I laugh. ‘You’re always bloody starving.’
‘Bloody,’ she repeats, shaking her head. ‘Five minutes back in England and you are already English again!’
‘You’d better get used to it. There will be lots of bloody hell and piss off and Scotch eggs.’
‘Scotch eggs?’ Fleur wrinkles her nose. ‘What is this?’
I laugh again, turning on the engine and putting the car in gear. ‘Welcome to Angleterre, mon petit ami, land of the Scotch egg and Yorkshire puddings. You’ve got a lot to learn.’
The satnav takes us down roads I haven’t travelled in years. I remember the last time I came to Cornwall, for the ten-year anniversary of Saffy’s disappearance. Mum decided at the last minute that she couldn’t face it, so I drove down alone. I had to go. I had to see the place where my sister had disappeared for one last time.
It was the last time I saw my father in the flesh too, during that brief visit in June almost twelve years ago. Saffy would have turned twenty that year, and the loss hit me as I stepped onto the beach. It was warmer than the day she disappeared, the sun high and bright, the sky blue and cloudless. The beach wasn’t yet full of tourists – my father would never use the Cornish term emmets – and a small group was gathered along the shore. My dad turned towards me, one hand shielding his eyes, and his wife put up a hand to wave me over. Their two sons were kicking a ball around as if it was just a normal day at the beach for them. And maybe it was. They had never met Saffy, hadn’t loved her as I did. What was she to them anyway? Just a sister they’d never known.
Dad seemed disappointed that I was alone; he had that look in his eyes that I had grown used to over the years. It was the same way Mum looked at me, her gaze focused on a point just over my shoulder as if waiting for Saffy to appear behind me, the question where is your sister? on the tip of her tongue. But this time, it wasn’t my sister he was searching for. He was looking for Mum, the ex-wife who could barely bring herself to utter his name.
‘Hello, Skye,’ Fiona said, a smile fixed to her face. She stepped forward as if to hug me, then appeared to change her mind and patted my shoulder awkwardly instead. I ignored her.
‘Good drive?’ Dad asked.
I nodded. ‘It was fine. No traffic.’
‘What time did you leave?’
I checked my watch. It was almost two o’clock. ‘About four I think. I stopped for coffee a few times.’
‘Hell of a journey,’ Dad said. ‘You still driving that little Focus?’
That little Focus was his way of saying that fucking shitheap, but I refused to take money from him for a new one. It was his way; throw money at a problem and hope it goes away. I knew he still gave Mum money, despite me no longer living with her, and he paid my tuition fees, but that felt different somehow. I never saw the tuition money, never knew how much he’d sent to Mum and how much she’d subsequently given to me. Somehow, I could keep that separate from my desire to be independent of him. Of my mum, too. I lost my family the day I lost my sister, and I was still learning how to navigate the world alone, but I was determined to do it.
I heard a cry from behind us and turned to see the youngest of my half-brothers lying on the ground, his face pressed into the sand. Fiona took a step forward, but Dad held her back, his fingers tightening around her arm.
‘Get up, Tobias!’ he called. ‘Stop being such a pansy.’
‘Yeah, Tobias,’ his brother mocked. ‘Stop crying like a girl.’
The way he said girl made my skin prickle. As if girls were somehow lesser than boys. As if being a girl was something to be ashamed of. The eldest, Felix, must have been about fourteen or fifteen, his pale skin dotted with acne, braces glinting on his teeth, and I felt a surge of hatred for him. Not for him as he was then, but for the man he would become, raised in my father’s image. In his shadow.
I let Toby braid my hair that day, surprised by how much I enjoyed it. In a way, he reminded me of Saffy, of how we would take turns painting our nails or doing our hair, always making sure we matched. Toby looked at me, his eyes wide and bright, and in them I saw my sister. It was almost too much to bear, and I left soon after, getting back into my car and driving up to Bristol to stay with a friend.
I shake myself as I follow the satnav’s directions across the Tamar and into Cornwall. Fleur stares at the shimmering river beneath us, one hand pressed against the window.
‘Welcome to Kernow,’ she reads from the sign, pronouncing it Ker-now.
‘Ker-no,’ I correct her. ‘It’s Cornish for Cornwall.’
‘They have their own language?’
‘Somewhat. Not many people use it, but I think they’re trying to bring it back, like Welsh I suppose.’
‘What other Cornish words do you know?’ Fleur asks.
I frown. ‘Barely any. Emmet? That means tourist. Well, it means ant actually, but they use it to describe tourists, because they descend in the summer like ants on a picnic.’
Fleur laughs. ‘That’s a good one. Emmet. I like it.’
We travel through the county, onto the winding A38 before picking up the A30 at Bodmin. A lot has changed since I’ve been away; the roads have been developed, and new mini service stations have popped up along the side of the dual carriageway. There’s no motorway in Cornwall, only A roads and lots of slightly terrifying B roads, but the drive is easy enough, despite the road signs bringing back memories with a sharpness that almost takes my breath away.
Fleur reads out some of the signs as we pass. ‘Indian Queens.’ She turns to me with a bemused expression on her face.
‘Legend has it that Pocahontas once visited here,’ I explain, remembering the tales from my childhood. Mum always loved the folklore of Cornwall, perhaps because it was so similar to her own Scottish history. ‘But I think I read somewhere that that wasn’t true.’
‘What does it mean then?’
‘No idea. There’s a lot in Cornwall that doesn’t make any sense.’
We stop at a Starbucks a few miles out of St Agnes, where our Airbnb awaits. Dad’s house is in Cubert, just outside Newquay, and I couldn’t face staying near Perranporth. St Agnes felt like a good choice, but as I get out of the car, I feel my heart start to race.
‘We’ll get a coffee,’ Fleur says over the top of the car, holding my gaze. ‘And use les toilettes.’
I nod, taking a deep breath and following her into Starbucks, joining the queue while she uses the loo. I pick up two reusable cups and ask for them to be rinsed – Fleur would be horrified if I gave her a disposable coffee cup – and wait at the end for our drinks.
‘One toffee nut latte for Skye,’ the barista shouts, and I step forward at the same time as another woman. I stare at her blankly for a second before she laughs.
‘Sorry, I misheard the name. Mine’s a caramel latte.’
‘What’s your name?’ I ask, picking up my coffee and sliding a cardboard sleeve around it, wondering what name could be mixed up with mine. The woman looks about my age, with shoulder-length dark hair and black-rimmed glasses. I feel the breath catch in my throat as she shoves her hands into the pockets of her stylish coat, her head cocked slightly to one side, and I know what she is going to say.