How to Fall Read online

  ‘We didn’t go out.’

  That didn’t mean he hadn’t had feelings for her, or her for him, but I didn’t have it in me to push any further. ‘Right.’

  ‘If it’s any help, you needn’t worry. No one’s going to confuse the two of you for long.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ I demanded.

  ‘Freya was Freya and you aren’t. Simple as that.’

  I was more interested in finding out about my cousin than in snapping back, but he was as irritating as nettle stings on bare legs. ‘What was she like?’

  He shook his head. ‘I can’t sum her up. She was herself.’

  ‘Very helpful.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  I had a sudden urge to make him uneasy, to set him on edge again, to shake him and see what fell out.

  ‘Right. Let’s start at the other end.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I want to know how she died.’

  ‘Can’t help with that either.’ From one second to the next, his eyes had gone the colour of steel. Back off.

  Torture wouldn’t have got me to admit it, but it was the first time I’d felt scared since I arrived in Port Sentinel. I had the impression that I was wading confidently into dangerous waters, that I would soon be well out of my depth. Which was clearly ridiculous.

  ‘You must know.’

  ‘Why do you care?’

  I shrugged. ‘I don’t have the full story and I don’t want to put my foot in it when I meet my cousins for the first time. This is the kind of thing I should know.’

  Whether he agreed with that or not, he answered me, but his jaw was tight with tension. ‘She fell off a cliff.’

  ‘Fell? Or jumped?’

  He drank his coffee, not answering.

  ‘Was she suicidal? Did Freya want to die?’

  ‘I don’t think I can answer that.’

  ‘Can’t? Or won’t?’ The irritation was back and it made my voice sharp. I leaned forward. ‘Come on, Will. It’s not difficult. Did she kill herself? Or was she pushed?’

  ‘Are you looking for trouble, Jess?’

  ‘I’m just trying to find out what happened to my cousin. Why should that cause trouble?’

  ‘Because there are people who might not like you asking questions about Freya.’

  ‘Including you?’

  He shook his head, as if I was a fly buzzing at him. ‘Just leave it alone.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of trouble.’

  ‘Maybe you should be.’

  I didn’t feel scared any more. I was too angry. ‘Is that a threat?’

  He laughed, a degree of self-possession returning. ‘Hardly. Call it friendly advice.’

  ‘You can call it what you like. I’m more than capable of making up my own mind about that sort of thing.’

  ‘You really are surprisingly feisty. I mean that as a compliment,’ he added quickly.

  I ignored the second part, though I could tell I was blushing. ‘Why are you surprised? Wasn’t Freya?’

  ‘No. Not really. But she had principles. She was the sort of person who stood up for what was right. She didn’t back down if she believed in something.’

  ‘Me neither.’

  ‘I have no doubt.’ He looked out of the window, then pushed the untouched cake towards me as he stood up. ‘If you want to meet your cousins, now’s your chance.’

  Before I could say anything else, the café door swung open. Without saying goodbye, Will went across to greet a boy I recognized as Hugo. He was frowning, his expression lightening as he saw Will. The two of them spoke for a moment, their voices low, Hugo looking over Will’s shoulder at me as he listened. No surprise. No shock. Hugo, at least, was prepared. I wished I felt the same way.

  ‘I’m getting soaked.’ The voice was shrill and came from behind Hugo, who stepped back to allow Petra inside. I would have known her immediately even though her hair was longer and her face thinner than in the photograph. Her hair was a lighter brown than Hugo’s, sun-bleached around the front where curls frizzed, fighting free of their clips. She shook water off her bright yellow raincoat and yanked it off, revealing a purple T-shirt and green trousers. I blinked, feeling suddenly drab in my faded grey sweatshirt and ancient jeans.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Petra had spotted me straight away, and her voice cut through the hum of conversation in the café, making people turn to look at her, at me. ‘You’re here. Hugo, she’s here.’

  She didn’t wait for him to answer but dodged through the tables to get to where I was sitting. I was braced for her to hug me but she stopped short once she was within reach, as if she had suddenly realized that I was a stranger, even if we were related. Even if I did look unsettlingly familiar. Seeing me wouldn’t be easy for her, or anyone who had loved Freya, and I realized it was up to me to set her at her ease if I could.

