‘Besides, we do have KFC in London.’
‘Do we?’ Remy asked in an affected voice that made Ashleigh laugh.
Ashleigh pulled the car into the drive-thru lane and sat behind a white van.
‘Come on, Ash, when was the last time you shoved a bit of greasy chicken in your gob?’
‘A while,’ she admitted, ‘but that’s got nothing to do with where I live, but more that I want to look after myself.’
‘How long is a while?’ Remy turned in her seat to face her.
‘I’ve not had a KFC for years! Like, literally, years!’ She felt excitement fizz in her veins at the prospect.
‘Do you remember when they opened the kebab wagon in town, and we were so excited!’
‘Tony came with us!’
‘Of course he did. I love him so much.’ Remy sighed. ‘I still miss him, I know it’s daft. Nearly two decades since he left, but I still miss him. Even now, I prefer not to go past his mum’s house if I can help it, because I don’t want to see his old bedroom window and know he’s not there.’
‘He loves you too. I know.’
‘What we went through, Ash.’ Her sister took her time, looking out into the middle distance. ‘I still think about it, not all the time, but often.’
‘Of course you do. It was terrible.’ Ashleigh hated to think of the moment she had walked in the front door the morning after the ball. Her parents grey-faced, exhausted and whimpering. Remy on the sofa, a blanket over her legs, her arm and shoulder in a cast. Her face stitched, her lip a swollen strawberry of mess. Eye blackened and closed. The house had been so quiet, eerily so, as if no one dared make a sound.
‘Sometimes I think it was a dream, like I still can’t believe something that bad could actually happen, happen to us! And I hear the, the ...’ Remy paused, hesitated.
‘You hear the what?’
Remy bit her lip. ‘I hear them shouting at us, the wordOi!That’s what they said before it all kicked off, and I still hear it, like a ... like a gunshot in my head and just as loud.’
Ashleigh reached out and squeezed her sister’s leg. ‘Do you think you should talk to someone about it?’
‘Who?’ Remy faced her.
‘I don’t know – a doctor, a therapist?’
Her sister shook her head. ‘It was so long ago they’d probably just tell me to get on with it.’
‘I don’t think it works like that. It might help?’ She hated the thought of Remy living with flashbacks like that.
‘Not sure,’ Remy whispered. They were silent for a second.
‘Tony seems happy, though. I speak to him very occasionally, but it seems he and Raul are living their best lives.’
‘They are. I worry about him though. I’ve been worrying about him since we were little!’
She smiled in acknowledgement of Remy’s words.
‘It bothers me, the fact that only he and I know what it was like that night, and yet we don’t talk about it, not really. It’s too hard to bring up. And I guess that’s why I don’t want to talk to anyone else about it, a doctor or whatever.’
‘I can’t imagine.’ She thought of Guy, and how hard it was to bring up the fact he wanted to make Ada a partner, not that it was comparable. ‘You can always talk to me.’
‘I know you say that, and I appreciate it, but it’s different when you don’t see someone every day.’ Remy spoke the truth, and Ashleigh felt the weight of it; they had shifted on their axis a long time ago now, no longer sharing that closeness that some might assume was standard when it came to twins. ‘I can’t imagine calling you up for a goss and launching straight into my latest nightmare.’
‘You have nightmares?’ It was another revelation that Remy suffered in this way, after all this time.
Her sister nodded. ‘Don’t tell Midge. He worries enough as it is.’
