Anouska Knight - Letting You Go

Alex’s stomach growled. Helen Fairbanks’ mercy meals were legendary. Over by the log basket a bundle of fur the colour of wheat fields heard the noises of Alex’s gastric processes and began wagging herself to death again. The pup waddled excitedly towards Alex, a wet trail in her wake. ‘Agh, not again !’ Alex groaned. ‘You’re like a tap … dog.’ The dog needed a name. Alex seemed to be the object of its unwavering affection and if they were going to have this intimate relationship of ankle-licking and wee-clearing every time the thing set eyes on her, the dog definitely needed a name.

Alex listened to the bump bump bump of Jem finally plodding down the wooden stairs. Jem bobbed lethargically back into the kitchen, her hair tied up now like the renegade ballerina she’d briefly been in her childhood. Alex had only just shook her own out, her scalp was still throbbing from having had its hair follicles pulled back too vigorously, too carelessly in the rush to make the drive up here.

‘You cut your hair,’ Jem observed, reaching for the auburn tendrils sitting against Alex’s shoulders. Alex finished placing a knife and fork aside the last of the three placemats their mum had already set out for Jem’s weekend stay.

‘Yeah. Think I should’ve just hacked the lot off though. I have to keep it tied back all the time at work, so …’ Not to mention the swimming issue. It only took a few strands to break free and start floating around her face to freak her out completely.

‘Looks nice, anyway. You look like Mum did, in that photo she used to have of her and Dad.’ Alex frowned. ‘At the mayor’s annual dinner.’

Alex fished for the memory. ‘Oh, yeah. The one with Mayor Sinclair letting Dad wear his gold BA Baracas chains. I haven’t seen that picture for years.’ She smiled. It was one of her dad’s favourites. He used to tell everyone how he’d fallen in love with their mum all over again that night, she looked so beautiful. Like Grace Kelly. Grandma Ros had insisted that picture be kept in the hallway where visitors would definitely see it, having your photo taken with the mayor and his wife was a badge of honour too shiny to be left in a back room.

Jem moved lethargically over to her chair. Her mood seemed to have been on a steady decline since their debate on who should to call Mal for a proper chat about what had happened last night. Alex was probably just over-scrutinising again. Finn had accused her of that the night he’d showed up at her university digs, of looking for a problem until she found one.

An image of Finn, chest heaving with the rigours of his morning run poked Alex in her mind’s eye again. This morning was a fluke, it didn’t mean they would keep bumping into each other, not necessarily. Even if they did, a simple hello would suffice. Just a nice, polite hello, like old friends. They weren’t kids any more, were they?

‘Neither have I actually.’

‘What?’

‘Seen that photo of Mum and Dad and the Sinclairs. Can’t say I miss not seeing Louisa’s sour face every time I come into the house though,’ Jem said. ‘You know, she called me a thief once. Said I’d stolen one of the ornaments from Sinclair Heights. Like I’d want anything out of the mayoral mansion.’

Mal hadn’t grown up in a mansion, but he’d been the most well kitted-out kid Alex and Jem had ever played with. Ted had said they were the perks of being an only child. Mal had told them over toasted marshmallows one night that his dad really wanted Mal to have a brother but Louisa said no because she detested being fat.

‘Ornaments?’

‘Yeah, that miniature Viking ship, of Dill’s remember? I was showing it to Mal, he had one similar and was trying to tell me how valuable his was because it had these markings on the bottom.’ Jem’s face twisted as she recalled the tale. ‘Then Louisa saw me showing Dill’s ship to Mal and freaked. Said I was trying to steal it, that it belonged to a set of theirs Malcolm’s father keeps in his private study.’ Jem imitated Louisa’s acerbic voice. ‘She told me it was about time I stopped acting like a little thug and how coming from a family with no money was no excuse.’

Alex whistled. ‘That’ll do it.’

‘Oh yeah, she also said I should start behaving like a “lady”.’ Jem held her fingers up to denote inverted commas. ‘Starting with rectifying my boy’s haircut .’

Alex bit at her lip. She felt for Jem, everyone knew Mal’s mum was a tyrant. Alex had been lucky on the ‘boyfriend’s mothers’ score, Susannah Finn had treated Alex like a daughter, virtually.

‘To be fair, you were always a bit thuggish, Jem. But you never looked like a boy … not once your crew cut grew out a bit, anyway.’ Alex smiled, trying for a little light relief at the expense of Jem’s historic rash makeover choices. I just wanted a change , had been Jem’s official line when the head had sent her home. Alex had made a few of her own dodgy fashion statements in her teens but only Jem had ever come home from school with a short back and sides.

Jem wasn’t listening; she was too busy looking blankly at her mobile phone.

‘So who won?’ Alex asked, straightening the place settings. Her mum always laid the table so elegantly, an art form with its own choreography.

‘Won what?’

‘The battle of the Viking ship?’

Jem winked. ‘There was no way she was keeping that little carved ship. It’s in Dill’s room now, go and have a look.’

Alex caught her smile before it dropped. She didn’t go in there. Mum had kept it nice, unchanged. Everything in its place like her finely laid table settings. Alex didn’t even want to risk moving the dust in Dill’s room.

‘I believe you, Jem. How’d you get it back off her?’

Jem grimaced at her phone and slapped it onto the table, slumping into one of the chunky wooden chairs. ‘Louisa? I’d have prised it from her bony fingers if I’d have had to, Al. As it happened, Mal’s dad came home. You should’ve seen Louisa’s face when the mayor told her she’d made a mistake. Nearly killed her handing it back, you’d have thought she was handing me Mal’s inheritance. Anyway …’ Jem wriggled herself more upright in her seat, ‘your room’s all sorted, Mum and I already changed all the bedclothes yesterday.’

‘Thanks, Jem.’

‘No worries.’ Jem lifted her phone again, twisting it in an attempt to find a gobbet of phone signal somewhere over the tablecloth. She huffed and stood up again. ‘I could do with a drink. There must be a bottle of Pinot here somewhere.’

There wasn’t, Ted was teetotal now. Blythe didn’t keep a drop in the house any more, Jem knew that just as well as Alex.

‘Are you OK, Jem? You seem preoccupied?’

‘Hmm? Sorry. It’s just work, being difficult.’ Jem’s phone had been bleeping all afternoon, until they’d driven back into dodgy mobile signal territory and the bleeping had died a death.

‘Is that who you were on the phone to?’ Alex asked. Jem had been up there for over an hour. ‘You haven’t given your work the house number have you, Jem? You’ve said it before, they don’t exactly respect your work–life balance.’

‘Ha! Nope, those lines have definitely been blurred.’

Alex felt a pang of territorialism. Jem was needed here, her swanky jewellery company could sod off.

‘Can’t they cope on their own for a while?’ Dan would never bother Alex here. He’d already insisted she take all the time she needed from the food bank. Jem came back to the table, examining the base of her glass. She poured the water Alex had set out and hovered. ‘George is under a lot of pressure, Alex. We have a huge opportunity coming up. There’s a lot to get through.’