That Girl From Nowhere (31 page)

Sienna rarely walks anywhere if she can dance instead. She twirls and skips and stops to do complicated sideways steps. The promenade is perfect for her, she has the freedom and space to do all these things and we are in no particular hurry. The sun climbs higher in the sky as we move towards Brighton and more and more people pour on to the seafront. We left Nancy to catch up on work, which actually consisted of her and Mum sitting at the kitchen table, poring over Nancy’s phone, plotting out the way to Bluewater so they can spend the day shopping together.

I’m not sure if it’s Abi or Lily who sees us first, but it’s Lily who runs towards me, waving and smiling. ‘Hello!’ she calls to me. ‘Hello!’

‘Hello, hello!’ I reply.

‘Who are you?’ Sienna asks. Her excitement at seeing someone her height is unbridled.

‘I’m Lily. What’s your name?’

‘Sienna. I’m five. How old are you?’

‘I’m five, too!’

‘Hi,’ I say to Abi.

‘Hello,’ she says frostily. I don’t blame her. I’m not sure I would be able to bring myself to speak to me if I were her.

‘My aunt makes jewellery from shells,’ Sienna says. ‘She made me this.’ She reaches inside her top, removes her necklace with its quick-release catch at the back so it will not strangle her if it gets caught. The necklace is made from a shell I found on the promenade. Three nights ago there had been high winds that had whipped up the sea enough to scatter pebbles and shells up on the promenade. On my way to work the next morning I’d found the small, smooth conch-shaped shell, with a patch of brown like a tan across its back, and a sprinkle of freckles along its smooth underside. Its freckles reminded me of the ones that came up on Sienna’s nose when she spent too long in the sun, and the patch of brown reminded me of the colour of Lily’s eyes when she had been doing impressions of me. I’d picked it up, deciding to make something for both of them. I made two moulds from the shell, filled them with silver clay, allowed them to dry, then fired them. I polished them both, then strung them on to soft leather strings with quick-release catches. The original shell, I returned to the beach after taking a photo. ‘We’re going to look for some stuff to make jewellery,’ Sienna says.

Lily reaches out, and with the gentleness of someone older, touches the necklace. The clay had captured every line and ridge, every smooth curve.

‘I’ve got the picture of the shell she made it from on my nana’s wall. I have to share a room with my nana,’ Sienna explains. ‘Do you want to come and get some shells and she can make you a necklace, too?’

‘Do you think your aunt will make me one?’

Sienna tips her head right back, the curls of her blonde hair cascading down her back as she does so. Her eyes are the colour of wet earth, the exact same colour as Dylan’s. ‘Will you, Auntie Smitty?’ she asks.

‘Of course,’ I reply.

‘Is that your aunt?’ Lily asks Sienna.

‘Yes,’ Sienna says proudly.

‘But that’s my auntie Clemmy,’ Lily replies. She tips her head back to stare at her mother. Her mass of long, glossy black plaits tumbles down her back as she does so. ‘That’s what you said, isn’t it, Mummy? This is Auntie Clemmy.’

‘Yes,’ says her mother, my sister. ‘This is your aunt.’

‘My Auntie Smitty’s name is Clemency. Are you my aunt and Lily’s aunt?’ Sienna asks me.

‘Yes, I am,’ I reply.

‘How come?’

‘Because Lily’s mum is my sister and your mum is my cousin.’

‘Does that mean we’re sisters or cousins?’ Lily asks.

‘Sisters!’ Sienna says excitedly.

‘Not really,’ Abi intercedes quickly.

‘Cousins!’ Lily exclaims.

‘Erm …’ Abi begins. She is about to shatter their illusions. She wants to be accurate, to state that Sienna is really my second cousin, that these two aren’t really connected at all. Those many, many times Nancy gleefully reminded me I wasn’t real somersault through my mind.

‘Do you want to be cousins?’ I say before Abi can speak.

‘Yes!’ they both reply without hesitation, the very thought of it seems to be the best thing to have happened to them both since Christmas ended.

‘They can be cousins if they want to be, can’t they?’ I ask Abi.

‘If they must,’ she mumbles, clearly not happy. It’s understandable, this need for accuracy is what you’d expect from someone who has always had siblings, who has never had to justify their connection to another person.

‘Yay!’ they both cry and spontaneously hug each other, two friends who have only just met, now bonded together for life as family.

