---

Margaret came into the front room, whipping the door closed behind her.

‘What’s going on in here?’ She sniffed the air. ‘Sylvie, have you been sick?’

Victoria stifled a laugh, catching Margaret’s eye.

‘What the hell is going on in here, girls?’ she said through her teeth.

Victoria hiccoughed and it morphed into a burp. She covered her mouth like she might be sick again, but then seemed to steady herself. ‘I know what you’ve been up to, Mrs Preston.’

‘Victoria, shut up!’ Sylvie tried to read her mum’s expression, gauge the reaction. She needed a way to calm the situation down.

‘Your husband is dying and you… you’ve been fucking my dad.’

Sylvie flinched at the word, the image.

Margaret stood still for a minute, like she’d been slapped across the face. Sylvie waited for her mum to deny it, but she just looked at Victoria, her face hardening.

Victoria’s voice was getting louder. ‘All this time it was you, when Dad says he’s working late. When they’re arguing. There’s a time bomb about to go off in your husband’s head and you do that at his own weirdo death party. A funeral for someone who isn’t even dead. Yet,’ she added with extra spite.

‘You don’t know what you’re talking about, Victoria. You’ve had a bit to drink. We all have. Let’s get you up to bed and this will all look a lot better in the morning. Sylvie, get the camp bed and fetch her a nighty. Now.’

Victoria looked as if she was thinking about this for a moment, but then her fury was reignited. ‘Nah, fuck that. Let’s see what poor old Michael Armstrong has to say about it, shall we? See how he likes it. I saw you in the bathroom.’

Victoria made a sudden move to the left, like she was a football player doing a fancy move to fool the other team. She lunged for the door.

Margaret’s head spun back around quickly to Sylvie. A look of blurred shock and anger twisted into her face. As quickly as Victoria had moved, Margaret stepped forwards, both her arms out. They made contact with Victoria and she went backwards.

Sylvie watched the look on Victoria’s face in slow motion as she fell over the coffee table, her arms and hands flailing for something to grab on to, to break her fall. But she couldn’t connect with anything. It was just empty air. There was one sharp crack, her head against the marble step of the fireplace. The CD skipped once when she hit the ground, then played on.

Victoria was splayed on the floor, one leg twisted out awkwardly to the side, an impossible position. For a moment neither Sylvie or Margaret did anything. Sylvie didn’t even breathe. The silence was the worst thing. All that moved were the tethered balloons, gently floating and bobbing.

Victoria’s eyes were gaping wide. She should have blinked by now.

Sylvie’s thoughts skipped ahead to bright red blood pooling out all over the floor, wider and wider. But there wasn’t any. It was all inside Victoria’s head, pressure building up, blackening.

Margaret seemed to snap out of it. She opened the door, listened for a moment, then closed it again. Sylvie understood the noise had not woken her dad. Nothing much did these days. He had to be shaken most mornings. One day soon, not even that would do it. It was unspoken between Sylvie and her parents, but deep down she knew it.

Margaret gestured for Sylvie to stay put. She crossed the room and put her hand on Victoria’s neck. Sylvie couldn’t take it in. She couldn’t be dead. Not Victoria. Not here, not like this. The room swam.

Margaret turned back to Victoria and put her ear close to her mouth, shaking her lightly.

Sylvie went over to the telephone table, picked up the receiver and took a deep breath. She dialled 9, 9… but her mum jumped up and snatched the receiver out of her hand, replacing it in the cradle. Sylvie went to speak but no words came out. Her mum didn’t say anything either. She just stared right into Sylvie’s eyes. Something was passing between them, something was happening that they both knew couldn’t be undone.

Margaret grabbed Sylvie hard by the wrist and pulled her to the side. Sylvie was shaking. She started to cry, almost convulse. Her mum grabbed her by the chin and held it in position, vice-like. ‘Are you listening to me, Sylvie? You need to take deep breaths and you need to listen to me, right?’

Sylvie couldn’t speak but she somehow managed to nod.

‘I’m going to get the car ready and you’re going to wait out in the hall until I tell you.’

Maybe they were going to the hospital? Sylvie knew they weren’t really but she nodded, trying to persuade herself that they were.

It was a bad dream. It was all that stupid booze they’d drunk. Why?

