Forget Me Not (The Ceruleans: Book 2) (23 page)

The party was legendary – one that would go down in the
annals of Twycombe history for its volume and its turnout and its spirit of
abandon. Cara was the star of the show, stalking about in jeans she’d cut into
hot pants and enjoying all the attention her beautiful legs attracted. ‘Magic
cream,’ she told all who asked (and they all asked). ‘
Scarlett
got it
for me.’ But I gently pushed away her attempts to pull me into the limelight,
and come two a.m., when the revellers were showing no signs of slowing, I took
Luke’s hand and led him up to his bedroom and locked the door, and there we had
our own private party.

When the sun rose, it was with regret that we surrendered
the night.

‘How can it be morning already?’ said Luke. ‘We only just
watched the sun set.’

Sighing, I shifted in his arms so I could see better the
colours in the sky. ‘Mornings are good too,’ I decided. ‘Let’s make something
of this one.’

‘Are you sure? We didn’t sleep much. Don’t you want to
rest?’

I pressed lips swollen with kissing to his chest, right over
his heart. ‘No,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want to rest.’

Showered and dressed, we made our way downstairs, hand in
hand. We didn’t get further than the hallway, though, where we were greeted by
a snoring surfer curled up like a baby on the hard wooden floor in a sea of
empty beer bottles and food crumbs and what looked to be a shredded telephone
directory. Luke craned his neck to peer into the living room, and shuddered
violently.

‘What?’ I said.

‘We’re going armchair shopping later. I am not sitting on
that
one ever again.’ He poked the bloke at our feet with the toe of his trainer.
‘Hey. Reg, isn’t it? Up and at ’em, mate.’

Grumbling thickly, Reg turned over, swiped feebly at a chunk
of pizza stuck to his cheek, lifted a leg, dropped a leg, then promptly went
back to snoring. A noxious smell filled the hallway.

‘Fancy some fresh air?’ I suggested.

‘Yes!’ said Luke. ‘Please. Get me out of here.’

*

A walk in Twycombe meant a walk to the sea. Today, though,
the wind was whipping wildly and even bundled up in our coats we were
shivering, so we holed up in the tiny cafe near the seafront. We sat at one of
the two tables inside next to an elderly couple drinking tea. It was cosy, but
not exactly private, so I steered the conversation through safe subjects – the
party last night, where to buy a new armchair, what to do with the old
armchair. But then I put my foot in it by asking about Luke’s work schedule for
the coming week.

‘It’s clear,’ he said, putting his mug of coffee down
carefully on the table.

‘What do you mean? When are you at the pub?’

‘I’m not. I quit.’

‘What? When?’

‘The day before yesterday. After Jude told me about you.’

‘But why? I mean, I know you don’t enjoy it, but it’s...’

‘Scarlett.’ He laid his hand over mine. ‘I have to be with
you, for every minute. Jobs don’t matter. Money doesn’t matter. Only you
matter.’

A little musical sigh distracted me. We looked at the
next-door table to find the lady there gazing at us with misty eyes.

‘So, I’m done with my coffee,’ said Luke. ‘Fancy some fresh
air?’

In answer I downed the last of my coffee. I was just getting
up when the lady next to me whispered, just for my ears, ‘He’s a keeper.’

I said nothing, but I managed to smile.

Outside, bundled once more in our coats, we hesitated on the
pavement. The weather was cruel, but neither of us was ready to go back to the
house.

‘I have an idea,’ said Luke.

Arm around my shoulders, he guided me to the seafront – not
to the beach, though, but to a derelict wooden shack that I’d barely noticed
before. Around the back there was a little sheltered nook, what had once been a
storage cupboard, and Luke pulled me into it and shuffled us to the back. We
sat leaning against the wood, looking out onto the beach. It was surprisingly
warm, if a little dirty.

‘I used to play here as a kid,’ said Luke. ‘It was my equivalent
of your treehouse, I guess.’

‘I bet you bring all the girls here.’

‘No. Only you.’

He laced his fingers with mine, and I leaned my head on his
shoulder, and we watched the waves.

‘This is good,’ I said. ‘This will be a good memory.’

‘We’ll make better ones. Lots of them. We have time.’

Sighing, I sat up.

‘What – what’s wrong?’

‘Time. It’s always been time.’

‘I don’t understand – you have weeks at least, right? Maybe
even months, if you take it easy.’

‘Maybe. But this “every minute” mission of yours. I’m sorry,
but it’s not going to work.’

