You’re a natural.”
“You think?”
“Look at the way he’s gazing at you,” Tamsin says. “Sure you don’t fancy moving in, letting us sleep for six months? We’ll pay.”
I smile, bounce Harry up and down on my knee. Miraculously, he’s stopped yelling, though we definitely can’t relax yet. He’s not exactly gazing. I’d say he’s scrutinizing my face while considering his next move. Master tacticians, babies.
“Actually, Joel, I do need your help with something. Non-child-care-related.”
“Go for it.”
“It’s to do with the other day. When you called and told me not to get on the tube.”
I saw the tube station in a dream, only a few hours ahead of time. A massive stampede, blind panic, screaming. I couldn’t make out the station, but I did know Tamsin was due to visit an old uni friend in London that day with Amber and Harry. (I had no idea at that point why the stampede started, or how. Had nothing at all I could bother TfL with.)
“Oh, that.” I bounce Harry up and down again, talk directly at him. Pull a series of astonished expressions, like people do when they’re playing for time.
“Yeah, that. You see, I’m a bit confused.”
“About what?”
“About how you could possibly have known. You rang me hours before it happened.” The thing was covered widely on the news, took over social media for most of the day.
A trapped-wing flutter inside my chest. “I told you. It was just a feeling.”
“Come on, Joel.”
I remember what Callie said to me on Boxing Day nearly two years ago. About my visions being a gift. And her words as she was leaving the restaurant.
Just . . . trust people to love you, Joel.
I glance at my sister. She looks pretty no-nonsense today (hair pulled back, khaki dress, kick-ass boots), but old habits die hard. Years of keeping the words in, burying my secrets.
“I’m going to tell you something now,” she says.
I swallow, uneasy. Isn’t that my line? “Okay.”
“Remember when I was here last year, and I told you I was pregnant? Just before I left, I went to use the loo.”
I raise my eyebrows at Harry again. Say nothing.
“Well, when I came out you guys were in the hallway, and I heard Callie saying to you, A brother for Amber. And Harry’s just perfect.”
I stare at the blue-eyed culprit in front of me. Come on, Harry. Now’s your moment. Scream, fill your nappy. Projectile vomit if you have to. Anything.
“Anyway, I was really confused. I’d always known if I had a boy I’d want to call him Harry, but I’d never told you that.” Her gaze glides over me. “So I started to think, and add things up—your supposed paranoia, your anxiety all these years. You knowing Harry’s name and gender before I did. The tube. Your skittishness, how you were after Mum died.”
“Okay,” I say, rubbing Harry’s chubby arms with my hands. He almost looks as if he’s smiling now, the cheeky little beggar. Clearly he has zero intention of helping his favorite uncle out. “Okay.”
“I know I always tease you for being a bit . . .”
“I know.”
“. . . but you can trust me, Joel. You can tell me anything.”
I meet her eye for just a second. A few months ago, Dad and I told Tamsin and Doug about Warren. It ran a razor blade through my soul, to watch my sister cry the way she did that day. This has been one of the hardest and weirdest times of my life, filled with arguments, accusations, questions. And now here I am, about to put her love to the test all over again.
But, ultimately, I know Tamsin’s world is one of optimism. Of straight, sunlit paths; of long, sweeping bends. She refuses to believe in cliff edges and dead ends, darkened corners. She thinks anything is surmountable, and for her so far it has been. If ever I needed proof of that, it was telling her we were only half-related. Because in the end she accepted the whole thing fully and generously, let absolutely nothing between us change.
So I take a breath and then a leap. Hold my nephew close. Keep talking. “I see . . . what’s going to happen, Tam. To the people I love. In my dreams. I see the future play out, hours, days, weeks in advance.”
Harry gurgles skeptically, which is fair enough. But Tamsin’s sitting very still. She puts a hand to her mouth, eyes bright with tears.
“Please believe me,” I whisper. I didn’t realize until now how much I need her to.
“I knew it,” she says slowly. “All this time . . . I mean, I knew it, Joel.”
“How?” My voice barely grazes the air.
Her mouth gapes. She shrugs wildly, like I’ve asked her to explain why we need oxygen. “You’re never surprised. By anything. You’ve always got a subtle warning here, a casual suggestion there. You always seem to know . . . when we’ve had an argument or something’s happened. And last week, when Dad . . .”
“Yes,” I say quietly. Having dreamed about his particularly violent stomach bug (lucky me), I asked him, without thinking, over Sunday lunch how he was. Forgot he’d not actually told any of us. I brushed it off quickly, insisted he had. But I felt Tamsin watching me.
“It’s all been adding up, over the years, and then with Harry, and the tube . . .”
Harry makes a starfish with his hand, reaches for my nose. I dip my head, let his fingers touch my face.
“Is it medical?”
“Inherited,” I confess. “I got it from Warren.”
Tamsin swears on the exhale. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me, Joel? It’s me, for God’s sake. You could have trusted me.” I have a sense that if I weren’t holding her son, she might choose this moment to chuck something at my head.
“It’s hardly standard information, Tam. And I didn’t want to risk my relationship with you. I couldn’t have dealt with that, especially after Mum. Me and you . . . we were always so close.”
“Which is exactly why you should have told me.” Tamsin rummages in her handbag, withdraws a pack of tissues. “Joel, is this why Callie left?”
In my arms, Harry does a great impression of an earthworm angling for air. “Sort of,” I tell her, because of course I can’t give her the full story. “But it wasn’t her fault.”
We carry on talking well into the evening, until Harry makes it clear that he really would like us to wrap things up.
Tamsin hugs me hard when she leaves, assures me she’s here for me. Insists she’ll always love me. She tries to say, too, that she’s sure I can work things out with Callie.
It’s the only point in almost three hours at which I nearly lose it.
But I don’t. I wait until she leaves before I let myself break down.
It’s been nearly a year now. I knew that night in the restaurant had to be the last time we saw each other. But, somehow, I still can’t believe it actually was. That I can’t now roll over and touch her arm in bed. Kiss her on the sofa when she says something lovely. Feel a high-five in my stomach when she doubles up with laughter over a joke I’ve made.
I still give all our haunts a wide berth. I can’t risk running into her, jeopardizing my resolve. Warren’s suggested that if I’m craving a way to feel close to her, I should book myself into the wellness retreat she gave me a voucher for two years ago. It’s expired now, of course. But perhaps he’s right. Maybe if I went there, it would be a comfort somehow. A quiet connection to her again, like hands linking up in the dark.
But I know I’m not ready. Maybe one day I will be. But not yet.
Still, wellness comes in many forms. A couple of months back, Steve asked me to try training with him. He suggested I start with one of his odious riverside boot-camp sessions (using telling phrases like All levels and Your own pace and No judgment). After some pestering, I agreed. Because I had to do something to stop myself thinking about her.
It was the boxing drills I got the most from. Punching out my anger, swinging my fists with frustration. I’d think about the impossible waste of it all while I was punching. Why, why, why, why, why? Then, when I was done, I’d have to crouch to the floor so the person holding the pads wouldn’t see that I was close to tears.
Spotting my slightly dysfunctional preference for using my fists, Steve invited me to the gym proper. So three times a week now I’m one-on-one with my old friend, punching the whole thing out. Steve just stands there, pads raised, sturdy as steel.
It helps, a bit. Not just to unleash my anguish, but to feel I’m not alone.