The Girl Who Came Back (18 page)

Andee glanced at her sideways. ‘So what did you do?’

‘I guess we made ourselves accept that there had been some confusion somewhere along the line and got on with the walk. You know, she didn’t apologise or even seem particularly embarrassed about it, nor did she take the T-shirt off or cover it up. She just marched along there in front of me, making sure I could see it, until in the end Kian got so annoyed that he took off his own T-shirt and insisted she put it on.’

‘Did she mind?’

‘If she did she never said so. She just carried on walking with Daisy, arms linked as though trying to keep out the rest of Daisy’s friends, while I followed with Aileen and the others. There were quite a lot of women from the refuge with us that day, raising money for their own cause, and here’s what Amelia said to Daisy about them after the walk …’

‘They’re such a bunch of losers those women, don’t you think? They ought to learn to stand up for themselves.’

Overhearing, Jules spun round in a fury, cutting right across Daisy as she said, ‘Amelia, you have no idea what most of those women have been through, and I hope you never find out.’ Even as she spoke the words she wondered how wrong she might be. After all, given what she remembered about Amelia’s parents it was quite possible the girl knew more about domestic abuse than most.

Flushing as she shrugged, Amelia said, ‘I was just saying, that’s all. I didn’t mean to cause any offence.’

Softening her tone, Jules said, ‘Well it would have if any of them had heard you.’

Coming to join them, and apparently unaware of the tension, Stephie said, ‘Hey Daze, what time will you and Joe be getting back from the airport tomorrow?’

Relaxing, Daisy said, ‘I’ll check with Dad, but it should be around midday.’

Amelia turned accusingly to her. ‘You didn’t tell me Joe was coming tomorrow. I thought he was coming on Tuesday.’

Daisy and Stephie glanced at one another. ‘He managed to get an earlier flight,’ Daisy informed her.

‘And what’s it to you anyway?’ Stephie wanted to know.

Looking as though she’d been slapped, Amelia said to Daisy, ‘Sorry, but I didn’t think we had any secrets from each other.’

As Stephie gasped Daisy shrugged uncomfortably. ‘It wasn’t a secret. I guess the subject just didn’t come up.’

‘What is she on?’ Stephie muttered, as Amelia turned back to the car park where bottles of water were disappearing fast and blisters were being exposed to the air.

‘Why on earth would she be so hurt that you didn’t tell her Joe was coming?’ Jules asked a few minutes later as Amelia drove off in her swanky sports car without saying goodbye.

Daisy shook her head. ‘I’ve no idea.’

Stephie said, ‘I wonder what he’ll think of her new hair when he sees it. You know what she’s hoping for, don’t you, Daze? She’s hoping he’ll take one look at her and think wow, what the hell am I doing with the genuine article when I can have a full-on fruitcake fake?’

As they laughed, Jules took out her phone to read a text.
Sorry for what I said about the women. Didn’t mean to upset you. Axxx

‘She can only have got around the corner by now,’ Daisy remarked when Jules showed her the message. ‘She must be feeling really bad, poor thing. I’ll text and ask if she’d like to get together while Joe’s here so she’ll know I’m not trying to keep secrets, or whatever she’s thinking, and frankly that has to be anyone’s guess.’

As it turned out Amelia spent the following two weeks in London, and no one heard a word from her until she returned, three days after Joe had gone back to the States.

‘So do you think she was deliberately avoiding him?’ Andee asked.

‘Who knows, but if she was it definitely wasn’t the case when Joe came back at Christmas with Em and her family. Amelia joined us that year while her father went skiing. She hated skiing, she said, she’d rather spend the whole time on her own in the house than have to go and be with all his boring friends.’

‘Knowing what we do now,’ Andee commented, ‘it was no doubt a relief to them all that she decided not to go.’

‘You mean because of the way she would make mischief and try to cause arguments? I’m sure you’re right.’

‘So what happened when she came to you?’ Andee prompted.

‘Well, to begin with she was quite helpful and seemed really glad to be with us, but then she started flirting with Joe, so outrageously that none of us quite knew how to handle it. If it had been a regular sort of flirting it might have been easier, but she didn’t seem to know the meaning of subtlety, or modesty …’

‘Do you fancy me now?’ Amelia teased Joe, fluffing out her pretty blonde curls and batting her eyelids. ‘Don’t I look just like Daisy?’ In truth, with her pale skin and freckles, plump cheeks and close-set eyes she was a sad, even pathetic caricature of Daisy.

