‘There you are,’ she says. ‘I was wondering where you’d got to.’ I’m unsure if she’s talking to me or Ben.
‘I’m having a cigarette,’ says Ben.
‘Oh, Ben, you’re so naughty,’ she laughs, although I’m not sure she’s really amused. She steps on to the patio and stands next to her brother, holding out the palm of her hand and batting her eyelashes at him. Ben sighs and rolls his eyes at me in mock annoyance then rummages in his pocket for his cigarette packet, taps one out on to his hand and places it between her lips where he dutifully lights it. ‘I shouldn’t,’ she says to nobody in particular, snaking her arm around his waist while his languishes over her shoulder and I’m envious of their closeness.
She takes a few heavy puffs. ‘Pam and Cass are here too, somewhere,’ she says, turning towards Ben and avoiding meeting my eyes. I feel a stab of panic at the thought that I’m being slighted by her. Since she’s come outside she hasn’t glanced my way once. What if she suspects that I was tempted to kiss her earlier and no longer wants to be friends with me, regrets asking me to move in? I couldn’t bear to be cast aside now, not after everything. I don’t want to go back to my own, lonely life, rattling around that flat, terrified every time the sun goes down because I’ll be alone with my thoughts. I want to move in with her, be part of her life. ‘They’re having a great time,’ she continues, still not looking at me, ‘although Pam’s a little drunk and flirting with Monty. She’s convinced she can turn him.’
I laugh as if this is the funniest thing I’ve heard in ages. Beatrice turns to me and flashes me a puzzled smile. ‘Are you okay, Abi?’
‘Actually, I’ve got a headache coming on.’ I urgently need to get away from this party, from this situation. ‘I think I’ll go home.’
Ben’s hazel eyes fill with concern. ‘Do you want me to see you home?’
‘I will see her home.’ She shoots Ben a warning look and uncoils herself from him. ‘Come on, Abi. I’ll call a taxi.’ She puts an arm around my shoulder and steers me back into the house, away from the garden and away from her twin brother.
It’s the second Saturday in June when I finally move in. The sky is a cloudless powder blue and as we drive by the tennis courts I notice a couple of teenage girls in short swishy skirts, showing off tanned, lean legs, rackets insouciantly slung over their shoulders as they chat by the net, and I feel it, the unfamiliar stirrings of excitement at the thought that this is my new life. A new me. For once I am optimistic about the future, hopeful that maybe I can have a semblance of a life without Lucy.
‘Nice part of town,’ says Dad. He reverses his Mazda in between two parked cars to the right of Beatrice’s house. My house. I peer out the window and with a twinge of disappointment I see no sign of Ben’s little Fiat. Dad switches off the engine and points to number nineteen. ‘Is that it?’ When I nod he lets out a low whistle of approval. ‘You’ve done all right for yourself.’ He chuckles. ‘And you don’t even have to pay rent.’
‘I’m not sure about that,’ I admit. ‘Mum said I should insist.’
Dad shrugs, then tells me, as he always does, that my mum is probably right, before climbing down on to the kerb. I snatch my mobile phone from the dashboard and follow him around to the back of the car as he opens the boot, revealing my life packed up in an array of cardboard boxes and black bags. He turns to me and my heart pangs at the concerned look in his sea-green eyes. ‘Are you sure about this, sweetheart? You can always come and live with us if you don’t want to be on your own. Your mum was never happy about you moving into that flat by yourself, and after everything …’ He clears his throat, but when he speaks again his voice is gruffer. ‘Anyway, you don’t really know much about these people, do you?’
His concern brings a lump to my throat. A stranger wouldn’t be able to see it – his grief – but I can. He wears it like a heavy trench coat, one that he refuses to remove so that he’s buckling underneath its weight. It’s evident in the greying of his dark eyebrows, the hollowness of his once-rounded face, in the new lines etched into his sallow skin, and I think, I’ve caused this. For a man of nearly six foot two, he seems diminished, shrunken, older.
‘I want to move in here, Dad,’ I say. If only he knew how much. ‘Beatrice has become a friend, she understands me.’
Dad opens his mouth to reply but is interrupted by shrieks as Beatrice and Cass bound out of the house and towards us with Pam ambling after them, grinning good-naturedly.
Since Monty’s party I’ve only seen Bea a handful of times; the vintage fair a couple of weeks ago where she bought two expensive tea-dresses, a trendy bar in the centre of Bath one evening and last Saturday she asked me to accompany her to a showing of one of her favourite artists at the Holburne Museum. Afterwards we met up with Pam and Cass for afternoon tea in the café downstairs. The day was pleasant enough, I enjoyed the company of the other girls, even if Pam did monopolize me, regaling me with tales of her past, living with a nudist painter, and I tried to concentrate on what she was saying, but it was difficult with Beatrice and Cass murmuring to each other in the corner, the usual pained expression on Cass’s pretty elfin face, making me curious as to what they were talking about. I haven’t seen Ben since Monty’s party. He never did call to arrange to take me out for a drink, and maybe, on reflection, that’s for the best. I can’t deny that there is an attraction between us, but it’s probably not a good idea to get romantically involved with a housemate, particularly Beatrice’s twin brother. I sense that she’s quite over protective, maybe a little possessive of him.
‘Abi,’ shrieks Beatrice, throwing her arms around my neck as if she’s known me for years. ‘Happy Moving In Day!’ She laughs her familiar tinkly laugh. Then she unlinks her arms from me and turns to Dad to introduce herself, and I’m amused to see the flush of pink staining his rough skin as she bends in to kiss him on the check, informing him how happy she is to finally meet him.
She indicates the mobile in my hand. ‘Let’s do a selfie. We need to commemorate this day,’ she says, pressing her head against mine so that we are cheek to cheek, shoulder to shoulder.
I stretch my arm out, trying to aim the phone so that it captures both our faces and press click. I take half a dozen photos before we look through them, laughing at our cross eyes and silly expressions.
‘I could have taken a photo of the two of you, if you’d wanted.’ I turn to see Cass standing a little way behind us, the toes of her sandals on the edge of the pavement, her hands behind her back. She’s blushing as she says this, but there is something else in her expression, a tinge of petulance, like a child who feels left out because her best friend is giving someone else some attention. I smile warmly at her, but she doesn’t meet my eyes.
We each grab a box from the back of the car, and I show Dad into the house and watch, amused, as his eyes widen in surprise as he surveys the vast hallway and the large high-ceilinged rooms that run off of it. I follow his gaze, half-hoping that Ben will be in one of the rooms.
Beatrice comes up behind me hugging one of my boxes, small and oblong, the one that contains Lucy’s old letters. I have the sudden urge to snatch it from her. She tells me casually, as if she’s read my mind, that Ben had to be called in to work. ‘He said to tell you he’s sorry he isn’t able to help,’ she pants, scuttling past me and up the stairs. I trudge behind her despondently, grappling with my own box and wondering if Ben is trying to avoid me.
It takes most of the afternoon to unload the boxes from the car and heave them up the two flights of stairs to my new bedroom, which has been stripped bare of Josie’s belongings leaving a narrow single bed, with an iron frame and a sagging mattress that has been pushed up against the