Chapter Ten
T HE KETTLE WAS taking forever to boil.
Chloe watched it as it steadily rattled louder as her younger sister pulled off her jacket. Gwen shivered. ‘It’s freezing in here. Is the central heating on?’
She didn’t wait for a response but switched it on herself then settled onto one of the dining room chairs, blowing air up to her forehead.
Chloe tore her gaze away from the world’s slowest kettle to look at her.
It was awkward, avoiding the topic of why they hadn’t seen each other in years, but Chloe was too shocked to want to bring it up already.
‘How’s it going with, erm . . .’ Gwen squinted at the ceiling. ‘That guy you were seeing? Simon?’
The guy from Sheffield? ‘We actually broke up over a year ago.’
‘Oh, right. I’m sorry.’ Gwen looked pained, and Chloe almost felt sorry for her. Almost.
‘Er . . . what are you doing here?’ she asked her. Last she’d heard, Gwen had been sipping margaritas somewhere in Europe. Or maybe it was the Caribbean.
‘Hm, what?’ Gwen wrung her hands. ‘Oh, yeah. Well, I heard you’d come back to move into this place.’ She looked around, and at least had the decency to look wistful. ‘I, um, wanted to see it for myself.’
‘Did you?’ Chloe didn’t believe it. ‘Who did you hear that from?’
‘Auntie Paula.’
‘Right, right.’ Chloe nodded. She supposed word of their parents’ house and who it was going to must have reached the relatives.
Initially, it was supposed to go to both of them but since Gwen hadn’t shown up for any of the meetings or responded to solicitors’ calls, only Chloe currently had a key.
‘And you came all the way from where? Spain? To see the house you grew up in?’
‘All right, look. I’m broke,’ said Gwen, looking annoyed. ‘My boyfriend broke up with me and my money’s run out. He . . . He did it on the plane ride back and then left me on my own at Heathrow Airport. I could barely afford the train ride over here.’
The kettle finished boiling. Chloe poured them both tea, glad to have something to do with her hands.
‘And you need somewhere to stay,’ Chloe finished the sentence for her.
She supposed she should feel sorry for her sister, but Gwen didn’t tend to stay with the same man for long.
She looked more annoyed about it than heartbroken.
‘Well, yes. I mean, it’s my house too,’ said Gwen stiffly. ‘Thanks,’ she added when Chloe set down the tea in front of her. Milky with one sugar, she remembered.
Mum and Dad hadn’t written an official will, as they had only been in their fifties when they’d died.
But only Chloe had responded to enquiries about it, and been here to clean it up and eventually move in.
Gwen hadn’t come to the house with Auntie Paula to help pack away Mum and Dad’s things, a painful process.
A prickle of annoyance ran through Chloe at her sister’s audacity.
‘How long will you be staying?’ she asked carefully, fighting to keep her voice even.
She noted Gwen hadn’t actually asked if she could stay, but that was typical of her sister.
Gwen wrapped her hands around her mug, and Chloe noticed the varnish on her nails was chipped, the skin around them nibbled and raw. ‘Well, I don’t know. As long as I need to, until I find somewhere else to go.’ She sighed. ‘I suppose I should find a job.’
Chloe didn’t really want her sister here. There was a painful awkwardness between them, in the way Gwen’s eyes didn’t quite meet her own. But Chloe felt pity as she beheld her little sister. She couldn’t throw her out when she had no money. There was plenty of space here for them both.
‘Stay as long as you want,’ she said with a sigh.
‘Yay! Thank you.’ Gwen beamed at her and jumped from her chair to give her a hug. Chloe forced a smile as her sister’s slender arms wrapped around her. ‘You’re a lifesaver. You were always the more mature sister, Chloe.’
Chloe wasn’t in the mood for Gwen’s compliments. She could be sweet when she got what she wanted, then cold the next moment. ‘I have work tomorrow,’ she said after she’d gulped down her scalding tea. ‘You sleep in your old room, all right? I haven’t moved anything in there.’
‘Where is everything?’ Gwen asked as Chloe was straightening up the living room. Her sister glanced around. ‘There used to be a big bookcase here, and some framed photos. Right?’
Chloe straightened. She’d never had much of a filter when it came to her sister, and her shock was wearing off in place of annoyance.
‘If you had bothered to come to the house after the funeral, Gwen, you’d know that we spent hours – days – sorting out all the old stuff.
’ It had been a slow, bitter few days, where Chloe had had to endure obscure relatives swapping memories about her parents, reminiscing about Chloe’s antics when she was a child, and remarking on the fact that Gwen hadn’t joined them.
