Between Sisters (15 page)

Coco, who had no memory of perfumes or the softness of a furry coat any more than she had memories of a happy father, held her sister and wished she could remember something about the mother who’d gone so long ago. She’d always said to people that she’d never missed having a mother because she hadn’t known one, but Cassie had. Cassie had known what it was and she’d suffered the loss the most.

Cassie had worn herself out trying to make life perfect for them all: for Coco, for Shay, for Lily and Beth. And all the while, there was still this hole inside her.

Maybe it was inside both of them. A mother-shaped jigsaw piece that had been lost and still needed to be found.

When Coco had gone to bed, Cassie opened the fridge with shaking hands.

She tried so hard not to think about her mother, but sometimes the thought of being abandoned just came and poleaxed her out of nowhere. But this – this was huge: like the imaginary stone wall crushing her.

She’d bought a box of wine (so much more convenient than a bottle), and poured herself a large glass. This might help her sleep, might numb the feelings. More than anything else, Cassie didn’t want to think about the past.

Shay was driving into work, shattered after sharing a bed with a wildly distressed Cassie, who didn’t appear to have slept a wink, even though she’d clearly had a few glasses of wine, and he knew that normally knocked her out because she wasn’t much of a drinker. His wife was incredibly upset about the news of Jo’s stroke – it was pretty shocking, Shay admitted. It made you think of your own family and want to protect them all like a caveman.

What would he do if something like that happened to Cassie or, God forbid, the girls? He simply didn’t know.

He used to think that women were better at dealing with all this sort of stuff but, after last night, he wasn’t so sure. His cool, calm Cassie seemed to have disappeared to be replaced by this slightly wild-eyed woman who’d been about to leave the house wearing two wrong shoes until Beth had told her in a voice heavily laced with irony.

‘Mum, like, the fashion police are going to arrest you,’ Beth had said, pointing down to her mother’s feet.

Shay thought Beth might give Cassie a break, given the night before, but no. Weirder, Cassie didn’t even appear to register the faintest hint of irritation over her daughter’s sarcasm-fest.

She seemed almost blank. ‘Oh, right,’ was all she’d said as she’d looked at her unmatching shoes and went slowly upstairs to put on matching ones.

Coco and Fiona were still asleep when Shay left, and he was sort of glad. Coco he could handle, but he wasn’t sure he could face Fiona after she’d heard her mum was in hospital. He didn’t envy his sister-in-law the task of breaking the news to the little girl.

His car phone rang as he got nearer the office and he pulled in to answer it.

‘Hello love,’ said his mother. ‘Isn’t it a lovely day? Lifts your spirits. I’ve been looking at the property supplements, you know …’

‘Mum, we’ve had a bad night at our end,’ Shay began, and filled her in on the details.

Antoinette sounded suitably upset, but she quickly rallied. ‘This is more proof of how our plan will work brilliantly, love,’ she said triumphantly. ‘I could have taken care of the children and Cassie wouldn’t have had to race home from work in a tizzy after all!’

‘Er, Mum, let’s keep this under our hats for the moment,’ Shay said quickly. ‘I still haven’t exactly mentioned it to Cassie and she’s very upset right now. Let’s wait a while before I raise the subject with her.’

On her end of the phone, Antoinette beamed. ‘Darling, you know I’m the very soul of discretion!’

Coco watched Fiona sleep and wished everyone in the Reynolds household would stop making noise so the child would not wake up. Because when she did, Coco would have to tell her that her mother wasn’t at home but was in hospital.

Coco had already phoned in twice that morning – once at six and again at half eight when the nursing shift changed over – to see how Jo was, but there appeared to be little change.

‘She’s stable,’ said one nurse, while another offered the information that Jo was more alert this morning.

‘I can’t come in yet,’ Coco said. ‘I have to tell her daughter what’s happened.’

‘How old is she?’

‘Nine.’

Fiona slept peacefully, exhausted by the late-night fun Beth had managed to conjure up out of nowhere.

Coco had hugged her niece that morning and said a huge thank you.

‘It was the least I could do,’ Beth said, leaning deeply into her aunt and hugging her back. ‘Poor Fi. I don’t know what I’d do if it was me. I can come home early and play with her, you know.’

‘I’ll text you if I need you, Beth,’ Coco said seriously, because she simply had no idea how she was going to impart this news and how she’d deal with Fiona afterwards.

