The days had passed quietly, being tourists, being guests. Jack went out of his way to teach and show them everything he could. He knew, Lauren realised now, how sick his niece was. It was in the way he held his head, the tilt of concern every time Cass was tired, or needed a break. He had seen his sister back then, he knew what this part of the journey entailed.
They were leaving to go to the surf camp when he approached her privately.
‘Hey, Lauren, this arrived for you.’ He handed her a large envelope, and she turned it over in her hands, inspecting the labels before snorting.
‘My divorce papers. Excellent timing.’
‘Am I congratulating you, or offering condolences?’
‘Congratulations are fine. You know, ones that say it’s better to realise you were an idiot than to keep on being one.’
Jack laughed, putting an arm around her. ‘Good philosophy, kid. Look, I wanted to talk to you about those girls. You’re the leader here, looking after them and everything …’
‘Am I?’
He frowned. ‘You’re the organiser, you made it all happen. You brought my niece out here when she refused to come before. She said it was on your list together. She wouldn’t come without you.’
Lauren’s stomach clenched. Oh God, everything has always been my fault. She would have been out here with her family. If I’d just got one letter, maybe all of this would have been different. ‘Oh.’
Jack waved away her concern. ‘Look, she’s not well, and she’s stubborn as hell. So if you need me, you call me. And if she tells you not to call an ambulance or make a fuss, you make one anyway, okay?’
Lauren nodded.
‘Promise, Lauren. Promise you’ll call me when everything happens.’
How ifs changed to whens so quickly. Lauren took his hand, ‘I promise. I’m tougher than I look.’
‘Oh, I know, kid. Not many people can handle Cassidy. Fewer still bother!’
He gave her a brief squeeze before releasing her, walking over to the rental car where the bags were being rearranged to fit into the boot. ‘Hey now, let’s get this sorted, shall we?’ she heard him say, clapping his hands together dramatically.
There were different types of love, and different types of bravery.
The drive down the coast was easy enough, being on the same side of the road. Cass had always been a fairly decent navigator, a fact which shocked most people. It was one of the things Lauren had liked best about their road trips in the past. They’d play music and laugh, and take turns driving, but she could always depend on Cass to get them where they needed to be.
The journey to the surf camp was a fair few hours down the coast, and when they arrived, it was almost empty. The little huts were set back from the main road, down a dirt path, and old surfboards held signs to guide their way.
‘Heya, how’s it going?’ The guy behind the desk was reading the paper, his ginger dreadlocks scraped back in a loose bun. He grinned toothily. ‘I’m Mac. Checking in?’
It was quiet, Mac explained as he took their bags through to the room, because the waves were good, and everyone had jumped on the bus to catch them. ‘You’ve got your class tomorrow though, so until then, hang out, take it easy.’
Their room had three sets of bunk beds, and Lauren laughed as Vee tried out each of them to decide which was best. They wandered the grounds, sat in the beanbags and hammocks in the garden, nibbling on chocolate bars they bought from the tuck shop. There was an air of school trip about the whole place, which was comforting. It was quiet and relaxed, the hammocks swaying in a slight breeze. Lauren felt completely at peace, smiling as her fingertips trailed the ground.
She heard the click of the camera and opened one eye to find Vee standing over her with the phone.
‘Cassy said to take a picture.’ Vee pointed at her mother, not even attempting to take the blame.
Cass raised a hand without lifting the canvas hat that was placed over her eyes. ‘I did. I said it was rare to see a relaxed Loll in the wild, up close like this. An endangered creature.’
‘Ha,’ Lauren snorted, adjusting herself as Vee decided to crawl into the hammock with her. ‘Hello, what’s this?’
Vee smiled up at her. ‘Cassy said you were drawing more wolves. I want to see.’
‘Please,’ prompted Cass.
‘Please,’ Vee added, wide-eyed and over the top. ‘Pleaaaaaaaase.’
Lauren reached into her bag with one hand, pulling the sketchbook free, and passed it over.
‘Woah.’ Vee thumbed the pages delicately, touching the tops of the fluffy ears, or tracing a sharp fang. ‘Hey, it’s me!’
It was, although Lauren was convinced it was a bad sketch, with Vee’s face a little too round to be right. It was close enough to be her though, Storm the husky cuddled up against her neck, her eyes squeezed tight in joy.
‘You’re very good, Auntie Loll. Cassy, did you know Auntie Loll was good at drawing?’
Cass sat up, sharing a look of amusement with Lauren. ‘Sounds just like my mum, right? “Darling, you must meet Jemima – she’s a fabulous ballet dancer, just fabulous.”’
‘“Meet Dennis,”’ Lauren added, hooting with laughter, ‘“he’s terribly good at the Sunday Times crossword – always gets fifteen down, don’t you, Dennis?”’
‘What? What’s funny?’ Vee was upset at being left out of the joke, and had a suspicion she was being laughed at.
‘You sound a lot like your grandma,’ Lauren gave her a squeeze, ‘and it made us remember how funny and lovely she was, that’s all.’
‘You knew my grandma?’
‘Sure did,’ Lauren looked across at Cass, trying to figure out how she was feeling. She had a strange smile on her face, the remnants of laughing about her mother, coupled with a realisation. She looked like she’d finally solved a maths problem she didn’t really want the answer to.
