‘So,’ Maria says at last, as if she can read my mind, ‘when are you going to tell me what’s going on with you, S? I might be able to help.’ She pauses. ‘You know you can tell me anything, sis. That’s what I’m here for. Remember?’
I don’t say anything. A trickle of sweat works its way down my neck.
‘Siobhan?’
‘There’s nothing going on,’ I say at last, ‘really, Maria. Everything’s fine.’ It has become my party line over the years; the words slide off my tongue like honey.
A silence falls between us, heavy with everything I’m not saying. Briefly, I close my eyes, the hot sun burning an orb of white into my eyelids.
‘It’s almost forty degrees now,’ Maria says eventually, pulling her sun lounger a little bit closer to mine with a slight scraping sound as it shifts across the tiles. She’s wearing a white lace smock over her black two-piece swimming costume, looking every inch the glamorous sort of woman that I can’t be any more. Her body is unscarred, child-free – the thin silver line from my caesarean stretches across my belly. I haven’t really answered her question, her reminder that I can tell her anything. Anything at all. It’s what she used to say when we were younger, back when we shared a room – she’d whisper to me in the dark, ask me to tell her my secrets. Truth be told, at that age I didn’t have any – most of my thoughts revolved around my homework and what was going on in Neighbours.
‘Mm,’ I mumble, ‘it’s lovely.’ There’s another silence for a minute, the only sound the throbbing of the crickets, and the drifting, dull burr of an overhead plane. I follow it with my eyes, and wonder briefly about the passengers on it – are they happy? Are they free?
‘Thanks for staying with me,’ I say at last to my sister, and she shrugs her shoulders, smiles across at me. Her eyes are covered by her mirrored sunglasses – I stare at my own tiny reflection in her lenses.
‘Of course,’ she says. ‘It’s good to have some time alone with you anyway, sis. I feel like we never get to do that any more.’
Beneath me, I can feel my limbs starting to stick to the lounger, the plastic melting into my sticky flesh. Licking my top lip, I taste salt.
‘We used to be so close, S,’ she says, and now she’s angled her body so that it’s fully facing mine, a parallel image of my own.
‘We still are,’ I say, and then, quickly, ‘thank you for inviting us out here. You know how much I appreciate it.’
She blinks at me, long dark lashes sweeping smooth skin. She’s right, I suppose – we’re not as close as we have been in the past; even though she’s only in Woodbridge we find ourselves caught up in our lives, me with Emma and the school, her with her interior design business and her mysterious liaisons with men she pretends don’t exist but must. There are gaps in our story, times where weeks go by without me seeing her. But still, she makes an effort – she texts Emma, takes her shopping for too-short clothes without batting an eyelid. She’s always been a brilliant aunt.
‘You do know I mean what I said, don’t you? You can tell me anything, S. Whatever’s on your mind.’
I am cursing not having my own sunglasses with me; I feel exposed and suddenly vulnerable as she assesses me from behind her protection of dark glass.
‘How do you think Emma seems?’ I say at last, when the silence between us has become too thick and foggy, and it seems to momentarily do the trick, distract her attention away from me. Focus instead on the girl we both care about. ‘She didn’t eat much last night,’ I carry on, and when Maria doesn’t reply, I take this as my cue to continue. ‘And she seems so angry all the time, have you noticed? I barely recognise her any more. She’s so up and down, as though we’ve all done something terribly wrong but I don’t know what it is.’
‘I think Emma’s probably worried too,’ Maria says at last. ‘She’s worried about you.’ Her voice lowers slightly, changes tone. ‘So am I.’
In front of us, the blue water of the pool sparkles. Inside me, it feels as though the pressure is rising, higher and higher. Callum’s face flashes in front of my mind, the buzz of his iPhone against my hip, the image of Emma pushing her food around her plate, her eyes glaring at us from across the dining table, the screech of her music blasting upwards to the terrace, the sound keeping her sealed away from us inside.
‘Why are you worried about me?’ I ask Maria, and she gives a little snort, a half laugh, as though my question is ridiculous. ‘No, really,’ I say, ‘I want to know.’
Maria sits up a little, pushes herself to a seated position. Her back is straight against the plastic chair; she always did have good posture. Her stomach stays flat even as she moves herself upright; no roll of fat at all. Neither of us have touched the croissants.
‘I don’t think you’re being fair to yourself, Siobhan.’
My heart is beating fast, and I turn my face away slightly so she can’t see my expression. Does she know?
‘In what way?’ I say, fighting to keep my voice even, not to display the panic bubbling up inside my stomach.
‘You and Callum,’ she says, ‘you’re not happy, S. I can sense it. I’m your older sister, I’ve always been able to tell when there’s something the matter.’ She shakes her head, blows out her breath. Her lips look glossy, tinted red in the sunlight. ‘Is there something wrong between you two?’
‘No,’ I say dully, ‘everything’s fine.’
She exhales, gazes up at the sky, impossibly blue and clear. ‘I don’t know why you ever got married, Siobhan,’ she says, ‘all it does is bring misery. You should’ve done the sensible thing, stayed a free agent like me. I can have my cake and eat it, whenever I like.’ She stretches forward, grabs a croissant and takes a bite. Golden flakes of pastry glisten on her lips.
‘Aren’t you jealous?’ she says, teasingly, trying to lighten the mood, ‘just a little bit?’
Chapter Four
Ipswich
3rd August: One week earlier
Caroline
By the time we’ve finished our pasta, Jenny’s drunk too much. I can tell by the way she’s talking and stroking Rick’s arm. Her eyes are very bright and her neck is sort of flushed; red mottles peeping out from the collar of her shirt and staining her skin. Perhaps the girl with a WKD in each hand isn’t as far away as I’d thought, even if she is wearing a mumsy cardi with a one-year-old in the next room. Speaking of, as it reaches ten o’clock, baby Eve starts crying, little mewls at first that turn into full-blown screams, and Rick excuses himself to go see to her. I hear the creak of the floorboards as he pads upstairs and over to her cot, then the sound of him shushing her. She stops crying really quickly, but he stays upstairs for a few minutes. Jenny and I are quiet. And then she says it.
‘So what’s going on with Callum, Caroline?’
There’s something in her tone that is different now, something barbed. Although we are in her hot little kitchen, I feel suddenly cold, a chill running down the nape of my neck.
Jenny wasn’t even supposed to know about Callum. No one was.