‘I didn’t know that.’
‘Yes. And maybe there areotherthings you don’t know either. Things that I need to talk to Josh about.’
Once again, she glanced towards the car park. The possibility that Claire might not have come to the care home alone had barely had the chance to form, when a man’s voice called out her name. My head shot up as a tall figure, hidden by the shadows of the building, began making his way across the gravel towards us.
My eyes went to Claire’s, and I thought I saw anxiety flicker within them. Was finding Josh really going to be this easy? But as the figure grew closer, I realised with disappointment that he was even taller than the man Claire called her brother, with the kind ofbulging muscles you only get from spending hours each day in a gym. The stranger came to stand behind her, laying a hand roughly the size of a bear’s paw on her shoulder.
‘Everything okay, babe?’ he asked.
‘Yeah. All good. This woman was asking for directions, but she’s just realised she’s in totally the wrong place. Isn’t that right?’ Claire threw the challenge straight at me like a fast bowler.
I caught it squarely with a resigned nod of defeat.
‘Yes. I’m sorry to have bothered you.’
‘You haven’t bothered me at all,’ Claire said as she turned away, but not before throwing one final barb over her shoulder: ‘You never did.’
Fletcher was waiting with a wagging tail and a look of doggy reproach as I let myself into the flat. I reached for his lead, and we headed straight back down the stairs to the local park. While he did what he had to do, my thoughts kept circling back to the Claire I’d first met: a troubled teen who’d come to live with the Bakers two years after Josh had moved in.
It had been my first experience of ever being disliked, and her reaction towards me had been particularly venomous, as though everything about me annoyed her. Apparently, it still did. Back then I’d foolishly imagined that as we were the same age, she and I might become friends. But Claire had made it abundantly clear that was never going to happen.
Josh had been too loyal to ever reveal Claire’s backstory or how she’d ended up with the Bakers. Perhaps he didn’t even know why himself. But when I’d asked what I’d done to make her hate me,he’d told me to give her a while to settle in and that she’d come from a bad situation.
‘So did you, but you don’t go around glaring daggers at me.’
Josh had grinned then, turning on the charm even at fifteen years of age.
‘Ah, well that’s different.’
It wasn’t as though I hadn’t tried to befriend the new arrival in the Baker household. But every attempt I made was thrown back in my face. When I stepped in to stop the school bullies teasing her about her surname, she’d rounded on me as thoughIwas the one guilty of harassing her.
‘I don’t need anyone sticking up for me. And if I did, you’d be the last person I’d pick.’
But I kept on trying, because if Josh liked her, I knew there had to be something worth knowing beneath the angry, bitter, protective shell that Claire wore like armour. But my new neighbour had made it perfectly clear she had no desire to be my friend. It took me a long time to realise the biggest problem was Claire’s jealousy of my close friendship with Josh. Perhaps, with hindsight, the fact that she had referred to him as her brother from day one should have given me a clue.
Much later, long after the Bakers and their foster charges had moved away, I wondered whether Josh had been the first person who Claire had ever allowed herself to care about, and in her eyes I was a threat to that. It made me uncomfortable to think she hated me purely because Josh didn’t. But the thought had lodged in my head and stayed there for almost two decades.
The last time I’d seen Claire was at Janette’s funeral, when I’d gone up to offer her my condolences. She had barely grunted an acknowledgement before turning away from me, but I’d put her reaction down to grief. And to be honest I’d been more preoccupied by the unexpected arrival of an attractive blonde at thecrematorium, who loudly introduced herself to everyone as Josh’s girlfriend. Curiously, he’d forgotten to mention her existence when he’d asked me to help him get through the day.
It would take a miracle, I realised, for Claire to change her mind and help me contact Josh, and miracles were something I no longer believed in.
Chapter Six
‘I can’t thank you enough for this, Lily.’
‘You already have. Many times,’ I said with a smile, raising my voice slightly as a bus rumbled past Raegan’s tiny maisonette. She lived on a busy road, and the morning rush hour traffic was still in full flow. It didn’t help that we were standing at least twelve feet apart, which I’m sure was twice the recommended distance.
‘Well, I owe you big-time for this one. This is above and beyond, andnotwhat employers usually do for their staff.’ Her voice sounded scratchy, and her eyes were suspiciously bright, and I don’t think either of those symptoms was due to Covid.
‘Maybe not, but itiswhat friends do for each other,’ I said, desperately wanting to give her a hug, because she really looked like she needed one. Raegan had been talking about her parents’ fortieth wedding anniversary party for months. Family members and friends were travelling from all over the country for a huge celebration in their hometown of Berwick-upon-Tweed, and when Raegan had asked if we could make the cake for the party, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
‘I’ll pay, of course,’ she’d insisted at the time, to which I’d mumbled something along the lines of ‘We’ll see’, knowing there was no way I’d let her do anything of the sort.
We’d finished icing the elaborate creation two days earlier, and even if I say so myself, I think we’d done a pretty amazing job. Apparently, Raegan’s parents hadn’t been able to afford a proper cake for their registry office wedding forty years ago, so we’d pulled out all the stops to create something truly spectacular for them.
‘I’m going to drive as carefully as if I’m delivering nitroglycerine,’Raegan had joked, as together we’d loaded the cake into the back of her car.
But now, due to an outbreak of Covid in Polly’s class, which half the childrenandtheir parents had caught, neither Raegan nor her daughter were going to be driving up north after all. I was.
