Chapter 26 #2
‘Ooh, you’ll never guess who I bumped into at The Star!’ I said, desperate to find common ground.
‘What, you mean beyond that Darren twat?’
‘Ha, yeah. Christian Woods! He’s trying to buy the pub and turn it into flats, believe it or not. It’s the only pub left in the village.’
Josh groaned and rolled his eyes, and I cheered internally. It appeared that I’d stumbled across a rare nugget of mutual disdain.
‘Not his biggest fan either, then?’ I asked.
‘He was always a slimy weasel with a flagrant disregard for the offside rule. He barely spoke to me back then – I don’t think he spoke to any of us who went to state schools – but these days he’s constantly DMing me whenever he’s in London to meet up and discuss “our respective ventures”. Frankly, I’d rather drink my own piss.’
I nearly spat out my wine. I couldn’t remember the last time we’d connected like this.
His eyes were lit up in a way that took me back to Saturday nights in Scarnbrook when we were kids, the five of us watching Gladiators together, and us taking the mick out of him for blushing whenever Jet appeared.
‘Yeah, he seemed like a right twat,’ I said. ‘He was trying to shove a new offer to buy the place in the manager’s face – my mate Becky, do you remember her?’
Josh nodded. ‘One of the twins, right?’
‘Yup. Well, I kind of stepped in and got him to take the contract away with him. For now, at least.’
‘Ha. Nice one.’
‘So… how about you? Did you… see anyone while you were there?’ I asked.
He shook his head, the glint in his eye switching off like a streetlamp at dawn.
‘Do you… go there often?’ Nice one, Mally: probably one of the most important conversations the two of you will ever have and you’re somehow managing to make it feel like you’re trying out pick-up lines on your own brother. Ick.
Josh sighed, and closed his eyes, his jaw tensing. All of a sudden, he leapt up, his wine sloshing over the glass’s rim as he plonked it down on the wooden pallet coffee table.
His voice crackled as he spoke. ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do this.’ He took seven quick strides towards the door at the opposite end of the apartment, entered what I presumed was his bedroom and shut the door loudly behind him. Saskia watched the whole thing open-mouthed through the giant hatch.
‘Josh! Mally, I’m so sorry. I’ll be right back; please sit tight.’
I didn’t know what to do. Should I leave?
Should I knock on the bedroom door to see if they were okay?
Instead, I opted to do what I was told and stay where I was, straining my ears to listen to their intense murmurings, which then escalated into shouting, until Josh yelled, ‘You speak to her, then!’, at which point he emerged, clad in running gear, mumbled ‘I’m sorry’ to me and left the apartment without looking back.
Shit. I mean, I hadn’t expected a perfect afternoon, but this was way beyond my wildest worries.
Saskia appeared a minute or so later, blotchy-faced, her eyes red and watery. She looked gutted.
‘Mally, I don’t know what to say. I can’t believe that just happened.’
What had happened, though? I opened my mouth to say something, but the words had yet to take shape. I took another gulp of wine, as Saskia plodded towards me, shoulders slumped.
‘What’s going on, Saskia? Why am I here? And what the hell was that ?’
I tilted my head towards the door that Josh had just vanished through.
‘ That was twenty years of pent-up grief, anger and guilt, directed in the wrong place, as ever.’
She burst into tears. I put down my glass and stood up to give her a hug.
This was all my fault. If I hadn’t gone back to Scarnbrook, Darren would never have posted that Instagram story, I would never have seen those chrysanthemums in the graveyard and me and Josh wouldn’t have been forced into having this conversation, which he obviously wasn’t ready for. We sat down on the sofa.
‘Saskia, I’m so sorry for starting all of this, I—’
‘Sorry?! Mally, you’ve got absolutely nothing to be sorry for; you must know that, right?
Honestly, when you sent that message to Josh about the flowers it finally felt like the breakthrough we’d been waiting for.
But, well, as you can see, we’re finding this a little bit harder than we were expecting. ’
I had no clue what she was talking about. What did she mean by ‘breakthrough’?
‘I’m so confused, Saskia. Why was Josh in Scarnbrook? And why didn’t he tell me he was going?’
‘I imagine for the same reason you didn’t tell him that you were going?’
It was a fair point. I hadn’t wanted to upset him. Or risk word getting back to Mum and Dad. It made sense that he would’ve had the same concerns.