‘What? But –’

‘I know you want as much time with me as possible. But I
want good memories for you, Luke. And when I die, the very end...’

‘You have to give me that. Please. I want to be there for
you for all of it, Scarlett. I need it. I need it to be
me
who holds
you.
Me
.’

He spoke so fiercely –
need
, he needed this. It would
help him to be there. Help him to let go of me. But I couldn’t let him go
through what he had with his parents; I couldn’t let him witness all the
ugliness of death.

There was only one answer: to protect him from the worst of
my death.

‘I need it to be you too,’ I said. ‘I want your eyes to be
the last thing I see in this world. But I want those eyes filled with love, not
horror. So I won’t wait until the very end. We won’t have every moment. We’ll
have all the good ones, all the ones that count. And then, one day, when the
balance shifts, and you look at me and see a dying girl instead of me,
Scarlett, then it will be time to hold me and let me go.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘I have a drug to take, Luke. It will be peaceful. I’ll just
fall asleep. In your arms.’

‘But your sister! Scarlett, I thought you always believed
that was wrong.’

I thought about my sister, running into the ocean. I thought
about my mother, lying on a stretcher. I thought about someone else’s mother, stepping
off a cliff, falling, falling.

‘Sometimes, the wrong thing is the right thing,’ I told him.

I watched emotions play out across his face as he took it
all in. I saw anger, and fear, and guilt. Then, finally, a sort of quiet
sadness. Taking his face in my hands, I kissed it all, every inch of it,
forehead, temples, brows, eyes, nose, cheeks, chin, lips, lips, lips. I kissed
him until he couldn’t be sad, he could only be here with me now, loved and in
love.

*

‘What we need,’ I said as we walked back to the house, ‘is
an occasion. Something magical that we can squeeze a million memories into.’

‘If it’s another party, can I suggest
not
inviting
Reg?’

I grinned. It was so good to see him trying to be his usual
self.

‘Not a party,’ I said. ‘Christmas. It’s only a few weeks
away.’

His eyes lit up. ‘I
love
Christmas!’

‘Fir trees and fairy lights…’

‘Mince pies and mulled wine…’

‘Carols and candlelight…’

‘Crackers and party hats…’

‘Piles of presents…’

‘
Elf
on the tele…’

‘“White Christmas” on the radio…’

‘Snow! It might snow…’

‘Snowmen. Sledging.’

‘Cara can sledge!’

‘With Si.’

‘You could invite your mother.’

‘Yes!
Yes!
She’d love that.’

We stopped in front of his house, flushed with excitement.

‘Christmas,’ he said.

‘Christmas,’ I promised.

One Christmas, one last Christmas, to stand for all the
Christmases we would never have.

November days melted into December, and day by day the quiet
street on which Luke lived became a little busier. It was the lights that
brought them, the people who stood on the pavement looking up at the house,
pointing, smiling, snapping pictures – first our neighbours in Twycombe and
then their friends, and then
their
friends, and then anyone and everyone
from the area who’d seen the photo published in the
Plymouth Herald
beneath the headline ‘THE MOST FESTIVE HOME IN DEVON?’. It was fair to say, I
think, that Luke and Cara had got a little carried away with the outdoor lights
attached to every square metre of the house, the fencing and the shrubbery. And
the herd of twelve LED reindeer in the front garden. And the enormous
inflatable Santa wobbling about on the roof. Not to mention the many, many
decorations inside the house, from tinsel to wreath, candy cane to bauble,
glittery star to nativity doll, winterland train to wind-up singing penguin. An
unkind onlooker may have commented that it looked like the spirit of Christmas
had vomited all over the house. But I loved it – the tasteful decorations and
the tacky ones, the whole exuberant ‘ultimate Christmas’ experience. I loved it
so much that chez-Cavendish became chez-Cavendish-and-Blake. The cottage on the
cliff was cold and dark and lonely compared to this hub of cheer, so I stayed
with Luke and Cara.

It seemed to me that the light of the Cavendish home did
more than act as a beacon in the community; it seeped into me and pushed
against the slow creep of darkness. Sure, in those last weeks the medication
disappeared faster, and it was progressively harder to wake up in the morning.
But the sense of imminent threat I’d been living with since the day of Bert’s
funeral, since a stone from the clock tower nearly killed me, receded. There
were no more near-accidents through absentmindedness and clumsiness. There was
no tiger stalking about, watching me. All was calm, safe, and when Jude called
daily to check on me, I reported no dramas.

