Page 38 of Happily Ever After
‘The tattoo is in memory of my sister.’ Jay shook his cuff and held out his arm. Against the tanned skin the black lines blended, as though he’d been born with them like a birthmark. ‘Her name was Flora, hence the flowers. She loved rainbows too, and she told me whenever I saw one, she’d be there, which is why I have that symbol too.’
‘What happened?’ I was sipping as I spoke, and he frowned.
‘Sorry. I can half-hear you but I can’t see your mouth. I do a combination of working out words and lipreading. These things help but they have their limitations.’ He pointed at his ear. ‘Makes for someincrediblyamusing misunderstandings.’
I knew he was trying to distract me. Something bad had happened. I put the cup down and looked levelly at him. ‘Tell me.’
A half smile, as though he knew what he was doing and he knew I knew. He began to stroke the cat again and his tattoo flickered in and out of sight, like a stop-frame cartoon.
‘I think you can deduce from my use of the words “in memory”, that she died.’ He kept his eyes on the cat. ‘A rare form of leukaemia. She was sixteen, three years younger than me. That’s pretty much it.’
‘And that night in the icehouse?’
‘You don’t let up, do you?’ But it was said with a smile. ‘As I said, I have dreadful insomnia. Sometimes, when it rains – I can’t believe I’m saying this, it sounds like it’s straight from some dreadful overwrought novel – when it rains, and I have my aids in, it’s like I can hear her voice. Whispering, you know? That night I’d had an acute dose of self-pity, and I was sitting outside just listening. Pretending Flora was talking to me, giving me advice. She was great at telling me what to do, the job of little sisters everywhere, knowing better than their older siblings.’
The Master climbed onto Jay’s lap, as though to console him, treadling his paws.
‘And that’s it. That’s my torture. Not really a torture, just – a memory. A sad memory that’s ten years gone.’
‘Oh, Jay,’ I said. I could hear his loss in his voice. ‘I’m so sorry.’
A shrug. ‘I was at uni when she died. I’d been studying biosciences, but I lost heart, quit and came home. Mum and Dad are gardeners, Mum has a landscaping business, so I went into that. Turns out I’m quite good at plants.’
‘And fountains.’ I needed to make him smile, to lift that terrible expression of lost lives, lost opportunities from his face.
I succeeded. ‘Ah yes. That pond is a horror show all on its own. Whoever thought of putting the controls in the middle of a flowerbed wants shooting. To be honest, they probably were shot. The Holmdale family weren’t noted for dying peacefully in their beds.’
He stopped talking and leaned his head back, looking around at the library. I saw him taking in the dark panelling, the racked shelving, ladders and random seating, then, finally, the enormous portrait. He pulled a face.
‘That’s Oswald,’ I said. ‘Hugo’s grandfather, previous owner, dreadful poet and long-lost love of Lady Tanith. Although not her husband, before you ask; she married his son.’
‘An American TV soap just called, they’re missing their plot line.’ Jay shivered. ‘Blimey, it’s freezing in here.’
‘Yes. I’ve asked Hugo if I can have a portable heater. I didn’t dare ask Lady Tanith; she’d probably just set me on fire, cut out the middle man.’
There was a moment of quiet. Jay really was easy to be quiet with, he sat lightly amid it, instead of forming a hole that needed filling. At last he said, ‘It really all comes down to siblings, doesn’t it?’
I’d been staring at a wall of books whose spines informed me that they were the collected minutes of the Yorkshire Fly Fishing Society. I was absolutely dreading getting around to those. ‘Sorry? What does?’
Jay raised his eyebrows. ‘If we’re thinking narratively. You, with a sister you resent for having the life you want…’
‘I do not! Not if it means having to be married to Ollie. He farts way too much and he’s thinking of taking up golf.’
‘You know what I mean. She got away. Went to school.’
I sighed. ‘Oh, that. Yes. You’re right, I do resent her a bit. She’s so much the person I wish I could be.’
Jay shifted on the sofa and another glob of mud fell from his boots onto the newspaper. ‘You’re not so bad,’ he said. ‘And then there’s Hugo, resenting his brother for having freedom and not being bound up with the estate.’
I had a fleeting memory of Hugo, tied to the Yellow Room by designer chains. ‘True.’
‘And there’s me. I mean, I don’t have sibling issues as such, but I miss Flora so much that itfeelslike issues. Issues with nobody to blame because she would far rather have been here than not. Nobody’s fault. Just life. And you can’t go on blaming life forever, can you?’
‘I’m going to have a bloody good go.’ I poured myself more tea.
It was Jay’s turn to look around the walls again now. ‘All these books. All these stories,’ he said.
‘To be fair, quite a lot of them are non-fiction.’ I carefully held the tea mug down so he could see my face. I was learning.