  I smiled. ‘You must be Petra.’

  ‘And you’re Jess.’ A smile spread across her face, wider than the one I had managed. Uncomplicated welcome, for once. ‘We wondered if we’d see you in town.’

  ‘You knew we were here?’

  ‘Mum said.’ A faint shadow of doubt. ‘Is your mother here?’

  My mother was hiding in our cottage, trying to come to terms with something I didn’t fully understand. I settled for, ‘She’s around and about.’

  As I spoke, I noticed Will walking past the window, head down against the rain. He didn’t look at me, but then again, he hadn’t since he’d stood up to go. I wondered if he’d got what he wanted. I thought he might have got more than he bargained for.

  In contrast to Petra, Hugo made his way towards me at a saunter. He stood shoulder to shoulder with his sister, gazing down at me with a mocking smile on his face. I wasn’t sure whether I was invited to share the joke or whether I was the joke.

  ‘Hello, cousin. Fancy meeting you here. We thought we’d see you at the house tomorrow.’

  ‘Are we invited?’

  ‘For tea. I’m making scones.’ Petra was round-eyed with excitement.

  Hugo snorted. ‘Don’t worry. There’ll be plenty of other stuff to eat.’

  ‘Don’t be mean!’ She elbowed him hard in the stomach. I watched, amused and very slightly wistful. This was family life, up close.

  Hugo gave Petra a shove in the direction of the empty chair. ‘Sit there and shut up.’

  She stared at the cake. ‘Are you eating that?’

  ‘All yours.’

  She dug into it enthusiastically, the cake oozing chocolate fudge sauce that smeared around her mouth. Hugo found a spare chair at a nearby table and drew it up beside me. He stared at his sister in horror as he sat down.

  ‘Did it fight back?’

  ‘Shut up.’ The words were indistinct and she sprayed crumbs as she said them. ‘I didn’t have time for breakfast.’

  ‘Nor did I.’ He glanced at me. ‘Jess thinks you’re revolting.’

  ‘No, I don’t.’ I handed Petra a napkin. ‘I just can’t imagine eating chocolate cake for breakfast, that’s all.’

  Hugo had started in on the cake from the other end and was making quick, neat progress. ‘Sorry. We’re not that refined.’

  ‘I’m not refined.’

  ‘Sophisticated, then.’

  ‘Hardly.’ I looked at him, curious. ‘What did Will say to you?’

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘And? What else?’

  ‘That’s not really any of your business. It was nothing to do with you, anyway.’

  The second sentence was delivered with such fluency that I was pretty sure it was a lie. How could it be true? I wasn’t actually offended; I would have been shocked if he’d told me what they had discussed. I just wanted to make sure that Hugo knew I was aware they’d talked about me. I stared at him without saying anything until the tips of his ears turned red.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Nothing. Just trying to work out if you’re always rude or if I’m getting special treatment.’

 
‘He’s always rude,’ Petra said promptly.

  Hugo grinned, looking far less hostile. It was as if I’d passed a test. ‘No special treatment. Not for one of the family.’

  ‘I feel honoured.’

  ‘Naturally.’

  The two of us looked at each other with matching amusement. A draw, I thought. Time for a ceasefire.

  ‘How do you know Will Henderson?’ Petra tilted her head to one side. ‘I’ve only just realized you were here with him.’

  ‘We just got talking. In the bookshop. He wanted to know who I was.’

  Petra sighed. ‘He’s lovely.’

  ‘Not this again.’ Hugo threw his fork down on the empty plate where it clattered. To me, he said, ‘Petra’s got a crush on Will.’

  ‘I do not!’

  ‘Of course you do. But it’s never going to happen. He’s too old for you.’

  ‘I’m very mature for my age.’

  ‘No, you’re not.’ The words were harsh but Hugo spoke quite gently. ‘He’s never going to notice you, Petra.’

  ‘He said he lives near you,’ I interjected, seeing Petra’s eyes glistening with hurt.

  ‘Over the back wall. He used to climb into our garden all the time.’

