‘Get up! Get up! Auntie Loll, you have to get up!’ There were little stubby legs jumping on the bed, and a lumpy body landed on her. ‘Oof! Get up! It’s New Year! We’re having pancakes! Hellooo?’
Lauren lay very still, one eye open as she waited for the impatient hands to lift the cover. When Veronica’s face peered round, she grabbed her quickly, tickling as the girl shrieked and laughed.
‘Stop, stop!’ Vee kicked her legs, and Lauren stopped.
‘Not a nice way to be woken up, little miss!’
Veronica acknowledged this with a tilt of her head. The movement was so Cass that it made her chest hurt. She searched for Darren in that little face, looking for the arrogance behind the eyebrows, but there was nothing. She was pure Cass.
Vee jumped down onto the floor and went onto her tiptoes, kissing her on the cheek. ‘Good morning, Auntie Loll, happy New Year.’
‘Much nicer, thank you. Happy New Year!’ She let herself be dragged down the stairs by the insistent child, to see Cass at the stove, her blonde hair tied back in a blue-spotted scarf.
‘Morning, bacon with your pancakes?’
‘Yes, please!’ Cass’s pancakes had been legendary throughout the university dorms. The girl couldn’t make beans on toast without setting off the fire alarms, but fluffy American pancakes, perfectly round and golden, drowned in maple syrup and nearly-but-not-quite burnt bacon? Excellent every time.
‘We’re going to the rides!’ Vee clapped her hands as the pancakes came to the table. ‘You’ll come too.’
Lauren looked across to Cass, raising an eyebrow in question.
‘The pier, we’re going to the pier. Baby, you gotta ask Loll if she’s coming, not just tell her she is.’
‘But it’s easier to tell people,’ the little girl frowned.
Lauren fought a smile, her expression mirroring Cass’s. It felt nice, to share something simple like that with her.
‘I guess that’s true.’ Lauren shrugged. ‘I’ll come. I’m not going on any rides though.’
‘What’s the point, then?’ Veronica asked, truly perplexed.
‘Vee, kinda rude.’ Cass nudged her with her elbow, placing the plate of bacon and bottle of syrup in the middle of the table, and sitting down herself. ‘The point is your auntie will spend time with us. That’ll be nice, won’t it?’
‘Very nice,’ Veronica nodded, wide smile on her face, ‘but it would be better if you went on the roller-coaster.’
Lauren shook her head. ‘Nuh-uh. I’m a big scaredy-cat. If you’re very lucky though, I might go on the teacups with you.’
The little girl considered this, a forkful of pancake halfway to her face. ‘Hmm, I’ll think about it.’
‘Well, that’s very kind of you,’ Lauren laughed, her eyes flitting to Cass again, who was wearing a look of something like relief.
‘Your Auntie Loll doesn’t like big scary rides,’ Cass said to her daughter, sparing a glance for Lauren, who smiled at the tabletop. She knew Cass was thinking of the day they skived off uni to go to a theme park, and just before the ride started, Lauren panicked. She’d been strapped in and started crying and struggled to breathe. They let her out, and Cass went with her, never once telling her she was silly. She just bought her an ice-cream cone and suggested they walk around the maze instead.
Lauren remembered being so shocked that someone wouldn’t mock her for her weakness. Her parents were always telling her how embarrassingly fearful she was. Cass was the only person who ever let her be who she was. And now she was letting her be awkward and angry and confused, without question. Just gratitude.
‘But they’re the most fun!’ Vee looked shocked that anyone could deny the joy of a roller-coaster.
Lauren was almost convinced, but later that morning, as she looked up at the rickety old wooden framework, she felt her stomach drop.
‘That?’ She pointed. ‘You want to go on that?’
Vee grinned up at her, pulling on her hand. ‘Of course, it’s the best one!’
‘Leave poor Auntie Loll alone, pudding, come on. I’ll come with you.’ Cass steered her daughter over to the roller-coaster, where there was no queue. No one was there, and Lauren stood in the cold, hands in her pockets, shoulders braced against the chill. She was wearing a grey coat, brown boots and black tights. Against the grey background of the pier, the sky blending into the water, Lauren was sure she was almost invisible.
Cass and Veronica didn’t have that problem, it was easy to see them across the pier, Veronica’s bright little yellow rain mac and black-and-white tights standing out almost as much as Cass’s deep-green coat and red scarf. They were little chunks of brightness in the dismal landscape.
Lauren wondered whether she should have stopped Cass, asked if it was safe for her. They hadn’t talked about the state of her illness, what she was dealing with. She looked frail, but she had always had a pallor that erred on the side of sleepless nights. Once, a painter at a party said her skin looked like that of a porcelain doll. Cass had been delighted, tracing her own cheek in surprise. She loved a compliment. Lauren was sure he’d tried to sell them drugs later on that evening. Now she still looked like porcelain, but she was fragile. Easily broken. Lauren pressed her nails into her palm. There would be no talking Cass out of having fun.
