Chapter 6

6

October 30, 9 p.m.

nine hours until low tide

“Well, I think that’s enough talk of murder for young ears for one evening,” says Lily. “It’s way past your bedtime, young lady—”

Trixie stares at her. “Mum, I’m fifteen.”

“Then start dressing like a fifteen-year-old instead of a toddler with a cotton candy crush. Go on. The adults in the family need to relax.”

“You mean you want to smoke?”

“Say good night to everyone, then up to bed,” Lily snaps. “You can read one of your boring books, that should send you to sleep.”

Lily has never understood the pleasure of reading. To be fair, I’ve never understood the pleasure of Lily. She is the kind of person who only ever borrowed library books in order to rip out their last pages, then give them back.

“We haven’t even had dessert,” says Trixie.

“If my waist was as big as yours, I wouldn’t even say the word dessert. Don’t you ever wonder why boys don’t like you?”

Trixie stares at her mother from behind her pink glasses. I can see the tears starting to form in her eyes, but she blinks them back with an air of defiance I’m rather proud of. She walks around the table, kissing each of us good night. It still seems miraculous to me that someone as cold and uncaring as my sister could produce such a kind and sweet child. As soon as Trixie has left the room, Lily lights a cigarette. She seems oblivious to the way we are all staring at her.

“Why couldn’t I have been blessed with a normal sulky teenager? No boyfriends, not one. And her female friends dress like nuns and speak like nerds. I wanted a cheerleader, but all she talks about is charity. It’s like living with Rory from Gilmore Girls, but worse, boring me to tears with her books and opinions about global bloody warming all day long.”

“You should be grateful she isn’t a handful like you were at that age,” says Nana.

“Can I quickly use your landline?” Lily asks, ignoring the comment. “There’s no signal on my phone here.”

Lily—who loved gadgets as a child, and spent a great deal of the 1980s having a close personal relationship with Pac-Man and her Atari—is the only person in our family to have a mobile in 2004. Dad had one the size of a brick when we were little, but it cost a small fortune to use so was mainly just for show. Lily picks up her dark blue little Nokia from the table, and we all stare at it as though it were a piece of rock from the moon.

“Sorry, Lily. My phone doesn’t work anymore,” says Nana, clearing some of the plates.

“Why not?”

“I stopped paying the bill.”

“Why would you do that?”

“People kept calling me. I didn’t like the constant interruptions.”

Lily looks furious. But I’m sure her tongue must be covered in bite marks because she doesn’t say another word about it. Instead she starts playing a game called Snake on her otherwise redundant mobile. I find myself staring at it over her shoulder, mesmerized.

Nana is as keen as always to show an interest in our lives and hear all our news. Stories change a little each time they are told, even when they are as rehearsed as ours. Like children, they grow and evolve into something new, something with ideas of their own. Stories are also lies, and we’re all storytellers in this family. Nana starts the routine questions with her son.

I don’t wish to sound unkind, but my father’s favorite subject is always himself. Dad is also rather fond of regurgitating things he’s heard on BBC Radio 4. He is an intellectually promiscuous man who gorges on the thoughts of others, then shares them, dressed up as his own. Secondhand ideas sold as new. He seasons his sentences with the odd long word because he doesn’t want people to hear his lack of knowledge or education. The piano was his first and only true love, and music is the only subject he has ever really studied. Tonight, as always, he talks with passion and pride about his orchestra: the cities they have visited recently, and the musicians he has worked with. My mother rolls her eyes and makes light work of sweeping up all the names he keeps dropping—insisting that she’s never heard of any of them.

“How is your veterinary practice, Rose?” Nana asks, moving the conversation along like a verbal pass-the-parcel party game.

“Still standing,” Rose replies.

“It’s impressive that you’ve built such a successful business from scratch at your age, but how are you holding up?”

“I’m holding up fine on the rare occasions I’m not falling down.”

Rose has always been able to keep her cool when it comes to quick-fire questions.

“And what about you, Lily?” Nana asks. “Any luck finding work?”

My other sister has been unemployed since forever. She survives on Jobseeker’s Allowance (despite never seeking a job), child benefits, and handouts from Nana. Lily takes another cigarette from her pocket, pops it between her pink lips, and lights it using one of the candles on the table. She stopped smoking for a while when she was pregnant, allegedly, but has since given up giving up. She takes a long drag, then exhales smoke and boredom over the rest of us.

“It’s really tough to find work at the moment,” she says, using a wineglass as an ash tray.

“It’s always harder to find things if you don’t look,” Dad mutters, and everyone stares at him, including Lily.

