Chapter 2
SCARLETT
Mum insisted on holding the wake at our family home, despite my protests. ‘Save yourself the hassle, Mum. Let’s hold it at the pub.’
‘It’s what Daisy would’ve wanted,’ she cried. ‘It’s the least we can do.’
I got it. I’d want my final goodbye to be held here at home, too.
Guests funnel between the familiar rooms, each one holding its own memory.
George stands by the kitchen table. He’s striking, in a boyish kind of way with brown tousled curls, and a perfect complexion.
My sister always got the good-looking ones.
The table has been extended to full length and covered with sandwiches and nibbles and a large D-shaped cake Mum and I baked yesterday.
George catches my eye, a sudden steeliness in his countenance.
How I’d love to have a conversation with him, but the time hasn’t been quite right.
He grabs a sandwich, takes a bite and leaves the rest on a paper plate.
I busy myself serving tea and coffee from the centre island.
Mum got out the best cups and saucers. The ones she usually saves for special occasions.
Christmas. Easter. Visiting family. I bet she never thought she’d see the day she’d have to get them out for her daughter’s wake.
People place their orders, muttering similar condolences.
‘I’m so sorry,’ a stranger says. What else can they say to the sister of the woman who died from a drug overdose? ‘Daisy was a gem.’
‘She was,’ I say.
He takes his cup of tea and disappears.
I was in denial when the police delivered the inconceivable news.
As was Mum. We argued with them until we were blue in the face.
My sister wasn’t the type. She never took drugs.
She didn’t even drink much. She’d never put anything in her body that could negatively affect her performance.
She recorded all her workouts and training sessions and analysed all her split times.
It was like science to her. I’m more of a go-out-and-smash-it type, see where I come in.
It was only when the preliminary autopsy report came through that we had to accept it.
Daisy had kept certain parts of her life private.
Parts she hadn’t wanted us to know about.
And that was that as far as Mum was concerned.
I guess that’s how she wanted to package it.
People grieve in varying ways. Me… well, I haven’t given up.
I’ve just kept quiet… waiting for the funeral to be over, so I can fulfil the promise I made at my sister’s grave.
‘Granny,’ I call to my grandma, who is wandering around in a state of confusion.
She seems to have escaped Mum’s friend, who agreed to look after her today.
It would’ve been better if Mum had found her somewhere else to go, but Granny now refuses to leave the house without a big battle that Mum can’t bear to fight.
Granny shuffles over to me, her slippers catching on the tiled floor. The hump in her back makes me wince. It’s getting worse. ‘Where’s the girl?’ she asks, straining her neck to look up at me.
‘What girl, Granny?’
‘You know. The other one of you.’
‘Daisy,’ I say.
‘That’s right.’
‘She’s at college. She’ll be back later.
’ Mum and I agreed to keep the news of Daisy’s death from Granny.
Her failing brain can’t deal with it. I can’t bear the thought of having to constantly repeat what has happened each time her memory deserts her.
It’s against everything I stand for. I don’t deal in lies. But this is different.
‘When are all these people going to go home?’
I put my arm around her shoulders. ‘Soon. Not long. Here, let me make you a cup of tea.’
‘There are so many of them. Tea. Yes. Tea,’ she mumbles. ‘I don’t like tea.’
‘You love a cup of tea, Granny.’
‘Do I?’ She starts singing. She used to belong to the local choir, but now she sings random songs we’ve never heard of as if she makes them up.
Mum’s friend appears. She winks at me and takes Granny’s arm. ‘The weather’s brightened up. Why don’t we go into the garden?’
Daisy’s friends pass from room to room serving light refreshments from throwaway silver trays. I can’t quite take the small talk; the air of mournfulness is stifling. That and the playlist George compiled of Daisy’s favourite tracks, which hums away in the background.
‘Just going to the loo,’ I mouth to Mum across the crowded room.
Upstairs, in Daisy’s bedroom, I touch the cold bottles of perfume neatly lined up on her dressing table.
She loved her perfume. Necklaces hang from a hand-shaped jewellery holder.
I run my fingers along the gold chains. Her style was sharper than mine.
Me, I rarely get out of my gym clothes. I live in sports shorts and a T-shirt, bottoms and a hoodie in colder weather.
It is part of my work. A bottle of DKNY Be Delicious, shaped like a green apple, calls for me to pick it up.
I squirt my neck. The crisp, fruity smell reminds me of her. This was one of her favourites.
Hooked over the side of the mirror is a turquoise baseball cap with MOM printed across the front.
It strikes me as odd. Mum must’ve bought it for her as a joke.
I turn to the certificates and photos on the walls, and the shelving holding all the framed photos and trophies from events she won over the years and her beloved Lego models.
A photo of us in our wetsuits at the edge of a lake, before the start of a race, catches my eye.
It was taken five years ago, when we both reached the county finals.
I pick it up and run my finger around the perimeter. Two tears spring out of my eyes.
I go to the window and look out on the garden, where people are standing talking in small groups.
Mum could’ve paid for another venue to host the event.
Money isn’t an issue for her. When Dad died in a car accident when I was ten, and Daisy was eight, she sold his thriving accountancy firm, which meant she’s never had to work again.
I turn to a creaking floorboard. George stands at the threshold of the door. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ I swipe the falling tears with the back of my hand.
He steps into the room and stands by my side. ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘She would never, ever take drugs,’ I say flatly.
‘Well—’ He stops mid-sentence. The look on his face suggests I’m wrong.
I frown. ‘Carry on.’
He shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’
I prod his shoulder, a little too roughly. ‘No! You were going to say something. Finish what you started.’
‘She liked the odd bit of weed.’ His words shock me.
‘Odd bit? What does that mean? How much? When?’
‘Now and again with Layla. Not much, hardly worth mentioning.’
I screw my eyes shut. Layla is Daisy’s flatmate… was her flatmate. She’s travelling at the moment, though she sent me a message saying how heartbroken she was at the news of Daisy’s death.
‘Weed?’ My voice is barely a whisper. Daisy was always anti-drugs.
‘She said it relaxed her. You know what she was like.’ He’s stifling tears, just like me. ‘Always on the go. Always looking for the next thing to try. I just think Layla was a bad influence on her. I’m not convinced she even enjoyed it.’
‘But Daisy wasn’t one to be easily swayed. She knew her own mind. And in any case, an odd bit of weed doesn’t lead to the amount of drugs she had in her system when she died.’
George shrugs. The same as me, he doesn’t have an answer. Or maybe he does, and he doesn’t want to share what more he knows. I can’t see why he wouldn’t.
I have so many questions I want to ask, need to ask him, but now is not the time. Not because I’m not ready to ask them. More so, he’s not up to answering them. I replace the photo on the shelf. ‘I’m going to make a start on clearing Daisy’s room at uni tomorrow. Are you around?’
‘I’m sorry.’ His voice is as clogged as a blocked drain. ‘I can’t do tomorrow.’ He can’t abandon her… abandon me… already. I need him. He’s the only link to my sister’s life before she died. ‘What about the weekend?’
‘Sure.’ Silence falls between us as we peer around my sister’s room. ‘I’d have thought Layla would’ve come back for the funeral,’ I say. ‘Even if I was travelling, I can’t imagine not coming back for my best friend’s funeral.’
George squints at me. ‘I’ve got something to tell you, Scarlett.’
‘What?’
‘Layla’s not abroad.’
I frown. ‘Where is she, then?’
‘Here. She’s in rehab.’
‘Rehab?’ I gasp. ‘Daisy told me she was travelling in South-East Asia.’
‘No.’ George shakes his head repeatedly. ‘Layla checked herself into rehab a few weeks ago.’