How to Fall (4 page)

‘Did it fight back?’

‘Shut up.’ The words were indistinct and she sprayed crumbs as she said them. ‘I didn’t have time for breakfast.’

‘Nor did I.’ He glanced at me. ‘Jess thinks you’re revolting.’

‘No, I don’t.’ I handed Petra a napkin. ‘I just can’t imagine eating chocolate cake for breakfast, that’s all.’

Hugo had started in on the cake from the other end and was making quick, neat progress. ‘Sorry. We’re not that refined.’

‘I’m not refined.’

‘Sophisticated, then.’

‘Hardly.’ I looked at him, curious. ‘What did Will say to you?’

‘Hello.’

‘And? What else?’

‘That’s not really any of your business. It was nothing to do with you, anyway.’

The second sentence was delivered with such fluency that I was pretty sure it was a lie. How could
it
be true? I wasn’t actually offended; I would have been shocked if he’d told me what they had discussed. I just wanted to make sure that Hugo knew I was aware they’d talked about me. I stared at him without saying anything until the tips of his ears turned red.

‘What?’

‘Nothing. Just trying to work out if you’re always rude or if I’m getting special treatment.’

‘He’s always rude,’ Petra said promptly.

Hugo grinned, looking far less hostile. It was as if I’d passed a test. ‘No special treatment. Not for one of the family.’

‘I feel honoured.’

‘Naturally.’

The two of us looked at each other with matching amusement. A draw, I thought. Time for a ceasefire.

‘How do you know Will Henderson?’ Petra tilted her head to one side. ‘I’ve only just realized you were here with him.’

‘We just got talking. In the bookshop. He wanted to know who I was.’

Petra sighed. ‘He’s lovely.’

‘Not this again.’ Hugo threw his fork down on the empty plate where it clattered. To me, he said, ‘Petra’s got a crush on Will.’

‘I do not!’

‘Of course you do. But it’s never going to happen. He’s too old for you.’

‘I’m very mature for my age.’

‘No, you’re not.’ The words were harsh but Hugo spoke quite gently. ‘He’s never going to notice you, Petra.’

‘He said he lives near you,’ I interjected, seeing Petra’s eyes glistening with hurt.

‘Over the back wall. He used to climb into our garden all the time.’

‘Why doesn’t he come round any more?’ I asked. It was an idle question designed to distract Petra from her grievances and I regretted it as soon as I’d said it. The reason was obvious, and painful. Hugo’s voice was matter-of-fact, though, when he answered.

‘Because of Freya.’

‘Were they close?’

He held up crossed fingers. ‘Like that.’

I wasn’t surprised to hear it. Will had been looking for something when he talked to me, something he had been missing. And I had a fairly shrewd idea that I had failed to provide it.

‘You said it was because of Freya, but Will stopped coming round
before
she—’ Petra stopped short of saying the next word.
Died
.

Her brother shook his head. ‘You’re deluded. He was always in our house.’ To me, he said, ‘We used to have an open-door policy. All sorts of waifs and strays catered for, entertained and sheltered, for very reasonable rates. But then, after what happened, Mum didn’t want other people around much.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Nope. You can’t.’ He leaned back in his chair, seeming to be relaxed despite the subject under discussion. ‘Don’t worry. Things are better now.’

‘Much better.’ Petra rubbed a wet finger across the plate to pick up the last traces of chocolate. ‘Almost normal. Except that Will hasn’t come back yet.’

‘I wouldn’t have thought he qualified as a waif or a stray. He seemed pretty self-possessed to me.’

‘He’s a mate,’ Hugo said shortly, throwing a glare in Petra’s direction that stopped her from saying whatever she had been about to. ‘He’s part of the family.’

Like me, I thought. But his membership was by invitation. And mine could be revoked if my mother and their mother didn’t start getting on again. The stakes were high; I could sort of see why Mum was hiding in her bedroom rather than getting on with seeing her twin.

Petra bit her lip. ‘You mustn’t think we’ve forgotten about Freya just because things are getting back to normal.’

‘Of course I don’t.’ I was genuinely shocked at the idea.

‘It’s just that you can’t stop living because someone you love dies.’

‘And it’s not what Freya would have wanted.’ Hugo’s face was expressionless. ‘If she’d stopped to think about the rest of us for a second before she did her swan-dive off the edge of the cliff.’