Cassie had silently left a cup of coffee beside Coco and tiptoed out until, finally, they were alone in the house. Still Fiona slept on.

Coco sipped her coffee and planned. ‘Honey, everything’s going to be fine,’ she whispered.

‘Coco! Why am I still here? It’s school time!’ Fiona sat bolt upright on the bed, eyes wide and startled. Beth’s clock, a giant Dali-esque thing, hung on the wall, clearly proclaiming that it was half nine.

All intelligent thoughts left Coco’s head and she stared at her goddaughter anxiously.

‘Why didn’t you wake me for school? Mum will be so cross with you!’

Coco didn’t think her face had changed that much, but it must have.

‘Coco, what’s wrong? You look all funny and sad.’

‘Your mum had an accident, darling. She’s fine,’ Coco said, trying to be reassuring, ‘but she’s in hospital. That’s where I was last night. I didn’t want you to be upset until I saw she was OK, and she is …’
Huge lie, there
. ‘But she is fine now and we can see her later today …’

She got no further. Fiona’s little mouth closed, her small face paled until it looked as if she was as ghostly as the heroine in her favourite ghost school storybooks, and her big blue eyes brimmed.

‘Is she going to be dead?’ she asked tremulously.

‘No, no!’ Coco hugged Fiona to her. ‘She’s not, honestly. She had a thing that went a bit wonky in her brain and she’s talking a bit funny, but they gave her special medicine and she is fine, really. We can go and see her now.’

She held Fiona tightly, knowing she’d screwed up it somehow, not having explained properly that Mummy wasn’t quite the same, but being desperate to reassure her that Jo was going to live. Because she was.

‘Mummy wants me to mind you until she’s better, so let’s get some clothes from your house and then we can go to the hospital,’ Coco said, wishing she’d found someone last night in the hospital who knew how to break such horrible news to children.

‘I want to see her now,’ sobbed Fiona.

‘You can,’ said Coco.

‘Now! Mummy!’

Coco could do nothing but hold on to her darling goddaughter for dear life because, right now, she was the nearest thing to a parent that Fiona had.

On Tuesday morning, Phoebe stood a few yards away from the door of Larkin College and watched the beautiful people roaming in as if they hadn’t a care in the world. Clutching takeaway coffees, or weird-coloured juices, smartphones stuck to their ears, wearing wildly fashionable clothes and wildly fashion-of-tomorrow clothes, they sauntered in, bouncing to their own beat, utterly sure of themselves. There were girls with actual designer handbags, rucksacks customised exquisitely, small elegant feet in Converse, Keds and a variety of other cool shoes. One girl wore the beautiful Missoni Converse Phoebe had lusted after but hadn’t been able to afford.
She
looked like a fashion person: tiny, interesting hair dyed blonde with a hint of pink, perfect eyebrows and a rattle of cool bracelets jangling on her slim, tanned arms.

There were perhaps slightly more girls than boys walking in, all terrifying in their determination and couldn’t-care-less-ness.

Phoebe, in the skinny jeans that ended in slightly the wrong spot on her ankles, wearing the non-Converse shoes she’d customised, and her old (made three years ago) green silk parka not entirely right for among these birds of paradise, held on to her takeaway coffee cup as if it were a lifeline. She wouldn’t be able to afford this sort of coffee every morning. Not until she’d got a job, anyway.

Registration started at ten. Incredibly late, by her standards. She thought of the hens clucking their disapproval loudly about wanting to get out from about 5 a.m. on summer mornings. Maybe she could get an early waitressing job somewhere, but a four-hour shift? Nobody hired people for that length. Cleaning might be an option. A contract cleaners rather than house cleaning, which was more random. She could do late night or early morning office cleaning. Or else waitressing or pub work.

‘I want you to get the best out of college,’ Mam had said on the phone that morning when they’d all rung to wish her good luck. ‘Don’t get too much work, lovie. You can’t be too tired to get your college work done.’

‘You know how bored I’ll be without all of you if I don’t work! So I’ve left my CV all over the place,’ Phoebe said, longing for home with all her heart and trying to sound cheerful. ‘I’ll find something good, you know me. Keep me out of mischief till I can get home again.’

‘And no sending money back to us, you promised. We can manage,’ her mother went on. ‘This is all for your future.’

‘Sure,’ said Phoebe, who had no intention of obeying this command. Some promises simply had to be broken. Without her contribution to the McLoughlin household, things would be very tight. She’d be sending home as much money as she could.

