Forget Me Not (The Ceruleans: Book 2) (6 page)

Luke cooked dinner for me and Cara and her boyfriend,
‘Lovely Kyle’. We ate at the kitchen table, the radio turned to XFM London, the
back doors thrown open to the cool evening air.

‘Now that’s what I call a sausage,’ announced Kyle, waving a
banger in the air. ‘It’s all in the size and the curve, you see.’

Chester, lying at my feet, woofed in agreement, but Cara
dissolved into a fit of giggles. Which made me laugh. Which felt so good after
all the gloom of late that I found I couldn’t stop.

‘What?’ said Luke. ‘I don’t get it. It’s a sausage, right?’

That set us off even more. The two boys across the table
stared at us. Cara laughed herself into a bout of hiccups, which initially sent
the hilarity level through the ceiling, but once she reached the ‘it hurts’
stage we got a grip. As she sipped a glass of water, normality resumed.

‘Good mash, Luke,’ said Kyle, who was apparently determined
to win over his girlfriend’s brother with culinary compliments.

Luke eyed me warily, as if the word ‘mash’ would unleash
another explosion of mirth.

I smiled at him. ‘It’s decent. Not a lump in sight. Anyone
would think you’re deliberately trying to show me up.’

‘
Moi?
I don’t know what you mean.’

‘What are you two bantering about?’ demanded a now
hiccup-free Cara. ‘Spill.’

‘I cooked for Luke the other night. It was…’

We spoke in unison:

‘… disastrous.’

‘… delicious.’

‘I’m guessing it was inedible then?’ said Kyle.

‘Pretty much,’ said Luke. ‘But hey, that’s okay. Cooking
might not be your forte, Scarlett, but there are plenty of other things you’re
good at.’

‘Like what?’ I wasn’t fishing; I genuinely hadn’t a clue.
Luke had his cooking. Cara had her fashion customising. Even Kyle had a talent
– he was the lead guitarist in a band. Me?

But what does it matter?
said a little voice.
Dreams
are pointless when there is no future.

‘You’re a pretty decent surfer these days.’

True. ‘Thanks, Kyle.’

‘You have a nice singing voice.’

Did I? ‘Thanks, Luke.’

‘You’re an awesome clothes model!’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Okay, Cara, you can stop laying it on
with a trowel. I said I’d come tomorrow and I will.’

‘What’s this?’ asked Luke.

‘Fashion shoot. Tomorrow. Si’s,’ said Cara between chews of
sausage. She swallowed. ‘For the new website. I told you about this, brov.’

‘Did you? Sorry, I’m sure you did. So Scarlett’s modelling
what for you?’

‘Suits. Dresses. Skirts. Tops. Underwear.’

A mouthful of peas went down the wrong way. Kyle gave Luke
some resounding thwacks on the back.

‘What’s a basque?’ asked Kyle.

By the time Cara had finished explaining, his eyes were
boggling. ‘They sound kind of… impractical.’

‘Never stopped my sister wearing them,’ I said.

The table fell silent. It was an awkward kind of hush, far
removed from the laughter that had so recently filled the room. Damage done
now, I pressed on. I had to.

‘Speaking of Sienna, I’ve been reading her diary. And she
mentions Daniel a lot. I wanted to ask you guys about him.’ Luke opened his
mouth to speak, but I cut him off. ‘I know – you’ve told me he wasn’t about for
long, just around the time Sienna was here, and that they were kind of intense
but you don’t know how intense. I’m not asking that. I just want to know what
you thought of him.’

Cara spoke out at once: ‘He was hot.’ When both her brother
and her boyfriend cringed she added, ‘A fact’s a fact.’

‘You liked him then?’ I asked her.

‘Like I like Damon or Klaus or Eric or Angelus.’

‘Who?’ said Luke.

‘Bad boy vamps,’ said Kyle in the kind of weary tone that
suggested he knew more than he wanted to know about the subject.

‘Knee-meltingly sexy, but responsible for a serious body
count. You know, the heartless murderers you can’t help but –’

‘Cara!’
snapped Luke.

‘What?’

‘Engage the brain before speaking!’

‘What? Oh, because Sienna died? But I’m not suggesting
Daniel
’s
a heartless murderer. Or a vampire, come to that. I’m just saying he gave me
the heebie jeebies…’

‘Well, I liked him,’ said Kyle. ‘Seemed like a straight-up
bloke to me.’

