Page 42 of Where We Belong

Fine thanks x Just been catching up on a bit of work but I’m taking a break for lunch. How are things with you?

The three dots bounced for what seemed like ages as Cam typed his reply.

Barnie’s found something we don’t understand and our first geo-phys results were a mess. Adam’s just finishing off so I’m hoping I’ll have something more to tell you later. Dinner tonight? Xx

Hope’s stomach did a little flip.

Sounds good x I’ll pop down the shop and pick us something up. Send me a text when you’re done for the day.

Cam sent her three kisses in response.

Hope tucked her phone away and all but bounced down the stairs with excitement over the thought of a whole evening, just the two of them.

‘Mind the floor!’

Hope froze with barely one toe touching the wet tiles. ‘Sorry!’ Her head snapped up as she registered who the desperate cry had belonged to. ‘Amelia? What are you doing here?’ Her friend looked terrible – that was the only word Hope could think of to describe her. Her usual vibrant gold-blonde hair looked dark with grease and was scraped back from her head in a lank ponytail. The shadows beneath her deep-set eyes gave her already too-thin face an almost skull-like appearance and the angry red spot was the only other bit of colour on her otherwise pale skin.

‘What does it look like?’ Amelia brandished the mop at her, before bending over and pushing it over the tiles.

‘Well, I can see what you’re doing,’ Hope said as she picked her way across the drying patches of the floor towards the table. ‘What I mean is why are you doing it now? Aren’t you supposed to be at work?’ Having turned down the chance of one of Ziggy’s scholarships, Amelia had taken a job in the nearby town straight after they’d finished their A levels. She’d worked her way up to be the office manager, but Hope knew she hated admin almost as much as Zap did. She’d always been so creative – brilliant at art, when Hope could barely draw a straight line even with the aid of a ruler. Every time she saw her, which wasn’t as often these days, Hope realised with a pang of guilt, Amelia looked smaller and paler, as though that spark within her was slowly being extinguished.

‘Like I said on the phone earlier, with Mum out of action I can’t manage everything, so I’ve taken a couple of weeks off. We couldn’t afford for her to lose the hours she was doing before, never mind the extra Mrs Davis managed to conjure out of nowhere.’

‘She did say something about her sciatica playing up,’ Hope said, quickly, scrabbling for the excuse her mum and Mrs Davis had come up with.

Amelia stopped working the mop long enough to give Hope a hard stare. ‘I’m not stupid, just desperate.’

Hope closed her eyes for a long moment. ‘I know, I’m sorry.’ Sliding into one of the kitchen chairs, she pushed the one beside it out with her foot, ignoring the freshly mopped floor. ‘Leave that a minute and sit down and talk to me. You shouldn’t have to give up your leave to do this! Tell me what I can do to help.’

Amelia looked like she would refuse, but eventually set the mop aside with a sigh and flopped into the chair. ‘I don’t think there’s anything to be done.’ She drew her already raw-looking lower lip between her teeth and began to worry at it.

Reaching out, Hope took her hand. ‘Rhys did everything he could to keep your dad on.’

Amelia swallowed hard. ‘I know. I don’t blame him for kicking him out. I’d do the bloody same if I could, the bastard.’ She sounded so desperate and furious that Hope felt her own anger rising to match it.

‘Your mother should be the one to do that.’ Hope knew it was harsh, but they’d all danced around the problem for too long as it was. ‘She should’ve done it years ago.’

‘She tried,’ Amelia said softly. ‘It didn’t go well.’ She stared at Hope, the bleakness in her eyes conveying something terrible.

‘Oh, no, I’m so sorry.’

Amelia shrugged. ‘I can’t do anything about it until she’s fit and well again but once she’s over this damn chest infection, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get rid of him once and for all.’

For a moment Hope was truly worried about what she might mean. ‘You… you won’t do anything stupid?’

Amelia laughed, a harsh bark. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t make you follow through on the pledge that you’d always help me bury the bodies.’ It was a silly promise they’d made to each other when they were young, a way of saying they’d always have each other’s backs. Only things had changed once Amelia had started work and Hope had gone off to university. When she’d come back in the holidays, it was to find Rhys and Amelia had started dating and that had driven another wedge between them because the last thing Hope had wanted to hear was all the gory details of what went on between her erstwhile friend and her cousin.

Still, Hope wanted to reach for that old connection, to let Amelia know that however far they’d drifted, she still cared for her and would do what she could to support her now. ‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Hope said, in a deliberately off-hand voice. ‘What with the excavations and everything, I’m sure we could find a quiet spot to dump his useless carcass.’

Amelia’s eyes widened as she stared at Hope in disbelief and then she sputtered out a laugh. It sounded rusty, almost painful, and Hope wondered how long it was since her friend had last found something to laugh about. The sounds coming from her throat changed an instant later, and Hope ran around the table to gather Amelia close as her body racked with sobs.

‘It’ll be all right,’ she promised Amelia, even though she had no idea what she was going to do.

Though it had taken some persuading, Hope had eventually encouraged Amelia upstairs to her room for a lie down. The exhausted woman had fallen asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow, so Hope had settled in the rocking chair beneath the window with her laptop and worked quietly. A couple of hours later and she had everything up to date. Amelia hadn’t stirred, not even to turn over, so Hope tiptoed out of the room and downstairs. She was just finishing off cleaning the kitchen when Ziggy came in, his expression grim. He stopped at the sight of Hope wiping down the large table. ‘Everything okay?’

Hope nodded. ‘Keep your voice down.’ She pressed a finger to her lips then pointed above them. ‘Amelia is asleep upstairs. She’s taken a couple of weeks’ holiday to keep on top of Daisy’s cleaning hours while she recovers from a chest infection.’ She thought about mentioning Amelia’s determination to get Keith out of their lives, but she knew Rhys would wade in and probably make things worse. He and Amelia might be just friends these days, but he was still fiercely protective of her.

Her uncle sighed. ‘The village is rife with gossip about Keith and his antics. Iain didn’t need any persuasion to ban him from the pub. He was already on the verge of doing it because of the size of the tab Keith’s run up. It’s the same in the shop – their bill hasn’t been paid in weeks. Rumour has it they’re on the verge of being evicted from the cottage for unpaid rent.’

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