‘Let’s see these wolfies then,’ Cass said, gently tipping herself out of her hammock and ambling over. She leaned over to look, and a smile blossomed.
‘You know, I think I know what we should do with these …’ She held up a finger, before retrieving the Big Book. She opened it on the second page and pointed to number seventeen.
Lauren sighed, ‘Oh God, really?’
‘Are you ever going to do it if you don’t do it with me?’
‘Probably not!’ Lauren laughed, ‘Is that a bad thing?’
‘You tell me,’ Cass shrugged, pretending not to care, her eyes to the sky, ‘I mean, we could be driving into town right now to find somewhere …’
‘And probably ending up with a bunch of diseases and our arms falling off.’
‘More of a long-term problem for you than for me there, babe.’
Vee frowned, crossing her arms and wriggling out of the hammock. The adults had been talking in riddles for too long.
‘I want to know what’s going on!’
Cass waited for Lauren to respond, one eyebrow raised in a challenge. ‘It’s up to you, Loll. How brave are you feeling?’
Lauren sighed, wondering why the little thrill of adventure still made her do stupid things when Cass was around.
‘Veronica, me and your mum are off to get tattoos.’
*
‘S’not fair,’ Veronica huffed, sitting with the sketchbook in her lap as her mother was tattooed. ‘I want one too. You get wolfs and I don’t.’
‘Wolves,’ Cass said, wincing as the tattooist adjusted her grip on her wrist. ‘And when you’re eighteen, if you want one, you can have one. Just … Loll, you’ll keep her in line, right? No England flags, boys’ names or things on her face, okay?’
‘I just want a wolf too,’ Vee said quietly, stroking the drawing of the cub on the page. ‘That’s my one.’
Lauren gave her a squeeze, keeping her taped-up wrist out of the way. Cass had made her go first, in case she chickened out, and she had to admit, it was nice to be nudged into something. For every anxious thought that popped into Lauren’s head, Cass had a, ‘So what?’ to respond to it with. It was like a battleground. She vowed to say, ‘So what?’ more often.
‘Well, when you’re older, if you want that one, you can have it.’
She knew that didn’t mean much to the little girl, who so desperately didn’t want to be left out of anything.
‘Hey, give me your arm,’ Lauren said, getting her black biro out of her bag. She carefully started outlining the same image Vee clung to on the page, offering as much detail as she could on the girl’s delicate wrist. By the time Cass was wrapped up, Vee’s ‘tattoo’ was finished too, and she admired it, twisting her arm this way and that.
‘I won’t wash and it will stay there,’ she said, nodding her head.
Lauren made a face. ‘Umm … how about you do wash, and I’ll just draw it on every day again?’
‘But if you’re not with me?’
Lauren looked at that little face in distress, not sure how to answer. She was right. What if Vee lived in Australia after everything? What if she never saw her? What would she do when she had to go back to her life?
‘Aunt Loll will be around, baby girl,’ Cass calmed her, the same solid voice she’d used to calm Lauren multiple times over the years. ‘And if she’s not there at some point, she’ll teach you how to draw your own one.’
Lauren nodded, saying nothing.
‘Now, we can tick that off the list,’ Cass said, taking her daughter’s hand. ‘I think we deserve some ice cream.’
That night, Lauren lay in the bottom bunk, listening to the snuffling noises from her travel companions. She kept looking at the outline of the wolf on her wrist, head back, howling, all strength and strong lines. Cass had chosen hers for her, opting for a more sedate one for herself – a wolf curled up softly into a ball, ready to sleep, but eyes still watching closely for change. Always ready to pounce.
It had seemed so easy – she had decided something, and had done it. There was no little voice whispering about whether it was tacky, or what people would think. That voice had always sounded like Darren. The one that asked her why she’d do something so stupid and asked if it would affect her job prospects sounded like her mother. The voice that quietly asked, full of exasperation, when she would finally stop worrying so much, sounded like her own. The imaginary version of Cass sat in the back of her mind, reclining with a glass of wine, and simply said, ‘Don’t worry. You’ll figure it out. Way to go being brave, babe. And wasn’t it fun?’
Cass had been scribbling non-stop in the Big Book, and Lauren thought maybe she was keeping a diary of their adventures, listing all the things they were doing so Vee could have it later on. She hoped she’d crossed out some of the terrible ideas they’d written in their early twenties. But maybe there would be a time Vee would want to read that, to know that her mother wanted to skinny dip and take drugs and go dancing. Stupidity was appealing in nostalgia. ‘Oh God,’ she could imagine Vee saying in the future, ‘can you believe my mum?’
It was still light outside, and the frosted windows at the top of the room did very little to keep anything out. Lauren slipped her hand into the front of her suitcase under her bunk and pulled out the paperwork Darren had sent her. The legal jargon didn’t bother her – it was exactly how she’d expected, and it was a relief that everything was as he’d said. She didn’t care, she just wanted what was hers, and to be done. There were so many endings, this one was the least of her issues.
Cass was right – she should have apologised. She had chosen Darren when she shouldn’t have. She’d had a choice between a horrible truth and a palatable lie, and she’d been weak. She’d preferred to live in the dream, hoping everything would be okay if she just tried hard enough.
Lauren scribbled her signature, almost pushing the point of the pen through the page. It was time to wake up.