‘Hugo!’

I ignored Petra’s protest. Hugo, for one, wasn’t going to keel over if I talked about his sister, and I was going to take advantage of that. ‘So you think it was deliberate?’

‘I don’t know. No one knows. But that’s what they say.’

‘Do they? Why would she have wanted to kill herself?’

‘She didn’t have a reason,’ Petra said. ‘She didn’t do it deliberately. She just fell.’

‘She had no reason to be there in the first place. Not at that time of night.’ Hugo sighed. ‘Don’t get into the middle of this discussion if you know what’s good for you, Jess. It goes round and round and never stops. We just have the questions. Freya was the one with the answers, and she’s not much into talking these days.’

‘I don’t want to upset anyone.’ I was feeling
uncomfortable
again, upset by the misery in Petra’s eyes when she talked about her sister, and Hugo’s brittle composure that was just about keeping the lid on simmering rage, as far as I could see. ‘I’m sorry for asking about it. I just wanted to know.’

‘You’re not the only one.’ Hugo gave me a rueful smile. ‘We’re all in the dark. Except Freya, who’s bathing in perpetual light somewhere beyond the third rainbow on the left.’

‘No one knows what happened,’ Petra said. ‘Not for sure.’

‘That’s the hardest part, especially for Mum and Dad. Everyone assumed she’d killed herself. They made out that she’d been unhappy and no one had noticed, which made Mum miserable. Like she’d neglected her duty.’

‘You didn’t think she’d been unhappy.’

‘No. The opposite.’ Hugo looked very slightly shamefaced. ‘But I don’t think I’d have noticed unless she’d been seriously upset. I didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about how she was feeling.’

‘She was fine, though.’ Petra patted his arm. ‘There was nothing to notice. She was just the same as normal. Except – except that I thought she was happier than usual before it happened. And she looked so beautiful. Like she was lit up from inside.’

‘If you say so.’ Hugo sounded dubious. ‘The haircut wasn’t a good idea.’

‘Oh, but that wasn’t—’ Petra stopped herself, then smiled at me. This time, the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘We shouldn’t be going on about Freya. We should be asking about
you
.’

‘I’m not interesting.’

‘You are to us,’ she said simply. ‘Tell us about London. Where do you live?’

There was no way to avoid talking about myself for a while; I owed it to them, really, as they’d been so open with me. Right up to the point where the barriers had come clanging down. Petra had very definitely not wanted to talk about Freya any more – there was something she didn’t want to think about, or discuss with me, at any rate. I chattered on, paying attention with about ten per cent of my brain to what I was saying as Petra hung on my every word. The rest of my mind was concentrating on what I’d heard that morning about my cousin and her tragic, mysterious death. Words came into my head, unbidden.
Secrets. Rumours. Lies
.

Words that should have warned me to stay out of it. Leave the dead in peace. Let sleeping dangers lie.

I just didn’t have enough sense to walk away.

3

I WAS ACTUALLY
quite glad of the rain on the short walk back to the cottage. It gave me an excuse to pull my hood forward and duck my head so no one noticed me. Although they probably did and I didn’t notice them. That somehow made it easier.

Mum was in the kitchen when I got back. I hung up my anorak to let it drip in the hall, smelling toast on the wind. Breakfast for her, lunch for me.

‘Well, what did you find?’ she called.

‘Hugo and Petra.’

A clatter of plates answered me. Mum poked her head out of the kitchen door. ‘Seriously?’

‘Oh yes.’

‘How was that?’

‘Fine. They were really nice.’ Which didn’t go very far towards conveying Hugo’s fairly astringent personality, or Petra’s mixture of friendliness and sudden reserve.

‘What did you talk about?’

‘This and that.’ I relented. ‘Everything, really. Things to do in Port Sentinel when it isn’t raining. What it’s like to live in London. The fact that we’re invited for tea tomorrow.’

Mum put her hand to her mouth. ‘I completely forgot to tell you. Sorry, Jess.’

‘Are you looking forward to it?’

‘Of course.’ She looked surprised. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

‘Because you’re nervous about seeing your sister and meeting her family, maybe?’

She flapped a hand at me and disappeared back into the kitchen, saying, ‘Don’t be silly.’

I followed. ‘So why did you spend the morning hiding under the covers?’

