It has been over a week since the party. Uncle Robert had left early the next morning, before either Heath or Elinor had risen. She had breathed a sigh of relief, remembering their uncle’s threat to deal with Heath later. Yet, their uncle did not return to Ledbury Hall the following weekend.
‘Good riddance,’ said Heath. ‘Maybe he’ll finally leave us alone.’
But Elinor worried. Every Sunday Uncle Robert left them a pile of cash. This is how they paid for food and other essentials. What would they do without that money? Everything that belonged to them was his.
‘I’ll take care of it,’ said Heath. And he did, coming home the next day with bags of fresh fruit and vegetables, meat from the butcher’s in town. Though Elinor was grateful, she ate almost all her meals alone, if she had the appetite to eat at all. Heath was out every day, disappearing for hours at a time. Neither of them had mentioned Sofia since the night of the fire. Elinor still feels guilty for the trouble she caused, so she doesn’t complain when he leaves early and comes home late, that floral perfume clinging to his skin.
It is early morning. Heath is already gone and the house is clean so she curls up in the library with a book. She has barely read a chapter, when the buzzer in the hallway rings out, making her jump. She can count on one hand the number of times people have rung that buzzer. She goes to the intercom, pressing the button to speak to whoever is at the gate. ‘Hello?’
‘Elinor?’ comes an Irish lilt. ‘Still got my jacket?’
‘Flynn?’
‘How many other Irishmen’s jackets have you collected?’
She grins. ‘I’ll come to you. Give me five minutes?’
She runs upstairs, takes his tan jacket from beneath her bed and strokes the sheepskin lining. She’s reluctant to return it even though she knows she must. With a sigh, she takes a thicker jumper from her drawer and pulls it on. The February air is so cold, you could snap it in two. At the front door, she laces her leather boots, pulls on a hat and scarf and starts off down the driveway. She is carrying Flynn’s coat but it’s so cold, even in her jumper, that she slips it on.
A cocktail of nerves and excitement makes her heart beat a little faster. She walks quickly down the driveway. He waits for her at the gate, hands shoved in jean pockets to keep warm. He’s wearing a chunky-knit sweater the colour of custard-cream biscuits, his dark, glossy hair peeking out from beneath his rust-coloured woollen hat. When he sees her, he beams.
She smiles back, even though she is more nervous now than excited.
‘How’ve you been?’ he asks.
‘Disgraced,’ she answers honestly. She isn’t sure why she is being so candid. Maybe it is loneliness that loosens her tongue. Maybe it is just a relief to hear another person’s voice. Maybe, she thinks, being near another person will stop her fading quickly into nothing, like a handprint on cold glass.
He frowns. ‘That doesn’t sound good.’
‘It isn’t.’
‘I was thinking about going to the Rawcliffe ice rink if you want to join? You could come along, tell me all about it.’ When she hesitates, he adds, ‘I’ll even let you keep hold of my jacket a while longer.’
She glances back at the manor, unsure, but then she imagines her afternoon crawling along in silence as she drifts around that old, huge house all alone, and the thought is so unbearable that she turns to Flynn and nods.
The ice rink is the temporary kind, set up for a month in winter. Flynn pays for their entry and they sit on a wooden bench, lacing up their rented skates. It’s a Thursday afternoon and not very busy. Only a handful of skaters stumble or glide effortlessly across the ice. There are strings of fairy lights zigzagging high above the rink, glowing against the milk-white sky.
They totter across the rubber floor and onto the ice. ‘You skated before?’ he asks.
She nods. Six years in a row, Heath has broken them into the York ice rink afterhours so they had the entire place to themselves. Each night, they would skate for hours, returning home as the sun rose. Not this winter, though. Not since he spends so much of his time with Sofia.
Flynn lays a hand on Elinor’s elbow. ‘You can hold onto the side if—’
She flashes him a smile and then takes off, blades cutting easily through the ice. She is poise and speed. Light and powerful. The music is loud and throbbing, the lights above are twinkling. She spins and skates backwards, searching for Flynn. He is watching her in open-mouthed awe. She smiles, a card player about to reveal a Royal Flush, and checks her shoulder to makes sure she has enough space. She skates into the centre, lifts a leg in an arabesque and spins. Faster and faster, ignoring the tremble in her legs.
