Molly
‘Ergh,’ Erica groaned. ‘Every time I close my eyes I feel like I’m still pushing that bloody sled up the mountain. My hands keep clenching like they’re holding on to the handlebars.’
Molly sighed. She was sure the anger at Erica was still there, simmering under her skin, but she was too damn tired to feel it. Too tired to argue. She closed her eyes, then opened them again. Eyes open, eyes closed, it was the same pitch-black.
The day’s climb had been as long as it had been exhausting. Moving each dog in turn to their lines for the night, taking the bricks of dog food from the sled to the line six times over, pitching the tents: it had all taken twice as long as it had the previous evening, and seemed to require twice as much effort. Molly had just finished setting the tent up and had been on her way to give Dodge and the other dogs one last fuss when Noah’s tent had caught the wind and she’d found herself sprinting across the snow.
By the time Molly and Erica had slumped into the canopy and wolfed down their pouches of food in silence, the last of the light had disappeared, leaving a murky charcoal sky quickly giving way to a black hollow nothingness.
‘My whole body aches,’ Erica said. ‘All I want right now is to lie in a hot bath with a glass of wine. Maybe –’
‘Shh!’ Molly hissed as the sound of voices carried in the night.
‘What?’
‘Shh!’
Molly leaned a fraction closer to the tent wall and listened. ‘Maybe … Rachel … You either want … or you don’t. Stop …
‘Oh my God, Noah … you. I never …’
‘Is that Noah and Rachel?’ Erica whispered.
Molly nodded.
‘Should we be listening?’ Erica’s fist punched Molly lightly on the arm.
Molly shimmied down into her sleeping bag, bent her legs, and pulled the cover up to her chin. ‘Whatever,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know what Noah is doing with someone like Rachel. He seems so … nice and she’s a total bitch.’
‘True, but it’s none of our business. Besides, it’s just an argument after a really hard day. The way my body feels right now … I don’t think I’ve ever felt this achy before. When Isla was born it was after ten hours of labour followed by another three hours of excruciating pushing. And I can honestly say that I feel more tired right now than I did after pushing a human being out of my body.’
Molly couldn’t see Erica’s face in the dark but she could hear the smile in the softening of Erica’s voice at the mention of Isla. Guilt trickled through Molly’s insides at the thought of the niece she still hadn’t met. Isla had arrived so soon after Billy’s death; it was too hard to think of Isla without seeing Billy, but that wasn’t Isla’s fault.
‘Besides,’ Erica continued, ‘couples fight all the time and then they make up. Most of the time anyway.’ Erica’s tone was no longer light but hesitant. Sad even.
Molly stared at the space in the dark where she guessed Erica’s face was. ‘Are you we talking about Rachel and Noah or you and Henry?’
Erica made a noise midway between a cry and a laugh that sounded closer to a dog yelp than a human noise. ‘Little Miss Perfect having trouble in her marriage? Thanks, but we’re fine.’
From the sudden tension crackling in the tent Molly had the sense that Erica and Henry were anything but fine – not that Molly cared.
‘I’m sure Noah and Rachel will be fine in the morning,’ Erica mumbled.
An image of Noah’s face lying beside hers in the rescued tent fabric sprung into Molly’s thoughts – the dimples that formed on his cheeks when he smiled and the dark blue intensity of his eyes when he’d jumped down beside her at the tri-nation border and grinned at her stupid comment about the sleeping bags. ‘I knew what you meant.’
Molly pushed the image away. Rachel and Noah were engaged for God’s sake. Erica was right: they’d wake up tomorrow and be fine, and even if they weren’t, what difference did it make to Molly? None, that’s what.
Molly caught the rapid-fire sound of Rachel and Noah’s voices again, the noise like the dun dun dun of machine gun fire from one of the zombie-alien beat ’em up games Billy had played on the old PC their mum had bought him to help with homework.
All of sudden it wasn’t Rachel and Noah’s argument that Molly was thinking of, but Billy’s. The night they’d fought. The last time they’d spoken.
The memory hit – a fireball inside her – scorching a path of hate and anger through her body. Molly’s heartbeat quickened.
Billy had ignored her calls and texts for weeks. She’d tried calling him fifty times on Christmas Day, and again over New Year’s, and every time that Billy hadn’t answered the ball of anger inside Molly had tightened. It was Christmas. Christmas! Billy did not get to ditch them with a lame excuse about exam revision, then drop off the face of the earth.
