want you to say anything, Jamie, but we’re Sophie’s parents, Elio’s grandparents, and therefore I think it’s wise if we finda way to be around each other without awkwardness.’ She knew her therapist would be proud.
‘I don’t feel awkward when I see you.’
‘Just me then,’ she confessed.
‘Seems like it!’ He laughed. She didn’t. ‘You are so serious, Rem, you need to lighten up!’
‘Jamie, I have to be serious because it seems you think everything is a joke. You create mayhem and then scarper.’
‘I don’t!’ He laughed again, and it was akin to jabbing her in the ribs, provoking a reaction.
‘You do. You make every situation a little trickier. If I told you I was searching for an escaped mouse in a room, you’d throw a hundred snakes in and stand back. It doesn’t help! It makes everything much worse!’
‘Actually, one of those snakes would definitely get the mouse, job done.’
‘And how would you suggest we get rid of the snakes, a thousand wildebeest?’
‘You see, this is your problem, Rem, you’re never happy! You’d ask me to get rid of the mouse, I’d do it, and you’d still be moaning.’
His words, his suggestion and his dismissive manner caused fireworks of frustration to go off in her gut. Gaslighting at its finest. But that was nothing new.
‘Because your methods, your behaviour – it causes trouble and, actually, I’m not a moaner. I’m happy. I’m nearly always happy! And I have been since—’ She stopped talking, aware of going too far.
‘Since you chucked me over.’ He jutted his chin and folded his arms.
‘I chucked you over, as you put it, because you were a shit. A shit to me. The life and soul of the party to everyone else.’ She remembered so clearly what it had felt like to be so young, expecting Sophie and waiting for him to come in after a night out, stumbling through the door of their grotty flat in the early hours, reeking of booze and with a grin that toldher a good night had been had by all. All apart from her. It felt good to finally have the confidence to say it to him out loud, cathartic.
‘I didn’t mean to be, I was just a kid, and I didn’t – didn’t think it through, didn’t understand the consequences. It all felt like a bit of a game. I was just too young, too dumb to get it.’
‘And here you are in your sixties, Jamie, and you still think it’s all a bit of a game. All the years I’ve spent being nice to you, making allowances, including you, because it felt like the right thing to do, and you slept with mysister!’ She kept her voice down. ‘Sophie’s auntie! You did that, Jamie! We are afamily, and I know it takes two, I’m well aware, but ... what a rotten thing to do to us, to me.’
‘We were drunk.’ His voice quieter now, he looked at the pointed tip of his boots.