She would wake up soon and Victoria would be there, like always. They’d be topping and tailing in the bed…

Sylvie tried not to look back at Victoria, but she couldn’t help it. It was as if she was trying to understand that painful, unnatural position. So still. Victoria’s top had ridden up, her midriff displayed. Sylvie couldn’t bear to touch her though.

Sylvie sat on the sofa and clutched her head. She tried to focus on the pattern on the carpet. Anything but Victoria. Red and gold, dark blue flowers. She looked at them so long they started to move. They shifted and swirled, kaleidoscopic.

Should she try for the phone again? They could explain, couldn’t they? She was psyching herself up, but her mum came back over, putting her hands on Sylvie’s shoulders. ‘Sylvie, you need to breathe. Breathe!’

Sylvie tried to speak but nothing came out.

‘It’s not you, Sylvie. It’s all on me, but it has to be this way. We don’t have any other option. Can you understand me, Sylvie?’

‘Noooo,’ Sylvie heard herself say, a low moan.

‘Put these on. Get changed. And the shoes. Now, Sylvie!’

It could almost have been an ordinary school day when Sylvie was little. Except her mum was taking the clothes and shoes off Victoria. She was yanking roughly at her jeans.

‘Why?’ Sylvie looked at her, blinking away tears.

Margaret was somehow remaining calm. ‘Just do it, Sylvie. Please. It’s under control.’

Sylvie was reminded of when she was young and she wet the bed. Her mum would come in in the night and Sylvie would wait while she changed the sheets, half asleep…

Sylvie’s hands shook as she tried to remove her own clothes; she couldn’t grip anything. As soon as she had loosened an item, Margaret pulled it off, bundling and rolling it up as if she were packing for a family holiday.

Sylvie pulled on the red hooded top and Margaret nodded at her to zip it up. She stepped into Victoria’s Converse shoes, zombie-like, and Margaret tied the laces so tight she felt the blood throb around them. They were one size smaller than Sylvie’s usual size and her toenails were squashed against her toes, digging into the flesh.

‘Mum, can we please call someone? I don’t want to do this.’

‘I told you, it has to be this way. It has to be now.’ Her mum’s face was pale, all the blood drained from it. ‘You need to help me, Sylvie. Can you please be calm for me?’

Sylvie thought of when she’d had an operation to remove her adenoids. This was like when she was going under the general anaesthetic. Count down from ten, they told her…

‘You need to just do what I tell you, OK, Sylvie?’

Six, five, four…

Sylvie breathed in and out, a calmness coming over her. She felt like she was floating above the room, looking down on the action, rather than participating in it.

She could see her and her mum picking up Victoria’s body. Margaret by the shoulders, Sylvie got the feet. Victoria only had her underwear on now. Sylvie focused on the tiny blue flowers with yellow leaves. She couldn’t face panning out from the detail.

Victoria was heavier than Sylvie had expected. She wanted to tell her mum to be more gentle, but she couldn’t speak.

She’d tell Victoria about her weird dream tomorrow and they would laugh about how random it was. ‘You weirdo,’ Victoria would say and punch her on the arm.

Sylvie and Margaret staggered flat-footed through the kitchen, into the garage.

Not in the boot, please not the boot.

The body landed in it with a dull thud. Margaret had to push Victoria’s legs at an awkward angle to close the boot.

Sylvie sobbed but her mum shot her a sharp look.

‘Sylvie, we have to do this. Get yourself together.’

Sylvie started to get into the car, but her mum shook her head. She pulled her back into the kitchen. The party food was still on the table, decimated. Plates with rejected sausage rolls, rogue sandwiches curling and drying at the edges. The stark strip lighting showed the make-up that had sunk deep into the grooves of Margaret’s face.

‘Listen to me, right? Are you taking this in, Sylvie?’ She slapped Sylvie’s cheek lightly.

Sylvie nodded, trance-like.

‘Go to the phone box. And get a taxi to the lake. Book the taxi in the name of Victoria. Are you hearing me, Sylvie?’ Her mum pushed two 20p pieces and a five-pound note into Sylvie’s hand.

‘You get in and you don’t say anything. Nothing. You sit in the back and you look out of the window… Sylvie?’