The response would be the same as it always was, whenever Cass did anything dangerous or foolish or strange: Well, gotta die someday. Whether it was trying the week-old Chinese food for a dare, or getting pierced in a back-alley studio, or walking over to that scowling boy with the neck tattoo to demand a date, Cass never turned down the chance to take a risk.
She watched that little cart creep to the top of the roller-coaster, Vee’s yellow coat blinking in the distance, so high up in the sky. She held her breath, trying not to panic. So many things could go wrong. They could be hurt. Or killed. Wasn’t there a story in the newspaper about a girl getting killed on a roller-coaster? Nothing was certain, everything could turn upside down in a second. Your best friend could betray you, your husband could leave you, you could realise you’d wasted the last six years of your life being angry about the wrong thing. You could meet a child who made you jealous of your dying friend, but also made your stomach cramp with loss. You could realise your life was not the way it was meant to be. You could blame your idiot husband and your critical mother and your beautiful, selfish friend, and realise you created your own undoing all along, with every choice you made.
God, she needed them to be okay.
They seemed to hover at the top, and then they were falling, slipping through the air and tracing the loops. Lauren’s heart thumped desperately, and she held her breath. The little figures in the distance held their arms up as they fell. She imagined she could hear their screams. Her eyes followed their movements in a panic, time seemingly endless as they moved this way and that, until finally they were deposited back to the ground and she could breathe again.
She watched as Veronica jumped up and down in delight, clapping her hands, and hugging her mother. Cass looked breathless, but there was colour in her cheeks, and her red scarf flapped in the wind.
Veronica’s grin was huge as she ran over. ‘Did you see us? Did you see us? We were so high and then we just went zoom!’ Her hand indicated the descent. Her eyes were so bright and vibrant, wide with excitement. ‘We were like birds, hoot hoot!’ She lifted her arms to swoop around the two adults, holding her coat up like a cape. She then launched herself at Cass, who was forced to bend and catch her, cradling her close.
Lauren watched her face, the strain in her movements, the downward tilt of her mouth as she gritted her teeth. There it was, illness hovering behind her eyes and in the joints of her fingers. It made Lauren wince a little just to watch.
‘Gently, sweetheart, gently.’ Cass kissed her daughter’s rosy cheek and swung her back and forth, rotating from the hips. ‘Besides, you know we’re not birds! What are we?’
‘We’re wolves!’ Veronica yelped, throwing both her arms up, ‘Arroooo!’
Cass threw her head back too, joining her. ‘Arroooooo!’
Lauren’s cheeks coloured in embarrassment, and she had to physically stop herself from stepping back from them. Her eyes sought out Cass’s and she wondered if she remembered, or if she’d just plucked a random phrase from the air to entertain her daughter.
Cass met her gaze defiantly, not leaving her eyes as she spoke to Veronica. ‘Vee, tell Auntie Loll why we’re wolves.’
‘Because we’re a pack,’ Vee ticked them off on her fingers, ‘and we protect each other, and we keep each other warm, and we’re pretty …’
Cass pressed her lips together, and almost rolled her eyes as she squeezed Veronica and put her down.
‘Yes, wolves are very pretty. But we’re a pack, right?’
‘Right,’ the little girl nodded definitively. ‘And Auntie Loll too, right? She’s part of our pack?’
‘I don’t know, baby.’ Cass tilted her head at Lauren. ‘What do you think?’
It was a strange thing, to watch them both watching her, their heads at that same angle, each quirking that same eyebrow.
‘Can you howl, Auntie Loll? You need to have a good howl to be a wolf,’ the little girl said with authority, hands on hips. ‘Let’s hear your howl.’
Lauren snorted, shaking her head. ‘I’m sorry, lovely one, I’m not a wolf. I’m a deer … no, something less elegant … I’m a pheasant. Or a dormouse, I’m a dormouse.’
‘What’s a pheasant?’ she frowned.
‘A very silly bird.’ She shook her head, then, as the awkwardness made her skin itch, she checked her watch. ‘Look, I better get back. Back to work tomorrow, long drive and everything …’
Disappointment flashed across Cass’s face, but she nodded. ‘Of course, thanks for coming. Look, we’ll walk you back to the car.’
‘No, no, enjoy the pier. I’m sure there’s another terrifying ride to go on – enjoy your New Year’s Day!’ She flapped her arms, as if to keep them at bay. ‘I left the book for you, Cass, it’s on your kitchen table … Good luck with it.’
Cass bit her lip, nodding slowly, before turning to Veronica. ‘Baby, say goodbye to Auntie Loll.’