“Excuse me,” she says, getting up from the table and leaving the room, presumably to check on Trixie, but also to have a little sulk upstairs, no doubt. My sister has always had chips on both shoulders and throws more tantrums than a toddler. I’m expecting Nana to ask whether I am still volunteering at the care home—it might not be exciting or earn money, but being kind has its own rewards, and I am proud of what I do. But my mother launches a new attack on my father before the conversation turns to me.

“Why must you always be so hard on Lily? Bringing up children on your own isn’t easy, I should know,” Nancy says, as soon as her favorite daughter is out of earshot. If looks could kill, my father would have been in the morgue some time ago. I’ve often wondered why my mother loves Lily the most. Perhaps because she sees herself when she looks at her—like a walking, talking mirror of youth, showing her who she used to be.

Dad tries not to take the bait, but bad habits are hard to break when you’ve got over thirty years of practice.

“She’s not a child anymore, Nancy. She has a daughter of her own, though it’s no wonder she forgets so often when you have taken on the role of being mother to them both.”

“Well, someone has to help our children. If we’d all gone off gallivanting around the world to follow our dreams, then—”

“Help her? You smother her, always have. It’s no wonder she never learned to stand on her own two feet. She is what she is because of you.”

“And what is that exactly?”

“An entitled, spoiled, selfish, lazy, brain-dead bore of a woman who still behaves like a child because you never stopped treating her like one. She cares more about her looks than her own daughter. And she’s still completely irresponsible with money that isn’t her own because she has never lifted one of her manicured fingers to earn any.”

Lily appears in the doorway.

She clearly heard every word.

Nobody knows what to say.

The silence that follows isn’t just awkward; it’s painful. We all watch as Lily walks past the kitchen table toward the fridge, then opens the door as though searching inside for answers. When she can’t find any, she opens another bottle of white wine instead.

All families experience conflict. Whether it is between husbands and wives, parents and children, or siblings, it’s as normal as day turning into night. But unresolved conflict spreads like a cancer in human relationships, and sometimes there’s no cure. Despite everything, I still have some happy memories of us all together, tucked away inside the folds and creases that forced us apart. We weren’t always the us we are now. It’s Nana whom I feel most sorry for. She’s made such an effort to create a lovely evening for everyone and, as usual, my family has found a way to ruin it. “Who would like some early birthday cake and champagne?” she asks with a weak smile.

“Me!” I say, raising my hand and trying to defuse the tension, for now at least.

I notice that Rose has barely said a word all night. She speaks when spoken to, but only offers short, succinct replies. I might have been the baby of the family once upon a time, but I find myself frequently worrying about my eldest sister. It’s a special kind of love that holds families together, even dysfunctional ones. Our love is like an intrinsically woven net made from a million memories and shared moments. The knots in the net are tight, but there are holes, just big enough for all of us to slip through if caught the wrong way.

The weather outside has worsened, providing a soundtrack of rain tapping at the windows, and the candles sometimes flicker when the wind howls. My mother and Rose help to clear the table, before Nana reveals one of her famous homemade chocolate cakes, and takes her favorite champagne saucers out of the cupboard. They look like they’re from the 1920s because they are. Dad does the honors, expertly opening the bottle as though he does it every day, and Nana stands up, holding her glass and looking like she might make one of her speeches.

“I just want to thank you all for coming to Seaglass to help celebrate my birthday tomorrow. It means the world to me to have the whole family here together, and you’ve made an old woman very happy. Eighty is going to be a big birthday for me, and if the palm reader in Land’s End was right, it might be my last! You are the only people I wanted to spend it with. Here’s to the Darker family,” she says, raising her glass.

“The Darker family,” everyone repeats, almost in unison, before Nana continues.

“I also want to thank Amy and Ada, for providing us with a delicious dinner tonight.”

“Who the hell are Amy and Ada? I thought she cooked the meal,” Dad whispers to Rose, taking another sip of champagne.

“The chickens,” Rose whispers back. “She named them after Amy Johnson and Ada Lovelace, two of her favorite inspirational women, remember?”

Frank almost chokes as Nana continues.

“Amy sadly passed away on Monday. And Ada died three days later. An act of widowhood if ever I saw it. That little chicken died of a broken heart…” I feel as though the whole room stares in my direction again when she says that, and glance down at my hands.

“Is it safe to eat a ten-year-old chicken?” my mother asks, looking nauseated.

“I suspect so,” Nana replies. “Safer than jumping off a cliff at any rate. On a related subject, I don’t want to be the richest woman in the graveyard, and I’m sure you all want to know what happens when I die. I’d like us to enjoy the time we have left together this weekend. So, rather than keep you in suspense any longer, I have decided to share my will with you tonight.”