Nancy couldn’t sleep. The occasional strobing flicker of headlights across the walls as a car sped along the country road out front reminded her how far she was from home. She sat on the edge of the guest bed, staring at the suitcase she hadn’t fully unpacked. A hollow void existed inside her chest, an empty space where her sister once lived.
The past few days had felt like walking underwater. She could see the world moving around her, distorted, distant, yet she had to keep moving, make arrangements, get to England and the girls. Julia had trusted her to look after them but Nancy had never expected to have to take up the mantle of guardian and executor. But now she must because Julia was really gone. Her twin. Her childhood and adulthood co-conspirator.
Nancy stood and crossed the room. She opened the small suitcase and rummaged for a photo album she’d packed. It was old and the plastic sheets inside had yellowed slightly. She flipped it open and smiled sadly at a picture of them in matching duffel coats, Julia with her arm around her shoulder, both of them squinting into the sun.
The door creaked behind her. Molly stood there in her pyjamas, hair tousled, eyes heavy. ‘I saw your light on.’
‘Can’t sleep?’ Nancy asked.
Molly shook her head. Nancy held up the photo album. ‘Want to look?’
They sat on the bed, side by side, paging through memories. Julia as a young mum with Molly on her knee and Nancy by her side, the four of them in Cornwall, Ronnie, Julia, Nancy and Molly, building sandcastles. Christmases in horrible jumpers sat amongst mounds of paper. Then Dee pops up and it was five of them.
‘I love that you’re in our photos, Nancy. When I think of being little I felt so safe because I had all the people I loved around me. Mum always looked after everyone,’ Molly said. ‘Even when she was exhausted, and you were there to back her up, like a real guardian angel.’
Nancy nodded. ‘She took it so hard when your dad died. More than most knew. I think she lost her confidence for a while, but having me around helped take some pressure off so she could get on with being Supermum.’
They paused over a photo of Julia on her wedding day. ‘She looked beautiful so I kept this but I can’t bear to have any of him in here. It would just feel wrong.’ Nancy rested a finger over the image of Julia and sighed.
Molly stared at the photo in silence. ‘Will he be able to stay here, in this house?’ she asked, her voice laced with worry.
Nancy reached over and took her hand. ‘Not forever,’ she said. ‘But we have to get through the next few days and laying your mum to rest and then we can sort out all the formal stuff. I think it’s best for now we all try to get along, for Dee’s sake more than anything. Death and funerals bring out the worst in people, a bit like family weddings I suppose. So let’s stick together and look after your sister, okay?’
Molly leant into Nancy who hugged her tight, knowing that getting through a funeral was probably the least of their worries. At some point she was going to have to take Molly aside and have a heart-to-heart because it now fell to Nancy to tell her the truth about the past, before Shane got in there. It was what Julia had wanted. They’d sworn an oath and it was one Nancy was going to honour.
It was dawn, and Nancy was in the kitchen drinking coffee. Her body clock was up the wall and her mind too active to rest. She was huddled in a blanket, her feet resting on the chair opposite as she watched the garden birds from her spot by the open bi-fold doors. She’d been making lists in her head and reminiscing about happy times when she was aware of a presence behind her, making the hairs on her neck prickle. She turned and sure enough there he was. The man himself.
Shane spoke first. ‘I see you’re making yourself at home.’
‘I am. Do you have a problem with that?’ Nancy turned away and focused on the pretty birds and not the pretty boy.
‘I don’t want any trouble, Nancy. I’m sure we can muddle along until the funeral is over, for the girls’ sake and Julia wouldn’t want anything to upset them further, would she?’
At the mention of her nieces, Nancy turned, then stood to meet the challenge head on. She’d known this was coming ever since she arrived and saw the look on his face. ‘Don’t you dare tell me what my sister would and wouldn’t want. And I have no intention of upsetting either of them, so I hope you are of the same mind.’
Shane took a few steps closer and she noticed he was wearing his gym gear, shorts and a vest that showed off his toned body.The need to keep himself in trim apparently took precedence over fake grief. When he spoke, she could hear the mocking tone and imagined it to be exactly how he’d taunted Julia.
‘Well, that depends, doesn’t it? On how everything plays out when the will is read and whether you’re going to play hard ball. I know you were plotting my demise with Julia and I fully expect you both to have shafted me the best you can but so you know, I won’t go down without a fight and I’ll use whatever I have to make sure I get what I deserve.’ His eyes bore into Nancy’s as he stood his ground, arms folded, biceps bulging, muscled thighs spread slightly apart.
‘You can’t intimidate me with threats like you did Julia.’ Nancy looked him up and down and smirked. ‘And this…’ she waved a hand at his body, ‘…macho show of strength or whatever it is, doesn’t impress or scare me, either. You know as well as I do that the power you had over my sister is gone. There’s nobody to bribe and blackmail anymore because she’s dead. You can’t hurt her more than you have already and let’s hope the police can prove that…’ She didn’t finish because Shane jumped in. The venom in his voice almost made her flinch.
‘I DID NOT HURT JULIA!’ Shane leaped forward, right up to Nancy’s face, their noses almost touching, his chest rising and falling, the veins in his forehead pulsing, his eyes wide with anger.
‘We’ll see about that, won’t we, but until then stay out of my way and keep your nasty mouth shut around Molly or I will make your life a misery. Got it? Let me bury my sister and allow my parents to say a dignified goodbye. Then you and I can go head-to-head. You thought you were so clever all those years ago, snooping and poking your nose in and using what you found to your advantage. Well now you’re well and truly fucked, because no matter what, that will is cast iron and nothing you can say to Molly will change it.’ Nancy was shaking and whether it wassheer hatred or jet lag or grief, all she wanted to do was weep, but pride forbade her and as they stood there, nose to nose, a voice broke them apart.
‘What’s going on?’ Dee stood in the half-light, her sad eyes looking from one to the other.
Nancy snapped into a different mode, caring and soothing, skirting around Shane and heading towards Dee. ‘Nothing, love, nothing at all, we were just talking, weren’t we…?’
But when she looked back Shane had gone, the door to the gym closing behind him. The line in the sand had been drawn, and Nancy knew from then on it would be a battle of the wills.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The morning sun did little to warm the garden, which lay shrouded in a misty haze that seemed to match the atmosphere within the house. Once her mum’s pride and joy, it looked unloved, its flowerbeds slightly overgrown, the soil dry where it had been left un-watered.
Molly stepped out onto the patio, coffee in hand, seeking air and hoping it might settle her stomach. Since Yates’ visit the day before, her nerves had been twisted so tightly she’d had cramps, or maybe that was hunger she couldn’t be bothered to feed. She wore one of Julia’s old sweatshirts, fashionably oversized, the hem brushing against her thighs over leggings. Her face was pale, drawn, and her eyes were dry and burned by Mr Sandman whose efforts couldn’t thwart her sleeplessness. One look in the bathroom mirror was enough to make her feel older than her years, outside and in.
Nancy had persuaded Dee to go with her for an early morning walk, insisting some fresh air might help lift the cloud of misery that had settled over the teenager. Molly had watched them from the lounge window with the heaviest of hearts. Dee’sthin frame was bundled into a jacket too big for her, a knitted hat drooping over her ears, walking slowly beside their aunt who gestured gently, trying to coax some conversation out of her niece. The image hurt. Dee looked so much like a child again.