As winter set in outside – sea winds that stung, frosts that
lay unmelting on the ground – we hibernated in the warmth of the house. Luke
turned down every man-and-van offer that came his way, and other than the
occasional trip to the supermarket and his visits to his grandmother, barely a
minute passed in the day when he wasn’t by my side. Cara had school, of course,
and in the afternoons she walked Chester, but she didn’t date, she didn’t shop,
she didn’t work on her business; she spent what time she could with me.
Sometimes a visitor would pop in (when your home screams ‘Hooray for
Christmas!’, people take it as read that you’re feeling hospitable), but while
Luke was kind and polite, he didn’t encourage anyone to stay long. He was
protective of me, and reluctant to share too much of our precious time.

We tried to spend that time wisely, making moments that were
meaningful. We realised quickly that the mundane was unbearable – such a waste
of five minutes, vacuuming a floor or ironing a shirt! – but that too much
poignancy was equally hard to handle: there is only so long you can sit with a
tissue box talking about love and life and death. So we found a way to be
together that worked for us.

Most of the day we busied ourselves with activities we could
talk and laugh over: cooking, mainly. We made preserves and jams and chutneys;
we baked breads and cakes and pastries; we even made an elaborate village of
gingerbread. I say ‘we’ – it was, of course, Luke doing all the hard work,
while I generally made a nuisance of myself ‘helping’. Soon, we had more food
than we could possibly eat, so Cara started taking basketfuls around to
neighbours and friends – who promptly ordered more, so that a bespoke catering
operation sprang up in the Cavendish kitchen.

Come the early evening, when the kitchen was cleaned up and
the last of the day’s products were sitting out to cool, we’d curl up together
in the living room and watch a movie, a Christmas one. Sometimes we talked.
Sometimes we were quiet, alone in our thoughts. Either way, by mutual
agreement, in that time we were allowed to just stop and be. Happy. Sad.
Accepting. Angry. Whatever feelings had been simmering through the day. Movie
time was our therapy, the film simultaneously stirring emotions and diffusing
their intensity.
Elf
, for example, Luke’s favourite seasonal film, saw
us laughing so hard we cried, and then
really
crying, and then laughing
again because Buddy the elf was yelling,
‘Santa! Oh my God! Santa’s coming!
I know him! I know him!’

After the movie, we’d spend a little time with Cara, which
usually involved playing her newfound passion in life, Twister. Hanging about
on my hands and knees did nothing for my headache, so I manned the spinner and
stored away a zillion funny mental images of my boyfriend and my best friend
bent into unnatural shapes and laughing uproariously.

Then, it was time for bed. We went up early each night, Luke
and I, but we didn’t sleep until late. Beneath a canopy of fairy lights, we lay
together and we loved each other, and all that existed was Luke and Scarlett,
Scarlett and Luke, as it was meant to be.

*

It was the tiger that turned the tide. I hadn’t seen him
since Hollythwaite, so when I awoke in the dark one night to find him right
beside the bed, it gave me quite a shock. And then I saw that he was not
pacing, not riled up as he usually was. He was still and silent, sitting back
on his haunches, watching me. Watching over me.

The Ancient Chinese believed he was the protector of the
dead.

Hours later, when it was still dark but the first birdsong
was audible, Luke found me sitting at the kitchen table, hammering away at the
keyboard of my laptop with Chester at my feet.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked, sitting down beside me.

‘Writing letters,’ I said. ‘Don’t peek. They’re for… after.’

‘Scarlett.’ He put a hand over mine, stilling it. ‘Not
today.’

I looked up at him, saw the dread in his eyes. ‘Yes,’ I said
firmly. ‘Today.’

I’d been talking about this day for some time. One day set
aside to get my affairs in order, to prepare for what was to come. I’d have
done it before now, much earlier, but every time I brought it up Luke was so
resistant, and I hadn’t wanted to push. The business of dying was ugly and
painful; it was so much easier to make mince pies and watch
The Muppet
Christmas Carol
and bury ourselves under the bedclothes. But there was no
ignoring the tiger. The reprieve I’d been granted was over. The threat was
back. Death was coming for me – next week? next month? – and I needed to be
ready.

Luke was touching my face anxiously. ‘Why now?’ he said. ‘Do
you feel bad? Are you worse?’

‘No,’ I replied honestly. ‘It’s not
that
day, Luke. I
feel okay. It’s just – this will be hard. And I want it done, out of the way,
so that all we have ahead is good times. Will you let me do this now? Please?’

