Chapter Remy #8
‘That’s . . .’ She tried and failed to find the words to knock this theory on the head. Her sister wasn’t done.
‘He’s my brother-in-law, but I have no idea if he prefers tea or coffee, whether he has any allergies, his favourite board game, has he ever broken a bone, all the things that would come up in conversation if we spent time together.’ Remy shrugged. ‘Just normal stuff.’
‘I see, normal stuff,’ she echoed.
‘It’s a bit like . . .’ Remy hesitated.
‘Go on, spit it out.’ Ashleigh braced herself.
‘It’s a bit like it’s the first time I’ve ever met him, whenever I see him. We’re ill at ease. He seems awkward, like he doesn’t know whether to kiss me or shake my hand and doesn’t look me in the eye, like he’s nervous.’
‘Maybe you make him nervous! Maybe he can sense you are about to bombard him with questions about board games and broken bones!’ she deflected, because this felt easier than to admit there was truth in her sister’s words.
‘Maybe.’ Remy pointed ahead. ‘You need to get into the lane on the left, and then it loops back around to the drive-thru.’
Ashleigh indicated and followed her sister’s outstretched hand. ‘Can’t believe we’re getting KFC for lunch on Dad’s birthday.’
‘Don’t worry. None of your friends in London will ever know!’
‘Don’t be mean!’
‘I wasn’t. I was trying to be funny! It was a joke!’ Remy laughed.
She shook her head. It was hard enough coming here and trying to pick up where they’d left off, to find the path that would take them back to different times, when they were as one, without feeling the wrap of guilt around her shoulders.
‘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 word Oi! 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.’
‘Welcome to KFC. May I take your order?’ The man’s voice cut through the moment.
‘Thank you, yes. We’d like some chicken.
’ The moment she said it, she knew it was going to make Remy laugh.
And not just a little laugh, but that nose-snorting kind of hysteria when something was so ridiculous.
It set her off too, and she did her best to take a deep breath and remain composed.
‘I’m sorry!’ she managed, wheezing with her hand on her chest. ‘I just need a minute!’ Ashleigh howled her laughter and couldn’t look at her sister directly, knowing it would only make her laugh harder.
Remy leaned forward in the front seat, her mop of curls spilling over her legs.
Hair that looked quite beautiful, she thought. On Remy.
‘Thank you, yes. We’d like some chicken!’ Remy repeated, the funniest thing, it seemed, she’d ever heard!
‘Well, you’re in the right place!’ The man, thankfully, had a sense of humour.
‘Oh, my goodness. I am so sorry. My sister is from London, and she doesn’t get out much,’ Remy yelled, doing her best to compose herself, before leaning further across her lap, and shouting their order into the speaker, speaking with such fluency it was like she’d learned another language.
Ashleigh thought of Elaine and Dickie, who liked to impress with their command of French and Italian.
She doubted they’d be impressed with her sister’s impressive chicken-speak.
‘Is that everything?’ the man asked, after Remy had recounted the long and convoluted order.
‘Hang on a sec!’ Remy sat back and counted on her fingers, as she named members of the family, ‘Mum, Dad, Midge, Soph, Bertie, Harper, Evie . . .’ Checking she hadn’t forgotten anyone.
‘Sides?’ came the voice from the wonky pole.
‘I’m sorry?’ Ashleigh pushed her straight blonde hair behind her ears as though this might help her understanding.
‘Sides?’ the man repeated.
‘I’m not sure!’
‘You’re such a dipstick!’ Remy laughed, which set her off again, that word . . . it had been an age since she’d heard it. Remy leaned forward with her arms over her head now, laughing and hiding.
‘Remy! Don’t leave me hanging. Help me out here!’ she giggled.
‘Corn? Beans?’ the man asked.
‘Yes, corn beans would be lovely,’ she replied as politely as she could.
Remy bashed the dashboard with her flattened palm, wheezing her laughter.
‘What?’ Ashleigh managed.
‘It’s corn or beans!’ she practically shouted.
‘Oh, right! Corn.’
‘No! Beans!’ Remy shouted again.
‘Oh God! I am so sorry! Just beans.’ Ashleigh was laughing so hard, her tears sprang.
‘And to drink?’ The man, sounded, understandably, like he was beginning to lose his patience.
‘I don’t know!’ Ashleigh was struggling through her hysterics. She turned to her sister. ‘What drink?’
‘Lemonade? Fanta? Coke?’ the man prompted.
‘Oh, okay . . . Fanta, please.’ She knew the answer to this one, having heard the kids ask for it.
‘Sorry,’ the man boomed. ‘We are out of Fanta.’
This was the final straw. Remy shrieked, ‘Ash! I’m going to wet myself!’
With her head on the steering wheel, she fought for breath.
It happened like this sometimes, rarely, but it happened, these moments when she let a little laughter out and a whole rush of happy came tumbling after, as if it had been lurking there in the crevices of her mind, just waiting.
And only in acknowledging the release did she understand how tightly she was wound, and how much she kept in.
It was like being a teenager again, and with it came a freedom, a lightness of being that was rare and precious, reminding her how she used to be, before she felt the weight of the St. Jude’s blazer on her shoulders.
It was as if her worries took flight, spiralling high into the sky overhead, and she gladly watched them go.
In the immediate aftermath of such release she felt enthused, optimistic even, that everything would work out.
She and Guy would talk, regroup. She and Archie would iron out the kinks, and things with Evie would get easier, she was sure.
It used to feel this way when her mum tucked her in before sleep, as she lay in the little bed opposite her sister.
‘Night night, little doves, sweet dreams . . .’
And they were – her dreams sweet, her sleep deep, as she sank down into the sheets feeling warm and happy. Until that word ‘exam’ was first mooted and she felt the threads of her joy slowly unravelling.
By the time they collected their food from the second window, they had mascara-smudged eyes, blotchy skin, and had released enough tension that their muscles were soft, their spines relaxed, and they breathed easily.