‘She was,’ I say.
He takes his cup of tea and disappears.
I was in denial when the police delivered the inconceivable news. As was Mum. We argued with them until we were blue in the face. My sister wasn’t the type. She never took drugs. She didn’t even drink much. She’d never put anything in her body that could negatively affect her performance. She recorded all her workouts and training sessions and analysed all her split times. It was like science to her. I’m more of a go-out-and-smash-it type, see where I come in. It was only when the preliminary autopsy report came through that we had to accept it. Daisy had kept certain parts of her life private. Parts she hadn’t wanted us to know about. And that was that as far as Mum was concerned. I guess that’s how she wanted to package it. People grieve in varying ways. Me… well, I haven’t given up. I’ve just kept quiet… waiting for the funeral to be over, so I can fulfil the promise I made at my sister’s grave.
‘Granny,’ I call to my grandma, who is wandering around in a state of confusion. She seems to have escaped Mum’s friend, who agreed to look after her today. It would’ve been better if Mum had found her somewhere else to go, but Granny now refuses to leave the house without a big battle that Mum can’t bear to fight.
Granny shuffles over to me, her slippers catching on the tiled floor. The hump in her back makes me wince. It’s getting worse. ‘Where’s the girl?’ she asks, straining her neck to look up at me.
‘What girl, Granny?’
‘You know. The other one of you.’
‘Daisy,’ I say.
‘That’s right.’
‘She’s at college. She’ll be back later.’ Mum and I agreed to keep the news of Daisy’s death from Granny. Her failing brain can’t deal with it. I can’t bear the thought of having to constantly repeat what has happened each time her memory deserts her. It’s against everything I stand for. I don’t deal in lies. But this is different.
‘When are all these people going to go home?’
I put my arm around her shoulders. ‘Soon. Not long. Here, let me make you a cup of tea.’
‘There are so many of them. Tea. Yes. Tea,’ she mumbles. ‘I don’t like tea.’
‘You love a cup of tea, Granny.’
‘Do I?’ She starts singing. She used to belong to the local choir, but now she sings random songs we’ve never heard of as if she makes them up.
Mum’s friend appears. She winks at me and takes Granny’s arm. ‘The weather’s brightened up. Why don’t we go into the garden?’
Daisy’s friends pass from room to room serving light refreshments from throwaway silver trays. I can’t quite take the small talk; the air of mournfulness is stifling. That and the playlist George compiled of Daisy’s favourite tracks, which hums away in the background.
‘Just going to the loo,’ I mouth to Mum across the crowded room.
Upstairs, in Daisy’s bedroom, I touch the cold bottles of perfume neatly lined up on her dressing table. She loved her perfume. Necklaces hang from a hand-shaped jewellery holder. I run my fingers along the gold chains. Her style was sharper than mine. Me, I rarely get out of my gym clothes. I live in sports shorts and a T-shirt, bottoms and a hoodie in colder weather. It is part of my work. A bottle ofDKNY Be Delicious, shaped like a green apple, calls for me to pick it up. I squirt my neck. The crisp, fruity smell reminds me of her. This was one of her favourites.
Hooked over the side of the mirror is a turquoise baseball cap withMOMprinted across the front. It strikes me as odd. Mum must’ve bought it for her as a joke. I turn to the certificates and photos on the walls, and the shelving holding all the framed photos and trophies from events she won over the years and her beloved Lego models. A photo of us in our wetsuits at the edge of a lake, before the start of a race, catches my eye. It was taken five years ago, when we both reached the county finals. I pick it up and run my finger around the perimeter. Two tears spring out of my eyes.
I go to the window and look out on the garden, where people are standing talking in small groups. Mum could’ve paid for another venue to host the event. Money isn’t an issue for her. When Dad died in a car accident when I was ten, and Daisy was eight, she sold his thriving accountancy firm, which meant she’s never had to work again.
I turn to a creaking floorboard. George stands at the threshold of the door. ‘It doesn’t make sense.’ I swipe the falling tears with the back of my hand.
He steps into the room and stands by my side. ‘Yeah, I know.’
‘She would never, ever take drugs,’ I say flatly.
‘Well—’ He stops mid-sentence. The look on his face suggests I’m wrong.
I frown. ‘Carry on.’
He shakes his head. ‘Nothing.’
I prod his shoulder, a little too roughly. ‘No! You were going to say something. Finish what you started.’
‘She liked the odd bit of weed.’ His words shock me.
‘Odd bit? What does that mean? How much? When?’
