“Well, she shouldn’t have,” Robin said. Drew’s brown eyes flashed black. “And her name’s not Angela, it’s Angie. She hates being called Angela.”
After the first few weekends of this arrangement, the adults had another of their secret summits and it was decided that it would be one weekend with all three in the Marshall house, then a weekend off, then a weekend with all three in the Granger house, then a weekend off, and so on. Robin was perfectly happy not to see Drew Granger so often, but as much as she hated the weird posh food her mum kept burning, she wanted to see her. She didn’t want to speak to her or make her smile. She didn’t want to be told off by her or even be hugged by her—she was still too whirled up inside about everything for that. But she wanted to be near her, just for a bit. Like she’d always been near her.
She wanted to be with Sarah too. Just with her, just on the sofa watching TV like they always did, or going to the shop to pick up something for their parents and buying a tenpenny bag of sweets to split with some of the change. The Granger house was too far from the center of the village to do that, but at least the neighborhood had a playground.
After the first few months of the new plan, things started to settle. The kids were still sad and confused. And the three still talked in whispers about when things might change all over again, but they got used to it. Got used to calling the adults living with them by their first names. Mum and Drew. Angie and Dad. Jack and Mum. Dad and Hilary. Never simply “Mum and Dad.”
It was their last year of primary school. Kings and queens of the playground. They scattered from one another as they always had, but when they could work together or play together without recrimination, the girls did. After school, Callum and Robin would walk home like the twins used to, and Sarah would be collected by her mum in a new BMW with a soft top. A gift from Drew, one that complemented his own.
At first, the walk home with Callum was a stilted affair. Where once Robin would have scrambled up and walked along the railings on the wall, she simply dragged her lunch box so it made a loud noise. They didn’t speak, just walked in silence like they were on shift work.
Then one day at school, Mrs. Howard had a heart attack. Right there in front of the class. It didn’t happen like on films. She didn’t clutch her chest and go purple or make a big fuss. She stopped what she was doing, fanned her face like she was hot, held on to her left arm and bent over slightly. She’d sat down a bit heavily in her worn fabric chair behind the desk and beckoned Sarah over, telling her to hurry to the office to call an ambulance.
A great ripple of excitement spread through the class, who stared goggle-eyed as their teacher—just a year or so from retirement—sat there worrying that she might die in front of twenty-five ten-and eleven-year-olds. Before the ambulance arrived, the head teacher had bustled in and taken the class into the school hall, where the lunch things were still being packed away, and they sang hymns while trying to look out of the window to see the flashing lights as the ambulance screamed into the schoolyard.
That day, walking home, Robin and Callum couldn’t help but talk.
“Sarah loved it, did you see?” Robin said to Callum.
He smiled a little. “Yeah, she really did.”
Robin was torn. Sarah was a goody two-shoes who loved to insert herself into any kind of drama. But she didn’t want anyone else to make fun of her twin.
“Don’t take the piss out of her,” Robin snapped.
Callum reeled back in surprise. “I wasn’t.”
“Just make sure you don’t.” She felt bad but also like she had a surge of energy to burn, so when they got to the recreation ground by the cricket pitch, Robin grabbed Callum by the coat and dragged him to the swings and they found that, even without Sarah, they could play pretty well together after all.
SEVENTEEN
SARAH|PRESENT DAY
After leaving the Surrey B&B to come up north, I’m now staying in a similar place called Cornell Lodge. It’s cleaner and smaller than the last one, and the couple running it are friendlier. The room in Surrey had been arranged by Jim’s mother, and I had a strong suspicion that the beady-eyed landlady was reporting back to her. It was hard to know whether my sadness and shock were making me paranoid or whether she really was going through my bag when I went out. I kept everything that mattered with me at all times, just in case. One thing in particular I could never leave in my room. Something Jim didn’t even know existed, something he wouldn’t know about until it was too late.
The room I’m in here in Manchester has pale lemon walls and sun streaming in the window. It’s pleasant enough and has a little bathroom for me to be sick in most mornings, when it all gets too much. I have a stack of pastel-colored towels and a kettle in my room, with a handful of tea bags, sachets of Nescafé coffee granules and tubs of long-life milk. I’ve restricted myself to one coffee a day. I’m trying to do this right.
I’ve calmed down and started to think clearly. I’m not exactly relaxed. There is still something twisting and broken in my chest without Violet, but I’ve started to feel like this is all possible. Like I could stay here, in this busy city I’d never considered before. Like Violet could come here too.
I have a plan. The first part, the toughest part, will be finding my sister. Robin holds the key to everything that follows. She has money, she has energy and she has a place for me to hide.
Nobody knows I’m here; that’s important. I’m untraceable. Tomorrow I’m going to buy a cheap pay-as-you-go phone.
ROBIN|PRESENT DAY
Both the Magpies are home but there’s no sign of their son. It’s unusual for both of them to be home this early, and the sight feels jagged and uneasy. Robin’s watching in mute, but the woman in the flat to the left of the Magpies isn’t. She’s standing, hip cocked toward the Magpie flat, holding her baby in her arms and craning her neck—it’s obviously another barnstormer.
Mr. Magpie had seemed to believe his wife’s explanations when Robin had napalmed expensive lingerie into their kitchen, but since then they’d been fighting almost every day. Robin watched as the husband swung between head-hanging defeat and chest-beating rage. Perhaps Mrs. Magpie has done the decent thing and told him about her infidelity.
Suddenly, Mr. Magpie looms toward his wife with his fist raised, just as someone hammers hard on Robin’s front door. She drops to her aching knees and rolls under the bed, fighting to breathe.