Page 12 of From Now On

‘Do you mind?’ she asks. ‘I’m so tired. I need the noise to stay awake.’

Nina does mind. In this moment, she hates music. She hates the way it has torn her life apart. Why couldn’t Mum and Dad have stayed home with them last night? ‘Putting the band back together’ – her dad had grinned as though he was a teenager. He had responsibilities. A life.

Them.

She glances at Duke and she suddenly hates him too. Remembering the way he had hugged Mum and Dad goodbye, telling them both he loved them. She thought of the way she’d dismissed them, shooing them away when they’d tried to hug her, prioritising her manicure over them. In a rage she began to scratch furiously at the pink nail varnish, her nail slipping onto the soft skin of her fingers, making it bleed.

She welcomes the pain. Forgetting the polish, she scratches at her forearms, feeling the release of pressure in her head as her nails rake her skin.

The haze has lifted and the sun shines brightly welcoming in the new year, white clouds blow across the sky with speed. They drive past a hill teeming with families, many walking dogs. From the boot drifts a soft whine from Billie letting them know that she too would like to be running over the sodden grass,feeling the wind against her fur.

Nina reaches behind her headrest and Billie pushes her nose against her palm before licking the remains of the salt and vinegar from her fingers. A red and green kite bobs across the sky and she thinks of her parents’ bodies bobbing in the sea.

What will happen to them? She both wants and doesn’t want to know.

‘Charlie, can I borrow your phone?’ Against her jeans she wipes her hands dry from Billie’s saliva.

‘In a sec, I’m just replying to Sasha.’

Typical that he’s putting someone else before her.

Pippa’s hand leaves the steering wheel. She picks up her mobile from the centre console, unlocks it with her thumb before passing it back to Nina. Their eyes meet in the rear-view mirror and the panic in her subsides momentarily. At least somebody still cares about her.

Nina opens a webpage and googles. Horror rises in her stomach as she reads that if her parents remain in the sea then in about a week their skin will absorb the water and it will peel away from the underlying tissue. Fish and crabs will nibble at their flesh.

‘Stop!’ She clasps one hand over her mouth as she begins to open the door, not caring that the car is still moving.

Pippa swerves onto a grass verge. Nina only just makes it out of the car in time before she vomits.

It is Pippa who rubs her back in circular motions, Pippa who scoops her hair away from her mouth. Charlie remains in the car, his head in his hands. She despises him. She despises everyone.

At last she stops retching, her stomach muscles aching. Her legs are shaky but Pippa settles her back into her seat,fastening her seatbelt.

They begin to move again, this time slower, the window cracked open, Nina knows she stinks. She has globules of sick down the front of her shirt. Incredibly Duke is still asleep.

They’ve been travelling for hours when her brother wakes up. There is only about forty-five minutes left of their journey.

Duke yawns and wipes his mouth with the back of his hand before he asks, ‘What’s going to happen now?’

‘We’re nearly home,’ Nina says.

‘I mean after. Who’s going to look after us?’

‘I think…’ Nina pauses and waits for Charlie to jump in. He doesn’t. She glares at his profile as he stares out of the window. From the stiffness of his shoulders, the flush that spreads across his neck, she knows he’s heard but he isn’t saying anything.

Why isn’t he saying anything? Panic beats a drum on Nina’s heart.

‘Charlie,’ she says sharply. ‘Who’s going to look after me and Duke?’

Chapter Five

Charlie

By the time they are home, the sky has darkened to the total blackness that only winter brings. The stars are invisible although Charlie knows they are still there, hidden by clouds. You don’t always need to see something to know that it exists, do you? All the time Charlie has lived in London he has known that Mum and Bo are in the house he grew up in, living out their lives. It’s inconceivable that now, suddenly, they are gone.

Pippa cuts the engine. ‘Let’s get the kids inside.’ She sounds exhausted, looks exhausted. She has driven for twelve hours today after scant sleep last night. Charlie experiences a flush of shame that it hadn’t occurred to him to offer to take over. He had spent much of the journey silent and shocked. Unable to comfort Nina when she was being sick at the side of the road, unable to reassure Duke when he’d asked who would look after him.

What is he going to do?

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