He launched into a story about a party at which Daniel took
over a guitar and led a campfire sing-along of Brit rock classics, but I
stopped listening once he deviated into chords and tabs for the ’Phonics’
‘Maybe Tomorrow’. I was thinking about that word, that word that Cara had
uttered so casually and Luke had leaped right upon:
murderer
.

My sister had not been murdered. She hadn’t been dragged, kicking
and screaming, into the sea. But Luke had spoken of seeing another head in the
waves that night, another person out in the water with Sienna, and Jude was
adamant that she’d been taken – by
‘someone else. Someone… bad
.
’
Daniel?

Luke’s foot nudged mine under the table. ‘What’s this all
about?’ he said, for my ears only.

‘I just wondered what Sienna saw in Daniel. Why she was
dating him.’

‘She was? I didn’t realise… Who told you that?’

‘Jude.’

‘How would
he
know?’

‘Jude saw them together, or she told him about it, I guess.’

‘You guess.’

I stared at him. He was right to call me on that, I realised
– it
was
a guess. An impression based on a conversation with Jude that
was hopelessly hazy owing to the fact that I’d been drunk as a skunk on tequila
at the time. I’d better add ‘Sienna + Daniel = item?’ to the long list of
questions to ask Jude when, finally, I found the courage to face him.

‘You okay?’

Luke was looking at me worriedly. I didn’t want him to
worry. I didn’t want him to look in my eyes and pick up on even the slightest
iota of what was going on inside me. I grabbed at the easiest means of
distraction.

‘So, photo shoot tomorrow. Me in a black lacy basque…’

Unfortunately, the last words fell during a lull in Cara and
Kyle’s discussion, which meant my little private flirtation was decidedly
public. Hashtag-awkward. But Luke looked torn between smiling and smouldering.
Which was infinitely better than worrying.

Kyle cleared his throat. ‘Right, well, um, great dinner,
thanks, Luke. Shall we clear up and then put the film on?’

‘You cue up the DVD; we’ll clear away,’ said Luke, standing
up.

I stood too and began relaying plates, glasses and table
sauces to the kitchen counter.

Luke waited until Cara and Kyle and Chester had disappeared
into the living room, and then said, ‘About that basque…’

I’d barely turned to face him before he trapped me against
the fridge with his body and kissed me, and kissed me, and kissed me… until I
inadvertently squeezed the ketchup bottle in my hand and sent a spurt of
crimson across the tiled floor.

‘Oops. Sorry.’

‘I’m not.’

‘I’ll clear it up.’

‘Not yet.’

He kissed me again. My knees began jellifying and I was
sliding down the fridge door when:

‘Hellllloooooooo?’

We broke away as Cara appeared in the doorway.

‘Are we watching this film or what? Kyle and I are just
sitting there staring at the menu screen.’

‘We’re coming,’ I assured her.

After a last, lingering kiss, we headed, hand in hand, for
the living room. There, two sofas were set at right angles. Cara and Kyle took
the one under the window, and I curled up against Luke on the other one with
Chester at my feet.

‘This is the film about the zoo near here, right?’ I asked.

‘Yep,’ said Luke. ‘But it’s Americanised – it’s based on the
Dartmoor zoo, but they moved it to the States, and the actors are American. And
the story’s a bit different to the book it’s based on. But yes, it’s the film
about the zoo near here.’

‘Ah.’ Confusing much?

Luke pressed play, and I settled against his chest as the
film began.

I wanted to like it. For Luke’s sake. Because he was trying
to do something nice and romantic. And the story was feel-good, overall, with
Matt Damon saving a crumbling zoo and sort-of falling for Scarlett Johansson in
the process. But what Luke had failed to mention was that the main character
was a widower, grieving the loss of his wife. And his sadness was all I could
think about.

To lose the person you love – it was unbearable.

I thought of my grandparents, how Grandad had died just a
month after Nanna passed away. Fell asleep and never woke up, like he just
wanted to be with her. I thought of Luke’s grandparents – of Grannie Cavendish,
happy enough to inhabit the real world until her husband keeled over during a
game of bowls, and then retreating to a land of happy-ever-afters, unable to
live in a reality where her husband could be taken from her. I thought of
Luke’s parents, who had died together in the car crash. Given the chance either
would have stayed for their children. But if they had only themselves to think
of, would they have been glad to go together – so that there was no missing, no
aching, no longing, no separation?