Ethan was hopeless on the phone. ‘Yeah, school’s crap as usual,’ he muttered, which Phoebe knew was his way of saying he missed her but was bad at actually saying so. He only came to life when he insisted she speak to the dog.

Obligingly, Phoebe said: ‘Hello Prince, baba, how are you, honey?’ in her doggy voice.

‘Prince licked the phone!’ said Ethan, thrilled and suddenly sounding like himself again. ‘He misses you.’

Phoebe could barely speak. Ethan was easier to talk to when he was monosyllabic. ‘Miss him too,’ she said gruffly. ‘Even miss you, crazy boy.’

‘Miss you, Phoebs.’

‘Donna is perfectly fine,’ Mary-Kate informed her when it was her go. ‘I’ve been minding her. Please take photos, will you? We want to see everything. And film your bedsit – I want to see the seasick-green colour. Oh, and Mrs Costello too.’

‘She’s a lovely woman,’ said Phoebe, mindful of the fact that her landlady might indeed be outside the door with a glass pressed to it, listening to every word. ‘Truly a lady.’

‘Did she just walk in?’ demanded Mary-Kate.

‘Always a possibility,’ agreed her sister.

‘A madser, I knew it!’ laughed Mary-Kate. ‘Get a picture!’

The phone call had been intended to give Phoebe a boost, but instead it had made her feel very lonely. What was she doing, away in the city trying to become something she wasn’t?

She watched the people going into the college, people who looked as if they belonged, unlike her.

She finished the last delicious dregs of macchiato and, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted someone who didn’t look like any of the fashionable birds of paradise. He was young but strong, wearing skinny jeans that emphasised large legs, a longish hand-painted T-shirt, and with an artfully draped pigeon-grey leather jacket covering him up but not entirely disguising him. Phoebe, used to being the tallest in any gathering and knowing she could arm-wrestle any man, recognised the covering-up pathology. The jacket was beautiful but too big. She was doing the exact same thing with her parka: hiding the fact that she was nearly six foot and could only fit in a sample size if two of them were sewn together.

Some instinct made her shout out: ‘Hello there. You late too?’

The boy had the most beautiful eyes, she noticed as he came close: a stunning grey like the sky on a misty night lit by moonlight. His hair was fair and straight, full of hair product to keep it tamed, she reckoned, and it was clearly a wonderful cut.

‘I’m Phoebe.’ She stuck out a hand. ‘Fashion?’

‘Yeah,’ he said, looking at her and rudely not taking her hand. He took in her unfashionable outfit. ‘You? Really?’

Phoebe gave him the stare she’d long used on hardened drinkers in The Anvil who were giving her backchat.

‘You don’t shake hands?’ she asked icily.

For an instant, she glimpsed anxiety in those stunning grey eyes and she knew the rudeness was a cover.

‘I’m being Howard Hughes this week,’ he said, recovering. ‘No touching for fear of germs.’

Phoebe grinned and kept her hand out. ‘I’m being Jane Russell, whom you famously had a fling with, so pleased to meet you,’ she said.

‘I’m Ian. I thought you might be a fashion bitch,’ he said. ‘I know two on this course for sure. I met them on my portfolio course.’

‘I’m Phoebe and I didn’t even do a portfolio course,’ said Phoebe, ‘so I’m fashion bitch meat for sure.’

‘No you’re not, hon-ey,’ said Ian, making the last word two syllables.

‘I was joking,’ Phoebe said. ‘I’m strong enough to take on any bitches.’

Ian squeezed her bicep. ‘That’s for sure.’

‘We’re the last two, I think. I had to get my coffee first,’ she lied, as if she had expensive coffee every day. ‘Can we walk in together?’ Phoebe asked, then fibbed again as she added: ‘I’m a bit nervous.’ She wasn’t sure why she said it because she was sure none of the other fashionistas would say such a thing. But this boy needed her: she sensed it. He was like one of her beloved animals feeling unloved and out of place. And Phoebe needed someone to take care of.

‘Yeah, I’d love that,’ he said, and smiled. It was as if an angel had smiled. When Ian smiled, those grey atmospheric eyes lit up his whole face and he looked like someone Michelangelo might have painted. His skin was a luminous olive, which was a glorious combination with that fair hair, and his mouth lifted in a broad smile.

‘Come on.’ She linked her arm though his. ‘Let’s face the team.’

Registration was taking place in a large room to the right of the main entrance hall.