Chapter 3
When I wake I’m tucked under the blanket, a cushion beneath my head. Alex is gone.
My flat is hushed, the emptiness tangible.
I love this space I’ve made my own, but now it feels …
hollow. Perhaps it’s the lingering scent of Alex’s aftershave or the ghost of our laughter disrupting the air, a perduring sense of camaraderie, maybe – the memory of us bookending the sofa swapping old stories …
Last night I felt understood.
Known.
Few people truly know me now, and I tell myself that’s how I like it.
But the kinship of the night has changed me – flicked a switch.
I’m back to that girl who revelled in deep friendships, who laughed and was loved.
The memories of St Andrews float free: cavorting in fairy wings atop Leo’s shoulders on Raisin Monday covered in foam; leaning against Alex’s bent knees with the weight of Gen’s head on my stomach as we drowsed away a lazy Sunday in the quad.
Parading with pride in our red gowns. Old books, new music and long, meandering conversations about nothing at all.
Good times, good people.
Best friends.
Dancing at the Yule Ball in Jameson’s arms as he manoeuvred us beneath swathes of mistletoe …
No! Don’t think about that.
My mind snaps on the memory like a steel trap. Alex has stripped away the protective layer I’ve wrapped about myself all these years. Torn off the bubble wrap and exposed me. Jameson haunts my thoughts.
I drag myself off the sofa, flick on the kettle and make myself tea.
I wonder if everything would have come crashing down for our group anyway, sooner or later, even if I hadn’t left like that.
Life may have come between us eventually – careers, mortgages, spouses, children.
That’s if we’d survived the trauma of losing one of us.
After tea and a shower, I tidy the flat – wine bottle buried in the recycling box, dishwasher on, cushions plumped. Alex took his whisky with him; I wonder why he bothered bringing it if he didn’t intend to drink, but that’s a puzzle for another day.
With music playing softly, I balance my laptop on my knees.
But I fail to sink into my writing. Glancing up from my screen I see the photograph on the floor where it must have fallen off the table while we were reminiscing, half hidden beneath the sofa.
I reach for it.
Genevieve’s face is framed in strawberry curls, her lips softly parted, eyes of the deepest blue fixed on me.
She looks so alive in the picture I almost expect to see her dance off the page, hear her bell-like laugh or some caustic comment.
She was all flirtation with Leo, pure attitude with everyone else, but with me she was most herself.
The girl was a force field and I loved her.
I turn the photograph over, read Alex’s note, the one that prompted me to sprint barefoot down the stairwell chasing some ghost of my past.
He’s added another scrawl, in my indigo fountain pen:
Sleep well, Eils. Tonight was fun! I’ve been thinking about a reunion – all of us. Give me a call if you fancy it.
Beneath it he’s written his phone number. I want to call him, but I won’t. Too much time has passed after all …
Misery swarms over me and I want to give myself a good shake. I don’t wallow.
I take up the book Mitch gave me, hoping for distraction, but my phone rings before I’ve read a page. My heart lifts as for one wild moment I imagine it might be Jameson – stupid, Eilish, he doesn’t have your number!
It’s Dad, wishing me a happy new year. The familiarity of his voice is both soothing and searing, sending a wave of guilt crashing over me.
We chat for a bit but Dad’s not much of a conversationalist. He only really has one topic – the farm.
I savour the sound of his voice as he tells me about the work he’s doing around the place, and this year’s crop rotation.
One day he won’t be here any longer and I will wish I’d listened more keenly, called him more often, visited …
A voice in the back of my mind says that if I’m so worried, the farm is only a day’s drive away. Even in my head the pissy tone sounds like my brother – he loves to expound on my failures as a daughter and sister.
The voice persists, waspish now: Mitch goes every month, you could make it more than once a year surely?
Melancholy throttles me, and I choke back the feeling of a sob rising in my throat.
Fuck! What has Alex done to me? He’s softened me up and now I can’t find my hard shell.
‘Anway, I won’t keep you,’ Dad says finally. His silence is careful, textured. ‘It would be lovely to see you.’
