‘I do realise this creates a lot of uncertainty but let’s not jump to too many conclusions until we’ve had this call with the US office.’
Nisha smiled with unnerving warmth and Lily looked at the floor, not wanting Nisha to see the heat she could feel in her cheeks. She waited for Nisha to say more, but when she looked up, her boss was standing by the office door, poised to open it, glancing at her watch.
‘We’ll catch up again on Monday, OK?’
Lily managed to nod, understanding that the meeting was over and it was time for her to leave, but for a few disconcerting seconds she wasn’t able to communicate those facts to her legs. She sat pinned to the pale blue sofa wishing that she could somehow be spirited back to the privacy of her own office without needing to move a muscle.
‘Lily?’
‘Yes, of course. I … I’ll see you on Monday.’
Humiliation throbbed in her cheeks and she managed to push herself to her feet, walk towards the door and glance only briefly at Nisha before heading out into the open-plan office where banks of desks sat empty, computer screens blank, telephones silent. All the way through the maze of desks, Lily kept her eyes fixed firmly forwards until she reached her own office, stepped inside and closed the door behind her.
Blinking away the tears, Lily looked around the space that had been her second home for the past eight years. The room seemed to sway in front of her and she grabbed at the back of the sofa to steady herself, needing to hold onto something solid while her future spun out of reach.
She tried to order her thoughts, tried to imagine how her life might look in six months’ time, but couldn’t. Slumping into the chair at her desk and burying her head in her hands, Lily felt her life begin to unravel, like a loose thread on an old jumper, a feeling she had first experienced almost thirty years before and which she had spent the next three decades trying to ensure she would never feel again.
Chapter 24
Christmas Day 1988
‘Will you two be OK while I make a start on lunch?’
Her mum sips the lemon and ginger tea that she has been drinking all morning, trying to fend off the winter cold that is threatening to ruin a Christmas Day already in jeopardy.
Lily nods and tries to smile in response but it is a question, all three of them know, that cannot be answered neatly.
She glances at Jess, but her little sister is sitting cross-legged next to the fire in the living room, looking at her new Jackie annual, and does not raise her head to reply.
‘OK. Well, if either of you want to come downstairs and give me a hand peeling potatoes or preparing the sprouts, you know where I’ll be.’
Her mum’s voice sounds strange, as though someone has flattened it with an iron and put it in a box for safe keeping. She glances between Lily and Jess as if searching for something, before turning and leaving the room, her slippered feet padding down to the basement kitchen.
Lily grabs a bin liner and starts tidying up the wrapping paper that litters the sitting room floor. From downstairs she hears the opening bars of ‘Hark! The Herald Angels Sing’ on the radio and her eyes smart with her mum’s efforts to pretend that this Christmas is like any other, even though they all know it bears no resemblance to normality.
It is thirteen weeks and five days since her dad committed suicide. Sometimes Lily still wakes in the morning to a brief spell of amnesia before remembering what has happened, and the realisation is like someone scooping out her insides and dumping them unceremoniously on the floor all over again.
‘Are you going to help tidy up, Jess?’
Her sister’s eyes remain glued to the annual resting on her knees.
‘Jess, will you help? Or you could go downstairs and give Mum a hand?’
Jess says nothing, does not even turn to look at Lily. It is as though Lily has not spoken, does not exist.
Jess has been like this ever since it happened. For months she has been cold, abrupt, aloof, as though she cannot stand being in the same room as Lily. Lily understands that her little sister is grieving but she cannot help feeling resentful that Jess doesn’t seem to care that she is not the only one in mourning. Every time Lily enters a room, Jess becomes tense, rude, monosyllabic, and Lily doesn’t know what she has done to warrant Jess’s hatred, but she knows that it seems trivial to make a fuss about it. Ever since the events of the summer, Lily has felt as though her family is held together by spider silk and that one strong gust of wind will blow them all apart forever.
She hears the whisper of a page turning and stands behind her little sister, looking down at her slim shoulders hunched over the annual. She cannot imagine what Jess has been through, cannot adequately put herself in her little sister’s shoes to know how the events of the summer have affected her. The thought of all that has happened melts her irritation and she crouches beside Jess, feels her voice moulding into something warm and comforting. ‘Jess, I know it’s hard today. I know it doesn’t really feel like Christmas, but it’ll get easier in time, I promise.’
Lily doesn’t know if she believes the platitude about time healing – she has only just turned sixteen and sometimes feels as though she doesn’t really know anything at all – but people have said it to her so frequently and with such conviction that she is hoping if she repeats it often enough it may come true.
Still Jess says nothing. Impatience inches towards the surface of Lily’s skin.
‘Jess, come on. I know you’re upset, but you’re not the only one. It’s hard for all of us, today especially.’
Jess turns to her and there is such fury in her expression that Lily feels it sting her cheeks as fiercely as if she has been hit. The same cold dread she has been feeling for months creeps down her spine. She knows that Jess blames her for everything that has befallen their family over the past six months but every time she feels close to asking the question directly – every time she is on the verge of pressing Jess for an answer – she finds her courage abandoning her.
The music on the radio downstairs changes and Lily hears the first verse of ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. She leans forward, wanting to find some way of soothing Jess’s anger, not just for her own sake but for their mum’s. She reaches out and places a hand gently on her sister’s elbow.
‘Jess, please—’
‘Don’t touch me! Don’t ever touch me. I don’t want you anywhere near me! I hate you.’
Jess pulls back her arm with such force that her hand swings through the air, clipping Lily’s chin. Lily staggers to her feet, steps back and touches her face where the skin is hot. Then she turns and flees. She closes the sitting room door behind her, slumps onto the bottom step of the stairs and buries her head in her hands.
Plenty of times, in the heat of the moment, she and Jess have said that they hate each other but Lily has never believed either of them actually means it. She has never believed it until now. Lily cannot help feeling that if Jess were given a choice as to which of her family members would no longer be alive this Christmas, it would be Lily she’d willingly sacrifice, a feeling that compounds Lily’s grief. After they have already lost so much, Lily misses Jess and craves being close to her, a need Jess has repeatedly rejected. Now Lily can only hope that when Jess’s grief begins to fade, so too will her rage, and that Lily will eventually be permitted back into her sister’s life.
What are you up to for Christmas?