I turned to look at El, and I could see her annoyance, her frustration with me. I balked at it, because it wasn’t undeserved, but I also wanted to thumb my nose at it too. We were equal, we were separate. She wasn’t the boss of me.
We stood awkwardly, none of us speaking. Eventually, El relented enough to kiss Ross on his cheek.
‘We have to get back.’
‘To where?’ Ross looked at me first, her second.
‘Rosemount Care Home,’ I said, ignoring El’s glare. ‘It’s in Greenside. You could visit?’
‘Come on,’ El said, grasping me by the elbow and hauling me down the steps to the gardens. ‘We have to go.’
‘Just ignore her,’ I said, privately both delighted and ashamed that I was delighted. ‘She’s like this with everyone now.’ Because she was.
El didn’t say a word until we were on the bus and halfway to the home, and then she turned to me, face flushed and furious. ‘We had a deal. This is our new life, and we don’t need anyone else in it.’
I couldn’t understand why she was so upset, but I felt bad. It was her biggest display of emotion in years. ‘But it’s Ross.’
Her expression hardened, but her eyes were wet. ‘I don’t care. We had a deal. And you broke it.’
‘It’s weird,’ I say to Ross now. ‘The things I’m remembering. What happened then and … after.’ I’m in dangerous territory here, I know, but the wine and El’s She thinks if she pretends something hasn’t happened then it hasn’t happened have made me feel reckless. Defensive. ‘The reason I left.’
The candlelight flickers. Our eyes meet.
He drops his gaze first. ‘Maybe some things are better left forgotten.’
‘Maybe. Probably.’ And under the sudden hot flash of hurt, what I’m thinking is definitely. That was, after all, exactly the same philosophy that sent me running for America in the first place. But it’s hard to turn off an engine that someone else has turned on, especially when they still have the keys.
‘I’m thinking of hiring a marine investigator,’ Ross says. He glances at me. ‘You think it’s a bad idea.’
I drink my wine, more annoyed than I should be at the abrupt change in subject. ‘Why did El use that harbour?’
‘What? You mean why did she moor her boat at Granton?’
‘Yes.’
He shrugs. ‘It’s the nearest one. As far as I know it’s the only one. There are no yacht clubs at Leith Docks. Why?’
‘I just wondered, that’s all. I don’t know.’ I rub my fingers over my temples. ‘You really think it’s an accident, don’t you? What’s happened to El. You don’t think someone might have done something to her. You don’t think she’s done something to herself. You don’t think she’s run away.’
He looks at me steadily. ‘Are those questions?’
I don’t say anything. Press my lips together so that I can’t.
‘I want to know who sent those cards to El, who’s sending them to you. But I don’t think whoever it is has done anything to her. I’m just worried that … I’m worried the stress of the fucking things made her do something stupid.’ He leans forwards. ‘And I don’t mean suicide. Yeah, she was depressed, she was a pain in the bloody arse, but she wasn’t suicidal. I told you …’ He must realise how loud he’s being, how animated, because he looks around, lowers his voice. ‘She’d changed. She was different. Distant. Distracted.’ He sighs, closes his eyes. ‘So, yes. I think she went out on that bloody boat, and I think she had an accident.’
I look at him, the shadows under his eyes, the tight hard lines of his frown. ‘You really think she’s dead?’
He doesn’t blink. ‘Yes. I really think she’s dead.’
‘How were your starters?’ Michele says through a smile that has frozen in its beginning, and we both lean away from each other like we’ve been electrocuted.
‘Great, brilliant,’ we mutter, and he stops fake-smiling, takes away our plates without another word.
Ross looks at me, his expression resentful.
‘Where else would she be, Cat? A Travelodge on the M6, living on Game of Thrones and room service? And why? Has your twin ESP, or whatever the fuck you think it is, told you that? Why would she do it?’
The first terrible thought that goes through my head is that Travelodges probably don’t do room service. The second is that angry he looks good, better, less like he’s drowning. The third is what I want to say but won’t. Because she’s playing a game. Because she hates me. Maybe she hates you, too, I don’t know. Maybe you’re still too dumb to see her.
‘Christ,’ he says, shaking his head. ‘I know your mum did a number on you, but—’
‘What?’
‘She was textbook delusional disorder. Paranoid, grandiose, persecutory. She filled your heads with shit weird enough to confuse anyone, never mind two kids. Told you over and over that you were special, different, that you couldn’t function without each other, until it was true. No wonder you had such a fucked-up relationship.’
Have, I think, and my fingers tighten on the tablecloth. EL IS DEAD. I’M MOUSE. We have a fucked-up relationship. I nearly laugh, and then think of Mum instead, brushing our hair through long hard strokes: You’re growing up too fast. As if we could stop it. As if the accusation wasn’t entirely at odds with her apocalyptic dread; the adult books she read to us; the bravery she expected of us. The readiness. Those fingers always prodding at my spine, pushing against my shoulder blades. Stop being afraid.
Ross sighs, deflates. ‘Shit, I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’ He reaches across the table and squeezes my hand. Letting go only when another waiter walks past. ‘Can we just talk about something – anything – normal? Just for five minutes?’
I pour the last of the wine even though we’re barely halfway through our meal. ‘I guess we can try.’
CHAPTER 12
Four months nearly to the day after we’d bumped into Ross outside the Scottish National Gallery, I woke up in our tiny room in the Rosemount, had breakfast, and snuck off to the communal shower block to get changed into my very best outfit of skinny jeans, Docs, and a Dutch army shirt tied in a knot at my waist. I got the bus to the Royal Botanic Gardens, where Ross was waiting for me by the big gates on Inverleith Row. He took my hand as we walked across the grass, and when we sat down we were both grinning, even though neither of us had spoken a word.
He stretched out on the grass and closed his eyes, and I took the opportunity to greedily watch him. His T-shirt was just the right side of too tight; he was growing muscles where before he’d only been skinny. His arms and face were tanned just like mine, after weeks of sitting in Holyrood Park and Princes Street Gardens, watching buskers and early summer tourists. El always came too: sullen, monosyllabic. But this day, she was sick. This day, I had left her coughing and spluttering in her bed, and when I’d told her I was going to answer an ad for bar staff, I’d pretended that the heavy thickness in my chest was only phantom infection, sympathy pain.
Ross lit a cigarette, and I watched its smoke spiral. He seemed so changed, so grown-up. I knew he smoked weed, sometimes took pills. He talked about going clubbing and getting high, and it all seemed so unknown, so exciting. I knew I’d do anything – all of it – if he just asked me to.
When he laughed, I realised that I’d moved my scrutiny to his crotch instead, and the heat rushed into my face.