‘Bye.’ The little girl reached out her arms and Lauren crouched down, letting herself be nestled into, Vee’s hair tickling her nose. This child who would have been her step-daughter, the living symbol of the ultimate betrayal. Yet she whispered in Lauren’s ear, ‘Well, I think you’re a wolf,’ and she struggled to hold in the tears.
Lauren squeezed her briefly, feeling her chest contract. She had to get out of there. This was too much. This wasn’t her life. She wasn’t part of this, she wasn’t one of them. And tomorrow she had to go back to work and pretend her husband hadn’t left her, Cass wasn’t sick, Veronica didn’t exist and that everything was normal.
‘Um, Loll, do you, I mean … do you want my number, or … anything?’ Cass looked so small suddenly, like a strong breeze from the waves could carry her away. Lauren wanted her to be sassy, and courageous, to yell, ‘Hey bitch, take my number, we’ll talk,’ just as brash as she used to be. But instead she just stood there, with this aching desperation on her face, like a lifeline was walking away from her.
‘I’ll write to you,’ Lauren stuttered as she took a few steps, ‘that’s what we do now, isn’t it? We’re all cool and old school and we write letters.’
She had to force herself to slow down, because she knew it looked like she was running away, her feet catching paving stones as she stared resolutely ahead. When she had crossed the road and made it down a side path, she looked back. They were still there, standing on the pier, holding hands, the tall thin woman in the green coat, and the little girl in her yellow mac, the only visible thing against the grey.
It was okay to leave them, it was okay not to get involved. She wasn’t one of the pack, she wasn’t part of any of this. She was just the woman who had married Veronica’s biological father. She was just someone who knew Cass when they were younger. That was it. No one would expect anything else. She had more than enough of her own shit to deal with.
When she reached the car, her heart was pounding and her ears hurt from the cold. She shivered as she waited for the heating to get going, and stared across at the little house, the Christmas tree visible in the front window. She couldn’t give up her life again for Cassidy Jones. She had to focus on herself. It seemed that was how all of this had started, that determination not to be in Cass’s shadow anymore, to finally be her own person instead of the plain little friend always along for the ride.
Cass was asking again. Come along, Loll, it’s my party but you’re invited. She wondered if the howling was a mistake or not. Veronica throwing her head back like a young cub, it had torn right through her. Cass had to have known, had to have remembered.
*
It had been the second year of uni, because they lived with Emily and Rachel, who insisted on having ridiculous parties every weekend. Ones that descended into screaming matches about other people’s boyfriends and acceptable boundaries. It became boring, so they used to camp out in the pub across the road, the Resurgence. Lauren had a soft spot for the bartender, Luke, who always smiled and gave them free packs of salt-and-vinegar crisps. Mainly because he had a soft spot for Cass. Lauren was used to that turn of events by then. There’d been something particular about that night though, and Lauren strove to remember. Something to do with Babs. A serious diagnosis, or a bad week of chemo. The years of her sickness blended together, she had always been waiting for treatment or undergoing it. Cass had always been either pretending she wasn’t worried, or escaping into drugs and booze. The years were hard to keep straight.
This night though, Lauren recalled the specifics. She remembered the purple jumper that Cass wore, how she pulled the sleeves over her fingertips. How her eyes looked even more blue against her pale skin. She kept coughing from the damp in the house.
‘I should be with her,’ Cass had said, wallowing in self-pity, ‘she’s going through this alone.’
‘And you’re sick and you could make her worse. Focus on getting better. Or focus on passing your course.’
Cass had raised an eyebrow. ‘Something you want to say there, Loll?’
‘Don’t change course again, even if it bores you?’
‘Well, what’s the point of all this really, if I’m not passionate about the thing I’m studying? If it’s not meant to be?’
‘If it’s not easy, you mean.’ Lauren had sipped her pint of cider, her eyes flitting to Luke behind the bar and the way he rolled his shirt sleeves up.
‘Excuse me, I’m having an existential crisis here,’ Cass had nudged her, ‘plus don’t you have a boyfriend?’
‘I have a … Darren. We don’t have a label.’
Cass rolled her eyes, then rested her head on Lauren’s shoulder, nuzzling in. ‘I don’t know what I’m doing, Loll. I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
Lauren snorted, ‘That is absolutely not true, and you know it.’
Cass lifted her head and smirked. ‘Okay, well I wouldn’t know how to be myself.’
‘You mean maybe you’d be a completely normal, well-balanced person without me?’ Lauren faux-gasped, ‘The horror!’
Cass sat back, her fingertips tapping the sticky darkwood table insistently. ‘You joke, but I’m being serious. You’re like … my tribe.’
‘We can’t be a tribe by ourselves.’
