Chapter 35
I wonder what Nicki would make of her sister and mother’s behaviour, I think to myself the next morning when I return to work. I have a feeling she’d be mortified, but that’s not something I’d ever say to Kate and Valerie – they’d probably shoot me for conjecturing.
Nicki used to lock horns with them often, according to her teenage diaries. What was it Charlie said when I commented that Essex was so far away? Something like, ‘When Nicki moved back here, she didn’t think it was far enough...’
Nicki might’ve hated the fact that her dad lived abroad and that he was so busy when she went to visit him, but she loved him and always wanted to go back again.
‘At least once a year,’ Charlie said, although never with him. Why didn’t Charlie ever go with Nicki to Thailand? He said he wanted to, but they couldn’t afford to both go. They had talked about using the money from Nicki’s novel to visit Alain and introduce him to April, but Nicki died before that idea came to fruition. Did Nicki suggest the trip, or was it Charlie?
Was there another, non-financial reason that she didn’t want to bring Charlie to Thailand with her? Did it have anything to do with Isak?
Charlie said that Nicki used to bump into him occasionally in her twenties and it was awkward, but, as she stopped confessing in her diaries, I have no way of knowing if this is true.
I pick up the piece of paper on my desk and read through Nicki’s poem once more.
I am not one thing
But many little pieces
Divided but allied
One of these I gave to you
Now part of it has died
Every time you hurt me
Every time you make me cry
That little piece of me you own
Withers up inside
For now it’s still alive
You haven’t lost me yet
But others have
Others have
And that’s something
You should not
Forget.
If Nicki did give a piece of herself to Isak, as her poem claims, did it wither up long ago, as she warned him it might? Or was that piece of her still alive when she died?
Nicki’s writing is so good that she made cynicalmebelieve that it’s possible to fall in love with two people. But what if her story is not all fiction? What if it’s based in fact? I already know that real things inspired her, like Charlie’s mobile cream-tea business idea, and the similarities between Morris and Charlie don’t end there.
What about Isak and Timo?
Was Nicki still in love with Isak when she died? No, more than that: were Nicki and Isakstill together?
Ice trickles down my spine.
Is that why Nicki’s book feels so authentic? Was she writing from experience?
