Page 105 of If I Could Say Goodbye
‘So?’
‘So what?’
‘You know what . . . Who is making you smile like a cat?’
‘Like a cat? That just sounds odd, doesn’t it? Maybe Cheshire is a funny place or something?’
‘Stop avoiding the question.’
‘It’s a . . . friend.’
‘A friend?’ I grin. ‘Like a girrrrlllfriend?’
‘Oh shush.’
‘Oh my God, you’re blushing!’
Kerry slams the rest of the orange into the bin, the stainless-steel clang of the lid closing ringing around the room.
‘It’s . . . look, it’s early days yet. She’s a writer. We were both working in the pub and got talking. It’s no big deal. Right, let’s go before we miss the start. I hear that the first five minutes is terrifying.’
‘Right. Good. I mean, the scarier the better.’
Nessa walks ahead of me and I stop myself from turning to my dead sister and checking that she’s OK, that she is happy that we are all moving on without her.
Chapter Seventy-One
Jennifer
‘OK, so . . . our killer playlist,’ Kerry begins, sitting next to me on the sofa.
You. Are. Hilarious.
I know.
This is one of the things that Dr Popescu has suggested in preparation for Kerry’s . . . departure. We’ve spoken more and more about complicated grief and the more I hear about it the more I want to believe that this will be the way to get my life back . . . because if Kerry doesn’t go, well . . . I push back the image of the page in my notepad, the page with stained carpets and—
‘Well, obviously we’re going to go with Aretha first . . .’
I add ‘Respect’ to the playlist, scrunch up my nose and close my eyes, trying to think of songs that remind me of Kerry. Oh, I know!
I add ‘Someone Like You’ by Adele to the list.
She peers over my shoulder at my phone screen and laughs. We’d played that song over and over the first time we got drunk together. She starts singing, begging not to forget me.
I laugh. Chance would be a fine thing.
‘Can you remember the colour of my sick? It was bright orange.’She shudders. ‘It was ages until I could stomach another cheese puff after that night.’But a smile remains on her face.‘I was only sixteen, it was very irresponsible of you.’
It’s a life skill! That’s why I was making you eat plenty of cheese puffs, I say in my defence. I was giving you weak white wine with lemonade, I didn’t know you were sneaking into the kitchen and helping yourself to Dad’s whisky every time I went to the loo.
‘Ooh, how about Olly Murs? You had such a crush on him!’
I still do.
‘What was that Bruno Mars song we played in the car the day you passed your driving test and took me to Barmouth?’
‘Grenade’?