Flynn is wide-eyed and bemused. She throws her head back and laughs, high on adrenaline. No one but Heath has ever seen her on the ice. The handful of skaters have moved to the sides of the rink. She’s a little self-conscious now and thinks about skating back to Flynn but the way he watches her, as though she is a mystical creature, gives her a thrill which is so much better than the consuming loneliness she has been swallowed by, trapped inside of, for weeks. So she chases that thrill, sweeping in more powerful circles. Her heart thuds in anticipation and her thighs burn as she soars across the rink. She feels all eyes on her. Can hear the sharp inhalation of the crowd as she leaps. She is weightless. A paper aeroplane, a snowflake on the wind, a drifting feather. Her skate lands cleanly, and she is met with applause.
Her legs shake and her ankle feels as though it’s made of marshmallow. Though Elinor isn’t accustomed to being the centre of attention, she feels like a daisy unfurling in the sun.
She makes her way back to Flynn. ‘If I’d known you were so awful at skating, I’d never have brought you,’ he deadpans.
She laughs and the two of them start doing laps together. She tells him she used to come with her brother but omits that they break in. ‘So, it’s just you, your uncle and Heath?’ he asks.
‘That’s right.’
‘You’re close?’
‘To my brother.’
‘But he didn’t tell you about Sofia?’
‘No.’ She tries to keep the irritation from her voice. ‘He didn’t.’
‘I’ve only met him a few times but he doesn’t give much away, not even to my cousin.’
‘Why would he?’ she says in a pin-sharp voice.
‘Because they’re together …’ he answers, as though she is being deliberately belligerent, which she supposes she is.
‘I don’t know anything about her.’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘Nothing,’ she says. Everything, she thinks. ‘So, do you have any siblings?’
‘Two brothers. I’m the youngest.’
‘Did you grow up in Ireland?’
‘Until I was five. Moved here when my mother got a job as a headteacher.’
‘And your father, is he still around?’
He nods. ‘Mum and Dad are happily married. They celebrate their twenty-ninth wedding anniversary next month.’
She wonders what it would be like to have parents. A solid, complete family unit. She wishes she could try it. If only for a short while. Just to know. ‘I bet you have a golden retriever, too.’
He laughs. ‘We do actually. Her name’s Honey.’
Her uncle has forbidden a dog. He’s allergic. Heath has promised her she can have one as soon as they have full possession of the estate. She’d like one with a lolling tongue and velvet ears. A companion that will sit with her while she reads, that will walk with her around the grounds. A dog that won’t leave the second it catches the scent of a bitch on heat. ‘Do you work?’ she asks Flynn.
‘I’m a student.’
She smiles. ‘Of the world?’
‘Of the University of York.’
‘Impressive. What’re you studying?’
‘What do you think I’m studying?’
She shrugs. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Guess.’
She recalls the travel guide of South Africa in his car, shoved in the driver’s side compartment. ‘Geography?’
His mouth quirks up. ‘Nope. Try again.’
‘Geology.’
‘Geology?’ He snorts. ‘Where’d that come from?’
‘You claimed to have left me a purple rock.’
‘Claimed?’ He lifts a hand to his chest in feigned outrage. ‘I did.’
‘I never found it.’
‘Did you try?’
She grins.
‘Right,’ he says. ‘One last guess.’
‘Art?’
He looks surprised, then he smiles. ‘You only get onto university art courses if you promise to cut off an ear.’
‘Van Gogh would be proud.’
Flynn comes to a stop at the side of the rink and bends to adjust his skate. ‘Why art?’
‘The paint on your hands. I saw it when you were driving.’
‘Paint …’ He stands and looks at his nails. ‘Shit,’ he mumbles and scrapes at the remnants of black around his cuticles. ‘It’s nail varnish,’ he tells her. ‘I, ugh, thought I’d got it all off.’