‘Come on, let’s find some shells.’ Sienna grabs Lily’s hand and the pair of them dash off towards the stone steps that lead down to the beach. They both wear shorts and T-shirts, and have matching lime green Crocs.

‘We’re supposed to be going swimming at the King Alfred!’ Abi calls, but they ignore her.

The steep drop from the pebble-filled upper beach doesn’t daunt them – they both run towards it, giggling as they hold hands, laughing while the ridge gives way under their weight, pushes them down further towards the lower part of the beach. When the pebbles and shells and fragments of shells stop moving beneath them, they leap forwards and run towards the sea, their loud, vocal happiness rising up like a trail we’re meant to follow.

‘Lily, stay out of the sea!’ Abi calls, and speeds up. I speed up too, and we go through the same routine, waiting for the shifting ground to stop moving beneath our feet before we head towards them.

They’re crouched by the water’s edge, shallow, seaweed-streaked pools of not quite escaped sea sitting in the soaked sand around their feet as they search for the perfect shell. Their voices tumble and spill over each other in their excitement, and yet, in the commotion of speech and discovery they understand each other, they hear what the other is saying.

‘When I was about five, my mother took a load of photos of me and Sienna’s mother on Blackpool beach and we looked exactly like those two,’ I say to Abi.

Nancy hadn’t understood then that I wasn’t real, that I wasn’t her proper cousin. We were friends and we liked each other, a lot. We were pinky-promise best friends forever then. There were other pictures, ones taken on later trips to Blackpool, and they all looked the same, but they never felt the same. I hope Lily and Sienna are friends forever. That they refuse to believe anyone who tries to tell them that they’re not real cousins, that they hang on to this feeling of having someone who they’ve fallen for in the way children do for other children.

‘Are you seriously going to pretend that this is all normal and you’ve been in touch with me?’ Abi says, affronted.

‘Sorry, I’m sorry. I should have been in touch.’

‘Yeah, you should. Why weren’t you? I mean, I thought it was all right that meeting. We were all a little overwhelmed but it’s not fair for you to duck out and send me bullshit “How are you?” texts.’

‘I freaked out,’ I say honestly. Aside from trying to convince my grandmother to change her mind about me helping her to die, I had freaked out because a lot of realisations were dawning on me like the rise of the Sun on a winter morning – slow to appear but powerful every time it is glimpsed. ‘It was all too much for me. Everyone was crying and I wasn’t. And I’m only now coming to terms with the fact that my parents got married. I wasn’t put up for adoption because my mum was very young and on her own or had been slung out by her family – she had this family and a big house and they still didn’t want me. She was in love with my father, he was in love with her, they went on to get married and have more children. So the bottom line is, they didn’t want me. I’m sorry I cut you out. But I think about you and Lily all the time.’ I reach into my bag, remove the small pink velvet bag that holds Lily’s necklace. I press it into Abi’s hand. ‘I made this for her, it’s the same as Sienna’s.’

Abi frowns down at the trinket bag. ‘You’ve been walking around with this in your bag?’

‘I made it three days ago. I kept it in my bag because I constantly told myself that I would drive over and drop it off at your work or through your front door or something.’ I inhale deeply. ‘I’m a coward. It’s really that simple.’

Abi says nothing as she continues to examine the bag in her hand, but she’s chewing the inside of her mouth, her eyes are in another place, she’s very obviously thinking over what I said.

‘My parents didn’t take that many photos,’ she says. ‘There were a few, but … It’s weird, saying that, actually, because I seem to remember there being lots of cameras and lots of negatives around, but we hardly ever had any pictures out. But me? I’ve got about six thousand photos on my phone of Lily.’

‘Six
thousand
?’ I am a prolific photo taker but not even I have that many photos of one subject.

‘You’d think there was no other thing to take a photo of in the whole world, wouldn’t you? I can’t help it. When she was first born I had this idea to take a photo of her every day so I could see how she changed over time. Who knew I’d end up with a baby that I could barely put down – even when she was asleep. Some days I wouldn’t be able to go for anything like a proper wee until eight o’clock at night. I lived in my dressing gown those first few weeks.’

‘Mum, Mum, what about this?’ Lily is holding out a long, flat shell, its curved back ridged with shades of pearlescent grey. She flips it over in her palm and its underside is a smooth, shiny pearl colour. Flecks of wet sand cover it, but I can do something with that. Lily has a good eye.

