Page 71 of You Belong With Me

‘Don’t worry! Everything turned out fine. Dad’s in an orthopaedic boot and chipper as can be. Nothing neurological at all. I was a bit of a mess when I left that voice message …’ She gulped. ‘I wish I’d waited. I’m a twat for not waiting.’

‘No,’ Elliot said. ‘Can I say, emphatically, that when I’m thisfucking useless to you, you leaving me a message when you’re in the turmoil of it allows me to imagine I’m the absolute bare minimum of support. Feel free to scream in them if you need to. Leave me ones where you don’t speak at all. Anything. I don’t mind. Just send them.’

‘I love you,’ Edie said, as a hot tear slid down her face. He was the person she most wanted to impress in the world, but he was also the one she could let her guard down with, and it was a powerful combination.

‘I love you, too.’

They let the phone line hum with a potent shared silence for a second or two.

‘The story is that Dad slipped on a biscuit – I never thought I’d miss my sister’s strict dietary regimen – missed a few stairs, landed with a bump in the hallway. When he rang Meg he didn’t sound his right self, and she went straight to Defcon shit. I know it’s a little-sister-older-sister thing, but if our situations were reversed, I might’ve minimised it and kept me calmer for the race to the QMC. But. You understand this so well ’cos of Fraz, I think. We love them so much, and we know the deal.’

‘Do I ever,’ Elliot said. ‘Oldest kid’s a certain gig, for sure. I know you’ll have been brilliant.’

‘Actually, I wasn’t – after she called, I had a turn. Heart racing, going to faint sort of thing. Like when I almost keeled over onGun City, and you picked me up, remember that?’

‘Of course.’

‘Declan was great about it and helped me to the taxi. I scared myself a bit, Elliot. I just … collapsed in on myself,emotionally and physically. I couldn’t cope with what might be happening, at all. I didn’t expect …’ Edie felt tears swell and had to pause to get herself under control. ‘I haven’t told anyone this, but I didn’t expect to think about my mum so much in those moments.’

‘You did?’

‘Yeah. It felt like pulling on the ropes still tied to a shipwreck,’ Edie said, being very quiet, as you could never be sure about the acoustics through ceilings and floors, and her dad was right above her. ‘Down there in the deep. She suddenly, very obviously,wasn’t therein my life. Like there was a yawning hole where she should be in the world, and my dad was about to disappear through it, too. Sorry, I’ve had wine, and I’m not making much sense. Anyway. Turns out your long ago past is always right there. Just round the corner, out of sight.’

‘I get that … You want her support at a time like that. It’s a flash point of absence.’

‘Exactly. It’s like I’m thirty-six, cutting about, a responsible adult who has the history labelled, neatly tidied into a box. One frightening phone call from Meg and I’m a little girl again, wanting my mum.’

‘You’re being Meg’s mother,’ Elliot said. ‘She displaces that role on to you, but you have to be your own mum.’

‘God, exactly,’ Edie said quietly.

‘It was kind of like that with my father’s newspaper story. My own emotions surprised me. I didn’t realise how much he could hurt me. I said it was seeing the picture of my mum, and it was, mainly. But the embarrassing part was that I discovered I was upset that my so-called “real” dad doesn’tlove me, that the love I somehow expected to exist, despite everything, wasn’t there.’

‘I should’ve understood that better,’ Edie said. ‘And I should’ve asked you more when the story broke.’

‘Ah God, no, don’t worry. What is there to say? Forever unfinished business,’ Elliot said.

Edie sensed that Elliot, on another land mass, was in actor-mode Elliot. His tears on her shoulder happened in another country, in more than one sense. She got it: she’d tried to travel light herself.

‘Are the stairs a problem – does your dad need to move house?’ Elliot said, and Edie understood the implication.

‘I’ll keep an eye on that,’ Edie said. ‘For now, he needs to be tidier.’

‘Speaking of property, my mum called with some news today. You know my aunt lives in Cornwall? My dad’s sister?’

‘Yes?’

‘She’s not in great health, and my parents have announced they’re moving down to be with her. Fraz is in London, I’m mostly jetting about as you know, so it’s not like they’ve got tons of ties to Nottingham. They’ve decided the seaside is their new passion. It’s very new. The greatest enthusiasm I’ve ever seen from them to date is ordering the prawn cocktail starter.’

‘Right.’ Edie was surprised by how hard this hit her.

‘They’ve put the house on the market. They want to do a farewell dinner, so I’ll let you know.’

‘Sure.’

They chattedYour Tabletrivia and said goodbye with theusual promises and endearments, Edie suddenly keen to end the call so that she was free to cry. She pulled the blanket over her head and sobbed with her whole chest. She’d been through a nerve-racking experience and was too weak to absorb anything sensibly, she reasoned.

But somehow, this totally unexpected departure was quietly devastating. A home city, parents in the same place, was the only thing she and Elliot had ever shared. It was why they had met. Now, that was disappearing.

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