Page 16 of Hot to Go

‘Fit that in her bag?’ Emma asks. ‘Oh, she got me to carry her clothes. Which is actually fine as she’s mostly brought bits of string and vest tops to wear.’

Emma opens her bag in the lounge area and takes out two large bottles of sunscreen and after sun. I love the priorities of both sisters but also the differences. Emma was the one who had space for me in London when I first moved back and I bunked in with her family, including husband, Jag, and three daughters. Behind all of Emma’s practicality is amazing amounts of heart and I felt that in spades when she took me in.

‘You know, we haven’t caught up since you moved out of mine,’ she says, as she unpacks more provisions for the kitchen, including a fully stocked medical bag. All praise the doctor in the family. She heads for the fridge, filtering through cupboards to find two glasses, pouring us both some water from the ice machine attached to that giant fridge. ‘How’s the new place?’

‘Different. I’m slowly making it my own.’

‘I’ll come over one day to check it out. And how are things besides that?’ she says. Before the lovely Jag, Emma was once married to one of the biggest arseholes known to the planet. He was an awful man but she recovered, she rebuilt. Maybe out of all the sisters, she’s the one who knows how it feels to be in my position.

‘I’m getting there. The good days are starting to outnumber the bad ones,’ I say, honestly. ‘I got an email from his mum the other day though, he got her to do his dirty work for him.’

‘Coward,’ Emma says.

‘That’s what I thought.’ This particular email was full of condescension, lots of references to her golden boy and then a parting shot at the end about my lack of trying.’ I didn’t reply. I’ve barely replied to any of Paul’s random emails and texts. The fact is I held that man up to the sun and it’s like he’s doing his best to continually rain all over our relationship, cloud my opinion and turn all that light into dark. I just don’t see how we’ll ever come back from that so I just move forward, refusing to look back.

She pulls a chair up to the solid wooden table and urges me to sit down. ‘You are a wonder, you know. I’m in awe of your strength, your cool in all of this. How you’ve started afresh and got a new job, but how is everything, really?’

I take a deep breath as she says those words. Of course there were tears, this raw and potent mix of pure fury, sadness, shame, three months ago. But I think those emotions are starting to ferment into something else. It’s not even bitter anymore. It’ssomething that sits better in my bones now. All I know is that running away helped. I deserved better.

‘I’m here. That’s all I know for now.’ It’s a cryptic answer to a question I’ll never really have the answer to. But she gets it. Sometimes to just still be standing is enough.

‘Well, if you ever need to process the big emotions then you know where I am.’ She pulls me in for a hug and then sits back to scan my face. ‘Little Suzuki. You’ve survived it all with more fire than I ever did. Aunty Bea would be so proud.’

I pause for a moment to hear her talk about my mum. She passed seven years ago and these girls looked after me then too. God, she’d have castrated Paul in his sleep. She was a single mum and all she was made of was fire and steel. It pains me not to have her here but to know how much of her flows through me now. I swallow hard to process that, looking away to almost escape the emotion. ‘You’ve not called me Suzuki for a very long time,’ I say, trying to divert the conversation.

Emma laughs. ‘You were our little sidekick. So loyal. Always so happy and unfazed by life, you still always remember our birthdays, you’re just lovely to your core. You’re even nice to our mum and she’s hard work.’ I laugh but grip her hand, grateful. She looks up at me earnestly. ‘Reclaim that main character energy, that’s what the kids are saying these days, yes?’ she tells me. I smile. ‘Keep being you. Don’t let that shitting prick take away everything that made you the person that you are. Promise me.’

‘Emma, you swore…’

She laughs. She’s not the swearer of the sisters. She’s not even in the top three. ‘There are no kids around. I swear when the moment deserves it. Maybe I’ve changed.’ Or not, I think, looking over at her bag where I know everything will be in packing cubes, labelled and pressed.

‘You’ll be on the unicorn next,’ I tell her.

‘Only once you have.’

Emma downs her water and then gets up to inspect all the drawers and cupboards in that kitchen, all stocked with beautifully patterned china, champagne flutes and a coffee machine.

I dwell on Emma’s words; there was no other way to be after Paul’s betrayal. I don’t think my mum would have settled for anything less than sticking up for myself and getting the hell out of there but Emma’s right – there are big emotions, the main one being a real fear there that in running away from my past, I don’t really know what the future looks like. I sit down and look out at the view. Maybe I’m right though, it all starts here for now. I can picture the next few days, coffee on the big sofas with a book in hand as the morning sun comes up. All in my pants obviously as Lucy doesn’t want us to cover up.

I stand up and examine the modern art on the walls, brightly coloured in yellows, greens and hot pinks. However, the longer I look at it, the more my eyes seem to deceive me. I thought it was a series of brightly coloured circles, but could they be something else? Are those nipples? No, they can’t be. Pervert. I laugh to myself, feeling a little surge of joy that I can still find things funny. I turn to point the nipples out to Emma but she seems to be hovering over the dishwasher, reading a note on the counter.

‘Hun, what does the wordjuguetesmean?’

I pause to sift through my basic Spanish knowledge. ‘Jugar is play. Possibly toys?’

‘Why would you put toys in a dishwasher?’ she enquires curiously.

‘I don’t know but do these circles in the photo look like…’

And with that, there’s a sudden squeal from upstairs as Grace pokes her head over the balcony, laughing so hard I fear she can’t quite breathe.

‘I can’t bloody believe it! I’m calling him now. Oh my life…’

We hear Meg’s voice echoing from one of the bedrooms as Emma and I head up the grand spiral staircase to investigate,watching Grace literally lying on the floor still in hysterics. As we open the door, Meg stands there, on her phone not knowing whether to laugh or cry. ‘Seriously, Danny. What do you mean you didn’t know? Surely they should have mentioned it? We could have brought our kids here!’ I don’t hear her words though. All I can see is the giant swing hanging from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

Emma looks at me and then back at Grace. ‘What the hell? Is this in every room?’

Grace can hardly control herself. ‘LUCY! BETH! Get out of the pool, you have to see this!’ she bellows over the balcony. She turns back to us. ‘There’s a pole in my room. What do you guys want? The rotating bed or the room of mirrors?’

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