She said it again maybe three or four times.

‘Sylvie?’

Margaret spun Sylvie round and strung something cold around her – she touched it, the gold heart locket.

Sylvie shook her head but her mum’s hand gripped her shoulder.

---

As soon as she arrived at the phone box, Sylvie couldn’t remember walking there, alone. It was like she had been teleported. Her hands shook as she reached for the phone. As if on auto-pilot, she dialled the number of Victoria’s house. She half-hoped that Victoria would somehow answer.

It wasn’t too late, she thought. She could tell Peter and Judith what had happened, and everything would be sorted out, like it always was. But after three shrill rings of the phone in her ear she slammed the receiver down and did as her mum had said. She called the taxi and waited.

---

‘You sure about this, love?’ the taxi driver said. ‘I wouldn’t want my daughter up here on her own at this time of night. Or up here at all for that matter.’ The rain created a film across the windscreen. He ducked his head down so he could see out better. The road ahead was only visible in snatches, when the wiper went over.

Sylvie pressed her head to the glass and the scenery passed like a stop-motion animation. She lied to herself that maybe everything was still going to be OK. Her mum would sort it out. That’s what mums do; it’s what she had always done.

When they arrived at the lake, the taxi driver was about to turn around in his seat. Sylvie just pushed the five-pound note into his hand, one leg already out of the car. She didn’t wait for the change. He didn’t drive away for what felt like a long time, and she looked back despite herself. The glare of the headlights, full beam, made everything a white-out.

When the taxi pulled away, there was nothing for a while. Sylvie stood, panic rising, checking around her. The rain made the hairspray she’d used that morning sting her eyes and drip into her mouth, bitter-tasting.

She couldn’t think straight. Maybe her mum had taken Victoria to the hospital. But why would she send Sylvie up here?

Then Margaret emerged from the darkness and pulled Sylvie into it, from the road. They walked further round the lake, Margaret’s hand clamped around Sylvie’s wrist.

Margaret’s teeth were chattering and her hair was plastered to her face. She hopped from foot to foot on the spot, looking like a drug addict, Sylvie thought.

‘Give me the clothes, Sylvie,’ she said. ‘And the shoes, come on. Be quick.’

Sylvie’s thoughts were still tumbling. The hoody and the jeans were stuck to her and Margaret tried to drag them off her faster. The top tore, the fabric making a loud ripping noise.

‘Shit, just keep going.’ Sylvie was standing in just her underwear. Margaret handed her the bin liner with her dry clothes in and she put them back on. They caught and dragged on her skin from the rain.

Margaret disappeared again into the darkness. There was no sound for a while, then a faint splash. A pause, two more splashes, then nothing else. Sylvie clamped her hands to her ears anyway, pushing against them harder and harder. It was like listening to a shell and she convinced herself she could hear the sea, waves crashing.

‘Get in the car. We need to go. Now.’ Margaret ran on ahead and got in, flashing the lights once to show Sylvie the way. The car was parked next to the lake in the grass and the darkness. She must have got up there before Sylvie arrived in the taxi. The rain kept driving.

Sylvie was on autopilot as they sat in the car, lights off, Margaret fumbling with the keys.

‘Mum, what’s happening? Where’s Victoria?’

‘It has to be this way, Sylvie. This is for you. I am… we are only doing this for you.’

‘But we could… we could have called an ambulance or Judith and Peter.’

Margaret wiped tears away from under Sylvie’s eyes in swift swipes with her thumbs. She pushed Sylvie’s hair back from her face. ‘We can’t, Sylvie. We couldn’t. We wouldn’t be able to explain it. They wouldn’t believe us about how it happened, would they? People wouldn’t look at you in the same way again, Sylvie. It would ruin your life.’

‘And this won’t?’ Sylvie was shouting now. Margaret drove off quickly anyway.

‘It would kill your father too. It would be too much. Hearing what Victoria had been saying. That can’t be his last memory of us, can it?’

‘Well, it’s true, isn’t it? Isn’t it?’ Sylvie’s voice sounded raw, scratched.

Margaret suddenly swerved to the side, veering across the road. She brought the car to an abrupt halt, jerking Sylvie’s neck forwards.

She kept her hands on the steering wheel and looked ahead, sniffing sharply every now and then.