He sighed. ‘Okay.’

‘Once more with feeling.’

He smiled. ‘Okay!’

It took me two hours to finish on the computer. During that
time Cara came in for breakfast and then took Chester out for a long walk, and
Luke kept himself busy making batches of spiced cookies that filled the room
with the mouthwatering scent of Christmas. When I was done, I sent two documents
to print from the wireless printer in the corner of the room, and then beckoned
Luke over. He came with a steaming coffee each for us and sat beside me.

‘Right,’ he said, eying the sheets of paper on the table.
‘Hit me with it.’

‘This one,’ I said, picking up the top sheet, ‘is a list of
files on the laptop. All sorts, in case you need it, but these are the main
ones.’ I pointed to the top two items on the list:
Luke
and
Cara
.
‘Letters for each of you.’

‘What about your mum?’

‘All set up. Scheduled emails. A
lot
of them.’

‘Are you really not going to tell her? What happens when the
emails run out?’

‘It’s the best I can do, Luke.’

When he said nothing, I moved on to the second sheet, a
printout of an internet banking transaction. I handed it to him, and watched as
his eyes scanned the page. When he looked up he was frowning.

‘I don’t understand,’ he said.

I pointed to a number. ‘This is
my
account.’ I slid
my finger down a line. ‘This is
your
account. I got the number off your
cheque book.’

His eyes widened. ‘You transferred money to me?’

‘All of it.’

‘Scarlett, no! I don’t want your money!’

‘I know. You want me. But it’s just going to sit there,
Luke, doing nothing. And you have no job now. And Cara’s been working so hard
to set up her business on a shoestring. I want you both to have it.’

He swallowed and looked down at the paper again. ‘Hang on,’
he said. ‘You’ve got the decimal point in the wrong place.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘Yes, you have!’

‘No. I haven’t.’

‘Scarlett! This is –’

‘A lot of money. Yes, I realise that. It’s my father’s
payoff. I don’t want it. I don’t need it! Take it. Use it!’

He stared at me, and then dropped the paper and sank his
head into his hands.

‘This is a good thing, Luke,’ I said, rubbing his back.
‘Think about it – Cara’s fine now. You could go to chef school. Get a job in
some fancy restaurant in London, or Paris. Hell, you could open your own
restaurant.’

A droplet of water fell onto the printout, obscuring half of
the transfer sum.

‘I don’t want to,’ Luke said brokenly. ‘I don’t want any of
that without you, Scarlett.’

I wrapped my arms around him and held him tight, rocking him
gently, through the tears that followed. Then, when his breath was no longer
catching, I let him go and said:

‘Life goes on, Luke. I want to think of you living.’

He lifted his head to look at me. ‘But what about you?’ he
said. ‘How does life go on for you? What will you be doing?’

‘Finding my sister.’

‘But how? Where is she? What danger will you be in trying to
save her?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This is
crazy
, Scarlett! We’ll call Jude. Make him
come and explain.’

‘No, we won’t. I don’t want to hear about what comes after.
None of that’s real. I don’t want it to be real yet. I just want to be here,
with you.’

I picked up my coffee, forgotten on the table, and took a
sip. It wasn’t hot, but it was steadying.

‘But Scarlett, don’t you see,
I
need to know. It will
tear me apart when you’re gone not knowing whether you’re okay.’

‘I have a plan for that.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes. Jude will come back. Afterwards. With a letter from
me.’

‘But... will he do that?’

‘Yes.’

‘How can you be sure?’

‘Because it’s the right thing to do. And Jude cares about
doing the right thing.’

He was silent, and I wondered what he was thinking about.
Judging by the look on his face, he wasn’t entirely convinced that the words
‘Jude’ and ‘right’ belonged in the same sentence. Jude’s act of healing had
gone some way to diffuse the distrust in Luke, but not all the way. When it
came down to it, Jude was still the guy who was taking his girlfriend away, and
I wasn’t sure he could ever forgive that.

‘Luke,’ I said, touching his hand. ‘Let it go.
This
life is my focus. That world can wait. I need your support today. Please.’

The ice in his eyes melted, and he kissed me softly. Then,
in a resolute tone, he said, ‘Right. You’ve written letters, you’ve scheduled
emails, you’ve given away an exorbitant amount of money – what’s left on the
list?’

I let my glance flick to the tiger, sitting in the doorway,
watching.

‘Some goodbyes,’ I said sadly.