Luke’s thumb, rough from kitchen work, absently traced
circles on the back of my hand. Each circle was an impending full stop. Each
moment together was one moment fewer.

To lose the person you love – it was unbearable.

Well, that was a ‘Good Friday’ – not.

I knew I wasn’t right. I’ve known it for a long while.
All the headaches. The dizziness. But I wanted to put it all down to too many
late nights, too many cocktails – or else hormones or something.

I don’t remember what happened. I was on the beach,
getting out of my wetsuit after a surf, and then I was in A&E. This doctor
chap was in a right tizz, showing me brain scans and sniffling into the sleeve
of his white coat.

I Peter Panned him: ‘Death is only the beginning. And
dying, after all, will be an awfully big adventure.’ That choked him right up.
He started on about referrals and specialists, and I nodded and said all the
right things. Then I got the hell out of there as quickly as I could.

Si took me back to the cottage – he was the one who’d
seen me collapse and called an ambulance. He was worried, but I cooked up some
story about blood sugar issues, and he seemed to buy it.

No one can know the truth. Only Jude.

~

I thought Jude would flip out about the A&E episode –
worry I’d nearly died and he’d missed it. But apparently I had that all wrong.
Because he didn’t miss it (Si called him and he came to the hospital and
checked on me while I was out). And because I was in a bad way, yes, but not in
the ‘nearly dead’ category.

I didn’t linger on the whole seeing-me-unconscious thing,
because it’s too grim to think about. But I did ask how he could tell I wasn’t
pegging out right then. He just knew, he said. He always knows, with everyone.
Whether they’re in pain or ill. How close they are to death. Whether they can
be healed or not.

Not, in my case.

He can’t tell me exactly how long I’ve got. Weeks, a few
months at best. Makes no difference. I’ve no intention of waiting until The End
like those movie geeks who sit in the cinema until the very last credit has
rolled. That’s not me – I’m on my feet for the first note of the theme tune.

Theme tune, now there’s a thought. Maybe I should Google
‘music to die to’.

~

I thought it was just me. I assumed – ha! – that I was
unique, different.

But it’s not. Jude says it’s Scarlett too, or it will be
once she’s eighteen.

I don’t understand. Why both of us? It’s not like Mother
or Father have a Cerulean bone in their bodies, screwed-up and self-involved as
they are. Father heal? He’d step over a dying man unless there was a bank note
sticking out of his pocket. And Mother? She can’t even heal herself, let alone
anyone else.

Jude has no answers for me on this. He just says both of
us are special cases.

I have to talk to her – she has to know. I left my phone
at Willake, and I can’t remember her number, so I can’t call. I’ve written and
rewritten the email to her countless times. But how can I tell her all this? I
know her. She won’t see things my way. When she knows the truth, all Scarlett
will see is ‘Death’, not ‘Life’.

I’ll wait. Buy some time with the drugs the doctor gave
me. Give her all the days she can have without this pressing down on her. Soon
enough she’ll be eighteen. Then I’ll tell her. And we can go together.

~

Clubbing in the city. Jude was all for me taking it easy,
but a girl’s gotta live – even a dying girl has that right. He wasn’t up for
coming, but told me to call if I needed him. Gave me a pay-as-you-go phone in
case of emergency. I took ‘emergency’ to mean ‘Ow, I’m dying’ and not ‘Oh look,
Daniel just walked into the club’.

That guy is too cool for school. Just leaned on the bar,
drinking Jack Ds and watching me dance. Eventually, all I could think about was
his eyes on me, so I lost the others and we found a corner. And talked.

I don’t know what to make of it all, this talk of
fractures and factions and falling. Of the rights and wrongs of using the
light. Of family loyalty.

I’m sticking with Jude. I trust Jude.

Still, there are two numbers in my phone now: Jude’s, and
Daniel’s.

~

Party at Si’s. Got drunk. Really drunk. Jude put me to
bed.

I asked him, ‘What will it be like when I die?’

He said, ‘Like falling asleep. With me right beside you.’

But recently, falling asleep? Not so easy.

It’s the dream that keeps me awake. The dream I don’t
want to have, but that comes every night. Scarlett’s standing over my grave,
watching them lower in my coffin. She’s not crying, but she has that look on
her face – the one she had the day the paramedics carted Mother off to pump the
gin and tablets from her stomach. Thirteen years ago, but I’ve never forgotten.
I pushed my sister behind me then; I tried to stand between Scarlett and the
Bad Thing.

I don’t know how to do that this time.