‘Sure. But I was there to catch up with some friends.’ Of course, this wasn’t strictly the truth, but it had ended up happening in a roundabout way, so I wasn’t going to beat myself up about semantics at this moment in time. ‘But Josh just told me he didn’t see anyone. So what was he doing there?’
Saskia wiped her eyes. ‘More wine?’ I nodded, against my better judgement, and she fetched another bottle from the fridge, topping up our glasses.
‘Right. Josh went there after you’d taken your parents to the airport. I’m sorry I couldn’t make it to lunch the week before, by the way.’
‘Oh, don’t worry. But he told me he had a last-minute PT session with a client that day?’
Saskia shrugged. ‘Well, he didn’t. He went to Scarnbrook. Just like he does every December. And every June.’
Every December. Every June.
For Livvie. For Christmas. For her birthday.
‘I… I had no idea he still visited.’
‘Yeah, every single year since… well, since it happened. He doesn’t see anyone or anything like that. He just goes to see Livvie.’
My heart didn’t know whether to swell with love, or to break into a million pieces. Now it was my turn to cry. Saskia brought her wine over to my side of the sofa, squeezing my shoulder as I tried to collect myself.
‘Why didn’t he ever say anything?’ I said, between tearful sniffs. ‘I’d have gone with him!’
‘It’s a valid question, Mally. But I think, because of the way Josh is, this is just a very private thing he does for himself, and for Livvie.’
I suddenly felt awful for taking twenty years to visit my little sister’s grave. Why hadn’t I done it sooner? Was I really that heartless?
‘He’s never even spoken to me about what happened to Livvie. I wish he had, y’know?’
Saskia nodded sympathetically and placed a hand on mine. ‘I know, I know. But I think you being here today – even after what happened just now – is such an important step. For both of you.’
‘Does he storm out like that a lot?’
She blew her nose into an old-school hankie that she’d whipped out from her sleeve.
She was full of snotty surprises. ‘More often than I’d like, yeah.
Whenever his comfort zone is challenged, he just clams up and runs away.
Sometimes he runs away for real, like that, and other times he fills his head with dopamine hits from all the likes and new followers on social media.
I suppose the fact that you’ve seen it happen now is, in a roundabout way, a good thing. ’
I could see what she was saying. Because this was Josh’s way of letting me in. Not just into his flat, but into his silent struggles that he must’ve been hiding from me for so long.
‘Don’t get me wrong,’ Saskia continued, ‘this isn’t how I wanted this afternoon to go down at all. The plan was to be tucking into my famous flourless chocolate chilli cake around about now.’
I’d forgotten all about food. But the mention of it got my tastebuds tingling. ‘Umm, yum.’
‘Fuck it, shall we just eat?’
‘What about Josh?’
‘He’s a creature of habit – I reckon he’ll be back in a couple of hours. And if you stayed it would mean so much to him – even if he doesn’t show it. What do you think – will you stay?’
I smiled and nodded.
The salads were tasty, even without the addition of wafer-thin turkey slices. And the cake was epic, too. I made a mental note to try some more vegan recipes in the new year. Maybe this Jamie Chops chap was onto something.
We chatted like old friends, to the extent that I could see the very moment Saskia’s romance radar activated as I told her about bumping into some ‘old classmates’.
‘Tell me his name immediately ,’ she said, with a glint in her eye.
‘It was just someone I used to have a crush on at school, that’s all. We went out for dinner a couple of nights ago and it seemed to be heading in the right direction. But then, well, I found out he was stringing me along.’
‘Fucker.’
‘Yeah. Hey, I just realised I don’t know how you and Josh met?’
I braced myself for a tale of DMs and digital courting.
‘Oh! So, umm, bit of a funny one actually, because we met in a counsellor’s waiting room…’
I tried my best to keep my mouth closed as she told me the whole story.
How they’d caught each other’s eye before their respective appointments – his for therapy, hers for a job interview.
How they’d recognised each other from Instagram, but had never dreamt of saying anything there and then in order to maintain their mutual privacy.
How they’d bumped into each other at a vegan cafe a couple of weeks later and struck up a conversation over their matcha lattes.
How he’d presumed she was having counselling, too, before learning she was a newly qualified practitioner.
How that had enabled them to be completely honest and open with each other about their histories from the very start.
And how they’d basically been glued to each other ever since.