The little hallway grew silent. Mum stared at me like she had no idea who I was. I took a step closer to her, trying to make her understand. But as I did, she took a step back.
‘Mum? I owe Will. I owe it to him to go. Who do you think got me to apply to college? Who do you think encouraged me to make something of myself, to travel places, to have ambitions? Who changed the way I think about everything? About myself even? Will did. I’ve done more, lived more, in the last six months than in the last twenty-seven years of my life. So if he wants me to go to Switzerland, then yes, I’m going to go. Whatever the outcome.’
There was a brief silence.
‘She’s like Aunt Lily,’ Dad said, quietly.
We all stood, staring at each other. Dad and Treena were shooting glances at each other, as if each of them were waiting for the other to say something.
But Mum broke the silence. ‘If you go, Louisa, you needn’t come back.’
The words fell out of her mouth like pebbles. I looked at my mother in shock. Her gaze was unyielding. It tensed as she watched for my reaction. It was as if a wall I had never known was there had sprung up between us.
‘Mum?’
‘I mean it. This is no better than murder.’
‘Josie … ’
‘That’s the truth, Bernard. I can’t be part of this.’
I remember thinking, as if at a distance, that I had never seen Katrina look so uncertain as she did now. I saw Dad’s hand reach out to Mum’s arm, whether in reproach or comfort I couldn’t tell. My mind went briefly blank. Then almost without knowing what I was doing, I walked slowly down the stairs and past my parents to the front door. And after a second, my sister followed me.
The corners of Dad’s mouth turned down, as if he were struggling to contain all sorts of things. Then he turned to Mum, and placed one hand on her shoulder. Her eyes searched his face and it was as if she already knew what he was going to say.
And then he threw Treena his keys. She caught them one-handed.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘Go out the back door, through Mrs Doherty’s garden, and take the van. They won’t see you in the van. If you go now and the traffic’s not too bad you might just make it.’
‘You have any idea where this is all headed?’ Katrina said.
She glanced sideways at me as we sped down the motorway.
‘Nope.’
I couldn’t look at her for long – I was rifling through my handbag, trying to work out what I had forgotten. I kept hearing the sound of Mrs Traynor’s voice down the line. Louisa? Please will you come? I know we’ve had our differences, but please … It’s vital that you come now.
‘Shit. I’ve never seen Mum like that,’ Treena continued.
Passport, wallet, door keys. Door keys? For what? I no longer had a home.
Katrina glanced sideways at me. ‘I mean, she’s mad now, but she’s in shock. You know she’ll be all right in the end, right? I mean, when I came home and told her I was up the duff I thought she was never going to speak to me again. But it only took her – what? – two days, to come round.’
I could hear her babbling away beside me, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I could barely focus on anything. My nerve endings seemed to have come alive; they almost jangled with anticipation. I was going to see Will. Whatever else, I had that. I could almost feel the miles between us shrinking, as if we were at two ends of some invisible elastic thread.
‘Treen?’
‘Yes?’
I swallowed. ‘Don’t let me miss this flight.’
My sister is nothing if not determined. We queue-jumped, sped up the inside lane, broke the speed limit and scanned the radio for the traffic reports, and finally the airport came into view. She screeched to a halt and I was halfway out of the car before I heard her.
‘Hey! Lou!’
‘Sorry.’ I turned back and ran the few steps to her.
She hugged me, really tightly. ‘You’re doing the right thing,’ she said. She looked almost close to tears. ‘Now f**k off. If you miss the bloody plane on top of me getting six points on my licence, I’m never talking to you again.’
I didn’t look back. I ran all the way to the Swiss Air desk and it took me three goes to say my name clearly enough to request my tickets.
I arrived in Zurich shortly before midnight. Given the late hour, Mrs Traynor had, as promised, booked me into a hotel at the airport and said she would send a car for me at nine the following morning. I had thought I wouldn’t sleep, but I did – an odd, heavy and disjointed trawl through the hours – waking up at seven the next morning with no idea where I was.
I stared groggily around the unfamiliar room, at the heavy burgundy drapes, designed to block out light, at the large flat-screen television, at my overnight bag, which I hadn’t even bothered to unpack. I checked the clock, which said it was shortly after seven Swiss time. And as I realized where I was, I suddenly felt my stomach clench with fear.
I scrambled out of bed just in time to be sick in the little bathroom. I sank down on the tiled floor, my hair sticking to my forehead, my cheek pressed against the cold porcelain. I heard my mother’s voice, her protests, and I felt a dark fear creeping over me. I wasn’t up to this. I didn’t want to fail again. I didn’t want to have to watch Will die. With an audible groan, I scrambled up to be sick again.
I couldn’t eat. I managed to swallow down a cup of black coffee and showered and dressed, and that took me to 8am. I stared at the pale-green dress I had thrown in last night and wondered if it was appropriate for where I was going. Would everyone wear black? Should I have worn something more vibrant and alive, like the red dress I knew Will liked? Why had Mrs Traynor called me here? I checked my mobile phone, wondering whether I could call Katrina. It would be seven in the morning there now. But she would probably be dressing Thomas, and the thought of talking to Mum was too much. I put on some make-up and then sat down by the window, and the minutes ticked slowly past.
I don’t think I had ever felt lonelier in my life.
When I couldn’t bear being in the little room any longer, I threw the last of my things into my bag and left. I would buy a newspaper, and wait in the lobby. It couldn’t be worse than sitting in my room with the silence or the satellite news channel and the suffocating darkness of the curtains. It was as I was passing reception that I saw the computer terminal, discreetly placed in a corner. It was marked: For Use Of Guests. Please Ask At Reception.