  ‘Why doesn’t he come round any more?’ I asked. It was an idle question designed to distract Petra from her grievances and I regretted it as soon as I’d said it. The reason was obvious, and painful. Hugo’s voice was matter-of-fact, though, when he answered.

  ‘Because of Freya.’

  ‘Were they close?’

  He held up crossed fingers. ‘Like that.’

  I wasn’t surprised to hear it. Will had been looking for something when he talked to me, something he had been missing. And I had a fairly shrewd idea that I had failed to provide it.

  ‘You said it was because of Freya, but Will stopped coming round before she—’ Petra stopped short of saying the next word. Died.

  Her brother shook his head. ‘You’re deluded. He was always in our house.’ To me, he said, ‘We used to have an open-door policy. All sorts of waifs and strays catered for, entertained and sheltered, for very reasonable rates. But then, after what happened, Mum didn’t want other people around much.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘Nope. You can’t.’ He leaned back in his chair, seeming to be relaxed despite the subject under discussion. ‘Don’t worry. Things are better now.’

  ‘Much better.’ Petra rubbed a wet finger across the plate to pick up the last traces of chocolate. ‘Almost normal. Except that Will hasn’t come back yet.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have thought he qualified as a waif or a stray. He seemed pretty self-possessed to me.’

  ‘He’s a mate,’ Hugo said shortly, throwing a glare in Petra’s direction that stopped her from saying whatever she had been about to. ‘He’s part of the family.’

  Like me, I thought. But his membership was by invitation. And mine could be revoked if my mother and their mother didn’t start getting on again. The stakes were high; I could sort of see why Mum was hiding in her bedroom rather than getting on with seeing her twin.

  Petra bit her lip. ‘You mustn’t think we’ve forgotten about Freya just because things are getting back to normal.’

  ‘Of course I don’t.’ I was genuinely shocked at the idea.

  ‘It’s just that you can’t stop living because someone you love dies.’

  ‘And it’s not what Freya would have wanted.’ Hugo’s face was expressionless. ‘If she’d stopped to think about the rest of us for a second before she did her swan-dive off the edge of the cliff.’

  ‘Hugo!’

  I ignored Petra’s protest. Hugo, for one, wasn’t going to keel over if I talked about his sister, and I was going to take advantage of that. ‘So you think it was deliberate?’

  ‘I don’t know. No one knows. But that’s what they say.’

  ‘Do they? Why would she have wanted to kill herself?’

  ‘She didn’t have a reason,’ Petra said. ‘She didn’t do it deliberately. She just fell.’

  ‘She had no reason to be there in the first place. Not at that time of night.’ Hugo sighed. ‘Don’t get into the middle of this discussion if you know what’s good for you, Jess. It goes round and round and never stops. We just have the questions. Freya was the one with the answers, and she’s not much into talking these days.’

  ‘I don’t want to upset anyone.’ I was feeling uncomfortable again, upset by the misery in Petra’s eyes when she talked about her sister, and Hugo’s brittle composure that was just about keeping the lid on simmering rage, as far as I could see. ‘I’m sorry for asking about it. I just wanted to know.’

  ‘You’re not the only one.’ Hugo gave me a rueful smile. ‘We’re all in the dark. Except Freya, who’s bathing in perpetual light somewhere beyond the third rainbow on the left.’

  ‘No one knows what happened,’ Petra said. ‘Not for sure.’

  ‘That’s the hardest part, especially for Mum and Dad. Everyone assumed she’d killed herself. They made out that she’d been unhappy and no one had noticed, which made Mum miserable. Like she’d neglected her duty.’

  ‘You didn’t think she’d been unhappy.’

  ‘No. The opposite.’ Hugo looked very slightly shamefaced. ‘But I don’t think I’d have noticed unless she’d been seriously upset. I didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about how she was feeling.’

  ‘She was fine, though.’ Petra patted his arm. ‘There was nothing to notice. She was just the same as normal. Except – except that I thought she was happier than usual before it happened. And she looked so beautiful. Like she was lit up from inside.’

  ‘If you say so.’ Hugo sounded dubious. ‘The haircut wasn’t a good idea.’