‘It’s cool,’ Joe mumbled awkwardly. ‘Where is Daisy, does anyone know?’

‘She was downstairs playing pool with Mattie, Oscar and Dean the last time I saw her,’ Jules replied.

‘I’ll come and look for her with you,’ Amelia offered, linking his arm as he started to leave the kitchen. ‘We could always go via one of the bedrooms.’

As Jules turned round in shock, Joe quickly tried to detach himself.

‘It’s OK, I’m good,’ he told Amelia, obviously seriously annoyed by the suggestion.

‘But I want to come too,’ Amelia pouted. ‘Please let me
come
, Joe.’

Joe’s confused dark eyes went desperately to Jules.

‘Amelia, can you give me a hand here,’ Jules said, not making it a question.

‘Oh no, it’s fine,’ Amelia responded, ‘I’m sure you can manage, and I need to help Joe find Daisy. Of course,’ she said to Joe, ‘I know I’m not as pretty as she is, but I promise you I have other things going for me.’

Before Jules could step in again Joe said, ‘Daisy and I have things we need to discuss. We’ll catch up with you later, OK?’

Amelia looked crushed. ‘But Daisy doesn’t have any secrets from me,’ she protested, ‘so she really won’t mind if I’m there too, and I love listening to you talk. The American accent really does it for me.’

‘Amelia,’ Jules said firmly, ‘please let go of Joe and come and give me a hand.’

With a curious little shrug, as though suddenly fine about doing as she was told, Amelia breezed back to the table and sank down on a chair. ‘So what do you want me to do?’ she enquired, picking up the salt and pepper pots.

As Jules started to answer, her mother and Em came in from their walk on the beach.

‘Oh God, not her,’ Amelia sighed under her breath.

Jules glared at her, shock robbing her of an immediate response. ‘Please tell me I didn’t just hear you correctly,’ she finally demanded.

Amelia’s expression was bland. ‘I didn’t say anything,’ she insisted. ‘Hi Em, hi Marsha, did you have a good walk?’

Ignoring her, Em said to Jules, ‘Does Amelia have a problem with someone?’

‘No, not at all,’ Amelia assured her. ‘I think Marsha’s really sweet. I was just repeating the sort of thing Stephie says when she sees Marsha coming.’

Stunned as much by the outrageousness of the lie as its clumsiness, Jules’s eyes went to Em, who was clearly equally shocked. However, Jules really didn’t want to get into a scene with the girl while her mother was there, so deciding to let it go she turned to Marsha, whose wind-reddened cheeks were shining as brightly as her watery eyes.

‘Em and I are going for a walk,’ Marsha informed her.

Jules smiled sadly, though she was relieved that her mother seemed to know who Em was now, which hadn’t been the case when Em had first arrived.

‘You’ve got a friend called Em,’ she’d told Jules as Em had embraced her warmly. ‘Lovely girl, she is. Just like a sister to you.’

‘This is her, Mum, but she’s all grown up now.’

Marsha had simply smiled and patted Em’s hand.

Now, Jules said gently, ‘You’ve just come back from a walk, so would you like a cup of tea?’

Marsha blinked.

‘I’ll make it,’ Amelia offered, springing to her feet.

‘It’s OK,’ Jules said, putting a hand out to stop her. ‘Why don’t you go downstairs now and find the others?’

‘Ah ha, so I’m dismissed?’

Jules’s eyes narrowed.

‘Daisy,’ Marsha murmured, but to Jules’s relief she wasn’t looking at Amelia, she was looking at Jules.

‘Sit down, Mum,’ Jules urged. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and Amelia, perhaps you could go and ask someone in the kitchen if they have some cakes or scones to go with our tea?’

‘On my way,’ Amelia trilled, and with a little wave she took herself off, presumably to do as she was told.

Going to close the door behind her, Em said, ‘What’s the matter with the girl? Is she always like that?’

Jules shrugged and shook her head. ‘We’ve never had her to stay for this long before. If I’d known she was going to behave like this … You should have heard her with Joe just now. I guess you realise the hair is all about trying to look like Daisy.’

‘Obviously, and Daisy enjoys having her as a friend?’

‘I’m not sure enjoy is the right word. She puts up with her because no one else will, including her family, apparently.’

Sighing, Em sank down at the table and gently eased a knife from Marsha’s hand.

With a smile Jules said, ‘If you’d seen Joe’s face … He looked petrified, poor guy, and I don’t imagine there’s much that scares him these days.’

