Letting You Go. Anouska Knight

was keeping that little carved ship. It’s in Dill’s room now, go and have a look.’

      Alex caught her smile before it dropped. She didn’t go in there. Mum had kept it nice, unchanged. Everything in its place like her finely laid table settings. Alex didn’t even want to risk moving the dust in Dill’s room.

      ‘I believe you, Jem. How’d you get it back off her?’

      Jem grimaced at her phone and slapped it onto the table, slumping into one of the chunky wooden chairs. ‘Louisa? I’d have prised it from her bony fingers if I’d have had to, Al. As it happened, Mal’s dad came home. You should’ve seen Louisa’s face when the mayor told her she’d made a mistake. Nearly killed her handing it back, you’d have thought she was handing me Mal’s inheritance. Anyway …’ Jem wriggled herself more upright in her seat, ‘your room’s all sorted, Mum and I already changed all the bedclothes yesterday.’

      ‘Thanks, Jem.’

      ‘No worries.’ Jem lifted her phone again, twisting it in an attempt to find a gobbet of phone signal somewhere over the tablecloth. She huffed and stood up again. ‘I could do with a drink. There must be a bottle of Pinot here somewhere.’

      There wasn’t, Ted was teetotal now. Blythe didn’t keep a drop in the house any more, Jem knew that just as well as Alex.

      ‘Are you OK, Jem? You seem preoccupied?’

      ‘Hmm? Sorry. It’s just work, being difficult.’ Jem’s phone had been bleeping all afternoon, until they’d driven back into dodgy mobile signal territory and the bleeping had died a death.

      ‘Is that who you were on the phone to?’ Alex asked. Jem had been up there for over an hour. ‘You haven’t given your work the house number have you, Jem? You’ve said it before, they don’t exactly respect your work–life balance.’

      ‘Ha! Nope, those lines have definitely been blurred.’

      Alex felt a pang of territorialism. Jem was needed here, her swanky jewellery company could sod off.

      ‘Can’t they cope on their own for a while?’ Dan would never bother Alex here. He’d already insisted she take all the time she needed from the food bank. Jem came back to the table, examining the base of her glass. She poured the water Alex had set out and hovered. ‘George is under a lot of pressure, Alex. We have a huge opportunity coming up. There’s a lot to get through.’

      ‘Who’s George? Your boss? Or just the bloke tasked with tracking you down to Mum’s bedroom phone?’ Alex felt her eyebrow rise like her dad’s would whenever he used to catch them on his bedroom phone.

      Jem looked guilty. She set the water jug back down and braced herself on the back of the chair. ‘George can be … difficult. Thinks everything is always so simple … black and white,’ she muttered, sliding back into her seat.

      ‘How nice for George.’

      Jem obviously didn’t want to get into it. ‘Did you call me before?’

      ‘I wanted to know if you were ready to eat? Or do you think Dad might leave the hospital soon?’ Alex pulled the lid away from Mrs Fairbanks’ pot and beheld six fat juicy dumplings proudly peeping from a puddle of rich gravy. Saliva rushed into her mouth. She never ate like this any more. Casserole for one? Unlikely.

      ‘That was Dad on the phone just then.’

      ‘Still nothing?’ Alex asked. It had only been an hour and a half since they’d left them at Kerring General, Ted still pacing, Blythe still sleeping. Soundly they all hoped.

      ‘Nope. I told Dad to go and get a paper, have a smoke or something, not that I want to encourage his bad habits. I think the nurses are wearing him down though. They’ve promised to call him if there’s any change, he was just mulling over leaving.’

      ‘We’ll wait then. He must be starving.’ Alex clamped the lid back onto the pot, her stomach grumbled again in protest.

      Jem nodded at Alex’s tee. ‘I don’t think Jaws is willing to wait. Come on, dish up. I’ll put Dad’s in the oven.

      Alex was still weighing it up when a ladleful of food fell onto the plate in front of her.

      Alex bit into a tender piece of hot lamb and nearly slipped taste bud first into a state of euphoria. ‘Bloody hell, Mal Sinclair got lucky marrying Millie! I wonder if she can cook like her mum.’

      Jem smiled disinterestedly. ‘Who knows? Probably. Millie’s probably perfect wife material, she’d have to be to get the green light from Louisa Sinclair just to spend time with her little Malcy, let alone marry him.’

      Alex detected a nip in the air. She wasn’t completely convinced it didn’t smell of sour grapes. Nothing drove a wedge like an old boyfriend. Jem had never admitted to it but their mum had seen her and Mal ‘in a tryst’ outside Frobisher’s Tea Rooms in town once. Blythe had called Alex up at university specifically to tap her for inside knowledge.

      ‘I thought you and Millie used to be good friends?’

      ‘Years ago, maybe.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘Do you see her much?’ Alex asked with a mouthful. ‘When you’re home? Don’t tell me she’s still gorgeous and slender, not with food like this firing out of her mum’s kitchen?’ Millie Fairbanks had always reminded Alex of Sandra Dee on Grease. Prim and lovely, and only a pair of black satin trousers away from total sex-goddessdom.

      ‘Not really.’

      ‘Not really what? Not really gorgeous or not really, you don’t see her much?’

      ‘I don’t see Millie.’

      Jem yanked a slice of bread in two. Alex silently chewed a piece of swede. ‘That’s too bad. I always liked Millie.’

      ‘A few ballet classes doesn’t make you besties, Alex. Anyway, she was pallier with Carrie in the end.’

      Alex took another bite of food. It was probably best not to get into it. She’d eaten four melt-in-the-mouth potato morsels before Jem spoke again. ‘Did you know they have a kid now?’

      Alex backtracked her thoughts but couldn’t find where they’d left off. ‘Who?’

      ‘Mal and Millie.’ Jem laughed under her breath. ‘They even sound like they should be a couple.’

      ‘Oh, yeah. I think I heard something. A boy?’

      ‘Alfie. He’s four. Looks just like his dad did at his age, apparently.’

      ‘Oh.’

      ‘But I hear he has Millie’s dark eyes, not blue like Mal’s.’

      ‘I see.’

      Jem nodded wistfully. ‘Helen spent nearly the whole time I was at the mayor’s funeral walking me through all of her grandson’s milestones. It was lucky she’d taken her funeral handbag and not her everyday handbag or I’d have been looking through albums of the things, I reckon.’

      ‘You went to the mayor’s funeral?’

      ‘Sure. He was always nice to me when I hung out at Mal’s house, unlike his serpentine wife. I really liked him. Didn’t you?’

      ‘I guess. I never really saw much of him after Mum finished helping him at the library.’

      Jem shrugged. ‘I liked him. He always asked me stuff about Dill, as if he thought it was important to keep talking about him or something. Anyway, someone had to go. The Fosters and Sinclairs go way back. Everyone knows …’

      ‘The Fosters and Sinclairs have the longest bloodlines in these parts,’ they both said in unison. Jem grinned. She had a brilliant grin. Infectious, Alex always caught it.

      ‘Good old Mum. The genealogical guru of Eilidh Town Hall.’ Everyone wanted to be of Viking