  ‘Oh, but that wasn’t—’ Petra stopped herself, then smiled at me. This time, the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes. ‘We shouldn’t be going on about Freya. We should be asking about you.’

  ‘I’m not interesting.’

  ‘You are to us,’ she said simply. ‘Tell us about London. Where do you live?’

  There was no way to avoid talking about myself for a while; I owed it to them, really, as they’d been so open with me. Right up to the point where the barriers had come clanging down. Petra had very definitely not wanted to talk about Freya any more – there was something she didn’t want to think about, or discuss with me, at any rate. I chattered on, paying attention with about ten per cent of my brain to what I was saying as Petra hung on my every word. The rest of my mind was concentrating on what I’d heard that morning about my cousin and her tragic, mysterious death. Words came into my head, unbidden. Secrets. Rumours. Lies.

  Words that should have warned me to stay out of it. Leave the dead in peace. Let sleeping dangers lie.

  I just didn’t have enough sense to walk away.

  3

  I WAS ACTUALLY quite glad of the rain on the short walk back to the cottage. It gave me an excuse to pull my hood forward and duck my head so no one noticed me. Although they probably did and I didn’t notice them. That somehow made it easier.

  Mum was in the kitchen when I got back. I hung up my anorak to let it drip in the hall, smelling toast on the wind. Breakfast for her, lunch for me.

  ‘Well, what did you find?’ she called.

  ‘Hugo and Petra.’

  A clatter of plates answered me. Mum poked her head out of the kitchen door. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Oh yes.’

  ‘How was that?’

  ‘Fine. They were really nice.’ Which didn’t go very far towards conveying Hugo’s fairly astringent personality, or Petra’s mixture of friendliness and sudden reserve.

  ‘What did you talk about?’

  ‘This and that.’ I relented. ‘Everything, really. Things to do in Port Sentinel when it isn’t raining. What it’s like to live in London. The fact that we’re invited for tea tomorrow.’

  Mum put her hand to her mouth. ‘I completely forgot to tell you. Sor
ry, Jess.’

  ‘Are you looking forward to it?’

  ‘Of course.’ She looked surprised. ‘Why wouldn’t I be?’

  ‘Because you’re nervous about seeing your sister and meeting her family, maybe?’

  She flapped a hand at me and disappeared back into the kitchen, saying, ‘Don’t be silly.’

  I followed. ‘So why did you spend the morning hiding under the covers?’

  ‘I didn’t.’ She blushed scarlet. It was easy to see where that particular tendency of mine came from. ‘I was just having a lie-in. It’s not exactly picture-taking weather.’

  I raised my eyebrows. The weather didn’t usually stop Mum from taking pictures, if she was in the mood to do it. She was a born photographer.

  ‘I bet there are really moody pictures you could take of the seaside in bad weather. Black-and-white shots.’

  ‘No doubt there are. But I prefer colour.’

  ‘Excuses, excuses.’ I nicked a piece of toast off her plate. ‘You are going to take your camera out while we’re down here, aren’t you?’

  ‘Try and stop me,’ she said lightly, as if she wasn’t so lacking in confidence that more often than not it stayed in her bag.

  ‘And you are going to leave the house?’

  ‘Jess, I had one morning to myself. One. Why is that such a big deal?’

  ‘Because after eighteen years, I would have thought you would be desperate to look around your old haunts.’ I frowned at her. ‘What haven’t you told me? Why are you in hiding?’

  ‘I am not in hiding. We’re here for weeks and weeks, remember? There will be plenty of time to explore in better weather. Now eat your lunch.’ A plate spun across the table towards me and I grabbed it, and the toast that had been on it, before both fell on the floor.

  ‘I don’t like mysteries.’

  ‘Well, don’t go looking for them, then.’

  My second warning of the day. I nibbled the toast in silence, thinking about it. What people had said. What they hadn’t said. Whether I should just spend the summer hanging out on the beach instead of asking questions and not getting any answers.

  Maybe if I’d been a better swimmer, I’d have made a different decision.

  I was lying on the sofa, two chapters from the end of Cold Comfort Farm when there was a knock on the door.