My Sister's Bones(19)

I touch his shoulder gently as I stand up and make my way out. As I reach the end of the corridor I look back and he is there, still shaking his head, and I realize how insensitive I have been. Why did I tell him that people were unhappy in England? Couldn’t I see that, for him, a little boy trapped in a war zone, the idea of anyone being unhappy in a safe place like England was more than he could bear?

A hammering at the front door interrupts the memory and I stand up and put my empty coffee cup into the sink. It will be Paul, come to take me to the solicitor’s.

I open the door and he hugs me.

‘You look better this morning,’ he says. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Yes,’ I lie. ‘Though the seagulls are rather noisy.’

‘One of the drawbacks of living by the sea,’ he says with a laugh as he steps inside. But something’s not right. The lines around his eyes deepen as he stares back down the driveway.

‘Is everything okay, Paul?’

‘Yes, everything’s fine,’ he says. ‘It’s just I’m in a bit of a rush, that’s all. We’re short-staffed at work and I’ve told the lads I’ll be two hours max.’ He glances at his watch.

‘Oh, you should have said. I would have got a cab.’

‘Don’t be silly, I wouldn’t hear of it,’ he says. ‘Those lads are a bunch of pansies sometimes and I’ve put in enough overtime as it is.’

‘If you’re sure.’

‘I’m sure,’ he says. ‘Now come on, grab your coat, chop chop.’

I take my coat from the hall cupboard and knock over my bag in the process.

‘Dammit.’

‘Here, let me help.’ Paul crouches next to me and begins to pick up various items that have fallen on to the floor. He hands me a box of pills and narrows his eyes as I hurriedly toss them into the bag.

‘Surely it hasn’t come to that, love?’ he says as we get to our feet. ‘Those things are no good for you. In fact, they’re dangerous. You could end up having an overdose.’

‘I know what I’m doing,’ I say as he opens the door. ‘I’m a big girl now. No need for safety caps.’

‘Yes, well, even big girls can get themselves into trouble,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘That looks like pretty strong stuff you’ve got there.’

‘I’m fine, honestly, Paul,’ I say as we step outside. ‘You mustn’t worry.’

But as I go to close the door I remember something.

‘Won’t be a sec,’ I tell him, running back inside. ‘Just need to get my lucky pen.’

‘Lucky pen?’ he calls from the front step. ‘Blimey, I’ve heard it all.’

I go into the living room and look on the coffee table where I last had it, but it’s not there.

‘That’s strange,’ I say. ‘I’m sure I left it here this morning.’

‘Oh, come on,’ says Paul, walking into the room. ‘We’ll be late. Look, I’ll lend you my lucky Bic.’

He grins and reaches into his pocket, pulling out an old biro with a chewed cap. I take it and put it in my pocket. But as we head for the door I feel strangely uneasy. Where can it be? I can clearly remember putting it down next to the pad I was writing on.

‘I don’t know what I’ll do if I’ve lost it,’ I say to Paul as we head back outside.

‘Oh, it’ll turn up,’ he says, locking the door. ‘Things like that always do.’

I nod my head but as we walk to the car I have a bad feeling in my stomach.

‘Retrace your steps,’ says Paul, pointing the fob at the driver’s side of the car. ‘Always works for me.’

While he makes a fuss of adjusting the mirror and making sure his seat belt is properly secured I take my phone out and check to see if I’ve had any messages. There are none. I start to compose a text but there’s so much to say I don’t know where to begin. I delete the message and put the phone into my bag as Paul starts up the car.

‘Anything important?’ asks Paul as we slowly pull away.

‘No,’ I reply. ‘It can wait.’

Paul turns on the radio and the car fills with the crackly voice of a DJ but all I can think about is my lucky pen. It’s an omen, I tell myself. Maybe my luck has finally run out.

A lugubrious sun hangs in the late-afternoon sky. It casts a feeble light across the surface of the water as I sit on a bench watching the last of the fishing boats make their way into the harbour.

I’d asked Paul to drop me at the seafront on the way back from the solicitor’s office where I’d spent an hour drinking tepid tea and reading the contents of my mother’s will. When all the documents had been signed the solicitor, a pleasant young woman called Maria, had handed me an envelope: a letter from my mother. It was a shock. I never expected Mum to leave me a letter.

Paul offered to stay with me while I read it but I knew I would need to be alone to hear my mother’s final words, so I decided to take myself and the letter to the benches at Neptune’s Arm, the mile-long stretch of breakwater where my mother and I used to sit before Sally was born to watch the boats come in. It seemed fitting somehow.

The wind is icy and it whips around my face like an angry hand as I sit with the unopened envelope on my knee. Several feet below me the fishermen growl and bluster as they haul their heavy nets full of flounder and silver eels on to the shore and shoo away the seagulls who, following the scent of death on the air, whirl remorselessly above their heads.