‘I didn’t.’ She blushed scarlet. It was easy to see where that particular tendency of mine came from. ‘I was just having a lie-in. It’s not exactly picture-taking weather.’

I raised my eyebrows. The weather didn’t usually stop Mum from taking pictures, if she was in the mood to do it. She was a born photographer.

‘I bet there are really moody pictures you could take of the seaside in bad weather. Black-and-white shots.’

‘No doubt there are. But I prefer colour.’

‘Excuses, excuses.’ I nicked a piece of toast off her plate. ‘You
are
going to take your camera out while we’re down here, aren’t you?’

‘Try and stop me,’ she said lightly, as if she wasn’t so lacking in confidence that more often than not it stayed in her bag.

‘And you
are
going to leave the house?’

‘Jess, I had one morning to myself. One. Why is that such a big deal?’

‘Because after eighteen years, I would have thought you would be desperate to look around your old haunts.’ I frowned at her. ‘What haven’t you told me? Why are you in hiding?’

‘I am not in hiding. We’re here for weeks and weeks, remember? There will be plenty of time to explore in better weather. Now eat your lunch.’ A plate spun across the table towards me and I grabbed it, and the toast that had been on it, before both fell on the floor.

‘I don’t like mysteries.’

‘Well, don’t go looking for them, then.’

My second warning of the day. I nibbled the toast in silence, thinking about it. What people had said. What they hadn’t said. Whether I should just spend the summer hanging out on the beach instead of asking questions and not getting any answers.

Maybe if I’d been a better swimmer, I’d have made a different decision.

I was lying on the sofa, two chapters from the end of
Cold Comfort Farm
when there was a knock on the door.

‘Are you expecting a visitor?’

Mum shook her head, looking wary. I rolled off the sofa and went to answer it, discovering a girl about my age standing on the doorstep, a small, curvy girl with bone-straight dark hair and very long eyelashes. She was wearing a fashion-student outfit: a white crocheted shift dress over leggings and a stripy top, lace-up boy shoes, a denim jacket, a straw hat. I would have looked as if I had sleepwalked into an Oxfam shop and dressed myself before I woke up. On her, it sort of worked. She stared at me with eyes as round as marbles.

‘Wow. I mean, seriously. Wow. You have to be Jess.’

‘Can I help you?’

‘I’m Darcy.’ Her hand shot out and I shook it, admiring the five different shades of varnish on her nails. Grey, coral, teal, yellow, mint-green. ‘I was Freya’s best, best friend.’

‘Oh, right.’

‘Petra told me you were here.’ She laughed, a
completely
joyous gurgle that made me smile too, more or less in spite of myself. ‘No one is going to believe this until they see you. I mean,
I
didn’t believe it.’

A creak behind me was Mum coming to look over my shoulder. She had to have heard what Darcy was saying, which made me meanly pleased.
This is what I’m going to have to put up with all summer. Happy now?

‘I’m Jess’s mother.’

‘It’s nice to meet you, Mrs Tennant.’ She had the surname right and everything. She’d done her homework, I thought. Another handshake and no hint of shyness about it. She had a parent-charming smile that made Mum melt.

‘Jess, aren’t you going to invite Darcy in?’

‘No, because the cottage isn’t big enough for three.’

‘I came round to see if Jess wanted to come for a walk, Mrs Tennant. Is that OK?’

‘Fine by me.’ I could hear the relief in Mum’s voice.
Jess is making friends. This holiday isn’t going to be a disaster
.

‘Give me two minutes to get ready.’ I squinted at the sky. ‘Has it stopped raining?’

‘Half an hour ago. The forecast is good for this evening too, so you won’t need your jacket, if that’s it.’
She
was staring at the anorak on its hook with complete, unfeigned horror. It was more practical than stylish, as I would have been the first to admit. I almost wanted to wear it anyway, just to tease her, but the temperature had climbed as the weather improved and I really didn’t need it.

I ran upstairs and changed into a long-sleeved top that was lighter than my sweatshirt. A quick look in the mirror confirmed that my plait had come loose, ends of hair poking out at all angles. I pulled the elastic off the end, ran my fingers down the length of it and shook it out over my shoulders. It had enough of a natural wave not to need any more attention apart from a quick brush. Also, I really couldn’t be bothered to do more. What I was looking forward to was a conversation with someone who wasn’t over burdened with dark secrets. Darcy seemed to be about as deep as a puddle, and more or less as transparent.