Em grudgingly smiled too. ‘He’s a great guy. I’ve grown very fond of him over the years.’

Thinking of the many vacations they’d all spent together, Jules said, ‘I actually feel he’s a member of the family now, and apparently his father and stepmother say the same about Daisy.’

‘I can confirm that. They adore her. It’s just a shame you never get to see her with them. OK, we won’t go there, but I just need to know, are things any better with Kian these days?’

Jules’s lips flattened. ‘They’re not any worse,’ she admitted, ‘but even after all this time we’re still not back to the way we were before.’

‘So no chance of another baby?’

Jules’s heart contracted as she glanced at her mother. Since it was clear that Marsha was in a world of her own, she said, ‘We’re still making love, if that’s what you mean. Maybe not as often as we used to, but when you’ve been married as long as we have … Is it the same for you?’ She really needed Em to say yes, and when Em nodded she felt a huge rush of relief.

‘Jules, are we going for a walk?’ Marsha asked, getting to her feet.

‘You’ve just come back,’ Jules told her, ‘and we’re about to have a cup of tea.’

Marsha blinked and sat down again. ‘Where’s Aileen?’

‘She went to pick up some things from the farm store with Kian and Don,’ Em told her. ‘In fact, they’re probably back by now, so they’ll be down in the bar.’

Marsha looked at her hands, and as a fat tear plopped on to them Jules suddenly felt like crying too. ‘What is it, Mum?’ she asked, going to put her arms around her.

‘I’m a silly old fool,’ Marsha whispered brokenly. ‘I don’t ever seem to know what I’m doing or what’s going on, and I’m such a burden for you …’

‘No, you’re not a burden,’ Jules protested, ‘we love you and we’ll always be here for you, so you mustn’t worry about anything.’

‘No, mustn’t worry,’ Marsha echoed distantly. ‘That’s what Daddy always says, mustn’t worry. Will he be here soon?’

Jules looked at Em helplessly. There was no point trying to explain something to someone who’d lost the ability to process it.

‘In Amelia’s case I wonder if she ever even had the ability in the first place,’ Jules was saying to Andee as they reached her car alongside a row of beach huts. ‘She certainly didn’t seem to operate the same way as everyone else.’

‘So I take it nothing ever came of the flirtation with Joe?’

‘Not in the way she wanted, that’s for sure, because it’s what prompted Daisy to cool it with her in the end. It didn’t happen that Christmas, although I know Daisy was a bit freaked out by the way she was carrying on and she definitely didn’t like the way Amelia kept walking into her room without knocking, especially when Joe was there. Anyway, when the new year came and everyone went their separate ways we didn’t hear from Amelia again until the end of January. She was in London, apparently, with her father, and a boyfriend we’d never heard anything about until suddenly, she couldn’t seem to text about anything else.’

‘Did you ever meet him?’

‘No. To be honest, we weren’t even sure he existed. She just kept sending Daisy messages about how fantastic he was, and how wonderful it was to be in love, and how she couldn’t wait to bring him to Kesterly.’

‘But she never did.’

Jules shook her head.

‘Did she ever send photos? They’re all so mad about Instagram and selfies and so on these days.’

‘No photos that we ever saw. When she finally showed up again she said she’d broken up with him because he was getting too serious, and she’d rather be here with Daisy and everyone, than in London where she hated it.’

‘How did Daisy react to that?’

‘She seemed OK with it at first, but then Amelia started to get clingier than ever, wanting to go everywhere Daisy went, be involved in everything Daisy did … She even used to wait outside the college to offer Daisy a lift home at the end of the day, which Daisy accepted at first, but then Stephie didn’t want to get into the car any more, so Daisy decided she wouldn’t either.’

‘Was Amelia upset by that?’

‘Was she ever. She came to see me in a terrible rage, telling me I didn’t know what Stephie was like, that she was a liar, and that she’d been saying evil things about Daisy behind her back and Daisy ought to be warned … She ranted on and on until finally I had to ask her to leave.’

‘So that was when Daisy stopped seeing her?’

‘Not quite. She carried on for a while, even though Stephie and the others made it clear that they didn’t want her around. It was when Joe came at Easter and Amelia started making moves on him again that Daisy finally told her that they needed to cool it.’

‘I’m sorry, but I have to say this,’ Daisy told Amelia as gently as she could. ‘The way you are with Joe … I mean, it’s kind of embarrassing, and it’s not really the way you should be with someone else’s boyfriend.’