Chapter 9
SCARLETT
I open Daisy’s flat door with the key Layla gave me before I left the clinic. At least I’ll never have to see that landlord again.
I head to Daisy’s room and glance around, wondering where to start.
George is due here at midday to help me.
It will be good to get him on his own. I haven’t had the chance to speak to him in any detail.
Initially, it was too raw in the immediate aftermath to speak to anyone.
When the news hit, George fled to his parents’ house.
He didn’t take my calls or answer my texts for days.
It was highly frustrating. I know her death has affected him badly, but it has affected everyone.
He doesn’t have a monopoly on grief. Then one day, he replied to my message agreeing to be a pallbearer and compile a playlist for the wake.
The unzipped suitcases on the bed call me to begin with them. I start packing what remains of my sister’s life – her clothes from the wardrobe, trainers and boots from the shoe rack, odds and ends from her bedside cabinet.
I check the time. It’s now a quarter past twelve. I grab a handful of underwear from the chest of drawers, when a gentle knock at the front door hums along the hallway, as if it’s hoping no one is inside. It must be George. I hurry to the door before he changes his mind.
‘Sorry I’m late.’ His hands are stuffed in his pockets. ‘The traffic was a nightmare.’
‘No worries. I’m glad you’re here now.’ He smells of deodorant and traffic fumes.
We exchange polite chat about the weather – I’ve never known it so hot – as he removes his lightweight jacket and slings it over a hook by the door that holds my sister’s leather jacket and other items of clothing I don’t recognise.
‘Just tell me what you want me to do,’ he says.
‘I’ve made a start in the bedroom. Do you want to help me finish there, or start in the kitchen?’
He pulls down his T-shirt over the top of his jeans. ‘What about Layla’s room?’
‘I’ve agreed to box her stuff, and her mum is going to arrange for it to be transported back to Scotland.’
‘Let’s work through each room together.’ He picks up the flat-pack boxes leaning against the wall.
‘I’ll make these up.’ He tails me along the hallway to Daisy’s room, flat-pack boxes in tow.
His voice intermittently cracks as he talks about Daisy and the good times they spent together as he assembles the boxes, and I fill the suitcases.
I wait for him to stop talking. Daisy once told me in the middle of an argument that I have an annoying habit of talking over people.
Mum agreed. It was because I can’t bear pregnant pauses in conversation, waiting for the other to fill the gap.
I was shocked when she said it, but I’ve worked hard to ditch the bad habit.
I calculate how far I can push him. After all, it could be the last time we see each other – the last chance to get some answers.
Layla offered little. But someone knows more than they are letting on.
It sounded like she genuinely tried to convince the police something wasn’t right about the whole drug overdose. They just hadn’t wanted to listen.
‘George. I know this is painful for you. Hell, it’s painful for everyone. And I really appreciate you coming here today. It can’t be easy. But I need some answers.’
He pauses running the tape gun along the edge of a box. ‘What answers?’
I tell him about my visit to see Layla. ‘I just don’t understand what happened.’
‘How is she – Layla?’ he asks.
‘I’m not sure how to answer that. She’s lost an awful lot of weight. But she seems totally with it now.’ I sigh. ‘I can’t buy what the police have concluded.’
He shrugs. ‘I don’t know what you want me to say that hasn’t already been said.’
I try to hide my frustration. ‘What you said to the police, yes. But to me.’
Silence.
‘Please.’ Begging isn’t my style, but beg I will if that’s what it takes to extract whatever information he has left to give.
He throws the tape gun on the bed. ‘We’re in the same boat.
’ His voice shakes. He’s angry. ‘I don’t buy it, either.
I told the police the same as you. But it’s as if they didn’t want to listen.
All I got was condescending bullshit about the people closest to the deceased not really knowing them in these types of cases.
Seriously! I think they would’ve tried to pin it on me if I didn’t have an alibi for the time she died.
If it’d been convenient for them, that is. ’
I remain silent, willing him to continue.
‘I told them, yes, she smoked weed on the odd occasion. But nothing more than that. And it wasn’t as if she ever went near the real hardcore drugs. It really wasn’t that much of a big deal.’
He’s almost shouting now. Normally, I’d reach out. Tell him to calm down, but I need to know more. ‘I still can’t believe she took any drugs at all,’ I say.
‘It was a matter of fitting in. Peer pressure, if you like.’
‘And you, George? Did you take drugs? Do you?’
‘Me. No. Tried weed. Didn’t like it.’ He hesitates.
‘What? What is it?’
He resumes running a strip of tape along the edge of a box. There’s more. Something he’s holding back on telling me. I’m sure of it.
‘Come on. George. There’s nothing you can say that’d crush me more than I’m already crushed. What is it?’
‘Did you know Daisy was on antidepressants?’ His words land like a slap across the face.
‘Sorry?’
‘She had been for a while before she died.’
‘How long?’
‘About a year.’
‘A year!’ I recall when she’d never take anything, even for a muscle strain or inflammation when we were training, or a headache. ‘But she never took any sort of medication.’
He shrugs.
It’s my turn to raise my voice. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’
‘I’ve never had the opportunity. This is the first time we’ve really been able to speak properly.
In any case, it felt disloyal.’ He runs his hands through his soft curls that reach his shoulders.
‘She didn’t want anyone knowing. What good would come out of you knowing?
I thought it would upset you. It has upset you. ’
‘Did Layla know?’ I ask.
‘Not that I’m aware of.’
‘Did you tell the police?’
He nods.
That single gesture hurts more than his words. He told them and not me. Not Mum.
‘I guess that backed up their argument,’ he says. ‘Stick a label on her as being unstable and move on to the next case.’
‘For what? What was she taking them for, exactly, George?’
‘Does it matter?’ He’s being guarded.
‘Matter? Of course it matters. Tell me.’
Another hesitation. ‘She felt worthless, inferior.’
He’s showing all the hallmarks of someone who has opened their mouth and wishes they hadn’t. But I need to understand. I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This isn’t the sister I knew. ‘Carry on.’
‘She said she’d spent her life trying to live up to you.’
It takes me a few seconds to compose myself. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ I stare at him, wondering if I can trust him. ‘It was never like that between us.’
He tilts his head slightly as if he’s listening to what I’m saying but wondering if he can believe me.
‘It’s why she stopped competing. She said the pressure to keep up with you got too much.
’ He lifts his shoulders and leaves them suspended by his ears.
‘I’m sorry. That’s probably hard for you to hear.
I tried to persuade her. Told her she mustn’t think like that.
But you can’t tell people what or how to think.
And she was getting better. Honestly, she was.
We even had conversations about her coming off the meds. ’
‘I thought she stopped training because of you.’
His shoulders drop, eyebrows raised. ‘Not me. Never. I told her she must start again. It was part of her DNA. It would make her feel better. No, Scarlett, you must believe me – I encouraged her to start again.’
‘Why didn’t the police tell me this? Tell Mum?’