Fourteen months ago
The springs on Molly’s single bed creaked as she flopped down and switched off her bedside light. She reached for her mobile and tapped on her recent call list. Billy’s name was at the top. She pressed it again and held the phone to her ear. She was so used to hearing the pulsing brrr brrr of the ringtone drag on endlessly that when it stopped suddenly, replaced with the whoosh of wind in her ear, she jolted upright, almost dropping the phone onto the floor in the process.
‘Sis,’ Billy’s voice slurred in her ear, the three-letter word elongated so it sounded more like Shhissh.
‘Billy, where the hell have you been?’ she snapped with more venom in her voice than she’d intended. ‘I’ve been calling for weeks. You missed Christmas. What is going on? How could you do that to Mum?’ Molly clamped her mouth shut. There were more questions, more pent-up words she wanted to yell at him, but she forced herself to stop. It had taken so long to reach him.
Molly held her breath and waited for Billy to speak. Molly could hear cars passing and the beep of a pelican crossing. His footsteps echoed and she imagined him walking the streets of London alone.
‘I gotta work for a living, Shish,’ he said after a pause. ‘I’m not a student any more.’
‘What? What do you mean you’re not a student? Which hospital are you working at?’ Had Molly missed something? Had Billy finished his final exams and take a residency without telling them?
Billy laughed, bray-like. The noise bounced into her ears. ‘Nah. No hospital. I don’t like the smell,’ he said, laughing again. ‘I dropped out. I got a job behind the bar in my local. Money’s shit but I like it.’
‘What –’ Molly stammered. Billy’s words made no sense, and it wasn’t because he was quite clearly off-his-face drunk.
‘Fuck, Mol. I was studying for like a decade or something and I kept failing the sodding exams. What’s the point of carrying on?’
An image of Billy’s body crammed against the small white desk in his bedroom, head bent down, books and sheets of neatly written notes spread across every surface played in Molly’s thoughts. Billy had never got less than an A in his life. Molly tried to connect the memory with the voice slurring down the phone but it wouldn’t fit.
‘I don’t get it,’ she said. ‘How could you be studying for exams one minute then drop out and get a job the next?’
There was a pause before Billy spoke. ‘It was, like, a year ago or something.’
‘What? A year? But what about the trip to the refugee camp in Lebanon? That was only a few months ago and it was organized by the university, wasn’t it? How could you have dropped out and still gone?’
‘I made it up,’ Billy said, his voice so-so as if he was talking about what he’d eaten for dinner. ‘Wanted you, Erica, and Mum off my back for a few months. The one before it too.’
‘What?’ Molly shook her head. She caught her reflection in the mirror on the wall opposite her bed. Her mouth was gaping in an O and her eyes were wide between a pinch of skin above her nose. ‘But … but you sent us emails telling us about the camp. What were you doing if you weren’t really there?’
‘Ah, don’t be like that, Shishhh.’
‘What do you mean – don’t be like that? Don’t be like what? I’m your sister. We’re your family. We have a right to know this stuff. You cannot ditch us ’cause you don’t feel like spending time with us. You can’t just drop out of med school and lie to us about it. You’ve wanted to be a doctor your whole life. Why would you throw that away after all the years you’ve been working towards your dream?’
‘Do you think I don’t know all that?’ Billy shouted into the phone. The microphone must have been close to his mouth because Molly could hear the spit patter against it as he yelled.
‘Clearly you don’t,’ she snapped back, raising her voice to meet Billy’s. ‘Because if you did, you never would’ve dropped out.’
In the back of Molly’s mind, beyond the shock, beyond the indignation, a worry wormed its way through her thoughts. Billy wasn’t studying any more. He’d dropped out. Was there something he wasn’t telling her? Was he in some kind of trouble?
‘Bil –’ Molly heard a click followed by dead space. He’d hung up.
Molly flung her phone onto her bed and sighed. What the hell, Billy? No wonder he hadn’t bothered to return any of her calls or texts for the past three weeks. Why hadn’t he told them about leaving medical school? All he’d ever wanted to do was be a doctor and just like that he’d dropped out and lied about it. It didn’t make any sense. And if he wasn’t studying then why hadn’t he come home for Christmas?
Molly flopped onto her pillow and felt the anger seep out of her body. Whatever had happened to Billy it hadn’t been overnight; she knew that much. Billy had been veering off track for a long time, but he’d always seemed to right himself. She’d call him again in the morning and say sorry. If he wouldn’t visit them, fine. She’d go down to London instead.