I made her do up her seatbelt. I told her she shouldn’t be swearing. I prayed.
‘And off we went,’ I said, coming to a halt on the boardwalk.
Eddie turned away from me and stared out to sea, hands jammed in his pockets.
‘You were on the village green because you’d just been walking along Broad Ride,’ I said. ‘Weren’t you? The day we met. You were there for exactly the same reason as me.’
He nodded.
‘It was the first time I’d been up there on the anniversary of her death.’ His voice was tight, bound securely to prevent collapse. ‘Normally I’d spend it with Mum, who’d just go through old photo albums and cry. But that day I just . . . I just couldn’t do it. I wanted to be out there, in the sunshine, thinking good things about my little sister.’
Me. I’d done this. Me and my weakness, my monstrous stupidity.
‘I walk along there every year on the second of June,’ I told him. I wanted to fold myself around him, absorb his pain somehow. ‘I go there, rather than up to the main road, because Broad Ride was their kingdom that afternoon. They had nail varnish and magazines and not a care in the world. That’s the bit I fly back to remember.’
Eddie looked briefly at me. ‘What magazines? Do you remember? What nail varnish? What were they eating?’
‘It wasMizz,’ I said quietly. Of course I remembered. That day had been playing out in my head my entire adult life. ‘They’d borrowed my nail varnish. I’d got it free with a magazine; it was called Sugar Bliss. We had Linda McCartney sausage rolls, because they were both having a vegetarian phase. Cheese-and-onion crisps and a tub of fruit salad. Only Alex had smuggled in some sweets.’
I remembered it as if it were yesterday; the wasps hovering over the fruit, Hannah’s new sunglasses, the swaying shades of green.
‘Skittles,’ Eddie said. ‘I bet she brought Skittles. They were her favourite.’
‘That’s right.’ I couldn’t look at him. ‘Skittles.’
I caught up with them at the main road. Bradley was trying to turn right, towards Stroud, but a succession of cars stuck behind a tractor had held him up.
Stay calm, I told myself, as I got out of the car and jogged up to his passenger door.Just get her out and treat this all as a joke. He’ll be OK if—
Bradley spotted me and quickly turned left instead, engine roaring. I ran back to my car.
‘You can speed up if you want,’ Alex said. Already Bradley’s car was nearly out of sight. ‘You can floor it. I don’t mind.’
‘No. He’ll slow down and wait for me so he can race me. I know what he’s like.’ Blood pounded in my ears. Please, God, let nothing happen to her. Let nothing happen to my little sister. I looked at my speedometer. Fifty-five miles per hour. I slowed down. Then I sped up. I couldn’t stand it.
Alex turned on my stereo. It was a group of American kids, Hanson, singing a silly earworm song called ‘MMMBop’. Nineteen years on I still couldn’t bear to hear it.
After a horrifyingly short time, Bradley was racing back towards us on the other side of the road at sixty, maybe seventy miles per hour. ‘Slow down!’ I yelled, flashing him. He must have U-turned in the road up ahead.
‘Chill!’ Alex said. She flicked her hair nervously. ‘Hannah’s fine!’
Bradley shot past, beeping, and then screeched the car round onto our side of the road. ‘Handbrake turn,’ Alex marvelled. I came almost to a stop, watching them in my rear-view mirror. I barely breathed until they had straightened out and were driving behind us again. I could see her there, in his front seat, a whole head shorter than him. A little girl, for Christ’s sake.
She stared straight ahead. Hannah was only that still when she was afraid.
‘How do you know what a handbrake turn is?’ I heard myself ask. I was driving slowly, my hazard lights on.Please stop. Give me my sister back.I wound down the window and pointed frantically towards the verge.
‘My brother told me,’ Alex said. ‘He’s at university.’
For a moment I felt angry that her brother – someidiot –thought it was clever to teach his little sister about handbrake turns. But then Bradley dipped back so he could roar up behind us, screeching on his brakes at the last minute. I gasped. He did it again. And again, and again. I tried several times to stop, but each time I did, he tried to overtake me. So I continued driving, just like he wanted me to. I couldn’t let him fire off ahead with my sister again.
He carried on like that until we started to approach the dip in the road, not far from the Sapperton junction and thewoods. But by then he must have become bored, because he didn’t stop when he revved up into the back of my car; he hit it. Gently, but still hard enough to make me panic. I’d only had a licence three weeks.
‘Shit,’ Alex said, only more quietly than before. She was still trying to look excited, but it was obvious she was afraid. Her slender fingers were closed tight around the old grey webbing of the seatbelt.
We descended into the dip, Bradley flashing and beeping on my tail. He was laughing. And then – even though we were heading down into a blind bend – he pulled out to overtake.
Everything seemed to hang like a droplet on a tap, ready to fall and smash.