‘Decided black isn’t your colour?’
‘My dad hates when I wear it. Says it’s for women.’
‘I don’t think the varnish will discriminate.’
‘Neither do I.’ Flynn picks at his nail. ‘It isn’t so much my dad that minds, but my grandfather. He’s a barrister. Very serious. Very traditional.’
‘Maybe he’s just jealous,’ she says. ‘Offer to paint his nails, too.’
Flynn grins at her. ‘Any other guesses?’
She shakes her head.
‘How about I tell you over a hot chocolate? There’s a place not far from here.’
They choose a little table for two in front of the window. Elinor feels like she is in a fishbowl or a zoo. The little village coffee shop boasts dark-wood furniture, exposed redbrick and latte artwork on the walls. At the centre is a large, squishy orange sofa and two plush armchairs around a low table. Though the coffee shop isn’t crowded, it isn’t empty, either. There are mothers bouncing babies on their knees, small groups of friends talking loudly, a couple who hold hands across a nearby table, talking quietly. The way the man looks at her, with so much love, makes Elinor’s chest ache.
She thinks about Heath and Sofia, together somewhere right now. He doesn’t know Elinor is out in the world, not just without him, but with someone else. She is aware that people who see her don’t even know Heath exists. Sometimes she feels their very existences are woven so tightly together, that if one were to perish, the other would, too. But, in this coffee shop, she isn’t just Heath Ledbury’s sister. She could be anyone. Flynn could be her boyfriend or her boss or even her brother. It’s a thrilling, freeing thought. Just for a moment, she is untethered, floating away from her life with Heath, and being swept into another. One of coffee shop dates and uncomplicated kisses.
Flynn is ordering their drinks. She takes the time to study him. He’s handsome with his crooked smile and wide, inviting mouth, but what Elinor finds most alluring about him is the way he feels like a shiny new penny. Or a hot-air balloon. Or virgin snow. He is unmarred by tragedy or loss. There’s a buoyancy to him that she hopes is contagious, because the more time she spends out in the world, the more obvious that gap between her and everyone else becomes.
Flynn returns to the table carrying two ginormous hot chocolates, loaded with lashings of thick, whipped cream and fluffy marshmallows and even a chocolate flake. Elinor covers her mouth with her hands in delight, then lowers them to take the drink, and beams up at him.
‘You have the prettiest smile,’ he says.
The compliment colours her cheeks and she looks away.
He clears his throat and sits down. ‘Medical.’
‘What?’ She blinks, sure she has missed something.
‘My degree.’
She nods. ‘You want to be a doctor?’
‘I’m interested in the mental-health side of the profession. You know, a psychiatrist or something.’
‘You want to put people in straitjackets and padded rooms?’ she teases.
‘I want to help people. It sounds like a load of tripe but—’
‘No, it doesn’t.’
They make eye contact and something electric passes between them. His eyes travel slowly down to her lips and her skin warms in response, as though she is basking beneath the sun. It’s a feeling that excites and terrifies her.
‘I’m doing a placement year in South Africa,’ he says quickly. He studies her face which she keeps carefully blank despite the swirling disappointment.
‘Hence the travel guide.’
He nods. ‘Not until September, though.’
She smiles, relieved he isn’t going to abandon her anytime soon.
They sip their hot chocolate. She licks cream from her top lip and he follows the movement with his eyes. ‘What about you?’ he asks. ‘What do you want to do?’
Truthfully, she hasn’t ever given it much thought, assuming her future is already written. She and Heath have spoken endlessly about finally receiving their inheritance, but never mapped out what their days would look like afterwards. Until now, she didn’t imagine days turning into weeks, into months, into years, into decades. ‘I don’t know.’
‘I suppose with a house that grand you probably don’t have to work.’
‘True.’
‘Won’t you get bored, though? Don’t you want a purpose?’
Her eyes narrow in consternation. ‘I have purpose.’
Embarrassed and remorseful, he looks down. ‘Of course. I didn’t mean … Sorry.’