I close my eyes. ‘Soon, Dad. I promise.’ I have three weeks’ annual leave to take. I will go and see him.
‘Grand,’ Dad says, as if he believes me.
He rings off, and I wonder how he will spend New Year’s Day.
Last time Mitch phoned, he told me Dad has started seeing some woman from the village.
Apparently he couldn’t hide his joy when she dropped in while Mitch was visiting.
I can’t imagine my curmudgeonly dad as lovesick, giddy.
I remember him being happy before Mum’s accident, but afterwards he sank into a mire of grief which Mitch worked tirelessly to pull him out of.
I turn up the music, shift my attention to my book again.
After ten more minutes I give up. I reply to my brother’s message from last night, send a few Happy-New-Years to a couple of colleagues, a friend I met at a kickboxing class, and then – on impulse – to Matt, the cop who’s been asking for a date.
He replies fast, his message filled with flirty exclamation marks. He’s at his brother’s house for New Year’s dinner, but is back on duty tomorrow. He asks if I fancy a coffee next week.
I put my phone aside and pace. I pause to look critically at my reflection in the ornate mirror in the hall.
I wonder what Matt sees in me that fuels his persistence in the face of my apathy.
I am ordinary – heart-shaped face, chin too sharp, insipid grey eyes.
I pull my hair back into a messy ponytail, the short strands wisping around my face.
I am pale tonight, a ghost. I feel like one too, floating through life leaving little mark.
It’s as if a part of me died in the sea that night …
Or maybe I was already in pieces before I made it to St Andrews.
My attention is snagged by the photos on the hall table again.
My mother’s warm smile catches my eye and I pick up the picture of her.
She was a proper mumsy mum – home baking, big hugs, messy craft projects at the kitchen table, rambling chats as we fed the chickens and picked vegetables in her garden.
She’d have loved hearing about my university adventures – Jameson and Genevieve and the gang. But she was dead before I left for Freshers’ week.
She’d be – not disappointed exactly but … perplexed by my life now. My isolation.
The accident happened weeks before I left for uni. Mum was so excited about me getting accepted to St Andrews. She’d started packing me a box of essentials: a wine opener, mugs, tea-towels …
We went to the loch for a picnic that afternoon.
It was one of those rare belters of a day with baking sun and a cool, clean breeze.
Dad and Mitch were busy on the farm, so it ended up being a girls’ trip.
Mum went out on the water in the open canoe, after trying to persuade me to join her.
But I wanted to read on the jetty and sunbathe – I wanted a bit of a tan before I left for uni, convinced I’d be the only pale girl among bronzed beauties.
I intended to finish the book I was reading.
Mum was a competent rower, perfectly capable of handling the boat. The loch was tidal, so you had to take care, but there was no real danger.
I didn’t mean to fall asleep but the sun beating down on my back was intense, and soon the book slipped and I laid my head on my arms. I woke with the stark sense of something being wrong, like too much time had passed.
I was acutely alone. I leapt up, searching the loch for the boat.
Then I spotted it – bobbing in the water, upturned and unmanned.
I was a good swimmer – I’d have made it to nationals if I hadn’t lived in the middle of nowhere. I dived off the jetty into the cold, dark waters.
My hand trembles as I put the picture down, tearing myself away from Mum’s smile.
I had to be pulled out of the loch. A passerby saw me diving, again and again, screaming for her each time I surfaced.
I was blue with cold when they dragged me out and was taken to hospital with hypothermia, despite the warmth of the day.
Her body was recovered a week later.
Abruptly, I drop the picture onto the table. I’m shaking now.
I glance at the picture of Gen again. Less than a year after I dived into the loch and failed to save my mother, I dived into the sea off West Sands, and failed to save my best friend too.
I haven’t swum since.
I go into my room and fetch my shoes. I will go for a long walk and blow away these melancholy cobwebs. And when I get back I’ll sleep for a few hours. Then New Year will be over and everything can go back to normal.