Packing stuff into boxes, nodding along when aunties and uncles and distant cousins lamented that they didn’t spend enough time together, then locking herself in the bathroom to cry when the pressure had become too much.
Gwen’s eyes narrowed. ‘I was stuck in Fiji,’ she said. ‘I couldn’t get a flight out in time, and someone wouldn’t push the funeral back to wait.’
‘Funerals aren’t something you can just push back .’
‘You didn’t even try. It takes over a day to travel back from there. And I didn’t even hear about the accident until they were . . . and I was . . . in shock.’ Gwen blinked rapidly, her lips pressed hard together. Chloe looked away, not wanting to broach the subject of the car crash. Not yet.
‘And when I did get back to England, I . . . I couldn’t face it,’ Gwen added, folding her arms.
Couldn’t face me, Chloe didn’t say. She rubbed her face, tired.
It had been a long day, and she was in no mood to argue with her sister now.
Half an hour ago, she hadn’t even known she was in the country.
‘Well, all their stuff is in boxes upstairs in the attic, if you ever feel like digging it out.’ She turned and headed up the stairs.
She was getting ready for bed when she heard Gwen climbing the stairs behind her.
She only had one small suitcase, and it banged on every step she ascended.
Chloe listened to her sighs and mutters, rubbing her forehead and hoping Gwen found another boyfriend to mooch off of soon.
Chloe’s shift at the library the next day started at ten o’clock.
At eight thirty she was up, sipping coffee with a plate of toast at the coffee table.
Dad had made the table when she was just a child.
It didn’t match anything else in the living room, but nobody had minded.
Even after twenty years, it was sturdy and reliable.
‘Morning.’ Gwen yawned as she joined Chloe in the living room, her hair somehow still gorgeous in a messy, stylish sort of way. She plopped down on the other end of the couch, wrapping her golden locks into a messy bun.
Chloe grunted in response, staring down at the coffee in her mug. She didn’t bring up their conversation from the previous night, and neither did her sister, who sat looking at her phone. When the tension between them was too thick to bear, Chloe rose with her empty plate. ‘I’m going to work.’
‘What do you do?’ Gwen asked. ‘Still in marketing?’
Chloe was shocked that her sister actually knew what she did back before Mum and Dad died. ‘No. There’s not much demand for that here.’
The kitchen and the living room were separated by an archway rather than a door, and Chloe washed her plate as she told her sister she was working at the Wellbridge Library. ‘It’s just a temporary thing,’ she said, drying her hands. ‘Until I’ve saved up enough money to start again somewhere new.’
Gwen giggled, and Chloe stepped into the living room to shoot her a questioning look.
Gwen was wearing tiny pyjamas, short shorts that rode almost over the tops of her thighs and a tank top that looked too cold for this chilly late autumn morning, not that Gwen had switched off the central heating last night before bed.
Even when she had just rolled out of her blankets and hadn’t put on any make-up, her little sister still looked stunning.
She was practically a supermodel next to Chloe, who had opted for her comfortable tartan skirt and blouse-cardigan combo, her chestnut hair scooped up into a sensible, boring ponytail.
‘What’s funny?’ Chloe asked Gwen, who still smiled, shaking her head.
‘Just you.’ Gwen was examining her painted toenails now. ‘Chloe, working at the library. It’s so . . . you. Being all bookish and boring.’
‘Thanks,’ Chloe said stiffly. She made to leave.
‘Aw, come on. I didn’t mean it like that.
’ Gwen slid off the couch and came to wrap her arms around Chloe from behind, squeezing her tight.
Chloe stiffened at first – this was the most physical contact they’d had in years bar their hug last night – but she sighed and relaxed into the hug, reluctantly patting Gwen’s hand.
‘Thanks for letting me stay,’ Gwen mumbled in her ear.
‘Yeah, well, don’t get used to it,’ Chloe grumbled back. ‘This is just temporary. For both of us.’ This may be Gwen’s house too, but surely she didn’t see herself living here permanently. She hadn’t been able to wait until she could leave when they were kids.
Gwen’s slender arms fell from her as she went to open the bread bin on the counter. It was one of the things they hadn’t thought to pack away.
‘Aw, remember when we got this?’ Gwen asked, looking sadly at the little wooden container. She opened it, revealing the half loaf of brown bread Chloe had bought.
‘Yeah,’ said Chloe softly. Mum had been delighted to find it in a charity shop, exclaiming how posh they were for owning a bread bin. The sisters exchanged small smiles before Chloe glanced away.
‘We’re buying white bread, by the way.’ Gwen slid closed the lid.