Sylvie waited but her mum didn’t deny it.

‘Is he going to die? Soon?’

Margaret’s face crumpled.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘They can’t fix it, Sylvie, but we don’t know what’s going to happen. It could be six months, even more. Your dad asked me not to tell you too much. It’s what he wants. He wants you to see the best of each other before…’ Margaret grabbed Sylvie’s hand. Her nails were digging in, threatening to pierce the skin. There was a wildness in her eyes that Sylvie hadn’t seen before. ‘He needs us right now, Sylvie. He needs his family. That’s why it has to be like this. I know you’ll understand. You’re a clever girl, you always were.’

‘So, this party. Victoria said it was like a funeral but he isn’t dead.’ The pain in Sylvie’s throat was unbearable. ‘So, other people get to say goodbye but not me?’

‘It isn’t like that, sweetheart. It wasn’t the right time for you. You’re different. He wants to talk to you when you’re both ready.’

They sat in calmer silence for a few minutes. There was nothing else to say. Eventually Margaret started up the car again and they pulled away.

Sylvie put her hand to her neck. The locket was still there and she wrapped her hand around it.

‘We have to go back, Mum. She doesn’t have her necklace. She needs it with her. She always wears it.’ Sylvie reached and grabbed Margaret’s hand on the wheel and the car swerved a little but Margaret didn’t take her eyes off the road, speeding up.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the journey. When they got in, Sylvie went upstairs, not even turning the light on. She suddenly became aware of the cool weight of the necklace against her chest and pulled it off, snapping the clasp. She shoved it into the back of her drawer, piling underwear on top of it, then got into bed in her damp clothes, shivering under the covers.

---

When Sylvie opened her eyes the next morning, the house was awake. A radio was talking. There was clattering in the kitchen. The sun streamed in through a crack in the curtains. Maybe it really was a bad dream. She felt a surge of hope and she clung on to it, pushing other thoughts out.

She changed into her pyjamas and rinsed her face. Sylvie was barefoot so hardly made any sound coming downstairs.

Her dad had his back to her. He was wearing an apron and was busy frying something on the hob. Her mum was crouched down, rooting for something in the cupboard under the sink. ‘Silly Little Love Songs’ was playing. It had been the first dance at their wedding. Her dad put the spatula and wooden spoon out to the side in time to the music, like he was in an old musical. After the way things had been in the weeks before, it was like watching a still photo suddenly come to life.

‘Here she is! Sleepy head.’ He turned around, egg gloop setting on the spatula he was holding. ‘Just in time.’ Bacon hissed and spat under the grill. ‘I’ve made your favourite.’

He started to pile food onto the plate and toast popped in the background. The kitchen had the air of a mad science laboratory in full flow. The last thing Sylvie felt like doing was eating. But she had to. Her dad looked so pleased, warm-faced.

He turned the music off and they all sat down. Sylvie was relieved that the chaotic noises were gone. It had been making her feel even more on edge. She pushed the bacon into her mouth, aware of having to chew through the flesh, salty fat squirting out. Breathing deeply in and out of her nose slowly was the only thing that stopped her from throwing up.

Her dad smiled on as she ate. Her mum looked completely calm. The clock seemed like it was ticking more loudly than usual. She caught her mum’s gaze. Her expression was mild, neutral like any other Sunday morning, but her eyes were steely, her mandible tight and clenched.

‘It was such a good day yesterday, wasn’t it? It was so nice to see so many old pals,’ Michael said, crunching down on a piece of toast with an enthusiasm Sylvie hadn’t seen in a while. Lately he’d pushed his food around his plate at teatime. He hadn’t been around for breakfast very much.

‘Thank you so much to my girls for organising it. It meant the world to me. Really.’

Sylvie thought she detected a crack in his voice and she froze, but he recovered himself and reached for the orange juice.

Margaret focused on her plate of food. ‘Maybe we could have a run out in the car later. Over the tops or something?’ she said.

Sylvie questioned again whether last night had really happened. She imagined her family sitting there at the table as figures in a doll’s house.

Then the phone rang and smashed everything.

‘It’s Judith,’ Michael shouted through.

‘Slow down, Judith. What’s going on?’ Sylvie heard him say.