‘Thanks for saying that. I guess I just feel a bit silly, you know? She’s been gone for twenty years, for Christ’s sake. Surely I shouldn’t still feel like this?’
I tried to even analyse what ‘this’ feeling was, but it was impossible, because it was everything and nothing all at once.
‘Grief is a weird thing, Mally. It can creep up on you when you least expect it. I mean, I know it’s not the same thing at all, but I still cry about my grandad whenever I hear theSports Reporttheme tune on the radio, and he’s been gone for almost thirty years.’
I smiled for the first time since Tom’s arrival, because my own grampy had loved that radio show, too.
‘But it’s never crept up on me like this before, Tom. Right now it feels as if it’s just happened.’
But deep down I knew why that was. It was because I’d spent the last twenty years of my life dodging any chance of this happening. Avoiding any risk of feeling this kind of searing loss, of re-opening this wound. But it was well and truly open, now, and everything was pouring out. And in. I walked into the kitchen to splash some cold water on my face. It was the kind of thing that characters in films did when they felt distressed and I could never understand why. To be fair, it felt pretty invigorating. I patted my face dry with a tea towel while Tom hovered in the doorway.
‘I know we’ve not talked about it, but I’m so sorry for what happened to Livvie back then. I can’t imagine how horrific it must have been for you. Me and Mum were so shaken up by it at the time. I mean, the whole of Scarnbrook was.’
‘Really?’
‘Yeah, I keep forgetting you weren’t here to see any of it after the funeral. There were endless tributes. School assemblies, candlelit vigils – the works. Your sister was so loved.’
‘It just got too much. Everyone thought it was best for me to go back to uni and keep things as normal as possible.’
‘Is that what you wanted, too?’
‘I… I just wanted to block it all out for a bit. But, well, let’s just say that “a bit” went on for rather a lot longer than planned. Oh God, I’ve handled all of this so, so badly, haven’t I?’
‘God, Mally, no, not at all. What you and your family went through was so fucking awful. I don’t think there’d ever be a “good” way to handle it. So, whatever you’re feeling right now – which is understandably a lot – is totally cool, all right?’
I nodded.
‘Is there anything I can do to help you right now?’
I shrugged and leant against the oven to directly face him. ‘Bring my little sister back?’
‘I so wish I could.’
I locked my eyes on to his, which were bloodshot with tiredness but wide with care and concern. ‘You know, I haven’t seen any videos of her at that age for, well, forever. I can’t actually remember the last time I saw a video of her at all.’
‘You family doesn’t have any home videos or stuff like that?’
‘I mean, probably, somewhere. Dad loved his camcorder back then. But most of it’s in a storage unit somewhere.’ Locked away. Pushed down.
Tom puffed out his cheeks. ‘I have an idea, but it might be the opposite to what you need right now.’
‘I’m listening.’
‘Tell me to stop talking atanytime. But my mum is a bit of a hoarder as you’ve seen for yourself. She’s got tons of newspaper clippings from back then – not just that year, but all the years before. Your sister used to be in the local paper quite a lot from what I remember?’
‘Yeah, she was always involved in some shenanigan or another.’
‘What do you reckon – shall I give my mum a call and see if she can find some stuff for you to look through?’
‘Yeah, go on, then. Now?’
‘If that’s what you want?’
I nodded again, but in truth I didn’t know what I wanted. Well, I did: I wanted Livvie to burst into the room right now and for the last twenty years to have been a horrific nightmare.
But she could never come back. And I realised that was precisely why it’d taken me so long to return to the village: because Scarnbrook could never be Scarnbrook without Livvie. It was as if the version of it I’d returned to this week was a cheap, soulless imitation of what it had once truly been: home.
My family wasn’t my family without her, either.