‘We can,’ Cass nodded, eyes wide, ‘and maybe we’ll add more people if they prove themselves worthy.’ Her gaze strayed towards the bar briefly, where Luke was polishing glasses and looked across the bar at her. She turned back to Lauren, ‘But we’re definitely a tribe.’
‘And how will these people prove they’re worthy? Slay a dragon? Rescue a princess? Run through a burning building?’
Cass’s eyes were sometimes shocking in how blue they were. She blinked, then laughed. ‘No, they just have to be there when we need them.’
Lauren couldn’t think of a joke to make, and she knew Cass’s thoughts were returning to her mother and the chemo. She could imagine Barbara, sitting in her chair, making all the other people around her laugh, asking the nurses if they could switch out the solution in her drip for wine. A nice sauvignon blanc, if you please.
It was impossible to imagine her not looking glamorous, her golden blonde hair curled elegantly, wearing her best navy wraparound dress and her heels. Barbara always wore heels, no matter if she was in a hospital ward or on a camping ground. When she’d first met Lauren, she pulled her in for a bear hug against her ample bosom, asked her how she felt about marriage, and offered her a glass of wine. Lauren had blinked, looked at Cass, who had shrugged, and said she thought it was probably very nice for people who were into that sort of thing, but currently she was quite happy dating.
Barbara had a laugh like a foghorn, and she bundled Lauren through to the kitchen. ‘Thank God! Finally a normal friend, hey, baby?’
‘Normal?’ Lauren’s heart had sunk. Here she was in Cassidy Jones’s house, seeing the things that mattered to her in her childhood bedroom (a stuffed whale called Winston, and her eternally broken-spined book collection) and meeting her mother. And she had been dismissed as normal immediately. What an awful word, normal. They knew how they sparkled, and they recognised her dullness.
‘Not a fuck-up!’ Barbara elaborated, handing her a generously poured glass of wine. ‘Someone simpatico! Friends should be on the same page. Every other “friend” Cass has had seems to be from a different book entirely!’
It was horrible to admit, but when Cass loved you, she shone a light on you, and Lauren loved that warmth. When Cass was with her, she felt her prettiest, smartest and loveliest self. Until she was in the shadows again. Cass had slipped an arm around her friend, staring at her mother defiantly, as if trying to prove her wrong. Look, I found someone who gets me. I am lovable. I have a friend, I have everything I need. Lauren could tell what that look meant, from the jut of her lip, the tilt of her chin, their heads next to each other, as if posing for a picture. Barbara suddenly laughed and clapped her hands together, wine sloshing out of her near-empty glass and onto the cream carpet.
In the pub, Lauren had looked at Cass, resolutely drinking her cider and staring into space, the empty bar suddenly so silent. It was her job, as her friend, to get her through this. To listen as she offloaded, and be there when she cried. Cass had done it enough times for her, over things much less important than a dying parent. But she needed to know she was strong enough.
‘You remember what your mum used to call us?’ Lauren said, remembering a comment that Babs had once made, when they came downstairs in their matching Halloween outfits and garish make-up. ‘She called us a pack.’
‘A pack’s the same as a tribe.’
‘No, it’s not. Because a tribe can be people. But we’re not people. We’re wolves.’
‘Wolves?’
‘Sharp teeth and pretty fur and fucking deadly.’ Lauren tried her best to sound like Cass, energetic and passionate. ‘Wolves can deal with anything, no matter how cold it gets, right?’
‘I get it, Loll, and I appreciate it, but …’
‘Nope, we’re wolves. And what do wolves do?’ Lauren asked, grinning.
‘I don’t—’
‘Arooooo!’ Lauren howled, enjoying the look of shock on Cass’s face. ‘Join in or I’ll keep going! Arooooo!’
‘I’m not going to—’
‘Arrrrooooo!’ Lauren howled louder, seeing Luke jump across the bar and narrowly avoid smashing a pint glass. ‘Are you a strong wolf, or are you a puny human?’
Cass fought the smile, but it seemed to spread across her face despite her attempts. ‘I’m most definitely a wolf.’
‘Prove it,’ said Lauren, crossing her arms.
‘Arrooooo!’ howled Cass, using all the air in her lungs until she couldn’t howl any longer for laughing. In that moment, Lauren knew she’d done her job.
It was painful to think about now, the moment she’d been strong enough to care for Cass. Everyone always thought she was weak, but she wasn’t. She was just quiet. Cass knew. Cass had always known what she was capable of.
Now there was a wolf pack of two again. She had been replaced by Veronica. They thought they needed her, but they didn’t, not really. They’d have their adventure as mother and daughter. She didn’t need to be a third wheel. But the whole way home she couldn’t stop thinking of that little girl in the yellow coat, staring out at the sea, and wondering whose hand she’d have to hold when her mother was gone.