‘I guess it also helps that lots of them are about finding love a little later in life.’
Saskia smiled. ‘What else?’
I thought about the article I’d ended up writing forThe Helix. All the narrative elements that tied Christmas movies together.
‘The themes: community. Family. Home.’
My voice splintered as I spoke the final word. Saskia scooched up even closer and put an arm around me.
‘Yeah, I suppose all the families in these films end up happy and together, don’t they?’
I nodded, the sobs coming thick and fast now. I couldn’t believe I’d never connected these movies to my own existence before.
‘I always know what’s going to happen,’ I added. ‘There aren’t any nasty surprises – and there’s always a happy ending.’
‘The predictability makes you feel safe.’
I got goosebumps as I nodded. Because ‘safe’ was how I wanted to feel all the time. But after all the seismic shifts that had taken place in my life in the last week, I felt the opposite. It was as if the ground was dropping away, with everything I’d ever relied upon as secure crumbling beneath my feet. My friendship with Elle. My ties to the people I’d naively trusted in Scarnbrook. My job – or lack thereof. My non-existent relationship with my brother. Even my lack of respect for Saskia, who I’d previously dismissed as nothing more than a pin-up wife for Josh’s Instagram grid.
Had I really been wrong about everything?
‘You can always turn to me, you know that, right?’ Saskia said, squeezing my hand gently.
‘I do now. Thank you. I wish we’d got to know each other sooner. And with Josh here.’
‘He’s come so far. But he’s on the edge of the digital rabbit hole right now and I was kind of hoping you could help me pull him away from it.’
‘How?’
‘Well, I suppose it boils down to this: if you stop hiding, maybehe’llstop hiding, too.’
Chapter 27
?Festive train journey
I boarded the busy train, which was full of spirited office workersheading home after Christmas parties, and found a spot near the doorwhere I could gaze out of the window. Josh had come back almost exactlytwo hours later, as Saskia had predicted, although he’d gone straight tohis room after a quick glance and a tight grin in my direction. Again,exactly what Saskia had told me to expect.
Talking so openly with my sister-in-law had been incredibly helpful but, at the same time, I couldn’t shake off a sense of sadness that I’d never bothered to get to know her before now. In fact, I’d barely given her any thought at all beyond the bitching sessions with Elle about her latest Instagram posts, which always dripped with earnestness. I felt guilty for laughing at her now. Because she was bloody nice. And clever. And so obviously head-over-heels in love with my brother. A part of me was jealous of what they had – the same thing I’d believed I’d had with Tom just a few days ago, which was absurd.
The train jolted suddenly, so I reached for a nearby pole to steady myself, only to grab a fellow passenger’s tube of festive gift wrap poking out of their backpack by mistake. They must have detected the brief change in pressure, as they spun around fast to look at me, just as I removed my hand in what must have come across as a pick-pockety manner.
‘Sorry, I thought it was the pole!’ They looked at me as if I was mad, which was fair enough, backing away slowly as if I might make another grab for it. Why did this kind of ridiculous thing always happen to me?
The Bermondsey rooftops flashed past the window, theblink blink blinkof Canary Wharf’s summit in the distance. That familiar flashing had always felt like a beacon beckoning me home after a long day in the office, but right now it felt like its relentless pulses were piercing my skull, each blink reminding me of something else that was lacking or collapsing in my life.
Flash: No job.
Flash: No sign of my best friend.
Flash: No Tom Brinton.
Flash: No fucking clue about anything any more.
I leant against the upholstered bum ledge next to the door – designed for a six-foot man, of course, so too high to be of any use to short women like me – and, with one hand permanently attached to my suitcase, closed my eyes for a few moments. I rubbed my eyebrows with my thumb and forefinger, hoping it would somehow sculpt all my mashed-up thoughts into some kind of recognisable form. But all it succeeded in doing was making my head pound even further.
The rain was whipping around cruelly as I exited the station at Hither Green. I’d only been away for just over a week, but it felt like much longer. I abandoned my wet luggage and coat in the hallway and went straight to the kitchen to put the kettle on. But something wasn’t quite right. There were a few mugs piled up in the sink, and an unfamiliar box of herbal teabags was open on one of the countertops. I picked up the box and sniffed it, as if I was a dog trying to catch a scent. I dropped the box back down, turned slowly and looked around the living room. The fibre-optic Christmas tree was switched on. I haddefinitelyswitched it off before I’d left. And the radiators were hot to the touch, when I’d adjusted the central heating to the lowest anti-frost setting or whatever it was called. What thefuckwas going on?
I poked my head into the bathroom. All seemed normal – no freaky messages written in lipstick on the mirror. My bedroom was undisturbed, too. The door to the spare room at the front of the flat was closed, as always. I pushed it open… and found Elle, curled up in bed, awake but vacant. The room stank of stale farts.