‘I don’t know, ask your aunt,’ Abi says.

Lily moves her hand towards me. ‘I think it’s beautiful,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll definitely be able to do something with that.’ Pewter silver for the top, white gold for the underside. White gold paste is hard to come by, though, so I may have to gold-plate it. Which is pricey. ‘Shall I keep it safe for you until I can make your necklace?’ I ask her.

She grins without showing her teeth and her plaits dance when she nods. She watches me as I unbutton the thigh pocket on my trousers and slip the shell inside.

‘Sienna! Sienna!’ she calls as she skips back to her new-found cousin. ‘I’ve got one. I’ve got one.’

‘Didn’t your parents help?’ I say to Abi. ‘I’d have thought they’d be all over their first grandchild.’

Abi snorts dismissively, her eyes darken as she’s suddenly transported back six years. ‘Yeah, we’ve all moved on from me being nineteen, pregnant and unmarried. They were so over-the-top angry about it that I had to move out. I ended up living on my own in a tiny flat in the middle of nowhere because my parents didn’t want to know unless I agreed to tell them who the father was and to marry him. After six months or so of watching me struggle and accepting that I wasn’t telling them the father’s name, and even if I did I wouldn’t be getting married, they let me move back home.’ The resentment at how they were swirls in her eyes. ‘My gran was the worst for it. She kept on blaming my mother for not bringing me up properly, like Daddy hadn’t been there when I was growing up.

‘My brother, Jonas, he tried to help, so did Declan, Lily’s dad. But he was young, too, and his parents were freaking out. And Jonas was going through his own shite. It was really hard. Jonas couldn’t believe it that I moved back in with them after all that they’d done and said. I moved out when Lily was nearly two then came back again about a year ago when Gran got bad. Like I say, we’ve all moved on from those early dark days.’ She makes a small, disgusted ‘ha’ sound under her breath.

‘Is that why you haven’t told them you’re pregnant?’

Abi’s eyes seem to triple in size – the horror of what I’ve said descends upon her features and she turns on me. Her hand clamps around my arm, her fingers dig into the space between the muscle and bone of my bicep. ‘How do you know? Is it obvious? Who else have you told?’

I shrug her off. I rub at where she grabbed me to ease the pain she’s caused. ‘You look a bit off colour, but you seem to be glowing, too. I just guessed. I haven’t told anyone. Why would I? It’s your business.’

‘If you’ve guessed it’s only a matter of time before Mummy does. I can’t go through all that again. Last time she guessed and asked me outright. I couldn’t lie. She looked at me like something disgusting she’d stepped in, and Daddy overheard and went through the roof. I wanted to tell her this time so I’d be in control. But if it’s obvious to you then it’ll be obvious to her.’

‘Don’t you think they’ll react a bit differently this time?’ I suggest gently. ‘Not only are you older and self-supporting, there’s a reason why you can remind them that everyone makes mistakes. Assuming it was a mistake.’

‘It wasn’t a mistake,’ she says. ‘We planned it. I love Declan – Lily and this one’s father. He’s just …’

‘Married?’

‘No! No way! He’s a bit flaky and a “bit some time”.’

‘I don’t get you.’

‘He’s one of those men who you know are good for some time but long-term it probably won’t work out. He wanted to get married last time and he wants to get married this time, we go stay with him almost every other weekend and we were talking about living together before Lily and I moved back in with my parents, but he’s … I’m … Nothing lasts when it comes to love, love.’

Seth. The hazel-green swirl of his eyes comes to mind. The lazy smile he fires me before he puts on his helmet. His strong fingers that sneak between mine like a whispered secret as he takes my hand when he’s nervous.

‘Have you tried to make it last?’

‘No, suppose not.’

‘How do you know then?’ I ask.

‘I don’t need to run into the sea fully clothed to know I’m going to get wet jeans, I just know it.’

‘True.’ But love isn’t like running into the sea fully clothed. With the sea and a fully clothed dash into its depths, there are no surprises. With love, there is sometimes a surprise around every corner, a chance to grow and learn and find the ways you are perfect just as you are. I’m not going to say that to her. What do I know? I’m living three hundred miles away from the love of my life and about to go on a date with a man I have a teenage crush on. What do I really know about love? Instead I say to her: ‘Abi, if they start to have a go, you’ve got the perfect comeback.’