‘What?’
She nodded. ‘Secretive, quiet and banging about in his room.’
The wordssecretiveandquietmade me think about Rory. Instinctively I reached for my phone and saw that he’d not returned my call or sent me a text.
Vivi sighed. ‘I’ve given up with Felix. Maybe he’ll start acting normal again soon.’
Preoccupied with my boyfriend’s whereabouts I nodded, still looking at my phone, and made a joke about Vivi being weird when she was younger.
‘Where’s Rory?’ Vivi asked as Baxter came into the kitchen. He trotted over to her, and she made a fuss of him.
I shrugged. ‘No idea. He’s probably had to work late.’
Vivi touched my hand. ‘Will you ask him if he can take Felix to the football at the weekend?’
I remember groaning. ‘That will take all Saturday afternoon, Vivi. Rory and I have been invited to his mate’s barbecue. I really fancied going as all his work mates will be there and Anna’s NOT going for once. Also, I’m not allowed to go with him and Felix when they go to football.’
Vivi cast me her best begging face. I have spent a lifetime unsuccessfully trying to ignore this face and stick to my guns on something. My sister knew I struggled when she tilted her head to one side, widened her green eyes and stuck out her bottom lip. On that night it brought back the memory of seventeen-year-old Vivi pleading for me to drive her to the party where she was planning to show her ex-boyfriend that she’d moved on and didn’t care that he wasn’t in her life anymore. Being driven to the party was essential as she’d spent hours putting her hair in curlers and didn’t want the evening air to dampen her huge curls. I was supposed to be driving in the opposite direction to see Lizzie. Vivi spent a good hour repeatedly casting me that very face… until I cracked and agreed to drop her off.
‘Please, Ems, Felix always comes back transformed after one of Rory’s trips to see the football.’
I let out a heavy sigh. ‘I’ll ask him.’
Vivi smiled in victory and rose from the table. ‘You are the best sister.’
Putting away my phone I watched her grab her silver clutch bag. ‘So, who is this date with?’
A grin broke out across her face and a sparkle appeared in her left eye. ‘Paul from the printing firm next to the café where I buy my morning coffee.’
‘Oh,’ I sang, making her laugh. ‘Tell me about Paul.’
She squealed. ‘Mid-thirties and separated, and if I squint, he looks a bit like David Beckham, and he owns the most divine pair of desert boots.’
We both laughed before she left the house moaning about her headache and promising me to expect a drunken sister coming home. I watched her walk up the street and admired my dressmaking skills.
I made Felix his favourite buttery toast treat, and we watched TV together. We also sat and talked about his school friend Amelie who had cut her own hair while her mum was downstairs watching Corrie. Felix made me smile when he asked me whether I would ever have a mullet hairstyle. Amelie had been asking her mum for a mullet hairstyle for weeks and when her mum said no for the hundredth time Amelie took the kitchen scissors and gave herself what she thought was a mullet. We googled mullet hairstyles from the eighties and Felix said he would have a mullet when he was old enough to have a moustache. He thought mullets and moustaches looked cool. Afterwards he went upstairs to bang around in his bedroom, and I binge watched a grisly crime drama on Prime while Baxter slept in his dog basket.
Rory never turned up. He got a few angry messages from me but then I put my phone away and distracted myself with a handsome, smooth-talking detective. Felix did make a right racket upstairs until about ten thirty when everything went quiet.
Vivi returned at midnight. She was desperate for the loo when she came in. I watched her sprint up the stairs to the toilet. She shouted, ‘Stick the kettle on, I need a cuppa.’
I called after her, ‘Are you pissed?’
She laughed and I heard the toilet door bang.
The kettle whistled so I poured hot water into both cups and fished us two herbal tea bags from a jar on the work surface. By the time I realised Vivi had not come out of the loo I was sat at her kitchen table texting Lizzie, who was crying in the toilets of a club after spotting the guy she was seeing with his arms around another woman.
I remember wondering whether Vivi had passed out on the loo. She has been known to do that.
Leaving my phone downstairs, I bolted up the stairs. ‘Vivi – your tea’s ready.’
There was no reply. I knocked a few times on the toilet door. Nothing. My heart began to thump against my rib cage. Turning the handle, I tried to open the door, but Vivi was somehow lying against it. Blood drained from my face and my breathing quickened as I saw my sister’s head on the floor.
She’d not passed out. She hadn’t drunk that much. She’d suffered a fatal brain aneurism. The doctor at the hospital, the one with tears in her eyes and warm hands, said Vivi wouldn’t have felt anything.
For a few days after, Felix and I struggled with using the upstairs bathroom. That was until we came home from buying Felix a suit for his mum’s funeral to find Rory painting the walls marine blue and preparing to put new flooring down. It was a welcome surprise.
Felix is stirring. I’m back to the present. Vivi has gone. It’s just me and Felix now. I must stop crying. It’s late and Felix should be in his own bed, not asleep on the sofa.
