‘Yup.’
Heather waits a beat before moving on to Gerry’s advice. ‘Anyway, Gerry thought it might help me to have a live subject for a few days. That way, I can show both a photo of the subject and the final painting on my website. It might give potential customers more of an idea about what they’d be buying.’
‘Yes. Yes. I get that.’ Claire nods.
‘So I’ve asked Fraser if I can borrow Maisie for a couple of days later this month.’
Claire’s eyes widen. ‘Maisie? She can be a bit uppity, right?’
Heather thinks back to Fraser’s description of his dog.A free spirit.
‘She can be, but I think she’ll be fine. She knows my house.’
‘Well, in that case, my friend, what can go wrong?’ says Claire.
SCOTT
‘Hello stranger.’
Scott tries, and it seems, fails, to suppress the audible gasp when Lorraine taps him on the shoulder. It’s not like he should be surprised. They arranged to meet here a few days ago, but he was early and gradually allowed his senses to dull to the hubbub of travellers, businesspeople, security personnel and buggies that trundled past him in a steady procession. As a result, he’s totally blindsided when it’s her.
It’s actually her.
And his rationale for avoiding his sister-in-law until now is completely validated. This is how Lucy, his wife, Brianna’s mother, would have looked if she’d survived. Exactly.
‘Having a little twin moment?’ Lorraine asks, her eyes a veil of sympathy. She and Lucy coined the phrase when people felt wrong footed by their identikit looks. Over time, Scott grew to recognise the tiny, subtle differences which seemed blindingly obvious to Lucy and Lorraine. Lucy had a small birthmark below her left eye, Lorraine a small mole on her cheek.
It's been seven and a half years. Scott can see now that Lucy would have gained some delicate laughter lines around her eyes and how the slight depression either side of her mouth would have accentuated with age. He wonders whether the darkened hollows under Lorraine's eyes would also be prevalent on Lucy’s older face, or if this characteristic would not be evident on either of their faces, had Lucy lived. Losing a wife and mother was cataclysmic for Scott and Brianna; grieving someone who was intrinsically part of her DNA must have practically felled Lorraine.
Her arms slip around his shoulders, and she pulls him into a long, tight embrace.
‘I’m sorry I’m not her,’ she says.
Is this what Lorraine has lived with all these years?She and Lucy used to tease each other relentlessly because, whilst their appearances were identical, their personalities most certainly were not. Lorraine was the studious, practical one, inclined towards academia; Lucy was the artistic free spirit, always ready with an encouraging word or an empathetic glance.
‘You’re the best version of us both,’ Lorraine used to say to her twin. ‘You got the best one,’ she’d add to Scott.
Scott can’t imagine how it must have felt to believe your survival was the least preferred option.
He pulls away gently from his sister-in-law and kisses the crown of her head.
‘I’m so glad to see you. And I’m sorry I’ve kept away,’ he says. ‘Seeing you. It’s just a lot.’
Lorraine nods to indicate she understands. Scott and Brianna would have found the grieving process practically impossible had they remained in the same village with Lucy’s body double continually pulling them back to the past. But now, for the first time, Scott considers how devastating it must have been for Lorraine to look in the mirror and see her sister reflected directly back at her.
Lorraine uses her index fingers to clear the tears from her eyes. Scott extracts a tissue from his jeans pocket and touches it to the end of his nose.
‘Right. Enough of this,’ Lorraine gives him a gentle shove on the chest with the palms of her hands. ‘The past is the past. We’re here for the future.’
They leave the station.
‘Camden Market?’ Lorraine suggests by the escalator leading into the depths of London’s underground system. It had been one of their favourite hang-outs as a foursome before Brianna came along.
Scott smiles. ‘Sounds great.’
They cross the busy road mobbed with taxis and delivery bikes towards Kings Cross, through the ultramodern shopping and eating centre behind the station.
‘Graham?’