She sips her drink but it scalds her tongue. When Heath turned eighteen, Uncle Robert bombarded him with stacks of university brochures. He flipped through them lazily and discarded them quickly, deciding he would rather wait for his inheritance than go away to study. Elinor didn’t argue. But she did read every page of those brochures as though they were storybooks, imagining herself on a leafy campus on the outskirts of a new city, sitting with a group of friends and poring over heavy textbooks, a melee of coloured highlighters at the centre of their group. A life that felt more fantasy to her than anything Tolkien could ever write. ‘How are you supposed to know what you want to do?’ she asks in a small voice.
‘I guess you think about what you enjoy doing and you chase it.’
‘Reading,’ she tells him after a moment. ‘I like to read.’
‘English Literature, then?’
‘Probably. I play piano, too.’ She frowns and corrects herself. ‘Played piano.’
‘What happened?’
She’s self-taught, using the books in the library and listening to her parents’ old cassettes. One weekend, Uncle Robert heard her playing. He became obsessed. Every weekend thereafter, he’d lock the two of them in the reception room for hours, making her play the same pieces over and over until her fingertips bruised. He’d watch her, a glass of Scotch in hand. The more he drank, the more demanding and less patient he became. It came to a roaring crescendo when, in fury, he slammed the fallboard down. If she hadn’t whipped her fingers away, he’d have broken them.
‘Why did you stop playing?’ Flynn presses.
She shrugs. ‘My uncle sucked the joy out of it.’ He is quiet, waiting for her to go on. She is remembering another of her uncle’s cruel lectures. ‘Your father coasted through life on his dashing good looks and all the other hereditary gifts the pair of you see in the mirror,’ he’d sneered. ‘Just like you and your wicked brother, he squandered his intellect and his talent, too. Beauty fades, brilliance breeds legacy. Remember that.’ Elinor sighs. ‘My uncle thinks if you’re good at something, you should be great at it. Flawless, even.’
‘He sounds like a difficult man to please.’
‘Painfully so.’
‘And you’re feeling disgraced because of him?’
‘Because of me,’ she says. ‘I got drunk at his work party and accidently set fire to the curtains.’
She holds still, not wanting to miss Flynn’s reaction, wondering if he’ll turn away from her in disgust and leave her here to find her own way home. He doesn’t. He cocks his head to one side, eyes glittering playfully, and says, ‘Sounds like a regular Tuesday to me.’
It starts to get dark. Flynn drives her home. At the gate, she makes to take off his jacket but he holds up a hand. ‘Keep it,’ he tells her. ‘It looks better on you.’
Her smile is jubilant. She’s enjoyed spending the day with him. An unexpected, perfect adventure. Riding on the wave of excitement, she leans forward and presses her mouth to his. It’s brief; she pulls away quickly and when she does, she sees the heat in Flynn’s eyes. He leans forward, wanting her to kiss him again. She feels desirable, powerful, even. She hasn’t felt either in a long while. She opens the gate but he gently catches her wrist. ‘Can I see you again?’ he asks. ‘Tomorrow?’
‘Monday,’ she says.
When he’s driven off, she slips through the gate and decides to spend some time looking for that purple stone before it gets too dark. It takes only a few minutes of brushing a light covering of snow from stones before she discovers it. She can’t believe she found it. She slips it carefully into her pocket before making her way to Ledbury Hall, feeling like an untethered kite. The manor comes into view but so too does her uncle’s car as it tears down the driveway towards her. She stumbles back. The car slows and her uncle’s thin lips spread into a sardonic twist, his eyes meet hers, taking on a malevolent glitter. Then he speeds up again, towards the gate.
She looks back at the house. Dread whispers through her when she sees Heath’s car parked outside. She runs, remembering her uncle’s threat. I’ll deal with you later, boy. The front door is wide open. She calls her brother’s name.
Silence.
The kind that settles in a graveyard.
‘Heath!’ she shrieks again, racing from room to room, searching for him.
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t answer because he can’t. She finds him lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood. A lead pipe discarded beside him.